LaMonte McLemore (September 17, 1939-February 3, 2026)Engineer/Record Producer Bones Howe and Harvey Kubernik Interview on The 5th Dimension   

LaMonte McLemore, a founding member of The 5th Dimension and a longtime celebrity and sports photographer whose images appeared in publications including Jet magazine, died Tuesday morning, Feb. 3, at his home in Las Vegas surrounded by his wife of 30 years and family. He was 90. LaMonte died from natural causes following a stroke suffered several years ago.

With The 5th Dimension, McLemore helped bring a polished, genre-blending sound to American pop and soul in the late 1960s and early 1970s, scoring era-defining hits including “Up, Up and Away” and “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” The group won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year twice—first for “Up, Up and Away” (1968) and again for “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)” (1970). Both recordings were later inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame (“Up-Up and Away,” 2003; “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” 2004).

The “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” medley topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks in the spring of 1969, becoming one of the signature recordings of its generation. Other mega-hits included the Number 1, “Wedding Bell Blues,” and the iconic “Stoned Soul Picnic,” amid seven Gold albums and six Platinum RIAA-certified singles. In 1991, The Original 5th Dimension received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Born Sept. 17, 1935, in St. Louis, Missouri, McLemore served in the United States Navy, where he trained and worked as an aerial photographer—an early chapter in what became a lifelong parallel career behind the lens. He later pursued professional baseball in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm system, one of the first African Americans to participate, before settling in Southern California and turning his attention to music and photography full time.

McLemore co-founded The 5th Dimension in Los Angeles, joining Billy Davis Jr., Florence LaRue, Marilyn McCoo, and Ron Townson. Known for his warm bass vocals and easygoing presence, he helped anchor the group’s sophisticated harmonies and modern pop sensibility, which broadened the palette of soul and R&B on mainstream radio. They appeared on major television variety shows of the era and toured internationally, including a 1973 State Department cultural tour that brought American pop music behind the Iron Curtain.

Outside the recording studio, McLemore built a distinguished reputation as a photographer, with work spanning entertainment, sports, and editorial portraiture. His images captured many of the defining figures of 20th-century popular culture, and he contributed photography to Jet magazine over the course of multiple decades.

McLemore and The 5th Dimension also reached new audiences in recent years. Their musical performances were featured in Questlove’s Oscar-winning documentary ‘Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),’ which revisited the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and its enduring musical impact.

In 2014, he co-authored with Robert-Allan Arno the autobiography From Hobo Flats to The 5th Dimension: A Life Fulfilled in Baseball, Photography, and Music, reflecting on a career that moved effortlessly between the stage and the camera.

Statements

“All of us who knew and loved him will definitely miss his energy and wonderful sense of humor.” - Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jr.

“Proverbs 17:22 states that "A joyful heart is good medicine…" Well, Lamonte really knew my prescription! His cheerfulness and laughter often brought strength and refreshment to me in difficult times. We were more like brother and sister than singing partners. I didn't realize the depth of my love for Lamonte until he was no longer here. His absence has shown me the magnitude of what he meant to me and that love will stay in my heart forever,” said Florence LaRue.

"As a childhood friend to me from St. Louis, Mo., he will certainly be missed," shared bandmate Billy Davis Jr.

"Lamonte loved music and was always so generous, making his photography studio available to us in our early years before the hits started,” said Marilyn McCoo.

Survivors

McLemore is survived by his wife, Mieko McLemore, his daughter Ciara, (adopted) son Darin, sister Joan, and three grandchildren.

Services

A memorial service and celebration of life will be announced at a later date.

For more information on The 5th Dimension, forever5thdimension.com, 5thdimensionlive.com, 

In 2008 I interviewed the legendary sound engineer and record producer who guided and produced the epic 5th Dimension recordings. He will turn age 93 this March.  

A 2023 article in Sarasota Magazine, a Florida-based publication headlined a profile on Howe, “How Bones Howe Helped Shape America’s Pop Music.”

During 2008 I interviewed Bones Howe. Portions of our conversation were published in my book Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon.

Dayton “Bones” Howe, a soft-spoken, jazz-loving, Southern gentleman, came to Los Angeles from Georgia in 1956. He quickly settled his rail-thin frame (hence, the nickname) behind the mixing console at Radio Recorders Studio, serving under principal engineer Thorne Nogar on some the young Presley’s breakthrough hits. 

