Sweetener Debuts At #1

Ariana Grande earns her third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as her fourth full-length studio effort, Sweetener, enters atop the tally. The set, which was released on Aug. 17 via Republic Records, starts with 231,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Aug. 23, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 127,000 are from traditional album sales.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units are comprised of traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new Sept. 1-dated chart (where Sweetener launches at No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard's websites on Tuesday, Aug. 28.

Grande’s Third No. 1: Sweetener is Grande’s third leader on the Billboard 200, following the chart-topping debuts of her second album, My Everything (Sept. 13, 2014), and her debut effort, Yours Truly (Sept. 21, 2013). Of her four full-length studio sets, only her third release, Dangerous Woman, missed the top. It debuted and peaked at No. 2 on June 11, 2016 (stuck behind Grande’s labelmate, Drake, with his blockbuster album Views, which was in its fourth of 14 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1).


‘Sweetener’ Surpasses ‘Dangerous’: With Sweetener’s start of 231,000 units, it beats the bow of Grande’s last album, Dangerous Woman. The latter entered the chart at No. 2 with 175,000 units.
Second Biggest Week of 2018 for a Woman: Sweetener secures the second-largest week for an album by a woman in 2018. Only Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy launched with a larger figure: 255,000 units (No. 1, April 21-dated chart). Thus, Sweetener also has the biggest week for a pop album by a woman. Speaking of pop albums by women…

Largest Streaming Week Ever for a Pop Album by a Woman: Sweetener’s songs collected 126.7 million on-demand audio streams in its debut frame -- the largest streaming week for a pop album by a woman. It’s also the biggest streaming week for any non-hip-hop effort by a woman. Sweetener is the rare pop album that performed strongly on streaming services -- generally rap albums post big streaming numbers in comparison to other genres.


Of the 41 instances where there was an album that collected more than 125 million streams in a single week, only four were not rap titles. Aside from Sweetener, there were also the debut frames of Ed Sheeran’s ÷ (Divide) (134.6 million), The Weeknd’s My Dear Melancholy (140.8 million), and The Weeknd’s Starboy (175.2 million).

At No. 2 on the new Billboard 200, Travis Scott’s Astroworld slips to the runner-up slot after spending its first two weeks at No. 1. The album earned 110,000 units in the latest tracking week, down 46 percent.

Nicki Minaj’s Queen moves 2-3 in its second week, with 95,000 units (down 49 percent).
Drake’s Scorpion moves 3-4 (93,000 units; down 9 percent) while Post Malone’s beerbongs & bentleys is steady at No. 5 (57,000 units; up 2 percent).

Aretha Franklin’s 30 Greatest Hits climbs 7-6, granting the diva her highest-charting album in 50 years. 30 Greatest Hits ascends with 52,000 units earned in the tracking week (up 49 percent), with 18,000 of that sum coming from traditional album sales (up 47 percent).


https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8472196/ariana-grande-sweetener-number-one-billboard-200-chart

Mel B. Going To Rehab for PTSD

Mel's statement:

“The past six months have been incredibly difficult for me.

I’ve been working with a writer on my book, Brutally Honest, and it has been unbelievably traumatic reliving an emotionally abusive relationship and confronting so many massive issues in my life from the death of my dad to my relationship with men.

I've also been through more than a year of court battles which have left me financially battered and at the mercy of the legal system which is completely weighted against emotionally abused women because it's very hard to prove how someone took away all your self-respect and self-worth.

I am being very honest in my book about drinking to numb my pain but that is just a way a lot of people mask what is really going on.

Sometimes it is too hard to cope with all the emotions I feel. But the problem has never been about sex or alcohol — it is underneath all that.

I have recently been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and on August 9, after trying many different therapies I started a course of therapy called EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) which in a nutshell works on the memory to deal with some of the very painful and traumatic situations I have been through.

I don’t want to jinx it, but so far it’s really helping me. I am fully aware I am at a crisis point.

No-one knows myself better than I do. But I am dealing with it. I love my three girls more than life itself.

I have also made the decision to go into a proper therapy programme in the next few weeks, but it has to be in the UK because I am very, very British and I know that will work best for me.

I am still struggling. But if I can shine a light on the issue of pain, PTSD and the things men and women do to mask it, I will do.

I am speaking about this because this is a huge issue for so many people.

I’m not perfect, and I have never pretended to be.

But I am working on being a better version of myself for my kids, for my family and for all the people who have supported me in my life."

Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour Breaks Record for Highest-Grossing U.S. Tour by a Woman

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8471555/taylor-swift-breaks-record-highest-grossing-us-tour-woman
 

 

  Quote

 
Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour is now the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman, excluding residencies, according to Billboard Boxscore. Across the 27 domestic dates that have been reported to Billboard so far, Swift has brought in $191.1 million, with an additional $11.1 million earned in Canada.   
The trek surpasses the previous highest-grossing trek by a woman, set by Swift’s own 1989 World Tour, with $181.5 million earned domestically in 2015. It posted a worldwide haul of $250.7 million. The speed at which the Reputation Stadium Tour has accumulated its huge earnings is particularly impressive, with the trek averaging more than $7 million per show. Total paid attendance to date is 1,489,904 and all 27 shows so far have sold out.   
The tour is in support of Swift’s 2017 Reputation album. The release debuted atop the Billboard 200 albums chart dated December 2, 2017, with 1.238 million equivalent album units earned in its first week, according to Nielsen Music. Reputation has spawned six entries on the Billboard Hot 100, including “Look What You Made Me Do” (No. 1, Sept. 16, 2017) and “Ready for It" (No. 4, Sept. 23, 2017). The Reputation Stadium Tour's current $202.3 million earnings total is all from dates played in North America. She also played six dates in the U.K., which have yet to be reported to Billboard Boxscore. Swift has 11 dates left to play in the U.S. and will then play seven shows in Australia, New Zealand and Japan this fall.   

