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Metallica‘s self-titled album – also known as ‘The Black Album’ – has crossed 750 weeks on the Billboard 200 charts – find out more about the milestone achievement below.

READ MORE: Metallica and friends: “‘The Black Album’ was a victory for the underdog”

Yesterday (July 15), Billboard announced the achievement on social media. The album was first released in 1991, and has now spent over 14 years on the charts sporadically since it dropped.

The achievement marks only the fourth album in history to reach the milestone. The only three albums that have surpassed ‘The Black Album’ are Pink Floyd‘s ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ clocking in at a total of 990 weeks, Bob Marley‘s ‘Legend’ at 843 weeks and Journey‘s ‘Journey’s Greatest Hits’ at 813 weeks.

.@Metallica‘s ‘Metallica’ has now spent 750 total weeks on the #Billboard200 (No. 178 this week).

It’s the fourth album in history to reach the milestone, after @pinkfloyd‘s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ (990 total weeks), @bobmarley‘s ‘Legend’ (843) and @JourneyOfficial‘s…

— billboard charts (@billboardcharts) July 15, 2024

The album was led by five singles: ‘Enter Sandman’, ‘The Unforgiven’, ‘Nothing Else Matters’, ‘Wherever I May Roam’ and ‘Sad But True’.

The record celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2021 with ‘The Metallica Blacklist’, a sprawling 53-track compilation album that saw a mammoth, genre-crossing list of artists – featuring Alessia Cara, Royal Blood, Ghost, Rina Sawayama, Miley Cyrus, Sam Fender, St. Vincent, Corey Taylor, Phoebe Bridgers, IDLES, Kamasi Washington and more – put their own spins on the tracks, often with different takes on the same track.

Back in 2021, John moved Metallica frontman James Hetfield to tears after calling the band’s track ‘Nothing Else Matters’ “one of the best songs ever written”.

READ MORE: Metallica live in Amsterdam: still the greatest heavy metal band around

It came after the legendary singer-songwriter featured on Miley Cyrus‘ cover of the single for ‘The Metallica Blacklist’ alongside Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Chad Smith, WATT, Yo-Yo Ma and Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo.

The post Metallica’s ‘The Black Album’ spends 750 weeks on Billboard 200 charts appeared first on NME.

The Las Vegas Sphere has announced its first non-rock headliner – find out more about how to get tickets to the show below.

READ MORE: U2 live in Las Vegas: a dazzling opening night at the $2 billion Sphere

Last night (July 15), the state-of-the-art entertainment venue in Las Vegas confirmed that its first headliner not in the rock genre will be American-Italian DJ and producer Anyma. Anyma will perform at the multi-billion dollar venue on New Year’s Eve (December 31).

Registration for pre-sales are available now. Pre-sales to the show go live at 9am local time on Monday, July 22, while general tickets go on sale one day later at 9am local time, July 23.

Anyma’s Las Vegas Sphere show is being billed as ‘The End Of Genesys’, and will see a selection of currently unnamed special guests performing. Per the registration site, ‘The End Of Genesys’ show will see Anyma present an “audio/visual” show “which has fascinated audiences around the world”.

The producer and DJ – born Matteo Milleri – is also one half of the duo Tale of Us and debuted the Anyma project in 2021. The show is named after his 2023 ‘Genesys’ album this year’s ‘Genesys II’, both of which come with accompanying visual performances that explore themes of technology, nature, humanity and coexistence.

In other Las Vegas Sphere news, The Eagles have once again extended their upcoming residency at the venue. Now, they have confirmed they’ll be playing an additional four dates, which will see the residency stretch into 2025. A tweet from Live Nation pointed to an “overwhelming demand”, from fans, meaning they’ll now play 20 shows from September 20 to January 25.

They’ll be the fourth band to take on the Sphere’s colossal, state-of-the-art stage, following in the footsteps of U2, Phish, and Dead & Company, whose current residency wraps up on August 10.

The post Anyma confirmed as Las Vegas Sphere’s first non-rock headliner appeared first on NME.

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If an original TR-909 unit is out of your price range, Roland’s digital recreation, available through Roland Cloud, offers an impressively accurate alternative. This walkthrough aims to help you get started programming techno drums using the TR-909.

