Music news

• Sunday with Shirley Manson: ‘I impersonate my mother by making a chicken dinner’

  21-04-2024 07:45 via theguardian.com
  
  The Garbage singer talks about church in childhood, her need to enjoy life and her favourite arty amusement parkSundays growing up? We’d go to Saint Bernard’s in Edinburgh, which had beautiful blue velvet carpets and wooden pews. Upstairs there were little wooden gates, which I found fascinating, but church was boring and dull. I’m not a believer. I like a fun Sunday as opposed to a boring one.Sunday achievement? I’ve got to the point where I’m aware that my life sp
  
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• Universal signs TikTok deal allowing artists back on platform

  02-05-2024 16:43 via theguardian.com
  
  Music group pulled content amid row over issues such as deepfake AI-generated music and artists’ compensationTikTok and Universal Music Group have reached a deal that will allow songs and artists from its labels including Olivia Rodrigo and Drake to return to the video-sharing app.The world’s largest music company began pulling content from TikTok in February after falling out with it over issues including artist compensation and the use of artificial intelligence-generated music on
  
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• ‘Who wants to stare at a computer?’ Pop duo the Lemon Twigs on the joys of analogue life

  02-05-2024 16:11 via theguardian.com
  
  As teenagers, the New York brothers swiftly rose to become retro pop darlings – until they weren’t. Now older, wiser and taking inspiration from the travails of their family, they’re making their best music yetThe Lemon Twigs are deep in one of the great songwriting grooves of the 21st century. Or is it the previous century? Their new album, A Dream is All We Know, is a fabulous pop confection that magically transports the listener to the idyll of Abbey Road studios in 1966, if
  
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• ‘Thekla runs a tight ship’: Bristol’s floating venue marks 40 years at dock

  02-05-2024 14:27 via theguardian.com
  
  Vessel which has hosted acts from Pulp to Stormzy to celebrate anniversary with series of shows, exhibition and bookIt started life as a cargo ship transporting timber around the Baltic Sea, but for the last four decades it has been moored in the Mud Dock area of Bristol’s floating harbour, hosting music acts from Pulp to Stormzy, helping launch the city’s drum‘n’bass and trip-hop scenes and providing a bobbing canvas for the street artist Banksy.Thekla, one of south-west
  
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• ‘Musical soulmates’: the extraordinary story of The Piano sensation Lucy and her doting teacher

  02-05-2024 13:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Lucy Illingworth wowed audiences on the TV talent show, but her journey started as a toddler with dedicated tutor Daniel Bath. Now, a documentary shows how they did it – and the shocking moment a royal disaster almost stopped themLucy Illingworth is the breakout star of the ivory-tinkling TV talent show The Piano. When the teenager, who is blind and neurodivergent, sat down at Leeds railway station, then 13, her rendition of Chopin’s Nocturne in B-flat minor brought rush-hour crowds
  
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• Duane Eddy’s twang remains one of rock’n’roll’s greatest sounds

  02-05-2024 11:42 via theguardian.com
  
  The late guitarist was rightly ubiquitous in the late 1950s thanks to his otherworldly sound, earning admirers from Bruce Springsteen to John PeelYou could get the measure of Duane Eddy – who has died aged 86 – from a selection of his album titles: Have “Twangy” Guitar Will Travel (1958, his debut), The “Twangs” the “Thang” (1959), $1,000,000.00 Worth of Twang (1960, with Volume 2 in 1962), Twistin’ ’n’ Twangin (1962), “Twan
  
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• Richard Tandy, ELO keyboardist who shaped band’s futuristic sound, dies aged 76

  02-05-2024 02:37 via theguardian.com
  
  Electric Light Orchestra leader Jeff Lynne announces death of ‘remarkable musician and friend’ who played everything from the Minimoog to the ClavinetRichard Tandy, the keyboardist in Electric Light Orchestra who shaped much of the British rock band’s sound, has died aged 76.His death was announced by the ELO leader Jeff Lynne, who wrote on social media: “He was a remarkable musician and friend and I’ll cherish the lifetime of memories we had together.” A caus
  
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• Olivia Rodrigo gigs called off as chaos continues at Manchester’s Co-op Live

