Entertainment – manitimes.com

Byron Janis, Pianist of Romantic Passion, Dies at 95

Press Room — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 08:47:02 +0000

Mr. Janis withdrew from the concert stage — temporarily, as it turned out — and devoted himself to songwriting, a pastime of his youth that he had given up when his touring schedule became too demanding.

With the encouragement of the folk singer Judy Collins, he sent a tape of his songs to Warner Chappell, the music publisher, which engaged him to compose 22 songs for a theatrical setting of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” with lyrics by Hal Hackady and a book by Anthony Scully. The show had its premiere at the Westbeth Theater, in Manhattan, in 1993.

Also among Mr. Janis’s works was an incidental score for “Cooper and Hemingway: The True Gen,” a 2013 documentary about the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and Mr. Janis’s father-in-law, the actor Gary Cooper. Mr. Janis and Maria Cooper married in 1966. An earlier marriage, to June Dickson Wright, ended in divorce. Mr. Janis had one son, from his first marriage, Stefan, who died in 2017.

In the mid-1990s, Mr. Janis returned to performing, gingerly at first, giving short performances at benefit concerts, at which he shared the bill with other performers, and working his way up to a program of works by Mozart, Schumann, Chopin and Prokofiev for an Alice Tully Hall recital in 1998 that commemorated the 50th anniversary of his Carnegie Hall recital debut.

Born Byron Yanks in McKeesport, Pa., on March 24, 1928, he grew up in Pittsburgh, where his father, Samuel, owned a sporting goods store. The elder Mr. Yanks had changed the family name from Yankilevitch before his son was born, and he would change it twice more — to Jannes and, finally, Janis — by 1943.

Mr. Janis’s mother, Hattie, was a homemaker. She first noticed her son’s musical talent when he was given a xylophone, around age 5, and quickly began picking out melodies. When he began correcting mistakes his older sister Thelma made while practicing for her piano lessons, Mr. Janis’s parents allowed him to have lessons of his own.

Suzanne Somers’ ‘Step by Step’ co-stars share fond memories of late actress

Press Room — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 04:46:16 +0000

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Suzanne Somers was honored by the cast of “Step by Step” nearly five months after her death.

Somers died from breast cancer at her home in Palm Desert on Oct. 15. She was 76.

On Sunday, her former “Step by Step” co-stars reunited at ’90s Con and shared some of her legacy working on television for decades as a leading actress.

Christopher Castile, Patrick Duffy, Staci Keanan, Christine Lakin, Jason Marsden and Sasha Mitchell reunited for the first time in years.

PATRICK DUFFY HONORS SUZANNE SOMERS WITH EMOTIONAL TRIBUTE TO ‘STEP BY STEP’ CO-STAR

Somers starred alongside Patrick Duffy in the family sitcom, “Step by Step.” (ABC Photo Archives)

“Step by Step” debuted in 1991 and ran for seven seasons before its last episode aired in 1998.

Duffy and Somers starred as single parents Frank Lambert and Carol Foster, who fell in love, married and joined their families together. Not only were the newlyweds starting over again as adults, they each had three children and created a new idea of family.

SUZANNE SOMERS’ PALM SPRINGS HOME ON THE MARKET FOR $8.9 MILLION

The “Step by Step” cast reunited at ’90s Con in Connecticut. (ABC Photo Archives)

“Suzanne gave the most beautiful, thoughtful gifts, and she was a person of immense style and glamour in her real life, and I will never forget [that] and I still have them. One Christmas, she gave me a pair of Prada, cashmere tights,” Keanan said, per People magazine.

“Okay, so it’s Prada. You know, fancy and everything. But beyond that, she was like, ‘These will keep you warm. And even if you have a long skirt, you could just wear these underneath to keep you warm.’ [It was] so sweet. She will be missed.”

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“I think watching her as a young person, [I] would see her on television. I watched a lot of reruns growing up, so I knew ‘Three’s Company.’ I didn’t know ‘Dallas,’ sorry,” Lakin said.

