Time has crept up on us again and it's the end of another week of Music News LIVE.

Scroll down for a soul legend accepting an offer to sing the US national anthem at Super Bowl, despite ongoing controversy over players' protests, superstars named to perform at the Grammys, and Azealia Banks and Grimes brought into Tesla legal action.

Plus 5 Things We Learned This Week and lots of new music from blinged up Ariana, Mile High James Blake, Ella Mai, Hozier, Mabel and more.

We'll leave you with the new one from The Cranberries that we told you about earlier in the week; their first track since the death of singer Dolores O'Riordan.

The Irish band said "it wouldn't feel right" to continue without her and intend to split after the release of their final album.

Image source, Getty Images

US country pop star Maren Morris has released the lyric video for her new track, Girl; the first taste of her second album.

The singer who - like Cardi B - is nominated for five Grammys this year has been telling Rolling Stone, external magazine how the track was intended to "buck the trend" for women being being under-represented on country radio.

“Looking at the country radio chart the last year, more titles had the word ‘girls’ in them than actual girls on the radio,” she said.

You can find the song, which does contain a swear word, online now.

Image source, Getty Images

US poet Mary Oliver, who won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, has died of cancer at the age of 83.

Oliver, one of America's most popular poets, wrote more than 15 collections of poetry and essays.

Her fanbase includes Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow, and former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

Madonna called her words "a bridge from nature to the spiritual world".

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1. Missy Elliott made history

The US star became the first female rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Only the third rapper ever inducted, Missy tweeted that she was "so humbly grateful".

The announcement was made on CBS This Morning in the US and Hall of Fame chairman Nile Rodgers paid a glowing tribute to Missy, describing her as "one of my favourite writers of all time."

(We bet Nile says that about all the nominees).

Fellow inductees to that most-esteemed of Halls include Dallas Austin, Tom T. Hall and John Prine, as well as Jack Tempchin and Yusuf Islam - formerly Cat Stevens.

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Image source, Getty Images

2. The Killers attacked the Trump administration in a song

The Vegas band gave it the full Bruce Springsteen in a melodic attack on the leader of their nation.

Land of the Free was their first new track since 2017 album Wonderful Wonderful and saw frontman Flowers lament the current political climate in the USA, including the proposed wall at the Mexican border, gun control laws and the black lives matter movement.

The video for the song, which was directed by Spike Lee, shows some heart-rending footage of migrants at the US/Mexico border and you can check it out below.

The Vegas band's frontman explained the motivation behind the track to Beats 1.

"I think it’s a very important time right now," he said, "and 'enough was enough' is basically where it comes from.

“It started in my mind, around when [the] Sandy Hook [shooting] happened and as a father, how that affected me and then it just started stacking up."

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Another artist who has had enough is Cardi B, who said her nation was a "hellhole" while the government shutdown was in place.

Image source, Getty Images

3. Celine and Chance pulled their tracks with R. Kelly offline

The Mute R. Kelly campaign gathered pace this week after stars including Celine Dion and Chance the Rapper pulled their collaborations with the accused US singer from streaming services.

He's currently being investigated by the authorities in connection with a string of sexual abuse claims - which he denies - made in the Lifetime docu-series, Surviving R. Kelly.

The French-Canadian diva's 1998 duet, I'm Your Angel, which was nominated for a Grammy for best pop collaboration, was removed from streaming sites, as was Chance's 2015 track, Somewhere in Paradise.

He described working with his fellow Chicagoan as "a mistake."

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4. Sea Girls are flying the flag for 'urgent emotional' guitar music

The recent BBC Sound of 2019 list threw up representatives of all kinds of musical genres from queer pop to hip-hop, grime-punk to flamenco and beyond.

What the list - selected by industry experts - didn't throw up this year was many guitar bands.

One, in fact: Our Newbie Tuesday featured act, Sea Girls.

They told MNL they don't feel under too much pressure though and are happy to share the responsibility and the limelight with some of their talented rock 'n' roll peers.

"I think we’ve always applied a lot of pressure to ourselves to make good music," said singer/songwriter Henry Camamile.

"We’ve always just made music that we felt like we wanted to make but there’s loads of super great bands out there like Yonaka and stuff.

"From where we are, it seems that band music is thriving and we’re just in there."

