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      Justin Bieber’s ‘Justice’ Debuts at No. 1, Ending Morgan Wallen’s Run

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      The pop superstar’s new album and the latest from Lana Del Rey bumped the country singer-songwriter to No. 3 after 10 weeks atop the Billboard 200.After 10 weeks of domination by the country singer-songwriter Morgan Wallen, the Billboard album chart has a fresh champion: Justin Bieber.Bieber’s new album, “Justice,” opened at No. 1 with the equivalent of 154,000 sales in the United States, including 157 million streams and 30,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking service. It is Bieber’s eighth time in the top spot; at 27, he is the youngest solo artist to achieve that feat. (Elvis Presley was rounding 30 by the time his “Roustabout” soundtrack topped the chart, in early 1965. The members of the Beatles were all 26 or younger when “Yesterday and Today” became their eighth No. 1, in 1966.)Bieber also takes the top spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart with “Peaches,” the fifth single from “Justice,” after a long marketing campaign that began in September.The No. 2 album this week is also new: Lana Del Rey’s long-awaited “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” debuted with the equivalent of 75,000 sales.Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album,” which came out in early January, became a streaming blockbuster — still a rarity among country releases — and has ruled the chart ever since, surviving an industry rebuke after Wallen was caught on video using a racial slur. Wallen held on through a combination of fan loyalty and a lack of serious competition. This week, “Dangerous” falls to No. 3.The arrival of new albums by two boldface-name artists heralds a change on the chart, and the return of a more competitive release schedule. Many artists held off from releasing new music over the winter, in part over uncertainty about this year’s touring prospects. But with a return of concerts looking more likely this summer or fall, albums are beginning to flood the market. New titles from Carrie Underwood and the rapper NF are already out, to be followed soon by releases from Demi Lovato, Taylor Swift and many others.Also on the album chart this week, Pop Smoke’s “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon” is No. 4 and Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” is No. 5. More

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      Eurovision Song Contest Disqualifies Belarus Over Political Lyrics

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      The song’s lyrics were found to violate the competition’s rules in what critics called an endorsement of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko’s crackdown on antigovernment protests.The long-running unrest in Belarus has spilled over into this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, with organizers ejecting the country from the competition for songs found to have repeatedly violated rules barring political content.The country’s original song entry, “Ya Nauchu Tebya” (I’ll Teach You) by the band Galasy ZMesta, was criticized by opposition figures who assert that lyrics such as “I will teach you to toe the line” endorsed the President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko’s violent crackdown on antigovernment protests. Eurovision fans started an online petition asking organizers to make Belarus withdraw from the competition.This month the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the international musical spectacular, wrote to Belarus’s national broadcaster, BTRC, saying that the entry was not eligible to compete in the musical talent show in May this year in the Dutch city of Rotterdam.“The song puts the nonpolitical nature of the contest in question,” the broadcasting union’s statement said.Belarus was given an opportunity to submit a modified version of the song, or a new tune. But after evaluating the replacement, the union said in another statement on Friday evening that “the new submission was also in breach of the rules” and that Belarus would be disqualified.Belarus was gripped for weeks by large-scale protests last year after Mr. Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in what many Western governments said was a sham election in August. His security forces then brutally cracked down on mass demonstrations.Both songs that the eastern European nation entered for Eurovision this year came under criticism for what many viewed as pro-government lyrics and imagery. The band that performs the songs, Galasy ZMesta, was also found to have what could be interpreted as an anti-protest message on its website, taking aim at people who “try to destroy the country we love and live in,” and adding, “we cannot stay indifferent” toward them.Eurovision’s rules state that the event is nonpolitical and that “no lyrics, speeches, gestures of a political, commercial or similar nature shall be permitted” in the contest.Belarus started competing in Eurovision in 2004 and has fielded an entrant every year since, so it knew what it was doing in entering songs that contained political messaging, said Oliver Adams, a correspondent for Wiwibloggs, a widely read site for Eurovision news.Although the coronavirus pandemic halted Eurovision’s 2020 grand finale, more than 180 million people watched the contest in 2019. As the world’s longest-running annual televised music competition, it has amassed a highly dedicated following of excitable fans.The contest, which started 65 years ago, cemented its place last year as a cultural phenomenon with a Netflix movie gently mocking its eccentricities and obsessive fandom.Countries’ being pulled up for submitting tunes with political undertones in Eurovision is rare, but has happened before. Georgia entered the song “We Don’t Wanna Put In” for the 2009 contest that was held in Moscow, but organizers rejected it for containing obvious references to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, including the wordplay in the song title. Georgia withdrew from the competition that year but denied that the song contained “political statements.”This year, Armenia also withdrew from Eurovision. Its public broadcaster attributed the decision in part to the political fallout from the conflict with Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.“This isn’t the first time that political tension has found its way into the Eurovision-sphere,” said Mx. Adams, who uses the gender-neutral courtesy title in place of Mr. or Ms.“These outer-Eurovision bubble problems do seep their way into the contest sometimes,” he added, “but ultimately they’re never going to break it apart.” More

