Music

Project Angel Food’s AngelPhoto auction this year will include a portrait of the late Chadwick Boseman. The photo, shot by Kwaku Alston at Comic Con in 2017 before the release of “Black Panther,” opens at $1,000, but is expected to fetch about $5,000. The fine art photography auction will be held at Milk Studios Los

iHeartRadio 102.7 KIIS FM’s annual Jingle Ball festivities took over Los Angeles’ Kia Forum in Inglewood on Dec. 2 with appearances and performances by chart-topping artists and influential tastemakers who caught the hearts and ears of many, both onstage and backstage. Known for its wide range of performances and music premieres, this year’s Jingle Ball

Red Hot Chili Peppers have enlisted a heavy-hitting lineup of support acts for a 2023 tour of North America and Europe. The Strokes, St. Vincent, the Mars Volta, Thundercat, and City and Colour will open for the North American shows, which kick off next March in Vancouver at BC Place. Iggy Pop and the Roots

More than two dozen Taylor Swift fans filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation Entertainment for “unlawful conduct” in the disastrous on-sale for the singer’s 2023 tour dates, claiming that the company — which is the world’s largest ticketing outlet — violated antitrust laws, among other allegations. The lawsuit, which was filed in California on

Since the dawn of radio, the United States has been and remains the only major country in the world where terrestrial radio pays no royalties to performers or recorded-music copyright owners of the songs it plays. While the more than 8,300 AM and FM stations across the country pay royalties to songwriters and publishers, they

If you are looking to draw an audience into what seems like a typical biographical jukebox musical, starting and ending your drama in psychoanalysis is a great device. Then again, “A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical,” does not exactly play by all the rules of jukebox theater. It unfolds first as a hit parade

This year’s Oscar-worthy music is the most interesting mix in years. Veterans continue to supply well-crafted, traditional orchestral scores while new voices are contributing surprising sounds for daring filmmakers seeking something fresh. Let’s start with the most familiar duo: John Williams and Steven Spielberg. Seventeen of their 29 films together have been nominated for Oscars,

“Enemy,” the 2021 collaborative track from Imagine Dragons and rapper JID, blasted through the City Market Social House when group frontman Dan Reynolds boogied his way up onto the stage at Variety’s Hitmakers Brunch on Saturday. With chorus lyrics like “Spare the sympathy / Everybody wants to be my enemy / (Look out for yourself),”

Omar Apollo never has a problem telling his truths. The queer singer recently became a standout on Twitter when one user questioned if he was actually a straight guy queer-baiting the LGBTQ community by wearing nail polish and cropped shirts. Apollo clapped back with two very explicit replies about what he does in bed with

Dua Lipa, Selena Gomez, Jack Harlow and more of music’s brightest stars celebrated the year’s best songs and the industry’s top execs, artists and creatives at Variety‘s Hitmakers brunch, held at City Market Social House in Downtown Los Angeles. Gomez, who was honored with the Hitmakers Film Song of the Year award for “My Mind

Tune in for Variety‘s Hitmakers honors, the annual celebration that puts the spotlight on artists, labels, executives, producers, publishers, sound mixers, engineers, managers and marketing mavens behind the year’s 25 most consumed songs. The red carpet and award ceremony will host big names from Jack Harlow, Dua Lipa and H.E.R. The event’s red carpet will be hosted

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the musical mind behind “Hamilton,” “In the Heights” and “Encanto,” has unexpectedly found himself as one of the most successful songwriters in recent Broadway history — and even more surprisingly, one with hit singles. With one “Encanto” song — the ubiquitous “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” — at No. 4 on Variety’s 2022

With the female rap renaissance in full bloom, it’s only right the self-proclaimed Queen of the South ruled the charts this year. Thanks to “Big Energy,” the lead single off her second studio album, “777,” 23-year-old Alyssa “Latto” Stephens celebrated milestones like her first Top 20 hit on the Hot 100 and the longest-charting solo

The list of artists who benefited from Future’s Midas touch reads like a veritable who’s who of hip-hop: Megan Thee Stallion, Dreezy, Hit-Boy, Earthgang, NAV and Don Toliver are just a few of the talents to team with the Atlanta rapper this year. In January, Future combined forces with Gunna and Young Thug for the

