Two dancers injured as suspended LED screen crashes down on to stage during show by Cantopop band Mirror
Two dancers have been injured at a Cantopop concert in Hong Kong after a massive video screen suspended above the stage fell on to performers below.
The concert on Thursday, by Cantopop boyband Mirror, was the fourth of a series of 12 scheduled concerts by the band held at the Hong Kong Coliseum.
Continue reading...Town festival authorities refuse to play chart-topping Layla by DJ Robin & Schürze, prompting complaints of censorship
They are loud in volume, unsophisticated in tune and often offensively bawdy in content. With titles ranging from Sex With a Bavarian to Big Tits Potato Salad, the ballermann sub-genre of schlager pop is a big hit in German-dominated nightclubs on the Balearic island of Mallorca, but is more likely to elicit winces of embarrassment or Fremdschämen at home.
Yet this week German newspapers have been filled with detailed analysis of schlager song lyrics, and even the country’s justice minister felt inclined to share his musical taste after a Bavarian city decided to banish this holiday season’s ballermann hit from its beer halls for its sexist tendencies.
Continue reading...74-year-old guitarist says he ‘forgot to eat and drink water so dehydrated and passed out’
The US guitarist Carlos Santana has recovered after collapsing on stage during a concert in suburban Detroit on Tuesday.
The audience was reportedly initially told of a serious medical issue and asked to pray for the 74-year-old musician, but Santana was treated swiftly and was seen waving to fans as he was wheeled off stage. He was taken to a local hospital for observation.
Continue reading...Jason Alexander pleads not guilty to charges of stalking, trespassing, battery and vandalism
Britney Spears’ ex-husband Jason Alexander has been charged with stalking her, after he appeared unannounced at her wedding last week.
After streaming a video live on his Instagram at the wedding venue, in which he claimed that Spears had invited him and said “I’m here to crash the wedding”, Alexander was confronted by security guards, arrested and taken to a local jail. Spears’ wedding to Sam Asghari, her third husband, went ahead.
Continue reading...At a Tribeca film festival event, the singer discussed directing the short All Too Well as well as the difficult time she went through over control of her music
Lines of young fans stretch down Broadway. Selfies aplenty snapped in a crowded lobby. Wild cheers as anticipation built inside, followed by intermittent shrieks during an opening speech from Tribeca film festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal. A short film screening that morphed into a pop concert, complete with sing-along.
It’s safe to say this wasn’t your standard film festival event. But what else do you expect when the festival, now in its 20th year, decided to trot out the newly-minted Dr Taylor Swift to muse about film-making in honor of her music video-slash-short film aptly dubbed All Too Well: The Short Film? Released in November and directed by Swift herself, it fit like a glove into the festival as production partly took place in the actual Tribeca neighborhood in New York.
Continue reading...New single This Is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr is a ballad about the difficulties of film stardom, taken from Depp’s forthcoming album with Jeff Beck
Johnny Depp has released a new self-penned song performed with Jeff Beck, This Is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr, taken from the pair’s forthcoming collaborative album, entitled 18.
A trudging rock ballad sung by Depp interspersed with solo vocals from Beck, it hymns the 1940s film star (and innovative electrical engineer) Hedy Lamarr, though this lament about fame will inevitably be read as a reaction to the high-profile, frequently ugly defamation case he recently brought against his ex-wife Amber Heard.
Continue reading...Song reaches No 8 in the US 37 years after it was first released, thanks to inclusion in new season of Stranger Things
Kate Bush has earned her first ever US Top 10 hit with Running Up That Hill, 37 years after it was released.
The song is a key plot point in the new series of Netflix’s supernatural drama Stranger Things, and has exploded in popularity since the show debuted on 27 May. It is now at No 8 in the US, and reached the same position in the UK singles chart last Friday.
