Arctic Monkeys Page 7

It’s been seven years since The Last Shadow Puppets released their debut album, The Age Of The Understatement and fans have been eagerly awaiting the follow-up ever since. But after a long hiatus it appears we could be welcoming the trio back next year, according to drummer and producer James Ford.

Arctic Monkeys and The Last Shadow Puppets frontman Alex Turner.

Speaking to Chilean music site Rock & Pop, Ford, who is also the band’s producer and a member of Simian Mobile Disco, said the band have recorded their second album. "This year, I’ve just done a Last Shadow Puppets record, which is the guy from Arctic Monkeys and Miles," Ford said.

Continue reading: Alex Turner's The Last Shadow Puppets Will Release New Album In 2016

Last year, the bookies had London Grammar as the 6/4 massive favourites to win the Mercury Music Prize, even before the nominations had been announced. And so it raised a few eyebrows when the London group's album If You Wait was left off the shortlist completely.

The band failed to hide their obvious disappointment when we quizzed them on the snub at Festival No.6.

Continue reading: After Mercury Snub, London Grammar Score Ivor Novello Nomination

Possibly the only major festival where you can enjoy fine gourmet cuisine while rocking out to an eclectic variety of international artists, Outside Lands has now unveiled the 2014 line-up as it prepares to return to San Francisco this August.

We just can't express our excitement enough at the newly revealed line-up for Outside Lands this year. Topping the bill are the likes of Kanye West, The Killers and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers; three very different artists which see the latter become the first act ever to headline twice following their incredible set in 2013. Now in its seventh year, Outside Lands are showing signs of development every single summer, and at much benefit for the city with a percentage of every ticket sale going to San Francisco's Recreation and Park Department.

Continue reading: Outside Lands Brings You The 2014 Line-Up! Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, Duck Sauce, Jagwar Ma And More

The final headliners for Reading and Leeds have been announced and for the first time ever festival goers will be treated to four headline acts over the weekend. Yes, joining the already announced Arctic Monkeys and Blink 182 is both Queens Of The Stone Age and Paramore, who will share headlining duties. So now we know the full lineup lets take a  closer look at this year’s headlining acts.

The Arctic Monkeys at this year's Brit Awards

Arctic Monkeys

Continue reading: As Paramore And QOTSA Join Line Up, A Look At The Reading And Leeds Headliners

Miley Cyrus Bangerz Tour Controversy: Miley Cyrus has predictably upped the ante on her controversial media storm by making sure all eyes are on her during her currently touring Bangerz show. The concerts have been packed with the usual raunchy and cringe-worthy stunts, including faking a "Monica Lewinski," getting freaky on the bonnet of a car, snogging Katy Perry and doing some pretty unsightly things to a hot dog. Her pre-teen fans are obviously revelling in it but their outraged accompanying parents have called for the tour to be axed. Check out the whole debate.

BRIT Awards Stuffed With Surprises: The biggest awards evening on the UK music industry calendar - the BRIT Awards - was held on Wednesday and saw a typically spectacular showcase of pop talent, rising up to meet the benchmark set by the Grammys. In a hurry? We've picked our ten best moments. He may not have even attended but David Bowie became the most talked-about star of the evening when he won the prize for Best British Male and sent Kate Moss to read his acceptance speech.

Continue reading: A Week In News: Miley, Jimmy Fallon And British Brilliance At The BRITS

You can always count on the Brit Awards to give us some memorable moments and last night was no exception. Sure they brought in the big American stars like Katy Perry and Beyonce but the homegrown talent wasn’t letting us down either with performances from Arctic Monkeys and Disclosure oh and of course One Direction were there. So wether you watched the show or not, here’s the ten moments to talk about from last night’s ceremony.

