Just days after she announced she’d be rebooting her 2024 North American tour with stadium dates next year, Shakira has unveiled the 2025 “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” tour dates, produced by Live Nation.  The North America dates will now kick off Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Charlotte, NC, at Bank of America Stadium, followed by […]

Morgan Wallen and promoter AEG Presents have unveiled the lineup for Sand In My Boots, the new three-day festival and beach vacation curated by Wallen. The inaugural festival will feature headliners Post Malone, Brooks & Dunn, Hardy and Wallen, along with a mix of country, hip-hop and rock performers including T-Pain, Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz, Three 6 Mafia, Moneybagg […]

Cindy Charles, Twitch’s head of music and a digital-music veteran, died Monday from injuries she suffered in a traffic accident in the Netherlands, her husband Ricky Fishman confirms. She was 69.  Among many other accomplishments, Charles played a key role in developing Twitch’s DJ category, which established it as the first platform for DJs to […]

Some albums are made for chin-stroking, with deeply complex, intellectually challenging lyrics, song structures, instrumentation and production, creations that deeply stimulate the brain but leave the butt in neutral. And then there are albums where the entire point is to make you feel good and dance — like veteran DJ the Blessed Madonna’s first full-length album, […]

Singer Marc Anthony makes a forceful endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in a new ad in which he reminds Latin voters of former President Donald Trump’s scornful treatment of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017, and his past negative statements about Hispanics. “Even though some have forgotten, I remember […]

Back in 2007, Bon Iver’s debut album, “For Emma, Forever Ago,” was just about the least likely breakthrough album imaginable: Written in a remote cabin during a Wisconsin winter, in self-imposed solitude after the breakup of both his band and a romantic relationship, its stark sound evoked the setting and spirit of its creation, and […]

Tyler, the Creator, who teased new music on social media yesterday, has announced his new album, “Chromakopia,” will be released on Oct. 28 — a Monday, breaking with the music-industry standard Friday release date. No further information was released except that a box set edition of the album is now available for pre-order, but a two-minute […]

Bruce Springsteen has always been a master at mythologizing his own story, and his latest film “Road Diary” is no exception: It’s a tribute to the E Street Band’s 50-year history and their decades of touring, his 60-year friendship with guitarist Steve Van Zandt (who makes a crack about finally officially being named the E […]

 Tyler, the Creator is apparently teasing his first new music in 18 months with a two-minute-long excerpt from a grim-looking new video apparently called “St. Chroma.” It starts with a masked character, apparently Tyler, leading a series of masked people marching through the desert — his hair is in a comical, rabbit-ish do but the black […]

Former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee was shot multiple times in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning but is expected to make a fully recovery, according to his rep. Lee, who is also known for his work with the bands Badlands and his current outfit Red Dragon Cartel, is said to be fully conscious and […]

Vicki Nauman is the founder and CEO of CrossBorderWorks, a music tech consulting and advisory firm she launched in 2014 with a portfolio of gaming companies, streaming platforms, apps, hardware, start-ups and industry consortiums. She is a a digital music veteran with previous senior roles at 7Digital, Sonos, KEXP, RealNetworks and others. Generative AI is […]

“Just fucking destroy it.” Around 35 years ago, those four words reinvented the concept of the remix. The Scottish rock band Primal Scream had given one of their songs to a young DJ named Andrew Weatherall to remix, but considered his first attempt too close to the original. So guitarist Andrew Innes gave him the […]

Charlie Kaplan is the streaming service Audiomack’s VP of product. Variety welcomes responsible commentary — reach out to music@variety.com if interested. Streaming is the dominant way artists reach listeners in many countries globally, but recent numbers show well over 100,000 songs are uploaded to streaming services daily. As many have said, the challenge for artists is […]

It’s been building for months. WWE incorporated super-producer Metro Boomin and WWE star Cody Rhodes pumped out a series of vignettes hyping the pair’s October 5 return to Cody’s hometown of Atlanta. Aptly titled “Bad Blood,” the cinematic promos featured the duo staking out the State Farm Arena in ATL where the Premium Live Event […]

Warner Music Group has announced two new leadership appointments in its recorded music division. Eric Wong has been named president of East West Records and head of global A&R for recorded music, while Jessica Keeley-Carter has been promoted to Wong’s previous role, chief marketing officer of recorded music. Both will report directly to WMG CEO […]

In the absence of a phenomenon like “Barbenheimer,” which dominated the Grammys’ visual-media categories last year, the outlook for 2025 is considerably more complicated and, some might say, more interesting. Look for the summer’s biggest movie hits, “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” to land spots in the score and compilation soundtrack categories when […]

U.K. record labels have got used to upheaval in recent years, but the industry was still taken aback by recent changes at Universal Music’s British company. There were emotional scenes in the company’s King’s Cross HQ when, in a surprise move, David Joseph – Universal Music U.K.’s long-time and highly respected CEO/chairman – stepped down […]

Verve Label Group, a division of Universal Music Group, has promoted Jamie Krents to CEO-president and Dawn Olejar to chief operating officer, effective immediately. According to the announcement, Krents and Olejar will spearhead the strategy for the entire Verve Label Group, including Impulse! Records, Verve Records, Verve Forecast, Decca Records US and label partners Decca […]

Rock and roll wasn’t really built to grow old, and most late-career albums from even the greatest legends get a pat on the shoulder at best and calls for retirement at worst. But recent music from the Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne, Elton John and even Pearl Jam have a vigor and vitality that […]