“Feels like I’ve been here before,” Trent Reznor sings on the new EP by Nine Inch Nails, and that’s probably because he has. Released late Thursday, just a week after Reznor revealed he had made it, “Not the Actual Events” represents the latest in a series of comebacks for this influential industrial-rock...
“The only thing that changed around here are the color of the projects, the color of the bricks.” That’s rapper Jay Rock telling The Times about the place where he grew up, Nickerson Gardens housing project. On Tuesday afternoon, Rock returned to Nickerson to throw the third-annual community concert...
The first of three albums from Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) has arrived. Bey and producer Ferrari Sheppard’s collaborative project, “December 99th,” was released on Wednesday. Originally set for Dec. 9 — to keep with the duo’s numerical name (the pair goes by Dec 99th) — the album is...
Nearly 14 years after Nina Simone’s death, the jazz great and civil-rights activist will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Recording Academy’s 2017 Special Merit Awards. "This year's Special Merit Awards recipients comprise a prestigious group of diverse and influential creators...
The Los Angeles Times’ music team is diverse — sometimes even argumentative — in its opinions. But one artist united almost all of us this year: Beyoncé. What follows is the 10 favorite records from each contributor to the music section. Chris Barton, Times staff writer 1. Beyoncé “Lemonade” (Parkwood/Columbia)....
In what represents a rather varied group of inductees, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has chosen folk singer Joan Baez, British progressive rock band Yes, New York-born rapper Tupac Shakur, Seattle grunge band Pearl Jam, English pop-rock group Electric Light Orchestra and slick rock group Journey...
When the pioneering Los Angeles rap group N.W.A was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, Ice Cube took advantage of the occasion to offer some thoughts on what rock ’n’ roll means — and what it doesn’t. “Rock ’n’ roll is not an instrument. Rock ’n’ roll is not even a style of...
Fifth Harmony has one fewer note. The group announced in a message to fans that singer Camila Cabello has exited. "After four and a half years of being together, we have been informed via her representatives that Camila has decided to leave Fifth Harmony. We wish her well,” the note read. It was...
Band members and sisters Tegan and Sara Quin announced a new project called the Tegan and Sara Foundation on Monday. Built on a “commitment to feminism and racial, social and gender justice,” the charity will champion equality for LGBTQ girls and women. In a letter on the foundation’s website, the...
Stevie Nicks brought her usual assortment of accessories to the Forum on Sunday night, including a tambourine festooned with glittering streamers and a dark-blue garment she described as “the original ‘Bella Donna’ cape.’” Unchanged since she started wearing it around the time of her debut solo...
Bob Coburn, the longtime KLOS radio personality who hosted the nationally syndicated interview program “Rockline,” has died. He was 68. KLOS 95.5 announced Coburn’s death Saturday in a statement on its website that read, “The outpouring of love and support for this man has been truly beautiful,...
In the two weeks since the Oakland fire that claimed 36 lives at the venue known as Ghost Ship, the crackdown on other DIY (do it yourself) music venues has already begun. Prominent spaces including Rhinoceropolis in Denver, Bell Foundry in Baltimore and Purple 33 in Los Angeles have been shut...
Post Malone has heard all the criticisms. He’s a white “culture vulture,” as he put it, cynically appropriating African American culture. He’s received more attention than his meager talent deserves. He’s a rich kid whose parents essentially paid his way into music. “There’s a thing that says they...
The Disneyland Resort has a rather global feel this holiday season. The newest festive offerings at its California Adventure theme park look beyond the magic-encased bubble that is Southern California’s home to Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy. Such an international flair seems somewhat timely. ...
If we learned anything from Thursday night's “All I Want for Christmas Is You” edition of Carpool Karaoke — aside from the fact that the last high note is pretty hard to nail — it's that Mariah Carey remains the definitive performer of that holiday standard. Carey joined host James Corden in a...
After seven years, you get a chance to know somebody. Effectively, it’s the duration of a presidency, a broken mirror’s threat and the first sparks of an itch, if bygone Marilyn Monroe movies are to be believed. But after seven years of tossing bite-size judgments around in this little sandbox, the...
After a fractious election year that saw misogyny and bigotry woven into the political discourse, some took comfort in the hope for art becoming energized in the years ahead with the fire of resistance. Some of the most memorable albums of 2016, however, offered magnetic expressions of a musician’s personal...
It was the “I’m sorry” heard around the world. At least that’s how Patti Smith felt when she stumbled — albeit beautifully and with great humility — in her performance of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” at the Nobel Prize ceremony last week, where Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature...
