"But frankly, the whole list made me wonder what the hell the Hall Of Fame has been doing all these years, getting a bowling alley fitted? I mean, Iron Maiden? Chaka Khan? Todd Rundgren? Fela Kuti? All still in the queue? What is this, The Great Escape for pop legends?" - NME columnist Mark Beaumont comments on this year's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees. How it's set-up now - "it’s just making successful rock’n’roll look like a thing of the increasingly distant past".

Guardian jazz music critic combs through "one of the most garlanded and wide-ranging catalogues in the genre’s history" to present Chick Corea's 10 best recordings, from "showboating and sensitive", as the pianist "traversed the distance between experimentation and accessibility".

The radio has pretty much cancelled Morgan Wallen due to his racial slur scandal, but his album sales have seen an uptick, Billboard reports. His latest record 'Dangerous: The Double Album' continues to rule the Billboard 200 chart for a fifth straight week - it earned 150,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 11 (up 1%). Wallen’s previous set, 2018’s 'If I Know Me', reaches the top 10 for the first time with 29,000 equivalent album units earned, which also marks the album’s best weeks, in terms of units earned.

Mogwai share a 'Pat Stains' featuring sax-magician Colin Stetson who adds tension to the calming song; Anika Pyle goes simple and comforting on 'Blame'; So Badly turn to dream pop on 'Harley Davidson'.

"Rollins' body, fortified with heavy weights and tattooed totems, became a vessel for the message of his music, which is that there is nothing glorious about being broken but there is dignity to be found in the bearing of it and consolation in the knowledge that it's not borne alone" - the Quietus writes in the lovely birthday card for the punk icon who turned 60 this weekend. The Q chooses 10 songs as points of entry to Henry Rollins' music.

"Very few people can claim to have changed the way we hear music. @Rupert_Neve was one of them" - Guitar Center tweeted following the news of audio equipment pioneer Rupert Neve's death at age 94, Ultimate Classic Rock reports. Neve was one of the leading pioneers in creating the analog recording equipment that many rock bands used to record their albums over the years. Neve pursued a career that he continued to enjoy for over 80 years, and at 94 he remained engaged and passionate about his work, spending most days on a perpetual series of audio electronics projects and continuing to mentor on numerous projects.

An amazing and heartwarming segment from the Howard Stern Show with the Foo Fighters this week when former Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Pat Smear reminisced about Nirvana. Stern asked Smear whether he still listens to old Nirvana stuff to which he responded he doesn't need to because - "every once in a while, me and Krist and Dave get together and we do play as if we're Nirvana, so I don't have to miss it - we do it". Grohl added they even recorded some stuff. Foo Fighters frontman also talked about how his 11-year-old daughter had asked him about Nirvana for the first time, and how they listened to it together also for the first time. She wanted to know whether Kurt Cobain was shy.

Manchester Orchestra have just premiered 'A Black Mile To The Surface: The Global Concert Film' which saw the band perform their most recent album - 2017's 'A Black Mile to the Surface' - live in its entirety in Echo Mountain Recording in Asheville, NC, the same location that they recorded the album. The sound is great, as well as the band and the songs (from their, probably, best album).

Rapper-entrepreneur Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, have joined to form a new Bitcoin fund, focused on developing the cryptocurrency’s adoption initially in Africa and India, CNet reports. The duo are investing 500 Bitcoin, worth about $24 million, in the project, according to Dorsey, with the mission of making Bitcoin “the internet’s currency".

Justin Timberlake on Friday apologized to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson amid criticism he has received in the wake of a new documentary about his former girlfriend, the LA Times reports. The 'Framing Britney Spears' docu includes a discussion of the high-profile relationship between Spears and Timberlake and suggests Spears was shamed in the media for her behavior when the relationship ended while Timberlake boasted about having slept with her. Timberlake apologizes to both Spears and Janet Jackson, his fellow Super Bowl halftime performer during the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" incident - "because I know and respect these women and I know I failed". Timberlake was in a relationship with Spears for three years before the couple broke up in 2002, when he was 21 years old and she was 20.

