Tag Archives: Billboard

Kirk Harding’s Bad Habit Label Growing Roster

Kirk Harding’s Bad Habit Label Growing Roster

The self-styled “outsider” label Bad Habit, co-founded in 2015 by New Zealander Kirk Harding and Nigerian-American Matthew “Baus” Adesuyan, has added a live piece to its existing management, publishing and distribution activities, and re-upped…

King of Soul Max Merritt Will Be Greatly Missed

King of Soul Max Merritt Will Be Greatly Missed

Christchurch-born Max Merritt, the ARIA Hall of Fame inductee best known for his soulful songs “Slippin’ Away” and “Hey, Western Union Man”, has died in Los Angeles. He was 79. Merritt made his mark when…

Nadia Reid Would Like to Go to Canada With You

Nadia Reid Would Like to Go to Canada With You

Nadia Reid’s “Oh Canada” isn’t a cover of the country’s national anthem, but that doesn’t stop the Dunedin-born musician from honouring some of her favourite Canadian singer-songwriters on her new song, Kevin Rutherford writes…

Lorde’s Smash Hit Royals Defines a Decade

Lorde’s Smash Hit Royals Defines a Decade

American magazine Billboard celebrated the 2010s with essays on the 100 songs that they felt most defined the decade that was, including Lorde’s hit single, “Royals”. “When ‘Royals’ arrived in June 2013, not many listeners…

Tūī Winner Benee Has a Vision

Tūī Winner Benee Has a Vision

Aucklander Benee, otherwise known as Stella Bennett, who claimed four Tūīs at this year’s Vodafone Music Awards, talked to Billboard’s Gab Ginsberg in the United States recently about her latest EP, Stella & Steve,…

Singer Jamie McDell Celebrates Her Own Perspective

Singer Jamie McDell Celebrates Her Own Perspective

New Zealand alt-country guitarist and singer-songwriter Jamie McDell, 26, has just released her introspective Botox EP. Music magazine Billboard reports on the set and how it all came about. McDell enchants with airy vocals…

Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe Interviews Taylor Swift

Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe Interviews Taylor Swift

New Zealander Zane Lowe “tried his best to pull some more Easter eggs out of Taylor Swift during her midday interview on Apple’s Beats 1 Live show”, according to a Billboard story, “but even…

Neil and Liam Finn Video Premieres

Neil and Liam Finn Video Premieres

Despite its young cast, Neil and Liam Finn’s new video for guitar ballad “Anger Plays a Part” deals with grown-up problems in the real world. The single is on the duo’s new album, Lightsleeper, which is out now. In the…

Get to Know the Brother-Sister Duo Broods

Get to Know the Brother-Sister Duo Broods

New Zealand duo Broods, comprised of Georgia and Caleb Nott, explain to Billboard magazine that they were born in Blenheim, but grew up in a town called Nelson. The name Broods was actually suggested…

Parris Goebel and ReQuest Stars of Ciara’s Latest

Parris Goebel and ReQuest Stars of Ciara’s Latest

New Zealand choreographer Parris Goebel and ReQuest Dance Crew have collaborated with Atlanta-bred pop star Ciara for the music video of her latest single, the “empowering anthem”, ‘Level Up’. “The visual features the singer showing…

Lorde’s Former Manager Scott Maclachlan to Warners

Lorde’s Former Manager Scott Maclachlan to Warners

Scott Maclachlan, the artist manager who guided the rise of Lorde from a teenage talent to a global star, has been appointed senior VP of A&R at Warner Music Australasia. Maclachlan, who relocated from the…

Broods’ Georgia Nott Talks The Venus Project

Broods’ Georgia Nott Talks The Venus Project

In response to a lack of female representation on stage and in the studio, Georgia Nott – who most people will know as part of the New Zealand music duo Broods – has released…

With FAKY Anna Sawai Is Broadening Her Horizons

With FAKY Anna Sawai Is Broadening Her Horizons

Loads of acts around the world are proving that the pop game is now a truly global one, and FAKY continues to show the rising appeal of modern-day Japanese pop with their latest English…

