Innholdsfortegnelse for 5/7/2016 i Billboard Magazine

IN 1977, PRINCE WAS SEQUESTERED AT THE Record Plant in Sausalito, Calif., recording what would become For You, the 19-year-old’s debut album for Warner Bros. Records. For two months, he had kept the label heads in the dark, so executives Lenny Waronker and Russ Thyret decided to pay their new artist a visit. Listening to track-in-progress “So Blue,” an impressed Waronker commented on how good it would sound after the bass was added. Prince interjected, “There is no bass on that song. Get out of my studio!,” tossing out the very folks who were footing his bills. It was Prince’s first contentious bout with Warner Bros., but it would be far from his last fight with the record companies or the Internet and the music industry in general. Until his…

Prince's Piano & A Microphone Tour Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, 4/14/16 SET ONE 1. Little Red Corvette/Dirty Mind 2. Linus & Lucy (Vince Guaraldi “Peanuts” cover) 3. The Beautiful Ones 4. Nothing Compares 2 U 5. Joy in Repetition 6. Muse 2 the Pharaoh 7. U Got the Look 8. Pop Life 9. Elephants & Flowers 10. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man 11. A Case of You (Joni Mitchell cover) Encore 1 12. I Feel for You 13. Controversy 14. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World 15. I Would Die 4 U 16. Baby I’m a Star Encore 2 17. Heroes (David Bowie cover) 18. Diamonds and Pearls 19. Adore 20. The Beautiful Ones 21. How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore? 22. Do Me, Baby…

Amid rising concern about climate change, top musicians have turned to biodiesel to reduce tour-bus pollution. “The early adopters were Neil Young, Willie Nelson and Bonnie Raitt,” among others, says Adam Gardner, co-founder of Reverb, a nonprofit organization based in Maine, whose work includes helping artists reduce the environmental impact of their tours. Gardner’s own band, Guster, tours with a biodiesel-fueled bus. Sheryl Crow, Linkin Park, Dave Matthews Band, Radiohead and Phish also are among the acts labeled “biodiesel rock stars” by Tri-State Biodiesel, a Bronxbased fuel supplier. Biodiesel — created from vegetable oil, fat and grease — is sold as a blend (typically 20 percent) with petroleum-based diesel and reduces pollution, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Bus-leasing companies say that using the blend, known as B20, doesn’t…

THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. HAD BEEN dead eight weeks when he earned a distinction that eluded him in life: his first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. On March 9, 1997, the rapper, who was born Christopher Wallace but preferred the nickname Biggie Smalls, was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles after traveling to the West Coast to shoot a music video for “Hypnotize,” the first single from his second album, Life After Death. In the wake of his death, the track rose from No. 2 to No. 1 on the May 3, 1997, chart. “Biggie wasn’t there with us to enjoy it,” recalls the song’s co-writer and producer, Sean “Diddy” Combs. “So it was bittersweet.” The Brooklyn-born Biggie became the face of East Coast hip-hop after his…

THERE’S A GUIDING BUSINESS principle to the nearly 20-year-old career of global pop icon Beyoncé: Being the exception is the rule. Certainly that was the case with her sixth solo album, Lemonade, which appeared as a Tidal exclusive on the night of Saturday, April 23, paired with a one-hour HBO special as a visual accompaniment (788,000 tuned in live, according to the network). In an unorthodox — and somewhat unpredictable — release, some 18 hours later Lemonade was available for purchase in the Tidal digital store for $17.99 (a package that includes the HBO special, which was directed by Jonas Akerlund, Mark Romanek and Kahlil Joseph, among others), and by early Monday, iTunes and Amazon also had the album (a physical version is due out May 6). Call it a…

Tribeca Film Festival NEW YORK, APRIL 13-24 THE 15TH ANNUAL FESTIVAL CLOSED ON A POWERFUL NOTE with The Bomb, a video installation at Gotham Hall that explored nuclear warfare and was paired with a live score from indie band The Acid. At a panel for the project held a day prior, supporter Michael Douglas called for disarmament, saying the world is “on the advent of a new Cold War advancement in nuclear weapons,” while also acknowledging the death of Prince by sporting a purple ensemble. But for Alicia Keys, the legend’s death cast a pall over the presentation of The Gospel, a short film that featured her first new music since 2012, held April 21 at Highline Ballroom. A 45-minute set followed, during which Keys paid homage to Prince with…

