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1. Candy Brand Sour Patch Kids Providing a Free Home-Away-From Home for Indie Acts

   July 30, 2015 2:00 PM EDT "I spend half of my time on the road in hotel rooms -- The Patch in Austin was a good break from that," says singer-songwriter Zella Day. "It was quiet, with all of the ‘at home’ luxuries one could ­possibly need." For up-and-c ...

2. Yahoo Live Slows Its Roll

   July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT In its second year, the portal is reducing its concert-every-day streaming schedule as the jury remains out on its success. Yahoo and Live Nation's ambitious undertaking to live-stream a concert per day for a full year (dubbed Yahoo Live ) fi ...

3. How David Guetta, Tiesto & More Enterprising DJs Are Spending on Startups

   July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Music Messenger The app lets users send messages that include music. Based in Israel, Music Messenger was founded in 2014 by Oded Kobo, who created the messaging service Pheed. Recent funding: $30 million EDM Investors:  David Guetta, Tiesto Other ...

4. From the Desk Of Tomas Cookman, Founder/CEO of Cookman International, Nacional Records

   July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Latin alternative's great crusader on the 20th anniversary of his label, his booming synch business and why he doesn't mind when his acts get poached. It's surprising at first to learn that Tomas Cookman, the ­most fervent ambassado ...

5. A Night Out With MS MR: Pride, Parties and 'Peen'

   July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT The buzzworthy alt-pop duo hit downtown Manhattan for a wild night of X-rated interactive theater and marriage-equality jubilation. 7:00 p.m. It's Friday night in Manhattan, and the members of MS MR are ready to celebrate. Not only is the Jul ...

6. The Lit Pack: Renowned Editors & Writers Who Are Moonlighting as Musicians

   July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT David Hajdu Who: Music critic for The Nation and author of Lush Life and other books. Big gig: Waiting for the Angel , out Aug. 28 on Miranda Music. Hajdu collaborated with songwriters and composers including Jill Sobule. They wrote the music, he ...

7. 'The Prancing Elites Project' Playlist: 5 Songs to Prance To

   July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT You need the perfect soundtrack to prance like a pro. Just ask the stars of Oxygen's The Prancing Elites Project , which follows a troupe of five gay, gender-bending dancers based in Mobile, Ala. Fresh off news that the show was greenlit for ...

8. Style: Inside Big Sean's Vintage T-Shirt Obsession

   July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT When it comes to honoring music heroes, Big Sean wears his heart on the sleeves of his prized vintage-shirt collection. At last the front door swings open and Big Sean enters the foyer of his Los Angeles hillside house, a ­mullet-style Mediterrane ...

9. Nashville Power Players 2015: Introduction

   July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Today's country music is about crunchy guitar riffs, hip-hop beats and massive audiences that fill arenas, stadiums and bank accounts. Last year, the genre accounted for $830 million (12 percent) of total U.S. music sales and $397 million (15 ...

10. Nashville Power Players 2015: Brian O'Connell, President of Live Nation Country

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . BRIAN O'CONNELL, 50 President, Live Nation Country After producing 12 to 14 country-music tours annually for more than a decade and launching six ­country festivals in the last four years (including FarmBorough in New York and Windy City L ...

11. Nashville Power Players 2015: Mike Dungan, Chairman/CEO of Universal Music Group Nashville

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . MIKE DUNGAN Chairman/CEO, Universal Music Group Nashville In the early 1970s, Dungan went to see Frank Sinatra perform with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra in his native Cincinnati. He was 19 then, and wore a shaggy beard and hair past his shoulder ...

12. Nashville Power Players 2015: Scott Borchetta, President/CEO of Big Machine Label Group

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . SCOTT BORCHETTA PRESIDENT/CEO OF BIG MACHINE LABEL GROUP Scott Borchetta isn't the most powerful person in Nashville thanks to his company's market share. At best, Big Machine Label Group finishes third among country labels in the fir ...

