If you’re looking for a crowded hangout, try Jack White’s Wikipedia page. From fully realized bands (like the Alison Mosshart-fronted Dead Weather) to one-off collaborations (like his duet with Alicia Keys for the James Bond track “Another Way to Die,” or partnering with Danger Mouse and Norah Jones on the Spaghetti Western album “Rome”), White has always
Music
Despite the anguished reactions from musicians, fans and even the company’s chairman over the estimated 500,000 Universal Music master recordings lost in a 2008 fire, multiple analysts and experts tell Variety that the loss will have “zero impact” on the valuation of UMG — by far the world’s largest music company — and its parent
The Hollywood Music in Media Awards has inducted songwriters Diane Warren and Allan Rich into the HMMA advisory board and voting academy. The pair will join an already diverse group of entertainment professionals that includes music artists and producers Verdine White, Dave Mason, Nile Rodgers and Adam Gaynor as well as award-winning film composers John
A funny thing happened on the way to the Lonely Island’s first-ever, multi-city tour, which kicked off at Bonnaroo this past weekend. At their third stop Wednesday at the Met Philadelphia, the hip-hop comedy trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone proved they could parody rap-pop with comic plausibility and their own brand of musical
June 20, 2019 10:38AM PT Come September, Live Nation is set to begin streaming live events in augmented reality. The entertainment giant will debut live AR broadcasting at the Music Midtown festival in Atlanta, Georgia, where attendees will also be able to unlock filters and other AR effects. Live Nation announced the new initiative at
Seven years ago, Frank Ocean got us talking about a revolution — or at least hoping for one. On the eve of releasing “Channel Orange,” his groundbreaking 2012 debut studio album, the then-24-year-old alt-R&B singer-songwriter wrote an open letter on his Tumblr blog in which he revealed that his first love had been a man.
Strong and proud as it is, the LGBTQ community’s fight for equality needs allies — from loving and accepting families to galvanized colleagues andcorporations to the movie star you’ve never met calling for boycotts of a homophobic nation-state. Several of those queer supporters in Hollywood and music used the megaphones of social media, public protest
It’s safe to assume that as soon as the music industry established streaming charts, people were trying to game them. In fact, at a panel during A2IM’s Indie Week on Tuesday, one panelist stated that 3-4% of all officially counted music audio and video streams are not legitimate. On that note, a coalition of artist
June 20, 2019 8:15AM PT Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke’s new solo studio album, “Anima,” will be released digitally on June 27 on XL Recordings, he announced today. The album’s digital release will be accompanied by a “one-reeler,” also entitled “Anima,” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (“Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “There Will Be Blood”) and set to
In its early days, Sub Pop seemed like one of the last record companies on earth that would survive, let alone remain vital, for more than 30 years. They brought Nirvana and Soundgarden to the world, but seemed destined to be forever typecast as the ground zero of grunge, a rock genre that shook the
Backing up comments made yesterday by Yannick Bolloré, CEO of Havas and chairman of Vivendi, Universal Music Group’s corporate parent, Vivendi CEO and chairman of the management board Arnaud de Puyfontaine tells Variety the sale of 50% of the world’s largest music company is moving along as planned and that the recent controversy surrounding a
Philippe “Zdar” Cerboneschi, one of the two members of the iconic electro band Cassius, died in Paris on Wednesday, according to his agent. He was 50. The Grammy-winning Cerboneschi “made an accidental fall through the window of a high floor of a Parisian building,” the BBC quoted Cerboneschi’s agent as saying. News of his death
Universal Music on Thursday dropped the video for a previously unreleased — and great — version of a song from the late and legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, “Time Waits for No One.” The recording — which captures the singer in his full-voiced glory and is no flimsy posthumous release — languished in the vaults
A former assistant at APA filed a lurid sexual harassment complaint on Wednesday alleging that a partner at the firm sent her graphic text messages and threatened to have her fired when she refused his advances. The assistant, identified in the suit only as Jane Doe, alleges that top management fostered a “toxic, pervasive and
June 19, 2019 3:35PM PT Grammy-nominated rapper Logic — aka Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, aka Bobby Hall —has announced a joint venture with Def Jam Recordings for his new label, BobbyBoy Records, which was formerly known as Elysium Records. The imprint’s initial artist roster is comprised of singer-songwriter John Lindahl, Damian Lemar Hudson (featured on “Black Spiderman,” from Logic’s RIAA platinum 2017 album, “Everybody”); Big Lenbo (featured
