music
Lana Del Rey Vows to Get “Revenge” With Her Next Album Rock Candy Sweet
Lana Del Rey is just one day removed from the release of her seventh studio album, Chemtrails Over the Country Club, and yet she’s already plotting her next move. On Saturday, the singer announced that a follow-up album called Rock Candy Sweet will be released on June 1st. It seems Del Rey is largely motivated to respond to the commentary that preceded the release of Chemtrails — most of which she brought on herself. In an Instagram Story which included a screenshot of a Harper’s Bazar article titled, “Lana Del Rey Can’t Qualify Her Way Out Of Being Held Accountable”, Del Rey wrote, “Just want to say thank you again for the kind articles like this one and for reminding me that my career was built on cultural appropriation and glamorizing domestic abuse. I will continue to challenge those t...
Song of the Week: SABA Stays Fresh as Ever on the Reflective “Ziplock”
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, Chicago rapper SABA returns with a double-single, his first new music of 2021. Chicago rapper SABA has returned this week with another set of double singles, “Ziplock” and “Rich Don’t Stop”, continuing the dual-drop format he established throughout 2020. “Ziplock” was produced by D. Phelps and Coop the Truth and marks the first new music from the emcee in 2021. (He can also be found on the soundtrack for the Oscar-nominated film Judas and the Black Messiah, appearing on “Plead The .45th” alongside Smino.) A recent press release st...
Kanye West Grossly Inflated His Net Worth
Earlier this week, a new report from Bloomberg insinuated that Kanye West’s net worth had skyrocketed to a whopping $6.6 billion. It turns out that those numbers were grossly inflated. According to Forbes, the figures we and numerous other publications reported on were based on West’s own speculative wealth, not the actual amount of money and assets he currently owns. As Forbes points out, the bulk of that $6.6 billion sum — which would make West the richest Black man in America — comes from a $4.8 billion valuation of his Yeezy company. A huge chunk of that figure is ascribed to the value of his Yeezy Gap partnership, but since the fashion collaboration has yet to launch or sell a single item of clothing, the assertion that it’s worth several billion dollars is en...
Justin Bieber Gets Too Woke for His Own Good on Justice: Review
The Lowdown: After an unfortunate misstep with Changes, released last year just before lockdown, Justin Bieber found himself, once again, at a sharp crossroads: carry on writing meme-able nonsense for lyrics, or put forth something that makes better use of the large production budget his label shells out. Fortunately, on Justice, he chose the latter. Unfortunately, if ever there was an example of the needle tipping too far, this is it. While Justice steps away from the lyrical fallacies of its predecessor, for an album that is much more expansive and explorative, the record has way too much nonsense surrounding it. If at any point you begin to wonder why the first voice on a song about submitting sexually to his wife is not Bieber, but civil rights leader and martyr Dr. Martin Luther King ...
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Share Concert Footage From Recent Australian Gig : Watch
Ready for some serious FOMO? King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have shared a new performance video of them playing to a live audience in Australia last month. Dubbed Live In Melbourne ’21, the hour-and-a-half-long set was professionally shot at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on February 26th. For music fans in the US and Europe, the idea of a band performing to a crowd in a 10,000-capacity venue seems like a far-off fantasy right now, but those types of events are happening all over Australia right now. The entire continent has suffered less than 1,000 COVID deaths since the pandemic began, while the US experienced over 1,500 deaths yesterday alone. Fortunately for our sake, the Melbourne-based psych-rock act are giving us a taste of what we can return to when this catastrophe fin...
Greta Van Fleet Share New Song “Broken Bells”: Stream
Greta Van Fleet are prepping for the release of their highly anticipated sophomore album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate, out April 16th. Now the band has shared the anthemic new single, “Broken Bells”. A coming-of-age song of sorts, the track again sees Greta Van Fleet expanding their sonic palette beyond the restrictive classic-rock pastiche of their debut record. The prog-like Rush influences and subtle folk flourishes add new colors to the band’s sound. For the third consecutive single, Greta Van Fleet push the song past the five-minute mark as they stretch their musical ideas. “Broken Bells is what the fetter of society does to impact a pure and innocent soul,” bassist Sam Kiszka said in a press release. “Our intention is to remove the obligation of generational synthetic expectations; b...