Arctic Monkeys arrive at the Brit Awards

1. Arctic Monkeys were on fire

Continue reading: Brit Awards 2014: The 10 Best Moments

All set for the BRIT Awards this evening? Indeed, Britain's biggest night of music awards will take place today and we're feeling pretty excited for the ceremony, which is set to be as spectacular as ever. Of course, if it was purely based on sales, most of the awards would go to One Direction, who have sold 3.19 million albums in the past year. Luckily that's not the case and the awards look set to be handed out to a diverse range of acts who've made their mark on music this year.

Nominated 'International Female Solo Artist' Will Be Bringing Her Pop Hits To Tonight's Ceremony.

This year's musical entertainment will be provided by Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams, Ellie Goulding Arctic Monkeys, Rudimental, Bruno Mars, Bastille, and Lorde but a rumour has arisen that Prince may make a surprise performance with his band, 3rdEyeGirl. The funk singer has been delighting Londoners with surprise gigs over the past week so it's highly plausible that he'll make the BRIT Awards his final London date.

Continue reading: Tonight's BRIT Awards Preview: Who's Performing, Who's Up For A Prize?

Music streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer experienced their most successful year to date during 2013, as online streaming continues to rapidly ascend past traditional means of music sales. Membership and usage of online streaming services rose to an all time high, accounting for roughly 10% of all record label income.

Spotify continues to terrify record execs.

According to figures acquired by the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI), close to 7.4 billion songs were streamed by UK listeners alone, twice the amount of last year. Music revenue was boosted to around £1 billion through these streams, with subscriptions accosting to £103 million a year, a 34% rise on 2012. These figures only take into account paid-for streaming services that include advertisements, neglecting to take into account the streams gathered from free services and YouTube or Vevo.

Continue reading: Music Streaming Services Record Their Biggest Year To Date In 2013, As CD Sales Continue To Decline

English rock group Arctic Monkeys have been announced as one of the headlines acts at the 2014 T in The Park concert.

They are the first act to be announced for next year's event which is scheduled from the 11th to the 13th July at Balado in Kinross-shire, Scotland.

The confirmation of their booking came days before the Sheffield boys are set to play at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow on Thursday (Nov 21st).

Continue reading: Arctic Monkeys First Act Announced To Headline T In The Park 2014

It's that time of year when music magazine Q's awards are rolling round again and the bookies begin to speculate on which acts have best defined the year in music. With a quick glance at the list, it's easy to see that 2012/2013 has been a year of David Bowie after the veteran English popstar made his highly lauded comeback.

It's Been A Great Year For Bowie.

Continue reading: Q Awards Odds: Bowie, Arctic Monkeys & Daft Punk Set To Dominate

Country star Keith Urban reaches top spot in Billboard 200 album chart race as the Australian born singer narrowly beat The Weeknd'S 'Kiss Land' for that No.1 position.

Billboard reported that 'Fuse' sold 98,000 copies whereas 'Kiss Land' sold an equally impressive 95,000, with 3,000 copies separating the No.1 and No.2 spot, based on Nielson SoundScan data collected from the past week.

This was the smallest margin of victory since January of this year (2013) where the soundtrack to 'Les Miserables' nudged past Mumford &Sons 'Babel' by only 2,000 copies. Rapper 2-Chainz took the No.3 spot with 'B.O.A.T.S II #METIME' selling 63,000 copies which is a huge drop compared to his debut album 'Based on a T.R.U Story' that finished at the top spot, selling more than twice as much with 147,000 copies.

Continue reading: Keith Urban Tops Billboard Album Charts With 'Fuse'

The Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize this week announce the shortlist for it's 12 favourite albums of the last 12 months, albums that it claims are "urgent" and are "reflective" of the evolving sound of contemporary music. Once a haven for alternative acts like Portishead and Gomez, this years awards once again have gone for the most obvious choices and rather than celebrate any "urgent" talent, artists that routinely play on the radio or television have been picked ahead of the Hookworms and Darkstars of the British and Irish music scene.