Lorde at Home with Billboard Magazine

Lorde at Home with Billboard Magazine

For a minute, it’s easy to forget that Lorde is over 13,800km away, at home in New Zealand, Billboard journalist New Yorker Brooke Mazurek writes for the magazine’s latest cover story. Before their Skype connection…

Melodrama Debuts Atop Billboard 200 Chart

Melodrama Debuts Atop Billboard 200 Chart

Lorde has notched her first No 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, with her second full-length album, Melodrama, debuting atop the list, Keith Caulfield reports for Billboard magazine. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the…

Soulful New Video for Singer Janine

Soulful New Video for Singer Janine

New Zealand-born soul singer Janine, formerly known as Janine and the Mixtape, is back with a “heart-tugging visual for Don’t Love Me,” Adelle Platon reports for Billboard. “As previously heard on the emotional offerings like 2015’s…

Hucci Puts Life to Trap in New Single

Hucci Puts Life to Trap in New Single

Trap is a genre born and bred in the American South, but it is a sound Britain’s grimiest producers have embraced as their own, including Brighton-based New Zealand-born Ollie O’Neil, aka Hucci. Trap mixes slow,…

2017 Will Be the Year of Our Lorde

2017 Will Be the Year of Our Lorde

With Coachella and Governors Ball 2017 festival announcements, it has become clear that New Zealand alt-pop singer Lorde’s comeback is about to happen, according to Billboard. “Most popular artists announce they are returning from an…

Crowded House to Be Inducted into ARIA Hall of Fame

Crowded House to Be Inducted into ARIA Hall of Fame

Cherished rock-folk group Crowded House will be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame during the ARIA Awards in Sydney on 23 November. Crowded House’s induction has a touch of serendipity about it. This year,…

Gin Wigmore Making Music at Home in California

Gin Wigmore Making Music at Home in California

“There are singers, and there’s Gin Wigmore,” according to Billboard. “The New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s raw, bluesy voice is so distinctive, some pundits are convinced it’s only a matter of time before the…

Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman Loves NZ for Quiet

Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman Loves NZ for Quiet

Adopted New Zealander, lead singer of post-punk English band Killing Joke, Jaz Coleman tells Billboard about his average day, which involves catching fish. Coleman has a home on a secret island in the Hauraki Gulf,…

Streaming Service Baboom Changes Tack

Streaming Service Baboom Changes Tack

New Zealand streaming service Baboom “has a refreshing, possibly promising, approach to its place in digital music – Baboom wants to give the independent artists its focused on courting chances at greater exposure, and…

Billboard Gets a Rush on Gin Wigmore’s New Video

Billboard Gets a Rush on Gin Wigmore’s New Video

New Zealand singer-songwriter Gin Wigmore, 28, is preparing for the release of her third studio album Blood to Bone with the “intense and uninhibited” video, “New Rush,” Billboard reports. “ Wigmore is giving her…

Lorde and Joel Little Back into the Recording Studio

Lorde and Joel Little Back into the Recording Studio

Teenage global “phenom” Lorde will hit the studio in a matter of weeks to begin work on a follow-up to her acclaimed debut album, Pure Heroine, according to Billboard. The big news didn’t come via…

Chartbusters Sol3 Mio Poised to Tackle the World

Chartbusters Sol3 Mio Poised to Tackle the World

Fresh from performing the New Zealand national anthem in Chicago for a rare rugby match between the USA Eagles and world-champion All Blacks, operatic trio Sol3 Mio are hoping for many more thumping victories…

Lorde Dishes up Pre-fame Secrets for Billboard

Lorde Dishes up Pre-fame Secrets for Billboard

With the Lorde-curated Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 soundtrack coming out on 17 November, the soon-to-be-18-year-old pop singer is proving her taste in collaborators – Kanye West, Chemical Brothers, Miguel and more – are…

Billboard Names Lorde Hottest Star under 21

Billboard Names Lorde Hottest Star under 21

Billboard has put New Zealander Lorde, 17, at the top of its 2014 edition of 21 Under 21, the magazine’s annual ranking of music’s most powerful minors, “and perhaps the most impressive crop of…

