Music News

In the wake of the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, several artists are joining in the efforts to raise money for the victims, including Solange, Fall Out Boy and Bun B who have all planned separate benefit concerts.


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Solange announced she will be performing a benefit show at Orpheum Theatre with Sun Ra Arkestra in Boston on September 28th.

"I will be doing a special 'Orion's Rise' show in Boston, and ALL proceeds will go towards Hurricane Harvey relief," the Houston native posted on Instagram on Wednesday. "I'm committed to partnering with organizations on the ground in Houston and making contributions to uplift the city that raised me with so much love. See you September 28th Boston, I thank you in advance for making this a special, meaningful night!"

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Chance the Rapper announced Friday that his SocialWorks organization has raised $2.2 million for the Chicago Public Schools' arts programs.


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"Quality education for public schools is the most important investment a community can make," the rapper said at Chicago's Harold Washington Cultural Center, four days before the school year begins in the city.

"So today, all of us at SocialWorks are excited to take our biggest, boldest step yet and announce our first-ever grants from the New Chance Fund. Today we're giving a new chance to kids in 20 more schools across our city."
The donations will be spread be 20 schools in the Chicago public school system, with each school receiving $100,000 over the course of three years.

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Young Thug and Carnage announced a joint EP titled Young Martha with a bloody, Shining-inspired video for their new single, "Homie." Meek Mill is featured on the incinerating new song as well.

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The video begins with twin girls in matching dresses, holding hands while playing piano. The show then reveals that the young girls are on the ceiling, while Young Thug is sitting across a table from a gluttonous man yelling at the staff and presumably the rapper. The staff sharpens their knives before eventually descending upon the man to murder him, leaving him hanging from the chandelier as blood surrounds the lighting structure.

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The Muppets staged their first ever full-length stage performance Friday night at Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl, where Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and company sang Muppet Show favorites alongside covers of David Bowie, Queen, the Beatles and more.


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One of the highlights of the "Muppets Take the Bowl" show came during the evening's penultimate song, when Kermit the Frog was joined by surprise guest Paul Williams on a duet of "Rainbow Connection," which Williams co-wrote for 1979's The Muppet Movie.

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Foo Fighters played a secret gig in Stockholm, Sweden on the eve of the release of their new LP Concrete and Gold, and to close out the concert, Dave Grohl and company brought out the Hives' fiery frontman Pelle Almqvist to cover AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock."


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Before bringing out "Howlin' Pelle," Grohl talked about his long admiration for the Hives singer, even dressing as Almqvist and covering the Hives' "Hate to Say I Told You So" at Foo Fighters' Halloween 2002 gig in New York.

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Lana Del Rey, Elvis Costello, Sting, Philip Glass and Feist are among the artists that will perform at a Leonard Cohen tribute concert scheduled for the anniversary of the music legend's death.


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The Lumineers' Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites, k.d. lang, Damien Rice, Patrick Watson and Cohen's son Adam Cohen will also take part in Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen at Montreal's Bell Center on November 6th. Cohen died November 7th, 2016 in Los Angeles.

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"I really care that our music is a story of growth," Muna singer Katie Gavin tells Rolling Stone in an August phone chat. Fittingly, the thoughtful L.A. pop outfit, also including guitarist Josette Maskin and keyboardist-guitarist Naomi McPherson, is in the midst of a major real-world growth spurt. Currently opening for Harry Styles on his first solo world tour, the band – whose anthemic synth-pop debut, About U,was released in February – is now faced with the massive task of adapting their show to massive crowds around the world.

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"We are thrilled to be on tour with Harry," McPherson says. "We are nervous," she adds, "but excited."

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Charles Bradley, the acclaimed soul singer and live dynamo who saw his career ascend late in life, has died following a long bout with cancer. He was 68.


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"It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Charles Bradley," the singer's rep said in a statement. "Always a fighter, Charles battled cancer with everything he had. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the fall of 2016 and underwent treatment. Bradley headed out on the road earlier this year after receiving a clean bill of health but the cancer recently returned, spreading to his liver."

