MTV Video Music Awards to Air Live From New Jersey on August 28

A mum has told of her horror after her Range Rover burst into flames while she was trapped inside. Sami Webster was forced to free herself from the 4x4 after she noticed smoke seeping through the dashboard as she drove home in Bolton.

A recent £9m revamp of a major road in Manchester which controversially featured no cycle lanes has been condemned as a 'missed opportunity' after a cyclist was left with a 'life-threatening injury' from a car crash last weekend. The cyclist was rushed to hospital on Sunday afternoon (May 15) with a head injury following a collision with a car on Great Ancoats Street at around 5pm.

Jordan Henderson has praised Manchester City as a “fantastic team” but admitted he prefers to watch kids TV rather than get nervous watching the Premier League champions’ matches.

Manchester United will have a tough time trying to convince Benfica striker Darwin Nunez to move to Old Trafford.

A 56-year-old man with arthritis and depression has slammed his housing association after he was left without hot water or heating for six weeks following an annual check on his boiler. Karl Stake, who lives in Westhoughton, had to travel to family and friends to wash as appointments to fix the boiler were cancelled.

After a government minister advised that some people might consider taking on more working hours or moving to a better paid job to combat the cost of living crisis, we want to hear your thoughts on the suggestion.

A Stella-drinking thug attacked his pregnant girlfriend and threatened to ‘kick the baby out of her stomach’. Anthony Breame, 34, strangled and headbutted her during the vile rampage - and then broke another woman's jaw just months later.

Jason Sudeikis and his girlfriend Keeley Hazell have reportedly separated.The 46 year old Hollywood actor and his ex-Page 3 model other half Keeley, 35, are said to have parted ways after their busy work schedules meant they didn't spend much time together, according to The Sun. The pair met on the set of the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso, where Keeley plays the role of Bex, and romance rumours first began swirling in February 2021 when they were seen in New York together.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorFrom the Beatles to the Backstreet Boys to Billie and BTS and beyond, the teen-centric pop concert is both timeless and definitively contemporary, from the screaming and sing-along/shout-alongs to the masses of similarly dressed fans — looking almost military in matching merch — to the indulging attendant parents and, these days, the selfies and social overload. And it was the latter, along with the overwhelmingly pre-drinking age audience, that made Olivia Rodrigo’s concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Wednesday the most definitively 2020s teen-centric concert of all: a near-total, two-hour-long wi-fi blackout in the venue so extensive that Russia could have launched a cyber attack and most of the crowd would have assumed it was simply due to thousands of kids posting selfies and video.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLong-running Canadian twin-sister duo Tegan and Sara have signed with Mom + Pop Music and launched the partnership with a new single, “Fucking Up What Matters.” The move represents a return to their roots, in a sense: Mom + Pop was co-founded by Michael Goldstone, the veteran A&R who signed the sisters to Sire Records early in their career (and also signed Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine to Epic Records). The label’s roster also includes Courtney Barnett, Lucius, Sleater-Kinney, Porter Robinson, Ashe, Madeon and more.“Michael Goldstone signed us to Sire/Warner in 2006, we had just made ‘The Con’ and felt like the vision Goldie and the team at Sire had for us and the album were a good fit,” the pair said in a statement. “But soon after he signed us, he left to start Mom+Pop. We never held it against him, but joked that one day we’d work together for real.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorTravis Scott has announced his first festival appearances since the Astroworld tragedy, appearing at three installments of the Primavera Festival in South America this fall. The long-running festival, which launched in Spain but has since expanded to Southern California and South America, is being held in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Santiago, Chile and also features Bjork, Lorde and Arctic Monkeys (see the full lineup below).Sources tell Variety that he will be performing at “major” summer festivals in the summer, presumably in the U.S., but these are the first announced appearances.