Music News

Adele is in talks for a two-year residency in Las Vegas.
The 'Set Fire to the Rain' hitmaker, who is currently working on her new album after taking time off to raise her two-year-old son, Angelo, has reportedly sparked a bidding war between several hotels, including the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, The Venetian and Caesars Palace, and is in line to ink a $40 million deal.
A source told In Touch Weekly magazine: "The demand for Adele is off the charts.
"Everyone is dying to see her perform again. This could be the biggest deal ever put together."
The British singer, 27, hasn't toured in almost four years after being forced to cancel a series of shows in the US in 2011 due to vocal issues.
The 'Skyfall' singer was expected to bring out her third LP - the long-awaited follow-up to 2011's '21' - this spring but the release has been pushed back again following a number of delays.
A source previously said: "The album is currently scheduled for release in September.
"The most recent plan was for it to hit shops before the summer but that's now been scrapped. Adele's taking her time to make sure the album is perfect and doesn't want to compromise."

Brandon Flowers says The Killers need to "find the right groove".
The 33-year-old singer, who is currently promoting the release of his solo album 'The Desired Effect', has confessed he would love to make another record with the band because he doesn't think their last album, 2012's 'Battle Born', was "good enough".
He explained: "It's not that I'm completely disappointed in it, but I feel like we could have done better. We just need to find the right groove and we all need to be on the same page. I don't know that we were on that record. It's tough. It's tough to get four people to, almost, share a brain. It doesn't always work out."
However, the 'Somebody Told Me' hitmaker claims his bandmates - Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vannuci Jr. - weren't ready to go back to work after their greatest hits show at Wembley Stadium in 2013.
He shared: "I was feeling really excited about the prospect of what's next, but everyone else wanted to slow down a little and take some time out. So I made a solo record."
Despite insisting he would've liked to have made another album with them, Brandon admits it was easier working on his own as "it's more personal in a way".
He told Grazia magazine: "I don't feel as restricted or shy. Lyrically, I didn't have to get their opinion on anything."
Asked if he considers himself a workaholic, he added: "I guess. Some people would say that. It feels natural to me. It keeps me happy."

Matt Bellamy says walking rather than songwriting has helped him get over his split from Kate Hudson.
The Muse frontman has confessed he turned to countryside strolls after ending his four year romance with the 36-year-old actress - who is the mother of his three-year-old son Bingham - instead of expressing himself through his music.
Matt, 36 - who grew up in Devon - added he has long enjoyed roaming through unpopulated areas and even participated in "letter-boxing", an outdoor activity which combines orienteering with puzzle solving, in his younger years.
He said: "I aways go for walks in the countryside. The South Devon countryside... I used to go letter-boxing actually."
The 'Supermassive Black Hole' hitmaker is looking forward to the release of the band's upcoming album 'Drones' and insists the split has had no obvious impact on the record.
He told NME magazine: "It's difficult for me to pinpoint anything on the album specifically about that. Except that when someone suddenly finds themselves outside of a relationship, they ponder things, they think over the points in their lives when they think things didn't go the way they expected them to.
"It's the fact that I reconnected with all the points in my life where I felt alone or outside."
The comments mark the first time the musician has spoken publicly of their break up since tweeting a thank you message following the release of the couple's official statement last December.
A representative for the actress said at the time: "Kate and Matt have been separated for some time now. Despite this, they remain very close friends and committed co-parents."
Following up the message, he tweeted: "Love all of you guys! We're both very happy, it's for the best. Thanks for your kind words. Now about that new album... (sic)"

Rixton are planning to take Ariana Grande for a pint and a curry.
The 'Me and My Broken Heart' hitmakers have revealed they're hoping to show the 21-year-old beauty how they like to spend their Saturday nights when she comes to the UK on tour later this year.
Jake Roche said: "She's coming on tour to Manchester, so we'll take her to a Wetherspoons, or something."
Charley Bagnall added: "A two-for-one pint and a curry."
The 'We All Want The Same Thing' singers have also opened up about the inspiration behind their latest single and confessed they came up with the idea when they realised they were all hoping to pull a girl while on a night out.
They also sing about wanting to "do it on a sofa", although Jake admits that can be uncomfortable.
He explained to Heat magazine: "It depends what sofa you've got. I've got a La-Z-Boy chair and that can be a bit awkward - the foot rest flips out, and if you put too much weight on it, it goes back in."
Lewi Morgan added: "Leather sofas are never good. You stick to them and stuff."

