Noticias

Tim Mohr, the acclaimed journalist, author, and translator who collaborated on memoirs with Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan and Kiss frontman Paul Stanley, died Monday at his home in Brooklyn, New York. He was 55.

Mohr’s publisher, Europa Editions, confirmed his death in a message from executive publisher Michael Reynolds. The cause was pancreatic cancer.

“I loved and admired Tim for his eloquence, his moral compass, his large, rebel heart, his consummate cool,” Reynolds wrote. “He had many friends – a testament to his genuine curiosity about other people and their life experiences,...

Record Store Day has revealed its extensive list of limited edition vinyl, box sets, and other speciality releases that will be available as part of its 2025 edition taking place on Saturday, April 12th, 2025.

This year promises exclusive releases from Post Malone (who serves as the 2025 Rsd Ambassador), Rage Against the Machine, Wu-Tang Clan, Gorillaz, Taylor Swift, Charli Xcx, The Killers, Tom Waits, and more.

You can find specifics on some of the most notable releases below, and find many more detailed at the Record Store Day website.

Post Malone’s epic Nirvana covers set from April 2020 is being released on vinyl for the first time, with proceeds benefiting MusiCares’ Addiction Recovery/Mental Health division.

Rage Against the Machine will collect completely untouched and unmixed live recordings from their first world tour on Live on Tour 1993.

Wu-Tang Clan has teamed up with producer Mathematics for a brand new album called Black Samson,...

Netflix’s latest addictive murder mystery comes with one heck of a dynamic soundtrack. Emma Myers, best known for playing bubbly werewolf roommate Enid Sinclair in “Wednesday,” stars as teen sleuth Pip Fitz-Amobi in “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.” Based on Holly Jackson’s best-selling YA mystery novel of the same name, the streaming adaptation follows Pip as she risks it all to solve a five-year-old high school murder case.

The six-episode series is jam-packed with eclectic tracks, from familiar favorites like Billie Eilish, Lykke Li and Charli Xcx, to club jams and soul classics. Check out a complete episode-by-episode guide to all the songs in “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” below.

Episode 1: “The Feminine Urge” by The Last Dinner Party “Chances” by Kaytranada “A New Error” by Moderat “In the Big Mood” by BBC Big Band “Gunshot” by Lykke Li Episode 2: “Seize the Power” by...

Emma Myers takes center-stage as Pip Fitz-Amobi in the television adaptation of Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Moments of levity and suspense intertwine within the young adult murder mystery series, and the soundtrack contains songs to accompany happy and scary times.

Viewers may recognize Billie Eilish’s “you should see me in a crown” and Awolnation’s “Sail.” Beach House’s “Take Care” plays softly in a later episode and Yonaka’s “Seize the Power” features in Episode 2 after playing in the show’s trailer.

Episode 1

“The Feminine Urge” by The Last Dinner Party “A New Error” by Moderat “In the Big Mood” by BBC Big Band “Gunshot” by Lykke Li

Episode 2

“Seize the Power” by Yonaka “Wet Dream” by Wet Leg “Me and the Devil” by Gil Scott-Heron “Midnight” by Siobhan Sainte

Episode 3

“Sail” by Awolnation “Guillotine” by Mansionair & NMBe “Patient Zero (feat. Brett Castro...

Jay-Z has teamed up with D’Angelo for a new song titled “I Want You Forever.”

The nine-minute (!) collaboration appears on the newly released soundtrack to the Jay-Z produced film The Book of Clarence. “I Want You Forever” was made with Jeymes Samuel, a musician who also wrote and directed the movie.

In a statement, Samuel said the story and music for The Book of Clarence were “percolating” in his mind even while working on previous projects. “There was never a question as to whether I would compose the score and write and perform on the soundtrack, as well as write and direct the movie,” he stated. “It was all one amazing journey where one depended on the other.”

The Book of Clarence is out now in theaters. Other artists featured on the soundtrack include Lil Wayne, Kid Cudi, Jorja Smith, and Doja Cat.

Jay-Z and Samuel previously collaborated on the latter’s feature directorial debut,...

Jay-Z and D’Angelo are set to release a new song, “I Want You Forever,” this Friday (January 12th).

