Variety received three Eddie & Ozzie Awards for editorial design excellence on the evening of Sept. 13. Presented by Folio, the winners and special mentions were announced at this year’s gala event at the City Winery New York. The publication took home the Eddie award for website in the business-to-business category. Honorable mentions for the
Music
When Marcus Mumford released “Cannibal,” the lead-off song for his first solo album, he was very much declaring a different set of lyrical as well as musical intentions. But for most of the press and public, the focus immediately got put on peripheral matters. Like: Did the existence of a solo project mean Mumford and
Jack Antonoff, who has produced some of Taylor Swift’s most popular songs, from “Out of the Woods” to “Lover,” and who shared her album of the year Grammy for 2020’s “Folklore,” returns for her upcoming album “Midnights,” out Oct. 21. Antonoff appears prominently in a new behind-the-scenes video posted to Swift’s Instagram, with the caption:
Though she’s just 22, Noah Cyrus has seen some stuff. As Miley’s younger sister, her music and acting careers launched early — at 16 and 2 (!), respectively — and she released several pop-leaning singles and EPs during her teens, opened an arena tour for Katy Perry in 2017 and was even nominated for a
Jessie Reyez marked the release of her highly-anticipated sophomore album, “YESSIE,” by hosting an exclusive album release party at No Vacancy in Los Angeles on Thursday night (Sept. 15), which drew the likes of Drake, Diddy, Yung Miami from CityGirls, Cordae, Diplo, Murda Beatz, Ty Dolla $ign and many more. While the Canada connection was
Just over 50 years ago, on the same day, June 16, 1972, two albums were released that changed the landscape of rock and its sartorial splendor: Roxy Music’s eponymously titled debut and David Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” While each album was conveniently tagged as part of
At some point, every person who works in the music industry has to grapple with the fact that its not-all-that-distant past is rooted in racism and financial exploitation. Capitol Records is no exception. The 80 year-old label’s legacy of Black artists includes Nat King Cole, Tina Turner and George Clinton, but its roster has featured few
Following the tragic events of the Uvalde school shooting in May, Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny has teamed up with other reggaeton singers to provide support for the survivors in the months after. Former Houston Astros MLB player Carlos Correa shared through his Correa Family Foundation that Bad Bunny, along with fellow reggaeton artists Wisin
What a long, strange trip the long-lost Creedence Clearwater Revival Royal Albert Hall concert album and film has taken in the half century since it happened. The show and the on-the-road footage were recorded by the BBC during the group’s first European tour in April of 1970, but never broadcast. The recording presumably got hung
Considering their short lifespan and relatively slim discography, the Velvet Underground may be the most thoroughly excavated and documented rock band of their era: Nearly every studio and concert recording, acetate and demo has been scrutinized, digitized and optimized for the many awesome boxed sets that have been released since the world caught up with
Rap superstar Drake is feuding with the “internet’s busiest music nerd,” YouTube music critic Anthony Fantano. On Thursday night, Drake leaked his own direct messages to Fantano on his Instagram story, which read: “Your existence is a light 1. And the 1 is cause you are alive,” a reference to Fantano’s tradition of reviewing albums
The first thing to know before seeing “Moonage Daydream,” Brett Morgen’s dazzling, exhaustive and exhausting memoir of David Bowie’s life and career, is that it assumes the viewer already knows a lot about the subject — his relevance, his influence, the brilliance of so much of his music, and the basics of his personal history.
