Music

Photo: Jason Mendez/Getty Images Maybe “blonde” was the only rhyme , indeed. We won’t bother recapping all the drama of this High School Musical: The Musical: The Series love triangle, but there were songs, and response songs, and music-video look-alikes, and now there is a backstory to all of this. In an interview with Radio.com , “ driver’s license ” singer Olivia Rodrigo said she doesn’t think she could respond to Sabrina Carpenter’s latest track, “ Skin ,” because “I actually don’t know her at all.” “I think we’ve met once or twice in passing, but I’ve never had a conversation with her, so I don’t think I could write a song that was meaningful or emotional about somebody that I don’t know,” she said. “But I think artists should be able to write about whatever they want to write about.” Later in the interview, Rodrigo discussed going back to the studio and a letter she got from Taylor Swift, which she said was stained with “snot from sobbing my eyes out.” But … [Read more...] about Olivia Rodrigo on Sabrina Carpenter: ‘I Actually Don’t Know Her At All’

Photo: Michael Brandy You may recognize Tuma Basa as the creator of Spotify’s popular RapCaviar playlist or in his current position as Director of Black Music and Culture at YouTube or in any of the many roles he has occupied at media organizations like MTV and BET as the digital revolution has changed the way we encounter and interact with music. The pathways to success have shifted. In February, he helped launch the #YouTubeBlackVoices Fund, a grant program honoring over 130 gifted Black creators internationally; it was borne out of last summer’s racial reckoning, when YouTube revealed a $100 million fund dedicated to nurturing greater variety and creating more opportunities for its users. Basa speaks of the big picture in the optimistic terms you might expect to hear from a music-media fixture who has had speaking engagements around the world, but when you break through that and into his backstory — born in Congo in the ’70s, he split his formative years between Zimbabwe … [Read more...] about Tuma Basa Changed Spotify With a Playlist. YouTube’s Next.

Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey, from friends to business partners. Photo-Illustration: Vulture and Getty Images Well at least this explains that Hamptons boat trip . Tidal, Jay-Z’s exclusive streaming service, has been sold to Square, the point-of-sale services company cofounded by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Square purchased the streaming service for $297 million, and Tidal co-owner Jay-Z will now sit on Square’s board. (Hopefully he can get time off for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction .) “Square and TIDAL will continue to empower artists and create a more sustainable, collaborative, and beneficial music industry,” the companies said in a statement announcing the deal. In a series of tweets, Jay-Z called the deal “a game-changer for many.” “Jack is one of the greatest minds of our times, and our many discussions about TIDAL’s endless possibilities have made me even more inspired about its future,” he wrote . “This shared vision makes me even more excited to join the … [Read more...] about Square Buys Tidal, Explaining Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey’s New Friendship

Photo: Mauricio Santana/Getty Images Adam Levine has been giving Maroon 5 his full attention for the past few years, after moonlighting as a singer during his eight years coaching on The Voice . That has culminated in a new song out today: “Beautiful Mistakes,” featuring none other than Megan Thee Stallion. The song is from a new Maroon 5 album that’s “not far off,” as Levine told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe . The only other notable thing about this song is that Megan hopefully got a fat check out of the whole thing, but Levine’s Apple Music interview? That’s a different story. “I feel like there aren’t any bands anymore, you know?” Levine told Zane Lowe at one point, reminiscing about the early days of Maroon 5 in the 2000s. “That’s the thing that makes me kind of sad, is that there were just bands,” Levine went on. “There’s no bands anymore, and I feel like they’re a dying breed.” What about Haim? you may be wondering. Or the Chicks? Did this man miss the whole … [Read more...] about Adam Levine, Lead Singer of a Band, Feels Like ‘There Aren’t Any Bands Anymore’

Daddy’s Home — and so is St. Vincent . The avant-garde rock star announced her seventh album, Daddy’s Home , out May 14, and shared lead single “Pay Your Way in Pain,” which you can listen to above. The first offering is full of in-your-face retro groove, while keeping with the confident sexuality of her last album, 2017’s Masseduction . It’s also a taste of Annie Clark’s new, ’70s-inspired stylings, built heavily on Sly and the Family Stone and David Bowie. Daddy’s Home is once again co-produced by Jack Antonoff , according to a release, who first worked with Clark on Masseduction . The album, Clark told the Guardian , is in part inspired by her father’s 2010 prison sentence for stock crimes, which came up in gossip coverage in 2016 while she dated Cara Delevingne. “I didn’t have any perspective on it,” she said of the time. “It was just this horrible, festering wound.” Now, with her father out for two years, she’s opening up about it. She said his sentence … [Read more...] about St. Vincent Is Back With New Album