Music

Few pop songs signal their intent as brazenly as “Wannabe.” Beginning with the patter of Mel B’s footsteps as she steps up to the microphone followed by a hearty laugh, the Spice Girls’ all-conquering debut single is 2:53 minutes of pure joy. Ricocheting from girl-power declarations to vaguely suggestive rapped verses, there’s a loose zaniness

Lana Del Rey, Janelle Monáe and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have pulled out of the Bonnaroo festival, organizers announced over social media on Thursday (July 8), with left-field rock trio Khruangbin and dance music titans Rufus Du Sol added. No reason was given for the cancelations, but it seems likely that Del Rey’s

Foo Fighters and Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. released “The Day The Music Came Back,” a short documentary capturing footage from the band’s June 20 show at the iconic New York City venue. The nearly 10-minute film features behind-the-scenes conversations with fans and workers responsible for putting on the fully vaccinated concert, which reopened Madison

CBS and the Academy of Country Music Awards may have gone their separate ways, but CBS and the idea of country awards in the month of April have not. The network announced Thursday morning that it had scheduled its first airing of the CMT Music Awards for April 3, 2022, a declaration that follows quickly

Talkshoplive, a startup whose a livestreaming ecommerce platform has attracted a roster of celebrities and businesses to host their own QVC-style shopping channels, announced that it has closed $6 million in follow-on seed funding. The funding gives L.A.-based Talkshoplive a valuation of $75 million, sources familiar with the funding told Variety. The seed extension funding

It seems obvious, but the value of an artist’s archive depends entirely on the artist: Once you get past the music and instruments and notebooks and start getting into things like clothing and furniture and other possessions, it usually gets a lot less interesting. But where the shoe collections of, say, Bob Dylan or Pink

African multi-instrumentalist Ali Farka Touré had become a legend by the time he died in 2006. His music was used in a song for “Black Panther,” and he was thought of as a pioneer of African desert blues. Touré’s son Vieux Farka Touré has also made waves around the world with his genre-crossing music. That

Sometimes the peace-and-love message has to be celebrated in near-drive-by status, at least when there’s still a pandemic going on and you’re a Beatle trying not to draw a crowd. And so Ringo Starr’s annual birthday celebration happened in somewhat furtive fashion Wednesday, as he met with press and posed for photos in front of

For years, I’ve been longing for someone to make a documentary about the Velvet Underground. They are, along with the Beatles and the Stones, one of the three seminal groups in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. So surely they deserve to be captured and memorialized in a film that does them justice. There’s a

Creative Artists Agency announced that it has signed all six members of New Edition: Ronnie DeVoe, Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill. The company will represent the group in all areas worldwide, including touring, theatre, literature, TV/film, production, composing and others. Since 1984, the group has released six studio albums and

Britney Spears’ court-appointed conservator told the court on Wednesday that she has been getting death threats ever since Spears spoke out against the conservatorship last month. Jodi Montgomery asked the court to allow Spears’ conservatorship estate to pay for the cost of round-the-clock security at Montgomery’s home. In the motion, Montgomery also said Spears wants

Halsey has unveiled the cover and the release date for her forthcoming album, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power,” due August 27. She unveiled the album’s cover art at The Met Fifth Avenue in New York City. See the unveiling here: [embedded content] “This album is a concept album about the joys and

Tragic singer Amy Winehouse, who died 10 years ago this month, will be honored in a new MTV International documentary, “Amy Winehouse & Me: Dionne’s Story,” the network announced today. Told through the eyes of Winehouse’s goddaughter Dionne Bromfield, who is also a singer, the doc will feature never-before-seen archival footage of Bromfield with Winehouse,

It might seem reasonable to expect a professional songwriter to have two songs officially released over the course of a year, and certainly within five or 10 years. But as many have found out, it’s not that simple. What sounds like an easy lift gets more complicated when one factors in how few contemporary hits

*NSYNC’s Joey Fatone, Backstreet Boys members AJ McLean and Nick Carter and Boyz II Men’s Wanya Morris are teaming up for a nostalgic four-night engagement at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas in August. The musicians will unite in the intimate Sands Showroom for “The After Party,” an interactive show which will see the crooners perform

