Music

John “Blackie Onassis” Rowan, the former drummer of the ’90s rock band Urge Overkill, has died. No details on his cause of death (or his age) were confirmed when the news was revealed on Wednesday. “Urge Overkill is saddened to report that Blackie has passed away. Please respect our privacy at this time. We are

Anitta is no longer in business with her longtime manager Brandon Silverstein, Variety can confirm. The founder/CEO of S10 Entertainment helped foster the multi-lingual singer’s breakout career in the United States. “Working with Brandon the past few years was a great journey,” Anitta said in a statement. “He will always be someone special to me.”

The National Music Publishers Assn., acting on behalf of 17 major music publishers, is filing a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against Twitter for its failure to license and pay for the music widely available on its platform.  The complaint seeks more than $250 million in damages for hundreds of thousands of noticed infringements of approximately

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Steve Nicks’ solo music is finally getting the celebration it deserves with a brand new boxed set that compiles the Grammy-winning artist’s eight studio albums and a new rarities album. The 16xLP collection, due

New York musician Jesse Malin was left paralyzed from the waist down after suffering an extremely rare spinal stroke in early May. Malin’s manager and numerous artists have rallied around Malin to launch a donation campaign to help cover his medical expenses. Malin was spending time with friends in the East Village to commemorate the one-year

Leading K-pop acts including Ateez, Cravity and (G)-Idle are set to perform at this year’s K-CON convention and concert series in Los Angeles. The convention returned as a live event in 2022 and attracted some 90,000 attendees to the Los Angeles Convention Center with two nights of concerts held at the adjacent Crypto.com Arena. The

Omar Apollo, Brandy Clark and Coco Jones performed and three people were honored Tuesday night at the first T.J. Martell Foundation since 2019, which raised more than $1.3 million for cancer research. The honorees included Warner Records Co-Chairman and COO Tom Corson, who received the Lifetime Music Industry Award; Def Jam Chief Creative Officer and executive VP Archie

Halsey has signed with Columbia Records, Variety has confirmed. The move comes just two months after the singer parted ways with her longtime label, Capitol Music Group. The move actually reunites Halsey, who uses she/they pronouns, with the label behind one of the two biggest hits of their career: “Closer,” the Chainsmokers song featuring her on

Latin Grammy-nominated rapper Eladio Carrión is adding a second leg to his “Sauce USA Tour,” Variety can exclusively reveal. After completely selling out the first leg, Carrión’s 16-city lineup now includes its first stops in New York’s MSG Theater and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Palladium. Carrión is set to deliver performances of his firey rap and

Peso Pluma will be releasing his new album, “Genesis,” on June 22 via his own record label Double P Records, in partnership with Prajin Music Group. The record comes in the midst of a breakout year for 23-year-old música Mexicana artist whose corrido ballads have occupied top slots on global charts — namely his and

Although Dr. Luke’s defamation claims against Kesha await an actual trial next month, the singer won a victory on some key points in her counterclaim Tuesday from the New York Court of Appeals, which ruled that the producer qualifies as a public figure,. He thus will have a higher bar to hurdle in succeeding with

Governors Ball — New York’s biggest music festival and one of the largest in the country — returned over the weekend with a stellar lineup: headliners Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo and Odesza, along with top-billed sets from Ice Spice, Lil Nas X, Haim, Giveon, Central Cee and many more. The festival, which was traditionally held on Randall’s

Anita Baker is flying solo for the remainder of her “Songstress Tour” after going on a Twitter tirade about the harassment she has been allegedly receiving from Babyface fans. “After Silently, Enduring Cyber Bulling/Verbal Abuse & Threats of Violence from the Fan Base, of Our Special Guest/Support Act. In the Interest of Personal Safety. I

Olivia Rodrigo is back with “Vampire,” a brand new single out June 30. She announced the song on social media, with artwork showcasing a black-and-white profile shot of Rodrigo, wearing two purple bandaids on her neck. The song, via Geffen Records, marks Rodrigo’s first original music since her 2021 breakout album, “Sour.” According to a

Premios Juventud, Univision’s awards show for Spanish-language pop culture, has announced its 2023 nominees for the 20th annual ceremony taking place in La Isla del Encanto, Puerto Rico on July 20. This year, nine musicians are the most-nominated acts of the evening, among them: Bad Bunny, Becky G, Grupo Frontera, Maluma, Peso Pluma, Rauw Alejandro,

