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

Sports Team announce their biggest UK tour to date, with the band back on the road doing what they do best next Spring and headlining O2 Academy Brixton on 29 April 2021. The tour went on general sale on Friday 26th June 9am BST. The past week has been a career defining moment for the six-piece, achieving number #2 in the Official Album Charts with critically acclaimed debut Deep Down Happy, which holds the highest first week sales for a debut album by a British band in four years. The band also became the biggest seller of the week, leading on physical sales (10K), digital downloads, and scoring the biggest vinyl sales of a debut record by a British artist in 2020, with a #1 on the Official Vinyl Chart. Sports Team also share the animated video for ‘Long Hot Summer’, the video created by animator Daniel Jamie Williams, which documents a playful journey through a kid’s dream.   Tap here to watch Long Hot Summer   Tap here to listen to ‘Deep Down Happy’ UK ...

On the 12 June Sports Team achieved the highest first week sales for a debut album by a British band in four years, with critically acclaimed debut Deep Down Happy. Sports Team enter the OCC at #2, becoming the seller of the week, leading on physical sales (10K) and having the edge on digital downloads; as Lady Gaga only just takes the top spot. Sports Team have also scored #1 on the Official Vinyl Chart. With no record stores open, and no live shows due to lockdown, the six-piece have still managed to achieve the biggest selling album of the w­­eek in Independent Retail, a mammoth feat for Britain’s next breakthrough guitar band. Blossoms were the last British band to record the highest week one sales in 2016, with Wolf Alice in 2015, Royal Blood in 2014, and the 1975 in 2013. The 12,248 sales week one, has eclipsed debuts by Shame, Idles, The Big Moon, Pale Waves and The Magic Gang. Sports Team have built an incredibly loyal, impassioned fanbase, who carried the Gaga x Spor...

On Friday, Sports Team released their debut album 'Deep Down Happy' to critical acclaim. The album has entered the OCC midweek at #1, ahead of Lady Gaga and All Time Low, with the band commenting "this shows how much community still counts for". Deep Down Happy is 6Music's Album of the Day, and Sports Team will be hosting a Twitter listening party with Tim Burgess (Charlatans) on Thursday, as well as a Reddit AMA tonight.   In the meantime, the band have dropped the lockdown Camel Crew video set in a virtual dolls house (a feeling we are all too familiar with): "We started this video idea in the studio then all got home for lockdown and started having the same dreams. That escalated into making voodoo dolls of each other. Not sure a post lockdown world will view this is a cultural high point, but here it is," says lead singer Alex Rice. Sports Team are a band of six singular characters, who have been described as one of the most raucous, electrify...

Island Records is proud to announce that their One Love Covid-19 Relief Auction in support of NHS Charities Together & Feeding America, has raised the fantastic sum of £179,755. Hosted by the inimitable Emmy®, Tony® and Grammy® Award-winning actor, singer, director, composer and playwright Billy Porter, the auction comprised incredible lots and one-of-a-kind donations from Island artists old and new as well as friends of the label. The U2 lot, featuring Bono’s signed and hand-written lyrics for ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’, sold for a staggering £76,000, believed to be a world record for U2 lyrics. There was also a last-minute addition to the auction with a truly unique one-off lot from Brian Eno. Eno offered up a personal one-of-a-kind ringtone composed by him. The response from media and the public alike has been unbelievable with almost 800 people registered to bid and over 3,250 bids during the hour-long live broadcast. Speaking about the auction Island Re...

Alt-pop duo Moby Rich enlists multiplatinum-selling star Bishop Briggs for their new single, ‘friends*’. The pair—Maxwell Joseph and Connor Pledger—relocated to LA from Indianapolis and Atlanta in search of, well, anything. In a moment of synergy, Connor began attending open mic nights around the town in which Maxwell was living. The pair serendipitously met, began writing together, and realised an identifiable sound between the two them. Writing the majority of their tracks on acoustic guitar, they sing every song in unison, a sort of whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-parts attitude, which speaks volumes of their close, almost twin-like, friendship. Listen to ‘friends*: HERE Of the collaboration with Bishop Briggs, Moby Rich says, “When we wrote ‘friends*’ with Bishop, it was our first time meeting her. Sometimes sessions have a way of just giving you a song, and the second we started writing, the words and melodies just started to flow. It’s pretty wild when we get to work wit...

During a particularly raw period of time; lead singer of Flyte Will Taylor recorded a 20-minute voice-note about a painful breakup, as a warning to himself to “buckle up and get ready for a really shit time”. New single ‘Easy Tiger’ was born, a startlingly frank yet beautifully poignant song, recorded over a few days in LA with producer Justin Raisen (Angel Olsen, Ariel Pink) and Ali Chant (Aldous Harding) on mixing duties. ‘Easy Tiger’ immediately caught the attention of Mark Jenkin, the BAFTA-winning British director (Bait) of Bullion Productions. During quarantine, Will and Mark started work on a music video, Mark’s trademark use of hand-processed and physically edited film serving as the perfect solution to the current limitations of film making during COVID-19. ‘Easy Tiger’ is the first music video Mark has directed. “The challenge was to make something that felt amorphous – to create something that has a tactile feel to it, is a single artefact, something that feels like a f...

Island Records is proud to announce the One Love Covid-19 Relief Auction in support of NHS Charities Together & Feeding America. Artists old and new, as well as friends of the label, have donated one-of-a-kind lots to raise funds for relief efforts. The event will be hosted by Emmy®, Tony® and Grammy® Award-winning actor, singer, director, composer and playwright Billy Porter and will be broadcast live from 6pm BST on May 21st. To bid on the lots, you must register in advance with Island's partner Omega Auctions, further information can be found via Island Records' dedicated oneloveauction.com Website. All lots are available to view and place bids on via an online catalogue https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/m/view-auctions/info/id/83 which can be found on Omega's website www.omegaauctions.co.uk . Featured lots include: Amy Winehouse: A Pair of Amy Winehouse's stilettos worn by Amy & all Amy's album releases on vinyl Annie Lennox: Beautifully h...