It was reported in 2019 that the average length of a song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart was three-and-a-half minutes and that songs that run for under three minutes are becoming increasingly common. So, in general, songs are getting shorter, but now meditation app Calm and Universal Music Group (UMG) taking things in the opposite direction, as they have announced a series of remixed songs that will push their lengths up to an hour.
This Friday (March 19, which is World Sleep Day), Calm will release seven extended tracks: Ariana Grande’s “Breathin’,” Jhené Aiko’s “While We’re Young,” Kacey Musgraves’ “Golden Hour,” Katy Perry’s “Double Rainbow,” Luis Fonsi’s “Sola,” Post Malone’s “Circles,” and Shawn Mendes’ “Wonder.” For three months, the hour-long tracks will be exclusive to the app, but after that, UMG will be allowed to share the songs to streaming platforms.
Calm co-founder and co-CEO Michael Acton Smith told Rolling Stone, “The problem with most music is it’s quite short: When built for the streaming era or even the radio era, it’s three or four minutes long. Even if something is really soothing, you can’t always get into a flow state and drift off to sleep. You have a song for a few minutes and then you go onto the next one and the next one.” He added of the new remixes, “If they’re boring, you’re [less likely] to play them in the first place, and we want your attention. We want you stop thinking about your to-do lists and that silly comment you made at work.”
Courtney Phillips, Calm’s Head of Music also noted, “I was just on a call with an artist’s team talking about tracks. I asked, ‘Would it be cool if he made longer versions?’ And they were like, “Oh my god, he’s been killing us! We keep trying to get him to shorten these down because they’re so long. He would love to make a longer version.’ That’s what we want to be here for. We want to give artists that creative freedom, let them think out of the box and go, ‘Yes! I get to make something really weird, long, and beautiful.” She added, “We didn’t have any comments at all from any of our artists not liking the final mixes. Not one.”
Taking the stage at tonight’s 63rd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony, Post Malone transformed his song “Hollywood’s Bleeding” into a Gothic ballad, leaning into the song’s murky subject matter all the way for perfomance that made him look like a vampire hunter. The Texan genre-bender went with a Gregorian choir for backing, appearing in an all-black ensemble, his leather trenchcoat adorned in silver crosses.
Post Malone is once again nominated for a variety of Grammy Awards at tonight’s ceremony, competing for Album, Record, and Song Of The Year for Hollywood’s Bleeding and “Circles,” respectively. Hollywood’s Bleeding, which was the top-selling album of 2019, wasn’t eligible for the 2020 Grammys due to its release after the cutoff in September. However, the album — which also featured the hits “Take What You Want” featuring Ozzy Osbourne and Travis Scott, “Goodbyes” featuring Young Thug, and “Sunflower” featuring Swae Lee — continued its chart dominance through 2020, remaining in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 all 52 weeks of the last year. Meanwhile, “Sunflower,” which also appeared on the soundtrack from Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, was eligible for the 2020 Grammys, receiving nominations for Record Of The Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
Aside from competing for Grammys, Post’s had a busy year. He performed in a virtual concert for Pokemon Day 2021, celebrating the 25-year anniversary of the original video game’s release and its resulting legacy of cultural ubiquity. He also hopped on the NFT trend, offering fans a chance to join him for a game of beer pong.
Over the past month or so, NFTs — aka, non-fungible tokens — have been all the rave across the art and tech worlds. Grimes and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey are just some of the big names that have taken it up, and it looks like Post Malone will join them. The Hollywood’s Bleeding singer is teaming up with cryptocurrency group, Fyooz, to launch a new NFT experience that will allow select fans to compete with him in a game of beer pong.
The announcement is part of a larger experience from Fyooz that aims to allow token holders to get up close and personal with their favorite celebrities. The experience will allow for a direct and personal interaction that can be “one-off, multiple interactions, or indeed a ticket for ongoing events with the artists,” according to a press release. The beer pong with Post Malone is their maiden effort.
