Music news

• Super Flirty Video Games To Play With Someone You Fancy

  26-05-2016 23:53
  
  It's getting HAWT in here.
  
  Read more

• Gallant: Ology review – a vision of the future of R&B

  26-05-2016 23:20
  
  (Mind of a Genius)In a post-Frank Ocean world in which his new album seems stuck in musical purgatory, fans of contemporary R&B have plenty of other options. Ty Dolla $ign offers a rugged masculinity tempered by hip-hop, while Bryson Tiller is a sultry heartthrob for 2016. But Gallant might be the most fitting successor. Ology sees him follow up his 2014 EP Zebra with an album that describes his vision of what contemporary R&B should look like. The single Weight in Gold isn’t a mil
  
  Read more

• Readers recommend: share songs with extraordinary vocals

  26-05-2016 21:00
  
  Our reader suggests Janis Joplin or Freddie Mercury as jumping off points: make your suggestion in the comments and they’ll pick a playlist next week
  This week we want your musical recommendations with unusual or extraordinary vocals. Maybe the voice is extraordinary or distinctive to begin with, or a particular vocal performance is out-of-this-world? Either way, and however you interpret what the word ‘extraordinary’ constitutes – pick your tune and make your suggestions
  
  Read more

• The Strokes reveal first new song in three years

  26-05-2016 20:01
  
  Lead singer Julian Casablancas debuted Oblivius on his new radio show.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Leyla McCalla : A Day for the Hunter, a Day for the Prey review – powerful songs about death and freedom

  26-05-2016 19:45
  
  (Jazz Village)Leyla McCalla is a Haitian American based in New Orleans who is both a fine, soulful singer and a classically trained cellist who also plays banjo and guitar. She has worked with the celebrated Carolina Chocolate Drops, and her second solo album mixes songs from Louisiana and Haiti in a fresh, contemporary-sounding set that includes her own powerful compositions about death and freedom. She starts with the self-composed title track, beating her bow against the cello strings and bac
  
  Read more

• Marcus Strickland's Twi-Life: Nihil Novi review – shrewd grooves thanks to Meshell Ndegeocello

  26-05-2016 19:40
  
  (Blue Note) Florida-born saxophonist Marcus Strickland’s Twi-Life projects go back to a 2006 collaboration with his like-minded associate Robert Glasper on piano, the starting point for his natural-sounding fusions of classic horn-driven hard bop with the grooves and vocal phrasing of modern R&B and hip-hop. Telling ingredients here include Keyon Harrold’s expressive, 1980s-Miles trumpet sound, producer Meshell Ndegeocello’s shrewd use of overdubs, synths and cross-idiom ma
  
  Read more

• Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny review – jazz with an exploratory spirit

  26-05-2016 19:40
  
  (Nonesuch) Vietnamese-American trumpeter and singer Cuong Vu was a key figure in Pat Metheny’s noughties groups, and he credits the guitarist’s Travels album with turning him on to a musical career in the first place. On the second of Nonesuch’s two May releases featuring Metheny the star reverses the roles, guesting with Vu’s long-running trio of Stomu Takeishi on bass and Ted Poor on drums, on five Vu originals plus his own brooding then exultant Telescope and the melod
  
  Read more

• Danielsson/Neset/Lund: Sun Blowing review – spiritedly lyrical and dynamic

  26-05-2016 19:30
  
  (ACT)There’s a lot of inviting improv space in the harmonically free trio format of saxophone, bass and drums, but there’s also nowhere to hide. Only the most resourceful players have risked it (saxophonists Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, John Surman and latterly Mark Turner in the Fly trio have been frontrunners), but the trio of Norwegian saxist Marius Neset and Swedish bassist and drummer Lars Danielsson and Morten Lund joins the best. Formed out of an accidental meeting on a train
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Lady Leshurr Reminisces On Latest Track ‘1 Million views’

  26-05-2016 19:24
  
  “This video is not to receive 1 million views (excuse the pun) it's purely for the most important key to my success. My supporters. I've always wanted to do a video like this because people don't understand what I actually experience when I'm live on stage
  
  Read more

• Megson: Good Times Will Come Again review – rousing folk anthems and hymns to modern life

  26-05-2016 19:15
  
  (EDJ/Proper)Stu and Debbie Hanna have at last recorded an album of entirely self-composed songs, and it’s one of the most original political folk sets of the year. The multi-instrumentalist husband and wife duo who call themselves Megson – in memory of a much-loved dog – have until now specialised in reviving Victorian material from the north-east, while adding just a few excellent songs of their own. Here they match angry lyrics about the hard times of contemporary England wit
  
  Read more

• Atumpan & Paigey Cakey Team up For Sizzling Summer Smash ‘Watch Nobody’

  26-05-2016 19:11
  
  Paigey Cakey is an artist who’s very much in the spotlight of the scene. Having put out some strong projects over the last few years,
  
  Read more

• The British pop talent crash: where have all the new acts gone?