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Image source, Getty Images

And finally to end our quickfire review of another, um, 'cracking' week's MNL:

5. An egg became more popular than Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner

The US rapper, who this week also agreed to be part of next month's NFL Super Bowl half-time show, may not have been egg-xactly delighted with this one.

A photo of an egg surpassed a picture of their baby girl, Stormi, as the most liked Instagram post of all time.

The half-boiled idea of a portrait (below), which gathered popularity via a campaign to get it to the top, has now received more than 48 million likes after surpassing Stormi at around the 18 million mark.

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Image source, YouTube / Ella Mai

The UK singer - who made the recent BBC Sound of 2019 list - extends a brilliant basketball dating metaphor for the duration of her new track, Shot Clock.

Ella did move from London to NYC as a kid, which explains why she starts the videos sitting on the bleachers.

The track is taken from her eponymous 2018 debut album

You'll have to find it for yourself though as there is some locker room style language.

Last summer, the 24-year-old became the first British pop star to top the US R&B chart since 1992.

Viewers of the channel's Icon series have voted the late star the 20th Century's most influential entertainer.

He's been listed alongside scientist Alan Turning, explorer Ernest Shackleton and Nelson Mandela.

According to the programme, Bowie's "cutting-edge music gave the world the sound of the future, today."

All the category winners will go head to head in a live final with a public vote on 5 February on BBC Two.

Ultimately, viewers will decide who is the greatest person (man, apparently) of the 20th Century.

Almost (Sweet Music) is our favourite song out today (with brackets in the title).

The track will appear on his new album Wasteland, Baby!, which is out on 1 March.

It comes six years after the Irish singer burst on to the scene with the biblical Take Me To Church.

Check it out above.

The Gods of Rap tour kicks off in May and will feature Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy and De La Soul.

They will play three UK arena shows at the SSE Arena Wembley on 10 May, Manchester Arena on 11 May and the SSE Hydro in Glasgow on 12 May.

Its 30 years since De La's debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, and nearly 25 since Wu-Tang tore apart the rap rulebook with their opus, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

DJ Premier is also joining them on the tour and tickets go on sale next week.

Depeche Mode, New Order, Goldfrapp and Moby will "perform" their own covers of John Cage's infamous composition 4'33.

Anyone familiar will the work will understand why this could be a particularly tricky song to cover. In 1952, the experimental composer instructed performers to not play their instruments for a duration of four minutes and 33 seconds (we could've done that).

The idea was apparently to allow for listeners to instead focus on the environmental sounds.

Now, that's right, the above bands will all be "reinterpreting" the silence.

They will be on a new box set via Mute Records and each artist filmed their performance.

The collection is called STUMM433 and will be released in May.

Check out Slovenian avant-garde artists Laibach below.

TURN IT UP LOUD.

BBC Newsbeat

Image source, Netflix

Fyre Festival was the most talked about festival experience of 2017, for all the wrong reasons.

Advertised by famous faces including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin, it was billed as a glamorous party on a deserted island.

Tickets cost up to $100,000 (£75,000) and guests who booked were promised luxury accommodation and "the best in food, art, music and adventure" in the Bahamas.

Instead they turned up to mattresses on rain-soaked floors, meals of cheese slices on bread and their luggage thrown into a unlit car park.

Fyre Festival - or Fyre fraud, as it's now being billed, is now the subject of two new documentaries, one of which; Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, premieres on Netflix today.

In October festival founder, Billy McFarland was jailed for six years by a US judge, after pleading guilty to fraud.

Read more

Image source, Getty Images

Don't worry, this is nothing smutty, it's the name of the UK producer's new track.

Like a long wait in an airport terminal, it's typically slow burning and disorientating.

The track features US rapper - and newly-announced Super Bowl star - Travis Scott and Metro Boomin.

Check in is open below.

James' new album Assume Form is out today and features guets including Andre 3000 and Rosalia - fifth on the BBC's Sound of 2019 poll.

Image source, YouTube / Ariana Grande

The US singer is found spoiling her girlies with diamonds, singing about her exes (again) and referencing the Sound of Music in the new music video for her track, 7 Rings.

The video is basically what happens when somebody with more money than sense gets drunk near a jewellers.