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      Lil Nas X Makes a Coming-Out Statement, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Taylor Swift, Rod Wave, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Iggy Pop and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Lil Nas X, ‘Montero (Call Me by Your Name)’Lil Nas X was born Montero Lamar Hill, and with “Montero (Call Me by Your Name),” he cheerfully rejoices in lust as a gay man. “Romantic talkin’? You don’t even have to try,” he sings, over syncopated guitar and handclaps by way of flamenco. “Call me when you want, call me when you need.” The video — an elaborate CGI production, costume drama and visit to hell — makes clear that his identity has high stakes. (He also posted a note to his 14-year-old self on Twitter.) “In life, we hide the parts of ourselves we don’t want the world to see,” Lil Nas X says in the spoken introduction to the video clip. “But here, we don’t.” JON PARELESTaylor Swift featuring Maren Morris, ‘You All Over Me’The teenage Taylor Swift who wrote “You All Over Me” for her second album, the 2008 “Fearless,” largely styled herself as a country singer. The original track was left as an outtake, still unreleased. But Swift probably wouldn’t have opened it with the metronomic, Minimalistic blips that start her newly recorded version, which is part of her reclamation of the early catalog she lost to music-business machinations. “You All Over Me” was a precursor of Swift’s many post-breakup songs. With what would become her trademark amalgam of everyday details, emotional declarations and terse, neat phrases, she laments that it’s impossible to escape memories of how she “had you/got burned/held out/and held on/God knows/too long.” Blips and all — she worked with Aaron Dessner, one of the producers of her 2020 albums “Folklore” and “Evermore” — the track stays largely in the realm of country-pop, with mandolin, harmonica and piano, while Maren Morris’s harmony vocals provide understated sisterly support. It’s hardly a throwaway song, and more than a decade later, its regrets can extend to her contracts as well as her romances. PARELESJulia Michaels, ‘All Your Exes’Tuneful and resentful, Julia Michaels’s latest strikes a blow against kumbaya, trading feel-good pith for the much rawer wounds within. Her enemy? Her lover’s past: “I wanna live in a world where all your exes are dead/I wanna kill all the memories that you save in your head/Be the only girl that’s ever been in your bed.” It’s harsh, funny, sad and relatably petty. JON CARAMANICAAngelique Kidjo and Yemi Alade, ‘Dignity’“Respect is reciprocal” goes the unlikely chorus of “Dignity”; so is collaboration. A year ago, Angelique Kidjo was a guest on “Shekere,” a major hit for the Nigerian singer Yemi Alade; now Alade joins Kidjo on “Dignity,” a song in sympathy with the widespread protests in Nigeria against the brutality of the notorious police Special Anti-Robbery Squad. It mourns people killed by police; it calls for equality, respect and “radical beauty” while also insisting, “No retreat, no surrender.” The track has a crisp Afrobeats core under pinging and wriggling guitars, as both women’s voices — separately and harmonizing — argue for strength and survival. PARELESDr. Lonnie Smith featuring Iggy Pop, ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’Timmy Thomas’s “Why Can’t We Live Together” was an old soul tune with an Afro-Latin undercurrent that became the foundation for Drake’s “Hotline Bling.” In this cover, the organist Dr. Lonnie Smith stays mostly faithful to the original, though his solo subtly doubles the funk factor and the band finds its way into a swaggering shuffle. Where Thomas sang the song as an earnest, enervated plea for social harmony, Smith’s guest vocalist, Iggy Pop, does it in an eerie croon, somewhere between a lounge singer and Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOInternet Money featuring Lil Mosey and Lil Tecca, ‘Jetski’Not enough has been said about the strain of sweetness running through one sector of contemporary hip-hop. Listen to Lil Mosey or Lil Tecca — not just the pitch of the voices, but the breathable anti-density of the cadences, and also how the subject matter rarely rises past mild irritation. It’s cuddles all around. CARAMANICABrockhampton featuring Danny Brown, ‘Buzzcut’The return of Brockhampton after a quiet 2020 is top-notch chaos — a frenetic, nerve-racking stomper (featuring an elastic verse by Danny Brown) that nods to N.W.A., the Beastie Boys, the Pharcyde and beyond. CARAMANICARod Wave, ‘Tombstone’In a weary but resolute moan, over a plucked acoustic guitar and subterranean bass tones, Rod Wave sings about how he’ll be compulsively hustling “to keep the family fed” until he dies. Halfway through the song, he does. Death turns out to be the ultimate release: “Finally, I’ll be resting in peace,” he sings, his voice rising to falsetto and growing serene, with a gospel choir materializing to commemorate and uplift him. The video adds another story: of a deaf boy shot dead by police and laid to rest, as Wave sings, echoing the Bible and Sam Cooke, “by the river.” PARELESSara Watkins, ‘Night Singing’“Under the Pepper Tree” is the latest album by Sara Watkins, from the lapidary acoustic bands Nickel Creek and I’m With Her, and it’s a collection of children’s songs, mostly from her own childhood. “Night Singing” is her own new song, two minutes of pure benevolent lullaby as she urges, “Rest your eyes, lay down your head,” while the music unfolds from cozy acoustic guitar picking to halos of ascending, reverberating lead guitar. PARELESChristopher Hoffman, ‘Discretionary’The cellist Christopher Hoffman’s unruly, unorthodox quartet — featuring the vibraphonist Bryan Carrott, the bassist Rashaan Carter and the drummer Craig Weinrib — moves around with its limbs loose, but its body held together. On “Discretionary,” the odd-metered opening track from his new album, “Asp Nimbus,” a backbeat is implied but always overridden or undermined; Henry Threadgill’s Zooid, an avant-garde chamber ensemble in which Hoffman plays, might flutter to mind. Carrott’s vibes make a web of harmony that Hoffman’s bowed cello sometimes supports, and elsewhere cuts right through. RUSSONELLO More