  02-05-2024 00:33 via theguardian.com
  
  Postponements come hours after queueing fans were turned away from A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie gig on Wednesday eveningThe troubled Co-op Live arena has postponed Olivia Rodrigo’s concerts as part of her Guts world tour because of a “technical issue”, hours after the last-minute cancellation of its opening concert for the third time.Two hours after announcing that A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie would no longer be performing, the venue confirmed that Rodrigo’s concerts on 3 and 4 May h
  
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• ‘We handed out raw fish to clubbers’: the mind-bending acid house tour of London

  30-04-2024 17:10 via theguardian.com
  
  George Georgiou gave British rave culture its smiley face. Now he’s placing plaques where hardcore clubbers sweated till dawn. Our writer joins the designer – and DJs Danny Rampling and Nicky Holloway – on a face-melting trip‘I remember this street being covered with hundreds of these all over the floor,” says George Georgiou, handing me an original smiley-face flyer he designed for the acid house club night Shoom. “I wish I’d picked them up because now
  
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• ‘I wasn’t worried about what gringos wanted!’ Ludmilla, Brazil’s next pop superstar

  30-04-2024 16:45 via theguardian.com
  
  Already the most listened-to Black artist in Brazil and a favourite of Beyoncé, Ludmilla has a whole new audience after her viral Coachella show. She discusses the racism and homophobia she’s had to face getting this farIn between her two-weekend debut at Coachella earlier this month, while the first concert was going viral, the Brazilian singer Ludmilla did business meetings, spent a day in Miami and kicked off new music projects. This interview took place on her way back from a sh
  
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• MC Conrad, acclaimed drum’n’bass vocalist, dies aged 52

  30-04-2024 16:06 via theguardian.com
  
  Rapper and singer was acclaimed for partnership with producer LTJ Bukem, and went on to become a producer and label head in his own rightMC Conrad, the vocalist who helped broaden and deepen the scope for jungle and drum’n’bass during the 1990s and beyond, has died aged 52. The news was confirmed by his agency Clinic Talent, who paid tribute saying: “One of the most recognisable and best-loved voices in D&B, he leaves behind him an unmatched legacy.”No cause of death
  
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• ‘Bowie told me it’s OK to be messy’: the starry life and strife of singer-songwriter Lawrence Rothman

  30-04-2024 12:55 via theguardian.com
  
  They’ve played with everyone from Lucinda Williams to a pre-fame Billie Eilish. Now, on their intensely personal new album, they confront the trauma of being pistol-whipped and dealing with an eating disorderLawrence Rothman has lived a lot of lives: in the early aughts, they performed under the name Lillian Berlin in the ultra-political hard rock band Living Things. They’ve been a model, posing with Kate Moss in a 2008 Roberto Cavalli ad; and with their wife, Floria Sigismondi, dire
  
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• Tell us your experiences of making a living from music

  30-04-2024 12:22 via theguardian.com
  
  We would like to hear from professional musicians about how they make a living from their work and the obstacles they faceMusicians playing smaller venues are facing low fees, high costs, and frequent losses. We would like to hear from professional musicians of all levels about how they make a living from their work and the obstacles they face.Have you experienced issues with the costs of playing live or recording? Have you found a way to get around it? Tell us all about it below. Continue readi
  
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• Everyone Knows That: internet music mystery solved via 1986 adult movie

  29-04-2024 12:55 via theguardian.com
  
  The search for song that has consumed thousands of Reddit users is over, with discovery that it was written for pornographic filmIt’s a musical mystery that has been confounding the internet for years. But an ultra-catchy 80s-sounding song that seemingly no one could identify has finally been tracked down – in a 1986 adult movie.A snippet of the song, known as Everyone Knows That – a low-quality, warped recording that nevertheless showed off the song’s huge pop appeal &nd
  
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• ‘Scalding emotional intensity’: Geoff Dyer on the spiritual power of saxophonist Zoh Amba

