Music News

Leonard Cohen's upcoming live album will feature two new songs.
The 80-year-old singer/songwriter is bringing out 'Can't Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour' complete with the previously unheard tracks 'Never Gave Nobody Trouble' and 'Got a Little Secret'.
The LP's tracklist also contains two previously unreleased cover versions, his interpretations of Georges Dor's Quebecois' 'La Manic' and George Jones' 'Choices'.
The other songs on the record are some of the lesser performed tracks from Cohen's impressive career.
Cohen recorded the album on stage and during sound checks on his 'Old Ideas World Tour' and it is the second live album the musician has released following 2014's 'Popular Problems'.
Previously speaking about how he works out what tracks he is going to play at his concerts and how he arranges his songs, Cohen said: "You can pretty well tell. We play it for select people, like my daughter - there's a few people who aren't afraid to tell you that it isn't working."
Referring to a track that didn't make the cut for 'Popular Problems', he added: "We had another song on the album, which was called 'Happens to the Heart,' which will be on the next album. It's a very good lyric, a very good tune, but we didn't nail it."
'Can't Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour' is out on May 12.

'Can't Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour' tracklist:

1. 'Field Commander Cohen'
2. 'I Can't Forget'
3. 'Light as the Breeze'
4. 'La Manic'
5. 'Night Comes On'
6. 'Never Gave Nobody Trouble'
7. 'Joan of Arc'
8. 'Got a Little Secret'
9. 'Choices'
10. 'Stages'

50 Cent wants to help Zayn Malik launch a rap career.
The 'Candy Shop' star thinks the One Direction hunk would sell a lot of records just because of his pop background, but he would like to mentor him to enable him to be a "credible" artist.
He said: "If Zayn wants a rap career, just because of who he is, he is going to sell records.
"But if he wants to be credible he has to be with the right people.
"I'd happily sign him up to my label, mentor him and have him working with the biggest rappers on the planet."
And the rapper even believes Zayn could help him launch a joint venture with Simon Cowell, who is head of One Direction's record label Syco.
He told The Sun newspaper: "I have always wanted to work with Simon, so this could be a joint venture.
"There is no doubt that members of One Direction are going to launch solo careers, and sometimes the bravest go on to be the biggest. Look at Justin Timberlake."
Simon recently urged One Direction - which also includes Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Harry Styles - to launch solo projects away from the band.
He said: "You can't knock what One Direction are doing. They're making great records and I think that's why they're still so popular.
"I hear speculation all the time that they're going solo. My advice is they should stay together but still do things they want as a little bit on the side."
It's not the first time Zayn has been praised by a fellow musician, as Naughty Boy previously praised the musician's rap skills.
He said: "Zayn's actually quite a good rapper. We've been in the studio doing some One Direction stuff and you know, he can spit bars! Of course he can! Big up Zayn and his bars."

Danny O'Donoghue rejected a Hollywood offer for the sake of The Script.
The 34-year-old frontman has revealed he has received an influx of exciting offers in the last few months but has rejected them all in order to complete his tour dates with the band.
He exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "There have been loads of offers coming in to do stuff in the States but I just don't have the time. There's been some great things."
Among the offers, the 'Hall of Fame' hitmaker revealed he was approached to appear in a "massive" animated movie, but didn't accept the part because he didn't want to let down his band mates Mark Sheehan and Glen Power, as well as their loyal fan base.
The former 'The Voice UK' coach continued: "There was one which I can't say exactly what it was but it was for a massive animated cartoon, but it would have taken four months out of my life to do, and that's the next four months of my life right now. So I'd go off and do something that really just pleases me and cancel the tour and f**k the band off, you can't do that you know?"
However, the band - whose fourth studio album 'No Sound Without Silence' was released last year - are planning on exploring new paths later in the year when they complete their extensive world tour.
He added: "But loads of stuff [is in the pipeline]. We'll all be spreading our wings and branching out into things, but The Script is number one, always will be."

Jessie J and James Bay are among acts confirmed for the Summer Series at Somerset House. The annual string of events held at the central London venue will features 11 performances including one from the BRITs Critics' Choice Award winner, and a closin...

Bloc Party are working on a new album.
The band's frontman Kele Okereke has confirmed they've started recording their fifth LP following the release of 'Four' in 2012, after which they embarked on a hiatus, and admits it has a very different sound to their previous material.
He said: "I guess it's the first time that I have talked about it but we are making a record at the moment.
"It's sounding like nothing that we've done before but that's what everyone always says."
The 33-year-old star - who has previously released two solo albums 'The Boxer' and 'Trick' - has reunited with bandmates Russell Lissack and Gordon Moakes and they're currently working on a number of songs for the record.
He told Australian radio station Triple J: "We're at the writing/recording phase. We've started recording - I think we have about 18 [song] ideas and we're going to lay them down properly in the next few months."
Describing their new music as "an evolution of where we were", he added: "So far there's nothing that I can compare it to really in terms of other musicians, whereas in the past I always could - we were always trying to reference something else."
Bloc Party's new album will be released to mark the 10th anniversary of their debut record 'Silent Alarm'.

