Music

Music Cities Together, a joint initiative between Washington D.C.-based Music Policy Forum (Michael Bracy) and Austin-based Sound Music Cities (Don Pitts) committed to helping local officials in cities across America improve their music ecosystems, is  stepping up efforts to save music venues and clubs nationwide. Portland, Seattle (King County), New Orleans, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Austin,

Although their impending residential acquisition has been widely rumored for months, it’s only now that property records reveal music superstars Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton have finally closed on their very first house together: a $13.2 million estate in the prime foothills of Encino, out in L.A.’s increasingly desirable San Fernando Valley. The stealthy deal went down

While its streaming numbers were strong, Warner Music’s earnings took a hit during the second fiscal quarter of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy. The company has placed its IPO, announced earlier this year, on hold for the time being, although plans remain active. Streaming revenues were up 11% to $586

Twenty-year-old New Zealander Stella Rose Bennett — professionally known as BENEE — has signed with Sony/ATV Music Publishing to a worldwide deal. The singer’s smash hit “Supalonely,” which has been described as a “quarantine anthem,” is at No. 10 on the Spotify Global charts with over 131 million streams. On U.S. radio, the song featuring

Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose is only an occasional tweeter, so the odds that Secretary of the Treasurer Steven Mnuchin would have been someone the rocker would have chosen to take on as “officially an a–hole” would have seemed extremely slim before Wednesday night. Even more improbable, until it happened Wednesday: Mnuchin accepting Rose’s

“Death Stranding” swept the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) Awards, including winning the top prize of audio of the year. For the first time, the G.A.N.G. Awards were streamed live on Twitch.tv and featured a pre- and post-show on Wednesday night. A genre-defying action experience by Kojima Productions, “Death Stranding” also won sound design of

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read ahead if you have not watched Season 3, episode 15 of “The Masked Singer,” which aired May 6 on Fox. Singer Jackie Evancho knows people still think of her as the young child who was an “America’s Got Talent” finalist a decade ago. But now she’s all grown up, which

Though she bought the deluxe suburban spread not even two years ago, OG “American Idol” winner turned two-time Grammy winning pop-country superstar, “The Voice” coach and, as of last year, daytime chat show host Kelly Clarkson has decided to part ways with a stylishly appointed mansion tucked into the exclusive foothills above L.A.’s ever-more expensive

Jamaican singer Millie Small — singer of the 1964 hit “My Boy Lollipop,” which is widely considered the first reggae-inspired global hit — has died at the age of 72 after suffering a stroke, according to a statement from Island Records. “My Boy Lollipop” — which featured Small’s childlike vocals and a rhythmic bounce that

The delay for Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica” will not be as long as fans might have feared. It’ll be out May 29, the singer announced via her social media accounts Wednesday morning. “The journey continues. You can officially join me on #Chromatica on May 29,” her Twitter account declared, accompanied by a photo of her crouching

Florian Schneider — cofounder of German electronic-music pioneers Kraftwerk, one of the most influential music groups of the past 50 years — has died, a rep for the group confirms to Variety. He was 73. “Florian Schneider has passed away from a short cancer disease just a few days after his 73rd birthday,” a statement

300 Entertainment today announced the appointment of Leesa Brunson-Boland as Head of A&R Operations. In the role, she will serve as “a gatekeeper of the music, maintaining trusting relationships with artists and managers, and acting as a liaison with all other departments at the label,” according to the announcement. She will report to the company’s CEO and Co-Founder Kevin Liles.​​​​​​​

Lucinda Williams has joined Steve Earle, Brandy Clark, Cam, Skip Marley and DJ Twin Shadow for today’s version of “Sessions,” a virtual festival that will take place on four consecutive Wednesdays, starting today (May 6). The festival, a tag-team effort from Truideation with MusiCares and Twitch, goes live at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m PT on Twitch. Subsequent shows will

Hit songwriter Linda Perry has faced a lot of challenges in her long career in music, but last week she surmounted one of the biggest hurdles: getting through an hour of her own new daily web talk show without dropping any F-bombs. It was a mandate brought up as a condition of having one of

An appellate court ruled on Tuesday that the Michael Jackson estate does not have to pay $6.9 million in royalties and fees to Quincy Jones. The three-judge panel of the 2nd Appellate District overturned the bulk of a 2017 jury verdict, finding that the trial judge had allowed the jury to misinterpret Jones’ contract. Jones’

