The 20-year-old singer-songwriter’s follow-up to her 2021 debut, “Sour,” has the fourth-biggest opening of any LP this year so far.Olivia Rodrigo’s new album, “Guts,” has a blockbuster opening at No. 1 on Billboard’s chart, and the latest solo release by a member of BTS — V’s “Layover” — starts at No. 2.“Guts,” the second LP by the 20-year-old Rodrigo, becomes her second No. 1 album, after “Sour” (2021), the debut that made her an instant star. “Guts” opened with the equivalent of 302,000 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate — a hair better than Rodrigo had for the opening of “Sour,” which arrived with 295,000 and eventually spent five weeks in the top spot.“Guts” has the fourth-biggest opening of any album this year so far, after Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” (716,000), Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” (501,000) and Travis Scott’s “Utopia” (496,000). Rodrigo’s single “Vampire,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in July, returns to No. 1 this week, rising from No. 9.Rodrigo’s new album, which is also No. 1 in Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, had 200 million streams in the United States and sold 150,000 copies as a complete package. “Guts” was offered in an array of physical configurations, including 13 vinyl editions, four on CD, a cassette and various deluxe boxed sets. Last week, Rodrigo announced a 75-date world tour to begin in February 2024.V, one of the seven members of the BTS, the kings of K-pop, is the latest to put out a solo release since BTS went on hiatus as a group last year. “Layover” opens at No. 2 with the equivalent of 100,000 sales, including 13 million streams and 88,000 copies sold as a full album.Also this week, the singer-songwriter Zach Bryan’s self-titled LP falls to No. 3 after two weeks at the top. Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 4, and Scott’s “Utopia” is No. 5. More

Listen to Mary J. Blige, Gang of Four, Outkast and one track that was far and away the most frequently suggested.Working out to Mary J. Blige is more than just fine.Kevin Winter/Getty Images For The Recording ADear listeners,Last week, I shared a workout playlist and asked you to submit a song that motivates you to move. I thought I’d publish a few of the responses at the end of a future newsletter. But so many of you suggested such fun and varied selections that I’ve decided to do something completely unprecedented in the whole history of The Amplifier: create a playlist composed entirely of reader recommendations.I know, I know, “the whole history of The Amplifier” is, like, a month and a half at this point. But still — it’s unprecedented!As I wrote last week, for me, a good workout playlist combines familiarity and novelty. I kept that in mind when selecting and sequencing these tracks, so you’ll hear a mix of the new and old, the popular and the obscure. I loved reading about why these songs motivate you and what they inspired you to accomplish, so I’ve included your comments below.I also had fun seeing which tracks recurred in the recommendations; the one song that was far and away the most frequently suggested had to make it onto the list, and it appears here as track 11. (In the interest of suspense, scroll down for the reveal.) Bluegrass, baroque orchestral music, Beyoncé: Your picks truly encompassed a vast musical spectrum. More than one of you admitted to loving Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch’s “Good Vibrations,” which, honestly, you do you.I’m so happy we’re creating this musical community together — I think the collaborative nature of today’s playlist really speaks to that.Listen along here on Spotify as you read.1. Fleetwood Mac: “Tusk”I love how the song starts quiet and slow and builds and builds and builds on itself. I’ve seen it performed live and it puts a zing in my blood. I find it ideal for the warm-up that leads right into the workout. — Virginia Moench, N.C. (Listen on YouTube)2. Mary J. Blige: “Just Fine”The lyrics and beat are uplifting and encouraging. It’s great to walk, run, bike or lift to, plus you can take dance breaks! — Alexa, Philadelphia (Listen on YouTube)3. Janet Jackson: “If”This song has it all, and let’s not forget that epic video! If you have soul, “If” is guaranteed