Innholdsfortegnelse for Apr-11-15 i Billboard Magazine

RIHANNA’S STOCK JUST GOT A BOOST. THE singer’s latest, “Bitch Better Have My Money,” blasts onto the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 23, the chart’s highest debut. The trap-infused track soars onto Digital Songs at No. 5 with 108,000 downloads sold in the week ending March 29, according to Nielsen Music. It was released March 26, and following its first full week of sales — plus a performance of the song at the second iHeartMusic Awards (March 29) — it should surge higher on the April 18 Hot 100. Radio is already buying in, as “Money” nears the all-format Radio Songs chart with 21 million in overall audience. Both “Money” and prior single “FourFiveSeconds,” with Kanye West and Paul McCartney (at No. 8), introduce Rihanna’s forthcoming eighth studio album. Atop…

Nearly 18 months after its launch, Lyor Cohen’s 300 Entertainment has its first full-fledged hit with rap newcomer Fetty Wap’s hard-charging single, “Trap Queen.” The giddy rap anthem — which pays affectionate homage to the 24-year-old’s faithful ex — is No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 after entering the tally’s top 10 on March 28. Having topped the Hot Rap Songs chart, “Trap Queen” holds down the No. 2 slot on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The single has sold 502,000 units, according to Nielsen Music, and racked up more than 30 million video views on YouTube. Fueling the track’s trajectory: South by Southwest showcases presented by Rolling Stone, Samsung and Fool’s Gold; remixes from Rick Ross, Fabolous and French Montana; and co-signs from Kanye West and Rihanna, along with an…

WHEN DISTRIBUTOR AND marketing house The Orchard spent $4 million at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival to outbid competitors for the quirky romantic comedy The Overnight, executive producers Jay and Mark Duplass compared the company to their own career ethos of “doing things our way.” Said Mark Duplass: “The Orchard is a group of young, smart pioneers who blew us away with their bold, passionate approach to taking this film into the world.” It’s a statement that CEO Brad Navin, 44, takes to heart as the company celebrates its 18th year in business and a just-closed deal with Sony Music, which first invested in The Orchard in 2012 and acquired the rest of the company for $200 million in mid-March. Chief among the innovations he has helped introduce are digital…

The blinding burn to stardom of punk threesome-turned-pop hitmakers The Police included five albums in five years and nonstop touring from 1978 to 1984. With that success came drama chronicled by guitarist chronicled by guitarist Andy Summers in his 2007 memoir, One Train Later. Now the film version, Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving The Police, is getting a stateside release through Cinema Libre on April 3. Helmed by veteran film editor Andy Grieve , the documentary could have just as easily been called Can’t Stand Losing Sting, as Summers, 72, spends much of his time worried the Police frontman would go solo. “Fairly early, the press pulled him out — this great-looking young guy with a great voice in the hot rock band,” Summers tells Billboard. Throughout the group’s career,…

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE FRONTMAN Ben Gibbard is ready for some tough questions. On March 31, the Seattle indie-rock institution released its eighth album, Kintsugi (Atlantic); the record is Death Cab’s first since 2011 — which also makes it the first since the 38-year-old singer-guitarist finalized his divorce from actress Zooey Deschanel in 2012. Gibbard’s three-year marriage to the New Girl star, 35, made him an unlikely celebrity, that rare musician who turns up on both Pitchfork and TMZ. And now that it’s over, everyone’s wondering if new songs like “Black Sun” and “Ingenue” are about his ex. He saw the speculation coming, but Gibbard didn’t get to be one of rock’s most respected songwriters by skimping on the personal stuff. “I’m not going to change the way I’ve always…

“ I think that’s what happened with me: I lowered my beliefs.” —JUSTIN BIEBER The pop star, discussing his last few years in an interview with USA Today after his Comedy Central roast. “I don’t mean I lost money. I mean I lost a f—ing shitload of money. It was a few million.” —NOEL GALLAGHER The singer-songwriter-guitarist, dishing to Loaded magazine about his solo career since Oasis split in 2009. “Where I grew up, a woman was as apt to say ‘poontang’ as a man. It sort of meant ‘lovin’.” —JAMES TAYLOR The folk singer, explaining the lyric “Chicago’s first-class poontang” on his new song “Stretch of the Highway” to Rolling Stone. “You’re so inconsiderate pal, seriously how f—ing old are you? Grow up!” —LOUIS TOMLINSON The One Direction member…

