Music

Lady Gaga calls attention to a “mental health emergency” in her latest op-ed, co-written with Tedros Adhanom, the director-general of the World Health Organization. In honor of World Mental Health Day, Gaga and Adhanom are working together to draw attention to misconceptions about mental health with an opinion piece written for The Guardian published Wednesday. Lady Gaga has already opened

Australian DJ sister-duo NERVO and songstress Madison Beer are slated to be the first guests on this year’s “Office Hours,” a speaker series put on by UCLA’s Music Industry Committee. Kicking off the series as the school year’s first performer on October 15 will be 19-year-old Beer, who began her career on YouTube at the

The American Music Awards hit a new all-time low in the Nielsen ratings on Tuesday night. ABC aired only the AMAs on Tuesday, with the three hour show drawing a 1.8 rating in adults 18-49 and 6.5 million viewers. That is down 25% in the key demo and approximately 29% in total viewers compared to

Apart from a lot of photos and four of the greatest albums in the entire rock and roll canon, the Velvet Underground did not leave much behind. Posters, snippets of video, lots of concert recordings (only one of them professionally made), and the slack-jawed memories of those lucky enough to see the band live, many

There was no shortage of heat on stage last night at the American Music Awards: From the burning car backdrop of Twenty One Pilots’ performance to the flames that leapt into the air behind Post Malone, the blazing candles encircling Carrie Underwood and the spinning fireworks blazing above Cardi B, not to mention performances by

As pop-culture reboots continue to reach new thresholds of frenzy, it was only a matter of time before the trend seeped into music videos. How refreshing, then, that LA-based musician Dexter Tortoriello was quick to flip the trend on its ear for a series of short films to promote his latest project as Houses, the

M. William Krasilovsky, the co-author of the book “This Business of Music,” died on Oct. 7 of congestive heart failure in Ashland, Oregon. He was 92. An expert on matters of copyright, Krasilovsky wrote “This Business of Music” with Sidney Shemel, a music attorney working with United Artists, as a legal reference for musicians in the

Elections have consequences, and by electing Taylor Swift as the American Music Awards’ artist of the year, pop fans gave the superstar another platform from which to spread her crazy, incendiary, rabble-rousing entreaties to… find a polling place. “Every single award given out tonight was voted on by the people,” Swift said, upon picking up

Jimmy Kimmel’s fan favorite “Mean Tweets” segment returned Tuesday night with its fifth all-music edition to coincide with the American Music Awards. With the traditional “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. playing in the background, the segment featured appearances from Halsey, Imagine Dragons, Dua Lipa, Jason Derulo, Schoolboy Q, Luke Bryan, The Chainsmokers, and many more. Some

October 9, 2018 5:36PM PT Her performance had no political commentary, but plenty of attitude. Anyone expecting Taylor Swift to double down on her recent political statements during her show-opening performance on the “American Music Awards” Tuesday night didn’t get much to chew on — at least not without dissecting the lyrics of “I Did

Some of music’s biggest stars will be taking the stage at the 2018 American Music Awards on Tuesday night. Taylor Swift will open the show, she announced on “Good Morning America” earlier this month. She’ll be performing “I Did Something Bad” off her latest album, “Reputation.” Other performers include Cardi B, Halsey, Khalid, Mariah Carey,

This year’s celebrity picks to co-chair the 2019 Met Gala are Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, and Serena Williams. This year’s theme is “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” riffing on Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp.” Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue and artistic director of Conde Nast, has co-chaired the gala every year since 1995, and picks

Shawn Mendes and Cardi B are among the headliners for this year’s iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Tour, which arrives at the Forum in Los Angeles on Nov. 30. Other artists set to appear include Dua Lipa, Camila Cabello, Calvin Harris, Alessia Cara, The Chainsmokers, Five Seconds of Summer and G-Eazy. The tour makes stops in Dallas, L.A., San Francisco,

In Los Angeles, one of the world’s capitals of impermanence, when something is gone, it is usually G-O-N-E. That may explain why nearly 200 people were more than happy to fork over up to $200 for a ticket to a one-time-only concert event Monday on the site of the Palomino, North Hollywood’s storied country-music club,

NBC has ordered “Songland,” a new music competition aimed at discovering the greatest songwriters in the world. In each episode, five songwriters will perform their original tracks in front of three top music producers and a major recording artist on an intimate soundstage. Each song’s lyrics, arrangements, beats, melody, and story will be considered by