Ten years ago, Adam Lambert burst onto the music scene in a blaze of guy-liner, hairspray and sexual ambiguity as America’s most unlikely “Idol.” But while he had the rock star look down and a soaring voice that seduced the hard-to-impress Simon Cowell, Lambert lost. Or did he? While many blamed homophobia for his runner-up
Camila Cabello’s heart, or commercial instincts, may still be south of the border, judging from the title of her new duet with Shawn Mendes, “Señorita,” which hits digital services at midnight Thursday night. Prior to making the announcement Wednesday, both performers had busied themselves on social media teasing fans about their first collaboration since “I
Beyonce’s father, Mathew Knowles, addressed the perceptions of skin tone outside of and even within the African American community in an interview with SiriusXM, saying that his daughter’s career was “affected” by her lighter skin, and that the effect might have been the opposite for Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland. In the interview with “The
Yannick Bollore, chairman of the supervisory board of Universal Music Group parent company Vivendi, implicitly extended the projections for the sale of UMG by around six months in a interview today. He said Vivendi is “not in a hurry” to wrap the sale and is “very confident” it will find the right partner to purchase
The nominations for the 2019 Teen Choice Awards have been revealed, and voting has opened for the top movies, TV shows and music that has dominated the last year. “Avengers: Endgame” and “Aladdin” are the top contenders in the movie category with nine and five nods, respectively. In TV, “Riverdale,” “The Flash” and “Shadowhunters” each
It’s hard to imagine a more idyllic setting for a concert by music’s fastest-rising star than an open-air, rooftop venue beside New York’s East River, with the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges illuminated behind the stage and stunning panoramic views of the harbor and the city everywhere else. It’s mid-June, school is about to let out
Big Deal Music Group today announced a series of promotions among its senior staff, naming Jamie Cerreta and Casey Robison (pictured above, right and left) co-presidents. The announcement comes from Kenny MacPherson, who is assuming the new role of Chief Executive Officer. All three executives will continue operating out of the company’s Los Angeles headquarters.
Following on its statements last week that it will be filing a lawsuit on behalf of several Universal Music recording artists impacted by a 2008 fire that destroyed a huge number of master recordings, a Los Angeles law firm has requested a “complete inventory” from the company. Addressed to UMG CEO and chairman Lucian Grainge,
June 18, 2019 2:05PM PT A year to the day after rapper XXXTentacion was murdered, his estate has released a trailer for an upcoming documentary on the artist, which the announcement says is “releasing soon.” The clip, which includes narration from X himself, captures quick flashes of him reuniting with family and friends, engaging with fans, and
Sir Lucian Grainge, chairman/CEO of Universal Music Group, has written a letter to staffers about the firestorm — if you’ll pardon the term — that has resulted from the New York Times’ investigative news story about the fire that destroyed much of the company’s archive of master recordings in 2008. While Grainge emphasizes that digital
June 18, 2019 12:20PM PT Chris Stapleton, Chance the Rapper and Camila Cabello are also aboard. With less than a month to go, Ed Sheeran has uncensored his list of duet partners on the “No.6 Collaborations Project” album that’s due out July 12 and, not surprisingly, Justin Bieber is far from the only superstar in
June 18, 2019 11:51AM PT Hip-hop stars Meek Mill and Future have announced what they’re billing as a fall tour — even though, technically, most of the dates fall in the final weeks of summer — that will bring them to 24 cities across the country, mostly in outdoor amphitheaters. The co-headlining outing starts August
June 18, 2019 10:03AM PT [embedded content] The intimacy of the music room backstage at “The Tonight Show” was put to particularly good use when the sometimes folk-leaning band the Head and the Heart came through, as the group cooked up a low-simmer version of one of their earliest songs, “Rivers and Roads,” with Jimmy
Country star Eric Church has long used his new music to reward his loyal fans, from surprise releasing 2015’s “Mr. Misunderstood” album as a direct fan-club exclusive to impromptu meet-and-greets before his hometown show in Greensboro, North Carolina. So when Church was prepping the April vinyl release of 2018’s critically acclaimed “Desperate Man,” the singer
Drake chugged a can of beer that was tossed to him, did interviews, and signed merch along the Toronto Raptors victory parade route Monday, but when the NBA champions arrived at Nathan Phillips Square hours later — the procession’s final destination, where an estimated million people had gathered on the grounds and outskirts — the