Music News

Music News

David Bowie Breaks Adele's Vevo Record With 51 Million Video Views in One Day. The world cannot get enough of David Bowie's unforgettable voice. As soon as the news broke of the legendary singer's unfortunate passing on Sunday evening, fans couldn't help but relive his greatest performances, fashion moments and biggest hits online. In fact, his death resulted in more than 51 million video views on Vevo in a 24-hour time period. The huge number easily beats previous record holder Adele whose catalog received more than 36 million views when "Hello" premiered on Oct. 23, 2015. While David has earned a wide variety of hits over his career, Vevo reports that "Lazarus" was the most-watched video of the day with more than 11.1 million views. Just a few days before his passing, the rock star released "Lazarus." His final music video featured the singer lying in a hospital bed with bandages covering his eyes. As he sings, David starts to levitate and shake as if he was entering the afterlife. The lyrics are also filled with imagery and death. "Look up here/ I'm in heaven/ I've got scars that can't be seen," he sings on the track featured on his 25th studio album. "This way or no way / You know, I'll be free." David passed away Jan. 10 just two days after his 69th birthday. The news was confirmed on the singer's Facebook page shortly after the Golden Globes aired. "David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle with cancer," the post read. "While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family's privacy during their time of grief." Funeral plans have yet to be announced. (Eonline)

Selena Gomez Can't Believe She Has Another No. 1 Song, Shuts Down Charlie Puth Romance Rumor. Selena Gomez and Charlie Puth posted an adorable Snapchat after the Golden Globes on Sunday and the tabloids practically had them married by Monday. While party hopping after the awards show, the two teased their new duet "We Don't Talk Anymore" on the social media app. However, Gomez tells me, "We're not [dating], that's for sure." She pretty much tunes out the gossip about her love life these days. "What else is new?" she said with a laugh. Now, with that out of the way, let's get back to Gomez's booming music career. Her latest single, "Same Old Love," is No. 1 on Billboard's Pop Songs chart. Yup, it's her second No. 1 in a row after "Good for You" (featuring A$AP Rocky). "I didn't believe it," Gomez said. "I always find out about things on Instagram before it actually happens. Half of me was tentative towards it... It's kind of weird. It's crazy!" And there's no stopping her now. While she says she needs to remind herself to "enjoy" the success, she also said, "I'm one of those people constantly wanting to strive for better." Both singles are from her album Revival, which dropped in October. Gomez opened up to E! News in September about posing topless on the cover of Revival. "I'm very comfortable in my skin," she said. "I'm so proud of everything that I've done. And I'm a lot kinder to myself than I used to be. So if anything I just want that to translate. You know, my music is confident. My album artwork is so well done and I just think it's beautiful... I love being able to kind of have my own ways of doing things." (Eonline)

More performers have been unveiled for The BRIT Awards 2016. Little Mix, James Bay, Jess Glynne, and The Weeknd are to joining the likes of Adele, Coldplay and Justin Bieber to perform at the UK's biggest night in music in February at The O2. As the nation looks forward to finding out who has made the shortlists for the 2016 BRITs, which are revealed this evening at an exclusive nominations launch show 'The BRITs Are Coming' broadcast on ITV at 10.40pm, these three stellar names add to an already incredible live line up for the awards, which will be hosted by Ant & Dec. You've got to admit, 2015 was a huge year for Jess Glynn. She released her #1 platinum album, I Cry When I Laugh, and even joined the X Factor judges as a guest judge. Next week she'll be off for a big headline US tour but will return to the UK for her biggest tour to date which is completely sold out and includes two shows at London's Brixton Academy. A GLAMOUR fave, James Bay, won the 2015 BRITs Critics' Choice Award, and with a number one album, Chaos and the Calm, he's the perfect guy for the BRITs stage. Last year you might not have been clued up about The Weeknd, aka 25 year old Canadian singer/songwriter/producer Abel Tesfaye, but after THAT song (Can't Feel My Face) and a memorable performance at the Victoria's Secret catwalk show, we're excited to see what he brings. And after an amazing year Little Mix will be hitting that stage with aplomb, and we cannot wait! After last year's successful album, Get Weird, and cracking America, we're positive they're going to bring it at the BRITs. The BRIT Awards 2016 with MasterCard will take place on Wednesday 24 February at London's O2 Arena and will be broadcast live on ITV. Ant & Dec will return as hosts. (British Glamour)