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      Olivia Rodrigo's Hit 'Drivers License' Has the Best Part of a Song

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      Listen and follow Still ProcessingApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherThis episode contains strong language.Wesley has made his pick for song of the year: “Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo. This record-breaking track makes him nostalgic for his favorite part of a song — the bridge.Bridges used to be a core feature of popular music, but they’ve become an endangered species, right next to the sitcom laugh track.With today’s pop songs increasingly devoid of bridges, how do we form emotional, heart-swelling connections to pop songs? For Jenna, the answer lies in the earthquake that hit the world in 2018: TikTok.Today, we listen back to iconic bridges and look ahead to the new ways TikTok allows us to experience the best part of the song.On today’s episodeA bridge at its bestWesley thinks that “Drivers License,” the debut single from an 18-year-old Disney actress, will be song of the year for one key reason: It’s got a bridge!“What I love about some bridges is you are dropped into the middle of a totally different song,” Wesley said. “And the bridge on ‘Drivers License’ basically does that.”The bridge begins around the two-and-a-half-minute mark, when Olivia Rodrigo starts belting, “Red lights / stop signs / I still see your face in the white cars.”Writing songs for TikTok-ificationIn an episode of “Diary of a Song,” Olivia Rodrigo told the culture reporter Joe Coscarelli that she wrote “Drivers License” with TikTok in mind. Her vision has held up, as swarms of TikTokers have captured the song’s transition into the bridge. “They’re really just playing into the cathartic release that the bridge offers,” Jenna said. “Like, here are the contents of my heart emptied out.”