Naughty Boy has revealed Zayn Malik's first post-One Direction release will be on his second album.
The producer has been supporting his friend in the wake of his departure from 1D and has now confirmed Zayn has recorded a track his upcoming LP, the follow-up to 2013's 'Hotel Cabana'.
Speaking to BANG Showbiz at The 60th Anniversary Ivor Novello Awards, he said: "Zayn is definitely going to be on the album. I'm keeping it interesting. I'm an artist person and I'm drawn to proper singers and artists and to me Zayn is the epitome of a great artist. Our track is going to be ready in a couple of months ... You are going to be shocked by what he comes out with ... I feel that the last five years have the most important for him but I feel he has a future beyond that."
When quizzed on whether or not the tune will be a single, he teased: "Maybe, maybe..."
Naughty Boy has a whole host of other big names on the LP, including Miguel and Emeli Sande - who has worked with previously - and his goal is to make a record with no "boundaries" and to get Janet Jackson on a track.
He said: "I've just met Ben Howard and we're going to work together, I've reached out to Annie Lennox, I want to get her on the album her Grammys performance was amazing. These are people for my album, I've been working with Miguel and Emeli is going to be on it. This is an exciting mix of people and a mixture of what is exciting about music right now. There are no boundaries, I can be a Naughty Boy on the album and off the album, there are no restrictions for me. There's no concept this time, I just want to do straight hits. It's varied, I think that's what someone in my position should do. I want to get Janet Jackson, I want to do a song with her."
Naughty Boy has felt the wrath of One Direction's fans on Twitter since he got embroiled in Zayn's online spat with Louis Tomlinson, something he admits shocked him.
Now, the music maker just wants to get "back to business" and get his record out.
Revealing his surprise at the vitriol aimed at him online, he said: "I never anticipated this because I am in my own musical bubble, I'm just a creative. For me, the whole reason I got involved (in the spat) is because I have been working with Zayn, not because I've got anything untoward against anyone. Obviously the One Direction machine is a massive machine, maybe I didn't understand it. And there's no doubt about how passionate their fans are. I just became part of the jigsaw, but I'm not entertaining it like others would. I want to get back to business. I want people to be excited about music and not what's been going on, that will always blow over."

Aston Merrygold's new music and his haircut are inspired by Prince and Michael Jackson.
The former JLS star is getting ready to release his debut solo album and the two pop legends have been a big influence on the tracks as well as his spiky new style.
Speaking to BANG Showbiz at The 60th Anniversary Ivor Novello Awards, he said: "My hair's inspired by some of the greatest of all time, James Brown, Prince, MJ, I'm trying to take it back to the roots a little bit. And that's hugely reflected in my music, they are my biggest inspirations, that's the music I grew up listening to, the music I listen to now, the first thing I put on in my car. For me not to do something in that vein I think would be wrong."
Aston also opened up on what it's been like to record music on his own without his three ex-bandmates - Marvin Humes, Oritse Williams and J.B. Gill.
The 27-year-old pop star has found it "liberating" to solely be in control in the studio but insists he and the boys - who split in 2013 - are always in touch with one another.
He said: "The experience has been liberating so far. It's exciting because you don't know what's round the corner."
Discussing whether he feels lonely without the JLS guys with him in the studio, he added: "Not so much because I've got a fantastic team. Publicly me and the boys aren't together as a band, but we're still in touch, we're always messaging each other and we're behind each other 100 percent."

