Innholdsfortegnelse for Nov-21-15 i Billboard Magazine

TOURING TITANS TOP BILL AT BILLBOARD CONFERENCE

Bob Seger and Brad Paisley are among the artists to take center stage at the 2015 Billboard Touring Conference on Nov. 18 and 19. The annual gathering of talent buyers, promoters and live industry insiders, held at New York’s Roosevelt Hotel, will shine a light on the two touring titans, the former receiving the Legend of Live honor and the latter sitting for a keynote Q&A conducted by Billboard’s Ray Waddell. Elsewhere on the schedule: A variety of sessions will bring together executives and veterans of the live-event industry. Among them: Jay Marciano, COO of Anschutz Entertainment Group and chairman of AEG Live, who will discuss the challenges and opportunities that the company sees at festivals and key tours (Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney, The Rolling Stones); Vans Warped Tour founder…

Aaron Rosenberg

WHEN A CLIENT LIST READS like the Billboard Hot 100 — Justin Bieber, Jason Derulo, Meghan Trainor, Future, John Legend and Jennifer Lopez, to name a few — one has to wonder: What came first, the attorney or the hit act? In the case of 38-year-old Aaron Rosenberg, the youngest partner in the history of entertainment firm Myman Greenspan Fineman Fox Rosenberg & Light, the question is often moot, especially with regard to two long-standing clients: Rosenberg had just graduated college when he began representing Legend and took on Bieber when the would-be pop star was 13. To hear Rosenberg tell it, the Kansas City, Mo., native’s music business roots were planted back at Harvard Law School, where a clinical program called the Recording Artists Project paired law students with…

9 min

R&B’S RAUNCHIEST ROMEO

THE PULSE OF MUSIC RIGHT NOW ON A DREARY TUESDAY MORNING IN New York, Ty Dolla Sign reminisces about the previous weekend’s hedonism. “I just sat right there at that couch two days ago,” he says, gesturing across the room with a tattooed knuckle. “I had 12 girls sitting around me.” The 30-year-old reclines on a banquette at Hudson Terrace, a currently empty nightclub in Midtown Manhattan. The women in leopard-print boots are gone, as is the Jameson bottle he didn’t fully recover from until after last night’s show at Highline Ballroom, when he finally crashed at his hotel. “I was tired as f—, I’m not going to lie,” he says, feet propped on a black hoverboard. “I probably had 20 bitches in my room. They texted me in the…

6 min

JEM ’S ANTI -POP STAR

Beloved 1980s cartoon Jem, about the titular glam-pop star, was resurrected in October with Jem and the Holograms, director Jon M. Chu’s live-action adaptation. It bombed at the box office and with critics, but things are still looking bright for star Audrey Peeples. In addition to her first film lead, the 21-year-old plays country singer Layla Grant on ABC’s Nashville, where she was promoted to regular on the fourth season, launched in September. Now, Peeples is ready to step up her music career — and take on all the haters. A lot of critics and old-school Jem fans didn’t like the reboot. How do you feel about that? I don’t really care about reviews — at the end of the day it’s about doing the best you can with what…

HEAR SAY

“We got Obama into office… Where are the things in our community that have gotten drastically better?” —PUFF DADDY The Bad Boy honcho, speaking to Ebro in the Morning on WQHT New York (Hot 97.1). “Once we’ve figured ourselves out, we could maybe come together and make an awesome duo.” —JUSTIN BIEBER The “Sorry” singer on ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez, during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I basically need to kiss some more boys so I can write some songs.” —SAM SMITH The British crooner, explaining why he’s taking a break from music, during an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I love it when men use their minds wisely… but wait… does that REALLY exist?” —BRITNEY SPEARS The pop star on Instagram, captioning a picture of two men…

