Focus Music Notes. "Out of the Blues". Popular music through the decades

Earlier this week Take That announced their latest stadium tour – Progress Live 2011. Tickets go on sale Friday 29 October 2010 at 09:00 at Click here to visit Ticketmaster official site UK tour dates . Sunderland Stadium of Light Monday 30 May 2011 City of Manchester Stadium Friday 3 June 2011 | Saturday 4 June 2011 | Sunday 5 June 2011 | Tuesday 7 June 2011 Cardiff Millennium Stadium Tuesday 14 June 2011 Glasgow Hampden Park Wednesday 22 June 2011 | Thursday 23 June 2011 Birmingham Villa Park Monday 27 June 2011 Wembley Stadium Friday 1 July 2011 | Saturday 2 July 2011 | Sunday 3 July 2011 | Tuesday 5 July 2011 FIND TICKETS

To round off yet another exceptional year, Florence will be releasing the mighty single ‘Heavy In Your Arms’ single alongside ‘Between Two Lungs’ – a two disc special edition version of her 4 x platinum selling Brit Award winning debut album ‘Lungs’. ‘Between Two Lungs’ features new cover art, sleeve notes by Florence and exclusive images. Plus a 10 track second disc which as aswell as Heavy In Your Arms, also includes among others, a live recording of brand new song ‘Strangeness & Charm’. The massive collaboration with Dizzee Rascal ‘You Got The Dirtee Love’ and a previously unreleased Yeasayer remix of ‘Dog Days Are Over’ and will also be available on November 15. Florence recently wowed worldwide audiences with her live performance (and victory) at this year’s MTV VMA Awards which saw her album explode in the U.S. Firing up to #2 in the I tunes chart and breaking the top #15 in the Billboard album chart. Back home Florence has just won two Q Awards for Best Female and Best Trac...

CocknBullKid has made a couple of important transitions recently. First, she's changed her name, dropping the pronoun (she's CocknBullKid, not thecocknbullkid). And secondly, she has emerged from a creative cocoon with a suite of bright, breezy and ultra-colourful pop songs that exist at least five giant leaps away from the savvy, autobiographical electro tunes like 'On My Own' that got her a slot on Jools Holland even before she signed to Island/Moshi Records. " The music I made at first was cool, but it was work in progress. There was only so far I could take it. I knew I was capable of more. I wanted to make music that reached people further than E9, or whatever the cool postcode is now ." It's been worth the wait. The 25 year old Hackney resident, aka Anita Blay, is in possession of the most interesting, credible pop record of the year. But you’ll just have to take our word for it until spring 2011 when the full album, ‘Adulthood’ will be released. An...

One of the most successful, iconic and talented artists of the late 20th century is back – and back like you’ve never heard her before. On November 15th 2010, Annie Lennox releases her sixth solo album. A Christmas Cornucopia is a collection of new, inspired interpretations of 11 traditional festive songs, rounded out by a new Lennox composition, Universal Child, available digitally from 12th October. “All the income that I earn from Universal Child will be paid to the Annie Lennox Foundation.” The Annie Lennox Foundation raises money for projects supporting and educating women and children in Africa with HIV/AIDS. “I’ve known these songs, these carols all my life, I’ve sung them since I was little,” says the songwriter and singer of The Holly And The Ivy, Silent Night, The First Noel and other, less-widely-known songs such as Il Est Ne Le Divin Enfant, and Lullay Lullay. “ They’re just in me. They’re a huge part of my life. So it’s not an arbitrary selection. Those relationships with ...

To round off yet another exceptional year, Florence will be releasing the mighty single ‘Heavy In Your Arms’ on November 15th. Produced by Paul Epworth the track a favourite of recent festival headlining live sets was recorded for the Twilight Eclipse film. Florence comments “ Heavy in your arms I suppose is about the weight of love, and how sometimes it can be a burden between two people, I felt this was a strong theme in the twilight series, is someone being rescued or are they being condemned, and is the love you carry bringing you down. I recorded it with paul one evening, using a lot of strange reversed vocal samples and big hip hop piano, its basically inspired by 90's hip hop, and gospel choirs, like most of my songs.. ” ‘Heavy In your Arms’ will also be available on ‘Between Two Lungs’. A two disc special edition version of her 4 x platinum selling Brit Award winning debut album ‘Lungs’. ‘Between Two Lungs’ will feature new cover art, sleeve notes by Florence and exclusive...

Rapper/actor/CEO, 3 time Grammy winner and all-round superstar Nelly, whose 30 million plus combined album/single sales have established the St. Louis native as one of music’s most bankable and consistent stars, returns in a big way with the release on November 8th of his brand new US smash single “Just A Dream”. Taken from his hotly anticipated forthcoming new album “5.0”, “Just A Dream” entered the US iTunes chart at number 5, has already sold over 1 million copies. “Just a Dream” was produced by Jim Jonsin (Lil Wayne “Lollipop”, T.I. “Whatever You Love”) and Rico Love (Beyonce “Sweet Dreams, Kelly Rowland “Commander”). The new album will feature appearances by Akon, T.I. and Kelly Rowland. With “Just A Dream” Nelly looks to add to his celebrated run of global hit singles from his game-changing debut “Country Grammar,” and “Ride Wit Me” to the Justin Timberlake collaboration “Work It”, the Kelly Rowland duet “Dilemma” and the seven-week at No. 1 “Hot in Herre.” With a catalogue of g...

Global superstar Akon, whose three previous albums have each sold more than half a million copies in the UK, yielding an unbroken string of massive worldwide hit singles, returns with the release on November 22nd of his brand new single “Angel”. Taken from his eagerly awaited dance music inspired album “AKONIC”, “Angel” was produced by Akon & fellow master hit maker David Guetta. Akon is without question one of the greatest hit making forces of all time and is the first solo artist to hold the number one and two spots simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100 - twice. Over the years he has worked with, produced and featured on a slew of international hits, including those for Michael Jackson, Sir Elton John, Eminem, Gwen Stefani, Whitney Houston, as well as Lady Gaga, who was one of the first signings to Akon’s Kon-live label. Akon has also established himself as a serious business man and entrepreneur who has quickly built an empire that includes a record label, fashion line and ch...