Innholdsfortegnelse for Aug-16-14 i Billboard Magazine

70 VANCE JOY Riptide ARIANA’S SOFT AND sweet, my vocals are harder, and Nicki’s just Nicki,” says Jessie J of Ariana Grande and Minaj, her cohorts on the new hit “Bang Bang.” “It’s not a feature, it’s not a duet — it’s like we’re a girl band.” Whatever “Bang Bang” is, it’s exploding onto the Hot 100. The song debuts at No. 6, matching Jessie J’s prior peak in 2012 with “Domino.” It gives Grande two songs in the top 10 (“Problem” hovers at No. 5) and three in the top 20 (“Break Free” rises 21-18). Minaj, meanwhile, earns her 10th top 10, padding her mark for most top 10s by a female rapper. “Bang Bang” is the lead single from Jessie J’s upcoming LP, and also will be included…

A July 29 post on Joey Fatone’s Facebook page said it all: “Who knew we had another album out today? I didn’t! Lol.” Indeed, the most surprised ’N Sync loyalists were the group’s own members: Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick and Fatone. “I was shocked,” says Bass of learning Sony/Legacy had quietly released The Essential *NSYNC to Amazon, where the two-disc set — featuring hits “Tearin’ Up My Heart” and “Bye Bye Bye” alongside cuts that even Bass “never heard” — swiftly sold out. On iTunes, it landed at No. 10 for the week ending Aug. 4. Bass congratulated his bandmates through texting and “immediately called Sony,” he says. “They were very apologetic : ‘We didn’t know there was a market.’ It surprised them as much as…

Clockwise from left: Sleigh Bells’ Alexis Krauss backstage at the Live in Levi’s launch at Brooklyn Bridge Park on Aug. 5; Katy Perry during her performance celebrating the Special Olympics on July 31 in the East Room of the White House; T Bone Burnett (left) with Jeff Bridges, who hosted an Aug. 1 lunch by AARP The Magazine at Spago in Beverly Hills; Snoop Dogg in St. Tropez on Aug. 5. Left: The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 3. Right: Redman (left) and Method Man during a concert at Berlin’s Astra Kulturhaus on Aug. 3. Below: Lionel Richie performed “Easy” during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 5. Left: Miley…

ON JULY 31, UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP announced that it was moving out veteran executive Zach Horowitz, 61, for Sony/ATV co-president Jody Gerson, who will step in as CEO in July 2015. What’s behind the swap of a reliable operations man and proven deal architect (among Horowitz’s accomplishments: negotiating acquisitions of Geffen Records, Interscope and PolyGram in 1990, 1995 and 1999, respectively, and absorbing BMG Music Publishing into UMPG in 2006) for an elite publishing A& R executive? Credit Gerson’s hitmaking record. Among the songwriters the 52-year-old has signed during her career are Lady Gaga, Norah Jones, Odd Future and a 15-year-old Alicia Keys. She also has played a key role in the careers of Enrique Iglesias, Pitbull, RedOne, Shakira and Pharrell Williams, among others. Her latest home run: Magic’s…

CHAIRMAN/CEO OF PARADIGM TALENT AGENCY PARADIGM TALENT AGENCY MAY BE LOCATED in the former Beverly Hills campus of MCA, where legendary entertainment moguls like Jules Stein and Lew Wasserman once walked tall, but the powerhouse agency’s chairman/CEO Sam Gores, 59, isn’t about looking back at the ghosts of yester-year. Rather, he says, “I’m always focused on what I need to get done that day, that week, that year … Those things are staring me in the face.” With more than 300 in his employ in eight offices — in Beverly Hills; Manhattan; Monterey, Calif.; Nashville; Brooklyn; Austin; Hollywood; and London — the Israel-born Gores, who launched his career as an agent in 1977 and first ventured out on his own with SGA Representation in 1986, knows all too well the…

On Saturday Night Live, Vanessa Bayer, 32, delivers a spot-on Miley Cyrus. As the inept, bitchy “media coach” Janessa Slater in her YouTube series Sound Advice, Bayer’s taking on real musicians with her brother Jonah, a music journalist and series co-writer. So far they’ve racked up nearly 300,000 subscribers. The draw: hilariously awkward interviews with artists including Drake, Fun and Travie McCoy. Like her trademark SNL character Bar Mitzvah Boy, Slater is very much in control, giving bands insulting suggestions with a straight face: Proposing, for example, that Aimee Mann and Ted Leo, from duo The Both, change their name to The Both of Us Have Social Security. Says Bayer, who got her start in comedy troupe Second City, “Generally, the bands have a sense of humor about themselves.” NOTED…