Over the next decade, Howe became one of the most celebrated engineers in the music industry, working on albums by Ornette Coleman, Jack Kerouac and Lenny Bruce as well as recording a parade of Top Ten singles from Timi Yuro, The Mamas & Papas, and Johnny Rivers.

Howe then produced The Association, The Turtles, The Monkees, and The 5th Dimension. The West Coast sound was as much a product of his panoramic vision as it was the worship of cars, girls and warm summer breezes.

With his 1968 partner, television director Steve Binder, they set Elvis Presley off on a personal journey that bordered on a career resurrection.

The result was Elvis…The ’68 Comeback Special. 

In the early 1970s, Bones would engineer and co-produce Tom Waits’ Closing Time.  

Howe and The 5th Dimension are not in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That’s a Shonda.

Interview excerpts from my 2008 interview with Bones Howe.  

Johnny Rivers had discovered The 5th Dimension who were originally known as The Hi-Fi’s in 1966 to his Soul City label done with Imperial Records. Howe produced Rivers also inked Jimmy Webb to his music publishing house and produced The 5th Dimension’s “Up Up And Away,” a Webb tune that Howe engineered.

Howe took over the group’s musical activities. Howe selected material from the Webb, “Carpet Man” and “Paper Cup,” and scripture from the Laura Nyro songbook: “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Sweet Blindness” and even cut Nyro on an attempt on “Save The Country.” 5th Dimension also waxed the anthem, “California Soul” by the immortal Valerie Simpson and Nicholas Ashford team.

Excerpts from my 2008 interview with Bones Howe.  

“I produced ‘Windy’ by the Association and went to number one and made ‘Never My Love’ which also went to number one. Johnny Rivers called me up. I had been the engineer on the ‘Up, Up and Away’ album. He asked me if I would be interested in producing the Association. ‘Yeah!’ And he said the first thing was that I’m to do an album with Jimmy Webb called ‘The Magic Garden.’ ‘He wants to do a big orchestra.’ ‘If you’re willing to pay for it, I know what to do. We will go into the big studio at United and record the tracks there and I’ll put the voices.’

“The album really didn’t have a single in it. From one record to the next I began to find things that could get played on the radio. Jimmy wrote these beautiful harmonies. He was the hippest songwriter in town. All of his songs have major sevenths and major ninths. All those altered chords like you find in jazz. So that was what I thought was very attractive. He also wrote beautiful melodies. It was find doing those things with Jimmy. Somebody once introduced themselves to me ‘You’re Bones Howe. You work with Jimmy Webb.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How does he sleep with all that music in his head?’

“I was actively working with music publishers. I heard Laura Nyro’s ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ on KHJ radio ‘cause Bill Drake the RKO programmer liked the record. Then I saw Laura at the Monterey festival in 1967. I thought Laura was amazing and it was almost jazz what she was doing. Laura was different. She had some L.A studio musicians with her at Monterey like Hal Bline who also worked with Johnny Rivers. I did a session with her on ‘Save The Country’ with her. Clive (Davis) called me and asked me if I would do it.’ She wanted to do it very badly and she wanted to use the West Coast rhythm section. So, Clive flew her out and we did it. She was a dear woman and I really loved her. She would play me stuff on the piano and I would just be bits and pieces of stuff and I would keep saying, ‘Finish it!’ R&B radio stations played ‘Stone Soul Picnic.’ It was a number one R&B hit. I kept mining the Nyro and Webb mines. I kept finding stuff I loved and it got easier when we got rolling on it.

“On The 5th Dimension it was Hal Blaine on everything. And Joe Osborn. I discovered Joe doing those Johnny Rivers records with Lou Adler. Mickey Jones was the drummer on the first Rivers sessions. And Joe Osborn. He played the bass the way I thought, as a jazz player, rock ‘n’ roll players should play the bass. Joe and Hal together were together and really the lock and the feel. Those guys were just amazing together. And then Dennis Budimir and Tommy Tedesco jazz guys. That’s kind of how I built a rhythm section. A lot of it was conversation. I always started my session in the room. The lead sheets would go out but I always started with the guys and stood out there with them as they ran the first tune. I hated the disembodied voice that came from the control room to the floor telling everybody what to do.

