Music

Britney Spears abruptly announced Friday that she is postponing her new “Domination” show in Las Vegas due to her father’s recent illness. It was unclear at press time when the shows will be rescheduled. In a statement, her rep said the singer is taking “an indefinite work hiatus putting her ‘Britney: Domination’ launch run at Park Theater at

After reading Jeff Tweedy’s straightforward, plainspoken memoir, “Let’s Go (So We Can Come Back)” — with a title that was taken from a saying of his father’s, who preferred staying in the house, hence his directive to leave so they could return — it may strike you that the Wilco frontman could easily duplicate Bruce

January 4, 2019 8:55AM PT Republic Records has promoted Jonathan Briggs to vice president of commerce, it was announced today by Kevin Lipson, the label’s executive vice president of commerce, streaming and digital strategy. He will be based in the label’s Santa Monica office. Briggs joined the label’s commerce team in 2014 as director and was promoted to senior director

Jay-Z, Lady Gaga and Erykah Badu — all of whom worked with R. Kelly over the years — declined to be interviewed for “Surviving R. Kelly,” the Lifetime series documenting the sexual abuse allegations against the singer, executive producer Dream Hampton told the Detroit Free Press. In a separate interview, with Shadow and Act, she

January 3, 2019 2:53PM PT After more than 200 days on the market with declining price tags that started at nearly $8 million, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel have sold their former penthouse pied-a-terre at the swanky, Gwathmey Siegel-designed Soho Mews building in New York City’s Soho neighborhood for its full asking price of $6.35

The Lifetime network’s three-part special, “Surviving R. Kelly,” will air beginning tonight as planned despite a legal threat from the singer, a rep for the network told Variety. “Lifetime has always been a brand that champions women’s stories,” the statement reads. “The documentary will air as scheduled, starting tonight at 9pm ET/PT.” The special — reviewed

BuzzAngle Music’s 2018 report is out, and it includes results both staggering and sobering for the music industry. The conclusions fall mostly in the positive category, especially when it comes to overall U.S. music consumption, which saw a double-digit increase on top of the previous year’s double-digit increase. While consumption was up a remarkable 12.8%

January 3, 2019 12:47PM PT Coachella’s lineup announcement is always followed by online chaos — opinions, gratitude, hateration and more —  but one thing that was mostly overlooked in the wake of the festival’s unusually late newsbreak (at, ahem, 11:25 p.m. ET) was the presence of an artist called Gucci Gang. Which was confusing on

The “biggest music festival in the world” is an inexact term — results would be different based on attendance, gross, influence, duration or another metric — but there’s little doubt that Coachella is at or near that billing. Its lineup has become a commentary on the state of popular music in the past and coming year

It’s been 25 years since R. Kelly first had to answer for sexual abuse allegations. Two and a half decades of new reports, new witnesses, new testimonies, new windows into an age-old story of powerful men seizing the chance to play God while trampling countless women — girls — into the dirt. And yet, as

Coachella dropped the lineup for its 2019 fest Wednesday evening, revealing that, while Kanye West will not be headlining, the desert carnival found three heavy-hitters to take the reins instead. Childish Gambino will headline day one of the fest, with Tame Impala taking day two and Ariana Grande closing out Coachella on Sunday night. This

Pegi Young, who co-founded the Bridge School with her former husband of 36 years Neil Young, has died after a yearlong battle with cancer. She was 66. “With great sadness, we confirm that on January 1st, after a yearlong battle with cancer, Pegi Young – mother, grandmother, sister, auntie, musician, activist and co-founder of the

Daryl Dragon, the hat-wearing musician familiar to 1970s music fans as half of the bestselling duo the Captain & Tennille, died Tuesday in Prescott, Arizona at age 76. Dragon’s ex-wife, Toni Tennille, “was with him as he took his last breath,” said Harlon Boll, a spokesperson for the singer. In a statement, Tennille said, “He

January 2, 2019 12:45PM PT Cardi B’s “I Like It” and Eminem’s “Till I Collapse” also ranked high on the streamer’s list. Drake’s “God’s Plan” is motivating listeners to do more than just dance. Released in January of last year, the rapper’s lead single was Spotify’s top workout song of 2018, according to the streaming

January 2, 2019 12:16PM PT According to a report in TMZ, Kanye West, one of the rumored headliners for the 2019 Coachella Festival, will not be performing due to a disagreement over staging. The publication cites “multiple sources” as saying that West found the festival’s traditional 60×40-foot stage “artistically limiting,” and Goldenvoice, which produces the

