Latest news with #Grammys'
Korea Herald
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Dane joins Grammys 'ReImagined' series
Emerging Korean artist reinterprets Giveon's 'Heartbreak Anniversary' Rising Korean R&B artist Dane, who is signed with Nostalgiaa Records, was featured in the Grammys' official YouTube content series "ReImagined" on Wednesday. "ReImagined" invites a new generation of artists to reinterpret Grammy-winning or nominated tracks through their own musical lens. For the project, Dane reimagined Giveon's 'Heartbreak Anniversary,' a track nominated for best R&B song at the 2022 Grammy Awards. With his signature emotive vocals and minimalist arrangement, Dane offers a fresh take while preserving the original track's tenderness and melancholy. 'Accompanied only by guitar, Dane softens the original's layered production into a stripped-down arrangement filled with raw vulnerability,' the official Grammy website noted. Dane debuted in 2024 with 'Selfie,' portraying heartbreak with his gentle voice and simple guitar sound. He followed up this year with 'She Said,' again showcasing his strength in blending honest storytelling with music. Nostalgiaa Records focuses on authenticity-driven artists unconstrained by genre or convention. The label has quickly gained attention for cultivating musicians who are seen to represent the voice and spirit of Generation Z.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ashanti, Fabolous, Lloyd, And More Spread Nostalgic Love At My Platinum Playlist Concert
My Platinum Playlist invaded Los Angeles last weekend (May 10) for the ultimate millennial affair. Presented by Bobby Dee and hosted by J. Valentino, the concert brought hundreds of fans to the Greek Theatre for an evening of Hip-Hop and R&B. The sun blared over the outdoor venue with temperatures well into the 90s, foreshadowing the heat that later arrived on stage. As evening set in, the party began with a lively performance from Lumidee, cementing the party vibes at the nostalgic showcase. Nina Sky, Mike Jones, Lloyd, and Jeremih also performed their fan-favorite records as the audience stood on their feet and sang every word. As the event continued, Fabolous took the stage to perform To close the night, the 'princess' of Hip-Hop and R&B arrived centerstage in a camouflage outfit with eye-catching pink thigh-high boots. The chart-topping musician interacted with the crowd, inviting a sing-along to her biggest melodic hits. A special moment came when Lloyd returned and joined Ashanti on stage for a performance of their 2004 song 'Southside.' After they sang, Lloyd wished Ashanti a happy Mother's Day in her first year celebrating the annual holiday as a parent. Take a look at moments from My Platinum Playlist in Los Angeles below. More from Ashanti Blasted By Chris Gotti For Denying Relationship With Irv Gotti: "I Was Their Therapist" Nelly And Ashanti Embody Relationship Goals With Recent Serenade Chris Brown Led The Star-Studded Tycoon Music Festival For An Unforgettable Detroit Night Best of 10 Rap Albums Snubbed Of The Grammys' Album Of The Year Award 21 Black Entertainers Who Are Almost EGOT Winners 11 Black-Owned Games To Play At The Next Function Or Kick Back
New York Times
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Johnny Mathis Is Retiring From Touring After Almost 70 Years of Crooning
Johnny Mathis, a pop music singer and one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, said this week that he would perform only four more live concerts before retiring from touring after nearly 70 years. Known for his 'velvet voice' on romantic ballads like 'It's Not for Me to Say' and 'Wonderful! Wonderful!' Mr. Mathis has been singing standards and soft rock since his teenage years, but he started touring professionally after his debut album was released in 1956. Mr. Mathis, 89, will pick up the microphone for shows in April and May, but his concerts scheduled for the summer and fall have been canceled. 'It's with sincere regret that due to Mr. Mathis's age and memory issues which have accelerated, we are announcing his retirement from touring and live concerts,' a statement posted on his website said. Mr. Mathis's final concert is scheduled for May 18 at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, N.J. The other concerts are April 10 in Shippensburg, Pa.; April 26 in Shipshewana, Ind.; and May 10 in Santa Rosa, Calif. Some tickets remain available for his final concerts, his website noted, and refunds will be issued for the ones that were canceled. Mr. Mathis grew up in San Francisco, where in 1955 he got a job singing on the weekends at a club. Its owner eventually persuaded George Avakian, a record producer and talent scout with Columbia Records, to see him. After he listened to Mr. Mathis sing, Mr. Avakian sent a telegram to Columbia that read, 'Have found phenomenal 19 year old boy who could go all the way. Send blank contracts.' Mr. Mathis is widely recognized as a pioneer of the romantic ballad style that emerged in the 1950s as a pop-music alternative to high-energy rock 'n' roll. Mr. Mathis would go on to make more top-selling albums than any other modern pop performer except Frank Sinatra, by the end of the 1970s. Forty years ago this month, the critic Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times that 'Johnny Mathis is still the most compelling exponent of a time-honored crooning tradition carried forward in recent years by the Bee Gees, George Benson, Al Jarreau and Julio Iglesias.' Mr. Holden noted in his review of a concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York that while Mr. Mathis's 'ethereal, androgynous tenor, with its built-in sob and breathy hesitations, has darkened perceptibly, it communicates the same aura of adolescent longing that it did in 1957.' In 2003, Mr. Mathis received the Grammys' lifetime achievement award. At his peak, he was booking some 200 concert dates a year. 'The road is my home,' he once said. 'I carry my best friends with me. We work together, play together. I have no other life.' But midway through his career, Mr. Mathis admitted that he was uncomfortable onstage. 'I hate it,' he said. 'But it's something I'll have to do all my life. I don't know how to do anything else. 'There are moments when the emotion comes out and I get absolutely carried away, and I know that this is right, this is wonderful.'
