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10 Aug 2023

2023 ACM Honors to Air on Fox: Here’s the Date

The 16th Annual Academy of Country Music Honors will air on FOX for a second year. The show, which will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 23, at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, will air as a two-hour special on Monday, Sept. 18 (8-19 p.m. ET/PT).

The event, which the ACM likes to call the “country music industry’s favorite night,” will recognize several special honorees, including ACM Triple Crown Award recipient Chris Stapleton; ACM Poet’s Award recipients Clint Black, Mary Chapin Carpenter and K.T. Oslin; ACM International Award recipient Kane Brown; ACM Icon Award recipient Tim McGraw; and ACM Lift Every Voice Award recipient Breland

Four-time ACM Award winner Carly Pearce will return for a third year to host the ceremony. Pearce will also perform on the show, as will Breland, Chris Janson, Lady A, Keith Urban, Trisha Yearwood, Brandy Clark, Jordan Davis, The War and Treaty, Bailey Zimmerman, Emily Shackelton, Anne Wilson and more. The full line-up of artists included in the FOX primetime special will be released in the coming weeks.

“We are thrilled to be working with FOX for a second year to bring one of our industry’s favorite nights, filled with emotional tributes and unforgettable performances, to primetime television,” Academy of Country Music CEO Damon Whiteside said in a statement.

Other recipients of special awards, in addition to those already named, include Charlie Cook, Charlie Daniels, Mike Dungan, Ashley Gorley, HARDY, Bill Mayne and Troy Vollhoffer. 

The 16th Annual ACM Honors will be produced for television by ACM Productions LLC. Damon Whiteside is executive producer for the Academy of Country Music, and Martin Fischer is executive producer for Opry Entertainment. Edie Lynn Hoback is producer.

VIP packages for ACM Honors, including seating in the exclusive artist pit, access to a VIP pre-party reception, and a limited-edition Hatch Show print poster commemorating the show, are available for on AXS. 

10 Aug 2023

Country & Pop Are Tied on Top as Latin Leaps: The State of the Hot 100’s Top 10, Mid-2023

What were some of the most notable trends on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart in the first half of 2023?

Hit Songs Deconstructed, which provides compositional analytics for top 10 Hot 100 hits, has released its State of the Hot 100 Top 10: Mid-Year 2023 report.

Here are three takeaways from Hit Songs Deconstructed’s latest in-depth research.

Country Remains Tied With Pop

In the first six months of 2023, country and pop remained tied as the most common primary genres in the Hot 100’s top 10, each contributing to 23% of all top 10 hits. Country and pop shared the lead in Q1 2023, at 26% each.

“Country was the big gainer, tying pop for top honors largely thanks to the success of Morgan Wallen,” Hit Songs Deconstructed’s report notes. “The genre skyrocketed from just 4% of songs in 2022 to nearly one-quarter in the first half of 2023, the highest level it’s been in over a decade.”

Wallen’s haul has been led by “Last Night,” which first topped the Hot 100 dated March 18 and has reigned for 15 weeks, matching for the fourth-longest command in the chart’s history.

State of the Hot 100 Top 10 Mid-Year 2023

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As for pop, despite its domination, its 23% share of all Hot 100 top 10s in the first half of 2023 continues a decline for the genre, from 35% in all of 2022; a leading 39% in 2021; 40% in 2020; and a winning 47% in 2019.

At the same time, as Hit Songs Deconstructed noted earlier this year, while country has ascended in the Hot 100’s top 10, driven by Wallen’s hits, the genre boasts notable similarities to pop songs.

Hip-hop’s presence likewise continued to fall among Hot 100 top 10s, with its 14% take in the first half of 2023 good for a third-place tie among primary genres, down noticeably from a first-place 38% finish in 2022; 34% in 2021; a leading 41% in 2020; and 34% in 2019.

“With pop and hip-hop both dropping in the first six months of 2023, the former [sank] to its lowest level in over a decade and the latter plummet[ed] to its lowest level since 2016,” the report points out.

Meanwhile, Latin tied hip-hop in the first half of 2023 with its 14% share of all Hot 100 top 10s. The genre rose to its “highest level in over a decade,” notes Hit Songs Deconstructed, “thanks in part to Bad Bunny and Shakira (two hits each) and Peso Pluma and Eslabon Armado’s breakout regional Mexican hit, ‘Ella Baila Sola.’ ”

Country Helps Bring Back Guitars

Hit Songs Deconstructed riffs on the rise of guitars in the Hot 100’s top over the first half of 2023.