Continue reading...Royalties company PRS for Music has announced a major funding cut for its charitable arm. Artists such as Black Country, New Road explain why it could damage the UK music scene
One of the UK’s biggest funders of new and emerging music, responsible for fostering the careers of artists including Sam Fender, Little Simz and 2021 Mercury prize winner Arlo Parks, has this week seen its budget slashed by 60%.
The PRS Foundation, which funds hundreds of aspiring artists and music organisations across the country – including a number of artists from groups underrepresented in the music industry – announced on Wednesday that its income would be cut from £2.75m to £1m from 2024 onwards, citing financial necessity. The decision was taken by its parent company and primary funder PRS for Music, which collects royalties for musicians when their music is streamed or played in public.
Continue reading...Items including a handwritten letter from David Bowie and Peel’s horn gramophone will be up for sale next month
Records and music memorabilia once owned by the celebrated former BBC DJ John Peel, including a signed mono pressing of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1968 album Two Virgins, is to be sold at auction in June.
Peel’s family said in a statement: “John/Dad was in a position to have access to many of the most celebrated people and events in the history of popular music. This is reflected in a wealth of souvenirs he collected. In going through the accumulation of 40 years of pop music moments, we decided that some of the most interesting items might find a home, with fans of his programme or of the artists whose music he played.”
Continue reading...Song has more than 111m views on YouTube and has been heralded for transcending boundaries
From radio stations in Islamabad to the nightclubs of Delhi and house parties in Kathmandu, it is a song that in recent months has been impossible to avoid. As soon as the distinctive opening claps of Pasoori, by the Pakistani singer Ali Sethi and his collaborator Shae Gill, are heard, it is often greeted with a roar of approval.
And it is not just in south Asia: since it was released in February, the song, which draws on traditional and modern musical influences, has gone on to become a global phenomenon and one of Pakistan’s most popular musical exports for years. It has more than 111m views on YouTube, it was the first Pakistani song to top Spotify’s global viral charts, and the first Pakistani song to enter its official global songs chart.
Continue reading...The K-pop superstars add billions to the economy, so should they be exempt from conscription?
They generate billions for the South Korean economy and have helped turned the country into a cultural superpower, but must Jin, Jimin, V, RM, J-Hope, Suga and Jungkook – the seven members of the K-pop phenomenon BTS – start swapping their stage outfits for military uniforms?
Less than three weeks before South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, takes office, the country is gripped by a debate over who, if anyone, should be exempt from compulsory national service – long seen as essential preparation for a potential conflict with its volatile neighbour, North Korea.
Continue reading...Star proposes in Detroit while singing lyric ‘let’s get married’, before ceremony performed by label co-founder
Jack White surprised fans by marrying the musician Olivia Jean on stage during his Detroit homecoming show on Friday.
The Detroit-born singer, songwriter and producer invited Jean onstage to join his performance and introduced her as his girlfriend.
Continue reading...Singer, drummer and actor had five US Top 10 hits, and inspired the Beatles to write She Loves You
Bobby Rydell, who enjoyed numerous US hits during the teen pop craze of the early 1960s, has died aged 79. He suffered complications from pneumonia, and died in hospital in his native Philadelphia.
With songs of decorous romance sung in his clean, hearty voice, Rydell reached the US Top 10 five times – with We Got Love, Swingin’ School, his version of the standard Volare, Wild One (also a UK Top 10 hit) and Forget Him. The latter is believed to be the inspiration for the Beatles’ She Loves You after Paul McCartney said the song was inspired by an unnamed Rydell number.
Continue reading...The specter of Oscars chaos loomed over the music awards – a mega-concert which included a message of hope from the Ukrainian president
Teenage pop phenom Olivia Rodrigo and R&B duo Silk Sonic dominated the major categories, and Jon Batiste won album of the year at the 64th annual Grammys – a three-and-a-half-hour mega concert that mostly steered clear of politics or the pandemic, save for a virtual message from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and an emotional tribute to victims of the Russian invasion.