Nathan Sykes thinks One Direction are ready to split up.
The 21-year-old star believes the band - which features Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Zayn Malik - will part ways in the near future because he thinks the individual members will want to take a break to do things for themselves.
He admitted: "I think their last album sounded brilliant. But when you're a percentage of a group, you've also just got to give yourself some time where you can be 100% for yourself. You've got to do the stuff that you always wanted to do and the stuff that you always wanted to do and have fun with it, rather than be 20% of a boyband."
The 'Almost Is Never Enough' singer recently launched his solo career after his band, The Wanted, went on hiatus, and has promised to release his debut album later this year.
And now that he has a promising musical life ahead of him on his own, he has ruled out a reunion with his former bandmates Tom Parker, Max George, Jay McGuiness and Siva Kaneswaran.
When asked if he will be performing shows with the band at any time in the foreseeable future, he told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "I'm sure they'll do some more, but I'm personally very focused on this at the moment so it won't be for me."

Rihanna wants to make "timeless" music.
The 'Diamonds' hitmaker has revealed she no longer enjoys performing a lot of her hit songs from her successful ten year career as she feels she's outgrown them and now wants to work on new material that she will be able to play for years to come.
She told MTV News: "I've made a lot of songs that are just really, really big songs that just blow up and I wanted to just kind of get back to, well not that they weren't real music, but I just wanted to focus on things that felt real, things that felt soulful, that felt forever.
"I wanted songs that I can perform in fifteen years. I want an album that I can perform in fifteen years, not any songs that will burn out. I find that when I get on stage now I don't want to perform a lot of my songs because they don't feel like me so I want to make songs that are timeless."
Meanwhile, Calvin Harris recently confessed that Rihanna thought he was "strange" when he joined her as a DJ support act on her 2011 'Loud' tour.
He said previously: "She thought I was this kind of funny, this strange guy making cool music, or I guess what she thought was cool."
The 'Blame' hitmaker - who is believed to be working with the 'FourFiveSeconds' singer again on her forthcoming LP - went on to admit it was a dream come true when the 27-year-old star asked him to collaborate with her on a track.
Speaking about how the hit single 'We Found Love' came about, he added: "I'd never been around someone who was doing those shows so big, such a huge iconic presence. I kept my head down. Then I saw her at the last show and she told me she wanted to do a song like the one I was playing."

Royal Blood would never add another band member.
The rock duo - featuring singer and bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher - have insisted they have no desire to change their unconventional band set-up to add a guitarist or other musicians because it would mean they'd lose their on-stage chemistry.
Mike said: "What have guitarists ever done for us?
"We didn't want anyone else in the band.
"There was no one else that would really fit in. We could play these same songs we have with more members, and it would be a similar band, but you'd miss out on some of the ways we connect, our chemistry."
The 25-year-old musician continued to say he create the band in a way which meant it would be possible for it to only have two members, because he knew band life "isn't easy" so wanted to keep on making music only with his friend, Ben.
Speaking to Mojo magazine, he added: "The way I managed to engineer the sound was a free pass for it to be just me and Ben. Being in a band isn't easy. You can't build it on distortion sound alone."
The pair are now working on their second album having released their eponymous debut chart-topping record last August, but insist it will be a while before it is released because it is nowhere near being complete.
When asked how far along the album is, Mike recently said: "It's hard to say. No song just gets written and completed in one session. Things start emerging out of the ground and we have to prune things and find the fruits among the forest."

Liam Gallagher is recording a solo album.
The rocker as been busy laying down songs in secret for the project since disbanding his band Beady Eye last October.
The former Oasis singer - who was joined in the super-group by his brother Noel before the guitarist quit in 2009 - has recruited a backing band and various musicians for the sessions and he is hoping to have enough new material ready to preview at some of upcoming festivals.
A source told The Sun newspaper: "Liam is eyeing up summer festival slots so he can preview some of his new stuff.
"Though he knows his songwriting isn't as consistent as Noel's, he's also well aware that his name carries a lot of clout in the music industry. His solo record would be one of the most highly-anticipated releases in British rock."
Although Noel was responsible for writing the majority of Oasis' hits, Liam did contribute many notable tracks to the band's albums and two hit singles, 'Songbird' and 'I'm Outta Time'.
Noel, 47, recently admitted he wanted Liam to release a solo LP because he thinks his 42-year-old sibling still has a lot to offer in the music business.
The guitarist said: "I'm amazed Liam has chucked it in, but he won't stay out of the limelight for long. I think Liam should make a solo record - put his balls on the line, put his name up in lights and go for it ... I'm very f***ing sad about Beady Eye, because I know they really wanted to make it work."
It seems the warring brothers have managed to put their feud behind them as Liam posted a photo of himself at the weekend with an Access All Areas pass for one of Noel's High Flying Birds concerts accompanied by the caption "keeping in the family".