Today marks the long-awaited debut of global music superstar Perrie’s solo single ‘Forget About Us’.
Co-written by Perrie with Ed Sheeran, David Hodges, and Steve Solomon, ‘Forget About Us’ is a bittersweet uptempo pop anthem that showcases Perrie’s stunning vocal talent. In this remembrance of past relationships, she sings, “I don’t want you to ever forget about us in the front seat / listening to songs that made you think about me.”
Directed by Jake Nava and shot in Cape Town, the forthcoming music video promises to add visual depth to Perrie’s soulful narrative.
While the world may know her as the self-assured Perrie from Little Mix, her solo venture unveils a transformative journey of self-discovery. Initially shy and unsure of her songwriting abilities, Perrie’s solo debut album reveals her bold exploration of diverse genres, from rock to motown to bright, bold pop.
Most of the album was written and recorded at Perrie’s North London home, providing a safe space for her creativity to flourish. Collaborating with renowned artists like Ed Sheeran, Raye, and Jon Bellion, Perrie fearlessly explores her emotions and life experiences through music.
With her sights set on live performances, Perrie looks forward to sharing her music with the world and experiencing the joy of fans singing her songs back to her. Whether sensitive or powerhouse, Perrie’s distinctive vocals promise to captivate audiences as she shares her personal story through music.
Grammy award-winning, multi-platinum rock band Kings of Leon releases “Nothing To Do,” the latest track from their upcoming 9th full-length studio album, Can We Please Have Fun, out on May 10. The scorching song delves into their post-punk sound with its jagged guitar riffs and propulsive drumming. The video, shot entirely by lead singer Caleb Followill, provides a glimpse into a more intimate side of Kings of Leon, taking viewers along for a high-energy performance.
Can We Please Have Fun, as its title suggests, is a document of the band’s desire to cut loose, try new things, and, yes, have some fun. Recorded at Dark Horse studio in Nashville and produced with new collaborator Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Florence + the Machine) the album sees a new side of Kings of Leon. On the new album, the band harkens back to their gritty origins while simultaneously finding new gears. It’s the sound of a band unified in vision and purpose, freed from any expectations, and the album the band says they’ve always wanted to make.
Can We Please Have Fun is available for pre-order HERE. You can find the album’s full tracklist below.
Can We Please Have Fun – Tracklist:
1. Ballerina Radio
2. Rainbow Ball
3. Nowhere To Run
4. Mustang
5. Actual Daydream
6. Split Screen
7. Don’t Stop The Bleeding
8. Nothing To Do
9. Television
10. Hesitation Generation
11. Ease Me On
12. Seen
Can We Please Have Fun World Tour. The UK and Ireland tour will kick off in Leeds on June 20th and make stops in Birmingham, Bristol, London (BST Hyde Park), Glasgow, Dublin, and Nottingham. The tour will also include a performance at the British F1 Grand Prix in Silverstone on July 4th.
Eight years on from their final live performance, today (19th April 2024), Faithless announce their return to the global stage. The announcement includes their first run of live dates, including London’s iconic Roundhouse and shows in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Amsterdam, which lead into headline sets at 3 of the major UK festivals: Glastonbury, Wilderness and Bestival.
In their own words Faithless have said: “As many of you have noticed, we’re back…Some shows have already been announced but we couldn’t start the summer without a little personal note. Maxi died just over a year ago and obviously we miss him every day. Thank you all for all of your kind words of support over this last year. It has really, really meant a lot.
In the meantime, we never stopped (couldn’t stop, never wanted to stop!) making music. Even during Maxi’s long illness we recorded and released ‘All Blessed’ and now finally, 8 years after our last live performance, we are returning to festival stages across the summer and are planning some of our own shows later this year…”
26 years on from the release of their critically acclaimed debut album, ‘Reverence’, Faithless have established themselves as one of the most influential electronic acts of the 21st century – selling over 20 million albums, including seventeen Top 40 singles, six Top 10 albums (three at #1), and amassing over a billion combined streams to date.
The band’s cultural significance is unparalleled – leading the charge of dance acts cutting through on a global level, and showing promoters that electronic music deserves its place on the main stages – they’re 2002 Glastonbury performance proving this to aplomb. Faithless have proved it’s possible to achieve both critical and commercial success while delivering boundary pushing dance music with feeling and integrity.