The Arctic Monkeys are hardly an "urgent" band

The Arctic Monkeys are now a bonafied rock staple, whilst Foals and Laura Marling have each been nominated in the past and are regularly given air time on 6 Music or Jools Holland, etc., not to mention the fact that Marling has been handed a BRIT Award too. As for newcomers Disclosure, Rudimental and Jake Bugg, neither are exactly challenging their respective fields of house, drum and bass and rockabilly, but simply making it more radio-friendly and pop accessible. This isn't a dig either, this is something that all three artists should openly agree with. As for David Bowie; he's David Bowie. Need we say more?

Continue reading: Mercury Prize Shortlist Announced, But Does It Even Matter Anymore?

Some people actually go to festivals with their parents; the bond is that strong they can either forgo the temptation to get really drunk and act like an idiot in front of those who raised them, or just do it anyway – you can bet that mum and dad will join in too.

For Alex Turner – lead singer of The Arctic Monkeys, who have made a triumphant return with AM – the temptation to invite his mum along to a festival equals zero. In an interview with The Sun, Alex said: “She had a lot of fun - maybe more than me. She was there with all her gang. I didn't even get the tickets for them, she went and organised it for herself, for her birthday.”

See, his mum was at Glastonbury, where the band were performing a rip-roaring set. "There's something about a big festival and knowing your mum is around somewhere. I can't be naughty if she's there,” he added. “I asked if, in future, we could check which festival she wants to go to and which ones I'm playing at. I absolutely love her though, don't get me wrong.”

Continue reading: Alex Turner Has The Arctic Mum-Keys On Lockdown - 'No Mums At Festivals, Thanks'

Seemingly from nowhere, Daft Punk were the biggest band in the world. Stagnant for nearly a decade, they managed to concoct the catchiest song of all time, and suddenly their album was the soundtrack for the summer. But it isn’t summer anymore.

Reasons to smile - the Arctic Monkeys

The tan-drenched tones of autumn loom large, and the Arctic Monkeys have an altogether grumpier sound to accompany it.

Continue reading: Can Those Arctic Monkeys Strip Daft Punk Of Their 'Fastest Selling' Crown?

The Barclaycard Mercury Prize nominations have come round again, designed to celebrate this year's best British musical offerings. Last year we saw Alt-J with An Awesome Wave take home the coveted music industry prize and have since seen them go on from strength to strength with full UK touring and an extensive festival diary as the indie quartet revelled in the exposure the annual awards had brought them and their infectious, enthralling debut.

Last Year's Winners, Alt-J, Benefitted From The Prize.

This year's nominees, as announced this very evening predictably include Arctic Monkey's AM, Disclosure's Settle, David Bowie's The Next Day, and Foals' Holy Fire. However the other choices include Laura Marling's Once I Was An Eagle, Jake Bugg's self-titled debut, and Laura Mvula's Sing To The Moon - all pleasing choices which will make for an interesting and unpredictable race to the 30th October awards show.

Continue reading: Barclaycard Mercury Prize 2013: This Year’s Nominees For Album Of The Year

We're almost halfway through an incredible 30-day iTunes Festival with some legendary shows still to come from the likes of Elton John, Justin Timberlake and Katy Perry.

One of London's most fabulous concert venues, The Roundhouse, is holding the biggest artists of the year between September 1st - 30th and it's only going to get better from here.

The festivities kicked off with Lady GaGa, who certainly garnered much 'Applause' with her electric set which saw her don little more than seashells in strategic places as she bellowed out a taster of her upcoming album 'Artpop'.

Continue reading: Get Ready For The Second Half Of London's 2013 Star-Filled ITunes Festival

When a band gets to five albums, they’ve usually done something awful along the way. Since 2006, when the Sheffield outfit took the Internet by storm with their album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, The Arctic Monkeys haven’t endured a dodgy album or a dubstep experiment. And with AM, they’ve made it a quintet of quality.

The Arctic Monkeys have forged quite a repuation for themselves

“Arctic Monkeys’ fifth record is absolutely and unarguably the most incredible album of their career. It might also be the greatest record of the last decade,” said The NME, lavishing an unruly amount of praise on the new record. “Five albums in, they may not be a buzz band anymore, but they've become something much more interesting: a good band,” said Entertainment Weekly.

