Bryan Ferry Partners With Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists; Company Acquires 50% of Roxy Music Frontman’s Catalog

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music R&B ace Maxwell has announced “The Serenade 2024” North American Tour, which will see him joined by two special guests: two-time Grammy winner Jazmine Sullivan and rising singer-songwriter October London. Full dates appear below.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Sony will release a new animated short titled “The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story” on Sony Pictures Animation’s YouTube channel at 6 a.m. PT on March 27.

A.D. Amorosi After a handful of social media rants on the fairness of royalty payment structuring in the music industry, James Blake has announced his participation in the launch of Vault, a direct artist-to-fan streaming platform focused on unreleased music.“About a week ago I went viral with a post about the effects of streaming and TikTok on artists’ ability to support themselves,” said Blake in a post on X (formerly Twitter), announcing his new participation with Vault to provide artists with better streaming rates.

Neon has formed a strategic financial partnership with Ken Kao’s Waypoint Entertainment, the ​​full-service production company behind The Favourite and The Nice Guys, to deliver a slate “of bold, genre-spanning films for savvy theatrical audiences,” the distributor said. The partners will focus on larger indies in the $10+ million range.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Jeff Lynne’s ELO hae announce their final tour, dubbed “The Over and Out Tour.” The 27-date excursion, produced by Live Nation, will kick off in Palm Desert, CA on August 24 and travel across North America before concluding in Los Angeles on October 25. Artist Presale will begin on Wednesday, March 20 at 10am local time and the general onsale will start on Friday, March 22 @ 10am local time. Exclusive VIP experiences will be available March 20th at 10am local.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent After creating a U.K. genre label with Jed Benedict, Studiocanal has forged a partnership with French production company WTFilms to focus on genre films.

Sheryl Crow’s crystalline vocals all night long, but her opening set was not why I trekked to Newark, NJ’s Prudential Center on a Thursday night, with work looming large the next morning. The rest of the impatient crowd seemed to feel the same, pining for Zach Bryan to fall out of the sky and onto center stage to cure our aching for his raspy voice and gut-wrenching lyrics.In true country music fashion, the makeup of the crowd was somewhat jarring.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic CMA Fest has announced its lineup for the festival’s 2024 edition, taking place in Nashville June 6-9, and as usual, the roster for the nightly stadium shows is a who’s who of recent country charttoppers and awards contenders, with Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson foremost among the newer crop of headliners. The names gracing the Nissan Stadium main stage lineup aren’t entirely that fresh.

EXCLUSIVE: At the 2021 Edinburgh TV Festival, the BBC and Netflix unveiled what the pair described as a landmark five-year disability partnership that would unearth a new generation of shows helmed by disabled talent.

A new BBC documentary exploring the social media frenzy around the Idaho murders where four university students lost their lives has been released. Documentary maker Zara McDermott will focus on the social media storm that followed the harrowing and tragic deaths of the students.

Chinese tech and media giant Alibaba is investing $640M (HK$5BN) into Hong Kong’s creative industries over the next five years.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Cora Yim and Benjamin Lin, both established indie producers of Chinese-language content, have joined forces to launch S11 Partners. It is partially backed by Medialink Group, an IP, distribution and brand licensing mini-conglomerate that is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The pair, who previously worked on TV series “Taiwan Crime Stories,” are launching their venture at FilMart in Hong Kong with a slate of three feature films in development.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. When Colin Jost and Michael Che are together, whether it’s as co-hosts of “SNL’s” Weekend Update or in the real world outside the confines of the famed 30 Rock stage, they are rarely serious. Like the comedic characters they broadcast on NBC, their teasing, banters and pranks are incessant — and their chemistry is palpable.

Roxy Music‘s frontman Bryan Ferry has sold 50 per cent of his music catalogue in a deal with Iconic Artist Group.The deal includes a range of assets from Ferry’s music career including his solo work as well as the work from his time with Roxy Music. Iconic Artists Group also acquired half of the singer’s sound recording, publishing, and name, image and likeness rights.

Tributes have flooded in for Dave Myers following the death of the Hairy Bikers star - and the latest episode of the final "magical" series he made with best friend Si King is airing as planned on Tuesday night (March 5). Myers, one half of the motorcycle-riding cooking duo, died last week after a battle with cancer.

Jaden Thompson Outside Los Angeles’ AMC Grove the afternoon of March 3, entertainment professionals and mall-goers alike were treated to a unique Hollywood spectacle as Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Ke Huy Quan, Kyle Gass and more showed off their best martial arts moves on the “Kung Fu Panda 4” red carpet. Tenacious D’s cover of “…Baby One More Time,” which recently went viral on social media and is featured in the film’s end credits, played as bandmates Black and Gass shot scenes for the song’s forthcoming music video.

Courtney Love joined Billie Joe Armstrong‘s covers band The Coverups onstage in London again last night (March 1) where she delivered a joint performance of Hole‘s ‘Celebrity Skin’ – watch below.The Green Day side-project – famed for their impromptu gigs with renditions of rock and punk staples – played a 25-song set at the 100 Club on Oxford Street yesterday after taking to the stage at The Garage in Islington on Tuesday (February 27), per Setlist.FM.Love made a surprise appearance at the first show, assisting Armstrong and co. on covers of Tom Petty‘s ‘Even The Losers’, and Cheap Trick’s ‘He’s A Whore’ and ‘Surrender’.

Room to Read, a global education nonprofit tackling illiteracy and gender inequality, announced a partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery for the premiere of , the first nonprofit-led animation and live-action film project to promote gender equality through the stories of young women around the world.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Former Verve CEO Bill Weinstein has filed a lawsuit against the talent agency, alleging that he was improperly ousted from the company on Feb. 19 by two partners who are looking to sell the company.

Katie Price hit the town this week for another night out with close pal Chloe Ferry, posing for a snap alongside the Geordie Shore star as she shared an insight into the evening with her 2.6M Instagram followers. It's the latest in a string of wild nights for Katie and Chloe, who began to form a close bond earlier this year. For the evening, former glamour model Katie, 45, donned a blue and red oversized baseball top with matching knee high boots.