The biggest news in the music industry last week was a bit of a damp squib. Universal Music Group and Spotify jointly announced Wednesday (July 22nd) that they’d re-upped their global licensing deal — but aside from a vague commitment from Universal to utilize Spotify’s “two-sided marketplace” tools (something we’ll …

At the beginning of March, the National’s Aaron Dessner traveled back to the United States from Paris, where he’d been living with his family, to shack up at Sonic Ranch Studio in Tornillo, Texas to work on the next Big Red Machine album with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. Those plans …

Bandcamp will continue its special “Bandcamp Friday” series for the rest of the year, waiving its revenue share on all sales on the first Friday of every month to give musicians more money from each purchase. The series started as a one-off at the end of March to help get …

UPDATE: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Thursday delivered a powerful response to Rep. Ted Yoho’s failed attempt to apologize for verbally assaulting the congresswoman outside the Capitol earlier this week. Speaking from the floor of the House of Representatives, Ocasio-Cortez expounded on the pattern of harassment and dehumanizing language men …

Roger Waters‘ massive, star-studded production of The Wall in Berlin in 1990, just eight months after the wall was torn down, remains one of the most surreal odysseys into the nexus of music, theater, and charity. Perhaps the greatest highlight during the show, which raised money for victims of natural …

Gorillaz recruited Schoolboy Q to honor Pac-Man on the animated outfit’s latest Song Machine track, “Pac-Man,” which arrives just weeks after the 40th anniversary of the arcade classic. The song opens with Gorillaz mastermind Damon Albarn lacing his low voice over a thick beat that recalls the heyday of the …

For the title cut of Stoughton, Massachusetts-based Lori McKenna‘s forthcoming album The Balladeer, the Grammy-winning songwriter behind “Girl Crush” veers away from her usual autobiographical material for a fictional peek into the world of a musician who “hangs in the darkest bars with downtrodden bleeding-hearts.” It’s there she encounters a …

Shamir has announced that he will release a self-titled album on October 2nd and has shared a second single from the record, following the quarantine-themed track “On My Own.” The new song, “I Wonder,” comes with a visual inspired by love, climate change and the work of Keith Haring, according …

The Muppets are back with their first-ever unscripted series,Muppets Now, premiering July 31st on the Disney Plus streaming platform. On Wednesday, Disney released an all-new teaser for the show, starring Kermit, Miss Piggy and the gang on a video conference call to discuss the new series. Muppets Now will feature …

James Bay is no stranger to sappy love songs, but something about his latest release, “Chew On My Heart,” hits a little differently. With his first new release of 2020, the singer-songwriter gravitates away from his usual distant longing and jumps right into infatuation. The track starts off subtle, but …