NINE O’CLOCK ONE MONDAY night, Azealia Banks is demanding a rolling pin. The 23-year-old rapper-singer-controversy magnet wants to show off her cooking skills, so she has decided to make her grandmother’s chicken and dumpling soup from scratch. She chooses a ritzy midtown Airbnb space for this endeavor because her Washington Heights apartment in Manhattan, where she lives alone, is a wreck: full of pets (two cats, a Schnoodle, a guinea pig, a rabbit and a snake), tarot cards and hair extensions. (In fact, Banks arrives late because she was getting a new weave put in.) The fridge here is stocked with cilantro and a whole chicken — “All the flavor is in the vertebrae,” she says — but there’s no rolling pin, and Banks, strong-willed in all things, says she…

Love & Mercy is not a traditional biopic. “It’s a portrait, painted by two actors, who are both trying to get a sense of who this guy is,” says Bill Pohlad, a first-time director and former executive producer for River Road Entertainment (12 Years a Slave, Into the Wild). Written by Oren Moverman and Michael A. Lerner and made with the support of Wilson and his wife, Melinda Ledbetter, Love & Mercy presents two parallel narratives: one of a young Wilson in the mid-1960s, as he moves away from The Beach Boys’ surf sound and becomes tortured by voices in his head; the other of an overly medicated, middle-aged Wilson in the 1980s, who is controlled by psychologist/legal guardian Dr. Eugene Landy and falling for Ledbetter (portrayed by Elizabeth Banks),…

Carrie & Lowell Asthmatic Kitty The folk artist stays oblique on tragedy-inspired album SUFJAN STEVENS HAS AN MFA, which goes a long way toward explaining his conceptual leanings. From his abandoned 50 states project — one album for each state — to a multimedia piece entirely about a freeway, his work, even at its most mellifluous, tends toward the artful. His latest, Carrie & Lowell, is no exception. Named after his stepdad and mother, the album was inspired by Stevens’ grief after the latter died from stomach cancer. Isolated from the rest of his discography, it’s a decent, if unremarkable, collection of hushed indie-folk, and the most immediate music Stevens has released in years. In the context of that discography, however, it scans as yet another highfalutin “project,” one full…

RIHANNA “BITCH BETTER HAVE MY MONEY” DEF JAM Rihanna’s sassy new single recalls the icy trap of “Pour It Up,” with her once again sneering over a stuttering beat. A more imaginative hook would have been nice, but Ri isn’t playing nice here — following the folk-pop of “FourFiveSeconds” with this grimy bop proves she’s impossible to pigeonhole. —JASON LIPSHUTZ JAMIE XX FEATURING ROMY “LOUD PLACES” YOUNG TURKS Shades of The xx’s downbeat cool color the thumping “Loud Places,” but the act’s producer wisely builds up to a grander sound on the first cut from solo debut In Colour (June 2). Featuring vocals from bandmate Romy, the song climbs from hushed verses to a majestic chorus that samples Idris Muhammad. —STEVEN J. HOROWITZ FKA TWIGS “GLASS & PATRON” YOUNG TURKS…

PICTURE PERFECT North London’s Wolf Alice is on the verge of its Alternative chart debut with “Moaning Lisa Smile” (Dirty Hit/RCA), up 79 percent in plays, according to Nielsen Music. The 1990s-throwback track features sludgy guitars and a melodic hook from lead vocalist Ellie Roswell. The four-piece will release its first album, My Love Is Cool, produced by Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys, The 1975), on June 23. CHEDDA FLICKS UP CHARTS Rapper Chedda Da Connect enters Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop at No. 33 with “Flicka Da Wrist” (LMG/eOne). The trap-heavy single, recently remixed by Rick Ross, gained prominence on multiple social media platforms — Vine in particular — through user-generated videos featuring comical wrist-shaking dance moves. “Wrist” is from Chedda’s most recent mixtape, Catchin’ Playz 2, which arrived in December 2014. A…

Nearly a half-century after he first appeared on a Billboard chart, Van Morrison (above) bows on the Billboard Artist 100 (which launched in July 2014). The revered Irish singer-songwriter enters at No. 59, powered by the start of his new album, Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue, which begins on Top Album Sales at No. 11 with 21,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen Music. The set sports duets of mostly deep Van Morrison cuts with guests including Michael Buble, Joss Stone and Steve Winwood, as well as his daughter Shana, who has toured with her father for several years. Fueled by the start of her new single “Bitch Better Have My Money,” which soars onto the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 23 (see page 1), Rihanna rockets to her best Artist 100…