  26-05-2016 18:49
  
  With the charts dominated by North American titans such as Beyoncé and Drake, it is getting harder and harder for the UK’s rising stars to break in. Will we ever see another Adele? Imagine a UK music chart with almost no UK acts in it. A Top 40 comprising North Americans, Scandinavians and, down at the bottom reaches, a British outlier or two. That is the gloomy prediction being made in some corners of the British music industry because of two problems: the difficulty of finding new
  
  Read more

• Teen Mom 2’s Kailyn Lowry Announces That She’s Divorcing Husband Javi Marroquin

  26-05-2016 18:24
  
  Sad news.
  
  Read more

• This Is Why Perrie Edwards Won't Be Doing A Topless Photoshoot Any Time Soon

  26-05-2016 18:18
  
  Little Mix singer Perrie Edwards talks getting topless and why she won't ever do a topless photos shoot - and it's because she 'has not tits'.
  
  Read more

• Anthony Burgess: Orchestral Music CD review – dispatched with spirit

  26-05-2016 18:00
  
  Brown University Orchestra/Phillips
  (Naxos)“I wish people would think of me as a musician who writes novels, instead of a novelist who writes music on the side,” Anthony Burgess wrote in the Economist in 1991. Fat chance of that, especially after the release of Stanley Kubrick’s film of Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange . But Burgess kept composing – his lengthy worklist includes everything from recorder sonatas to perhaps the least likely operetta ever, based on J
  
  Read more

• ‘Heroic, sexy and a warrior bravado’: how Adam and the Ants redefined pop

  26-05-2016 17:52
  
  They were a riot of makeup, feathers, tribal drums and surf guitars – and, for a spectacular moment, they became the biggest band in the UK. Adam Ant and Marco Pirroni tell the story of their breakthroughOn the morning of 17 October 1980, Adam Ant discovered he couldn’t go to the corner shop. Or, at least, he couldn’t go to the corner shop without attracting attention: “[There was] pointing, girls chasing us down the street, and all the rest of it.” He was nearly 27
  
  Read more

• The Kardashians Just Dropped A Matte Lipstick Line To Rival Kylie Jenner's Lip Kits

  26-05-2016 17:29
  
  Khloe, Kourtney and Kim Kardashian go head to head with little sister Kylie Jenner as they launch a range of matte lipsticks like the Kylie Jenner Lip Kit.
  
  Read more

• Ibragimova and Tiberghien: Mozart Violin Sonatas CD review – beautifully calibrated

  26-05-2016 17:00
  
  Ibragimova/Tiberghien
  (Hyperion)The cover says Violin Sonatas, but the tracklist says Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin – and as this is Mozart, both descriptions apply. The balance between pianist Cédric Tiberghien and violinist Alina Ibragimova on this recording is as beautifully calibrated as always in this long-standing partnership, but here, unusually, it is Tiberghien’s poised, lyrical piano playing that is, more often than not, to the fore. This double CD takes in seven w
  
  Read more

• Amber Arcades: Fading Lines review – shimmering indiepop from a real talent

  26-05-2016 16:24
  
  (Heavenly)What music might you expect a former aide at the UN war crimes tribunals to make? Something raw and confrontational? Or, as Annelotte de Graaf makes under the name Amber Arcades, something so none-more-indiepop you feel like going out and photocopying 250 issues of a typewritten fanzine with a free flexi disc taped to the front? Fading Lines is a sustained exercise in restraint, De Graaf’s airy voice anchored by backing from assorted US indie luminaries, who provide just enough m
  
  Read more

• Gál and Mozart Piano Concertos CD review – underlining skilful transparency

  26-05-2016 16:15
  
  Briggs/Royal Northern Sinfonia/Woods
  (Avie)Conductor Kenneth Woods and the Royal Northern Sinfonia have been recording Hans Gál’s symphonies recently; now they combine, joining pianist Sarah Beth Briggs, to blow the dust off the composer’s Piano Concerto. Gál and his family fled Vienna in 1938, and perhaps if he had reached the US he might have joined fellow emigres in becoming a great composer for film – there is a touch of Korngold in his style, albeit with more
  
  Read more

• Finally A Restaurant That Exists For The Sole Purpose Of Getting A Good Instagram Pic

  26-05-2016 16:11
  
  Check out the parody sketch video about a restaurant opened in New York that doesn't serve edible food, but was instead created with the only intention of helping you take a good Instagram photo of your eggs and avocado on toast.
  
