Music news

• 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
  
  Read more

• ‘We got the energy’: Irish children’s rap video goes viral

  20-05-2024 15:22 via theguardian.com
  
  The Spark, a song created by a group of nine-to-12-year-olds including refugees, has amassed 8.6m viewsIt is called The Spark and has been declared the song of the summer – a viral sensation from a group of children in Ireland who filmed the video in a day.Since launching on 15 May, the song has amassed 8.6m views and been hailed as a drum’n’bass-beat masterpiece with infectious energy. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Frank Ifield obituary

  20-05-2024 13:14 via theguardian.com
  
  Singer who topped the charts in the 1960s with hits including I Remember You, Lovesick Blues and The Wayward WindFor British pop fans, the summer of 1962 was dominated by the sound of “I remember yoo-hoo”. I Remember You, which topped the singles chart for seven weeks, was sung and yodelled by the British-born but Australian-raised entertainer Frank Ifield, who has died aged 86.In the year that followed, there were four more hits. The first of these, Lovesick Blues (originally made f
  
  Read more

• Barry Manilow review – mellow master glides through his hits with grace

  20-05-2024 13:14 via theguardian.com
  
  Co-Op Live, Manchester
  On his final tour, the 80-year-old gives fans a slick but satisfying treatment of his pleasantly cheesy oeuvreThere’s jubilation in the air tonight. Tens of thousands of Manchester City fans file out into the Etihad campus in a sea of blue as they celebrate winning the Premier League. Moving in the other direction towards the newly opened Co-Op Live arena is a crowd dotted with pink fluffy cowboy hats and Barry Manilow T-shirts, as people flock to see the 80-year-old
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• ‘It became a beacon of hope’: the incredible story of Stax Records

  20-05-2024 10:33 via theguardian.com
  
  A new docuseries traces the highs and lows of the Memphis record label, soaring with major acts like Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes but a victim of both capitalism and racismDuring its breakout phase in the mid-1960s, Stax Records seemed to be soaring. The small company from Memphis managed to score huge, international hits with the new stars it introduced, like Booker T & the MGs (Green Onions), Otis Redding (I’ve Been Loving You Too Long), and Sam & Dave (Hold On, I’m Coming)
  
  Read more

• Jon Bon Jovi’s honest playlist: ‘You couldn’t help but learn the moves to Gangnam Style’

  20-05-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The arena rock frontman on his friendship with Ed Sheeran, an embarrassing early Christmas song, and the 80s hit he wishes he’d writtenThe song that changed my life
  Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. I grew up in New Jersey, so the E Street Band was how you were indoctrinated to rock’n’roll – they were the local heroes.The best song to play at a party
  Livin’ on a Prayer because everyone else knows the words. How do I feel when I hear it
  
  Read more

• Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs admits he beat ex-girlfriend Cassie: ‘I take full responsibility’

  19-05-2024 21:32 via theguardian.com
  
  Music mogul says in video statement that he is ‘truly sorry’ after CNN released clip of him attacking Cassie in hotel hallway in 2016The rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs admitted in a video apology that he punched and kicked his ex-girlfriend in 2016 in the hallway of a hotel after CNN released footage of the attack, saying he was “truly sorry” and his actions were “inexcusable”.“I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disg
  
  Read more

• Bruce Dickinson review – metal’s charismatic star indulges his goofy side

  19-05-2024 15:43 via theguardian.com
  
  Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow
  Letting rip with that still thrilling and propulsive voice, the Iron Maiden frontman performs an all solo material set – keytars, bongos and demonic laughter includedBruce Dickinson, as is well known, is a qualified pilot – and there is something of the captain preparing for take-off in his interactions with the crowd. “In a moment,” he instructs Glasgow, “we will commence furious jumping.” Then, as the riff to Dark Side of Aquariu
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Richard Hawley: ‘If I stopped what I’m doing the songs would still come’