Continue reading: The Arctic Monkeys Are Modern Heroes Of Indie Rock With 'AM'

When Arctic Moneky's frontman Alex Turner told the crowd to "wake up" during their performance at the Roundhouse in Camden, London on Monday, 9 September. This wasn't a reflection on the performance of the band as much as it was a comment on the crowd itself, who were sluggish throughout much of the boy's set. In front of a packed out audience, the band mixed some of their crowd-pleasing favourites with a few brand new cuts, but never really got the response they deserved.

The band played material mostly from their new albu, AM

The band were playing with so much intensity that drummer Matt Helders destroyed two snare drums in the first 20 minutes of the show, as a tailor-suited Turner continued to perfect his rock 'n' roll frontman swagger, being in a much more talkative mood than he was at the televised Glastonbury headline slot earlier this year. But despite a more open frontman, the crowd struggled to break a sweat, as they only rarely responded with any vigor during crowd favourites 'I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor' and 'Fluorescent Adolescent.'

Continue reading: Arctic Monkey's Set The Stage Ablaze With ITunes Festival Performance

It looks like Atlanta's Music Midtown festival is on its way back up as 2013 brings us the biggest line-up since its return from a six year hiatus.

We are back to where we started with Midtown, which takes place on September 10th - 21st at Piedmont Park, as we see a 2 day, 2 stage event just like its debut in 1994. We've still got a long way to go before it's back at its peak with 3 days and 6 stages, but the line-up hasn't far off doubled from last year and another stage has been added too. The excitement when it was announced that Midtown was making its return in 2011 is hard to beat, but we reckon this year's line-up could reel in an even more impressive overall ticket sale.

Continue reading: Music Midtown Festival Continues To Grow After Successful Rebirth

Lady GaGa made an emoTIonal and surprise-filled return to the stage as she opened the month-long iTunes Festival at London's Roundhouse Theatre. Having been away from a live audience since she was forced to end her Monster's Ball tour early this year due to health concerns (bar her VMAs performance last month), the singer made sure she gave a performance to remember at the Camden venue.

Gaga has been spotted around London for the past week, ahead of her performance

The theatrical performance, complete with costume changes, dance routines and a host of new songs from her upcoming album ArtPop, seven to be precise. Dressed head to toe in black, Gaga emerged from the centre of the venue to perform her first new song, 'Aura,' before stripping down to her underwear for new song number two, the rockier 'Manicure,' which was accompanied by a storm of ticker tape falling on to the audience.

Continue reading: Lady Gaga Debuts Seven New Songs During ITunes Festival Headlining Slot

Little monsters, take note – Lady GaGa is making a comeback and she’s doing it in style. Following a timeout which began after her hip surgery in February, the pop star has chosen London’s Roundhouse venue for her first gig after the hiatus. It makes you wonder why would Gaga have chosen the 3000 capacity London venue, instead of an arena in her native US. However, the smaller crowd definitely does not mean that Gaga will be able to slack off (not that she would, of course).

Gaga has toned down her antics - and her look - during the hiatus.

In fact, the eccentric singer will have some pretty big shoes to fill when it comes to her predecessors at Roundhouse. In the 60s and 70s, the venue played host to unforgettable gigs by acts like the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendricks – all with stageshows to match. This means that not only will Gaga have to make a stellar comeback after months of absence, she will also have the added pressure of performing at the iconic venue. The gig will be part of the iTunes festival and, in addition, it will serve as the kickoff of promotional activities for Gaga’s upcoming album, Artpop. Naturally, the singer has the full support and financial backing of her label, so putting together a killer show should not be a problem.

