One Direction famously hated being referred to as a boy band. But if the term didn't fit the mega-popular British group that recently went on hiatus, the problem — at least from the outside — had less to do with the word "boy" than with the word "band." Here was a musical outfit, originally assembled...
Hey Beliebers, Justin Bieber loves you but you're a bit too much for him to handle. Bieber took to Instagram on Tuesday to explain that he was doing away with his fan meet and greets, which afforded him the opportunity to meet “such incredible people” but ultimately left him “filled with so much...
Malik "Phife Dawg" Taylor, a member of the trailblazing hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, died of complications resulting from diabetes Tuesday, according to a statement released by his family. He was 45 years old and had suffered health problems in recent years. Rolling Stone said he underwent...
The Season 10 battles briskly came to a close on Tuesday night, with Christina Aguilera, the only coach with a steal to spare, waiting until the very last minute to use it. (Or so the show’s editors had made it appear. Who can say, for sure?) As the coaches made their final cuts, we were reminded...
Even with the safety net provided by the coach steal, quite a few worthy singers have tumbled out of “The Voice” Season 10 competition and headed home during the battle rounds. That was certainly true on Monday night’s show, the third night of battles, when the coaches declined to push their buttons...
It's not Lorde, but it's not bad. Weeks after the young New Zealander brought the Brit Awards to a standstill with her poignant performance of David Bowie's "Life on Mars?," Jimmy Fallon took a crack at the late icon's ballad for a video posted Tuesday on YouTube. The clip shows the "Tonight Show"...
Usher, Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz are among the first headliners announced for the 2016 BET Experience, the network and Anschutz Entertainment Group announced Tuesday morning. For a second year in a row the festival — which is built around the network’s annual awards show — will be stretched across...
Nearly 250 people were arrested this weekend at a popular electronic music festival in San Bernardino County, authorities said. At the Beyond Wonderland rave, 116 people were arrested Friday and 128 people were arrested Saturday, said Jodi Miller, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s...
It began with half-whispered words about strength and vulnerability and ended with what amounted to a baptism. In between were confessions, assurances and serious youth-group guitar strumming. Yes, Justin Bieber had come to Staples Center for a pop concert, one with all the pageantry and idol worship...
Goodbye, Boss; hello, Biebs. Less than 24 hours after Bruce Springsteen ended his much-discussed three-night stand at the Los Angeles Sports Arena (which closed the joint for good late Saturday night), Justin Bieber took the stage at Staples Center on Sunday to kick off an extended engagement no...
James McCartney is priming the pump for the May 6 release of his album “The Blackberry Train” with the powerfully rocking first single from the record, “Unicorn,” which is premiering on Pop & Hiss. “ ‘Unicorn’ is a song that has elements of the avant-garde and psychedelic in it, and a lot of emotion,”...
Bruce Springsteen looked out on Saturday's sold-out crowd at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. They were all witnesses for the last show to be performed there. "This is it!" he shouted. "They're expecting us to tear it down tonight." The 56-year-old arena will indeed be torn down to make way...
Plenty of Bruce Springsteen songs are about destruction — of towns, dreams, loves and hopes. But few other tunes seemed as appropriate for the occasion on Saturday as when The Boss introduced "Wrecking Ball." "We gotta play this one for the old building," Springsteen said during the final show...
“I know we on the 'Purple Reign' tour, but we gotta get into ‘Dirty Sprite 2,’” Future told the crowd at the Hollywood Palladium not long into his sold-out show Friday night. Then, as though to justify reaching back for an oldie, he added, “Number one album in the country.” In truth, he wasn’t...
A 17-year-old Madonna fan said it was the "best moment" of her life when the pop star brought her up on stage, yanked down the girl's corset top and in the process momentarily exposed one of the minor's naked breasts to a packed house. Josephine Georgiou won't be pursuing any kind of legal action,...
Iggy Azalea is back. Depending on the position you took regarding the polarizing Australian pop-rapper, those four words are either the best news you’ve heard all week or another sign that the endtimes are near. Extreme? Yes. But it’s the most appropriate way to unpack the rise and sudden fall...
On Friday night, at the formidably luxurious private workspace NeueHouse in Hollywood, hundreds of L.A. techno fans gathered to watch themselves. Twenty and thirtysomethings, dressed in all-black or florid late-night outfits, downed cocktails as they awaited the debut of "Real Scenes: L.A.," a...
“The end of old school.” That’s how Bruce Springsteen described the imminent demise of his beloved Los Angeles Sports Arena, where Thursday night he played the second of three concerts to close the place down before it’s demolished to make way for a new soccer stadium. Given the little chuckle...
The "dossier" landed in the hands of Joshua Homme with an unexpected jolt. It arrived ahead of a planned musical collaboration with proto-punk icon Iggy Pop, who sent materials for both to chew on: poems by Walt Whitman, a book of German trivia, Pop's own poetry and writings about his sex life,...
MARCH 20-21, 23 Justin Bieber Last year, the teen-pop star celebrated the release of his vaguely Christian-themed album "Purpose" with a Staples Center show that felt more like a church service than a concert. Now Bieber's tour is due back at the downtown arena for three nights that may or may...
Just as higher temperatures typically arrive first, festival season gets a jump start every year in Southern California thanks to Coachella, the annual desert blowout (and surefire celebrity magnet) against which a summer's worth of less-glamorous events will inevitably be measured. The marquee...
It’s the television show where viral videos are made. “Lip Sync Battle,” which got its start as a kooky segment on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” and later on “The Tonight Show,” has remixed itself into a full-fledged half-hour program on Spike TV where big names like Channing Tatum channel their...
The extremes to which TV newscasts go to lure viewers with scare tactics are at the core of the new video for roots musician Sean Watkins’ song “What to Fear,” the title track from his forthcoming solo album due Friday. Pop & Hiss is premiering the video, directed by Dominique Arciero, which opens...
It looks like the iHeartRadio Music Awards underwent an overhaul ahead of this year’s live broadcast. In an announcement unveiling pop heartthrob Jason Derulo as this year’s host, the fledgling fan-driven ceremony appeared to have gone through a number of changes. Set to air April 3, the third...
James McCartney is priming the pump for the May 6 release of his album “The Blackberry Train” with the powerfully rocking first single from the record, “Unicorn,” which is premiering on Pop & Hiss. “ ‘Unicorn’ is a song that has elements of the avant-garde and psychedelic in it, and a lot of emotion,”...
The announcement of Michelle Obama as a music keynote panelist at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, might have seemed strange. But in hindsight, it made perfect sense: She had a song to release. On Wednesday morning, the first lady joined actress Sophia Bush, songwriter Diane Warren and rappers...
Sixteen years ago, Gwen Stefani of No Doubt sang about wanting "a simple kind of life." That's not how things turned out. Sure, No Doubt — the Anaheim ska-pop band that blasted off in 1995 with the zillion-selling album "Tragic Kingdom" — continued its straightforward ascent for a few more years,...
"Let Me Love You" has likely taken on new meaning for Ne-Yo now that his family has grown by one. The "So Sick" singer and his new wife, Crystal Renay, have welcomed their first child together, a baby boy nicknamed "Prince," who touts daddy's full name. See the most-read stories in Entertainment...
You didn't think the locket and the cake were the only way Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris were going to mark their first anniversary, did you? Heavens no: TSwift and the DJ, whose real name is Adam Wiles, have also jetted off to a tropical vacation, where there's apparently enough scantily-clad...
In the pursuit of the things that matter most in life, “half measures avail us nothing,” states an adage that Bruce Springsteen seems to have had in mind when he made “The River,” the 1980 double album he’s revisiting on his new tour, three dozen years down the line. It’s perhaps his most ambitious...
This weekend, the western Arizona desert will be filled with the sounds of rock ... en español. Rock Fiesta, a debut festival to be held in Quartzsite, Ariz. (30 minutes from Blythe, Calif.), brings together high-profile Latin American rock, pop and electronica performers over 2 1/2 days starting...
The black-and-white paper crane-shaped sign is, for now, still up at Origami Vinyl. But the beloved Echo Park record store abruptly closed on Saturday after seven years of slinging LPs, hosting live bands in its loft and serving as a focal point for the neighborhood’s independent music culture....
The fascination with Whitney Houston continues. Showtime's documentary films division has announced production of a film exploring the award-winning career and complicated life of the singer and actress. The project will be produced, directed and narrated by filmmaker Nick Broomfield, who has developed...
The accolades just keep on coming for Mother Monster: Lady Gaga has been named the Daily Front Row's editor of the year. Yes, add "editor" to the pop star's long-running list of occupations -- singer, actress, sometimes-model and Kesha champion just weren't enough, apparently. The sartorially minded...
A post from last year has been making its way around social media that involves the Rolling Stones, a 1989 pay-per-view gig during the band's Steel Wheels tour and an Atlantic City property owned by current Republican Party front-runner Donald Trump. Published on concert ticketing site Pollstar,...