  Read more

• Buster Cooper obituary

  26-05-2016 16:11
  
  Dynamic jazz trombonist who played for Duke Ellington, excelled in Hollywood and toured around the worldDuke Ellington liked the playing of the jazz trombonist Buster Cooper, who has died aged 87, and wanted him to join his band. But Cooper turned him down twice, preferring to keep his own group going. Eventually he succumbed, spending seven fruitful years with Ellington’s orchestra, and he later conceded it had been the best decision he had ever made.“Once you go with Duke, you don&
  
  Read more

• Chopin: Fantaisie, Op 49; Mozart: Sonata, K284; Liszt: Dante Sonata review – flashes of brilliance

  26-05-2016 16:00
  
  Yulianna Avdeeva
  (Mirare)Since she won what is perhaps the most prestigious of all piano competitions, the Warsaw Chopin, in 2010, audiences in the UK have had relatively few chances to hear Yulianna Avdeeva, either live or on disc. What opportunities there have been have proved uneven and puzzling too, almost as if Avdeeva herself has not quite settled in her own mind on what kind of pianist she really wants to be.This latest recital disc doesn’t really clarify things much either. There a
  
  Read more

• Catfish and the Bottlemen: The Ride review – crushingly prosaic indie rock

  26-05-2016 16:00
  
  Aiming themselves squarely at the lowest common denominator, Van McCann and co make meat-and-potatoes music for festival crowds to punch the air toDuring a recent interview with Catfish and the Bottlemen, a journalist took it upon himself to quiz frontman Van McCann about the lyrics on the band’s second album, The Ride. First McCann was called upon to elucidate a track called Twice, which the journalist thought might be a complaint about the monotony of life as a touring musician. “T
  
  Read more

• Avengers Director Joss Whedon Would Return To Marvel Under One Condition…

  26-05-2016 15:38
  
  This would change everything.
  
  Read more

• Why Loving All Time Low Will Always Be So Wrong, It’s Right

  26-05-2016 14:40
  
  Dear Maria, count... the ways in which we will always appreciate ATL...
  
  Read more

• Bugzy Malone Takes A Trip Down Memory Lane On New Track 'Moving'

  26-05-2016 14:02
  
  Nate Prophet and Craggle Beats are on production of this one, and they created a real mellow energy that perfectly matches the reminiscent vibe brought through in Bugzy's bars.
  
  Read more

• Liss review - the sound of school discos and adolescent heartbreak

  26-05-2016 13:39
  
  Moth Club, LondonCombining experimental guitar pop with boyband sincerity, the Danish four-piece want to take you out on to a teen-filled dancefloor
  Maybe it’s the venue’s gold shimmer curtain or perhaps it’s the nervous energy of the five skinny boys in sportswear on stage. Whatever it is, there’s a distinct atmosphere of adolescent school disco lingering over Liss’s debut headline gig in London.The Danish four-piece are a curious contradiction. Their music, dubbed
  
  Read more

• Vicky Pattison Responds To Gary Beadle's Comments About Her Bedroom Antics & 'Squeaky-Clean Pretend Image'

  26-05-2016 13:12
  
  *covers eyes*
  
  Read more

• Readers recommend playlist: songs about ships and boats

  26-05-2016 13:00
  
  Reader Scott Blair picks from your nautical suggestions this week, with Queen, Lulu, Seth Lakeman and – naturally – Bryan Ferry all setting sail
  Below is this week’s playlist – the theme interpreted and tunes picked by a reader from the comments on last week’s callout. Thanks for your suggestions. Read more about the weekly format of the Readers recommend series at the end of the piece.I feel almost over-qualified to be choosing the playlist for the current topic, g
  
  Read more

• Dua Lipa Once Stage Invaded A Katy Perry Gig Because She's Awesome

  26-05-2016 12:58
  
  Actually in love with this girl...
  