Among the Los Angeles-area cultural institutions taking to GoFundMe to raise money during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns is the city’s most famous music nightspot, the Troubadour, whose operators tell the Los Angeles Times that the venue “can’t foresee being able to ride this out” without significant help from donors. “It looks tacky,” general manager Christine

D Smoke first wowed the music world when he won the inaugural season of “Rhythm + Flow,” Netflix’s hip-hop  competition show with Cardi B, Chance the Rapper and T.I. as judges. Impressing both the panel and viewers at home with meaningful, uplifting verses, the Inglewood, Calif. native, whose real name is Daniel Farris, dropped his

“I always wanted to play a character that was the opposite of the public’s perception of me — and of course make fun of myself,” The Weeknd told Variety about his guest appearance on Seth MacFarlane’s long-running animated series “American Dad,” which aired Monday, and, it’s safe to say he succeeded on all counts. In

J.K. Rowling’s immensely popular book that started it all — “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” — will be read by a lineup of celebrities chapter-by-chapter, in a series of free videos and audio recordings to be doled out over the next several months. Rowling’s Wizarding World announced seven readers for the special event on

A 30-year veteran of music rights and sample clearances, Deborah Mannis-Gardner has long been on the frontlines of negotiating complex licensing deals, whether it’s clearing samples for songs by big-name artists (Eminem, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and beyond), film music for Oscar-winning directors (Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers) or Tony-winning Broadway scores (Lin Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton.”)

London’s West End will remain closed for at least the next two months. The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) on Tuesday confirmed that theater closures have been extended from May 31 to June 28. The organization, which represents venues across London’s theater district, underlined that “this does not mean theaters will reopen on June 29.”

It started as a gesture for fans stuck in quarantine, but in just six weeks, Gary Barlow’s “Crooner Sessions” have snowballed into a hotly-anticipated Instagram event attracting everyone from fellow boy banders like JC Chasez and Niall Horan, to Jessie J, Queen rocker Brian May and British icon Sir Cliff Richard. The Take That singer

Bob Garcia, former director of artist relations at A&M Records and West Coast president of the Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, died of natural causes at his home in Tujunga, Calif. on April 26. It was a week before his 82nd birthday. After serving in the U.S. Army in the mid-1960s, Garcia moved to

Oops, Mr. Again did it again. That is, rapper Youngboy Never Broke Again continues his streak of debuting at or near the top of the album chart, as “38 Baby 2,” his third album in eight months, bows at No. 1 with 63,000 album units. His previous collection, “Still Flexin, Still Steppin,” debuted at No.

United Talent Agency will furlough staffers in light of ongoing complications from the coronavirus pandemic, numerous sources told Variety. Agency leadership addressed staff in an all-hands meeting on Monday. The exact number is unknown, but the significant furloughs are believed to largely affect assistant-level employees, said one source. A return date was not made immediately

Though they first listed their Hollywood Hills home only last week, high-powered music executive Aaron Bay-Schuck and his fiancée Hannah Montgomery have already significantly upgraded their L.A. real estate circumstances with the $11 million purchase of a glamorous home tucked high into the mountains above Beverly Hills, in a neighborhood known as Beverly Hills Post

Music session players and singers will received $62 million in royalties through SAG-AFTRA and the American Federation of Musicians, the unions jointly announced Monday. According to the two organizations, it was the largest distribution in the history of the unions’ Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund. Executives noted that the funds are being distributed at a

Considering his moody and at-times dark public persona, it may come as a surprise to find out that The Weeknd is a devoted fan of TBS’ long-running animated series “American Dad.” So much, in fact, that he not only makes a guest appearance in the new episode that premieres Monday night, he even co-wrote the

Thanks to an April 20 “Verzuz” battle with Teddy Riley live on Instagram, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds is seeing renewed interest in his career as one of the most successful songwriters of the last four decades. And gaining the attention of some half-a-million music lovers has inspired Edmonds not only to make new music but also

Leave it to Biebers for some quarantine programming: Justin Bieber and wife Hailey Bieber have snagged their own reality show on Facebook Watch, promising an “intimate look” into their lives. In “The Biebers on Watch,” exclusively on Facebook Watch, the celeb couple will bring fans into their home — and marriage — through a series