After releasing four EPs, you finally put out your debut LP, Chaos and the Calm, which debuts at No. 15 on the Billboard 200. Did you take a different approach to recording it? I recorded the first EP [2013’s The Dark of Morning] in a day-and-a-half. There aren’t many takes to any of it, not many layers musically or sonically. It’s mainly acoustic guitar. But I didn’t want to come across as a sultry, intimate, single-spotlight balladeer or troubadour. [2014’s] Hold Back the River EP grows into a bigger, more impactful sound, showing people I like to rock out as much as I like to be heartfelt. I wanted to send people on a journey to get to the album. What was it like recording in Nashville with producer Jacquire…

Kehlani soars in as the top debut (at No. 2) on the Billboard + Twitter Emerging Artists chart after debuting new song “How That Taste” on her SoundCloud page on March 26. The rising R&B star from Oakland, Calif. — who previously appeared on the Emerging Artists chart dated Nov. 15, 2014, with “Til the Morning” — is readying the release of her first full-length, You Should Be Here. The set is available for preorder on iTunes and is expected to arrive April 28. Los Angeles rock band Mini Mansions debuts at No. 4 on Emerging Artists with “Vertigo,” powered by buzz surrounding the release of the track’s official video on March 24. The single features Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys, who tweeted about the song from his band’s Twitter…

The party anthem “Shut Up and Dance” from Walk the Moon (above) surges to No. 1 on Hot Rock Songs. The track, which previously topped both Alternative and Rock Airplay, dethrones Hozier’s “Take Me to Church,” which remains tied for the longest run at No. 1 on Hot Rock Songs: 23 weeks. Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” first established the mark in 2013. With sales accounting for roughly half the chart points for Walk the Moon’s first Hot Rock Songs No. 1, “Dance” rules Rock Digital Songs for a second week with 93,000 sold (its best week), up 12 percent, according to Nielsen Music. On Top Rock Albums, Australian singersongwriter Courtney Barnett’s first full-length, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, debuts at No. 1 with 22,000 sold. The…

Hillsong United (above) storms in at No. 5 on Hot Christian Songs with “Touch the Sky,’ immediately becoming the ensemble’s second-highestcharting single yet. Only its smash hit “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail),” which spent a record 45 weeks at No. 1, went higher. (“Oceans” continues in popularity, holding at No. 2 in its 80th week. The new track previews Hillsong United’s forthcoming Empires, which is due May 26. “Touch the Sky” enters Christian Digital Songs at No. 1 with 12,000 downloads sold in the week ending March 29, according to Nielsen Music. “Touch the Sky” also debuts at No. 16 on Christian Airplay, with 3.3 million in audience. Elsewhere on Christian Airplay, Third Day rises 2-1 with “Soul on Fire,” notching the group’s seventh No. 1. With the ascent, the…

IN APRIL 2000, ’N SYNC WAS ON TOP OF the world. The members of the group — Lance Bass, then 20; J.C. Chasez, 23; Joey Fatone, 23; Chris Kirkpatrick, 28; and future prince of pop Justin Timberlake, 19 — were steadily building in popularity since their first hit, “I Want You Back,” debuted on the Mainstream Top 40 chart in January 1998. But things were about to get much bigger. RCA Records (through a production deal with Louis “Lou” Pearlman’s Trans Continental Group) released the boy band’s self-titled debut in March 1998, and though it debuted at a rather lowly No. 82 on the Billboard 200, it hit the top 10 four months later and remained there until the following March. A 1998 Christmas album also peaked in the top…

MOMENTS BEFORE JAY Z AND 15 other superstar artists took the stage in a studio behind New York’s James A. Farley Post Office in Herald Square to unveil plans for Tidal, a relaunch of the Swedish streaming music service, no one seemed more confused than the artists themselves. Densely packed into a single green room, the group was given instructions to line up in alphabetical order, “like in grade school,” remarked an observer, with Deadmau5 swapped out of line at the last minute to appear next to Madonna and avoid a helmet clash with fellow dance act Daft Punk. Nearby, Beyoncé asked, “I’m not going to be with my husband?” Minutes later, more than 350,000 people tuned in to a live stream to hear the news about “a moment that…

