Jem Aswad: Last News

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Queen’s 1973 debut album has always been an outlier in the group’s catalog. Yes, it’s a vivid opening statement that set the stage for the glorious creativity and bombast — the heavenly voices, snarling guitars and baroque flourishes — that would peak with “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “A Night at the Opera” just over two years later.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Following “Overheated,” last year’s climate-focused event in the U.K., the event is set to take place for the first time in North America on November 3 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. The event will bring together “climate activists, thought leaders, artists and inspiring voices” in front of a live audience for a day filled with discussion, community building, and resources to help tackle the climate crisis, according to the announcement.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The AI music-creation platform Jen has named Isabel Quinteros as its senior vice president of marketing and industry relations. Quinteros, who was previously TikTok’s head of music partnerships, joins Jen’s leadership team, which also includes co-founders Shara Senderoff and Mike Caren, chief technology officer Alex Wang and veteran technology entrepreneur Aaron McDonald.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The NFL has announced that Grammy-nominated artist Machine Gun Kelly (MGK) will headline the halftime performance at the league’s final international game of the 2024 regular season in Munich, Germany — where the New York Giants will take on the Carolina Panthers. With his recent Jelly Roll-featuring single “Lonely Road” — a nod to John Denver’s country classic, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” — MGK will pay homage to a song that German NFL fans celebrate around each season.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music John Titta, ASCAP’s chief creative officer and a veteran music executive, has died after a two-year battle with cancer, a rep for the organization confirms. “All of us at ASCAP are heartbroken,” commented ASCAP President & Chairman, songwriter Paul Williams. “John Titta was one of a kind, and truly one of the most beloved music industry executives I have known, with deep ties to songwriters across genres and generations.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Bruce Springsteen will appear alongside former President Barack Obama and at rallies for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in the battleground states of Georgia and Pennsylvania on Thursday and Monday, respectively, according to Rolling Stone. The events, to be held in Atlanta and Philadelphia, will launch a series of “When We Vote We Win” shows in the seven major swing states during the final days of the campaign; the news arrived at the same time Eminem’s appearance at a rally in Michigan tonight was announced.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The custom-made recording console used on the Beatles’ last recorded album and the members’ early solo recordings has been completely restored and will be for sale on Reverb, the online music marketplace Reverb starting on Oct. 29, the site announced Tuesday.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The Democratic party is taking a big swing tonight at a rally for the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz in the battleground state of Michigan: native son Eminem will introduce former President Barack Obama at a campaign event in Detroit, according to CNN. The multiplatinum rapper is not expected to perform, but reports say he will welcome Obama and speak briefly about the presidential race.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Paul Di’Anno, Iron Maiden’s lead singer on its first two albums, has died, according to a statement from his label on behalf of his family. No cause of death was announced but he had been struggling with illness for several years; he was 66.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Morgan Wallen and promoter AEG Presents have unveiled the lineup for Sand In My Boots, the new three-day festival and beach vacation curated by Wallen. The inaugural festival will feature headliners Post Malone, Brooks & Dunn, Hardy and Wallen, along with a mix of country, hip-hop and rock performers including T-Pain, Wiz Khalifa, 2 Chainz, Three 6 Mafia, Moneybagg Yo, plus the War on Drugs, 3 Doors Down, Future Islands, Real Estate, and more.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Just days after she announced she’d be rebooting her 2024 North American tour with stadium dates next year, Shakira has unveiled the 2025 “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” tour dates, produced by Live Nation. The North America dates will now kick off Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in Charlotte, NC, at Bank of America Stadium, followed by a massive show at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, along with stops in Toronto, ON, Boston, MA, Miami, FL, Las Vegas, NV and more before wrapping up on Monday, June 30 in San Francisco, CA at Oracle Park. Fans can register for an Artist Presale now through Tuesday, October 22 at 11:59pm ET for access to tickets.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Cindy Charles, Twitch’s head of music and a digital-music veteran, died Monday from injuries she suffered in a traffic accident in the Netherlands, her husband Ricky Fishman confirms. She was 69.