It’s been 25 years since the Grateful Dead played their last show at Chicago’s Soldier Field on July 9, 1995. A month later, on Aug. 9, founding member and idolized frontman Jerry Garcia was dead of a heart attack. But the music never stopped, and in the decades since, Garcia’s legend has grown — and
Music
Forrest Frank, 25, and Colin Padalecki, 23, who make up rising duo Surfaces, are the unlikely hitmakers behind one of the hottest songs of the summer, “Sunday Best.” While it seemingly came out of nowhere, the song was, in fact, made in a dorm room — more specifically a closet — belonging to Padalecki at
UPDATED: Confusion has reigned among Taylor Swift fans in the U.K. — and as a result, the worldwide music press — over the early release of her “Folklore” CD there, several days ahead of when it was scheduled to come out globally. News accounts suggested the CD came out early there in an attempt to
Music producer Detail was arrested Wednesday by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department after 15 sexual assault charges and five separate felony assault charges were filed against him five days earlier. The producer is being held on bail of $6.3 million. Detail, whose real name is Noel Fisher, has worked with such artists as Jay-Z, Nicki
“High Fidelity” starring Zoe Kravitz has been canceled by Hulu after one season, Variety has confirmed. The series was a gender-bending, modern reimagining of the 2000 film starring John Cusack, with Kravitz playing his role. She starred as Rob, a pop culture-obsessed owner of a record store. Jake Lacy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and David H. Holmes
A second-quarter earnings call with Live Nation execs Wednesday was full of hope, promise and even swagger… for 2021-22. Not surprisingly, though, the current numbers were grim, with revenue predictably down by a staggering 98% from year-to-year in the company’s quarterly earnings report. Revenue was $74 million for the quarter, down from $3.2 billion in
A lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles alleges that Takeoff, a rapper with the hip-hop group Migos, raped a woman at a party in June. The unnamed woman filed the suit as a Jane Doe, with her attorney saying she “fears retaliation from speaking out.” The filing to the Superior Court of California includes a
Phoebe Bridgers was already a rising star when her sophomore full-length “Punisher” was released in June, but the rapturous response the album has received from fans and critics has vaulted her career into the fast lane. Needless to say, Bridgers’ view of her incipient stardom is almost entirely from her Los Angeles apartment. “I find
Billy Goldenberg, the Emmy-winning composer and songwriter, died Monday night at his home in New York City. He was 84. Goldenberg wrote the themes for such 1970s TV series as “Kojak,” “Harry O” and “Rhoda,” composed the pilot scores for “Night Gallery” and “Columbo,” and won Emmys for the TV-movie “Queen of the Stardust Ballroom”
Lady Gaga is teaming up with Apple Music for a weekly show, “Gaga Radio,” in which she will chat with some of the leading lights of dance music and debut exclusive DJ mixes, starting this Friday, the service announced today. The show is described as being an outgrowth of her recent album-length return to dance
For the 2020 Power of Young Hollywood Issue, Variety profiled three young stars making an impact in the entertainment industry. For more, click here. How do you know you’ve made it in the music business? When Madonna gives you her cellphone number — that’s one sign. For Maluma, that moment arrived in 2018 at the MTV
For the 2020 Power of Young Hollywood Issue, Variety profiled three young stars making an impact in the entertainment industry. For more, click here. Megan Thee Stallion is ready to move on. Since she burst onto the hip-hop scene in 2017 with “Stalli Freestyle,” the now 25-year-old rapper has been on a seemingly inexorable rise, with last
Instagram has unspooled Reels — and the newly launched short-form video feature looks quite a lot like TikTok. With Reels, Instagram app users can record, edit, share and discover videos of up to 15 seconds, backed with audio and music including millions of songs licensed from music companies. Instagram Reels is launching today (Aug. 5)
Veteran manager and recording executive Merck Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd. is adding 197 songs written by Blondie co-founders Debbie Harry and Chris Stein to its $1 billion-plus portfolio. Hipgnosis is acquiring 100% of Harry and Stein’s writers’ shares along with neighboring rights. Hipgnosis Song Fund already controls some 13,000 songs, ranging from Rihanna’s “Umbrellas” to
Warner Music Group’s third-quarter earnings were revealed today (Aug. 4). The company reported mixed results due to the coronavirus pandemic, with digital revenue up 11% during the fiscal period ending June 30, representing 71% of total revenue, compared to 61% during the same time period in 2019. Growth was attributed to the increase of streaming
Dua Lipa, whose sophomore album, “Future Nostalgia,” has been widely acclaimed as one of the best pop collections of the year, took to social media Tuesday night to announce that she’s putting out an entire album’s worth of remixes, with a starry list of collaborators joining the full-length reboot. “Club Future Nostalgia: The Remix Album”
Mojo Music & Media announced Tuesday that is has picked up a 50% interest in the publishing catalog of Rick Nielsen, the co-founding guitarist and principal songwriter of Cheap Trick. “I’d almost given up on the chance of finding a publisher who actually knew all my songs and had a vision for how to keep
When Beyoncé Knowles-Carter announced her latest visual album “Black is King” in June, she explained that the Disney Plus film was “meant to celebrate the breadth and beauty of Black ancestry.” “The events of 2020 have made the film’s vision and message even more relevant, as people across the world embark on a historic journey.