13. Nashville Power Players 2015: Coran Capshaw, Founder of Red Light Management

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . CORAN CAPSHAW FOUNDER OF RED LIGHT MANAGEMENT Red Light Management is the largest independent management firm in the world, and its Nashville division, which guides the careers of about 30 of the company's 200 acts, is the largest in count ...

14. Nashville Power Players 2015: John Dickey, John Esposito, Jason Owen

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . JOHN DICKEY, 49 Executive vp content and programming, Cumulus Media Fresh out of college, Dickey and his brother, Lewis, got into the radio business with a simple philosophy in mind: "Everybody that was ahead of us we wanted to get past,&q; ...

15. Nashville Power Players 2015: Randy Goodman, Chairman/CEO of Sony Nashville

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . Randy Goodman Chairman/CEO, Sony Nashville Save for an initial exploratory conversation in 2014, Goodman, 59, wasn't approached for the top job at Sony Nashville until three long months after his predecessor, Gary Overton, had exited in Ma ...

16. Nashville Power Players 2015: Rob Beckham & Greg Oswald, Louis Messina, Cindy Mabe

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . ROB BECKHAM, 49,  GREG OSWALD, 59 Co-heads, Nashville office, William Morris Endeavor The metrics tell the tale: Under Beckham and Oswald's leadership, WME acts captured nine of 11 CMA Awards (CMAs) in 2014 and 10 of 11 ACM Awards (ACMs) i ...

17. Nashville Power Players 2015: Brian Philips, Leslie Fram, Marc Dennis, Rod Essig, John Huie, Darin Murphy, Clarence Spalding

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . BRIAN PHILIPS, 54, President, CMT LESLIE FRAM, Senior vp music strategy, CMT After Viacom shifted CMT to its Kids and Family division and ordered layoffs in March, Philips' team-building leadership quickly restored ­confidence. In the las ...

18. Nashville Power Players 2015: Nos. 15 - 24

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . TROY TOMLINSON, 51 President/CEO, Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville BMI has named Sony/ATV country publisher of the year for each of the 10 years that Tomlinson has led the Nashville office, and since the first quarter of 2010, when Billboar ...

19. Nashville Accents, Then & Now

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT The evolution of the 3 pillars of the country lyric: pickups, 10-gallons and cowboy boots. '50s Trucks:  "The Ford F-100s in blue were go-tos," says Nashville auto consultant Gary Mason. "But pickups weren't for fun back t ...

20. Nashville Power Players 2015: 20 Songwriters Speak

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Hitmakers are the lifeblood of country music. "Songwriting is sort of a 9-to-5 job in Nashville," says Michael Dulaney, who has collaborated on singles with Tanya Tucker and Jason Aldean. Unlike in other genres, where artists and produce ...

21. Nashville Power Players 2015: Everybody's All-American Luke Bryan

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Three No. 1 albums, a string of hits and top-dog touring status: Five years in, Bryan's genre-busting run just won't let up. But the man himself might be the mellowest ex-frat boy in country. On a hot july afternoon, the scene backstage ...

22. Nashville Power Players 2015: Long Time Coming Dierks Bentley

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT By mixing bro-pleasing songs about carousing and boozing with more sober lamentations on fatherhood and death, "country's hottest guy" has -- finally -- grown into a bona fide star. My career has been like that ramp," Dierks Be ...

23. Nashville Power Players 2015: Nos. 25 - 37

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . CRAIG WISEMAN, 51, Owner/partner, Big Loud Mountain; Owner, Big Loud Shirt SETH ENGLAND, 29, Partner, Big Loud Mountain; Vice president, Big Loud Shirt CLAY HUNNICUTT, 47, President, Big Loud Records It has been a big, loud year for Wiseman an ...

24. Nashville Power Players 2015: 5 Peach State Stars

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT These Georgia natives are all quick to credit other local acts from James Brown to Alan Jackson to Outkast with making the state's reputation as a cradle for American music of all stripes. "Just in my hometown" of Macon, says Jason ...

25. Backstage Pass / Times Union Center 25th Anniversary

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Small-Market Champ: Albany's main music venue punches above its class with shows by Sheeran, Kanye and McCartney. THE CROWD WAS OLD FOR BEATLEMANIA-STYLE hysterics. But when Paul McCartney played the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y., last J ...

