Total Scene
Australia’s music industry bans AI-generated tracks from official charts
MELBOURNE, Australia | Australia’s recorded music industry will bar tracks wholly generated by artificial intelligence from official charts as burgeoning generative technologies threaten artists’ livelihoods, a representative said on Tuesday. The crackdown comes as a variation of Madonna’s pop hit “Like a Prayer” created by an Australian producer using AI-generated vocals and drums has spent […]
Madonna leads 2026 MTV Video Music Awards nominations, followed by Taylor Swift
NEW YORK | Madonna leads the 2026 MTV Video Music Award nominations, the network announced Tuesday. The pop superstar has been nominated in every decade of her musical career. She has 19 competitive MTV VMA wins and in 1986 became the first solo female artist to receive the Video Vanguard Award. She is up for […]
Ellen Greene revisits Audrey from ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ for the film’s 40th anniversary
Ellen Greene can still do a killer Audrey. In conversation, she seamlessly slips in and out of that singular voice — a little breathy, a little squeaky, a little lispy, a little New York — that made her “Little Shop of Horrors” heroine an instant icon. It wasn’t a register she’d planned on hitting at […]
Blink-182’s Travis Barker almost died. A new documentary celebrates his life before and after
NEW YORK | The inferno rages onscreen three minutes into ” Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear.” Dashcam footage lifted from a police car shows the blaze: It’s 2008, and Barker has survived a plane crash in South Carolina. Four others did not. And then, a cut. The documentary, which follows the Blink-182 drummer from 2017 […]
A man accused of orchestrating Tupac Shakur’s 1996 killing is on trial. Here’s what to know
LAS VEGAS | The case of rap icon Tupac Shakur’s killing has been unresolved for decades; now the man charged in his 1996 killing in Las Vegas is going to trial. Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, faces one charge of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal […]
John Carpenter turns a hell-elevator dream into ‘Cathedral’ graphic novel and album
LOS ANGELES | John Carpenter has often collaborated with those closest to him throughout his career. But making “Cathedral,” a graphic novel with an accompanying original album out Friday, was truly a family affair. The famed director of seminal horror films like “The Thing” and “Halloween” says the movie business is all “corporate” nowadays. So […]
Space for music on late-night TV has dwindled. New media seeks to offer an alternative
NEW YORK | When CBS ended “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” earlier this year, it also shuttered the program’s robust music offerings — a major blow for artists whose television platform was already dwindling. Performing on late-night has historically been a unique avenue for musicians hoping to access new audiences — think of a […]
Space for music on late-night TV has dwindled. New media seeks to offer an alternative
NEW YORK | When CBS ended “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” earlier this year, it also shuttered the program’s robust music offerings — a major blow for artists whose television platform was already dwindling. Performing on late-night has historically been a unique avenue for musicians hoping to access new audiences — think of a […]
Music Review: Ariana Grande’s ‘Petal’ displays a pop star at her most restrained
NEW YORK | Gone is the big-belter Ariana Grande. On “Petal,” her eighth studio album and first full-length release since both the end of her “Wicked” run and 2024’s “Eternal Sunshine,” the pop powerhouse looks inward across 12 tracks of real restraint. Lead single “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” with its muted reception […]
Music Review: Charli xcx remains one of pop’s great contrarians on ‘Music, Fashion, Film’
NEW YORK | When Charli xcx released the barely two-minute, glitched-out “Rock Music,” the first single from “Music, Fashion, Film,” she was almost immediately labeled a provocateur. The song, with its hyperpop affectations and cheeky, lyrical dedication to craft — “I think the dance floor is dead/So now we’re making rock music” — confused and […]