The husband-wife team of Harry Shearer and Judith Owen will mount the 11th edition of their annual “antidote to Christmas” celebration on Dec. 17 at Largo at the Coronet. This year’s show is titled “Christmas Without Tears (Does This Tree Make Me Look Fat?).” Following performances Dec. 8 in London...
Freshen up those playlists. Below, Times writers pick their favorite songs of the year. ANOHNI, “Execution” (Secretly Canadian). The transgender artist now known as ANOHNI earned early fame with her group Antony and the Johnsons, and for the first project under her new name she stormed the dance...
The Academy Awards announced Tuesday the songs in the running for an Oscar nomination for best original song. The 91 selections span a range of genres, from musical (“La La Land”), animated film (“Trolls”), drama (“Hidden Figures”) and even documentary (“13th”). Official nominees will be announced...
Looks like Lupe Fiasco is at it again. The rapper, known for making both socially conscious rap and premature announcements about retiring, announced Tuesday on Twitter that he is quitting music. For real this time. After posting a new track, “N.ER.D.,” to SoundCloud on Monday, Fiasco received...
Taylor Nation is about to get its own media outlet, courtesy of broadcasting conglomerate AT&T. And on Taylor Swift’s 27th birthday, no less. In news announced Tuesday morning, the superstar singer and songwriter confirmed via a press release and promotional video that she has teamed with AT&T...
The 48th NAACP Image Awards nominations were announced Tuesday with Oscar contender “Moonlight” and Nate Parker’s embattled “The Birth of a Nation” each scoring six nods, with “Loving” nabbing five. The awards aim to celebrate accomplishments of people of color in television, music, literature...
“It’s like some kind of cosmic convergence.” That’s how Beck described his appearance alongside Green Day and Weezer at KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas concert Sunday at the Forum. The three acts, he pointed out, released their breakthrough albums within months of each other in 1994. And now here...
NPR Music’s Tiny Desk concert series is beloved for its intimate setting, giving viewers a window into exclusive and oftentimes deeply heartfelt performances by artists both major (Adele, Wilco) and rising (Chris Stapleton, Anderson .Paak). Recorded at host Bob Boilen’s desk, the series proudly...
Fans and pop music critics alike have long extolled the power of Linda Ronstadt’s voice. But the facet of her talent most consistently lauded Sunday night at the Theatre at Ace Hotel in L.A. during a star-studded salute to Ronstadt benefiting research into Parkinson’s disease was her ears. That...
Longtime musical collaborators Elton John and Bernie Taupin are launching a contest inviting fans to create official music videos for three of the duo’s best known songs to help mark next year’s 50th anniversary of their songwriting partnership. Fans will be able to enter videos for “Rocket Man,”...
While “blowing the roof off” a venue is generally a euphemism for describing great shows, Brothers Osborne have had some discomfittingly close calls with the real thing of late. For the second time in two weeks, the CMA-winning country duo, composed of brothers T.J. and John Osborne, has had to...
While being honored as this year’s Woman of the Year at Billboard’s event for women in music, Madonna gave a powerful speech about her experience in the music industry. She unflinchingly recounted moments where people’s perceptions of her age, gender or creative expression of her sexuality had...
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea of a jewelry exhibit focusing on items made of silver, ruby, emeralds and turquoise — unless the guy hosting the exhibit is sitting on a trove of gold, platinum and diamonds that he shares only in brief glimpses. That was a bit the way the 20th-anniversary...
A long chapter in Los Angeles rock radio comes to an end today, Dec. 11, when radio station KLOS-FM (95.5) broadcasts its final programs out of the Culver City studio where it has been based since 1969 and moves to a new location nearby. The long-running “Breakfast With the Beatles” show will be...
English rock musician Greg Lake, who helped pioneer the expansive genre of progressive rock in the late 1960s and ‘70s as a founding member of both King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, has died. The singer, bassist and songwriter was 69, and had fought “a long and stubborn battle with cancer,”...
FKA Twigs, the British singer and dancer known for her experimental yet organic approach to R&B and soul, sent out a tweet in July. It was short and sweet. https://twitter.com/FKAtwigs/status/755061024907259904 Even with only a day’s notice, 400 dancers showed up, eager to learn and create with...
Mike Posner expressed all the usual feelings Tuesday about being nominated for a Grammy Award. He was honored. He was humbled. He was gratified. But also? He was a little suspicious. “I’m beginning to think the universe is playing a joke on me,” he said. That’s because Posner was recognized for...