Elton John did his best Taylor Swift impression in L.A. ... filling his concert with a ton of other stars. Elton performed at The Wiltern Wednesday night and surprised fans with Shawn Mendes, Demi Lovato and Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump ... all joining him for duets during the 3 hour show. Our Elton sources say he handpicked the celeb guests from his music label. Swift did the same thing at Staples Center last summer ... with the likes of Ryan Tedder, Mary J Blige, Kobe and Ellen DeGeneres. Fun fact: Shawn, Demi and Patrick are a combined 71 ... Elton's 68 and still held his own. (TMZ)

Taylor Swift Wins 'Most Marketable' in New Study, Followed By Justin Timberlake. That's according to a points-based system designed to quantify an emotion-reliant industry. Taylor Swift has been singled out in a new study on live music partnerships as the most marketable musician among young Americans. According to London-based sports and media research outfit Repucom, millennials (and younger) like and trust the "Blank Space" singer more than any other artist out there, making her especially attractive to brands and marketers. Repucom scores celebrities on something called the Davie Brown Index, or DBI, which measured consumer views on 8,000 celebrities around the world. Swift, who in recent years has worked with Cover Girl, Sony and Coke, among other brands, got a DBI of 88.5. Right behind Swift is the only male artist in the top five, Justin Timberlake with a score of 86.4. He is followed by Lady Gaga (85.1), Katy Perry (85.1) and Beyonce (84.6). The rest of the top ten includes Snoop Dogg (82.9), Nick Jonas (82.1), Britney Spears(81.8), Nicki Minaj (81.8) and Bruno Mars (81.6). Repucom says it polled 3,000 people aged 14-34 in the United States, France, Germany, Japan and United Kingdom. The study also found that globally, pop music remains the most popular genre with 55 percent of those surveyed saying it was their favorite, ahead of rock (49 percent) and hip-hop (33 percent). The findings also examined the influence of social media in how young people are engaging with music. Repucom's global head of research Mike Wragg explains in the report that "of the top 15 most popular purchases amongst live music fans in the next 12 months, smartphones come out top with over half (54 percent) of all those surveyed saying that this is what they are most interested in." He adds, "This shows us the continued appetite among those under 34 year olds to renew and upgrade their smartphones -- and that also means the technology they are using and apps they are and will be engaging with. Stars like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry have just under 300 million followers across their Twitter and Facebook profiles combined and offer a glimpse into just how important being able to understand that engagement is." (Billboard)

Adele Sings Spice Girls' "Wannabe" and Raps Nicki Minaj's "Monster" in Carpool Karaoke With James Corden. After days of anticipation, James Corden's Carpool Karaoke segment with Adele is finally here! The Brit late-night show host drove around with the one and only Grammy winner, and it's safe to say that the two hit it off right away. Adele and Corden wasted no time in getting down to business, with pitch-perfect duets of one of her most famous tracks from the past like "Rolling in the Deep," followed by her current chart-topping ballad, "Hello." And as usually tends to happen with Corden's Carpool Karaoke segment, the Late Late Show host's chemistry with his musical guest (and passenger) is absolutely undeniable. During a preview clip from earlier this week, the 27-year-old chatted about her newly chopped locks. Corden admitted he's "loving" the new look, reassuring a hesitant Adele after her big hairdo change. Adele tureds to the comedian and explains that she's contemplating wearing a weave for an appearance the next day, to which Corden replied, "What I like is that you're coming to me for this advice." The two immediately burst into laughter before going right back into singing tracks around town. "It's such a shame that it's running because I think Americans are going to assume that England is rubbish," Adele told Corden before launching into "Hello." After drumming in the car, Adele spilled tea all over her new coat. "I'm all right! I'm all right! I downed it," she said. Later, she revealed that she'd been drunk "three nights in a row" around the Christmas holiday. While waiting for a friend at a restaurant, she ordered one glass of wine -- and then another -- and decided to approach a fan. "I went over, a bit drunk, and I said, 'Did you call my name earlier?' I was like, 'Sorry. I had my security with me. Sorry. He's being a bit protective or whatever.' I went, 'Did I hear it was your birthday? Let me get your meal for you!' So, I paid for their meal. And then I had another glass of wine. Then my friend arrived and I had two more glasses of wine. Bear in mind that I haven't really had a drink in, like, eight months." The next day, while in the park, she found an e-mail address in her pocket belonging to a family in Nashville that was unable to buy tickets to her show. Of course, she hooked them up with free tickets. "That's what happens when I'm drunk," Adele explained. Next up: a rousing rendition of "Someone Like You." The two also bonded over their mutual love of The Spice Girls and Adele's heartbreak after Geri Halliwell quit the band in the late '90s. "That was the first time I was, like, truly heartbroken," Adele explained before covering "Wannabe" with Corden. After singing Adele's "All I Ask," Corden suggested she assemble an A-list posse. "If you put together a squad, which was like, you, Beyonce, Jennifer Lawrence -- she'd bring Amy Schumer and like Emma Stone -- Taylor Swift 's squad would, like, s--t themselves," he said. Adele disagreed, saying, "They're Amazonian. They're all so tall. They'll just kick us in their long legs." Corden had also heard that Adele is a skilled rapper, so he put her skills to the test as she recited Nicki Minaj's lines from "Monster." Before the ride ended, the two had a few laughs talking about EGOT possibilities, being "THE Adele," and remixing "Rolling in the Deep." (Eonline)

