Tributes have been paid to singer who had a string of hits in South Korea including a cover of Craig David’s Insomnia
The South Korean singer Wheesung has died aged 43, with police reportedly planning to conduct an autopsy to determine his cause of death.
The singer, whose name was Choi Whee-sung, was found unconscious in his apartment on Monday night by emergency responders after his mother called for help, local media reported.
Continue reading...Flamboyant singer helped point his city’s music scene towards punk, before a successful solo career and eye-catching acting roles
David Johansen, the swaggering, peacocking frontman with glam rock band New York Dolls, has died aged 75.
Last month he had announced he was living with cancer, and recently suffered a broken back. “David Johansen passed away peacefully at home, holding the hands of his wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah, in the sunlight surrounded by music and flowers,” reads a statement on a website created to raise funds for his medical care.
Continue reading...Singer of viral hit Mrs Hollywood hopes his milkshakes bring everyone on board at Basel this year when he sings Milkshake Man, an ode to self-confidence
TikTok star Go-Jo will represent Australia at Eurovision in May, the 10th musical act to head represent his country since Australia joined the annual European song contest a decade ago.
Marty Zambotto, a 29-year-old Sydney-based singer-songwriter, went viral in 2023 after he uploaded a clip to TikTok of himself performing his song Mrs Hollywood while busking around Sydney. To date, the song has racked up more than 60m digital streams and 1bn views across all platforms.
The 2025 Eurovision song contest runs 13 -17 May and will be broadcast on SBS in Australia
Continue reading...Global chart dominated by US acts including Benson Boone, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter, with K-pop bands also strong
British pop stars have failed to reach the worldwide annual charts of the year’s Top 10 biggest singles and albums for the first time in more than two decades.
In 2022, UK acts such as Harry Styles and Glass Animals made up seven of the 20 entries in the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) list. This year, the leading UK act was producer and singer Artemas, for I Like the Way You Kiss Me.
Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft
Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet
Enhypen – Romance: Untold
SZA – SOS
Seventeen – Spill the Feels
Morgan Wallen – One Thing at a Time
Seventeen – 17 Is Right Here
Noah Kahan – Stick Season
Stray Kids – ATE
Benson Boone – Beautiful Things
Sabrina Carpenter – Espresso
Teddy Swims – Lose Control
Billie Eilish – Birds of a Feather
Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy)
Hozier – Too Sweet
Post Malone – I Had Some Help ft Morgan Wallen
Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us
Taylor Swift – Cruel Summer
Noah Kahan – Stick Season
Continue reading...There are two awards apiece for the UK artists, while Nigerian singer Ayra Starr also wins two at Newcastle-hosted ceremony for Black musical excellence
Seventeen years since his debut single, British rapper Bashy has capped his long-awaited return to music with two wins at the 2025 Mobo awards, given each year to the best music of Black origin in the UK and overseas.
The 40-year-old vocalist and actor, born Ashley Thomas, won best hip-hop act as well as album of the year for Being Poor Is Expensive. While it didn’t make the UK charts, the album earned critical acclaim and a dedicated audience on streaming, drawn to its examination of race, mental health and working-class life in north-west London.
Continue reading...The Colombian star went to the emergency room in Peru’s capital on Saturday night, days after launching her first worldwide tour in seven years
Shakira cancelled her concert in the Peruvian capital on Sunday after being hospitalised with abdominal pain, a setback that comes days after she launched her first worldwide tour in seven years.
The 48-year-old Colombian star posted on her social media accounts that she had gone to the emergency room on Saturday night and remained in hospital.
Continue reading...Singer will visit US, UK and Europe later this year alongside members of the original band who recorded the classic punk text
Patti Smith is to perform her classic album Horses in full on a tour to mark the album’s 50th anniversary.
Playing gigs across the US, UK and Europe, Smith’s band will feature guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, each of whom played on the original recording. The tour includes two UK dates, at London’s Palladium on 12 and 13 October, with Dublin, Madrid, Bergamo, Brussels, Oslo and Paris also featuring on the European run. The US tour will visit Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington DC and Philadelphia.
Continue reading...Skylar Dalziel’s hard drives showed access to about 290,000 tracks from artists also including Shawn Mendes, police say
A dark web dealer who stole unreleased music from the likes of Coldplay, Shawn Mendes and Bebe Rexha has been given a suspended 21-month jail sentence.
Skylar Dalziel, 22, made tens of thousands of pounds after accessing the copyrighted tracks by illegally accessing cloud storage accounts linked to the artists.
Continue reading...All-star version of Do They Know It’s Christmas?, spliced together from previous versions, falls short of the No 1 success of those earlier hits
The 40th anniversary version of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? has failed to enter this week’s Top 40, reaching No 45.
The new version of the song was made up of performances spliced together from three previous versions, in an arrangement by producer Trevor Horn. But despite featuring the unusual A-list juxtaposition of George Michael, Sinead O’Connor, Chris Martin, One Direction and more, the new version has not yet matched the success of its predecessors, which each went straight to No 1 in 1984, 2004 and 2014.
