Music

Any lingering impact that COVID-19 had on American life did nothing to slow music’s six-year growth streak, as MRC Data’s 2021 Mid-Year Report shows overall music consumption for the first six months up 13.5% over the same stretch of 2020. That gain outpaces the 11.6% year-over-year growth that the U.S. music market clocked in all

Rhiannon Giddens is almost as much a historian as she is an acclaimed singer, songwriter and banjo and fiddle player, which is why Ken Burns made such good use of her as an expert witness in his “Country Music” series. She combines her depth of music lore with a gift for storytelling in a new

Rev. Moose is the executive director and co-founder of NIVA, the National Independent Venue Association, as well as managing partner at Marauder, the firm that produces Independent Venue Week in the United States. If the American dream is alive and well, then this past year-and-a-half has been a nightmare. Locally owned and run businesses and

Heralding an event that Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans calls “the one” — i.e., the biggest thing they’ve done to date — the philanthropic organization has announced plans for “Global Citizen Live,” a 24-hour special Sept. 26 that will be broadcast live from six continents and feature performances from BTS, Ed Sheeran, the Weeknd, Lorde,

Olivia Rodrigo isn’t budging… or at least, she never seems to for long. Although the teen singer does get tossed out of the top spot of either the album chart or songs chart on occasion, she invariably returns to conquer one or, as in the case of this week, both. Her “Good 4 U” continues

Richard Foster has been pro­moted to vice president, marketing at Epic Records, it was announced by Dave Bell, executive VP and head of marketing, to whom Foster reports. The New York-based Foster, who joined the Sony Music label in July 2019, is tasked with all digital marketing initiatives including podcasts, website design and data analysis,

Having known Britney Spears for more than 20 years, and witnessed an at-times worrying team grow around her, 98 Degrees member Jeff Timmons is showing support for his friend amid her conservatorship battle by hosting ‘Free Britney Radio,’ a pop-up radio station which will take over stations in more than 50 markets — including San

For years, Los Angelenos and others who subscribe to alerts from ticketing agents have had to deal with the false promise that the rock duo Sparks is coming to town, only to suffer the letdown, again and again, that it actually refers to an appearance by the WNBA team the Los Angeles Sparks. But, at

After a year-plus as one of the most active livestream performers in the music business, Phoebe Bridgers is finally getting to do a proper tour behind her Grammy-nominated “Punisher” album. Using an awesome faux-heavy metal font, complete with flames, for the tour poster below, the initial brace of dates span September and October and include

The key to editing and scoring “Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes,” based on Ronan Farrow’s 2019 book of the same name, was honoring the story at heart and honing in on the key moment that drove each half-hour episode. The six-episode HBO series collects unseen footage, archive interviews and insight into Farrow’s reporting process

After a two-year hiatus, the Stagecoach Music Festival will be back taking its usual post-Coachella slot in Indio next April, with Luke Combs, Carrie Underwood and Thomas Rhett slated as the nightly headliners for the country music weekend. The April 29-May 1 fest in the California desert (whose tickets can be purchased here) has also

Veteran Hollywood attorney Mathew S. Rosengart is in discussions with Britney Spears about representing her in her conservatorship battle, and plans to attend a hearing in Los Angeles on Wednesday, according to reports in the New York Times and TMZ over the weekend. Spears has spoken out bitterly against the conservatorship in recent weeks, which

On Monday, Chinese anti-trust regulators were reported to have penalized U.S.-listed Tencent Music Entertainment for its build-up of a dominant position in online music. Among the penalties are fines for the company’s failure to properly report the acquisition of two smaller operations in 2016, and a commitment to end exclusive deals with music labels. Reuters

Sony Music Publishing has struck a worldwide deal to administer the works of the Australian music company Alberts, which owns the complete song catalogs of AC/DC and the songwriting and producing team Vanda, Young and Wright. The latter team included George Young, the older brother of AC/DC founders Malcolm and Angus Young, and who, with

Media and entertainment revenue globally dropped 3.8% in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic led to an overall $81 billion drop, according to PwC’s “Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2021-2025″ report. It’s no surprise that COVID ravaged certain sectors of the business. Movie theaters saw a 71% decline in box-office revenue and live music plunged 74%