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Investors will soon be able to purchase shares of Eminem's "My Name Is," "Lose Yourself" and every other song he released from 1999 to 2013 on an exchange much like the stock market, at a minimum of $2,250. The rapper's former production duo, the Funky Bass Team (aka FBT Productions), signed Eminem years before he turned into a superstar, and will auction portions of his future song royalties in October as part of a new company called Royalty Flow. "If you own any Apple stocks, for instance, it's exactly the same," Matthew Smith, head of Royalty Exchange, the Denver company running the auction, tells Rolling Stone. "Not only do you potentially get to earn along with Eminem's catalog, but you also win the ultimate bragging rights to say 'hey, I own that!' anytime you hear one of his songs."


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The Eminem catalog is among the first of what Smith and others expect to be a new way for fans to invest in musicians and songs. With streaming revenues expected to boom over the next few years, the returns could become substantial. Royalty Exchange has already sold shares of Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again," Chris Brown's "Drunk Texting" and the Ariana Grande-Lil Wayne track "Let Me Love You" as part of investment packages, some for as much as $71,000. The portion of "See You Again," made available by a background singer who owned part of the recording rights, generated $11,372 before it went on sale through Royalty Exchange — and Eminem has far more revenue potential.

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Marilyn Manson has canceled the next nine dates of his Heaven Upside Down Tour following an onstage incident Saturday in New York in which the singer was crushed by a stage prop.


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"Marilyn Manson is being forced to cancel several of his October dates on his forthcoming US tour," the singer's rep said in a statement.

"On Saturday night, the legendary performer suffered an injury on stage towards the end of his set at NYC's Hammerstein Ballroom causing him to cut the show short. He was treated for the injury at a local hospital and will be recuperating at home in Los Angeles."

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Nelly was arrested early Saturday morning and charged with second-degree rape following an incident that occurred on the rapper's tour bus following a Friday night concert in Auburn.


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Nelly, born Cornell Haynes Jr., was booked into Des Moines, Washington's SCORE Jail just before 6:40 a.m. PST Saturday, three hours after the Auburn Police Department responded to a call from a woman who said that the rapper raped her on the tour bus.

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Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds have offered up their joyous new single "Holy Mountain," the first single off the former Oasis guitarist's upcoming new LP Who Built the Moon? The track features the Jam's Paul Weller on organ.

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"There’s so much joy in it. Until the day I die, it will be one of my favourite pieces of music that I've ever written. It sounds great live. My kids love it, my friends' kids all love it and I am sure 'the kids' will love it."

Gallagher previously promised that his new album would be "a really big, bold, up-tempo beast of a record" and "Holy Mountain" delivers on all fronts as the guitarist cranks out a colorful, anthemic rocker powered by a driving riff and infectious hooks.

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Los Angeles producer the Gaslamp Killer has been accused of drugging and raping a woman and her friend in 2013.

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"I've been silently suffering over this for many years. the gaslamp killer drugged and raped my best friend and myself 4 years ago," a woman who uses the handle @chelseaelaynne wrote on Twitter Sunday night. Her account of the alleged rape, which happened four years ago and also involved a female friend, soon went viral.
In the tweet, Chelsea, who declined to use her last name to Pitchfork, accused the producer born William Bensussen of drugging the drinks of her and her friend while at a hotel party in 2013. Bensussen is alleged to have had "non-consensual sex with both of us while we were completely incapacitated."

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Bob Weinstein, the brother of Harvey Weinstein, was accused of sexual harassment, Varietyreports. Amanda Segel, who served as an executive producer on the Weinstein Company drama The Mist, said the film and TV executive made numerous unwanted advances towards her during the show's production.


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The allegations come after The New York Times and The New Yorker published massive reports in which numerous women accused Weinstein's brother Harvey of harassment and assault.

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All five living former U.S. presidents – Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush and Jimmy Carter – united onstage together to help raise funds for hurricane victims as part of Saturday's One America Appeal event, which featured a surprise appearance by Lady Gaga.


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"The heart of America, without regard to race or religion or political party, is greater than our problems," Clinton told the audience at Texas A&M University.

Donald Trump did not attend One America Appeal, which raised over $31 million, instead offering a video message, "To Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Melania and I want to express our deep gratitude for your tremendous assistance. This wonderful effort reminds us that we truly are one nation under God, all unified by our values and our devotion to one another."