The track appears on the soundtrack to the upcoming Jay-Z produced film The Book of Clarence, and was made as a collaboration with Jeymes Samuel, a musician who also wrote and directed the movie.

“While I was working on The Harder They Fall and all my other projects, the story and the music for The Book of Clarence was always there percolating in my mind,” Samuel said in a previous press release. “There was never a question as to whether I would compose the score and write and perform on the soundtrack, as well as write and direct the movie — it was all one amazing journey where one depended on the other.”

The Book of Clarence arrives in theaters on Friday. Jay-Z and Samuel previously teamed up on Samuel’s feature directorial debut,...

“It’s such an honor to come back and play at the Sydney Opera House, one of the most spectacular houses of music in the world. I have had such wonderful experiences in Australia and with Australian audiences, and I can’t wait to continue that. Thumbs up for Mother Universe.”

Lonnie Holley

Sydney – Monday 13 November, 2023. The Sydney Opera House today announced that celebrated American visual artist and experimental musician Lonnie Holley will be joined by musician and activist Moor Mother and free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements for a night of rapturous collaboration in the Utzon Room on February 26.

Sydney Opera House Head of Contemporary Music, Ben Marshall says: “Lonnie Holley is one of the most moving and transcendent live performers I have ever experienced, and I think everyone has to come and bear witness to his channellings from another world at least once in their lives. Sonically a radiant...

Don’t expect Jay-Z to follow the trend of veteran artists selling their masters. In a two-part interview with CBS News’ Gayle King, the rapper recalled how reacquiring his master recordings was “the fight of my life” and said he would leave the decision of selling his catalog to his children.

“I get why people do it, I’ve been fortunate enough to make money in this place, but for me, it was the fight of my life,” Jay told King about getting his masters back from Def Jam. “You know from being an independent company from the beginning and then going through the Def Jam system not really understanding how that works and then having my masters, then going back to Def Jam as the president and then saying, ‘Okay, I’ll do this job and part of this job is my masters has to be reverted back to me.

Jay-Z has released a new version of “Empire State of Mind” mashed up with Gil Scott-Heron’s “New York Is Killing Me.” The track, entitled “New York (Concept de Paris),” dropped after the Brooklyn rapper debuted it during a rare public performance on Friday.

Taking the verses from Hov’s 2009 classic and vocals and other samples from Scott-Heron’s 2010 cult favorite, “New York (Concept de Paris)” paints both songs in a new light, creating a synthesis of the two which is evocative of the complicated city it’s honoring. Listen to it below, followed by the original tracks.

Jay-Z debuted the remix at an event sponsored by the Louis Vuitton Foundation and Tiffany & Co in Paris. Celebrating the opening of “Basquiat × Warhol. Painting Four Hands,” an exhibition devoted to the two artists, Hov delivered his first live set in four years, which included this new mash-up.

Scott-Heron’s “New...

When Lorne Michaels set out to shake up the late-night television landscape with "Saturday Night Live," there were certain, long-standing traditions he was willing to observe. One of those was the assemblage of a house band. Though the show wasted no time filling America's living rooms with the provocative music of Gil Scott-Heron, Jimmy Cliff, and Frank Zappa, the Saturday Night Live Band was an impressive if unexciting assortment of solid session musicians. And the man who brought them together was a then relatively unknown composer named Howard Shore.

The Toronto-born Shore had the inside track to the gig thanks to a friendship with Michaels that stretched back to summer camp. But while Shore had made a name for himself via the jazz fusion band Lighthouse and his score for magician Doug Henning's popular stage show "Spellbound" (which eventually transferred to Broadway as "The Magic Show"), he wasn't overly...

Chuck D is humble about his contributions to Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World — the expansive, four-part PBS and BBC series where he joins other hip-hop icons from Melle Mel to Eminem, as well as executives, journalists, and academics, in unspooling rap’s history as a social movement. “My work is as an initiator and giving the platform,” says the Public Enemy Mc, who executive produced the project. “I know how to cut, edit, and design audio, but when it comes to film and TV…”

Still, his...