Adele’s ‘Hello’ Hair

FOR PAMELA NEAL, becoming a hair stylist to the stars began as a matter of convenience. Growing up in the resort town of Bournemouth, on the south coast of England, Neal felt a calling to create: “Back home, we girls did all sorts of crafts. To me, hair was just another medium for artistic expression.” Plus, it was accessible. “Everybody in my family had hair on their head; I could get at it,” she says. Today Neal is known as a top stylist who helps boundary-pushing artists push their own boundaries, creating iconic looks for St. Vincent, Bjork, Pink, Marilyn Manson, Tricky, David Bowie, Katy Perry and most recently Adele — for whom she provided the soft and sexy hairstyle in her video for “Hello.” “When you’re doing music videos,…

next act of the insider’s outsider

“WHAT AM I DOING RIGHT NOW?” Sara Bareilles has just blustered into a German beer bar on New York’s Lower East Side, lugging a giant duffel bag. “I’m so frazzled!” she apologizes. “I just got back from the book tour. And for the play, we’re in re-examination mode.” The book is Sounds Like Me, the 35-year-old singer-songwriter’s just-released, memoir-ish collection of essays that’s a New York Times bestseller. The play is Waitress, a musical opening on Broadway at the end of April, for which Bareilles is a firsttime composer-lyricist. What’s Inside, an album of Waitress songs sung by Bareilles, just arrived on Epic, and the plaintive single, “She Used to Be Mine,” is climbing Billboard’s Adult Top 40 chart. But tonight, it’s the show that’s most on her mind. “We’re…

7 min

Old Dominion’s Mashed-Up Country

OLD DOMINION Meat and Candy RCA TWO SONGS THAT DIDN’T make Meat and Candy, the debut full-length by popcountry band Old Dominion, are almost as revealing as the 11 that did. Warm-up singles “Dirt on a Road” and “Shut Me Up” initially got the quintet on radio, but the former was more blatantly rapped, the latter more boisterously rocked, than anything that ultimately made the group’s album. Hip-hop and rock (and reggae for that matter) still flow through the act’s veins on Meat & Candy, only in a more subtle, relaxed way. In the past few years, members of Old Dominion — four guys from Virginia (hence their name), one from suburban Detroit — have had a hand in writing country-radio hits for such acts as The Band Perry…

4 min

17 Years Ago LAURYN HILL’s ‘doo wop’ debuted at the top

IN 1998, LaURYN HILL, THEN 23, debuted at No. 1 on the Nov. 14 Billboard Hot 100 with “Doo Wop (That Thing),” the lead single from the hip-hop singer-songwriter’s debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. At the time, it was only the 10th song to bow atop the chart. (Fourteen more singles have since managed that feat.) The piano- and horn-accented “Doo Wop,” in which Hill sings and raps, was a self-respect anthem, a warning against succumbing to the pitfalls of “that thing,” whether it be sex, money or the streets. The hit followed a successful run for Hill as one-third of The Fugees, who topped the Billboard 200 in 1996 with The Score and scored a No. 1 Mainstream Top 40 hit with a reworking of Roberta Flack’s…

CHRIS STAPLETON: THE NEW FACE OF CO UNTRY?

SOMETIMES CINDERELLA IS 37 years old, has a scraggly beard and sounds like a cross between George Jones and Otis Redding. To say that Chris Stapleton was the belle of the ball at the Nov. 4 Country Music Association Awards is a vast understatement. Following his galvanizing duet with Justin Timberlake, the Nashville veteran became the day’s top trending search on Google, and then — against all odds — a top-selling album everywhere. Stapleton’s 5-month-old debut album, Traveller, sold 177,000 copies (including track-equivalent albums) in the week ending Nov. 5 — nearly all of those in the 24-hour period between the duet and the close of Nielsen Music’s reporting period. After Traveller, released in May, seemed to have run its course, Stapleton now has both the first album and digital…

4 min

The Weeknd, Martin Bandier Rule The Third Quarter

Warner/Chappell Music celebrated its highest ranking since Billboard began tracking the top publishers’ market share in 2006, but the top spot remained elusive as Sony/ATV increased its lead by nearly two percentage points in the third quarter of 2015, from 19.6 percent to 21.2 percent.* Led by chairman/CEO Martin Bandier, Sony/ATV — which has been the No. 1 publisher since the third quarter of 2012, after it acquired a stake in and took over administration for EMI Music Publishing — saw its share increase even though its total number of titles among the top 100 radio songs slipped to 46 from the previous quarter’s 52. Its top track was the No. 3 song, Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” (featuring Kendrick Lamar). Warner/Chappell came in with a strong 19.6 percent market share,…