“Guitars, both electric and acoustic, rose to their highest levels since 2014 and over a decade, respectively,” in the chart’s top 10 in that span, according to the mid-year recap. “While this is largely due to the influx of country hits in the top 10, guitar was notably used in hits from other genres, as well, including pop (Jimin’s ‘Like Crazy’), R&B/soul (SZA’s ‘Kill Bill’), hip-hop (Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj’s ‘Princess Diana’), dance/club (Beyoncé’s ‘Cuff It’), rock (Steve Lacy’s ‘Bad Habit’) and Latin (‘Ella Baila Sola’).”

Plus, “acoustic drums tripled in prominence over 2022 to just under one-fifth of songs, its highest level since 2015,” Hit Songs Deconstructed notes of the instrument’s presence in the Hot 100’s top 10 from January through June. “Their use also spanned an array of genres, including country, Latin, pop and R&B/soul.”

Key Change: A Major Development

As country and pop outperformed hip-hop in the Hot 100’s top bracket, “top 10s with a major tonality increased to just over half of songs in the first half of 2023, surpassing minor-keyed songs for the first time since 2014,” Hit Songs Deconstructed further analyzes.

Major-keyed Hot 100 top 10s in the first six months of 2023 squeaked past those primarily in a minor key, 51% to 49%. Minor-key top 10s had won handily in recent years, including in 2022 (58% to 39%), 2021 (59% to 39%), 2020 (60% to 40%) and 2019 (55% to 43%). (In each year noted, between 0 and 2% of all top 10s have been characterized by Hit Songs Deconstructed in both major and minor keys.)

“Outside the hip-hop genre, major was slightly more common (57% vs. 43%), while within hip-hop, minor has been in the majority for over a decade and accounted for 80% of songs in the first half of the year,” Hit Songs Deconstructed adds.

Among notable major-key Hot 100 top 10s in the first half of 2023 were Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” Rema and Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down” and Luke Combs’ “Fast Car.”

10 Aug 2023

TOMORROW X TOGETHER Are Dior’s Newest Brand Ambassadors

Dior has found its latest brand ambassadors in the boys of TOMORROW X TOGETHER. The luxury fashion house announced its partnership with the K-pop group on Thursday (Aug. 10), with each member slated to work with the brand.

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“Dior is pleased to announce global icons @TXT_BigHit as new Dior ambassadors, further cementing the House’s bond with the South Korean group,” the brand wrote on Instagram, captioning photos of the quintet in coordinated brown, black cream and gray-toned ensembles. “Discover the stage looks custom designed by @MrKimJones for band members SOOBIN, YEONJUN, BEOMGYU, TAEHYUN and HUENINGKAI to wear at their recent Lollapalooza festival headlining performance in Chicago.”

In a follow up post, the fashion house revealed that the group’s outfits for its set at the festival — where TXT performed several hits from recent album Sweet in addition to fan-favorite tracks — were designed by Dior Men’s artistic director Kim Jones “with each singer embodying the singularity and timeless modernity of Dior style.”

MOA flocked to the comments section of Dior’s announcement posts and expressed their gratitude at the boys being selected to represent the brand. “You chose the best ambassadors, they are tall, beautiful and so talented…and they like to make a statement with their fashion choice,” one fan wrote. Another added, “Congrats TXT. Proud of them. Dior is really lucky to have them all.”

Several MOA also commented that Dior is “OT5,” meaning the brand equally loves and supports each member of the group.

See Dior’s announcement below.

10 Aug 2023

10 Songs You Didn’t Know Chris Stapleton Wrote

Over the past 15 years, Chris Stapleton has ascended from his days as the mighty-voiced frontman and guitarist-writer for groups including the bluesy-bluegrass outfit The SteelDrivers and hard-charging rock group The Jompson Brothers to one of country music’s most formidable solo artists, having been nominated for the Country Music Association’s entertainer of the year trophy six times.

He’s also become an in-demand collaborator, for artists including Adele, Pink, Carly Pearce and Taylor Swift, known as a vocalist capable of extracting every ounce of emotion from a song.

2015 marked a breakthrough moment for Chris Stapleton’s solo career, when he teamed with Justin Timberlake for a collaborative performance at that year’s CMA Awards — performing a mashup of Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” with Timberlake’s “Drink You Away.” “Tennessee Whiskey,” a song previously recorded by both David Allan Coe and George Jones, would become a modern-day classic, thanks to Stapleton’s ruggedly soulful rendering.

