The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

News Round-Up – 23rd February, 2018

Festivals

The lineups for some of our favourite festivals have been announced recently and there is quite a lot to look forward to. Festivals such as Leeds and Reading and Latitude showed off their impressive artists repertoire. At the end of August fans of artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Fall Out Boy, Wolf Alice, Nothing But Thieves, Kings Of Leon and Pan!c At The Disco should head to Leeds and Reading; for those who want to catch a glimpse of Solange, Alt-J, The Vaccines and Jessie Ware, Latitude should be the right destination.  

There is also an abundance of European festivals which already revealed their lineups, making the summer of 2018 quite promising and  Hunting for festival tickets might not be as easy as it seems, especially when there are so many options available. From Barcelona’s Primavera Sound, which will welcome artists such as Bjork, Lorde, The National, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, to Sziget in Budapest, with Liam Gallagher, Kendrick Lamar and Gorillaz performing; Rock Werchter is yet another notable destination, which may attract fans of Queens Of The Stone Age, MGMT, Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, or Jack White.

New Album Releases and Tours

New and exciting music will also be coming very soon – some of the biggest names in music, along with some smaller and beloved acts, have been confirming new album releases. Arctic Monkeys hinted that new music should appear in 2018, something that many fans might have already been anticipating, considering the band’s busy summer festival schedule. Robyn also hinted new album release to happen this year. Her previous record Body Talk came out in 2010 and there is no doubt that hearing new music from the Swedish singer is something to look forward to.

Another artist to watch is Janelle Monáe who announced that her new album Dirty Computer will see the light of day on April 27th 2018. Monáe hasn’t released a full-length record since 2013’s The Electric Lady and is set to star in Noir Town, a film directed by Jordan Peele.

Father John Misty also teased some new music, performing his new song ‘Mr. Tillman’ during a concert in Japan, which has also been released in a studio version now. Misty is said to be releasing a new album sometime in 2018, a follow up to his hugely successful Pure Comedy, from 2017. Meanwhile, My Bloody Valentine released a secret vinyl reissue of their first two albums, Isn’t Anything from 1988 and Loveless from 1991; the band also promised to release a new album this year.

Business News

Parallel to album releases and festival lineups popping up, the music industry has been occupied with keeping the business going. For some time now reports and news about Facebook’s attempts to finally sort out their issues with royalty payments and music licensing issues, which have caused a lot of controversy over the past few years.

This week, Facebook has finally made a step forward and signed a music multi-territorial licensing agreement with ICE, which will make it possible for artists and songwriters to receive royalty payments from their music being used on all of Facebook’s platforms, including Instagram, Oculus and Messenger. Previously, Facebook has made licensing deals with Universal Music Group, Sony/ATV, Kobalt, and GMR.

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