Angel Olsen on the Love and Loss That Led to Her Spectacular New Album, ‘Big Time’

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorGeneration Now, the Atlanta-based label imprint founded by DJ Drama, Don Cannon and Leighton “Lake” Morrison, has extended its joint venture partnership with Atlantic Records. The partnership launched in 2015 and labels have launched the careers of Jack Harlow, Lil Uzi Vert — who collectively have achieved a whopping 30 billion-plus streams globally — and many others.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorEpix has announced an upcoming four-part docuseries titled “My Life as a Rolling Stone.” Tied to the band’s 60th anniversary, each episode will focus one of the band’s four core members (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and the late Charlie Watts). The series premieres on August 7.“My Life as a Rolling Stone” is directed by Oliver Murray (who helmed “The Quiet One” the recent documentary on longtime Stones bassist Bill Wyman) and Clare Tavernor (“Keith Richards: A Culture Show Special”), and executive produced by Steve Condie, senior VP of content at Mercury Studios.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor“Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia,” a symphonic work by composer Him Sophy and the first major such piece to address the Khmer Rouge genocide in the country, recently was released on Entertain Impact label.Sophy, himself a Khmer Rouge survivor, places the musical ritual of a Bangsokol – a traditional Khmer ceremony that accompanies Cambodian Buddhist funeral rites – within the form of a Western requiem.“When I composed the requiem,” Sophy says, “I relived the feelings I had during the Khmer Rouge times. It was Hell on Earth.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBeyonce just can’t make it easy: Just hours after she’d announced that “Break My Soul,” the first single from her forthcoming seventh solo studio album “Renaissance,” would be dropping tonight at midnight ET / 9 p.m. PT, it emerged on Tidal — yes, the streaming service co-owned by her husband, Jay-Z —three hours early.All of that noise notwithstanding, it’s the Beyonce jam fans have been waiting for: A driving dance track co-produced by the “Single Ladies” team of Tricky Stewart and The-Dream, with a plinking, insistent hook, a hot beat and a near-unintelligible, dancehall-like voice dropping in and out of the mix.“Release your anger/ Release your mind/ Release the time… Release the stress/ Forget the rest,” the voice intones.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLincoln Center has announced a musical tribute to Greg Tate, a veteran music writer and musician and a ‘godfather of hip-hop journalism’ who died in December at 64.The performance will feature more than 30 members of Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, the group that Tate founded (head here for more information). “For this homecoming concert, curated and presented with The Tate Family at one of his favorite venues, more than thirty BSAC members will perform in celebration and tribute to one of the most essential voices in the history of 21st Century Avant Groidd music and thought,” the announcement reads.Titled
“More Than Posthuman: Rise of the Burnt Sugar Arkestra Mojosexual Cotillion”
An “Oh the Utter Negrocity of It All,” the tribute is one of three in Tate’s honor being held this summer: one last week at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and another, also featuring Burnt Sugar, on August 20 at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem as part of New York’s SummerStage concert series.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBeyonce will drop “Break My Soul,” the first single from her forthcoming seventh solo studio album “Renaissance,” tonight at midnight ET / 9 p.m. PT, the singer announced on social media Monday morning.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorJapanese Breakfast, Wet Leg and Madlib were among the top winners at the Libera Awards on Thursday night, the American Association of Independent Music’s annual awards ceremony.The event returned in a hybrid setting, with people from the indie community gathering at New York’s Webster Hall to receive awards, catch a DJ set from Madlib (featuring a freestyle from Talib Kweli) and live sets from Sammy Rae & the Friends and others, while concurrently a livestream of performances from Japanese Breakfast, Brittany Howard, Jason Isbell, Helado Negro and Cautious Clay was played in a separate room at the venue. Also performing live at the event were Tré Burt, Canadian Brass and Adrian Daniel.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSony Music Entertainment has named Vanessa Picken to the role of chair and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment Australia and New Zealand. Reporting to Sony Music Group Chairman Rob Stringer, she will begin her new role in September.Based in Sydney, Picken will oversee all operations, artist signings, marketing, and business partnerships for the company, according to the announcement.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorNicki Minaj, A$AP Rocky and Future will headline the Rolling Loud New York festival, taking place at Citi Field in Queens on the weekend of Sept. 23-25.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorEven as reports from Wall Street grow dark amid worries of a recession, Goldman Sachs predicts a booming decade for the music industry, with total music revenue to double to about $131 billion by 2030. The company’s annual “Music in the Air” forecast predicts that a combination of global streaming growth, emerging platforms like TikTok, the revival of the live music market and the ongoing strength of vinyl sales will drive the recorded music industry revenues to $52.3 billion by 2030, a $7.5 billion boost over last year’s prediction and more than double last year’s IFPI revenues of just under $26 billion.It is bullish on publishing as well, predicting that revenues will rise to $11.6 billion in 2030, up a cool billion from last year’s prediction for the year.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSteve Keene, whose artwork is nearly synonymous with indie-rock via his work with Pavement, Apples in Stereo, Bonnie Prince Billie and others, will release the first-ever published book of his art, titled, naturally enough, “The Steve Keene Art Book (#SKartBook),” out today (June 14) via Hat & Beard and Tractor Beam. The release follows a successful Kickstarter campaign with over 600 backers.His artwork was also briefly featured in the Hulu series “High Fidelity,” starring Zoe Kravitz, on the walls of the apartment of an indie-rock-loving character.Fittingly, the book is nearly the same size as a vinyl album.