Courteeners‘ Liam Fray debuted the new Manchester United away shirt for the new season during a festival set this weekend.
The Manchester band were headlining Sheffield’s Tramlines on Saturday night (July 22) and Fray emerged on stage in the white and green kit.
“Fantastic night tonight,” Fray wrote on Instagram after the show. Headlining Tramlines whilst being asked to debut the new United shirt. Crowd were incredible, from start to finish…always have been here.”
He added: “We’re off for a bit to do some new music. See you soon and look after each other.”
See the new shirt below.
Discussing new music in an interview with NME at Glastonbury 2023 last month, Fray revealed a few new song titles including ‘Solitude Of The Night Bus’ and ‘When Are You In New York Next?’ – as well as the claim that another sounds like “Mac Miller covering Leonard Cohen”. He also said that the upcoming music “is gonna blow people’s heads off”.
“The song is king, and the song will always win,” he said. “When I play these new ones to people, I feel dead happy. It feels cool to be in this position. Someone who I trust told me that they’re the best songs I’ve written since [2008 debut album] ‘St Jude’.
“I want to do two albums. One is fun and the other is piano, drum machines, a bit moodier. Don’t expect any hits off that one, but I know what will happen – they’ll be the hits and no one will give a fuck about the ones that I think are good. The ones that are sleepers will be loved. But also, who cares? I love that idea from tonight of feeling so insignificant as part of Glastonbury. I’m going to try and transfer that to the rest of my life.”
Shakira is being investigated for alleged tax fraud in Spain for the second time.
The singer was first charged with tax fraud in July 2021, when Barcelona prosecutors alleged she should have been paying tax because she was living in Spain for over half the year between 2012 and 2014.
She allegedly owes authorities $13.9million (£13m). Shakira has maintained that her fiscal residence at the time was in the Bahamas and described the claims as “fictional”, saying she had paid what she had owed.
The authorities also alleged that she made widespread use of shell companies to conceal her income made at that time, claims Shakira has strenuously denied, saying she has always been transparent about her income.
Now, the Associated Press reports that a Spanish judge has agreed with prosecutors to investigate Shakira on two additional counts of alleged tax fraud that reportedly happened in 2018. The amount of money she is alleged to owe the tax department has not been made public.
Shakira. Credit: Mike Marsland/WireImage
In September 2022, a Spanish judge ordered Shakira’s first case of alleged tax fraud to trial. A date for the trial has not yet been confirmed. If found guilty, she could face at least eight years and two months in prison.
Shakira’s representatives have claimed that she “has always cooperated and abided by the law, demonstrating impeccable conduct as an individual and a taxpayer, and faithfully following the counsel of PriceWaterhouse Coopers, a prestigious and globally recognized tax firm.”
Her representatives added: “Unfortunately, the Spanish Tax Office, which loses one out of every two lawsuits with its taxpayers, continues to violate her rights and pursue yet another baseless case. Shakira is confident that her innocence will be proven by the end of the judicial process.”
Shakira’s recent viral hit ‘Bzrp Music Sessions 53’ made reference to the situation. The song, which is thought by some to hit out at her ex-husband Gerard Pique, mentions (as translated into English) being left with “your mum as a neighbour, the press at the door and a debt with the taxman.” The Spain-based Pique is not involved in the tax charges made against Shakira.
On the day that ‘Utopia’ and Circus Maximus are both released, Scott will also play an album launch party for his long-awaited LP, to be held at the historic site of the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
Shortly after the gig was announced, the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate appeared to announce (via Egypt Today) that it would no longer go ahead due to safety concerns and “peculiar rituals performed by the star during his performance, contradicting our authentic societal values and traditions.”
However, the gig is still set to go ahead according to promoter Live Nation.
‘Utopia’ will serve as the follow-up to Travis Scott’s acclaimed 2018 effort ‘Astroworld’. Scott previewed the upcoming album for Houston’s professional baseball team, the Astros, in May. Scott was seen preparing before sharing the album with the Astros, telling KRIV’s Sports Director Mark Berman: “It’s on the way now, Mark”. Elsewhere in the clip, Scott was seemingly heard saying that he was in the process of finishing the album’s mastering.
In the heat of a U.K. police bust of an illicit rave, one attending DJ caught a case of theft—by throwing an officer’s keys into a bush.
Thomas Cope had skin in the game at the rave near Enford, which was attended by roughly 30 individuals, according to local reports. He had brought his speakers and DJ equipment to the event, and when officers were dispatched to the scene to disband it, he became upset. In an inebriated state, Cope, 36, reportedly retaliated by accessing an officer’s vehicle and taking its keys before hurling them into a nearby bush.
