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‘South Side Impresarios’ by Samantha Ege Unveils the Black Women Who Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene

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Between the world wars, Chicago Race women nurtured a local yet widely resonant Black classical music community entwined with Black civic life. In ‘South Side Impresarios How Race Women Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene,’ Samantha Ege tells the stories of the Black women whose acumen and energy transformed Chicago’s South Side into a wellspring of music making.

Ege focuses on composers like Florence Price, Nora Holt, and Margaret Bonds not as anomalies but as artists within an expansive cultural flowering. Overcoming racism and sexism, Black women practitioners instilled others with the skill and passion to make classical music while Race women like Maude Roberts George, Estella Bonds, Neota McCurdy Dyett, and Beulah Mitchell Hill built and fostered institutions central to the community. Ege takes readers inside the backgrounds, social lives, and female-led networks of the participants while shining a light on the scene’s audiences, supporters, and training grounds. What emerges is a history of Black women and classical music in Chicago and the still-vital influence of the world they created.

A riveting counter to a history of silence, South Side Impresarios gives voice to an overlooked facet of the Black Chicago Renaissance.

“Music Films” by Neil Fox Explores the Cultural and Cinematic Impact of Music Documentaries

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In Music Films, Neil Fox considers a broad range of music documentaries, delving into their cinematic style, political undertones, racial dynamics, and gender representations, in order to assess their role in the cultivation of myth.

Combining historical and critical analyses, and drawing on film and music criticism, Fox examines renowned music films such as A Hard Day’s Night (1964), Dig! (2004), and Amazing Grace (2006), critically lauded works like Milford Graves Full Mantis (2018) and Mistaken for Strangers (2013), and lesser-studied films including Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959) and Ornette: Made in America (1985). In doing so, he offers a comprehensive overview of the genre, situating these films within their wider cultural contexts and highlighting their formal and thematic innovations.

Discussions in the book span topics from concert filmmaking to music production, the music industry, touring, and filmic representations of authenticity and truth. Overall, Music Films traces the evolution of the genre, highlighting its cultural significance and connection to broader societal phenomena.

“Cold Glitter: The Untold Story of Canadian Glam” Uncovers a Forgotten Chapter in Rock History

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Cold Glitter: The Untold Story of Canadian Glam uncovers a forgotten yet fascinating chapter on glam rock music and culture…from Canada.

Multi-disciplinary artist Robert Dayton taps his Canadian roots to reveal mind-blowing stories of musicians fighting to be heard. It’s a universal story of determined creators striving to make their voices heard. Dayton has spent years researching and interviewing these ground-breaking musicians trapped by geography, colonial mindsets, and the difficulties of penetrating the cultural behemoth that is the United States.

There’s no denying that glam rock was marginalized in Canada. In fact, RCA almost didn’t release the 1973 Bowie-produced Lou Reed album “Transformer” in Canada because they didn’t see a market for it. Of course, they were wrong! Cold Glitter gets at the reasons why: nature vs. artifice, old world values vs. new freedoms, and how transgressive actions—including gender play, as well as intense stories from these top acts on how they were run out of town for appearing outrageous.

Filled with stories from musicians about what they did to build a career and fight against the old guard controlling the airwaves and stages. Readers everywhere will find solidarity with the all-too-familiar story of artists who were attacked for appearing outrageous and daring to be different. Within the struggle to be fabulous are anecdotes of fun and mayhem. Readers will be taken back to the seventies as they meet the unknown and infamous musicians and artists who dared to be glamorous. Familiar names like magician Doug Henning, Vancouver band Sweeney Todd and their lead singer Nick Gilder, and his replacement, Bryan Adams, to underground heroes like The Dishes, to hundreds of musicians who put away their mascara and left their glamorous wild days behind.

Cold Glitter is filled with rare (and sometimes outrageous) images throughout and additional chapters on glam fashion, film, and comedy in Canada. You’ll be amazed to discover how many of their favorite artists were and are secretly Canadian.

‘Taking Funny Music Seriously’ by Lily E. Hirsch Explores the Art and Impact of Musical Comedy

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Take funny music seriously! Though often dismissed as silly or derivative, funny music, Lily E. Hirsch argues, is incredibly creative and dynamic, serving multiple aims from the celebratory to the rebellious, the entertaining to the mentally uplifting.