“Tennessee Whiskey” helped propel Stapleton’s debut solo album Traveller to the peak of the Billboard 200 albums chart for two weeks, as well as a staggering 29 weeks at the pinnacle of Billboard‘s Top Country Albums. His followup albums From A Room, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, each also lifted to No. 1 on Top Country Albums, as did his 2020 album Starting Over. He’s earned two more No. 1 hits on Hot Country Songs, with “Starting Over” and “You Should Probably Leave.”

He’s taken home eight Grammy wins, as well as winning the CMA’s male vocalist of the year six times and the album of the year honor three times. He’s gearing up to release his latest album, Higher, on Nov. 10 and just issued his latest single, “White Horse.”

But before the sold-out tours, accolades and chart-topping solo hits, Stapleton had long been gaining traction in Nashville’s music industry circles as not only a peerless vocalist, but a top-shelf songwriter, writing hits for Kenny Chesney, Josh Turner, Sheryl Crow, Joss Stone, Alison Krauss & Union Station and many others.

Here, we look at some of the top songs Stapleton has written for other artists.

10 Aug 2023

Pink Fan Goes Into Labor at Her Concert, Names Baby After Singer

Raise your glass! A Pink fan named Angela Mercer is now the proud mother of a new baby boy, whom she named in honor of the “So What” singer after going into an early labor at the star’s Fenway Park concert in Boston.

Mercer and her family had traveled from Albany, N.Y., to see the July 31 show — meaning, she was a long way from her hometown hospital when she started experiencing labor pains shortly after arriving at the venue. “At only 31 weeks pregnant, Angela hadn’t been expecting her son’s arrival quite yet, but she started having contractions,” reads a press release from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital about the birth. “She called her doctor, who advised her to get to a hospital.”

“With all the traffic surrounding Fenway for the concert, Angela had trouble finding a ride to the hospital,” it continued. “She and her family decided the fastest way to get to Brigham and Women’s was to walk — and so, decked out in their concert outfits, they made the trek to our hospital where Angela later delivered her son in the Brigham’s NICU.”

The hospital also revealed that the baby boy — or, “Pink’s newest, youngest, fan” — was named Aycen Hart. Pink shares her last name with husband Carey Hart, as well as both of their children: Willow Sage Hart and Jameson Moon Hart. 

Little Aycen has since been transported from Boston to a NICU in Albany, where he’s been able to receive preemie care much closer to home. “My husband Ace and I are so incredibly grateful to the exceptional team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital!” Mercer said in a statement. “The medical, case management, and social work staff guided us confidently with their knowledge and expertise, all while being personable, empathetic, and engaging. We are sincerely appreciative.”

The miracle birth isn’t the first time something bizarre has gone down at a Pink concert in recent months, though. She was handed a full-sized wheel of Brie cheese while performing, recently, and someone gave Pink their mother’s ashes while she was onstage at BST Hyde Park.

See photos of little Aycen Hart here.

10 Aug 2023

15 Musicians Who Have Streamed With Kai Cenat: Drake, Ice Spice, 21 Savage & More

The record-breaking Twitch streamer has already amassed an impressive list of guest stars from the worlds of rap, R&B and pop.

Kai Cenat & Ice Spice

Kai Cenat & Ice Spice

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From Billie Eilish to Ice Spice, the 2000s babies have been making their presence known across the entertainment industry over the past few years. Bridging the worlds of Twitch livestreams and music is 21-year-old streamer and content creator Kai Cenat.

Earlier this week (Aug. 4), Cenat made national headlines when a giveaway he organized in Union Square, Manhattan, devolved into a riot that injured several people and damaged countless pieces of property. Cenat was taken into custody by the NYPD and charged with first-degree rioting, inciting a riot, and unlawful assembly. 65 of the hundreds of people present were arrested for the participation in the riot.

While the unfortunate failure of his giveaway gifted many people their first introduction to Kai Cenat, the streamer’s 23 million-strong follower total across social media platforms proves how deeply he and his content have penetrated both Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Hailing from The Bronx, New York, Cenat is the most-subscribed Twitch streamer of all time, and the winner of streamer of the year at the 12th Annual Streamy Awards. Cenat has also crossed over into music, releasing several like 2022’s “Bustdown Rollie Avalanche” (with NLE Choppa) and this year’s “Dogs” (with IShowSpeed). This May, Cenat performed the intro for the Fast X soundtrack, which peaked at No. 79 on the Billboard 200.

