Music

Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill” audiobook, in which details how he broke the Harvey Weinstein story, earned a Grammy nomination for best spoken word album on Tuesday. Farrow won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for public service for his reporting in The New Yorker. Fellow nominees in the spoken word album category are “Acid for the

The nominations for the 63rd annual Grammy Awards were revealed in a lifestream Tuesday. Beyoncé came out on top with nine nominations, followed by Taylor Swift, Roddy Ricch and Dua Lipa with six apiece. Brittany Howard, of Alabama Shakes fame, picked up a surprising five nods for her solo debut. The complete list of nominees

The Recording Academy, the RIAA, the National Music Publishers Association and virtually every major music organization has written to Congress to ask for releief for the music community due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter, which appears in full below, urged that they immediately pass legislation to provide additional relief desperately needed by the many

The 2021 Grammy Award nominees will be announced on Tuesday at noon ET/9 a.m. PT, courtesy of Recording Academy interim president Harvey Mason Jr., special guests Dua Lipa and Imogen Heap and other presenters. The one-hour livestreamed event will air on Grammy.com, as well as on the Recording Academy’s social media platforms. CBS All Access

ICM Partners has signed K-Pop titans Super Junior for representation in all territories except Asia, the company has announced. The group released its debut album in 2005 and broke through internationally with their 2009 song “Sorry Sorry.” Over the years the group has won 13 Mnet Asian Music Awards, 19 Golden Disc Awards and US

The 2020 American Music Awards were hit by a big rating and total viewership decline from last year, falling to record lows in both measurements. Last night’s awards show, which was hosted by “Empire” star Taraji P. Henson and saw Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Dan + Shay emerge as the big winners, averaged a

Puerto Rican singer-rapper Bad Bunny cancelled his scheduled performance on the American Music Awards Sunday night after testing positive for coronavirus. His rep confirmed the diagnosis on Monday, according to the Associated Press, although no explanation was given for his cancellation at the time, leading to many frustrated responses online from fans. The artist, who

As expected, Guitar Center, the largest musical-instrument retailer in the U.S. and a mecca for musicians, filed for bankruptcy protection late Saturday night, according to the New York Times. The company, which missed a $45 million bond-interest payment last month, has around $1.3 billion in debt and has been deeply impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Warner Music Group, which went public earlier this year, reported revenues that were essentially flat for its fiscal 2020, owing to the impact of COVID-19 and several of its superstar artists being off-cycle. “We’re proud of everything we’ve accomplished in the past year, despite the challenging conditions that the world has faced,” said Steve Cooper, CEO,

Simon Robson has been named president, international, recorded music for Warner Music Group. Overseeing the company’s operations outside the U.S. and U.K., he will be based in London and report to Max Lousada, Global CEO of Recorded Music, Warner Music Group. Robson has been with Warner for over two decades and has served as President

The American Music Awards gave three trophies apiece to Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Dan + Shay in a show that proceeded along the lines of a typical annual AMAs telecast while acknowledging that the live audience for this pandemic edition consisted of a bare handful of masked, cheering fans in the Microsoft Theater’s balcony.

Taylor Swift won three American Music Awards Sunday night, including the top “favorite artist” honor — explaining her absence as due to being busy in the studio re-recording her entire Big Machine catalog. The climactic favorite artist award came as something as a surprise, since Swift’s name had not come up as a winner any

The Weeknd literally lit up Los Angeles with his American Music Awards performance, setting a new standard for the how-to-get-creative-with-social-distancing-during-an-awards show. Playing a pyro-loaded medley of “Your Eyes” and “Save Your Tears,” the performance started off with a solo from superstar saxist Kenny G — who performs on the song’s remix — before cutting to The

The 2020 American Music Awards aired on Sunday night from Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater with host Taraji P. Henson. Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Dan + Shay were the top winners with three apiece. As with all awards shows this season, the AMAs has had to adhere to COVID-19 guidelines by having a limited audience

Variety’s Hitmakers program will feature award recipients featured in our annual Hitmakers issue on December 2nd. The program will simul-cast on Variety’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube pages.   Harry Styles will be receiving Hitmaker of the Year.   Other award recipients include J Balvin for Collaborator of the Year, Benee, Jenna Andrews and Josh Fountain for Isolation Salvation Song of the Year, Charli XCX and