“The 5th are in New York and somebody had given them tickets to see ‘HAIR.’ They told me about an amazing song called ‘Aquarius.’ ‘We can do that song and it will be a big hit.’ I listened to the song and felt it wasn’t a whole song. I went to New York with my wife Melodie and we went to see HAIR. I’m watching this thing unfold and I realize ‘Aquarius’ is simply just like an introduction to the show. It doesn’t go anywhere. And then in a pair of shorts comes down sliding on a wire and they sing ‘The Flesh Failures.’ A downer of a song talking about civilization is going to hell. But then the chorus ‘Let the sunshine in.’ 3 bars being repeated. ‘Oh shit! That’s how we do it.’ But I couldn’t do this until I got permission from the music publisher. I went to United Artists who had the copyright. I played the two things for The 5th Dimension and then told them we will do the chorus at the end.

“With the 5th Dimension I also had Bob Alcivar, a vocal arranger on the team. We worked close together. He would help me find the keys for the singers to do the songs and coax them vocally. He found ways to help them. Bob would sit at the piano with each member and teach them their part. A huge asset. He made a tremendous contribution and I couldn’t go forward with any song until he figured out what key we would do that these guys could sing it in. That was a partnership we had with the things that we had.

“On ‘Aquarius’ during production, Bob Alcivar went, ‘There in different keys! How are we going to get these things together? ‘We’re gonna hook them together like two trains.’ We will record them separately and I will find a way to put them together with Hal Blaine on drums. I mixed it and put it together. We put strings and horns and stuff on it and put it together. It was more like building and architecture.

“When I was an engineer, I was there to serve the producer and the music. I never lost touch of that. By the time they were done I could sing along with every record I made. I suppose what I did was that I did what I was told except I found ways to do it but I thought benefited the performance of the musicians in the studio. And I made suggestions like putting the girls on one side and the guys on the other side on Mamas and Papas. That sort of stuff. ‘Let’s do it this way and see how it works.

“Those became concrete formats. And when I started working at Studio 3 at United Western, I invited that rhythm set up. Because what I found out is that if you put the guys close enough together, they’ll play better. And not only that, the sound will be better. Because the sound doesn’t have to travel as far to the other microphone. It’s all about an ensemble sound.   

“The best record made during the whole era was ‘Pet Sounds. And in the case of Brian Wilson, it was a whole room full of people playing together. Brian was a different kind of music maker. Way ahead of everybody else where he was. He was so far ahead he wasn’t in the race. Brian had the vision and brought the musicians together and write the charts. And poor Chuck Britz, the engineer, had to figure out how to get all that sound on the tracks. Chuck’s influence. Those records are amazing, including the sound.

“And I remember going in when they were recording Pet Sounds and having to wade through all of those musicians, two drummers, seven guitar players, pianos. And Bill Pittman and others filling in the spaces in between. And Chuck in that little room, and it had a lot to do with it because everyone had to be close together so there was nobody spread out and there wasn’t a time lag from one place to another. It was everybody was hearing the time at the same time. And so, getting that on the tracks and mixing them with Brian was really part of putting the paint on the canvas.

“And with Brian, like Spector, Brian liked to mix in mono. They were made to play on the radio, which was mono. And they were made to sound good on the radio, which was mono. I had to pull over on the side of the road on Barham Boulevard one night when I heard Phil’s ‘You Lost That Loving Feelin’’ for the first time. That was the first record that kind of nailed me down. ‘Oh Jesus…’

“I didn’t get to know Phillip until later ‘cause he was working at Gold Star and I was at Radio Recorders and then I went to United. I knew who he was. I met him a couple of times. And then in 1966 he called me up and was doing a Tina Turner album and wanted to do the whole orchestra live and [engineer] Larry Levine at Gold Star couldn’t do it.

“So, Larry called me and asked ‘Do we think we can do this at Studio A at United?’ ‘Absolutely. I did four or six tracks on that Ike and Tina Turner album, including ‘A Love Like Yours Don’t Come Knockin’ Everyday.’ Larry came over and clued me in on how to set up the wall of sound tape reverb echo and all that stuff. 

“I had worked with Ike and Tina at Studio B at Radio Recorders and Ike used to pay in cash. Ike had the girls and he paraded the girls. I liked Ike. He was a good guy and I had a good time working for him.