The space between photo sharing (a la Instagram) and retail is becoming narrower, and bridging the gap is the sleek mobile-only shopping app Reissued, released this summer by interior designer Jennifer DeLonge, wife of Blink-182 singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge. Offering an alternative to sites like Etsy and One Kings Lane, DeLonge, whose furniture line is beloved by such stars as Gwen Stefani and Gwyneth Paltrow, applied her design background and personal love of all things vintage to curate the shopping app, which has more than 200 sellers. Focused on vintage, rare and one-of-a-kind pieces from a curated list of sellers like Decades and Gypsy/Hunter, the app features home decor, clothing and plenty of options for the musically inclined, including an original RamonesToo Tough to Die T-shirt ($250) and a Pink FloydDark…

Think of Jessica Richards, 30, as that gorgeous friend with the perfect skin and her Brooklyn shop, Shen Beauty (315 Court St., shen-beauty.com), as her immaculately curated vanity. On the shelves of the shop, which counts Britney Spears, Solange Knowles and Norah Jones as fans, are exclusive releases from CULT 51 (covetable cellular renewal creams), Amanda Lacey’s skin-care line made with globally sourced plant extracts — a favorite of Gwyneth Paltrow — and detoxifying bath salts by natural-healing expert Shannon Vaughn. In other words, niche luxury goods that you won’t likely find at a local megabrand beauty outlet. “I wanted a one-stop boutique that was all about curation because frankly, there’s just too much out there,” says Richards, who opened the jewelry box of a shop with Jules Stringer, 50,…

O’Connor crushes on celebs Dave Chappelle, Robert Downey Jr. Through the years, Sinead O’Connor hasn’t been shy about expressing unbridled lustfor comedian Dave Chappelle and actor Robert Downey Jr., but she has never really gone into detail about her crushes. Until now. Billboard asked the singer-songwriter to elaborate and she obliged, revealing in the process that Chappelle’s wife might want to watch her back. Her infatuation with Downey, she says, “is all about lust. He’s gorgeous, and I think I could love him. But Dave Chappelle I actually love. I’d have to abandon Robert if it came down to him and Dave. I watch Chappelle on the telly, and I’m just like a Justin Bieber fan. He is a genius with balls the size of Alaska. I can identify with…

The “stewardess” in Dierks Bentley ’s “Drunk on a Plane” is “leanin", pourin’ Coke and whiskey.” The heartbroken woman in Lady Antebellum’s “Bartender” is ordering a double shot of Crown Royal. The guy in Brad Paisley’s “River Bank” hauls a six-pack but dreams of tequila shots. Country has a history with the bottle, from Merle Haggard’s “Misery and Gin” to Gary Stewart’s “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles).” But the whiskey has rarely flowed so freely: Seven of the 60 titles on Billboard’ Hot Country Songs chart reference drinking, including Eric Church’s “Cold One” and Little Big Town’s “Day Drinking.” And many mention it in passing, often to play up a party vibe: There’s a fruity concoction in Joe Nichols’ “Yeah,” and Kenny Chesney’s “American Kids” cites Jack Daniel’s. “It’s…

The singer lets creativity reign when it comes to her style, whether she’s picking up quirky geometric-shaped shades in Los Angeles’ Chinatown for her daytime look or slipping into architectural, color-blasted performance gear. From multilayered tutus to shoulder-padded tops a la Daphne Guinness, Kimbra’s concert costumes create a visual experience for fans. “It’s similar to the way I make music: I like it when elements clash and you say, ’Hm, does that actually work?’”she says. Inspired by Prince, Bjork, Disney and even Salvador Dali, the New Zealand chanteuse uses clothing for its theatrical effect, even if it means having to tolerate 100 safety pins to secure a get-up. “Fashion,” she says, “is a visual extension of the sound.” —MARÍA EUGENIA MIRANDA AND MATT DIEHL…