      @spoiledmel can this be a trend? 😳 ##oliviarodrigo ##driverslicense ##fyp @livbedumb stream drivers license!!!! ♬ drivers license – Olivia Rodrigo Jenna discussed a few other song-based TikTok challenges that have gone viral, including “Buss It” by Erica Banks, “Mood” by 24kgoldn and “Savage” by Megan Thee Stallion.“I think what a lot of artists have done, and have really enjoyed doing, is seeing not just where these songs live in people’s bodies,” Jenna said, “but what their bodies do with them and what their minds do with them.” She added, “It is such a vehicle for creative expression, unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”Jenna and Wesley’s favorite bridgesIn the episode, the co-hosts treat us to some of their most treasured bridges — like the breakdown in Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” and the well-earned apex of “I’m Your Baby Tonight” by Whitney Houston.Here’s a playlist of all the songs mentioned in this episode.Hosted by: Jenna Wortham and Wesley MorrisProduced by: Elyssa Dudley and Hans BuetowEdited by: Sara SarasohnEngineered by: Marion LozanoExecutive Editor, Newsroom Audio: Wendy DorrAssistant Managing Editor: Sam DolnickSpecial thanks: Nora Keller, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani and Desiree Ibekwe.Wesley Morris is a critic at large. He was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his criticism while at the Boston Globe. He has also worked at Grantland, The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner. @wesley_morrisJenna Wortham is a staff writer for The Times Magazine and co-editor of the book “Black Futures” with Kimberly Drew. @jennydeluxe More

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      Justin Bieber, Still Seeking a Sound

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      His sixth album, “Justice,” tries out several production styles, but never nails a mood.It is with some awkwardness — confusion? — that I must inform you that the first voice you hear on the new Justin Bieber album, “Justice,” is Martin Luther King Jr.’s.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” King returns mid-album, on an interlude that samples a speech about how a life without conviction and passion is no life at all, which is absolutely true.King’s calls to action are, indisputably, powerful — they should be heard widely. And yet, as a framing device for an album by the 27-year-old pop star, they feel unanchored: a Big Gesture in search of equivalently ambitious commitment — political, spiritual, emotional, even musical — to bolster it.It only calls attention to the persistent underlying conundrum with all things Bieber, which is that despite some indelible hits, his fame vastly outpaces his catalog, and that throughout his career — in ways overt or reluctant, destructive or self-protective — he has never rested in one place for very long, nor sought to make a case for his own particularity.That’s why his last album, “Changes,” full of medium-stakes R&B well-suited to his lightly silky voice, was one of his most successful. It wasn’t a runaway triumph, but it was coherent and soothing, and notably free of baggage. It was also a reminder that perhaps Justin Bieber the musician and performer isn’t actively interested in — or an especially good fit for — the scale of song ordinarily mandated for someone as popular as Justin Bieber the celebrity.The disorganized, only sporadically strong “Justice,” though, feels like a slap on the wrist to “Changes,” or the version of Bieber it nurtured. Rather than settle for one groove, this album shuttles between several: quasi new wave, Christian pop, acoustic soul, and many more. Bieber’s sixth studio album, “Justice” is full of songs that feel like production exercises lightly spritzed with some Eau de Bieber, the musical equivalent of merchandise.A host of guest features serve as opportunities to try on different guises, with varying levels of success. The production of “Love You Different,” with the dancehall rapper Beam, nods wanly to the Caribbean, but nowhere near as effectively as Bieber’s 2015 smash “Sorry.” The Nigerian star Burna Boy appears on “Loved by You,” but Bieber doesn’t match his guest’s casual gravitas.“Die for You” is perhaps the most ambitious stylistic collision here. An up-tempo, synthetic duet with the upstart pop slacker Dominic Fike, it harks back to the mid-1980s, but Bieber isn’t the sort of power singer who can outperform the flamboyance of the production. The same is true on “Unstable,” with the Kid Laroi, the Australian singer-rapper who’s adept at a post-Juice WRLD whine — Bieber sings earnestly and plainly, while his partner leans into the anguish.Of the collaborations, by far the most successful is “Peaches,” a sun-dappled and slinky R&B number — featuring the rising stars Daniel Caesar and Giveon — that finds Bieber at his most vocally flexible (though he was in even better form when he debuted this song, solo, on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert).More often, though, “Justice” attempts to impose big-tent pop onto Bieber — the John Hughes movie chords on “Hold On,” or the runway-walk bop of “Somebody.” In places, like on “Ghost,” those impulses are at least leavened with acoustic guitar, and the shift in his singing is notable — he goes from accent piece to main character.Lyrically, “Justice” focuses on songs about triumph over regrettable behavior, about preaching devotion to a more powerful entity — a wife, a God — who didn’t abandon you in a time of need. “You prayed for me when I was out of faith/You believed in me when ain’t nobody else did/It’s a miracle you didn’t run away,” he sings, pointedly, on “As I Am.”At the end of the album is “Lonely,” the moving piano ballad he released last October that felt like the cleanest break with his former self that he’d ever committed to song. These songs are Bieber at his most self-referential, his least cluttered and also his strongest — they book end a steady, intimate sentiment running through an album that does everything it can to distract from it.Justin Bieber“Justice”(Def Jam) More

