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For her rivals on Dancing With The Stars, JoJo Siwa is pretty scary. When DWTS took a trip into Halloween world on Monday night (Oct. 25), she was utterly terrifying.
Siwa and her dance partner Jenna Johnson performed a jazz routine to “Anything Goes” by District 78 featuring Patrice Covington, for DWTS’ Horror Night.
As usual, viewers couldn’t look away as the pair impressed with their every move. On this occasion, Siwa was decked out as an evil clown, channeling Pennywise from Stephen King’s “It.”
Horror night was extra scary. It doubled as an elimination round. The axe didn’t fall anywhere near Siwa, who, for the second week straight, scored perfect 10s from the judges.
“That was scary,” noted Len Goodman, as the dancers nabbed 40 out of a possible 40 to stay top of the leaderboard. “If ever a dance captured the flavor of a book, that was it.”
It was an especially terrifying night for Kenya and Brandon, as the contestants finished in the bottom two and were ultimately eliminated.
Watch Siwa’s performance below.
Justin Bieber is probably feeling good about this year’s Grammy Awards process. His smash hit “Peaches” (featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon) is vying for a nomination as best R&B performance. Last year, you may recall, Bieber lodged a public complaint with the Recording Academy when his album Changes and two singles from the album were nominated in pop categories.
It was a politely worded complaint — Bieber is Canadian, after all — but his disappointment was evident.
“To the Grammys I am flattered to be acknowledged and appreciated for my artistry. I am very meticulous and intentional about my music. With that being said I set out to make an R&B album. Changes was and is an R&B album,” he started. “It is not being acknowledged as an R&B album which is very strange to me. I grew up admiring R&B music and wished to make a project that would embody that sound.”
Bieber’s 2021 album, Justice, is also vying for a nod as best pop vocal album, but the victory for Bieber is that his pop/soul jam “Peaches,” which could have gone either way, is competing in R&B — along with such other hits as Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” and SZA’s “Good Days.” If “Peaches” is nominated, it would be Bieber’s first Grammy nod in an R&B category.
But how about the other songs that were released in this eligibility year (Sept. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021) and became top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100? Let’s see where they wound up in the 64th annual Grammy Awards process.
Note: Not all top 10 hits are listed here. Artists and their representatives are savvy enough not to flood the zone with multiple entries that could divide their support. So “Drivers License” is Olivia Rodrigo’s only entry for best pop vocal performance. Her other top 10 hits, “Déjà Vu,” “Good 4 U” and “Traitor,” are not listed.
And some artists simply decided not to play the Grammy game. The Weeknd, whose “Blinding Lights” was infamously passed over for a nod last year, didn’t enter his 2021 hit “Take My Breath.”
Some hip-hop hits are slotted in pop rather than rap categories, a sign of hip-hop’s penetration into the pop mainstream. These include Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” and Lizzo featuring Cardi B’s “Rumors.”
“Mood” by 24kGoldn featuring Iann Dior was released in the previous Grammy eligibility year. It vied for a best pop duo/group performance nomination last year, but it failed to register (probably because it was released too late in the year to be competitive). A live version is vying for a nod in that same category this year. Live versions of such past hits as Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain” and Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” have won Grammys, so a nod is a possibility. Voters aren’t put off by the designation “(Live)” after a title.
First-round Grammy voting is underway. It began Oct. 22 and runs through Nov. 5. The Grammy nominations will be announced Nov. 23.
Here are the performance categories in which top 10 hits on the Hot 100 are competing. They’re listed in chronological order. Relive the Grammy eligibility year in all its splendor and see what the Grammy screening committee decided was the most suitable category for each of these entries.
24kGoldn featuring Iann Dior, “Mood,” best pop duo/group performance (a live version is entered).
Travis Scott featuring Young Thug and M.I.A., “Franchise,” best melodic rap performance.
Ariana Grande, “Positions,” best pop solo performance (where it is vying for a nod with her “Still Hurting”).