Tomorrow’s Hits FKA TWIGS TAKES TWITTER Rising U.K. electro-R& B act FKA Twigs (born Tahliah Barnett) debuts on the Billboard & Twitter Emerging Artists chart with “Pendulum” at No. 5. Produced and co-written by Paul Epworth (Adele, Coldplay), the atmospheric track is from Twigs’ debut full-length, LP1, which is due Aug. 12 and also boasts beats from Dev Hynes (Sky Ferreira, Solange). BILINGUAL BOY BAND Following an opening stint on the South American leg of One Direction’s current tour, sibling pop trio Sonus (Alex, Andrew and Marcelo Michelli) bubbles under Latin Pop Airplay with “Me Gustas Asi.” The Sony Music Latin track, which evokes ID and references AC/DC, also is available in an English version ("She Likes It Like That"). A ’HIGHER’ PLACE Andrea McClurkin-Mellini’s debut solo single, “God Can,”…

AFTER 12 YEARS ON THE AIR, AMERICAN IDOL SCORED a franchise first with 2014 winner Caleb Johnson. His debut album, Testify, is the fastest to reach market, barely three months following his May 21 victory. The 10-track set produced by Howard Benson, who helped make season five’s Chris Daughtry a rock radio staple, draws upon Johnson’s strength as a belter — or what the 23-year-old Asheville, N.C., native calls “the church of rock’n’roll.” The album rarely strays from the sound that America voted for, but expediency has its drawbacks. From album opener “Sailing Away” to late-in-the-sequence songs like “Another Life” and “Change,” all heavier tracks that soar high on the choruses, Johnson’s vocal dynamic is either full or full-on. Leaving little room for subtlety or nuance, he often veers into…

Everyone knows the words: “Oh my God, Becky, look at her butt. It is so big!” Also “so big” would be the set of balls on Nicki Minaj to sample Sir Mix-ALot’s “Baby Got Back,” and build a nu-twerk club banger around it. In 1992, Mix-A-Lot racked up millions in sales and hundreds of protests — even MTV banned it. In 2014, ahead of her upcoming album The Pink Print, Minaj flips the original concept: Women can’t be objectified when they’re in charge. She accepts gifts of Balmain bags and rounds of foreplay, laughing over lines like “he toss my salad like his name Romaine.” In keeping with current hits like Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass,” there’s a dose of body positivity too: “Where my fat-ass big bitches in…

49 Years Ago SONNY & CHER ‘GOT’ TO NO. 1 Their ode to devotional love topped the Hot 100 on Aug. 14, 1965 SONNY & CHER’S “I GOT YOU BABE” MAY have been their debut hit on the Billboard Hot 100, but it wasn’t the first time they were heard on smash singles. Sonny Bono was working for producer Phil Spector in the early 1960s, and after meeting Cher in 1962, the pair sang background for Spector on The Ronettes’ 1963 hit “Be My Baby” and The Righteous Brothers’ 1964 chart-topper “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” The couple soon signed with Atco Records and released “I Got You Babe,” written and produced by Bono, in 1965. It was the first of 18 hits for the duo, who, according to Bono’s…

JAY AND BEYONCÉ ARE RIDING rumors of marital strife all the way to the bank. Their massive North American summer tour is on pace to hit $100 million in box-of ce receipts, averaging 90-plus percent capacity per venue and total attendance of more than 850,000. The 19-date, 42-truck, 150-crewmember On the Run trek promoted by Live Nation earned an average nightly take of $5.2 million, of which insiders speculate Jay and Bey received $4 million per show. “It was a very successful tour,” says Omar Al-Joulani, vp North American touring for Live Nation. “We’re pleased to have that big gross number at the end. Everybody’s winning.” Indeed, while breakup rumors persist, with the New York Post going so far as to suggest the two might not make it to their…

THERE’S A NEW BRITISH Invasion on the Hot 100 — and an Australian, Canadian and Norwegian Invasion, too. The chart is ruled by foreigners: Australia’s Iggy Azalea (“Fancy”), Canada’s Magic (“Rude”) and England’s Disclosure, whose No. 10 single “Latch” features fellow Brit Sam Smith, himself a hitmaker with “Stay With Me.” Five years ago, Toronto-born Drake was the only non-American in the top 10, followed subsequently by Adele (England), Gotye (Belgium) and Lorde (New Zealand). A lull among U.S. top 40 standbys is partly to blame. “Bruno Mars is in between albums,” notes Jeremy Rice, program director of Cox top 40 WBLI Long Island, N.Y. “Lady Gaga is not as hot as she was. And Beyoncé, as huge as she is, isn’t having top 40 hits from her latest album.”…