A show about a down-on-his-luck college dropout and his rapper cousin navigating the music industry as the latter’s star rises; created by a multi-hyphenate who, at one point, was a full-time rapper himself; set in what many might argue was the rap capital of the United States for most of the past decade…

You’d think Donald Glover’s FX series “Atlanta” would be a cakewalk for song placements — license a few Migos, Young Thug and Gucci Mane tracks and call it a day — but music supervisors Jen Malone and Fam Udeorji are anything but paint-by-numbers.

While musically, the series pays ample homage to its titular hometown, the pair has worked closely with Glover and the rest of the show’s writers room throughout its four-season run — coming to an end in November — to establish a musical palette that simultaneously reflects Atlanta while also expanding far beyond the city limits.

Exclusive: Labid Aziz’s People of Culture Studios (PoC Studios), has picked up North American distribution rights to Kim Bass’s comedy A Snowy Day in Oakland, and will open the film nationwide in theaters over the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday weekend, Jan. 13, 2023. The movie is the debut theatrical release for PoC Studios.

Written and directed by Kim Bass, A Snowy Day in Oakland follows an upscale psychologist from San Francisco who decides to end a stalled romance with her longtime, high-profile, psychiatrist, boyfriend/business partner. She moves on with her life by opening her own private practice in a vacant, street-front office space in the middle of a small, commercial block located across the bay in Oakland, turning the predominately African-American and psychologically ignored neighborhood on its emotional ear.

The movie stars Nicole Ari Parker (Boogie Nights), Loretta Devine (Crash), Kimberly Elise (The Manchurian Candidate), Deon Cole (Black-ish...

Peter Weller and Sam Elliott on the Forty Deuce under the Times Square Theatre marquee in James Glickenhaus' Shakedown.Movie-lovers!Welcome back to The Deuce Notebook, a collaboration between Notebook and The Deuce Film Series, our monthly event at Nitehawk Williamsburg that excavates the facts and fantasies of cinema's most infamous block in the world: 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. For each screening, my co-hosts and I pick a flick that we think embodies the era of late-night celluloid consumption and present the theater at which it premiered.American writer, director, and producer James Glickenhaus made action movies: eye-for-an-eye fables starring virtuous underdogs and righteous renegades—rogue cops, ex-Army officers, and cunning FBI agents settling scores with street scum, Mafiosi, and the international drug cartel. These low-cost, high-grossing blockbusters projected do-good Nationalism onto the silver screens and boob tubes of the 1980s, encouraging a generation of bleary-eyed Boy Scouts to stay strong,...

Eminem, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie and Pat Benatar number among the 17 artists on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees list released on Wednesday, Feb. 2. An artist first becomes eligible 25 years after a recording is released. Almost all of this year’s contenders have been eligible far longer.

The roster is rounded out by: Beck, Kate Bush, Devo, Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Judas Priest, Fela Kuti, MC5, New York Dolls, Rage Against the Machine, Carly Simon, A Tribe Called Quest and Dionne Warwick

See Which 26 entertainers need a Grammy to become an Egot?

Of the group, Eminem (who just became eligible), Parton, Beck, Duran Duran, Richie, Simon and A Tribe Called Quest are first-timers on the ballot. Warwick, Bush, Devo, Kuti, New York Dolls, and Rage Against the Machine were all nominated last year.

To decide the five or six inductees, ballots will now be sent to more than 1,000 music industry insiders around the world.

One of the biggest all-star lineups ever will celebrate the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees this weekend. The ceremony filmed October 30 in Cleveland, Ohio, and now airs this Saturday, November 20, on HBO and HBO Max.

The event clocking in at 3 hour and16 minutes honors Foo Fighters, The Go-Go’s, Jay-Z, Carole King, Todd Rundgren and Tina Turner in the performer category. Kraftwerk, Charley Patton and Gil Scott-Heron were chosen for early influence induction. LL Cool J, Billy Preston and Randy Rhoads were honored in the musical excellence category. Clarence Avant received the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

King had been previously inducted as a songwriter. Turner is now a solo artist inductee after going in with Ike Turner the first time around.

SEEThe Go-Go’s, Foo Fighters, Tina Turner, Jay-Z among 16 artists eligible for 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

While the order of inductions was different during filming, here...

