Music news

• David Bowie awarded posthumous Grammy for Blackstar album

  12-02-2017 23:10
  
  The British musician won the award for best engineered non-classical album.
  
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• Beyonce, David Bowie win early Grammys

  12-02-2017 23:08
  By Jill Serjeant LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - David Bowie won two posthumous Grammys on Sunday ahead of a televised ceremony where pop superstar Beyonce is expected to make her first public outing since announcing she is pregnant with twins. Bowie, who died in January 2016, won the Grammys for recording package and non-classical engineering for his final album "Blackstar," which was released days before his death at age 69 of cancer. Sunday's wins marked the first music Grammys for Bowie, who receive
  
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• Beyonce, David Bowie, Justin Timberlake win early Grammys

  12-02-2017 22:52
  
  Beyonce is now a 21-time Grammy winner, picking up an award for best music video, while the late David Bowie won an award for his final album, beating out Prince. Beyonce won for the hit "Formation," ...
  
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• Seven-time Grammy winner Al Jarreau dies at 76

  12-02-2017 22:02
  Jazz and R&B singer Al Jarreau, a seven-time Grammy winner whose hits included "We're in This Love Together" and "Moonlighting," died on Sunday in Los Angeles at age 76, just days after announcing he was retiring from touring because of poor health. Jarreau was hospitalized for exhaustion last week and forced to cancel his remaining tour dates for 2017. A post on his Facebook page on Thursday said he had been "recovering slowly and steadily." "His son reports that he caught his dad singing '
  
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• Grammy-winning jazz singer Al Jarreau dies at 76

  12-02-2017 21:11
  
  LOS ANGELES (AP) — Grammy-winning jazz singer Al Jarreau, who transcended genres over a 50-year career, died at a Los Angeles hospital Sunday, just days after announcing his retirement from touring due to exhaustion.
  
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• Jazz singer Al Jarreau, of 'Moonlighting' fame, dies at 76

  12-02-2017 21:00
  Jazz and R&B singer Al Jarreau, whose hits included "We're in This Love Together" and "Moonlighting", died on Sunday in Los Angeles at age 76. A post on his Facebook page on Friday said he had been "recovering slowly and steadily." "His son reports that he caught his dad singing 'Moonlighting' to one of the nurses the morning ... a very encouraging sign," the post said. Jarreau was considered one of jazz's greatest vocalists, with a mastery of scat singing and vocal percussion.
  
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• Al Jarreau, Grammy-winning jazz, pop and R&B singer, dies at 76

  12-02-2017 20:55
  
  Wisconsin native won seven Grammys in three categories in 50-year careerBiggest hits were We’re in This Love Together and Moonlighting themeThe Grammy-winning jazz singer Al Jarreau died on Sunday in a Los Angeles hospital, days after announcing his retirement from touring due to exhaustion. Related: Al Jarreau: My Old Friend: Celebrating George Duke review – a classy tributeContinue reading...
  
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• Jamie Dornan Is Sick Of People Asking Him Questions About His Bum

  12-02-2017 18:32
  
  The Fifty Shades star is finding questions about his bottom a right pain in the behind
  
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• Kendall Jenner Gets Support From A List Friends For DJ Set In New York City

  12-02-2017 18:25
  
  The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star was rocking all over NYFW
  
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• Veljo Tormis obituary

  12-02-2017 17:50
  
  Estonian composer devoted to sustaining the memory of past Baltic culturesThe Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, who has died aged 86, wrote choral works based on the folksong and poetry of languages that are now disappearing or extinct. Those from the Finno-Ugric family that have established themselves in modern nations – Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian – have flourished, but several related tongues used to be heard on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. The rites, poetry and music of t
  
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• Could Beyonce finally win album of the year at the Grammys?

  12-02-2017 17:20
  
  There are few things Beyonce has not conquered, and the Grammy for album of the year is one of them. For the third time, Beyonce is nominated for the coveted trophy, an award given to few R&B-based performers ...
  
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• Katy Perry says record labels wanted her to be 'like a duplicate'

  12-02-2017 17:00
  
  Katy Perry said record labels didn’t really share her vision for her career until she landed at Capitol.
  
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• George Michael's family demand investigation into 999 call leak

  12-02-2017 16:13
  
  Lawyers for family of singer, who died in December, say they are appalled that recording and transcript were made publicMembers of George Michael’s family are demanding a full investigation into the apparent leak of a 999 call made after the singer’s death.A statement issued by solicitors acting on their behalf said Michael’s loved ones are “truly appalled” that the audio recording was made public. Continue reading...
  