Regardless of which candidate ends up in the White House next year, chances are we won't soon be seeing another improvised rap freestyle in the Rose Garden. In what seems like a presidential first, composer-writer-actor-rapper Lin-Manuel Miranda of the blockbuster musical "Hamilton" stood on the...
On Tuesday night, Bruce Springsteen will begin a sold-out three-night stand at the L.A. Sports Arena. The shows will be the last concerts at the half-century-old venue in Exposition Park before it's razed to make room for a new soccer stadium. It's a familiar situation for the veteran rocker. In...
British rock band Radiohead has announced a brief run of summer headlining concerts, including two nights at the Shrine in Los Angeles. The band, which is awakening from an extended hibernation, will play a gig on Aug. 4 and Aug. 8 at the 6,300-capacity venue. The shows will be the first in Southern...
The Hollywood Bowl's upcoming season just got a lot funkier. Flying Lotus, the young Los Angeles producer known for his trippy, intensely rhythmic electronic productions, will present an evening of music at the iconic venue in September, the Bowl was expected to announce Monday. Called "Brainfeeder...
"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," the first installment in the eight-part screen saga adapted from the novels by J.K. Rowling, will screen at the Hollywood Bowl this summer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing the John Williams score live to picture. The event, scheduled for July...
One Direction heartthrob Harry Styles is set to make his film debut in a World War II action-thriller from Christopher Nolan. Styles will star in Nolan's "Dunkirk," which centers on the British military evacuation of the French city of Dunkirk in 1940, according to Variety. The singer and newcomer...
Keyboard player Keith Emerson, whose innovative experiments on synthesizers in the 1970s introduced strange new sounds to arena rock, has died at the age of 71. The news was confirmed by his former bandmate, the drummer Carl Palmer. Along with Greg Lake, the trio combined to form the progressive...
George Martin’s death was an incalculable loss to pop music. The man who shaped the Beatles’ sound and forged their advancements in the studio set precedents that are still followed today. And across Los Angeles' best recording studios, software production rigs and the most influential radio stations...
Club Nokia is no more. Earlier this week Goldenvoice quietly announced the venue, part of downtown's popular L.A. Live complex, has been rebranded as the Novo by Microsoft. The Novo, which in Latin means "to make anew, renovate, renew, refresh," continues the Microsoft Corp.'s rebranding of spaces...
When it comes to singing duets, some do it better than others. That was clear enough on “American Idol” this week, a show in which the top eight were divvied into pairs to perform and then stepped out individually to sing solos ahead of another double elimination. The elimination worked the same...
Seth Bogart looked like he suspected something was amiss. Onstage at the Echoplex during his sold-out album release show in February, two beefy security guards flanked him on either side of the stage. They were silent and stoic for most of Bogart's set, while he romped around in a drawn-on pencil...
Could the highest-profile booking at this year’s South by Southwest music festival also be an indication that the annual event is flailing? Next week, Michelle Obama will deliver the keynote address at SXSW Music, set to run Tuesday to Sunday in Austin, Texas. There’s no doubt that the first lady...
If audiences have come to expect one thing from the South by Southwest Film Festival, it is the unexpected. Even as it has grown in size and stature, the festival has worked hard to maintain a rambunctious spirit that one returning filmmaker describes as "warm-hearted subversion." Based in Austin,...
Jack Bauer, rock star? Kiefer Sutherland, famous for playing tough-guy anti-terrorism agent Bauer in Fox's "24," is going to be rocking out this spring, with a 26-city tour in support of his debut album, "Down in a Hole." Fans know that Sutherland -- much like Kevin Bacon and Johnny Depp -- nurtures...
At this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April, festivalgoers will have access far beyond the the polo field or swanky VIP areas, thanks to a virtual reality experience. Festival organizers have announced a partnership with Vantage.tv that will offer fans “unprecedented access”...
Miike Snow's Andrew Wyatt, Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg understand how pop music works. As successful songwriters and producers for hire, the three have collaborated separately and together with the likes of Britney Spears and Bruno Mars — name-brand stars whose songs use melody and rhythm...
CBS wants more people to hop in James Corden's carpool. The bubbly British-born talk host will gain wider exposure later this month with "The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special," including the premiere of an in-car sing-along with Jennifer Lopez. Corden has slowly turned the "carpool...
Producer George Martin, who died Tuesday at age 90, was best known for his work bringing the Beatles to the masses. First as a kind of taskmaster and then as a collaborator, Martin helped prime the Beatles for success by capturing their energy and musical ideas on tape. Martin, though, was his...