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Rachel Mac can’t drink legally, can’t vote yet. But she sure can wow the coaches on NBC’s The Voice.
Aged just 15, the Michigan native gave a blind audition that proved that youth is no barrier to talent.
Showing off an impressive repertoire with touches of country and soul, Mac performed Patty Griffin’s “Let Him Fly.”
She made Nick Jonas fly…for his buzzer.
Later, Mac confessed she was a longtime fan of Blake Shelton. “Sorry Nick. What’s not to love about Blake Shelton,” she enthused.
“You have literally made my week,” Shelton said, admitting he might have made a mistake by not picking her.
John Legend was impressed with the youngster’s strong vibrato, but suggested toning down the histrionics a touch. “If you do that, you’re going to be in great shape. Because you really have a lovely voice,” he remarked.
“You’re ahead of the game at 15,” Kelly Clarkson noted.
Will Nick mold the youngster into a pop artist? We’ll have to wait and see. Watch the performance below.
Elon Musk is hopping on the NFT craze with plans to sell a new song about the non-fungible tokens… as its own NFT.
Musk’s exact involvement in the dance track is unclear, and he has not yet provided a link to the NFT or any additional context on where or when it might go on sale.
In Musk’s tweet, the unnamed track plays over the visual of a rotating golden trophy, with the words “Vanity Trophy” revolving around a shiny sphere and a base that reads “Computers Never Sleep” (an actual lyric from the song) — above that, the acronym “HODL,” which is short for “hold on for dear life.” That phrase is an oft-used slogan for the bitcoin community that’s used to discourage crypto traders from divesting from the cryptocurrencies.
The trophy additionally includes golden dogs evocative of shiba inus, a.k.a. the mascot for the dogecoin cryptocurrency that gained some traction amid the Gamestop phenomenon earlier this year and which Musk himself has tweeted about a number of times.
Musk has been a vocal cheerleader for bitcoin both on Twitter and through his company Tesla, which invested $1.5 billion in the cryptocurrency last month and has revealed plans to accept bitcoin as payment for its vehicles in the future.
You can read Billboard’s full explainer on the NFT phenomenon — and the music industry’s exploding interest in it — here.
When Eddie Van Halen’s portion of the Grammys’ “In Memoriam” segment included just a short clip of the Van Halen guitarist performing in archival footage and a lone guitar perched onstage, a lot of fans wondered why he didn’t get the same treatment as Kenny Rogers, Little Richard, John Prine or Gerry and the Pacemakers’ Gerry Marsden at Sunday’s show. According to a tweet Monday (March 15), Eddie’s son Wolfgang Van Halen was expecting something more substantial too.
Wolfgang said he was asked by the Recording Academy to play “Eruption” — which is what his dad was playing in the footage shown Sunday night — but declined. “I don’t think anyone could have lived up to what my father did for music but himself,” he wrote. What he didn’t realize is that his dad’s brief moment would be surrounded by full tribute performances from Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak (Little Richard), Lionel Richie (Kenny Rogers), Brandi Carlile (John Prine) and Brittany Howard (Marsden).
“It was my understanding that there would be an ‘In Memoriam’ section where bits of songs were performed by legendary artists that had passed,” Wolfgang wrote. “I didn’t realize that they would only show Pop for 15 seconds in the middle of 4 full performances for others we had lost.
“What hurt the most was that he wasn’t even mentioned when they talked about artists we lost in the beginning of the show,” he added. “I know rock isn’t the most popular genre right now, (and the academy does seem a bit out of touch) but I think it’s impossible to ignore the legacy my father left on the instrument, the world of rock, and music in general. There will never be another innovator like him.”
Wolfgang says his dad probably wouldn’t have even cared about the supposed snub since the music was all he cared about. “I’m not looking to start some kind of hate parade here, I just wanted to explain my side,” he wrote. “I know Pop would probably just laugh it off and say ‘Ehh who gives a sh–?’ He was only about the music anyway. The rest didn’t matter.” Wolfgang concluded his note by saying he would like to have a conversation with the Grammys “not only about the legacy of my father, but the legacy of the Rock genre moving forward.”
Eddie Van Halen earned one Grammy Award in his lifetime: best hard rock performance with vocal for Van Halen’s 1991 album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. Van Halen died Oct. 6 after a battle with cancer.
See Wolfgang’s statement below, and revisit Eddie Van Halen’s full “Eruption” solo too.
Before she got her ticket to Hollywood, Brianna Collichio endured a long journey, with hospital visits starting from the age of 7 due to cystic fibrosis.
The 15-year-old singer’s older sister Sentina Collichio posted a TikTok on June 27 of Brianna performing Alessia Cara’s “Scars to Your Beautiful” at a small venue, with hopes that she’d go viral and eventually audition for American Idol so “the world hears her story and beautiful voice.”
Brianna was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at birth, a condition that makes her prone to chronic lung infections. With her sister’s video amassing 2.1 million views, the teen from upstate New York scheduled an Idol audition in August. But unfortunately, she collapsed the evening before and had to go undergo surgery. Sentina shared another viral TikTok clip, this time with 3.3 million views, that was filmed in the hospital with the same “Scars to Your Beautiful” audio, and requested she get another shot at auditioning.