CBC
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Lowell co-wrote Beyonce's Texas Hold 'Em and has the Grammy nods to prove it. Now she's gunning for a Juno
Elizabeth Boland — professionally known by her middle name, Lowell — is sitting in a tiny Toronto studio. The wood-panelled room may be small, but it's where she's crafted many of her hits, and it shows. In front of her sit both a Juno and a framed gold record for The Beaches' Blame My Ex, the album she co-produced and the hit track, Blame Brett, which she co-wrote. To her right is a Wurlitzer electric piano, which, she remarks, is just like the one she brought on tour for one of her three critically acclaimed albums. To her left is a PR person, bashfully telling the story about the time her five-year-old asked Lowell what Beyoncé smells like (the answer was rather unsurprising: she smells great). And in her lap is a guitar, currently being used to play the track that captured that kid's attention, no less the rest of the world: Texas Hold 'Em. The genre-melding soul/R&B/folk/country song helped launch country back into the pop culture stratosphere, Beyoncé finally onto the Grammys' stage for album of the year, and a number of Canadians onto Canada's relatively equivalent stage this March. "I did joke that, you know, if they didn't make this category this year, I was going to be mad," Lowell says of the new non-performing songwriter category at the Junos. She's up for it this year for co-writing both Cowboy Carter 's Texas Hold 'Em and Bodyguard (as well as for co-writing The Beaches song Takes One to Know One). That nomination came shortly after she shared two Grammy nominations with Beyoncé for best song and best country song. "Because if I got a Grammy [nomination] ahead of getting a Juno, that would be pretty bad. You know?" In her 'big sister era' The half-serious barb showcases the typical temperament of Lowell, a woman whose feminist, self-possessed lyrics mixed with occasionally heartrending, mournful arrangements have come to colour some of the biggest songs in pop music. Those qualities are likely drawn from life experiences: a driven confidence paired with natural sensitivities (she has both perfect pitch and synesthesia, a neurological condition that is not uncommon among artists) pushed her toward music in a family of non-musicians. Then dropping out of a stuffy classical music program, years of intermittent, unreliable and unrewarding work outside of the industry — and a critically lauded but commercially-stunted debut album — left her somewhat jaded. Her experiences with these hardships have found their way into her music, guiding her to what she calls her current "big sister era." It's pushed her to protect and guide the songs and careers of musicians like Hailee Steinfeld and Madison Beer — Lowell wrote much of Steinfeld's EP Half Written Story and helped write nearly all of Beer's album Life Support. And she's also developing the up and coming Nova Scotia artist Baby Nova. When you're in a room with her, you can't help but notice that she has a bit of an iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove sensibility. She's kind and funny, but not the type to be sensitive about touchy issues. When a side-conversation around a particularly prickly subject for music nerds comes up — whether learning music theory is all that important to crafting great songs — she doesn't have to think hard for an answer. While she's more inclined to follow more contemporary, pop-oriented schools of thought than classical techniques when crafting songs, she still always has theory in mind. It means that while creators who have no knowledge of theory might need to rely on fleeting inspiration when they have off days, Lowell can fall back on her training to crank out something good enough to get to the next opportunity. When it's pointed out that some musicians feel that academic, theory-guided thinking gets in the way of an organic connection to the music, she finds it funny. People with that opinion on music, she says, probably don't find themselves in working studios as often as she does. "I'm a fighter. I love to just stir the pot a little bit," she says later, laughing. "I always joke, like, 'I'm not necessarily liked, but sometimes respected.' " Bittersweet victories It's been a hard-fought-for respect. And though she presents her lack of Junos as a joke, there is a sad bit of truth there; it's not bitterness, she's quick to note, but something close. Because while she's spent her decade-plus in the industry writing songs for big names like the Backstreet Boys, Charlie XCX, JoJo and Demi Lovato, Lowell's own name has been slower to take hold. When it comes to established performers, especially American ones, that's more or less