Music

Sony/ATV Music Publishing has promoted Peter Brodsky to General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Business Affairs, the company announced Wednesday (May 27). Brodsky is based in the company’s New York office and reports directly to Sony/ATV Chairman and CEO, Jon Platt. According to the announcement, as General Counsel and EVP, Business Affairs, Brodsky leads the company’s legal and business affairs

“Growing up in public” has been the story of Billie Eilish’s life in the four-plus years since she rose from SoundCloud star to global phenomenon — but she’s using her platform to make a powerful statement about body shaming and assumptions people make about her and other young women with a new spoken-word video called

Fallout from COVID-19 has hit publicity powerhouse Rogers & Cowan/PMK. About 10% of the staff “across all divisions and departments” has been laid off, company chairman Cindi Berger told Variety on Wednesday morning. “It was a fiscally responsible decision to make that prepares us for the future,” she said. The cuts were made throughout Rogers

The music and technology industries have joined forces to launch SongAid, an ongoing effort to fight the global hunger crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting on May 29, each week SongAid will release new music from a growing list of contributing artists. Each time a fan listens to a SongAid song, the streaming proceeds will go to WhyHunger’s

Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven,” the disco-fied 1976 reinvention of the composer’s most famous symphony, seems like an unusual choice for the theme of “Mrs. America,” FX’s Cate Blanchett-starring series on the history of the 1970s women’s movement as seen from the perspective of its fervent opponent, arch-conservative Phyllis Schlafly. The song dates from

Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli has confirmed he was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March, but had a “swift and full recovery” before his hugely successful Easter Sunday webcast. In a Facebook post shared on Tuesday, the opera singer explained he did not reveal his diagnosis earlier because he wanted to protect his family’s privacy and

Veteran music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas is joining Netflix in the newly created role of director, music creative/production for original series. Starting in July,  Patsavas will oversee Netflix’s creative music services and production strategy for original series, “fostering partnerships between the studio, producers and the music industry,” the company tells Variety. A pioneer of the field,

An award-winning architectural tour-de-force high above L.A.’s storied Laurel Canyon owned by mononymous hip-hop superstar Pharrell has come for sale at $11.95 million, a substantial amount over the slightly more than $7.1 million the music industry heavyweight, fashion designer and occasional film producer paid for the imposingly gated and heavily fortified property just over five

The new album by Future, “High Off Life,” got high on the charts, entering the Rolling Stone album chart at No. 1 with 155,300 album units. That tally was calculated from 26,000 full album sales (aided by a merch bundle), 23,500 song sales and 155 million streams. Another new hip-hop entry could be found at

In January at the Sundance Film Festival, Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s “On The Record,” a searing look at sexual harassment allegations against music mogul Russell Simmons, debuted and received two thunderous standing ovations. The warm reception came after the film was engulfed in a media firestorm, one sparked by Oprah Winfrey’s decision to remove

The family of Nick Eisele — twin brother of Big Hassle Media publicist Michael Eisele and one of two people allegedly murdered over the weekend in Connecticut by Peter Manfredonia  — has created a GoFundMe account to help pay for funeral expenses. Eisele, 23, was killed at his home in Derby, Ct. early Sunday. Manfredonia,

Grammy- and Academy Award-winning composer Johnny Mandel is ready to pen his last Malibu tune, having plunked his longtime blufftop estate onto the market with an eye-catching $20 million list price. Owned by the Mandel family since 1971 — when records show it was acquired for an unfathomable $120,000 — the sublime property appears to

John Tartaglia is the first to admit that he’s a big fan of “Fraggle Rock.” Like a really big fan. The puppeteer was getting ready to go leave his Jim Henson Co. office to start working from home due to the coronavirus outbreak when he called the company’s president of television Halle Stanford. “I had

On June 18, the American Association of Independent Music will host a different kind of Libera Awards this year — its annual event honoring independent artists — but that doesn’t prevent a stellar lineup of performers. The event, which will be an online awards show in partnership with Sweet Relief, will feature rapper and former

Grammy Award-winning songwriter and producer Rodney Jerkins, whose credits include songs by Michael Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé, is no stranger to working with nervous artists in the studio. But having actress Tracee Ellis Ross in the vocal booth presented a different kind of challenge. “Any artist would feel intimidated when you’re Diana