Celebrating the release of his new memoir, multi-hyphenate Steven Van Zandt joins hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss a few of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Elevator To The Gallows (1958) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Breathless (1960) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

The Fisher King (1991)

Tony Rome (1967)

Lady In Cement (1968)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

The Killer (1989)

True Romance (1993)

True Lies (1994)

Get Shorty (1995) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Point Blank (1967) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Catch Us If You Can a.k.a. Sweet Memories (1965)

Double Trouble (1967)

Performance (1970) – Mark Goldblatt’s trailer commentary

The Driver (1978)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Tfh’s Don’t Knock The Rock piece

Help! (1965) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s review

Blue Collar (1978) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s...

Stevie Van Zandt is set to publish his memoir, Unrequited Infatuations, on September 28th.

Read Exclusive Excerpt: Stevie Van Zandt’s Long Walk Home From E Street

Van Zandt will also discuss his work as an activist, particularly surrounding South African apartheid and the 1985 album he spearheaded, Sun City, which featured an array of artists, including Ringo Starr, Peter Gabriel, Gil Scott-Heron, Miles Davis, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Bono, Keith Richards, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock. The musician will also delve into his forays into acting, specifically The Sopranos, as well...

Just past the halfway point in the documentary Mr. Soul!, poet Felipe Luciano calls Ellis Haizlip “the most effective, insidious revolutionary that I have ever met.” It isn’t meant as a specific accolade, but it is a badge of honor for a man who honored the true meaning of sedition. Subversion in the arts is a skill which can be expressed as simply as putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Seditious political expression is rarely so subtle. The creator and host of the all-too-short lived public television variety program Soul! achieved a dream mix of diverse thought, some which went under the radar, some designed to be unnoticed, all of which was riveting, and everything absolutely accessible.

Soul! captured everyday insurrection. Melvin Van Peebles’ 1971 independent feature Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song proclaimed to be unapologetically Black, Haizlip saw no reason to bring apology into the equation. Nothing he was doing,...

Toward the end of his life, Prince was creating so much music that he appeared to lose sight of his vision. Although his records contained glimmers of brilliance, he had started entombing potentially glorious singalong choruses, jaw-dropping guitar solos, and clever lyrics in overwrought R&b and heavy-handed garage rock. (Check the sparkly impotence of 1999’s Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic.) And unlike the stunning concerts he performed until his death, his albums felt sinful (and not in a Dirty Mind kind of way), since the music was often so...

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be the subjects of a new music documentary, The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts.

Distributed by Sony Music Entertainment, the film features a composite of two performances shot during the Musicians United for Safe Energy (Muse) benefit concerts, colloquially referred to as the No Nukes concerts, held at Madison Square Garden in September 1979. Three songs from Springsteen and the E Street Band’s sets were included in the 1980 No Nukes documentary, including the first-ever appearance of the soon-to-be classic “The River”; the new...

Gift of Gab, the nimble rapper in Bay Area duo Blackalicious known for his clever wordplay and tricky rhyming acrobatics, has died at the age of 50.

“It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that we announce the passing of our dear brother, Timothy J. Parker a.k.a. “The Gift of Gab,” the hip-hop collective Quannum announced Friday. “Tim peacefully departed this earth to be with our ancestors on Friday, June 18, 2021. He is survived by two brothers, one sister, many nieces and nephews, countless friends, and fans across the globe.

by Lynn Lee

If you’re old enough to remember the Challenger explosion – my earliest memory of watching a national disaster on TV – you may, like me, see it as the de facto end of the Space Age. Not that NASA abandoned its mission or that space ever completely lost its grip on the public imagination. One need only look to the Mars Rovers and the recent advances made by SpaceX and Blue Origin for evidence to the contrary. But even the most exciting breakthroughs no longer command the universal attention that the Apollo missions or, yes, the Challenger debacle did back in their day. There’s also a growing sense that space travel has become the province of the ultrarich, and that as a species we should– taking a page out of Gil Scott-Heron – maybe think about fixing our problems here on Earth before laying claim to other worlds.

Fifty years ago at this time, the world was just beginning to absorb the impact of Marvin Gaye’s seminal concept album What’s Going On. The LP, released on May 21, 1971, told a story in music from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran returning to an America beset by poverty, injustice and ecological crisis.

