Music news

• Telemundo outline plans to continue growth

  15-05-2016 22:02
  NEW YORK (AP) — The Spanish-language network Telemundo says it hopes to continue its growth with a non-traditional programming strategy that will include projects based on the story of drug lord El Chapo, the life of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and the late singer Jenni Rivera.
  
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• Pokemon Sun And Moon Starter Pokemon Revealed!

  15-05-2016 21:53
  
  Gotta catch 'em all!
  
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• The Mikado review – Scottish Opera shakes Gilbert and Sullivan money maker

  15-05-2016 17:51
  
  Theatre Royal, Edinburgh
  Colourful new production takes a few pokes at tax evaders and Volkswagen, though it misses the subversive pointThe Mikado premiered at London’s Savoy theatre in 1885, and its opening run went on and on for 672 shows. Non-devotees might well question the timelessness of mock Orientalism and flagrant misogyny, but Gilbert and Sullivan’s capital punishment romcom has always been a money maker, and Scottish Opera – styling itself as a G&S stronghold aft
  
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• Geordie Shore’s Marnie Simpson And Aaron Chalmers Look Proper Mint Giving Us All The Snapchat Goals

  15-05-2016 17:04
  
  YAAS.
  
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• I’ve sold all my CDs. Can I live without those cracked plastic cases of magic and memories?

  15-05-2016 17:00
  
  Mine was a collection gathered over years, rich with personal significance – but no one really needs two copies of the same Hot Hot Heat album
  For sale. 937 CDs. No longer played. Hemingway himself might have shed a tear at the heartbreaking story unfolding in my living room last week. A lifetime’s hoard of albums, EPs, singles – some of which had been dragged through every home I had ever lived in, many of which had done little more than sit in their boxes once they got there,
  
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• Katy B review – high-street dancepop from the shopgirl next door

  15-05-2016 16:42
  
  Brixton Academy, London
  No histrionics or faux humility, just off-the-rack tunes that keep it realMidway through her set, Katy Brien reveals that she used to dream of headlining Brixton Academy while working at JD Sports around the corner. Her dreams may have come true, but Katy B hasn’t lost touch with her inner shop assistant. In her black outfit and pumps she could easily pass for one of her own fans, and her sprightly songs of looking for love on the dancefloor make an instant connecti
  
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• Eurovision win lifts spirits in Ukraine, raises eyebrows in Russia

  15-05-2016 16:13
  By Alexei Kalmykov and Vladimir Soldatkin KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ukrainians hailed their country's unexpected victory in the Eurovision song contest as a Europe-wide endorsement of Ukraine in its smouldering conflict with Russia, while Moscow said the contest had been hijacked by politics. Ukrainian singer Jamala overtook the bookmakers' favourites, Russia and Australia, to lift the prize with the song "1944" about the war-time deportations of ethnic Tatars from Ukraine's Crimea peninsula by So
  
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• Taylor Swift Posts Proof That Her Cat Is Basically A Meerkat

  15-05-2016 14:48
  
  A very cute meerkat, obviously.
  
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• In Parenthesis review – poetic tribute finds humanity in the trenches

  15-05-2016 14:47
  
  Millennium Centre, Cardiff
  Iain Bell’s new Welsh National Opera work, set to David Jones’ epic poem about the first world war, is a brave statement of intentOpera is metaphorically fighting in the trenches, but Welsh National Opera – celebrating 70 years in 2016 – is carrying the flag for new work like no other company. WNO’s latest premiere – composer Iain Bell’s setting of the epic poem In Parenthesis by David Jones, is a brave, emphatic statement of i
  
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• Ukrainian Eurovision winner: Singing about truth 'can really touch people'

  15-05-2016 14:12
  
  The Ukrainian singer who pulled off a surprising victory at the Eurovision Song Contest said "if you sing about truth, it can really touch people" after she defeated musical and political rival Russia.
  
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• Nicole Scherzinger Responds To Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Furious’ Comments About Her ‘Cats’ Exit

  15-05-2016 13:56
  
  Meow.
  
