Bruce Springsteen will be releasing a documentary film about the making of his new album Letter to You on Apple TV+ on October 23. Written by Springsteen and directed by frequent collaborator Thom Zimny, Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You chronicles the five days he and and his band spent in his studio in Colts Neck, New Jersey to record the album late last year. The film will also feature never-before-seen archival clips, in-studio footage, and meditative spoken word passages from Springsteen. Check out the trailer below.
Springsteen’s new album, which follows 2019’s Western Stars, is out the same day. It includes the previously released title track and ‘Ghosts’.
Travis Scott‘s ‘Franchise’, his new single featuring Young Thug and M.I.A., has debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It marks M.I.A.’s first No. 1 single and her fourth entry into the Hot 100, following ‘Paper Planes’ (No. 4) in 2008, ‘O… Saya’ (No. 93) in 2009, and ‘Give Me All Your Luvin’ (No. 10) in 2012.
‘Franchise’ is also Young Thug’s second No. 1 single, the first one being 2012’s ‘So Much Fun’. Scott has already had three songs peaking at the No. 1 spot within a year – following last October’s ‘Highest In The Room’ and his Kid Cudi collaboration ‘The Scotts’ (which also gave Cudi his first No. 1) – thus setting a new record for the fastest accumulation of No. 1 debuts in the chart’s history.
Having launched with 19.4 million US streams, 98,000 copies sold, and 10.6 million radio impressions in its first week, ‘Franchise’ is the 44th single to debut at No. 1 in the history of the Hot 100, and the ninth to do so this year.
Billie Eilish and FINNEAS were the musical guests on last night’s episode of f The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. They performed the new James Bonde theme ‘No Time To Die’, for which Eilish recently released the music video. The two musicians also sat down to discuss the Grammys, her speech and performance at the Democratic National Convention, and more. Watch it happen below.
“Genres keep us in our boxes,” Bartees Strange declares on ‘Mossblerd’, the eighth track on his 11-song debut album, Live Forever. By the time we reach that point on the record, though, it’s already kind of an obvious statement – the D.C.-based songwriter and producer does more in the span of half an hour to showcase his eclectic, genre-blending approach than most artists do across their entire discography. Bringing together elements of rock, rap, and electronic music in a way that feels both effortless and refreshing, Strange carves out a space where he can be truly himself. The result is quite simply one of the most versatile and compelling debuts in recent memory, and one that – as its title aptly suggests – is bound to leave a lasting impact well into the future.
It’s hard to overstate just how much variety there is on this album, and how skilfully Strange manages to pull it all off. ‘Jealousy’ is a spacey, meditative opener in which Strange’s performance atop the cathartic “Cut out my anger” mantra recalls the vocal dexterity of Moses Sumney before bursting right into the driving alt-rock of the lead single, ‘Mustang’. That track packs the same dizzying energy as its follow-up, ‘Boomer’, a startling bricolage of sounds that’s once again anchored by Strange’s dynamic vocal presence – he sounds just as comfortable rapping as he does screaming his heart out. “Sometimes, it’s hard to tell exactly where I wanna go/ I know it don’t show,” he sings on the pre-chorus, and he’s right – it doesn’t.
And yet, as confident as Live Forever sounds, what renders it so emotionally potent is the fact that Strange allows himself to be vulnerable. So many “genre-defying” records fail to augment their own inventiveness with any substance or heart, but the writing on this album is deeply rooted in Strange’s personal upbringing and the insecurities that haunt him to this day. ‘Mustang’ reflects on his experiences growing up in a rural, mostly white town in Oklahoma and the ways it made him feel unseen and unworthy; ‘Mossblerd’, which he says is a combination of “Mossberg (shotgun) and black nerd (blerd)”, highlights how the limitations of genre are tied to systemic racism. The whole album is peppered with references to feeling like a ghost and wanting (not) to be seen, a thematic through line that makes this shapeshifting LP feel like more of a holistic experience.
