Music news

• Frankie Bridge Reveals The Saturdays Are Getting Back Together

  18-10-2015 22:40
  
  It's about time, girls...
  
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• Did Harry Styles And Nicole Scherzinger Really Hook Up?

  18-10-2015 22:07
  
  Harry, you sly dog...
  
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• The New Star Wars: The Force Awakens Poster Has Landed And It's Beautiful

  18-10-2015 20:38
  
  Not that we need any more reasons to be super excited...
  
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• Petite Meller review – merci for the solid-gold electropop

  18-10-2015 16:08
  
  Heaven, London
  The mysterious Parisian, a mixture of giggly ingenue and knowing art-rocker, delivers a set of contagious delight“Welcome to this journey!” cries Petite Meller, in the manner of an X Factor judge geeing up a shrinking-violet contestant. It’s a surprisingly conventional greeting from a singer whose brief career has already been marked by accusations of playing up to the Lolita archetype and – after filming a video with Kenyan schoolchildren – cultural
  
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• T.I. talks new music, departure from Columbia Records

  18-10-2015 15:19
  
  ATLANTA (AP) — T.I. has always found a way to have success, even when it wasn't about his own music.
  
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• Jonas Kaufmann review – a golden voice and a golden smile

  18-10-2015 15:13
  
  Royal Festival Hall, London
  As aria followed aria, with high-class orchestral interludes, the tenor was on shining form for an evening of PucciniIf there is one voice that turns connoisseurs into starstruck fans, it is Jonas Kaufmann’s tenor. The name alone sold out this recital with no indication of what he would actually sing – though the fact that he has a Puccini album out at the moment was a clue. Related: Jonas Kaufmann: ‘I feel like an ambassador’Continue reading..
  
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• Jason Derulo Asked A South African Crowd If They Spoke English And It Was Super Awkward

  18-10-2015 14:17
  
  Oh, Jason...
  
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• Geordie Shore's Charlotte Would Marry Gaz In Vegas While Drunk

  18-10-2015 13:33
  
  At least we think she's joking...
  
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• A$AP Rocky and Wiz Khalifa review – growling god among men and laid-back lothario

  18-10-2015 13:12
  
  O2 Arena, London
  Khalifa is slickly showbiz, while Rocky delivers a preposterous and electrically thrilling performance. Shame about the lyrics, thoughIn this year of Kendrick Lemar’s momentous To Pimp a Butterfly album, it might be hoped that mainstream US hip-hop is heading for a higher plane of consciousness. Hold that wishful thought. This particular double bill shows that some new rap superstars are just as hung up on blunts and bitches as were their predecessors. “We just wanna
  
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• Justin Bieber And Selena Gomez Have Released A Song Together And It's Hot

  18-10-2015 12:52
  
  Jelena reunited...
  
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• 17 Facts About Teen Wolf's Tyler Posey You Need In Your Life

  18-10-2015 11:05
  
  HB TP
  
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• John Newman: Revolve review – professionalism at the expense of personality

  18-10-2015 10:00
  
  (Island)It seems an age since John Newman’s first album, Tribute, put on its dancing shoes, followed soon after by the crying game of Sam Smith’s first album. For a time, the two baby-faced soul men enjoyed parallel ascents into renown, with No 1 singles as featured vocalists (for Rudimental and Naughty Boy respectively); both peddled old-sounding vocals to a young crowd. Related: John Newman interview: 'There are too many celebrities and not enough artists'Continue reading...
  
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• John Lydon: I dyed my hair green, and Dad called me a brussels sprout

  18-10-2015 10:00
  
  The PiL frontman on food and a London childhood, squatting with Sid Vicious and boating in CaliforniaMy earliest memory, at three or four, is Dad, by the fireplace, passing the poker and me getting it red hot in the flames, plunging it into a glass of Guinness, then sipping this lovely warm fizzy brothy brew. I loved it. It’s a typical Irish thing in winter and sets you up for perfect alcoholism in later years.A food I associate with Dad is Kitekat. He’d get paid extra on building si
  
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• Joanna Newsom: ‘It was a tonic to know I’m not insane’

  18-10-2015 10:00
  
  As her long-awaited fourth album is released, idiosyncratic US harpist and songwriter Joanna Newsom talks about inscrutable lyrics, ‘straight-up’ sexism, the joy of French furniture … and her weakness for Downton AbbeyIn early August, out of nowhere really, Joanna Newsom announced that she was releasing a new album called Divers on 23 October. It would be her first record for five years – “half a decade” as some blogs would sensationally report it – and
  
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• Schubert: Impromptus, Piano Pieces and Variations CD review – radiance and lyricism

  18-10-2015 09:00
  
  Steven Osborne (piano)
  (Hyperion)Best known for his Messiaen, Ravel and Tippett, among others, Steven Osborne has now turned to Schubert with his first solo disc of the composer’s piano music (having made a terrific disc of some of the keyboard music for four hands with Paul Lewis in 2010). He has combined two late groups, the second set of Four Impromptus and the Three Pieces D946, with the less well known Hüttenbrenner Variations D576: hardly an obvious selection but an intriguing s
  