“I had done surf records with [producer]Lou Adler on Jan and Dean, and before that I recorded the Hi Lo’s with Clark Burroughs and that’s how I found him to do the Association’s’ ‘Never My Love’ and ‘Windy.’ Those are his vocal arrangements. I did record a lot of vocal groups when I was at Radio Recorders but they were more traditional vocal groups. But the Hi Lo’s. I knew them and the Four Freshman from my jazz days. So, these kind of harmonies were very much what I was into.”   

(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.

Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. 

Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) will be published in mid-February 2026 by BearManor Media.

Harvey spoke at the special hearings in 2006 initiated by the Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation.

In 2017, he appeared at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in its Distinguished Speakers Series and as a panelist discussing the forty-fifth anniversary of The Last Waltz at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in 2023).The post LaMonte McLemore (September 17, 1939-February 3, 2026) first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

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Historic Grammy Win for USA Songwriting Competition WinnersUSA Songwriting Competition winners Fyütch and Aura V, an 8-year-old singer won their first Grammy award in 2026 and also made history.

A statement from the USA Songwriting Competition on Tuesday expressed pride in the fact that competition winners Fyütch and eight-year-old singer Aura V won their first Grammy award this week, while also making history.

"The father-daughter duo took home the Grammy for best children's music album for 'Harmony,'" the statement reads. "They accepted the honor during the premiere ceremony, held before the Grammys' telecast. Both dressed in matching Pink, Fyütch thanked God and spoke about the importance of educating and entertaining the young, as well as empowering children. He also called the album an act of activism and self-love."

"It's an honor to win, we weren’t expecting to get this far" said the eight year old Aura V.

It was that same song that won Fyütch and Aura V the 2025 USA Songwriting Competition in the Children's music category. Aura V, at eight, is the "youngest individually credited Grammy winner."

The 68th Annual Grammy Awards was presented on February 1, 2026. The post Historic Grammy Win for USA Songwriting Competition Winners first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

RCA revives JIVE Records with Mike Weiss and David Melhado as co-PresidentsThe label is returning with "a mission to honor its legacy while reimagining it for today’s music landscape".
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The problem with contentEverything these days is content – but the word is as problematic as the implication. ‘Content’ is defined by other. It is defined by filling something else, being part of something else. It is something that only exists within another context. It implies not being of itself but of another entity. And that is the direct through line to the cultural challenge of calling everything content – it is being othered.

Andrew Lloyd Webber once argued that treating art as content is like saying the fine red wines of France are merely content providers for the glass making business. While the quote may sound old school – and you can practically hear the righteous indignation dripping off the words – it gets straight to the heart of the matter. There is no written cultural law that states that art has to be content in the digital era. It simply became so because most forms of art and entertainment bowed to the lexicon and the business models of tech – and they did this because the platforms pushing this worldview were the most immediate route to audiences of scale.

There is a tendency to consider critiquing today’s dominant business models as being outdated, outmoded, harking to some ancient, past idyl. However, new does not always equate to progress. In fact, with more than a decade of digital being at the heart of entertainment, we can see what is and what is not working.

To be clear, this is not to dismiss the immense benefits that social media and streaming have brought to entertainment (rights holders and creators alike). The price paid, however, has been realigning creativity and culture around feeding content machines. Content machines that have insatiable appetites. Everyone has been compelled to play the double V game – Volume and Velocity. Always creating, always releasing, always posting. Always on.

The problem with the double V game is that it benefits the platforms far more than it does those who do the making. Calling everything content merely codifies a shift in the power equation. Because creators and rights holders do not have access to, nor control of, the all-important algorithms, they become slaves to them. BuzzFeed’s former VP, Jonathan Perelman, once said something that captures the dynamic perfectly: “Content may be king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants” (via Forbes). If content is indeed still king, it is little more than a ceremonial figurehead in today’s entertainment economy.

It does not have to be this way. Nowhere is it written that rights holders and creators shouldn’t have ownership of their audiences or that they shouldn’t be able to create and distribute on their terms. They may have to opt out – or threaten to opt out – of the systems to change them. And that will be painful, without doubt. However, with ecosystems in which art is merely content, creativity is too easily reduced to processes and algorithms. And what is perfectly geared to maximise returns in that environment? Yes, you guessed it, AI.

Content may only be a word, but words have power. It is time to start speaking a different language.

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A Song That Changed My Life: Blackwater Holylight on Judas PriestBand Members: Allison ‘Sunny’ Faris, guitar, bass, and vocals; Mikayla Mayhew, guitar; Eliese Dorsay, drums.The Storyteller: Eliese DorsayThe Song: “The Hellion,” the gallant, standalone twin-guitar tone prelude to Judas Priest’s classic “Electric Eye.” Its anthemic metallic opening—crafted by the architects of modern metal—set the standard for monumental hard-rock salvos, both in song and on stage.