With a 7 piece band, and having ‘borrowed’ Jean Michel Jarre’s set and lighting director, Jvan Morandi, Faithless have an early homecoming date at Camden’s Roundhouse ,and with a new album signed and being made the band are set to enter an exciting new era and continue their reign at the forefront of dance music.
Live dates 202406/06/24 – Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, Belgium
09/06/24 – Den Atelier, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
12/06/24 – Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands
14/06/24 – Roundhouse, London, UK
Sia and Paris Hilton release their first-ever collaborative track, ‘Fame Won’t Love You’. It follows a run of singles from Sia with other hitmakers like ‘Incredible’ ft. Labrinth and ‘Dance Alone’ ft. Kylie, in addition to the poignant solo ballad ‘I Forgive You’. All four of these songs are on Sia’s upcoming album Reasonable Woman, out May 3, 2024 via Atlantic Records.
Listen to Fame Won’t Love You (feat. Paris Hilton) by Sia, Paris Hilton.
‘Fame Won’t Love You’ marks the union of two global icons as they create an anthem with a powerful message about prioritizing relationships over fame. On the chorus, their distinctive voices join together in an epic fashion as they profess, “little dreams come crashing / let them wave in passing / because fame won’t love you like a mother, like a brother should.” This is just the start of their working relationship as Sia serves as executive producer of Paris’ upcoming album.
Following last month’s release of “Pages” and “On The Run,” acclaimed Scottish singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Nina Nesbitt returns today with “Mansion,” a spectral, gossamer track that pleads with a close friend to see the beauty within themselves. The song will appear on Nina’s forthcoming fourth studio album, Mountain Music, which is due to be released on September 27, via her own record label—Apple Tree Records.
Speaking about the new song, Nina reveals, “I wrote it for a friend of mine after finding out how she saw herself. To me, she’s like a beautiful mansion in the middle of a dreary city. She’s covered in wisteria vines and roses. Everyone that passes her stops and stares, but she’s had her curtains drawn. She hasn’t let the light in for years. Dust has been gathering inside and things have been falling into disrepair. She’s been in the dark so long, she’s forgotten her own magic. People have treated her like a transient hallway. Temporary accommodation. A place to store their baggage. She was too afraid to let people in that no one got to see the grand ballroom or the beautiful lake view from the window in the library, full of lives lived. This song is for anyone who has struggled to realize their own worth – or had others devalue it. Sometimes you just need a friend to remind you, you are a Mansion.”
“Mansion” serves as the follow up to “Pages”, on which we hear the ache of experience as Nina sings over tenderly picked guitar and soft piano chords: “Cause I’m ‘bout two years from 30/ and life scares me more each day/ I’ve got a man that swears he loves me/ But I’m afraid that he won’t stay…”
Speaking about “Pages,” Nina explains, “Pages was the first song that I wrote for the new project. It reignited my love of folk music and storytelling. It’s an autobiographical account of my 20s. The chaos, the heartbreak, and the golden days. We recorded the track live in Devon with 5 wonderful musicians, it was my first time recording like this which was so fun.”
Alongside the release of “Pages,” Nina surprised fans with a second new track, “On The Run.” “This song is about an escape from the mundane,” she says. “It was inspired by a lot of the US folk music I was listening to.”
“Mansion,” “Pages” and “On The Run” all feature on Nina’s fourth studio album, Mountain Music, out September 27. This is Nesbitt as fans have never heard her before. Having risen to fame at a young age with her disarming, candid pop – championed by stars including Taylor Swift and Hollywood star Reese Witherspoon – the Scottish musician is now found in an entirely new realm. It is inspired in part by the two years she spent touring the States in support of her second studio album: the critically acclaimed Top 40, The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change, which has now accrued over a billion streams.
The songs on Mountain Music are permeated with gorgeous nods to US folk and Americana. It’s made all the more extraordinary by the fact that, not long ago, Nesbitt was considering quitting music altogether.