Power Rangers Sequel in the Works

A sequel to 2017's Power Rangers is finally moving forward with Paramount and Hasbro.

The Power Rangers made a big return to the big screen last year with the release of Paramount's live-action reboot. The big budget turn for the team didn't prove to be a financially successful turn however, as the movie grossed just $142 million worldwide. This performance was a huge blow to the hopeful franchise, as Saban and Paramount previously discussed hopes to make up to seven sequels.

After that disappointing box office performance, Power Rangers opened strong on home release and has found a following hoping for another run. This looked less likely when Hasbro acquired the Power Rangers property, and it looked like a reboot was on the horizon instead of a sequel. That's no longer the case though, as Power Rangers 2 now looks to be in development.

Inside Licensing shared the exciting news. The most relevant line of the post confirms that Paramount and Hasbro's All Spark Pictures are going to develop another Power Rangers movie that's a sequel to the 2017 film.

Ever since Hasbro acquired the Power Rangers brand, they've made their intention to make more Power Rangers films known. However, it was believed that they would reboot the franchise instead of sticking with one that didn't turn a profit at the box office. Hasbro could be looking towards the future though, and banking on the talented cast's profiles continuing to rise. Dacre Montgomery was a standout of Stranger Things season 2 and is returning for season 3. Naomi Scott is going to be in Disney's live-action Aladdin and Sony's Charlie's Angels reboot next year too. Plus, with a villain and the Green Ranger needed, more star power could come.

The big question on the minds of many will be why the decision has been made to go forward with Power Rangers 2. A smaller budget could've helped turn the film closer to being a box office success, but a sequel will need to be better received critically. From Hasbro's perspective though, one reason why they chose this path could be the toy sales. Power Rangers toy sales went though the roof last year, and even if all of the success isn't due to the popularity of the movie, it is at least a factor. Hasbro could look at the merchandising numbers to possibly justify another installment.

This sequel is still in the very early stages though, so don't expect it to hit theaters anytime soon. They'll have to decide whether or not director Dean Israelite will be brought back, and he's confirmed talks of a sequel before.

The young and rising cast could also take some time to book due to their filming schedules. However, the development process will need to go extremely well before scheduling starts to become part of the picture.

https://screenrant.com/power-rangers-hasbro-movie-sequel-development/

I am shocked because it tanked at the box office but I liked it overall. So i am excited for this.
MH

Veronica Mars Revival Series in the Works at Hulu

Veronica Mars” could be making its long-awaited TV return.

Sources tell Variety that a revival of the series is currently in the works at Hulu with original series star Kristen Bell poised to return as the titular detective and original series creator Rob Thomas serving as writer. Warner Bros. Television, which produced the original series, would be the studio. Sources caution, however, that the deal for the series is not yet final. It is also unknown if any other original series stars besides Bell would return or what the plot of the series would be.

Among the matters complicating the deal is that Bell currently stars in the hit NBC comedy “The Good Place.” Should the “Veronica Mars” project move forward, it would need to shoot around her schedule for the latter show, meaning it would likely be a limited series consisting of eight to ten episodes.

https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/veronica-mars-revival-hulu-1202912604/

NPR: Rihanna Is The 21st Century's Most Influential Musician

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/15/638551793/rihanna-is-the-21st-centurys-most-influential-musician

"If she's not seen as taking musical risks, it's only because so many of them paid off."

 

