Music news

• Nicki Minaj offers to pay students’ tuition after fan asks for help on Twitter

  07-05-2017 21:56
  
  The rapper said she would pay international airfare for contest winners, so a US student asked for help with tuition. Six minutes later, Minaj tweeted her offer
  Nicki Minaj was getting all the credit, with Twitter humming around the world in praise of her decision to spend thousands of dollars of her own money helping out impoverished American college students. But none of that would have happened without the chutzpah of CJ.Related: Nicki Minaj: US prison system 'is like slavery'Continue reading
  
  Read more

• The Funniest MTV Movie Awards Hosting Moments Ever!

  07-05-2017 19:15
  
  From Kevin Hart's Dark Chocolate Knight to Amy Schumer's Fifty Shades fandom, the MTV Movie Awards always delivers the LOLs!
  
  Read more

• Chocolate Remix: the lesbian reggaeton artist taking on Argentina's 'supermachos'

  07-05-2017 18:00
  
  Reggaeton is almost as famous for its dodgy lyrics as its dancehall rhythms. But in Argentina, one woman is busting sexual taboos and outswaggering the menThe founding fathers of the testosterone-fuelled Latin pop genre reggaeton would probably be surprised to hear their penises described as dispensable. But this is the message from Chocolate Remix, a tiny Argentinian woman in a big cap taking aim at the “supermachos” in her single, Lo Que Las Mujeres Quieren. “Hey macho reggae
  
  Read more

• Can’t help falling in price: why Elvis memorabilia is plummeting in value

  07-05-2017 17:00
  
  As the King’s fans die of old age, and their collections hit the second-hand market, vintage Elvis records have never been cheaperFrom the moment Elvis Presley landed, we wanted every piece of him. This turned his old records into vinyl and shellac gold. While the value of discs by other popular mid-century artists such as Cliff Richard and Frank Sinatra dropped as time passed, Elvis’s didn’t. As an omnipresent figure, the prices of the King’s records rose to astronomical
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• The Internet Is Loving This Two Ingredient Tooth Whitener You Can Make At Home

  07-05-2017 15:14
  
  The future is looking super bright with this life hack
  
  Read more

• HMLTD review – wild couture, frenzied moves and the odd killer groove

  07-05-2017 15:12
  
  Chameleon Arts Cafe, Nottingham
  Looking like an explosion in a theatrical outfitters, the least dull band in Britain whip up a storm with surf-punk twangs, glam stomps and tinges of dubHMLTD – or Happy Meal Ltd until McDonalds’ lawyers got in the way – are an antidote to years of jeans-and-T-shirt bands. Sporting fake furs, fishnet vests, Elizabethan ruffs, ladies’ blouses and oodles of makeup and brightly coloured hair, the London “art project” look like the
  
  Read more

• Tom Daley Marries Dustin Lance Black In Fairytale Dartmoor Wedding

  07-05-2017 15:01
  
  The boys are now officially husbands!
  
  Read more

• Chrissy Teigen Has Confessed To Having Liposuction In THE Weirdest Place

  07-05-2017 14:38
  
  The model also cracks some jokes about other parts of her body that, unfortunately, got taken literally
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Miley Cyrus Defends Herself Following Backlash Over Controversial Hip-Hop Comments

  07-05-2017 14:16
  
  The star isn't known for keeping quiet when she's misquoted
  
  Read more

• Union J Star George Shelley’s Sister Has Died After Being Hit By A Car

  07-05-2017 14:00
  
  Harriet Shelley lost her fight a week after being involved in an accident in Bristol
  
  Read more

• Did You Spot This Geordie Shore Star's Dad Auditioning On Britain's Got Talent?

  07-05-2017 13:07
  
  One of The Boyz has a pretty famous daughter...
  