to make you break a sweat. Now drop and give me 20! — Paige Getz, Conn. (Listen on YouTube)4. TV on the Radio: “Wolf Like Me”It has the highs, the lows and the perfect crescendo at the end. I had a spin instructor that knew it was my favorite and would drop it in for me pretty regularly. — Shelley, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Listen on YouTube)5. Gang of Four: “I Found That Essence Rare”It’s gritty, rhythmic, has great energy and drives me to move the weights in the opposite direction than the pull of gravity. — Rick Gaston, Oakland, Calif. (Listen on YouTube)6. Hot Chip: “Flutes”My best runs help me recall the bodily sensation of losing myself on the dance floor. This song gets me there! — Greta, Chicago (Listen on YouTube)7. Sylvester: “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”Back in the day of aerobic classes, this was one of the songs we used on a regular basis — never got tired of it or the exercise. It’s also a great song to dance to! — Betsy Wendt, Silver Spring, Md. (Listen on YouTube)8. Jamie xx: “Gosh”This song is just what your neurons need when you want to shut the world off and pump through something in hyper-focus. I play it to work or jog and it makes me feel like I’m putting on sunglasses and rocketing into the matrix. Every single time. — Natalia, Manhattan, N.Y. (Listen on YouTube)9. Grimes: “Kill v. Maim”If I’ve got to do three minutes on a treadmill to spike my heartbeat in a strength session, it’s Grimes’s “Kill v. Maim.” Pretending you’re a vampire gangster (or whatever it’s about) frothing at the mouth is extremely motivating! — Laura, London (Listen on YouTube)10. Outkast: “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)”I made a mix a few years ago for a half-marathon I was preparing for. The fifth or sixth song I selected was Outkast’s “Bombs Over Baghdad.” On the day of the race, when I got to that song about 30 minutes in, it inspired me to pick up the pace. From there, I hit repeat for the next 90 minutes and felt amazing! “Bombs Over Baghdad” gives me a lift like no other. — Michael Pittman, Durham, N.C. (Listen on YouTube)11. Eminem, “Lose Yourself”It’s a cliché, but it is undeniably one of the greatest workout songs ever created: “Lose Yourself,” by Eminem. The believe-in-yourself lyrics, the dramatic tension heightening throughout the song, and the fact that the b.p.m. perfectly accompanies a cardio workout. — Joe Stracci, Cold Spring, N.Y. (Listen on YouTube)12. The Avalanches, “Because I’m Me”It’s like someone took Runner’s High and sonically bottled it into this recording. The initial beat drop! The horns! “Knock it out the ballpark, Frankie!” This song never fails to give me the extra push I need to finish a particularly tough run or workout. — Andre Plaut, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Listen on YouTube)Mom’s spaghetti,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Readers’ Picks! 11 Motivating Workout Songs” track listTrack 1: Fleetwood Mac, “Tusk”Track 2: Mary J. Blige, “Just Fine”Track 3: Janet Jackson, “If”Track 4: TV on the Radio, “Wolf Like Me”Track 5: Gang of Four, “I Found That Essence Rare”Track 6: Hot Chip, “Flutes”Track 7: Sylvester, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”Track 8: Jamie xx, “Gosh”Track 9: Grimes, “Kill v. Maim”Track 10: Outkast, “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)”Track 11: Eminem, “Lose Yourself”Track 12: The Avalanches, “Because I’m Me”Bonus TracksTwo weeks ago, the enigmatic underground pop star Jai Paul made his live debut — 12 years after the release of his debut single. Tonight, he plays the first of two shows in New York City. In honor of this occasion, why not revisit the gorgeously glitchy pair of tracks that started it all, the menacing “BTSTU” and the shyly sensual “Jasmine”? And if you want a primer on why so many people care about this guy in the first place, I would humbly suggest this Pitchfork article I wrote about him almost exactly a decade ago (!) which doubles as a time capsule of 2013 internet ephemera. Were we ever so young? More

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The ‘Cheap Thrills’ hitmaker continues to defend the casting of the ‘Dance Moms’ star to play an autistic teen in new movie ‘Music’ despite the girl not being autistic herself.

