Music

Some two weeks after releasing “Map of the Soul: 7 — The Journey,” BTS’s fourth Japanese studio album, the band is set to return with new music, this time in English. Columbia Records gave the BTS ARMY a pleasant surprise on July 28 by posting a countdown and link to the date of the record’s

Taylor Swift’s “Folklore” may well go down in the lore of 2020 as the album with the biggest debut of the year. Although there are still five months to go, “Folklore” scorched any competition that has appeared so far this year, with album units of 852,700 pushing it to No. 1 on the Rolling Stone

One of the hidden strengths of Disney Plus — a streaming service whose subtler assets are indeed easily overshadowed by the library of blockbuster movies available — is its collection of entertainments that pay tribute to the history of its parent company. For die-hard fans, “The Imagineering Story” and “Prop Culture” pull back the aperture

Warner Music Group (WMG) has named Dr. Maurice Stinnett head of global equity, diversity and inclusion. He arrives from BSE Global, whose portfolio includes NBA team the Brooklyn Nets, the WNBA’s New York Liberty, and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, where he most recently served as vice president of diversity, inclusion and culture. Based in New York,

U.K. creative industries workers’ union Bectu has reported that job losses in the theater industry have jumped from 3,000 to 5,000 in a month. Some 2,700 of the job losses are set to take place in London and the West End while the other losses are distributed around the U.K. They include redundancies of those

First Artists Management, the Los Angeles-based talent agency specializing in composers and music supervisors, is expanding its operations by opening an office in London and hiring two new partner-agents. Hamish Duff joins First Artists from independent management and publishing company Involved Productions. He will head the London office and oversee all U.K. and European operations,

Veteran manager and recording executive Merck Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd. is adding the Barry Manilow catalog to its $1 billion-plus portfolio. Manilow, a Grammy, Tony and Emmy winner, is among the most successful recording artists of the 1970s and 1980s with 50 Top 40 singles to his name. Manilow’s career has continued to flourish

When it came to choosing an artist to sing a theme song for HBO’s documentary series “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” (which has its finale tonight), it’s far from inconceivable that the producers might have looked just as a matter of course to Aimee Mann. Speaking of the dark, she’s a woman who’s spent

More than 700 members of the U.K. music community, including artists, managers, executives at record companies, agencies, the live music industry, in addition to creatives like songwriters and producers, have come together to sign a letter pledging to combat division and hate. Citing instances of anti-Semitism, like British rapper Wiley’s recent Twitter rant, islamophobia, xenophobia,

After an eight-year hiatus, Brandy has returned to music with her seventh album “B7,” which released July 31 via her record label Brand Nu and eOne Urban. The 15-track album is co-written and co-produced by Brandy and includes collaborations with Chance the Rapper, Daniel Caesar and her daughter, Sy’rai. After a five-year legal battle with

Universal Music Vietnam (UMV), in partnership with Vietnamese independent label Times Records (Hãng Đĩa Thời Đại), has signed Vietnamese pop sensation Phùng Khánh Linh. The announcement comes on the heels of Universal Music Group opening UMV’s offices in Ho Chi Minh City last month. The territory is headed by general manager Lan Khanh Phung. Phùng

When Billie Eilish announced she had new music coming right around the time that Taylor Swift was unexpectedly delivering “Folklore,” there was a split-second’s worth of “quarantine be damned: this is going to be the best July ever” pop sentiment before everyone realized that Eilish would be dropping a mere single, not a full made-in-lockdown

Emmy-nominated actor Nicholas Braun, who plays the beloved character Cousin Greg on HBO’s “Succession,” is following in Kendall Roy’s footsteps by trying his hand at music. Braun released a song called “Antibodies” earlier this week. Inspired to write the tune during the coronavirus lockdown, he crowd-sourced lyrics via Instagram, asking musicians to help with verses

Taylor Swift’s latest album, “Folklore,” has sold over 2 million copies worldwide in one week, already solidifying its place as one of 2020’s top-selling albums. Swift’s eighth studio album, which she announced roughly 15 hours before its surprise release, also generated more than 500 million streams across various platforms throughout its debut week. Republic Records,

Toni Braxton is set to release her tenth studio album, “Spell My Name,” on August 28 through Island, a Universal Music Group label. The album’s new single, “Dance,” is a feel-good disco stomper and follows on the heels of “Do It,” co-written with longtime collaborator Babyface, which was the most added song at adult R&B

Facebook is unleashing hundreds of thousands of music videos in the U.S. starting this weekend — a direct challenge to YouTube, which has had a virtual lock on the internet music-video space for years. According to Facebook, its debut of official music videos in the States is about more than just watching the videos themselves:

In one extended sequence of the 2017 documentary “Angry, White, and American,” Black British journalist Gary Younge faces off with alt-right leader Richard Spencer, who, at one point, says, “Look at the life of any African American living in the United States. It’s far better than any African living in Africa.” Translation: Slavery was good.

