Concerts have been canceled, festivals are a no-go, and chances are these face masks would muffle even the sickest of lead singer wails anyway. So it makes sense why bands would take their talent to the hottest concert hall available to them during quarantine: Karen O’s closet. On Sunday, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontswoman and […]
In case their music video dances have you fooled, the Haim sisters really are quarantined separately, as they showed when they joined James Corden on the May 21 Late Late Show. The sisters sat with their guitars in separate bedrooms for the first performance of their new song “Don’t Wanna,” ahead of their next album’s […]
If you need any more reason to be social distancing right now, just look at Damon Albarn — even he isn’t hanging out with his animated friends in Gorillaz. When Albarn and the band came on Jimmy Kimmel Live for a historic performance, Albarn’s first duet with a member of Gorillaz, they still kept their […]
What would you do to go to a concert right now? Would you get your temperature taken at the door? Wear a mask? Sit away from the rest of the audience with your friends — or pay for the surrounding empty seats if you wanted to go alone? Around 200 fans did exactly that to […]
In a stunning show of diplomacy between two strongholds of the East Coast, New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen will perform with Boston’s Dropkick Murphys for a livestream from Fenway Park in Boston. Before you worry about social distancing, know that the park will be empty, Bruce will perform remotely, and you’ll be able to watch the […]
As musicians have set weekly or daily appointments for livestream performances to satisfy fans, BTS ARMY has had to settle for bits of content: a performance on James Corden here, some concert recordings from the vault there. Now, the superstar K-pop seven-piece has announced its first live concert from quarantine — but you’ll have to […]
Every pop musician worth their salt these days has a TikTok challenge for a song. (And some others make one anyway.) For Bad Bunny, that’s the Abuela Challenge, which became popular when quarantine began in March: Fans play his Missy Elliott–sampling banger “Safaera” for their Spanish-speaking grandmothers and watch for their reactions to his raunchy […]
Charli XCX is levitating a couple of feet over a DJ booth. “My fans like pop music and poppers. Guess they really know what’s uppppp!” she drawls like an automaton with vocal fry. Air horns pierce through the torchlit rave dungeon. As she reaches the chorus of a new demo she’s calling “Gen- eration,” the […]
Part rapper, part singer, and part heir to the throne of BET Uncut, Ontario hip-hop star Tory Lanez has carved out a unique path to fame that began as an overactive youth bouncing between family in Montreal, Toronto, New York, and Atlanta, then broke big thanks in part to Chixtape, a mixtape series on the […]
Check in on your friends during quarantine, they say — maybe even make a song with them. That’s what longtime friends Justin Bieber and inventor of staying home Ariana Grande have finally done, anyway, releasing their first collaboration “Stuck With U” in the name of quarantine. The song comes a year after Bieber broke his […]
San Francisco rapper, producer, and poet George Watsky just made history for a good cause, livestreaming a run to break the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous freestyle rap and raise money for his tour and crew, who were sidelined during the tour for his new album Placement as venues across the country shuttered […]
You’ll never know just how much we miss in-studio Kellyoke covers on The Kelly Clarkson Show. But in the meantime, Kelly has been delivering with her weekly performances from her Montana ranch, this week covering Rosemary Clooney’s 1952 rendition of “You’ll Never Know.” It’s exactly the retro escapism we need right now — the whole […]
One day after Arkansas concert venue TempleLive announced its first “socially distant” concert, it seems the floodgates regarding “socially distant concerts” have opened in the U.S. Consequence of Sound reports that electronic musician and YouTuber Marc Ribellet is embarking on the first-ever drive in concert tour of the U.S. Taking a page from Denmark, Ribellet’s […]
Some experts say that continuing to dress professionally can make it easier to work from home. Good thing 5 Seconds of Summer would normally be wearing tank tops anyway. When the band appeared on The Late Late Show With James Corden on May 4, Corden noted that two of the members, Luke and Ashton, were […]
I can’t tell if 645AR is doing a bit or not. The 22-year-old South Bronx rapper writes songs about serious street shit delivered in a high-pitched squeal of a voice, flipping our expectations for how those stories are meant to be told and undercutting their darkness with humor. In January, his breakout song “4 Da […]