Kidz Bop compilations have sold 15.4 million albums and 4.3 million tracks since the franchise launched in 2001. But in 2014, sales dipped to 848,000 from 1.1 million in 2013, according to Nielsen Music — and in October, parent company Razor & Tie bought back the 50 percent stake it sold to a private equity firm in 2006. The brand is looking for a boost by doubling its annual release schedule from two albums to four. Billboard spoke with COO Vic Zaraya to get schooled on the strategy. Will putting more Kidz Bop releases in the market help keep the brand fresh, or oversaturate? Kidz Bop is not just about the CD release. It’s a brand we market year-round. We switched to four releases a year, but that’s not all…

FOR DECADES, THE MUSIC business ran largely on instinct: magic ears, gut feelings, weird hunches. Success had a thousand fathers, as well as a certain mystery. Label executives knew a hit when they heard one, and they promoted it until the public agreed — or not. Sometimes, data helped. By the early 1990s, Atlantic Records had a research team calling independent retailers to ask which local artists were selling well. In 1993, an assistant named Scott Schiff discovered that an unknown band was outselling superstars in certain South Carolina stores. As the story goes, Atlantic A&R executives didn’t like the album, but then-co-chairman Doug Morris overruled his lieutenants to sign the band —Hootie & The Blowfish. It went on to sell more than 10 million copies of its major-label debut.…

Judith Hill has made highprofile appearances in Michael Jackson’s This Is It, the documentary 20 Feet From Stardom and NBC’s The Voice. But it took a little help from Prince to release her first LP, Back in Time, on March 23 as a 48-hour free download sent to Live Nation’s email list. The album was funded by Prince to help promote a forthcoming Live Nationbacked tour featuring Hill, and was downloaded more than 50,000 times in its first 24 hours, according to Hill’s reps. But it’s also the focus of a heated legal battle between Hill and her former label Cherry Party, founded by music executive Jolene Cherry. On March 25, Hill, 31, filed a complaint against Cherry, The Cherry Party and Jolene Holdings in New York’s Supreme Court alleging…

Tobias Jesso Jr.’s Make-Out Party Tobias Jesso Jr. was feeling the love at the afterparty at Elvis Guesthouse for his rapturously received March 24 performance at New York’s Mercury Lounge. Shortly after arriving, the “Without You” singer-songwriter was seen either dirty dancing or making out with at least three people before departing. Kinks To Become Celluloid Heroes A Kinks biopic that has been in the works for more than three years is about to begin casting. Director Julien Temple says he’ll shoot You Really Got Me this summer. Temple, who directed Ray Davies: Imaginary Man for British TV, says the story of Davies’ overdose at White City Stadium in 1973 will bracket the film, though it will end “on a more positive note.” Temple adds that Ray and sibling Dave…

DON’T CHASE TRENDS ”There should be more women in the Hall of Fame, and more women in rock. They’re out there, they just don’t get the notice the pop girls do. Go to any city and there’s an all-girl rock band — it’s just a matter of society wanting to hear that kind of music. But people’s tastes change, so you have to just do what you love and hope other people love it too.” HAVE THICK SKIN “We couldn’t forget that we were girls — we had to defend it all the time. I could not get a record deal after The Runaways broke up. I gave all the labels four songs: ‘I Love Rock ’N Roll,’ ‘Crimson and Clover,’ ‘Do You Wanna Touch Me ’ and ‘Bad Reputation.’…

Naked pop stars aren’t unusual in an age of oversharing. Miley Cyrus, FKA Twigs, Lady Gaga and Selena Gomez have all stripped for high-end glossy V Magazine. But what’s rare about Azealia Banks’Playboy shoot is that she’s an artist, presumably at a career peak, who posed completely nude without the pretext of fashion, but in the name of good old-fashioned sex. Before leaked images regularly turned up online or companies peddled stolen sex tapes, celebrity nudes were a vestige of a pre-fame modeling past (see Madonna’s art-school photos in the September 1985 issue of Playboy) or part of a calculated reinvention. In 1995, country-pop singer Nancy Sinatra graced the magazine’s cover at the age of 54, nearly 30 years after “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” topped the charts. La…