Continue reading...Latest version of Do They Know It’s Christmas fundraiser reignites debate about ‘problematic’ lyrics and imagery
Forty years ago this week, a group of pop stars gathered at a west London studio to record a single that would raise millions, inspire further starry projects, and ultimately change charity fundraising in the UK.
Do They Know It’s Christmas, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s festive charity behemoth, would go on to raise almost £150m for famine relief and development in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa. To mark the anniversary, on Monday a new version of the single – its fifth – will be released under the name Band Aid 40.
Continue reading...Singer says his ‘understanding of the narrative’ around Do They Know It’s Christmas? has changed since 2014 appearance
Ed Sheeran has said he would rather not be on the forthcoming 40th-anniversary version of Band Aid charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas?, aligning himself with criticism of it as dehumanising and damaging to Africans.
Sheeran is one of an all-star cast to be drawn from three previous recordings of the song, in 1984, 2004 and 2014 – he appeared on the latter version. Producer Trevor Horn has mashed up three sets of performances into a new “Ultimate Mix”, which will be released on 25 November, and also features George Michael, Robbie Williams, Sinéad O’Connor and many more.
Continue reading...Robert Smith says getting first chart-topper since 1992’s Wish is ‘enormously uplifting’ and ‘genuinely heartwarming’
The Cure have scored their first UK No 1 album in 32 years, with Songs of a Lost World.
The band’s frontman Robert Smith said: “It is enormously uplifting, genuinely heartwarming to experience such a wonderful reaction to the release of the new Cure album. To everyone who has bought it, listened to it, loved it, believed in us over the years – thank you!”
Continue reading...In his new memoir The Voice Inside, the Australian singer says Darryl Sambell drugged him, controlled what he ate and punished him for rejecting his advances
John Farnham has opened up for the first time about his “abusive” relationship with his first manager, Darryl Sambell, accusing him of being “sexually aggressive” towards him and controlling what he sang, wore and ate.
In his new memoir, The Voice Inside, published in Australia on Wednesday, the 75-year-old singer reveals the extent of Sambell’s abuse for the first time, writing that he “used me like a piece of meat”.
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Continue reading...The musician was a founding member of the influential band and died ‘surrounded by his family and full of love’
Phil Lesh, the influential bassist of the Grateful Dead who powered many of the jam band’s touring incarnations after the 1995 death of Jerry Garcia, has died. He was 84.
Lesh’s death was announced on his Instagram page. “Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, passed peacefully this morning,” the caption reads. “He was surrounded by his family and full of love. Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love. We request that you respect the Lesh family’s privacy at this time.”
Continue reading...An official in Argentina, where the boy band star died last week, has spoken anonymously ahead of the final toxicology results being released
Former One Direction singer Liam Payne had multiple drugs including crack cocaine and methamphetamine in his system when he fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina, according to anonymous Argentinian sources familiar with the initial toxicology reports.
The British singer and former One Direction member died last week at the age of 31 after plunging from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires.
Continue reading...The vocalist, who went on to form Battlezone and Killers, had experienced a number of health issues in recent years
Paul Di’Anno, the journeyman heavy metal vocalist best known for fronting Iron Maiden in their early years, has died aged 66.
His label Conquest Music confirmed that he died at home in Salisbury, adding: “Despite being troubled by severe health issues in recent years that restricted him to performing in a wheelchair, Paul continued to entertain his fans around the world, racking up well over 100 shows since 2023.”
Continue reading...After Han Kang’s Nobel award and South Korean cinema hits, Penguin publishes new English edition of maxims by Lee Seong-bok in wake of US success
A collection of wise maxims written by a 72-year old poet, calmly setting out illuminating advice to other poets, is the latest and perhaps most unlikely book to benefit from a surge in demand for South Korean literature.
“Kick against words like you would kick back on a swing. You’ve got to feel as if the soles of your feet are touching the sky,” suggests Lee Seong-bok in his hit title Indeterminate Inflorescence.
Continue reading...British musician was found dead after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires
Liam Payne, a former member of the boyband One Direction, has died aged 31 after falling from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires, police have confirmed.
The singer died on Wednesday at 5pm local time.
Continue reading...Four never-before-heard demos will be sold at auction along with documents rescued by former PA to the star’s manager
In the 54 years since Jimi Hendrix’s death, every part of his archive has been mined for fresh material. Recordings of long-forgotten gigs, obscure B-sides and abandoned demos have all been released.
But it appears that not everything the American rock guitarist, singer and composer recorded has seen the light of day. Newly unearthed master tapes with never-before-heard tracks are now up for sale in an auction of Hendrix memorabilia.
Continue reading...British rock band also agree to sell rights to their name and likeness after years of reported infighting among members
Pink Floyd has reportedly reached a deal with Sony to sell their music catalog, as well as their name and likeness, for about $400m.
The British rock band agreed to sell the rights to their recorded music catalog, their name and their likeness, but not the rights to their songwriting, according to the Financial Times, who first reported the news of the deal on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.
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