Music

The fate of artists deemed problematic will be one of the main talking points when nominations for the 64th annual Grammy awards are announced Nov. 23. This year, perhaps more than any other, there are multiple potential nominees shrouded in a cloud of controversy. Will the Recording Academy effectively enforce the “cancellation” of these artists

For as long as most of us can remember, the process around the Grammy Awards has been a dark art, ostensibly determined by the 12,000-strong voting body of the Recording Academy — the nonprofit established to represent the music industry and stage the awards — but overseen, and some have said influenced, by an amorphous

Well, that didn’t work, did it? That is, the Eagles’ attempt to head off further migration to an overpopulated Golden State by portraying it as a sad and sinister place in “Hotel California.” Of course, it was the romanticizing, not the de-glamorizing, that those of us in the rest of the nation heard when we

Liberty Media is exiting the radio business, selling its entire stake in iHeartMedia. According to an iHeartMedia Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Liberty Media offloaded its 5.94 million shares of Class A common stock in an open market block trade in a sale worth upwards of $150 million. Between November 2017 and February 2018, Liberty

It hardly came as a surprise, but Kobalt’s second giant catalog sale in less than a year made headlines on Tuesday morning when the company announced that KKR, together with its co-investor, Dundee Partners, purchased the KMR Music Royalties II portfolio for a whopping $1.1 billion — even more than the billion the company was

It’s every arena or stadium concertgoer’s dread: getting caught in a hot-dog or beer line while the opening notes of “Hotel California” drift in from the auditorium, stuck smelling popcorn instead of the imagined scent of colitas. But for anyone seeing the Eagles’ closing night at the Forum in Inglewood tonight, it doesn’t have to

After two tumultuous years of turmoil within as well as from outside the label, Bloodshot Records is shutting down, as a message on the company website says the office is “permanently closed,” and co-founder Rob Miller penned a long farewell message that begins, “Regrettably, it is time for this phase of Bloodshot Records to come

Colleen Fitzpatrick has a knack for knowing what you need to hear at any particular point in time, and she knows how to put it in front of you. As the Netflix executive responsible for music creative production, spectacle and events, much of the music on the streamer’s series passed through her hands — or

For the first time in 10 years, Red Bull’s long-running SoundClash is back with a line-up in four cities that includes Rico Nasty, Danny Brown, Shelley (formerly known as Dram), Tank and the Bangas and more. The four shows will take place from November 30 – December 15 in Atlanta, Houston, Nashville and Chicago, and

Celine Dion is delaying the opening of her new show in the new Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas due to unforeseen medical symptoms, promoter AEG Presents announced on Tuesday morning. The affected performances run from November 5 to 20, 2021 and January 19 to February 5, 2022. According to the announcement, the singer has

As promised, the Recording Academy has released the first official inclusion rider for the Grammy Awards, a contract addendum “designed to be a robust tool to ensure equity and inclusion at every level during the production of the 64th Annual Grammy Awards,” which take place in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, 2022. Originally developed to

As expected, the global investment firm KKR and Kobalt Capital Limited have announced that KKR, together with its co-invest partner, Dundee Partners, the investment office of the Hendel family, have purchased the KMR Music Royalties II portfolio from KCL for approximately $1.1 billion. The catalog includes over 62,000 music publishing copyrights, with songs by the Weeknd,

The debilitating impact of COVID-19 wiped out 69,000 jobs, or one in three of the workforce, the annual report by industry body U.K. Music has revealed. The This Is Music 2021 report also records that employment plummeted 35% from 197,000 in 2019 to 128,000 in 2020; themusic industry’s economic contribution fell 46% from £5.8 billion

BMG has promoted U.S. frontline recorded-music execs Angela Barkan and Cyndi Lynott to senior vice presidents, the company announced on Monday. On the East Coast, Barkan, who is currently overseeing new releases from Duran Duran, Bryan Adams and Kelis, has been promoted to SVP of marketing and will report to EVP Jason Hradil. She joined BMG

The status quo on the songs chart has shifted, as Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby” — a collab with Jack Harlow — finally reached No. 1 after spending a lot of its six-week run to date stuck in the No. 2 position. The tune moves up on the strength of 18.9 million streams. On the

Thanks to recent remarks by Paul McCartney in the New Yorker, maybe we now can all finally agree that a rivalry between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones was — and is! — a real thing, as opposed to just a fan construct. It may never have risen to actual Dodgers/Giants intensity, and sometimes the

Kanye West made a surprise performance at a wedding in Venice, Italy, on Saturday, performing two of his classics as well as the live debut of two songs from his recent “Donda” album, along with some other songs. According to social media reports, he wore a creepy, almost Michael Myers-like mask that muffled his vocals.