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The cover of Rihanna's 2016 album ANTI, created by artist Roy Natchum and commissioned by Rihanna, features the singer as a young child with a crown that's fallen down over her head so that it covers her eyes. She holds a balloon and red paint drips down over her from the top corner of the canvas. Overlaying the entire painting is a poem rendered in Braille, written by the poet Chloe Mitchell in collaboration with Rihanna and Natchum.
"I sometimes fear that I am misunderstood," it starts. "It is simply because what I want to say, what I need to say, won't be heard. Heard in a way I so rightfully deserve. What I choose to say is of so much substance that people just won't understand the depth of my message..."
What does it mean to think of Rihanna, global superstar, as unheard? Her music has soundtracked most of this century, and that kind of ubiquity is easily taken for granted, like air. She released a full-length studio album every single year between 2005 and 2012, save for a one-year break in 2008. Of the 61 Rihanna songs on the Billboard Hot 100, 14 of them were No. 1 hits, and 31 of them were top 10 hits. No album has landed as many No. 1 songs on Billboard's Dance Club Songs chart as ANTI, the album Rihanna released in 2016 after an unprecedented (for her) hiatus
For most of my life, there has been a Rihanna single — or multiple Rihanna singles, or multiple songs defined by a Rihanna hook — playing prominently on Top 40 radio. So it's not enough to say Rihanna is the air. Rihanna shaped the texture and taste of the air by consistently doing what pop, at its very best, is supposed to do: taking disparate genres — rock, EDM, dancehall, trap and even dubstep — and turning them into something that makes sense to us, to everyone. If she's not seen as taking musical risks, it's only because so many of them paid off.
Rihanna is the most important pop artist of the century because of these contributions to music — and her music is beloved. It's still worth asking, however, how we as an audience can adequately love Rihanna the person.
When Rihanna received the Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, Drake introduced her. His speech is memorable for his cute, unsurprising and ultimately distracting faux-confession: "She's someone I've been in love with since I was 22 years old." Equally instructive, though, are the parts of Drake's speech that were about Rihanna and not Drake. He mentioned her achievements in music but ultimately asserted that what was "most impressive" was Rihanna the person.
"She succeeds by doing something that no one in this music industry does, which is being herself," Drake said. "We love the music, which can change styles from album to album, we love the videos, which change their artistic vision from year to year, but most of all, we love the woman, who hasn't changed since day one."
Rihanna was gracious in her acceptance speech. She spoke about how her success is never just about her — it's about Barbados, her family, her fans and "women, black women." She also went on to thank the directors who went along with her "crazy ideas" — her subtle way of asserting what Drake did not: that she is pop music's vanguard, and that the work itself is where her prowess lies. Drake's speech focuses on the product: It was the music that changed styles and the videosthat changed artistic vision. The only thing Rihanna did, according to this syntactical choice, was remain the same.
In her lead essay for the first iteration of Turning the Tables, a list of the 150 greatest albums by women in the pop era, Ann Powers notes that descriptions of greatness are often gendered: "Women are linked to the natural and the timeless, while men innovate and make history. Men build civilizations and create great works, while women animate spaces and connect people with their nurturing souls and alluring energy."
Those who claim to love Rihanna often say it's because of her soul, or her energy. Miranda July wrote about this phenomenon in her 2015 profile of the pop icon, where she describes how various people responded when she asked them about Rihanna: "A lesbian art history professor told me that she's 'the real deal.' Others used the words 'magic' and 'epic.' But when I tried to get anyone to pinpoint things she had said or done — particular interviews or incidents — everyone became lost in inarticulacy." When July told her Uber driver he was taking her to interview Rihanna, he responded, "You kidding? That's my girl," he said. "I love her. She's so down-to-earth."
But after meeting Rihanna, words fail July, too. Her final observation of the star is about her soul: "Souls don't really care about good or bad, right or wrong — they're just true. Everlasting. It makes you sound dumb to talk about this stuff, which is why no one could tell me exactly what it was about Rihanna. But millions of fans don't seem to need it explained to them. A soul just knows a soul."
"My understanding, from the moment she sat down, was that we were in love," July continues. It is a bold presumption of emotional access.
In a 2012 profile for GQ, Jay Bulger says Rihanna comes across as more authentic than her peers: "She sometimes gets grouped with theatrical pop stars like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Nicki Minaj. But those are one-woman masquerade balls, their real selves hidden behind the next costume change. Rihanna, on the other hand, comes off as wild, weird, unfiltered, a little unhinged, which just makes everyone else go all unhinged."
The scholar Esther L. Jones has argued that as Rihanna established more and more narrative authority over her public image, she began to author a woman "simultaneously ordinary and exceptional, intimate and distant, known and inaccessible." Her social media feeds exemplify this: She promotes her wildly successful global fashion brands, but she also loves to post memes. For MTV News, Doreen St. Felix wrote that "a cultivation of lifestyle — her trips back home to Barbados, her tattoos, her laughter, her love of family, her social media presence — in the moment that every other person of her caliber is trying out reclusivity, and the secondary group is trying out diva-hood, makes Rihanna the last rock star."
It matters that Rihanna comes across as genuine, that her sense of self appears unshaken by celebrity, that she feels accessible to her fans. But this, as Jones and St. Felix are getting at, is not a persona that occurs without effort. Rihanna has been performing what it means to be in the thick of things — not above them, not outside looking in, not past them — for her whole career. That takes emotional and intellectual work, especially when you consider — as Jones does in her essay "'What's My Name?': Reading Rihanna's Autobiographical Acts" — that the public-private distinction Rihanna had spent years cultivating was shattered in 2009, when Rihanna's then-boyfriend Chris Brown physically assaulted her just ahead of the Grammys and the photo evidence spread across the Internet.
To really love Rihanna, one must respect that what we so often find lovable about her — her so-called relatability, the way she's able to de-emphasize the significant social and artistic distance between herself and her fans — is also her work.