Guns N' Roses Eyeing $3 Million Per Show Payday on Potential Tour. Fans were overjoyed when Billboard broke the news that a reunited Guns N' Roses -- with original members Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan on board -- will headline the Coachella Music & Arts Festival on April 16 and April 23 and follow with a major stadium tour. But given Rose's tumultuous history of egregiously late or canceled performances, this reunion tour is more fraught with risk than most. Although the singer has been touring semiregularly with different musicians under the Guns N' Roses name, the Coachella shows are expected to be the first time the Rose-Slash-McKagan trio will perform together since July 17, 1993, in Buenos Aires -- "expected" because sources tell Billboard that GNR is scheduled to be one of the first acts to play the new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, set to open April 6. Beyond that, the reunited band -- the full lineup and the status of the other two founding members, guitarist Izzy Stradlin and drummer Steven Adler, remain unclear -- is also negotiating with promoters to play as many as 25 stadiums in North America this summer. For the tour, GNR is said to be asking as much as $3 million per show (the Coachella payday is likely significantly higher), with tickets topping out in the $250 to $275 range. In an era when most top artists tour regularly, promoters love reunions. The Police revival of 2007 and 2008 remains the gold standard, taking in $362 million from 151 concerts around the world. Of course, GNR is more combustible than the British trio, and the financial prospects of a tour are far less certain. When a band, or a specific lineup of a band, has been absent from the marketplace for some time, fans can turn to YouTube to at least get a taste of past magic or madness. That's where "history can haunt you," as one promoter puts it. And while the classic GNR lineup was a ferocious live act, the band needs to convince fans they're up to doing it again. As one promoter puts it, "It's incumbent on the artist to convey the message to the fan base, 'We're back, we're taking this seriously, we're in shape, I can sing these songs, and we're going to create the magic we once had.' " This does not sound like something Rose would do (a Jan. 5 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! was cancelled), and artists are rarely contractually obligated to promote a tour. "As the promoter, you've got what you're buying," the promoter tells Billboard. "You just hope they take it as seriously as you do." Unlike most successful reunion tours, a Rose-led incarnation of GNR has been in the marketplace since 2001. In 2012, band agent Ken Fermaglich (who declined to comment for this story) negotiated a well-received residency at The Joint in Las Vegas to mark the 25th anniversary of GNR's landmark debut, Appetite for Destruction, and since then GNR has been fairly active at large clubs, arenas and festivals -- to generally positive response -- on a global basis. A review of a March, 2012, show at the Wiltern in Los Angeles in The Hollywood Reporter stated that Rose "sang the bejesus out of all the hits," adding that he "was an entertainer so charming, you'd never know he had the reputation of an asshole." Indeed, it's GNR's reputation as a great live act that promoters bidding to produce a 2016 tour on GNR hope fans remember -- and that GNR can deliver. While the band's first album, Appetite for Destruction moved 18 million copies (the biggest-selling debut in U.S. history) and GNR has sold 44.5 million albums total in the U.S., according to the RIAA, the band's unpredictable live shows, especially with its founding members, played a huge role in the band's surge to superstardom. Yet the prospects of a classic GNR tour are decidedly mixed. "It might very well be a home run," says Washington, D.C.