To Support Restart Act, More Than 1,500 Music Venues Will Light Up Red Tuesday Night

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSuperstar DJ Tiesto, alt-rock group Fitz & the Tantrums, bluegrass artist Billy Strings and funk-jam band Lotus will perform concerts from Red Rocks Amphitheater that will be livestreamed in 4K via Nugs.net, from Thursday to Sunday this week.There will be an “extremely limited number” of in-person tickets made available for purchase via axs.com and redrocksonline.com and in strict accordance with venue and local government safety guidelines, according to the

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLike everyone else, BTS and NPR have been forced to pivot during the pandemic — and for their first performance on NPR’s “Tiny Desk” concert series, the K-pop superstars performed from the record store VINYL & PLASTIC in BTS’s hometown of Seoul.The group drew more than half a million viewers for the premiere of the concert, which saw them tearing through three songs accompanied by a live band, including their current hit single “Dynamite.” The group also performed

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSO. MANY.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSting, Norah Jones, Trey Anastasio of Phish and many more will perform tonight (Thursday, Sept. 17) at SummerStage Jubilee, a free benefit concert supporting City Parks Foundation’s programs in parks, taking place via livestream at 8 p.m.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorNew York City venue (Le) Poisson Rouge is launching LPR.tv, a subscription-based service through which they will livestream concerts held in their downtown venue (without an audience) in high-definition video with full production and soundboard audio.The venue has booked an impressive array of indie-leaning artists for LPR.tv’s inaugural lineup, including Cults, Kimbra, Sunflower Bean, !!! (Chk Chk Chk), San Fermin,  Kevin Devine, Son Little, Laraaji, Too Many

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorGrammy-winning DJ-producer Tiesto has signed a worldwide deal with Atlantic and Big Beat Records and will drop a new single called (fittingly enough) “The Business” next Friday (Sept. 25) — hear a preview of the song below.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorUPDATED: Kanye West launched a new social-media campaign to gain control of the rights to his recorded music and publishing on Monday night, claiming “I’m not putting no more music out till I’m done with my contract[s]” with his record company, Universal Music Group, and his publisher, Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorJ Balvin, Ellie Goulding, FKA twigs, Grimes, Matt Healy from the 1975 and Chaeyoung from Twice are all starring in the new season of Google Arts & Culture’s Art Zoom series, which takes viewers on a guided tour of some of the world’s most famous masterpieces through the narration of famous musicians.Through Google’s “gigapixel” Art Camera — a robotic camera custom-made to create the highest possible resolution images of paintings — users can zoom into an artwork at

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSiriusXM today announced that Chief Executive Officer Jim Meyer intends to retire on December 31, 2020.Upon his retirement, Jennifer C. Witz, President of Sales, Marketing and Operations, will become the Company’s new CEO.Gregory B.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorToots Hibbert, who passed away Friday night at the age of 77, was one of the last surviving founders of reggae music. The influence of his six-decade career is evidenced by the wide variety of artists paying tribute to him in the hours after his death.Ziggy Marley, recording artist and son of reggae titan Bob — who was a friend and contemporary of Hibbert’s — wrote, “The Legendary Toots Hibbert has passed.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAfter a comparatively slow week leading into the long weekend — which means we only scanned around 100 songs last week instead of the usual 130! — the avalanche of songs is back with a bang.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorDigital music distribution and publishing admin company TuneCore has named Maria Ho-Burge global communications director.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorTriller, the music-video creation app, has named a dozen top female music industry executives to a new advisory board.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorOn Sept. 13, Carl Cox, Pete Tong and Roger Sanchez are just three of the legendary DJs who will take part in “For Beirut,” a 12-hour-long livestream event presented by Electronic Labor Day and Beatport ReConnect to raise funds to support Lebanon and its people in the wake of the August 4 explosion that killed more than 200 people and leveled a large area of the city.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorCompared with the avalanche of recent weeks, the days leading up to Labor Day weekend were relatively slow for incoming new songs — which means we went through just 80 instead of 120! — providing a great opportunity to shine a light on some lesser-known artists.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIn an effort to rally support for the countless music venues impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of buildings across the U.S. — from New York’s Empire State Building to Seattle’s Space Needle — were illuminated in red light on Tuesday evening (Sept.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorEvery week, the avalanche gets bigger: Even though we’re reaching the end of the proverbial dog days of August, the songs keep coming, in greater numbers each week. I got nearly 400 emails between midnight and noon, and easily half were about new songs or albums (NOT COMPLAINING but wow).

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorPublic Enemy, the legendary rap group that helped shape socially conscious hip-hop into what it is today, have returned to Def Jam Recordings, the label that hosted their most iconic recordings.The reunion launches with a remix of the group’s classic 1989 song “Fight the Power (Remix 2020),” which opened the 2020 BET Awards in June featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, YG, Jahi and Questlove. The song, originally featured in Spike Lee’s film “Do the Right Thing,”

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe MTV VMAs are coming up fast, and the network has revealed its lineup of presenters: Anthony Ramos, Bebe Rexha, Bella Hadid, Drew Barrymore, Jaden Smith, Joey King, Kelly Clarkson, Machine Gun Kelly, Madison Beer, Nicole Richie, Sofia Carson and Travis Barker.Performers include Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, BTS, Doja Cat, CNCO, Maluma and Black Eyed Peas.Grande, Gaga, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd top the nominees list.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThese are boom times for hit songwriters, with catalogs being snapped up by Hipgnosis, Shamrock and others — and the latest big acquisition comes from Spirit Music Group, which announced that it has acquired the publishing catalog of Grammy-nominated songwriter and former “American Idol” judge Kara DioGuardi.