Innholdsfortegnelse for Sep-26-15 i Billboard Magazine

EVERYTHING IS STILL working for The Weeknd, who is dominating both of Billboard’s signature charts. Atop the Billboard Hot 100, the 25-year-old’s “Can’t Feel My Face” rebounds 2-1 for a third nonconsecutive week at No. 1, replacing Justin Bieber’s “What Do You Mean?,” which falls 1-3 after debuting atop the Sept. 19 chart but then dropping 53 percent to 159,000 downloads sold, according to Nielsen Music. (Still, the latter holds at No. 1 on the Digital Songs chart.) The Weeknd’s “The Hills,” meanwhile, rises 3-2, making him the first act to rank at Nos. 1 and 2 on the Hot 100 simultaneously as a lead since The Black Eyed Peas in 2009. Born Abel Tesfaye, The Weeknd also rules the Billboard 200 for a second week with Beauty Behind the…

New York Fashion Week NEW YORK , SEPTEMBER 10 - 17 RIHANNA KICKED OFF DAY ONE OF NEW YORK FASHION WEEK WITH A block party held at the Edition hotel, where Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Fabulous, Joe Jonas, Chris Rock and Justin Timberlake all rolled through. Among NYFW’s most sought-after invite was Givenchy, which creative director Riccardo Tisci chose to show in New York instead of Paris for the first time in the fashion house’s history. Taking place on Manhattan’s Pier 26 with a set design by artist Marina Abramovic, the show was a deeply moving tribute to New York on the anniversary of Sept. 11 with guests including Nicki Minaj, Zoe Kravitz, Courtney Love, Steven Tyler with daughter Liv Tyler and West in attendance. “When you asked me to…

Since his breakout mixtape, 2013’s Owl Pharaoh, Houston rapper-producer Travis Scott has positioned himself as a misunderstood rebel, with mosh-friendly shows, inflammatory rhetoric and a subversive sound. The Kanye West collaborator (who played a key role in Yeezus’ dark palette) flaunts that persona all over his major-label debut, Rodeo (Epic), which arrives at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 85,000 equivalent-album units (according to Nielsen Music), despite mixed reviews from critics. But even with commercial success, rumors he’s dating Rihanna (which he refused to comment on) and songs with Justin Bieber, Scott, 23, expects to remain a pop pariah: “People don’t give me a chance, man.” Critics have said Rodeo sounds overly influenced by its many featured guests: Kanye, Future, Chief Keef, T.I. What’s your response to that? I…

JIMMY FALLON IS frustrated, to the degree the famously unflappable Tonight Show host ever gets frustrated. In just a few hours, Justin Bieber is scheduled to take the stage at 30 Rock’s Studio 6B. Earlier that morning, Fallon laid out the plan in a tweet to his 29.2 million Twitter followers: Bieber would “do something fun” and then play a song backed by Tonight Show house band The Roots. (“Plus @SalmanRushdie is here!”) Unless you’ve somehow never seen the show — which has dominated its time slot more or less since the beginning, bouncing back to first place after being displaced for just one night by the debut episode of Stephen Colbert’s new Late Show — or resisted clicking on a Tonight Show clip posted by your coworker’s cousin, you…

We hear you’re a major fan of the show. I watch every single episode. They’re DVR’d, so I also watch them again. Why do you think the show is so popular? One is timing; we’re dealing with all these issues in the culture right now. Two, hip-hop is big. Also, research shows that black families watch a lot of television. But the main reason is that it’s brilliant. The family dynamic is great, the actors are amazing, and Lee Daniels is a genius. Who’s your favorite character? I love me some Cookie; she is the show. I love Lucious because he’s a bad mother-shut-your-mouth. But for me, it’s Jamal. I relate to him as a man of color who came out and wants to live his authentic self. He does…

DISCLOSURE Caracal Capitol FOR POP FANS, THE YOUNG LONDON brother duo Disclosure’s 2013 debut, Settle, was something rare: Dance music that was both cutting-edge and easily digestible. Guy and Howard Lawrence’s sharp songwriting skills goosed clear verse-chorus structures (the U.S. top 10 crossover hit “Latch,” which launched Sam Smith’s triumphant solo career) and theme-and-variation sample-fests (the preacher sermon cut-up “When a Fire Starts to Burn”) to create the best dance album of 2013 — a singular record that both Berlin-bound uber hipsters and neon-clad festivalgoers could agree on. For the latter group, its impact went even deeper. Settle was a genuine line in the sand, one that helped move the new rave generation away from EDM’s blunt blare and toward quicker, slicker and subtler beats. The fact that “deep…