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Singer Marc Anthony makes a forceful endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in a new ad in which he reminds Latin voters of former President Donald Trump’s scornful treatment of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017, and his past negative statements about Hispanics. “Even though some have forgotten, I remember what it was like when Donald Trump was president,” Anthony, who was born and raised in New York but is of Puerto Rican descent, says in the ad, recalling Trump tossing paper towels to Puerto Ricans whose homes had been devastated by the hurricane, and his comments during the 2016 campaign when he called to some Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists.” A post shared by Kamala Harris (@kamalaharris) He also reminded viewers of the Trump administration’s policy of separating thousands of families, particularly young children, who crossed the southern border illegally.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Some albums are made for chin-stroking, with deeply complex, intellectually challenging lyrics, song structures, instrumentation and production, creations that deeply stimulate the brain but leave the butt in neutral. And then there are albums where the entire point is to make you feel good and dance — like veteran DJ the Blessed Madonna’s first full-length album, “Godspeed.” It’s nearly 90 minutes of nonstop party starters, where the groove and the emotion are jobs one and two, with the occasional strategic interlude to catch your breath and reset the mood.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Tyler, the Creator, who teased new music on social media yesterday, has announced his new album, “Chromakopia,” will be released on Oct. 28 — a Monday, breaking with the music-industry standard Friday release date.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Bruce Springsteen has always been a master at mythologizing his own story, and his latest film “Road Diary” is no exception: It’s a tribute to the E Street Band’s 50-year history and their decades of touring, his 60-year friendship with guitarist Steve Van Zandt (who makes a crack about finally officially being named the E Street Band’s musical director after 40 years), the familial bonds between the bandmates, the crew and his longtime manager Jon Landau, and other sentiments that are well familiar to fans and get a thorough and moving presentation in the Thom Zimny-directed film, an artfully executed documentary of the band’s 2023 tour of North America and Europe. Those themes were aired at length at a Q&A sessions following that followed the New York screening of the film at the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday night, Springsteen, Van Zandt, Landau and Zimny, but the most revealing moment came when moderator Jon Sykes of iHeartMedia asked him why the film prominently spotlights a quote from a Jim Morrison poem: “O great creator of being Grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives” What Springsteen said about the quote itself was less interesting than the story that came with it, which involves a Doors concert in Asbury Park, New Jersey on August 30, 1968 that was attended by Springsteen, his wife Patti Scialfa and longtime E Street Band bassist Gary Tallent, but before any of them had met.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Tyler, the Creator is apparently teasing his first new music in 18 months with a two-minute-long excerpt from a grim-looking new video apparently called “St. Chroma.” It starts with a masked character, apparently Tyler, leading a series of masked people marching through the desert — his hair is in a comical, rabbit-ish do but the black and white video and the song’s whispered, almost unintelligible rapping and music — which ranges from chanted vocals to a warped chorus — have an ominous vibe.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee was shot multiple times in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning but is expected to make a fully recovery, according to his rep.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Earlier this year, when TikTok and Universal Music Group locked horns over their licensing agreement — and the world’s largest music company removed nearly all of its artists and songwriters’ work from the platform — UMG faced challenges making its case in the court of public opinion. “TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay,” UMG chairman CEO Lucian Grainge wrote in an open letter dated Jan.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Warner Music Group has announced two new leadership appointments in its recorded music division. Eric Wong has been named president of East West Records and head of global A&R for recorded music, while Jessica Keeley-Carter has been promoted to Wong’s previous role, chief marketing officer of recorded music.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The volumes of Joni Mitchell’s glorious vault-clearing series of “Archives” boxed sets are organized by musical eras, and the first three were relatively tidy: the folkie ‘60s, the “Ladies of the Canyon” era, and her commercial peak, the sleek jazz-pop of the “Court and Spark” years and its era-soundtracking singles “Free Man in Paris” and “Help Me.” “Archives Vol. 4: 1976-1980” is something different: the period when Mitchell pushed farther and farther away from her audience’s expectations.