Jan 5, 2021
AceShowbiz – Sia has once again defended her casting of Maddie Ziegler in her film “Music”, hailing the move “nepotism.”
The “Cheap Thrills” hitmaker recently faced controversy because of the casting of her frequent collaborator as an autistic girl (Music) who moves in with her newly-sober half-sibling Zu (Kate Hudson) – despite the fact the 18-year-old star isn’t autistic herself.
And after passionately defending the casting on Twitter, Sia once again opened up about the controversy during an interview on Australia’s The Sunday Project, explaining, “I realised it wasn’t ableism. I mean, it is ableism I guess as well, but it’s actually nepotism because I can’t do a project without her. I don’t want to. I wouldn’t make art if it didn’t include her.”

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Maddie – who has starred in many of Sia’s music videos, including the promos for “Elastic Heart” and “Chandelier” – feared people would think she was “making fun” of autistic people.
“I bold-facedly said, ‘I won’t let that happen,’ ” Sia insisted, but added that she’s come to realise she cannot “protect” Maddie from criticism.
“Last week, I realised I couldn’t really protect her from that, which I thought I could. We sent it off to the Child Mind Institute and she received 100 per cent as performance accuracy. I realise that there are some things I can’t protect her from as much as I try,” Sia sighed.
The movie originally starred Shia LaBeouf who co-starred with Maddie Ziegler in Sia’s “Elastic Heart” music video, but the “Honey Boy” actor was ditched by the singer following abuse allegations made by former girlfriend FKA twigs.

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Staged by the playwright and director Wajdi Mouawad, Enescu’s opera helps inaugurate a new era for the storied company.PARIS — Ahead of rehearsals for his staging of George Enescu’s “Oedipe” at the Paris Opera, the playwright and director Wajdi Mouawad did something unusual. He put together a glossary of all the obscure references in the libretto — like “the water of Castalia,” a sacred spring in Delphi — and sent it to the chorus.Mouawad, 52, who runs the Théâtre National de la Colline in Paris, was taken aback to find the choristers had never received anything like it. When he approached the company’s technical crew to explain to them the story of “Oedipe,” a rarity from the 1930s based on the Greek myth, their reaction was similar, he said in an interview — few directors ever bothered to pay them much mind.“It’s odd, because I hear, ‘It’s wonderful, you say hello,”” Mouawad added. “I feel like I’m stepping into a traumatized world that now believes its trauma is the norm.”Trauma is not a bad way of describing the past few years at the fractious Paris Opera. In late 2019 and early 2020, labor strikes over a pension policy overhaul resulted in a 45 million euro deficit in a budget hovering around 230 million euros. And that was before the pandemic forced the cancellation of over a year’s worth of performances. (While some performances took place in September and October last year, the company didn’t resume its regular schedule until late May.)So “Oedipe,” which opens at the Opera Bastille, the company’s larger theater, on Monday, may just inaugurate a new era. It is the first production that was commissioned by Alexander Neef, who took over as the Opera’s general director last year.It is no coincidence that he turned to Mouawad. In his last job, leading the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, Neef co-produced Mouawad’s first stab at opera, a 2016 production of Mozart’s “The Abduction From the Seraglio,” that Neef calls “one of the most satisfying experiences that I’ve ever had with a director.”“His strength as an artist is that he really wants to work with humans,” Neef added in an interview in his office. “With ‘Oedipe,’ my hope was that he would pull the whole company together. Sometimes, you almost need to encourage him not to be too nice.”The return of “Oedipe” to the Paris stage has been a long time coming. Enescu’s only opera, it had its premiere at the company’s smaller, ornate Palais Garnier in 1936, but has never been revived there, even as other opera houses took a belated interest in it. The North American premiere took place at the University of Illinois in 2005, while Achim Freyer directed an acclaimed staging at the Salzburg Festival two years ago, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, who will return to the score in Paris.Mouawad, center, during a rehearsal for “Oedipe.”Eléna Bauer/Opéra national de ParisNeef believes the course of history, rather than quality, explains the long lack of appetite for “Oedipe,” which earned positive reviews upon its premiere. The New York Times reported in 1936 that the French composer and critic Reynaldo Hahn had described it as “imposing, lofty, minutely elaborated” and “always compelling admiration.”