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IFPI names Taylor Swift Global Recording Artist of the Year

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

Taylor Swift has pulled a hat trick. For the third time, The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has crowned her its Global Recording Artist of the Year.

The honor is given to the artist based on their streams, downloads, covers and sales of their music over the prior year. IFPI, which represents the global recording industry, did not disclose the singer’s worldwide sales numbers for 2022.

It should be noted Taylor won this award in 2014 and 2019; she’s now the first artist to win the award three times. The only other artists to win the honor multiple times was BTS and rapper Drake, who have two awards each.

Last year, Taylor finished behind winners BTS and also made it into the top three in 2015, 2017 and 2020. Because of that, she is the award’s most successful artist over the past 10 years.

Said IFPI Chief Executive Frances Moore, “It is a great pleasure to award the IFPI Global Recording Artist Award to Taylor Swift for an unprecedented third time in the chart’s ten-year history. Taylor is a truly magnificent international star, who continues to grow and evolve as an artist whilst maintaining an incredibly strong connection with her fans around the world.”

This year, BTS came in second place, while Drake finished in third.

In October, Taylor shattered records with the arrival of Midnights. The effort debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and was the first album to sell over 1 million copies in a week since Taylor’s own Reputation in 2017.

LL Cool J pulls plug on latest studio effort: “Not dropping it”

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

After much teasing regarding his comeback album, LL Cool J‘s decided against releasing the project. He came to the conclusion Wednesday following a slew tweets capturing his stream of consciousness.

“I’m really trying to figure this album out. SMH,” he tweeted in the wee hours of the morning, per TMZ. Minutes later, he said that he’s “Just not feeling like this album is worthy being released.” He then revealed that he’s “not dropping it.”

LL’s announcement comes just weeks after he expressed his desire for fans to hear the album when it drops.

“I’m competing with myself on this new album. Wait til you hear this MF,” he tweeted. “This year B. It’s coming.” He later revealed that Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest was executive producing the project, which was supposed to be his first new album in a decade.

Morgan Wallen dominates Billboard’s country charts

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

This week, Morgan Wallen not only climbs to #1 with “Thought You Should Know,” he also tops every country chart Billboard publishes. The track from his forthcoming One Night at a Time album is his eighth career #1.

Meanwhile, “Last Night,” another cut from the record, lands at the top of three other charts: Hot Country Songs, Country Digital Song Sales and Country Streaming Songs. Simultaneously, Morgan’s current record, Dangerous: The Double Album, continues its reign on the Top Country Albums tally.

Most recently, Luke Combs topped all five charts in 2019. Kane Brown was the first to accomplish the feat in 2017.

Bono gives Steven Spielberg special honor at Berlin Film Festival: “He’s kind of out of this world”

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

U2 is busy prepping a new album and a Las Vegas residency, but on Tuesday, Bono took time out from their busy schedule to present director Steven Spielberg with a lifetime achievement award at the Berlin Film Festival.

According to Deadline, Bono gave Spielberg the festival’s Honorary Golden Bear and then launched into a detailed explanation of why he loves the director’s work so much.

He started by praising Spielberg’s 1974 film, The Sugarland Express, which stars Goldie Hawn as a mother who, desperate to reunite with her son, takes a policeman hostage.

“I watch the mother’s face and it’s projected 30 feet tall. The mother is played by the great Goldie Hawn, but all I see is my own mother, as I saw her as a child, gigantic, imperfect,” Bono recalled of watching the film. “I cry though my heart is full of joy because I know that my own mother will always come looking for me. That is pure cinema. No, that is pure Spielberg.”

The singer also professed his love for Spielberg’s film A.I., about a child robot who’s programmed to love the woman to whom he’s given.

“In A.I., the boy is a machine who develops a soul, so he can love his mother back to life. In the machine that is Hollywood. Steven Spielberg is the soul in the machine,” he noted.

Bono then said of Spielberg, “He’s kind of out of this world. He’s not really a celebrity, is he? Thank God for that. We know he’s one of the biggest of the big shots in Hollywood, but we get the sense he doesn’t quite belong there and we’re kind of relieved.”

Bono was at the film festival for the premiere of Kiss the Future, about U2’s 1997 concert in Sarajevo.

‘Everything Everywhere’ must go: Oscar-nominated movie auctioning off props and costumes for charity

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

A24, the studio behind Oscar-nominated indie movies like I, Tonya, and Everything Everywhere All at Once is opening up its prop vaults from the latter movie for charity.

The studio’s A24 Auctions website has posted costumes and props from the Golden Globe-winning and Academy Award-nominated film, all benefitting three charities chosen by directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.

So, if you’ve ever wanted to get your hands on some of the movie’s infamous hot dog hands, check out the Laundry & Taxes collection and kick in some dough to the Laundry Workers Center, which “aims to combat abuses such as landlord negligence, wage theft, and hazardous and exploitative working conditions…”

The same charity will benefit from winning bids for Deirdre’s calculator from Everything Everywhere All at Once, as well as costumes and other props worn by Oscar nominees Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh.

The Transgender Law Center will be the recipient of money raised from the purchase of items in the In Another Life collection, offering wares like Yeoh’s character Evelyn’s giant baby onesie and other goodies.

The memorabilia in the Mementos from the Multiverse portion of the auction, which include a googly-eyed rock, Waymond’s fanny pack and even Raccacoonie, the talented chef who’s not nearly as nice as Ratatouille‘s gourmand rat Remy, will benefit the Asian Mental Heath Project.

The auction opens runs from February 23 to March 2.

Brad Paisley returns with new music and a new deal

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

Brad Paisley‘s hard at work on a new album, with a new track titled “Same Here” set to arrive on Friday. This time though, he’s recording for Universal Music Group, after spending his entire career on Arista.

