M83 Baptizes New Record ‘Fantasy’ in an Ocean of Sound: Concert Review

Thania Garcia The T.J. Martell Foundation will be honoring three music industry veterans for its 45th annual New York Honors Gala, which returns to the City for the first time since 2019 on June 13. This year’s honorees include Warner Records Co-Chairman and COO Tom Corson, who will receive the Lifetime Music Industry Award; Chief Creative Officer and executive VP at Def Jam Recordings Archie Davis, recipient of the Rising Music Superstar Award; and Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer Shane McAnally, who will receive the Spirit of Music Award. Gala Co-Chairs and Board Chairman John Esposito, Tunji Balogun, Aaron Bay-Schuck, Robert Carlton, Steve Gawley, Laura Swanson and Julie Swidler, will be hosts for the evening. Filmmaker Ryan Coogler, R&B star Coco Jones, and singer-songwriter Brandy Clark will provide entertainment.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Perhaps you saw the gossip-site reports coming out of the Lovers & Friends Festival in Las Vegas last weekend: Allegedly, Chris Brown and Usher had gotten into some kind of tiff backstage during Missy Elliott’s set. The two singers went on to… Wait a minute. There was a Missy Elliott show? Stop the presses … this seemed like a case of burying the lead, as they say in news circles. Hip-hop fans knew what the real headlines should have been on that story: A unicorn had been sighted during a full solar eclipse, as Halley’s comet made a rare pass over Brigadoon — or other metaphors to that effect — if Elliott was being sighted back on a stage. Something slightly rarer still occurred Tuesday night in southern California’s Inland Empire: a stand-alone headlining show by Elliott. As one tweeter put it: “Why Yaamava’ Theatre?” — wondering, reasonably, why Elliott was following her festival appearance not with a full tour or, say, a night or two at the Hollywood Bowl, but a one-off gig at a 2,500-seat theater at a casino-resort at least an hour outside of L.A. in off-the-beaten-track Highland? The Vegas festival and subsequent casino concert are it, as far as what’s on Elliott’s public itinerary following the news of her impending Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. The last time she did anything like a standard tour was 13 years ago, and since then, Elliott might not have done much more than a dozen full sets, almost all of them at festivals, none in theaters. So no wonder the cheapest tickets on the day of the show for her SoCal appearance were going for $500-plus.

New York-based soul and funk duo LION BABE have shared their newest single and it’s a cover of a classic. The group reimagine Frank Ocean‘s breakout hit, “Thinkin Bout You” with a classic house twist, blending in a booming four-on-the-floor beat with Jillian Hervey’s soulful vocals.

William Earl Indie trio Muna isn’t yet a household name, but judging from a roaring reception at the first of two sold-out shows at New York City’s Terminal 5, they’re already a must-see live band on the rise. The group — consisting of singer Katie Gavin, lead guitarist Josette Maskin and multi-instrumentalist Naomi McPherson, as well as touring drummer Sarab Singh and bassist Geo Botelho — has put in plenty of time on the road, opening for huge touring artists such as Harry Styes, the 1975, Lorde, Kacey Musgraves and dates on Taylor Swift’s massive Eras Tour. All that time on major stages has made the group’s chops exceedingly tight, even brighter than their records.

Shares of Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch owner News Corp. rose 6.5% in morning trading after the news and book publisher posted a slight decline in revenue for its fiscal third quarter as the advertising market softened, but reported progress on cost-cutting measures it said would save $160 million this year.Shares gained $1.02, or 6%, to $17.85, in morning trading after earlier reaching as high as $18.68.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor NBCUniversal is swinging its suite of free NBC and Telemundo 24-hour local news channels in major markets to Amazon’s Fire TV. Under the deal, U.S.-based customers with Fire TV and Amazon Echo Show devices can now access local breaking news coverage and original content on the free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channels of NBCU’s 15 NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations in top markets The agreement builds on NBCU’s existing deals to distribute Peacock on Fire TV, as well as Today All Day and Dateline 24/7 FAST channels. In addition, NBCU network apps including NBC, Bravo, E!, Oxygen, Syfy, USA, Universal Kids, MSNBC, NBC News, CNBC, NBC Sports and Telemundo are available on Fire TV.