Byron Berline, a renowned fiddler who played with bluegrass greats like Bill Monroe as well as rock legends like the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, died Saturday, according to family social media posts and news reports out of Oklahoma, where he owned a world-famous fiddle shop. He was 77. Berline’s family posted on his Facebook

Last year saw the arrival of the mother of all Tom Petty boxed sets, “Wildflowers and All the Rest,” available in editions that extended to as much as five CDs and nine LPs of mostly unreleased music. If that collection was a six- or nine- or 10-course meal, depending on how far you want to

All products and services featured by Variety are independently selected by Variety editors. However, Variety may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. The lasting power of the iconic 1970s rock band Stillwater is impressive — especially considering that they don’t

The songwriting-production team of James “Jimmy Jam” Harris III and Terry Lewis have dropped so many hits since leaving their Prince-mentored band the Time in 1983 that their publisher released a four-CD boxed set of their hits… in 1997. Since then, they’ve added at least another four CDs’ worth of their patented sophisticated soul-funk mix,

Although Taylor Swift is probably not inclined to take any advice from Marsha Blackburn, the Republican senator from Tennessee that she forcefully campaigned against in the last election. Blackburn is offering the singer some anyway: Watch out, because the Marxists who want to take over America will be coming for you first. In an interview

For Jeff Timmons, it barely took a second to recognize his bandmate Nick Lachey’s voice behind the piglet costume on “The Masked Singer.” “I knew as soon as I heard it – then went right down to The Strip and bet!” laughs the Vegas resident. It’s no wonder since Lachey’s was the same powerful, masked

An as-yet untitled documentary about Doors frontman Jim Morrison is in production via the independent studio Gunpowder & Sky and the managers of the singer’s estate, they jointly announced Friday, with the promise of bringing “unearthed” personal diaries and home movies to the screen as part of the project. Joining Gunpowder & Sky as producers

As the battle over Britney Spears’ conservatorship thundered on this week, the singer used her Instagram account late Thursday to post a remarkably unsubtle message to those she considers “haters”: “Kiss my ass.” To recap, the messaging began on Wednesday when Spears posted a series of photos, including one of her topless in the bathroom,

Olivia Rodrigo and her main collaborator, songwriter-producer Daniel Nigro, have given Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent a songwriting credit on “Deja Vu” — the second song from Rodrigo’s blockbuster debut album “Sour” to receive such a non-collaborative credit, after “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” The addition to the album’s credits was first

The first single from the upcoming film “Gunpowder Milkshake” has been released. Composed by Frank Ilfman (“Big Bad Wolves”), “Goonfight at Gutterball Corral” fuses indie-rock with a spaghetti Western style, further mixed with a large orchestra and soprano vocal. Directed and co-written by Navot Papushado (also known for”Big Bad Wolves”), the film debuts on Netflix

“It was pretty crazy. It’s real, too,” Billie Eilish told Zane Lowe of her self-directed video for “NDA,” released Thursday night. “Real” meaning: No, that’s not a green screen behind the singer as she walks down the dotted center line on a nighttime roadway like some lost refugee from David Lynch’s “Lost Highway,” courting disaster

In an interview with New York magazine, Saweetie addresses questions about having embattled producer Dr. Luke as a collaborator on her upcoming album — suggesting she probably won’t do it again, but expressing no desire to not have the tracks on her album. Interviewer Hunter Harris first quotes from an interview he did with the

iHeartRadio Music Festival have added J. Cole and Finneas to the 2021 lineup. The announcement adds to J. Cole’s growing string of festival dates this year. He is also set for Rolling Loud in New York and California. Earlier this spring, Cole released his first album in three years, “The Off-Season.” At the end of

All products and services featured by Variety are independently selected by Variety editors. However, Variety may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Tyler, the Creator knows footwear. And with over 15 shoe collaborations under his belt (on top of nine

Singer-songwriter Chris Isaak has partnered with Primary Wave in a deal that sees the publishing company acquiring a 50% stake in his master recordings and signing with the legendary Sun Records for future recordings (which was recently acquired by Primary Wave). He also has entered into a joint venture with the company that will allow