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by Josh Silverstein It doesn't matter how you consume music, Taylor Swift is going to break the record associated with your medium of choice thanks to The Tortured Poets Department. Hot on the heels of setting a new high-mark for streams in a day on Spotify, Taylor Swift  has now shattered her own record for vinyl sales with the staggering first-week success of her latest album. It might sound a little meta to hear that Taylor Swift has broken her own record for selling records but that's actually what she's done. By selling 700,000 copies of The Tortured Poets Department on vinyl in its first three days of release, she broke the record for most sales of a vinyl album in a week. The previous mark was held by Swift as well, for last year's release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), which sold 693,000 copies in a week. And if you're beginning to sense a theme here, you're not wrong — Swift also held the record before than, for the release week of Midnights in October 2022 when she garnered 570,000 in LP sales. Swift therefore now holds the top three spots for most weekly vinyl record sales of all time, which is pretty impressive considering most people either download or stream their music these days. Although, to be fair, vinyl sales have only been tracked since 1991, when SoundScan first began collecting sales data for album sales in the various musical formats. Still, Swift's sales figures for vinyl records are staggering and should be even more impressive when we see the final figure at the end of this first week of release for The Tortured Poets Department. Whatever the motivations for the epic sales figures, people are buying Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department  in droves on vinyl and show no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

The singer-songwriter returns after suggesting that hearing loss would make it impossible for him to keep performing. By Jazz Monroe Paul Simon  will hit the road this spring, seven years after announcing  that he would be forced to retire from touring due to hearing loss. He will bring his 2023 album Seven Psalms and other selections from his catalog across the breadth of North America for "A Quiet Celebration", a tour that includes five nights apiece at New York’s Beacon Theater and Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, as well as multiple nights in each of more than a dozen other cities. The announcement follows Simon’s surprise appearance on SNL50: The Anniversary Special , where he performed with Sabrina Carpenter  on his old Simon & Garfunkel  classic “Homeward Bound.”

By Nina Corcoran The Oasis   reunion  isn’t just for the lads. After teasing  that Noel  and Liam Gallagher  would set aside their infamous rivalry to get the band back together, Oasis have expanded their itinerary in the United Kingdom and Ireland to include a batch of 2025 dates in North America. The band will play shows in Toronto, Chicago, New Jersey, California, and Mexico City next summer, with Cage the Elephant supporting. In a press release, the band said: This reunion tour will mark the Gallagher brothers’ first live performances together since Oasis’ bitter split in 2009. “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised,” the band wrote when breaking the news. They later clarified that these reunion shows will not include live performances at music festivals, dispelling rumors  of a headlining set at Glastonbury  in 2025. After ticketing issues  with the British and Irish shows, Oasis’ management announced that the band won’t use Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model for the North American concerts. “It is widely accepted that dynamic pricing remains a useful tool to combat ticket touting and keep prices for a significant proportion of fans lower than the market rate and thus more affordable,” management wrote. “But, when unprecedented ticket demand (where the entire tour could be sold many times over at the moment tickets go on sale) is combined with technology that cannot cope with that demand, it becomes less effective and can lead to an unacceptable experience for fans.”

By Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway Critic July 10, 2023 9:53am Following her recent health scare , Madonna has canceled her summer and fall North American tour with plans to reschedule the dates later. Plans for the European leg of the tour remain in place for October. The singer was set to celebrate four decades of her career with the “Celebration” tour beginning July 15 in Vancouver, Canada with North American dates following throughout the summer and early fall in Chicago, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Cleveland, Atlanta and others. In an Instagram post, Madonna stated, “The current plan is to reschedule the North American leg of the tour and to begin in October in Europe.” Dates for the rescheduled North American shows were not announced. She also thanked fans for their “positive energy” and said she is “on the road to recovery and incredibly grateful for all the blessings in my life.” “My first thought when I woke up in the hospital was my children,” she writes. “My second thought was that I did not want to disappoint anyone who bought tickets for my tour. I also didn’t want to let down the people who worked tirelessly with me over the last few months to create my show. I hate to disappoint anyone." “My focus now,” she continues, “is my health and getting stronger and I can assure you, I’ll be back with you as soon as I can! The current plan is to reschedule the North American leg of the tour and to begin in October in Europe.”

