Controversy
Iranian Metal Band Arsames Face 15 Years in Prison for Playing “Satanic” Music
Yet another Iranian band faces prison time for playing heavy metal. Death metal act Arsames were reportedly arrested last month and charged with “15 years in jail for being in a satanic metal band and being against the Islamic government,” according to official government documents (via Metal Injection). The members… Please click the link below to read the full article. Iranian Metal Band Arsames Face 15 Years in Prison for Playing “Satanic” Music Jon Hadusek You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of...
Spotify CEO To Artists: “You Can’t Record Music Once Every Three To Four Years And Think That’s Going To Be Enough”
In many ways, Spotify and other similar streaming services have been a godsend for music lovers who want to access anything and everything at a moment’s notice. However, since its launch in the late 2000s, Spotify has also earned a shady reputation due to its meager streaming payout rates for artists. According to a recent report, a mid-sized indie label earned just $0.00348 per stream. Many major acts have slammed the Swedish company for failing to properly support musicians, including Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, who once likened Spotify to “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse.” In a turn of events that probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that’s even vaguely familiar with the music industry, Spotify doesn’t think it’s doing anything wrong. In fact, the streaming company believes i...
Rina Sawayama Ineligible For Mercury Prize and BRIT Awards Due To “Problematic” Nationality Requirement
Back in April, the Japanese-British pop star Rina Sawayama released her debut album SAWAYAMA. The record immediately garnered widespread praise; Consequence of Sound named it one of 2020’s best release so far, while review aggregator site Metacritic places SAWAYAMA as the top British album of the year. Despite these accolades, the artist is ineligible to win a Mercury Prize or BRIT Award — and it’s all because of an archaic nationality requirement. In a new interview with VICE, the 29-year-old Sawayama explained that despite having lived in London since she was a toddler, the Mercury Prize and BRIT Awards don’t consider her legally British because she lacks a British passport. “I rarely get upset to the level where I cry,” our former Artist of the Month said. “And I cried.” Sawayama h...
Mick Jagger, Lorde, Pearl Jam Sign Open Letter Demanding Politicians Stop Playing Unauthorized Music
Mick Jagger (photo by Jaime Fernandez), Lorde (photo by Ben Kaye), and Pearl Jam (photo by Lior Phillips). Over 50 artists, including The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Lorde, and Pearl Jam, have signed an open letter demanding that American politicians request permission before using songs for campaigns or events. The letter was organized and written by the Artist Rights Alliance. The group is asking that Democrats and Republicans “establish clear policies requiring campaigns to seek consent of featured recording artists, songwriters, and copyright owners before publicly using their music in a political or campaign setting.” Other signatories include Amanda Shires, B-52s, Blondie, Cyndi Lauper, Elvis Costello, Fall Out Boy, Green Day, Jason Isbell, Linkin Park, Lykk...
Trapt’s New Album Only Sells 600 Copies in First Week, Band Says It’s Fake News
Lately, it seems like dubious nu-metal dinosaurs Trapt will do anything to trudge up publicity, mostly at their own expense. Unfortunately for them, it doesn’t look like all that press did much to move copies of their new album. According to Nielsen SoundScan data, only 600 copies of Trapt’s Shadow Work were sold in the first week of its release. How could the “Headstrong” band sell so few copies of their zero-acclaim new album? Well, for all intents and purposes, the album release and rollout were a complete mess. Without any semblance of a proper promotional cycle — unless you count singer Chris Brown’s racist Twitter rants and being shamed in an e-beatdown delivered by Power Trip frontman Riley Gale — there is confusion as to when Shadow Work even came out. Whil...
J.K. Rowling Won’t Stop Being Transphibic, Says Gay People Are Experiencing a “New Kind of Conversion Therapy”
J.K. Rowling Despite penning a 3,600-word pro-TERF manifesto, disgraced author J.K. Rowling still has more nonsense to spew regarding the transgender community. In a new series of tweets, Rowling argued that gay people who are struggling with mental health issues are being misguided into undertaking “a new kind of conversion therapy” that involves hormones and surgery. She also likened hormones — a common gender-affirming step in trans people’s transitioning process — to anti-depressants, and called those who used anti-depressants as “pure laziness.” It all started on Sunday, when Rowling liked a tweet that compared hormone to anti-depressants. “Hormone prescriptions are the new anti depressants,” the tweet in question reads. “Yes they are sometimes necessary and lifesaving, but they shoul...