City Of Hope’s Spirit Of Life Gala

1 Even though the sound cut out during Lauryn Hill’s final song at Fun Fun Fun Fest on Nov. 8 in Austin, she kept on singing. 2 Banks at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan on Nov. 7. 3 Epic Records president Sylvia Rhone, KWL founder/CEO Kevin Liles and Epic Records chairman/CEO Antonio “L.A.” Reid at Butter in New York, where they celebrated Sean “Diddy” Combs’ 46th birthday. 4 CMA co-host Carrie Underwood walked the carpet in a tangerine Gauri & Nainika dress but changed an impressive 11 times during the three-hour telecast. 5 Brittney Marie Cole and husband Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line with FGL’s Tyler Hubbard and wife Hayley Stommel hit the WME Budweiser Bash after the award show ended. 6 A rhinestone-covered Kacey Musgraves, who…

OVERHEARD

Jane Is Fonda Miley Jane Fonda is a big fan of Miley Cyrus. The actress, who, along with Cyrus, was honored at the Los Angeles LGBT Center Vanguard Awards on Nov. 7, had already walked the red carpet and was waiting for a vodka martini to be delivered to her when she spotted the “Wrecking Ball” singer’s arrival. Fonda, like Cyrus today, was a controversy magnet in the ’60s and ’70s for her feminism and activism, and she ran back down the carpet to give Cyrus a big hug. Later that night Cyrus licked a piano that then sold for $50,000. Tom Morello, Soccer Dad Former Rage Against the Machine guitarist and de facto E Street Band member Tom Morello is just as at home on soccer fields as he…

‘Boi’ Meets World

LE1F, THE MC-PRODUCE R WHOSE OPEN homosexuality and eclectic fashion have made him an outsider in rap, is thinking about his favorite hip-hop record of 2015 and twisting his face into a cynical side-eye. “There hasn’t been a rap album I like yet,” he says over tea at a coffee bar on New York’s Lower East Side, his 6-foot-plus frame tucked behind a tiny table. “That Future album? I thought it was kind of wack.” Le1f’s outspoken aversion to Future’s hit album DS2, filled with macho threats and songs like “Freak Hoe,” is unsurprising: His rising fame is built on turning hetero hegemony on its head. In the video for “Koi,” from debut album Riot Boi (out Nov. 12 on XL/Terrible), the 26-yearold hits dance moves inspired by the gay…

3 min

GEORGE TAKEI BEAMS UP TO BROADWAY

Decades after he first rose to fame playing Star Trek’s Sulu, George Takei, 78, has become an outspoken political activist and social media star. But there’s one story he has been waiting his whole life to tell: his early years spent in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. This month he did just that, making his Broadway debut in Allegiance, a musical about his family’s experience. “My passion is musical theater,” says Takei, “so to be able to bring my life mission together with it has been a dream come true.” Why stage a musical to share your personal story? Music hits you in the heart as well as in the brain. It has that unique ability to profoundly, deeply move you. Which scene is most difficult for…

How I Wrote ‘Hey Jude’

Who are the top single and album artists in Hot 100 and Billboard 200 history? THE BEATLES (No. 1 all-time artist) and ADELE (biggest album), but also EMINEM, RIHANNA and... AIR SUPPLY? For the first time, Billboard reveals the most successful songs, albums and acts of the past 50-plus years More than 50 years after the release of their debut single, “Love Me Do,” principally written by a then-16-year-old Paul McCartney, The Beatles remain the Billboard Hot 100’s biggest act of all time. Even in 2015, the band’s accomplishments still stagger: 34 top 10 hits, 50 songs in the top 40 and the most No. 1s in a calendar year (six in 1964 and five in 1965) — plus, McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr are the only…

17 min

RETURN OF THE ROAD WARRIOR

BOB SEGER SAYS HE committed to the rock’n’roll life at the age of 16. “All my friends in high school were envious that I knew exactly what I wanted to do, because at that age, a lot of young guys are thinking, ‘What am I going to become?’ ” he tells Billboard. Seger, 70, never looked back, and in 2016, the Lincoln Park, Mich., native will mark his 50th year in the music business with I Knew You When, an album of unreleased songs that he has updated, and, in his words, a “bucket-list tour” of places he always has wanted to play, including the New Orleans Jazz Fest and the Hollywood Bowl. The Billboard Touring Conference & Awards also will honor him on Nov. 19 when it presents Seger…