The Background: Blackwater Holylight’s unsettling atmospherics began circulating through Portland’s foggy mists several years ago. Finding fertile ground for their doom-gaze sound, the band crafted three full-length albums and cultivated a devoted following. Despite their Pacific Northwest success, the slow burn of Los Angeles’ darker subterranean world drew them toward the Southland, where they conceptualized and recorded the EP If You Only Knew before ultimately relocating.With the forthcoming 2026 release Not Here Not Gone, drummer Eliese Dorsay reflects on the unlikely origin story behind her lifelong admiration of metal —a thirty-second commercial — and how it unexpectedly shocked her into the electrifying world of Judas Priest, altering how she hears, feels, and creates music.The Story: Sometimes the smallest, most ordinary moments carry the greatest significance, leaving a profound impact in the most unexpected ways. For Eliese Dorsay, it was an unassuming after-school ritual—sitting in front of the television—when a Honda Odyssey advertisement transformed the mundane, amplifying it into the monumental. In short: the sound—Judas Priest’s “The Hellion”—careened through the air. The spectacle unfolded: a man made his way toward a minivan, pyrotechnics erupted as a panther prowled. The end scene: the hatchback opened, revealing a towering Marshall Amp stack. Jaw dropped. Metal nirvana.“In an instant,” Dorsay recalls, “I had never heard any riffs like that before—something that heavy and epic.” The collision of searing sonics and stylized visuals shifted Dorsay away from the three-chord melodics she’d been listening to and toward the darker, more metal side. “It changed my life hearing this song.”  She adds, “This sound—the riffs. It was something I just needed more of—I was caught up listening to pop-punk, and that was the first time that I thought—this is real metal.”This brief snapshot rewired how Dorsay embraced music altogether. “I thought to myself, ‘This is what I want to do with my life forever… my life is now metal.’”  Judas Priest instantly became one of her all-time favorite bands. “I immediately looked up the band and dove into a portal of heavy metal. I could not stop listening to Screaming for Vengeance.”  Dorsay’s rigorous examination of The Metal Gods’ work opened the door to a wider world of music and technique. “Judas Priest introduced me to some of the greatest heavy-hitting acts that would go on to inspire me as a musician to this day,”  she notes. This trajectory soon led her to Def Leppard and other big, commanding, and precise drummers of the 1980s, whose style continues to shape her drumming approach in Blackwater Holylight.“Every one of my drum hits I craft to be powerful and tough, while also balancing simplicity with fills that complement the riffs,” she explains, “knowing when to pull back is just as important as knowing when to hit hard.”  Her approach, shaped by her early metal discoveries, reflects the precision, drama, and intensity she first encountered in that snapshot in time.In retrospect, a brief vignette of daily life became more than a short-lived moment—it crystallized the deep-seated connection between sound, vision, and memory.  Today, hearing “The Hellion,” Dorsay recognizes how it forever altered the way she listens to and crafts music. For metal lovers everywhere, the track remains one of the most epic and toughest album intros of all time, and for Dorsay, a flashback she can summon anytime for inspiration behind the kit.  As she puts it simply: “One of the greatest metal bands on earth… Judas Priest!”

Photo Credit: Candice Lawler

The post A Song That Changed My Life: Blackwater Holylight on Judas Priest first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