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Rolling Loud Festival continues its expansion from Miami, New York and Southern California by announcing its Toronto installment with Future, WizKid, Dave, Migos, Lil Uzi Vert, Trippie Redd and many more. The full lineup for the festival, which takes place at Ontario Place on Sept.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorGrammy-winning, multi-platinum-selling, two-time Variety cover star Lil Nas X has performed on some of the biggest stages in television, but incredibly he has never toured — but all that will change this fall when he embarks on the “Long Live Montero” tour, which will make stops across North America and Europe.The North American leg kicks off at The Fillmore in Detroit on Tuesday, September 6, and will make stops in Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles, and more before wrapping up in San Francisco, CA at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Sunday, October 23. The European leg begins Tuesday, November 8 in Amsterdam and concludes Thursday, November 17 in Barcelona, Spain. See full list of dates below.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSome 45 years after their first performance, new wave icons the B-52s have announced a farewell tour that kicks off this summer.The jaunt — billed as “Their final tour ever of planet Earth” — will hit 11 cities across the U.S., launching August 22 in Seattle and running through November 11, where it will finish at Atlanta’s legendary Fox Theatre, not far from their home base of Athens, Georgia. More shows will be added in the coming weeks; see current routing below.The pre-sale begins tomorrow, April 27, at 12 p.m.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorJust two days after Record Store Day, the company Vinyl Me, Please has announced that it is building an audiophile-grade vinyl pressing plant in Denver that is scheduled to open by the end of 2022 for production, tours and special events. The news also comes after years of a vinyl-manufacturing backlog that has caused the delay of vinyl copies of many releases.“Quality control and availability are critical to maintaining and expanding our leadership position in the vinyl industry,” said VMP CEO Cameron Schaefer.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorWith a hit single in “About Damn Time” and a new album, “Special,” due in July, Lizzo has unveiled dates for her tour in support of the album, with support from special guest, Atlanta rapper Latto.Produced by Live Nation, the tour kicks off on September 23rd in Sunrise, FL and runs through November with stops including New York City on October 2nd and Los Angeles on November 18th, full routing is available below. Public onsale will begin Friday, April 29th at 10 a.m.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorMegan Thee Stallion will talk about the 2020 incident in which Tory Lanez allegedly shot her on “CBS Mornings” Monday. The incident, in which Megan has claimed publicly that Lanez shot her in the feet after an argument following a party at Kylie Jenner’s house in July of 2020, has never been fully explained; the court case is ongoing. Megan has slowly revealed details on social media and in interviews; Lanez has vaguely denied it in statements and in several songs.But according to a preview clip of the interview with Gayle King that airs tomorrow (Monday, April 25), Megan tearfully discussed the issue on television with her for the first time.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorCynthia Albritton, a.k.a. Cynthia Plaster Caster, the legendary artist and “recovering groupie” renowned for the plaster casts she took of many top musicians’ erect penises and other body parts, has died after a long illness, her rep confirms to Variety. She was 74.Her collection included Jimi Hendrix, Wayne Kramer of MC5, Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys as well as female breasts from the likes of Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, Sally Timms of the Mekons, Peaches, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and many others.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorJustin Bieber and Dan + Shay have been hit with a copyright lawsuit that claims they borrowed the “core portion” of their Grammy-winning hit “10,000 Hours” from a comparatively obscure 1980 song called “The First Time Baby Is A Holiday.” The complaint was filed Thursday in Los Angeles federal court by a company called Melomega.“Defendants’ theft is impudently bold,” reads the complaint reads, which also names Dan + Shay’s label, Warner Music Group, as a defendant. “One need only listen to ‘First Time’ and the infringing ‘10,000 Hours’ to discern the unmistakable similarities between the songs.” The claim is supported by musicologist Dr.

