Radio stations in the US are flipping to all-holiday formats a bit earlier this year than usual, Variety reports. WWIZ in Youngstown, Pa., moved to wall-to-wall seasonal tunes as early as late September, this week Los Angeles’ KOST, among others, also flipped the switch.

James Erskine’s documentary 'Billie' is constructed entirely from interviews by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, a high-school teacher and Holiday fan, who interviewed almost 200 of Billie Holiday's friends and colleagues. Kuehl was found dead in 1979 from a presumed suicide, and her interviews found their way to a private collector, from whom Erskine bought the rights. His film is a journey through Holiday’s life, narrated by the voices on those tapes – eyewitnesses to one of the 20th century’s most remarkable artists, Guardian says presenting it - "listening to musicians, lovers, pimps, childhood friends and FBI agents recounting their time with Holiday is an evocative and transportive experience".

A great profile in the LA Times on Irving Azoff, the most powerful manager in music - getting inducted in Hall of Fame today - manager to The Eagles, Bon Jovi, Lizzo, Roddy Ricch and many others. Azoff started in 1970s, and says there wasn't really that much competition - "I never felt the music business was that competitive. It’s just not that f—ing hard. I don’t think there’s that many smart people in our business”. He still manages artists, although it's not about the money, as the singer-songwriter and Azoff client J.D. Souther famously put it - “Irving’s 15% of everybody turned out to be more than everyone’s 85% of themselves”.

French singer and sound designer Hélène Vogelsinger explores abandoned places and connects with their energies to create immersive and suspended moments in her modular synth compositions. Her last piece was made for an abandoned cloister, but she ended up playing it in a castle at the south of France (the family who lived there helped refugees who fled war).

Video for DJ Shadow ft De La Soul’s 'Rocket Fuel' won the Video of the Year award at the UK Music Video Awards 2020, and three more awards, Music News reports. The Sam Pilling-directed video for 'Rocket Fuel' is a comic recreation of the Apollo 11 mission as a staged event that goes catastrophically awry. Anton Tammi, director of four interconnected music videos to accompany The Weeknd’s latest album 'After Hours', won the highly prized Best Director award, and also Best Pop Video International for the video for 'Blinding Lights'.

Music fans are patient and are hoping to return to shows once they're an option, Live Nation report on refunds shows. Refund rates remain low, more than a half a year after the lockdown began, 83% of Live Nation customers are electing to keep their tickets for rescheduled show dates rather than get their money back. Live Nation remains confident in a summer 2021 return.

DJ Mag presents six African MCs representing a new, experimental wave in African hip-hop:

O'Kenneth - Ghanian rapper fusing the grit of UK drill and the grandiosity of its Brooklyn counterpart with local influences

Natty - sub-zero chilly Nairobi drill

Moonchild Sanelly - "Future Ghetto Funk"

Sho Madjozi - Pan-African rap

MC Yallah - dark, industrial dance

Prettyboy D-O - at a hectic crossroads between contemporary Afrobeats, dancehall, hip-hop and R&B

At the end of last year, Indian indie singer-songwriter Prateek Kuhad was playing to an audience of 9,000 at an outdoor concert in Delhi's Garden Of Five Senses, capping off a huge, 30-date tour of India, but he wasn't really popular outside his home country. But, then, a stroke of luck happened - Barack Obama put Kuhad's song 'Cold/Mess' on his annual list of favourite music, and immediately the attention grew. US label Elektra Records will re-release the 'Cold/Mess' EP this winter - "to lay the groundwork for the next album that's coming out". He's conquered a billion people by now, there's six billion more left... BBC reports on the pretty story.

System Of A Down have just come together to release their first new music in 15 years, inspired by near-war tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan. They released two new songs, 'Protect The Land' and 'Genocidal Humanoidz', the former in a more hard-rocky tone, and the latter more classic SOAD ska-metal.

A great text by Tom Maxwell about duets by the dead (Tupac & Biggie), or with the dead (Robbie Williams and Frank Sinatra; Kanye West's birthday gift to his wife was an inspiration for the article ): "Reflected in this cultural thinking is the fairytale belief that fame is key to immortality, and therefore both are to be devoutly desired. Lurking on a deeper level is the feeling that our celebrities belong to us; that the individual is subservient to the brand; that persona trumps person". A conclusion and a plea: "In some ways, the digital age has diminished us. Recordings are now infinitely reproducible, and thus have no inherent value. Musicians have likewise been devalued — it was far easier to make money playing in a cover band pre-pandemic. It’s up to us to declare what is important and proper, beyond market value, or be forever owned".Physical graffiti

Ken Hensley, keyboardist, vocalist and founding member of glam-prog band Uriah Heep, has died at age 75, Deadline reports. Having formed in 1969, Uriah Heep had a string of classic albums in the '70s, including '…Very 'Eavy …Very 'Umble', 'Demons and Wizards', 'The Demon's Birthday', and more. Hensley wrote or co-wrote many of the band's most famous songs, including 'Easy Livin'', 'Lady in Black', 'July Morning' and 'Stealin''.

