Innholdsfortegnelse for Nov-14-15 i Billboard Magazine

THE PULSE OF MUSIC RIGHT NOW RIGHT AROUND WHEN THE WEATHER IN New York started getting chilly in October, Elle King came home after a month of U.K. shows and knew, before she even left the airport, her life had changed. “I got some fist bumps; a couple people yelled, ‘Elle King, you rule!’ ” says the raspy-voiced 26-year-old singer-songwriter, sounding mind-blown. “It has been a really crazy year.” The reason? “Ex’s and Oh’s,” a revved-up, hookladen saga of the real-life trail of broken hearts that King has left from Texas to London. The track has risen to the top rungs of the charts months after its 2014 release, and moves 15-12 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Nov. 14, its 17th week on the tally. The hit also made…

Nicky Jams With Chris Brown Reggaeton star Nicky Jam is being cagey about his recent Instagram post indicating that he’s collaborating with R&B star Chris Brown, but he’s not exactly denying it either. “Here cooking something with @chrisbrownofficial,” Jam posted in Spanish on Oct. 26 alongside a fuzzy picture of Brown in a baseball cap, adding: “It’s official. We’re coming with a song you guys love and isn’t out yet.” Jam wouldn’t confirm to Billboard that Brown will be featured on his next single, which he says is called “Hasta el Amanecer” (’Til Dawn) and will be released in 2016 in Spanish and English versions. But, he did reveal that the track will be “the first time a reggaeton artist can go toe to toe with a mainstream icon.” Chris…

The Gear, The Looks, The Trends…

When the Morning Comes Black Magnetic/Epic “Say Something” duo wears source material on its sleeve A GREAT BIG WORLD’S mournful slice of heartbreak, “Say Something,” has become an adult-contemporary staple since its 2013 release. The pair’s second album, When the Morning Comes, serves as a state-of-theunion check for the idea of “soft rock.” Ian Axel and Chad King’s voices are a noble building block, bringing to mind a Broadway spin on the thoughtful trilling of Paul Simon. But the music surrounding those harmonies mimics recent hits to a fault, making even the peppier offerings sound tired. Solidarity anthem “Hold Each Other” copies pop motivators like Katy Perry’s “Roar”; “Won’t Stop Running” waters down Ed Sheeran’s rapid-fire delivery by adding the sort-of-determined chorus Ryan Tedder might write. Other tracks find…

ALESSI A CARA Know-It-All Def Jam AT 19 YEARS OLD, ALESSIA CARA has become a heroine for awkward outsiders. On her breakout single, “Here,” the Drake-co-signed Canadian singer-songwriter embraces being the antisocial type who would rather hug the walls than follow typical teenage rules. That same contrarian spirit powers Know-It-All, a debut album featuring a strong sense of adolescent idealism and a spoonful of smart cynicism. The album’s fragile acoustic moments (the fireside ballad “Stone” is a highlight) help balance its many rebellious streaks. The anthemic “Wild Things” is a perfect example of the latter as Cara sings “I lose my balance on these eggshells you tell me to tread” in her grainy, trembling voice, full of soulful texture. There’s little risk in the production (breaking the rules has…

ON THE NEW YORK STREET WHERE Stephen Sondheim lives, utility workers are ripping up a slab of sidewalk and the dry cleaner on the corner has a 2-for-1 deal on men’s shirts advertised on a sandwich board outside. It’s just another block in Midtown East, not an exclusive enclave or a pied-a-terre in the clouds befitting someone of Sondheim’s stature. And that’s just how the bornand-bred New Yorker likes it. “I’ve lived my entire life in 20 square blocks,” he says, reclining in his apartment on a khaki couch that’s covered with a sheet, conceding its possession to his two very social black poodles, Willie and Addie. The composer-lyricist, lauded as a living legend of theater, splits his time between this quiet brownstone and a Connecticut country home. In seven…

Minaj’s Halloween Hike; Adele Takes No. 1 Nicki Minaj (above) jumps 83-36 on the Billboard Artist 100, fueled by a 20 percent gain in social activity. Behind the move: a surge in Instagram reactions related to Halloween..0 1In particular, an image circulated widely on social media after Oct. 31 showing a person dressed in costume as Bill Cosby holding an inflatable (female) doll and spiking a drink. While many found humor in the photo, Minaj focused on the serious side, as Cosby is facing allegations that he raped multiple women over decades. “Our generation is so desensitized,” she wrote on Instagram; the post has drawn nearly 300,000 likes and 10,000 comments. More lightheartedly, Minaj also benefits from Instagram posts featuring side-by-side comparisons of people dressed as her and Beyoncé for…