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      Addison Rae’s Pulsing Pop Debut, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by glaive, Allison Russell, Lake Street Dive and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Addison Rae, ‘Obsessed’Perfectly pulsing, pithy and pleasant Pelotoncore from Addison Rae, star of TikTok and, if the machines have their way, all the other media, too. This is her debut single, and the topic is mutual infatuation, an optimal subject for the era of reciprocatory social media. JON CARAMANICAglaive, ‘I Wanna Slam My Head Against the Wall’As hyperpop gets slightly less hyper, it’s coalescing into charming, slurry electro-pop, with melodies inching closer to the fore. “I Wanna Slam My Head Against the Wall,” the new single from the scene star glaive, tilts between breathability and gasping, with squirrelly production and lyrics that are sweetly sung agony: “I’m on the brink of insanity inside my own home/I wanna slam my head against the wall/’Til I cannot feel at all.” CARAMANICALake Street Dive, ‘Anymore’“We keep going through the motions when we should go our separate ways,” Rachael Price sings in “Anymore,” a patient but unsparingly analytical song about the protracted last throes of a relationship. Lake Street Dive, an era-hopping band that can reach all the way back to smalll-group swing, places “Anymore” in the 1970s and 1980s of Steely Dan and Marvin Gaye, with electric keyboards, drum machines and tickling guitars. The gloss doesn’t hide the heartbreak or the anger. JON PARELESAllison Russell, ‘Nightflyer’The lyrics to “Nightflyer” are mostly a list, a poetic and far-reaching one: “I’m the moon’s dark side, I’m the solar flare/the child of the earth, the child of the air/I am the mother of the evening star/I am the love that conquers all.” Allison Russell sings them over a stately blend of country and church as she summons a congregation of her own vocal harmonies, gathering strength as she promises reassurance. PARELESReggie, ‘Ain’t Gon Stop Me’Brief but beautifully textured, “Ain’t Gon Stop Me” is the best single so far from the young Reggie, who raps with a deliciously earthy singsong flow. On this song, produced by Monte Booker and Kenny Beats, he recalls hard times — “The drugs almost got me/my best friend was Oxy” — with an almost gospel-like fever, delivered and breathing easy. CARAMANICANick Hakim and Roy Nathanson, ‘Moonman’Through his friends in the Onyx Collective, the young soul vocalist Nick Hakim came into contact with Roy Nathanson, an alto saxophonist and poet with decades of history on the downtown scene. An afternoon of collaborations in Nathanson’s basement led to recording a full album, “Small Things,” due next month, with help from a few friends around the Onyx universe. Hakim has a voice made of smoke that can rattle you like thunder, and on “Moonman,” a simple jazzy chord progression is all he needs as he wanders through Nathanson’s wistful, stream-of-consciousness poetry. (“The passionate/kiss-in-the-fog,/clammy hand romance/at Bogart Airport view.”) The melody, half-improvised and enchanting, comes surrounded by lush analog sound, clouded with echo and blur. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOKasai Allstars, ‘Olooh, a War Dance for Peace’“Olooh” is named after an ancient Congolese village custom: marking a reconciliation with a ceremonial war dance. Musicians and singers from five ensembles collaborate in the multiethnic, 15-member Kasai Allstars, based in Kinshasa. In “Olooh,” a six-beat groove carries a musical variety show: male and female singers, grouped or solo, offering a string of assorted melodies; guitars entwining or leaping into the foreground, bursts of electronic sounds. The track unfurls idea after idea for nearly six minutes, and still sounds like it’s only getting started. PARELESLil Tjay featuring Polo G and Fivio Foreign, ‘Headshot’A turn to the tough for the sugary-voiced rap crooner Lil Tjay, “Headshot” is ominous and sturdy. Polo G has the first guest verse, but it’s the rising Brooklyn drill star Fivio Foreign who steals the show with an extremely au courant barb: “All of your sneakers is beat up.” CARAMANICASorry, ‘Separate’In “Separate,” the English band Sorry melds deadpan, indie-rock understatement — think of the xx drained of romance — with clanky, glitchy electronics. It’s a distillate of late-pandemic, extended-lockdown loneliness, disorientation, frustration and monotony; Asha Lorenz sings, “I like to think I’m walking somewhere even when I walk in circles.” PARELESLoraine James, ‘Simple Stuff’The beat is programmed but never exactly repetitive in “Simple Stuff” by the London electronic producer Loraine James. “I like the simple stuff, you like the simple things, what does that bring to me,” goes a chanted loop that gets distorted and fractured as the track goes on. One thuddy bass note pulses, sputters, disappears and pokes back in; snare hits and log-drum samples spatter and echo across the stereo space, with maracas slipping in for extra polyrhythm. The track is tense and constricted, extrapolating its frustrations inward. PARELESBheki Mseleku, ‘Isango (The Gateway)’Few figures loom larger among South African jazz musicians today than Bheki Mseleku, a pianist and multi-instrumentalist who placed his deep commitment to local traditions and his own spiritual perspective (earned through years spent in self-isolation) into conversation with American jazz influences. Eighteen years ago, and five years before his death at age 53, Mseleku entered a studio in London to record a solo-piano album that was never released. Now it has finally come out, as “Beyond the Stars,” on the Tapestry Works label. On its longest track, “Isango (The Gateway),” Mseleku follows his own lyrical, cycling melody into a rolling three-chord pattern that finally brings the nearly 17-minute performance home. RUSSONELLO More

