music
SHINee Is Back — And It’s Been ‘A Long Time Coming’
By Ashlee Mitchell Key, Minho, Taemin, and Onew sit together, makeup-free, laughing, sipping on drinks, vibing, and generally enjoying each other’s company. It’s about 2 p.m. in Seoul, and the guys have obviously been busy with back-to-back interviews, but that doesn’t deter from the positivity they radiate on a Zoom call. One could mistake them for brothers instead of the iconic second-generation K-pop moguls they are, but that relatability in spite of their superstardom makes them SHINee. The K-pop landscape looked very different when they debuted under SM Entertainment in 2008. SHINee entered the scene with the timeless “Replay,” an R&B jam where the fresh-faced boys sang about impressing an older woman. This debut secured their place as trendsetters in Korea, inspiring what media d...
Wizkid’s Album Best During Pandemic – 6lack
Wizkid’s recent album, “Made In Lagos” which received major attention across the world has been rated by American rapper, 6lack as the best album of any genre that was dished out during the pandemic. Recall that the Award-winning singer released the much-anticipated project on the 22nd of October 2020 and music lovers wasted no time to vibe to the amazing sounds. Naija Music gathered that the album from Nigeria has received over 181 million streams across the world. Meanwhile, 6black in a post on Twitter noted that Wizkid dished out the best project during the pandemic. The statement of the American rapper has been commended by some, while some others believed he stating the wrong thing. See the post below: also @wizkidayo dropped the best album during this pandemic, of any genre. — black ...
Billie Eilish Announces Documentary Premiere Event, Shares Live Version of “ilomilo”: Stream
Ahead of the upcoming Apple TV+ documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, the pop star and the tech giant have announced a live premiere event featuring interviews, video previews, and special musical performances. It’s going down February 25th before the film receives a wider release on the 26th, and Eilish is heralding the news by releasing a live performance of “ilomilo”, the song which gives the documentary its name. Apple TV+ reportedly paid $25 million to pull Eilish under their umbrella, and they now seemed to determined to get their money’s worth. The documentary live premiere event will be hosted by Apple Music’s Zane Lowe and feature interviews with both Eilish and the film’s director R.J. Cutler. Also expect are video packages previewing the doc and a st...
Mariachi Band Trolls Ted Cruz Outside His Houston Home
Senator Ted Cruz may not have been able to carry out his tone-deaf vacation to Cancún, but some residents of Texas made sure that Mexico came to him. As The Independent reports, a Mariachi band held a lively performance outside of Cruz’s Houston home on Sunday, because as one organizer put it, “No one should go to Cancún and not listen to Mariachi.” Cruz, who is responsible for approximately 90% of the terrible haircuts in the Senate and at least 10% of its jowls, flew to Cancún on Wednesday, February 17th. The timing struck almost everyone as less than ideal, given that his home state of Texas had been rocked by catastrophic winter storms. With millions snowed-in without water or electricity, Cruz used the powers of his office to arrange a police escort to the airport and made a beel...
Lzzy Hale’s Powerhouse Vocals Highlight Halestorm’s Cover of The Who’s “Long Live Rock”: Stream
Halestorm have covered The Who’s “Long Live Rock” in conjunction with the recently announced documentary of the same name. The rousing rendition is fueled by frontwoman Lzzy Hale’s powerful vocals. The new documentary Long Live Rock … Celebrate the Chaos focuses on the culture surrounding hard rock, with appearances by members of Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Rage Against the Machine, Slipknot, Halestorm, and many others. It was filmed at a number of U.S. rock festivals in recent years, and also spotlights fans of the music, as they “commune with their ‘rock families’.” In promotion of the movie, Halestorm have tackled “Long Live Rock”, which was released on The Who’s 1974 rarities collection, Odds & Sods, and also featured during the credits of the legendary UK band’s 1979 documentar...
Guided By Voices Announce New Album Earth Man Blues, Share “Free Agents”: Stream
Guided by Voices released three albums in 2020, and it looks like they plan on continuing that impressive pandemic pace in the new year. The legendary indie rockers have just announced another new record called Earth Man Blues, due out April 30th via Rockathon. Earth Man Blues is the 33rd studio album (!) of Guided by Voices’ career. It’s comprised of songs from the past decade that were never used on previous LPs and organized here to create an overall theme. After realizing it sounded like a musical stage production, Robert Pollard decided to lean into that style and named the album after his elementary school’s theater playbill. “I was blown away that I had discarded them,” Pollard said of the tracks in an interview with Rolling Stone. “Anyway, I combined some of them and created new ar...