LIKE MOST OF THE SONGS ON HANDWRITTEN, the title of 16-year-old Shawn Mendes’ debut album (out April 14) is sentimental twice over, in the most knowing way. It points to the prevailing tone of these tracks — 16 of them, cutely — penned in the lexicon of mash notes and kiss-off missives slipped into school lockers, ready-made for inclusion on a mixtape at any given stage in the life cycle of a crush. It also denotes the retro arrangements, almost all founded on Mendes’ acoustic guitar licks and augmented by horns, string sections and live drums rather than synthetic studio beats. On the surface, that’s ironic, since Mendes is to the six-secondvideo platform Vine what Justin Bieber was to YouTube — a teen from small-town Ontario who became the first…

ATLANTA IS NO DOUBT RAP’S de facto capital in 2015, and Ludacris’ groundwork is partially to thank. The Illinois-born, Atlanta-based MC was part of the first wave of Southern hip-hop’s ambassadors to the mainstream in the early 2000s, armed with an absurdist wit and a breakneck flow that dazzled with polysyllabic gymnastics. For the better part of a decade, Ludacris stutter-stepped even the most assertive beats from the likes of Timbaland and The Neptunes into submission. But Ludacris has spent the last several years seemingly more focused on film and TV ventures, with minimal presence on the charts since his last full-length, 2010’s Battle of the Sexes. He’s now 37, and on his ninth studio album, Ludaversal, he’s out to prove he’s still got the chops to rival peers half…

HITS GEORGE EZRA, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (MARCH 28) With his tousled bed-head and dreamy eyes, the 21-yearold Ezra sure looks like a pop star in the making, and his SNL debut demonstrated that he’s more than just a pretty package. The Brit aced his performance of breakout single “Budapest,” down to the falsetto “hoooys” that punctuate the song (who knows what they mean, but they’re irresistible). Props, too, to Ezra’s band, which backed him with beautiful precision. LEON BRIDGES, THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN (MARCH 25) Bridges gave his retro R&B — which was already the talk of South by Southwest — a fitting throwback performance that was so Sam Cooke cool it was hot. Dressed in a smart suit and backed by a saxophone player spitting out…

Hungary For A Hit British singer-songwriter George Ezra, 21, makes his debut on the Mainstream Top 40 airplay chart as “Budapest” enters at No. 38. Boosting his profile: He sang the tune as the musical guest on NBC’s Saturday Night Live on March 28. The folk-rock track (which topped Triple A for 10 weeks) joins the cozy club of Mainstream Top 40 hits that name-check European cities in their titles, including “London Bridge,” Fergie’s first solo hit apart from The Black Eyed Peas, which reached No. 4 in 2006. (Honorable mention to Paris Hilton: The heiresssinger hit No. 16 in 2006 with “Stars Are Blind.” 71% T H I S W E E K KYGO’S “STOLE THE SHOW” STREAMS 1 .4 MILLION 64% THIS WEEK JENNIFER LOPEZ’S “FEEL THE LIGHT”…

On Kid Albums, the everpopular Kidz Bop Kids series collects its 50th chart entry as Kidz Bop 28 bows at No. 1 (see chart, page 54). It’s the 30th No. 1 for the kid-friendly covers series on the children’s music chart. While there are 28 numbered volumes in the Kidz Bop Kids line, the brand has launched genrespecific efforts like Kidz Bop Christmas! — much like how the Now That’s What I Call Music! line has its own numbered sets and thematic titles (such as Now Christmas and Now That’s What I Call Movies). On the Billboard 200, Kidz Bop 28 starts at No. 10 with 40,000 units sold in the week ending March 29, according to Nielsen Music. It marks the 21st top 10 effort for the series. The…

Singer-songwriter Steve Grand (below) — who scored a hit viral video in 2013 with “All-American Boy” — sees his Kickstarter-funded All American Boy debut at No. 47 on the Billboard 200, No. 27 on Top Album Sales and No. 3 on Independent Albums. The set sold 10,000 copies in the week ending March 29, according to Nielsen Music. All American Boy arrived on Grand’s own Grand Nation imprint, and is distributed by Brody Distribution Group (through RED). “I’m blown away! My fans have done it again,” says Grand. “I have believed in this record, and now it’s clear a lot of other people do too. Putting out an album has been my longtime dream, and to have it do so well in just its first week is phenomenal.” It’s the…