  29-04-2024 11:46 via theguardian.com
  
  Still only 23, the US saxophonist is channelling the free jazz pioneered by Albert Ayler in the 60s – and making hugely profound, wildly uplifting music Interviewed many years after the experience, Don Cherry said he would “never forget” the first time he heard the tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler. That was in Copenhagen in 1963.I’ll never forget the time I first heard Zoh Amba, last March, at the Big Ears festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. A wealth of competing options at t
  
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• ‘The song I wish I’d written? Wonderwall’: Gabrielle’s honest playlist

  29-04-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The solo artist sings along privately to Oasis and to Bruce Springsteen in public. But what song is her classic Dreams based on?The first song I remember hearing
  Top of the World by the Carpenters on the radio when I was three or four, standing in the school playground on top of a bench, thinking: “Now I’m top of the world!” Although I didn’t realise it was by the Carpenters at the time.The first single I bought
  I loved Olivia Newton-John, but I loved John Travolta even m
  
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• Mitski review – unusual, enigmatic and utterly compelling

  28-04-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Usher Hall, Edinburgh
  The indie artist deploys her songs like controlled explosions as she turns the stage into a cabaret, a circus, a cageA curtain hangs centre stage, as if set for a magician’s disappearing act. Mitski, barely visible in a black dress and tights, gazes at it longingly before ducking behind it. Her silhouette is thrown on to the drapes, frozen like a shadow puppet, as she opens with Everyone, a muted track which speaks, cryptically, about the American artist’s relat
  
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• Billy Bragg: ‘There’s nothing like going out there singing your truth. That ain’t changed’

  28-04-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The singer-songwriter’s brand of stubborn protest songs with a strain of tenderness has kept him relevant for 40 years. Here he talks about why he’s fighting for trans rights, his late-night tweeting habit and his forthcoming tour – with his sonRecently, Billy Bragg showed his two young granddaughters a little promo film he put together celebrating his 40 years of making records. The girls were nonplussed by the early scenes on picket lines and spiky festival stages, but toward
  
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• T Bone Burnett: The Other Side review – a radiant meditation

  27-04-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (Verve Forecast)
  Inspired by new guitars, and with guest spots from Roseanne Cash and more, the US producer-musician contemplates love and mortalityAt 76, Joseph Henry “T Bone” Burnett is revered as a godfather of the Americana revival, architect of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and producer of Gillian Welch and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss among many others. The Other Side is his first solo album in almost two decades, a seemingly simple 12-track set that arrived only
  
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• Rick Astley: ‘I’m boring away from the spotlight – that’s why my life works’

  27-04-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The singer, 58, on staying sane, why he isn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty and how the internet gave his most famous song a new lease of lifeBeing 10 years younger than my older siblings meant I was bombarded with music from a young age. My older sister, Jane, and brother, John, played records relentlessly. My sister was obsessed with Motown, but also prog rock. The first band I ever saw live was Supertramp.My dad ran a little garden centre and it made me realise that if you run your
  
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• Paraorchestra: Death Songbook live review – bittersweet ballads with Brett Anderson and friends

  27-04-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Roundhouse, London
  Charles Hazlewood’s boundary-breaking ensemble guide the Suede singer and special guests through an elegiac evening grown out of the pandemicDressed all in black, Brett Anderson is channelling the elliptical yearning of Echo and the Bunnymen’s 1984 song The Killing Moon. To his left, Paraorchestra percussionist Harriet Riley conjures a moody ache out of double-bowed vibraphone keys. Surfing atop currents of orchestral strings are flutes, whose trilling potential is
  
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• One to watch: the Cavemen

  27-04-2024 13:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Sung in English and Igbo, the Nigerian brothers’ joyful ‘highlife fusion’ is already huge with Afrobeats’ big namesAs pop music from west Africa continues to dominate globally, the Cavemen cut an interesting shape. Forget Afrobeats; the Nigerian duo are on a mission to bring highlife – an effervescent style that originated in 19th-century Ghana, with its distinctive lilting guitar and lively horns – to a new generation. Lagos-based brothers Kingsley Chukwudi O
  
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• T’Pau’s Carol Decker looks back: ‘We went ballistic when we got to No 1. Our screaming annoyed Bryan Adams’

