music blog
You Promise?: Chief Twit Elon Musk Says He Will Step Down As CEO After He Finds A Successor
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Elon Musk It looks like Elon Musk will honor the results of his Twitter poll, well, sort of. The Chief Twit, Elon Musk, announced on his Twitter account Tuesday, Dec.20, that he would “step down” as CEO as soon as he finds “someone foolish enough to take the job.” Musk’s announcement comes two days after a poll he posted on his Twitter account asking his 122 million followers if he should step down as the chief operating officer of the social media company he spent $44 billion on. Related Stories As expected, a majority of the people who cast a vote in the poll voted yes and wanted him out of the position. Bootleg Tony Stark, oops, Elon Musk decided to ask the question after Twitter announced a dumb content moderation policy forbidding ...
From Beyoncé to Brent Faiyaz, What Was Your Favorite R&B Album of 2022? Vote!
It’s that time of year! Yes, the holiday season, but also when we look back and take stock on the best music of the year. And in the countdown to Christmas, we want to know which R&B album released in 2022 was your favorite. On Tuesday (Dec. 20), Billboard staffers ranked their ten picks for the year’s best R&B studio sets, starting with Brent Faiyaz‘s Wasteland. Calling it the indie artist’s “most transparent project to date,” the sophomore follow-up to 2017’s Sonder Son was led by singles “Dead Man Walking,” “Gravity” with DJ Dahi and featuring a guest assist from Tyler, the Creator, and “Wasting Time” featuring Drake before finally debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in July. Of course, it wouldn’t be the year in R&B without considering Beyoncé‘s mammoth Renaissance, even...
Oscars 2023: Snubs & Surprises in the Music Shortlists
Taylor Swift probably has mixed emotions about the Oscar shortlists, which were announced on Wednesday (Dec. 21). She is shortlisted for best original song for “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing. For a folk-style ballad that wasn’t a big hit, that’s great. On the other hand, she was not shortlisted for best live action short film for “All Too Well,” which she directed. “All Too Well” won three MTV Video Music Awards on Aug. 28 — video of the year, best director and best long-form video. Swift has had enough awards show experience to know that you win some and you lose some. But to not be shortlisted for a film that she cares deeply about and has worked hard to promote has to sting. Swift’s pal Selena Gomez also got mixed news in the shortlists. “My Mind & Me,” which she co-wrote f...
Sony Music Says Artists Have Withdrawn $50M Using Its Cash-Out and Real-Time Advance Features
On Monday (Dec. 19), Sony Music Entertainment (SME) shared a recap with the company’s artists and earnings participants on the progress of its Artists Forward initiative, which encompasses SME’s legacy unrecouped balances initiative, healthcare assistance, advances on projected earnings and more. Notably, the recap offers never-before-reported stats on Sony Music’s artist portal and real-time insights platforms. Introduced in 2019, the features offer music creators and their teams “best-in-class” payment capabilities and real-time updates on consumption of their music and audience engagement data. According to the company, artists and other earnings participants have withdrawn nearly $50 million combined from both the cash-out feature, which allows users to cash out payable monthly account...
Rory Kramer, Justin Bieber’s Photographer, Mourns Loss of Son After Premature Birth: ‘How Fragile Life Is’
Gone far too soon. Rory Kramer, Justin Bieber‘s longtime photographer and music video director, took to social media on Monday (Dec. 19) to share the news that his baby son had died after a premature birth. “It’s with a broken heart that I share on December 1, 2022 at 9:41pm, my wife Amy went into a preterm labor and gave birth to our baby boy, Daniel Thomas Kramer after 21 weeks,” Kramer wrote alongside an Instagram photo of himself cradling the tiny baby, whose face was covered by a heart emoji. “A name after both our fathers. He weighed 14oz and was 11 inches long. He made Amy and I parents for 52 minutes before heading off to heaven.” Kramer went on to recall his very first moments in the hospital with baby Daniel before writing, “It went from the most beautiful moment to the most eye ...
DaBaby Beats $6 Million Lawsuit
After a five-day trial, a jury has found in favor of DaBaby, who was facing a $6 million federal lawsuit accusing him of battery, breach of contract, and defamation, according to documents viewed by Pitchfork. In DaBaby’s countersuit, plaintiffs Kenneth Carey and Steve Anyadike were found to be liable for invasion of privacy and unauthorized use of name or likeness. In January 2020, DaBaby was arrested and questioned by police in Miami about an alleged robbery; he was found to have an outstanding warrant in Texas, spent the night at Miami’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, and was released the next day. A month later, Carey, a concert promoter, filed a lawsuit claiming DaBaby breached his contract to perform, and, along with his associates, beat and robbed him. TMZ published a v...
