Sidney Miller, founder and publisher of Black Radio Exclusive (BRE) — one of the industry’s first Black music trade magazines — died Thursday in Arlington, Virginia, following a long illness. He was 89.

Miller invested his savings and sold his house and car to pursue his dream of establishing a publication specifically targeting the Black music market. Launched in 1976, BRE became a pivotal force in underscoring the importance of Black radio and promoting the cultural and commercial impact of Black artists and Black music in the contemporary music arena.

BRE’s success also spawned what became a popular industry staple, the BRE Convention. The annual event attracted key national and international music executives and over the years boasted performances from such superstars as Stevie Wonder, Prince, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Sade, LL Cool J and Tina Turner.

Miller, a Pensacola, Florida, native and Florida A&M University graduate, was a pre-med major and trumpet player who spent weekends during his student years booking band members — including college peers/siblings and future jazz icons Cannonball and Nat Adderley — for East Coast club circuit gigs. Following a stint as an army officer, Miller began his professional music career at Capitol Records.

Miller initially headed Capitol’s Fame label imprint. He also learned A&R under legendary executive Artie Mogull, working with Helen Reddy, Joe South and The Fortunes, among others. Miller later transferred from Capitol’s Atlanta branch to its famed tower headquarters in Los Angeles. That’s where he eventually helmed the entire promotion division, which encompassed country, pop and R&B. It was during this period that Miller conceived his dream project, BRE.

Miller’s subsequent business ventures included creating Hollywood Live. Hosted by renowned WBLS New York air personality Frankie Crocker, the program was an early pioneer of the live-via-satellite syndicated radio show concept, featuring 800 call-in numbers to engage the music consumer audience. Miller also served on the boards of the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Foundation, the National Black Programmers Coalition, the New Orleans Music Commission and the Washington, D.C. Music Commission.

When the 64th annual Grammy Awards are belatedly presented on April 3, Dernst Emile II (better known as D’Mile) could become the first songwriter in Grammy history to win song of the year two years running.

The musician, who turns 37 on Monday (Jan. 24), has two songs in the running: H.E.R.’s “Fight for You,” the Oscar-winning song from Judas and the Black Messiah, and the Silk Sonic smash “Leave the Door Open.”

D’Mile co-wrote “Fight for You” with H.E.R. and Tiara Thomas. The three collaborators shared the song of the year Grammy last year for “I Can’t Breathe,” which became an anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement. (If “Fight for You” wins song of the year this year, his two collaborators on that song would equally share in this Grammy record; if “Leave the Door Open” wins, D’Mile alone would set it.)

D’Mile co-wrote “Leave the Door Open” with the members of Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak) as well as Mars’ longtime collaborator Christopher Brody Brown. Mars and Brown won song of the year four years ago as two of eight writers on Mars’ smash “That’s What I Like.”

Five songwriters or songwriting teams have won song of the year twice, but never back-to-back. Here they are, ranked by the shortest gaps between their two wins.

Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer: The team won in two out of three years for “Moon River” (1961) and “Days of Wine and Roses” (1963). Those classic film ballads won back-to-back Oscars for best original song, but the Grammys and Oscars have different eligibility periods, which pushed the melancholy “Days of Wine and Roses” into the 1963 Grammy eligibility year. Mercer died in 1976 at age 66; Mancini in 1994 at age 70.

Adele: The English superstar’s wins span six years, from 2011 (“Rolling in the Deep,” which she co-wrote with Paul Epworth) to 2016 (“Hello,” which she co-wrote with Greg Kurstin).

U2: The Irish quartet’s wins also span six years, from 2000 (“Beautiful Day”) to 2005 (“Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own”).

Will Jennings: The Texas native’s wins span seven years, from 1992 (“Tears in Heaven,” which he co-wrote with Eric Clapton) to 1998 “My Heart Will Go On,” which he co-wrote with James Horner). Both of those songs were written for films – Rush and Titanic, respectively.

James Horner: The composer’s wins span 12 years, from 1987 (“Somewhere Out There,” which he co-wrote with legendary Brill Building songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil) to 1998 (the aforementioned “My Heart Will Go On”). Both of those songs were written for films – An American Tail and Titanic, respectively. Horner, who was an avid pilot, died in 2015 while flying his turboprop aircraft. He was 61.

Looking ahead:  So will D’Mile win for song of the year? Both of his nominated songs are strong candidates, but the front-runner is probably Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license,” which she co-wrote with Daniel Nigro.

Two of this year’s other song of the year nominees have already made history, as previously reported here. Justin Bieber’s “Peaches” (featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon) has more collaborators (11) than any other song of the year nominee in history. Those three songwriters co-wrote the pop/soul jam with Louis Bell, Bernard Harvey, Felisha “Fury” King, Matthew Sean Leon, Luis Manuel Martinez Jr., Aaron Simmonds, Andrew Wotman and Keavan Yazdani.

Brandi Carlile is the first female songwriter in Grammy history with two song of the year nominees in the same year. She co-wrote her own track “Right on Time” with Dave Cobb, Phil Hanseroth and Tim Hanseroth. She co-wrote “A Beautiful Noise,” her collab with Alicia Keys, with Keys,  Ruby Amanfu,  Brandy Clark,  Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna, Linda Perry and Hailey Whitters.