Kiwi Directs New Katy Perry Video

Kiwi Directs New Katy Perry Video

Joel Kefali has directed music videos for Lorde, The Naked and Famous and David Dallas – but he’s just released his biggest one yet. The Kiwi director is the man behind Katy Perry’s latest video, This…

Weird Al Yankovic Rethinks Lorde’s Royals

Weird Al Yankovic Rethinks Lorde’s Royals

Lorde should feel honoured, according to Billboard magazine, because on Weird Al Yankovic’s new album Mandatory Fun, Royals is the only song the professional parodist reimagines as a song about food, called Foil. “Fortunately, he…

Burn up the Road Premieres on Billboard

Burn up the Road Premieres on Billboard

Liam Finn’s new album The Nihilist navigates “through deliciously chilly soundscapes that oscillate tantalizingly into the warmth of big semi-processed drumbeats and his fuzzy guitars,” Jessica Letkemann writes for Billboard.com. “But while the New Zealander…

Other Pop Riches Doing Us Proud in the US

Other Pop Riches Doing Us Proud in the US

While Lorde is New Zealand’s biggest success story at the moment, she’s far from all we have to offer in terms of pop riches. Billboard’s Andrew Unterberger looks at New Zealanders impressing stateside in…

Lorde to Perform at Grammys 2014

Lorde to Perform at Grammys 2014

Lorde is set to perform at the Grammys 2014 award show later this month, amongst a set list that includes Katy Perry, Metallica, and Chicago. This may not be the only chance the young Kiwi…

Lorde is “The Upstart” in NYT’s 2013 Disrupters

Lorde is “The Upstart” in NYT’s 2013 Disrupters

Auckland’s Lorde is one of the New York Times’ cultural Disruptors of 2013 – people who broke the rules in a year of artistic upheavals. She features alongside pop provocateur Miley Cyrus and rising…

Joel Little on Lorde and Opening Doors

Joel Little on Lorde and Opening Doors

Starting his music career as a member of pop-punk band Goodnight Nurse in the early 2000s, kiwi Joel Little is now becoming one of the most in-demand producers on the planet after producing Lorde’s…

Kiwi Duo Grabs Attention of Billboard

Kiwi Duo Grabs Attention of Billboard

Hot on the heels of Lorde’s success, Auckland pop-synth duo Broods are making a positive international impressions of their own. The brother-sister duo, made up of Caleb and Georgina Nott, have worked closely with…

Lorde Number One in the US

Lorde Number One in the US

Sixteen-year-old singer, Lorde has become the first New Zealander to top the US Billboard charts, following the release of her first album, Pure Heroine, in the US at start of this month. Her single…

Urban Branches out with Billboard-Topping Fuse

Urban Branches out with Billboard-Topping Fuse

New Zealand-born country singer Keith Urban, 45, has been branching out musically – playing with the Rolling Stones and others, and fresh collaborations on his latest album, Fuse, which debuted on Billboard’s 200 Albums…

Lorde Lands Cover of Billboard Magazine

Lorde Lands Cover of Billboard Magazine

New Zealand singer, Lorde, has graced the cover of Billboard magazine, while saying in the accompanying interview that in a perfect world she would never do interviews. The comment, according to the magazine, stems from…

Royals Makes Top 10 and Selena Gomez Covers

Royals Makes Top 10 and Selena Gomez Covers

Auckland singer Lorde, 16, has made it into the United States Billboard Top 10, with her “debut alternative/pop hit” Royals, which pop star Selena Gomez covered at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam on…

Lorde Single Breaks into Billboard Top 10

Lorde Single Breaks into Billboard Top 10

Sixteen-year-old New Zealand singer, Lorde, has had continued success the US, with her single ‘Royals’ currently sitting at 8th place on the Billboard Hot 100 List. The single has also been sitting atop of the…

Lorde, First Woman to Top Billboard Alt Chart in 17 Years

Lorde, First Woman to Top Billboard Alt Chart in 17 Years

New Zealand singer/songwriter, Lorde, has landed the top spot on the Billboard Alternative Songs Chart with her hit single ‘Royals’. Not only is she the first solo woman to top the charts in her…