In case you’re new to the whole NFT thing, it’s essentially a one-of-a-kind digital collectible that’s created using blockchain technology. Jack Dorsey recently minted an NFT of the first tweet ever sent on Twitter. According to CNN, the CEO of Bridge Oracle, Sina Estavi, offered $2.5 million for said tweet. Elsewhere, Grimes made $6 million by selling her art collection WarNymph Collection Vol 1 as an NFT. Each digital art piece was accompanied by exclusive audio that could only be obtained by purchasing an NFT.
Well… we’re finally here. After a brief postponement, the 63rd annual Grammy Awards will be taking place on Sunday, March 14. As with many awards shows nowadays, things will be presented a bit differently than we’re used to. Per The Recording Academy’s website, there will be a virtual red carpet ceremony and premiere ceremony, where artists like Burna Boy, Lido Pimienta, Rufus Wainwright, and more will perform.
The circumstances don’t negate the ceremony’s esteem, however, and some of the biggest names in music could take home some serious hardware. Given The Recording Academy’s commitment to diversifying their business and the industry at large, there are a handful of exciting nominations and possibly historic wins music fans may be treated to this year. They say “it’s an honor to be nominated,” and that certainly rings true this time around.
Read on to discover some major nomination moments and potential milestones that the 2021 Grammys hold.
Legendary Nominations
The Biggest Pool Of Potential Honorees
There were 23,207 entries submitted for nomination consideration this time around, which is more than ever before. After the nominations were announced in November, Recording Academy Chair and Interim President/CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said that this year’s honorees are “proof that the creative spirit continues to be alive and well.”
Women Rule Country and Rock
Here’s a first: never before in the history of the Grammys have there been only women or women-fronted acts nominated in the Best Rock Performance and Best Country Album categories. Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple, Brittany Howard, Grace Potter, HAIM, and Big Thief are up for Best Rock Performance, while Ingrid Andress, Brandy Clark, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde and Little Big Town could win the Best Country Album honor.
Best New Artists Bring Heavy Representation
Even more exciting: every nominee in the Best New Artist category is either a woman or a person of color. They include country singer Ingrid Andress, indie rock singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, rapper Chika, alternative act Noah Cyrus, rapper D Smoke, rapper/singer Doja Cat, deejay/producer Kaytranada, and rapper Megan Thee Stallion.
BTS Breaks Barriers
BTS is the first K-Pop act and the first South Korean group to be recognized by the Recording Academy. They are nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category for the 2021 ceremony, thanks to their song “Dynamite.”
The Potential Milestones
Taylor Goes For Three
If Folklore goes home with an Album Of The Year win, Taylor Swift would become the first woman to win the honor three times. Previously, Swift won the night’s top award in 2010 for Fearless and in 2016 for 1989. She would join Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra as the third solo artist in history to achieve the feat. (Paul Simon has won Album Of The Year three times, but one of those wins came for a Simon & Garfunkel album.)
Queen Bey Watches The Throne(s)
After securing nine nominations this year, Beyoncé became the second-most nominated artist in Grammy history, tying with Sir Paul McCartney. (The only other musicians with more nominations are Quincy Jones and her husband JAY-Z, who are tied for first.) If Bey wins three of those gramophones, she ties with bluegrass musician Alison Krauss for the most wins by a female artist in the show’s history. (If she wins four, of course, that means the record now belongs to her.) We also have to mention that her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, is up for a “Best Music Video” nomination for her appearance in “Brown Skin Girl.” If the video wins, Blue would become one of the youngest Grammy winners ever.
Potential Sister Success
Haim’s Women In Music, Pt. III is up for Album Of The Year. If the group wins the night’s biggest honor, they’d be the first all-female group in 15 years to win the award. The last time this was achieved was at the 49th ceremony in 2006, when The Chicks’ Taking The Long Way nabbed the win. This would also be the first time since then that sisters would be winning Album Of The Year together. (Haim’s members are all sisters, while Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Strayer from The Chicks are sisters.)
