June 30, 2019 10:53PM PT Variety picked up nine prizes at the Los Angeles Press Club’s SoCal Journalism Awards Sunday at the Biltmore Hotel, including entertainment journalist of the year for chief film critic Owen Gleiberman and best website, traditional news organization, for Variety.com. Gleiberman also won for his memorial tribute “Burt Reynolds: A Movie
Music
“Fifty years, people,” Madonna ad-libbed on Sunday night in Manhattan to a crowd of 7,000 rapturous, mostly shirtless fans. The setting for this 30-minute concert? River Island stage on Pier 97 in Manhattan, better known as “Pride Island.” Madonna’s performance of four songs closed a week of festivities for World Pride, which included the June
“So, it’s time for some truth…,” wrote Borchetta in a lengthy blog post published via the BMLG website which included screen shots of deal memos allegedly sent between November 2018 and June 2019. The deal was voted on between June 25 and 28 during which, Borchetta says, all participants were allowed to go over the
June 30, 2019 4:36PM PT Justin Bieber took to social media Sunday to defend his longtime manager Scooter Braun after Taylor Swift released a statement criticizing him for “manipulative bullying.” Her statement was in response to Braun’s recent acquisition of Big Machine Records, which holds the rights to Swift’s first six albums, all of which
You could almost call it Masterpiece Theater. Following an early Sunday morning announcement that Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings had acquired Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Records for a reported $300 million, Taylor Swift posted an impassioned social media post in which she described feeling “sad and grossed out” by the deal, which includes the rights to
Ithaca Holdings LLC., a media holding company led by SB Projects founder Scooter Braun, has acquired Big Machine Label Group, the independent record label founded by Scott Borchetta, the companies announced today. The acquisition encompasses all aspects of BMLG’s business, including its client roster, distribution deals, publishing sides and owned artist masters — including the
It’s too late to save rock ‘n’ roll, probably. But God bless the Raconteurs for trying. Their impromptu L.A. club show Thursday at an off-the-beaten-track spot down on Pico Blvd. called Jewel’s Catch One was thrill-ride enough to turn even the most dedicated post-guitar-nation popists among us back into rockists, if just for a night.
June 28, 2019 5:50PM PT [embedded content] Lady Gaga made a surprise appearance Friday at Pride Live’s Stonewall Day Concert, an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. The event is part of a weekend of Pride events, culminating with Sunday’s march. Gaga, a vocal supporter of LGBTQ rights, delivered an impassioned speech
Imagine directing your first music video ever — and it’s J. Cole’s “Middle Child.” Mez has a hard time calling himself a rapper because he feels the term is limiting. He states, “I love rapping but that’s not where it’s going to end for me. I see so much for myself as a creative.” Creative
iHeartMedia will begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on July 18th, as a direct listing rather than an initial public offering, the company announced today. The move is similar to the one Spotify took last year and frees the company from some of the restrictions of a traditional IPO. It will trade under
Separately, J Balvin and Bad Bunny — respectively, Colombia’s global ambassador of reggaeton and Puerto Rico’s leader of Latin trap — have remade the future of Caribbean culture and Spanish-language hip-hop in their image and, more importantly their heritage. If there is a revolution to be had in the new crossover market, these men have
At this point last year, we began this article by saying, “Like so many other things in 2018, the music scene is loud, unsettled and afflicated with an ever-shortening attention span.” And like so many other things in 2019, that statement remains true — but more. The past 12 months have seen the rocketing rise
Before becoming a chart-topping superstar rapper, Nicki Minaj worked as a waitress at Red Lobster – and she hadn’t ever set foot back in the establishment until returning for a date with Jimmy Fallon. In a segment that aired on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” Thursday night, Fallon and the “Megatron” singer dined at
June 28, 2019 9:55AM PT Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler reportedly has been hospitalized after a self-inflicted knife wound that some outlets are calling a possible suicide attempt, according to TMZ and People. A rep for Adler, 54, did not immediately respond to Variety’s request for comment. Officer Mike Lopez of the Los
Rob Light, managing partner of Creative Artists Agency, and his wife Shelly have announced a gift of $300,000 that will support scholarships for historically underrepresented students pursuing studies in Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, its Bandier Program in Recording and Entertainment Industries, and the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA). Light
The provocatively titled show “Killing Michael Jackson” pieces together the investigation into the pop superstar’s death a decade later and examines his relationship with his personal physician, Conrad Murray, who was imprisoned for involuntary manslaughter in 2011. U.K. producers Zig Zag secured access to case files and the audio recording of a police interview with
June 28, 2019 5:58AM PT Cold War Kids, the modern rock band from Long Beach, Calif. who scored a No. 1 alternative hit with 2015’s “First,” has signed with AWAL, the recording arm of Kobalt. The worldwide deal encompasses marketing, synch licensing and global distribution for future releases. The band had previously released seven studio
If Kim Petras ever decides to detour from music into academia, she could teach a master class on the art of rebooting your public narrative. The German singer-songwriter was born Tim Petras in 1992 and at age 16, made headline news around the world as one of the youngest people ever to undergo gender-reassignment surgery.