One Direction (above) has had quite the week on Billboard’s social charts after Zayn Malik’s departure from the group was announced on March 25. The news broke on 1D’s official Facebook page in a post that received more than 750,000 likes through April 1. The swell in activity sends the group straight to the top 10 of the Social 50 chart (22-6 — its highest rank since the Jan. 3 chart) with across-the-board increases in nearly every metric, including a 191 percent increase in fan acquisition overall and more than 1 million mentions on Twitter (up 214 percent from the previous week). There were more than 10.3 million tweets about Malik and 1D on March 25 alone, and so much activity in general that two new 1D tracks debut on…

The Weeknd (above) scores his first No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs as “Earned It” (Fifty Shades of Grey)“ steps 2-1 in its 14th week. The song takes Airplay Gainer honors, rising 23 percent across all radio formats to 85.6 million audience impressions (up 9-6 on Radio Songs) in the week ending March 29, according to Nielsen Music. “Earned It” is stationary at No. 2 on R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs, but with a solid 24 percent rise in weekly clicks to 8.9 million Rapper Fetty Wap scores his first No. 1 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, hopping 4-1 with “Trap Queen,” up 18 percent to 23.6 million audience impressions at the radio format. The rise, along with a 19 percent jump in digital sales (to 91,000 downloads), bumps the track 3-2 on Hot…

The Prodigy parades into the top 10 of Top Dance/Electronic Albums with The Day Is My Enemy (No. 3; 3,000 copies sold in the week ending March 29, according to Nielsen Music). The new set marks the English outfit’s fourth top 10, although its biggestselling album predates the July 2001 launch of Top Dance/Electronic Albums: The Fat of the Land debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 on July 19, 1997, sporting a lofty sales bow of 201,000 units. Also on Top Dance/Electronic Albums, Armin van Buuren boasts the best start for any of his annual trance compilations since 2008 with the No. 5 launch of A State of Trance 2015 (2,000). It’s the 23rd album to grace the chart from the trance king, extending his record for the…

KELLY CLARKSON HAS NOTCHED another American Idol first. Arguably the biggest star to emerge from the Fox show (she’s tied with Carrie Underwood at three No. 1 albums), Clarkson is the first alum to fulfill the recording contract she won in 2002. And with the release of her seventh studio album, Piece by Piece, on RCA (it debuted at No. 1 the week ending March 8 with 97,000 track-equivalent albums, according to Nielsen Music), she’s now a free agent who could command a hefty new deal. So where will the pop star, who has notched 10 top 10 hits and sold 13 million albums, end up? Sources tell Billboard Clarkson is in early talks to directly sign with Sony Music's RCA, as opposed to her current structure that goes through…

After 2014’s 11.2 percent drop in album sales, the 1.8 percent dip in first-quarter 2015 (to 60.6 million) feels like good news — even though the top-selling album, Taylor Swift’s 1989, didn’t even break a million: It moved 949,000 units. Digital album sales also posted a gain, rising 2.8 percent to 28.7 million (after 2014’s 9.4 percent drop), due in part to a bump from Drake’s digital-only If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. *The orange slice represents the 0.9 percent of the total still under review.…

THREE DECADES AGO, AS ONE OF THE BEASTIE BOYS, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz was exhorting for his right to party. In 2015, he’s the voice of adult responsibility — or at least he is in While We’re Young, the new Noah Baumbach film that pulled an impressive $227,000 gross in just four theaters the weekend of March 27 (and opens nationwide April 10). In the movie, Horovitz, 48, plays the rational best friend to Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, who star as 40-somethings smitten by a younger couple (Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried) and begin haplessly mimicking their carefree, trendy ways. In recent months, Horovitz also has been working on a Beastie Boys memoir with bandmate Michael “Mike D” Diamond, and figuring out their next musical move. How did you get involved…

“MIAMI HAS ITS OWN STYLE ... ALL THE FREAKS BLASTING house music down Ocean Drive,” quipped DJ Guy Gerber backstage at the Red Bull Guest House, an annual VIP-only artist showcase. “But I love the f—ing freaks; it’s working.” And clearly, with A-listers like Lil Wayne, Ariana Grande, Diddy and Usher descending upon South Beach to perform alongside Skrillex, Avicii and Martin Garrix at this year’s Ultra Music Festival, the city and genre’s appeal is more potent than ever. The EDM festival, which drew crowds of 50,000 fans daily and comparisons to Mardi Gras, capped off a weeklong series of industry conferences and around-the-clock pool parties as part of Miami Music Week. “It’s becoming a hub for international labels and different types of artists who want to put their own…