Music can be a rich site for humor, with so many opportunities that are ripe for a comedic left turn. Taking Funny Music Seriously by Lily E. Hirsch includes original interviews with some of the best musical humorists, such as Tom Lehrer, “the J. D. Salinger of musical satire”; Peter Schickele, who performed as the invented composer P. D. Q. Bach, the supposed lost son of the great J. S. Bach; Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome of the funny music duo Garfunkel and Oates; comedic film composer Theodore Shapiro; Too Slim of the country group Riders in the Sky; and musical comedian Jessica McKenna, from the podcast Off Book, part of a long line of “funny girls.” With their help, Taking Funny Music Seriously examines comedy from a variety of genres and musical contexts—from bad singing to rap, classical music to country, Broadway music to film music, and even love songs and songs about death.

In its coverage of comedic musical media, Taking Funny Music Seriously is an accessible and lively look at funny music. It offers us a chance to appreciate more fully the joke in music and the benefits of getting that joke—especially in times of crisis—including comfort, catharsis, and connection.

‘Mixing Pop and Politics’ by Toby Manning Explores 70 Years of Music Through a Radical Political Lens

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Spotify Reports Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings

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Today, Spotify announced their fourth quarter 2024 earnings, closing Q4 stronger than ever by outperforming across key metrics and celebrating their first full year of profitability. Take a look at the highlights below:

  • Monthly Active Users grew 12% Y/Y to 675 million.
  • Subscribers increased 11% Y/Y to 263 million.
  • Total Revenue was up 16% Y/Y to €4.2 billion.
  • Gross Margin climbed by 555 bps YoY to 32.2%.
  • Operating Income rose to €477 million.

“I am very excited about 2025 and feel really good about where we are as both a product and as a business,” said Daniel Ek, Spotify Founder & CEO. “We will continue to place bets that will drive long term impact, increasing our speed while maintaining the levels of efficiency we achieved last year. It’s this combination that will enable us to build the best and most valuable user experience, grow sustainably and deliver creativity to the world.”

“Power to the People – Live at the One to One” Concert Brings John Lennon’s Final Full-Length Solo Shows to Vinyl for Record Store Day 2025

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On August 30, 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, backed by Elephant’s Memory, and joined by special guests, headlined two historic One to One Benefit Concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York City. These performances included an afternoon matinee and an evening performance, to a combined audience of 40,000 people, raising more than $1.5 million to support children with special needs, including children from the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, N.Y, a state-supported institution for mentally handicapped children that gained national infamy after the horrible conditions and questionable medical practices the children endured were exposed to the public.

These were John’s final and only full-length solo concerts after leaving The Beatles. Power To The People – Live At The One To One Concert, New York City, 1972, presents four songs from the afternoon and evening concerts on 180-gram yellow vinyl, available exclusively for Record Store Day 2025, April 12. Produced by Sean Ono Lennon and mixed and re-engineered from the original multitrack tapes by Paul Hicks and Sam Gannon, the EP features three previously unreleased performances – “Well Well Well” from the evening show, plus “Cold Turkey” and Yoko’s “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For A Hand In The Snow)” from the afternoon show, along with the previously released “Instant Karma (We All Shine On)” (Afternoon Show), which has been new newly mixed. This RSD First release is limited to 3000 copies in the U.S. and 5500 worldwide.

The One To One concerts are explored in great detail in the forthcoming film, ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO, which has just been acquired by Magnolia Pictures for the North American rights. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland,” “Marley,” HBO’s “One Day in September,” “The Mauritanian”), ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO is an expansive and revelatory inside look at the 18 months John and Yoko spent living in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s and delivers an immersive cinematic experience that brings to life electrifying, never-before-seen material and newly restored footage of John’s only full length, post-Beatles concert. With mind-blowing remastered audio overseen by Sean Ono Lennon, the film is a seismic revelation that will challenge pre-existing notions of the iconic couple. Following its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, the documentary had its North American bow at the Telluride Film Festival and recently screened in Sundance Film Festival’s Spotlight section. Magnolia will open the film exclusively in IMAX April 11 before expanding to additional theaters. The film will air on HBO and will be available to stream on Max in late 2025.

Macdonald’s riveting documentary takes that legendary musical event and uses it as the starting point to explore eighteen defining months in the lives of John and Yoko. By 1971 the couple was newly arrived in the United States- living in a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village and watching a huge amount of American television. The film uses a riotous mélange of American TV to conjure the era through what the two would have been seeing on the screen: the Vietnam War, “The Price is Right,” Nixon, Coca-Cola ads, Cronkite, The Waltons. As they experience a year of love and transformation in the US, John and Yoko begin to change their approach to protest – ultimately leading to the One to One concert, which was inspired by a Geraldo Rivera exposé they watched on TV. Filmed in a meticulously faithful reproduction of the NYC apartment the duo shared, ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO offers a bold new take on a seminal time in the lives of two of history’s most influential artists.