At this point, just about every concert has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic — and if it’s not, you really shouldn’t be going anyway. As artists scramble to figure out what to do next, many have started livestreaming concerts on social media from their homes, empty venues, or wherever they can while they […]
Her new album good to know isn’t the JoJo you listened to in middle school, never mind your mother’s JoJo. Her first full album of new material since leaving Atlantic Records in 2017 and releasing rerecordings of her first two releases in 2018 is polished pop-R&B in every sense. Yes, there are syrupy smooth vocal […]
Whatever good things you’ve found around your house during quarantine, it’s got nothing on a good old rock demo. While Noel Gallagher unearthed a demo of a never-released Oasis song, “Don’t Stop,” during his quarantine cleaning, Thom Yorke of Radiohead took this time alone to finish up a demo of his own, for a song […]
As it was prophesied, the coronavirus has ushered in a new era of art, albeit marked by tone-deaf celebrity videos along with bathtubs, basements, and broken records. Add this video to the museum too. New Kids on the Block brought together their … friends … Boyz II Men, Naughty by Nature, Big Freedia and Jordin […]
I didn’t think it was possible to have nostalgia for a city I currently reside in, but reducing travel to the five-block radius around my building has made me miss places and people situated only two or three miles away. I haven’t seen grass in six weeks. I’ve been looking at the same six trees […]
Don’t call it a quarantune. The Rolling Stones released a new song, “Living in a Ghost Town,” today, and they insist it predated our current pandemic times. “It wasn’t written for now, but it was just one of those odd things,” Mick Jagger told Zane Lowe on Apple Music. “It was written about being in […]
A 4/20 during the month of 4/2020 should’ve been a 4/20 to be remembered. Now that we’re all stuck inside, it’s going to be … different. The concerts and events might be canceled, but luckily, you can still get stoned in the comfort of your own home. Even more luckily, your favorite musicians have planned […]
Even in the comfort of her own home, Kehlani just wants some privacy. That’s the theme of her new song and music video, “Everybody Business,” anyway. In the song, she takes aim at the press and the internet always speculating about her relationships. And she shot the video where they can’t see her, in her […]
In case you were unaware, the world celebrated a holiday on Sunday, April 12: the 15th anniversary of The Emancipation of Mimi, Mariah Carey’s supposed comeback album (though you could argue she was never gone), which featured such hits as “We Belong Together” and “It’s Like That.” It coincided with another holiday, Easter, a.k.a. The […]
It’s Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds’ birthday today, and he’s celebrating by challenging Teddy Riley to an Instagram Live musical battle. Well, technically, he’s re-challenging the producer and songwriter to an Instagram Live musical battle. The pair were supposed to square off on Sunday, but Swizz Beatz, who’s been organizing IG Live “Verzuz” battles, announced that the […]
This Sunday, many will celebrate a man who rose again three days after his death. But today, we celebrate a woman who wrote and recorded a full song three days after her album announcement. Charli XCX has released the first cut from her quarantine album, how i’m feeling now, “forever,” exactly 72 hours after the […]
Call it her King Lear: Charli XCX will release a full album made during this period of social distancing, she announced on Monday in a Zoom meeting for 1,000 fans. The album, tentatively titled (Lauv, if you’re reading this, look away) How I’m Feeling Now, is set to come out May 15. “I’ve decided that […]
Even with the Academy of Country Music Awards pushed back to September due to the coronavirus pandemic, the show went on Sunday night, with dozens of stars performing on CBS’s concert special ACM Presents: Our Country. Gayle King hosted the event while musicians joined from their own homes for a night of equal parts inspiration […]
The best music is music that captures a fundamental truth about the human experience, and the fundamental truth of Bad Bunny’s new surprise track is that, unless you’re already quarantined with your lover, no one can meet up for sex due to the self-isolation guidelines around COVID-19. Them’s the rules, and Bad Bunny is here […]
In these anxiety-ridden times, where can we turn for comfort? Music, of course! While everyone is more or less trapped in their residences for the foreseeable future, artists like Yo-Yo Ma, Liam Gallagher, Gloria Estefan, Lizzo, and the recovered Rita Wilson have been sharing their musical talents on social media in the hopes that it […]