Not much is left to chance in an Ed Sheeran campaign these days, but his label deal actually sprang from a random encounter.  Call it a tale of two Eds: Ed Howard, then head of A&R for Atlantic imprint Asylum Records, first met the superstar singer-songwriter at a 2010 Bruno Mars gig in London. They

As tributes continue to roll in for late Fleetwood Mac singer Christine McVie, who died on Wednesday morning at the age of 79 following a short illness, Harry Styles paid his respects through song during his Chile show on Thursday night. The 28-year-old singer performed “Songbird,” the tender piano ballad off the band’s 1977 album

Before producer Robert Townsend chose Jesse Collins to write for the WB Network comedy “The Parent ’Hood” in 1997, the opportunities were few and far between for the former radio disc jockey. At that point in Collins’ life, he was filing unemployment forms and pretending to take job interviews at Walmart and Chili’s. But Townsend

Ebonie Ward is used to being the only woman in the room. This was the case long before she gained prominence as the manager to hip-hop stars Future, Gunna and Flo Milli. Ward got her start in the business running her own men’s clothing boutique, Fly Kix ATL, which catered to local rap stars in

There’s a dance music fest this week in Riyadh with 730,000 attendees headlined by Bruno Mars, who also lit up the opening night of the second annual Red Sea International Film Fest, and Sharon Stone is in Jeddah talking about her vagina. If Variety news reports from RSIFF are scrambling your preconceived notions about film

Syncs have long been a powerful tool for exposure when it comes to songs. There’s Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” in the Netflix movie “Someone Great” and Apple’s use of Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” for an iPod ad. Lord Huron added a legion of teens to their fan base after “The Night We Met”

In “My Mind & Me,” the title track of Selena Gomez’s Apple TV+ documentary, she sings, “If somebody sees me like this, then they won’t feel alone now.”  The power ballad — Variety‘s Hitmakers Film Song of the Year — is intended to be a message of empathy to anyone who is struggling with mental

A man has been arrested and charged with murder in connection with the death of Migos rapper Takeoff, Houston Police chief Troy Finner announced at a news conference on Friday. The chief said Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, was arrested in Houston on Thursday evening. A second man, Cameron Joshua, 22, was charged with the unlawful

Lizzo knows a hit when she hears one. In January, the artist’s fourth studio album, “Special,” was almost complete after three years of recording — but it was missing a lead single. “We knew we had a brilliant body of work but felt that we were missing one final song for the album,” says Brandon

Among the many pleasures of Donovan’s new album, “Gaelia,” which is released today on various platforms as well as the singer’s own webstore, is “Lover O Lover,” the second of two new collaborations with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. (The first is the album’s first single, “Rock Me.”)  First of all, it’s a great entry point

Imagine Dragons have been churning out hits since the release of their 2012 debut “Night Visions.” Their anthems have flooded the airwaves, while five of their albums have become Top 10 hits on the Billboard 200. What’s been their calling card for more than a decade is their rep as alt-rock bangers with a sense

The tables seem to have turned for Kanye West fans. Following the 45-year-old’s appearance on right-wing talk show host Alex Jones’ “Infowars” on Thursday, where he continued to spew anti-Semitic rhetoric and deliberately gave praise to Adolf Hitler and Nazis, fans on the artist’s r/Kanye Reddit page, which has more than 700,000 subscribers, have decided

Drake has once again postponed his New York City shows at the Apollo Theater, pushing them to Jan. 21 and 22 due to “production delays.” The concerts, celebrating the release of his latest album, “Her Loss,” were previously slated for Dec. 6 and 7. Drake was originally set to perform at the iconic Harlem venue

Overnight success was a long time coming for Kim Petras. After a decade navigating every rung of the music industry, she finally hit the jackpot with “Unholy.” At the beginning of October, the slinky Sam Smith collaboration became Petras’ first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 and, to her complete astonishment, topped the chart a

That Lil Nas X spent all of $30 to purchase the beat for “Old Town Road” has become the stuff of music-industry legend. As the story goes, a 19-year-old Dutch trap producer, Kiowa Roukema, who goes by YoungKio, built the beat from a sample of Nine Inch Nails’ “34 Ghosts IV.” He posted it to

Motown in the 1960s? Warner Bros. Records in the 1970s and ‘80s? One has to look back decades to find a record company that has maintained a high level of success and creativity for as long as Atlantic Records under the leadership of Julie Greenwald and Craig Kallman, who took the helm at the company