EXCLUSIVE: Sam Mendes has a mammoth hit on his hands with The Motive and the Cue, which has been playing to packed houses on the National Theatre’s 890-seater Lyttelton proscenium stage.

Goth Babe is not what you’re expecting based on the tongue-in-cheek band name.No, there isn’t an eyeliner-laden beauty grabbing your attention onstage at a Goth Babe show; rather, front and center is scruffy, charismatic frontman 25-year-old Griff Washburn.And he, along with his solid backing band, put on a rousing show.Goth Babe — really the moniker of bedroom pop wunderkind Washburn, along with a tight 2-piece touring band — sounds a little like if Beirut met Odesza, and the two of them downloaded LCD Soundsystem’s synth presets.On a brisk Cinco de Mayo evening, the three-piece outfit performed a loose yet energetic 15-song set at New York City’s Rooftop at Pier 17 inspiring an audience made up of college-age Gen Z’ers, elder Millennials and everything in between to bliss out to the group’s mellow yet melodic dream pop.To kick the evening off, Goth Babe got the crowd’s attention with arguably their most goosebump-inducing track.The trick worked like a charm.“New Born Worlds,” easily Goth Babe’s most ethereal bop, turned heads.What was this mythical sound taking over the rooftop?As soon as the the ensemble’s thumping drum launched mid-track, toes were tapping, heads were nodding, smiles were washing over faces.This is what we came for — this is why you see your favorite bands live.Following the otherworldly opening number, Washburn addressed the crowd.His boyish voice didn’t quite match the assured, deep timbre of his vocals much to my surprise  — he was much more playful, friendly, ready to chat with the crowd, which he did.In between songs, Washburn and audience members bantered.Yes, crowd surfing came up.

The numbers are in!

Lior Phillips There’s no formula to emerging from the seemingly endless sea of available music in the past twenty or so years — and yet from kwaito on, South African electronic music has done just that, both directly and indirectly. In the past five to ten years, two offshoots of house music have dominated South African airwaves: gqom and amapiano. The former, pronounced by replacing the “gq” with a Zulu tongue click, was born in the clubs of Durban and embraces a darkness buried in house music’s repetition. The name itself translates to something akin to “bang,” but the Zulu pronunciation demonstrates the more direct, aggressive tone. One of the foremost proprietors is DJ Lag, a producer from Clermont township who blends Zulu chants with eerie, slow-burning synth patches, hard-hitting bass, and rough-hewn rhythms. Tracks like “Ice Drop” (2017) and the 2021 single “Raptor” are still clearly designed to get crowds moving at the club, but there’s a wide-eyed intensity and weight there as well.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Now that’s an entrance. The stage for Kali Uchis’ “Red Moon in Venus” tour is bathed in red-pink light, centered around an elevated platform with stairs leading up either side and archways beneath. A gradually brightening, supernova-like light fills the video screen behind it. The singer enters the stage, slowly carried by her six dancers, but obscured by the kind of giant frilly feathers you see in old movies, where a luxuriating empress is being gently fanned with them by servants. They scale the steps, gently set her down in the middle of the platform, then pull away the feathers as the crowd shrieks, revealing Uchis standing regally with her back turned, looking at the audience over her shoulder, clad in an all-red ensembled of a halter, short skirt, stockings, sleeves and a pair of towering boots with needle-thin heels. As “Telepatia” starts, she busts some slinking moves while the dancers peel off until one of them returns, delivering her microphone.

New Music Friday! The weekend is here, which means more streaming, new playlists and the best that music has to offer. ET has you covered for everything in between.Ed Sheeran leads this week's releases with, pronounced «Subtract,» Sheeran's fifth studio album.