Kai Cenat’s combination of comedy, gaming, and music, specifically hip-hop and R&B, have helped him grow into one of the most influential content creators for the next generation — and that hasn’t gone unnoticed by some of music’s biggest stars.

Spurred by a genuine love for Cenat and knowledge of his powerful social media reach, several key artists across contemporary hip-hop, pop and R&B have streamed with the cross-platform powerhouse.

Here are 15 musicians who have streamed and collaborated with Kai Cenat:

10 Aug 2023

Zendaya Shares Touching Mural of Late ‘Euphoria’ Co-Star Angus Cloud

As the entertainment world continues to grapple with the sudden death of Euphoria star Angus Cloud, Zendaya, his Emmy-winning co-star on the hit HBO drama, continues to pay tribute to her late colleague and friend.

On Thursday (Aug. 10), Zendaya took to her Instagram Story to share a picture of a touching mural in tribute of Cloud. Painted in his hometown of Oakland, Calif., the mural features a massive rendering of a smiling Cloud with notes of love written alongside it. The Dune star also shared a picture of a graffiti-covered sign that read “no love fades.” According to TMZ, the mural was painted by some of Cloud’s friends and has since become a place for friends and fans to grieve him. 

The day after Cloud’s passing, Zendaya shared her own written tribute to her late friend. “Words are not enough to describe the infinite beauty that is Angus (Conor),” she wrote. “I’m so grateful I got the chance to know him in this life, to call him a brother, to see his warm kind eyes and bright smile, or hear his infectious cackle of a laugh (I’m smiling now just thinking of it).”

In a statement to Entertainment Tonight, the Oakland Fire Department said that, currently, Cloud’s “cause of death is unknown.” The late actor’s mother, Lisa Cloud McLaughlin, has denied speculation that he died by suicide. “I [also] want you to know that although my son was in deep grief about his father’s untimely death from mesothelioma, his last day was a joyful one,” she wrote on Facebook Aug. 5. “He was reorganizing his room and placing items around the house with intent to stay a while in the home he loved. He spoke of his intent to help provide for his sisters at college, and also help his mom emotionally and financially. He did not intend to end his life.”

Angus Cloud was 25 years old.

10 Aug 2023

Meet Jen, Futureverse’s New Text-to-Music AI Generator

Futureverse — a multi-hyphenate AI company — published a new research paper on Thursday (June 9) to introduce its forthcoming text-to-music generator. Called Jen-1, the unreleased model is designed to improve upon issues found in currently available music generators like Google’s MusicLM, providing higher fidelity audio and longer, more complex musical works than what is on the market today.

“Jen is spelled J-E-N because she’s designed to be your friend who goes into the studio with you. She’s a tool,” says Shara Senderoff, co-founder of Futureverse and co-founder of Raised in Space, about the model in an exclusive first-look with Billboard. Predicted to release in early 2024, Jen can form up-to three minute songs as well as help producers with half-written songs through offering ‘continuation’ and ‘in-painting’ as well.

‘Continuation’ allows a music maker to upload an incomplete song to Jen and direct the model to create a plausible idea of how to finish the song, and ‘in-painting’ refers to a process by which the model can fill in spaces of a song that are damaged or incomplete in the middle of the work. To Aaron McDonald, the company’s co-founder, Jen’s role is to “extend creativity” of human artists.

When asked why Jen is a necessary invention during a time in which producers, songwriters and artists are more bountiful than ever, McDonald replied, “I think musicians throughout the ages have always embraced new technology that expands the way they can create music,” pointing to electronic music as one example of how new tools shape musical evolution. “To imply that music doesn’t need [any new] technology to expand and become better now is kind of silly… and arbitrary.”

He also sees this as a way to “democratize” the “high end of music [quality],” which he says is now only accessible to musicians with the means to record at a well-equipped studio and with trained technicians. With Jen, Johnson and Senderoff hope to satisfy the interests of professional musicians and to encourage newcomers to dabble in songwriting, perhaps for the first time. The two co-founders imagine a world in which everyday people can create music, and have nicknamed the products of this type of user as ‘AIGC,’ a twist on the term User Generated Content (or ‘UGC’).

Futureverse was formed piecemeal over the last 18 months, merging eleven different pre-existing AI and metaverse start-ups together into one company to make a number of creative AI models, including those that produce animations, music, sound effects and more. To power their inventions, the company employs the AI protocol from Altered State Machine, a company that was founded by Johnson and included in the merger.