A week after one of the most chaotic Oscars in recent memory – during which Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage – the Grammys seemed to revel in its technical proficiency and lack of controversy. “We’re gonna be listening to some music, we’re gonna be dancing, we’re gonna be singing, we’re gonna be keeping people’s names out of our mouths,” said host Trevor Noah in his opening monologue, acknowledging the elephant in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Continue reading...Pop star who was diagnosed with tumour in 2020 had ‘infectious smile and energetic presence’, says his wife
Tom Parker, singer with the Wanted, has died aged 33 from brain cancer.
His wife, Kelsey, said on Instagram: “It is with the heaviest of hearts that we confirm Tom passed away peacefully earlier today with all of his family by his side. Our hearts are broken, Tom was the centre of our world and we can’t imagine life without his infectious smile and energetic presence.”
Continue reading...Tina Weymouth in ‘a lot of pain’ after she fractures sternum and three ribs in car crash, says husband Chris Frantz
Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, the husband and wife musicians who were core members of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, have survived a serious car crash after a collision with a drunk driver.
According to a post from Frantz on Facebook, accompanying an image of their wrecked Ford SUV, the incident happened two weeks ago on US Route 1. He wrote:
We were struck head on by a drunk driver who was driving on the wrong side of the road. Incredibly, we walked away from the collision. Tina had a Cat scan and suffered three fractured ribs and a fractured sternum. She’s been in a lot of pain but she will get better with time. I give thanks to our guardian angels and to the Ford Motor Company for building a car that protected us from getting killed.
Continue reading...The Canadian-American singer-songwriter on why she needed to tell a different story in her candid autobiography
The rock autobiography is typically a male genre, telling tales of excess so competitive that readers could be forgiven for wishing Keith Richards, Neil Young, Roger Daltrey, et al, would break the monotony by taking up wood whittling.
But now comes Martha Wainwright, whose autobiography, published this week, is a female-gaze account of what it takes to juggle relationships, familial and domestic circumstances with life under the stage lights.
Continue reading...Singer’s anti-war song reached US Top 3 in 1973 before being widely covered and sampled by artists including Drake
Timmy Thomas, whose spellbinding anti-war song Why Can’t We Live Together was a global hit in 1973, has died aged 77.
No cause of death has been given. His family wrote on his Facebook page: “With appreciation and gratitude, the family extends a thank you for the prayers, support, precious words and other expressions of love and kindness during this time.”
Continue reading...The 90s pop star on rapping with Public Enemy, her inspirational activist granny, and the joy of making music again in her 50s
Alison Clarkson, AKA Betty Boo, 52, grew up in west London with her Scottish mother, Malaysian father and brother. At 17, she ran away to New York with her rap trio, the She Rockers, and by 21 she had three Top 10 singles and a platinum debut album, Boomania. At 24, Madonna offered to sign her to her label, Maverick Records, but Clarkson quit performing instead. Later, she co-wrote Hear’Say’s Pure and Simple and worked with Girls Aloud, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Blur’s Alex James. Now living in Wiltshire with film producer husband, Paul Toogood, she has just released her first solo single in 29 years, Get Me to the Weekend. An album follows this summer.
The Boo is back. Why now?
It suddenly dawned on me a few years ago that I was going to be 50 and deep down I always wanted to make another Betty Boo record. Getting into middle age, you also start to feel invisible and I didn’t want that to happen. If it’s OK for Mick Jagger or Rick Astley to keep going, why not me?
Growing up the daughter of a rock’n’roller, Lo Carmen was meeting stars at gigs from the age of 13. One left a life-changing impression
I was 13 when I became enamoured with Chrissy Amphlett.
It was 1983 and I had just started working for our old family friend Vince Lovegrove in the school holidays. In the late 60s Vince had been a frilly-shirted bubble-gum pop singer with the Valentines, alongside AC/DC’s Bon Scott; in the 70s, he’d transitioned to hip music scene journalist, to TV producer, to compère; and now he was managing cutting-edge rock group the Divinyls, whose song Boys in Town I was already obsessed with.
Continue reading...