Regretting the “stupid, reckless and thoughtless act,” Cope began searching but was unable to locate the keys, even after spending four hours wandering the grassy area with a metal detector, Swindon Advertiserreports. Police also deployed a K-9 search unit, which proved futile.
Cope was arrested on the scene and ultimately pled guilty to a charge of theft. He has been ordered to pay £100 to Wiltshire Constabulary, who have since been forced to replace the missing keys.
Harry Styles closed out his ‘Love On Tour’ shows in Italy last night (July 22), closing the set with a new instrumental piano song.
READ MORE: Harry Styles – ‘Harry’s House’ review: grounded star finds home is where the heart is
The singer has been on an extensive world tour behind his album ‘Harry’s House’ and the run of gigs came to an end on Saturday in Reggio nell’Emilia, Italy.
To close out the performance at the RCF Arena Campovolo, Styles performed a new song alone at the piano, so far without lyrics.
See footage of the 10-minute performance below.
At a recent show as part of ‘Love On Tour’, Harry Styles invited Wet Leg onstage for a rendition of their track ‘Wet Dream’.
“It has been the most wonderful, wonderful tour, getting to watch them play every night,” he said to the audience, introducing the band. “They’re one of my favourite bands. Can you please welcome to the stage Hester and Rhian from Wet Leg!”
This isn’t the first time that Styles has shared his fondness for Wet Leg, nor the first time that he has covered their 2022 track.
Back in May last year, the pop star recorded a live version of the song in May as part of a special Live Lounge session on BBC Radio 1. The cover also came after the duo were announced as the support act for Styles’ 2023 Australian/New Zealand tour.
Elsewhere, Madame Tussauds has unveiled seven new Harry Styles waxworks across their international locations.
The seven new statues are located around the world with one placed in Madame Tussauds London, New York, Hollywood, Amsterdam, Berlin, Singapore and Sydney. Each one depicts Styles in some of his most memorable outfits.
Music as an investable asset class has been the furthest thing from open, accessible and transparent. A privilege typically available exclusively to accredited investors and with little to no supporting infrastructure to determine valuation, investing in the illiquid music intellectual property market has historically been an exercise in cutting red tape and crossing ones fingers.
However, the advent of Web3 brought about innovation for tokenizing and democratizing music ownership in ways not seen previously—and 3LAU’s Royal.io has been at the bleeding edge.
To date, Royal has tokenized and sold music IP from Diplo, Nas, The Chainsmokers and many more elite artists in the form of NFTs. In their ongoing efforts to empower investors, musicians and fans alike, the company also launched their “Song Valuation Calculator,” a lens through which any user can view what a piece of music is monetarily worth based on future expected streaming performance.
Today’s investors are seamlessly collecting royalty distributions from purchases made on Royal while artists are simultaneously raising the capital needed to pursue their goals. But 3LAU’s drive to revolutionize the industry remains unabated.
“The music business has tons of areas of information asymmetry across it, where there’s little visibility into what money is being generated and where it goes,” 3LAU tells EDM.com matter-of-factly. “It’s really impossible to think about solving that whole problem in one effort, but a starting point would be to show people one thing that’s going on in the background that they don’t know.”
3LAU, whose real name is Justin Blau, says one of Royal’s core value propositions is education. Himself an artist of over a decade, Blau is especially forthcoming about the experiences that have gone on to shape his views today. He explains that when it comes to modeling the cash flow of a song, streaming is arguably the most predictive measure. Paradoxically, it’s usually the critical monetization lever that artists are quickest to relinquish when approaching a record deal.
“What I learned having released some of my first independent music in 2015 was that releasing something independently and that thing being successful meant a lot more money in my pocket if I kept the ownership,” Blau recalls.
“There was a song I made called ‘Is It Love’ that I chose to release independently,” he continues. “There was a deal on the table for 50% of that song for $15,000 from a reputable record label. If I had signed the deal the label would have made hundreds of thousands of dollars, but because I didn’t I got to keep all of that. That was a learning experience for me because the whole world was like ‘music doesn’t pay, streaming is bad’ but the streaming actually paid a lot more than the iTunes purchases prior.”
While changing the narrative from the artist’s point of view to illuminate the earning potential of their music remains a key focus of Royal’s strategy, there are additional considerations at play that are driving a sense of optimism in the company’s ability to scale music as an investment class with the public.
