47 h. ago 'It's a brilliant time for Manchester music, people might just not know it yet'

'There's a huge audience of music lovers in Manchester, with the best and most diverse taste in the world, and they want to know what the latest music is'

Politics

5 d. ago The Darkness’s Justin Hawkins: ‘People saw our new music video and assumed I was back on drugs’

Once one of the biggest bands on the planet, The Darkness are back with a new album and a change of direction. Justin Hawkins talks to Kate Solomon about why he thinks the music industry has never taken them seriously, how he no longer writes songs to please his fans, and why he stands by his controversial video about Liam Payne

Events

5 d. ago The sporting teams worried about their futures amid plans for major music gigs at Cardiff park

Cardiff Council is applying for a licence to allow live music events of up to 35,000 people on Blackweir Fields

Politics

7 d. ago Elon Musk 'super fan' releases 'North Korea propaganda' music video as people beg it's not real

An Elon Musk music video has gone viral with many doubting if it is real - one person wrote that the song resembles 'North Korean propaganda songs about Kim Jong Un'

Culture

1 week ago People are just realising Adolescence's Ashley Walters was in major music group

Everyone has been talking about Netflix's Adolescence since it hit Netflix this month. But, little you may know, actor Ashley Walters was actually in a major British music group

Politics

1 week ago Pioneering project by Welsh National Opera suggests music can alleviate chronic pain

Participants in pain management programme said singing and breathing exercises eased their symptomsWales is famed as the land of song, the music of the valleys and mountains providing a source of pride, joy and a sense of belonging.But a pioneering project led by Welsh National Opera has suggested music can also help people suffering with persistent pain. Continue reading...

Culture

1 week ago Music Venue Trust teams up with ‘people’s social media platform’ WeAre8

Partnership aims to promote local artists and the venues they’re performing at

Politics

1 week ago Steve Reich: ‘We all wish art could counter the direction of US politics. But it can’t’

Now 88, the minimalist composer has reissued his life’s work. He answers your questions about Bowie, the Grateful Dead, spirituality – and his complicated friendship with Philip GlassWhy does minimalist music consist of so much repetition? Correllisflute The word “minimalist” was invented by Michael Nyman when he was more of a music critic than a composer, but the kind of music that I and people like me deal with has changes on a much smaller scale than people are used to hearing. The number of repetitions is the nature of the music. On my early pieces, such as It’s Gonna Rain or Piano Phase, everything moves so slowly. Some people will say: “To hell with it, I’m not listening to that,” but those who do experience a different kind of listening.Not only was David Bowie influenced by your work during his Berlin era, but also your Clapping Music is sampled on the hypnotic James Murphy remix of Bowie’s Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix). What do you recall of your conversations with B...

Politics

2 w. ago Leading Garifuna musician reportedly among 12 dead in Honduras air crash

Aurelio Martínez believed killed after plane crashed while taking off from Roatán island in CaribbeanAt least 12 people, including a prominent member of the Garifuna music scene have died after a small plane crashed into the sea while taking off from a Caribbean island off Honduras, officials said.The Lanhsa airlines plane departed at nightfall on Monday from Roatán, one of the Central American country’s main tourist destinations, heading for the port of La Ceiba, on the mainland. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Honduras plane crash kills 12 people including music star after take off horror

A plane has carrying 17 people has crashed just moments into the journey, killing 12 of them including a popular music star and two children.

Events

2 w. ago ‘Ruined this place’: chorus of boos against JD Vance at Washington concert

Attendance of vice-president – who once disbelieved that people listened to classical music for pleasure – strikes sour note at Kennedy Center in light of Maga takeoverJD Vance, the US vice-president, was booed by the audience as he took his seat at a National Symphony Orchestra concert at Washington’s Kennedy Center on Thursday evening.As the normal pre-concert announcements got under way, the vice-presidential party filed into the box tier. Booing and jeering erupted in the hall, drowning out the announcements, as Vance and his wife, Usha, took their seats. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Happiest song unveiled as people admit certain music can get them in summer mood

Certain songs really get people feeling good, and a new study as found the top 50 – and taking the No1 spot is a particular Eurovision Song Contest ear-worm from 1983

Culture

3 w. ago Nick Grimshaw: ‘Getting people to talk about music is the same as talking about food. Both are full of memories’

The DJ and podcaster on taking over the 6 Music breakfast slot, coping with grief, and what he learned working as an intern at MTVBorn in Oldham in 1984, Nick Grimshaw has just taken over as 6 Music’s new breakfast DJ . After stints in PR and TV, his radio career began in 2007 on Radio 1 youth strand Switch; in 2012, he became the station’s breakfast presenter, doing it for six years. He’s also been an X Factor judge, a Gogglebox regular (with his niece, Liv), has written a memoir, Soft Lad, and co-hosts Waitrose’s Dish podcast, with Angela Hartnett, and BBC Sounds podcast Sidetracked, with Annie Mac. Engaged to his dancer partner Meshach Henry, he lives in London and will broadcast live from the 6 Music festival in Greater Manchester, later this month.Congratulations on the new job. How is breakfast DJing different on 6 Music?Radio 1 is about being at the zeitgeist of what’s going on in popular culture, so when there’s a change of presenter there, it feels seismic – there’s new ima...

Politics

3 w. ago No one is sleeping in Murwillumbah. All we can do now is wait for Tropical Cyclone Alfred, the malevolent beast

Music blares, sirens wail and the wind roars as the flood-weary northern NSW town braces for another anxious night Tropical Cyclone Alfred LIVE: latest news and updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastIn the anxiety of Thursday night as Tropical Cyclone Alfred neared Murwillumbah, a surprising number of people turned up the music and danced. You could hear it coming from houses across the northern New South Wales town. “It helped,” says Connor Hartog. On Friday evening, the wind rose to a hiss and a roar; soon it will be a shriek.Trees bend down, the ground sodden with rain and the town deserted. Sirens wail in the distance. Electricity and phone reception are going in and out at a time when communication is survival. Water is restricted.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago ‘The palace called and I heard myself saying yes’: how Errollyn Wallen went from Top of the Pops to Master of the King’s Music

Written off in her youth, the unstoppable Belize-born musician has overcome indifference, mockery and abuse to become one of Britain’s most acclaimed composers. You have to hang onto your own worth, she tells our writerFor at least half her life, the Belize-born British composer Errollyn Wallen, appointed last year to the title of Master of the King’s Music, has steered herself through a web of invisible rules. Classical composers, dead or alive, were male and white. Their Black and female counterparts were derided or ignored, excised from history. Then, slowly but definitively, things changed, and the institutions that used to give her the cold shoulder started to open up to the music they had dismissed. “People always want to put labels on things, on people,” Wallen says, without rancour. “Let them. You have to hang on to your own worth, see what needs doing. I was written off young, but then found a way through. There’s still so much work to be done.”Wallen’s musical range is amb...

Politics