El-P, our resident rap doomsayer, warned us that everything was going to shit long before it got there. As a solo artist, a producer, a member of the rap groups Company Flow and now Run the Jewels, and the former head of the venerable hip-hop label Def Jux, El-P, born Jaime Meline, built a sturdy […]
Pop futurist princess and Vulture friend Charli XCX has a gift for all those languishing in isolation, worried they might not get new music all summer, and it’s a new DIY quarantine album. At midnight on Friday, May 15, Charli XCX released her latest album how i’m feeling now, the follow up to her last […]
You gotta hand it to Future – he stays busy. After a truly chaotic week spent sending Mother’s Day well wishes to 6 of the women that he’s still on speaking terms with who have given birth to his children and finding out that he is a father yet again, Future has released a brand […]
A pregnancy during a pandemic has not slowed down Miss Katy Perry. The pop star and certifiably insane American Idol judge released her newest single “Daisies” at midnight on Friday, May 15. “I wrote this song a couple months ago as a call to remain true to the course you’ve set for yourself, regardless of […]
Did you hear that? That was the sound of music fans audibly gasping after logging on to Spotify and finding that Bad Bunny’s “Safaera” was removed from the streaming platform. Yes, the song that is shocking grandmothers on Tik Tok was removed from Spotify on Thursday, for reasons that are at this juncture still unclear. […]
Seven years before the app TikTok came onto the scene, an unknown, Auto-Tuned, instantly likable pop singer who then went by Ke$ha gave us a hit called “TiK ToK.” As Ke$ha became Kesha, the inspirational, fun-loving pop star, TikTok became a Gen-Z phenomenon, reviving old songs and launching new ones with bite-sized challenges. Now, “TiK […]
Music by the late rapper Pop Smoke will live on in a posthumous album coming out June 12. The Brooklyn artist’s manager Steven Victor posted an album cover and release date on Instagram Thursday afternoon. No official title has been announced. This is the rapper’s first album after breakout mixtapes Meet the Woo and Meet […]
As musicians have set weekly or daily appointments for livestream performances to satisfy fans, BTS ARMY has had to settle for bits of content: a performance on James Corden here, some concert recordings from the vault there. Now, the superstar K-pop seven-piece has announced its first live concert from quarantine — but you’ll have to […]
Every pop musician worth their salt these days has a TikTok challenge for a song. (And some others make one anyway.) For Bad Bunny, that’s the Abuela Challenge, which became popular when quarantine began in March: Fans play his Missy Elliott–sampling banger “Safaera” for their Spanish-speaking grandmothers and watch for their reactions to his raunchy […]
We’re committed to keeping our readers informed. We’ve removed our paywall from essential coronavirus news stories. Become a subscriber to support our journalists. now. Just off Columbus Avenue, a self-appointed DJ pulled up to an extra-wide sidewalk and greeted the weekend by blasting salsa from his car stereo. A small crowd gathered to dance at a […]
If you thought Axl Rose was gonna stop publicly taunting Steve Mnuchin and the Trump Administration, then you were sorely mistaken. After prompting the Treasury Secretary to confuse the U.S. and Liberia last week, Rose and his bandmates have simply refused to take their foot off of the White House’s proverbial neck. Guns N’ Roses […]
Beckett Cypher, Melissa Etheridge’s son with former partner Julie Cypher, has died of causes related to opioid addiction. He was 21. Etheridge’s team announced Cypher’s death on Wednesday evening her official Twitter account. “We’re sad to inform you that Melissa’s son Beckett passed away and there will not be a Concerts From Home show today,” […]
Hip-hop lost a visionary thinker and a lifelong tastemaker over the weekend in the late Andre Harrell, founder of the seminal hip-hop label Uptown Records, home to a number of the architects of the new-jack-swing revolution of the ’80s and ’90s and an integral stepping stone for black music icons like Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, […]
Today’s distraction from the world’s impending doom came in the form of Entertainment Weekly’s Pride Month issue, which has a cover that can generously be described as “socially-distanced.” Rather than staging a photo shoot (which can still be done), the magazine ordered an illustration of a party featuring 18 past and present LGBTQ stars. And […]
While Rihanna has spent the pandemic saving the world, Ariana Grande is spending it like the rest of us — waiting for a new Rihanna album. “I’m really glad that she’s putting in so much effort. It means a lot,” Grande told Zane Lowe of the wait for R9, in an interview promoting her Justin […]
