Xposition - April, 2016

Attention!!!

April was quite an eventful month. First we had the iHeartRadio Music Awards with Taylor Swift leading the nominees and taking most of the hardware as well. There were so many good performances including Iggy Azalea's Team, Meghan Trainor's No, Jason Derulo's If It Ain't Love and DNCE's Cake By The Ocean. Adele won Song of the Year for Hello while Taylor Swift won Album of the Year for 1989. Other winners include:

• Female Artist of the Year: Taylor Swift
• Male Artist of the Year: Justin Bieber
• Best New Artist: Fetty Wap
• Best Duo/Group of the Year: Maroon 5
• Alternative Rock Artist of the Year: Twenty One Pilots
• Alternative Rock Song of the Year: Twenty One Pilots - Stressed out
• Rock Artist of the Year: Foo Fighters
• Country Artist of the Year: Luke Bryan
• Dance Song of the Year: Skrillex & Diplo ft. Justin Bieber - Where are u now
• Dance Artist of the Year: Calvin Harris
• Latin Artist of the Year: Pitbull
• Best Lyrics: Rachel Platten - Fight song 
• Best Collaboration: Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars - Uptown funk 

The 51st Annual Academy of Country Music Awards was also held. Chris Stapleton was the big winner sweeping both Album of the Year for Traveller and Song of the Year for Nobody To Blame. The other winners of the night include:

• Record of the Year: Thomas Rhett - Die a happy man
• Entertainer of the Year: Jason Aldean
• Male Vocalist of the Year: Chris Stapleton 
• Female Vocalist of the Year: Miranda Lambert
• Vocal Duo of the Year: Florida Georgia Line
• Video of the Year: Eric Church - Mr. Misunderstood 

The Juno Awards were also held in April with brilliant performances by The Weeknd, Alessia Cara and Shawn Mendes. The Weeknd won Artist of the Year as well as Album of the Year for Beauty Behind The Madness, Single of the Year for Can't Feel My Face and Songwriter of the Year for Can't Feel My Face, In The Night and The Hills. Some of the other significant wins included:

• Group of the Year: Walk Off The Earth
• Breakthrough Artist of the Year: Alessia Cara
• Breakthrough Group of the Year: Dear Rouge
• Video of the Year: Adele - Hello 
• Pop Album of the Year: Justin Bieber - Purpose
• International Album of the Year: Adele - 25

This April we bid adieu to American Idol on its final run in the 15th season. With a two-hour plus series finale with an evening packed of performances by past winners and finalists such as Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks, Fantasia, Ruben Studdard, Jennifer Hudson, Clay Aiken as well as the original trio of judges adorable Paula Abdul, goofy Randy Jackson and the cynical Simon Cowell. In the end host Ryan Seacrest named Trent Harmon the winner over La'Porsha Renae. 

Meanwhile, the highly anticipated Billboard Music Awards 2016 is to take place in May and the nominations were revealed wherein The Weeknd has been nominated a whopping 19 times in 16 categories. Some of the important nominations are:

• Top Artist: Adele, Justin Bieber, Drake, The Weeknd, Taylor Swift
• Top Male Artist: Drake, Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, Ed Sheeran, Fetty Wap
• Top Female Artist: Adele, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Rihanna
• Top Hot 100 Song: Adele's Hello, Fetty Wap's Trap Queen, The Weeknd's Can't Feel My Face, The Weeknd's The Hills, Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth's See You Again
• Top Billboard 200 Album: Adele's 25, Ed Sheeran's x, Taylor Swift's 1989, Justin Bieber's Purpose, The Weeknd's Beauty Behind The Madness

The 61st annual Eurovision Song Contest is to be held in May in Stockholm, Sweden following the country's victory in 2015 with Måns Zelmerlöw's Heroes. 42 countries will participate. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia and Ukraine will return after absences from recent contests, while Australia will also return after debuting as a special guest in 2015. The contest will also be the first to implement a new voting system since 1975, with each country now awarding two sets of points: one from their professional jury and another from televoting. And the favourites are Russia, France, Malta, Sweden and Bulgaria. 

2016 seems to be taking away the legends in music and this month the victim is Prince. Prince Rogers Nelson, known by his stage name Prince was extremely popular in the 1980s for his hits including the global smashes When Doves Cry, Purple Rain and Kiss. He passed away on 21st April aged 57. With the artist's demise his previous hits and albums will definitely make an impact on the charts in the coming weeks. 

The full lineup for Mysteryland USA to be held from June 10 - 13 was revealed composing of more than 90 acts with Odesza, Skrillex and Bassnectar headlining the festival. This year the age barrier has been reduced to 19 from 21. 

Moving onto chart news, in the US Rihanna ft. Drake's Work ruled the roost with Lukas Graham's 7 Years initially struggling at No.2 and thereafter Desiigner's Panda. With a whopping 9 weeks at the top Rihanna has accumulated 60 weeks at No.1 and is now the artist with the second-most weeks at No.1 of all time passing The Beatles with their 59 weeks and just behind Mariah Carey's titanic 79 weeks. As of the last week of April its 41 straight weeks that non- American born acts have led the Hot 100. Meanwhile, former chart leader Justin Bieber's Love Yourself broke his own record for the most consecutive weeks in the top 10 as Love Yourself surpasses Sorry's 21 weeks with 22 weeks inside the top 10. Other songs which peaked within the top 10 during the month are Ariana Grande's Dangerous Woman, Fifth Harmony ft. Ty Dollar $ign's Work From Home and Meghan Trainor's No.

In the UK, Mike Posner's Seeb Remix of I Took A Pill In Ibiza ruled for two weeks after which Drake ft. Wizkid & Kyla's One Dance took the helm. This was all at the peril of Sia's Cheap Thrills which was prevented from gaining the top spot. Other songs which peaked within the top 10 are Alan Walker's Faded and DNCE's Cake By The Ocean.

Other songs which became popular during the month are:

• Disturbed - The sound of silence
• The Chainsmokers ft. Daya - Don't let me down
• Inna - Rendez vous
• Alexandra Stan ft. Mohombi - Balans
• DJ Snake ft. Bipolar Sunshine - Middle 
• Bebe Rexha ft. Nicki Minaj - No broken hearts
• Chris Brown - Back to sleep 
• Nick Jonas ft. Tove Lo - Close 
• Alessia Cara - Wild things
• Iggy Azalea - Team 

Till the next beat...

At Ease!!!

(All images used in the posts unless otherwise mentioned are drawn from https://images.google.com/ and the author does not hold copyright over the photos used.)