That's the end of MNL for another day.

But don't be sad that it's over, be glad that it happened - and that you can simply scroll down to read more about R Kelly's gig cancellation, Kanye's most controversial outburst yet, Dame Vera's latest honour and Liam Gallagher's new album plan.

Plus which Spice Girl do you reckon Justin snogged?

He's tight-lipped but we know who our money is on.

We'll leave you today with Niall Horan talking #SLFN's Dotty through his new track, which is about "a girl that's going to go and break your heart".

Ah yes - we know her too. We think everybody does...

See you tomorrow for more.

The former Kinks frontman has announced Our Country: Americana Act II.

It's billed as his continuing musical journey through America - which began with the 2017 album Americana.

"People came from all parts of this world to settle in this great land to live in peace and harmony, that was the dream," he wistfully recites in the first track, Our Country (above).

The new album is out 29 June.

From Waterloo Sunset to Nashville skyline - it seems Sir Ray's seen it all.

Nashville guitarist Melanie Faye shot to fame about 18 months back when US R&B star SZA shared her video online.

You know - the one where she sounds (and looks a bit) like a female Jimi Hendrix, sat cross-legged in her house riffing.

Well now she's picked up another famous fan in the form of Canadian slacker rock cult hero Mac DeMarco.

They've teamed up on a groovy new instrumental track; Eternally 12, which you can check out above.

As for the alien masks... well your guess is as good as ours.

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

The Essex gal released her debut album Speak Your Mind - at long last - on Friday.

The singer - who told us exactly why she worked with so many female writers on the record - has been telling music website The Line of Best Fit about why she thinks everybody is probably a little bit bisexual.

“I’ve never ever just been attracted to men. I’ve never just been attracted to women," she said.

The former karate world champ, who will support her pal Ed Sheeran this summer has a song called Perfect that contains the lyrics.

“And I’ll love who I want to love, ’cause this love is gender-free”.

That's like sugar-free but more tasty.

Read more., external

Warning: This video contains gratuitous snogging throughout.

It's a motion that we wholeheartedly support here on MNL.

You Don't Walk Away From Love is taken from the Brum guitar band's third album; Kindness is The New Rock And Roll, which drops on Friday.

We caught up with the guys in their dressing gowns, at the recent NME Awards ("sleepovers are the new after-party").

The new video is reminiscent of the tent scene in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums, external.

Watch above.

The Washington state band, led by Ben Gibbard have teased a snippet of new music on their Twitter account,

The band are due to play Robert Smith of the The Cure's curated Meltdown Festival in London in June.

Their eighth studio album Kintsugi was released three years ago.

Listen above for 20 seconds of a new track.

Image source, Getty Images

The family of George Michael have requested fans take down tributes left outside the singer's two homes.

Supporters have created memorial gardens outside his home at Goring in Oxfordshire and at Highgate, north London since his death in 2016.

In a statement on his official website, members of his family said he "would not want to disturb or change the quiet neighbourhoods he so loved".

They asked fans of the singer to pick up their tributes, which include flowers and framed pictures of the singer, by 27 May.

Read more.

Image source, PA

One half of the Swedish songwriting machine has said he doesn't feel Abba have "anything to prove" with their new material.

The band announced last week they have recorded two new songs, which will be released later this year.

"I don't feel that we have to prove anything," Benny told BBC News. "I don't feel we have to think about, 'Oh, what if it was better before?'

"Maybe it was, but we can't care about that. We do it because we think it was a good thing to do."

He added: "We enjoyed it very much. We'll see. I hope you'll like them."

He said the songs came about while he and Bjorn Ulvaeus were in the studio working on a project where the band will tour as avatars.

He also revealed further details about the sound of the two new tracks - but added that they haven't been completed yet.

"One of the songs is like we would've written it [for] today. The other, we could've written in 1972. So I don't know, we'll see. I mean, they're not finished yet.

Abba go grime, anyone? Interesting.

Read more.

Image source, Getty Images

Jabo died at his home in Mobile, Alabama, on Tuesday.

The New York Times reports he had leukaemia and myelodysplastic syndromes and had been in hospice care for about a week.