January 2, 2019 10:17AM PT Musician and actor Troye Sivan will be honored with Variety’s Creative Conscience in Film Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 4, at the annual 10 Directors to Watch Brunch, presented by AT&T at the Parker Palm Springs Hotel. Sivan is being recognized for his work in

January 2, 2019 9:07AM PT Maybe Paul McCartney’s “FourFiveSeconds” session with Kanye West had more of an effect than it first seemed — McCartney has quietly dropped a new song called “Get Enough” that features some heavy autotune that actually at times recalls West’s work circa “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” The song, which arrives

January 2, 2019 7:11AM PT Cardi B is planning a new album for 2019, possibly as soon as Spring, the rapper said Tuesday during an interview on Instagram Live. “Of course it’s gonna be an album in 2019,” she said. “Hopefully, I could get my album done around the same time that ‘Invasion of Privacy’ came out,

Ozzy Osbourne rang in the new year in Los Angeles, headlining the festival he founded, Ozzfest, at the Forum. The one-off show kicked off early, with the venue grounds transformed into a holiday wonderland complete with food trucks and an outdoor stage which featured sets by Wednesday13, DevilDriver and Black Sabbath cover band, Zakk Sabbath. L.A.’s

Before New Kids on The Block rang in 2019 with an iconic set in Times Square at Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, members of the band reflected back to a tour that took place 10 years ago, where their opening act was a little-known singer who calls herself Lady Gaga. “It was apparent to

The 2018 edition of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve turned into a rain-soaked spectacle for performers Christina Aguilera, New Kids on the Block, Dan + Shay and Bastille, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the artists, waterlogged hosts Ryan Seacrest and Jenny McCarthy, or the crowd of over 1 million revelers who crammed into

People expected something a week ago when Stonewall Inn — the bar in New York’s Greenwich Village where the riots that kicked off the modern LGBTQ movement took place in 1969 — announced that Madonna had been named an ambassador for the 50th anniversary celebrations. However, they may not have expected it quite so soon. On

Norman Gimbel, who died Dec. 19, wrote the words for hit songs like “Killing Me Softly” as well as TV themes such as “Laverne & Shirley.” His collaborator of nearly five decades, Charles Fox, remembers working with the Oscar-winner.  One of the great lyricists of the 20th century passed away on December 19 in Montecito,

December 31, 2018 11:14AM PT [embedded content] A YouTube channel (unfortunately) named 88 Rising published a compilation video on Sunday of rappers attempting to save a cute puppy in virtual reality. Kotaku spotted the footage and it’s as filthy and fun as you’d expect. (Seriously, it’s filthy. Extremely NSFW. You’ve been warned.) The musicians are

Taylor Swift has dropped her Netflix special on New Year’s Eve, as if it were a ball. Get it? She’s sure we do — there are plenty of reasons why she’d have faith that this holiday eve is the appropriate time to unveil “Taylor Swift Reputation Stadium Tour” as a streaming event, and why fans

With his third studio album, “Daytona,” rapper, producer and GOOD Music label president Pusha T was convinced he’d made the perfect album — so much so, he all but billed it as such when it dropped on May 25. It’s not a boast if it’s true. Produced with Kanye West at Ye’s Wyoming ranch-studio facility,

December 31, 2018 9:15AM PT Ariana Grande has posted a number of tributes to her longtime boyfriend Mac Miller in the months since his death in September from an apparent drug overdose. She posted another on her Instagram story Sunday night — a shot of his hands playing a keyboard — but deleted it soon

December 31, 2018 8:38AM PT Lady Gaga’s “Enigma” Las Vegas residency has racked up some adulatory reviews since it premiered on Friday night — including a rave recap from Variety’s Chris Willman and a fevered tweetstorm from Ramin Setoodeh, who wrote our recent Gaga cover story — but few are quite as memorable as footage

The SouljaGame has met its quick and inevitable end. Rapper DeAndre Cortez Way, aka Soulja Boy, pulled his new line of emulator consoles from his website less than a month after he began selling them. Links to their product pages on SouljaWatch.com now result in a 404 error. “I had to boss up. I didn’t

December 31, 2018 6:51AM PT Mike “Beard Guy” Taylor, keyboardist and singer in the Canadian band Walk Off the Earth, died Sunday from natural causes, the group confirmed in a statement. “It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved brother and band member, Mike ‘Beard Guy’ Taylor. Mike had a