Mac DeMarco Covers “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”: Watch
Mac DeMarco is continuing his annual tradition of covering classic Christmas songs. Following his cover of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” last year, the Canadian musician is back with a new rendition of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” The roughly two-minute track arrives with a new music video, which finds DeMarco and Dan McNeill riding around Los Angeles on motorcycles while wearing inflatable costumes of Santa Claus and a gingerbread man. Check it out below. DeMarco’s latest album, Here Comes the Cowboy, dropped in 2019. Earlier this month, he joined Domi & JD Beck on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, performing “Two Shrimps.” See why DeMarco was included on “The 200 Most Important Artists of Pitchfork’s First 25 Years.” Content This content can also be viewed on t...
Oscars 2023: LCD Soundsystem, Taylor Swift, Mitski, Rihanna, and More Make Shortlist for Best Original Song
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has unveiled the shortlists for several categories at the 2023 Academy Awards. The race for Best Original Song, in particular, features an interesting blend of indie artists and pop stars: LCD Soundsystem, Taylor Swift, Mitski, the Weeknd, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Giveon, Selena Gomez, and Jazmine Sullivan are all on the shortlist, which you can find in full below. Potentially competing in the Best Original Score category are past Oscar winners Ludwig Göransson, John Williams, Hildur Guðnadóttir, and Alexandre Desplat. Other notable shortlist contenders include Terence Blanchard, Son Lux, Nicholas Britell, and Michael Abels. Find the full shortlist below. The 2022 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film went to Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson f...
TONG Drops Inventive House Remix of Matroda’s “Gimme Some Keys”
Last month, emerging L.A.-based artist TONG was crowned the winner of Insomniac’s 2022 Discovery Project competition for her inventive rework of Matroda‘s house banger, “Gimme Some Keys.” Her massive remix propelled her to the stage of one of the nation’s largest electronic music fests, EDC Orlando, where she threw down a banging tech house set for her first-ever festival performance. For her groovy take on Matroda’s house anthem, TONG opted to add funky guitar elements, quirky vocal chops and a pulsing bassline that rarely relents. It’s clear that this promising dance music producer likes to take risks, experimenting with a wide range of sounds in the pursuit of developing her own unique style of house music. TONG’s rework is part of a colle...
10 Photos That Capture the Jaw-Dropping Production of Time Warp
The fifth U.S. edition of Time Warp was an extraordinary celebration of hard-hitting techno. Following events in Mannheim and São Paulo, the renowned techno brand touched down in New York for a two day festival on November 11th and 12th. Combining global esteem with local acumen, the event was put together in partnership with one of the city’s top dance music organizers, Teksupport. The two-day festival took place at a sprawling warehouse in Brooklyn’s secluded Navy Yard, a regular spot for Teksupport shows and the perfect hideaway for deep, dark dance music. As always, Time Warp brought forth some of the best names in underground dance music. The event starred Drumcode boss Adam Beyer, Afterlife’s Mind Against, “Queen of Techno” Nicole Moudaber, melodic Ukrainian supe...
Listen to Armin van Buuren’s 109-Track “ASOT Year Mix 2022”
Armin van Buuren has unveiled a gigantic mix to honor all the great trance music released in 2022. As fans know, the Dutch DJ and trance icon annually compiles all of his favorite songs into one mix to close out the year. Considering the scale of his platform and the renown of his long-running “A State Of Trance” show, van Buuren is perhaps the genre’s most tenured selector—and that reputation is on display in his “ASOT Year Mix 2022.” Clocking in at just under two hours, the mix features a staggering 109 tracks. “What a year it’s been for Trance and I’m beyond proud to FINALLY bring you the A State Of Trance Year Mix 2022!,” van Buuren tweeted. “I still wonder how I made 109 tracks fit into 2 hours.” Scr...
We Asked the A.I. Program ChatGPT About EDM—It Knew Too Much
Following the release of the now-viral sensation, ChatGPT, it took OpenAI’s eerily sophisticated chatbot just five days to amass over one million users. And it’s become the most successful story at the intersection of artificial intelligence and meteoric tech adoption in the last decade. There’s many reasons why ChatGPT has become an instant hit. Some have called it a creative enhancer, others a search query replacement. But no matter what you think ChatGPT’s future use cases are, there’s no denying it has a tremendous trove of information to draw upon, including niche topics like electronic dance music. Despite our best efforts to stump ChatGPT with absurdly specific questions—and even thought-provoking, nuanced topics—it seems the algorithm has a deeper unde...