Tom Petty’s life is the stuff of rock’n’roll fantasy. As a child, he met Elvis Presley and saw The Beatles play The Ed Sullivan Show. A superstar with a five-decade career, he has sold millions of records solo and with The Heartbreakers; collaborated with Johnny Cash and Stevie Nicks; and formed a supergroup with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne. But beneath it all, there were personal and professional struggles that Petty, now 65, mostly kept out of the public eye, which is partly what makes Petty: The Biography (published Nov. 10 by Henry Holt) so invaluable. Author Warren Zanes, who toured and recorded with Petty as a member of rock band The Del Fuegos in the 1980s, got the singer, his family and his colleagues to…

“Can’t be on a team with someone who want you to lose.” —MEEK MILL The rapper on Instagram, lashing out at Wale, his labelmate on Rick Ross’ Maybach Music Group, for criticizing how he handled his beef with Drake. “I ate a bunch of cookies, and I lay there all night thinking the flesh was falling off my bones.” —WILLIE NELSON The country legend recalling his first time eating a marijuana edible to New York magazine “Is this what you think girls have trouble choosing between? You need a little brushing up on equality.” —ARIANA GRANDE The “Focus” singer when asked by KPWR (Power 106) Los Angeles DJs Justin Credible and Eric D-Lux which she would rather live without: makeup or her cellphone. “You say the things I wish I…

The Incredible True Story Def Jam Talented 2014 breakout sets unreachable expectations MARYLAND RAPPER LOGIC SEEMS to have had much more fun making The Incredible True Story than his 2014 major-label debut, Under Pressure, which buckled under the weight of its protagonist’s dark childhood. His sophomore LP is practically giddy: He’s still contemplative but with a lot more swagger, as on the chest-thumping “I Am the Greatest.” There’s a loose narrative, told through skits: 100 years in the dystopian future, astronauts search for a new home planet with True Story as their soundtrack: “You know this is the album that changed everything, right?” It’s an audacious claim that Logic never makes good on. He’s a gifted rapper with dense lyrics and an ear for beats. (The breezy funk of…

Country star takes the reins on his nuanced fifth album IN THE DE CADE THAT CHRIS YOUNG has been recording, his slight, resonant baritone has been both a signature and a disadvantage. Country music recently has favored more strident vocals, voices whose taut textures and strenuous, straightahead deliveries pair well with arena-scale bluster. The 30-year-old star has continually confronted the chasm between his mellow expressiveness and colossal, rock- and R&Bschooled production. On his first couple of albums, he polished his neotraditional sensibilities to a high gloss but mostly resisted adapting to amped-up trends. But by 2012’s A.M., he was pivoting between country club bangers and burnished balladry. Young takes a savvier tack on I’m Comin’ Over, his fifth album and the first on which he steers the production (with…

NUMBERS : CARRIE ’S STORY CONTINUES Carrie Underwood arrives at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with Storyteller, her sixth consecutive top five entry. “Everything about this album feels like a new chapter for me,” she says of her first album since becoming a mother in February. 5 Storyteller is the singer’s fifth studio release and makes her the only country artist to send his or her first five studio albums to No. 1 or No. 2 on the Billboard 200. (Three of them — Carnival Ride, Play On and Blown Away — hit No. 1.) 177k The set moved 177,000 equivalent-album units in the week ending Oct. 29 — and 164,000 in pure album sales — according to Nielsen Music. That’s the largest unit total and sales week for…

An All-Star point guard for the Portland Trail Blazers, Damian Lillard is also gaining fame off the court as a rapper by the name Dame Dolla. The 25-year-old spent his offseason dropping tracks on SoundCloud and launching his #4BarFriday project, which encourages fans (such as LeBron James) to submit their own freestyles. Fresh off a $120 million contract extension, Lillard shares the songs that will keep him bouncing as the 2015 NBA season heats up. PREGAME PUMP-UP Lil Boosie’s “Show the World” featuring Webbie & Kiara “I don’t play a lot of music before games, but right now I listen to this close to game time.” POST-WIN ANTHEM Snootie Wild’s “Made Me” featuring K Camp “It just puts me in one of them happy moods.” FAVORITEWORKOUT SONG Tupac, “I Get…