"We Found Love," released two-and-a-half years after Chris Brown attacked Rihanna, is classic dance pop with an edge. It's meant to sound like joy, but the lyrics are vague enough to account for a whole range of human feeling. In the video, Rihanna chooses darkness. It's about two people who are not good for each other. There are fights that look unhealthy. There are plenty of drugs. It starts with an opening monologue about a relationship gone wrong. "When it's over, and it's gone," the English actress Agyness Deyn reads, "you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back so that you could have the good."
In a New Yorker profile, director Melina Matsoukas says it was completely unintentional that Rihanna's on-screen partner in the video looked eerily like Chris Brown — lightskinned, blonde. But she says the plot took inspiration from "[her] terrible love life and obviously [Rihanna's] terrible love life and every woman's terrible love life."
Matsoukas also told The New Yorker's Alexis Okeowo that Rihanna was on board: "She was open to taking it there ... and with being honest and showing what life really is."
Rihanna had been taking it there for a while. "Russian Roulette," the lead single from her 2009 album Rated R, is about love with life or death stakes, with a video whose imagery comes a bit too close for comfort to police reports from Chris Brown's physical assault of her. Brown's assault of Rihanna took place in a car. A speeding car appears in the video multiple times; at once point, it hurtles towards a standing Rihanna.
When asked about the demand that she be a role model, Rihanna told Vogue: "That title was put on me when I was just finding my way, making mistakes in front of the world. I didn't think it was fair." The videos for "We Found Love" and "Russian Roulette" are not about looking back on hard moments that you've gotten over. They're about being in the messy present. It's not clear that this is what people are talking about when they call Rihanna "down-to-earth," but this too is evidence of the work of being real — dealing with patriarchy and racism and making art through it.
In the video for "S&M," which Matsoukas also directed, Rihanna wears a dress made of newsprint. She's immobile, bound up in plastic wrap as her body's literally covered in media commentary. "Rihanna's 'enjoyment' of the public flagellation with words and accusations is her attempt to speak back to the larger forces of dominance and power, forces that uphold Chris Brown's assault on her by prolonging it for their own entertainment and profit," writes scholar Donna Aza Weir-Soley in the paper "From 'F Love' to 'He Is the One'?: Rihanna, Chris Brown and the Danger of Traumatic Bonding."
As for Rihanna, she told she told Spin about the song: "I don't think of it in a sexual way, I'm thinking metaphorically ... People are going to talk about you, you can't stop that. You just have to be that strong person and know who you are so that stuff just bounces off."
On the album Unapologetic, which came out as rumors of Rihanna and Chris Brown's romantic reunion swirled (they were later confirmed), critic Jessica Hopper wrote for Pitchfork: "She's quite a distance from the tidy narrative we'd like, the one where she's learned from her pain and is back to doing diva triumph club stomp in the shadow of Beyoncé. Unapologetic rubs our faces in the inconvenient messy truth of Rihanna's life which, even if it were done well, would be hard to celebrate as a success."
But Unapologetic was also home to "Pour It Up," the song and video in which Rihanna plays both the dancer and the client in a strip club. It's a meditation on financial independence and an assertion of control.
Rihanna's realness is not just about her carefree Instagram posts, or her habit of taking wine to-go. Her realness is popular art that cuts to the hard questions. She stretched the boundaries of genre, of course, but she also demanded that her vast audience grapple with the complexity of her inner life — both when it was empowering and when it was difficult. The worry that often accompanies this kind of bravery is that it won't be legible to your audience — or that you'll be misunderstood.
Last year, Jamila Woods, another artist who thinks a lot about authorial control, told me she was thinking about something Sonia Sanchez said: "I shall become, I shall become a collector of me. And put meat on my soul."
When your ears are always burning, I imagine it must be important to write against the stories you believe others are telling about you. "Sometimes a person looks at me and sees dollars. They see numbers and they see a product," Rihanna told GQ in that same 2012 profile. "I look at me and see art. If I didn't like what I was doing, then I would say I was committing slavery."
My favorite Rihanna moment is the line in "B**** Better Have My Money" where she sings, "Turn up to Rihanna while the whole club f****** wasted." It's an acknowledgement that she has the privilege of living in the sonic landscape she created herself — that she is a collector of herself. That line is delivered in the archetypical "Rihanna voice," which is, as Jayson Greene argued for Pitchfork, the most influential vocal of the past decade in pop.
"Umbrella" was the song that showed me all that a single note, sung on "eh," could contain. Rihanna sings the word "uuhm-buh-rella" like she invented it: unafraid of emphasis, letting each part of the word travel into the next. Her voice is so engaging that on "Live Your Life," which came out a year later in 2008, when she sings "live your life" all on the same D, then hovers around the neighborhood of that D for the majority of the hook, it doesn't feel dumb or boring at all.
Greene wrote of the title lyric in "What's My Name": "Who knows how many dozens of times Rihanna practiced that vocal take until she had distilled all of those competing emotions — pleading and playful, weary and sensual, even a little mocking — into three goddamn syllables, looping perfectly."
I love Rihanna's voice mostly because I have always heard within it the feeling of mustering, an acknowledgement that being comfortable in our skin is possible with intention and effort. Apparently, she wears a chain with the word "Savage" on her neck, or at least she did for that Vogue interview. "Savage is really about taking complete ownership of how you feel and the choices you make," she says. "Basically making sure everybody knows the ball is in your court."
ANTI is this hard-fought confidence embodied. There's confidence, of course, in the lyrics (see: "Sex With Me" and "Needed Me"). But there's also confidence in the delivery: Rihanna stretches her voice to its breaking point on songs like "Higher" and "Love on the Brain," letting it crack in ways we haven't heard before, or linger in falsetto for longer than we're used to. In moments like this, when she takes the vocal template she designed to uncharted places, Rihanna becomes, according to Greene, "both the vandal and the monument."
The question I asked was about whether Rihanna's audience has ever adequately loved her — whether we've given her the kind of love that respects both what she's created and all the labor that went into creating it. But the answer Rihanna gives, through ANTI, is that Rihanna probably doesn't care about the question to begin with.
In the video for "Love on the Brain," Rihanna is given a crown from a child who we can only assume is that same child on the album cover, a young Rihanna. The whole video leads up to this moment, when Rihanna takes the crown and places it on her head. The moment is a lesson: You can wait — wait for ANTI to get the Grammy it deserved, wait for the world to give the genius of your work its due — or you can crown yourself.