Collichio found herself in front of judges Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie in an audition clip that premiered Sunday, explaining that with CF, a person can experience scarring on their lungs. “But my lungs are not scarred and my voice is not raspy. So I want to inspire people,” she told them before delving into her stirring performance of “Scars to Your Beautiful.”
Richie thanked her for her “bravery” in sharing her story and later thanked her sister on Twitter for sharing that first TikTok video that made it all happen, while Bryan assured her she “knocked it out of the park.” Perry’s description of her as a “walking miracle” particularly struck a chord with Collichio, because that’s the nickname her mother gave her.
“Mom, you know what I called your daughter?” the pop star asked the tearful mother who entered the audition room at the end. “A walking miracle. And Mama, she’s walking her miracle straight to Hollywood.”
Watch Collichio’s inspirational story and Idol audition below.
After being nominated Monday (March 15) for the 2021 Oscars, Laura Pausini took to social media to say, “I still don’t believe it.”
The Italian crooner, known for timeless Latin ballads including “Viveme,” “En Cambio No,” and “Amores Extraños,” is nominated for best original song alongside Diane Warren for “Io Sí (Seen),” the theme song to the Edoardo Ponti-directed film The Life Ahead, starring his mother, Sophia Loren.
“Being able to be part of such a special project as ‘The Life Ahead’ with #EdoardoPonti and #SophiaLoren was for me one of the greatest gifts that life could give me,” she wrote. “And now knowing that I’m nominated for an Oscar is beyond any wish or expectation I could dream of. I want to thank the Academy for welcoming ‘Io Si’ and the message it brings with it. Congratulations to @dianewarren, it was an incredible experience working together.”
Pausini’s nomination comes on the heels of her winning the Golden Globe for best original song.
“I heard the song in English [titled ‘Seen’] and immediately felt a very strong connection,” she previously told Billboard of the song that was born during the pandemic. “I felt I came back to life. It felt right to do it because the message behind the song was so uplifting and necessary.”
See her reaction below:
Fresh off her best new artist win and teary-eyed acceptance speech, Megan Thee Stallion hit the 2021 Grammys stage with fellow Grammy winner Cardi B for a truly wild performance of their Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “WAP.”
Despite being one of the defining smash hits of 2020, this is actually the first time Megan and Cardi performed “WAP” on TV, probably having something to do with the song’s less than family-friendly subject matter. But while it was after 10 p.m. ET when they busted out “WAP,” they still kept it reasonably PG-13; By way of introducing the song, Grammys host Trevor Noah said, “If you have small children in the room, just tell them it’s a song about giving a cat a bath.”
After a mini concert from Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B came out with a coterie of dancers to deliver her new single “Up” before segueing into “WAP.” Dressed in a metallic silvery outfit straight out of Jane Fonda’s Barbarella, Cardi B strutted across stage to do a pole dance on the ten-foot-tall stiletto of a giant platform heel. Dollars floated down from the sky, painted dancers pranced around her – it was a sci-fi strip club fantasia.
When Megan rejoined her on stage, Cardi took her to bed – literally, the two delivered their verses while crawling and gyrating around what looked like a queen-sized bed for giants. It was insane and incredible.
Minutes after Megan Thee Stallion performed “Savage” at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, the Houston rapper won best rap song with the No. 1 smash — and while Beyoncé didn’t join Meg for the performance, she did join her onstage to collect a much-deserved trophy.
Megan Thee Stallion, who won best new artist earlier on Sunday night (March 14), used part of her acceptance speech to discuss how much Beyoncé’s artistry meant to her when she was growing up, and how she first saw Destiny’s Child perform at a local rodeo.
“My momma would always be like, ‘What would Beyoncé do?’” Meg said, adding that she would strive to try to answer that question with her own behavior, “but make it a little ratchet.”
When she took her turn at the mic, Beyoncé told Megan, “I have so much respect for you, and I’m honored that you asked me to be a part of this song.” Megan Thee Stallion originally released “Savage” as a solo track, but Beyoncé’s rework of the track — also nominated for record of the year at the Grammys — helped it reach the top of the Hot 100 chart.
“Savage” triumphed in the best rap song category over Lil Baby’s “The Bigger Picture,” Roddy Ricch’s “The Box,” “Laugh Now Cry Later” by Drake featuring Lil Durk, and “Rockstar” by DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch. As Grammys host Trevor Noah pointed out following the acceptance speeches, the win gives Beyoncé 27 career Grammys — tied with Alison Krauss for the most all-time by a female artist.
Fresh off her win for best new artist earlier in the broadcast, Megan Thee Stallion barnstromed the Grammy stage on Sunday night (Mar. 14) for a performance of her Grammy-nominated “Savage,” following a quick intro that also dipped into her Good News hit “Body.”
Looking like a hip-hop Marilyn Monroe in a shimmering silver bodysuit, Megan cascaded a giant staircase and of course offered no shortage of twerking — particularly once she put the mic down during a piped-in version of Beyoncé’s “Savage” guest verse. Combining the classic with the modern, the performance also took a minute out for a tap-dance break, with two backing dancers doing jumping splits in a likely homage to The Nicholas Brothers.
In addition to her best new artist victory, Megan The Stallion also took home best rap performance for “Savage” — which is still up for two more awards on the night: best rap song and record of the year. Megan was also a two-time performer on the night, appearing alongside Cardi B shortly after her own solo performance for a debut TV performance of the star duo’s 2020 smash “WAP.”
