Music

Like most emerging singer/songwriters this past year, Nashville singer/songwriter Julia Cole has cast a wide net to get her music heard until she can resume touring at scale. So when she found herself in consideration for a music-themed campaign to promote the debut season of the CW’s “Walker,” in which the lead character seeks to

“CMT Crossroads” took a hiatus during a year in which the natural reaction of most musician strangers meeting at a crossroads would have been to nervously back off in the other direction. But CMT’s intermittent series will resume later this month with the pairing of Margo Price and Nathaniel Rateliff, recently filmed as the franchise’s

Paul McCartney may not be able to tour behind his “McCartney III” album, but he’s finding other ways to keep the material from that December record alive. On April 16, he’ll release the 2.0 version of “III” — officially known as “McCartney III Imagined,” a “curated” collection of covers or remixes from an eclectic mixture

Grammy Awards executive producer Ben Winston and his team have taken a refreshingly glass-half-full approach to staging the big show this year. “Rather than saying, ‘Oh, what can’t we have?,’ we’re focusing on what we can do,” he told Variety earlier this month. “We have 25 of the greatest artists in the world, the greatest

Big Hit Entertainment, the backer of K-pop uber-group BTS, is in the process of changing its company name to HYBE Corporation, it told Variety Thursday. The company has already registered the new name with Korean company regulatory authorities, although the change has not been approved by shareholders. Nor has it been announced to Korea’s stock

Lou Ottens, an engineer who invited the concept of the cassette tape in the early 1960s and later helped develop compact discs, died Saturday at 94, according to news reports from the Netherlands. Ottens was working for Philips when he company unveiled cassettes at a 1963 radio exhibition in Berlin. Prior to the cassette, audio

Spotify has announced that it has reached an agreement with Kakao Entertainment (previously KakaoM), making their content available on the platform across the globe, including for the first time in South Korea. The two companies had been in a bitter dispute that saw Kakao — which last month launched a streaming service in Korea —

Long-running Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer have parted company with their U.S. label, Interscope, as well as Modest Management, a rep for the label confirmed to Variety. Further details were not immediately available. The group recently postponed their “No Shame 2021” tenth anniversary tour of Australia, which was scheduled to begin on March 19

Kenneth Branagh has been tapped to direct the upcoming Bee Gees biopic for Paramount Pictures. The movie will center on the life and times of the genre-spanning band, following the humble beginnings of brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb into their journey to pop superstardom. Following their first No. 1 hit “How Can You Mend

The Grammy Awards considered some 800 people for the “In Memoriam” segment of the 2021 show, first-time executive producer Ben Winston tells Variety. While it was not unexpected that a large number of musicians and executives would be under consideration amid a global pandemic that has killed more than 2.5 million people worldwide, as Winston

Joining Variety for its first-ever all-music edition of the “Strictly Business” podcast is Sony Music Group chairman Rob Stringer, who oversees the standalone labels Columbia, RCA, Epic, Arista Records and Sony Music Nashville as well as Sony Music Publishing and The Orchard and leads a staff of more than 5,000 employees around the world. Stringer

Welcome to this week’s “Just for Variety”… We’re just a couple days away from Liza Minnelli’s birthday, which is March 12. As I first told you, the Hollywood legend — and Variety cover star — will be feted that night with “Love Letter to Liza: A 75th Birthday Tribute Celebration,” a virtual extravaganza benefiting The

“I would have driven her anywhere, because I thought she was really good and needed to get some performing experience,” says Phoebe Bridgers’ mother, Jamie, who is a real-estate agent and standup comic, but as we see below, also the best kind of stage mom. Phoebe, who is up for four Grammy Awards at Sunday’s

Phoebe Bridgers rose to indie-rock stardom the traditional way: by performing her incisive and plaintive songs for gradually growing audiences on tour, night after night. But due to the pandemic, she’s grown to achieve mainstream recognition largely from the confines of her home. “It feels very unreal, because my life has actually changed very little,”

BTS’ “Map of the Soul: 7” album has been announced as the first-ever winner of IFPI’s newly-launched Global Album All Format Chart, following a countdown of the top ten biggest albums globally, IFPI is the organization that represents the recorded music industry worldwide. The chart, an addition to IFPI’s existing global awards, celebrates the best-selling