Britmakers: Songwriters reveal the secrets behind some of Britney's huge hits

Across 20 years, nine albums and 42 singles, Britney Spears has racked up some of the most defining and inimitable pop songs of all time. While the genius of Max Martin has been a mainstay in her discography, over the years her career has showcased a host of some of the biggest emerging songwriters in the biz. Here, some of them reflect on the art (and joy) of making a Britney song…

 

  Hide contents

 

…BABY ONE MORE TIME
(…BABY ONE MORE TIME, 1998)

 

OOPS!... I DID IT AGAIN
(OOPS!... I DID IT AGAIN, 2000)

 

Baby One More Time Written by: Max Martin.
Published by: Zomba Music Publishers Ltd./ Grantsville Publishing Ltd.
Oops!... I Did It Again Written by: Max Martin/Rami Yacoub
Published by: Zomba Music Publishers Ltd.

 

Where were you at in your life when you first started working with Britney? Rami Yacoub:

“I had started my own production company maybe three years prior to the Britney era. We made a lot of remixes in the beginning that barely paid the rent, but we eventually made a few hits with an American artist called Lutricia McNeal. They never stretched across the European border, but it was rather successful and gave us some breathing room. Me and my partner were childhood friends and we played every day after school, started a band and then eventually became producers and songwriters. We felt that it was time to grow apart after such a long time together, and I started looking for other opportunities. Me and Max [Martin] had a mutual friend that got me a meeting with him. I played him some of my jams, including a few up-tempo songs that I basically had ripped off from the Cheiron sound just to impress him (Laughs). He respected the effort and liked what he heard... But I also had a huge song on the charts at that moment, so that helped a lot. Denniz Pop, Max’s mentor, and essentially the whole team’s, was sadly sick with cancer and had taken a step back in effort to get better, so Max was looking for a partner. They were obviously very big shoes to fill. I never did and no-one ever could, but I tried my best and so did the whole team in Denniz’s spirit after he passed. May he rest in peace.”

When it came to producing ...Baby One More Time, did you know you were working on a huge hit?

“Honestly, you never know. You can only do the best you can on each song and leave no stone unturned. We work on each song almost surgically, but there are so many emotions going through you when writing a song: love, hate, blood, tears, joy, you name it... So the simple answer is no, we didn't know it would be a hit.”

What did you learn about songwriting from working on ...Baby One More Time with Max?

“It’s not something you really learn from one person or one song, it was our first, ‘Let’s try to make this song and see if we click’ (laughs). I guess we did... But, throughout the years, Max mentored me and we learned from each other. I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher than him.”

How did Britney deal with being in a studio for the first time?

“This is a very long time ago... Wow, I feel old. She was so young, but she was very professional and never complained. We would record for hours and hours, and she never so much as asked for anything. She deserves to be where she is at. She is a diamond. Britney’s voice has so much character, it's fragile and she sounds human, if that makes sense? Not intimidating, but inviting. There are many mind-blowing singers, and Britney might not be up there with them, but she has a far better asset, which is the character in her voice. That’s far more important.”

Why do you think the song had the impact it did?

“Well, a lot of things. The melodies were on point, the production was raw, simple and different, but it didn't take over. It was just holding the song’s hand. A production should always support the song not overshadow it. And then, on top of it all: Britney. Who knew that little kid was a beast? She is smart and she has been part of a lot of decisions that led her to be the queen of pop.”

Incredibly, the song is 20 years old this year. What has Britney’s contribution to pop music been?

“Yeah, that's pretty amazing. A lot of artists contribute to pop, but a few with such impact. If pop was a big old oak tree, she is definitely part of those roots.”

You’d go on to write a number of classic pop songs together. What’s special about you, Max Martin and Britney’s chemistry in the studio?

“I don't know, we just clicked. I mean, me and Max were goofballs – easy to get along with, and she felt safe. You fill a room with people that love and respect each other and, most importantly have fun, some good sh!t will come out of there.”

When it came to Oops!... I Did It Again, how had Britney grown as a singer and artist between the two albums?

“Wasn't it barely a year between them (laughs)? I didn't reflect on it, but she was one year older and a little more outgoing, since she had already been on tour and had had success. That speeds up a lot of things.”

What inspired Oops!… lyrically?

“I don't remember 100%, to be honest. For those of us that don't have English as a first language, melody came first and then lyrics. It was not easy for us to write lyrics, but we knew lines had to ‘pop’ and sound like ear candy. ‘Oops’ was a good word to start with. It took us two weeks to finish those lyrics. It was rough, that much I remember...”

The term ‘Oops I Did It Again’ became a cultural catchphrase, one recently referenced by Anne-Marie on 2002, and another by Fall Out Boy on Young And Menace. Did you ever expect the song would have that kind of enduring power?

“Not in a million years... There is no greater reward than when fellow artists you yourself look up to refer to your song you wrote 20 years ago.”

Finally, Oops!... features one of the most iconic pop videos of the ’00s. As a songwriter, is it a thrill to see a song you’ve created in become a massive sci-fi epic video?

“(Laughs) Videos were such a big thing back then. MTV was amazing when it actually was Music TV, so we were super-excited every time they sent a video of a song we'd done. I do remember we were mostly bummed, since we expected Britney to be on a train station for the bridge part! You can clearly hear the sample of an old train and the conductor saying ‘all aboard,’ and in the video they ended up in space and on a planet for the bridge.”

What actually inspired the spoken-word bridge that references Titanic?