With this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony postponed until November due to the coronavirus pandemic (Cleveland in the late fall, what a treat), the powers that be decided to tide us over with some rock history in the meantime. As alerted to us by Consequence of Sound, over the past few […]
Charli XCX is levitating a couple of feet over a DJ booth. “My fans like pop music and poppers. Guess they really know what’s uppppp!” she drawls like an automaton with vocal fry. Air horns pierce through the torchlit rave dungeon. As she reaches the chorus of a new demo she’s calling “Gen- eration,” the […]
Christelle Houefa Anoumou, better known as Noire Velours, is releasing her latest song and music video, “Full Of Myself”. Poised to make a big splash on the international music scene this year, Noire Velours’ special sound and skill is as diverse as her background. The Togolese artist has taken elements from soul, jazz, and hip-hop, […]
Following a very busy Mother’s Day, Future kept the ball rolling with a surprise announcement today that his new album, High Off Life, will drop this Friday, May 15. The album, which was originally titled Life Is Good after his chart-topping single with Drake, will feature Travis Scott, DaBaby, Young Thug, Meek Mill, NBA YoungBoy, […]
For over a decade, Hayley Williams sold gale-force emotional reckoning as the lead singer of Paramore, one of the most successful bands on the forefront of the mainstream emo revolution of the middle aughts. Hard-charging riffs carried her sweeping vocals and incisive lyrics across the country, building the band’s profile through endless touring. Paramore stayed […]
Pioneering, flamboyant, eccentric — Little Richard was all these things, and then some. And just as his anarchic performances suggested, the late legend was just as wild away from the piano, living a life full of sex, drugs, spirituality, generosity, sex, bravado, kindness, and some more sex. The immediate outpouring following his May 9 death […]
As the planet reels in anxiety and grief, Matty Healy sounds surprisingly calm, almost as if he’d expected this, or certainly hadn’t been entirely surprised by it. “It is a very, very odd time,” he says over the phone from the recording studio in the English countryside where he’s been quarantining with the drummer-producer George […]
On Monday, singer Bryan Adams swung so wide with a coronavirus rant, he spun past concert cancellations, whizzed by “bat eating,” and landed on, of course, veganism. In an Instagram post lamenting the cancellation of his May shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the singer plays 1983’s “Cuts Like a Knife” and goes off on […]
At the end of one of the most thrilling Billboard chart races we’ve had since “Old Town Road,” Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj’s “Say So” remix earned the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, beating out Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage” remix with Beyoncé. “Say So” leaped from its No. 6 spot. (Both Bey […]
Part rapper, part singer, and part heir to the throne of BET Uncut, Ontario hip-hop star Tory Lanez has carved out a unique path to fame that began as an overactive youth bouncing between family in Montreal, Toronto, New York, and Atlanta, then broke big thanks in part to Chixtape, a mixtape series on the […]
Mother’s Day has a very simple premise: show some appreciation for the mothers in your life. But for Diplo and Future, it wasn’t quite that easy. Veteran dad Future had his hands full with six Mother’s Day posts. And Diplo had a whole new son to reveal (from “a million miles” away). Famously a father […]
The rise of Instagram Live as a stopgap entertainment hub for people whose nighttime meeting grounds are shuttered indefinitely was the first sign that the quarantine couldn’t completely quash plans for spring music, even in the absence of live events in the traditional sense. Over the past month, Minecraft has hosted festivals featuring performances from […]
Influencial soul and R&B singer Betty Wright, born Bessie Regina Norris, died today at the age of 66. According to the New York Times, president of S-Curve Records Steve Greenberg confirmed Wright’s death on Sunday; the singer had reportedly been diagnosed with endometrial cancer in the fall of 2019. Said Greenberg, “She was an incredible […]
Chances are Katy Perry already had a Mrs. Jumbo and coordinating dog-sized Dumbo costume in her closet ahead of Sunday’s Disney Family Singalong: Volume II, since that is her thing, but it also might be a kind gesture to distract you from the most tear-jerking song in the Disney canon, “Baby Mine,” which is devastating […]
We can all agree: Mother’s Day 2020 should not fall under traditional Mother’s Day rules. Still, it’s nice to do a little something for your mom, who not only had to raise you, but is also dealing with living under quarantine herself. So go ahead, call her up on FaceTime or schedule a Zoom, sit […]