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThursday morning’s announcement of several new Grammy Awards, particularly the long-overdue Songwriter of the Year honor, has already gotten a strong response from the music community. It also reflects an Academy that has been increasingly and more immediately responsive to calls from the community — while the Songwriter of the Year has been a glaring and baffling omission in the half-century-plus since the Grammys began, calls for it have increased in recent years.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor“It’s a little surreal, seeing my best friend’s face blown up so big,” says multimedia artist Laurie Anderson, gesturing to a giant photo of her late husband, Lou Reed’s, at the beginning of a media tour of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ stunning exhibit on the legendary singer, songwriter and Velvet Underground co-founder. It is open to the public — and free of charge — beginning Thursday (June 9).“We’ve been working for years to put this together,” she continued, “and I just wanted to say that it’s my dream to have [the archive of] this great poet of New York in the Public Library.” While she did not mention this during the tour, the archive was originally intended to join those of James Joyce, Norman Mailer and Don DeLillo at the University of Texas, but Anderson changed her mind after a handgun law allowing people to carry handguns on college campuses was passed in the state; the NYPL acquired much of the archive in 2017.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorPrince’s musical career had many peaks, but he was most on top of the world — literally — on March 30, 1985, when he and the Revolution played a concert at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York that was broadcast all over the planet in the first global telecast of its kind.Even with the “Purple Rain” album, film and tour at the peak of their Oscar, Grammy and chart popularity, and the 100-date tour in support of both nearing its end, Prince was never one to stay in the same place for long. By that date, he and the Revolution had completed their next album, “Around the World in a Day,” and were already working on the next one (“Parade”), and would embark for the South of France to shoot their next feature film, “Under the Cherry Moon,” within a few weeks.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIn a letter shared with the BTS “Army” earlier today (Monday, June 6), the group announced the #MyBTStory challenge in partnership with YouTube, starting on Friday and running through July 9, exclusively on YouTube Shorts.In celebration of their new album, “Proof,” dropping on Friday, the group is inviting the Army and all music fans to join them in the #MyBTStory challenge.Dear ARMY, We want to remember and celebrate all the special moments we've had so far. What's your #MyBTStory? 함께한 수많은 날들을 다같이 축하하고 추억하는 소중한 시간이 되었으면 좋겠어요.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorVeteran Chicago rapper and drill pioneer Chief Keef has launched a new label, 43B (“Forget Everybody”) in partnership with RBC Records and BMG, and his first signing is Atlanta-based rapper Lil Gnar (pictured above, right, with Keef).Since 2014, Chief Keef has released several albums through RBC — including “Sorry 4 the Weight,” “Thot Breaker” and “Mansion Musick” — which was acquired by BMG four years ago.According to the announcement, 43B is a multi-tiered label, offering distribution and marketing services for artists and producers. It also notes that the name (“Forget Everybody”) is intended to emphasize the importance of individuality and autonomy.The label will be helmed by Chief Keef’s longtime manager, Idris Dykes, who will be acting as co-CEO, as well as Sophie Kautz who has been appointed as the head of A&R and marketing.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs part of the celebration around the late Lou Reed’s 80 th birthday, an album of his earliest demos — comprising a number of Velvet Underground classics recorded in 1965, along with several songs dating back to his college and teen years — will be released August 26 on Light in the Attic Records in partnership with Reed’s longtime partner Laurie Anderson.The album, titled “Words & Music, May 1965,” is the inaugural release from the Lou Reed Archive Series, and dovetails with the opening Thursday of an extensive Reed exhibit at the New York Public Library, titled “Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars.” The album includes the earliest known recordings of such classics as “Heroin,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” “Iʼm Waiting for the Man” and several unreleased tracks. See the full tracklist below; listen to Reed’s 1965 demo of “I’m Waiting for the Man”:The bulk of the album is comprised of the 1965 tracks, which were recorded with the assistance of Reed’s future bandmate John Cale.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSome nine years after the release of their last album, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back with a killer new song, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World” and a new album, “Cool It Down,” due Sept. 30 on Secretly Canadian.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAngel Olsen has released a gorgeous cover of Bob Dylan’s “One Too Many Mornings” as part of the soundtrack for the Apple TV+ series “Shining Girls,” with all of Olsen’s proceeds from the streaming royalties of the song going to Everytown for Gun Safety, which is billed as the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country, a nonprofit that advocates for gun control.The song is included on the album’s soundtrack but not on Olsen’s stellar forthcoming album, “Big Time,” which was produced by Jonathan Wilson (Lana Del Rey, Billy Strings, Father John Misty) and arrives next week.The “Shining Girls” score and Olsen’s Dylan cover were produced by Claudia Sarne; the series stars and was executive produced by Elisabeth Moss. According to the announcement, Olsen was handpicked by Elisabeth Moss to record the song, which is featured in the show’s finale episode set to air Friday, June 3.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSinger-songwriter and rabble-rouser M.I.A has signed with Island Records and returns with a brand-new track titled ‘The One.’ Produced by Rex Kudo & T-Minus. The track comes with confirmation that a new album titled ‘MATA’ is on the way.Listen to ‘The One’ below.  Undoubtedly, one of the most important and potent multi-medium artists of this millennium, M.I.A’s career spans 5 studio albums, international performances, multiple sold-out world tours, GRAMMY® and Academy Award recognition, while continuously pushing the boundaries of digital and ideological possibilities. M.I.Ahas never lost touch with her indelible punk spirit that inspired her glitching directorial debut; Elastica’s Mad Dog music video, to her self-directed tour visuals, graphics and NFT’s that continue to bend minds to this day.