“It was us just being stupid and romantic (laughs). We initially had reached out to Leonardo DiCaprio to do it and he said yes, but I think for some-reason politics and copyright laws got in the way.”

 

PRIVATE SHOW (GLORY, 2016)
Written by: Britney Spears, Carla Marie Williams, Tramaine Winfrey and Simon Smith.
Published by: Britney Spears Music/Universal Music Z-Songs, New Crowd Ltd./Audeobox LLC, Nappy Boy/Songs Of Universal, Inc.

 

Carla Marie Williams: “When I heard that Britney was coming back, I was like, ‘You’ve got to work with her, she’s a legend!’ Her team had heard some of the songs that I was doing and heard my voice on some of the tracks and felt I might be a fit for where she wanted to go musically and vocally. They introduced us to each other, and that’s how we basically started with Private Show: she heard some of it, really loved it and then we got into it from there, did some more writing sessions and wrote another song called What You Need. The vibe and energy in the room was so high. People underestimate her vocals – she’s got a big voice. We spent probably a week of writing together and then those two songs blossomed. She, in particular, wanted me to just do what I do, rather than do what everyone has already done for her. Off the back of that, she was looking for a name for her perfume at the time, and she really loved the idea of Private Show, so she made it the soundtrack as well. I was like, ‘This is amazing, this can’t get any better!’ To me, she’s the dying breed of artists that sing, dance and work frickin’ hard, that absolutely craft their skill. They’re superstars, and we don’t have many superstars anymore. We’ve got Beyoncé and Britney, but they’re a dying breed, really, the all-rounders.”

 

SLUMBER PARTY FEAT. TINASHE (GLORY, 2016)
Written by: Mattias Larsson, Robin Fredriksson, Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter.
Published by: Ma-Jay, Wolf Cousins, Warner/Chappell Scandinavia AB, Warner Tamerlane, Thanks For The Songs Richard, Justin’s School For Girls.

 

Justin Tranter: “I’m a huge, huge fan, so to get to work with Britney was an actual dream come true. I mean, she’s literally one of the most iconic voices of all time, one of the most iconic performers of all time. The number of hits she has is truly shocking, the number of amazing songs she has is truly shocking. She had been a fan of songs that me and Julia Michaels did, and we had been asked to go into the studio with her. It was awesome to see what a strong writer she is – she’s got super bold ideas. Of course, if you pay attention to her discography, we’ve seen that she’s the best – but when you see it in real life, it’s a whole different experience. You’re seeing the proof of it all – it’s just amazing.

“Me, Julia, Matt [Larsson] and Robin [Fredriksson] were at Conway recording studios in LA, for a couple of days set aside where we were trying to write for Britney. I think the idea for Slumber Party – like most of the ideas – started in Julia’s brain, and I’m just lucky enough to help organise and elevate them, but I won the lottery there and I’m not afraid to say it.

“It’s always hard for me to tell a story about how the actual song happened, because it all happened so fast, everyone was so excited. All I know is that the first time me and Julia heard Britney sing on the mic in the studio, we were freaking out so much that we actually had to go outside and sit in the hallway because we were disrupting the session. There’s something about Britney’s voice where you just believe every word, you follow the whole story, and I think it’s her vocal tone and her live show that takes it to another level. It was really amazing to have Tinashe with the princess of pop, too – that’s a pretty cool moment for pop culture history. It was amazing to see all the pop fans and Britney fans be so happy and excited and proud of her and the album, and saying this was one of her best videos in recent memory, too.

“I think she’s an amazing example of a woman in control of her destiny, and a woman in control of her sexuality and a woman in control of her vision. And I think that’s such an amazing thing for young people to see. Since day one, you’ve had this young, strong, confident, bold woman with one of the most special voices ever, taking over the planet.”

 

HE ABOUT TO LOSE ME (FEMME FATALE, 2011)
Written by: Rodney Jerkins, Ina Wroldsen.
Published by: Rodney Jerkins/EMI Blackwood, P&P Songs Ltd.

 

Ina Wroldsen: “I love this song. It came about on my first ever trip to LA. I was over there and met Rodney Jerkins at dinner and he asked me to go to the studio, so I went and was super-nervous, because he is one of my heroes. I think the third song we wrote was He About To Lose Me. I’d been to this club with some of my friends and my sister, and I had an argument with my husband. My sister was dancing with this guy and she looked so happy, they were just touching hands, and I just got [the lines], ‘I’m touching hands with someone seriously beautiful, eh-eh-eh,’ and, ‘He about to lose me.’ I like writing about stuff that’s personal. We’re writing about sex a lot now – that’s fine – but I still feel that there’s a holiness and intimacy that I feel sometimes gets lost when we make it too crude. So, I like writing about the stuff that isn’t, ‘Let’s get down to it.’ I like the beginnings of something, and it’s just that image of my sister dancing with this guy! What did Britney bring to the song? She brought Britney, bitch! The first time I heard it I cried thinking, ‘Oh God, I wrote a song for Britney!’ I still remember getting my sister her first CD, I can remember hearing …Baby One More Time and going, ‘What is this!?’ She’s a legend. It’s one of the highlights of my career.”

 

SHADOW (IN THE ZONE, 2003)
Written by: Britney Spears, Lauren Christy, Scott Spock, Graham Edwards and Charlie Midnight.
Published by: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Rights Management.