Lady Gaga made an unannounced appearance during One America Appeal at the 1:50:25-mark of the event. "Now that's what I call an audience," the singer said, looking down at the former presidents.

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Against Me!'s Laura Jane Grace will be featured in this weekend's Squidbillies episode with a cover of the Adult Swim animated show's theme song. The show airs on Cartoon Network at midnight on Sundays.


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As Alternative Press points out, Grace takes viewers into the studio in a behind-the-scenes video for the song. "It's fun to sing that line of, 'Take all you sons of bitches when I go,'" Grace says while laughing. In the clip, Grace plays guitar and tracks powerful vocals.

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Dave Grohl will make an unexpected return to late-night TV when the Foo Fighters singer serves as guest host of Jimmy Kimmel Live Tuesday night.

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Grohl will join Shaquille O'Neal, Channing Tatum and Jennifer Lawrence as guest hosts for Jimmy Kimmel's show this week.

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The music industry's biggest names didn't shy away from some extra fanfare in the lead-up to Halloween Tuesday, with artists like Cardi B, Demi Lovato and Adam Levine channeling everything – and everyone – from Disney characters to music icons to classic black cats.

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Check out some of the year's most creative costumes ..


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N.E.R.D.'s first concert in over six years turned into a surprise listening party for their upcoming new album as Pharrell Williams and company debuted No_One Ever Really Dies at ComplexCon in Long Beach, California.


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The album, the Neptunes project's first since 2010's Nothing, boasts first single "Lemon" with Rihanna as well as guests like Kendrick Lamar, Andre 3000, Future, Ed Sheeran, Gucci Mane and more, Complex reports.
Lamar, who collaborated with Pharrell on To Pimp a Butterfly's "Alright," features on a pair of No_One Ever Really Dies, "Kites" with fellow guest M.I.A. and "Don't Don't Do It," which Pharrell told the audience was inspired by the police shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott in September 2016.

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Just as pop singing wasn't the same after Elvis or the guitar didn't recover after Hendrix, neither was rock orchestration the same after Paul Buckmaster, the half-British, half-Italian string arranger who died Tuesday at age 71 of undisclosed causes. Even if his name doesn't ring any bells (or, more appropriately, triangles), the records Buckmaster arranged and orchestrated will. Starting with his work on David Bowie’s "Space Oddity," Buckmaster's alternately lush and brooding string arrangements enriched, deepened and darkened pop records for nearly 50 years.

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If that sounds like an exaggeration, consider just some of the records featuring his arrangements. In Buckmaster's hands, string sections on rock records weren't schmaltzy. They were trippy and panoramic (the Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile"), dark and brooding (Elton John's "Madman Across the Water," the Stones' "Sway"), stately (Harry Nilsson's "Without You," John’s "Levon"), high-stepping (Simon's "You're So Vain"), and lush without being overbaked (Taylor Swift's "Back to December"). The muted French horns and other woodwinds that underscored Guns N' Roses "Madagascar" made that the moist listenable song on the messy Chinese Democracy.

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A$AP Ferg and Meek Mill pose on fancy cars and rally with friends in the new video for "Trap and a Dream." The single is featured on Ferg's album, Still Striving.


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In New York City, presumably Ferg's home neighborhood of Harlem, the pair of rappers casually sit atop a convertible in between shots of them hanging with a group of friends. As the clip ends, Ferg and Meek Mill hop into the car as sirens go off. The video cuts to the Moliere quote "The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it." It ends with the hashtag #FREEMEEK in white lettering on a blackground.

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R.E.M., Automatic For the People (25th Anniversary Edition)

The remastered edition of R.E.M.'s 1992 masterpiece, which Rolling Stone named one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, gets packaged with demos from the band's fertile early-Nineties period and a live recording from the 40 Watt Club, the storied rock venue located in Athens, Georgia.

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A collection of rare Grateful Dead items owned by the legendary jam band's late attorney will hit the auction block later this month.