“Enough with the Justin Bieber Show. I want to veer away from the self-centered attitude.” JUSTIN BIEBER IS LEANING FORWARD, eyes squeezed shut. “Jesus is God,” booms the pastor Judah Smith, standing before Bieber’s front-row seat in the ballroom of the Beverly Wilshire hotel. “He’s the relationship and the friendship you’ve been craving your whole life. If you believe that with all of your heart, every ounce of your being, I’m going to count to three, and then I’m going to ask you to lift up your hand.” Bieber’s restless leg, which had been bouncing throughout the 60-minute service, goes still. “One! God loves you,” Smith announces, building to his big finish. “Two! You’ll never be the same.” And finally: “Three!” A smattering of palms shoot up in the 400-or-so-person…

Country superstar Tim McGraw has had many big-name duet partners, from his wife, Faith Hill, to Nelly. However, the singer, 48, was a little nervous asking a newcomer to share the microphone: the eldest of his three daughters, 18-year-old Gracie, who makes her debut on “Here Tonight,” a track off his new album for Big Machine, Damn Country Music (due Nov. 6). Why did you enlist your daughter, an aspiring musician, to sing with you on “Here Tonight”? When I first recorded the song, I had a suspicion that her voice would be great on it. But I was afraid she would think it was uncool to sing with her dad. It took a lot for me to get up the nerve to ask her. One day we were in…

Aquaria Columbia Beyoncé’s secret weapon emerges with an aggressive debut STANDING IN THE SHADOW OF Beyoncé is no easy task, but it only adds to the enigma of Boots, the mysterious writer behind much of her eponymous 2013 album. Since then, the singer-songwriter (born Jordy Asher) gradually peeled back the layers of his secret identity with the R&B-inflected dreamscape Winter Spring Summer Fall, a mixtape that approximated the creative versatility of his work with the global superstar. His sound is more defined and industrial on debut album Aquaria, a dark, often abrasive set that suffers from stiff uniformity. With collaborators like El-P, he opens the album with the pitterpattering “Brooklyn Gamma,” chanting, “Break ground, start again” — an ironic refrain, given the songwriting formulas used throughout. (“Oracles” and “Aquaria”…

ARI ANA GRANDE “FOCUS” REPUBLIC Dating back to 2011 debut “Put Your Hearts Up,” Grande has never released a less-than-great single — until now, with “Focus,” a rehash of 2014’s “Problem.” That song continuously built up to new crests; “Focus” follows its formula — brassy horns, chanting chorus — but with little of the same rush. —S.J.H. MIIKE SNOW “HEART IS FULL ” ATLANTIC/DOWNTOWN Electro-pop supergroup Miike Snow’s three members (Avant, Bloodshy and Andrew Wyatt) have written and produced for the likes of Britney Spears and Bruno Mars. But new single “Heart Is Full” sounds more like a DJ Premier remix, with a chopped-up soul sample and huge drums giving Wyatt’s Auto-Tuned pop-rock hook a muscular jolt. —ALEX GALE GRIMES “FLESH WITHOUT BLOOD” 4AD Breakup songs typically see…

WHAT DO 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER AND Velvet Revolver have in common? They’re the only two bands (excluding vocal groups like One Direction and Danity Kane) to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with their first fulllength albums. And now, 5 Seconds of Summer goes two for two as the Australian quartet’s second effort Sounds Good Feels Good opens at No. 1 on the Nov. 14 chart, making it the only band to have its first two LPs debut atop the tally. Sounds Good Feels Good moved 192,000 equivalent-album units in the week ending Oct. 29, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 179,000 were pure album sales. The release follows 5SOS’ self-titled debut LP, which bowed at No. 1 in 2014 with 259,000 copies sold in its…

REWINDING THE CHARTS IN NOVEMBER 1990, RAPPER VANILLA Ice, then 23, became a household name when he topped the Billboard 200 with his major-label debut, To the Extreme, after an eight-week climb. His reign at No. 1 lasted 16 weeks, the second-longest of any rap record (M.C. Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ’Em spent 21 weeks at the top), and coincided with another milestone. One week before To the Extreme capped the chart, the LP’s single, “Ice Ice Baby,” became the first all-rap song to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Nov. 3, 1990). His newfound popularity came with a big helping of controversy. Vanilla Ice (real name: Robert Van Winkle) was accused of illegally sampling the bassline from Queen and David Bowie’s hit “Under Pressure,” and though…