 

Lauren Christy: “Britney came in to spend a few days with us at The Matrix’s studio. We, of course, prepared things because it was Britney Spears, my goodness! Charlie Midnight, our dear friend, came in and the four of us ruminated on ideas. Charlie and I kicked it outside on the patio and came up with the, ‘It’s only your shadow, never yourself.’ We felt it had a pathos and sadness to it that would be interesting for her to do. Britney’s very discerning about what she wants to do but she loved it. She was so nice, very in control of what she feels she can do and so nice with that Southern charm. The song just came together really easily with her. We had three or four days, and at one point the paps were outside climbing on top of our cars trying to look in… That was awful. But it was lovely in our studio, I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is surreal, I’m chilling with Britney Spears on a couch’ (laughs). I just love the song. She played it live where she went up in the air on a big hoop, and it was an honour for us to work with an icon like Britney Spears. She’s a real talent, and I would love to work with her again. I really want to see her show!”

 

TOXIC (IN THE ZONE, 2003)
Written by: Cathy Dennis, Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg and Henrik Jonback.
Published by: Colgems-EMI, Murlyn Songs, Universal-Polygram.

 

Christian Karlsson: “Before Toxic became a song, basically, it was, like, 10 beats I was working on on just one given day. I had the strings on a loop, and then I left it to think about it. The next day I came back and I listened to it and I was like, ‘This is impossible to make a song out of, but I love it!’ I didn’t know how to make it a song but I wanted to try, so I immediately looked to get some acoustic guitar in there. It was all piece by piece – it was all about trying to make that freaking string thing work in a song without making me nuts. I’m happy we did that.

“We didn’t know it was going to be a big hit or anything, because we didn’t even know if anybody was going to take the song. I sent the song out to the first artist and we didn’t hear anything back. When I was in a session with Britney, I played it for her and her A&R and they we’re like, ‘We’ll get back to you.’ It was still the dark horse on that album, because it wasn’t the first single.

“I worked on Toxic with Cathy Dennis, who I still work with today and every day for the past 15 years. I don’t know what it is about our chemistry in the room, it’s just something where we don’t have any worry that the idea might be crazy, or rubbish, because we just dare to go to any place. Of course, it was also very important I did Toxic with Avant [Pontus Winnberg], that I’m also in Miike Snow with, and I’ve been working with for 20 years.

“Britney just has that tone of voice that, no matter if you like it or not, you know that it’s her. I like that you’re never going to think it’s another artist, you’re going to know that it’s her. I think that’s the most valuable thing, more than maybe being the best singer in the world – to have that tone that is recognisable is worth so much.

“There have been so many different artists and musicians and writers that have praised Toxic, and it’s amazing. To be honest, I was on the younger side when I was writing in the early ’00s. I was writing so much at that point I didn’t want any of my music to be critiqued at all. So when Toxic won the Grammy, I didn’t even go to the ceremony, because I was so against everything that had to do with competing with music – it stressed me out so much. That was me being very young, and I just wanted to be in the studio, basically, and escape that.

“I think Toxic resonated because it was just fresh-sounding, in so many ways, within pop music when it came out. It was both original and very strong in the melody. The production was also something that people thought was very new. I think the Bollywood string thing really grabbed people’s attention.

“It was pretty mind-blowing. I’d had some hits before that, but it was a very big artist and a big single and an amazing video. It was a big moment for me.”




Thanks to Immortal at BMK for posting about it.
MH

New Janet Jackson Music is Coming

Official press release:

Janet Jackson is back with new music! The global icon will release her highly anticipated new single and video for, “Made For Now” in collaboration with Reggaeton superstar Daddy Yankee this Friday, August 17. iTunes pre-order and Spotify pre-save are available today.

Also on August 17, she will perform the song for the first time live with Daddy Yankee on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon at 11:35 p.m. EST.

She set off social media frenzy among her fans when she posted the single’s artwork on her Instagram page this morning. This marks her first new music since her eleventh studio album and seventh #1 album, ‘Unbreakable,’ released in October 2015.

“Made For Now” is inspired by Janet’s personal love of music from around the globe and is produced by Harmony Samuels, who has crafted tracks for Ariana Grande, Mary J. Blige, Maroon 5, and Jennifer Lopez.

The song is meant to move people to enjoy their lives and seize opportunities today, not worry or wait until tomorrow. Shot in Brooklyn, New York, the music video was produced by her longtime collaborator; and Grammy-Award winning Director, Dave Myers and will transport fans to a neighborhood dance party filled with cameos from a contingent of international dancers from Ghana, Nigeria, Grenada, Trinidad and the U.S. who were hand selected by Janet and her longtime Creative Director Gil Duldulao.

“Made For Now” caps an incredible summer for Janet who headlined major festivals including Essence Festival in New Orleans, the largest crowd in its 24-year history. She had press and fans buzzing about her first ever New York festival performance at Panorama, where Billboard said, “Turning out flawlessly executed choreography for over an hour and a half… Jackson is an unstoppable dynamo on stage,” and Vibe said, “We were not only mystified by her presence, but also her dedication to her craft.” It was also recently announced that she would headline the Global Citizen Festival on Sept. 29 in Central Park.

Fans can visit JanetJackson.com for more updates information on upcoming events.

Kelly Clarkson Just Shot the Pilot of Her Talk Show

 

  Quote

ET has learned that the 36-year-old singer filmed her pilot episode at NBC Universal Studios in Los Angeles on Friday. According to an observer, the stage for Clarkson's show is dressed to look like the inside of a barn, with string lights decorating the set and wooden beams with gold records on the walls. The show's band was set up in the corner.