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Stremmel Auctions in Reno, Nevada will conduct the sale of dozens of Dead-related items starting November 22nd. The collection belonged Hal Kant, the band's longtime attorney that they dubbed "The Czar," and his wife Jesse Kant. Hal Kant died in Reno in 2008.

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Portugal. The Man recently started selling a T-shirt on their website reading I Liked Portugal. The Man Before They Sold Out. It's a jab at critics and old fans who have turned on the group since "Feel It Still," its crazy-catchy Motown-indebted single, hit the Top Five.

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It's rare enough for a rock band to have a pop smash in 2017; it's even weirder that it happened to an arty midcareer band from Sarah Palin's hometown. "I'm 36, I'm from fucking Wasilla, Alaska, and we're right behind Taylor Swift right now," says bassist Zachary Carothers. "What the hell?"

Carothers and frontman John Gourley moved from Alaska to Portland, Oregon, in 2004, and spent a decade touring a brand of psych rock that earned them fans on the jam-band circuit, playing wild shows where they cover everyone from Weezer to Pantera. Seven years ago, they signed to Atlantic and recruited producer John Hill (Eminem, Florence + the Machine), then started moving away from meandering psychedelia and focusing on hooks.

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Chris Cornell was posthumously awarded Human Rights Watch's inaugural Promise Award at a Los Angeles gala Tuesday, with System of a Down's Serj Tankian, Soundgarden's Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron and Cornell's widow Vicky Cornell on hand to honor the late singer.


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"We're here tonight to honor a compassionate, just and gentle human being who I had the great pleasure to call my friend, Chris Cornell," Tankian said. "His voice was always honest, caring and real. It's difficult to successfully lie through art. The man himself was always honest, caring and real."

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Panic! At the Disco will release a new live album, All My Friends We're Glorious, on December 15th. The career-spanning, 21-track LP documents the pop-rock band's tour behind their fifth LP, 2016's Death of a Bachelor. The record will be available as a limited-edition double-vinyl and digital download, with a pre-sale launching Tuesday, November 21st at noon EST at the band's website.

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All My Friends We're Glorious includes material throughout Panic! at the Disco's catalog, from a medley of their emo-styled 2005 debut, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, to their baroque-pop hit "Nine in the Afternoon" to the majority of Death of a Bachelor. The LP also features cover versions of several songs, including Billy Joel's "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Death of a Bachelor – the band's first release following the departure of founding drummer Spencer Smith and bassist Dallon Weekes – debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200 and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album at the 2017 ceremony.

Panic! At the Disco – All My Friends We're Glorious Track List
1. "Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time"
2. "LA Devotee"
3. "Ready To Go (Get Me Out Of My Mind)"
4. "Golden Days"
5. "Vegas Lights"
6. "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out Medley"
7. "Hallelujah"
8. "Nine In The Afternoon"
9. "Miss Jackson"
10. "This Is Gospel"
11. "Death Of A Bachelor"
12. "The Ballad Of Mona Lisa"
13. "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)"
14. "Emperor's New Clothes"
15. "Nicotine"
16. "Crazy = Genius"
17. "Let's Kill Tonight"
18. "Girls/Girls/Boys"
19. "Bohemian Rhapsody"
20. "I Write Sins Not Tragedies"
21. "Victorious"

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Glassjaw have announced their surprise new album Material Control, the Long Island alternative band's first LP in 15 years.

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While fans had to wait a decade and a half for the follow-up to 2002's Worship and Tribute, the new album, Glassjaw's third LP, will arrive in just one week with a December 1st release date.

Glassjaw also unveiled the first sampling from the Material Control, the unrelenting "Shira," which the band previously debuted live during their 2016 tour.

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U2, Foo Fighters and SZA will all serve as musical guests on Saturday Night Live's final three episodes of 2017.


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U2 will appear on the December 2nd episode of SNL, guest-hosted by Lady Bird actress and fellow Irishwoman Saoirse Ronan. U2's performance, which arrives one day after the band releases their new album Songs of Experience, marks Bono and company's fourth time on SNL and first since a 2009 episode hosted by Megan Fox.
SZA – who in June released her breakthrough debut LP Ctrl, one of Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2017 – will make her SNL debut the following week, December 7th, on an episode hosted by James Franco.