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• Ed Sheeran Reveals Inner Bridezilla As He Already Has His Dream Wedding Planned

  12-02-2017 13:08
  
  The Thinking Out Loud singer has been vocal about exactly what he wants on his big day
  
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• Kim Kardashian Gives Fans Tour Of Her Secret Closet Proving She Lied To Kanye About Throwing Out Her Old Clothes

  12-02-2017 13:03
  
  Kim says she's keeping all her old threads for their daughter North West
  
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• Charlotte Crosby And Stephen Bear Put On United Front In Midst Of Cheating Rumours

  12-02-2017 12:55
  
  The hot reality couple hit the town together after it was claimed Bear kissed other girls
  
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• Three Month Old Dream Kardashian Is Already Learning How To Text

  12-02-2017 12:49
  
  The tiny tot has been getting lessons on emojis from big brother King Cairo
  
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• Jeremy McConnell Reveals He IS The Father Of Stephanie Davis Baby After Taking DNA Test

  12-02-2017 12:42
  
  Little baby Caben-Albi now officially has a father
  
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• Get Excited As Harry Styles ‘Beautiful And Authentic’ Debut Album Is Almost Here

  12-02-2017 12:34
  
  The One Direction heartthrob has been perfecting his solo sound
  
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• Congolese music festival for peace draws tens of thousands

  12-02-2017 12:25
  
  GOMA, Congo (AP) — Enrique Makasi's hometown of Beni in eastern Congo is under frequent siege from rebels, and music is the way he tells the world what is happening.
  
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• The Pirates of Penzance review – precise patter aplenty in Mike Leigh revival

  12-02-2017 11:59
  
  Coliseum, London
  ENO’s surefooted return for Leigh’s 2015 Gilbert and Sullivan production has a cast richly decked with boastful pirates and a proto-Wagnerian police chiefWhen Mike Leigh’s production of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera was new in 2015, traditionalists found the abstraction of Alison Chitty’s sets visually disappointing, while others missed the kind of radical reimagining that distinguished Jonathan Miller’s now classic Mikado, first seen in 1986.But i
  
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• Rag’n’Bone Man: Human review – all sorts of rootsy goodness

  12-02-2017 10:00
  
  (Columbia)
  The Brits critics’ choice award-winner’s debut is a triumph of gritty, blues-inflected popFollowing in the lung prints of singers Adele and Sam Smith, Rag’n’Bone Man’s recent Brits critics’ choice award crowned the long, slow rise of a Sussex care worker from open mics to soulful industry darling. You may well have heard Human, the title track of his debut album. Kept off the No 1 spot by a double whammy of Ed Sheeran tunes, the song has already bee
  
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• Pharrell’s ever-expandıng unıverse

  12-02-2017 09:05
  
  Musician, Hollywood producer, designer, inventor – Pharrell Williams is a restless polymath. Sasha Frere-Jones asks if this is a star looking for a life beyond musicWas it a tell? A plug? A piss-take? Last November, in Los Angeles, Pharrell Williams was wrapping up a press day at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons. In a knitted cap, several chains and a very visible orange camouflage print, Williams had managed to maintain his well-documented good nature after answering many, many stupid quest
  
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• Vince Mendoza: Homecoming review – one man and his breathtaking big band

  12-02-2017 09:00
  
  (Jazzline)Vince Mendoza composed the music, but equal billing should go to all 19 members of Cologne’s WDR Big Band. Some of today’s most ambitious orchestral jazz owes its existence to ensembles based at European radio stations, and this is one of the best. The breadth of sound and pinpoint accuracy of playing are breathtaking. There’s nothing revolutionary about Mendoza’s style, but he has a wonderful command of orchestral dynamics and texture, and knows how best to use
  
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• Sinkane: Life & Livin’ It review – socially conscious music suffused with joy

  12-02-2017 09:00
  
  (City Slang)Aimed at the heart and the feet, the release of Sinkane’s new album couldn’t be more timely. Keen to make socially conscious music suffused with joy, band leader Ahmed Gallab houses his succinct lyrics in upbeat Afro-funk (the luminous U’Huh, built around a simple mantra of “We’re all going to be all right”), sun-kissed post-rock (Favourite Song) and, on the pulsating Telephone, the sort of galloping alternative dance music you hope LCD Soundsystem
  
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• Ron Gallo: Heavy Meta review – the sound of an excellent night out

  12-02-2017 09:00
  
  (New West)Perhaps now more than usual, we could sorely use a garage rock record whose emphasis on lurid fun doesn’t sacrifice depth. Step forward Ron Gallo, formerly of Philadelphians Toy Soldiers (nope, us neither), now residing in Nashville. He and two band members on bass and drums combine the sound of an excellent night out with songs about scary girlfriends, monsters who drop cigarette ash on babies’ heads (Why Do You Have Kids?), buying eyeballs and, on Kill the Medicine Man, c
  
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• Otis Taylor: Fantasizing About Being Black review – raw and unflinching

  12-02-2017 09:00
  
  (Inakustik)Intended as a history of African-American life, from slavery onwards, the 15th album from “trance blues” maestro Otis Taylor proves a raw experience. Banjo Bam Bam, for example, is the voice of a shackled slave who is slowly losing his mind, Jump Out of Line an edgy, uptempo piece about civil rights marchers’ fear of being attacked. Elsewhere come troubled stories of mixed-race relationships and children given up for adoption. It’s unflinching stuff, though Tay
  
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• A history of the love song in 10 tracks