“A lot changed as I reached my late-twenties,” Nina says. “There was a lot going on in my life that changed the way I see things. In all honesty, I quit being an artist last year.” Struggling with the demand on musicians to be “present” on social media, along with the detrimental impact that had on her songwriting, Nesbitt decided to take a step back. “I was missing the thing that set me on fire, at the same time feeling like I was just getting worse at the craft I’d worked so hard on,” she says. “So, I decided to stop moaning about it, and actually just go and write.”
And write she did. For herself as well as for other artists, including K-Pop giants IVE, in turn helping them score a No 1 in Japan with their EP Wave. Gradually, the superficial pressures of the music industry began to fall away and Nina’s creativity flourished. She moved out of London and found a new home in the countryside with her long-term partner. It was there that Mountain Music was born. The new album was produced by Peter Miles and Nesbitt, and mixed and mastered by Miles at his studio MiddleFarm in South Devon, in the UK. It will be released via her own label, Apple Tree Records, which Nina launched las month with her longtime manager, Vicky Dowdall. The name, a playful nod to her 2012 debut EP, The Apple Tree, this marks the start of an exciting new era for Nina Nesbitt, both personally and creatively.
Talking about her new body of work, Nina says, “I’m beyond excited to be releasing my new album, Mountain Music, on 27th September. To me, it feels like the most authentic and honest piece of work I’ve created so far. I was inspired by a lot of the American folk music I grew up listening to, and revisiting it made me fall back in love with writing music again. I knew I wanted to take inspiration but to also write my own story. That being, someone with a female perspective who grew up in a Scottish village and spent her turbulent twenties in London. This album celebrates that small town girl, puts an arm around the big city twenty-something and looks back at the view with me now from the calm and the quiet.
It’ll be the first release on my own record label, Apple Tree Records, which I’m delighted about.
It feels like the perfect time to take full control of my career and put my stake in the ground as the artist I’ve always dreamed of being. Mountain Music held my hand through some of my hardest moments and I hope it can hold yours too.”
Stay tuned for more news and music from Nina Nesbitt, coming soon.
Taylor Swift - The Black Dog - Photo Credit: Beth Garrabrant
Taylor Swift, the renowned singer-songwriter, has excited fans once again with the release of her eleventh studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” along with its accompanying anthology, “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.” The album and its counterpart feature 16 and 15 tracks, respectively, with collaborations from artists like Florence & The Machine and Post Malone.
In a statement, Swift described “The Tortured Poets Department” as “an anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions, and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure.” She further explained, “This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”
The lead single from “The Tortured Poets Department,” “Fortnight” (featuring Post Malone), is already available for streaming. The accompanying music video will be released at 8 pm EST today.
https://taylor.lnk.to/FortnightMV
Just two hours after the release of “The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift announced the surprise double album, “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,” which is available now to stream across all DSPs. The beautifully crafted albums immerse the listener in a cinematic sonic landscape, reflecting an artist in their creative prime.
Swift’s ability to create captivating stories through her music has earned her a devoted fanbase, and “The Tortured Poets Department” and its accompanying anthology are sure to please her fans and critics alike. With her unique storytelling abilities and collaborations with talented artists, Swift continues to prove herself as one of the greatest musicians of our time.
The Tortured Poets Department tracklisting
1. Fortnight (feat Post Malone)
2. The Tortured Poets Department
3. My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys
4. Down Bad
5. So Long, London
6. But Daddy I Love Him
7. Fresh Out The Slammer
8. Florida!!! (feat Florence + The Machine)
9. Guilty as Sin?
10. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
11. I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
12. loml
13.I Can Do It With a Broken Heart
14.The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
15. The Alchemy
16. Clara Bow
The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology tracklisting
17. The Black Dog
18. imgonnagetyouback
19. The Albatross
20. Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus
21. How Did It End?
22. So High School
23. I Hate It Here
24. thanK you aIMee
25. I Look in People’s Windows
26. The Prophecy
27. Cassandra
28. Peter
29. The Bolter
30. Robin
31. The Manuscript
Recent guidance issued by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to the Office for Students reveals conflicting priorities in government and pours fuel on fires burning in an already troubled higher education sector.
The focus on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) – “strategically important high-cost subjects” – is met by a freeze on funding for arts subjects such as music, fashion and drama at undergraduate level.