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TWICE Electrifies with Four Shows at the Kia Forum, InglewoodWith ten years under their belts, it’s no surprise TWICE is one of the best-performing girl groups in K-pop. The group (who graced the cover of Music Connection in 2024) is currently touring across North America for their 2026 THIS IS FOR World Tour and stopped by the Kia Forum in Inglewood for four sold-out shows. The tour is different from any other tour they’ve done before. It’s more ambitious thanks to the 360-degree setup with the stage extending throughout the entire floor. This allows a smaller and more intimate experience, as the group expertly utilizes every inch of the venue and offers close-up views of each of the nine members. There were no bad seats in the house for ONCE’s (name of fandom) as they equally spend time in each area. 
Marking the start of the show on Jan. 22nd, the venue lights dimmed as the words “TWICE THIS IS FOR” dramatically appeared on the screens. The screens then lowered down as the opening visuals showcased Dahyun, Chaeyoung, Jeongyeon, Jihyo, Mina, Momo, Nayeon, Sana and Tzuyu. It was fun seeing fans cheer with their glowing candybong light stick for their favorite member when they appeared onscreen. As the video montage ended, the screens raised to reveal the group on stage. TWICE aptly began their performance with “This is For,” from their fourth Korean studio album of the same name. This was the perfect song to start the night as the opening verse from Momo is meant to energize fans, “This is for all my ladies who don't get hyped enough / If you've been done wrong, then this your song, so turn it up.”
Photo credit: JYP ENTERTAINMENT, ANDY KEILEN
With a discography of over 200 songs, it’s no surprise that the setlist leaned heavily on their biggest hits. The first act started off strong with fan-favorite songs, including “SET ME FREE” and “I CAN’T STOP ME.” The stage setup allowed the group to freely move around with their dance routines, switching sides throughout the songs. Unfortunately, Dahyun sustained an ankle injury and remained seated for the entire show. That didn’t stop her as she participated by doing the dance routines with her hands. Most K-pop acts sing with a backing track, but that wasn’t the case for TWICE, as they had a live band performing alongside them. Each girl has a distinctive vocal tone that complements the others very well. The R&B track “Gone” specifically stands out for highlighting the group's strengths. Jiyho, Jeongyeon and Naeyon have powerful vocals with dynamic vocal ranges. Momo, Chaeyoung and Daeyon have great rhythm and rapping delivery, while Mina, Sana and Tzuyu have softer and breathier vocals. 
The middle act focused on solo performances, giving each member a chance to shine in the spotlight. Each girl, except Chaeyoung, performed shortened versions of their song from the album TEN: The Story Goes On. Tzuyu opened the act with “DIVE IN,” showcasing impressive high notes. The stage sparkled in gold and silver as Mina followed with “STONE COLD.” The performance featured intricate, hand-heavy choreography with dancers and highlighted Mina's strong whispery vocals. Nayeon is born to be a popstar as her song “MEEEEEE” is fun, catchy and showcases her confident energy. Earning the biggest cheers of the night was Jeongyeon, who was dressed in a pink cowgirl outfit for her country-inspired song “FIX A DRINK.” It’s always fun to see K-pop idols venture into different genres that they typically wouldn’t do. Dahyun began her song with a piano performance of Beethoven's famous piano piece "Für Elise," which is featured in her song “CHESS.” The song’s theatrical aesthetic was a real crowd-pleaser. Chaeyoung released her first solo album LIL Fantasy vol.1 last year and performed her dreamy pop single “SHOOT (Firecracker).” Jihyo is the strongest performer of TWICE and her urban-inspired song “ATM” indeed showcased her confident personality and powerhouse vocals. The energy in the venue grew as Sana’s sweet vocals and addictive chorus of “DECAFFINATED” had everyone jumping along. Momo closed out the solo performances with “MOVE LIKE THAT." The performance showcased why Momo is considered the best dancer of the group. She has a very strong onstage presence, very sharp and graceful with her movements. The act ended with Jihyo, Jeongyeon, and Chaeyoung performing “TAKEDOWN,” from Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters. The trio recorded a special version of the song that was featured in the ending credits of the movie. Thanks to the viral popularity of the movie, the song is definitely a fan favorite and had the entire venue screaming along with every word. 

The group saved the best for last as the fourth act of the show included all their biggest hits, including “FANCY,” “What is Love?,""YES or YES,""Dance the Night Away,” and “ONE SPARK.” After a short break, the girls returned on stage dressed in their own merchandise for a very casual encore. The group focused their attention more on interacting with fans than actually performing, going along the stage saying hi to everyone and occasionally wetting them with water. Jeongyeon specifically let loose during this moment as she playfully drenched all the dancers with water. The group performed three more songs for the encore. The first song was the super popular “Feel Special.” They let the audience choose the second one, which ended up being the sub-unit song of Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Mina, “BATTITUDE.” The group then started to say their goodbyes and were ready to end the show, but the entire venue started screaming, “one more song, one more song.” The group heard everyone's plea and obliged by singing, “TWICE Song.” This was the perfect song to end the night, as it’s a fun anthem that calls out each member. TWICE’s THIS IS FOR World Tour continues across North America; for info visit twice.jype.com.
Photo credit: JYP ENTERTAINMENT, ANDY KEILENThe post TWICE Electrifies with Four Shows at the Kia Forum, Inglewood first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