Here she is championing all the materialistic things she loves, to the melody of My Favourite Things from the long-running musical:

Breakfast at Tiffany’s and bottles of bubbles / Girls with tattoos who like getting in trouble / Lashes and diamonds, ATM machines / Buy myself all of my favourite things

Referencing her recent split from fiance, comedian Pete Davidson, she also sings:

Wearing a ring, but ain’t gon’ be no Mrs / Buy matching diamonds for six of my bitches / I’d rather spoil all my friends with my riches

We can't bring you the full video here as the language does gets a little more x-rated but you can find it online.

Here's a teaser below.

If you do go searching it out keep your eyes peeled for a cameo from Ari's furry friend, Toulouse.

No ring for him but he's in the squad too.

Image source, Getty Images

Grimes and Azealia Banks could find themselves dragged into a legal action filed against Tesla boss Elon Musk by his firm's investors, according to a new report.

They are suing Musk over his 2018 tweet about plans to take the company private at $420 (£325) a share.

Investors allege Musk's tweet negatively affected people who purchased Tesla stock soon after it was sent.

Now, a court has granted a request to serve subpoenas to the two music artists for the preservation of documents, which means they cannot destroy anything that could be considered evidence in the case.

Musk who was dating Grimes - real name Claire Boucher - claimed at the time he sent the tweet as an insider joke, while Banks has said she was staying at one of Musk's Los Angeles properties soon after he posted the tweet.

She told Business Insider, external she saw Musk "scrounging for investors" when she stayed at his house.

Read more, external

Away from legal shenanigans, Grimes is preparing the release of her fifth studio album and earlier today shared producer Bloodpop's remix of her track, We Appreciate power.

We'd appreciate it if you crank up the volume on this one...

Variety

The 74-year-old music legend has accepted an invitation to perform the Star Spangled Banner at the sporting event, which is being held in her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia on 3 February.

It was confirmed this week that the halftime show will be performed by Maroon 5, with rappers Travis Scott and Big Boi supporting.

There has been criticism directed at some black artists for failing to show solidarity with former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kapaernick, who has been without a club since 2016 after “taking a knee” during the performance of the anthem in protest against racial injustices.

Artists including Rihanna and Cardi B reportedly turned down the show, traditionally seen as a massive opportunity for artists to be seen by a TV audience of hundreds of millions.

Gladys is now facing similar criticism but, in a statement to Variety, external she said she intends to "give the anthem back its voice, to stand for that historic choice of words, the way it unites us when we hear it and to free it from the same prejudices and struggles I have fought long and hard for all my life."

The decision has left some fans conflicted, while others believe the star - who sang at Aretha Franklin's funeral - has earned the right to decide for herself.

“I understand that Mr. Kaepernick is protesting two things, and they are police violence and injustice,” added Gladys.

“It is unfortunate that our national anthem has been dragged into this debate when the distinctive senses of the national anthem and fighting for justice should each stand alone.

Image source, Getty Images

*The picture above is a bit of a clue tbh.

Not long now until the 61st annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

The great and the good of the American music biz will gather at the Staples Center on 11 February to see who wins what and why.

Earlier in the week, Alicia Keys announced she is hosting, vowing to give back to "all the young women nominated".

The Recording Academy has announced stars performing on the night will include Cardi B, Camila Cabello and Janelle Monáe, as well as Shawn Mendes, Post Malone and Kacey Musgraves.

Camila was shocked and delighted as you can see above.

The Cuban star made a poignant speech about immigration at last year's event and she might get the chance again, as she's up for two awards this time around.

Last year, Grammys boss Neil Portnow said that - after being largely snubbed in the main award categories - female acts needed to "step up" - comments for which he later apologised.

Cardi B is up for five, including album of the year for her smash hit, Invasion of Privacy

Drake and Kendrick Lamar lead the way though with seven and eight respectively.

Check out the list of key nominees.

How can we help?

Well, if it's music news and new music that you're after today then we can most certainly help with that.

Coming up:

• Stars names announced to perform at the Grammys
• Azealia Banks and Grimes could be made to testify in Tesla boss Elon Musk's court case
• New Music Friday starring Ariana Grande, James Blake and Hozier
• Fyre Festival: Inside the world's biggest festival flop

• 5 Things We Learned This Week

We'll just have to pop you on hold for a second though.

In the meantime please enjoy the new track from Mabel (above), who is otherwise engaged this weekend.