America Better Watch Out

America Better Watch Out

The “unflappable” Lorde, 16, “hypnotises” at her first concert in the United States introducing “her collection of immaculately drawn pop compositions with a confidence and demeanour well beyond her years”, Billboard’s Jason Lipshutz writes…

Mystery Making Process Paying off in US

Mystery Making Process Paying off in US

Identified only as her stage name, Lorde, 16, the artist kept her true identity a mystery for months, Wall Street Journal correspondent Megan Buerger writes. The only available representation of her was a drawing…

Young Aucklander Breaks US Charts

Young Aucklander Breaks US Charts

Auckland born singer Ella Yelich O’Connor has broken into the American Billboard Chart despite doing next to no State-side promotion. The sixteen-year-old who goes by the name Lorde became a national sensation in late…

Candid For Nikon Ad

Candid For Nikon Ad

New Zealand singing star Kimbra sings Nina Simone’s “Plain Gold Ring” in this first in a Nikon-sponsored series of “Women In Music”-themed “Candid Covers.” “I was aware of Nina Simone as a kid growing…

Yeah, Shuffle This

Yeah, Shuffle This

New Zealand-born singer/songwriter Willy Moon’s song ‘Yeah Yeah’ has secured prime placement: usage in Apple’s latest iPod Shuffle and Nano ad campaign. The coveted spotlight results in Moon’s first Billboard chart ink, as the…

Top of the Pops

Top of the Pops

New Zealand singer Kimbra, 22, featuring on Belgian-Australian Gotye’s single Somebody That I Used To Know, has made it to the top of the American Billboard top 100. It is the first time a…

Making Music with Muppets

Making Music with Muppets

Former Flight of the Conchord Bret McKenzie, 35, has written four original songs for the soundtrack of the new Disney film The Muppets, which will be released on 21 November. McKenzie is also the…

Young Blood Take Scroll

Young Blood Take Scroll

Auckland five-piece band Naked and Famous have won the Silver Scroll prize for their smash hit “Young Blood” at the Australasian Performing Right Association’s awards held in Auckland on 8 September. Alisa Xayalith, Thom…

Gin and Stan’s night

Gin and Stan’s night

Singers Gin Wigmore, 24, and Stan Walker, 19, earned four Tuis apiece at this year’s New Zealand Music Awards held at Auckland’s Vector Arena. Wigmore’s folky debut Holy Smoke won the album of the…

Taite for Milne

Taite for Milne

Lawrence Arabia has been crowned the first winner of New Zealand’s equivalent to the annual UK Mercury Prize, the Taite Music Prize. UK-based Lawrence Arabia ó whose real name is James Milne picked up…

Compelling qualities

Compelling qualities

Crowded House will release their first studio album Intriguer in June through Universal Music worldwide. The ten-track album Intriguer, recorded in Auckland, is the follow-up to Time on Earth, which hit No. 1 in Australia and New…

Taking home the loot

Taking home the loot

Masterton-born singer Ladyhawke has won six Tuis at the New Zealand Music Awards. Ladyhawke, aka Pip Brown, won the album of the year for Ladyhawke (Modular/Universal) and single award for ‘My Delerium’ at the…

Tui time at the Vector

Tui time at the Vector

Auckland band Midnight Youth and London-based Ladyhawke — aka Pip Brown — have both been nominated for a number of awards to be presented at this year’s New Zealand Music Awards held at the…

Musiq Makers Win

Musiq Makers Win

R&B group Nesian Mystik have won the “Best Kiwi” category at the Australian MTV Awards on March 27. The four other New Zealand acts nominated were: Ladyhawke, Cut Off Your Hands, P-Money and Goodnight…

Collision with the big guns

Collision with the big guns

Te Awamutu-born Crowded House frontman Neil Finn is Billboard’s featured artist, just ahead of a planned studio project with his son singer Liam Finn, UK band Radiohead and American rockers Wilco. In a sequel…