Music news

• Why the sound of Ed Sheeran helps sell fries

  02-04-2017 18:00
  
  Swedish researchers have found that specially selected songs played in a fast-food chain increased takingsIt’s elevator music, 21st-century style: not Herb Alpert, piped tinnily into your local department store, but carefully curated playlists generated by algorithms and used by major restaurants, supermarkets and retailers all over the world to entice us to spend more cash. In the largest study of its kind, researchers from the Swedish Retail Institute – in collaboration with Spotif
  
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• Blac Chyna Has Been Banned From Ever Being A Kardashian Even Though She And Rob Are Now Back On

  02-04-2017 16:44
  
  Kim, Khloe and Kourtney have blocked Blac's Kardashian dream
  
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• Gaz Beadle Just Helped Raise £1.3 Million To Help Save The Life Of A Baby Boy

  02-04-2017 16:23
  
  A charity target was smashed with some help from the Geordie Shore star
  
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• Wanted: celebrity’s assistant – must be able to lift 25lbs

  02-04-2017 16:00
  
  Last week, Chance the Rapper advertised on Twitter for an intern to write ‘pitches and proposals’. Pretty normal stuff compared to other ads for A-list assistantsWhen Chance the Rapper announced last week on Twitter that he was looking for an intern, thousands of young people across the US hoped he would take a chance on them.Chance encouraged applicants to submit their resumes formatted as “creative decks, pitches or proposals” and one applicant, superfan Negel
  
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• New York Philharmonic/Gilbert review – a measured approach to heavenly visions

  02-04-2017 15:20
  
  Barbican, London
  Departing musical director Alan Gilbert led the New York Philharmonic through the icy waters of Bartók to the luminous afterlife in Mahler’s FourthThis concert marked the opening of the New York Philharmonic’s weekend residency at the Barbican, in a season celebrating the ensemble’s 175th anniversary, and which is also its last with current music director, Alan Gilbert. There were two works on the programme: Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percu
  
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• Jamiroquai review – Jay Kay reclaims his crown as prince of flamboyant funk

  02-04-2017 14:59
  
  Roundhouse, London
  Could Jay Kay and co’s party grooves, laser-beam energy and daft headgear have any relevance in 2017? Well, if the hat still fits …
  It’s a decade since Jay Kay told the press he was going to quit music to focus on flying helicopters and looking for “the right lady to have children with”. In the intervening time (and notwithstanding 201o’s stodgy disco album Rock Dust Light Star, their worst performing album to date) the sonic qualities that
  
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• Selena Gomez's Mum Says Quitting Social Media Helped The Start Get Her Glow Back

  02-04-2017 14:45
  
  Mandy Teefay is one wise mother
  
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• Roland founder and music pioneer Ikutaro Kakehashi dies aged 87

  02-04-2017 14:28
  
  Tributes paid to Japanese engineer who created drum machines and synths used throughout music scene in 1980s and 90sTributes have been paid to the man behind the synthesiser and drum machines that revolutionised electronic music in the 1980s and 90s, Ikutaro Kakehashi, who has died aged 87.The Japanese engineer founded the Roland Corporation in 1972 and invented a range of electronic drum machines and synthesisers used throughout popular music since the mid-1970s – by performers from Princ
  
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• Kardashian Sisters Trying To Find Kylie Jenner A New Boyfriend Amid Tyga Split Claims

  02-04-2017 14:24
  
  Apparently Kylie and Tyga have drifted apart
  
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• Niall Horan Sets Off Dating Rumour Mill After Leaving Ariana Grande Concert With Mystery Woman

  02-04-2017 13:57
  
  The 1D hunk has also been getting excited about... golf
  
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• Brooklyn Beckham Slammed As An "Airhead" By Ex-Girlfriend Tallia Storm

  02-04-2017 13:17
  
  The singer says Brooklyn "messed" her around before dumping her
  
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• Olly Murs Is Still Heartbroken Over His Breakup That Happened 18 Months Ago

  02-04-2017 13:00
  
  The heart can take a long time to heal
  
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• Sophie Kasaei Fears The Geordie Shore Ladies Come Across As Too Bitchy