At the beginning of the pandemic, Sofar Sounds — which has made a name and a business for itself by staging “secret gigs and intimate concerts” featuring emerging artists for an invited, engaged audience — seemed to be one of the worst-positioned businesses in the music industry to survive it: many of its shows take

Paul McCartney announced on BBC’s “Best of Today” radio show that he relied on artificial intelligence to create “what will be the last Beatles record.” The track, set to debut later this year, features vocals from McCartney and the late John Lennon, who died in 1980. “It was a demo that John had that we worked on,

The 1975 has announced the “Still… At Their Very Best” fall tour, the band’s biggest North American tour to date. The Matty Healy-led group will take their fifth album, “Being Funny in a Foreign Language,” across the U.S. and Canada for the second time since its October 2022 release. The tour will kick off Sept.

The Recording Academy has added three new categories for the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, it announced today: Best African Music Performance, Best Alternative Jazz Album, and Best Pop Dance Recording. Last year’s new additions included songwriter of the year and song for social change. Additionally, the existing categories of producer of the year, non-classical and

The son of Canadian country dance instructors “Sheriff Norm” and “Down the Line Sue,” in a way, MNRK Music Group president-CEO Chris Taylor was destined to become one of the most legendary executives in the country’s music history. He his start in the early ‘90s as lead singer for the reggae-ska-funk band One, which signed

One week after Taylor Swift’s re-issued edition of “Midnights” shot back up the charts, knocking Morgan Wallen off the top for the first time in three months, K-pop group Stray Kids takes the crown. The eight-member group earns its third No. 1 album with “Five-Star,” following “Maxident” and “Oddinary,” both of which were released last

Anita Baker is standing up for herself in an online spat over Babyface’s slashed opening set during a May showing of her “Songstress Tour.” The Grammy award-winner has gone so far as publicly asking Babyface to tame his fanbase, claiming that his supporters have been bullying and threatening her online. For some context, Babyface is featured

Blackpink member Jennie was forced to exit the stage during the group’s “Born Pink” tour stop in Australia due to what YG Entertainment has described in a statement as “her deteriorating condition.” The agency’s note was issued on the same day of the show (June 11) and included an apology to fans on behalf of

Elf.Tech, Grimes’ newly minted AI program, has partnered with TuneCore to let artists distribute collaborations created through Grimes’ Elf.Tech AI to all major streaming platforms. The pilot program will allow artists to employ Elf.Tech, created by Grimes in partnership with CreateSafe, to co-create music with her AI voice and split 50% split of the revenue

Veteran music writer Scott Schinder, who wrote for virtually every major music publication over the course of a three-decade-plus-long career, has died after a long illness, his friend Randy Haecker confirms to Variety. Schinder’s work can be read in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Billboard, Time Out New York, the Austin Chronicle, Please Kill Me, Creem,

It’s one of the inside-out realities of our era that scandal, if you give it enough time, turns into myth. So it is with the story of Milli Vanilli, the German-French R&B pop duo of the late ’80s and early ’90s who, having sold close to 50 million records, were revealed to be a fake:

The 76th Tony Awards kicked off Sunday night in the shadow of a writers strike and as the theater industry is still struggling to crawl out from the crater left by COVID. But, the show did go on, which is a victory considering that a few weeks ago it looked as though the Writers Guild of America

Joni Mitchell wrote rather presciently about “The Circle Game” 57 years ago, but anyone who’s experienced a little life knows that circles don’t always — or even very often — come back around to allowing people to enjoy some of the most triumphant nights of their lives when they’re reaching the end of their 70s.

On June 10, Twice opened the North American leg of their worldwide “Ready to Be” tour in Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium by defining its tagline: “We are ready to show you who we are, just as we are,” they announced, “As time goes [on], we are more comfortable being ourselves. Your love makes us super

Garth Brooks’ new Nashville bar and honky-tonk Friends in Low Places is opening this summer — and the country star is sharing that everyone is welcome… except assholes. During a panel conversation at Billboard Country Live, Brooks shared his thoughts by alluding to a transphobic boycott of Bud Light, after the company enlisted transgender influencer