26. Chart Numbers: 5 Seconds of Summer's 'Hot' Start

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Seconds of Summer is off to a sweltering start with its new single, "She's Kinda Hot." The track arrived July 17 and leads the band's second full-length studio album, due later this year on Hey or Hi/Capitol Records. 39 After ...

27. Tomorrow's Hits: High Dive Heart, 'Vintage'

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT DUO JUMPS IN High Dive Heart arrives with its EP Sonic Graffiti , released July 17 on independent A Beautiful Army of Trees. The pair consists of Jason Reeves (who has written with Colbie Caillat) and Nelly Joy, formerly of JaneDear Girls, who hit ...

28. Tomorrow's Hits: Olivia Lane, 'You Part 2'

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Lane's Country Path Olivia Lane is bubbling under the Country Airplay chart with the plucky "You Part 2" (Big Spark). The cut earned a 17 percent gain in audience for the week ending July 19, according to Nielsen Music. Originally f ...

29. Tomorrow's Hits: Jack Garratt, 'Weathered'

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT 'Weathered' But New Singer-producer Jack Garratt continues his rise on the Billboard + Twitter Emerging Artists chart with "Weathered" (47-20), a subdued electronic production. On July 3, OneRepublic tweeted that it's &quo; ...

30. Charts: Tyrese Brings R&B Back to No. 1 on the Billboard 200

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT The singer-actor's 'Black Rose' blooms with 77,000 debut-week units earned -- the first R&B album to lead the chart in more than a year. Nearly 17 years after Tyrese debuted on Billboard 's charts, the singer-actor (and Fur ...

31. Rewinding the Charts: 45 Years Ago The Carpenters Mellowed Out at No. 1

    July 24, 2015 12:00 PM EDT The sibling duo scored its first Hot 100 chart-topper with "(They Long to Be) Close to You," but success came with a price. The smooth sounds of sibling duo The Carpenters, who came to epitomize easy listening in the pre-disco 1970s, top ...

32. Yahoo Reveals First-Year Livestream Results, Year-Two Schedule

    July 23, 2015 2:30 PM EDT Yahoo and Live Nation’s ambitious undertaking to live-stream a concert per day for a full year (dubbed Yahoo Live) finished its first run on July 14, and the results are in: The program logged 135 million live streams from 225 global markets, wit ...

33. Billboard's First-Ever Nashville Top 50 Power Players List Revealed

    July 23, 2015 9:00 AM EDT Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Coran Capshaw, Mike Dungan, Kerri Edwards and Shane McAnally photographed on June 24, 2015 at The Land Trust for Tennessee’s Glen Leven Farm. Austin Hargrave Today's country music is about crunchy guitar riffs, hi ...

34. 2015 Midyear Music Report

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Streaming services soar in the first half of 2015, with former holdout Taylor Swift leading sales. If there's any question whether streaming has truly arrived, the Nielsen Music midyear numbers should put it to rest. In the first half of 2015 ...

35. Kelsea Ballerini: Country's Next Queen

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT All hail Kelsea Ballerini, who's busting up Nashville's boys club, following Carrie Underwood's footsteps and hanging out with Taylor Swift: "I want to be the one who swings the pendulum." When the phone rang, Kelsea Balll ...

36. Overheard: Carly Rae Jepsen, Sinead O'Connor & More Gossip

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Carly Rae Jepsen: Call Me Maybe -- Just Don't Call Me Pop The standout song on Carly Rae Jepsen's forthcoming third album, Emotion  -- which leaked online earlier in July after being released in Japan -- almost didn't happen. Why? B ...

37. Colbie Calliat, Christina Perri & Rachel Platten's Essentials for Girls Night Out, Boys Can Come Too Tour

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Lilith Fair may be long gone, but Colbie Caillat, 30, Christina Perri, 28, and "Fight Song" singer Rachel Platten, 34, are reviving the girl-power spirit this summer on the 27-date Girls Night Out, Boys Can Come Too Tour, which kicked of ...