ESPN Films’ 20-hour, six-week documentary “Basketball: A Love Story” more resembles a modern rom-com than your typical documentary. Rather than a chronological history lesson, it’s an episodic collection of anecdotes and stories that in some ways have more in common with “Love, Actually” than Ken Burns’ completist “Baseball.” The film weaves through the heartbreaking story

PledgeMusic, the direct-to-fan music company that has fallen behind in payments to artists in recent months, today announced management changes in the wake of Dominic Pandiscia stepping down as CEO. Two of the company’s cofounders will be joining the executive team. Cofounder Malcolm Dunbar has been elevated to Global President and COO, co-founder Jayce Varden

ABC hopes to strike a new chord at its annual broadcast of the American Music Awards. A few of the ads slated to turn up in the event will so short viewers might miss them if they blink. The Disney-owned broadcast network will run live-action six-second ads for Subaru’s new Ascent during the glitzy event

October 9, 2018 7:07AM PT Vote.org tallies more registrations in 24 hours than the entire month of August. It may have prompted an uninformed and dismissive comment from the president, but Taylor Swift’s social-media post in support of Tennessee Democratic candidates helped lead to a giant 24-hour spike in voter registrations at Vote.org. “We are up

October 9, 2018 7:05AM PT Says the hip-hop heavyweight: “After people hear the music, I want them to say movie soundtracks are back.” The soundtrack to “Creed II” will be executive produced by Mike WiLL Made-It. He’ll collaborate with composer Lugwig Göransson and music supervisors Fam Rothstein and Jen Malone on music for the film, which is

Nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2019 were announced Tuesday morning: the lineup includes Radiohead, Def Leppard, Stevie Nicks, Rage Against the Machine, the Cure, Devo, Janet Jackson, Kraftwerk, LL Cool J, Roxy Music, Todd Rundgren, John Prine, MC5, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan and the Zombies, according to Rolling Stone. The top vote-getters will be announced in December and inducted March 29th, 2019

It’s not hard to convince a lot of pop stars to run off to the circus when that circus is the “Greatest Showman” score, the original soundtrack of which has been one of the biggest selling albums of 2018. Now, Variety can exclusively reveal that an all-star collection of new versions of those songs is due

To the world, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were icons. But to Elliot Mintz, who met them in 1972 while a radio DJ in Los Angeles, they were close personal friends with whom he’d get together and talk about whatever came to mind. Usually, it wasn’t music. “I first did an interview with Yoko on the

Though they need an extra $15 million about as much as an 18-pound house cat needs a nuclear submarine, fantastically rich David and Victoria Beckham none-the-less got hit with the real estate lucky stick and nearly doubled their money on the $33 million, off-market sale of a lavish Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion. Together reported to

Netflix has rounded out the cast of the Mark Wahlberg pic “Wonderland” with musician Post Malone, Alan Arkin, Iliza Shlesinger, Bookem Woodbine, Hope Wilson and James DuMont all joining the ensemble. Wahlberg is set to star with “Black Panther” breakout Winston Duke also on board. Peter Berg is on board to direct the pic. This

October 8, 2018 11:00AM PT The Soundgarden frontman died in May 2017 at the age of 52. The Museum of Pop Culture unveiled a new, life-sized statue of rock legend Chris Cornell Sunday, in commemoration of the singer-songwriter’s musical legacy. The piece was Commissioned by Cornell’s wife Vicky Cornell and is mounted directly to the

October 8, 2018 10:43AM PT London police have questioned Liam Gallagher in connection with the possible assault of his girlfriend, Debbie Gwyther. “Officers are aware of footage of an incident consistent with assault believed to have taken place in August 2018 at a licensed venue in Chiltern St., Marylebone,” the Metropolitan Police said in a

Eric Clapton wrapped a two-night stand at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night with a 90-minute set proving that despite his recent health issues, he still has the energy and chops to deliver a memorable concert. Since concluding his 50th anniversary trek last year, the 73-year-old has retired from full-scale touring in favor

As with virtually everything she’s done in the past couple of years, Taylor Swift’s forceful statement Sunday in support of Tennessee Democrats in the forthcoming midterm elections drew a mixed response on social media and news commentaries. The move was a bold one for the singer, who has kept well clear of taking sides in

October 8, 2018 7:11AM PT Crowd panics at reports of gunfire, but police say they “haven’t been able to locate any evidence that support claims that shots were fired.” At least 12 people were hurt after reports of gunfire sent people running for cover during a Lil Wayne concert during the A3C festival in Atlanta on Sunday,