to be expected. But what was harder was seeing the Canadian artists she wrote for — Tate McRae, Bülow and yes, The Beaches — earning accolades and awards from their shared home country. Bülow's win at the 2019 Junos for the EP Damaged and its double-platinum single Not a Love Song is a particularly difficult memory for Lowell. "It was bittersweet … being there, meant to celebrate about it, but not really being allowed to be celebrated for it," Lowell says. Because, even while stressing the joy she felt for her collaborator, that moment highlighted the intractably tough ceiling Canadian songwriters often crash into. "I co-wrote that whole EP with her and I did feel like, you know, all of the creators behind it needed to be rewarded, not just a couple of select people," she says. "So that was when I really started thinking about this category, and whether it needed to change." WATCH | Lowell on her Grammy nomination: Calgary artist nominated for Grammy for work on Beyoncé album 4 months ago Duration 1:03 Changing the game That thinking translated first into a common strategy for Canadian songwriters — moving to L.A., where it seemed necessary to go to find work and recognition. But after the move and steady success, her strategy changed. Instead of accepting the bleak prospects currently on offer for songwriters in Canada, she thought, why not work to change them? "The way that Canada doesn't embrace their own talent can be a little bit of a deterrent to sticking around," she explains. "I went down there, but I think that it's in coming back I've realized you can make more change. You can't just run away from things all the time." Now, the category she's championed for years finally exists. And its existence means that as fellow Canadians Shawn Everett and Jack Rochon compete for their work as producers on Cowboy Carter, she and her Canadian Texas Hold 'Em co-writer Nathan Ferraro also get to head to Canada's biggest night of music for their chance at a Juno. To be fair, she already picked up Billboard Canada's inaugural non-performing songwriter award last year. And if she wins at the Junos, she already has her (fingers crossed) speech planned out. Like this year's Grammy-winner Amy Allen, who lamented that it's only the third year of their non-performing songwriter award, she would acknowledge and thank all the songwriters who came before her. But more than that, Lowell wants to keep fighting for songwriters who don't want to flee south. "My hope is for people to be able to stay here," she says, while admitting that the competitive nature she learned in L.A. helped her back home. "I'm hoping I can bring that nature here, bring up talent here … so that people, at least, don't have to go so early to find their way, you know?"
Los Angeles Times
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
There are plenty of cheap seats left for Beyoncé's ‘Cowboy Carter' tour. A bad omen for live music?
Beyoncé's 'Cowboy Carter' just took home the Grammys' top prize, but fans in some markets aren't yet pulling the trigger on buying her concert tickets. The pop megastar's upcoming 'Cowboy Carter' tour seemed as sure a bet as is possible in live music, given her album of the year win that followed the sold-out Renaissance tour, which was in such high demand that American fans flew to Europe for a discount. But as several outlets noticed, to judge by prices for available seats in prime cities like Los Angeles, the Beyhive seems slower to return to stadiums this time around. Tickets for the opening of her five-night SoCal run, April 28 at SoFi Stadium, as of Wednesday morning are still widely available and selling for as little at $59 (and that's all-in pricing including fees) on Ticketmaster's Verified Resale program. Subsequent dates at SoFi are going for as low as $35. Tickets are going for similar price points around the country and in other markets like the U.K. While Beyoncé's album is rooted in country and her Texas music heritage, aside from a hometown Houston run, she's avoiding country music strongholds like Nashville. Live Nation has cited a 94% sellout rate, but the prevalence of available resale tickets at rock-bottom prices suggests that fans, at best, are having some buyer's remorse. While music fans are again battered by recession fears and ongoing inflation, and some festivals have seen softening demand, other marquee runs from Oasis and Olivia Rodrigo haven't seen similar lags. It's hard to know if soft demand is due to economic fears, an overbooked tour or something more ephemeral about 'Cowboy Carter's' impact outside of awards season. But even a few months ago, it was unthinkable that an artist of Beyoncé's caliber would have trouble moving tickets. Ring the alarm for an impending recession?