The first half of SNL's 43rd season will close out December 16th with host Kevin Hart and musical guests Foo Fighters, who will make their eighth official appearance on Saturday Night Live; Foo Fighters also served as Mick Jagger's backing band on a 2012 episode.

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Foo Fighters recently orchestrated a surprise reunion of surviving Nirvana members. Foo Fighters' frontman and Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl invited Nirvana's founding bassist Krist Novoselic to join the band for a song during a concert held earlier this week at Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, Oregon.


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"Back in the day, I had this song that I thought might be kind of cool," Grohl says. He then discusses how he and Novoselic were at a studio "and we had nothing to do all day long. I was like, 'I got an idea.' And we recorded this song together. It wound up on the first Foo Fighters record."

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Eminem claimed his eighth Number One album as Revival topped the Billboard 200 in its debut week.

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The rapper's latest LP, his first album since 2013's The Marshall Mathers LP 2, opened with 267,000 total copies in its first week of release, with 197,000 of that total culled from traditional album sales.

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Sufjan Stevens released the video for "Mystery of Love," which he penned for the Luca Guadagnino-film Call Me By Your Name.

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The video is full of footage from the movie: shots of scenic Italy in summer and the stars Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, whose evolving relationship is the center of the plot. Pictures of imposing statues from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale of Naples are interspersed next to snippets from the film.

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Stevens' song drifts gently through the back of the video, building around an airy acoustic riff. Stevens delivers hushed lyrics that blur the lines between romance and religion. "Woe-oh-woah is me/ The first time that you touched me," he sings. "Oh, will wonders ever cease? Blessed be the mystery of love."

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Jim Rodford, a founding member of Argent and bassist for the Kinks and the Zombies, died Saturday at the age of 76.

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Rodford's cousin and longtime band mate Rod Argent confirmed Rodford's death on the Zombies' Facebook page, with Argent adding that Rodford died Saturday following "a fall on the stairs."

"Jim was not only a magnificent bass player, but also from the first inextricably bound to the story of The Zombies. An enormous enabler for us," Argent wrote in his long tribute to Rodford. "To the end, Jim's life was dedicated to music. He was unfailingly committed to local music - an ever present member of the local scene in St.Albans, where he had spent his whole life."

The Kinks, who recruited Rodford following bassist John Dalton's permanent exit from the band in 1978, also paid tribute to Rodford on Twitter. "It is with deep sadness that we have learned that Jim Rodford passed away - he toured and recorded with the Kinks for many years and will be greatly missed. He was much loved by all of us," the band wrote.

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Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump detailed the band's winding creative process behind cinematic new song "Church" in the latest installment of Rolling Stone's behind-the-scenes video series, Levels.

The quartet were struggling to find a creative direction for their seventh LP, Mania, and they wound up delaying the release date from September 2017 to January. But they gained crucial confidence after figuring out the final arrangement of "Church."

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"One song can really change an entire album, so we were really struggling to find that one song to properly contextualize the whole album," Stump tells Rolling Stone. "And there was something about when we finally got 'Church,' it was like, 'Awesome.' It was a very stressful thing, and we didn't know it was going to be that song until it was done."

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Gary Clark Jr. and Jon Batiste united to salute late rock pioneers Chuck Berry and Fats Domino with a fiery tribute at the 2018 Grammy Awards. The blues-rock artist and Late Show bandleader formed a trio with drummer Joe Saylor, Batiste's Stay Human bandmate, honoring "two of the fathers of rock and roll that we lost last year."

Batiste opened fronting a impassioned version of Domino's 1955 hit "Ain't That a Shame." As images of the late rocker flashed behind the group, the pianist performed a flashy jazz piano solo. Clark Jr. led the band on a fervent version of Berry's 1955 classic "Maybelline," including a guitar solo full of wild bent notes.

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Various Artists, Black Panther: The Album
The Kendrick Lamar-helmed soundtrack to Marvel Studios' latest blockbuster features K-Dot collaborations with SZA, Travis Scott and The Weeknd, as well as appearances by Khalid, 2 Chainz, Future and Top Dog Entertainment crew members Schoolboy Q and Jay Rock. "At first, [Lamar] was just going to do a few songs for the film, and then he came in and watched quite a bit of the movie, and the next thing I know, they were booking a studio and they were going at it," Black Panther director Ryan Coogler told NPR. "Hats off to him and his production team – they made some really great songs," he added.