In a plaintive tenor voice, Gaye sang in the title track, “Father, father/We don’t need to escalate/You see, war is not the answer/For only love can conquer hate.”

As revealed in the Emmy-contending documentary series 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, Gaye’s was not the only remarkable statement made in popular music within that turbulent time frame.

“I mean every major artist—male, female, group, individual—seems almost to a complete level deliver their masterworks that year. So many big records made,” executive producer James Gay-Rees tells Deadline.

It is remarkable how few people know that the same person produced Bob Dylan’s three defining early albums (as well as “Like a Rolling Stone”), the first two Velvet Underground albums, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s debut “Freak Out” and pivotal music by jazz legends Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor (including tracks with John Coltrane), among many others.

It was Tom Wilson, a visionary music producer who died in 1978 at the age of 47.

He was even the man who in 1965 overdubbed a folk-rock backing onto a song he’d recorded the previous year by an acoustic duo who had already split up and were living on different continents — that would be Simon & Garfunkel — resulting in the smash hit that ignited their career, “Sounds of Silence” (the duo quickly reunited and hastily recorded a new album). He also produced key songs by the Animals (the classic “Don’t Bring Me Down”), Nico,...

When James Gay-Rees, along with fellow executive producer Asif Kapadia, started to put together a docuseries about the music of 1971, they had to answer the basic question of what made that year so pivotal. “We realized it was a very tumultuous and very pivotal year in the sense that the sixties had come to this kind of crashing end with Kent State, Altamont, Charles Manson and The Beatles spitting up in December 1970,” Gay-Rees explains to Gold Derby in our Meet the Experts: Television Documentary panel (watch the exclusive video interview above). From seeing how the sixties ended, it clearly set up everything that was to follow in the next decade. “So all that kind of optimism of the sixties was replaced by the golden age of paranoia, Nixon, you know, bugging the White House and Vietnam in full effect.”

“1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything” chronicles the turbulent status...

Was 1971 the best single year for recorded popular music, ever? Or merely the year in which it reached peak cultural significance? Maybe, just maybe, the answer could be: both. You’ll certainly be hard-pressed to come up with a better argument for another annum after watching all eight episodes of “1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything,” which just premiered on Apple TV Plus.

Let’s face it: Your well-considered alternate pick is going to have a hard time besting the year that generated Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” Carole King’s “Tapestry,” Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” the Who’s “Who’s Next,” Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water,” T. Rex’s “Electric Warrior,” Bill Withers’ “Just as I Am,” the Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers,” Sly and the Family Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” Pink Floyd’s “Meddle,” the Doors’ “L.A. Woman,” Janis Joplin’s “Pearl,...

The revolution is being televised. Fifty years later. Apple TV+’s 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything highlights how musicians were in touch with what was happening around them even as they were making things happen. Marvin Gaye lays down “What’s Going On” in the first episode, and the remainder of the eight-part docuseries builds the basic tracks which became the soundtrack to a changing world.

Solo ex-Beatles took to the streets and concert halls while The Rolling Stones, as a group, went deep into exile. Aretha Franklin went to the courthouse to post bail for former University of California philosophy professor Angela Davis, charged with “aggravated kidnapping and first-degree murder in the death of Judge Harold Haley.” Bill Withers quit his day job but held tight to his lunch box. David Bowie twisted a knife into the hippy movement, and Alice Cooper went to hell to celebrate.

Tina Turner joins the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2021 in Cleveland this October, along with Jay-Z, Gil Scott-Heron, Todd Rundgren, Carole King, Foo Fighters, and The Go-Gos. Tina is already an honoree as a member of Ike and Tina Turner, and she is also once again distinguishing herself from the group. Even before she went solo, Turner had star billing, such as her turn as the Acid Queen in Ken Russell’s film adaptation of The Who’s Tommy. But Tina had to skip the credits for her work with Frank Zappa, who was posthumously inducted into the Rock Hall in 1995.

Turner recently made a gracious exit from the stage in HBO’s feature documentary Tina. She is also highlighted in Apple TV+’s upcoming 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything. This was the year Ike and Tina’s cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” hit No.