From BMG’s reported Concord acquisition talks to UMG’s $3bn Anthropic lawsuit… it’s MBW’s weekly round-upThe biggest headlines from the past few days...
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How Musicians Can Leverage New In-App Spotify Group ChatsWord-of-mouth has always been the gold standard for music discovery. Spotify is leaning hard into that reality with its latest update. The streamer expanded its "Messages" feature to include Spotify Group Chats. Now, users can share and discuss music with up to 10 people directly within the app.
The post How Musicians Can Leverage New In-App Spotify Group Chats appeared first on Hypebot.

What Luminate Report Reveals About Fan Engagement in 2026Engaging fans - true (aka super) fans - is key to the success of any artist or release. A new report by the music analysts at Luminate look at the state of fan engagement in 2026.
The post What Luminate Report Reveals About Fan Engagement in 2026 appeared first on Hypebot.

Why the music industry needs to learn to live with AIIt has been some time since I last posted here. Most of my blog activity now takes place over at MIDiA Research https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog and in the MIDiA newsletter (including the newsletter-only ‘Letter from the MD’). Follow me there and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmulligan/ for regular updates and posts. Now onto today’s Music Industry Blog post. It’s a controversial one, so hold onto your hats…

If life is a party, AI gate crashed it in 2025. With financial losses rising even more quickly than critical voices, AI will not find things quite so easy in 2026. You don’t have to look very far to find alarm bells being rung. Deutsche bank said of OpenAI’s $143 billion cumulative negative cash flow, “No startup in history has operated with losses on anything approaching this scale” (per Adweek). Meanwhile, at the World Economic Forum, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella said that we must “do something useful” or lose “social permission” for the vast quantities of electricity it requires. So much of the financial system is vested in AI’s success that a bubble burst akin to the dot-com era is possible. However, with an MIT report claiming 95% of businesses are getting “zero return” from AI investments, something is going to have to change. 

This is the state of AI at the start of 2026 – but it is not the state of music AI. Music is emerging as a case study of where AI is actually delivering (and getting better by the day). This means that everyone in the music industry needs to start thinking about how to co-exist with AI, whether they like it or not.

The impact of generative AI on music creation

The music creator economy may be the canary in the coal mine for AI’s impact on music. Leading company Native Instruments just announced that it is entering preliminary insolvency (per Music Radar). Native Instruments make beautiful software, hardware, and sounds that appeal most to established, successful music creators – creators that have spent years honing their craft. What it doesn’t do so well is cater for the emerging generation of younger creators that want to go to 0-100 in a millisecond. 

This new breed of creators want making good music to be as easy as taking good photos and videos on their phones. A growing number see making music as personal entertainment rather than chasing dreams of multi-platinum success. It is a dynamic we explore in our brand new report: Music creator survey | Creation: Rise of the new breed.

AI did not create this dynamic but it did supercharge it. If music software democratised the means of production, AI has set it free. Thom York sang “anyone can play guitar” but anyone who has tried  (as I have done since I was five) will tell you that you have to spend a lot of time being bad before you are good. This is the case with all instruments. Gen AI, however, takes away being-bad-to-be-good. Anyone can write a text prompt. Now, is a single line of text ‘creation’. I’d personally say ‘no’, but those doing it will likely think ‘yes’. It is a similar question to whether an unmade bed installation in a gallery art? Does that text prompt become creative if it is a deeply considered paragraph of text defining melodic feel, lyrical content, instrumentation and arrangement? If so, what is the word count cut off between being creative and not?Is entering a text prompt ever going to be creative in the same way as sitting down at a piano and writing a song? No. But neither is opening a DAW and building a track from samples and typing in MIDI notes. But does that make electronic music not creative? (And before you answer, I know there are still plenty of people out there who would say electronic music is not ‘actual’ music!). And we should expect gen AI music to develop and become more sophisticated, as all consumer apps do over time. But whereas most consumer apps improve convenience and reduce friction, gen AI music will likely go in the opposite direction. It started as zero friction but make music creation too easy and the creative satisfaction soon wears thin. Creative friction is what make music making so important to people. And, from a cynical perspective, the longer it takes to make music, the more time spent on an app.