The Briefest of Brief Histories of the TR-909

The TR-909 from Roland, released in 1983, is a seminal drum machine that profoundly influenced techno music. Despite not catching fire immediately with producers, it soon gained prominence in the mid-1980s in particular with Detroit’s techno pioneers and forefathers such as Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson. Its punchy bass drum, crisp hi-hats, and versatile sequencer became essential in crafting the driving beats of techno. Only a few pieces of gear become icons, but there is no doubt the TR-909 has had as big an impact on electronic music as the Fender Strat or Gibson Les Paul in rock music.

Fast forward to 2024, and Roland provides a digital emulation in Roland Cloud. You no longer need a physical unit. While there have been many emulations of the 909, the one available in Roland Cloud is the only one from the original makers themselves.

If using sequencers is daunting and you’re just starting out, then this tutorial is for you. We’ll cover some of the most common questions that a new producer faces and help you get your first four-bar loop out of the device.

Skill level: Beginners

Note: This tutorial uses key commands for Mac OS. Sorry to any Windows users!

Step 1: It pays to set up right

Open the TR-909, and before we do anything, we want to set ourselves up for success. Click OPTION, and in the dropdown menu, click Sub Output. A floating window will appear showing all the different instruments, from BASS DRUM to CYMBAL. Toggle them all on.

At this point, different DAWs will handle things slightly differently. For our purposes, we’re working with Ableton Live. Create a new audio track, and under Audio From, select the TR-909. In the dropdown window below Audio From, where it says All Outputs, select Sub Output 1 – TR-909. That’s your bass drum. Repeat this process until the cymbal.

What we’re doing is making the instrument a multi-out which allows us to treat each sound individually. This matters as it gives us greater control when mixing. You don’t have to do this; hell, you don’t have to do anything, but it really helps later when you come to mix your track.

Now group all these tracks together by highlighting them and hitting command G. Also, save the group by dragging them into your user library. When you next want a TR-909, just load this up, and all your settings will be saved. Great workflow flex.

In the device’s default setting, you should now hear this two-bar pattern when you hit play. It’s variation A (one-bar) followed by B (one-bar):

Step 2: First Steps In Programming The TR-909 & Adding Variations

We’ll avoid getting too involved with the instrument at this stage and instead lead you to a place where you feel more in control. Learning how to get it to conform to your wishes can be a little complicated your first time using it, so we’ll address the usual common concerns.

You’ll notice that A and B are illuminated yellow and that A is flashing/blinking. What that tells us is variation A is playing, and when it’s finished, variation B will play. Hit play and notice when B plays, it flashes, and A stays illuminated. In other words, whichever is flashing is the one playing. Both variations, A and B, are playing a one-bar loop, and the difference between them is extra snare hits in B. Combining A and B to play consecutively gives us a two-bar pattern.

But what if we want to add a new variation? Let’s say we want to add a variation to C? Easy. Hold shift and hit the C button, and the plugin window will show an empty sequencer. There are no sounds, and nothing is programmed (yet). Let’s, therefore, make life easy. Where you see on the left, EDIT VARIATION SELECT, right-click on B, select Copy, click on C, and right-click Paste. We’ve now duplicated the variation in B onto C.

Now, our drum loop is three bars long—it’s variation A (one bar), followed by variation B (one bar) and variation C (one bar).

Step 3: Editing Variation C

We know what you’re thinking – B and C are the same. So, let’s make C different with some programming.

We only want to work on C, so head to the variation selector (not the EDIT VARIATION SELECT) and while holding shift, hit A and B. They should turn a dark yellow. This tells us if there are notes in the variation but they won’t play – that variation is not in our pattern until we turn it back on.

Now, only C should be flashing, and if you hit play variation C, a one-bar sequence, will loop. In EDIT VARIATION SELECT, select C so we can see the notes and sequence in front of us.

Now for the fun part. We have edited C, and in this audio clip below, we’ve looped it for two bars for reference purposes:

Here’s how the pattern looks on the interface:

So what did we do, and why are some steps/cells lighter than others?

For the HAND CLAP, we programmed it to play on steps 5 and 13, the 2nd and 4th beats of the bar. But we felt it was too prominent, so we clicked WEAK, which programs the cell at less velocity. Steps with WEAK notes are darker/dimmer than those without.