Sammy Hagar Clarifies Comments About Going Back on Tour: Only When It’s “Safe and Responsible”
Sammy Hagar made headlines recently when he said he’d “rather personally get sick and even die, if that’s what it takes” to get the concert industry going again amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the veteran rocker is clarifying the extreme portion of his comments, while also saying he does want to get back on the road this year, if possible. For more context, Hagar’s longer quote in Rolling Stone read, “This is hard to say without stirring somebody up, but truthfully, I’d rather personally get sick and even die, if that’s what it takes. We have to save the world and this country from this economic thing that’s going to kill more people in the long run. I would rather see everyone go back to work. If some of us have to sacrifice on that, OK. I will die for my children and my grandchildr...
Herd Immunity Fest Dumps Its Own Name as Nonpoint Drop Off the Bill
Following the announcement of next month’s Herd Immunity Fest in Wisconsin, the band Nonpoint have dropped off the lineup due to the event’s name. What’s more, the festival itself has dropped its own name after widespread backlash. The festival’s announcement has caused quite a stir, given that a number of health experts and promoters aren’t expecting concerts to return in earnest until 2021 in the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The three-day event takes place July 16th-18th of this year at an outdoor stage at the Q&Z Expo Center in Ringle, Wisconsin. Heavy Consequence reached out to a handful of the bands for statements as to why they decided to play the festival, given the advice and guidelines from health officials over the past couple months. In responding, Nonpoint’s manag...
Ice Cube Posting Anti-Semitic and Russian Propaganda on Twitter
Since the murder of George Floyd spurred a nationwide uprising of police brutality protests, Ice Cube’s music, specifically N.W.A.’s “Fuck Tha Police”, has felt extremely on-point. His tweets, on the other hand, have not: the veteran rapper and actor has been uploading images promoting anti-Semitic and Russian propaganda. On June 6th, Ice Cube tweeted an image of a mural that was removed from a wall in London’s East End for being anti-Semitic. The picture features a handful of caricatured Jewish businessmen playing a game of Monopoly on top of a table that sits on the backs of black men. The image itself contains the words, “All we have to do is stand up and their little game is over.” Earlier today, he shared a picture of a black cube in the center of the Jewish Star of David. The pu...
Lana Del Rey Reveals New Album Title, Name-Checks Marianne Williamson in Latest Attempt to Clarify Controversial IG Post
Lana Del Rey took to Instagram on Friday to announce a new album and poetry collection — but the message was largely lost in the context of the rest of the post. The singer drew the Internet’s ire for framing a rebuff against critics by comparing herself to other female singers, mostly naming women of color like Doja Cat and Beyoncé, “who have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating, etc.” Meanwhile, Del Rey argued, she is met with allegations of glamorizing abuse “when in reality I’m just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all now seeing are very prevalent abusive relationships all over the world,” The pop star insisted that modern feminism should allow for her point of view, too: “There has to be a place...
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Jimmy Fallon Apologizes After Old Blackface SNL Sketch Resurfaces [Updated]
In a week full of Big Yikes celebrity controversies, Jimmy Fallon has entered the fray. The current Tonight Show host is facing heaps of criticism on social media for a resurfaced clip of him performing in blackface on a 2000 episode of Saturday Night Live. In the 20-year-old sketch, Fallon impersonates comic Chris Rock — blackface, accent, and all — as his cast mate Darrell Hammond laughs and plays along. In the clip that began going viral early Tuesday, Fallon, who is white, riffs on the lack of black representation on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and jokes about Rick James smoking crack while recording “Super Freak”. Naturally, people are reacting angrily, and the hashtag #jimmyfallonisoverparty is currently trending on Twitter. Watch the clip below to see just how far Fallon too...
Lana Del Rey Responds To Instagram Backlash: “Don’t Ever Ever Ever Ever Bro- Call Me Racist”
It’s been a day for Lana Del Rey. In an Instagram post on Thursday morning, Del Rey announced the September 5th release of her new album and name-checked major pop stars of color like Beyoncé and Cardi B in a lengthy digression on the glamorization of abuse and feminism’s place in pop music. Shocker: It didn’t go down so well, eliciting all sorts of backlash from fans and passersby alike. Del Rey has since responded to the vitriol by replying to comments on her own Instagram post. To further broadcast her sentiments, Del Rey then republished her own comments in an Instagram story. Here’s the first comment: Bro. This is sad to make it about a WOC issue when I’m talking about my favorite singers. I could’ve literally said anyone but I picked my favorite fucking people. And this is the proble...
