SHINee’s Onew to release new solo album in March

U2‘s The Edge has said that he and Bono are “anxious” to release a new guitar-driven album – and has confirmed that the band will play ‘Achtung Baby’ in full at their Las Vegas residency.The band’s guitarist said in a new interview that they have “an embarrassment of riches of new material” in addition to the reimagined originals appearing on their forthcoming album ‘Songs Of Surrender‘ (out March 17).The Edge told Rolling Stone that fans can expect new songs, which Bono recently said will make up “a noisy, uncompromising, unreasonable guitar album”, in the near future.“As soon as possible,” The Edge told the publication of the album’s expected release window. “But, of course, that’s just who I am.

Corey Taylor has spoken to NME about finishing the recording his “darker, heavier” solo album ‘CMF2’. Check out exclusive photos from the sessions below, alongside our interview with Taylor.The follow-up to 2020’s ‘CMFT’ was first teased earlier this year, with Taylor telling fans they weren’t ready for the “bigger, better” album. Speaking to NME, Taylor has now promised that ‘CMF2’ is “going to be the best rock album of this year, and the next.”“I can’t wait for people to hear this album,” he said.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF) has increased its stake in Japanese film and TV studio Toei Company, from 5% to 6.03%, according to a report by the Reuters financial news agency. The move comes shortly after Toei published a ten-year plan for international expansion. Toei includes film and TV production operations, the T-Joy cinema chain and Toei Animation. Last month, it said that it had beaten its film revenue record, thanks to the success of titles including “The First Slam Dunk,” “The Legend of Butterfly” and “One Piece Film Red.” The stake increase also follows PIF’s February announcement that it had increased its stake in Japanese games and console maker Nintendo to 8.26% and that (along with the Singapore state fund GIC) was a buyer of a $966 million bond issue from Korean entertainment-tech firm Kakao Corp.

The K-Pop world is currently going through one of its biggest ever corporate dramas, with SM Entertainment, the label of BoA, Girls Generation, EXO and Super Junior, fighting off what its management is describing as a hostile takeover from its rival HYBE, home of BTS. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A court in Seoul on Friday blocked a proposed move to issue new shares in K-pop talent agency SM Entertainment to Korean tech giant Kakao Corp. and its Kakao Entertainment subsidiary. An injunction was sought by Lee Soo-man, one of the pioneers of the Korean contemporary music industry, but who is recently at the center of a storm of controversy. Lee, who has fallen out with his company’s current management team, announced at the beginning of February his plans to sell a 14.8% stake in SM to HYBE Corp., the firm behind hit group BTS and a rival to SM. It then emerged that SM’s management was proposing to issue new shares to the Kakao pair, giving them a 9.05% holding, and sign an exclusive distribution contract. The share stake would make Kakao the second biggest shareholder in the firm after HYBE and dilute its influence.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Netflix and Korean public broadcaster MBC on Thursday defeated a court application for an injunction to stop the airing of their documentary “In The Name of God: A Holy Betrayal.” The 8-part series began airing from Friday (March 3). It is a Netflix Original, meaning that the streamer has global rights, including in Korea. The show examines “the chilling true stories of four Korean leaders claiming to be prophets [and] exposes the dark side of unquestioning belief.” Among its subjects is Christian Gospel Mission, also known as Providence, and also known as Jesus Morning Star, or JMS. It shares those initials with its controversial leader Jeong Myeong-seok (aka Jung Myung-seok) who is currently awaiting trial in Korea for sexually assaulting some of his female followers.

EXO will come together in April as a full group for a fan meeting to mark their 11th anniversary.The K-pop group announced Tuesday (February 28) that they would reunite for a two-night event at the KSPO Dome in Seoul on April 8 and 9 – the former event taking place 11 years to the day they debuted with the song ‘Mama’, released separately by sub-units EXO-K and EXO-M.Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai, Sehun, Suho and Xiumin will participate in the event, which is called 2023 EXO Fanmeeting “EXO’ Clock”. A fanclub pre-sale will begin on March 6, 8pm KST, while general sale begins March 8, 8pm KST.

Julia MacCary editor Ed Sheeran announced his fifth studio album, “-,” will drop May 5, detailing his personal journey through “fear, depression and anxiety.” Pronounced “subtract,” the acoustic album will conclude his mathematical album era, which began over a decade ago with “+.” The album was produced and written with Aaron Dessner of the National and follows his latest release “F64,” which dropped Jan. 19 and memorialized his friend and SBTV founder Jamal Edwards, who died last year at 31. “I had been working on ‘Subtract’ for a decade, trying to sculpt the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what I thought it should be,” Sheeran said in a statement. “Then at the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health.”

K-pop girl group aespa performed several brand-new tracks at their first-ever ‘SYNK: Hyper Line’ concerts over the weekend.On February 25 and 26, the four-member act held their first standalone concerts at the Jamsil Arena in Seoul, with the second day also streaming on Beyond LIVE to overseas audiences.During the shows, aespa gave live debuts to several unreleased tracks including ‘Salty and Sweet’, which they previewed via their YouTube channel prior to the concert. “‘Cause I am salty and sweet / Irresistible, a different type of treat,” they sing in the chorus.In addition to ‘Salty and Sweet’, the quartet also debuted six other unreleased group tracks, namely ‘Thirsty’, ’YOLO’, ’Don’t Blame’, ‘Hot Air Balloon’, ‘I’m Unhappy’ and another untitled song.Each member of aespa also unveiled their first-ever solo tracks: ‘Menagerie’ by Karina, ‘Wake Up’ by NingNing, and ‘2HOT4U’ by Giselle, while vocalist Winter sang an untitled ballad.

J-Hope, a member of K-pop supergroup BTS, has cancelled his request to delay enlistment in Korea’s mandatory military service, according to the group’s agency Big Hit Music. 

Thania Garcia J-hope of BTS has become the second member of the K-pop group to begin his mandatory military service in South Korea. The 29-year-old singer had previously applied for an enlistment postponement but a new statement from Big Hit Music (the band’s label) explains that he has since pulled that request and will enlist in the military. “We would like to inform our fans that j-hope has initiated the military enlistment process by applying for the termination of his enlistment postponement,” said the note posted to Weverse, Hybe’s global fan community platform.

BTS‘ J-hope is set to release a new solo single, with ‘on the street’ coming later this week.The news was confirmed by Big Hit in a note published to fans on Weverse. The post also revealed that the single is set to drop on Friday (March 3) at 2pm Korean time.“J-hope wrote the track wrote the track to share his candid feelings towards his fans,” the post read.

Brad Paisley is marking one year since Russia invaded Ukraine.

SHINee leader Onew’s upcoming full-length album, ‘Circle’, have recently been released.According to a report by South Korean media outlet Herald Pop, Onew’s forthcoming record will feature ‘Rain on Me’, a ballad produced and arranged in collaboration with singer-songwriter Sam Kim. Rapper Giriboy, meanwhile, has production credits on B-side ‘Caramel’.온유, 첫 정규 앨범 ‘Circle’ 기리보이·샘김 작업 참여!재치 있는 재즈팝 ‘Caramel’, 서정적 발라드 ‘우중산책’ 수록!https://t.co/hBJ7lUVyT6 #ONEW #온유 #SHINee #샤이니 #Circle #ONEW_Circle #Caramel #우중산책 #RainOnMe #GIRIBOY #기리보이 #SamKim #샘김 pic.twitter.com/zowfslbMXH— SHINee (@SHINee) February 23, 2023A separate report by Newsen also revealed the title of two more B-sides to be featured on the record, ‘Anywhere’ and ‘Paradise’.

(G)I-DLE‘s Minnie and Anne-Marie have joined forces on a new single titled ‘Expectations’, due out for release next month.The announcement was made earlier today (February 23) via both (G)I-DLE’s and Anne-Marie’s official Twitter pages, where a title and release date were revealed alongside what appears to be track art for the new song. ‘Expectations’ is set to be released on March 9 at 6pm KST / 9am GMT.It comes after reports from South Korean media last week (February 15) claiming that the two singers had recently wrapped up work on an upcoming collaborative single, which included the filming of its accompanying video treatment.

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Hae Wons’ bestselling Korean novel Sad Tropic will be adapted for TV in the U.S. by Seoul Street and Astro-Nomical Entertainment as an hour-long series.

Brix Smith has posted three new songs from her forthcoming solo album ‘Valley Of The Dolls’.The post-punk icon, who was a member of The Fall and founder of The Extricated as well as The Adult Net, has also set a date for the album’s release: March 10 via Republic of Music.Smith’s band comprises My Bloody Valentine duo Deb George (bass) and Jen Marco (keyboards and guitar), along with Vas Antoniadou (drums) and Ros Cairney (guitar) from rising London duo Deux Furieuses.The tracks she has shared, which you can listen to below, include ‘Fast Net’, ‘Aphrodite’ and ‘California Smile’.Smith previously said of the album: “During lockdown I was put together by a manager to write. I wanted to stop doing The Extricated, I wanted to do something else, I didn’t know what.“I was put together as a songwriter with Youth. His manager said, ‘Youth is a Shaman and you’re a witch so you two are perfect together’.

Black Country, New Road have released a new live film featuring eight brand new songs.“We didn’t want to do a studio album”, says pianist May Kershaw. “We wrote the new tracks specifically to perform live, so we thought it might be a nice idea to put out a performance”.Filmed over three nights at Bush Hall in London in December, the band decided against the convention of cutting together multiple performances to look like one and instead gave each show a distinct visual style, which they cut between throughout the film.“We had concerns from live sessions we’ve seen or done in the past”, says guitarist Luke Mark. “They are very obviously clumped together visually from multiple performances.

K-pop agency SM Entertainment has previewed its upcoming music release plans for the first half of 2023.On February 20, SM uploaded a report of its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2022 to its official website for investors. In the new report, SM also shared the line-up of comebacks it has scheduled for the first half of 2023.According to the report, April will see the release of Girls’ Generation leader and soloist Taeyeon’s fifth mini-album, the debut of a new NCT sub-unit with their first mini-album as well as girl group aespa’s first-ever full-length album.Meanwhile, veteran boyband SHINee are scheduled to make a comeback with their eighth studio album in May, marking their first group release since their seventh repackaged  album ‘Atlantis’ in April 2021.

Skrillex has surprise released his second new album ‘Don’t Get Too Close’ – check it out below.The EDM superstar released ‘Quest For Fire’ on Friday (February 17) after announcing it less than a week before. It was the first Skrillex album since his 2014 debut ‘Recess’ but now he’s followed it up with another new album.‘Don’t Get Too Close’ features Skrillex’s already-released collaborations with PinkPantheress and Trippie Redd (‘Way Back’), Bibi Bourelly (‘Don’t Get Too Close’) and Bladee (‘Real Spring’) alongside new tracks with Justin Bieber, Kid Cudi and Circa Survive/L.S. Dunes vocalist Anthony Green. Check out ‘Don’t Get Too Close’ below alongside the complete tracklist:1. ‘Don’t Leave Me Like This’ (ft. Bobby Raps)2. ‘Way Back’ (ft. PinkPantheress, Trippie Redd)3. ‘Selecta’ (ft. BEAM)4. ‘Ceremony’ (ft. Yung Lean, Bladee)5. ‘Real Spring’ (ft. Bladee)6. ‘Summertime’ (ft. Kid Cudi)7. ‘Bad For Me’ (ft. Corbin, Chief Keef’)8. ‘3am’ (ft. Prentiss, Anthony Green)9. ‘Don’t Go’ (ft. Justin Bieber, Don Toliver)10. ‘Don’t Get Too Close’ (ft. Bibi Bourelly)11. ‘Mixed Signals’ (ft. Swae Lee)12. ‘Painting Rainbows’ (ft. Bibi Bourelly)Skrillex celebrated the release with a sold-out show at Madison Square Gardens alongside Four Tet and Fred Again… after playing on top of a school bus in the middle of New York’s Times Square.A post shared by Sonny (@skrillex)Back in May 2022, Skrillex confirmed that he had at least two new albums on the way and started 2023 by teasing a double album.Skrillex also revealed that his recent absence from music came down to 2022 being “the toughest year of my life”, during which he felt “no drive and purpose for the first time”.“For the first time in 4-5 years I’ve found a new sense of peace.