Fast-rising West Coast rapper Drakeo the Ruler accepted a “sudden” plea deal offered for time served from the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office on Monday, and was released from prison after two and a half years behind bars, NPR reports. The 26-year-old was found not guilty of murder and attempted murder in July 2019, but was kept in jail based on two gang-related charges that rested on the bizarre assumption that his rap group, the Stinc Team, constituted a gang.

"Spotify has to keep three competing interest groups - investors, audiences, rights-holders and creators - happy or it does not have a business. As it gets bigger and more established, however, it feels that it can afford to make moves that may antagonise rights-holders / creators and audiences but that will keep investors happy" - Music Industry Blog writes in an analysis of the new Discovery Mode Spotify announced this week (offers artists and labels more play for lower royalty rate). "The logic is that Spotify is getting so big that those two audiences cannot do without it (the ‘too big to fail’ stage) but that investors have many other places to put their money. So, investors are more ‘at risk’ than the others".

A No Deal Brexit will have a potentially "catastrophic" impact on the UK music industry because most of the British musicians would be unable to afford to tour the EU, NME reports. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that the UK should prepare for a No Deal Brexit when the transition period ends on January 1, which would mean new rules, tariffs and restrictions, making it much harder for smaller and middle-size bands to cross the channel.

Canadian singer-songwriter MorMor released 'Don’t Cry', an industrial pop song; underground rap veteran Mr. Lif and producer Stu Bangas present their collaborative project Vangarde with 'Shelter in Place'; multinational group Seba Kaapstad collaborates with Sudanese/American rapper Oddisee on a strong but gentle song 'I’m Scared'; Post Truth Serum released a simple-but-great video for their song 'This Is The End'.

Holden Matthews, a 23-year old black metal musician from Louisiana, was sentenced to 25 years for setting three Baptist churches on fire in March and April of last year, Washington Post reports. The court also ordered he pay over $2.6 million in restitution for the damages to the trio of religious buildings. The son of a sheriff's deputy claimed to be inspired by the infamous '90s church burnings by black metal musicians in Norway and committed the acts of arson as an attempt to bolster his profile as a black metal musician. He even posted videos and photos of the crimes on Facebook.

Reddit user Minh1905 shared a video of a baby crying, with Slipknot coming to rescue. A dad holds his baby in his lap, until he plays 'Psychosocial' when the baby stops crying, actually it seems it really enjoys the song.

Detroit house music institution Inner City were the latest guests at The Fact's Against The Clock segment, producing a song in 10 minutes or less. It was quick and simple, with Kevin Saunderson and his youngest son Dantiez showing just how much they can do with a simple chord progression and beat.

With mask-wearing, seating, proper ventilation, reduced capacity, and hygiene protocols, the risk of the virus spreading through indoor concerts is "low to very low", a study by a group of German scientists has shown. They have put on a concert in August to see how COVID-19 spreads at shows and found that "the risk of getting infected is very low", New York Times reports. "There is no argument for not having such a concert" - dr. Michael Gekle, one of the scientists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg who did the study, said.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer has sentenced Anthony Ellison (33), to 24 years in prison for kidnapping rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine. Judge cited Ellion's leadership role in a gang active nationwide, AP reports. Tekashi 6ix9ine described the 2018 kidnapping at trial last year, saying Ellison and another man forced him into a stolen car at gunpoint, beat him, taunted him, and stole a bag full of jewelry before releasing him. In April, Tekashi 6ix9ine began serving home confinement for the last four months of a two-year prison term he was given for his role in a drive-by shooting in New York that he committed when he was with the gang.

New hip-hop project Small Bills is made of New York rapper Elucid (one half of another new hip-hop duo Armand Hammer), and Detroit multi-instrumentalist/producer The Lasso. Also on their debut album 'Don't Play it Straight' are Moor Mother, Fielded, Nosaj, .k, Koncept Jackson, and billy woods. Brooklyn Vegan compares the album to the awesome Armand Hammer debut 'Shrines', but adds "this album is also a beast of its own. It's overall more psychedelic and more chaotic. It has less warm, soulful production than 'Shrines' and more sputtering electronics".