As the reigning queens of K-pop, there’s a lot riding on Blackpink’s sophomore album. The girl group would be forgiven for playing it safe, but they defy expectations on “Pink Venom” (out now) by touching on timely topics, adding a certain F-word to their vocabulary, and sprinkling in slow jams. Assisting Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and
Brett Morgen went through a lot to make “Moonage Daydream.” It takes certain amount of obsession to capture on film the essence of the life of David Bowie, the shapeshifting music visionary, artist and actor. For Morgen, known for his work exploring another singular artist with “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” as well as “The
As Bad Bunny rampages across North America on his “World’s Hottest Tour” and his “Un Verano Sin Ti” tops Billboard’s albums chart for a whopping 10 weeks, one of the set’s more unexpected collaborations, “Ojitos Lindos,” feat. Bomba Estéreo, has proven to be a leader of its own. “Ojitos” was one of seven tracks from
Rina Sawayama is one of a handful of artists who released an album just as the pandemic was beginning and watched, astonished, as their stars rose during lockdown. The Japanese-British singer’s debut, “Sawayama,” was a wild fusion of Lady Gaga with nu-metal guitars, but also showed a penchant for sentimental ballads amid the power chords
The American Film Institute has announced that the world premiere of “Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me” is set to open the 36th edition of AFI Fest on Nov. 2. “AFI is proud to launch AFI Fest 2022 with ‘Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me,’ a film as profoundly powerful as it is personal,” AFI
Cardi B has accepted a plea deal regarding the 2018 strip club incident in which the rapper was charged for allegedly ordering an attack on two bartenders, sisters Jade and Baddie Gi, at Angels Strip Club in Queens, N.Y. Cardi pled guilty to two misdemeanor charges, for third-degree assault and reckless endangerment, and has been
Lil Baby will be honored with the Quincy Jones Humanitarian Award at the second annual Music in Action Awards Gala, hosted by the Black Music Action Coalition and taking place Sept. 22 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. The ceremony will celebrate artists, executives, businesses, entrepreneurs, activists, and companies that have utilized their platforms
The Americana Honors & Awards have always, perhaps more than any other music awards show, rewarded work that is fairly unassailable … which doesn’t always mean that the ceremony has always seized the moment. In 2018, Brandi Carlile’s breakout album and song, “By the Way, I Forgive You” and “The Joke,” both lost in their
One might think that on the 25th anniversary of her seminal 1997 album “Butterfly” and the release of her new butterfly-themed Chopard jewelry collab with Caroline Scheufele this week, Mariah Carey would be all about butterflies, the beauty of winged flight and transformational-metamorphosis metaphors. Mariah Carey is not corny like that. “You know, I didn’t
“Nothing Compares,” a documentary about the life and career of Sinead O’Connor, will be released in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on Sept. 23 for a one-week run that qualify it for Academy Award consideration. The film’s theatrical release will come days ahead of the docu’s Sept. 30 Showtime streaming and on-demand debut. The
Michelle Branch appeared on the “Tamron Hall Show” Thursday to address her recent martial problems with her husband, the Black Keyes’ Patrick Carney, which saw her arrested for domestic disturbance. “They are not allegations,” she told Hall, according to Rolling Stone. “Violence — I don’t condone violence. I slapped my husband. Not the finest moment
Right before the pandemic hit, Red Hot Chili Peppers fans were thrilled the learn guitarist John Frusciante had once again joined the band. He had left in 2009 to focus on solo work, and frequent collaborator Josh Klinghoffer took up the axe in the band for their next two albums, 2011’s “I’m With You” and
While the title of the “world’s greenest music festival” may be impossible to determine with total accuracy, Norway’s long-running Øya is as close as it gets. The festival — which has featured Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Robyn, Lana Del Rey, the Cure and hundreds of Norwegian acts since it launched in 1999 — has been named
EnergaCamerimage, the cinematography-focused film festival, will crown director Hype Williams with its Award for Achievements in the Field of Music Video. The annual fest, celebrating its 30th edition, will take place on Nov. 12-19 in Torun, Poland. Williams has collaborated with a who’s who of top artists and bands, including The Notorious B.I.G., 2Pac, Missy
Allison Russell, Brandi Carlile and Billy Strings were among the winners Wednesday night at the Americana Honors & Awards ceremony in Nashville, where the love was spread around among the genre’s current leading lights. Six different performers prevailed in the six voted categories, with newcomer Sierra Ferrell, instrumentalist Larissa Maestro and the husband-wife duo the
After a nearly three-year hiatus, the Afropunk festival returned last weekend to the borough where it was born: Brooklyn, New York’s Commodore Barry Park. The two-day gathering was anchored by its headliners — Philadelphia’s the Roots and Nigerian superstar singer Burna Boy (pictured above) — and featured its usual broad but Afro-centric range of genres: From
A Chicago federal jury found R. Kelly guilty on Wednesday of three counts of child pornography for filming himself sexually abusing his then-14-year-old goddaughter. According to the Chicago Tribune, of the indictment’s 13 charges, Kelly was also found guilty of three counts of child sex trafficking through coercion and enticement. He was acquitted on charges
AEG Presents has joined the #iVoted Early Sweepstakes with election night (Nov. 8) tickets to concerts from Rina Sawayama, Soccer Mommy, Santigold, Tegan and Sara, Surf Curse, Travis and more. The partnership aims to increase voter turnout for the 2022 midterm elections. Fans can enter the #iVoted Early Sweepstakes starting Sept. 26 by submitting a