  02-04-2017 12:28
  
  The reality babe is really a friendly lass
  
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• Stefflon Don: ‘I’m not going to compromise, or not say what I want’

  02-04-2017 10:45
  
  East London meets Jamaica via Rotterdam in charismatic rapper Stefflon Don. And now she’s working with Drake…In a studio just off Goodge Street in central London, dressed in a crop-top, leggings, and fluffy white sliders, the 25-year-old rapper Stephanie Allen, who goes by the name Stefflon Don (pronounced “Steff-lun”), is eating strawberry cake with long, pointed electric blue nails. I ask how she came up with one of the catchiest hooks of 2016 – on Chicago R&
  
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• Violinist Min Kym: ‘My schoolgirl crush was Beethoven’s 4th’

  02-04-2017 10:00
  
  The musician and author on growing up a child prodigy, dealing with anorexia, and coping with the loss of a beloved Stradivarius worth £1.2mMin Kym got a cheap violin at six, passed her grade 4 music exam eight weeks later, and at seven became the youngest-ever student at the Purcell school. Twenty-five years later, the professional musician’s precious Stradivarius – worth £1.2m – was stolen as she ate a sandwich at Pret a Manger in London’s Euston station. Af
  
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• The Who review – the pinball wizard still casting his spell

  02-04-2017 10:00
  
  Royal Albert Hall, London
  The Who’s seminal 1969 rock opera, Tommy, retains its harrowing delightsThere can be few more chilling, lyrical openers in rock’s canon than those that instigate Cousin Kevin, from the Who’s Tommy. “We’re on our own, cousin/ All alone, cousin…” intones Roger Daltrey, as an innocent-sounding guitar fantasia gathers electric menace behind him.The Royal Albert Hall audience have come expecting an acoustic strum through the Who&rsq
  
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• Jamiroquai: Automaton review – Jay Kay’s back as a Daft Punk tribute act

  02-04-2017 10:00
  
  (Virgin EMI)
  Clever, clubbable pop makes for an audacious but strangely listenable comebackImitation, we’re told, is the sincerest form of flattery. What are we to make, then, of the surprise return of British acid funkateers Jamiroquai as a Daft Punk tribute act? Band leader Jay Kay, once known for his statement hats, now sports a glowing robot Pokémon headdress in the video for comeback single Automaton, an appealing, synth-driven disco burbler. You might counter that Jamiroquai p
  
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• The Hot 8 Brass band: On the Spot review – sharp-edged New Orleans jazz

  02-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Tru Thoughts)Led by sousaphone player Bennie Pete, this Grammy-nominated group deliver the authentic sound of New Orleans parades on their fifth album. Best known for reworks of such classics as Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healin g, Hot 8 perform several more electrifying covers, including Stevie Wonder’s That Girl and Sade’s Sweetest Taboo, alongside original tracks. Spirits are high as band members laugh, call and whistle to each other over piercingly high trumpet refrains, jagged
  
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• Tei Shi: Crawl Space review – a seductive debut

  02-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Polydor)A product of Argentina, Colombia, Canada and Boston’s Berklee College of Music, as a child Tei Shi would force herself into a crawl space to conquer her fear of the dark. Overcoming obstaclesremains a theme on her seductive debut album. Tarantulas stud the video for Keep Running, a slice of breathy R&B pop. Previously known for her 2015 single Bassically, Tei Shi isn’t technically an indie artist any more, but her bijou brand of left-field R&B shares space with Chair
  
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• Rodney Crowell: Close Ties review – upbeat, rueful, uncompromising

  02-04-2017 09:00
  
  (New West)The thousand-yard stare Rodney Crowell’s wearing on the cover of Close Ties suggests battle weariness, and much of the material inside surveys the Nashville veteran’s past in uncompromising fashion. East Houston Blues addresses his dysfunctional boyhood, I Don’t Care Anymore is a driving blues casting a rueful eye on youthful excess, and Forgive Me Annabelle is an apology to an ex-lover (“We both know how far from grace I fell”). Still, Crowell wears his w
  
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• Richard Galliano Quartet: New Jazz Musette review – French accordion rocks