This amounts to a cut in real terms in the face of inflation, and there are cuts in grants for postgraduate provision – as well as the programme for widening participation to support access to higher education for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
It follows a previous tranche of cuts in 2021 and comes as universities in general – and the arts and humanities in particular – are struggling. Inflation has added weight to the burdens felt across the sector, bringing long-term tensions to the surface as the university funding model starts to unravel.
In brief, the cost of educating a student has outstripped the fees, with no immediate prospect of raising them, not least because they already leave graduates with large debts. This is compounded by falling A-Level numbers in the arts and humanities, making recruitment more difficult. The inevitable result is a decline in provision.
Ed Sheeran performing before he was famous, from 2009, when he was a student at Access Creative College, Norwich.
Oxford Brookes and Kent universities have announced the closure of their music departments, while redundancies at Goldsmiths could threaten up to half of jobs in departments including English and creative writing, history, music, theatre and performance, and visual cultures.
A false economy
The ostensible logic of supporting the hard sciences, and the wider economy, reveals contradictions in the government’s own stated strategies, and masks a false economy. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) Creative Sector Vision, for instance, states that: “Creative industries are a true British success story, from global music stars like Adele and Ed Sheeran to world-class cultural institutions like the National Theatre”.
It also, crucially, highlights the importance of skills “to ensure that the sector can attract and develop the very best creative talent … from all backgrounds and parts of the country”.
Even a hard-nosed economic perspective suggests that arts provision warrants support, rather than a freeze. By the government’s own estimates, the creative industries contribute around £126 billion to the UK economy. That’s more than the car industry, for instance, or aerospace, oil and gas.
While obviously many of the skills needed will be in areas like coding, the contribution still includes around £27 billion in music, visual and performing arts, publishing, design, fashion, museums and galleries.
Higher education arts provision also adds broader value to the cultural life of the nation and to its school-age educational framework as, again, the government acknowledges. The National Plan for Music Education, for instance, notes that universities “offer access to live music performances … through free tickets to concerts held on site or taking student performers out into schools … bring[ing] reciprocal benefits, as students gain invaluable experience of working with young audiences, and school-age pupils are inspired by musicians close to their own age”.
Value of arts and science exchange
The contradictions also reach past the creative sector, and the courses directly affected. The funding cuts appear to gloss over the value that arts courses bring to the higher education sector (itself worth £71bn in gross value added to the economy) overall.
Universities don’t operate in siloes with arts and STEM separated. They support one another financially, with cross-subsidy across degrees that are cheaper to deliver and those that are more expensive (including subjects like engineering).
London’s National Theatre is a world-class institution but courses in theatre and performance are needed to produce the home-grown talent of the future. Credit: Nick Amoscato – licensed under CC BY 2.0
In research too, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, with humanities and sciences each benefiting from collaboration across subjects, especially in the rapidly evolving creative sector, where technological savvy, critical thinking and an imaginative approach are mutually beneficial.
This zero-sum approach to arts and STEM in higher education also undermines the holistic, Humboldtian model of the university whereby a combination of research and teaching across arts and sciences generates knowledge, value and engaged an citizenship. This has long been central to the strength and international appeal of British universities.
The DCMS’ Creative Sector Vision points to the value of dialogue across interdisciplinary research, business and the wider public sector, arguing that, “the government and industry have demonstrated how we can leverage public funding, the UK’s world-leading university base, and the creative sector’s ingenuity”.
Straitened times make for difficult decisions, especially when headline figures show a variation in earnings across graduates in different subjects. But pitting degrees against one another and dividing them into those that are “useful” is an approach that deploys immediate tactics at the expense of long-term strategy.
If funding cuts degrade provision for creative subjects, the effects will be felt beyond the departments immediately affected. The arts underpin the creative industries, and universities exist as part of a wider ecosystem of research, development and education which, even in the government’s own terms, relies on the exchanges between arts and science to create value across the board.
Today, the next generation global rookie group Riize offers an early glimpse of summer with their new single ‘Impossible’ out now via SM Entertainment/RCA Records.
On the heels of her chart-topping new album, Grammy, and Latin Grammy Award-winning artist Shakira has just announced the first-string dates on her highly anticipated world tour, “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour,” promoted by Live Nation, with 14 arena shows across North America kicking off this Autumn.