Dagmar Schultz on Audre Lorde at the Winterfeldt Markt in Berlin (1992): “She really liked going to the markets, to cafés, and really enjoyed the city.” Photo: Dagmar Schultz

Dagmar Schultz’s up-close and personal portrait Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984-1992, co-written with Ika Hügel-Marshall, Ria Cheatom, and Aletta von Vietinghoff (who is also the editor) takes us into the private and public life of the poet, activist, teacher, humanitarian, whose life-affirming outlook remains evermore important today. Audre Lorde was a graduate of Hunter College High School and Hunter College in New York City, and a Distinguished Professor of English at the college from 1981 to 1986. In 2019, Audre Lorde was honored, along with Maya Angelou, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Celia Cruz, James Baldwin, Gil Scott-Heron, Tito Puente, and Reggie Jackson by the artist Rico Gatson with their portraits in glass mosaics for the 167 Street subway station in the Bronx.

Tina Turner, Carole King and The Go-Go’s are heading to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, along with Jay-Z, Foo Fighters and Todd Rundgren.

The Hall announced its 2021 Inductees today, saying the new arrivals represent “the most diverse list of Inductees in the history of the organization.”

Three of the inductees were already Hall of Famers in other categories: Turner for her musical partnership with then-husband Ike as Ike and Tina Turner; King for songwriting partnership with Gerry Goffin; and Foo Fighters’ leader Dave Grohl for drumming with Nirvana.

“This diverse class of talented Inductees reflects the Rock Hall’s ongoing commitment to honor artists whose music created the sound of youth culture”, said John Sykes, Chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. “It will make for an unforgettable live celebration of music in October at this year’s Induction Ceremony in Cleveland.”

Left to try...

The DJ-producer Rich Medina serves up a mellow call-to-arms for dancers in “This Thing,” a collaboration with Jimpster that zips and flutters like a brisk summer breeze.

Jimpster excels in this zone: His 2018 remix of Peter Matson’s “Roma Norte” achieved a similar blend of propulsive and soothing, with intricate hand drums darting around instrumental pitter-patter and rustling vocals. Working with Medina on “This Thing,” the two men conjure a groove that evokes the beginning of Gil Scott-Heron’s “Angola, Louisiana” — a steady drip of hand percussion, a repetitive motif...

Malcolm Cecil, producer of several classic Stevie Wonder albums and co-designer of the world’s largest analog synth, known as Tonto, died Sunday, March 28th. He was 84.

The Bob Moog Foundation confirmed Cecil’s death, saying his son, Milton, had informed the organization of the news. An official cause of death was not given, though the foundation’s statement said Cecil died “after a long illness.”

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share the passing of the legendary creative genius, musician, engineer, producer, & synthesizer pioneer, Malcolm Cecil,...

“When the Time Is Right” manages to be both nonchalant and agitated at the same time. Producer Cody Currie lays out a series of contrasts — between the stubby, stabbing electric piano and the marauding bass, between a stern, slapping cymbal and a stream of hurrying, rat-a-tat percussion — over a driving rhythm. The result is freeing for dancers, who can choose to align their movements with either the calmer or the more frenetic elements in Currie’s track.

Currie, who moved from the U.K. to Berlin two years ago and...

In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron recorded his famous poem-song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” But that anthemic line, as forceful as it was, has been proved wrong time and again. Two years earlier, starting on Sept. 12, 1968, the revolution was televised, in a captivating and astounding way.

“Mr. Soul!” is a documentary that’s been gathering steam and generating Oscar buzz, and when you see it (which you really should), you’ll know why. The entire film tells the story of a TV program, one that was rich, fearless, eye-opening, and bold enough to stir up the culture. It was called “Soul!,” and staking out its turf on Wnet in New York, it was the first Black variety show on American television. That alone made it a landmark. But “Soul!,” as orchestrated by its creator, executive producer, and host, the awesomely unlikely TV personality Ellis Haizlip, was no cautious groundbreaker. It was an electrifying popular-music showcase,...

As part of our newly updated survey of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, we’re publishing a series of pieces on the making and impact of key records from the list. Drake’s Take Care came in at number 95.

So many artists have borrowed or copied the template of Drake’s Take Care that the boldness of the original is easily forgotten. Today, Take Care is like breathing — something we take for granted.

Now nearly every singer raps, and nearly every rapper sings. Rappers stew in gloom and regret and ambivalence,...