“American Idol” is resuming auditions, but amid the coronavirus pandemic, they will be held remotely, ABC announced Friday. This allows the usual “Idol Across America” tour to expand out and include all 50 states plus Washington, D.C. — for the first time since the show’s inception. Auditions for the upcoming fourth season on the Alphabet

In the opening scene of “,” a highly enjoyable documentary about the folk-pop troubadour of Canada, Lightfoot, now 81, sits at home with his wife, Kim, and watches clips of himself on Canadian television singing the 1965 song “For Lovin’ Me,” an ode to the arrogant adulterer he once was. Back when he wrote the

Just a few hours before her “Black Is King” visual album debuts on Disney Plus, Beyoncé has given fans a brand new music video. Late Thursday night, the 24-time Grammy winner dropped a new music video for “Already” from “The Lion King: The Gift” that will be featured on “Black Is King.” The song features

The passing of singer-songwriter Emitt Rhodes, who died July 19 at age 70, produced the kind of small but mighty outpouring of grief that is befitting for one of the great cult figures of rock history. He’s remembered here by television showrunner-producer-writer John Wirth. He was the showrunner and executive producer for the American Western

An Ol’ Dirty Bastard cover and a kazoo parade featuring Big Freedia were the two most-awarded pieces of music at the 2020 AMP Awards, which were held virtually on Thursday (July 30.) The seventh annual gathering from the Association of Music Producers (AMP) recognized excellence in use of licensed and original music in advertising, led

MTV has revealed the nominees for the 2020 Video Music Awards, with Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd topping the list. All four have been nominated for video of the year, the program’s most coveted category: Gaga and Grande for their “Rain on Me” music video, Eilish for “Everything I Wanted” and

You would hardly call Lucius all-business — not when the group, led by the twinned lead vocals of Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe, eschews pop norms to lead listeners to such playful or exquisitely haunted places. But they’ve kept the focus on benefitting some of Los Angeles’ most beloved independent retail stores and restaurants with

The three major music companies — Sony, Universal and Warner Music — have asked employees to work from home as much as possible for the rest of 2020 due to concerns over COVID-19. While the offices will be open for employees who must be there for business reasons, according to internal memos obtained by Rolling Stone

SiriusXM added around 264,000 new self-pay subscribers in the second quarter of 2020, the company announced in its earnings results Thursday, bringing it to nearly 34.3 million total subscribers in the first full quarter to be affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Its revenue was revenue of $1.9 billion, down 5% compared to the prior year period. The

A$AP Ferg has dropped a new single called “Move Ya Hips,” a collaboration with Nicki Minaj and MadeinTYO that is about, well, moving your hips. (Can’t say we’re in love with the rather sexist video but none of the artists are featured in it.) The song is the third collaboration between Ferg and Minaj, following

The Weeknd will hop on the virtual stage in TikTok’s app next week for a special augmented-reality, live-streamed concert featuring songs from his hit album “After Hours.” “The Weeknd Experience,” created by TikTok in partnership with XO, Republic Records, and Scooter Braun-backed virtual concert startup Wave, will feature a performance by the Grammy-winning R&B-pop artist,

Rising British singer-songwriter Jorja Smith — whose 2018 full-length debut, “Lost & Found,” was one of Variety’s top albums of 2018 — today dropped the new track “By Any Means,” the lead single from Roc Nation’s upcoming “Reprise” project. Listen to it below. Smith has often addressed social issues in her music: her 2016 breakout

Cousin Greg is the latest “Succession” family member to drop a catchy song since Kendall Roy’s “L to the OG.” Nicholas Braun, who stars as the lanky, innocent Greg Hirsch on HBO’s “Succession,” released “Antibodies,” a pop-punk song inspired by the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday. The music video was crowd-sourced as Braun put out a