By Joe Coscarelli and Ben Sisario July 26, 2023Updated 4:27 p.m. ET Sinead O’Connor, the outspoken Irish singer-songwriter best known for her powerful, evocative voice, as showcased on her biggest hit, a breathtaking rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and for her political provocations onstage and off, has died. She was 56. Her family announced the death in a statement, according to the BBC and the Irish public broadcaster RTE. “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinead,” the statement said. “Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.” No other details were provided. Recognizable by her shaved head and by wide eyes that could appear pained or full of rage, Ms. O’Connor released 10 studio albums, beginning with the alternative hit “The Lion and the Cobra” in 1987. She went on to sell millions of albums worldwide, breaking out with “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” in 1990. That album, featuring “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a No. 1 hit and MTV staple, won a Grammy Award in 1991 for best alternative music performance — although Ms. O’Connor boycotted the ceremony over what she called the show’s excessive commercialism. Ms. O’Connor rarely shrank from controversy, though it often came with consequences for her career. In 1990, she threatened to cancel a performance in New Jersey if “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played at the concert hall ahead of her appearance, drawing the ire of no less than Frank Sinatra. That same year, she backed out of an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in protest of the misogyny she perceived in the comedy of Andrew Dice Clay, who was scheduled to host. But all of that paled in comparison to the uproar caused when Ms. O’Connor, appearing on “S.N.L.” in 1992 — shortly after the release of her album “Am I Not Your Girl?” — ended an acappella performance of Bob Marley’s “War” by ripping a photo of Pope John Paul II into pieces as a stance against sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. “Fight the real enemy,” she said. That incident immediately made her a target of criticism and scorn, from social conservatives and beyond. Two weeks after her “S.N.L.” appearance, she was loudly booed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden. For a time, the vitriol directed at Ms. O’Connor was so pervasive that it became a kind of pop-culture meme in itself. On “S.N.L.,” Madonna mocked the incident by tearing up a picture of Joey Buttafuoco, the Long Island auto mechanic who was a tabloid fixture at the time because of his affair with a 17-year-old girl. Once a rising star, Ms. O’Connor stumbled in the wake of the incident. “Am I Not Your Girl?,” an album of jazz songs and standards like “Why Don’t You Do Right?” and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” and stalled on the charts at No. 27. Her next album, “Universal Mother” (1994), went no higher than No. 36. Ms. O’Connor never had another major hit in the United States after “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” from “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” although for a time she remained a staple on the British charts. But in her 2021 memoir, “Rememberings,” Ms. O’Connor portrayed her act of ripping up the photo of the pope as a righteous act of protest — and thus a success. “I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career,” she wrote, “and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.” She elaborated in an interview with The New York Times that same year, calling the incident an act of defiance against the constraints of pop stardom. “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” Ms. O’Connor said. “But it was very traumatizing,” she added. “It was open season on treating me like a crazy bitch.” Ms. O’Connor was born in Dublin on Dec. 8, 1966. Her father, John, was an engineer, and her mother, Johanna, a dressmaker. In interviews and in her memoir, Ms. O’Connor spoke openly of a traumatic childhood. She said that her mother had physically abused her and that she was deeply affected by her parents’ separation, when she was 8. She was arrested for shoplifting and sent to reform schools. “Nothing Compares 2 U” — originally released by the Family, a Prince side project, in 1985 — became a phenomenon when Ms. O’Connor released it five years later. The video for the song, trained closely on her emotive face, was hypnotic, and Ms. O’Connor’s voice, as it raised from delicate, breathy notes to powerful cries, stopped listeners in their tracks. Not long after the song became a hit, Ms. O’Connor accused Prince of physically threatening her. She elaborated on the story in her memoir, saying that Prince, at his Hollywood mansion, chastised her for swearing in interviews and suggested a pillow fight, only to hit her with something hard that was in his pillowcase. She escaped on foot in the middle of the night, she said but Prince chased her around the highway. As her music career slowed, Ms. O’Connor, who had been open in the past about her mental health struggles, became an increasingly erratic public figure, often sharing unfiltered opinions and personal details on social media. In 2007, she revealed on Oprah Winfrey’s television show that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that she had tried to kill herself on her 33rd birthday. Her son Shane died by suicide in 2022, at 17. Ms. O’Connor said in 2012 that she had been misdiagnosed and that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from a history of child abuse. “Recovery from child abuse is a life’s work,” she told People magazine. Several years ago she converted to Islam and started using the name Shuhada Sadaqat, though she continued to answer to O’Connor as well. Information on survivors was not immediately available. In discussing her memoir with The Times in 2021, Ms. O’Connor focused on her decision to tear up the photo of John Paul II as a signal moment in a life of protest and defiance. “The media was making me out to be crazy because I wasn’t acting like a pop star was supposed to act,” she said. “It seems to me that being a pop star is almost like being in a type of prison. You have to be a good girl.”