ON AUG. 3, THE VANS WARPED TOUR concluded its 20th summer on the road after selling 521,000 tickets across 44 dates at $45 apiece. “I missed my projection by about 6,000 tickets,” says founder Kevin Lyman, which he chalks up to a “rocky” tour start due to less-than-optimum routing in the early going. But given the af ordable ticket price, he says the 2014 tour’s $23.4 million gross is not bad for “a bunch of club bands.” This year, they included 3OH!3, A Skylit Drive, Bad Rabbits, Echosmith and Acidic, the last of which played the Hard Rock Kevin Says Stage (named after Lyman). As Warped has evolved, the team has perfected the logistics, loading in 900 people, 20 trucks of gear and 80 buses and vans in less than…

The hash-mark logo adopted by poprock sensation 5 Seconds of Summer looks an awful lot like the one used since 2001 by the streetwear label Undefeated. But legal experts doubt any claim of infringement would fly in court. “It all boils down to the likelihood of confusion,” says attorney Martin Schwimmer, who runs The Trademark Blog. “If it can confuse a consumer, there might be a case.” Of course, few who go searching for sneakers or workout gear are going to accidentally buy a 5SOS tee. So … case closed.…

How Lorde Came To Rule Hunger Games THE HUNGER GAMES FRANCHISE HAS A new heroine on the horizon: Lorde. The 17-year-old singer-songwriter has been commissioned by Lionsgate and music publisher SONGS to deliver the first single from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1. She’ll also select the artists who will contribute original recordings to an “inspired by” soundtrack. She has reportedly finished a demo and already reached out to more than a dozen artists. “It’s a nontraditional deal,” says SONGS head of creative licensing Carianne Marshall. “Lionsgate had to be fiexible — there was quite a bit of back and forth. Lorde was not going to do this without complete creative freedom.” Lorde — born Ella Yelich-O’Connor — took a break from her European tour in late May to…

LOS ANGELES, AUG. 2-3 FOR CERTAIN DANCE MUSIC FANS — NAMELY, those who favor hip-hop over pop-infused EDM — HARD Summer is a nirvana. The annual festival drew roughly 40,000 people to Los Angeles for a bill of superstar DJs like Skrillex and Diplo alongside rap stars ASAP Mob and Pusha T. Gary Richards, whose company HARD now sits beside Insomniac under the Live Nation umbrella, hosted the event. This year’s new, larger Whittier Narrows location allowed for a Ferris wheel and swing carousel, but sound remained the top priority. “I always say we could put HARD fans in a parking lot with a bunch of trash cans and if we used our sound systems, they’d all still come,” says Richards. His events have a cult following among those who…

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“It’s the bald woman from Ireland,” writes Sinéad O’Connor in an email. She’s following up on our last conversation, expanding her thoughts on romance and monogamy. Three days earlier, while discussing her new album, I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss, at London’s posh Kensington Hotel, I asked O’Connor, 47, about her infamous roller-coaster relationship to Barry Herridge, the drug counselor she met online in 2011 and impulsively married in Las Vegas a few weeks later. It was O’Connor’s fourth marriage, and troubled from the start — only 16 days later she announced the two had split. The singersongwriter explains that the two are indeed separated but still legally married, and that she is single. Dressed in a black, form-ftting three-piece suit, her colorful chest tattoo of Jesus cresting atop her…

Lucius Friday, Aug. 1 6:43 p.m. “It was a weekend of epic proportions,” said Jess Wolfe, one of the two identically coiffed singers for Brooklyn indie-popsters Lucius. “Three shows, singing with friends and our first crowd surf. Mind our language, but we f—ing love Chicago.” From left: Dan Molad, Peter Lalish, Holly Laessig, Wolfe and Andrew Burri. Martin Garrix Saturday, Aug. 2 2:14 p.m. Before rocking Perry’s Stage on Saturday, the 18-year-old EDM wunderkind shared his five must-have tour items: “My pillow. My laptop, so I stay in contact. My phone, because I’m addicted to it. My vitamin pills, so I can still live healthy. And my shoes — my Nikes.” Kate Nash Saturday, Aug. 2 6:05 p.m. Nash, 27, ignited the Bud Light Stage on day two with her…