Bob Geldof doesn't think Band Aid is a good song - but insists it doesn't matter because it's saved millions of lives.
The Boomtown Rats singer and Midge Ure wrote, recorded and released 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' in 1984 to raise money for famine victims in Ethiopia and the charity single has been re-recorded and released on another three occasions, most recently in December 2014 to bring much needed funds to help the Ebola crisis in Africa.
Although Geldof is fiercely proud of all the good the song has done he admits he doesn't actually like the track.
Speaking at The 60th Anniversary Ivor Novello Awards in London on Thursday (21.05.15) as he and Midge were presented with The Ivors Special Anniversary Award, he said: "The song was always a device because it's not a great song, I mean obviously the bit I came up with is ... (When we did it) Midge had never heard of f***ing Africa never mind anything else. (We talked) and he said, 'Well, you come up with something and I'll come up with something.' I came up with something I think we'll agree is miraculous, he sent me over, quite frankly, the 'Z Cars' theme. But Midge whatever idea was in my head, he made it tangible. It was a device, to do something that I thought at the time was vital. It struck me that to die of want in a world of surplus was utterly intellectually absurd, economically illiterate and repulsive."
Geldof also spoke of his pride of the Band Aid legacy, with the money raised from sales of the song being directly responsible for "giving people a life" in some of the most impoverished parts of Africa, with Band Aid 30 directly assisting in eradicating Ebola from Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone.
He said: "What it's resulted in is countless, literally countless millions having a life, maybe a better one but a life. When we started Band Aid, Africa was considered the basket case of the planet, now as I stand here seven of the top 10 fastest growing economies on the planet are in Africa, those seven Band Aid were involved in."
Referring to the impact of Band Aid 30, he added: "Last week, only two cases (of Ebola) were reported in Sierra Leone. It's been cracked and in the meantime what you achieved last Christmas is precisely this; one of the people we fund is given daily school meals, 1.35 million every single day a kid gets a school meal, these kids have lost their parents there was nowhere to go to, the people in their neighbourhood won't take them in because of fear of contagion and they weren't their children. So we set orphanages, we sent the doctors, we sent the vaccines, put up the tents and there's only two new cases in Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone, it's gone. It will come again but what this does is raise a giant lobby for significant change in the world.
Geldof also thanked every artist and all the behind the scenes staff who have worked on the different incarnations of the record and he hopes a new generation of artists will take on the mantle and release more versions when he and Midge are gone.
He said: "I'd like to thank so many people who have been involved in this from the beginning ... people like Boy George who flew back from New York on the day because I got him out of bed and said, 'Get the f**k over here.' He came on Concorde. It was very similar to a few months ago when Ed Sheeran was doing Berlin and I said can you get here in any way and he said, 'Yeah.' And he pitched up in the morning and then went back and played Hamburg in the same day. Nothing much changes in the brilliance of the people, beyond their musical brilliance but their brilliance as people."

Clean Bandit are collaborating with Alicia Keys.
The 'Rather Be' hitmakers - who took home two gongs from The 60th Anniversary Ivor Novello Awards in London last night (21.05.15) - have revealed they've been busy in the studio working on new music with the 34-year-old star.
Jack Patterson said: "We've been working with Alicia Keys, which has been pretty amazing."
The 28-year-old star - who, together with Grace Chatto, Luke Patterson and Neil Amin-Smith makes up the group - confessed he was unable to control his nerves upon meeting the 'Empire State of Mind' singer.
He said: "It was intense. I've grown up listening to her music and I was shaking quite a bit. It was difficult to get going."
The 'Real Love' hitmakers - who also recently recorded with Marina & the Diamonds - were presented with the award for Most Performed Work as well as the Best Contemporary Song accolade for 'Rather Be', which was written by Jack and songwriter James 'Jimmy Napes' Napier.
The quartet fought off stiff competition from Sam Smith's 'Stay With Me' and George Ezra's 'Budapest' in the most performed work category.

Brandon Flowers is "glad" he's not part of Tidal.
The Killers' frontman has revealed he was never contacted by Jay Z about getting involved in the streaming service, but insisted he wouldn't want to have been part of it anyway because it is based too much on the celebrities who support it.
He told The Sun newspaper: "I never got the phone call, which I'm glad about.
"I don't care about it. I saw the launch with all the celebrities there and that in itself made me not want to be a part of it. I'm glad not to be there."
Meanwhile, Jack White has recently been defending the service, rejecting claims it is "elitist".
Responding to fans in a Q&A he said: "What is elitist about it? Who's speaking for the little guy?
"Tidal is going to help a lot of artists out. I'm talking about the punk band that has 50k hits on Youtube and doesn't see a dime.
"Have you heard of Rachelle Garnier? what about the Smoke Fairies? Drakkar Sauna? Pujol? The Gories? Those are just some of the up and coming artists on Third Man that try to make a living in music. And if you stream their songs ... they get paid for it. And they get to LIVE and not take second jobs ... and make MORE music! I support keeping musicians you love in business. (sic)"