music blog
In 1983, Alan & Marilyn Bergman Were First to Land 3 Oscar Nods for Best Song in 1 Year
With the announcement on Saturday (Jan. 8) of the death of Oscar- and Grammy-winning lyricist Marilyn Bergman at age 93, it’s a good time to look back on one of the most impressive feats in Oscar history. When the nominations for the 55th annual Academy Awards were announced on Feb. 17, 1983, lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman accomplished an unprecedented feat: They had three of the five nominees for best original song. What’s more, all three songs were from different films and were written with with different composers. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In the nearly four decades since then, four other songwriters or songwriting teams have landed three best original song nods in the same year, but, in each case, all were from the same film. The...
Glastonbury Festival Slid to Record £3.1 Million Loss Last Year Amid Pandemic
LONDON – Glastonbury Festival lost £3.1 million ($4.2 million) last year when it cancelled the event for a second consecutive summer because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the company’s latest financial results. Accounts filed with Companies House, the U.K.’s registrar of businesses, reveal that in the year ended March 31, 2021, turnover fell to £936,000 ($1.3 million), down from £45 million ($61 million) in the previous financial year. The total operating loss of just over £3.1 million for 2021, which followed a loss of £358,780 ($487,600) in 2020, is understood to be a record drop for the 52-year-old festival. But Glastonbury said it was able to cover the losses with profits retained from previous years. Paul McCartney, Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift had been due to headline the...
Sinead O’Connor’s 17-Year-Old Son Found Dead After Going Missing
Sinead O’Connor’s 17-year-old son, Shane, was found dead in Ireland on Friday (Jan. 7) after the Irish singer-songwriter notified authorities that he had gone missing. Police said the missing person case was closed after a body was found in the eastern coastal town of Bray, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Dublin. Explore See latest videos, charts and news O’Connor posted on Twitter that her son, “the very light of my life, decided to end his earthly struggle today and is now with God. May he rest in peace and may no one follow his example. My baby, I love you so much. Please be at peace.” Earlier, the 55-year-old singer had appealed to her son on social media not to harm himself. She noted that he had been hospitalized following two suicide attempts. Shane was one of O’Connor’s fou...
Buoyed By Pool Noodles, Festival Attendees Enjoy Underwater Ambient Electronic Set
A new Sydney concert attraction sends listeners adrift to the sounds of electronic music. In this case, we mean “adrift” quite literally. The only place the music in “Floors Of Heaven: Submersive Study” can be heard is underwater. Electronic music artist Leon Vynehall soundtracks the event, held at Woolloomooloo Bay’s Andrew (Boy) Charlton Pool, to the relaxing sounds of ambient music. Attendees float on the water’s surface with ears submerged; their only means of exposure to the sounds of Vynehall, whose ambient serenade broadcasts via a special underwater sound system. Attendees placidly drift, propped up by pool noodles for flotation assistance, for 45 minutes while enjoying an ethereal atmospheric view above. The early evening s...
Denver Officials Permanently Shut Down Beta Nightclub Due to Hazardous Conditions: Report
It’s a new year, and the same old story for Denver’s Beta Nightclub. Once again, the beloved venue’s future is left hanging in the balance. Though the club has historically been instrumental in fostering Denver’s electronic music community, the downtown establishment has sustained a long series of closures, reopenings, and even a rebrand as Beta 2.0 in late 2019. Despite its various woes, the club persisted, though a new directive from the City of Denver has once again forced operations to grind to a halt—perhaps permanently. According to reporting by the Denver Post, Beta Nightclub began to fall under scrutiny upon law enforcement’s investigation of increasingly prevalent reports of violence happening in the area. Police testimony from DPD Officer...
How Skrillex Influenced The Weeknd’s “Dawn FM” Album
In the music industry, there’s seemingly only a few degrees of separation between Skrillex and any given hit. One such track on The Weeknd‘s new Dawn FM album stands as a prime example. The story of how Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys came to be involved with the project is something of a butterfly effect—with Skrillex playing a pivotal role. Johnston, now 79, tells the Los Angeles Times that he was out surfing at Zuma Beach and decided to stop in at the nearby Shangri-La Studios afterwards. There, the legendary musician met Skrillex, who was working with multi-Platinum producer Rex Kudo and renowned guitarist Heavy Mellow at the time. Johnston explains that Skrillex and the artists in his orbit at Shangri-La have an unrelenting work ethic, likening them to “the Wr...