50% Rise in tickets sales for country shows produced by Live Nation in North America in 2013, compared with 2012. Total attendance last year was nearly 7 million. 46 Concertgoers treated for alcohol-related ills at a Keith Urban show on July 26 in Mansfield, Mass.; 22 were hospitalized. There were also 55 arrests, including one for the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl on the venue’s lawn. 177 Arrests during the three-day Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio, Calif., in April, up from 124 in 2013. Police say most arrests — including 80 on day two — were alcohol-related. 50,000 Attendance at Luke Bryan’s June 21 concert at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field, a record for that stadium. Also on the bill: Cole Swindell, Lee Brice and Dierks Bentley. 15 Fights broken…

BASEMENT JAXX WAS ONE OF the leading lights of dance music’s turn-of-the-millennium boom, with a string of top five hits on Billboard’ Dance Club chart including “Red Alert,’ “Bingo Bango,’ “Romeo’ and “Where’s Your Head At.’ The duo’s Felix Buxton, 43, and Simon Ratcliffe, 44, even won the inaugural best electronica/dance album Grammy for 2003’s Kish Kash. While the act remained popular in the years that followed, it dabbled in more experimental albums and soundtracks. Five years after its last studio release, the duo returns with Junto (Atlantic Jaxx/PAIS), which brings back the irresistible beats and happy vibes of its early work. Just ask Prince Harry or Vampire Weekend, who, as Buxton and Ratcliffe explain before a DJ set in Brooklyn, are known to dance in a gorilla suit for…

The 20-year-old singer has a major hit on her hands, as her sassy empowerment anthem “All About That Bass” barnstorms up the Billboard Hot 100, rocketing 28-8 in its fourth chart week. The bouncy single, with lyrics like “every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top,” helped Trainor secure a recording deal with Epic Records. 169K "All About That Bass” sold 169,000 downloads in the week ending Aug. 3, according to Nielsen SoundScan, up an impressive 63 percent (6-2 on Digital Songs) from the week before. The track and its colorful video have gone viral in the past few weeks, and mainstream news outlets like NBC’s Today are already profiling Trainor. 433% Trainor is also blowing up social networks as “All About That Bass” catches fire…

WITH MOTLEY CRUE’S FINAL tour underway, Big Machine Records tips its hat with a country homage to the glammetal gods on Nashville Outlaws: A Tribute to Motley Crue. The LP takes a chain saw to Hee Haw with 15 covers of Crue classics by Nashville stars and upstarts, aiming for music fans who are a little country, a little rock’n’roll. It’s a bigger demo than you think: Big Machine Label Group acts Florida Georgia Line and Brantley Gilbert are at the forefront of a country/hard-rock blend dominating the charts. So this album is well-timed, even if the results are mixed. Rascal Flatts’ “Kickstart My Heart” slickly salutes Vince Neil’s legendary pipes. Gretchen Wilson delivers with her punkish rendition of “Wild Side,” which sounds like she was smoking in the boys’…

After a nearly 37-year wait, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers finally earn their first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. The band’s new Hypnotic Eye arrives atop the chart, selling 131,000 copies in the week ending Aug. 3, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It’s the best debut sales week for Petty since SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991, and his best sales frame overall (debut or otherwise) since 1994, when his solo album Wildflowers sold 161,000 in the week after Christmas. Petty and The Heartbreakers first appeared on the Billboard 200 in September 1977 with its self-tided debut album (featuring the classics “Breakdown” and “American Girl"). All told, this is Petty’s 12th top 10 album, stretching back to Damn the Torpedoes, which peaked at No. 2 in 1980. He also…

Sony/ATV encores as king of the hill among U.S. publishers in the second quarter, with a 32.2 percent slice of the top 100 radio songs. Its biggest inroads: the country rankings, where its No. 1 stronghold is fortified, thanks to a whopping eight percentage points in growth to 34.8 percent from the 26.9 percent it had in the first quarter (credit: Miranda Lambert, whose “Automatic” is the third-most-played song on country radio). That translates to a 15 percent spread in the country rankings between Sony, which runs the EMI Music Publishing catalog, and the No. 3-ranked Warner/Chappell, which had a 19.8 percent share in the second quarter. Comparably, Warner ranked second in the first quarter, tallying a 21.3 percent share of the top 100 country radio songs. On the pop…

Myspace’s try at a second act may be stalling. Nine people were laid off in June, following a 5 percent cut to its workforce in late 2013, and now more top staffers are leaving. Among them, editorial head Joseph Patel has joined Fader and Neda Azarfar is headng to The Recording Academy. Specific Media, which bought the once formidable musiccentric social network for $35 million (after News Corp. paid $600 million for it in 2005), relaunched Myspace in 2013 with a mix of high awareness (Justin Timberlake was an investor) and flash. But the audience was slow to bite. Myspace senior vp global marketing Bill Schild says a turnaround plan is in place: “We have evolved and continue to shift our business.” But, adds one music manager, “They’re so far…