  02-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Ponderosa)In his 30-year career, French accordion virtuoso Richard Galliano has done what Astor Piazzolla did for the tango – rescued a traditional music – in this case the French musette – from the grip of nostalgic cliche. Galliano also rescued his instrument from its abject beret-and-striped-jersey role, placing it at the heart of modern, jazz-influenced European music. This double CD is dazzling proof of his success. The music has all the melodious charm and rhythmic zest
  
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• Goldfrapp: Silver Eye review – stomping glam rock revisited

  02-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Mute)Goldfrapp’s entire career has been a series of comprehensive reinventions, so it’s something of a surprise that so much of their seventh album finds them returning to the stomping glam rock/synth fusions of 2003’s Black Cherry. The lack of progression isn’t a problem: opener Anymore (about transgender children), the standout Everything Is Never Enough and the brooding, PJ-Harvey-goes-electro Ocean are a match for anything Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory have relea
  
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• Early Opera Company; Joshua Bell, Sam Haywood; Jonathan Biss – review

  02-04-2017 09:00
  
  Wigmore Hall; Barbican; Milton Court, London
  Christian Curnyn and his Early Opera Company forces delivered taut, tangy Handel. Plus bravura Brahms and more from Bell and BissHours after Theresa May began the woeful process of withdrawing the UK from the European Union, players and singers who regularly cross the Channel to make music with others – surely the purest expression of unity – appeared at London’s Wigmore Hall to perform works by that ultimate European, George Frideri
  
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• Bob Dylan: Triplicate review – a personal take on the classic American songbook

  02-04-2017 09:00
  
  (Columbia)The 38th album from the only Nobel prize winner (to date) to have appeared in a Victoria’s Secret ad finds him continuing his reinterpretations of the classic American songbook, as he did so successfully on 2015’s Shadows in the Night and 2016’s Fallen Angels. Spread across three loosely themed discs, Dylan performs intimate versions of songs written by Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin and others and, in the main, popularised by Sinatra. Throughout, the muted arrangements
  
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• Vaughan Williams: A Pastoral Symphony, Symphony No 4 CD review – raw splendour

  02-04-2017 08:25
  
  Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Manze
  (Onyx)The first two symphonies in this Vaughan Williams series with Andrew Manze conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra met with high praise. This second album has the same persuasive mix of poetry, raw splendour and poignancy, with exceptional playing from the RLPO. Vaughan Williams wrote A Pastoral Symphony straight after the first world war. Its elegiac mood has come to be understood as a meditation on the dead and not, as some first
  
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• Vecchi: Requiem CD review – compelling Antwerp baroque

  02-04-2017 08:20
  
  Graindelavoix/Schmelzer(Glossa)A well-known name always helps to sell unknown music, and here it is Rubens, at whose funeral in 1640 we might have heard Orazio Vecchi’s Requiem. The score had been printed 28 years earlier, and a direct link is unproven, but both music and singing are compelling. What director Björn Schmelzer calls the “Antwerp baroque” is intense, darkly charged late polyphony performed with a swirling, woozy style using free ornamentation and not totally
  
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• Mozart: Violin Sonatas Vol 3 CD review – a pure delight

  02-04-2017 08:15
  
  Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (piano)(Hyperion) (2 CDs)This is the third in the ongoing Mozart sonata series from Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien, and once again it is hard to imagine a better partnership. Each of the six works in this double CD programme is a pure delight, with exquisite playing from these world-class performers – Ibragimova fleet and lithe, Tiberghien playfully delicate. As before, they mix early examples – two written when Mozar
  
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• Bob Dylan finally accepts Nobel prize in literature at private ceremony in Stockholm

  02-04-2017 07:13
  
  Gold medal and diploma handed to Dylan at ceremony attended by 12 members of Swedish Academy, where ‘spirits were high’After months of uncertainty and controversy, Bob Dylan finally accepted the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature at a jovial, champagne-laced ceremony on Saturday, the Swedish Academy announced.
  The academy, which awards the coveted prize, ended prolonged speculation as to whether the 75-year-old troubadour would use a concert stopover in Stockholm to accept the gold medal
  
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