“After 1945, I think the music had fallen out of fashion,” Neef said of Enescu’s lush score. “For a lot of composers writing after the Holocaust, it couldn’t be tonal music anymore, for a long time.”When Neef first approached him, Mouawad was less concerned with the score than with the libretto. The legend of Oedipus was familiar to him: In his 30-year career, Mouawad has staged Sophocles’s “Oedipus the King” three times. In 2016, he also wrote a play, “The Tears of Oedipus,” that tied the character’s plight to modern Greek politics.The librettist of “Oedipe,” Edmond Fleg, closely based the third and fourth acts on “Oedipus the King” and another play by Sophocles, “Oedipus at Colonus.” (The first and second acts flesh out the plays’ background.) “It’s slightly summarized, but the dialogue is essentially the same,” Mouawad said. “I thought I would have space to tell this story.”Storytelling has long driven Mouawad, who was born in Lebanon in 1968. When he was 10, his family fled the civil war, moving first to France, then to French-speaking Quebec.“When I tried to understand the Lebanese civil war, I was either told that there was nothing to understand, or that it was the fault of others,” Mouawad said. “There was a gaping lack of stories in my life.”After training as an actor at the National Theater School in Montreal, Mouawad rose to prominence with an epic tetralogy, “The Blood of Promises,” that has been produced all over the world. Composed of “Littoral” (1999), “Scorched” (2003), “Forests” (2006) and “Skies” (2009), it delved into intergenerational trauma, war and displacement.His work has served as an introduction to contemporary theater for many French-speaking millennials. Even after he moved back to Paris in 2016 to direct the Théâtre de la Colline, Mouawad steered clear of the prevailing European taste for nonlinear, highly conceptual productions. Lisa Perrio, an actress who has worked with Mouawad several times in recent years, said that “he loves drama, pathos, and it works.”“When everything is fine, you deconstruct,” Mouawad said. “When you can’t afford it — when you yourself are completely fractured — you build.”Julien Mignot for The New York Times“His work is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to perform,” she added, “because it requires so much emotion.”To Mouawad, postmodernism is a luxury beyond the means of those who have experienced deep trauma. “I myself am postmodernism,” he said “There is nothing more postmodern than the Lebanese war. Deconstruction is a rich person’s thing. When everything is fine, you deconstruct. When you can’t afford it — when you yourself are completely fractured — you build.”In March, a year into the disruption caused by the pandemic, the Théâtre de la Colline was one of the first French theaters to be occupied by protesters. Students and arts workers demanded government support and the withdrawal of changes to unemployment benefits. The movement soon spread to over 100 playhouses.Sébastien Kheroufi, who was among the drama students who first entered La Colline, said in a phone interview that Mouawad was one of the few high-profile directors to extend the occupiers a warm welcome. “One night, he even stayed with us for several hours after his rehearsals because we needed to talk,” Kheroufi said.Yet the end of the occupation, in late May, left Mouawad frustrated. He and his team offered the students the opportunity to stay on for the reopening and speak before shows; Mouawad also hoped to start a permanent youth company, offering year-round contracts to young actors.Christopher Maltman, center, plays the title role in “Oedipe.”Elisa Haberer/Opéra national de ParisThey ultimately said no, Mouawad now speculates, “because the idea had come from us, and they didn’t want to owe us anything.” It was a blow for the hierarchy-averse Mouawad, who reflected on the “failure” of all parties of the occupation movement in a despondent open letter.Then, in early September, just as rehearsals for “Oedipe” were in full swing, Mouawad’s longtime dramaturg François Ismert passed away. “He was such a luminous, atypical person,” Mouawad said. Ismert had introduced him to Sophocles in the 1990s — “and not just that,” he said. “To everything else, without ever being paternalistic.”The loss loomed over the approaching premiere. Days before, though, Mouawad remained intent on sifting through the chaos.“I know everything is in ruins,” he said, before returning to the rehearsal room. “But we have to make something of those ruins.” More