ON PAPER, YOU WOULD expect Wale to be happy. His last album, 2013’s The Gifted, topped the Billboard 200, and 2011’s Ambition (his first on Rick Ross’ Maybach Music Group imprint under Atlantic after an album on Interscope) hit No. 2. His strong new set, The Album About Nothing, released March 31, is inspired by Seinfeld and features Jerry Seinfeld himself. “We’ll crack on each other,” says Wale, 30, of their relationship. “He’ll talk about the dumb shit that he does, like, ‘I spent the day watching a documentary on making boots.’ I’m like, ‘Bro, really?’ ” But behind the good times, the Washington, D.C., rapper says he’s got issues, and they’re just under the surface on his deceptively titled album: drug and alcohol use, a miscarriage and what he…

Though 23-year-old singer-songwriters Miranda and Elektra Kilbey have captured the attention of electronica cool guys like Chet Faker and Hans-Peter Lindstrom, who produced their synth-heavy album Lucid Dreaming (out April 6 through A Deux), the sisters’ vintage ’70s glamour tempered with the simplicity of Swedish design has paid fashion dividends. Chloe creative director Clare Waight Keller had them DJ her Paris Fashion Week party last fall, they modeled Gucci’s pre-fall 2014 collection in a brand video, and the pair was in a CK One ad campaign last June. 1 . CHEEKY SLACKS “My silk shirt is Gucci, which we love for its luxe vibe,” says Elektra. “And these Acne [Studios] trousers are covered with a penis 2 . IN THE PINK “Carin Rodebjer understands a woman’s body,” says Miranda of…

BRIAN WILSON’S EYES HAVE TURNED misty. For the past 20 minutes, Wilson, 72, has been listening to The Four Freshmen, the vocal group whose lush harmonies mesmerized him at age 14, and also inspired his work only a few years later, as the eldest of three brothers to form The Beach Boys — the seminal 1960s rock band that has sold more than 22.5 million albums and scored 54 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, more than any other American act. The Freshmen’s wildly romantic “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring” proves too much, and he asks that it be turned off. “I am too connected to that song,” he says, pain in his voice. “There’s too much sentiment, too much history.” On this crisp, late-winter afternoon, Wilson is sitting…

As a songwriter, Terius “The-Dream” Nash, 37, has supplied stars like Beyoncé and Justin Bieber with a diverse array of styles. But he took a more divide-and-conquer approach as a solo artist for his two EPs: the R&B-oriented Crown, which arrives April 14, followed by the more pop-leaning Jewel, due July 7. Why did you decide to release two EPs instead of a full album? It was all [one] album, and we tried to figure out the best way to serve the consumer. People consume music so fast — I wanted to take advantage of that by doing six songs and then another batch of songs. Crown became the host for the quintessential Dream stuff. Jewel is more of a daytime record for a bigger audience. I wanted to draw…

WHEN THE PRODIGY’S polarizing first single, “Charly,” was released in 1991, frontman Liam Howlett was a gap-toothed 21-year-old with a bad attitude and a bowl haircut. The public didn’t know what to make of the English group’s riotous electronic sound that blended ragga with hardcore metal, but it was impossible to ignore. Within months, Howlett was hailed as the ringleader of England’s burgeoning rave scene and pictured on the cover of Mixmag pointing a gun to his head. It marked the beginning of a new era of dance music that wasn’t meant for the masses. Much has changed in 25 years. The group released five albums, selling millions of copies worldwide, and the members were dubbed the Godfathers of Rave. Meanwhile, dance music has morphed into EDM, a far cleaner…

NUMBER NO ‘ TROUBLE’ FOR IGGY & J. HUD In slightly more than a year after her Billboard Hot 100 chart debut, Iggy Azalea scores her ninth hit with “Trouble,” featuring Jennifer Hudson. The track debuts at No. 67 after its fortunes were aided by a viral video featuring a lip-syncing Sean Hayes. 31 M Actor Hayes (of Will and Grace fame) and his husband Scott Icenogle posted a clip of them miming “Trouble” to the former’s Facebook page on March 26. The video immediately blew up, garnering 31 million views as of April 1. 534 % Hayes’ video undoubtedly helped the sales fortunes of “Trouble.” The song snared its best sales week yet (41,000 downloads in the frame ending March 29, according to Nielsen Music), up a whopping 534…