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• John Boyega Says 'Star Wars: Episode VIII' Will Be ‘Darker And Bigger’ Than ‘The Force Awakens’

  15-05-2016 13:08
  
  This is exciting.
  
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• Drake Shaved Off His Beard And Fans Have A Lot To Say

  15-05-2016 12:37
  
  Welp.
  
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• Opening Week Of The Cannes Film Festival 2016 In Pictures!

  15-05-2016 12:16
  
  All the celebs who slayed Cannes 2016.
  
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• Cannes Film Festival 2016 Opening Week In Pictures!

  15-05-2016 12:16
  
  All the celebs who slayed Cannes 2016.
  
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• Ukranian Eurovision winner: Singing about truth 'can really touch people'

  15-05-2016 12:05
  
  The Ukrainian singer who pulled off a surprising victory at the Eurovision Song Contest said "if you sing about truth, it can really touch people" after she defeated musical and political rival Russia.
  
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• Kit Harington Revealed His Game Of Thrones Fate To Avoid A Speeding Ticket

  15-05-2016 11:59
  
  FOR REAL.
  
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• Justin Timberlake Basically Won Eurovision 2016

  15-05-2016 11:28
  
  Sorry, all the other countries who took part.
  
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• On my radar: Ezra Furman’s cultural highlights

  15-05-2016 11:00
  
  The musician and songwriter on Maggie Nelson’s Argonauts, the Atlanta band Slang, Louis CK’s boldness, and his love of rapturous music writingBorn in Chicago in 1986, the musician and songwriter Ezra Furman played in the four-piece indie band Ezra Furman and the Harpoons between 2006 and 2011, before releasing his solo debut in 2012 with money raised on Kickstarter. The release of his third solo album, Perpetual Motion People, in 2015 brought him widespread critical acclaim and drew
  
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• will.i.am review – pop as product launch

  15-05-2016 10:00
  
  Royal Albert Hall, London
  The voice of the rapper’s new wearable tech device proves more engaging than his largely witless songsRoughly halfway through this free set at London’s Royal Albert Hall, as will.i.am’s 2013 song #thatPower segues into Snap’s 1990 hit The Power, the rapper turned TV star turned tech entrepreneur suddenly busts out the dance steps from Snap’s video, to massive whoops. “I was 13 when that came out,” he says with fer
  
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• Satie: Piano Works CD review – admirable poise

  15-05-2016 09:15
  
  Olga Scheps (piano)(RCA Red Label)Erik Satie (1866-1925) occupies a unique place in the musical pantheon, eschewing all artifice and show, stripping his compositions back to the bare essentials and creating a world of calm and order (he called it “music without sauerkraut”). His Trois Gymnopédies (1888) and Six Gnossiennes (1889-97) are popular examples of his style, played here with unremarkable simplicity (for there is no other way to play them) by the Russian-born pianist O
  
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• Lotti: Crucifixus CD review – extravagant baroque demands

  15-05-2016 09:05
  
  The Syred Consort, Orchestra of St Paul’s/Palmer
  (Delphian)The plangent dissonances of Antonio Lotti’s setting of the Crucifixus are well known to choral singers: here the scholar Ben Byram-Wigfield has put it back in a complete mass setting, which turns out to be a curious concoction partly by Lotti (1667-1740) and partly, adapting his music, possibly by his pupil Jan Dismas Zelenka. Both here and in another G minor Credo, Lotti’s music is strongly profiled, solidly baroque, w
  
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• Pumeza Matshikiza: Arias CD review – huge personality

  15-05-2016 09:00
  
  Pumeza Matshikiza (soprano), Aarhus Symfoniorkester/Ringborg
  (Decca)The South African lyric soprano Pumeza Matshikiza, now enjoying an international reputation, has versatility, range and huge personality. Her voice is rich without heaviness, capable of teasing lightness and flexibility, as the selection here demonstrates. She opens with a tender Si, mi chiamano Mimi from Puccini’s La bohème (Mimi is one of her signature roles) and travels via Hahn, Fauré and Ravel back to Mo
  