It also helps that the album is both ingeniously sequenced and tastefully produced from front to back. Remarkably, not a single track here sticks out like a sore thumb – clocking in at just 35 minutes, Live Forever achieves the rare feat of being ambitious without feeling bloated or painfully self-indulgent. In fact, if there’s one flaw to the album, it’s that it leaves you wanting more – a couple more tracks wouldn’t hurt, at least. But just when you think the album must be drying up of ideas, Strange keeps coming up with more: ‘Kelly Rowland’ slides into a hazy, intoxicating hip-hop rhythm, while the horns on the cinematic ‘In a Cab’ are reminiscent of Radiohead’s Kid A and ‘Flagey God’ traverses the same nocturnal electronic spaces of Burial’s Untrue. So when Strange delivers that “genres keep us in our boxes” line – against an industrial hip-hop backdrop, no less – he’s surely proved his point.
And yet! Turns out Bartees Strange has a few more tricks up his sleeve – ‘Far’ starts out as a spare acoustic ballad before erupting into a climactic whirlwind of electric guitars, while ‘Fallen for You’ remains an intimate, heartrending singer-songwriter affair throughout its runtime. The record ends with ‘Ghostly’, a song that swaddles you in its dreamy, Blonde-esque textures before Strange picks things up in the second part in an attempt to rise above that foggy mindscape. “But each morning morning I don’t feel worth it/ Pull up to my job almost on time/ Wish I could disappear more often/ Just run home and hide,” he sings. It’s a bleak sentiment, but the music implies the opposite of what’s being said: Bartees Strange has found his voice, and he’s not afraid to use it whichever way he wants. Ultimately, he rests on showing us there’s strength in vulnerability; a cliché, for sure, but just like genre, Strange deploys it in a way that’s genuinely exciting and almost unrecognizable.
The music industry has never been an easy place to make your fortune. Heck, many of the independent and “up and coming” bands that you listen to probably have day jobs. And in the current climate, it’s harder than ever for independent musicians. Every time you plug in your amp you face the same string of anxieties. Maybe you’re not commercial enough. Maybe you’re getting too old. Maybe you just don’t want it enough. Maybe the tides of public taste are pulling in the opposite direction to you. Maybe your dreams of rock stardom should be buried in the attic with your guitar strap and lucky plectrum… Or maybe you owe it to yourself to identify the reasons why your band isn’t getting taken as seriously as it should and take effective action.
In an age where there are more opportunities and fewer gatekeepers, many feel that the changing nature of the music industry actually makes it harder for promising artists to get discovered. But here are some of the reasons why you may not be taken as seriously as you deserve… and what you should do about it.
You care more about “making it” than being great
You’ve been doing this since your teens. And while many of your peers grew up and got “proper jobs”, you never abandoned your dreams of rock stardom. You’ve become an expert at trying to market your band’s brand, reaching out to t-shirt printing companies to create merch and trying to bill yourself to music bloggers as the next big thing.
And while all this is important, it shouldn’t supercede putting in the hours with the band and making sure you sound awesome.
Your demo screams “amateur”
Your demo is your calling card to the industry at large… Just make sure it’s saying all the right things about you. While you certainly don’t want it to sound over-produced (A&R professionals may assume that you’re over-compensating for a lack of raw talent) you don’t want it to scream “amateur hour” either. While there are many guides to recording your own demo out there, there’s no substitute to the expertise of a real Recording Studio. While we’re all feeling the pinch financially at the moment, investing in a professional sounding demo is an expenditure that you should absolutely consider.
So does your EPK… if you have one
If you want to get the music press on your side, you need a helpful, useful and attention-grabbing Electronic Press Kit (EPK). Keep in mind that music journalists see dozens of these every single day. And if they see one that’s riddled with typos, poorly formatted and lacking in the essential information that they need to do their jobs, they’re unlikely to give it a second glance.
You can play… but you can’t pitch
Finally, if you expect to be able to make it in the music business, you need to look at it as a business. And that means learning certain business skills… like the elevator pitch. You need to be able to engage A&Rs and music journos and bloggers with a succinct and easy to understand pitch. Like “We’re Slade meets Kasabian”… whatever the heck that might sound like.