His new record deal reunites him with Mike Dungan and Cindy Mabe, the label executives who were with him at the first.

“I ran into Mike at the fishing department at Walmart after having met with several labels and he talked me into signing my first deal with Arista,” Brad recalls. “They assigned this woman named Cindy Mabe to me — we graduated the same day at Belmont. I got to work with her on my first few albums and now I get to work with her at UMG.”

Expect Brad’s full Universal debut to arrive later this year. His most recent album was 2017’s Love and War. He released his debut on Arista, Who Needs Pictures, back in 1999.

SZA says being crowned ‘Billboard’ Woman of the Year scares her

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

SZA is Billboard‘s Woman of the Year, and she says the honor “scares” her.

“It really scares me,” she told the outlet. “But I really want to do something with my time in the sun right now. There’s so much I want to do for other people. I need to do something to deserve that in a way that has nothing to do with me, something that’s selfless and uplifts other women, people, period.”

SZA continued, “It makes me feel more responsible than I was before. I feel like I owe everyone so much more than just smiling and getting onstage and waving.”

Because of those thoughts, the “Kill Bill” artist feels “there’s something more that I have to do.”

Right now, SZA’s immediate goal appears to be finishing a deluxe version of her #1 album SOS. But as for her plans after she drops it, she said, “I’m hoping to be able to accept that this chapter is done. I’m looking forward to actually feeling proud of myself and not just smiling and nodding at accolades but really feeling it internally and knowing that I’m good enough.”

The singer is floored her new album ate up the Billboard 200 and allowed her to chart alongside pop acts Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus.

“To even be in the conversation with Taylor and Miley, even the fact that our fans are fighting, is ridiculous,” she explained. “It’s like, ‘How?!'”

She continued, “I just really appreciate the opportunity to be in that conversation at all. It’s something I never dreamed of.”

As for her charting song “Kill Bill,” SZA reveals it was “super easy” to make; she made it in “one take, one night.”

Release date set for Peter Gabriel’s new book project ‘Reverberation: Do Everything Better with Music’

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

As previously reported, Peter Gabriel is the executive editor of a new book called Reverberation: Do Everything Better with Music, for which he’s also penned a foreward. Now we have a release date for the project: March 14.

The book’s concept is that if you incorporate the right music into your life, you can sleep better, become more creative, be more productive and even have better sex. In fact, it promises to share “specific songs and techniques” to make this happen.

“Reverberation unlocks a world where we can all actively leverage the power of music to improve and enhance every aspect of your life,” according to the book’s website.

Reverberation is based on interviews with neuroscientists who are making “exciting breakthroughs” at the “intersection of music, science, technology and medicine.” Also included are interviews with musicians like David Byrne, Mick Fleetwood, Branford Marsalis and Sheila E.

You can check out some excerpts from the book at Reverberation.co, while you listen to Gabriel’s song “Lead a Normal Life” from his 1980 self-titled album aka Melt.

Gabriel is also prepping for the release his long-awaited new album i/o, though he has yet to reveal its release date. So far, he’s put out two songs from it: “The Court (Dark-Side Mix)” and “Panopticom.” When it arrives, i/o will be his first album of new original music in 20 years.

Was Club Q shooting suspect motivated by hate? Court begins to look at evidence

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — Preliminary hearings began Wednesday in the trial of Club Q shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich, who allegedly opened fire in a Colorado LGBTQ bar in November 2022.

Aldrich is nonbinary, according to court filings released by the Colorado state public defender.

As prosecutors attempt to prove that the evidence is strong enough for Aldrich to stand trial, details about a potential motive, the moments leading up to the shooting, and what unfolded during the tragedy will likely be played out in court.

The suspect accused of killing five people — Daniel Davis Aston, Kelly Loving, Derrick Rump, Ashley Paugh, Raymond Green Vance, Tara Bush — in the mass shooting at the Colorado Springs bar, faces 323 charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder and bias-motivated crimes.

At least 19 people were also injured.

Investigators and witnesses said the suspect allegedly opened fire as soon as they walked into Club Q at about midnight on Nov. 19. Patrons at the venue tackled Aldrich, subduing the suspect until police arrived, according to witnesses.

The defense has not openly commented on the case, as per Office of the State Public Defender policies.

Ernie Hudson talks about being “pushed aside” by ‘Ghostbusters’ studio

February 22, 2023 by WDNY Radio

Ernie Hudson reprised his role as Winston Zeddemore in the hit Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and his character is a beloved part of the franchise. However, it wasn’t always that way.

In an interview with SiriusXM’s Gary Dell’Abate and Rahsaan Rogers on The Howard Stern Wrap Up Show, the veteran actor explains he was “pushed aside” by the studio when it came to marketing the 1984 original.

“I was the guy who was brought in, and so finding my place in the middle of that,” he said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The actor added director Ivan Reitman, writers and co-stars Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray “were all welcoming and inclusive.”

He noted, however, “The studio wasn’t, and the studio continued not to be. So it made it very, very difficult because I was a part of it, but then I very selectively was pushed aside.”

Hudson continued, “…I went to the 30th-anniversary release of the movie and all the posters are [just] three guys. Now I know the fans see it differently, and I’m so thankful for the fans because the fans basically identified with Winston, especially young, I don’t want to say minority kids, but a lot of kids.”

In the past, Hudson has mentioned that the Winston character was initially scripted to be in the film from the beginning, but the final film has the character hired mid-way through.

He explained that despite Ghostbusters‘ success, it took him more than two years to book another movie.

“It wasn’t an easy road,” he said. “Ghostbusters, I would say, it was probably the most difficult movie I ever did just from the psychological perspective. All those things…It definitely felt deliberate. And I’m still not trying to take it personally.”

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