The former syndication star and top-flight interviewer is rebuilding his daily show on Amazon’s new app, Amp.LOS ANGELES — One afternoon in June, Zach Sang was curled into an improvised studio nook at the top of a staircase in a warehouse in Hollywood. The setup was ramshackle — right downstairs was the fallow set for Hailey Bieber’s YouTube series “Who’s in My Bathroom?” — but Sang didn’t let the scrappy conditions get to him.The interview guest on this day was Jake Miller, a onetime frat rapper turned anodyne singer-songwriter, an affable bro with a big smile and an unbothered air. While waiting for Miller to arrive, Sang sipped on a Celsius energy drink as he waited for a Gopuff delivery of snacks. He was dressed comfortably in a gray sweater vest and a worn-in pair of Birkenstock Bostons; his fingernails were painted in a casually intricate design.Sang is a relentless optimist and a warm landing place. After Miller arrived, Sang attended to their conversation with an uncommon amount of care, from time to time gently pushing him under the cover of affection. When Miller left, Sang reset himself and began his daily live show the same way he has for years and years: “Helloooo, beautiful humannnn.”At this time last year, Sang was broadcasting to more than a million people each night via his syndicated program, “Zach Sang Show,” which aired on around 80 terrestrial radio stations across the country. But today he’s building from the ground up: In March, he began broadcasting for three hours every weekday on Amp, the still-in-beta radio app recently introduced by Amazon.“The bedrocks, the building blocks that make radio radio — companionship, friendship, music, personality, discussion — that will remain the same,” Sang said. “But the delivery method at which it gets to the people is going to change.”The method is still slightly in flux. Several times over the next three hours, while songs played between conversation breaks, Sang tested out the studio’s Alexa smart speaker to make sure it played his show when prompted — mostly yes. He selected songs to play largely on the fly, sometimes inspired by a conversation in the room. It all made for a far looser approach to pop radio, with flickers of the unpredictable energy of livestreaming.Sang’s new perch allows him to figure out a fresh path for an old format. “I want them to understand that there’s a better version of radio out there,” he said of the listeners he has not yet been able to reach. “Radio that doesn’t play the same songs every 42 minutes. There’s a version of radio out there that doesn’t shove 18 minutes of commercials an hour down your throat.”Sang is 29 but carries himself with the awe of someone younger. It is a byproduct of a career that began in his teenage years, and has never let up since, a run that has made him something like the Ryan Seacrest of young millennials. During his 10-year tenure on terrestrial radio, he became one of the most crucial interviewers of contemporary pop stars, with clips of his most intimate conversations — with Ariana Grande, Halsey, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, BTS and various onetime boy band and girl group members — often gaining viral traction online.Sang is an uncommonly gifted interviewer: formidably grounded, fluid, quick with responses and also keen to steer conversations toward more intriguing topics. He makes an intense (but not uncomfortable) amount of eye contact and delivers his questions not brusquely, as can be the norm for radio interviews, but with a balmy, inviting smoothness. He treats interview subjects not as famous people, but rather people who happen to be famous. Sometimes, in videos of his interviews, there are little moments of relaxation a few minutes in, when stars realize they can turn off autopilot, retreat from the hard shell of fame just a bit and ease back into their humanity.“Deeply personable, researched and funny,” said Finneas, the singer and producer and brother of Billie Eilish. He described Sang’s true peers as much more senior and established: Howard Stern. Zane Lowe, the Apple Music host.