NEWS
ATLANTA, GEORGIA - SEPTEMBER 12: Artists Timbaland and Swizz Beatz attend day 1 of REVOLT Summit x AT&T Summit on September 12, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Paras Griffin/Getty Images for RevoltLooks like the word on the curb is out about co-founders Swizz Beatz and Timbaland’s popular Verzuz brand finding new partners to play music with, in social media app Triller. Last week, rumors unexpectedly swirled about Verzuz separating from their Apple Music relationship. In an early morning post (March 9th) to Instagram, Swizz Beatz exclaimed, “Finally something that the creatives own officially!!!! @timbaland it’s showtime!! By the artist for the artist with the people!!!”
Triller, launched in 2015 by co-founders David Leiberman and Sammy Rubin, allows users to take snippets of songs and create quick shareable clips that span the length of their imaginations. Boasting downloads in the 100 million range, Triller seems to aim at playing close to celebs and record labels that distribute the tracks that all the youngins flock to rock. Can Verzuz find the footing needed to expand the battle brand in uncharted ways with Triller? We’ll all have to wait and see.
A typical Verzuz battle, which has featured dozens of match-ups with the likes of DMX vs. Snoop, Bounty Killer vs. Beenie Man and even Gladys Knight vs. Patti LaBelle, routinely scores collective social media viewing numbers into the millions. During the height of the pandemic lock down in 2020, Swizz and Timb’s competitive creation gave much needed light hearted moments and brought back the love of songs from times past.
What this post means as far as deal points between the artist challenge platform that pits music stars catalogues against one another, is also yet to be explained. In the meantime, Swizz got busy after the posting, in seemingly celebrating the news by launching into an IG Live playlist party dubbed “Zone Radio (also born out of the pandemic times like Verzuz).” This edition by Swizz was also in honor of International Women’s Day, “Let’s shout out all the women!”
He didn’t address his announcement about the deal in the live feed, but we are sure to hear more in the coming days, if not sometime later today. Let’s give the fellas a moment to get the announcement all the way explained, as we are sure Swizz is bursting to get the info out. More details to come.
NEWS
Supergrass are teasing an upcoming announcement with fans, according to a new post.
The British band, fronted by Gaz Coombes, shared a cryptic new post across their social media channels this morning (September 13), suggesting to fans that a new announcement is on the way.
Posted at 9am BST, the post simply shared artwork of the band’s logo in red, alongside next Monday’s date, September 16. In the caption, the band simply wrote: “Sign up now”, alongside a link to their website’s homepage.
Upon clicking the link, the page prompts fans to sign up for future updates, and asks them to input both their email address and the country they live in. Check out the post below.
While details on the announcement remain sparse, the post has already caught fans’ attention, with some speculating that the news could be around the upcoming 30th anniversary of their debut album, ‘I Should Coco’.
Released in May 1995, the release marked the record that first put the band on the map, and contained singles ‘Mansize Rooster’, ‘Caught By The Fuzz, ‘Lose It’ and ‘Lenny’. It also saw Coombes and Co. nominated at the 1995 Mercury Prize, and contained what would soon become their biggest track to date, the Ivor-Novello winning ‘Alright’.
At time of writing, the band haven’t shared any further indication as to whether the announcement is related to the huge upcoming milestone – whether it be an anniversary tour or reissue – nor whether it has anything to do with new music that could be on the way.
The band’s last studio album was ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, which arrived in 2008. Since then, they have shared remastered versions of both their 1999 self-titled album and their 2003 record ‘Life On Other Planets’.
In other news around the band, last year it was reported that the band’s frontman joined Johnny Marr onstage last month to perform The Smiths‘ classic ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ at Lakefest 2023.
Before then, Coombes opened up about how “nervous” he was about reuniting Supergrass following the success of his solo albums.
Supergrass split up in 2010 but reunited for a series of live shows in 2019. They released a live album in 2020, Live On Other Planets, to celebrate their 25th anniversary and raise money for grassroots venues affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having got into a flow and the last two albums having done so well, it seemed a bit odd, like a backward step,” he said. “But then I was confident that I could operate both things together and it seems that I did, because I was obviously writing this record mainly during the reunion so I feel like I made best use of both things.”
Coombes’ fourth solo album, ‘Turn The Car Around’, came out in January of last year.