EVERY MAJOR ARTIST HAS A fixer — Led Zeppelin had Peter Grant; The Eagles have Irving Azoff. In the world of dance music, Swedish House Mafia had Amy Thomson to thank for transforming it from a loose confederation of DJs playing midsize nightclubs into titans of the EDM world. In just five years, the British-born manager, 40, helped secure a million-ticketselling world tour, six-figure gig fees and a top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit (2012’s “Don’t You Worry Child”) — and along the way, her star rose alongside theirs. But now Thomson, who continued managing SHM’s Axel Hedfors and Sebastian Ingrosso (rechristened Axwell + Ingrosso) after the trio splintered in 2013, has parted ways with her two star clients. Ingrosso confirms to Billboard that the duo plans to partner with…

nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats are having a moment. After the soul sensations’ Aug. 5 performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon went viral, the band’s foot-stomping drinking song “S.O.B.” ignited at radio, becoming the No. 1 add to alternative and the No. 1 viral track slot globally on Spotify. Questlove praised the act’s TV debut on Twitter, as did Stephen King. And then, Sir Paul called to rave. “That guy the other night — son of a bitch,” Fallon recalled to Billboard, doing his best McCartney impression. “They set the place on fire.” After seeing a YouTube clip of the Denver group, the late-night host forwarded it to music booker Julie Gurovitsch, insisting she lock the band in “the sooner, the better.” As Gurovitsch tells Billboard, “Once…

tHE MINUTE NAPSTER HIT, I THOUGHT WE WERE IN TROUBLE,” REMEMBERS Jimmy Iovine, who was running Interscope Records in 1999. “I said, ‘This is too simple, too easy and free.’ ” Soon, every label executive was similarly panicked: What do we do now? Iovine’s boss (and friend) Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group, had an idea: a combination label, website and TV show that would collectively function as an A&R “farm club” for Interscope. Users would vote for unsigned bands through Farmclub.com, the most popular acts would play the TV show, and the series would set the pace for music’s new digital future and maybe even help cripple piracy. Eventually, they would IPO the whole thing. With Edgar Bronfman Jr. onboard, parent company Seagram bankrolled the startup capital: $25…

BRETT ELDREDGE Illinois Atlantic THOMAS RHETT Tangled Up Valory Music COUNTRY HAS EMBRACED RAP AND throwback R&B in the past few years, so it was probably only a matter of time before disco and dance snuck in. Check, for instance, the title track to Luke Bryan’s Kill the Lights. But Tangled Up and Illinois, new second albums by Thomas Rhett and Brett Eldredge, respectively, up the ante even more. Twenty somethings coming off a string of country top 10s and heading out on a CMT Tour together in October, Rhett and Eldredge were impressionable kids when Justin Timberlake went solo. They don’t bother dressing particularly rural or mention dirt roads much, either. But they do hope you dance, and they’ve got the rhythmic grace to pull it…

Singer Darlene Love spent much of her career providing powerful background vocals on classic records by producer Phil Spector and onstage with Bruce Springsteen and The Rolling Stones. But at 74, she’s ready for her close-up, thanks to buzz from appearing in the Oscar-winning 2013 documentary 20 Feet From Stardom. On Sept. 18, Love is releasing her new studio album Introducing Darlene Love (Wicked Cool/Columbia), produced by Steven Van Zandt and featuring new songs penned by Springsteen and Elvis Costello. Introducing Darlene Love is your first studio album in 17 years. Do you really feel like you’re meeting audiences for the first time? Yes, I do. Even if they heard me sing on [The Crystals’] “Da Doo Ron Ron” or “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” Phil didn’t want me…

A Mis 33 Años (1978) Recorded when Iglesias was 33 and firmly established as the Latin world’s top singer, it features hits like “Soy Un Truhan Soy Un Señor.” De Niña a Mujer (1981) With such hits as “Despues de Ti” and “Grande, Grande, Grande,” it went platinum in six countries, selling more than 2 million copies in Brazil alone. Julio (1983) This album included previous hits released in different languages. The set debuted on the Billboard 200 and remained there for 89 weeks. 1100 Bel Air Place (1984) The album that broke Iglesias in the United States featured duets with Willie Nelson, Diana Ross and The Beach Boys, reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and was certified quadruple-platinum. Tango (1996) The singer’s elegant homage to Argentina went platinum…

IN EARLY 1975, 28-YEAR-OLD DAVID Bowie invited John Lennon, then 34, to collaborate on the album that would become Young Americans. The genreand gender-bending “Space Oddity” singer and the former Beatle had forged a friendship — that Bowie, in 1999, likened to “Beavis and Butt-head on [the canceled CNN debate show] Crossfire” — after meeting the previous year at a party thrown by screen star Elizabeth Taylor. Initially, the duo planned to cover the Fab Four’s “Across the Universe,” but the studio session also yielded a new track, “Fame,” that Bowie, Lennon and guitarist Carlos Alomar co-wrote. With Lennon on guitar and backing vocals, the disco-funk cut became Bowie’s first entry on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (then-named Hot Soul Singles), where it peaked at No. 21, and led to…

