The OneRepublic singer says it's insensitive and ill-timed for musicians to drop commercial songs while 'people are dying' during the coronavirus pandemic.

• Apr 18, 2020

AceShowbiz - Ryan Tedder hit out at the "tone-deaf" artists who are continuing to release music during the coronavirus pandemic.

The OneRepublic star slammed those who have been dropping singles which are not raising money for charity in an interview with USA Today, admitting that while his band had been planning to release a new single next month, May 2020, they revised the drop date due to the global health crisis.

"Nobody can compete with the news cycle right now," he said. "We have this huge record that we wanted to drop in mid-May that we now won't. It's a summer song, it's like The Beach Boys, it feels like such a hit, but I'm not going to do it in the middle of a pandemic."

"I felt weird saying, 'Come buy my stuff, check me out.' Meanwhile, people are sick and dying. It's very tone-deaf. And unless you're an artist who had a lot of momentum going into this pandemic, like The Weeknd or Dua Lipa, it's really hard to get anyone to pay attention."

Ryan added that he has a huge amount of collaborations that are meant to be dropping in the coming months, but is unsure whether or not they will hit shelves as planned or wait until the pandemic comes to an end.

"I have a lot of songs with artists - Miley Cyrus, Diplo, Katy Perry - that were all supposed to be coming out in the next couple of months," he continued. "Some of them might, but I can tell you that every single artist I've talked with is sitting there going, 'Well, what do I do? Is it going to be a tree falling in a forest?' "

Ryan's remarks come after OneRepublic recently announced that profits from their upcoming new song, titled "Better Days", will be going to the Red Cross.