Weekly News Round-Up: David Bowie, Muse 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 1

The posthumous frenzied reaction to his final studio album Blackstar and clamour for the highest points of his back catalogue made David Bowie the UK’s most popular recording artist of 2016.

In excess of 1.6m Bowie albums were either purchased or streamed in the UK last year, more than any other act despite the huge album success of Adele and single success of Drake.

Damon Albarn will play Gorillaz shows in St Albans and Portsmouth next month in order to be readily prepared for the Demon Dayz festival in Margate on June 10th.

The gigs take place at the Alban Arena and Portsmouth Guildhall on June 2nd and 4th, and also pre-date the November tour of Europe during which some of the many guests from the Humanz album – including Noel Gallagher and Jehnny Beth – have been promised to be taking part.

Another run of Royal Blood UK gigs will take place in November.

Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher already have a busy time to come in support of their second LP How Did We Get So Dark?, and just before shows in Cambridge, Newcastle, Southampton and Leicester have detailed a run in November which will encompass arena gigs in cities including Leeds, Manchester and London.

Arcade Fire will venture to Scunthorpe and Edinburgh to warm-up for their spell of outdoor UK gigs in June and July.

They make the rare trip for a band to Scunthorpe’s Baths Hall on Wednesday, June 7th, and then play the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh the following night ahead of the previously confirmed, and much bigger, shows at Isle Of Wight, Ormeau Park in Belfast, Dublin’s Malahide Castle and Castlefield Bowl in Manchester.

Mogwai have confirmed their new album Every Country’s Sun will be released on September 1st.

The band’s 2017 touring starts in earnest on October 10th, and then continues for much of the rest of the year.

Muse live at Madison Square Garden (Photo: Paul Bachmann for Live4ever Media)

Muse have made their new single Dig Down available to stream and download.

“When I was writing this song, I was looking to counteract the current negativity in the world and give inspiration, optimism and hope to people to fight for the causes they believe in; that as individuals we can choose to change the world if we want to,” frontman Matt Bellamy has said.

The Charlatans will tour their new album Different Days through the UK and Ireland in the winter.

Dates in Nottingham, Sheffield, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle, Leeds, Cardiff, London, Dublin and Belfast have been booked to support the record, which is out on May 26th.

Roger Waters has posted a video for The Last Refugee as his solo album Is This The Life We Really Want? gets a new, delayed release date of June 2nd.

It means Waters’ North American tour will now precede his first solo record in over two decades, starting in Kansas City on May 26th.

Michael Kiwanuka, Coldplay and Pulp all picked up Ivor Novello awards.

The ceremony was held at Grosvenor House, Park Lane in London, where Kiwanuka collected the Best Song Musically and Lyrically prize for Black Man In a White World, while Coldplay were the recipients of PRS For Music Most Performed Work.

Carl Barat & The Jackals have handed an official video to the Harder They Come EP track which was the first to be made available last month via PledgeMusic.

Ahead of the EP’s release a week today, Sister has a promo which Barat has told NME reflects on his sense of isolation in small town Britain. “We grew up in small British rural towns and all felt alienated with no sense of belonging,” he said.