There's a lot of stuff these days I don't understand about punk myself. It became a very broad church, a long way from the Sex Pistols to the Talking Heads and from The Slits to the Dolly Mixture or something like that, musically. But also a lot of punks got the wrong end of the stick, and maybe some progenitors of it did as well.
Taylor Swift, Kiss' Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, Christopher Tricky Stewart, Alanis Morissette and Kenny Loggins make up the 2026 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees. Swift's songwriting has undeniably shaped contemporary pop music trends and she'll no doubt bring extra attention to this year's new class. Kiss founders Simmons and Stanley fresh off the band's farewell will also be recognized for their glam rock classics Rock and Roll All Nite and I Love It Loud.
Bandcamp has announced it will no longer allow AI-generated music to be hosted on its platform. In a post shared on Reddit, the company's support team revealed their plans to implement a policy prohibiting "any use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles," elaborating more firmly that "music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp."
In 2023, Drew Dixon, a former vice president of A&R at Arista Records, alleged Reid had groped and digitally penetrated her without consent on two separate occasions while she worked at the label. The first incident reportedly took place on a private plane to a company retreat; the second in Reid's car. After Dixon rebuffed Reid at future outings, she claims he derailed her career.
The (There's Gotta Be) More to Life singer, 39, is seeking unspecified damages as well as a trial by jury after filing a lawsuit this week against multiple parties including former manager Britt Ham, Universal Music Group, and ForeFront Records for multiple offenses including childhood sexual abuse, sexual battery, negligence and gender violence, according to the filing on the website for her attorneys at Stritmatter Law.
Towards the end of Tether, there is a song called Silk and Velvet; its sound is characteristic of Annahstasia's debut album. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar and her extraordinary vocals husky, expressive, elegant are front and centre. The arrangement is subtle but not drearily tasteful: arching noise that could be feedback or a distorted pedal steel guitar, which gradually swells into something climactic before dying away.
Aiyana-Lee's entry point into Spike Lee's world feels almost too on-the-nose for this specific movie: a direct message on Instagram, sent after he discovered her song "My Idols Lied to Me." "I thought there was no way it was real," she laughs, recalling waking her mom at six in the morning to investigate. But it was legit; they met that same day, and the collaboration quickly became something deeper than a single placement.
The team behind the song have admitted using AI during its creation. Producer and songwriter Harrison Walker said the original vocals were actually his own, but were heavily manipulated using music-generation software Suno - sometimes called the "ChatGPT for music". Meanwhile, the second producer Waypoint, real name Jacob Donaghue, confirmed on social media that AI was used to "give our original vocal a female tone".
As I watched the episode unfold, my giddy delight in Dianne Wiest's performance slid into sadness at what a dreadful corner Mother Constance felt herself backed into, disgust at Monsignor Frank ( David Rasche) for placing his ambition above the needs of the convent, and further disgust at Mother Constance's choice to exploit the solution to her long-ago crisis of faith in service of committing the worst of sins.
The projects that Brodie takes on are created with a mix of digital and physical - his work shouts that hands are at work. Lady Gaga is stretched and made viscous for the cover of Mayhem, her sixth solo studio album, for which Brodie provided art direction and design, with creative direction from Mel Roy of mtla studio and Todd Tourso of Iconoclast.
And, yes, often about as stomach-churning as that combination sounds. At the heart of this series the female-focused follow-up to 2024's Boybands Forever is a lot of old ground. Viewers of a certain age will know the trajectories retraced here (the head-spinning arrival of Spice Girls, the scrappy ascent of Atomic Kitten, the existentially challenging lineup rotation of Sugababes, the talent-show conception of Little Mix) and the dominant themes (tabloid hell, merciless management, relentless touring, intraband resentments) like the backs of their faintly wrinkled hands.
In a blogpost announcing the agreement, Spotify referred pointedly to a move-fast-and-break-things approach to copyright in some parts of the tech industry. Some voices in the tech industry believe copyright should be abolished, said Spotify. We don't. Musicians' rights matter. Copyright is essential. If the music industry doesn't lead in this moment, AI-powered innovation will happen elsewhere, without rights, consent, or compensation.
They have sold out venues on both sides of the Atlantic. Their first-ever gig was opening for a former member of Arcade Fire. Their 2024 album has been acclaimed as sounding like a lost classic of 1970s rock. Their two top tracks, Bright and Masquerade, have notched up 700,000 streams on Spotify. In fact, by the numbers, they're having one of the most buzzy rock debuts of recent years. Yet they don't really exist. They don't even have a name.
Swift's twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirl, released 10 days ago, is unquestionably a commercial success. It broke streaming records on Spotify with more than 5 million pre-saves, as just one example. But that doesn't mean that everyone loves it. The reaction from music critics has been lukewarm and the reaction from fans is decidedly mixed, with some saying they adore the album and others saying they can't stand it.
But the masters rights for her first six albums - which means the actual recorded versions of her songs and music videos - belonged to her first label, Big Machine Records, as is standard in the music industry. This year, Swift finally struck a deal and reclaimed the master recordings from Shamrock Capitol, the private equity firm that acquired them in 2020.
She boards the subway in sweatpants, adopting the script of a down-on-her-luck mother of three selling CDs to get by like the enterprising teens and adults hawking wares to straphangers. It takes all the worst suggestions about the solvency of her career to the extreme. She's a millionaire cosplaying struggle, though maybe she views it as a peek at a timeline in which her music doesn't take off.
The atmosphere was exuberant on September 6, when six young women in tight outfits took to the stage in Istanbul's sold-out open-air venue Kucukciftlik Park: A cheer went up from the crowd of 12,000 people who had joined in the dancing to the beat in the late summer heat. The musicians Mina, Esin, Zeynep Sude, Emine Hilal, Lidya und Sueda are the members of Turkish girl band Manifest, which was formed in February following a talent show.
It would be considered a success for most artists, 100,000 albums in the first week, in an era when we don't sell physical music. But it's a failure in the context of the kind of success I've had previously. And that's the hardest part of having been a pop star once, because I'm not one anymore, and I'm being compared to people that I don't consider lateral to me.
The music industry has a mixed track record when it comes to altruism: For every Concert for Bangladesh, a thoughtful and timely project that has endured as a piece of era-defining art, there is a "Do They Know It's Christmas?," a song conceived by a handful of rich white musicians who seemed to assume the Christian-majority Ethiopia didn't know the most important Christian holiday.
As reported by Rolling Stone, the decision came to light on Monday, September 15th, after both parties filed a joint notice of settlement in a California district court. As of now, the exact terms of the settlement remain undisclosed (or "pending") as both parties finalize the arrangements and any last-minute details. That whole process can take up to 45 days (landing on Thursday, October 30th), at which point the terms and other details could be made available. (Or leaked, perhaps?)
Grammy Award-winning musician, composer, and producer Wyclef Jean says the music industry is broken, which is why he's now involved with a startup, OpenWav, that's looking to give the power back to the artists. Through the OpenWav app, launched over the summer, artists can drop new music and exclusives, connect directly with fans, sell merch, host concerts, pop-ups, and listening parties, and more. Later, the startup plans to offer more assistance to artists using AI tools.
%20.png)