  27-04-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The lead singer on hitting it big, how things fell apart, and the joy of the 1980s revivalBorn in Liverpool in 1957, Carol Decker is the lead singer of T’Pau. She was fronting Shropshire band the Lazers when she met BT engineer and musician Ronnie Rogers, with whom she would go on to form T’Pau. Together they became one of the biggest-selling groups of the 1980s, with tracks such as China in Your Hand and Heart and Soul. The group split in 1992 but have since had a ren
  
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• Taylor Swift equals Madonna’s record of 12 UK No 1 albums

  26-04-2024 19:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Swift now has joint highest number of chart-toppers for a female artist, as The Tortured Poets Department earns biggest opening week in seven yearsTaylor Swift has tied with Madonna to become the female artist with the most UK No 1 albums, earning her twelfth chart-topper with the global phenomenon that is The Tortured Poets Department.Swift also dominates this week’s singles chart, with three songs in the Top Five including a No 1 for Fortnight, featuring Post Malone. It’s her fourt
  
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• ‘It was only a matter of time for Slim’: Eminem to kill off Slim Shady alter ego on new album

  26-04-2024 15:17 via theguardian.com
  
  Rapper trails summer release of The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) with a fictional crime report suggesting that the antic character will meet a violent endOne of the great alter egos in pop could be meeting a grisly end, as Eminem announces his first album since 2020: The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce).Set for release on an unspecified date this summer, the album was announced with a trailer that frames the demise of the antic character, with a crime reporter saying to cam
  
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• Take That review – oddly packaged pop still packs a wallop

  26-04-2024 14:28 via theguardian.com
  
  O2 Arena, London
  There’s some magic amid the cheese as the trio revisit a stacked catalogue of hits – and gamely give their old choreography a goIt’s difficult to say exactly what Take That are going for on their This Life tour: a 41-date behemoth that has shifted more than 700,000 tickets. Video interstitials show the three remaining members doing their very best at acting in retrofuturist infomercials. The set is sometimes done up like a 1950s sitcom, sometimes just with ster
  
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• Olivia Dean review – pop-soul singer proves she was born for big stages

  26-04-2024 13:45 via theguardian.com
  
  SWG3, Glasgow
  Delicately sipping a Red Stripe and accompanied by a seven-piece band, the Brit School grad loosens up her Mercury prize-nominated album with radiant star powerOne hand raised to the heavens, the other fixed sharply on her hip, Olivia Dean is beaming. The 25-year-old musician is just three songs into her largest headline tour so far, and Echo – last year’s suave, soulful pop single about possibly misplaced trust – is a chic foil for her glamorous, Supremes-style c
  
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• Justice: Hyperdrama review – an uncertain return to the dancefloor

  26-04-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (Ed Banger/Because)
  The French producer duo attempt a return to their roots, but the results are a little too polishedWith their self-titled 2007 debut, French production duo Justice – Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay – established themselves as promising Daft Punk successors. Combining arena-sized drum tracks with squealing guitars and a thundering dancefloor pulse, they delivered gargantuan melodic hooks with gut-thumping force. Yet subsequent releases have struggled to eli
  
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• Pet Shop Boys: Nonetheless review – a great, fan-pleasing album

  26-04-2024 12:30 via theguardian.com
  
  (x2/Parlophone)
  The duo’s first LP in four years finds them refining and updating their late-80s heyday sound, with a new producer in towCultural gravity makes certain events inevitable, such as Sean Lennon and James McCartney writing songs together. Or Britain’s most successful pop duo returning to refine and update the sound of their late-80s imperial era. Nonetheless is Pet Shop Boys’s first album since 2020’s Hotspot, which concluded their Stuart Price-produced trilog
  
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• ‘People think I hate pop’: super-producer AG Cook on working with Beyoncé and honouring his friend Sophie

  26-04-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As the boss of PC Music, the godfather of hyperpop confounded critics but won over Beyoncé and Charli XCX. Now, with a supersized new solo album, he’s continuing his mission to make pop more unpredictableEverything about AG Cook is exhausting. As a producer of elasticated outre pop his output is as varied as it is frenetic, taking in everything from bass-rattling electronic workouts for cultural behemoths such as Beyoncé to celestial dreamscapes for underground newcomers
  
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