Luke Combs, “Forever After All,” best country solo performance.
Taylor Swift, “Willow,” best pop solo performance.
Justin Bieber, “Anyone,” best pop solo performance.
Olivia Rodrigo, “Drivers License,” best pop solo performance.
SZA, “Good Days,” best R&B performance.
CJ, “Whoopty,” best rap performance.
Cardi B, “Up,” best rap performance.
Lil Tjay featuring 6lack, “Calling My Phone,” best melodic rap performance.
Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak), “Leave the Door Open,” best R&B performance.
Justin Bieber featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon, “Peaches,” best R&B performance.
Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” best pop solo performance.
Masked Wolf, “Astronaut in the Ocean,” best melodic rap performance.
Polo G, “Rapstar,” best rap performance.
Doja Cat featuring SZA, “Kiss Me More,” best pop duo/group performance.
The Kid LAROI and Miley Cyrus, “Without You,” best pop duo/group performance.
J. Cole, 21 Savage and Morray, “My Life,” best rap performance.
J. Cole and Lil Baby, “Pride Is the Devil,” best melodic rap performance.
BTS, “Butter,” best pop duo/group performance.
Ed Sheeran, “Bad Habits,” best pop solo performance.
Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow, “Industry Baby,” best melodic rap performance.
Lizzo featuring Cardi B, “Rumors,” best pop duo/group performance.
Kanye West, “Hurricane,” best melodic rap performance (the Grammy entry credits featured performers The Weeknd and Lil Baby).
Walker Hayes, “Fancy Like,” best country performance.
Drake featuring Future and Young Thug, “Way 2 Sexy,” best rap performance.
Drake featuring Lil Baby, “Girls Want Girls,” best melodic rap performance.
Wizkid featuring Justin Bieber and Tems, “Essence,” best global music performance (the Grammy entry doesn’t credit Bieber).
Bluegrass musician and singer Sonny Osborne, whose fast banjo licks turned “Rocky Top” into a hit with The Osborne Brothers, has died. He was 84.
Alison Brown, a Grammy-winning banjo player, told The Tennessean that Osborne died on Sunday. His death was first announced on the website Bluegrass Today, where Osborne was a columnist.
With his older brother Bobby, who sang and played the mandolin, the bluegrass legends were inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, won a CMA Award and helped popularize and modernize the genre.
“Rocky Top,” written by songwriting couple Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, was released in 1967, but they had no idea how big the song would become. It became an anthem for the University of Tennessee-Knoxville football team and became one of the official state songs of Tennessee.
“At one time we would open the show with it and then play it again at the end,” Osborne told The Tennessean in 2017. “It was phenomenal, that song. We went to Japan, Sweden, Germany — you’d go anywhere and they’d know ‘Rocky Top.’ It put our name out in front. And it stayed there a long time.”
Osborne has also been credited as an innovator in the genre, using double banjos and six-string banjos onstage and in recordings. The Osborne Brothers also pushed boundaries, using electric guitars and drums, playing on college campuses and even the White House. They also changed up the normal harmony sound by having Bobby Osborne sing high lead in his tenor voice, with Sonny singing baritone and a third interchangeable singer on low tenor, creating a signature stacked vocal style.
Other songs they were known for include “Ruby Are You Mad” and “Tennessee Hound Dog.”
“One time for my L.A. sisters, one time for my L.A. h–s,” J. Cole’s voice rumbled during his performance of “No Role Modelz” in the intimate 500-capacity Roxy Theater in West Hollywood, Calif., on Saturday night. But the Fayetteville, N.C., rapper did it two times for his L.A. fans last week, as Saturday’s performance, which was part of SiriusXM and Pandora’s Small Stage Series, came two nights after his The Off-Season Tour stop at Inglewood’s Forum arena.
The coziness of Cole’s concert was all-too palpable for the artist himself, sweating through his orange tee but breezing through his decade-long discography and assuring concertgoers not to sweat it if they didn’t know his tracks bar-for-bar (while warning them not to fake it by mouthing his lyrics). The 36-year-old rhapsodist then broke down the significance of having a catalog before reliving his own, which includes six Billboard 200 No. 1 albums.