We kept the WEAK setting toggled on and programmed a HIGH TOM, a MID TOM at the end of the bar. To emphasize the difference, we’ve also programmed a LOW TOM but notice that the steps are at their brightest. We turned off WEAK for that as we wanted the LOW TOM to be powerful.

It’s all very simple once you grasp what you’re looking at and ‘what does what.’

?Velocity. In music programming, velocity refers to the speed or force with which a note is played. It is a measure of how hard or softly a key on a keyboard is pressed or how forcefully a drum pad is hit. Higher velocity values generally result in louder sounds, while lower values produce quieter sounds. Velocity is incredibly important for programming drum patterns that have a human or organic feel to them.

Step 4: Adding Pattern D, Hi-Hat Rolls & Snare Flam

Electronic music is loop-based, but three-bar loops are fairly uncommon. We ideally want a four-bar loop, so let’s bring variation D into play. Follow the steps above to turn on D and copy C to D. It should look like this below, D should be flashing while A, B, and C should be dark yellow (or turned off).

After some programming, here’s variation D looped over two bars, as in the previous step, for reference purposes:

And here is how D now looks in the interface.

So what did we change, and what do all the colours mean?

Let’s begin with the CLOSED-HI HAT. The first four steps are light blue. This shows that we have programmed using substeps. In other words, instead of programming in 1/16th notes, we are programming in 1/32, 1/64, or more.

This lighter turquoise blue is Type 1 SUBSTEP. To replicate it, click the button next to SUBSTEP above the sequencer and select TYPE 1. Now, program your steps. Also, notice that the first step is the same lighter turquoise blue but a shade darker. That’s because that step was also inputted with WEAK enabled which was covered earlier with the HAND CLAP.

At the end of the bar, the CLOSED HIHAT is a darker blue. This is a different type of substep. Head back to substep, change the type to Type 3, and input your steps. You should also notice we programmed substeps on the clap for the last two steps. This is classic techno, classic Jeff Mills, and Kink techniques.

Next up, we wanted to show the flam feature. A snare flam is a drumming technique where two nearly simultaneous hits are played on the snare drum, creating a distinctive “flam” sound. This is achieved by striking the drum with both drumsticks, with one stick hitting just slightly before the other. The result is a quick, double-hit that is perceived as a single, fuller sound with a brief, barely discernible delay between the two strikes. Like hi-hat rolls and velocity (WEAK) settings, using flam can make a big difference between a static beat and a human-sounding beat.

There are nine different flam settings. Choose one and program it on your snare. We’ve also used SHIFT to program them in as WEAK to lower them in the mix and blend them into our pattern. Don’t be afraid to try flam on other instruments and sounds, but the snare is a great place and the most common starting point.

We have added flam to the SNARE DRUM on beats 8, 9, 10, 12. Flam is usually yellow, but as we have programmed them with WEAK enabled, they are a mustard green.

Lastly, we added a ride cymbal on every off-beat.

?Top tip: To speed up inputting WEAK steps, simply hold SHIFT while selecting the step and it will automatically switch to programming in a WEAK velocity setting.

Step 5: Using your four-bar pattern

Now that we have A, B, C, and D where we want them, you have two options. You can head back to your variation selector and click shift on each, and the instrument will play through the pattern in variation sequence A-B-C-D. If you want to hear what it might sound like jumping between variations, use shift to turn off a variation. For example, hit shift on B and D, and your pattern will only play A and C in sequence.

But you can also hover over a variation, for example, A, and drag it to your DAW timeline. In the clip below, we’ve done it in order A, B, C, and D to show our new four-bar loop.

Now make sure to select OPTION and turn off Position Lock to DAW. This means it will only play back the MIDI in your timeline and not the sequencer on the TR-909. You don’t need two of the same thing playing!

And here’s our full four-bar pattern. You should be able to hear the programming we did in variations C and D.

STEP 6: Choose a Kit Sound

Now change the KIT to get a different sound. We like 909 Drive Kit 3. This toggles between saved settings for the mixer controls on the instrument. Going through them gives you an indication of how sounds can be tweaked before applying anything else, like reverbs, compressors, or EQs. You can used saved settings or tweak the individual sounds yourself.