Esteemed independent record label 4AD is belatedly celebrating its 40th anniversary with “Bills and Aches and Blues,” an 18-track collection of vintage songs recorded by new and current acts on its roster. The series launched digitally today with Tkay Maidza covering Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?”; U.S. Girls reworking The Birthday Party’s “Junkyard”; Aldous Harding

Winston Marshall, the banjo player for British folk-rock band Mumford & Sons, is “taking time away” from the group following social media backlash regarding a tweet in which he praised right-wing writer Andy Ngo. In the since-deleted tweet posted over the weekend, Marshall — who is British — congratulated Ngo on publishing his most recent

To the list of artists who are unhappy about the Grammys this year, including “snubbed” artists like the Weeknd and Halsey, add Zayn Malik… for reasons that, even after he dropped F-bombs against the awards “and everyone associated,” remain somewhat mysterious. One big difference between Malik and some of the previously aggrieved artists is that

As rumored, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak — who just last week released the ‘70s throwback single “Leave the Door Open,“ under the name Silk Sonic — will be appearing on the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, if this unusually playful tweet from the Recording Academy is any indication. “.@BrunoMars & @AndersonPaakWe have been trying to call

Tyler Posey is eager for a “Teen Wolf” reunion. “I’ve been coming up with concepts in my head for the last few years texting them to [series creator] Jeff Davis, ‘Hey Jeff. We need to do this idea,’” says Posey, who played title character Scott McCall on the MTV series, which ran for six seasons

Want proof of Latin’s reach? Look no further than pop collective Black Eyed Peas, whose Spanglish album “Translation,” released in June 2020, has yielded four No. 1s on Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart in the past 14 months. Do you need to be Latin to create a Latin album? The group proves that you don’t. Beyond

Some might call him “toxic,” but Rep. Matt Gaetz might just be “stronger than yesterday.” The Florida congressman is requesting the House Judiciary Committee hold a hearing on court-ordered conservatorships, specifically referencing the #FreeBritney movement. Gaetz — who, in addition to being a staunch fan of Donald Trump, is apparently a lifelong fan of Spears

The pandemic had little adverse affect on music publishing collections in 2020, judging from a report released Tuesday morning by ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) that showed the performing rights organization collected $1.327 billion for songwriters and publishers during the year — a jump of $53 million from 2019. Breaking it

With no major new releases charting, Cardi B and Olivia Rodrigo are playing musical chairs at the top of the weekly songs chart. On the album chart, Morgan Wallen continues to have the No. 1 chair all to himself, coming out on top for the eighth consecutive week. Cardi B’s “Up” debuted three weeks ago

Five of the artists that are up for best new artist at next Sunday’s Grammy Awards are reimagining their original material as well as covering other artists’ songs, at Spotify’s behest — with Phoebe Bridgers and Chika debuting two new recordings to kick off the series today. Others taking part in the Spotify Singles rollout

It’s no secret that nearly every genre of music outside of pop itself suffers from a moderate or severe gender imbalance problem, but the spotlight rarely falls on how women fare (or, as the case may be, don’t) in electronic dance music. So students of sexism in the arts may take a ready interest in

Sony Music Publishing has signed Grammy-winning songwriter/ DJ/ producer J. White Did It, known for his collaborations with Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, among others, to a worldwide deal. White (aka Anthony Jermaine White) produced Cardi’s “Bodak Yellow,” “I Like It” ft. J Balvin and Bad Bunny, and “Money,” as well as “Savage” by

Nearly ten years after his remix of Janet Jackson’s “If” went viral on SoundCloud, Kaytranada is up for a best new artist Grammy this weekend. The Haitian-Canadian DJ, born Louis Kevin Celestin, is also nominated for best dance/electronic album for 2019’s “Bubba” and best dance recording for the Kali Uchis-featuring “10%.” “It’s kind of funny

The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” has been smashing records practically since it was first released late in November of 2019 — and on Monday it broke what might be the most momentous one of all: It became the first song to spend a full year in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. That dwarfs

Grammy-winning mastering engineer Emily Lazar has launched a new initiative aimed at increasing the number of women audio engineers and producers working in music today. Dubbed “We Are Moving the Needle,” the foundation’s advisory “soundboard” includes such luminaries as Brandi Carlile, Maggie Rogers, HAIM, Linda Perry, Liz Phair and Sara Quinn of Tegan and Sara.