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Artist News Awards Business News Digital One Liners Releases
One Liners: Spotify, Mick Jagger & Dave Grohl, Mercury Prize, more
By Andy Malt and Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 14 April 2021
DIGITAL & D2F SERVICES
Remember how Spotify was dabbling with a move into hardware via a pilot device that would facilitate in-car listening called Car Thing? No? Well it was. I remember. And now it’s announced that it will be making a device available in the US that will facilitate in-car listening. And yeah, it’s still called Car Thing. It will initially be available on a limited basis to select Spotify subscribers. Is this Spotify going big on hardware? No, it insists: “Our focus remains on becoming the world’s number one audio platform – not on creating hardware – but we developed Car Thing because we saw a need from our users”. Yeah, whatever you say.
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RELEASES
Mick Jagger has released new solo single ‘Eazy Sleazy’, with Dave Grohl. “It’s a song that I wrote about coming out of lockdown, with some much-needed optimism”, says Jagger. “Thanks to Dave Grohl for jumping on drums, bass and guitar, it was a lot of fun working with him”. Grohl, meanwhile, says that working with Jagger is “beyond a dream come true”.
ILoveMakonnen has surprised released new album ‘My Parade’, which he says is his first fully independent release. From it, this is ‘Whoopsy’, featuring Payday.
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have released a new seven-inch single, titled ‘Grief’, featuring two tracks – ‘Letter To Cynthia’ and ‘Song For Cynthia’ – both based on a response to a question on Cave’s Red Hand Files website. “My reply was the first time I was able to articulate my own contradictory feelings on grief”, says Cave. “Letters like Cynthia’s have helped bring me and many others back to the world”.
Popcaan has released new single ‘Survivor’.
Teenage Fanclub have released new single ‘In Our Dreams’. “To rephrase an aphorism most famously used by John Lennon, existence is what happens while the human race is busy making other plans”, says the band’s Raymond McGinley. “This song is kinda about that, but like all our songs, we write them intuitively and only think about what to say about them afterwards”. New album ‘Endless Arcade’ is out on 30 Apr.
Orla Gartland has released new single ‘Zombie!’ “It’s about a very common, very male kind of repression I witnessed in a boy I loved once”, she says. “I could see that he felt things but there was a barrier stopping him from expressing them. I hated that for him, it made me so angry at the societal pressures that led him to that place”.
Defset has released new single ‘Shira2’. “The inspiration for this track comes from a trip to Mount Kilimanjaro”, he says. “It’s a unique place, Shira2 is a camp on Kili with the most beautiful views and skies. There are some field recordings I made at the camp on the track. It’s positive, energetic and enigmatic, which relates to the feelings I had when I was there”.
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AWARDS
The shortlist for this year’s Mercury Prize will be announced on 22 Jul, while the overall winner will be revealed at a ceremony at the Hammersmith Apollo (pandemic permitting) on 9 Sep. Albums by British or Irish artists released between 18 Jul 2020 and 16 Jul 2021 can be put forward for consideration now and until 12 May. Email entries@mercuryprize.co.uk for more info.