Regardless of whether current gen AI is creation or not, the result is a whole new wave of people making music – and the number paying do so is rising rapidly. In 2025, gen AI music users were already 10% of all music creators, and the number paying to create with AI doubled. Meanwhile the number of people buying traditional music software fell in both 2024 and 2025, as did revenues. This indicates that not only are new creators flowing in, established creators are shifting activity and spend to AI too.

One of the reasons is that gen AI music is improving. While licensing disputes roll on, gen AI has learned from the best chord progressions, vocal performances, arrangements, etc., that music has to offer and – crucially – what consumers do with that. The constraint on quality was always going to be computation technique, not innate capability. 

Industry stakeholders can make the AI slop argument, and music critics can claim that they can identify even the best AI songs as not being made by humans. But that misses the point. AI is for the masses, both on the creation side and the consumption side. 

Tracks on Suno can sound convincing enough to the average listener. AI artists like Sienna Rose command millions of Spotify listeners, while earlier this month ‘Jag vet, du är inte min’ hit the top of the Swedish charts only to be banned for being AI (per the BBC). AI is not going to replace human content, but it will increasingly displace it. 

AI is here to stay in music

The music industry needs to learn not just where AI fits in it, but where it fits in AI. This requires work from the industry, such as creating ‘lanes’ for AI as we argued in our Future of music streaming report. However, it also requires artists to put in work too. 

Last year, YouTube-first music creator Mary Spender laid bare the challenge: 

“First it was about gigs and selling CDs, then it was streams, then it was about content, now it is something else entirely.”

Her solution? To use her YouTube channel as her ‘proof of work’, the thing that communicates the humanness of her music. As this piece from It’s Nice That lays out, this is an approach being pursued throughout the creative industries.

Gen AI music enters 2026 of the back of two years of hockey stick growth. The coming 12 months will likely be more of the same. None of this is to suggest that creators and rightsholders should simply sit back and let unlicensed activity continue unabated – those battles still need to be fought. But, just as happened with music piracy, consumer behaviour is accelerating regardless. 

Some rightsholders are already leaning into AI’s capabilities – as explained by UMG’s Jon Dworkin at MusicAlly’s great Connect conference. Others are resisting with every effort they can muster. Neither approach is more right or wrong than the other. Part of carving out a role is deciding whether you want to be part of or apart from. Whatever your choice, music AI is not going away – at least not anytime soon.Gen AI music is going to get bigger before (if) it gets smaller. Legislation isn’t going to be fast enough to stop this near term surge. Until it does, everyone in the industry needs to work out what they want to do in that time. To be ‘part of’ or ‘apart from’. Doing nothing and hoping for it to go away is not an option anymore. And whether AI stays or goes, it has catalysed the consumerisation of creation. That genie is out of the bottle. And the implications for music listening are clear. The more time that people spend making music, the less they spend listening to music. Whether the music they make finds an audience is almost besides the point. As I wrote about consumer AI music back in 2023: the music industry should worry less about the song with 1 million streams and more about the 1 million songs with 1 stream.

Guitar Center Business Solutions Announces ResonateThis week, Guitar Center Business Solutions announced the inaugural Resonate, "the company’s first dedicated industry expo, launching in Nashville to showcase the future of integrated audio, video and control technology, according to a company statement.

"The free, one-day event will take place Thursday, April 9, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CDT at the Music City Center in Nashville," they added. "The expo will bring together leading brands, integrators and decision-makers across music, education, venues and enterprise. Nashville was selected as the host city for Resonate because it reflects the convergence shaping today’s market and serves as the headquarters of Guitar Center Business Solutions."

“We created Resonate as systems are converging faster than organizations can adapt, and the industry needs clearer leadership around how everything connects,” said Curtis Heath, president of Guitar Center Business Solutions, in a statement. “Our experience across education, performance and enterprise environments positions us to help the market move forward with solutions that are practical, scalable and built to last.”

“Nashville is the perfect place to close the gap between creators and the systems that amplify their work,” Heath told MC. “Resonate brings together music, pro audio, and pro AV—along with the networked, enterprise-grade technology behind it—to show what’s possible when you design the entire experience end-to-end. No other organization connects these worlds at this scale.”

Resonate Event Details:- Resonate, presented by Guitar Center Business Solutions- Thursday, April 9 | 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CDT- Music City Center | Nashville, TN- Registration is free for early registrants; space is limited.

For more information and to register, visit resonate-expo.com.

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