Music News

Manic Street Preachers want to make "the biggest f***ing rock record ever".
The Welsh trio have just released their 12th album, 'Futurology', which has been one of the most well-received of their career, but they are already looking ahead to the future and have set the bar high for themselves.
Bassist Nicky Wire said: "I think we all know deep in ourselves that there is only one record left to make and that's the biggest f***ing rock record ever.
"It's Zeppelin, it's the Pistols, it's [debut album] 'Generation Terrorists', but bigger.
"That's a long way off. But I think we know that's what's left; to raise the scales to an enormous level."
The 'Walk Me to the Bridge' hitmakers are very happy with their new album even though they think their intentions with the record were "ludicrous".
Nicky added to NME magazine: "It's ludicrous in its ambition. We're trying to talk about abstract art movements in a f***ing three-minute pop song, and there's so much eastern Russian stuff in there on songs like, 'Black Square' and 'Mayakovsky'.
"It's got the same ridiculous ambition as 'Generation Terrorists' but it's more cultured. It has that intent though, it's got the post-punk jaggedness of 'The Holy Bible', but it merges that with the retro-futurism we've always been obsessed with."

Dolly Parton will never retire.
The 68-year-old singer insists only if she or her husband Carl Dean got ill would she turn her back on her career and she hopes to keep performing well into old age.
She said: "I hope to continue to go, unless my health should fail me or my husband should fall sick. I intend to work till I fall over. I would love to be able to be like Bob Hope and Betty White and a lot of those folks that work till they're 90, 100 years old. I have no intentions of retiring!"
Dolly also admitted she loves seeing her friends "slaughter" her songs at karaoke.
She laughed: " I have seen my songs slaughtered pretty good, by some of my drunk friends. But it's always fun. It's always good."
Several of Dolly's songs have been covered by other artists, and she insists there are no interpretations she doesn't like.
She told The Guardian newspaper: "It's always a great honour for anybody to record your songs. It's always curious to see how people interpret your songs. Some people say, 'Ooh, I didn't like that version', but I say: 'Well, I like every version, because it's amazing how people feel and hear the songs so differently.' "

Weird Al Yankovic thinks he needs a "vacation" from social media.
The 54-year-old singer is "obsessed" with websites like Twitter and loves having millions of people hanging on his every word.
He exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "I'm a bit obsessed with Twitter and Facebook and Instagram right now. I think I need to take a vacation from it for a while. But I do love it.
"It's an amazing feeling to think of something stupid to say and hit a button and then three million people are reading it."
The 'White and Nerdy' hitmaker also thinks Twitter has had a positive impact on his career.
He said: "[Twitter] allows me to interact with my fans and get feedback on anything I happen to be doing at the time. And it's brought me a lot closer to my peers in the comedy industry.
"I've been enjoying social media for the last few years and it certainly helped me in a major way with the release of this album."
The singer loves interacting with his fans on the social media website and is overwhelmed by their support, particularly by one group of fans who are campaigning to get him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He said: "Normally I read every single mention, every single response I get on Twitter but this week it's been impossible. The outpouring from the fans have been truly overwhelming.
"Whether or not I ever get a star on the 'Walk of Fame' is sort of immaterial to me. The fact that I have fans that care enough to spend all that time and effort to make that happen - that to me is the prize, to know I have such wonderful, dedicated fans."
Weird Al's new album 'Mandatory Fun' is out now.

Boots says Beyonce's 'Crazy In Love' was the perfect fit for the '50 Shades Of Grey' trailer.
The producer - who created the trailer's soundtrack - chose to rework the singer's hi-tempo anthem into a slower, more sultry tune and says it was the best choice for the S&M movie.
He told Complex.com: "It just fits. I like to think of myself as more than just a producer. I look at what we did for the trailer and this version of the song is, very much in my opinion, a score. "It was something that I consciously scored. Whenever it comes to the stuff that Bey and I do, I'll never speak for her, but I think that she killed it. She just absolutely killed it. The acapellas that she did gives me chills, so it's really dope."
Boots also believes Beyonce's song is the perfect accompaniment to the raunchy movie which tells the story of how virginal Anastasia Steele falls for bondage-loving billionaire Christian Grey.
He added: "I think falling in love can make you do crazy s**t. That was the spirit of the original song in the first place, we flipped it and it kind of became a whole thing. This is the first time I've ever worked on a trailer."