Despite a presently challenging macroeconomic environment characterized in part by quantitative tightening and rising interest rates, Blau tells us consumers on Royal are not purely incentivized by yields alone. There is, of course, a logic-based thesis for pursuing an investment in music, but there’s also an emotional one.
“One person might buy interest in a song because it’s exploding, but another might buy in because they love it,” he explains. “Music is in this weird category where it is both emotionally valuable and there’s a cashflow, and that means there are different reasons for people to buy it.”
“In economic downturns music has typically been resilient,” he continues, bringing it back to the macroeconomic outlook, “because people need it to survive, motivate themselves, they need it in the gym, in the car—and people listen to more music when things are bad.”
The emotional side of investing in music is a topic Blau returns to often. Exploring how to appeal to a fan’s emotional interest in being a part of the art’s future while patronizing the artists they already love remains a core part of the company’s strategy going forward.
3LAU performing at the 2021 edition of EDC Las Vegas.
Brian Rapaport/EDM.com
Undeterred by the macro uncertainty, Royal is instead stepping up its efforts in terms of scalability with the intent of bringing a self-serve tool to any artist looking to facilitate a tokenized sale. The self-serve module currently exists in beta but the company is currently pressure testing it to ensure it’s ready for public access.
“At the end of the day, an open platform is most empowering for musicians and consumers because consumers may even encourage a musician to do something on Royal when that artist can do so,” Blau says.
Getting there was a challenge that included building a payments layer, compliance framework and a means for verifying rights ownership. While it’s been a heavy lift, Blau explains that it’s been some of the company’s most important work to date. The launch of these features was among the company’s most coveted end goals from the very start.
“We had to build all of these things that hadn’t been built before, and we’re really incredibly excited by the fact that it now exists,” he adds.
Rufus Wainwright has celebrated his 50th birthday by performing a cover of Neil Young‘s ‘Harvest Moon’ live – see the performance below.
READ MORE: Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?! – Rufus Wainwright
To celebrate his milestone, Wainwright held a party titled “Rufus & Friends 50 isn’t the end” at the Montauk Lighthouse in New York.
During the set, he covered ‘Harvest Moon’ with Chris Stills, a song which he covered on recent covers album ‘Folkocracy’.
Watch the performance of the cover below.
‘Folkocracy’ came out last month and features guest contributions from David Byrne, ANOHNI, John Legend and more.
The album of folk music reinventions marks the artist’s 50th birthday and also features special guests Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow, Chaka Khan, Andrew Bird, Nicole Scherzinger, Susanna Hoffs, Van Dyke Parks and Madison Cunningham.
“This album is almost like a recorded birthday party and birthday present to myself. I just invited all the singers that I greatly admire and always wanted to sing with,” Wainwright said in a press statement.
Wainwright also embarked on a ‘Folkocracy’ world tour, which will also mark the 25th anniversary of his 1998 self-titled debut album and the 20th anniversary of 2003’s ‘Want One’, along with 2004 companion, ‘Want Two’.
“The older I get, the more I appreciate how valuable my folk knowledge is, to have had it ingrained in me as a child,” Wainwright said. “I’m from a bona fide folkocracy who mixed extensively with other folkocracies such as the Seegers and the Thompsons. I spun off into opera and pop. Now I’m back where it all began.”
ARTY is turning the page of a new chapter after releasing “Listen to Me,” a haunting dance stunner out now on Armada.
Dialing up the tempo to hyperpop territory, ARTY has delivered a stunning departure from his signature, soaring sound of yesteryear. Despite his creative deviation, however, it’s clear that his ability to craft achingly melancholic melodies is as strong as ever.
The track’s title is a loud-and-proud appeal to ARTY’s fans as he plunges headlong into a new era of his artistic direction. And if today’s comments are any indication, a new album may be on the way, although we’re unable to confirm that at this time.
“I’m taking a leap and going into the unknowns with my new music, but I want to share this ride with my fans, and I believe we’re about to have a lot of joy together,” Arty said in a press release. “‘Listen to Me’ marks an entirely new chapter in my career and it’s only the beginning for bigger and greater things to come. While it’s been extremely overwhelming to see and hear the reaction of my fans and listeners, more than anything, I’m beyond happy to share this new single with you all.”
According to Armada, “Listen to Me” is ARTY’s first release on the label since his master and publishing catalog were acquired by BEAT, its dance music investment arm.
Check out the new single below and find it on streaming platforms here.
The 1975 frontman Matty Healy has been widely criticised by the Malaysian LGBTQ+ community for protesting the country’s stance on gay rights and kissing the band’s bassist Ross MacDonald on stage.