“No separation! We all bleed the same color! #ceasefire #peaceinthemiddleeast #livingforlove” —MADONNA The singer weighing in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through Instagram on July 31. “I love country music, and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else … there was never a Plan B for me.” —JASON ALDEAN The performer expressing his love for the job on Aug. 5, after being named the most downloaded country singer ever. “It’s almost like having offspring from different cultures, so that makes it go.” —PERRY FARRELL The Jane’s Addiction frontman talking about taking Lollapalooza global on Aug. 5. “I’m the smartest celebrity you’ve ever f—ing dealt with. I’m not Britney Spears.” —KANYE WEST The hip-hop artist-producer talking in a deposition after he was accused of beating a photographer and smashing his camera…

Puff Daddy and Guy Gerber: The self-proclaimed odd couple’s 11:11 is a huge departure from big-room EDM. “These songs are for the weird hours, when things get really good,” says Gerber. R. Kelly: The rapper recently told a hometown crowd that he is working on a Chicago-inspired electronic album. Worth noting: He never delivered the sexy Christmas and country albums he promised a year ago. Waka Flocka Flame and Steve Aoki: The Atlanta rapper and Los Angeles DJ, party kings of their respective genres, have confirmed they’re working on a new album, Turn Up God. No release date yet. —M.B.…

Nico & Vinz’s smash single “Am I Wrong” (No. 4 on the Aug. 16 Billboard Hot 100) is opening doors for the Norwegian duo, which just landed its first major film placement in Reese Witherspoon’s The Good Lie, about Sudanese refugees who emigrate to Kansas City, Mo. The song “Find a Way,” which features The Good Lie actor Emmanuel Jal on vocals, is the film’s closing track and appears in trailers for the Oct. 3 Warner Bros. release. First submitted as a demo, the collaboration grew out of a chance meeting between producer Molly Smith and former Fox film music president Robert Kraft in his new role as a soundtrack consultant at Warner Bros. Records (the label, which will release the set on Sept. 30, and the studio are not…

Seasoned music festivalgoers may think they have nailed the show-going experience, but there’s one veteran who outshines them all: Marnie the Dog. The 12-year-old Instagram-famous Shih Tzu, rescued in 2012 from a shelter by New York-based TV producer Shirley Braha, 31, has made a name for her furry self thanks to a plethora of celeb selfies at music festivals with everyone from Miley Cyrus to Marnie Stern, the dog’s namesake. “She is a completely magical creature and I’m glad other people think so too,” says Braha of her pup, whose trademark look is her constantly dangling tongue. Marnie’s first exposure to the music world came only three months after Braha adopted her, during the 2013 South by Southwest conference in Austin, where Braha was working on the MTV show Weird…

He Puts The Soul In Soles WHEN A TEENAGE JEROME C. ROUSSEAU SAW THE VIDEO FOR Deee-Lite’s 1990 hit, “Groove Is in the Heart,” the song didn’t elicit the reaction you’d expect. Instead of busting out moves, Rousseau sketched a pair of shoes like the disco platforms Lady Miss Kier wears in the video. “I saw that clip and was completely stunned,” he says. “I fell in love with shoes through that video.” The moment was the beginning of the now 37-yearold’s career designing sexy soles inspired by his favorite acts. Quebec-born Rousseau honed his craft in London (where he also was a keyboardist for electro-pop band Riviera F) and worked under big names Matthew Williamson, John Richmond and John Rocha. In 2008, he launched his eponymous line, which is…

The singer-songwriter has generated many a tabloid headline since she emerged on the scene. Among her greatest press hits ... ► Oct.3, 1992 During an appearance on Saturday Night Live, O’Connor caps a cover of Bob Marley’s “War” by tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II. “Fight the real enemy,” she says, throwing the shreds at the camera. ► Oct. 16, 1992 Days after the SNL drama, O’Connor is booed and jeered when introduced at the Bob Dylan 30th-anniversary tribute concert at Madison Square Garden in New York. Visibly shaken, she begins to sing “War” but soon leaves the stage in tears. ► April 22, 1999 Nearly seven years after dissing the pope, O’Connor announces she has been ordained a priest after donating more than $250,000 to a…

