Music news

• Bono used Malta-based firm to invest in Lithuanian shopping centre

  05-11-2017 19:00
  U2 frontman was investor in firm based in island nation where foreign investors pay 5% tax on profits, Paradise Papers show
  His band have never been there, and neither, it seems, has he. But as an investment opportunity, Bono found what he was looking for in Lithuania.The U2 frontman used a company based in Malta to pay for a share in a shopping centre in a small town in the north-east of the country, the Paradise Papers reveal. Continue reading...
  
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• Ferne McCann Has Finally Shared The Name Of Her Adorable Baby Daughter

  05-11-2017 17:25
  The brand new mum took to social media on Sunday to share the name of her baby girl
  
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• Scarlett Moffatt Laughs Off Wardrobe Mishap After 'Boobies' Appear On Her Dress

  05-11-2017 17:08
  The reality babe can always see the funny side
  
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• 13 Reasons Why's Tommy Dorfman Has Released An Awesome Fashion Collection

  05-11-2017 14:07
  The actor is using fashion to make a difference
  
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• Here Are All The Details Of Joe Jonas And Sophie Turner's Engagement Party

  05-11-2017 13:40
  The happy couple invited fans to a feast
  
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• Vicky Pattison And John Noble Look Beyond Excited With Their Brand New Home

  05-11-2017 13:00
  The couple gave fans a sneak peek at their new pad
  
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• Love Island's Chris Hughes Basically Wants To Be The Next David Attenborough

  05-11-2017 12:37
  The reality star now wants to make wildlife documentaries
  
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• Stephen Bear Has Been Getting Philosophical And Everyone Is Confused

  05-11-2017 12:16
  The reality star is literally away with the birds
  
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• So Chloe Khan Is Releasing A Single Now (And Scotty T Is VERY Excited About It)

  05-11-2017 11:50
  Scotty T has offered a surprising way to celebrate if Chloe hits Number 1
  
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• Sam Smith: The Thrill of It All review – moping by numbers

  05-11-2017 10:00
  (Capitol)You assume that the title of Sam Smith’s long-awaited second album – The Thrill of It All – is a slightly weary one, weighing up the emotional cost of partying. Smith said as much on the BBC the other night.Actual thrills are scarce on these 10 tracks, which fulfil the brief of following up a hit album with a bankable sequel. These are songs dealing with heartbreak, coming out and the parlous state of the world in time-honoured, mainstream fashion: by making the sounds
  
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• Harry Styles review – fruitful times for a star still finding himself

  05-11-2017 10:00
  SEC Armadillo, Glasgow
  When not being pelted with kiwis, Styles is doing an admirable job of figuring out his path post-One DirectionBlame the law of unintended consequences: the kiwi fruit has had a pivotal role to play in Harry Styles’s first UK tour as a solo star. On stage in London, Styles slipped on one. Thrown by a fan, it was not a negative review of the former boy band member’s new, rockier bent, but a ploy to get Styles to play his song Kiwi – one of the more guitar-d
  
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• Qty: Qty review – cliche-swerving New York rock

  05-11-2017 09:00
  (Dirty Hit)You almost pity anyone starting a band in New York. But the city’s history is more of an asset than a burden to Qty, an intriguing duo on their debut album who expand to a foursome live. On songs such as Michael, singing guitarist Dan Lardner channels all his deadpan heroes – Lou Reed, Julian Casablancas – while lead guitarist and backing vocalist Alex Niemetz provides just-so solos. If you’re going to be this derivative, you’d better be good. Fortunately
  
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• Omar Souleyman: To Syria, With Love review – relentless, tiring beats

  05-11-2017 09:00
  (Mad Decent)Like much of Mad Decent’s output, any two minutes of To Syria, With Love sampled at random sound fantastic – an aural peephole into the most exciting party on the planet. However, a mountain range would never be beautiful if it consisted entirely of peaks, and the same is true of Syrian folk-techno albums. The unrelenting tail-thump beat flattens an initial dynamism into a tiring, trebly melange, and Omar Souleyman’s emotional voice begins to hector rather than impl
  
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• Billy Bragg: Bridges Not Walls review – rousing and nuanced

  05-11-2017 09:00
  (Cooking Vinyl)Political turmoil has regalvanised Billy Bragg: a string of recent singles addressing Trump, (the rousing Why We Build the Wall), climate change and racists on the streets of Birmingham have been his first new solo releases since 2013. This mini-album collects them and adds two extra songs. Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted is a finely judged attack on Brexiters’ lies and their hidden agenda, while the mournful piano ballad Full English Brexit finds Bragg looking thr
  
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• The Consul; Lucia di Lammermoor review – the original kitchen sink

  05-11-2017 08:30
  Silk Street theatre; Royal Opera House, London
  A Guildhall staging of Menotti’s The Consul and Royal Opera’s revival of Lucia di Lammermoor have more in common than you might thinkGian Carlo Menotti’s life (1911-2007) reads like a cocktail of his own operas. First composition: aged five. First opera: aged 11. First seance: in his school holidays. Retaining a sense of the mystical, he compared composition to water divining: wait for the stick to start trembling, then dig. Menott
  
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• Mary J Blige: ‘I lost my gut and my gift. But I got it back’

  05-11-2017 08:00
  The R&B singer turned actor tells Rebecca Nicholson about her heartache, reborn hope, and why she sometimes needs to get away from herselfIn 2015, Mary J Blige gave an impassioned performance on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. The crowd watched her through the pouring rain, and as her most famous single, No More Drama, came to a rapturous end, she fell to the floor, and looked as if she was about to break down into tears. “I didn’t know so many people knew my songs,” she
  
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• Examination of Chopin’s pickled heart solves riddle of his early death

  05-11-2017 01:05
  Scientists diagnose rare complication of tuberculosis following analysis of heart stored in jar of cognac for 170 yearsThe great Polish composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin had a morbid fear of premature burial. “The earth is suffocating,” he told one of his sisters as he lay on his death bed in 1849. “Swear to make them cut me open, so that I won’t be buried alive.”An autopsy was duly performed to try to solve the mysterious cause of the 39-year-old&r
  
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