Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicLast year, Ticketmaster was the object of a significant amount of consumer discontent. There was the confusing rollout of tickets for the upcoming Taylor Swift stadium tour. In Mexico City, countless people with valid tickets were denied entry to a Bad Bunny concert. And the rising roots-rock singer-songwriter Zach Bryan made Ticketmaster a focus of his public ire.If all of this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Ticketmaster has long been the target of — or perhaps the cause of — widespread unhappiness. High prices and fees? Blame Ticketmaster. A resale/scalping market that’s even more financially taxing? Blame Ticketmaster. And so on, and so on. Artists as big as Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen have taken on the giant, and mostly been forced to stand down, owing to the company’s reach and power.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the recent spate of kerfuffles that have increased scrutiny of Ticketmaster, the artists who have pushed back against the ticketing giant and the seeming intractability of the issues plaguing the ticket marketplace.Guest:Ben Sisario, The New York Times’s music industry reporterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

Future broke the record last week; Kendrick Lamar is poised to set a new bar next week. Blockbuster season on the Billboard album chart has finally arrived.The blockbuster stage of the year’s music release calendar has arrived, with big numbers for Bad Bunny’s latest album on this week’s Billboard chart, and even bigger sales expected for Kendrick Lamar’s long-awaited, just-released return to next week’s chart.“Un Verano Sin Ti,” the new album by Bad Bunny, the mega-streaming Puerto Rican superstar, opens at No. 1 with the equivalent of 274,000 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate. That is the biggest opening of any album so far this year — beating the record set last week by the rapper Future — and Bad Bunny’s second time at No. 1.Bad Bunny has been Spotify’s most-streamed artist for the last two years running, so it’s no surprise that “Un Verano Sin Ti” racked up a huge number of clicks: 357 million, more than any release so far this year, and the best streaming week for any Latin album ever.But what counts as a blockbuster these days? The numbers have been steadily declining, and what was once the universally recognized milestone of a megahit — one million sales in a single week — looks increasingly unlikely ever to be reached again.The streaming total for “Un Verano” — which accounted for about 95 percent of its consumption in the United States — was certainly big, but it was less than half that of Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy,” which opened with 744 million last September. As a digital album, “Un Verano” sold only 12,000 copies.Not so long ago, a common chart tactic was to bundle copies of albums, as downloads or CDs, with sales of concert tickets or merchandise. But after an industry uproar that such deals were distorting the picture of fan demand and skewing the charts, Billboard changed its rules two years ago to prevent most such deals from affecting chart positions.Even without the rule change, appetites for albums, purchased whole, have been declining for years. Adele’s latest, “30,” opened last year with 839,000 “equivalent sales units” — a measurement that incorporates both sales and streaming — of which 692,000 were for sales of complete albums; in 2015, her previous album, “25,” opened with 3.4 million. No new album has sold a million copies in a single week since Taylor Swift’s “Reputation” had 1.2 million in 2017.Among other notable new releases on this week’s chart, the rapper Jack Harlow opens at No. 3 with “Come Home the Kids Miss You,” which had the equivalent of 113,000 sales, including 137 million streams, and Arcade Fire’s “We” arrives at No. 6.Future’s “I Never Liked You,” last week’s chart-topper, falls to No. 2, while Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous” is No. 4 and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” is No. 5. More

