It’s Friday

And MILEY CYRUS, fresh off her first #1 single in a decade, is here for her flowers, and she’s buying. At age 30, having spent more than half her life making records, “she has finally transformed into the kind of old-school grown-up legend she’s always wanted to be,” Rob Sheffield writes in Rolling Stone. ENDLESS SUMMER VACATION, he says, is her “Saturn-return post-divorce album.” Cyrus celebrates album release day with a concert-and-interview special, “Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions),” that premieres at 1pm ET/10am PT today on Disney+. Brandy Carlile guests on the album and Rufus Wainwright joins her in the special. Three generations of fearless, old-school grown-up legends... MEET ME @ THE ALTAR is three women with pop-punk roots and Radio Disney dreams who met on the internet, and the first line of the first song on their first full-length album is “I’m a bitch and my band is an industry plant, at least that’s what it says on the internet.” If that doesn’t melt your bubblegum heart, just wait a few seconds for the hook to kick in. “That Disney era of rock just kind of died out, so the kids don’t have ‘Camp Rock, they don’t have ‘Lemonade Mouth,’” guitarist Téa Campbell says. “And we hope that we get to be that”... Unhinged (in the good way) rapper RXK NEPHEW has pilloried Kanye West in song, thinks Tupac might have been cloned, and released more than 400 tracks in 2021. The Washington Post calls him “rap’s answer to this paranoid American moment.” TIL I’M DEAD, Dylan Green reports in the Face, is “his first album to be fully mixed, mastered and carefully sequenced... and the first one he’s made completely sober.”

Also today: New music from Fever Ray, the Blaze, Twice (their 12th mini album), the War and Treaty, EBK Young Joc, Conway the Machine & Jae Skeese, Musiq Soulchild & Hit-Boy, Nia Archives, Lonnie Holley (with guests Moor Mother, Michael Stipe, Sharon Van Etten and Bon Iver), Fatima Al Qadiri, Sleaford Mods, FNF Chop, Avelino, Rarelyalways, King Khan, Jane Bunnett & Maqueque, Eric Reed, Esthesis Quartet, Page McConnell & Trey Anastasio, Rival Sons, Van Morrison, Death Cab for Cutie (acoustic version of 2022 album “Asphalt Meadows”), Lia Kohl, Judiciary, For the Fallen Dreams, Dub Pistols, the Nude Party, Manchester Orchestra, H. Hawkline, Shana Cleveland (of La Luz), Frankie Rose (ex-Vivian Girls and Dum Dum Girls), Brix Smith, Thayer Sarrano, Joanne Robertson, Taali, Shalom, Ripe, Infinity Crush, Eyelids, Collapsing Scenery, Vntageparadise, Scree, MSPaint and Godcaster.

Etc Etc Etc (Through the Gift Shop)

Recorded music revenues in the US were up 6% to $15.9 billion in 2022, marking the industry’s seventh straight year of growth, according to the RIAA. But the overall rate of growth is slowing, and is the growth of its biggest revenue source, subscription streaming. In the UK, the BPI reported a slightly softer year-over-year growth of 4.7%...Also on the rise: piracy... APPLE MUSIC says its long-promised classical music streaming service will launch March 28—a year and a half after Apple bought (and closed) the classical service PRIMEPHONIC. Apple Music Classical will be the standalone service that classical music fans have long said they need, but won’t require its own subscription; it will be accessible to anyone with a paid Apple Music sub. It will be iPhone-only at launch, with an Android counterpart to follow... Kudos to the CURE for announcing a North American summer tour with “no ‘platinum’ or ‘dynamically priced’ tickets” (save for a few VIP charity seats at the HOLLYWOOD BOWL in May, the band says)... The local west London rock group formerly known as EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP is auctioning the BANKSY painting the artist gave it in 2010 in return for the band changing its name—which the band came up with before Banksy did. The painting is expected to bring in as much as $800,000, which will be divided between the band, now called BRACE YOURSELF!, and the music charity MUSICARES... When white critics write about Black music.

Rest in Peace

AISHA STEPHENS, of Syracuse, N.Y., the third woman to die as a result of the stampede after GloRilla’s concert Sunday night at the Main Street Armory in Rochester, N.Y. City officials revoked the venue's entertainment license Wednesday, forcing it to close.