7 min

Heat For An Urban Beat How the top producers from Colombi

A ROUNDTABLE WITH FOUR HITMAKERS Andres Castro (Carlos Vives, Maluma) Andres Saavedra (Raquel Sofia, Avionica, Atelagalli) Mosty (J Balvin, Nicky Jam) Sky (J Balvin, Nicky Jam) THE SOUNDS OF SUPERSTAR ARTISTS FROM Colombia — Shakira, Juanes, Carlos Vives — have reached the top of Billboard’s Latin charts during the past few years. Now, as the Latin Grammy Awards approach, a new wave of Colombian influence is shaping Latin music, with a rhythm drawing on the sound of reggaeton. The Hot Latin Songs chart has been dominated for the past six months by J Balvin, a native of Medellin — Colombia’s second-largest city — and Nicky Jam, whose hit “El Perdon” was recorded with Colombian producer Saga WhiteBlack. And at the Latin Grammys, which will air Nov. 19…

5 min

CHARTS

NUMBERS: DEF LEPPARD RETURNS Veteran British rockers Def Leppard return to the Billboard 200 more than 35 years after the group made its chart debut with 1980’s On Through the Night. The band’s new self-titled album arrives at No. 10 on the tally. 7 Def Leppard is the act’s seventh top 10 release and drives in with 30,000 equivalent-album units earned in the week ending Nov. 5, according to Nielsen Music. Pure album sales comprise almost all of that sum. 1 The set (which also launches at No. 1 on Top Independent Albums) is the quintet’s first studio album since 2008’s Songs From the Sparkle Lounge, which reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200. The group has topped the chart twice. 29 Lead single “Let’s Go” is bubbling just under…

Pandora And Sony/ATV Give Peace A Chance

The licensing agreement between Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Internet radio service Pandora, announced Nov. 4, marked a music industry rarity: Both sides came away happy. Not only did the publisher and the web radio service warm their relationship after years of discord, each got some of the concessions they wanted. In a letter to Sony/ATV songwriters, chairman/CEO Martin Bandier said the deal will result in “a significant increase” in royalties and will pay songwriters directly — even if a publisher advance has not been recouped. Pandora, meanwhile, was able to lock in rates ahead of possible increases in the near future, while improving its icy relationship with the world’s largest music publisher. A stronger union could ease the way for Pandora’s international expansion: The service is currently available only in…

MUSIC-BIZ BIBLE OUTLINES NEW REALITIES

1. Vinyl is a booming part of the business, but it’s being held back. Growing at a rate of 38.4 percent year over year, the old-school technology moved 5.6 million units in 2015. Vinyl sales would have been even bigger, says Passman, if existing vinylmanufacturing plants were not already operating at capacity to meet demand. 2. The PRO challenge. While performance right organizations ASCAP and BMI saw record revenue in 2014, Passman says their model is in trouble as fans move online, where songs are monetized at lower ad rates. And then there’s the Department of Justice consent decree review. Says Passman: “Hang on to your hats, small children and copyrights.” 3. “Freemium” is dragging down premium. The ad-supported freemium model may be a gateway to premium paid subscriptions, but…

Keep A Child Alive Black Ball

NEW YORK , NOV.5 KEEP A CHILD ALIVE CEO PETER TWYMAN QUOTED Martin Luther King Jr. when he took the stage at the 12th annual Black Ball. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” said Twyman. “AIDS is the No. 1 killer of African adolescents. This is why we do what we do.” Co-founded by R&B superstar Alicia Keys in 2003, Keep a Child Alive has raised global awareness about the urgent and unmet need for HIV treatment in sub-Saharan Africa and has made a direct impact on the lives of more than 300,000 people. Among the 750 attendees to support the cause this year were performers Lion Babe, Wale and Lenny Kravitz. “I [hope] people recognize the power we have to make a difference in people’s lives,” Keys…

PUNK ROCK’S MAIN DRAG

Long a haven for bohemians, beats, beatniks and punks, St. Marks Place, in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood, has been interchangeable with rock’n’roll for 50 years, name-dropped in dozens of songs ranging from Lou Reed and Tom Waits to The Dictators and The Replacements. Inevitably, every successive generation has claimed that “St. Marks is dead” — and that’s the apt title of an excellent history book (out now from W.W. Norton) by occasional Billboard contributor Ada Calhoun, who grew up on the street. Below are several (but by no means all) of the legendary music landmarks it features.…