-based indie promoter Seth Hurwitz. "It might very well be that it's not. I prefer not to take part in these kind of all-or-nothing bets myself." But veteran manager Doc McGhee (Kiss, Darius Rucker), who handled GNR from 2010 to 2012, maintains, "If it's done right, it should do amazing [business]. If they have their shit together and go out there to kill, I think everybody comes to see them. If not, they'll have a tough time selling it." Furthermore, McGhee does not believe the Rose-led GNR of the past decade, or various touring outfits by other members, have diluted the brand. He points to bands like Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac, which toured with less-than-complete lineups and then went on to do much bigger business when certain members returned. "Led Zeppelin was bigger than when [Jimmy] Page and [Robert] Plant went out together," McGhee notes. "The sum is bigger than the parts." Phoenix promoter Danny Zelisko adds, "I think that if they play the right halls with ticket prices not too crazy, they will do awesome. There is definitely demand for this band with Slash and Axl reunited." The original GNR's most successful tour was the Use Your Illusion trek of 1991-1993. The 106 shows reported to Billboard Boxscore grossed an average of $601,435 per date -- more than robust from tickets priced mostly at $20-$25 -- with average attendance of 23,333 per night. It was also the most notorious, as fans rioted in Montreal after Rose stormed offstage. The story was similar in 2002, when Rose failed to show up for a date in Vancouver and a riot ensued; the tour was ultimately cancelled by promoter Clear Channel Entertainment (now Live Nation) after a second Rose-no-show-induced riot in Philadelphia. Even with this history of gross unpredictability (although Rose has definitely tightened up his act in recent years) and transcendent performances, sources say both AEG Live and Live Nation have their hats firmly in the ring to produce a 2016 GNR stadium tour. The financial risks for stadium shows are huge, even with proven draws. Production costs run roughly $1.6 million -- plus talent costs and an average tax of five to seven percent. With those expenses, it could take a box-office gross of about $4.8 million just to break even, and with an acceptable promoter profit of $300,000-400,000, the gross would have to hit $5.1-5.2 million before the band would get into overage (meaning enough tickets have been sold for the band to receive a percentage of the gross). Stadiums provide the capacity to put 8,000-9,000 tickets at the P1 price point of about $250, providing the artist can sell at that level; one promoter interviewed by Billboard estimates a ticket scale ranging from $250 - $59. To come out in the black on these estimated expenses would require a $100 average ticket price on 50,000 fans, or a $90 average ticket price on 60,000 tickets sold. If a show does get into overage it could add another $200,000 or so the band's estimated $3 million payday. A GNR reunion would likely spur huge merchandising sales -- as much as $20 per head -- generating another $750,000 to $1 million, with the lion's share also going to the band. The potential for a huge financial windfall exists, but much hinges on the Coachella performances. After 22 years, will the reunited band gell? Will they adhere to Coachella's midnight curfew? In the case of Guns N' Roses, their reputation is both a blessing and a curse. "They were a dangerous rock band -- you never knew what was gonna happen," says a promoter who worked with GNR back in the day. "A certain amount of that is great in rock n' roll, but there's a fine line between being dangerous and being a dick." (Billboard)

The Thin White Duke's catalog drew 51 million views on Vevo on a single day. David Bowie continues to shatter records, even after his death. The Thin White Duke's catalog drew 51 million views on Vevo on Monday, a new one-day high-mark for any artist on the streaming music platform. Bowie breaks the previous same-day record, which was held by Adele, whose catalog generated 36 million views on Oct. 23, 2015, the day "Hello" premiered. "Lazarus" was the most-watched video with 11.1 million views, according to Vevo, which hosts more than 60 videos spanning Bowie's illustrious career. The late British singer's music video catalog reportedly saw a week-over-week increase in views of 5,198 percent on Jan. 11 -- the day after he died, aged 69, following a battle with cancer. Bowie's last album, Blackstar, was released Jan. 8 and is on track to become the singer's first recording to top the Billboard 200. It's also expected to bow at No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart. (Hollywood Reporter)