American politician Stacey Plaskett quoted both Run the Jewels and GZA at the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. On February 10th, Plaskett addressed Congress about the issue and opened with a quote from Wu-Tang word-smith GZA - “The truth is usually seen and rarely heard”. Plaskett then proceeded to reference RTJ - “Truth is truth, whether denied or not”.

"There has been almost no dialogue about how asexuality is being explored - whether intentionally or through subtext - in song lyrics. That’s why I’ve been keeping a list of songs that have strong asexual themes" - them.'s Isabel Corp writes in her post about "fourteen songs that folks on the asexual spectrum can enjoy on February 14". There are 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)' by Kate Bush, 'A Pearl' by Mitski, 'Dry' by PJ Harvey, 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' by Joy Division...

NPR shares a somber music story that has happened in the dark shadow of politics, about kamancheh and setar player and vocalist Kayhan Kalhor. Born in Iran, he left at age 17 during the Iranian Revolution, walking more than 2,500 miles over the Balkans and to Rome, working on the road. After coming to Canada and finishing school he grew a global reputation as a part of Silkroad Ensemble, the artistic collective founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, he has written music for filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and has collaborated with a range of vaunted artists, from Kronos Quartet, Brooklyn Rider and the New York Philharmonic to Malian kora master Toumani Diabaté and Dutch jazz pianist Rembrandt Frerichs. After decades of living in Canada and the US, he lost the immigration battle with the US authorities and has returned to Iran.

Billboard made a list of the 50 biggest love songs of all time, based on their chart position. It's mostly ballads, and the earliest entry on the list is 1958's 'To Know Him Is to Love Him' by the Teddy Bears. It seems love isn't really much of a thing lately - the newest entry on this list is 2011's 'We Found Love' by Rihanna.

Taylor Swift has announced that she has re-recorded her second and most successful album 'Fearless', as part of a long-term plan to control her old songs outright, the New York Times reports. Her plan is to re-record, note-by-note, her entire Big Machine discography of six albums and to release it by herself. Swift is setting up and promoting 'Fearless (Taylor Version)' which comes out in April, as a new album, with six previously unreleased songs. She released the "Taylor" version of 'Love Story' as Valentine's gift for her fans.

The Heliocentrics co-founder and drummer-producer Malcolm Catto takes a walk with Bandcamp Daily through the making and creative focus of eight of the band's albums of jazz-funk-space psychedelia.

Retro-futuristic design, sound quality, and package design attract a new generation of music-lovers in Japan to cassette tapes, Vice reports about the interesting trend. Young people in their 20s and 30s are seeking music and culture from the 70s and 80s, paying over 158,700 Japanese yen ($1,517) for packs of 10, or 1,100 yen ($10.50) to 1,980 yen ($19) for a cassette. Maxell is the only remaining cassette tape maker in Japan, selling an annual average of 8 million cassettes nationally,

The US music industry revenue grew to $113 billion in 2018 and generated an additional 50 cents of revenue on every dollar earned for adjacent industries such as tourism, hospitality and marketing, which means it contributed a total of $170 billion to the economy, Billboard reports. Of the total sum, employee earnings were over $88 billion.

The keyboardist, composer, and bandleader Chick Corea - a contemporary jazz innovator - died on Feb. 9 at age 79 from a rare form of cancer, NPR reports. Corea, a virtuosic keyboardist who broadened the scope of jazz during a career spanning more than five decades, early in his career joined Miles Davis’ band and played a key role in helping the trumpeter make the transition to a more contemporary, plugged-in sound. Later, he formed his own groundbreaking electric band, Return to Forever, which played some of the most vibrant and dynamic music of the fusion era. An interesting quote by the late musician in the LA Times: “You can’t create in a vacuum and just fail to relate to people. At the same time, you cannot compromise your integrity. There has to be a middle road, where some sensible balance is made between, on the one hand, pure creation, and, on the other hand, the reality is that we live with, eating and survival and money and business.

LA judge has ordered Britney Spears' father and conservator Jamie Spears to share his control of her investment with financial company Bessemer Trust, which has now been appointed as a co-conservator, NBC reports. Britney Spears' legal team has asked the court to give a third party equal power to her father in managing the 39-year-old pop star's finances. After the court's ruling, Mr. Spears and Bessemer will work together on a budget and investment plan for the singer.