Shawn Mendes is teaming up with Fender Guitars for the creation of his own branded model — the Shawn Mendes Foundation Musicmaster. The stylish electric six-string offers a fresh take on a classic Fender design from 1965, a variant of the guitar’s duosonic model. The front and back of the guitar is stylishly designed with
Giovanni Cianci, music producer of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” since 2017, has been let go from the show after a woman accused him of sexual misconduct in a 2010 incident, Variety has learned. “Gio is no longer employed by the show,” says a source with knowledge of the situation. Variety has reached out
Sony has bought the upcoming Whitney Houston biopic, titled “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” The studio plans to release the movie in theaters around Thanksgiving in 2022. Stella Meghie (“The Photograph”) directed the film from a script by Anthony McCarten (“The Two Popes,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Darkest Hour”). Music producer Clive Davis is producing “I
Like many of his dance music peers used to spending 200-plus days of the year playing to packed, sweaty crowds, DJ-producer Dillon Francis turned to virtual DJ sets to stay productive. and employed, during quarantine. But even for an artist used to playing multiple festivals a week, the impact on his output outside of DJ
The last dance is looming for Google Play Music, the subscription service that will be fully subsumed into YouTube Music by December 2020, the internet company announced. In streamlining its music offerings, Google is coming down the home stretch of a months-long migration of users from Google Play Music — which will start shutting down
Capitol Records has promoted Arjun Pulijal to senior vice president of marketing for Capitol Records. Previously vp of marketing for the label since 2017, in his new position, Pulijal will lead the department and oversee all campaigns for the Capitol roster, which includes Katy Perry, Sam Smith, Migos and Lewis Capaldi. He’ll remain based out
BTS, Doja Cat and J Balvin will perform at MTV’s 2020 Video Music Awards, airing live on Aug. 30 at 8 p.m. The show will feature BTS’ first VMA performance and the TV debut of the group’s new English single, “Dynamite,” set for release on Aug. 21. Last year, the South Korean boy band (RM,
SiriusXM and Pandora are teaming up to launch a joint weekly chart and playlist, the Top Thumb Hundred, which will collect the top 100 “most-thumbed-up” new songs on Pandora. The same user data will be used to create a weekly countdown radio show on SiriusXM’s Pandora Now channel. The two services’ Top Thumb Hundred chart
Harry Styles is proving to be a dominant force at Top 40 radio this summer, landing two songs inside the top 5 for the first time ever. Passion for his current No. 1, “Watermelon Sugar,” is so strong that it’s had the residual effect of pulling his previous single, “Adore You,” back up to No.
Country star, songwriter and producer Jon Pardi has extended his worldwide deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville. Most recently heard alongside Thomas Rhett on the country hit “Beer Can’t Fix,” Pardi’s latest album “Heartache Medication,” has sold over 1 million units and 10 million digital singles and is also nominated for the ACM album of
Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion used their respective social media accounts Monday to announce a joint single, “WAP.” The hip-hop titans revealed a Friday release date for the song. The two powerhouses receive equal billing and photographic treatment in the single’s cover art, which pictures them as near-identical twins, hair intertwined, with identical “WAP”-branded
In Hulu’s “Palm Springs,” Andy Samberg can’t escape a time loop, reliving the same wedding day over and over. Fortunately, he also relives a catchy soundtrack that includes cult favorites like Gene Clark’s “No Other,” Leonard Cohen’s “The Partisan” and Gram Parsons’ “In My Hour of Darkness” making their way into the loop. For their