Today’s Music News: Hot Chocolate frontman Errol Brown dies at 71
by Staff
May 06, 2015
Errol Brown, lead singer of the band Hot Chocolate, has died of liver cancer at age 71. Brown wrote and sang the band's biggest hit, 1976's "You Sexy Thing." Brown's first break in show business came when his debut single, a reggae cover of "Give Peace a Chance," won approval from John Lennon himself. (Billboard)
A computer analysis of 17,000 songs has found that the most profoundly transformative event in the rock era was not the emergence of the Beatles or the 80s wave of synth pop, but the arrival of hip-hop on pop charts in the early 1990s. (Billboard)
In e-mails made public in the Texas trooper reprimand lawsuit, the state's chief law enforcement official referred to Snoop Dogg as "a dope smoking cop hater." The trooper who was formally reprimanded for accepting the rapper's request to pose for a photo is now suing his employers, alleging that the reprimand was a retaliation for an earlier complaint by the trooper regarding an unrelated matter. (Billboard)
In their summer tour that stops at the Pantages Theatre on June 25, the Smashing Pumpkins will partner with the Easter Seals Dixon Center to raise awareness of veterans' issues. (Billboard)
Netflix has released a trailer for The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir. The documentary about the Grateful Dead co-founder will be available on Netflix starting May 22. (Rolling Stone)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfNewpF-j1E
A new book called Let There Be GWAR will tell the story of...guess which band. (Rolling Stone)
In a setback for SoundCloud's aspiration to compete with Spotify and other major streaming services, Sony has pulled the music of artists including Adele, Hozier, Kelly Clarkson, Miguel, and Passion Pit from SoundCloud after negotiations over license fees broke down. (Billboard)
It was inevitable that someone would ask Alan Thicke—the actor best-known for starring in Growing Pains and second-best-known for fathering Robin Thicke—to comment on the "Blurred Lines" verdict. Surprise, surprise: he thinks it was "dangerous to the music community." (Rolling Stone)