  19-05-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  On a beer-fuelled tour of Sheffield that begins ‘at the crack of midday’, the musician discusses the strange magic of his home city, how his musical, Standing at the Sky’s Edge, hit a nerve in austerity-ravaged Britain, and his main hope for Keir StarmerOn 8 November 2007, the great Pelé visited Sheffield. The occasion was the 150th anniversary of the world’s oldest football club, Sheffield FC, which was celebrated with a match between the hometown team and Inter M
  
  Read more

• Jasmine Myra: Rising review – gently insistent jazz

  18-05-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (Gondwana)
  The alto saxophonist leans into her soft and subtle sound with newfound confidence on this second albumWith the release of her 2022 debut album, Horizons, saxophonist Jasmine Myra became a breakout star of the UK jazz scene. Weaving soft and subtle alto saxophone lines through compositions that paired luscious harmonies with snapping rhythms, Myra showcased her skill as a composer rather than an instrumental virtuoso. On her second album, she continues to produce this gently insistent
  
  Read more

• One to watch: Myles Smith

  18-05-2024 13:30 via theguardian.com
  
  A passionate purveyor of anthemic folk-pop with an alt-country vibe, everything this Luton singer-songwriter has released so far sounds like a hitMyles Smith has arrived at just the right time, as if scheduled by an algorithm. The 25-year-old graduate from Luton first surfaced in 2022 with judiciously chosen TikTok covers – Amber Run’s I Found, Neighbourhood’s Sweater Weather – that suit his passionate, expressive voice. Smith learned guitar aged nine, did the singer-song
  
  Read more

• Girls Aloud review – a glorious pop institution still calling the shots

  18-05-2024 12:35 via theguardian.com
  
  3Arena, Dublin
  Returning for their first concert since the death of Sarah Harding, old lyrics now have new poignancy – but with motorbikes and mic-stand moves, the mood stays upbeatEleven years have passed since Girls Aloud performed together as a five-piece for the final time, but adoration has endured in the interim – perhaps even intensified in the glow of 00s nostalgia. The group not only hauled themselves out of TV talent show Popstars: The Rivals, but then had 20 back-to-back U
  
  Read more

• Lil Nas X: ‘Who do I most admire and why? I have to say myself’

  18-05-2024 10:30 via theguardian.com
  
  The singer on eating junk food in bed, a $100k holiday he didn’t even go on, and the perks of fameBorn Montero Lamar Hill in Georgia, Lil Nas X, 25, rose to fame in 2019 with his single Old Town Road, which won many awards, including two Grammys. In 2021, he released his debut album Montero, which featured the hits Montero (Call Me By Your Name), Industry Baby and Thats What I Want. The following year, he completed his first worldwide tour. The documentary Lil Nas X: Long Li
  
  Read more

• Video shows Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs assaulting singer Cassie in 2016

  18-05-2024 02:18 via theguardian.com
  
  Hotel surveillance cameras at InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles captured incident Combs had vehemently deniedA newly released video shows Sean “Diddy” Combs manhandling and kicking singer Cassie Ventura – his former girlfriend – in plain view of hotel surveillance cameras in 2016, before the rapper, music producer and businessman rapidly settled a lawsuit that she brought against him this past November, according to footage exclusively obtained by CNN.The video in que
  
  Read more

• Will Taylor Swift provide a £1bn boost to the UK economy?

  17-05-2024 15:33 via theguardian.com
  
  Barclays’ analysis may be slightly off the mark, but the megastar is tapping into a new trend in spendingTaylor Swift has long been credited with an outsized influence on music, celebrity culture – even politics. But reviving the UK’s flagging economy may be too much to ask, even of the sequinned megastar.Research published this week by analysts from Barclays pointed to the extraordinary spending surge that ensues when Swift touches down, and suggested she could bring a £
  
  Read more

• Rhythm Nation: how music gives Haiti hope amid the chaos

  17-05-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The country has been hit by decades of crises and catastrophe, but its culture continues to thrive across the diaspora. Here, Haitian musicians celebrate its ’sounds of freedom’Even before March this year, when gun-toting gangs overran the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, dictatorships, poverty, health crises and earthquakes had defined the country in the eyes of global media. It passes for the archetypal failed state, a place where Unicef has declared that
  