  Read more

• Charlotte Crosby Sizzles In Red With A String Of Sexy Selfies

  07-05-2017 12:41
  
  The Just Tattoo Of Us star had a wild night out - which she woke up to regret
  
  Read more

• BBCSO/Oramo review – Varèse's musical monoliths wreathed in majesty

  07-05-2017 12:35
  
  Barbican, London
  The composer’s large-scale works were accompanied by pioneering and rarely heard pieces in one of the BBC’s Total Immersion daysFew major 20th-century composers can be comprehensively surveyed in one of the BBC’s Total Immersion days. But Edgard Varèse is definitely one who can be. An afternoon programme by the Guildhall New Music Ensemble took in Varèse’s smaller-scale pieces, mostly from the 1920s and 30s, and there were foyer performances
  
  Read more

• Vicky Pattison Hits Back At Body Shamers And Gushes About Her Love For John Noble

  07-05-2017 12:18
  
  The Geordie Shore legend has a strong message for women of all body shapes
  
  Read more

• Perfume Genius: No Shape review – scents and a new sensibility

  07-05-2017 10:00
  
  (Matador)
  Tortured soul Mike Hadreas takes a huge leap forward on his triumphant, shape-shifting fourth LPAs unique selling points go, “self-acceptance” is perhaps not the sexiest peg upon which to market a fourth album. If you’re a fan of Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, you’ll have grown accustomed to a level of high drama, to witness statements of longing, fear and self-loathing. Hadreas’s reputation has been made on candour in the face of trauma, of copious sel
  
  Read more

• Cashmere Cat: 9 review – hot pop producer’s innovative solo debut

  07-05-2017 09:59
  
  (Polydor)Cashmere Cat is a 29-year-old Norwegian DJ/producer with sound files in all the right careers – Ariana Grande and, Kanye West, for two; not to mention his work alongside super-producer Benny Blanco. The thing is, Magnus Høiberg’s pop productions often dispense with “pop” altogether. This debut album compiles accessible experiments that have been out already – like last autumn’s Jamie xx-indebted Trust Nobodycorrect, in which Selena Gomez rubs u
  
  Read more

• Niia: I review – luxurious, but too smooth

  07-05-2017 09:10
  
  (Atlantic/Q)Produced by Robin Hannibal from ethereal R&B act Rhye, LA-based “modern noir” chanteuse Niia’s debut utilises a similarly luxurious sonic palette. Spacious and immaculately constructed, it mixes Jessie Ware-esque ballads about bruised relationships (Hurt You First) with widescreen, jazz-dappled drama (Sideline) and, on the excellent Nobody, something you can almost dance to. Over time, however, the sonic precision and Niia’s velveteen voice become too cloy
  
  Read more

• Sound Unbound; András Schiff review – breaking down the sound barriers

  07-05-2017 09:00
  
  Barbican; Wigmore Hall, London
  An accessible festival won young and new fans, while the master pianist defied – and revived – SchumannThe little girl in the red raincoat was transfixed. Sitting on the edge of her seat in the front row of the Barbican Hall, her unbounded enthusiasm for everything she was hearing seemed to encapsulate all that the Barbican’s Sound Unbound project was trying to achieve – opening new (and not-so-new) ears to the adventure of music.For the pri
  
  Read more

• Slowdive: Slowdive review – the band they always wanted to be

  07-05-2017 09:00
  
  (Dead Oceans)When groups reform, it can take years to negotiate the chasm between what we want from them, and what they’re capable of delivering. Most never manage it. Slowdive, however, now sound powerful, confident, the band they always wanted to be. All phases of their short career are toyed with: the dense proto-gothicism of the early EPs, Souvlaki’s elegant swaddle-pop and the eerie electronica of Pygmalion. Falling Ashes and Don’t Know Why foreground hypnotic piano and mi
  
  Read more

• Kasabian: For Crying Out Loud review –melodic but a bit insistent…

  07-05-2017 09:00
  
  (Columbia)After headlining Glastonbury in 2014, you might expect Kasabian to be experiencing something of a hangover. But despite the title, their sixth studio album finds the dance rockers swapping their usual exploding Coke bottle dynamic for a more playful and melodic mood. Principal songwriter Serge Pizzorno turned out the material in six weeks, trying to channel the three-minute sparkle of classic Motown hits. However, the results on Ill Ray (The King) and The Party Never Ends are more Arct
  