AFTER A STRING OF UGLY, ALCOHOL-fueled mishaps at major concerts, country music seems to be stumbling into the final weeks of the summer touring season. Two of the incidents are shocking. A man who went missing at a Jason Aldean stadium show on July 18 at Cleveland’s Progressive Field turned up dead days later in a nearby landfill, with police theorizing that he might have tumbled down a trash chute at the venue. Eight days later, at Keith Urban’s July 26 amphitheater concert at Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Mass., an 18-year-old man allegedly raped a young woman in sight of other concertgoers. Aldean tweeted his condolences to the family of Cory Barron, the man who died, and Urban released a statement saying, “My team and I were horrified to learn…

Also... MONKEY BUSINESS Basement Jaxx, on that time the duo tackled Prince Harry in a gorilla suit. ENRIQUE DOES IT AGAIN How the Latin star landed yet another crossover smash. WIZ WORKS IT Khalifa, Jeezy and company hit Jersey for the Under the Influence mega-tour. ON THE MORNING OF FEB. 11, 2013, Kimbra Lee Johnson woke up with two Grammy Awards. She was 22 years old, and as the voice of a wounded lover on Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” had already sold 7 million records in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and topped the charts in more than 20 countries. For most people this would be cause for celebration. For Kimbra, it meant time to retreat. A New Zealand native who had come of age…

DJ MUSTARD MOVED INTO HIS FIRST “I made it” house two weeks ago in Los Angeles — the kind with its own basketball court, pool and studio for him to make fresh beats without pulling out of his driveway. But with his first proper album on the way, a nationwide club tour and a growing clientele (Jeezy, B.o.B, Ludacris, Wiz Khalifa), he hasn’t had much time to enjoy it just yet. "It’s cool, man — just to see the growth,” says Mustard (real name Dijon McFarlane), sitting in Billboard’s offices in New York. “Me moving out of the hood to better places, and my son living in places that I didn’t get to grow up in." Originally hailing from South Central Los Angeles, Mustard, 24, speaks in a carefree drawl…

IN THE BACK ALLEY BEHIND THE PNC BANK ARTS CENTER in Holmdel, N.J., surrounded by a fleet of giant tour buses and gossipy onlookers, Wiz Khalifa and Sage the Gemini have spent the past few minutes fighting. Well, sort of. “Yes! I caught a body,” jokes Khalifa after Sage accidentally skins his hand against a wall mid-grapple. “I won. He’s the only one that’s bleeding.” A moment of tension dissipates — this is a play fight, after all — and the two give each other pounds. It’s Aug. 3, the fifth night of the 22-date Under the Influence of Music tour, which also includes Jeezy, Ty Dolla Sign, Mack Wilds, lamsu, Rich Homie Quan and DJ Drama. There are 15,000 people filing into the cavernous amphitheater. And seriously, how can…

ENGLISH ALT-POP QUARTET Adult Jazz’s Gist Is is a sprawling debut that takes no shortcuts. The album, which picked up early love from U.K. buzz blogs and NPR, was created while frontman Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, Steven Wells and Tom Howe were attending Leeds University, and you can tell. Burgess’ impressionistic lyrics traverse the liberal arts from philosophy to literature. There’s an ode to metaphysical poet John Donne ("Donne Tongue"), while “Springful” nods to Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. The music, meanwhile, jumps from folk to pop to jazz in kinetic spurts. The album has t h e sense of selfdiscovery you’d expect from college kids. “Hum” deconstructs Burgess’ falsetto, drawn out in Gregorian chant-like stretches. “Idiot Mantra,” features a ritualistic cry: “Been humming an idiot mantra so long! My heart, it…

Levine & Co. Chart Top 10 Course Maroon 5 (above) enters the top 10 of the Artist 100 for the first time in the young ranking’s five-week existence, rising 13-5 (up 58 percent in overall chart points). Though the band’s “Maps” is pushed down 6-7 on the Billboard Hot 100, the track reaches a new peak on Digital Songs (7-3) in its seventh chart week and posts its best weekly sales sum yet with 139,000 (up 35 percent), according to Nielsen SoundScan. Meanwhile, “It Was Always You,” a second preview track from Maroon 5’s new Maps album (due Sept. 2), debuts at No. 10 on Digital Songs with 95,000 and No. 45 on the Hot 100. Of Maroon 5’s overall Artist 100 points, 59 percent come from track sales and…