  Read more

• Shaznay Lewis: Pages review – All Saints star returns with polished second solo album

  17-05-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (1.9.7.5)
  Twenty years after her solo debut, Lewis delivers a mostly sumptuous set of turn-of-the-millennium-style popWhen you have the main writing credits on two of the great turn-of-the-century British pop songs – Pure Shores and Never Ever – a follow-up is no easy task. Indeed, in 2004, three years after girl group All Saints announced their breakup, founding member Shaznay Lewis’s debut solo album, Open, felt a bit tepid.Two decades on – years encompassing motherhood
  
  Read more

• Zayn: Room Under the Stairs review – Nashville-produced minimalism suits him

  17-05-2024 12:30 via theguardian.com
  
  (Mercury)
  The former One Direction singer continues to intrigue with an introspective, acoustic-leaning set with more highs than lowsSince disembarking from the One Direction juggernaut in 2015, Zayn Malik has taken the path less travelled. His 2016 solo debut, Mind of Mine, housed the global smash Pillowtalk, but was followed by the 27-track concept album Icarus Falls. While his former bandmates have toured the world, Malik only recently played his first ever gig as a solo artist. This fourth a
  
  Read more

• Arooj Aftab: Night Reign review – all the heat and mystery of nocturnal life

  17-05-2024 09:15 via theguardian.com
  
  (Verve)
  Mercurial and moody soundscapes are infused with wistful romance in one of the Grammy-winning singer and composer’s most spirited records to dateFew singers can match the delicate warmth and quiet power of Arooj Aftab’s voice. Over the past decade, the Pakistani-American singer has released four albums that showcase her gossamer cadence in ever-quieter settings, from jazz to Sufi qawwalis and finger-picking folk. Her debut Bird Under Water in 2014 paired Urdu poetry with sita
  
  Read more

• ‘World domination is a big thing for me’: pop superstar Becky Hill on raving to the top – and her new album’s dark past

  17-05-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  She’s won two Brits and rivalled Dua Lipa and Adele for streams, but the public is still getting to know the ex-reality TV singer. She explains why snobbery has held her back, but trauma won’tBecky Hill Hill glides up on an ebike in full pop star clobber: leather flares, black strap top with enormous silver buckles, immaculately tousled hair, light green contacts that bestow a feline air. We were supposed to be meeting at her tour manager’s flat in London, so she seems slightly
  
  Read more

• Everyone’s Getting Involved review – tepid all-star Talking Heads tribute

  17-05-2024 08:10 via theguardian.com
  
  (A24 Music)
  Cult film company A24’s tie-in merch to its rerelease of seminal documentary Stop Making Sense sounds either like karaoke or disconnected from the source materialResponsible for indie hits like Midsommar, Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All at Once, American film company A24 has created a vast lifestyle brand around its cultish reputation, flogging everything from branded shorts ($48) to a Hereditary gingerbread kit ($62). Now, following its rerelease of Jonathan Demme&rsqu
  
  Read more

• Billy Idol: ‘I stole the master tapes for Rebel Yell – and gave them to my heroin dealer’

  16-05-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The Generation X punk turned arena rocker answers your questions on near-misses in Hollywood, his overlooked electronic period and how Marc Bolan helped launch his careerIs it true that you stole the master tapes to the Rebel Yell album during a spat with the record label? VerulamiumParkRanger
  It was because of the cover. I was saying: “There’s a flaw in this picture, and if we blow this up it will get worse.” The record company started to say: “We’re leaving it. It
  
  Read more

• Jimmy James obituary

  16-05-2024 15:59 via theguardian.com
  
  Soul and ska singer best known for his dynamic live performances with his band the Vagabonds in the 60s and 70sThe singer Jimmy James first arrived in London in 1964 as frontman of the Vagabonds, a Jamaican dance band booked to perform at West Indian clubs across Britain for six months. However, the band’s dynamic performances – they mixed ska and calypso with R&B and big band standards – quickly gained them a sizeable British fanbase, a residency at the Marquee Club in Soh
  