Senderoff says Jen will also be a superior product because Futureverse created it with the input of some of music’s top business executives and creators, unlike its competitors. Though Senderoff does not reveal who the industry partners are or how Jen will be a more ethical and cooperative model for musicians, but she assures an announcement will be released soon providing more information.

Despite its proposed upgrades, Futureverse’s Jen could face significant challenges from other text-to-music generators named in the new research paper, given some were made by the world’s most established tech giants and have already hit the market, but McDonald is unperturbed. “That forces us to think differently. We don’t have the resources that they do, but we started our process with that in mind. I think we can beat them with a different approach: the key insight is working with the music industry as a way to produce a better product.”

10 Aug 2023

Nike Teases Brand New Kobe Bryant Sneaker For Kobe Day

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Nike Zoom Kobe 1 Protro 1

Source: Nike Basketball / Nike Basketball

Is Nike going to be releasing a brand new Kobe Bryant sneaker for Kobe Day? It sure looks that way as the Swoosh brand took to social media yesterday to tease it’s latest Black Mamba silhouette, which is sure to become a must-have for Laker and Kobe fanatics alike.

This past June Nike confirmed that they’d be relaunching their Kobe Bryant line Aug. 24 in honor of the fallen NBA icon, and while we all figured they’d restock some of the classic Kobe kicks that we’ve become familiar with, we now know we’ll be getting a new sneaker from the Mamba line.

Keeping the colorway a secret with a black-and-white video teasing the release, Nike simply stated in the caption, “Mamba Forever. ? The newest shoe in the iconic Kobe line is almost here. Tune into SNKRS ‘Live From the Archive’ (North America only) on August 10 for the unveiling and exclusive details on the upcoming release.”

The way Nike is hyping this one up, we’re sure it’s going to be a raffle release, hence, we’re probably not going to be getting a pair as sneakerbots will eat on Aug. 24. Though we don’t know if this will be an entirely new silhouette or a new colorway of the Kobe 8 (which the sneaker in the video actually looks like), we do know that these will be selling out as everything Kobe Bryant related tends to do.

Luckily, the sneakers will be unveiled during a Nike SNKRS Live From The Archive stream today (Aug. 10) at 5:00 p.m. EDT, so we’ll have a few weeks to build anticipation for the “L” we’re surely be carrying when it’s all said and done.

Check out Nike’s post below and let us know if you’ll be copping a pair of the new Kobe Bryant kicks in the comments section below.

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10 Aug 2023

Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club In Midtown To Close Its Doors & Reopen Elsewhere In 2024

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Jay-Z's 40/40 Club Celebrates 18th Anniversary

Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty

When Jay-Z opened the doors to his 40/40 Club back in 2003, it was an immediate hit with the good people of New York and his celebrity pals alike. But alas, all good things come to an end. After two decades of good times, the 40/40 Club will now be closing up shop… kinda.

Eater New York is reporting that the club that was once the place to be will be shutting down its Midtown Manhattan location and popping back up elsewhere come 2024. The move comes a decade after the 40/40 Club underwent a $10 million renovation to help it compete with the newer clubs that were all the rage in the Big Apple. But like all things Hip-Hop, the newer generation tends to gravitate to the latest and more spectacular show in town.

Eater New York reports:

Over time, the 40/40 Club grew into a small chain of bars and restaurants. There were five at peak: The original in Flatiron, a sports lounge in Las Vegas, a club in Atlantic City, a bar at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, and a restaurant at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The Las Vegas location closed in 2008, a year after opening, and its Atlantic City club followed in 2013: A lawsuit claimed the company owed more than $115,000 in unpaid rent and other charges.

The 40/40 Club at Barclays Center remains open following the Manhattan closure, according to Jake Spitz, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn arena.

This isn’t the only hospitality project Jay-Z has been a part of in New York City. The rapper was formerly involved with the West Village restaurant the Spotted Pig before it closed in 2020. His real estate company, SCC Greenwich Realty, sold its longtime home for $7.5 million in 2022.

If we’ve learned nothing else it’s that Jay-Z will cut his losses in search of the next and bigger bag.

No word on where Jay-Z may open up the new and surely improved 40/40 Club, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in close proximity to that casino he’s trying to bring to Times Square. The man didn’t become a billionaire just by selling records, b.

What do y’all think? Where should the next 40/40 Club open up? Should it get a name change too? Let us know in the comments section below.

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