Artist and filmmaker Sia will perform at the “MTV Movie & TV Awards: Greatest of All Time,” set to premiere on Dec. 6 at 8 p.m. The nine-time Grammy nominee’s newest single, “Courage To Change,” comes from her upcoming album and film “Music” movies, starring Maddie Ziegler as a nonverbal autistic teen. The project marks
Music
In today’s TV news roundup, Netflix released a trailer for “Song Exploder Volume 2,” and Starz debuted a first look at its upcoming original series, “Run the World.” DATES HBO Sports and Major League Baseball are teaming up to produce “Under the Grapefruit Tree: The CC Sabathia Story,” set to debut Dec. 22 on HBO.
Over the weekend, Drake and Lil Wayne broke the internet with their first collaboration since 2017, “B.B. King Freestyle.” The song is off Wayne’s new “No Ceilings 3” mixtape, which is hosted by DJ Khaled, and has already garnered over 1.5 million views on YouTube. Vassal Benford — the chairman of B.B. King’s estate, who
Dick Alen, a music agent renowned for a six-decade-plus career that included representing icons like Aretha Franklin, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, died of natural causes Nov. 27. He was 89. Before Alen retired in 2010, he had spent the last 39 years of his career at what was formerly the William Morris Agency and
Editor’s note: For anyone who lived through the ascent of flamboyant guitar music in the 1970s or has a residual fondness for these monsters of rock that continued to thrive into the ’80s beyond, there could be no more entertaining read than “They Just Seem a Little Weird: How KISS, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, and Starz
Atlantic Records VP of marketing Ryan Brady was killed Thursday morning in a car accident in Los Angeles. He was 34. The news was first reported by Billboard; an Atlantic rep confirmed the information to Variety. “We had the privilege of working alongside Ryan as he grew up in this business at Atlantic Records. He
Larry Mattera has been appointed general manager of Capitol Records, the flagship label of Capitol Music Group (CMG), and executive VP of CMG. The announcement was made by CMG Chairman & CEO Jeff Vaughn, to whom Mattera will report. In his newly-created GM position, Mattera will helm the day-to-day operations of the label, and in
Among the shiny, bouncy, madly infectious musical numbers that are a big part of what make Ryan Murphy’s “The Prom” such an old-fashioned newfangled blast, one of the show-stopping highlights is “Love Thy Neighbor,” which Trent (Andrew Rannells), a struggling Broadway drama queen who has landed on the distant planet known as small-town Indiana, sings
This World AIDS Day, Africa’s influential record label, Mavin Records, and (RED) are joining forces to fight two pandemics: AIDS and COVID-19, and are starting with a remix competition. The remix of the hit single “Jaiye” by Mavin artist Ladipoe, featuring Aluna and Sigag Lauren, will be available to stream and download worldwide, with proceeds
Veteran PR exec Allison Elbl has joined top music PR and marketing agency Shore Fire Media, the company announced Monday. Elbl, who starts her new role on Tuesday (Dec. 1), will be a senior vice president of the company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dolphin Entertainment, and will head Shore Fire’s Los Angeles
Grammy-nominated rapper 6lack’s love for hot sauce runs deep. Growing up in Atlanta, he quickly built up a tolerance to all things hot and would save up his pocket change to go to the local wing spot. Now, with his own hot sauce line, 600 Degrees, he’s making a splash in the world of food
In recent days, New Jersey drivers may have been surprised to see billboards featuring native sons Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Jon Stewart wearing COVID masks under the words, “Wear a friggin’ mask!” The effort, launched just before the Thanksgiving holiday, is the first phase of a “Mask Up” campaign, spearheaded by New Jersey
The title of the new album from BTS, “BE,” was short for behemoth, at least in its first week, as the collection easily topped the album chart with 217,100 album units, more than double the number of the first runner-up. “BE” had what counts as a blockbuster number nowadays for full-album sales, selling 136,700 full
For those pursuing a career in notoriously cutthroat industries like music or acting, social media fame offers a great way to sneak in through the proverbial back door, so to speak. One of the finest examples of success on that front is Andrew Bazzi, now known mononymously by his surname, who first rose to viral
Variety has added keynote speakers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to its virtual Music for Screens Week from Nov. 30-Dec. 3. The conversation, presented by BMI, will join previously announced keynote speakers Mary J. Blige, Marcus Mumford and Dave Meyers. Reznor and Ross will demonstrate their creative and collaborative process in composing for film and