Este Haim "nearly died" at Glastonbury last year.
The Haim bassist suffers from type one diabetes - a condition where the body cannot control blood sugar levels because of problems with the hormone insulin - and after forgetting to eat before her performance at the 2013 festival, she was in danger of slipping into a coma.
She told BBC Newsbeat: "I think we've had a lot of trials and tribulations on the road, there have been a couple of little mishaps.
"Glastonbury being one of them when I almost died.
"I was so out of it that I just didn't remember that I hadn't eaten. By the sixth song, I could feel my blood sugar levels plummeting really really fast. My eyes were kind of fluttering in the back of my head."
Este left the stage and her quick-thinking manager was able to boost her sugar levels quickly.
She explained: "My manager, he's the best manager in the world, he had to put chocolate on his finger and stick it in my mouth.
"[He had to] put it on the side of my cheek and rub it for a good two minutes before I could get back on stage.
"I did the rest of the set sitting down like BB King."
Este says she and everyone around her are now more careful to make sure she has "her fuel for the day", but life on the road makes it tricky to manage her illness.
She explained: "It's due to the fact that your hours are always so different and food is never really constant."

Tom Petty never wants to make another album without his band.
The 63-year-old musician recorded a solo record 'Highway Companion' in 2006 but with the release of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' latest album 'Hypnotic Eye' he can't see himself ever wanting to work without the group again.
He told The Sun newspaper: "I don't see that I have anything to offer as a solo artist that I couldn't do within the group better.
"We get along so well it's embarrassing really. It's a love fest!"
However, that doesn't mean they don't have some disagreements.
Original bassist Ron Blair, is back after a 20-year hiatus between 1982 and 2002 and Petty explained: "Even now, a friendly argument will start about something that happened in, say, '72. 'Remember when there was only one cheesecake in room service, I ordered it and you took it off the tray before it got to my room. That p****d me off!'"
While Tom is happy with their new record, he admitted he could never hope to emulate the legendary performers of the past.
He explained: "None of us can compete with Bob Dylan even now you know. He's far above us all.
"Music was so good when I was young. At 10, I was obsessed with becoming a record fan."
"I came to befriend some old records, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and all that good Fifties rock 'n' roll. I learned all that stuff so by the time The Beatles came along, it was like, 'Wow! This is my music, the music of my generation.'"

Lana Del Rey still gets stage fright.
While the 29-year-old singer struggled terribly with the affliction at the start of her career, she believes she is getting better but sometimes still feels like she's not sure if she can perform.
Speaking about Cat Power, who has been open about her own struggle with stage fright and still plays through it, Lana told Rolling Stone: "That's why I really liked Cat Power, because I felt like I really understood her.
"She was a person who really meant a lot to me, just knowing that it was okay to start your performance with your back to the audience, at first, if you really couldn't face it. I mean, a lot of the time I just really felt like, 'I'm not really sure if I can do it.' But I mean, I've gotten better."
While Lana's latest album 'Ultraviolence' has won widespread praise, she admitted producer Dan Auerbach found her quite tough to work with.
She said: "I would explain things to him in terms of colours and touchstone words. My word for the record was 'fire,' you know, blue fire, when a flame gets so hot it goes from red to blue. And I told him I wanted everything to sound like it was in the key of blue. And I think at first he was like, 'What the f**k?'"

Dr Dre is Ice Cube's favourite collaborator.
The rapper-turned-actor has worked with a host of stars but admitted Dre is always his first choice as they never fail to come up with something special.
He told MTV: "I can't beat a collaboration with Dr. Dre. Anytime we get together and do something it's special."
However, he recently worked on 'Drop Girl' with 2 Chainz and Redfoo, something he has been planning for some time.
He said: "I ran into 2 Chainz a couple of years ago and we admired what each other was doing and RedFoo I've known since he first started. His mother [video director and writer Nancy Leiviska] has been working with me for a long time, so it's been real cool because we waited till the perfect time, when we had the perfect song."
Usually Ice Cube doesn't work on movies and music at the same time but he recorded 'Drop Girl' around the same time as he filmed 'Ride Along 2' with Kevin Hart.
He said: "I usually don't do music and movies at the same time. I'll promote one while I'm doing the other, but when I'm in movie mode I'm usually stuck there and I won't record, and when I'm recording I won't be filming."

Dolly Parton is in talks to record her ode to Glastonbury's mud.
The '9 to 5' hitmaker performed the one-off track at the world renowned music festival - famed for its muddy fields - at Worthy Farm, Somerset in June this year and has been hounded with requests to release it as a single ever since.
Organisers are even planning to make her ode a festival staple.
She told The Sun newspaper: "I'm getting such demand for the mud song that we're talking about recording it. There have been so many requests.
"There is talk about getting a different artist to perform it every year."
The 68-year-old singer - who made her Glastonbury debut on the Pyramid Stage at this year's festival - also revealed she was surprised people still find her "trendy and cool" after her performance spurred her latest album 'Blue Smoke' into the top three of the charts.
She said: "Whoever thought I'd end up all trendy and cool.
"It is great at my age as you never know if people are still going to like you."