Dee Snider: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Committee Is Made Up of “Arrogant Elitist Assholes”
Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider has slammed the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame committee as “arrogant elitist assholes,” citing a lack of respect for hard rock and heavy metal acts. Snider went on a rant against the Rock Hall during a Q&A session with fans on Twitter over the weekend. The subject popped up when a fan asked about Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson’s declaration in 2018 that he would refuse induction if the legendary metal act was ever voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It just so happens that Iron Maiden are among the acts recently nominated for the 2021 class. Faced with the question, “Why would [Dickinson} or anyone for that matter refuse [induction]?”, Snider responded, “The RnR Hall committee members are arrogant elitist assholes who look down on metal &a...
Spotify Announces High-Fidelity Tier and Expansion into 80 New Markets
The big green circle is about to get even bigger. At Spotify’s Stream On event on Monday, February 22nd, the music streaming giant announced it would be introducing a new high-fidelity audio tier and expanding into 80 additional markets (via Billboard). Spotify is remaining tight-lipped on their Hi-Fi plans, declining to reveal what sized audio files they’ll be rolling out, when the new tier will introduced, or how much it will cost. But the news has to send a shudder down the spines of music execs at places like TIDAL, Deezer, and Qobuz, where high-end audio fidelity is one of the features that has allowed them to stand out. Still, a deep-pocketed competitor is by no means a death sentence — after all, Amazon Music unveiled an HD option in 2019, and those smaller platforms have managed ju...
Metallica’s BlizzCon Performance Audio Replaced With Goofy Instrumental Music on Twitch: Watch
Metallica headlined video-game maker Blizzard Entertainment’s virtual BlizzCon 2021 event on Friday (February 19th), but those watching on Twitch were treated to an evening of … elevator music. Due to copyright concerns, Twitch replaced Metallica’s thunderous brand of heavy metal with a generic instrumental that made the legendary band’s performance look downright silly. Things started out okay, with frontman James Hetfield introducing the performance by recalling how Metallica headlined the typically in-person Blizzcon event back in 2014, adding, “We would love to be there this year, but obviously can’t be … so here we are, and this is for you.” Beaming in from their Bay Area band headquarters, Metallica launched into their classic song “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, and everything soun...
Disgraced Director Brett Ratner to Attempt Comeback with Biopic on Disgraced Duo Milli Vanilli
Filmmaker Brett Ratner, disgraced following sexual misconduct allegations, is attempting a comeback with a biopic on Milli Vanilli, disgraced after an infamous lip-syncing scandal. Deadline reports that Millennium Media (The Expendables, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard) has joined Ratner’s RatPac Entertainment in developing the project. The film would mark Ratner’s first directing gig since 2014’s Dwayne Johnson vehicle Hercules. Ratner hasn’t been heard from much since 2017 when a number of women stepped forward with accusations of sexual misconduct and assault. Olivia Munn said the filmmaker had masturbated in front of her and boasted of ejaculating on pictures of her while on set of 2004’s After the Sunset. Natasha Henstridge accused him of forcing her to perform oral sex on him at a part...
Song of the Week: serpentwithfeet Gains Traction with Soulful “Same Size Shoe”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, serpentwithfeet gains traction with “Same Size Shoe”. There are two types of hype in the music business. One type makes it feel like an artist has the primal forces of nature behind them, controlling all media and advertising to make it seem like their next album will not only be the next canonical masterpiece to change music forever, but also the antidote to all that ails our suffering species and planet. And, then, there’s the type of hype that seemingly finds root in the tiniest speck of soil imaginable and slowly grows from th...
Eddie Van Halen Photo Book by Noted Rock Photographer Ross Halfin Due in June
A new Eddie Van Halen coffee-table photo book by renowned rock photographer Ross Halfin is arriving in June via Rufus Publications. The 356-page book, titled Edward Van Halen, will retrace the career of the late guitar legend through the lens of one of rock’s most storied photogs. Halfin’s photo credit can be spotted next to some of the most iconic images in the genre’s history, having also worked with Black Sabbath, Metallica, and more over the years. Like with many of the great band’s of their era, Van Halen were often the subject of Halfin’s visual documentation. His shots of the group are the definitive images of their career, and the pictures of Eddie perfectly captured the virtuoso’s kinetic guitar skills on film. According to the publisher, the book includes classic and unseen photo...
