Music

LAS VEGAS -- On the Billboard stage, there's not much room for surprises, at least not where the awards are concerned. This is a ceremony dictated by radio, sales, streaming and fan voting. So it should be expected that Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber would reign heavily over Sunday's telecast. And they did. Swift walked away with an impressive eight trophies (she was up for 11) and delivered a showstopping performance, and Bieber hit the stage twice in between collecting a handful of awards, including top male artist.

CANNES, France -- In close to three decades of filmmaking, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have shared a lot of looks. But with "Inside Llewyn Davis," which had its  premiere in Festival de Cannes competition Sunday, one particular glance said it all. "At one point, we looked at each other," Joel recalled, sipping coffee in a joint early morning interview, "and said, 'Have we written something which is essentially unmakable because it's uncastable?'...

By Kari Howard The stories I read spark musical connections every day. It's a bit more rare when the walk to work does. But one of my favorite moments this week came when I was strolling down Broadway past Grand Park in downtown LA, a section that used to be a parking lot for the criminal courts building. A woman was walking in the other direction talking on the phone, vexation in your voice. And I overheard her say this: “They turned it into a damn park!” It made me laugh - it was a bizarro-world Joni Mitchell lyric in reverse: “They paved paradise/And put up a parking lot.” Months ago, I had watched the parking lot being unpaved so paradise could be put up, so another of the song's lyrics had resonance: “They took all the trees/Put 'em in a tree museum.” The first thing the construction workers did?

Kanye West is scheduled to perform Saturday night on the season finale of "Saturday Night Live," where the rapper is widely expected to preview material from an upcoming album that may be released on June 18. A day before that rather conventional media appearance, though, West took to his Twitter feed Friday evening to announce something more unusual. "NEW SONG AND VISUAL FROM MY NEW ALBUM BEING PROJECTED TONIGHT ACROSS THE GLOBE ON 66 BUILDINGS," he wrote, directing viewers to his website for locations that included spots in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Paris, London, Sydney and West's hometown of Chicago.

What do we do with the Duke? He was, most agree, the greatest jazz composer who ever lived. And more. Duke Ellington was the soul of American music. David Schiff has just written a brilliantly illuminating book, "The Ellington Century," that places the Duke at the center of it all. Academic Ellington studies are extensive. Terry Teachout has an Ellington biography on the way. And yet Ellington remains an outsider. A handful of his compositions are standards. But his large-scale symphonic works, his opera, his this and his that - he broke boundaries - are significant rarities.

Actor Nick Nolte has put a Malibu compound up for sale that has seen a galaxy of stars come through its arched entryway. Besides Nolte, other notables to have owned the house include comedian Tommy Chong, Don Felder of the Eagles and music producer David Foster. Priced at $8.25 million and set in the Bonsall Canyon area, the two-acre retreat is covered with sycamore and pine trees. The main house, built in 1963, features 19-foot vaulted ceilings, skylights, six stone-and-carved-wood fireplaces, marble floors and mahogany French doors.

It hasn't even been 24 hours since Candice Glover was crowned the winner of “American Idol” Thursday night, but her new record label has already fired up a supercharged promo machine by quickly announcing details of her debut album. More than 10 years into the Fox singing competition, the winner's post-“Idol” debut is being prepped quicker than ever, with pre-orders already available. Glover's debut, “Music Speaks,” will arrive July 16 - just two months to the date of her “Idol” victory.

Just got dumped? Researchers say you are more likely to turn to “I Knew You Were Trouble” than “Call Me Maybe.” That's because what you're likely to be looking for is the support of an empathetic pal, they say. On the other hand, if someone dents the back of your car in the mall parking lot, the happy song could cheer you up. The researchers, writing in the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, wanted to know what prompted people...

Google Inc. upended the Internet with its search engine. It launched its own email service, made roads and highways easier to navigate, developed the world's most popular operating system for mobile devices and took a shot at Apple Inc.'s iTunes with its own Google Play store. Now the technology giant is cranking up the volume with the debut of a subscription music service that provides access to millions of songs for a monthly fee, taking on the likes of Spotify and Pandora and going after the next big wave in digital music: streaming on mobile devices.

Vincent G. Dowling Actor, director gave Tom Hanks early break Actor and director Vincent G. Dowling, 83, who left behind a long career with Ireland's national theater to run a Shakespeare festival in Cleveland where he gave a young Tom Hanks an early break as an actor, died May 10 at a Boston hospital. The cause was complications from surgery, said his wife, Olwen. At 16, Dowling left school in his native Dublin to become an actor and in 1953 joined the Abbey Theatre, Ireland's national theater company.