COSTELLO’S TURNING POINTS

Elvis Costello has enjoyed an extraordinary 61 years on earth and 38 years in the music business, and he recounts the many highlights and lowlights of both in his new 700-page memoir, Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink (Blue Pride Press). The rock legend spoke with Billboard about a few of his life’s key moments. His 1979 brawl with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett, in which he used racial slurs to describe James Brown and Ray Charles “I uttered words that were the opposite of my feelings. I have no explanation why, other than provoking those people. If I had been less drunk I could’ve surely found a more personal way to start a fight. But a book is a great place for an [explanation]. People can read and know my…

Tie One On Like Steven Tyler

The return of the classic rocker scarf. Plus: The hair stylist behind Adele’s “Hello” locks, Pamela Neal. The Looks, The Looks, The Trends THEN & NOW STEVEN TYLER The Aerosmith frontman has long worn scarves (here, in 1986) and also knots them onto his mic stands. ZAYN MALIK The former One Directioner paired his suit with an Alexander McQueen neckerchief…

The Majesty Of Tapestry

The top-performing albums on the Billboard 200 (Aug. 17, 1963 to Oct. 10, 2015) CAROLE KING’S TAPESTRY made her a star in 1971, but before most of the album’s devotees knew her name, she already had been an enormously successful songwriter for more than a decade. King and lyricist-husband Gerry Goffin spent most of the ’60s writing hits like Little Eva’s “The Loco-Motion” and The Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (which reached No. 1 and No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively). When the couple split, though, King moved from her New York hometown to Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon neighborhood, where she was drawn into the singer-songwriter scene associated with West Hollywood club the Troubadour. The cover art for Tapestry, taken by famed rock photographer Jim McCrary, is an iconic…

5 min

Grimes, The Latest Mainstream Misfit

GRIMES Art Angels 4AD YOU COULD WRITE A FASCINATING alternate history of music by following the progressions of weirdos and outsiders who, after a few albums, yielded to the gravitational pull of mainstream music: The Velvet Underground, Yoko Ono, The Tubes, Genesis, Talking Heads, Scritti Politti, Simple Minds, Liz Phair, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and, more recently, Tune-Yards and Marina & The Diamonds. As Art Angels confirms, Grimes, the alter ego of Claire Boucher, is heiress to this tradition, with a few crucial differences. If you hear the lyrics as personal, Boucher, 27, expresses wariness in these songs: “When you get bored of me, I’ll be back on the shelf,” she sings melancholically over a clapping, double-Dutch beat in “California,” the state where this Canadian musicianproducer relocated in the run-up…

3 min

Kings – And A Queen – Of The Road Stones, Taylor, 1D are the hottest finalists for Billboard ’s Touring Awards

THE CONCERT INDUSTRY IS arguably the most exciting and robust part of the music business, where fans go for experiences no digital stream can duplicate. And they pay for that excitement, to the tune of $3.8 billion in ticket sales during a recent 12-month period (a decline over the previous year). Artists drive that global business. But so do promoters, managers, agents, festival organizers and venues. The most successful will earn recognition for their achievements on Nov. 19 at the 12th annual Billboard Touring Awards. Billboard’s Concert Power Players highlights the finalists in award categories based on the attendance and ticket-sales data compiled by Billboard Boxscore. This year’s awards recognize achievements for events taking place and reported to Boxscore between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 30, 2015. The Billboard Touring…

18 min

Country Conquers Charts After Huge CMAs Bump

THE TOP THREE ALBUMS ON THE Billboard 200 are all country releases for the first time in five years, no doubt thanks to the Country Music Association Awards. The Nov. 4 show, which aired live on ABC, fuels an enormous gain for Chris Stapleton’s Traveller, which re-enters the chart at No. 1 with 177,000 equivalent-album units earned in the week ending Nov. 5, according to Nielsen Music (153,000 in pure album sales). Stapleton won three CMA Awards that night (see story, page 11), including album of the year, for Traveller, released in May, and performed a show-stopping rendition of “Tennessee Whiskey” with Justin Timberlake. The CMAs also keep event performer and co-host Carrie Underwood in the runner-up slot for a second week. Her Storyteller album, released Oct. 23, stays steady…