MTV Video Music Awards, and it's at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Aug. 28!The awards show returns to the Garden State since its iconic 2019 show that featured Missy Elliott and Taylor Swift's show-stopping performances.

Nominees and performers have not yet been announced.“We are thrilled to be back in New Jersey for this year’s VMAs live from Prudential Center,” said Bruce Gillmer, President of Music, Music Talent, Programming & Events and Paramount and Chief Content Officer of Music at Paramount+. “Our 2019 show in Newark was undoubtedly one of our biggest and most successful shows yet and we’re excited to bring back the incredible fan energy for one of music’s most anticipated and iconic nights.” “We are extremely proud MTV has chosen Prudential Center to once again host its marquee showcase, the 39th Annual Video Music Awards,” arena president Jake Reynolds said.

MTV announced today announced that its 2022 Video Music Awards will air live in more than 170 countries on Sunday, August 28, from New Jersey’s Prudential Center.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSome 57 years ago, Bob Dylan famously enraged folk purists by strapping on an electric guitar and performing with a rock band.What might those purists might have said upon learning that he’d sold his precious song catalog — including such timeless, era-defining classics as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Masters of War,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Hurricane” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” — to a multinational conglomerate for nearly $400 million?On a purely emotional level, selling one’s songs can seem uncomfortably close to selling one’s soul: After all, what is a song if not an expression of its writer’s spirit? But in practical terms, these deals make sense for both sides.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Midem conference, which ran for 55 years before its owner canceled the 2022 edition, will return in 2023, according to a report in Music Business Worldwide.While the 2022 event was officially canceled by Reed Midem in December, it was reported at the time that the city of Cannes, which has hosted the event since its inception, would take it over, and that appears to be the case: according to the report, the Midem brand was recently sold to the City of Cannes Municipality by RX France, Reed Midem’s parent company.“In order to rediscover this emblematic event on the Cannes calendar, the City of Cannes is taking over the Midem so that it once again becomes the essential meeting place for music professionals from all over the world,” said the city’s mayor, David Lisnard, in a statement cited by MBW. “Maintaining this show in Cannes represents an economic challenge for local employment and attractiveness for the destination.” Lisnard said the city consulted with “several professionals” representing the French and global musical businesses, including major and independent record labels, concert promoters, streaming platforms and others “in order to offer a qualitative program [for Midem] that is as close as possible to the realities and developments in the [music] sector.”The city’s statement added that “the health crisis, as well as the reorganization of the activity of the RX company led [the firm] to give up the organization of Midem.”The conference launched in Cannes in 1967 and for decades was a showcase for the world’s biggest artists and executives.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Smile — a trio comprising Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet’s Tom Skinner — will release their debut album, “A Light for Attracting Attention,” on May 13on XL Recordings.The 13-track album was produced and mixed by Nigel Godrich and mastered by Bob Ludwig. Tracks feature strings by the London Contemporary Orchestra and a full brass section of contemporary UK jazz players including Byron Wallen, Theon and Nathaniel Cross, Chelsea Carmichael, Robert Stillman and Jason Yarde.The group has previously released four singles: “You Will Never Work in Television Again,” “The Smoke,” “Skrting on the Surface” and “Pana-vision,” the latter of which appeared in the finale of “Peaky Blinders” — and premiere a fifth, “Free in the Knowledge,” with today’s announcement, accompanied by a video directed by Leo Leigh.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorFrom the T.S.A. to the Coachella festival, from your local supermarket to your local music club, mask and vaccination mandates continue to fall across the country, in the face of all credible scientific evidence that yet another coronavirus surge is not only taking place, but raging.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLorde covered Rosalía‘s track “Hentai” during her concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Monday night — and Rosalia gave her a big thumbs-up for her version in her Instagram story.The song is from Rosalía’s innovative latest album “Motomami,” which has earned rave reviews almost across the board, including from Variety.Fuckin hell @lorde covering @rosalia I can die now pic.twitter.com/vANjLYG7nM— Austin Rieders (@RiedersDigest) April 19, 2022Early Tuesday, Rosalía shared footage of Lorde’s performance on her Instagram Stories this afternoon and wrote: “Lorde que bonitaaaaaa” [how beautiful].As noted by NME, Lorde raved about “Motomami” in a recent letter to fans. “I’ve listened to the Rosalía album every day since it came out, fuck, it’s so good,” she wrote.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorFormat, a new festival merging the worlds of music, art and technology, will hold its premiere event on September 23-25, 2022, on the private Sugar Creek Airstrip in Bentonville, Arkansas.The three-day event will feature more than 50 music artists, including Rüfüs Du Sol, Phoenix, Khruangbin, Beach House, The War On Drugs, Nile Rodgers & Chic, the Flaming Lips, Jungle, and Herbie Hancock — along with integrated performances, installations, and art experiences from world-renowned artists including Doug Aitken, Nick Cave (NOTE: not the singer Nick Cave), Jacolby Satterwhite, Pia Camil, Marinella Senatore, Maurizio Cattelan’s Toiletpaper Magazine, John Gerrard in collaboration with Richie Hawtin, Justin Lowe & Jonah Freeman, Sissel Tolaas, Charlap Hyman & Herrero, and many more. Tickets will go on sale Friday, April 22 at www.format-festival.com.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe France-based streaming service Deezer, which has a relatively low profile in the U.S. but is one of the world’s largest streamers, is merging with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) with an eye toward going public at a $1.13 billion valuation, the companies told the Wall Street Journal.Deezer, which launched in 2007, is merging with Paris-listed I2PO SA.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs if it didn’t take long enough to get to the 21st installment of Coachella — what with a pandemic, four postponements and yet another recent Covid spike — when original Sunday headliner Kanye West pulled out two weeks ago, Swedish House Mafia had to transform their vaguely defined position on the lineup into a headlining set. In short order the Weeknd — who is still deep in work on his HBO series “The Idol,” which he cowrote, coproduced and stars in — agreed to bump up his previously planned brief appearance with the EDM titans to a co-headlining spot with them, but he had just two weeks to pull together a set.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSpanish singer Rosalia has announced dates for a massive world tour in support of her breakthrough album “Motomami,” which launches with 12 dates in Spain in July and covers a total of 46 shows in 15 countries in Europe, North and Latin America and will see her through the rest of the year. Dates appear below.Variety called “Motomami,” Rosalia’s third album, “as musically innovative an album as we’ve heard in the past year.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLizzo got a workout not seen since Donald Glover did double-duty as host and musical guest on “Saturday Night Live,” performing two songs from her forthcoming album “Special,” showing impressive comic timing and stamina by appearing in nearly every sketch — she even played flute twice, once while twerking (in fact, the entire sketch was framed around an orchestra learning to twerk while playing their instruments).For the first musical performance, she introduced herself as “Ladies and gentlemen, me!,” and sang her latest single, the discofied groove “About That Time,” accompanied by a drummer, bassist and of course her dancers, the Big Grrls — who are themselves the subject of an Amazon reality show, “Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” (a commercial for which aired just before the first song).

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorEarly Sunday morning, BTS announced a new album with the tagline “We Are Bulletproof” coming on June 10, in a teaser video posted on social media. The group usually releases information gradually and this is no exception, as there is no further information in the video except a series of images.