Last year 2019 Massive Attack commissioned the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to report on the live music industry and make recommendations for decarbonisation of live music events. An exemplar show was planned in Liverpool for October 2020 in the form of a collaboration between the band, the City, Tyndall, Ecotricity, The Good Business Festival & other partners, which couldn't have happened. New short documentary reports on their efforts so far.

German Federal Finance Court (Bundesfinanzhof) has made two new decisions that declare techno is music and the DJ is a musician, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports. Entrance fees for techno and house concerts are tax-reduced to 7% from earlier 19%. According to the second decision, turntables, mixing consoles and CD players can also count as instruments, at least if they are “used to perform the piece of music and not just to play a sound carrier", and also to "perform their own new pieces of music by using instruments in the broader sense to create sequences of sounds with their own character”.

Hipgnosis Songs has acquired more than 33,000 songs from Kobalt Music Copyrights S.à.r.l. for $322.9 million, including songs from 1,500 songwriters, Music Business Worldwide reports. The catalog includes hits such as Fleetwood Mac’s 'Go Your Own Way' and 'The Chain', 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' and 'One Sweet Day' by Mariah Carey, 'Bailando' and 'Hero' by Enrique Iglesias, 'Higher Love' by Steve Winwood, 'Roar' and 'Teenage Dream' by Katy Perry, 'Halo' by Beyoncé, 'Love Shack' by the B-52s, 'In Da Club' by 50 Cent, 'Sorry' by Justin Bieber, 'Let It Go' from Disney’s 'Frozen' soundtrack and thousands more. Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited total portfolio now comprises 117 catalogs and 57,000 Songs, with an aggregate acquisition value of £1.18 billion ($1.525 billion).

Kanye West has admitted defeat in American presidential elections, and has turned his attention to the next election, in 2024, the USA Today reports. West cast his vote in Wyoming, where he penned his own name on a 2020 election ballot. The 43-year-old artist appeared on pre-printed ballots in just 12 states: Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont. West got 60,000 votes across these 12 states, Deadline reports.

"In tribute to Connery's Bond (the only true Bond), the Cold War's American-British alliance, shaken martinis, white tuxedos, honesty and honor, karate chops to the neck, Monte Carlo casinos, eye patches on villains, tiny dogs in the arms of bad guys, valet parking, hats that killed when thrown like a Frisbee, and Connery's perfectly lined face and after-shave looks" - JazzWax brings the opening title sequences of his seven Bond films - here.

Owners of big music companies like Madison Square Garden and Liberty Media have continued to spend millions of dollars supporting Republican causes like President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and Republican candidates for House and Senate races, while the employees of those companies have turned toward Democratic candidates, especially presidential challenger Joe Biden, in record numbers, Billboard reports on the interesting political topic.

"An absorbing modern shoegaze classic" - Louder writes in review of 'The Great Dismal', adding the new Nothing record is "an intense and unflinching album which embraces life’s chaotic absurdity and weighs heavily long after its final riffs fade to black". Dark singer/songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle and crushingly heavy sludge metal band Thou "feed off each other in a way where they create something none of them could have done on their own" - Brooklyn Vegan writes about their collaborative new album 'May Our Chambers Be Full'.

Tool singer Maynard James Keenan, a winemaker in his spare time, plays certain albums to certain types of grapes while processing, as he's told in a new Discogs interview. "During vintage, I choose whole albums to play to the grapes while processing,” he says - “some playlists are played year after year to the same fruit. We note what music was played to what grapes and then these playlists are included with the tasting notes”. Discogs was shown a chart indicating exactly which music is played to specific types of grapes - it varies from Portishead, Massive Attack, and Tricky to Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, and Kiss, with some Devo, Spiritualized, and Low as well. No Tool, A Perfect Circle, or Puscifer in his cellar.

A great short documentary 'A Sweet Pain: The Rebel Synths of Cabo Verde', based on an amusing myth about a ship headed to Rio De Janeiro carrying keyboards and synthesizers by Moog, Farfisa, Hammond and Korg. The ship gets lost near the Cabo Verde islands, where the descendants of African slaves find the instruments and develop, in resistance to the Portuguese authorities, music that celebrates life and joy, as opposed to Saudade, a nostalgic feel inherent to the Portuguese. ISCHIFI tells the story.