“He has an emotional connectivity with artists that I don’t think I see with anyone else right now,” said Matt Sandler, Amp’s head of business and operations, who recruited Sang to the platform.When Ed Sheeran appeared last year on the syndicated show, he concluded his time by telling Sang, “I’m sure you get this a lot, but I end up watching your guys’ interviews with other artists, like, all the time, and I really enjoy it.”Like most daily radio programs, Sang’s has a rhythm. In the past he’s had multiple co-hosts, but there’s currently just one: Dan Zolot, an executive producer who shares the title with Sang. As the show’s longtime counterbalance, Zolot injects cold splashes of reality at unexpected moments. “Awkwardness is always fascinating to watch,” Zolot said. “It brings out a little more personality.” Part of his job includes trimming down Sang’s longform interviews for various social media platforms, because Sang’s true competition now isn’t just conventional radio stars but also YouTubers and podcasters. “Alex Cooper at ‘Call Her Daddy,’ Joe Rogan, ‘Impaulsive’ — that’s who the young kids are going to when they think of radio,” Zolot said.In recent years, as radio stations have leveraged their access to musicians to grow their presence on platforms like YouTube, some of the best radio hosts have become de facto podcast interviewers. But when Sang began his career, the radio station interview was by and large a banal format, a back-scratching relic of old power structures.“He treats his audience like they’re smart, which they are and they deserve to be treated like,” Finneas said.Another way Sang deviated from the strict formatting of pop radio was by sprinkling in progressive political opinions. “To have queer voices on the air in Pensacola, Fla., and Mobile and Montgomery, Ala., I was in the most conservative places in America, right? And I won. I was a queer kid from New Jersey who shared my truth.”Sang is an uncommonly gifted interviewer. He treats interview subjects not as famous people, but rather people who happen to be famous.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesSang also pushed back against the strict playlisting most radio stations require, programming his show a little more eccentrically and holistically: “I never colored within the lines ever. I always went against the rules. I never asked for permission, I always begged for forgiveness.”Occasionally, those decisions were met with resistance. “When you’re syndicated, you’re on 80 stations, you have 80 bosses,” Zolot said. “Those bosses have things they don’t want talked about on their air, and they’ll let you know.”Sang’s negotiations with the radio conglomerate Westwood One went to the 11th hour late last year, but they couldn’t come to terms. The transition was jarring. “Seven o’clock at night would roll around and I would just be driving around my neighborhood, not knowing what to do,” Sang said.“I’ve been going through a deep depression the last few months,” he continued. “And my friends, who are some of the most famous people in the world, send me 77 texts until I answer. The night of my last show, Joshua Bassett showed up at my studio within 40 minutes, on the night before New Year’s Eve, to be with me while I literally cried on the floor of my studio. And then after that, who was there for me was Ariana, who was on me to figure out what my next step was.”Losing his syndicated show forced him to assess whether he was in the business of radio, or the business of Zach Sang. When his contract ended, he’d already been having conversations with Amazon for a few months, and he began to see Amp as an opportunity to spread his gospel of the power of radio even more widely.The very nature of radio is changing and has been for the past two decades. First came the rise of satellite radio, which jeopardized local specificity. Same went for market consolidation. Finally, the ascension of the internet, especially as a facilitator for livestreaming and playlists, threatens — or maybe promises — to undermine the primacy of radio as a delivery system for new music. By July, Sang and his team had relocated to a more substantial studio, the one that Rick Dees, the countdown show kingpin, previously used to broadcast out of. But even though Sang knew how to operate all of the fancy equipment in the room, the entire show was run off his iPad.