38. Skrillex on His Pop Moment

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Palling around with Justin Bieber, world-touring with Diplo, partying with Diddy -- the Grammy-winning EDM innovator has a top 10 hit, and maybe his best year yet. Don't look now, but one of electronic dance music's most fearless pioneer ...

39. Steve Aoki, 50 Cent, Halsey & More Pick Who Should Be on the New $10 Bill

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT In June, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced plans to put a woman on a redesigned $10 bill in 2020. Billboard asked music stars for their picks -- and if they have their way, Americans will be making it rain with Queen Beys in a few year ...

40. The Billboard Cover Story: Duran Duran Laughs Last With 'Paper Gods'

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT When these New Romantics practically invented the '80s, they were dismissed as a moussed, modelizing flash in the pan. Thirty years since, they are happily married to those models, and their new record is as youthful and daring as their first ...

41. Mark Ronson Recommends 5 Duran Duran Deep Cuts

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT . "The Chauffeur" Rio , 1982 "This has some of the coolest, eeriest synth programming of any pop song ever. The effort that went into making a song like this in the pre-Pro Tools era is staggering." 2. "Lonely in Your Nig ...

42. 6 Stars of the New Romantic Scene

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Starting in 1979 at London's Blitz bar, fashion-forward club kids launched a chic new rock sound. 1. Spandau Ballet Bona Fides: Its 1983 global smash "True" broadened the skeletal electro this definitive New Romantic band made its n ...

43. How Ex-Waffle House Waitress Anna Todd Will Make Millions on Erotic One Direction Fan Fiction

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Can her 1D romance series be the next 'Fifty Shades'? Even before she had fans, writer Anna Todd was a fan. "I was in the Josh Hartnett fan club when I was 13," she recalls over lunch on a hot July day in Austin. "He sent ...

44. A History of Fan Armies

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT They swooned. They squealed. They pledged their true love forever. Directioners aren't the first to turn artist devotion into a hyperventilating spectacle -- and they won't be the last. Lisztomania The piano playing of 19th-century Hunga ...

45. The Biggest Summer Songs of All Time: Puff Daddy & Faith Evans Featuring 112, 'I'll Be Missing You' (No. 1)

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT No. 1: Puff Daddy & Faith Evans Featuring 112, "I'll Be Missing You" Lead contender for 2015's Song of the Summer is Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth's "See You Again" -- but the Paul Walker homage isn' ...

46. The Biggest Summer Songs of All Time: Bryan Adams, '(Everything I Do) I Do It for You' (No. 9)

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Bryan Adams was finishing up his sixth LP, Waking Up the Neighbours , when film composer Michael Kamen approached the Canadian musician's team about collaborating on the theme to Kevin Costner's early-'90s vehicle Robin Hood: Prince ...

47. iHeartMedia's National Programming Chief Tom Poleman on What Makes a Song of the Summer

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT "A song of the summer has to be infectious and emotional." No one can influence the Song of the Summer quite like iHeartMedia national programming chief Tom Poleman, 50, whose 850 radio stations are influential enough to create the next ...

48. The Biggest Summer Songs of All Time: TLC, 'Waterfalls' (No. 22)

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Amped from the success of its triple-platinum debut, TLC entered the studio in late 1993 to record a follow-up with a dream team of producers -- among them Babyface, Jermaine Dupri, Puff Daddy and production team Organized Noize. What resulted was ...

49. My Favorite Summer Song: Carly Rae Jepsen

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT "Feist's 'Mushaboom' is nostalgic for me -- it reminds me of Canadian summers, folk festivals and chill times." -Carly Rae Jepsen News Magazine Magazine 1437796800 ...

50. My Favorite Summer Song: David Bickler, Former Lead Singer of Survivor

    July 17, 2015 12:00 PM EDT "I was 13 years old in October 1966 when I first heard The Beach Boys' 'Good Vibrations' on the radio. I went right out to buy the single, and I must have played it 50 times in a row. My parents were going nuts!" -Former S ...

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