And here’s the final pattern with a TB-303 line, also from Roland Cloud, programmed in for some context.

If you have any questions about using the TR-909 or if you find yourself stuck, use the contact form to get in touch.

If this helped you get started, you may enjoy watching Kink’s drum programming masterclass from ADE 2022.

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Nine Inch Nails’ epic sophomore album, The Downward Spiral, turned 30 earlier this year, and now the industrial-rock vets are collaborating with Dr. Martens for a new collection of footwear to keep the celebration going. 

Dr. Martens calls the new collaboration “a physical response to Nine Inch Nails’ visceral, ground-breaking album” and notes that all three silhouettes incorporate “industrial design references.” They include the 8-eye 1460 boot, with a black-and-white version of Russell Mills’ “Wound” from the cover art; the three-eye 1461 shoe in black with a “Crystal Teeth” design from the album; and the extra-tall black 10-eye 1490 boot, which they say is “inspired by the band’s uninhibited live shows where they would cover themselves in cornstarch for a decayed, post-apocalyptic aesthetic.”

Read more: Every Nine Inch Nails album ranked

John Crawford, NIN’s creative director, told Hypebeast, “This collaboration just makes so much sense. Not just because of the countless fans I’ve seen wearing Dr. Martens at NIN concerts over the years, myself included, but because NIN and Dr. Martens are both known for rejecting convention and expectation in favor of innovation.”

Crawford continued, “Once we decided the collection would be themed around The Downward Spiral, we knew we’d have the advantage of using elements from Russell Mills’ incredible paintings that were created for the album’s packaging… We hid the repeating text ‘Nothing can stop me now’ — a mantra from the album — behind the zipper.”

The collection will be available starting on July 19 from Dr. Marten’s website and other select retailers.

Previously, Dr. Martens has made boots and shoes with Joy Divison, New Order, Sex Pistols, CBGB, Black Sabbath, and more.

This article was originally published on BrooklynVegan.com and has been edited by Alternative Press.

The Lathums have shared their brand new energetic single ‘No Direction’. Listen to it below.

READ MORE: The Lathums: “We’re going to take over the world together — we have to be as tight-knit as we possibly can”

The three-minute song features a blitz of buzzsaw guitars, speaker-bursting rhythms and fervent emotions as frontman Alex Moore sings: “For there’s no direction but up” in the song’s anthemic chorus, describing how there is no space for fear and worry when you are chasing your dream.

Speaking about the song in a press release, Moore said: “There is no direction now but up. With time and experience I’ve learned that a bit of common sense and a clear mind is all it takes to accept my insecurities and not let them lead or consume me. What’s done is done, let the past go and spend time on becoming better. Fear and pain have no place in moving forward, they exist only as a lesson when you reach your final destination.”

The song marks the band’s first new music since the release of their 2023 album ‘From Nothing To A Little Bit More’ – which saw them earn their second Number One LP in the UK album charts – and their standalone single ‘Thoughts Of A Child’ which was shared last October.

‘No Direction’ also comes a few days ahead of The Lathums’ biggest show yet at Robin Park in Wigan. They will be joined by Jake Bugg and Brooke Combe who will serve as opening support. You can visit here for any remaining tickets.

The Lathums will also be part of the line-up for Liam Gallagher’s Malta Weekender in September, as well as Portsmouth’s Victorious Festival in August.

The Wigan four-piece spoke to NME ahead of the release of ‘From Nothing To A Little Bit More’ last year. Moore said: “What’s the point in putting so much into something that you’re not genuinely passionate about? I think it’s quite refreshing that people can see that there’s genuine feelings behind these songs, not like a lot of music that’s out nowadays that’s got no emotion or substance behind it. You can tell those people are singing about what they think people want [to hear]. But I don’t give you what you want: I give you what you need.”

The post Listen to The Lathums’ energetic new single ‘No Direction’ appeared first on NME.

Kim Deal is back with a vengeance with her debut solo single Coast which aired on Craig Charles 6 Music show today. It has all her hallmark brilliance with horny horns and gives you a taste of what’s to come from the heart of Pixies early stuff she stamped her mark on and still divides […]

The post Pixies bass legend Kim Deal is back with a new solo single! appeared first on Louder Than War.