The tour’s first leg will start on November 2 in Palm Desert, CA, and includes stops in Los Angeles, Miami, Toronto, Brooklyn, Chicago and more. See below for full tour routing. Known for her dynamic and high-energy performances, Shakira will bring tracks from her new album and her legendary catalogue of hits to life on stage.
Tickets will be available starting with a Citi presale (details below) beginning Wednesday, April 17. The artist presale will begin Friday, April 19 at 10am local time. Additional presales will run throughout the week ahead of the general onsale beginning Monday, April 22 at 10am local time at shakira.com.
Citi is the official card of the Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour in the U.S. Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets beginning Wednesday, April 17 at 10am local time until Sunday, April 21 at 10pm local time through the Citi Entertainment program. For complete presale details visit www.citientertainment.com.
VIP Packages
Fans can also purchase VIP Packages, which may include premium tickets, a meet & greet and photo op with Shakira, an autographed item, access to the pre-show VIP lounge, an exclusive VIP merch item & more. VIP package contents vary based on the offer selected. For more information, visit vipnation.com.
Shakira first hinted at the tour during her appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last month. On Friday, the global superstar surprised fans at Coachella when she appeared during Bizarrap’s set to perform their global smash hit “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” and “La Fuerte,” both featured on her new album. Before exiting the stage, Shakira teased the tour news to a roaring crowd.
Coachella
Coachella marks the second time in the last month that Shakira has surprised fans with a show-stopping performance. Last month, following the album release, Shakira shut down New York City’s Times Square giving a crowd of 40,000+ fans a peek into the energy of her live shows when she performed at the TSX Stage. The performance included her iconic hits like “Hips Don’t Lie,” “Te Felicito/TQG,” and “Session 53,” as well as “Puntería” and “Cómo Dónde y Cuándo” from her new album.
The tour is in support of her new album, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, which, in 24 hours of its release became the most streamed album of the year with over 10 billion and was certified 7x platinum. The album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Latin Album and Latin Pop Album Charts, while “Puntería” with Cardi B holds the #1 spot on both the Billboard Latin Airplay and Latin Pop Airplay charts. Listen to the album HERE!
This is Shakira’s first tour since 2018, when she wowed fans at sold-out stadiums and arenas around the planet with the El Dorado World Tour, cementing her reputation as “an international pop goddess” (Rolling Stone).
Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour Routing
Sat Nov 02 – Palm Desert, CA – Acrisure Arena
Thu Nov 07 – Phoenix, AZ – Footprint Center
Sat Nov 09 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum
Sat Nov 16 – San Antonio, TX – Frost Bank Center
Sun Nov 17 – Dallas, TX – American Airlines Center
Wed Nov 20 – Miami, FL – Kaseya Center
Sat Nov 23 – Charlotte, NC – Spectrum Center
Mon Nov 25 – Washington, DC – Capital One Arena
Sat Nov 30 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
Thu Dec 05 – Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center
Sun Dec 08 – Boston, MA – TD Garden
Tue Dec 10 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre
Sat Dec 14 – Chicago, IL – United Center
Sun Dec 15 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
Glastonbury Festival has announced that pop legend Lulu will be performing. Fans will have the opportunity to see the icon perform again at Glastonbury at the Field of Avalon.
This really is Lulu’s year. She is currently completing her sold-out and final tour, Champagne For Lulu, celebrating her exceptional 60-year career with her friends and family. The tour kicked off in Lulu’s hometown of Glasgow, where she was joined on stage by fellow Scott and TikTok star Nathan Evans and garnered 5* reviews from The Telegraph and the Glasgow Times. At Manchester’s The Bridgewater Hall, Lulu was surprised by her friends Take That on stage for a special performance of their No. 1 hit ‘Relight My Fire’. Tomorrow night, the Champagne For Lulu tour will reach London’s Palladium for a highly anticipated show, coincidentally exactly 60 years since the release of smash hit ‘Shout’.
Lulu kicked off 2024 with a starring role in the hilarious Arthur’s Whisky film for Sky Cinema, where she played the character Susan alongside Diane Keaton and Patricia Hodge. The film featured guest appearances from fellow icon Boy George and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK winner Lawrence Chaney.