The band were playing at Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur on Friday (July 21) when Healy decried the Malaysian government’s hardline stance against LGBTQ+ rights. Malaysian law criminalises sexual activity between people of the same sex, with its penal code criminalising “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and acts of “gross indecency”.
“I made a mistake. When we were booking shows, I wasn’t looking into it. I don’t see the fucking point, right, I do not see the point of inviting The 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with,” Healy said. Their set was cut short just two songs later.
Following Healy’s stunt, the rest of Good Vibes Festival was cancelled by authorities and the band were banned from performing in Malaysia, according to the country’s official agency responsible for approving filming and performance applications from foreign artists.
Now, many LGBTQ+ Malaysians have had their say. A Twitter thread by Joe Lee that was particularly critical of Healy went viral, with Lee suggesting Healy’s actions would make life for the LGBTQ+ community in the country worse.
“If anything, what Matt Healy and The 1975 have done is discount and disrupted YEARS of work by local activists who have been pushing for change and understanding AND endangernig our vulnerable minority communities,” Lee wrote.
He also said he agreed with Good Vibes Festival being cancelled. “Now, with more queer friendly artists performing, tell me do you think it would have been safe to have two more days of the show?” he argued.
“You know SOME parties would have made a spectacle of that, and given tensions, ANY incident would be disastrous with VERY REAL consequences.
He went on: “Every country has its laws. Foreigners don’t get to come in and shit on us and tell us how to do things, especially when they only make it worse for us.
“The real victims of this situation are 1. The Malaysian LGBTQ+ community, who are ow left to deal with the aftermath. 2. The Malaysia live concert industry which is struggling to bounce back post pandemic.”
If anything, what Matt Healy and The 1975 have done, is discount and disrupted YEARS of work by local activists who have been pushing for change and understanding AND endangering our vulnerable minority communities.
Lee’s sentiments were echoed by many. Another Twitter user added: “this is singlehandedly pushing back any progress queers in malaysia could have made in the past century. this is purely performative activism and the 1975 have no idea that what they did is the worst thing that could happen to us”
this is singlehandedly pushing back any progress queers in malaysia could have made in the past century. this is purely performative activism and the 1975 have no idea that what they did is the worst thing that could happen to us https://t.co/4XEVkGUZDf
Another queer Malaysian added: “Matty and his bandmates are all rich white men who LOSE NOTHING by doing what they did. At most? They lose listeners from Malaysia and earn a little bit less now. They have no actual notable consequences for their speech and stunt. None.
“Malaysian queers have worked HARD to try and campaign for our rights, many of them are entirely volunteer-based and completely funded by other local queers. We pour alot of blood, sweat, and tears to making sure our peers have a safespace, especially in such a hostile environment.”
I’m a Queer Malaysian. I know nothing about the 1975 nor Matty Healy, so here are my unbiased thoughts about the whole issue that happened at GVF (a thread) pic.twitter.com/Wick5SbGUd
“As a malaysian queer, what matty healy and the 1975 did was WORSE for malaysian queers. Now we are gonna have tolerate the political shitstorm thats about to happen while they are fine getting drunk in another country. This wasn’t their fight,” another added.
As a malaysian queer, what matty healy and the 1975 did was WORSE for malaysian queers. Now we are gonna have tolerate the political shitstorm thats about to happen while they are fine getting drunk in another country. This wasn’t their fight
— Shou’s castles are crumbling. ⚡️ (@shoukunz13) July 21, 2023
The 1975’s shows in Indonesia and Taiwan were subsequently cancelled following the incident in Malaysia.
Many artists opt for warm, bubbly sounds after the summer solstice. But Baauer and Party Favor are not most artists.
This summer has seen the decorated duo join forces as Dylan & Harry, a new collaborative nom de plume under which they’re producing bona fide dancefloor-fillers. Embracing their hedonistic spirit, Baauer and Party Favor today released the project’s debut EP, DnH.
One of the record’s highlights is “Give It To You Like,” a quirky four-on-the-floor banger with a propulsive, chugging bassline. Another comes in the form of “Smoke,” a nasty breakbeat track with a swaggering hip-hop twist.
You can listen to DnH below and find the EP on streaming platforms here.
Last summer, Baauer released his exuberant house track “Let Me Love U” and revealed a new album, which had been expected to release in early 2023. However, mum’s been the word ever since.
Party Favor, meanwhile, remains one of the dance music scene’s most prolific chameleons. As he continued to drop steamy, seductive house music as one half of the Grammy-nominated SIDEPIECE duo, he released his stunning sophomore album RESET, which explored the struggles of overcoming anxiety.
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