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      Bhaskar Menon, Who Turned Capitol Records Around, Dies at 86

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      After becoming the label’s chief in 1971, he oversaw the release of gargantuan hits like Pink Floyd’s album “The Dark Side of the Moon.”In 1970, Capitol Records’ business was struggling. The Beatles, the company’s top act, were defunct. Hits were scarce among its remaining roster. That year, the company lost $8 million.It needed a savior, and it found one in Bhaskar Menon, an Indian-born, Oxford-educated executive at EMI, the British conglomerate that was Capitol’s majority owner. He became the label’s new chief in 1971 and quickly turned its finances around, driving a gargantuan hit in 1973 with Pink Floyd’s album “The Dark Side of the Moon.” He later ran EMI’s vast worldwide music operations.Mr. Menon, who was also the first Asian man to run a major Western record label, died on March 4 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 86.The death was confirmed by his wife, Sumitra Menon.“Determined to achieve excellence, Bhaskar Menon built EMI into a music powerhouse and one of our most iconic global institutions,” Lucian Grainge, the chief executive of Universal Music Group, which owns the Capitol label and EMI’s recorded music business, said in a statement after Mr. Menon’s death.Mr. Menon with Maurice Lathouwers of Capitol Records and the singer Helen Reddy, who had numerous hits for the label in the 1970s.EMI Music WorldwideVijaya Bhaskar Menon was born on May 29, 1934, to a prominent family in Trivandrum, in south India (now Thiruvananthapuram). His father, K.R.K. Menon, was the finance secretary under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru; the first one-rupee notes issued after India’s independence from Britain bore his signature. Mr. Menon’s mother, Saraswathi, knew many of India’s leading classical musicians personally.Mr. Menon studied at the Doon School and St. Stephen’s College in India before earning a master’s degree from Christ Church, Oxford. His tutor at Oxford recommended him to Joseph Lockwood, the chairman of EMI, and Mr. Menon began working there in 1956.A proud British institution, EMI controlled a wide musical empire, with divisions throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. While there, Mr. Menon assisted the producer George Martin, who later became the Beatles’ chief collaborator.In 1957, Mr. Menon joined the Gramophone Company of India, an EMI subsidiary; he became managing director in 1965 and chairman in 1969. Later in 1969, he was named managing director of EMI International.Capitol, the Los Angeles label that had been home to Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee, was reeling from business missteps and declining sales, and EMI installed Mr. Menon as its president and chief executive. He slashed Capitol’s artist roster, tightened budgets and pushed for more aggressive promotion of the label’s artists.Pink Floyd’s album “The Dark Side of the Moon” was one of the most noteworthy successes of Mr. Menon’s tenure at Capitol and one of the biggest blockbusters in music history.In 1972, Mr. Menon learned that Capitol was at risk of losing the next album by Pink Floyd, which blamed the company for the poor sales of its previous albums in the United States. Mr. Menon flew to the South of France, where Pink Floyd was performing and, after an all-night negotiating session, they agreed on a deal. Mr. Menon commemorated the terms on a cocktail napkin and brought it back to Capitol’s legal department in Los Angeles, said Rupert Perry, a longtime executive at EMI and Capitol.“The Dark Side of the Moon,” released by Capitol with a huge promotional campaign, was one of the biggest blockbusters in music history; it stayed on Billboard’s album chart for 741 consecutive weeks and has sold more than 15 million copies in the United States alone.Led by Mr. Menon, Capitol continued to have success in the 1970s with Bob Seger, Helen Reddy, Steve Miller, Linda Ronstadt, Grand Funk Railroad and others.In 1978, EMI put its music divisions under unified management as EMI Music Worldwide and named Mr. Menon chairman and chief executive. He remained in that position until retiring from the music industry in 1990. From 2005 to 2016, he served on the board of directors of NDTV, a news television channel in India. In 2011, an ailing EMI was sold to Sony, which bought its music publishing business, and Universal Music.Mr. Menon, right, at a gala celebrating Capitol’s 75th anniversary in Los Angeles in 2016. With him was Steve Barnett, who was then the chairman and chief executive of the label.Lester Cohen/WireImage, via Getty ImagesIn some ways, Mr. Menon was an outsider in the Southern California music scene.“I was a very unusual and unlikely sort of person to be sent here under those circumstances to take overall executive command of Capitol,” Mr. Menon was quoted as saying in “History of the Music Biz: The Mike Sigman Interviews,” a 2016 collection published by the industry magazine Hits.Mr. Menon’s wife recalled in a phone interview that when they married, in 1972, Mr. Menon told her, “There are only two Indians in L.A.: Ravi Shankar and me.” She recounted stories of the two men — old friends from India — scouring the city’s exclusive west side in vain for good Indian food.In addition to his wife, Mr. Menon is survived by two sons, Siddhartha and Vishnu, and a sister, Vasantha Menon.Although Mr. Menon was primarily known as a manager of the business side of the labels he ran, he had the respect of many musicians. In the 2003 documentary “Pink Floyd: The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon,” Nick Mason, the band’s drummer, recalled Mr. Menon’s efforts in promoting the band’s breakthrough album, calling him “absolutely terrific.”“He decided he was going to make this work, and make the American company sell this record,” Mr. Mason said. “And he did.” More