Benny the Butcher and Harry Fraud Unveil New Album The Plugs I Met 2: Stream
Benny the Butcher has linked up with producer Harry Fraud for the new album The Plugs I Met 2. Stream it below via Apple Music or Spotify. The Butcher has been cutting new albums left and right, recently dropping the Hit-Boy collab Burden of Proof and the soundtrack to the Griselda Records film Conflicted. That doesn’t even count Trust the Sopranos, the upcoming compilation LP he’ll be using to show off his Black Soprano Family roster. During this run he’s joined forces with all sorts of producers, but few have fit his strengths as naturally as Harry Fraud. Mr. Fraud broke out in 2009 as French Montana’s secret weapon, and in the intervening years he’s built a reputation as someone who can turn obscure samples into straight-up bangers. Benny and Harry pre...
Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s Blues Music Award Nomination Rescinded Over Use of Confederate Flag
The Blues Foundation has rescinded Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s 2021 Blues Music Awards nomination for Best Blues Rock Artist over his use of the Confederate flag. “The decision to rescind the nomination was based upon continuing revelations of representations of the Confederate flag on Shepherd’s ‘General Lee’ car, guitars and elsewhere,” The Blues Foundation explained in a statement announcing the decision. The organization cited its Statement Against Racism recently released on March 15th, which reads, “The Blues Foundation unequivocally condemns all forms and expressions of racism, including all symbols associated with white supremacy and the degradation of people of color. We will hold ourselves as well as all blues musicians, fans, organizations, and members of the music industry acco...
Ministry Announce Fall 2021 US Tour with Helmet and Front Line Assembly
With the hope that touring will resume in earnest by the fall, Ministry have announced new dates for their “Industrial Strength Tour”, which will feature support from Helmet and Front Line Assembly. The twice-delayed outing commemorates the 30th anniversary of Ministry’s 1989 album, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste. The month-long trek kicks off October 3rd in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The route veers east before looping back across the South and West Coast, hitting most major U.S. markets. The tour was originally set to launch in July 2020, with Front Line Assembly and KMFDM supporting. It was then moved to spring 2021 due to the pandemic. Now. with Helmet in place of KMFDM, the band is banking on finally embarking on the outing in the fall. KMFDM had to drop from the bill due to the ...
Warpaint Cover “Paralysed” for Gang of Four Tribute Album: Stream
As previously announced, Gang of Four co-founder Andy Gill was working on a retrospective of the band’s album Entertainment! before he tragically passed away last year. To carry on his work, Gill’s widow Catherine Mayer organized an impressive tribute album in his honor featuring cover songs by a wide range of artists. Today, she’s sharing one of her favorite cuts: “Paralysed” as played by Warpaint. For their contribution to The Problem of Leisure: A Celebration of Andy Gill and Gang of Four, Warpaint use their trademark take on atmospheric pop to give “Paralysed” a haunting vocal performance, speckled guitar work, and one slinky bass line. Warpaint’s bassist, Jenny Lee, produced the track, which may explain why it has a similar feel to her solo album right on!. In a press release, L...
Lana Del Rey Strips Back the Glamour on the Charming Chemtrails over the Country Club: Review
The Lowdown: In 2019, Lana Del Rey released Norman Fucking Rockwell! to critical acclaim, an album that integrated her long-running motifs of allusive Americana, melancholy femininity, and seedy glamor with more memorable melodies and legibility – a full execution of the vision she’d been expressing since 2012. Now, on Chemtrails over the Country Club, the singer-songwriter and pop icon continues to weave sharp referential lyrics with atmospheric set-pieces. The album is a cohesive extension of NFR!, but the sound is more overtly connected to California country-folk, built around shimmering guitars and gentle pianos. She teams up with Nashville artist Nikki Lane while name-checking her forebears Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Stevie Nicks, and Tammy Wynette. Del Rey still addresses tragic ...
Alice Phoebe Lou Releases New Album Glow: Stream
Alice Phoebe Lou is back with her new album, Glow. Stream it via Apple Music and Spotify below. Glow is Lou’s third studio album and follows 2019’s Paper Castles. The 12-track effort includes the previously released singles, “Dusk” and “Dirty Mouth”. It finds the Berlin-based singer-songwriter embracing newfound vulnerability through her lyrics. In a statement, our former Artist of the Month detailed how falling in love and then having her heart broken during 2020 inspired the record, writing, “I used to feel quite self-conscious about writing love songs, but now I like the idea that your music can be a friend to someone, and make them feel as though they’re being related to. This album simply poured out of my heart and my subconscious, and there was no stopping the lovestruck nature ...