When Cazzie David dropped in on Chrissy Teigen to promote her new book, “No One Asked for This: Essays,” she found her friend worse for wear — until she realized the model and social media giant was not herself, but instead husband John Legend in a wig and silk robe. Legend played the role of

When Variety Music wasn’t busy breaking huge Taylor Swift stories this week, we’ve been deep in preparing for our version of the Grammys: our annual Hitmakers issue and event, which honors the top songs of the year and, notably, the people behind them. This year we’re honoring Harry Styles, Lewis Capaldi, The Weeknd, Maren Morris,

While work continues on the War on Drugs’ follow-up to 2017’s “A Deeper Understanding,” which won the best rock album Grammy, the band is releasing its first live album, appropriately titled “Live Drugs.” The 10-track project is being issued today by bandleader Adam Granduciel’s Super High Quality Records imprint and will be accompanied by a

For better and worse, the career of Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion — who is rapidly becoming the breakout star of this problematic year — can be divided into two roughly concurrent eras: pre-“WAP” and post-“WAP,” pre-Lanez and post-Lanez. The former addresses her NSFW summer smash single with Cardi B; the latter the July incident in

Jacob Fain has joined Elektra Music Group as senior vice president, A&R and head of research and analytics, it was announced on Thursday (Nov. 19). Fain arrives from Sony/ATV Music Publishing where he spent 13 years, most recently in the position of SVP, A&R and Research/Analytics. In this newly created role, Fain will report to

Nicki Minaj has made a deal with HBO Max. The streamer has ordered a six-episode docuseries on Minaj, which will explore the rapper’s creative mind and tell the story of her personal and professional journey. Minaj herself will guide the audience through the most challenging and fulfilling times in her life in the as-yet-untitled series,

Kiss have announced its’ “biggest concert ever,” a giant livestreamed New Year’s Eve show taking place in Dubai that will involve a live audience, more than 50 cameras, “numerous world record attempts for largest ever pyro display.” and a 400-person crew, half of whom are being flown in specifically for the event. A rep for

Pink Sweat$ shared an intimate live performance of his song “At My Worst” from his recent “Prelude” EP in the sixth and latest episode of “Live From My Den,” the Artists Den series presented with Variety. The segment, also featuring the singer’s brother on the piano, was recorded in his L.A. home. In the 23-minute

The Verzuz battle between rappers Jeezy and Gucci Mane had an unexpected guest on Thursday night: Stacey Abrams, who ran for governor of Georgia in 2018. Abrams virtually joined the rap battle between the two Atlanta artists to encourage viewers to vote in the Georgia runoff election between Republican Senators David Perdue Kelly Loeffler and

The Latin Grammy Awards took place on Thursday, Nov. 19 awarding the year’s top artists in Latin music. Featuring mostly video acceptances and a limited red carpet, performers did take the stage and wowed. Among the highlights: J Balvin (pictured) performing “Rojo” under a sculpture of two hands coming together (the piece weighed 2.6 tons

He needs to know … if he’ll get his asking price! Drinking in Latin superstar Marc Anthony’s opulent waterfront mansion in Coral Gables, Fla., is enough to make anyone intoxicated with awe and maybe even envy. The Italianate estate, known as Villa Costanera, is currently listed for $27 million, as was first reported by the

The details around the July incident in which rapper Tory Lanez allegedly shot Megan Thee Stallion in the feet have dribbled out slowly, first in TMZ, then over social media and videos, then surveillance video of Lanez’s arrest that night, and last month in the lyrics to Lanez’s extremely long and self-absorbed album “Daystar.” It’s

K-pop superstars BTS will launch a new album “BE” later on Friday. The announcement was made at an online press conference that was live-streamed via YouTube and the Big Hit Labels channel. The live stream kicked off with a video of the band members filing past and checking themselves in a mirror. That led in

DJ Cassidy’s popular “Pass the Mic” webcast series is going to TV on Thanksgiving weekend… and going totally ’80s. BET’s Nov. 29 broadcast of “The Soul Train Awards” will be immediately followed by a second prime-time special that will bring Cassidy’s all-star medleys, usually seen via Twitch and YouTube, to a network for the first

What the fund? The rights to the first six albums by Taylor Swift, arguably the most commercially popular artist in the world, recently were sold to a private equity firm for a whopping $300 million. Was it a fair price? Experts have mixed opinions. While the value and probable longevity of Taylor Swift’s music is