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• Pat Metheny: The Unity Sessions review – everything flows beautifully

  15-05-2016 09:00
  
  (Nonesuch)Once you’ve heard Pat Metheny you will always recognise him, no matter what company he’s in or what instrument he’s playing, be it a simple acoustic guitar or some unlikely invention of his own. Beneath it all there’s a frank, open-hearted tunefulness that keeps the music airborne. This double album, recorded at the end of a year-long tour by his Unity Band, is as polished and sophisticated as any, but moments such as the opening melody of This Belongs to You or
  
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• Joe Driscoll & Sekou Kouyate: Monistic Theory review – simple and effective

  15-05-2016 09:00
  
  (Cumbancha)Many world fusions fail by diluting their respective traditions to become less than the sum of their parts. This collaboration between a Syracuse, New York guitarist and rapper and an electric kora player from Guinea manages the opposite, partly by keeping things simple. The beats are sturdy, allowing Driscoll to deliver “one world” raps in swaggering New Yorkese (“Whether you fade or mend/The only salvation is love in the end”), while Kouyate, stunningly nimbl
  
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• Jessy Lanza: Oh No review – lacks the eeriness of her debut

  15-05-2016 09:00
  
  (Hyperdub)Jessy Lanza’s remarkable 2013 album Pull My Hair Back debuted a strange and thrilling sound nestled between afterhours and peak time, a sort of post-pubstep, blossoming intermittently into beauty. While that album saw the Canadian singer-writer’s voice float, untethered, from the pin-sharp production, her follow-up seems brasher, more memorable yet less substantial, lacking the eeriness that made her last work so compelling. Melodramatic Moroder power ballad I Talk BB, the
  
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• Eagulls: Ullages review – fails to go anywhere interesting

  15-05-2016 09:00
  
  (Partisan)In theory, cleaning up their previously scuzzy guitar sound and stripping out the hardcore stylings ought to have made Eagulls’ post-punk songs more accessible. And yet, although that’s precisely what the Leeds five-piece have done on their second album, curiously they aren’t. There is undeniably a greater sophistication to their arrangements here and they still exude a sense of foreboding worthy of mid-1980s Cure, but having established a mood, their songs no longer
  
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• Corinne Bailey Rae: The Heart Speaks in Whispers review – another rebirth

  15-05-2016 09:00
  
  (Virgin)Corinne Bailey Rae’s luxuriant third album marks another rebirth, after The Sea (2010) soundtracked a period of mourning for the Leeds native’s first husband. Rich with on-point retro-futurist sounds, such as the gem-like, sultry neo-soul of Green Aphrodisiac, written with fellow travellers King, this Rae opus also boasts hyper-digital delights in the superlative single Been to the Moon and Tell Me. But there’s some unwelcome pandering
  
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• Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool review – disintegration at home and beyond

  15-05-2016 08:00
  
  (Deadairspace.com/XL)Radiohead have long trafficked in existential dread and political anger, and in a wider sense of twitchy bereftness that bends to fit any number of scenarios – their very own aural shade of Yves Klein blue, maybe, just a little more bruised. This arresting ninth album is bathed in it.‘The damage is done,’ Yorke sings, even more exhausted than usual Continue reading...
  
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• Meghan Trainor: Thank You review – still an unconvincing pop star

  15-05-2016 08:00
  
  (Epic)Much of Thank You – the follow-up to 2015’s 2m-selling Title – finds Meghan Trainor ditching her All About That Bass doo-wop shtick in favour of 90s chart R&B. Unfortunately, the core problem remains – Trainor just isn’t a convincing pop star. While the Britney-lite lead single No has its moments, most of the other songs are identity-free filler. Me Too’s bragging (“If I was you I’d wanna be me too”), for example, sounds misplaced,
  
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• Ukraine's Jamala wins 2016 Eurovision Song Contest

  15-05-2016 02:34
  
  STOCKHOLM (AP) — Ukrainian singer Jamala's melancholic tune about Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars was crowned the winner of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest early Sunday, an unusual choice for the kitschy pop fest.
  
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