  12-02-2017 09:00
  
  From gay anthems to online romance, love songs have charted our changing times. Here’s our guide to seven decades of swooning in popWhat do we sing about when we sing about love? Over the 65 years of the pop charts, songwriters have described love through similes: like oxygen, like a butterfly, like a heatwave. Love has also echoed loudly as a metaphor: as a tender trap, a battlefield, the devil, the drug. It flies over mountains and laughs at oceans. It makes me feel like I’m on ano
  
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• Jesca Hoop: Memories Are Now review – wit and songwriting power

  12-02-2017 08:50
  
  (Sub Pop)The worst that could be said about the new Jesca Hoop album, her first solo collection of new material in five years, is that it doesn’t always cohere. This shouldn’t come as a surprise (“I have an identity crisis every time I write a catalogue of songs,” she said in 2011). Her sound can switch abruptly from gossamer folk to gritty bar-room blues, while the songs encompass complaints against lacklustre lovers (The Lost Sky), satire on computer domination (Animal
  
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• Adriana Lecouvreur; The Creation; Metamorphosen – review

  12-02-2017 08:30
  
  Royal Opera House; Royal Festival Hall, London
  Angela Gheorghiu took star billing but Brian Jagde stole the show in a sumptuous Royal Opera revival. Plus, gripping Strauss from Aurora OrchestraThe prince in Adriana Lecouvreur (1902) is the only character in opera – if not, someone will correct me – defined by his love of chemistry. It’s a minor but critical point, easily missed, like so many in Francesco Cilea’s grandiloquent, not to say wildly overblown work. This chemis
  
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• Stravinsky: Violin Concerto, Works for Violin & Piano CD review – power and poetry

  12-02-2017 08:25
  
  Liana Gourdjia (violin), Katia Skanavi (piano), Deutsche Radio Philharmonie/ Nagy (Audite)Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto remains puzzlingly underplayed, a neoclassical masterpiece dating from 1931. The composer worried that, as a non-violinist, he wasn’t equipped to write idiomatically. It’s certainly fiercely hard, opening with big, strident chords and exploiting the instrument’s staccato brilliance. The inner movements, Arias I and II, are more song-like, mysterious and s
  
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• Virgin and Child: Music from the Baldwin Partbooks II CD review – clarity and poise

  12-02-2017 08:20
  
  Contrapunctus/Rees
  (Signum)The first track here is one of the most astonishing, sustained 18 minutes of polyphony you will ever hear: Contrapunctus realise the Gothic spans and arching phrases of Tallis’s lavish Gaude gloriosa Dei mater with wonderful clarity and poise. This is their second CD devoted to the music from the Baldwin partbooks, an Oxford project bringing musicology and performance together; the superb singing fulfils every expectation (except perhaps that of variety). With cr
  
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• Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto; String Octet CD review – thrilling intensity

  12-02-2017 08:15
  
  Liza Ferschtman (violin), Het Gelders Orkest/Bakels(Challenge)Oh, not another Mendelssohn violin concerto recording, I hear you cry. Well, yes, but wait: this one is worth exploring. These Dutch musicians treat the piece as a chamber work, the cut-down forces of the Het Gelders Orkest giving light and airy support to Liza Ferschtman’s carefully judged, singing solo line. It works beautifully, particularly in the dancing central andante. Ferschtman changes gear for the Octet, Op 20, driving
  
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• Lupe Fiasco: Drogas Light review – soggy and incoherent

  12-02-2017 08:15
  
  (1st & 15th/Thirty Tigers)A decade ago, with the impressive albums Food & Liquor and The Cool, Lupe Fiasco was shaping up to be the lyrical link between storytelling Slick Rick and socially conscious early Kanye. Last year, Lupe could be found on Twitter feebly defending his freestyle attacking “dirty Jewish execs”. It’s been a long, slow drift from the centre of the conversation, but this soggy, incoherent sixth album confirms his irrelevance. Technically he still has
  
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• Green Day review – a force for good

  12-02-2017 08:00
  
  O2, London
  The spirit of punk protest burns bright, despite the trio’s weakness for a cheesy medleyOne of the Green Day T-shirts on sale at the O2 bears the words: “No racism, no sexism, no homophobia.” These are the rules posted on the wall at 924 Gilman Street, the staunchly socialist all-ages punk club in Berkeley, California, where Green Day found their feet in the late 1980s before being shunned for the crime of being pop-punk sellouts. There are moments tonight when it fe
  
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• The list of nominees at the 2017 Grammys

  12-02-2017 07:36
  
  Beyonce and Adele will compete for the three top awards.
  
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• UMG pre-Grammy showcase features Katy Perry, Motown doc

  12-02-2017 03:20
  LOS ANGELES (AP) — Universal Music Group's annual pre-Grammy showcase included Katy Perry celebrating her 10-year anniversary with Capitol Records and the debut of trailers for new documentaries about Motown Records and INXS singer Michael Hutchence.
  
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• Daniel Radcliffe Is Up For Playing Harry Potter Again

  12-02-2017 00:39
  
  We need a return for the Harry Potter And The Cursed Child movie!
  
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• BAFTAs 2017 Full Winners List

  12-02-2017 00:32
  
  Here's everyone who won at the BAFTAs 2017...
  
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