Drive-By Truckers have released a pointed lyric video for “21st Century USA,” one of the understated highlights from the band’s 2020 record, The Unraveling.

“I wrote this song during a rest stop outside of Gillette, Wyoming in January of 2018,” says the band’s co-frontman Patterson Hood. “Its blending of the personal and political provided the breakthrough moment for me during the writing of the group of songs that made up our album.”

“They say we have to hang on just a little bit longer / and a savior will come our way,...

Last summer, Liza Richardson read the script for the first episode of Lovecraft Country, and she tried to wrap her head around how she might choose music for the show.

“I could tell how unique it was,” the veteran music supervisor says. The series, which is set in 1955, stars Jonathan Majors as Atticus Freeman. In the first episode, he — along with Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) and his childhood friend Leti (Jurnee Smollett) — takes a journey across Jim Crow America in search of his father, uncovering monsters both fictional and very real.

Episode two of HBO's Lovecraft Country features Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon" - in fact, the episode itself is titled "Whitey's on the Moon." While Lovecraft Country takes place in the '50s, Scott-Heron's spoken-word poem first came out in 1970, right after the moon landing. Given that the series is a blend of sci-fi monsters and the horrors of Jim Crow segregation, the song choice certainly makes sense. But what exactly is the history behind the song? Let's take a look at the song and how it fits into America's social context during this turbulent era.

Scott-Heron released his debut album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, in 1970. Perhaps the most well-known track from the record is "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." On side two, Scott-Heron also made waves with "Whitey on the Moon." In the opening moments of the recording, Scott-Heron says that he was inspired...

There is a whole lot more to Atticus than meets the eye.

But what happens now that Tic has discovered that fact on Lovecraft Country Season 1 Episode 2?

A better question might be, who was left standing since Ardham has proven to be a place of magic?

It's was a shame, really, because Ardham Lodge seemed like such a luxurious place for Tic, Leti, and Uncle George to recuperate after their terrifying battle with monsters on Lovecraft Country Season 1 Episode 1.

It was a hilarious opening scene, with Leti and George happily dancing in time to the classic Jeffersons theme song!

Too bad their joy was so short-lived.

Since we've met him, Tic has shown himself to be a philosophical brooder. I blame all that on his father Montrose, who revealed himself to be something even worse, an angry brooder.

Thank God for George's influence, introducing Tic to the escapism of pulp fiction.

This Lovecraft Country review contains spoilers.

Lovecraft Country Episode 2

The Jeffersons theme song plays. Uncle George and Leti blithely explore the luxurious suites in the opulent lodge they were inexplicably welcomed into, despite landing at the door bloody and disheveled. George, comfortably clothed in a robe and slippers, delights in the shelves upon shelves of his favorite books. Leti dances airily around the room as she tries on the beautiful garments that fill the wardrobes, all of which just so happen to fit her like a glove. Tic meanwhile, sits solemnly in his suite, replaying the events of last night over in his mind. This scene is incongruous with what we saw in last week’s episode, which is a fun reminder that you can’t really expect or prepare for what’s next on Lovecraft Country.

This exposition-heavy episode gives us a lot of information, which is all important...

No cinematographer speaks to television’s visual storytelling aspirations quite like James Hawkinson, and the best example is his work on “Hannibal,” the 2013 NBC crime procedural that was resurrected this month when Netflix made all three seasons available for streaming. Hawkinson’s cinematography helped elevate the network show into one of the most visually exciting series ever produced for any platform. Director David Slade, Hawkinson’s long-time collaborator, asked him to join the shoot. By then, creator Bryan Fuller and his staff had written five episodes that tried to toe the tricky line between Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter novels and the structured storytelling of a network investigative procedural. “I remember leaving the edit session where we’d seen the first cut [of the pilot] and I was like, ‘We’re doing the wrong show,” said Fuller in an interview with IndieWire. “When I saw David Slade and Jim Hawkinson’s work, and really...

Starting in March, when the Covid-19 crisis flattened the livelihoods of many in the music business, Bandcamp has held a monthly holiday in which it waives its full revenue share on all sales. The idea was an immediate hit. Bandcamp Friday, which falls on June 5th this month, has successfully directed millions of fans’ dollars to the artists who rely on income from merch and music to pay their bills at a time of acute economic distress.