AFTER MORE THAN THREE DECADES OF televised campaigning, it seems politicians still don’t understand the ins and outs of song usage, if recent tiffs between Donald Trump and R.E.M. and Mike Huckabee and Survivor are any indication. In Republican-hopeful Trump’s case, R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe publicly scolded him for playing “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” at a Sept. 9 rally: “Do not use our music or my voice for your moronic charade of a campaign.” Survivor took issue with “The Eye of the Tiger” being used to soundtrack a post-jail appearance by Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to sign wedding licenses for samesex couples, and would-be candidate Huckabee. The issue is primarily a concern for Republicans, who, through the…

09-09 Emilie Friedlander, former deputy editor at The Fader, joined Vice Media’s Thump as editor-in-chief. Imagem Music Group elevated former COO Bill Gaden to CEO of Imagem U.S., Steve King to vp creative services and Isabel Arisso to manager of creative services. 09-10 Train’s Pat Monahan was named national spokesman for the 40th anniversary of the T.J. Martell Foundation for Leukemia, Cancer and AIDS Research. 09-11 Ethan Kaplan exited Gracenote, where he served as senior vp/GM of music, to become Fender’s new chief digital products officer. Musician/model/actress Sky Ferreira left Creative Artists Agency to join William Morris Endeavor. Australian concert promoter Andrew McManus, whose résumé includes past tours by Kiss and Motley Crue, was arrested following a sting involving the FBI and Melbourne police that were investigating alleged drug trafficking…

BACK IN 2005, VIRTUALLY no one beyond the rarefied confines of opera and London’s West End was familiar with the dazzling, psychedelic vision of set designer Esmeralda “Es” Devlin. But that year, undeterred by Devlin’s lack of experience staging pop music shows, Kanye West brought her in for his Touch the Sky Tour, and in the decade since, the 43-yearold London-based Devlin has become perhaps the world’s most in-demand performance designer, fearlessly zigzagging genres at the speed of a floodlight. In addition to creating sets for five of West’s tours, she conceptualized a nightmarish vision of New York to contain the manic energy of Lady Gaga during the artist’s Monster Ball trek in 2009 and 2010, engineered a massive exploding Union Jack for the closing ceremony of the 2012 London…

Networks ERIK FLANNIGAN, 49 Executive vp music and multiplatform strategy, Viacom Music & Entertainment Group Culturally relevant moments don’t occur in a vacuum, says Flannigan, who’s reveling in the recording-breaking 21.4 million tweets generated by the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards — the mostmentioned nonsports show since Nielsen began tracking Twitter TV activity in 2011. Linear TV viewers declined 5 percent (9.8 million), but streams were up 55 percent (41 million). Flannigan intends to keep the party going. “My job right now is to take the momentum from the VMAs and build it into a new music strategy for the network” on all platforms. TV Experience That Made Him Want To Get Into The Business: “A tie: Elton John on The Muppet Show and The Clash on Fridays.”…

RUDIMENTAL We the Generation Major Tom/Big Beat/Atlantic EAST LONDON-BASED collective Rudimental could serve as a primer on the past 20 years of British R&B and dance, building on a through-line of electronic soul that includes trip-hop, drum’n’bass, garage, grime and dubstep. While it’s largely a studio creation that centers on the group’s four main songwriter-producers, in a live setting, Rudimental is a dozen-strong dynamo complete with singers, rappers, horn players, percussionists and backing vocalists, which makes the band’s dancefloor-friendly tracks looser and more organic than associated acts like Disclosure or Gorgon City. The group’s 2013 debut, Home, spawned several European hits (“Feel the Love,” “Waiting All Night”) and scored it a BRIT Award, but it was more about hooks and moods than fully realized songs. And while that’s occasionally…

1 The O2 LONDON Rebecca Kane Burton, 40, GM SINCE EARLY 2012, KANE BURTON HAS RUN THE world’s top-grossing arena ($97.7 million year to date, according to Billboard Boxscore) with “exactly the right team that propels the b uilding forward.” Kane Burton says hiring that crew is her proudest accomplishment of the past year — although sellouts by Paul McCartney, Michael Buble and Queen with Adam Lambert must come close. In-house bookings at the AEG-managed venue have included the annual C2C: Country to Country festival and a sold-out A.R. Rahman Bollywood concert. “We’re not going to sit and wait for content; if we see an opportunity, we will go out and grab it,” says Kane Burton, who lives in London with her husband and two stepsons. GREATEST CAREER ACHIEVEMENT “It…

Although he played in the early ’60s for Real Madrid’s junior team and harbored soccer ambitions, Julio Iglesias admits that his chances to turn professional were slim. Amateurs and pros trained together on Thursdays, and Iglesias — a then-19-year-old rookie — took penalty kicks from the players. “I was an enthusiastic goalie,” he says with a laugh. “But I wouldn’t have become an elite soccer player.” But the sport did give him an early opportunity to shine in the spotlight. “In a way, it creates an environment of popularity, of lights. ‘Lights’ — it’s a magic word.”…