Jabo was known as one half of Brown's powerful percussion section in the 60s and 70s, alongside Clyde Stubblefield, who himself died last year.

Tributes have been flooding in for the "other funky drummer" (he didn't actually play on Funky Drummer - that was Clyde), who has almost certainly made you move your feet to hits by the Godfather of Soul, including Sex Machine (below), Super Bad and The Payback,

Gibson, whose electric guitars have been used by the likes of Slash (pictured above) and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page has filed for bankruptcy.

The firm, which was founded in 1902 is struggling with $500m (£367m) of debt.

Chief executive Henry Juszkiewicz said the Chapter 11 filing would assure the company's "long-term stability and financial health".

Image source, Getty Images

Under the bankruptcy measures, Gibson will wind down its consumer audio business and focus on guitars.

It sells more than 170,000 of the instruments annually in more than 80 countries, and said electric guitar sales jumped more than 10% to $122m in the 12 months to January.

Noel Gallagher owns tone of its signature Les Paul guitars, which Johnny Marr played on seminal The Smiths album, The Queen is Dead.

Read more.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, PA

The Forces' Sweetheart; Dame Vera Lynn, has been nominated for two Classic Brits, as the ceremony returns from a five-year hiatus.

The 101-year-old is up for best female and best album and will also receive a lifetime achievement prize at the show.

Organisers hope the legendary wartime singer will attend the event in person.

Britain's Got Talent winner Tokio Myers has three nominations; while film composer Hans Zimmer is listed three times in the best soundtrack list - for Blue Planet, Dunkirk and Blade Runner.

However, the German musician faces strong competition from The Greatest Showman soundtrack, which is the UK's best-selling album of the year so far.

The record, which features the hit single This Is Me, has sold more than half a million copies; while its 11 consecutive weeks at number one tie with Adele's 21 for the longest unbroken run at the top of the charts in 30 years.

The Classic Brits also recognise the rising importance video game scores, with a nomination for cellist Tina Guo, whose recent album Game On features music from The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy.

It follows the re-introduction of a video game category at last week's Ivor Novello songwriting awards - where the soundtracks for Hellblade, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Life is Strange all received nominations.

Read more and check out the full list of nominees.

Billboard magazine

R Kelly has taken to social media to respond to his show at the University of Illinois in Chicago being cancelled at the last minute.

It's his first appearance since the Mute R Kelly campaign was launched by the likes of director Ava Duverney and pop singer Janelle Monae

Kelly was due to perform on 5 May but a note on Ticketmaster said the singer "is no longer performing" at the University of Illinois in Chicago Pavilion's Pre-Mother's Day Love Jam concert.

“I don’t know why they cancelled the show," said in the Twitter video. "I never heard of a show being cancelled because of rumours, but I guess there’s a first time for everything."

Historical sexual assault allegations has resurfaced against the singer recently with the Time's Up movement calling on businesses to boycott R Kelly.

His management has called it an "attempted public lynching of a black man".

Read more, external

After helping to honour them on Monday with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, Ellen DeGeneres has been making returning manband *NSYNC feel rather less comfortable on her US TV chat show.

During an apparently harmless game of Never Have I Ever (when has that game ever got anyone in trouble?) the band were asked to reveal whether or not they had ever "hooked up with a Spice Girl".

JT, who is now married to actress Jessica Biel, stared at the floor and stroked his beard before slowly turning his paddle over to 'I have.'

Watch the uncomfortable scene unfold above.

The singer appeared alongside bandmates Lance Bass, Joey Fatone, JC Chasez, and Chris Kirkpatrick.

Lance posted a pic of both bands together in an airport in 1996.

Is this post or pre-hook up as JT looks PRETTY pleased with himself...

The 75-year-old Beach Boys legend has apologised to fans for having to cancel a few gigs in his native US to deal with a hereditary back problem.

The singer and producer is still a busy man, appearing on the opening track of the new Janelle Monae album.

"Please know that the music is in my heart and in my soul and me and the boys are looking forward to performing for you very soon", he said in the above statement.