Today, there’s another reason to pick up that record or T-shirt you...

The fruitful collaboration between poet Gil Scott-Heron and multi-instrumentalist Brian Jackson will be the focus of an upcoming reggae tribute album. The LP was revealed Wednesday on what would have been Scott-Heron’s 71st birthday.

Carry Me Home. A Reggae Tribute to Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson, due out May 27th, is the brainchild of Washington D.C. reggae group the Archives along with Thievery Corporation’s Eric Hilton, who recruited artists like Raheem DeVaughn, dub poet Mutabaruka, Puma Ptah, Addis Pablo and Kenyatta Hill (the sons of reggae legends Augustus Pablo...

In 2017, the Los Angeles promoter Andrew Lojero had an idea for a new jazz concert series. Along with A Tribe Called Quest DJ-producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad and prolific R&b and hip-hop composer-producer Adrian Younge — the duo behind throwback soul project the Midnight Hour and the Luke Cage soundtrack — he began putting together bills featuring esteemed jazz veterans such as Roy Ayers and Gary Bartz, and rising stars of the genre like Keyon Herrold. Lojero dubbed the series Jazz Is Dead.

“I thought the name was bold, provocative and exactly...

“I don’t really feel the loyalty to any particular genre,” Brent Faiyaz says. “To be completely honest, I’m an R&b singer because I’m black and I sing.”

The 24-year-old singer (real name Christopher Brent Wood) sounds calm and collected as he discusses his new Ep, Fuck the World. He’s got the word “sonder” tattooed over his right eyebrow — a reference to the group he fronts with frequent producers Dpat and Atu — and he takes his sunglasses off to meet my gaze.

Since being featured on...

Steven Van Zandt is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from a South African prison by rereleasing his 1985 multi-artist protest LP, Sun City.

The album contains not just his protest anthem “Sun City,” but also Peter Gabriel’s “No More Apartheid,” and “Silver and Gold,” written by Bono along with Keith Richards and Ron Wood. It hasn’t been available on vinyl since its original release.

Van Zandt wrote “Sun City” in response to rock acts like Queen, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, and Cher performing...

In a March 6, 1973, review of Blood, Sweat & Tears at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Variety briefly praised the opening act: Bruce Springsteen was “a young man with a hot guitar from Asbury Park, N.J.” If you substitute the word “ageless” for “young” — the Boss turned 70 on Sept. 23 — the description still fits.

Springsteen’s first mention in Variety occurred when reviewer Fred Kirby caught a 65-minute set at Kenny’s Castaways in New York and accurately predicted, “Bruce Springsteen, 22, appears ready to make his impact.” Just three years later, Variety noted that the singer-songwriter “hits it big with front covers this week on both Time and Newsweek. It’s the first time in recent memory that a pop artist has been doubly front-paged.” Springsteen’s documentary “Western Stars” debuted Sept. 12 at the Toronto Film Festival, and Warner Bros. opens it wide Oct. 25.

In Variety’s Jan. 7, 1976, anniversary issue, Kirby summed...

On a recent visit to New York from their home country Jamaica, the No-Maddz pop into a record store and seek out the reggae section — only to find a few scantly filled bins near the back. “They treat it like it’s niche,” sighs tall, lanky Sheldon “Sheppie” Shepherd. Everaldo “Evie” Creary, his equally dreadlocked, sleepier-voiced bandmate, nods. “Peter Tosh with Mick Jagger, Chris Blackwell with Bob Marley — those days, the music was exposed to people who were taking it outside of the niche,” he says. “Who is the new Bob or Tosh or Mick?...

For most of his career, Gil Scott-Heron called New York home, but his Jamaican roots — a crucial if underexamined part of his life — were never far from the jazz-soul genius. Scott-Heron’s father, Giles, left his son when he was an infant to become a professional soccer player and the first black player for Scottish club Glasgow Celtic Fc. For 25 years, the two didn’t speak — Scott-Heron sings about their meeting on 1977’s “Hello Sunday! Hello Road!” — but Scott-Heron never forgot his roots. (Exhibit A: His 1983 performance at Jamaica’s Reggae Sunsplash.