Continue reading: Big Comeback, Small Venue - Lady Gaga To Perform Her First Gig In Months At Camden's Roundhouse

It's been a rollercoaster of a few months for West London's folk rockers, Mumford & Sons. They've headlined Glastonbury in June but had to deal with bassist Ted Dwane's terrifying blood clot health scare that required immediate brain surgery and several cancelled US festival appearances. Dwane rested until Glastonbury Festival when the quartet resolutely took to the stage armed with their banjos, mandolins, guitars, and even a brass section to show the world the Little Lion Men were unstoppable. They played a barn-storming headline slot, blasting their hits with defiance and making the entire Vale of Avalon take notice.

Mumford & Sons Now Back At No.1 After Glastonbury Success.

Such was the success of the Sunday headliners that many in the crowd were converted to Mumford & Sons' distinctive banjo-tickling ways and rushed home to purchase a copy of their most recent album: September 2012's Babel, despite lead single 'I Will Wait' having premiered nearly a year ago. The album has enjoyed 40 weeks in the charts but Mumford's festival success induced a 384% sales increase, propelling the 12-track record up 15 places to the No.1 roost in the week following the festival and beating Michael Bublé's To Be Lovedby just 125 copies, according to The Independent. Their 2009 debut Sigh No More also climbed to the 12th place after their sunny Somerset hoedown.

Continue reading: Mumford & Sons Are Kings Of The Charts After Glasto Success

Well, it’s the middle of the year and about time to recap the big events in music in 2013 – particularly, the best and worst sales numbers of the year. the It turns out, not so surprisingly, that French electronic duo Daft Punk have broken records both for album and single sales this year. However, it’s not just Daft Punk, who are getting a hefty chunk from the retail pie – sales of both singles and albums are up from this time in 2012 – with singles experiencing a 2.5 percent increase, while compilation sales are un 9% (according to the Telegraph). It seems that the music business has didital sales to thank for whatever increase there is in the overall numbers, seeing as how 99% of all UK sales this year have fallen into the digital category.

Unless lightning strikes twice, Daft Punk are set to come out as this year's clear winners.

In terms of singles, it is no secret that Daft Punk’s Get Lucky, featuring Pharrell Williams and Chic's Nile Rodgers easily takes the top spot for sales. Since its release ten weeks ago, the summer hit has passed one million individual sales in the UK. Not only that, but the record has also broken records for number of plays on streaming service Spotify – and it managed to do it in just 24 hours after its release. Clearly, the Frenchmen are on a roll this year, since the full album – Random Access Memories, also broke the Spotify streaming record on its release shortly after. The second single, not so unexpectedly, is Robin Thicke’s single Blurred Lines – also a collaboration with Pharell Williams – with 828 000 copies sold to date.

Continue reading: Daft Punk And Robin Thicke Take Over UK Charts, Mostly Thanks To Digital Sales

And that's it. Another year passes and Worthy Farm closes its gates on the Glastonbury Festival revellers for another 12 months. Though there's always the distant murmur of someone professing it "the best Glastonbury ever," there was a palpable feeling that this year's festival was among the finest in history. Firstly, there was heightened anticipation given the fallow year in 2012 and secondly, the sun came out. Oh, and The Rolling Stones made their debut, rollicking through a two-and-a-half-hour set on Saturday (June 29, 2013) and scoring five-star reviews across the board.

Mick Jagger Performing With The Rolling Stones At Glastonbury Festival in 2013

The surprise return of David Bowie in 2013 had left many commentators speculating on the possibility of the Thin White Duke headlining the legendary festival, though there was no lingering thoughts of "What if?" once Glastonbury got underway on Friday with a snappy set from Sheffield heroes Arctic Monkeys. Bowie became all but a moot point after Saturday, when Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and company played a career spanning set that included 'Jumping Jack Flash,' 'Tumbling Dice,' 'Start Me Up,' 'You Can't Always Get What You Want,' 'Gimmie Shelter,' 'Doom and Gloom' and 'Midnight Rambler.' "The night belongs to the Stones. By turning on the charm as well as the formidable back catalogue, they prove themselves well worth the wait," said the Guardian's Dorian Lynskey. 