Britney Spears’ court-appointed attorney, Samuel Ingham III, will resign from the pop star’s conservatorship case. Ingham filed paperwork on Tuesday, asking the Los Angeles Superior Court to dismiss him as Spears’ legal representative. “Samuel D. Ingham III hereby resigns as court-appointed counsel for Britney Jean Spears, conservatee, effective upon the appointment of new court-appointed counsel,”

Brent Smith has left WME and joined Wasserman Music, the new company formed after Casey Wasserman acquired Paradigm’s North American music representation business, as executive vice present and managing executive, the company announced Tuesday (July 6). “As many of you know, the senior leadership team and I have been spending time with Brent Smith, and today

Fast-rising Hipgnosis Songs spent nearly $1.1 billion on 84 song catalogs over the year ended March 31, and raised another $215 million in its recent stock offering on the London Stock Exchange, according to statements released by the company this week. Those catalogs include half of Neil Young’s song catalog, as well as Lindsey Buckingham,

Tyler, the Creator managed to have the fifth-biggest album debut of the year so far as his “Call Me If You Get Lost” debuted atop the Rolling Stone album chart, the first time one of his releases has done so, followed at a comfortable distance by Doja Cat’s “Planet Her” in the No 2 slot.

Nearly four years to the day after she was named president of Warner Music’s Sire Records, Rani Hancock is headed back to Sony Music as Columbia Records’ executive vice president and head of A&R. A Columbia rep tells Variety that Hancock will join the company on August 1, based in New York and reporting to

Larry Rudolph, who has represented Britney Spears for much of her 25-year career, is stepping down as her manager. In a letter to the singer’s father, Jamie Spears, and attorney Jodi Montgomery, co-executor of the estate of Spears, who has been under conservatorship since 2008, Rudolph cites the singer’s “intention to officially retire” as the

Italian singer, actor, dancer and TV host Raffaella Carrà — who over the course of a 60-year career became a national pop culture sensation, sold millions of records across Europe, and found TV success in Spain and Latin America — has died, Italian national news agency ANSA and multiple Italian media outlets have reported. Carrà,

“A love letter to cinema” was the tired-but-true trope that everyone trotted out when Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” the movie, hit theaters two years ago. But it’s now clear just how insufficient a mere mash note to the movies was for Tarantino. This week saw the arrival of “Once Upon a

The night before her June 23 testimony, Britney Spears called 911 to report conservatorship abuse, according to a new investigation by Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino in the New Yorker. “Members of Spears’s team began texting one another frantically. They were worried about what Spears might say the next day, and they discussed how to

Superstar releases, or at least great superstar releases, were in short supply in the first six months of 2021, maybe because a lot of our most reliable earners were waiting for the pandemic to crawl to some kind of close before putting out the new albums that act as precipitating events for their real bread-and-butter,

After recordings of the remote audio from Britney Spears’ blistering 24-minute statement during her June 23 conservatorship hearing began circulating widely over the web, Los Angeles County courts have decided to end their remote audio attendance program completely. Despite warnings on the web page of the audio broadcast, which was open only to involved parties

Swifties, rejoice. After a series of online teasers that sent fans into a frenzy, Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon’s Big Red Machine project has released “Renegade,” the first of two collaborations with Taylor Swift that will be found on the group’s second album, “How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?,” due Aug. 27 via

Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Jennifer Hudson are among the first batch of artists announced to headline the New York City “homecoming concert” in New York’s Central Park this summer. While the concert, taking place on the park’s Great Lawn as part of a weeklong celebration of the city’s reopening, was provisionally scheduled for Aug.

Bessemer Trust, a professional wealth management firm that was poised to take over as co-conservator of Britney Spears’ estate and work with her father, has asked to resign from the arrangement, according to a court document filed Thursday (July 1) that was cited by the New York Times. The company, which manages more than $100

Motown Records announced that Brian Nolan has been appointed executive vice president of the label and executive VP of marketing, effective immediately. According to the announcement, in this new role, Nolan joins the label’s executive leadership team and will help guide the company as well as oversee Motown’s marketing teams and initiatives. He will report to Motown Chairman &