Dua and Posty’s Potential Big Three Wins
Dua Lipa and Post Malone have the potential to join an exclusive squad of just eight musicians who have won Album, Record and Song Of The Year in the same night. (Paul Simon, Carole King, Christopher Cross, Eric Clapton, Dixie Chicks, Bruno Mars, Billie Eilish, and Adele, twice.) Dua’s Future Nostalgia and “Don’t Start Now” and Post’s Hollywood’s Bleeding and “Circles” are up for the honors.
Female Rappers May Reign Supreme
If either Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, or Chika wins in the Best New Artist category, she will become the first female rapper to win in 22 years, and just the second to win (after Lauryn Hill). Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea were nominated in the category in 2012 and 2015, while genre-bending musician Lizzo, who began her career rapping and singing, was nominated in 2020.
Roddy Ricch and Megan Thee Stallion’s Groundbreaking Chances
There are a few possible milestones wins in the Best Rap Song category. If Roddy Ricch wins for “The Box,” he will be the youngest recipient of the award. (He is 22 years old.) If Megan Thee Stallion wins Best Rap Song and/or Best Rap Performance for “Savage (Remix),” she’ll be the first female winner in both of those categories. And how sweet would it be to share the honor with her idol and collaborator, Beyoncé?
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Juice WRLD passed away a bit over a year ago now, but that actually hasn’t had a drastic impact on his musical output. The late rapper has made a number of posthumous appearances since his death, and now the latest one is “Life’s A Mess II,” a collaboration with Post Malone and Clever.
The track is a follow-up to Juice and Halsey’s collaboration “Life’s A Mess” and Clever previously explained, “the juice wrld record is a different version of ‘Life’s a Mess’ by Juice and Halsey. I was on that record before Halsey- and the beat got changed- this version I have is the version Juice wanted as far as the beat goes. it has more of an acoustic vibe.. but with a verse from me on it- oh and this other artist you may have heard of named Post Malone .”
Clever also wrote of the song on Instagram, “This song means so much to me.. everything was working against it- the devil tried so hard to keep it from happening- but it’s out. I wish Juice was here to see this- Thank you for everything. I love you. 999 til the world burns.” In another post from over the weekend, he also wrote, “for an artist that came up under Grade A while Juice was opening the doors for artist like me and Seezyn and Laroi- and then doing a collaboration deal before we lost Juice- between Grade A and Posty Co- a song with me in the middle of Juice and Post Malone couldn’t be more fitting. It really means a lot to me and I hope you enjoy it.”
The Pokémon franchise is commemorating its 25th anniversary this year; While Pokémon Red and Blue, the first games released in the US, came out stateside in 1998, the original Japanese games, Red and Green, were released in 1996. Anyway, part of the celebration has included collaborating with Post Malone on a couple things. Malone is performing a virtual concert for Pokémon Day this weekend, but ahead of that, he has released a new cover tied to the partnership: a rendition of the Hootie And The Blowfish classic “Only Wanna Be With You.”
Malone keeps the cover mostly stylistically faithful to the original version, and even though the song doesn’t have any clear preexisting connection to Pokémon, Malone has turned in a fun recording nonetheless. He slightly tweaked the lyrics, shifting the focus of one line from the Miami Dolphins to his favorite NFL team, the Dallas Cowboys, as he sings, “I’m such a baby ’cause the Cowboys make me cry.” Longtime Pokémon fans may have also noticed that the song has a sample from the second-generation Game Boy/Game Boy Color games Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, specifically the music that plays in Ecruteak City.
Darius Rucker, who of course sang and co-wrote the ’90s classic, is over the moon about Malone’s rendition, tweeting of it this morning, “The smile in my face will not leave for a long time. This is awesome. My bro @PostMalone bringing it. Hell yes man!!!!!!!!!”
The smile in my face will not leave for a long time. This is awesome. My bro @PostMalone bringing it. Hell yes man!!!!!!!!! https://t.co/DPiNzxmwyu
Texas hip-hop star Post Malone is leveling up as 2020 winds down. The Southern entertainer has launched the newest line of his Crocs – his fifth collaboration with the brand. Post Malone’s New Duet Max Clog II Released Posty went to his social media pages to get fans excited about his new Crocs. The black-and-pink Duet […]
