It has been announced that the American rapper will be the Saturday headliner at the Pyramid Stage this summer, joining fellow headliners Foo Fighters. This adds to Kanye’s recent string of media appearances following his embarrassing outburst at the Grammy awards, his guest lecture at Oxford University and his controversial performance at the BRIT awards. There is still much speculation surrounding the third and final headliner and the rest of the line-up will be announced sometime in April.
The New Zealand born radio DJ Zane Lowe has finished his final show on Radio 1. He has hosted his evening slot since 2003 but will now go on to work in an undisclosed role at Apple and be replaced by Annie Mac. Zane was a champion of new, upcoming bands and artists and has played a pivotal part in many acts making it big. The hashtag #thankszane trended on Twitter and included comments from Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys, The National, Biffy Clyro and Jamie T.
The biggest music awards in Britain (the clue is in the name) have delivered a memorable evening of thrills and spills. The big winner of the night was Ed Sheeran picking up best album and best male. Sam Smith, who cleaned up at the Grammys, walked away with the award for best breakthrough act. Paloma Faith won best female, Royal Blood won best group and Mark Ronson won the award for best single for ‘Uptown Funk’. The international categories for best male, female and group were won by Pharrell Williams, Taylor Swift and Foo Fighters respectively. Many of the night’s winners also performed as well as George Ezra and Take That. One of the big talking points of the evening though was Madonna’s big fall after she was blown offstage by a wind machine thanks to her large cape.
What are your thoughts on the awards? Personally I think the results were hardly surprising, that generally the right people won and the ceremony featured some good performances.
The tandem festivals of Reading and Leeds have been widely criticized for having a sexist line-up. Out of the nearly 100 acts thus far announced only nine of them feature at least a single female member. While a male-centric festival line up isn’t anything new, the above image certainly emphasizes just how big the difference is. I certainly don’t see it as a deliberate exclusion of women, more of a matter of genre. Less and less women are getting into rock music and making it big. The line-up just shows how big the gap in the musical market is and how far both the industry and society have to go to even things out.
Dave Grohl & co. have revealed that they will be headlining Glastonbury 2015. The announcement came in their video acceptance speech for NME’s best international band award. Other winners at the awards included Kasabian for best British band and best album, Royal Blood for best live band and best new band and Jamie T for best track and best video.
image source: the Guardian
The larger-than-life character actor has joined forces with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry of Aerosmith to form a new band called “Hollywood Vampires”, named after Cooper’s former drinking club whose members included Keith Moon and John Lennon. The band are due to make their debut at the Rock in Rio festival in Brazil. Thus far no other dates have been announced. The new group comes as a surprise after Depp’s recent comments on actors turned musicians being “sickening”. It’s too soon to tell how successful this new venture will be but I’m fairly sure it will be a sight to behold.
The 57th Grammy awards have now drawn to a close, after a few surprises and some astonishing performances. ACDC opened proceedings with their first public appearance in 4 years. The evening’s performances included various duets including Sam Smith & Mary J Blige, Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett, Hozier & Annie Lennox and Ed Sheeran & Jeff Lynne. Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney premiered their collaborative song ‘FourFiveSeconds’. Sam Smith was the standout winner of the evening taking away 4 awards including Song of the Year and Best New Artist. Beck was the surprise of the evening after winning the awards for both Album of the Year and Best Rock Album for ‘Morning Phase’, beating Beyoncé, Sheeran and Smith himself. St. Vincent won the award for Best Alternative Album for her eponymous release and Jack White won Best Rock Performance. Tenacious D shockingly won the award for Best Metal Performance; the biggest upset in the category since Jethro Tull beat Metallica in 1989. Speaking of ‘1989’, Taylor Swift was notably quiet as she neither won or performed at the ceremony. A full list of categories and their various winners can be found on the Grammys website.
Source: musicbusinessworldwide.com
In 2014 catalogue album downloads outsold downloads of new albums in the US. This is the first time in history that, over the course of year, old music has outsold new music. Now this is just the case for the American figures for downloads, but the above graph shows sales on all formats and it shows a worrying trend. At this rate new music will soon be outsold on all formats. Many would be quick to cite this as evidence that old music is simply better than modern music (a topic that I myself am bound to have a more in-depth discussion of at some point) but there are other contributing factors. It could be that people are more likely to use streaming services for chart music than older catalogue albums, or it could be that (since ‘old’ music in this study is defined as being released over 18 months ago) people need time to decide whether an album is worth buying or they are waiting until the price drops. Whether the cause is music quality, music cost, changes on how people listen to it or a combination of the three, it should be an alarming wake up call for the industry.
The legendary songwriter and musician Bob Dylan was awarded the MusiCare Person of the Year award in association with the Grammys. The event featured performances from an all-star line-up featuring Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Crosby Stills & Nash, Tom Jones, Alanis Morissette, Bonnie Raitt and Jack White. Dylan himself didn’t perform, however he gave a speech thanking, among others, Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone and Johnny Cash.
Today would’ve been the 70th birthday of Bob Marley. The Jamaican singer, with his band The Wailers, would become the figurehead of reggae music and the Rastafarian movement. His music spread a message of peace and unity around the world, which resulted in him being one of the best selling artists of all time. He also wrong many songs of protest and was as much a fighter as a lover. It’s no wonder become such a lasting and influential cultural figure. Today is a day to remember his legacy and “…get together and feel alright”.
Belwood Music 