Haim, Dave Matthews, Jack Johnson and Feist are among the more than 40 artists who will perform songs by Yusuf/ Cat Stevens for the CatSong Festival, a special live YouTube broadcast in celebration of the 50th anniversary of his classic 1970 albums “Tea for the Tillerman” and “Mona Bone Jakon.” According to the announcement, fans can expect new interpretations of
British rapper Stormzy, one of the most successful British musical artists to emerge in the past decade, is the first signing to Universal Music Group’s newly launched 0207 Def Jam record label. Stormzy has spent much of his professional career with Warner Music’s label Atlantic, which distributed his Merky label. Stormzy is pictured above in
The Thanksgiving break has done little to calm the anger over the Grammy Awards’ baffling shutout of The Weeknd and several other artists from the 2021 nominations, and on Saturday Halsey — who was herself shut out from nominations — took to Instagram to air her feelings on the issue, as have Drake, Elton John, Kid
Netflix has enjoyed a run of good luck with a string of music documentaries in the last year: films about Taylor Swift, Blackpink and J Balvin that, even if they were commissioned by the stars or their management, managed to hit upon fascinating aspects of those artists’ careers at a moment that made for solid
“Respect Selena Gomez” was trending on Twitter Saturday as fans admonished Peacock’s new “Saved by the Bell” reboot over references to the actor and singer’s kidney transplant. Despite Gomez’s public statement that she had received a transplant from her close friend, actor Francia Raísa, one scene from episode six of the series features two Bayside
“I like it better when we’re intertwined,” Dua Lipa sings in her song “Cool,” maybe speaking for all of us who are doing Thanksgiving weekend and pretty much every other weekend of 2020 unentangled from most human beings. Her performance of that and a host of other songs from her two albums Friday in “Studio
A biopic about Seattle-based classic rock band Heart is being produced for Amazon, vocalist Ann Wilson revealed to SiriusXM’s “Volume West” host Lyndsey Parker. According to Wilson, Carrie Brownstein, guitarist of punk band Sleater-Kinney and star of IFC’s comedy series “Portlandia,” will write and direct the film. Lynda Obst, most known for her work on
It hasn’t yet come to pass, but there may come a year when Record Store Day gets the official dual title of National Bill Evans Day. While there are plenty of rock artists whose archives have been regularly mined for exclusive vinyl releases tied to the semiannual event, like David Bowie and the Grateful Dead,
Since his 2001 debut, everything about vocalist and actor Josh Groban has been an evolution. The high lyric baritone with the big voice and four multi-platinum albums moved from covering songwriters’ operatic pop and lofty theater songs to penning his own more intimate, urbane material. These songs show up alongside those of such writers as
The great, late drag queen Mertzy Jones had an expression: “Miss Too-Many Things is a mess in a dress.” For better and worse, that describes Miley Cyrus, an artist whose restless, genre-jumping eclecticism often sounds more like a kiddish cluttered mind with a dabbler’s sensibilities, rather than an ambitious experimental aesthetic. Luckily, that’s not such
Inspired by the model of record labels, veteran industry photographer Cam Kirk — known for his work with Gucci Mane, Migos, Rae Sremmurd, Lil Yachty and others — launched a “label” for photographers last year called Collective Gallery, which provides signees with a monetary advance and the support to execute projects. The company aims to
Record Store Day’s little-sis adjunct, the Black Friday edition, typically only includes about a third the amount of titles as the main event in April. But since the said big kahuna got put off and split between three “RSD Drops” weekends in August, September and October, this weekend’s Black Friday spinoff doesn’t feel so minimal
The final episode of “Live From My Den,” the weekly series hailing from Variety and Artists Den, features indie folk band The Head and the Heart as they perform songs from their latest album “Living Mirage: The Complete Recordings,” a special edition vinyl of which will be released on Record Store Day Friday (Nov. 27).
After the year that 2020 was, Mariah Carey knows “this Christmas we could all use a little magic.” Well, it’s not quite Dec. 25 yet, but Carey and Apple TV Plus are making good on that delivery already, releasing a trailer for their upcoming holiday special collaboration, “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special.” The trailer, which
Music legends Van Morrison and Eric Clapton have announced a new single, “Stand and Deliver,” in support of Morrison’s Save Live Music campaign. The blues track was written by Morrison and is performed by Clapton. Morrison, best known for songs like “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Domino” and “Wild Night,” as well as seminal albums “Moondance” and