  Read more

• Freddie Gavita: Transient review – deceptively easy on the ear

  07-05-2017 09:00
  
  (Froggy)Although he seems to be a permanent fixture in the Ronnie Scott club’s various house bands, this is trumpeter Freddie Gavita’s debut album with his own quartet. He has a soft, non-brassy tone that is so attractive that, at first, you scarcely notice the range, articulation and virtuosity of his playing. Until, that is, some impossibly long and ingenious phrase makes the point. All 10 pieces here are his own compositions and these, too, are deceptively easy on the ear. They&rs
  
  Read more

• Bill Callahan review – from cult figure to force of nature

  07-05-2017 09:00
  
  Hoxton Hall, London
  The hypnotic singer-songwriter formerly known as Smog strips his mainly old songs back to their bare bonesIn a venue this bijou, not only can you hear Bill Callahan’s bone-dry asides, you can see the folds on his brow in the harsh white spotlight. Two decades of screwing up his forehead, emphasising one phrase over another, has left the odd plough line around the American singer-songwriter’s uncompromising gaze.“Every breath, death-defying,” Calla
  
  Read more

• Alice Coltrane: The Ecstatic Music of Turiyasangitananda review – spiritually uplifting

  07-05-2017 09:00
  
  (Luaka Bop)The spiritually questing output of the late Alice Coltrane, wife of sax genius John, was for many years too way out even for hardened jazzniks. These days, her albums are feted. This compilation draws from her later years when she led a Californian ashram and issued her music on cassettes for the faithful. The mood is prayerful and contemplative, the music a mix of synth drones, Krishna-style chants and Coltrane’s poised, yearning vocals. There are echoes of her earlier cosmic j
  
  Read more

• Blondie: Pollinator review – back with added 21st-century sheen

  07-05-2017 08:59
  
  (BMG)Forty years into their career and Blondie are still prepared to push boundaries. Their 11th studio album comprises a series of collaborations with high-profile guests, the results adding a 21st-century electronic sheen to the glossy 70s new wave with which they made their name. Dev Hynes drops shards of Heart of Glass into Long Time; recent single Fun, with TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek at the helm, sounds uncannily like Scissor Sisters at their most disco; Johnny Marr co-writes and ad
  
  Read more

• Fauré: The Complete Songs, Vol 2 CD review – like a recital among friends

  07-05-2017 08:30
  
  Connolly, Davies, Johnson, Kelly, Murray etc, Malcolm Martineau (piano)
  (Signum)The pleasure in this series is the rich variety of singers – among them Ann Murray, John Chest, Nigel Cliffe, Thomas Oliemans, Janis Kelly – which creates the atmosphere of a recital among friends. There is occasional vocal unevenness, but Fauré’s elusive mix of fragility and strength always shines through, with Malcolm Martineau ever an authoritative, agile and responsive pianist. Ben Johnso
  
  Read more

• One to watch: Mabel

  07-05-2017 01:05
  
  The young British R&B singer has supreme pop-biz heritage but she’s blazing a trail that’s all her ownOn the short walk from Mabel’s photoshoot to a nearby King’s Cross bar, people stare. The 21-year-old R&B newcomer is, in her words, “serving looks”. A denim corset cinches her beige jumper, its folded sleeves making her arms look like Shar-Peis, those funny wrinkly dogs. Purple sunglasses cover her extraordinary face. She recounts the story of once st
  
  Read more

• Artist’s tribute to Beatles manager

  07-05-2017 01:03
  
  Turner prize winner honours Brian Epstein for 50th anniversary of Sgt Pepper albumTurner prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller is to stage a haunting tribute to the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, in the run-up to events in Liverpool marking 50 years since the release of the band’s groundbreaking album, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.The artist, who created the centenary commemoration of the lost soldiers of the Battle of the Somme last year and a controversial re-enactment
  
  Read more

Follow @MusicUKnws on Twitter!