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      Drake Shakes Up the Singles Chart, but Morgan Wallen’s Album Holds On

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ChartsDrake Shakes Up the Singles Chart, but Morgan Wallen’s Album Holds OnThree of the rapper’s new tracks dislodged Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” on the Hot 100, while the country star notched a ninth week atop the Billboard 200.Drake’s “What’s Next,” “Wants and Needs” and “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” take the top three spots on the Hot 100.Credit…Chris Delmas/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMarch 15, 2021, 3:09 p.m. ETAfter two static months, the pop charts are finally beginning to change, at least a little.Olivia Rodrigo’s song “Drivers License” has dominated the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks, and been a phenomenon on social media, but now it has finally given way. And not just to one song, but three: Drake takes the top three spots with “What’s Next,” “Wants and Needs” and “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” — the first artist in history to do so. (Perhaps not coincidentally, those songs are the first three tracks, in order, on Drake’s recently released EP, “Scary Hours 2.”) “Drivers License” falls to No. 4.The album chart, however, has not budged. “Dangerous: The Double Album,” by the country singer-songwriter Morgan Wallen, notches a ninth week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It had the equivalent of 78,000 sales in the United States, including 98 million steams and 6,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking unit.Despite a rebuke from the industry after Wallen was caught on video casually using a racial slur, “Dangerous” has had the most weeks at No. 1 for any album in five years (since “Views,” by Drake — who else?), and is one of only four country albums in the 65-year history of the chart to spent at least nine weeks at No. 1. The others? Garth Brooks’s “Ropin’ the Wind” (1991), Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Some Gave All” (1992) and Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” (2008).Also on this week’s album chart, Pop Smoke’s “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon” is No. 2, Pooh Shiesty’s “Shiesty Season” is No. 3, the Weeknd’s year-old “After Hours” is No. 4 and Lil Durk’s “The Voice” is No. 5.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More