by Gil Kaufman Jimmy Buffett , the easygoing “Margaritaville” singer/songwriter who transformed his no-worries, beachy lifestyle into a five-decade endless road trip as a performer and entrepreneur has died at age 76. The news announced on his website and social media accounts follows Buffett’s May cancellation of a show in South Carolina to get treatment for an undisclosed illness. “Jimmy passed away on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” the post reads. “He lived his life like a song 'til the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many" his website states. Renowned for his wildly enthusiastic audiences — known as “Parrotheads” — Buffett parlayed his cheeky, rum-soaked songs about pirates (“A Pirate Looks at Forty”), boozy beach bums (“It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere”), captains and sand-caked rogues (“The Captain and the Kid”) into a permanent vacation journey where every port of call was loaded with fruity drinks, colorful summer-themed outfits and precisely no cares in the world. In addition to his 13 Billboard Hot 100 charting singles — including seven top 40 hits and one top 10 — as well as 40 entries on the Billboard 200 album chart, Buffett’s no-worries mien belied a killer business instinct that parlayed the popularity of his island-spiked bar band folk rock anthems into an estimated billion-dollar personal fortune . His sprawling businesses included a series of Margaritaville and LandShark Bar & Grill restaurants across the U.S., as well as licensing agreements for Margaritaville tequila, shoes, cruises, pre-packaged food items and an Atlantic City casino. Born James William Buffett on Christmas Day 1946 in Pascagoula, MS and raised in Mobile, Alabama, the singer was one of three children born to James Delaney Buffett Jr. and Mary Loraine (Peets),who both worked for the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding company. He grew up listening to his grandfather steamship captain J.D. Buffett’s tales of high seas adventure , to whom he paid homage in “Son of a Son of a Sailor.” The latter features the memorable, salt-caked lines, “I’m just a son of a son, son of a son/ Son of a son of a sailor/ The sea’s in my veins, my tradition remains/ I’m just glad I don’t live in a trailer.”

By Daniel Kreps Joni Mitchell  will perform on the Grammy stage for the first time in her legendary career  at the 2024 award show taking place Sunday February 4th at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena. The singer-songwriter, who is nominated for Best Folk Album for Joni Mitchell at Newport , previously received the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002. However, Mitchell has never performed live at the Grammy Awards itself, until now. Mitchell returned to playing live in 2022 following a two-decade-long absence from the stage, first making a surprise appearance  at the Newport Folk Festival that year before making her official comeback at the Echoes Through the Canyon festival  in June 2023. She also performed at a Gershwin Prize concert  in her honor as well as a guest  at Brandi Carlile’s Hollywood Bowl shows. Mitchell joins a star-studded Grammy performers lineup that includes Dua Lipa, Burna Boy, Billie Eilish, Luke Combs, Travis Scott, Olivia Rodrigo and Billy Joel, who is returning to the award show for the first time in over 20 years . U2 will also stage a performance live from their Sphere residency  in Las Vegas. The show will air Sunday, February 4th on CBS and Paramount Plus at 8 p.m. ET. Trevor Noah will once again serve as the Grammys’ host, his fourth year in a row taking on hosting duties.

by Scott Detrow Scott Detrow talks with Pitchfork editor Andy Cush about ambient music and the growth in popularity of marketing it as so-called mood music on streaming platforms. SCOTT DETROW, HOST:  And finally today, to create a certain mood, people may often turn to ambient music. DETROW: That's music, usually without words and curated in playlists, that's sometimes meant to achieve a particular mood or feeling, and marketing it as so-called mood music has become big business. Streaming giant Spotify has an entire genre dedicated to it, with dozens of playlist options, and one market research firm says in recent years, the background music industry has been valued at $1.5 billion, driven in part by demand from places like cafes. But if you think it's just background noise, you are mistaken. That's according to Andy Cush, a contributing editor at Pitchfork magazine who's written about the genre. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. ANDY CUSH: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. DETROW: What's the best way to describe ambient music? I feel like a lot of us kind of know what it is in theory, but what's the specific way you would describe what we're talking about when we have this conversation? CUSH: Yeah. So I think that I would kind of default to the definition of it that was put forth by Brian Eno, who is the person most often credited with sort of inventing ambient music, and the key part of that definition for me is it's something like music that is ignorable as it is interesting. He was really fascinated by music that could just sort of exist in a space, whether or not anyone was paying close attention to it. That was still an OK way to listen to it. And yet, if you wanted to sit, you know, with your head right between the speakers and try to take in every detail, there would be enough there to keep you interested and excited. And the way that that kind of ends up manifesting in terms of the way it sounds is like, you know, a chord that might just stay in one place for several minutes at a time and slowly change the way that it sounds. It's not particularly dissonant or loud. There's, like, a meditative, relaxing and kind of ambiguously emotional feeling that comes along with it. DETROW: Yeah. I mean, you focus a lot on Brian Eno, like you said, as the person who really kind of made this stand out. What was it that he did that really set him apart, that made this take off? CUSH: Well, one thing was that he came up with the terminology for it. You know, there was music that we might, like, look back on as being sort of adjacent to ambient music. Like, minimalist classical composers kind of were exploring similar ideas sometimes. But in this album, "Ambient 1: Music For Airports," in the liner notes, you know, sort of put forth a mission statement for what ambient music was. And honestly, his contribution to ambient music has as much to do with kind of, like, the theoretical terminology side as it does, like, with music itself. CUSH: At its outset, like, ambient music was something that, like, you would have been kind of a nerd about music to be even encountering, you know? It was like music that record collectors or enthusiasts of ambient music specifically were into. And I think in the streaming era, a lot of this music is being presented to listeners under the auspices of, like, aids for relaxation, or, you know, you could just go on Spotify and pull up, like, a deep focus ambient playlist. CUSH: And that has in a cool way, from my perspective, opened up music that is, like, quite easy to understand and could be quite widely appealing to an audience of people who are maybe, like, outside of this sort of niche... DETROW: Yeah. CUSH: ...Of listeners who were initially attracted to ambient music. DETROW: Right - because it feels like there's a tension here. And it seems like you feel like there's a tension here - right? - because this is a genre that people are putting a lot of thought and work into it. And then it's being widely consumed but, in a lot of ways, just as, like, white noise, in a sense. CUSH: Yeah. And when I wrote this piece for Pitchfork, I talked to quite a few ambient musicians. And honestly, I would say, like, the primary response that I got was people were just happy with this idea that people might be encountering their music in some new way that wouldn't have heard it otherwise. DETROW: Yeah. We talked about Brian Eno for a bit. Are there other artists or specific algorithms you'd recommend or point people to as a starting point? CUSH: Yeah. I mean, probably my favorite artist ever kind of in the space of ambient music is this guy Hiroshi Yoshimura whose music I first encountered, like, not too dissimilarly. I first heard it as, like - on YouTube, just being kind of - recommended one of his albums after something else I was listening to. And that kept happening to the point where I was like, man, this music is so beautiful. I have to actually, like, learn who this guy is. And he's got a whole fascinating catalog, and it's just really - it's not difficult music. It's just - it makes its sort of charms apparent right away. It's just, like, so soothing and tender. And every time you hear it, you might find something new in it. DETROW: That's Andy Cush. He's a musician and contributing editor at Pitchfork. Thank you so much. CUSH: Thank you.

by Erick Massoto Antoine Fuqua  ( The Equalizer  trilogy) confirmed that Michael  finished filming a couple of months ago , which means that the project is making its way to the final stages of production. However, since we still have to wait more than six months to check it out and there isn't even a trailer out, there's only so much that the director can reveal  at this point. But Fuqua was straightforward about why he wanted to make the movie:  "Why I wanted to make it? It’s Michael. I'm in the early stages of editing the film right now. We just wrapped on May 30. I’m very excited about it. I'm very happy with what we got in the can. Like I said, it's so early in the editing process, so I don’t want to talk too much about it. Michael was a big part of my life growing up, a big influence on my career, an incredible artist, but he was a human being and we’re exploring that. I'm very excited about it." Michael has the potential of being the kind of biopic that lures millions of people to movie theaters. Jackson was one of the most popular artists that the world has seen and not by chance he was dubbed King of Pop . Jafaar Jackson  bears a whopping resemblance  to Michael, which is why the actor was chosen to portray his late uncle in the movie. The cast of Michael  also features Colman Domingo  ( Rustin ) as Jackson's overbearing father Joe Jackson, Nia Long  ( You People ) as Jackson's mother Katherine Jackson, Kat Graham  ( The Vampire Diaries ) as legendary singer Diana Ross , Kendrick Sampson  ( Insecure ) as Quincy Jones, Derek Luke  ( 13 Reasons Why ) as controversial lawyer Johnnie Cochran and Miles Teller  ( Top Gun: Maverick ) as John Branca — the co-executor of the Michael Jackson estate. Michael  is slated to premiere on April 18, 2025.

by Keith Caulfield Post Malone ’s first country  album, F-1 Trillion , rolls in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Aug. 31) with 250,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 22, according to Luminate. It’s the sixth top 10 and third No. 1 for the artist. He last led the list with Hollywood’s Bleeding  in 2019 which racked up five weeks atop the list. He first reigned with Beerbongs & Bentleys for three weeks in 2018. The standard edition of the F-1 Trillion  album was released on Aug. 16 and has 18 songs, 15 of which are collaborations with country stars ranging from Dolly Parton and Hank Williams Jr., to Brad Paisley and Blake Shelton, to HARDY and Morgan Wallen. Later on Aug. 16,   F-1 Trillion  garnered a deluxe reissue, dubbed the “Long Bed” edition, with nine additional solo Post Malone tracks. F-1 Trillion  also leads the Top Country Albums — where it’s Post Malone’s first entry — and the Top Streaming Albums and Top Album Sales tallies. F-1 Trillion  debuts with 250,000 equivalent album units earned — the second-largest week for any country album in 2024. Only Beyoncé ’s Cowboy Carter  earned a bigger week this year among country sets when it opened in April with 407,000 units.

