Cool for the Summer?
While you might think that Demi Lovato's hit "Cool for the Summer" was meant to titillate, with its racy lyrics about being bi-curious, Demi knew that the song could serve a larger purpose: starting an honest conversations about sexuality. To her delight, she says it's done exactly that for some of her fans.
"I’ve gotten criticism for maybe not having the most inspiring performance [of the song] on the VMAs," Demi tells ABC Radio. That performance featured Demi striking sexy poses in a skimpy outfit, and twerking with Iggy Azalea. She adds, "I agree, it wasn’t necessarily inspiring, but my other songs like 'Skyscraper' and 'Warrior' and, you know, other songs are uplifting, and there’s a time and place for everything."
According to Demi, fans quickly shut down the haters with tales of how the song personally helped them. "I actually had somebody online say, “Well, wait a minute, that’s not true because "Cool for the Summer" actually made me feel confident enough to come out to my parents.'" Demi recalls. "Or, 'Cool for the Summer’ took away the shame that I always felt about fantasizing the same sex.' Or, you know, the opposite sex, whatever it is."
"So...actually...there’s a purpose to it," she explains. "And that song was about me opening up and just showing the world, 'You know what? I’m not holding back anymore, this is who I am.'" (AUDIO IS ABC 1-ON-1)
In fact, on Demi's new album, Confident, she didn't hold back about anything, singing about devastating heartbreak, sex, her late father, being bullied, and a variety of other topics. She'll bring all those songs to her fans live starting next year, when she and pal Nick Jonas hit the road for their FutureNow tour.
New Britney Album on the way
New Britney Spears music is officially on the way. Britney confirms in an Instagram post that she’s “working hard” on her ninth studio album.
Brit has been hinting at the new project for weeks, posting photos from inside the studio and using the hashtag #B9 to reference album number nine. Yesterday, she Instagrammed a photo of herself with in-demand songwriters Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter, captioning it, “Working hard and hardly working...new album...wheeeee!”
Julie and Justin most recently collaborated with Selena Gomez on her new album, Revival. They also co-wrote Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” and Gwen Stefani’s new single “Used to Love You.”
No word yet on when we can expect Britney's new album to be released. She's also busy with her Las Vegas residency show, Piece of Me, which was recently extended for another two years.
'Hello': Second fastest to 100 million views on YouTube
If you played Adele’s video for “Hello” over and over again when it first came out, you certainly weren’t the only one. According to a new YouTube trend report, the melancholy music video was played an average of over one million times per hour within the first two days of its release.
Over the course of those 48 hours -- beginning at approximately 12 a.m. PT Friday, October 23 -- the video was viewed 50 million times. That makes it the biggest debut of any video on YouTube in 2015 and one of the most-watched music video debuts of all time.
“Adele Hello” was YouTube’s top search on October 23 and 24, and managed to rack up as many as 1.6 million views in a single hour. By comparison, the full trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakenspeaked at 1.2 million views per hour.
“Hello” also set the record for the most U.S. downloads sold in a week, with 1.11 million, according to Nielsen Music. It debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
According to Billboard, the song also joins Elton John’s Princess Diana tribute “Candle in the Wind” as the only other song to sell at least one million copies over a seven-day span. Elton's song sold 3.4 million copies in its first week of release back in 1997.
Top Earning Female Entertainer
Who is the top-earning woman in the music biz? Here's a hint: It's not Taylor Swift.
No, it's actually Taylor's purported rival, Katy Perry. Forbes magazine has calculated that Katy has earned 135 million dollars this year, thanks in large part to her Prismatic World Tour.
Taylor, who's toured in support of her most recent album, 1989, this year, ranks second, with 80 million dollars.
Fleetwood Mac ($59.5 million), whose members include Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie; Lady Gaga($59 million); and Beyoncé ($54.5 million) round out the top five.
Stars Perform 'Ironic' Dressed as Chickens on 'Tonight Show'
Alanis Morissette was the musical guest on Tuesday's The Tonight Show and also joined host Jimmy Fallon and surprise guest Meghan Trainor for an all-clucking version of Alanis' 1995 hit, "Ironic."
The segment featured Morissette, Trainor, and Fallon as part of a fictitious band called, "The Jagged Little Chicks" -- a play on the title of Morissette's massively successful debut album, Jagged Little Pill. The trio -- dressed as chickens, with Trainor on bass and Fallon on guitar -- took turns clucking Alanis' big hit from the collection.
The 41-year-old singer/songwriter is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the album's release with a new four-disc deluxe version titled, Jagged Little Pill: Collector's Edition. The set includes a remastered version the original album, an all-acoustic version, a full-length concert, and a disc of demos from the session.
Morissette returned later to perform an acoustic version of her hit "Hand in My Pocket."
One Direction's Made in the A.M. out next week
In just a couple of short weeks, One Direction’s album Made in the A.M. will be released. But if you’re finding the wait difficult, the guys of 1D have previewed two new tracks to help tide you over.
They teased the songs “Temporary Fix” and “Walking in the Wind” in a video clip, with Niall Horan and Harry Styles providing commentary for each track.