This year’s other song of the year nominees are Ed Sheeran’s “Bad Habits” (which he co-wrote with Fred Gibson and Johnny McDaid), Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever” (which she co-wrote with Finneas), Doja Cat featuring SZA’s “Kiss Me More” (which they co-wrote with Rogét Chahayed, Lukasz Gottwald, Carter Lang, Gerard A. Powell II and David Sprecher) and Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” (which he co-wrote with Denzel Baptiste, David Biral, Omer Fedi and Roy Lenzo).

Demi Lovato is ready to get back to their rock roots.

On Friday (Jan. 21), the “Melon Cake” singer jokingly hopped on Instagram and told fans that their pop music is knocking on death’s door.

Lovato shared an image to their grid posing with both middle fingers up,  joined by music executives from Island Records and manager Scooter Braun. Every person in the picture wore all black. “A funeral for my pop music,” Lovato captioned the image. 

The 29-year-old singer shared more insight through their Instagram Story, with one of the label executives saying, “You put out whatever music you want, whenever you want to. Break the rules.” Demi promptly screamed in excitement at the news, and shared two snippets of a new rock song in the following clips.

“Yeah you’re pushing me to the edge/ Prod me, lie to me, ungodly things have been sent/ Here are your tickets to the freak show baby, sci-fi, watch the freak go crazy,” the former Disney Channel star sings over heavy guitar strumming, before a high-energy chorus rolls in.

It’s currently unclear what the track is titled or when it will be available, but the star has an unrelated collaboration with band Winnetka Bowling League titled “FIIMY” (F— It, I Miss You) arriving on Feb. 4.

Lovato’s most recent album, Dancing With the Devil…The Art of Starting Over, primarily featured pop lyrics and production. The album peaked at No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart. Fans were first given a taste of Lovato’s rock-inspired sound in their first two albums, Don’t Forget and Here We Go Again, under Disney’s Hollywood Records.

See Lovato’s Instagram post below.

It’s tough being an Adele fan — at least for one TikTok user.

Eleni Sabracos took to TikTok on Thursday (Jan. 20), just hours after Adele announced she is postponing her Las Vegas residency, to hilariously reveal that this isn’t the first time she tried to see the “Hello” singer to no avail.

“I bought tickets to see Adele at Madison Square Garden, but they were fake tickets,” she said against a photo of herself frowning outside MSG with a t-shirt she made for the star. “But nobody felt bad for me because I bought them off Craigslist so that was my own doing.”

She continued that she also bought tickets for Adele’s 2017 show in London, where she would be seated in the “Golden Circle,” directly surrounding the stage. “She canceled her show,” Sabracos added. “Mind you, I risked my life flying to London on this cardboard airplane called WOW Airlines that is now discontinued. The only thing ‘wow’ about it was it was surprising that the airplane could fly.”

To add fuel to the flame, her Uber driver that took her to get dinner after the show was canceled was named… Adeel.

As if two canceled shows wasn’t enough, Sabracos revealed that her brother surprised her on Christmas in 2021 with tickets to Adele’s Vegas residency, which was scheduled to kick off on Friday (Jan. 21).

“I am in Vegas right now, and Adele canceled her show again,” she concluded, before screaming “Why” off her balcony in Sin City.

@elenisabracos IM NOT MAD AT #ADELE I JUST WANT TO GIVE HER THESE SHIRTS AND DRINK WHISPERING ANGEL TOGETHER #storytime #ellenshow ♬ original sound – Eleni

Her story, thankfully, has a happy ending. Finneas happened to be scrolling through TikTok and found her video just as hilarious as the 6.5 million other viewers did, and commented, “‘I’m in Vegas right now’ had me DYING.”

Sabracos, of course, replied to Finneas’ comment gushing over both him and his girlfriend, Claudia Sulewski. “Please invite me to the Christmas party because I make a rad gingerbread house,” she said.

Finneas, to make up for Sabracos’ three canceled Adele shows, then replied, “If you ever want tickets to a show, lemme know! Hopefully we won’t cancel [laughing face emoji.”

See the interaction below. Here’s to hoping Eleni makes it to a concert in 2022.

@elenisabracos Reply to @finneas ♬ original sound – Eleni

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After all the back-and-forth with her sister Jamie-Lynn Spears this week, Britney Spears is lightening the mood by coloring her hair.

On Thursday (Jan. 20), Spears took to Instagram to unveil her latest hair look — dying her signature blonde locks purple.

“Here’s me with purple hair,” Spears wrote in the caption with a series of shrug emojis. “I’m bored, ok ??? Very bored so my nail girl said do it !!!! Girl .. I did it but not sure I like it but hey.”

Spears is rocking a low-cut little black dress in the video with tall red boots, describing the look as “a 100 dollar mini dress with my boots.”

The pop star has been making daily headlines this week because of her sister Jamie-Lynn promoting her new memoir, Things I Should Have Said, in a series of interviews. Britney, in turn, has responded to Jamie-Lynn’s claims, including issuing a cease-and-desist over her media appearances.

See Britney’s hair transformation below: