Kanye up in arms over Grammy voting system
Kanye West has threatened to boycott the Grammy awards next year unless the voting system is changed to allow the most commercially successful artists from winning awards. West wants a meeting with the two big officials of the awards committee to discuss his point of view after he staged a protest at the recent Grammies. He walked on the stage and asked Beck to hand over the award he won for the Artist of the Year to Beyonce who he felt deserved it.
James Last is to retire from touring this year. The 85 year old German composer and conductor has been leading the James Last Orchestra since the 1960s performing pop, rock n roll, polka, waltz, jazz and the classical genres. Last has announced he is having a life threatening illness and will begin his farewell tour in Germany next month and end up with a final show on April 1, at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Some of his compositions have been performed by Elvis Presley, Andy Williams, Petula Clark and Eddie Fisher. James Last has sold over 100 million album copies worldwide from 52 albums released.
Florence and the Machine the indie rock band will release a new album called ‘How Big, How Blue,How Beautiful’ on June 2. The release comes after a break of nearly four years. The first single ‘ What Kind Of Man’ from the 11 track album came out on 12th February. The new album is produced by Markus Dravs with additional production support on certain tracks by Paul Epworth, Kid Harpoon and John Hill. The last single to be released from Florence and the Machine ‘Spectrum (Say My Name)’, topped the UK chart in 2013. The group had two more top hits ‘ Your Got The Dirtee Love’ with Dizzee Rascal and ‘Never Let Me Go’.
E llie Goulding has scored her second week at the top of the UK sin- gles chart with the song ‘Love Me Like You Do’. The song has combined sales of 118,000 to extend its stay at the top. The album on which the song is featured is from the film Fifty Shades of Grey which also is the No: 1 on the UK compilation album chart. Meanwhile at the No: 10 position the song ‘Earned It’ by the Canadian artist The Weekend also from the Fifty Shades of Grey. T he highest new entry on the UK singles chart came in at No: 4 for DJ Fresh with the song ‘Gravity’ featuring the vocalist Ella Eyre. The song provided the English DJ, electronic music and drum & bass producer with his seventh top 10 UK hit song. DJ Fresh whose real name is Daniel Stein had a No: 1 song called ‘Louder’ with Sian Evans in 2011. ‘Gravity’ is a stand alone track and is not connected as yet to any album by the DJ Fresh. As for singer Ella Eyre she has been the vocalist on Rudimental’s No: 1 song ‘ Waiting All Night’ back in 2013.