MGMT, Little Dark Age
"MGMT are back to their roots on Little Dark Age," Jon Dolan writes about the blog-beloved duo's fourth album, "with concise tunes built from cushy keyboard beats and cute, kiting melodies. ... But there's a welcome new wrinkle here: 'She Works Out Too Much' and 'TSLAMP' (a.k.a. 'time spent looking at my phone') are funny, bemusedly cranky parodies of modern screen-obsessed solipsism."

Franz Ferdinand, Always Ascending
The debonair Scots' fifth album is "a return to form the band never really lost, and if the quiet bits drag, the wit's sharper than ever," writes Will Hermes.

Dashboard Confessional, Crooked Shadows
Chris Carrabba's first Dashboard Confessional album in eight-plus years "hews to familiar formulas of Dashboard dramatics, cleverly clad in contemporizing pop production," writes Jessica Hopper. "Carrabba's lyrical focus has evolved some in his time away, having disregarded the diaristic 'I' for a unified 'we,' yet emo's heroic paternalism is still present - he's saving, he's dedicated, he won't let the love die. 'I'm always going to be/About us,' he sings on 'About Us.' His pledges of allegiance to his marriage are identical to the ones he makes to the scene."

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Solange was honored with the 2018 Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year distinction. Past winners have included Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria, Queen Latifah, Viola Davis, Shakira, John Legend and Jackie Chan.

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Each year, the Artist of the Year selection is voted on by students and faculty of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations. According to its website, the foundation aims to "improve relations among racial and ethnic groups within the University and to enhance the quality of our common life." The award will be presented on March 3rd as part of the Cultural Rhythms Festival, an annual event put on by the Harvard Foundation that features "student performances and ethno-cultural cuisine from over 30 student organizations."

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Barbara Ann Alston, co-founder and lead singer of the hit-making Sixties girl group the Crystals, died February 16th in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was 74.

The singer's family told the Charlotte Observer that Alston died at a Charlotte hospital following a two-week battle with the flu.

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Alston's daughter Donielle Prophete told the BBC, "She loved the Crystals. She always talked about singing with them, the work they created together. She loved the sisterhood part of it, the traveling."

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Russ Solomon, founder and overseer of the Tower Records empire, died Sunday at his home in Sacramento, California. He was 92.

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Solomon's family told the Sacramento Bee that he likely suffered a heart attack. "Ironically, he was giving his opinion of what someone was wearing that he thought was ugly, then asked (his wife) Patti to refill his whisky," at which point he died, Solomon's son Michael Solomon told the newspaper.

Solomon started Tower Records – named after the local Tower Theatre – in 1960, growing the business from the back of a Sacramento drugstore to, at its peak, a CD giant with over 200 brick-and-mortar stores spanning North America to Japan.

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Gary Burden, the Grammy-winning artist who designed iconic album covers for musicians like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, the Doors and My Morning Jacket, has died at the age of 84. No cause of death was revealed.

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Young penned a tribute to Burden on the rocker's Archives website, reflecting on a collaboration and friendship that spanned over five decades.
"My friend for life, Gary was my art director, creating album covers with me for almost 50 years, beginning with After the Gold Rush and ending with Paradox and Roxy, my next two albums," Young wrote.

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Brynn Cartelli and Dylan Hartigan, who were members of Kelly Clarkson's team, performed a brazen cover of Taylor Swift's "… Ready For It?" The house band turned the original track's industrial snarl into a guitar-heavy romp. Cartelli sang with raspy gravity one moment and lithe grace the next, while Hartigan emphasized his falsetto.

In contrast to the headstrong rush of "… Ready For It?", Christiana Danielle and Shana Halligan – from Alicia Keys' team – performed Kings of Leon's somber ballad "Use Somebody." At times they were singing almost a capella, moving from near-whispering on the melancholy verses to full-throated belting during the lofty hooks.

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