Calvin Simon, Parliament-Funkadelic Co-Founder, Dies at 79
Calvin Simon, a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic, died on Thursday, report bandmates George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. “We lost another original member of Parliament/Funkadelic. A friend, bandmate & a cool classic guy, Mr. Calvin Simon was a former member of Parliament/Funkadelic,” Collins wrote in a statement on Instagram. “Rest in peace to my P-Funk brother Mr. Calvin Simon, longtime Parliament-Funkadelic vocalist. Fly on Calvin!” Clinton wrote on Facebook. Simon was 79. Born in Beckley, West Virginia in 1942, Simon grew up singing in a church choir for weekly radio broadcasts. When his family relocated to New Jersey, he found work as a barber at 13 years old and soon befriended fellow barbers Clinton and Grady Thomas and customers Ray Davis and Fuzzy Haskins. Together, they...
Why Violence Fits So Well Into the World of The Righteous Gemstones
Comedies don’t typically include a body count. But right from the beginning, The Righteous Gemstones has defied a lot of expectations. Not only has the HBO series, created by Danny McBride, taken on the often tricky topic of religion, specifically Christianity as preached by a megachurch family, but it’s done so with its own unique blend of pitch-black comedy and serious stakes. “I wouldn’t say we are like Game of Thrones, where someone dies every week,” Edi Patterson, who plays Gemstone daughter Judy, tells Consequence in a recent Zoom interview. “But anything can happen, that’s for sure,” “Wealth and power give these bigger stakes to a family drama, a family comedy,” adds Tim Baltz, who plays Judy’s ever-loyal partner. Advertisement “I’d be so upset if Judy ever died,” says Patterson. No...
SABATON Shares Music Video For New Single ‘Soldier Of Heaven’
Swedish metallers SABATON have released the official music video for their new single, “Soldier Of Heaven”. The track is taken from the band’s tenth studio album, “The War To End All Wars”, that will be released on March 4 via Nuclear Blast Records. Written and recorded during the COVID-19 global pandemic, the concept album of 11 brand-new songs once again dives deep into the atrocities, miracles, and events tied to the early 20th century’s World War I. The tenth album of the Falun-based five-piece will be available in an impressive variety of exclusive formats, including CD, vinyl, and cassette, with most available in limited editions. Between the several battlegrounds of WWI, there was no scene as hostile as the feared alpine front that involved a seri...
Drummer CASEY GRILLO Confirms He Will Play On Upcoming QUEENSRŸCHE Album
QUEENSRŸCHE‘s Casey Grillo has confirmed to SW Wall Music in a new interview that he will be the featured drummer on the band’s upcoming album, which is scheduled to be recorded later this month. “We’ve actually been doing writing sessions here in Florida,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “We’ll get together and do the writing and stuff. Over the last year, year and a half, Michael [Wilton, guitar] started sending me tracks, back during COVID, and I would just do some tracks to whatever he did. Some of those songs became what’s gonna be on some of the record.” According to Grillo, the upcoming QUEENSRŸCHE LP won’t be the first time he has recorded with the group. “I did do a couple of songs on their last record...
CARCASS’s BILL STEER: ‘I Didn’t Experience The World Of Real Work Until My Mid-20s’
Bill Steer of British extreme metal pioneers CARCASS spoke to the “Everblack” podcast about the various non-music related jobs he has held over the years in order to support himself when he wasn’t on tour. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I left school at 16. I was already playing in bands around that time, and I guess by the time I was 17, I was doing NAPALM [DEATH] and CARCASS. I didn’t experience the world of real work until my mid-20s once CARCASS had broken up. That was quite an education. Looking back, it was long overdue ’cause I just didn’t have enough experience of the real world and people. ‘Cause if you’d just been in your little music bubble, only kind of hanging out with and dealing with people who like simila...
JOHN CORABI: ‘I Learned A Very Hard, Valuable Lesson When I Was In MÖTLEY CRÜE’
In a new interview with The Rock Experience With Mike Brunn, former MÖTLEY CRÜE singer John Corabi was asked how he measures success. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I learned a very hard, valuable lesson when I was in MÖTLEY. Obviously, everybody knows what the [1994 self-titled] record did or didn’t do. The tour was a nightmare. I was the new ingredient, and then I left. And the one thing that I learned was when I left the band, my phone stopped ringing. And it was kind of a harsh reality. I was the guy that was invited to all the parties, the backstage things, ‘Let’s go in a limo,’ ‘Let’s do this,’ ‘Let’s go to the Playboy mansion,’ ‘Let’s do that,’ and then the minute they made the a...