Clarkson started off the taping with a Cardi B cover and, per the observer, she will be doing her own rendition of a popular song at the top of every show. During the test run, The Voice judge explained that she "wanted to make a show that addresses real people with real issues."

Her first celebrity guests included Chloe Grace Moretz, Josh Groban and Terry Crews, as well as a group of quilting ladies from North Carolina, a homeless shelter employee and a couple who was having trouble in the bedroom. The talk show featured games, singing segments and interviews that ranged from silly to sentimental, with the observer noting, "She's definitely still Kelly." There was also a separate guest live audience, who were watching from a salon in Chicago and commented throughout the whole show.

 
https://www.etonline.com/inside-kelly-clarksons-upcoming-daytime-talk-show-exclusive-107795

FRIENDS Cast get 20 Million A Year In Syndication

USA Today - During a break from Oscars week mania in L.A., I took the Warner Bros. VIP studio tour, where I learned from my guide Noah that the Friends cast is still rolling in MAJOR dough more than a decade after the show ended.

How major?

Well, through the magic of syndication revenue, Friends pulls in a whopping $1 billion each year for Warner Bros. Here's the kicker though: That translates into about a $20 million annual paycheck eachfor Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, who each make 2% of that syndication income.

$20 million. Each year. For doing nothing.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2015/02/27/youll-never-believe-how-much-money-the-friends-cast-still-earns-today/77593556/

Can I get 10% please?
MH

Ellie Goulding and Casper Jopling are engaged.

 Ellie Goulding and Casper Jopling are engaged.

The couple announced the happy news in The Times's forthcoming marriages section. "The engagement is announced between Caspar, son of The Hon. Nicholas Jopling of Yorkshire and Mrs. Jayne Warde-Aldam of Yorkshire, and Elena, daughter of Mr. Arthur Goulding of Hertfordshire and Mrs. Tracey Sumner of West Midlands." The announcement comes 18 months after the 31-year-old " Love Me Like You Do" singer began dating Jopling, an Eton-educated art dealer who currently works at Sotheby's and counts Princess Eugenie as a friend. A source told The Sun the bride-to-be is "over the moon" and has "never felt so happy."

As for why they decided to announce the news in The Times, the source told The Sun they "wanted to tell friends and family first and people won't notice because her name is Elena."

Goulding—known for releasing hit singles like "Anything Could Happen," "I Need Your Love," "Lights," "On My Mind," " Starry Eyed" and "Your Song"—has not commented further on the engagement. Her rep confirmed the engagement to E! News, but did not share proposal details. In June, Goulding told The Evening Standard she and Jopling were "really, really happy together."

https://www.eonline.com/news/958124/ellie-goulding-is-engaged-to-caspar-jopling

Congrats to her!
MH

Ruby Rose is the new CW’s Batwoman

Ruby Rose is Batwoman. The CW has officially cast the Orange is the New Black actress as their latest caped hero.
 
The DC Comics character is set to make her debut during this year's Arrowverse crossover event, which was announced in May. Now, the network has found their star and it's a pretty big get, considering that Ruby Rose is an actress who is very much on the rise right now. Not to mention quite popular, which certainly doesn't hurt anything from The CW's point of view.
 
While the Batwoman series hasn't officially been given the green light just yet, this bodes very well for that happening in the near future.
 
https://tvweb.com/batwoman-tv-show-cast-ruby-rose-the-cw/

Kelly Clarkson is getting her own talk show

https://t.co/XXODNwxuQ0?amp=1
 

Kelly Clarkson Prepping Syndicated Daytime Talk Show

Kelly Clarkson

Rich Fury/Getty Images

12:05 PM PDT 8/6/2018 by Lesley Goldberg  

The Grammy winner recently inked a talent deal with NBC Entertainment.

 

Kelly Clarkson is plotting a larger return to TV beyond The Voice.

The Grammy winner is filming a pilot for a syndicated daytime talk show, sources confirm to The Hollywood Reporter. A network is not yet attached but the project is being eyed for a fall 2019 debut via producers NBCUniversal Television Distribution.

Details about exec producers are being kept under wraps. The series could be sold to TV stations in syndication or air on another platform — or perhaps a combination of both.

 

The news comes as the syndication market has a few holes in it heading into the fall after NBCUniversal's Harry Connick Jr.-hosted entry, Harry, will end its run this in September after two seasons.

Clarkson becomes the latest new face to potentially enter the syndication market, joining RuPaul, who is developing a syndicated talk show via Telepictures.

Since winning the first season of American Idol, Clarkson has released eight albums and sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. She most recently hosted the 2018 Billboard Music Awards and appeared on NBC's Red Nose Day special. She next will return to her chair on The Voice as part of a larger talent deal with NBC.

B&C first reported the news

Diplo, Mark Ronson and Dua Lipa Single Coming Soon

From billboard:

 

A new interview with Mark Ronson in UK publication The Times gives exciting new insight into his Silk City project with Diplo, most enticingly a forthcoming single called “Electricity” co-written by Florence Welch and Romy Madley Croft of the xx and featuring vocals by Dua Lipa.

“The song is a belter,” the producer says, “spiritual piano house music like they used to make ... Lipa sounds imperious.” Ronson is quoted as saying Lipa “has this deep, soulful voice that harkens back to gospel house.”


Can't wait for this. I love Dua Lipa's voice.
MH