Get well soon Brian, we're sending you good vibrations from the MNL office.

Wouldn't it be nice if you were fit to give Pet Sounds one final run of live shows in the UK and Ireland in August.

Ariana Grande has given her first interview since last year's terror attack at her gig in Manchester saying she wants to "bring light" with her new album.

Appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, she didn't bring up the attack, which left 22 people dead in May 2017.

But when host Jimmy paid tribute to her "strength", the star became visibly emotional.

"I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming on the show and for being strong and for entertaining and for showing up and going back to Manchester and doing a benefit. I thought that was awesome of you. I just think you're so strong and so cool."

Ariana replied: "Thanks. Thank you."

Watch above and read more.

The pop star did announce her new album Sweetener, which is due this summer.

She said it is "about bringing light to a situation, or to someone's life, or somebody else who brings light to your life, or sweetening the situation".

She also took part in a musical genre challenge, performing Kendrick Lamar's Humble in the style of Evanescence.

Watch below

At the moment, there is not a day goes by when Kanye doesn't do or say something which gets him into the news.

Be it his proclamations of love for Donald Trump or new music in which he chants "poopity scoopity".

Bur now he's really landed himself in hot water after showing up at the TMZ offices in Los Angeles and claiming the enslavement of African Americans over centuries may have been a "choice".

"When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... for 400 years? That sounds like a choice," he said during an interview.

"We're mentally imprisoned," said the star.

As anyone with a pretty basic knowledge or world history will know, black people were forcibly brought from Africa to the US during the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries and sold as slaves.

He was taken to task for his views buy a TMZ staff member who told him: "You're entitled to believe whatever you want, but there is fact and real world, real life consequence behind everything you just said.

"I am unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something, to me, that is not real."

Kanye later tweeted a clarification, external saying; "Of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will," adding, "My point is for us to have stayed in that position even though the numbers were on our side means that we were mentally enslaved."

But by then it seems the damage had be done for many people, including film director Ava DuVernay.

She lumps the hip hop artist in with R Kelly, after the singer's management drew similarly on black history by describing sexual assault allegations leveled at him as an "attempted public lynching of a black man."

Black Eyed Peas rapper Will.i.am was a guest on Good Morning Britain earlier and criticised Kanye, saying; "When you're a slave you're owned, you're deprived of education and that's not a choice."

He added that his great grandmother was a slave.

British Jewish comedian David Baddiel seemed equally unimpressed with the rapper, who also compared slavery to The Holocaust, while actor Wendell Pierce accused Kanye of being "sensational for the sake of publicity."

He did get some support though from fellow rapper The Game though, who called KW a "genius".

A defensive Kanye later took to Twitter and again claimed that his "new ideas" on race were being silenced.

Image source, EPA

Last year was an incredible year for the returning rock 'n' roll star.

After a long time in the wilderness,Liam came back with a number one debut solo album and a string of rapturous gigs.

Now, he's striking while the iron is hot by getting straight back in the studio with As You Were co-writers Greg Kurstin (who produced Adele's Hello) and Andrew Wyatt and it sounds as though they've had another epiphany...

Well we can't hear any of those second album sessions yet but we can check out the new video for Paper Crown; from his critically acclaimed first disc.

No Liam in this one sadly, but there is some fine acting from Sienna Guillory, of Resident Evil and Fortitude fame, who is having a good old-fashioned look at herself in the mirror.

Turns out she's a bit of a one woman band too.

Which is good to know in case any of the band pull out of LG's Biggest Weekend gig in Coventry, later this month.

And after all we're only ordinary men.

Morning folks and welcome to the halfway point of this week's Music News LIVE coverage.

What a week it's been so far already and that looks set to continue today as Kanye West sparks controversy (even by his standards) with comments regarding slavery.

Liam Gallagher returns to the studio and with a new music video and a big shout out to 101-year-old Dame Vera Lynn who leads the nominations at the Classic Brits.

Plus Anne-Marie is the latest to open up about her sexuality.

All that and much more today.

Let's kick off with a bit of James Bay from last night's One Show, in what we hope in his finest faux fur-lined leather.