  Read more

• Plans for Vladimir Putin and Elton John to meet are shelved – for now

  26-05-2016 12:49
  
  Kremlin says Russian president will not meet singer this month because men’s schedules do not match, but future meeting is possibleVladimir Putin will not meet Elton John when the singer visits Russia this month because there is no appropriate time in their schedules, the Kremlin has said, but suggested the two could still meet at a later date. Related: Kremlin calling? Meet the Russian pranksters who say 'Elton owes us'Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Dierks Bentley goes dark on his new relationship record

  26-05-2016 12:46
  
  NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country star Dierks Bentley may be known for his boozy party songs like "Drunk On a Plane" or "5-1-5-0," but as a singer, he loves going dark.
  
  Read more

• You'll Never Believe Where One Direction's Louis Tomlinson Did His First Solo Performance

  26-05-2016 12:19
  
  YAAS LOUIS!
  
  Read more

• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band review – the magic and madness go on

  26-05-2016 12:17
  
  Etihad Stadium, Manchester
  The Boss rocked a floodlit stadium with the energy of a young man but a voice full of dirt, guts, experience and soul On an unseasonably damp night in Manchester, in a soulless football stadium, Santa Claus is coming to town. “You got to help us out, man,” burrs Bruce Springsteen as Father Christmas is brought out of the crowd: a fan holding his request on a piece of cardboard, as many have done successfully over the years. E Street Band guitarist Steve Van
  
  Read more

• Happy Birthday Niomi Smart! This Is Every Time She Gave Us The Ultimate Inspo

  26-05-2016 11:59
  
  This girl is nothing but goals.
  
  Read more

• Wilko Johnson webchat – post your questions now

  26-05-2016 11:00
  
  The Dr Feelgood frontman has written his autobiography, and will join us to answer your questions in a live webchat from 12.30pm BST on Tuesday 31 May – post them in the comments below 3.27pm BSTAs the guitarist in Dr Feelgood, Wilko Johnson was a hulking, possibly psychotic presence, laying down brutally soulful riffs. The band from Canvey Island played a chunky R&B sound that built a bridge to punk, and have become one of the UK’s most beloved cult bands.Johnson later had a sti
  
  Read more

• Tyga Shuts Down Demi Rose Dating Rumours With One Simple Tweet

  26-05-2016 10:55
  
  So there you go.
  
  Read more

• T.I. Concert Shooting: One Dead, Three Injured In New York

  26-05-2016 10:54
  
  Fans flee as violence spread into the crowd...
  
  Read more

• Zayn Malik And Gigi Hadid Have Apparently Split, But We’re Not Exactly Convinced

  26-05-2016 10:07
  
  According to an American magazine, Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid split two weeks after her birthday...which doesn't make much sense.
  
  Read more

• One person killed and three wounded in shooting at rapper TI's New York show

  26-05-2016 09:49
  
  Reports suggest an argument backstage escalated into a fatal shooting at the hip-hop star’s Irving Plaza concert One person was killed and three others wounded in a shooting inside a concert venue in New York City, where hip-hop artist TI was scheduled to perform, police said.It happened around 10.15 pm Wednesday in a third-floor green room area at Irving Plaza, a 1,025-capacity ballroom-style music venue near Manhattan’s Union Square. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The Weeknd, Belly cancel Kimmel performance because of Trump

  26-05-2016 04:28
  
  NEW YORK (AP) — R&B singer The Weeknd and rapper Belly have canceled their performance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" because Donald Trump was set to appear on the episode.
  
  Read more

• Pond's Nicholas Allbrook on Australia's national anthem: 'It’s ignorant and isolationist'

  26-05-2016 03:09
  
  As he releases his second solo album – a mediation on national identity – the musician says Australians are ‘children of no place, just outsiders to everyone’The butcher, the barber, the undertaker
  Our land is girt by sea
  The looker, the quaker, the cocktail shaker
  Something young and freeWe’re luckily, really, to live in a country where nationalism has yet to reach such heights that a rocker can’t irreverently meddle with the national anthem without risking a
  
  Read more

• Wish You Were Here: Royal Mail stamps honour 50 years of Pink Floyd

  26-05-2016 00:58
  
  Stamps mark half-century since group turned professional, with albums and live performances represented A new set of stamps is being issued to honour Pink Floyd, featuring some of the band’s best known album covers. The 10 stamps will mark 50 years since the group turned professional, and will include album covers such as The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

Follow @MusicUKnws on Twitter!