Mercury Studios Presents A Plan B/KM Films & Mercury Studios Production. ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO is directed by Kevin Macdonald. Edited & Co-directed by Sam Rice-Edwards. Produced by Peter Worsley, Kevin Macdonald and Alice Webb. Executive Producers are Sean Ono Lennon, Marc Robinson, David Joseph, Steve Condie, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner. Consulting Producer is Simon Hilton.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE – LIVE AT THE ONE TO ONE CONCERT, NEW YORK CITY, 1972

SIDE A
1. Well Well Well (Evening Show) 5:36*
2. Instant Karma (We All Shine On) (Afternoon Show) 3:36 **

SIDE B
1. Cold Turkey (Afternoon Show) 5:54*
2. Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For A Hand In The Snow) (Afternoon Show) 4:44*

* Previously unreleased
** Newly remixed

Babymetal: Legend-43 The Movie Brings the Thrill of Their World Tour Finale to Theaters on February 28

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In 2023-24, Babymetal played to sold out crowds across the globe and now fans can relive the final show of that tour in Babymetal: Legend-43 The Movie, which will be hitting movie theaters on February 28th. In April 2023, Su-Metal (Vocal, Dance), Moametal (Scream, Dance), and Momometal (Scream, Dance) entered a new stage as the newly born Babymetal.

Since then, they have embarked on their largest world tour, “Babymetal World Tour 2023 – 2024”, which took them to 25 countries across the globe. The headline tour, which included 98 performances drew a total audience of more than 280,000 fans.

The final chapter of this world tour, the first Okinawa performance “Babymetal World Tour 2023 – 2024 Tour Final In Japan Legend – 43,” was fully filmed. The film features a wide variety of songs, a one-of-a-kind world view, a production unique to the tour finale, and the overwhelming performance of Babymetal, who have evolved even further on their world tour, all of which can be experienced in this film.

Morgan Calton, founder of Source Entertainment, said “We are very excited to bring this outstanding concert film to Babymetal’s incredibly passionate fans across Europe! It looks and sounds incredible and seeing it on the big screen will be an opportunity not to miss. We can’t wait for The One to be able to relive the last tour and get themselves in the mood for the band’s upcoming arena dates!”

 

Central Cee Releases Jersey With Mitchell & Ness And NFL Ahead Of Super Bowl LIV

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Mitchell & Ness has teamed up with UK rap phenomenon Central Cee and the NFL to release a limited-edition jersey, celebrating the intersection of sports, music, and street culture. This exclusive piece, pays homage to Cench’s recently released debut studio album, Can’t Rush Greatness—a project symbolizing patience, perseverance, and undeniable talent.

The highly anticipated drop will be available first via Central Cee’s SynaWorld platform on Friday, February 7th, at 8 AM PST / 11 AM EST followed by a Mitchell & Ness release on Saturday, February 8th, at 9 AM PST / 12 PM EST.

“We’re excited to collaborate with Central Cee and the NFL on a jersey that represents both sports heritage and contemporary luxury,” said Emilie Arel, President at Mitchell & Ness. “The rose gold details and connection to Can’t Rush Greatness make this a truly special release for fans of both football and street culture.”

Record Store Day Exclusive: Queen De Lane Lea Demos 12” Vinyl Release

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Before Queen became rock royalty, they were just a band chasing a dream in a London studio. The De Lane Lea Demos capture the raw energy and ambition of their early days—now restored and remixed for the first time on 12” vinyl.

In summer 1969, Brian and Roger’s pre-Queen group, Smile, had already recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in London’s Kingsway. Two years later, the company opened a new complex in Wembley, and needed a band to help them test their new equipment and the sound quality of the different rooms.

Brian and Roger volunteered Queen, and the band spent time at the studio between November 1971 and January 1972 – “a massive thrill,” Brian recalls. They were repaid with a five-song demo, overseen by De Lane Lea’s chief engineer Louie Austin, and containing “Keep Yourself Alive”, “The Night Comes Down”, “Jesus”, “Liar”, and “Great King Rat”.

“The demos we made at De Lane Lea Studios were closer to what we dreamed of than our later sessions,” explains Brian. “Nice open drum sounds and ambience on the guitar. That was much more the way we wanted it to go.”

“We were young and had total blind faith in what we were doing,” says Roger Although these demos were intended to be hawked around to procure a recording contract, the band, says Brian, always felt the performances had more spontaneity and sparkle, as well as the benefit of more natural sounds compared with the final album versions. As, the only surviving copies of the mixes of the demos are on scratched acetates, here for the first time, these self-produced recordings have been restored and remixed from the original multitracks.