  Read more

• Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft review – still the great outlier of American pop

  16-05-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  (Darkroom/Interscope Records)
  On this deeply involving third album, Eilish once again breaks the rules for arena-filling artists: it’s subtle and understated, yet jars the listener with eerie show tunes and explosive noiseBillie Eilish’s third album opens with a track called Skinny. It features a hushed electric guitar figure supporting a lyric filled with very Billie Eilish topics: bitter recriminations about a failed relationship, body dysmorphia, depression and the pressures of fi
  
  Read more

• Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown review – long-awaited solo debut is a gripping study of ageing and loss

  16-05-2024 12:20 via theguardian.com
  
  (Domino)
  In the Portishead singer’s singular, astonishing soundworld, these songs sit in autumnal gloom but are occasionally dappled with warmth and lightNo one is ever going to accuse Beth Gibbons of over-exerting herself in the rapacious pursuit of fame: her solo debut arrives 22 years after her collaboration with Rustin Man, Out of Season, 16 years after the last Portishead album, Third, and 11 after it was first announced.In fairness, Lives Outgrown has a unique sound you suspect was o
  
  Read more

• From Megadeth to Japanese make-up tutorials: the bizarre life of guitarist Marty Friedman

  15-05-2024 12:36 via theguardian.com
  
  The US musician went from homelessness to multiplatinum success with the thrash metallers – and then became a pop cultural icon in Japan. He explains the weirdest portfolio career in rockIt’s one of the most perplexing questions in heavy metal history: how does a bullet-wearing guitarist for Megadeth end up critiquing beauty products on Japanese daytime TV? “I started getting addicted to the challenge of: can I really do this?”, laughs Marty Friedman. “And the harde
  
  Read more

• Teddy Swims review – dark’n’stormy soul singer shakes the room

  14-05-2024 12:34 via theguardian.com
  
  Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
  The Atlanta viral sensation enraptures tonight’s audience with molasses-thick vocals and bombastic emotion – though he’s a little one-noteLook at Teddy Swims, and you’d think twice before crossing him. The Atlanta, Georgia native cuts an imposing figure: leather trench coat, a face-consuming beard and a body overcome with tattoos, snaking up his neck and crawling on to his face. And then there is that voice. It hits like a tall glass o
  
  Read more

• ‘I don’t think it’s going to do well’: the Zutons on Valerie – and Mark Ronson on covering it with Amy Winehouse

  13-05-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  ‘It’s about a makeup artist I met in Florida called Valerie Star, who had legal bills. When I played it to the band, they all went, “Oh, that’s good.” And I thought, “It is, isn’t it”’When the Zutons were touring in Florida, I met a makeup artist called Valerie Star. We became quite friendly. When we got back home to the UK and the rehearsal room, I started playing the riff. Then I got in a taxi to my mum’s and, by the end of the 15-min
  
  Read more

• Riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna: ‘A lot of men really get off on watching a woman get angry’

  13-05-2024 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The feminist punk coined the phrase ‘girl power’ and was responsible for the name of Nirvana’s biggest hit. She reflects on activism, illness, and never letting abuse define herWhen Kathleen Hanna was 19 years old, a man broke into her apartment while she was out and attacked her roommate, Allee. The man beat her, dragged her by her hair and said he would rape and kill her but, as Allee fought back, he lost his grip, allowing her to run into the street and call for help. Hanna
  
  Read more

• Warren Ellis on Steve Albini, Mad Max and the best sandwich: ‘Whipped cream and banana on white bread’

  12-05-2024 02:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Asked 10 random questions, the Dirty Three musician talks about watching bad TV with Marianne Faithfull, cleaning toilets and the best advice Albini gave himGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailWhat’s the worst job you’ve ever had?There was no worst, really. If you have to work, you have to work. I needed money. So I cleaned dishes at a strip club, I cleaned nightclubs. There’s something incredibly meditative about mopping in nightclubs; you have all the base elements of
  
  Read more

Follow @MusicUKnws on Twitter!