Flash your smile/Bare your teeth/They’ll never guess/What’s underneath,” sings the chorus in American Psycho, the new musical based on the 1991 Bret Easton Ellis novel, which took a scalpel to the image-obsessed ’80s (and became a film starring Christian Bale in 2000). Directed by Rupert Goold and featuring music by Duncan Sheik, the show debuted in London in 2013 and was a hit, with theatergoers titillated by the axe-wielding exploits of banker/killer Patrick Bateman. The Broadway transfer, which opened April 21 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, stars Benjamin Walker, 33, known for the similarly gory Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. “My mother is worried about what I’m doing next!” Walker jokes over drinks at Urbo in Times Square with Sheik, 46 — whose descent into this circle of hell is a…

“I feel physically sick cause I love Beyonce so much. I am about to throw up of joy.” —ZARA LARSSON The “Never Forget You” singer reacts to Beyoncé’s new “visual album” Lemonade on Twitter. “Being weird is fun, if u r not weird I don’t like you.” —JUSTIN BIEBER The pop heartthrob captioning an Instagram post in defense of his latest hairstyle: dreadlocks. “I just come here to let y’all know to put some respect on my name.” —BIRDMAN The Cash Money impresario just before abruptly walking out of an interview on WWPR (Power 105.1) New York’s The Breakfast Club. “It wasn’t even about her rapping better than any female rapper. It was about, man, she’s rapping better than other rappers — period.” —LIL WAYNE Nicki Minaj’s mentor in an…

MOURNING HAS NO SENSE OF PRIORITIES. When an artist’s achievement is as complex as Prince’s was, trying to assess his huge legacy is undone by recognition that now everything is in the past tense: that panoply of scorching and/or aching grooves, the Jimi Hendrixmeets-Keith Richards guitar fused with a voice able to switch from angelic to devilish quicker than Charlie Chaplin wiggling his mustache, the pansexual Pied Piperism and belief that all life is a doomed but exciting revolt against death, the effrontery and wit of the whole project even after he had been at it for decades. But every appreciation has to start somewhere. So let’s start by trotting out that overused word “unique” and remembering how, um, uniquely true it was. The Beatles were competing with similarly derivative…

I was getting ready to perform in Las Vegas when I heard that Prince died. I felt a real emptiness. At the end of my set, I got a standing ovation and I said, “This standing ovation is for Prince — and I would like to have a moment of silence.” So we had one. Since his album 1999, I was a fan. Prince and Michael Jackson — they were the soundtrack to my life. I remember when my pops died [in 1987], I listened to “Condition of the Heart” [from 1985 LP Around the World in a Day] as soon as we got back from the burial, for 24 hours [in a row]. That was the last song I said, “Dad, listen to this!” And my father said, “That’s…

Throughout his nearly 40-year recording career, Prince surrounded himself with the opposite sex. From The Revolution’s first incarnation in 1979, which included keyboardist Gayle Chapman, to his final backing band, all-female trio 3rdeyegirl, women were his collaborators, his colleagues, his peers. They were his muses — like Patrice Rushen, the R&B singer who reportedly inspired his first top 40 hit, 1979’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover.” And they were his paramours, as shown by his welldocumented relationships with protegees like Vanity and Carmen Electra to his tabloid involvements with actresses (Vanessa Marcil, Sherilyn Fenn, Kim Basinger) to his two marriages. Sometimes, as with drummer Sheila E., they were all of the above. Women also gave new life to his songwriting. “Prince liked our video for ‘Hero Takes a Fall,’ and…