LITTLE BIG TOWN HAS FOUND ITSELF A big hit in its new single, “Girl Crush.” The track races 17-3 on Hot Country Songs — the biggest chart hit for the country quartet since its “Pontoon” sailed to No. 1 in 2012 — in the wake of news coverage about the ballad allegedly having difficulty getting radio airplay due to its lyrics, which could be misinterpreted to be about a samesex love interest. “Girl Crush” is sung from the perspective of a woman who’s jealous of another woman’s attractiveness. The lyrics are directed to a man involved with the other woman: “I want to taste her lips/Yeah, ’cause they taste like you/I want to drown myself/In a bottle of her perfume.” News of the song’s alleged lukewarm radio reception — reportedly…

The Frozen phenomenon continues, as the soundtrack surpasses the 4 million sales mark. The Walt Disney Records release, featuring the top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit “Let It Go,” sold another 6,000 copies in the week ending March 29, according to Nielsen Music. Its cumulative total rises to 4.002 million. The set spent 13 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and moves 50-59 in its 70th week on the list. It’s now one of only 15 soundtracks to have sold at least 4 million since Nielsen began tracking sales data in 1991. It’s the most recently released soundtrack to reach the sales milestone since 2006’s High School Musical. The top-selling soundtrack of the Nielsen era is the Whitney Houston-led The Bodyguard (12.2 million), followed by Titanic (10.2…

Rock band Chon debuts at No. 1 on Heatseekers Albums as its first full-length effort, Grow, launches with 5,000 copies sold in the week ending March 29, according to Nielsen Music. The quartet —Mario Camarena, Nathan Camerena, Erick Hansel and Drew Pelisek — will tour with Circa Survive through May 3, and then support The Contortionist until May 30. Chon first hit the Heatseekers chart in 2014 with its WooHoo! EP (peaking at No. 8). Former Heatseekers act Big Data’s new album 2.0 arrives at No. 75 on the Billboard 200. The act (aka Alan Wilkis) broke through in 2014 with the No. 1 Alternative hit “Dangerous,” and reached No. 50 on Heatseekers Albums with the 1.0 EP. “Dangerous” topped the Alternative chart on Aug. 16, 2014 and spent a…

Zac Brown Band completes its fastest flight to No. 1 on Country Airplay as “Homegrown,” the group’s 11th leader, rises 3-1 in its 11th chart week. The band previously reigned in as few as 13 weeks with 2010’s “As She’s Walking Away” (featuring Alan Jackson). “Homegrown” logs the speediest trip to the apex in more than two years; Blake Shelton also hit No. 1 in just 11 weeks with “Sure Be Cool If You Did” (March 30, 2013). No song has climbed to the top more quickly since Jason Aldean’s “Take a Little Ride” zoomed to the summit in only 10 weeks (Oct. 6, 2012). On Hot Country Songs, “Homegrown” holds at its No. 2 peak for a fourth week. On Top Country Albums, ABC’s Nashville franchise yields its seventh…

Nicky Jam and Enrique Iglesias continue atop Hot Latin Songs for a fourth consecutive week with “El Perdon.” Streaming plays reached 2.8 million clicks in the week ending March 29 (according to Nielsen Music), pushing “El Perdon” 3-1 on Latin Streaming Songs and making the track only the second to reach such a lofty streaming sum on the now 2-year-old chart. Only the pop crossover smash “Bailando,” by Enrique Iglesias featuring Descemer Bueno and Gente de Zona, has crossed that threshold, peaking with 4.3 million plays (of both the Spanish and English-heavy versions combined) on Oct. 4, 2014. “El Perdon” stands atop Latin Airplay for a third week (10.9 million audience impressions, up 5 percent) and climbs 2-1 on Latin Digital Songs (up 50 percent to 11,000 downloads), notching Jam…

Luis Miguel (above) scores the No. 3 slot on the latest Boxscore chart with ticket sales reported from 12 concerts at Mexico City’s Auditorio Nacional from Jan. 29 through March 1. With a combined gross of $7.8 million, the Latin pop star drew more than 100,000 fans to his home country’s national auditorium during the fourweek period. Performing a string of shows during the first quarter at the 9,600-seat venue is a tradition for Miguel, who books a multiple-show stand roughly every other year. Previous wintertime engagements occurred in 2009, 2011 and 2013 and biennially between 2000 and 2006. The Boxscore archives also include concert runs at various times during the ’90s. His top-grossing engagement at the venue comes from 30 performances in January/February 2006 with $19.2 million in revenue…