These George Harrison Promotional Gnomes Are a New Peak in Record-Company Swag

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThree and a half years after Elton John announced his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour,” after an unavoidable pandemic delay, he has finally unveiled the closing stadium dates of that tour.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLiterally minutes after the announcement that the Recording Academy has named Valeisha Butterfield Jones and Panos A. Panay to the new roles of co-presidents hit the wires, the pair and CEO Harvey Mason, jr.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorEarlier this month, in the hours after the release of “Solar Power” — the title track from Lorde’s forthcoming third album, due in August — the two songs people kept mentioning as possible inspirations were George Michael’s “Freedom 90” and “Loaded” by British rockers Primal Scream.In an interview shortly after the song dropped, Lorde said Primal Scream had given their blessing to the song.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBack in the day, one of the great perks of being a music writer was “Free CDs and Tees” (t-shirts).

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorWith two major releases in just a few days, June is basically a debut party for 4th & Broadway, the legendary Island Records imprint that is now helmed by LaTrice Burnette.The label, named after Island’s former location above Tower Records in New York’s East Village, originally was launched in 1984 and focused on hip-hop and dance music by artists such as Eric B. & Rakim (the 1987 classic “Paid in Full”), Dream Warriors, Stereo MCs, Bomb the Bass and others.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorMusic industry veteran Jim “Koz” Kozlowski died in New York City on Sunday, May 2, after suffering a stroke. He was 71.Kozlowski was born and raised in East Hartford, Connecticut, the only child of John J.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIn what is described as a major tactical restructuring of the national and regional staffs of the Epic Records Urban Promotion Department, Cynthia Johnson and Cory “Sparks” Johnson have been promoted to Vice Presidents of Urban Promotion, it was announced today by the company’s EVP of promotion, Traci Adams, to whom both will report.According to the announcement, in their new positions, the two will devise and execute Urban Radio promotion campaigns to obtain

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe new report on “Inclusion in the Music Business: Gender & Race/Ethnicity Across Executives, Artists & Talent Teams” from the USC-Annenberg Inclusion Initiative makes no bones about how far the music industry has to go in its stated goals of gender and racial equality — even after most major music companies loudly trumpeted their commitments to advancing its efforts in those directions in the wake of Blackout Tuesday and the Black Lives Matter protests last year.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBiz 3 PR veteran Dana Meyerson has launched an imprint called Slashie through Mom + Pop Music.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorWhen “Solar Power,” the first single from Lorde’s long-anticipated third album, dropped on Thursday, the internet rapidly filled with mentions of previous songs it evoked, most prominently George Michael’s “Freedom 90” and the less-globally-known “Loaded” by long-running British rockers Primal Scream (along with the Eagles’ “Seven Bridges Road,” Kate Bush and others).In an interview airing today on Apple Music 1, Lorde explains to Zane Lowe that the inspiration for

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBruce Springsteen is getting back to work this summer, playing a big role in Broadway’s return by bringing back his $108-million-grossing “Springsteen on Broadway” for the entire summer, but that isn’t all he has in the works, as he revealed in a call on Sirius XM’s E Street Radio.“I am looking forward to being in front of an audience,” he told hosts Dave Marsh and Jim Rotolo. “It’s going to be quite a thing.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorOn the heels of the forthcoming Rolling Loud festivals in Miami and Los Angeles comes the three-day Rolling Loud New York 2021, taking place place October 28 – 30th at Citi Field with headliners Travis Scott, J.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorDrake and Live Nation Canada will open History, a new live-entertainment venue in the superstar rapper’s hometown of Toronto, later this year, the company announced Tuesday (June 8).“Some of my most memorable shows were playing smaller rooms like History,” Drake in a statement.  “I wanted to take those memories and what I learned to create an incredible experience for both the artists and the fans.”According to the announcement, the 2,500-capacity venue will “offer

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorA week after some tracks purportedly from Lorde’s third album leaked onto the internet (although it seems very few people have actually heard them?), the singer posted a note on her website Monday, along with a rather attention-grabbing photograph of a derriere, possibly hers, from below.As last week’s rumors predicted, it seems the first single is called “Solar Power.” The remainder of the message says only, “Arriving in 2021… patience is a virtue,” nodding to the

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorTo celebrate New York’s apparent reopening, Mayor Bill de Blasio is planning a large-scale performance by multiple acts in Central Park and is working with veteran producer and executive Clive Davis to help organize the talent, according to a report Monday in the New York Times.No acts have been confirmed for the show, which is tentatively set for Aug.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorOne of the many revelations of the Prince estate’s ongoing, exhaustive reissue series is that there’s so much more in the late artist’s legendary vault than even the most obsessive fans ever dreamed.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorWith 1989’s “Three Feet High and Rising,” the Long Island rap trio De La Soul created one of the truly groundbreaking albums in hip-hop history, bringing a happy, psychedelic, flower-bedecked vibe — dubbed “the D.A.I.S.Y. Age” — to a genre that had largely been musically and lyrically aggressive and/or self-aggrandizing up to that point.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorNew York’s City Parks Foundation returns to live, in-person performances this summer with the announcement of the shows planned for the 2021 season of Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage, New York City’s largest free outdoor performing arts festival. SummerStage shows will be returning to Rumsey Playfield in Central Park, Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, and The Coney Island Amphitheater.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorWarner Chappell Production Music has opened the doors to two new recording facilities: SkyLight Studios in Los Angeles and Sandtrack Sound in Nashville.The WCPM team partnered with David Kotch of Criterion Acoustics to redesign SkyLight Studios, a former mastering lab located in Hollywood.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIn recent years, as streaming has rapidly become the format of choice for much of the world — and the primary revenue source for recorded music — the value of copyrights has soared.