• Imagine Dragons are back with a brand new single, following up their platinum debut album ‘Night Visions’ with the infectious ‘I Bet My Life’. The band announced the new song on their social media platforms earlier in the week ahead of the track’s emergence at both Aussie media and retail.
• The Golden Ticket Raffle is off and running in Sydney in the hope of raising much needed funds for national cancer charity Redkite. Tickets for the raffle are on sale now via www.sydneygoldenticket.com and the lucky winner will receive a double pass to every single show at Qantas Credit Union Arena throughout 2015.
• Sony Music has announced the local release of the soundtrack to the new ‘Annie’ movie. Though the film itself isn’t at local cinemas ’til just before Christmas, the soundtrack, which features Sia’s ‘You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile’, will drop locally on Friday November 21.
• Organisers of the Mountain Sounds Festival in Kariong have unveiled the all-important first line-up for the February 21 event. The Griswolds, Jungle Giants, Northeast House Party, Safia, DZ Deathrays and many more are in and tickets are on sale now.
• Tasmania’s Panama Festival is back for 2015, once again filling the beautiful Panama Forest in the state’s north-east with the sounds of a host of big name performers. Among those on the bill so far for the March 07/08 event are Sharon Van Etten, Ben Salter, Bombino and Violet Swells.
• US singer Conor Oberst will play a series of East Coast headline shows early in the new year. He’s here for the Golden Plains Music Festival in Meredith and a couple of zoo twilights performances (one each in Sydney and Melbourne), but will also play headline shows in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Wollongong. Tickets are on sale now.
• US electro duo Odesza announced headline shows in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth just a couple of weeks back, but now they’ve confirmed another, this time for the people of Melbourne. Already confirmed as part of the Sugar Mountain line-up in the Victorian capital, Odesza will play Howler on Sunday January 25.
• US rapper Danny Brown will be back in Australia early in the new year, unveiling headline shows in Melbourne and Brisbane. He’ll play The HiFi in Brisbane on January 03 and the Corner Hotel in Melbourne on January 04. Tickets are on sale at 10am local time on Friday.
• Powderfinger frontman Bernard Fanning will also tour early in the new year. He’s set to play a selection of dates across the country; the tour kicking off at The Triffid in Brisbane on Thursday January 22. Tickets for all shows are on sale at 9am local time tomorrow.
• It’s four weeks in succession for Meghan Trainor on top of the British singles chart. ‘All About That Bass’ just doesn’t look like going anywhere for the time being, but Ed Sheeran’s ‘Thinking Out Loud’ is soaring (up from No.4 to No.2) and Waze, Odyssey and R.Kelly’s ‘Bump & Grind 2014’ bullets from No.164 to No.3. Fuse gets the only top ten debut of the week, with ‘Tina’ at No.9.
• British singer Ben Howard scores a big No.1 debut on the UK albums chart with his sophomore album ‘I Forget Where We Were’, ahead of Slipknot’s ‘5 : The Gray Chapter’ at No.2. It’s a new entry at No.4 for Neil Diamond’s ‘Melody Road’ and another at No.5 for ‘Aquostic’, the new acoustic record for Status Quo. Ella Henderson’s ‘Chapter One’ drops from a No.1 debut to No.7 and Nicole Scherzinger’s ‘Big Fat Lie’ debuts at a big fat No.17.
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