Continue reading: Glastonbury Festival 2013 In Pictures: Sun, Cider And The Rolling Stones [Pictures]

The Rolling Stones headlined at Glastonbury on Saturday (29th June) but the viewing public were more interested in watching Bruce Willis' 1988 classic action film, Die Hard, according to The Daily Mail. 2.54 million tuned into the BBC to watch The Rolling Stones' performance whilst 2.78 million watched Bruce Willis punch, kick and shoot in Die Hard. 

Mick Jagger with Ronnie Wood in the background performing at Glastonbury.

The BBC sent over 300 staff members to the Glastonbury Festival, at the cost of £2 million, but more people tuned into watch Bruce Willis' Die Hard than Saturday's (29th June 2013) coverage. 

Continue reading: The Rolling Stones At Glastonbury VS. Die Hard- And The Winner Is...?

Didn't MySpace die out long ago - like the dinosaurs - through means of natural selection and general lack of interest? That's what we thought, but just like Jurassic Park the past is being resurrected from the dead so it may roam the Earth once more and maybe, just maybe, survive longer than it did the first time round. However, the MySpace commercial seems to indicate that maybe, after's it's long hiatus, the website could be back for good as a host of of the biggest underground talents get together and celebrate the return of the site that brought us The Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen, Sean Kingston and more in the past.

The $20 million ad-campaign from the newly-launched site features Pharrell Williams, Mac Miller, ScHoolBoy Q, Riff Raff, DIIV, Ciara, Trash Talk, Sky Ferreira and more as the site hopes to re-capture the success of the early 2000's. After such a momentous fall, how are Tom and co. going to make sure they don't suffer the same fate again? Well, gone is the emphasis on social-interaction and instead the main focus is on the musical side of things, with the site looking to work with FaceBook and Twitter rather than against it so that fans can keep up to date with their favourite musicians with little emphasis on introducing friends to the site or having to interact with other people on a large scale. So in other words, it's a lot like SoundCloud or Bandcamp, only with a shiny new advert and Justin Timberlake sitting on the board of directors for the company. It might still work, but frankly we're not going to hold our breaths and see if it becomes a success again.

Continue reading: The MySpace Re-Launch: New School Chic Or A Disaster Waiting To Happen?

Ted Dwayne, the bass player with huge-selling British folk-rockers Mumford & Sons, has been hospitalized with a blood clot on the brain. The band issued a statement on its website, saying, "Our friend and bandmate Ted has been feeling unwell for a few days, and yesterday he was taken to a hospital to receive emergency treatment."

"The scans revealed a blood clot on the surface of his brain that requires an operation.  Ted is receiving excellent care and we are being assured that he will recover quickly from surgery," added the statement. Mumford And Sons says it will postpone its next three shows and reschedule "as soon as we can." The shows affected are Dallas, Woodlands and New Orleans. The band adds, "We're all wishing Ted a speedy recovery.We have no plans to cancel or postpone any other appearances along this current tour. We're all wishing Ted a speedy recovery."

Mumford & Songs are set to headline the Glastonbury Festival later this month, alongside Arctic Monkeys and The Rolling Stones. Ted Dwayne, who also provides backing vocals as well as drums and guitar on some tracks, is a founding member of the band which emerged out of the West London with the likes of Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale. After two selling albums they have risen to become one of the biggest bands in the world.

Continue reading: Mumford & Sons Bassist Rushed To Hospital With Blood Clot On Brain

“Boo, the Glastonbury line-up’s rubbish … Yaaay, the Glastonbury’s line-up’s amazing.” It happens every year, but so it goes when you’re a festival the size of a large town with about 100 hundred stages which basically means your line-up is anyone in the world on tour. Anyone can manipulate the names to make the bill look brilliant or terrible, watch us do it now: so you wouldn’t get us going to a festival if we were told the line-up was The Courteeners, Newton Faulkner, Hurts, Jake Bugg and Miles Kane. They just don’t float our boat. But tell us that it’s a festival featuring Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Phoenix, The Horrors, Portishead and Foals? We’d probably snap your arm off for a ticket (and we would, if any Glastonbury PR happens to be reading this.)

