Weekly News Round-Up: David Bowie, The Smiths and more

Missed any of the week’s top news stories? Live4ever has it covered with our Weekly News Round-Up, looking back at ten of the biggest headlines we featured during the last seven days in British music.

David Bowie

David Bowie has unsurprisingly been installed as the 2/1 favourite to posthumously win the 2016 Mercury Prize after the shortlist was revealed last week.

Radiohead and ‘A Moon Shaped Pool‘s odds of 5/1 put the two biggest names at the top of the list, as is usually the case with bookmakers, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on Michael Kiwanuka‘s ‘Love & Hate‘, which has odds of 10/1.

‘The Midnight Sun’ will undertake the tough task of following last year’s ‘Architect‘ album on October 7th.

C Duncan has cited the American sci-fi show The Twilight Zone as a starting point for the successor to his Mercury nominated debut. “I knew I wanted the album to have more of a theme/thread throughout it which ‘Architect’ didn’t have,” he says.

The Enemy have invited Asylums, The Shimmer Band, The Tapestry and more to join them on their farewell tour of the UK which starts next month.

Asylums are playing at both London Forum dates on September 3rd and 16th, while The Shimmer Band will back up in Bristol on September 4th and The Tapestry join in Manchester on September 15th.

Radiohead are leading the way at the 2016 AIM Independent Music Awards after its nominations for 2016 were revealed.

The band’s ‘A Moon Shaped Pool‘ record is up for Independent Album Of The Year along with Savages‘ ‘Adore Life‘ and others, while the lead single ‘Burn The Witch‘ will compete for Independent Track Of The Year.

The Stone Roses‘ ‘All For One‘ single was knocked off the top of the UK Vinyl Singles Chart last week – by its own follow-up ‘Beautiful Thing‘.

It meant the Roses occupied two positions in the Top 5, while Biffy Clyro were down to #6 with the ‘Ellipsis‘ single ‘Wolves Of Winter‘.

Johnny Marr, formerly of The Smiths, live in London (Photo: Andy Crossland for Live4ever Media)

Morrissey has said the notion of a reunion for The Smiths ‘doesn’t make sense anymore’.

Since Johnny Marr walked away at the height of their powers in 1987, The Smiths has been a tale of occasional collaboration, occasional court cases and continued alienation between their two principal members but, speaking to news.com.au, Morrissey has said the remoteness of a possible return overrides any past tensions which might have prevented reformation in the past.

The Coral will end 2016 with an eight-date tour of the UK.

Playing Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool, Coventry, Norwich, Bristol, London and Manchester in December, the band are set to conclude a year in which they returned with a bang through their ‘Distance Inbetween‘ album

The posthumous, self-titled Viola Beach album has gone to number one in the UK.

Made up of nine tracks recorded by Kris Leonard, River Reeves, Tomas Lowe and Jack Dakin before they were tragically killed along with their manager Craig Tarry in a car accident in February, the album replaces the ‘All Over The World‘ best of collection from ELO, which drops to #2.

The Libertines will be back in London next month supporting drummer Gary Powell‘s Unity Rocks initiative.

Backed by Rat Boy, the band play Brixton’s O2 Academy on September 7th, helping Unity Rocks along with many other events which are being planned across the UK.

A trailer for the new Rolling Stones concert film Havana Moon is up on YouTube.

The movie captures the Stones performing a historic free concert to a crowd of over one million people in Havana, Cuba on March 25th, 2016 and will premiere at cinemas around the world for one night only on Friday, September 23rd.

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