The Kills have announced a new rarities album called Little Bastards, out December 11 via Domino. The collection will include B-sides as well as demos the band recorded from 2002 through to 2009. They’ve also released the video for a previously unreleased demo titled ‘Raise Me’, which the group’s Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince made around the time of their 2008 LP Midnight Boom. Check it out below.
The title of the album is named after the nickname for the drum machine the band was using at the time. “It was a Roland 880,” Hince said, “which isn’t strictly a drum machine – it’s a sequencer, and an eight-track recorder, with its own drum machine built in, and that’s what we’d record all our beats on.”
The Kills’ most recent studio album was 2016’s Ash & Ice. Mosshart recently released her debut solo spoken word LP, Sound Wheel.
Phoebe Bridgers has launched her own label, aptly titled Saddest Factory. The singer-songwriter will run it in partnernship with her current label Dead Oceans. “The vision of the label is simple: good songs, regardless of genre,” she said in a press release.
In an interview with Billboard, Bridgers revealed that she has already signed her first act, which will be announced in the next few weeks. “It’s always been a dream of mine to have a label, because I’m also such a music fan,” she explained. “One of my favorite things about this time is that everybody is listening to records faster, making tons of playlists and doing dance parties in their houses. I felt like if there’s cool stuff, I want to get it going and get it out to people as fast as possible.”
She also said the label is an opportunity for her to try something new within the music ecosystem. “I haven’t felt this yet, but maybe at some point I’ll want to take a step back from the every two years album cycle and want to do other shit, like produce or just put out records,” she said. “Music is always going to be in the forefront of my brain. I just want to explore.”
Jay Electronica has officially unveiled his long-awaited lost album Act II: The Patents of Nobility (The Turn). The project has been made available via TIDAL after a leak began circulating online. Notably, the tracklist has remained almost the same since 2012, with credits that include Charlotte Gainsbourg, Serge Gainsbourg (sampled on ‘Bonnie and Clyde’), JAY-Z, and The-Dream. Listen to it below.
Act II: Patents Of Nobility follows the release of Electronica’s debut studio LP A Written Testimony, which came out back in March via Roc Nation. It featured multiple verses from Jay-Z as well as contributions from Travis Scott, The-Dream, James Blake, and James Fauntleroy. His debut mixtape, Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge), dropped in July of 2007.
Throughout the week, we update our Best New Songs playlist with the new releases that caught our attention the most, be it a single leading up to the release of an album or a newly unveiled deep cut. And each Monday, we round up the best new songs released over the past week (the eligibility period begins on Monday and ends Sunday night) in this segment.
This week brought us a couple of great dance pop tunes, but they didn’t necessarily come from artists one might have expected: The xx’s Romy made her debut as a solo artist with the colourful, exuberant ‘Lifetime’, while Sigur Rós’ Jónsi teamed up with Swedish pop icon Robyn for a slightly more abrasive but equally rapturous listening experience. Going further down the experimental pop rabbit hole, Jimmy Edgar’s new collaborative single with SOPHIE is a short but hard-hitting instrumental banger. For something a bit more heartfelt and introspective, we turn to Gorillaz, who enlisted Elton John and 6LACK for another great addition to the Song Machine catalogue. In the world of indie, beabadoobee’s latest is a nostalgic lo-fi acoustic ballad that recalls her earlier work, while Kynsy served up a dark, dizzying slice of alt-rock with her second single.
Last month, TikTok user Nathan Apodaca blew up after sharing a video of him skating around and lip syncing to Fleetwood Mac’s 1997 hit ‘Dreams’ while clutching a bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice. Now, Mick Fleetwood has joined TikTok just to recreate the viral video with the caption “Dreams and Cranberry just hits different.”. Watch both versions below.
Fleetwood Mac saw their streaming numbers double after the viral TikTok, springing from a daily average of 49,000 times a day to 105,000. There was a 242% increase in first-time listeners of the song, while sales of the track increased by 184% in the first three days of the original video being shared. Apocada’s video currently sits at over 21 million views.