Universal Music Group today announced the launch of Def Jam Africa, a new label division within the continent. According to the announcement, the new label is dedicated to representing “the best hip-hop, Afrobeats and trap talent in Africa, and will follow the blueprint of the iconic Def Jam Recordings label,” one of the most important

Warner Music Group Corp. announced today that it has launched the initial public offering of 70,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock, pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The initial public offering price is expected to be between $23.00 and $26.00 per share, which

Jazz drummer Jimmy Cobb, who brought subtlety and swing to Miles Davis’ epochal “Kind of Blue” and many other classic albums, died at his home in New York on Sunday, according to NPR and other outlets. He was 91. His wife, Eleana Tee Cobb, said the cause was lung cancer. While best known as a

Dakota Johnson, with her sun-dazed smile and wary doe-eyed glow (the look of an innocent who knows how to thread her way through a world of predators), can be a winsomely appealing performer, but what is she doing in “The High Note” playing Maggie, the personal assistant to an imperious pop-star diva? It’s the kind

Queen guitarist Brian May revealed he’s recovering after suffering a heart attack that he called a “near-death experience.” In a video posted to Instagram on Sunday night, May shared details about a series of health scares that began last month after he injured his gluteus maximus in a gardening incident. However, May said he was

A Bolivian orchestra group has been stranded in a German castle for 73 days after the countries closed their borders during the coronavirus pandemic. The musicians, some of whom are as young as 17 years old, arrived in Germany for a spring concert tour just as the COVID-19 crisis was beginning, the BBC reports. However,

Capping an online controversy that has played out over the past few days, Lana Del Rey dropped a new spoken-word piece titled “Patent Leather Do-Over,” featuring music by Jack Antonoff, late Saturday. The singer sparked attention with a forcefully worded Thursday post in which she wrote she was being accused by critics of “glamorizing abuse” and

BTS has shaken the music industry in the past few years, building from South Korea success to international phenomenon that can sell out stadiums in a matter of minutes. Which makes the release of “D-2,” a new mixtape by BTS’ Suga — under the name Agust D, his solo moniker — all the more welcome

The move toward holding drive-in concerts this summer — as explored in a Variety feature earlier this week — is picking up steam, with two Christian music artists of note, TobyMac and Newsboys United, announcing that they have each booked tours that will take place exclusively in 16 existing drive-in theaters in the South in

The FBI conducted a raid on Friday of the offices of Del Records, a label based in Bell Gardens that is famous for producing narco music. A SWAT team was brought in to execute the search warrant, which is being kept under seal. Video taken by a bystander showed agents appearing to force open the

For the long Memorial Day weekend, there will be plenty of chances to row, row, row your boat down the livestream. If you want to truly memorialize, Yo-Yo Ma will be playing Bach, in honor of the fallen, and Lee Brice and others will be saluting the military. If a holiday barbecue is more your

In an alternate universe, singer/guitarist Matthew Healy would be onstage at Madison Square Garden with his chart-topping, Grammy-nominated band The 1975 delivering for 20,000 fans the foursome’s canon of songs that run the gamut from shimmering electro pop to snarly, punky rock. Instead, Healy’s excited, rapid-fire, articulate musings on music and culture  — specifically The

Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande align forces to become the pop power duo of the moment in their futuristic music video for “Rain on Me,” released to digital services midday Friday. After dropping the single late Thursday night, Gaga and Grande teased on Twitter that the accompanying video would be coming soon. “If you were

A nationwide survey of audience members of U.K. arts venues and theaters has found that just 19% of respondents would return to live events, even after venues reopen. Conducted by arts consultancy Indigo, the ‘After the Interval’ survey was sent to 192 cultural orgs and theater venues, including the Royal Albert Hall, Southbank Centre, Barbican,

Welcome to Variety Music’s second-ever Fri 5, our collection of the best, most noteworthy or simply most remarkable new songs from the past week. It is not complete or definitive or a fight-to-the-death “best of,” but rather a bunch of songs that we find interesting — because a world without five interesting new songs every week