He powered through the highlights from his latest album The Off-Season during the hourlong set, such as “9 5 . s o u t h,” “m y . l i f e,” and “p r i d e . i s . t h e . d e v i l.” Then Cole amped up the crowd with fan favorites, including “Work Out” and “Nobody’s Perfect” from his 2011 debut studio album Cole World: The Sideline Story, “Power Trip” from 2013’s Born Sinner and “Wet Dreamz” and “G.O.M.D.” from 2014 Forest Hills Drive.
While his Dreamville labelmates Bas, Ari Lennox, Earthgang, J.I.D, Cozz and Lute & Omen reunited for the first time since the 2019 inaugural Dreamville Festival at Colorado’s Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre, their label boss brought the house down on his own, proving that even without his home team, his pen game would carry him to victory.
For Cole fans unable to attend his exclusive SiriusXM and Pandora’s Small Stages set, they can catch the action on SiriusXM’s Hip Hop Nation (channel 44) and on the SXM app Tuesday, Oct. 26, at 6 p.m. ET.
After hosting hundreds of parties in 38 locations around the world over the last 11 years, Lee Burridge’s All Day I Dream party is expanding into festivals.
The inaugural All Day I Dream Festival will happen May 12-15, 2022, at the Woodward Reservoir in Oakdale, California — located approximately two hours east of San Francisco. The location for this weekend-long camping event was selected for its proximity to both San Francisco and Los Angeles, both core hubs for the ADID community.
A representative for the event notes that, “Lee loves this venue specifically, and of course California’s weather makes it an ideal place for outdoor events.” The lineup for All Day I Dream Festival is forthcoming.
After a pandemic-forced hiatus, All Day I Dream parties returned this year with residencies in Mykonos and Ibiza and events in New York, London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver and San Francisco. Burridge’s label of the same name also scored recent successes with 2021 releases from Sébastien Léger, Amonita, Fulltone, Lost Desert, Tim Green and Burridge himself.
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Coldplay spiced up their set Saturday night (Oct. 23) with a little help from Sporty Spice herself. Mel C and Chris Martin took the stage together to perform the sultry Spice Girls classic “2 Become 1″ at Audacy’s 8th annual We Can Survive concert and benefit at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
“We were thinking about what we could do to make this show extra special in 40 minutes, and we thought, ‘Well, this is Hollywood, this is Los Angeles, this is where when you make a wish, it may just come true,’” Martin teased the crowd before introducing Mel C. “One of our dreams is to be able to play a song with a Spice Girl. We’ve been waiting for this for 24 years. So, I don’t know if it’s possible, but if we all just went super quiet and just said that wish out: ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if a Spice Girl just appeared out of nowhere?’”
“Please welcome from England and Great Britain and the Spice Girls Melanie Chisholm, aka Mel C, aka Sporty Spice, aka a total legend,” he announced before the pair began their duet of “2 Become 1,” which Martin referred to as “a sexual anthem.”
“2 Become 1″ is a ballad from the group’s chart-topping debut album, Spice, released in 1996. The single peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart in 1997, while the album went on to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
For those wondering how the seemingly impromptu collab came about, Mel C was thrilled to share the story.
“What a fantastic, unexpected night!” she tweeted on Sunday. “I gave Chris a text to tell him we would be coming to his @imlistening @audacy #wecansurvive gig, at the @HollywoodBowl and the next thing I know, he’s on FaceTime while I’m in the nail salon, asking me to come up on stage with him!”
“Well, what could I say to an offer like that! Thank you @coldplay for such an amazing night and experience. Hopefully I can get back to @HollywoodBowl soon with three certain ladies for company!” Mel C wrote.
A portion of the proceeds from the show will go to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Watch a clip of their rehearsal backstage, a short highlight of their onstage performance and a video of the whole song below.