Believe it or not, until Tuesday morning Memphis soul singer and songwriter William Bell had never been nominated for a Grammy award despite his 60-plus years in the music business. Given that his now-standard songs — “Born Under a Bad Sign” and “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” issued by Stax Records in...
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone more surprised by the general album of the year Grammy nomination for Sturgill Simpson’s “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” than Simpson himself. “In terms of what happened today, this never even crossed my mind,” the Kentucky-born singer and songwriter told The Times...
It’s no surprise that the Grammy Awards’ music film category includes a nomination for the Ron Howard-directed documentary “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years.” Grammy voters have saluted the group, its music and its members regularly since first bestowing the new artist for 1964...
The biggest songs at the Grammys this year are about breakups, black womanhood and taking pills in Ibiza. All very up-to-the-minute topics for our era in pop music. But then there’s the little piano ballad about slowly growing older and finding comfort in your family as some friends get left behind....
Nestled near the end of the list of 84 Grammy nominations amid the hundreds of musicians is one particular artist whose appearance likely will surprise many who lived through the 1980s metal scene. A certain “C.F. Kip Winger” is nominated in the contemporary classical recording category for “Winger:...
Pick up an album by Gaby Moreno and you’re liable to find some songs that echo Latin American folk, others that channel gritty blues and a voice that aches with sweet melancholy. Think a pop Madeleine Peyroux singing in Spanglish. (The Telegraph in London described her as “rather like a Guatemalan...
The 2017 Grammy Award nominations were announced Tuesday morning, with nods for industry veterans Beyoncé and Kanye West as well as up-and-comers Chance the Rapper and Lukas Graham. Stars turned to social media to lodge their thoughts about this year’s crop of nominees, from complaints to commendations....
In December 2012, Ellen DeGeneres had Justin Bieber on her talk show to discuss the pop star’s latest tattoo (a wise owl), what he likes to do on his days off (sneak into movies) and whether he was bummed not to have been nominated for a Grammy Award. “It’s definitely something that I was looking...
Neil Young was toying with the idea of putting his own idiosyncratic spin on one of punk-poet Patti Smith’s signature songs. He’d been talking politics, mainly the widespread expressions of alienation by voters leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “Only people can take back the power,”...
It’s more a natural segue than a sharp career shift that veteran singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III has come up with in his one-man show, “Surviving Twin.” The production received its West Coast premiere over the weekend at the warm and intimate new performance space, the Sorting Room, in...
Rocker Glenn Frey died before he could accept a Kennedy Center Honors award last year, but his Eagles bandmates and four other artists were feted Sunday at a bittersweet edition of the glitzy annual gala, the last of the Obama administration. Actor-director Al Pacino, singer-songwriter James Taylor,...
The fire believed to have killed at least 24 people in an Oakland warehouse on Friday night occurred at a concert featuring artists on a Los Angeles-based label called 100% Silk. The label, however, emphasized in a statement released Saturday night that it was not officially the promoter of the...
The fire that ripped through an electronic music concert at an Oakland warehouse-turned-art space Friday night was a worst-case scenario for anyone who attends such events. As of Sunday morning, 24 bodies were recovered, with more people unaccounted for. Officials fear the death toll could rise...
The plan was simple: Justin Bieber would play two acoustic songs in the middle of his set, then hand off his guitar and get back to the programmed dance music. But when a stagehand approached the young pop singer following a rendition of his song “Love Yourself,” Bieber casually waved him off....
The industry’s shift to digital and streaming content hasn’t dulled the quality of box sets available. For the music obsessive on your holiday shopping list, there are plenty of new and recent releases to shout about. Here are 10 worth a closer look: The Band “The Last Waltz 40th Anniversary”...
The Rolling Stones claim they made their new blues album in three days — which is remarkable since it sounds like they couldn’t have spent more than two. Easily their rawest recording in decades, “Blue & Lonesome” finds the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers happily reconnecting with the unvarnished...
The 59th Grammy Awards will kick off the major entertainment awards season when they unveil their nominations Tuesday morning. And with them will likely come dissent. The Grammy Awards enjoy a sometimes complicated relationship with the constituency they represent — so much so that raising objections...
So much for not kicking a man when he’s down. Rapper J. Cole on Thursday night released a new documentary about the making of his upcoming fourth album, and 12 hours later the Internet is convinced that one of the album’s songs is a shot at Kanye West, who spent a portion of last month in the hospital...
When the Rolling Stones fell in love with American blues music as teenagers in England in the late 1950s and early ’60s, the grand old men of the genre they idolized were 20 to 30 years their seniors. Muddy Waters was in his late 40s and Howlin’ Wolf was about 50. Now that the Stones themselves...