JIMMY KIMMEL REMEMBERS THE moment he came up with the idea for MashUp Mondays, Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s end-of-show segment that pairs artists based on the compatibility of their names as opposed to their music and airs during sweeps ratings periods in February, May and November. He saw a YouTube video of Huey Lewis from Huey Lewis & The News playing with Foo Fighters. “Dave Grohl referred to them as Huey Lewis & The Foos,” says Kimmel, 48. Cue lightbulb! The first MashUp Monday premiered in February 2015 with Morris Day and Haim performing The Time’s 1984 classic “Jungle Love” as Morris Day & The Haim. Subsequent collabs include Panic at the Sisqo with “Thong Song” (Kimmel’s mostwatched clip yet, with 600,000 views on YouTube), Fall Out Boyz II Men with…

Alt-R&B duo Chloe & Halle, ages 17 and 16, respectively, spent the night of April 23 like many other music fanatics: freaking out over Beyoncé’s innovative visual album, Lemonade. “We had a little watching party, and it was so much fun,” says Chloe. “We were like every other Beyhive member: ‘Yas, Bey, yas!’ ” But the Atlanta-born Bailey sisters had extra reason to cheer: They signed with Beyoncé’s Parkwood Music in 2015 for a reported $1 million after their cover of her “Pretty Hurts” went viral. And on April 29, they’re releasing fivesong EP Sugar Symphony, led by the shockingly mature, self-produced and -written “Drop.” “After Bey heard it,” says Halle, “she said: ‘Girls, I’m so proud of you! This is exactly what I wanted: for you to keep being…

Whit’s End 97-14 Rockaway Beach Blvd. “It’s our favorite restaurant in the world,” says Miller of the gourmet pizzeria that offers creations like the housemade sausage- and littleneck clam-topped salsiccia e vongole ($15; far left). “We spent our entire [label] advance here,” jokes Miller, who stops in multiple times a day. “Whit, [the owner], is a badass and lives down our street.” Just don’t ask him for slices (the eatery only offers full pies), nor anything healthy: According to the menu, “everything we touch has gluten on it.” Off Season Rockaway 92-12 Rockaway Beach Blvd., offseasonnyc.com Like the band, store owner Abra Boero hopped on the A train in 2015 and never looked back. “She sells lots of locally made, beautiful products,” says Miller. “Our boy Paul Schmidt, a local…

I had heard about Prince before his first album came out [in 1978] because my dad was playing with Santana and they were recording in the same studio. They were talking about this young kid in the other room, playing all the instruments and producing and writing by himself. Later I saw the poster for the album in a record store and was like, “Oh, my God, he’s beautiful.” When he played in San Francisco I went to the show looking for the gorgeous guy in the poster with the big Afro — but instead he had long, flowing hair and was wearing a trench coat, leg warmers and underwear. I was a little shocked, but his music was pretty cool, so I went backstage. He saw me coming —…

“IT WAS IMPORTANT TO WORK THINGS out with Prince and have him come back to Warner Bros.,” says label chairman/CEO Cameron Strang, speaking with Billboard at the company’s Burbank headquarters on the day after the artist’s death — the same offices Prince walked through in 1977 as a 19-year-old new signing. Strang had inked the artist to a new deal in 2014, 18 years after he had left Warner Bros. after a bitter dispute over ownership of his music. “Prince had a real connection with a lot of people here,” says Strang. That sense of closure is misleadingly tidy: For an astute artist so outspoken about his rights to the ownership of his work and likeness, Prince apparently left his business affairs in considerable disarray — and according to his…

WENDY MELVOIN AND LISA COLEMAN WERE childhood friends, lovers and founding members of Prince’s Revolution band. If Prince had a musical family, they were it. So when the pair tried to put together a Revolution tour in 2000, they were hopeful, they told Minneapolis’ Star Tribune in 2004, that their former bandleader would say yes. He didn’t. “He declined because of my homosexuality and the fact I’m half-Jewish,” said Melvoin. She was told he wanted her to give a press conference denouncing her homosexuality and announcing that she was converting to Jehovah. “I was like: I guess we’ll never hear from him again.” But just six years later, she stood beside Prince onstage in London, playing for millions of viewers at an awards show. In matching white suits, Melvoin and…