Get ready to ‘roar’: Perry to host VMAs
PrettyMuch poised to pop
LOS ANGELES, July 29, (Agencies): Katy Perry will host the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, Variety has learned.
Perry will also perform at the show, and is the first performer announced for this year’s show. She is also one of the most-nominated artists this year with five nominations, which were announced earlier this week.
“I’ve been training with MTV in zero gravity, eating astronaut ice cream, and I’m on a group text with Buzz Aldrin and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Come August 27th, I’ll be ready to be your MOONWOMAN! Brace for impact, kids,” Perry said in a statement, referencing the signature VMA trophy, the moonman statue.
“We’re thrilled to have global phenomenon Katy Perry as the host and a performer at the 2017 VMAs,” said Bruce Gillmer, head of music and music talent of Viacom’s global entertainment group. “She is at the forefront of music culture and the perfect person to anchor this year’s show, which promises to be one of the most diverse and music-filled in VMA history.”
With five VMA nominations, Perry is nominated for best pop, best direction and best visual effects awards for “Chained to the Rhythm,” plus best art direction for “Bon Appetit” and Best Collaboration with Calvin Harris, Pharrell Williams and Big Sean for “Feels.”
This will be Perry’s first time hosting the VMAs. Last year’s show did not have a traditional host, but featured Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele as commentators. In 2015, Miley Cyrus hosted the show.
The VMAs isn’t Perry’s only upcoming highprofile TV gig. The Grammy winner is set to serve as a judge on ABC’s revival of “American Idol,” alongside host Ryan Seacrest.
The VMAs air Aug 27 at 8 pm, live from the Forum in Inglewood, Calif.
Perry
Simon Cowell’s newest discovery, the group PrettyMuch, is set to make its world television debut on the Aug 13 Teen Choice Awards.
Syco Music and Columbia Records are betting big on the boy band, which features members Austin Porter (19, Charlotte, North Carolina) Brandon Arreaga (17, Corinth, Texas), Edwin Honoret (18, Bronx, New York), Nick Mara (19, Manalapan, New Jersey), and Zion Kuwonu (18, Ottawa, Canada), and the gamble seems to be paying off — the group’s undeniable lead single, “Would You Mind,” written by hitmaker Savan Kotecha (One Direction, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd) and released July 21, has already reached the top 10 on Spotify’s Viral 50 both in the US and on the global chart, and Apple Music has selected the group as “Artist of the Week,” with each photographic member getting his own feature on the website.
Melded
Like One Direction before them, the members of PrettyMuch were pursuing solo careers until Cowell, recognizing their individual strengths, melded them into a group. Since 2016, the boys have been living together in Los Angeles while recording their debut album and perfecting their dance moves.
At the Teen Choice Awards, the group — managed by former Syco Music President Sonny Takhar — will join Syco labelmates Louis Tomlinson and “America’s Got Talent” winner Grace VanderWaal. Tomlinson will perform his new single, “Back to You” featuring Bebe Rexha, and Vanderwaal is nominated “Next Big Thing.”
The Teen Choice 2017 Awards airs live from the University of Southern California’s Galen Center on Fox.
Few bands have straddled the divide between indie and mainstream quite like Arcade Fire — eclectic in tastes and cerebral in views, yet enjoying rock-star recognition in the industry.
Releasing its first album in four years, the Montreal-based group — which has always cast its net wide on instrumentation — steps away from the rugged guitar that characterized its hits and heads to the dance floor, infusing its songs with disco.
“Everything Now,” which came out on Friday, nonetheless keeps the favorite lyrical themes of Arcade Fire — introspective takes on modern consumer culture and self-image.
The result is an album that is both dark and full of catchy hooks — vital to a band that has become legendary for its live performances. Yet “Everything Now” is also less consistent than Arcade Fire’s more conceptual works such as “The Suburbs” — which in 2011 won the Grammy for Album of the Year in a startling first for indie rock.
“Everything Now,” the group’s fifth studio album, starts off with a title track that reconfirms Arcade Fire’s skill at weaving together diverse influences into a unique but accessible pop song.
Built around a flute sample by the late Cameroonian artist Francis Bebey, the title track is driven by a choral refrain by the New Orleans-based Harmonistic Praise Crusade, as a funky bass and melancholic piano melody work in counter-balance.
Mourning what has passed in the age of universal internet and 24-hour media consumption, frontman Win Butler sings: “Every inch of space in your head is filled with the things that you read / I guess you’ve got everything now.”
“And every film that you’ve ever seen / Fills the spaces up in your dreams,” he sings.
Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter serves as a producer, bringing a retro electro sound that evokes the robot-clad French electronic duo on “Signs of Life,” a biting rap about empty hedonism, and the darkly abstract “Electric Blue.”
Arcade Fire, masters since the band’s inception at crafting a grandiosity around the sound, brings a disconcerting sense of uplift to “Creature Comfort,” a dance track with an industrial beat about self-hatred and suicide.
Yet uncharacteristically for Arcade Fire, the album can also become predictable, with “Chemistry,” “Good … Damn” and “Put Your Money On Me” built over minimalist dance rhythms that stay confined.