NEWSWORTHY
Music in 2018: Saying goodbye to Heisei with 'U.S.A.'
The final full year of the Heisei Era was one of the most discombobulating for Japanese music this decade. Nostalgia for the soon-to-end era clashed with efforts to figure out where J-pop goes moving forward. Tunes covered in cobwebs suddenly became the soundtrack for ...
A television ad featuring members of the K-pop supergroup Blackpink dressed in miniskirts has been banned from Indonesian airwaves, prompting a furious backlash from fans. The Indonesian Broadcasting Commission ordered 11 domestic TV stations to yank the commercial late Tuesday, saying it was indecent. The order ...
Auction of Frank Sinatra jewelry, art and personal effects fetches $9.2 million
It was definitely "All" rather than "Nothing at All" at a Frank Sinatra auction in New York, where items owned by the late icon and his fourth wife fetched $9.2 million, Sotheby's said Friday. And 99 percent of the lots, spread out over the week ...
The music of "Black Panther," with Kendrick Lamar in its starring role, officially owns the 2019 Grammy Awards, where women are heavily represented in the major four categories following a year where their presence was barely felt. The Recording Academy announced Friday that Lamar is ...
Jewish human rights group blasts K-pop band BTS over A-bomb T-shirt and hats with Nazi logo
A leading Jewish human rights group has denounced popular K-pop band BTS, whose live performance on Japanese TV was canceled last week, over a T-shirt mocking victims of the atomic bombing of Japan while also claiming that a photo shoot had shown them wearing ...
Michael Jackson's 'Bad' tour leather jacket sells for $298,000 at auction, three times asking price
Michael Jackson's iconic black "Bad" jacket, which he wore on his first solo tour, sold for $298,000 late Saturday, about three times its original asking price, at a New York auction which featured items from music legends Prince, Madonna, John Lennon and others, officials ...
Faced with an increasingly tight re-election race, Taiwan's mayor has dropped a rap video that has quickly gone viral as he calls on voters to "do the right thing" and keep him in office. Ko Wen-je, a former trauma surgeon turned social-media-savvy mayor of Taiwan's ...
Can music make cheese tastier? Swiss Emmental maker experiments
When searching the perfect chunk of cheddar or Parmesan, cheese aficionados have probably never grilled vendors over what kind of music was played to their cheeses. But a Swiss cheese-maker has embarked on an experiment to test the impact of music on Emmental, one of ...
Saying 'I've been used,' Kanye West distances himself from politics
Three weeks after a bizarre White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, rapper Kanye West said on Tuesday he was distancing himself from politics. West, Trump's biggest celebrity supporter, also sought to distance himself from a new campaign that encourages black Americans to quit ...
Don't let me down: Japan superfans lose fight for 1966 Beatles tour footage
It's been a hard day's fight, but a group of Japanese Beatles fans have lost their bid to get police to hand over historic footage of the band's 1966 Japan visit. The superfans took their battle for the film — recorded by police as a ...
The family of Prince has told U.S. President Donald Trump to stop playing the late icon's songs at rallies, following a phalanx of other angry artists who have told the president to pull the plug. "The Prince Estate has never given permission to President Trump ...
Renowned Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballe dies at age 85
Montserrat Caballe, a Spanish opera singer renowned for her bel canto technique and her interpretations of the roles of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, has died. She was 85. The Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house in Barcelona, where Caballe performed more than 200 times, described ...