He began playing as a child and quickly found success for his technical command and, as one critic put it, his “thoughtful elegance.”Antônio Meneses was 10 when he and his four brothers were recruited for the Rio Municipal Theater Orchestra. Their father, a French horn player in Rio de Janeiro, decided that his children should play string instruments to increase their employment odds.By the age of 24 Mr. Meneses had exceeded his father’s expectations: He had won two major international cello competitions, including the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and was on his way to making recordings of Brahms and Richard Strauss with Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. He was later recruited by Menahem Pressler to become the last cellist in the late 20th century’s greatest piano trio, the Beaux Arts Trio.Mr. Meneses, who became one of his generation’s premier cellists and an important figure in the musical life of his native Brazil, died on Aug. 3 in Basel, Switzerland. He was 66.His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his agent, Jean-Marc Peysson. The Brazilian news media said the cause was brain cancer.With his serious, concentrated playing, his singing tone, his sure technique and his absolute dedication to the musical text, Mr. Meneses marked himself as a musician’s musician.He was sought after by conductors like Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado and Andrew Davis, and by recitalists like the great Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires, with whom he recorded Brahms and Schubert, as well as the pianist Cristina Ortiz, his compatriot, with whom he recorded a memorable Villa-Lobos disc.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Billie Holiday is one of the foremost vocalists in jazz, whose emotional depth and unique phrasing inspired generations of singers to experiment with form and pitch fluctuation. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by the saxophonist Lester Young, her star brightened in the 1930s behind a string of hit songs and notable live performances in Harlem. In what was the hottest jazz scene in the country, Holiday stood out, and in 1937 she joined the famed Count Basie Orchestra; a year later, the clarinetist Artie Shaw asked her to join his orchestra, making Holiday the first Black woman to work with a white big band.Billie Holiday in the spotlight.Charles Hewitt/Getty ImagesHoliday’s legend grew in the late ’30s during her residency at the Café Society in Manhattan. She was introduced to “Strange Fruit,” a song by Abel Meeropol about lynching in the American South based on a poem he had written. Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, heard the song and brought it to Holiday, who first performed it there in 1939. It was a watershed moment for the singer: It’s not only the most famous song in her repertoire, it’s considered one of the most important in history, the track’s vivid imagery a strong indictment of racism in the country. Holiday was officially a star after the recording of “Strange Fruit,” and followed it with an impressive run of tracks in the early ’40s that cemented her fame.While there’s been a notion to only associate Holiday with pain and struggle, these accounts have dimmed her light as a firebrand artist whose creative bravery encouraged others to take similar risks. We asked 10 musicians and writers to share their favorite Holiday songs: Enjoy listening to their choices, check out the playlists and be sure to leave your own selections in the comments.◆ ◆ ◆‘Autumn in New York’José James, vocalistWithin the first two seconds of this song it’s impossible not to be drawn into the spell of Billie Holiday’s voice. Sailing confidently over lush chords by the pianist Oscar Peterson, Holiday pulls back the curtain on the beating heart of everyone who has loved, lost, loved again and (finally) lost themselves in that great city. A superb storyteller, Holiday explores every nuance of Vernon Duke’s paean to autumnal introspection in the city that never sleeps. Through her knowing delivery, every detail becomes vivid, cinematic: couples holding hands in Central Park, clouds reflecting off endless steel buildings, sundown in Greenwich Village, the wry smile of the maître d’hôtel at the Ritz, a lipstick-stained empty cocktail glass left behind at the bar. Billie was queen of it all, one of the highest-paid Black entertainers of her time, who left no stone unturned on her journey toward the self. This is beyond jazz singing; this is mastery in its highest form. With this song, Billie takes her place among the greatest of all balladeer improvisers in the jazz canon, creating the definitive version of an American classic.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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Apologizing for the last minute announcement, the ‘Here Tonight’ singer jokes that his popularity in the country has led to the cancellation of the March 11 show.
Mar 12, 2020
AceShowbiz – Norwegian government officials shut down country star Brett Young’s Oslo show on Wednesday night (March 11) due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The gig was axed at the last minute as part of an effort to limit mass exposure to the virus, which was officially declared a global pandemic on Wednesday.
Young turned to social media to confirm the cancellation, telling fans: “Hey guys, due to a last minute government decision, tonight’s show in Oslo is unable to happen. Refunds are available at the point of purchase. We are so sorry that we didn’t get to perform for you tonight, but we hope to be back very soon.”
He also posted a video, in which he joked his own popularity had led to the cancellation: “The room is too big. That’s your fault in a good way,” he said. “You sold all the tickets, and we were excited to play for you, but it’s too big a room. We’re trying to keep everybody healthy and safe, and it wasn’t our decision. It breaks our heart.”

Young is one of several artists who have been forced to cancel shows in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Madonna, Queen, the Zac Brown Band, Pearl Jam, and Green Day have also pulled the plug on shows and tours as a result of new concert restrictions.
There are currently 120,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 4,000 deaths reported worldwide.

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