Gerry Cinnamon has revealed that he is currently in the studio recording his third album, which will be out later this year.

Human Resources,” the show that follows Netflix’s equally raunchy adult animation series “Big Mouth.” The new season has 10 episodes and is set to premiere on June 9. “Human Resources” follows the creatures that help people through the awkward journey of puberty and the hard life of parenthood. Even as they assist their human clients, the hormone monsters, depression kitties, shame wizards and other creatures lead hilarious lives of their own, both in and out of the office.

Four Tet stepped up to close out Coachella alongside Fred Again.. and Skrillex.

Naveen Kumar If there is a megawatt star in “New York, New York,” the new musical from Broadway titans John Kander and the late Fred Ebb (with additional lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda), it’s right there in the title. Aside from the occasional f-bomb and pantomimed scurry of rats, the show that opened at Broadway’s St. James Theatre is a love letter to Manhattan so unabashed that its vibe might be best expressed in cityscape and heart-eye emojis. Cynical? These New Yorkers? Fuhgeddaboudit! Though inspired by the 1977 film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli, “New York, New York” is more accurately described as a musical-length rhapsody on the dreams crooned out in its title song, made famous by Frank Sinatra and naturally performed here as a big-band finale turned audience singalong. A crowded cast of characters has come to chase their dreams, and most of them want to be musicians. 

Blink-182 will perform in the headline slot at Coachella this weekend with the band stepping in for the injured Frank Ocean. News of Ocean's decision to pull out of the second weekend of the California festival was announced earlier this week. Blink-182 appeared during the first weekend, playing a surprise set on the Friday.

Jordan Moreau Sugar trap queen Rico Nasty came to Brooklyn on her first headlining tour since 2019, and her legions of hardcore, mosh-pit-loving fans shook the floors of the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Wednesday night. With her unique style and sound, a witch’s brew of carefree punk and new-age grunge mixed with banging trap and Gen-Z hyperpop, Rico has amassed a loyal fan base of young fans who have waited patiently throughout the pandemic for her to go on tour. At Wednesday’s concert, she treated a sold-out crowd to rocking renditions from her 2020 studio album “Nightmare Vacation,” her 2022 mixtape “Las Ruinas” and classics from her past releases like “Sugar Trap 2” and “Nasty.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Two former hockey players who bailed on Frank Ocean’s Coachella performance after it seemingly became enveloped in chaos Sunday have spoken up about the experience in a podcast. Brothers Dan and Chris Powers say that they and more than a hundred other skaters had a positive experience through a good month of rehearsal in L.A., and even a successful dress rehearsal on the Coachella main stage — only to have Ocean render most of the skaters’ services unnecessary as he scrapped the entire epic ice-capades setup as the festival grounds were filling up. In the first segment of their “Empty Netters” podcast, released Tuesday, the Powers brothers said that there were about 120 skaters who’d been hired for the show and had been rehearsing on a makeshift ice rink at Paramount for weeks — including, they said, several Olympians well-known in the figure skating community, as well as hockey veterans like themselves. In the end, they said, the vast majority of these skating extras were left waiting on buses or in hot tents for hours on the perimeter of the festival grounds as Ocean made the last-minute call to dissemble the ice rink and ditch the planned skate choreography.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Justin Bieber came to the defense of Frank Ocean in an Instagram post in which the “Peaches” singer praised Ocean’s controversial Coachella performance. Ocean headlined Coachella 2023 along with Bad Bunny and Blackpink, but his April 16 set proved to be a massive disappointment for fans after he started an hour late, skipped over many fan-favorite songs, performed mostly sitting down and with his back to the crowd and lip-synched to several tracks. He also ran past the Coachella curfew and abruptly ended his set after less than 90 minutes. While Ocean has received pans for his performance, Bieber had nothing but raves for his fellow musician. Bieber, who memorably surprised Coachella in 2019 by joining Ariana Granda’s headlining set, praised Ocean’s artistry and voice in a heartfelt note on social media.