Mumford & Sons are headlining Glastonbury for the first time

The point? Glastonbury is never just about the headliners and it’s never just about one stage. Sure you could argue that this year’s Pyramid Stage bill toppers amount to nothing more than a dinosaur act merely ticking off the last career accomplishment they’d not yet completed, coupled by a band who woefully under performed last time they headlined and another group who half the country want to start picking up pitchforks and farming for, and who half want to pick up pitchforks and want to start farming their organs, but if you were only going for The Rolling Stones, The Arctic Monkeys and Mumford & Sons then you’ve really missed the point of the festival entirely.

Continue reading: Glastonbury 2013 Line-Up Revealed, But Is It A Let Down?

Perennial rock stars The Rolling Stones gave a rather un-rock 'n roll response to learning that they had been nominated for Best Live Band, Best Book, Music Moment of The Year and Best Music Film at the NME awards. 

"It's very nice to be nominated. When I first heard it was four things, I thought, 'Ooh, blimey! That's very nice!'' said frontman Mick Jagger. "And it's not a journalists-only thing, it's not a coterie of closely-knit people choosing," the icon added. "It's funny, because when we were rehearsing at Wembley arena last year, it was where we used to do the NME Pollwinners. We remembered, it was the first time we ever played 'Jumping Jack Flash', at one of those Pollwinners concerts!" continued Mick. David Bowie, who recently announced his surprise new album, will go up against old friends The Stones in the Music Moment Of the Year Category, as well as in in the Best Music Video and Hero of the Year categories.

Elsewhere, The Maccabees and Arctic Monkeys have three nominations each and will be up against Kasabian, The Vaccines, Biffy Clyro and The Cribs for the title of Best British Band; one of the most coveted awards. Bowie, Bradley Wiggins, Russian punk band Pussy Riot, US president Barack Obama and singer-songwriter Frank Ocean join Dave Grohl in the battle to be crowned Hero of the Year in the less musical category. 

It looks like Glastonbury 2013 may already have its first big name already sorted, with festival organiser Michael Eavis admitting that he is on the verge of signing The Rolling Stones as the closing act for the five day festival in the Somerset countryside.

The festival currently has no confirmed headline acts, with the line-up not being announced until much closer to the event, which runs from Wednesday 26 – Sunday 30 June, 2012. Still, this hasn’t deterred people from snapping up the tickets, with the whole festival selling out within minutes of the tickets becoming available on October 7. Whilst cancelled tickets will be made available for resale in April next year, it is more than likely that they will go just as fast.

A source close to Eavis has spoken to tabloid paper The Sun to reveal that the first headline act will potentially be the Stones, admitting that the festival head is “desperate” to sign up the veteran rockers. Should the band agree to perform at the festival, it will be the first time they have appeared at the historic meeting ground for music enthusiast and festival goers that has seen the likes of Radiohead, Beyonce, Jay Z, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and the Arctic Monkeys headline in the past.

Continue reading: Michael Eavis Has His Sights On Rolling Stones To Headline Glastonbury 2013

An additional 20,000 tickets for this year's Glastonbury Festival sold out quickly on Sunday morning, to the delight of successful music fans who missed out in the main sale three weeks ago.

Today's tickets constituted those from the April 1st sale which were returned or where payment for the £145 tickets failed to process properly.

A total of 137,500 of the festival's 177,000 maximum capacity were sold three weeks ago using organiser Michael Eavis' new registration system, designed to beat ticket touts.

Previous ticket sales for the festival have been blighted by tickets appearing on internet auction websites soon after the annual sell-out is completed.

This year 400,000 applicants passed through the festival's online pre-registration process, which required them to provide photo identification.

Most of those will have failed to get tickets to the extremely popular festival, which returns after taking a break in 2006.

Headline acts already confirmed for this year's event include the Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, The Who and Dame Shirley Bassey.

Continue reading: Extra Glastonbury Tickets Snapped Up