“The way I view a microphone at this point in my life is, when I lost the show, it’s like I lost every friend I’ve ever made,” he said, in between playing Beyoncé songs. “It’s about regaining chemistry — it takes time. People find out every day we’re not on the radio.”He referred to the Sang universe as a “friend group” — the combination of the characters with him in the studio and the listeners.After more than a decade on the air, part of that friend group are the famous people he’s become close to along the way. That day, he told his listeners about how he’d drunkenly agreed to officiate Selena Gomez’s best friend’s wedding at Gomez’s 30th birthday party, and he mentioned his friend who was playing the role of Glinda, the good witch, in the upcoming film adaptation of “Wicked.” (That would be Grande.)It is a far cry from how he was raised. Sang, who is of Italian, Irish and Scottish heritage, grew up in New Jersey — first Paterson, then Wayne — and attributes his empathy and openheartedness to a challenging upbringing. His mother was a social worker for 35 years: “I watched my mom cry. She would carry people’s burdens every day.” His parents had a yearslong, protracted divorce. Sang had trouble learning to read, endured abusive teachers in Catholic school and was bullied by other children, who identified him as different.He got his start in 2008 at age 14, with a show on the BlogTalkRadio online radio platform that he hosted from his bedroom. Soon, he moved over to Goom Radio, a French internet radio concern that was introducing an American service. He booked his own guests, emailing publicists from his BlackBerry during high school classes, leaning heavily on the teen stars of the day. “On Wednesday nights, kids would camp out in front of my studio waiting to see which artists were going to be there,” he recalled.Sang described his approach back then as “blind confidence, blind naïveté, adrenaline.” In short order, he became a go-to interview stop and developed a quick rapport with his subjects. “They would tell me while on the phone or in person that they were happy, or they’d stay longer, or they’d ignore their publicist when they tried to get wrapped up.”In school, he wasn’t terribly popular. “I had no friends,” he said, but he built something of a double life for himself: “Not having a single kid talk to me in school, but I’d go home and get to get on the phone with Mitchel Musso from ‘Hannah Montana,’ and he’d give me an hour of his time.”Sang, far right, interviewing the rapper Yung Gravy, left, along with Dan Zolot, his co-host on “Zach Sang Show.”Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesIn 2012, Sang moved to terrestrial radio and began steadily accumulating stations for his nightly program, “Zach Sang Show,” which was syndicated via Westwood One. In short order, he was interviewing some of pop’s biggest stars, deploying the same amiability that made his teen-pop conversations so engaging.Peter Gray, the head of promotion at Columbia Records, recalled that when Sang was given just a few minutes with Adele, he “just killed it, nailed it. Five minutes with him was a symphony — no fear, no trepidation, no nerves, just a beautiful nonscripted conversation.”Sang’s show was a crucial entry point into the American media market for the K-pop superstar group BTS. Eshy Gazit, who was tasked in the mid-2010s with helping to break the act in the United States, said, “There was a certain stigma at the time — that K-pop was a bunch of marionettes. The first important thing to me was to show the humanity, that each member has a story, a feeling, a personality.” BTS would return to Sang’s show several times.Sang’s interviews also populate his YouTube, Instagram and TikTok channels, and in conjunction with his production partner, OBB Media, he’s in the process of building out his own studio. In the coming weeks, “Zach Sang Show” will begin international syndication.Amp is a creator-focused app meant to allow users to set up their own radio programs, a nod to public access and internet radio and an attempt to harness the democratization of online content creation. Sang’s responsibilities include populating the app with other hosts — currently he’s working with the party promoters Emo Nite and iParty, which specializes in music from Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows. He’s also the service’s most high-profile interviewer — something like the Zane Lowe of Amazon.Still, the platform is new, and the listener numbers modest. “It was difficult to see the numbers and know that it’s not huge at first,” Zolot said. “That kind of got to him.”By last month, though, Sang was getting comfortable being indie again. “Nobody listened to me when I was broadcasting from my bedroom — I literally was talking to myself,” he said. “So, been there, done that.”The friend group he hopes to cultivate, he realized, begins with his own “therapeutic” relationship with the microphone. Everything else good has followed from that.“Every time, without fail, I have built it and they have come,” he noted, “so this will not be any different.” More