"Born of the internet on dark mode, hyperpop is all the sugary sweet appeal of mainstream pop but soaked in steroids – a garish reflection of the all-you-can-eat hunger of the material world... Too much is never enough" - The Forty-Five says in their introduction of an impossible task - ranking hyperpop's 45 best tracks. The list ends with Danny L Harle, starts with Sophie, with 100 Gecs, Charlie XCX, Slayyyter, and many more in between.

Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél has been ordered to report to prison to serve nine months and one day, for glorifying terrorism and insulting the Crown and state institutions in a series of tweets. After over 200 artists – including the filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar – signed a petition defending the rapper, the Spanish government announced that it is planning a reform to the criminal code that would eliminate prison terms for crimes involving freedom of expression, el Pais reports.

"Western bands, largely blessed with unrivaled marketing and export power, won over ears and hearts worldwide. Had African bands had similar reach and clout, at worst they would have gone toe to toe with Europe and North America’s most revered. At best, you may have never heard of your favorites. I would argue without respite that what was happening in the buzzing cultural citadels of Africa—the railway station hotel of Bamako with Rail Band, Mogadishu’s Jazira Hotel with Iftiin Band, Dakar’s Le Miami nightclub with Star Band, the recording studios of Cotonou with Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo, the musseques of Luanda with Jovens do Prenda—was simply a notch above" - Africa is a Country argues quite confidently, asking for a return of physical recordings of African music from independence onwards, large catalogs of which are no longer on the continent.

Their predecessors once flaunted such signifiers as cars and diamond chains, while the new generation of hip-hop artists is flaunting ownership of their masters. High Snobiety names several artists who kept their music sovereignty, quite successfully so, like Russ, Young Dolph, JACKBOY, Rich the Kid, King Von, 21 Savage, J Cole, and expects the list to grow bigger in time.

Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, Whitney Houston’s outfits, Ella Fitzgerald’s coat, vintage photos, and 1,500 other items are on view at the new National Museum of African American Music, which opened on Martin Luther King Jr Day in Nashville. It covers 400 years of black music, from gospel to jazz and R&B, presenting some of the most famous musicians like Elvis Presley, Jay-Z, and The Fugees, to some lesser-known like Ma Rainey and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Guardian visited it.

A great thread by Music REDEF covering all the music released by an artist ranked from worst to best. There are Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Yes, Jay-Z, Van Halen, Taylor Swift, Nirvana, Iron Maiden, Schubert, and plenty more. Good stuff...

A very interesting article in Vice about tactics of police officers in Beverly Hills who have been playing music while being filmed, seemingly in an effort to trigger Instagram’s copyright filters and get those videos removed. Instagram in particular has been increasingly strict on posting copyrighted material. Any video that contains music, even if it’s playing in the background, is potentially subject to removal by Instagram.

Yves Jarvis drops the only freest song today - 'Projection'; Tyler, The Creator & A$AP Rocky share a funky banger 'Jingelin'; Cassandra Jenkins' 'Crosshairs' is as light and easy as the snow where the video was shot; Jay-Z shares his Nipsey Hussle collab 'What It Feels Like' from the 'Judas & the Black Messiah' soundtrack; Cult of Luna share a doom-sludge EP with 'I Remember' as the stand-out track from it; UK grime masters Digga D x AJ Tracey share ‘Bringing It Back’.

Rage Against the Machine, Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, Kate Bush, Chaka Khan, DEVO, Iron Maiden, The Go-Go’s, Carole King, New York Dolls, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick, Fela Kuti, Mary J. Blige, Todd Rundgren, and LL Cool J are the nominees for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's 2021 class. The inductees will be announced in May, CNN reports.

The drone has bewitched for millennia, exhorting us to succumb to the joy of hypnotic immersion - author Harry Sword writes in the Guardian introducing his new book 'Monolithic Undertow' where he traces drone from its ancient beginnings through the 20th century. As a starting point to the genre drone he suggests: Éliane Radigue, Rolling Stone Brian Jones' early live albums, Earth, the original Velvet Underground drummer Angus MacLise, The Bug-Justin Broadrick-Moor Mother collab Zonal, and Sarah Davachi.