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• Real Lies: Real Life review – party like it’s 1989…

  18-10-2015 09:00
  
  (Marathon Artists)Real Lies are too young to remember the late 80s, but the north London trio’s frisky debut album is steeped in the spirit of the Balearic years when indie kids discovered ecstasy and acid house. That combination has produced some dreadful bands, but Real Lies add other elements to the mix, among them Mike Skinner-esque spoken-word delivery and the pop sheen of a less self-satisfied Pet Shop Boys. The standout, North Circular (“Bag on my shoulder and a pocket full of
  
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• Raury: All We Need review – slightly anticlimactic

  18-10-2015 09:00
  
  (LVRN/Columbia)Part new “daisy age” flower child, part hard-hitting urban seer, 19-year-old Atlanta dweller Raury can do it all – rap, sing, play guitar and mix genres like Kanye West, an obvious forebear. On his TV debut on Stephen Colbert’s show last month, Raury wore a Mexico T-shirt to taunt fellow guest and Hispanophobe Donald Trump. This debut album proper follows last year’s celebrated Indigo Child mixtape and feels slightly anticlimactic. The prevailing vibe
  
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• Kenny Wheeler & John Taylor: On the Way to Two review – a joyous collaboration

  18-10-2015 09:00
  
  (Cam Jazz)The release of this set of duets, recorded in 2005, was intended as a tribute to Kenny Wheeler, marking the first anniversary of his death. John Taylor wrote an affectionate note in memory of his friend and collaborator to go with the CD. Then, shortly before the release date, he, too, died suddenly. So this comes as a memento of perhaps the most potent and long-lived partnership in contemporary European jazz. The interplay between Wheeler’s trumpet or flugelhorn and Taylor&rsquo
  
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• Jonathan Rathbone: Under the Shadow of His Wing CD review – seductively lush

  18-10-2015 09:00
  
  Vasari Singers/Backhouse
  (Vasari Media) (2 CDs)Vasari Singers launch their own label with this wide-ranging, evocative double-CD meditation on the journey from darkness to light, a reworking of the Vespers service by Jonathan Rathbone, who takes texts from the liturgies of Compline and Evensong and applies double and sometimes triple choir techniques to achieve seductively lush harmonies in 16 attractive a cappella pieces. This talented and versatile choir deserves praise not only for its skilfu
  
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• Demi Lovato: Confident review – too few surprises

  18-10-2015 09:00
  
  (Polydor)Former Disney star Demi Lovato is in possession of pop’s rarest commodity – a personality – but it’s not always showcased by her occasionally overwrought sound. Confident’s excellent lead single, the sapphic Cool for the Summer, finally unleashes her fun side, but nothing else here matches it for cheeky insouciance. So while the title track’s self-help glam rock is strangely intoxicating, and Yes and the lovely Lionheart are sturdy enough to handle th
  
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• Deerhunter: Fading Frontier review – the best is saved until last

  18-10-2015 09:00
  
  (4AD)Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox has spoken in recent interviews about feeling “outside of society” since a serious car crash last year. Any effect that’s had on his band isn’t immediately obvious: opener All the Same reprises the “dark garage” sounds of 2013’s Monomania. But delve deeper and Fading Frontier reveals itself to be more complex, and more unpredictable. Living My Life and the seductive Duplex Planet hark back to the dream-like delicacy
  
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• Biber: Rosary Sonatas CD review – fantastically complex

  18-10-2015 09:00
  
  Rachel Podger (violin)
  (Channel Classics) (2 CDs)I can remember so well some 40 years ago being utterly taken aback by an unaccompanied violin Chaconne by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. Since then, Biber has become the mountain every period violinist wants to climb, and that Chaconne revealed as the last movement of a set of 16 sonatas depicting the mysteries of the rosary. They are fantastically complex works, with different violin tunings and multiple stoppings, so that Rachel Podger’s acco
  
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• Joanna Newsom Calls Spotify a “Cynical and Musician-Hating System”

  18-10-2015 04:11
  
   
  In a just-published interview with the Los Angeles Times…
  LA Times: Is your concern specific to Spotify?
  Newsom: Even with Pandora, you make – I don’t make a lot of money on that, or just record sales in general.  But I understand the mechanics of it.
  LA Times: Spotify is different?
  Newsom: Spotify is like a villainous cabal of major labels. The business is built from the ground up as a way to circumvent the idea of paying their artists…
  So it’s set u
  
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• Warner/Chappell Is Now Fighting to Keep “Happy Birthday” Out of Public Domain

  18-10-2015 02:50
  
  On September 22nd, a federal judge ruled that all previous copyrights tied to ‘Happy Birthday’ were invalid, a decision that effectively shifted the song into the public domain.  The decision was applauded worldwide, especially by those who felt unfairly charged for its usage, like movie producers, restaurant owners, and musicians.  Indeed, most who found out about the decision felt that “Happy Birthday,” originally penned in 1893, deserved to be free.
  Tha
  
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