Band will turn state-of-the-art venue into the Hotel California for four weekends in September & October. By Daniel Kreps The Eagles  will be the next artist to nest at the Sphere  as the “Hotel California” band has announced a four-weekend residency at the state-of-the-art Las Vegas  venue. A month after Dead and Company wrap up their own Sphere residency in August, the Eagles will swoop in on September 20 and 21 for the first of four Friday/Saturday concerts at the venue. The band — Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit, Vince Gill, and Deacon Frey — are then scheduled to play the weekends of September 27/28, October 11/12, and October 18/19 at the Sphere. An artist presale registration for the Sphere shows is now open at the Eagles’ site , where fans can also see general on-sale and limited VIP ticket information. The Eagles mark the fourth band to play the Sphere, following U2 — who opened the venue  — Phish and Dead and Company . The Sphere residency comes as The Eagles are in the midst of their Long Goodbye “official farewell tour,” which kicked off in 2023 with a string of arena dates and is expected to run into 2025. “The Eagles have had a miraculous 52-year odyssey, performing for people all over the globe; keeping the music alive in the face of tragic losses, upheavals and setbacks of many kinds,” the band said in a statement last year.  “Credit and thanks go to our longtime management team, our dedicated road crew and our exceptional backup musicians for providing skilled and steadfast support throughout these many years. We know how fortunate we are and we are truly grateful. Our long run has lasted far longer than any of us ever dreamed. But, everything has its time, and the time has come for us to close the circle.” Eagles Sphere Dates: Friday, September 20  Saturday, September 21  Friday, September 27  Saturday, September 28  Friday, October 11  Saturday, October 12  Friday, October 18  Saturday, October 19

By Anna Chan December 19th, 2023 It’s always a big loss when the world loses a talented artist and, unfortunately, 2023 kicked off with several notable deaths in music. It began with Gangsta Boo, the pioneering Southern female rapper formerly of hip-hop group Three 6 Mafia, who was found dead on New Year’s Day at age 43. The next day, Alan Rankine of post-punk New Wave act The Associates, who also produced the Cocteau Twins and pursued his own solo music, died at age 64. Since then, we’ve also lost rock guitar legend Jeff Beck — who died at age 78 on Jan. 10 — and singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, who suffered cardiac arrest and died on Jan. 12 at age 54. Since then, the world has lost musical greats including Tina Turner, Tony Bennett, Gordon Lightfoot, David Crosby and more. While their loved ones and fans around the globe mourn the loss of these artists, they will not be forgotten. Here, Billboard  remembers the musicians who left us in 2023. Denny Laine ( Oct. 29, 1944 – Dec. 5, 2023 ) Jean Knight ( Jan. 26, 1943 – Nov. 22, 2023 ) Rudolph Isley ( April 1, 1939 – Oct. 11, 2023 ) Gary Wright ( April 26, 1943 – Sept. 4, 2023 ) Steve Harwell ( Jan. 9, 1967 – Sept. 4, 2023 ) Jimmy Buffett ( Dec. 25, 1946 – Sept. 1, 2023 ) Robbie Robertson ( July 5, 1943 – Aug. 9, 2023 ) Sinead O’Connor ( Dec. 8, 1966 – July 26, 2023 ) Randy Meisner ( March 8, 1946 – July 26, 2023 ) Brad Houser ( Sept. 7, 1960 – July 24, 2023 ) Tony Bennett ( Aug. 3, 1926 – July 21, 2023 ) Astrud Gilberto ( March 29, 1940 – June 5, 2023 ) Tina Turner ( Nov. 26, 1939 – May 24, 2023 ) Gordon Lightfoot ( Nov. 17, 1938 – May 1, 2023 ) Harry Belafonte ( March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023 ) Ryuichi Sakamoto ( 1952 – March 28, 2023 ) Gary Rossington ( Dec. 4, 1951 – March 5, 2023 ) Burt Bacharach ( May 12, 1928 – Feb. 9, 2023 ) David Crosby ( Aug. 14, 1941 – Jan. 19, 2023 ) Lisa Marie Presley ( Feb. 1, 1968 – Jan. 12, 2023 ) Jeff Beck ( June 24, 1944 – Jan. 10, 2023 )