Niall co-wrote “Temporary Fix” and says it was inspired by Kings of Leon’s hit “Sex on Fire.” He calls it a love song with “grit.”
“It’s relatable, I guess,” he says. “Everyone has a grungy night out every now and then.”
Harry explains the inspiration behind the breezy upbeat tune “Walking in the Wind.” "I like 'Walking in the Wind' because I’m a big Paul Simon fan and I think the inspiration behind it was [his 1986 album] Graceland, in which the verse was so conversational and informal,” he says.
Made in the A.M. comes out November 13.
Genius is Eminem's New Investment
Eminem has a new investment in the works. According to Billboard, the rapper is partnering with the lyric and annotation website Genius.
Besides investing, Eminem will continue providing context and commentary to his lyrics on the site. Genius also will serve as the official lyrics hub for Eminem.com and all of Shady Records’ online properties.
“Coming up we would always obsess over the lyrics from our favorite MCs. Picking everything apart, trying to get into their heads,” Eminem says in a statement obtained by Billboard. “I still do that today and Genius helps to make it a worldwide conversation. Pretty amazing to me.”
Earlier this year, the site enlisted Eminem to annotate some of his biggest hits including “Lose Yourself” and “Stan.”
Genius, founded in 2009, describes itself as the world’s biggest online collection of song lyrics and crowd-sourced music knowledge. It claims a monthly reach of more than 45 million people.
Ed Sheeran's Favorites Revealed
In a recent Twitter Q&A, Ed Sheeran revealed his favorite songs by pal Taylor Swift and rumored ex Ellie Goulding.
The singer says his favorite Taylor track is “Enchanted” from her 2010 album Speak Now. He also named“Explosions” as his preferred Ellie song, from her 2012 album Halycon.
Ed was rumored to have written his song “Don’t” about his relationship with Ellie, though he's never confirmed it. Ellie has denied they ever dated.
In an episode of Fuse’s Revealed over the weekend, Ed credited Taylor with helping jump start his career by letting him open for her on her 2013 Red tour. They’ve been besties ever since.
Who is Gwen Stefani Dating?
The rumors are true: Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton are a couple.
A rep for the No Doubt singer has confirmed to ABC Radio that the two Voice coaches have started dating. The rep did not offer any other details.
The announcement came just hours before Blake was set to perform at the Country Music Association Awards in Nashville.
Speculation that Gwen and Blake are an item has been swirling in recent days. They reportedly were spotted holding hands at actor/rocker Jared Leto’s costume party Friday night. TMZ later reported that the two took a private jet to Nashville.
Gwen settled her divorce with rocker Gavin Rossdale last month, and Blake split with Miranda Lambert in July.
Where Are The Angels?
Last October, I resigned as CEO of Digicel TCI and started a company called “Domus Semo Sancus” (DSS) – Latin for “House of Trust”. DSS is a financial technology (FinTech) company that’s building tools to help bridge the e-commerce divide. There are over 2 billion persons around the world who are unbanked or under-banked, and as more and more of the world’s financial transactions become “cashless”, those persons are being left behind. We at DSS are developing solutions to combat that. Our aim is to “Make Lives Better”!
DSS is currently a startup, the most fragile phase of a company’s existence. Success at this stage depends a lot on having adequate funding, although no amount of funding can turn a bad idea into a successful company.
When starting a company, the Founder(s) would self-finance it with support from friends and family, raising just enough funds to cover the cost of setting up the company and developing the idea. Getting to market normally requires a second larger round of financing, and this is the most critical round. It is so important that persons who invest in this round are called “Angels”. After a company’s product(s) and/or services are in market (and ideally generating revenues) a Venture Capitalist (VC) may consider investing in it.
Through God’s blessings, I was able to get DSS to the point where we launched our first product, but unfortunately just short of VC funding. At that point, what DSS needed were Angels, but finding them here is next to impossible!
One of the problems is that there is no “old money” in the Turks & Caicos. And the few residents with enough capital to become Angels are the “nouveau riche”, who are only comfortable investing in real estate. For example, I was looking to raise less than US$250k, offering 20% interest for 6 months, with the option to turn the debt into equity and got no takers. And it wasn’t the size of the request that was the “turnoff” – as I have a friend with a great business idea looking to raise less than US$20k on the same terms, and he’s getting no takers. When did a 20% interest rate for 6 months become unattractive to a lender?
Notwithstanding the above, I do understand the reluctance to invest in anything but real estate. It takes a commitment bordering on recklessness to see prime real estate heavily discounted, and having the means to purchase it, but pass it up to invest in something that in a worst case scenario could end up having zero (US$0) value. That said, the investment could also end up being worth more than what the average person can spend in a lifetime.
Raising funds to start a business is hard, and extra so in the Turks & Caicos. The pool of potential investors here is small, and those with sufficient means to become Angels are reluctant to do so. To them, real estate is a far more attractive investment. However, most of the global wealth generated by companies are not in the hands of the founders (or their families), but in the hands of those who invested in the companies. Backing a great company can be just as lucrative as founding a great company. And when that happens, it creates a win win win situation for the founder(s), the investor(s), and the next generation of entrepreneurs – as it creates a pool of capital and knowledge that can be tapped into. But first, we need the Angels to come forth.