Ever since Jack White’s explosive appearance on “Saturday Night Live” last year, fans have thirsted for a return to his stripped-down sound of his early career — and based on the new song he dropped Monday, we may be getting it soon. “Taking Me Back,” White’s first new solo music in nearly four years, combines that

While outdoor concerts and medium-sized tours have more or less returned after 18 months of pandemic shutdown, the bread and butter of the concert industry — the arena tour — has been slowest to come back. The Weeknd’s “After Hours” tour, which was originally scheduled to launch in June of 2020, was to relaunch in January of

Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson, Drew Barrymore and Angela Bassett are among the presenters set to celebrate the inductees at the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction ceremony, which returns to a live format in Cleveland on Oct. 30. Swift and Hudson are also booked to perform. Barrymore will be on hand

Less than a month away from its airdate, CMA Awards producers have put an end to the speculation among country fans about who would host the 2021 show by announcing Luke Bryan would take over duties for the show, to be broadcast live Nov. 10 on ABC. This marks the third year in a row

While it’s a pretty small problem in the context of the larger challenges presented by the return of live music, how a performer addresses the pandemic during a performance is no small matter. It is insensitive to seem too happy to be back? Is it too much of a downer to dwell on the tragedies

On Nov. 14, five days before the release of Adele’s long-awaited fourth album “30,” CBS will air the two-hour special  “Adele One Night Only,” featuring a concert performance that will be the earliest opportunity for most of the world to hear the singer’s first new material in six years. The two-hour event will be broadcast

Giles Martin just couldn’t let “Let It Be” be — even though, as he has with each of the deluxe Beatles packages he’s worked on, he challenged himself to make sure a fresh mix and expanded boxed set had a raison d’etre. In this case, giving a more unified sound to a 1970 album that

With every mixtape since 2011’s “I Came From Nothing,” and every full-length album since 2019’s “So Much Fun,” improvisational rapper-singer Young Thug has kept an eye toward the aesthetically high-minded. The album cover for “Punk,” released on Oct. 15 and featuring artwork inspired by Mexican-born surrealist painter Octavio Ocampo’s 1987-1989 work, “Forever Always,” is the

Keith Richards is the one who, famously, back about 40 years ago, replied to the sobriquet about greatness that had come to be an unofficial nickname for his group and observed: “On any given night, it’s a different band that’s the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.” This is undoubtedly true, and on

As #FreeBritney gets closer to becoming a reality, Britney Spears is opening up about her fears regarding life after her 13-year conservatorship. In a lengthy Instagram post on Friday, the pop star said, although she is grateful to finally be in the position she’s in, she has some concerns — mainly, that her life will

At the first of two Los Angeles-area concerts Thursday, Mick Jagger reeled off a list of celebrities, real and imagined, whom he said were attending the Rolling Stones’ opening night at SoFi Stadium. And a remark about Paul McCartney left some fans puzzled, but others laughing, depending on how closely they’d been following music news

Adele is back — and with a bang. The singer-songwriter’s first single since 2016, “Easy on Me,” has officially broken the Spotify record for the most streams in a single day less than 24 hours since its release, the streaming service announced on Friday. Spotify has not yet specified the exact number of streams the

Coldplay doesn’t jump the shark on “Music of the Spheres,” but the British rockers come uncomfortably close. A concept album about a fictional planetary system called The Spheres, the space opera is an uneven mix of synth-drenched power-pop, cosmic interludes (the band goes as far as inventing alien languages) and surprisingly affecting collaborations. It’s the