Thom Yorke is obsessed with sleep, rest, REM and dreams: the hope, outward process and inward psychology of it all. Perhaps that ongoing concern is a Jungian reaction to the constant churn of low level anxiety that’s made up the Radiohead man’s existence since 1983’s “Pablo Honey,” or the deeper panic lived out through solo
Khalid’s dancers went through a good number of costume changes during Wednesday night’s Staples Center show, but the star himself took just one. During a mid-show video montage, he disappeared from the stage wearing shiny basketball shorts and a Gucci T-shirt. When he reemerged, he was wearing shiny basketball shorts and one of his own
June 27, 2019 4:53PM PT A 1991 recording of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” by Whitney Houston will be released on Friday, June 29. The song was first performed at a Tokyo concert in 1990 and features Houston at the top of her vocal game. The recording was intended for her third album, “I’m Your Baby
Since her latest album “Cuz I Love You” dropped last spring, Lizzo has been everywhere. She performed at Coachella (with her trusty flute named Sasha), rocked the Met Gala in a cotton-candy pink gown and sat next to Sandra Bullock at the MTV Movie and TV Awards. Over the weekend, she sang “Truth Hurts” at
June 27, 2019 1:32PM PT Rapper Nipsey Hussle was shot after getting into a conversation with his alleged killer over snitching, according to grand jury documents released on Thursday. A judge ordered the transcript released on Thursday, following a motion from the Los Angeles Times. The 29-year-old suspect, Eric Holder, has been indicted on murder
Albums by Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Halsey, Khalid, BTS and Bad Bunny led to a record 507 billion on-demand streams in the first six months of 2019, according to Nielsen’s mid-year report, which “outlines the music industry’s leading trends, data and insights over the past six months.” Breaking down the leading trends via the Gracenote
Possibly the only person who can unlock all the mysteries of J. Cole is Ibrahim “IB” Hamad, the rapper’s label co-owner, business partner, manager and pal since the two attended St. John University in Queens together as young students. And there’s no shortage of secrets that the two share, like exactly what’s in store for
Jake Owen, who recently had his seventh No. 1 single at country radio, is at the top of the charts with a lot of gay country fans now that he’s expressed his solidarity with the LGBT community — a move that doesn’t come without at least some controversy among the genre’s fan base. His cheeky
June 27, 2019 7:25AM PT Longtime Sylvan Esso manager Martin Anderson has announced a new venture, The Glow, an artist management company based in Durham, North Carolina. In addition to working with Sylvan Esso since their inception, Anderson also manages a host of artists including Mountain Man, Wye Oak, Phil Cook and Bowerbirds. Newcomers Molly
For a group that’s rising fast with the song “Act Up,” City Girls — the Miami-spawned duo of Yung Miami and JT — haven’t really stuck to anyone’s idea of a marketing plan: JT is in prison, serving out a two-year sentence for credit card fraud, and Yung Miami is pregnant. Yet as their hot singles,
It’s not just Caylee Hammack’s red hair that’s boldly aflame in her new music video for “Just Friends,” for which Variety has the exclusive premiere. She’s incensed that a former pal talked her into un-friend-zoning her, with predictably unsatisfactory romantic results, and that ire plays out in an amusingly feisty single that uses traditional country
June 27, 2019 6:11AM PT Himesh Patel is not only making his feature film debut in “Yesterday,” but he’s also happens to be the star of the movie.In the romantic comedy, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Richard Curtis, Patel plays an aspiring musician who wakes ups from an accident to find that he