Patrick and Suzanne played single parents, Frank and Carol. (ABC Photo Archives)

She continued, “Growing up with her and watching her as a woman, as a businesswoman, as someone who was a huge star who had a bright light, who was so gorgeous, who was also so down to Earth and someone I just really admired. She was someone that made me think, as a young female in Hollywood, you can be kind and you can be generous and you can be successful and all of those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

“She was so sweet and loving. Her heart was so big, and we really miss her.”

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Watson, who played her daughter Angela on the show, formed a core memory with Suzanne.

The sitcom focused on two single parents who found love and raised their blended family together. (CBS)

“For me, it was being able to do the mother-daughter reunion pageant where we tap dance together and sang … That was so amazing. Like, the highlight of my career,” she said.

Shortly after her death in October, Duffy honored Somers with a moving tribute to his friend.

“As with everyone who knew her, I was stunned yesterday by the news that my dear and deep friend Suzanne had passed. For that brief moment it was unbelievable,” he posted on Instagram. “But indeed she has passed. She beautifully passed through my life on this leg of her endless journey. My task now is to remain on the roadside as she continues on.”

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He added, “I am not alone in wishing I had one more face-to-face with her and Alan, but had we had that meeting last Friday I would still be yearning for just one more today. It is the painful beauty of our present human reality.

“What strength and support I can muster I send to Alan and Bruce and her family and to her I say; When the stone of your life dropped in this pond you made quite a ripple my friend. Thank you.”

The “Three’s Company” actress was diagnosed with cancer twice before. She suffered skin cancer in her 30s and breast cancer in her 50s.

Somers married her second husband, television host Alan Hamel, in 1977. She regularly discussed their loving relationship with each other.

In addition to son Bruce, they have three granddaughters: Camelia, Violet and Daisy.

“The Notebook” brings its romance to Broadway

Press Room — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:18:07 +0000

“The Notebook” brings its romance to Broadway – CBS News

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In 1996 Nicholas Sparks’ romantic novel “The Notebook” became a bestseller. Eight years later it was adapted to a classic movie starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. And the love story that was “a song, a dream, a whisper,” is now a Broadway musical. Correspondent David Pogue talks with Sparks and with members of the creative team that turned his book into a show that is already causing considerable audience joy and weeping.

‘Winterreise’ Review: Hiding a Roiling Grief

Press Room — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 19:53:35 +0000

It was a performance of hard-won wisdom. When the eminent pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the tenor Mark Padmore teamed up for Schubert’s “Winterreise” on Friday at Zankel Hall, they brought the maturity of hindsight to a genre-defining work of young, unrequited love. The concert was part of Uchida’s Perspectives series with Carnegie Hall.

Schubert’s cycle comprises 24 songs, most of them in minor keys, and derives from the natural world endless metaphors for heartache. The winter’s journey of the title begins with a breakup, and the narrator spends the rest of the time ruminating upon the fallout. The narrator’s beloved, he says, proved to be as fickle as a weather vane batted by the wind. His tears freeze and scald, and his numbness hides a roiling grief, like a river seething below a surface of ice.

The piano part has the capacity to amplify or comment on the narrator’s mental state, and Uchida used it to console him like a wise, empathetic friend. She eased into key changes with subtle decelerations. The octaves of “Der Lindenbaum” (“The Linden Tree”) were transparent, rather than towering, and the rustling of branches had a dusky quality as though seen through the mollifying haze of a dream. In “Wasserflut” (“Flood”), she handled chromatic semitones with utmost delicacy to minimize the impact of their dissonant pangs. Her performance came to a peak in “Das Wirtshaus” (“The Inn”), where a slow, firm sequence of full-fingered chords provided ineffable comfort.

The narrator’s beloved dominates the first half, but in a curious twist, she largely vanishes in the second, as his despair consumes him and convinces him that he’s destined for life as a social pariah.

Uchida achieved arresting coherence across the entire cycle, but Padmore dug more specifically into that point of divergence. His acidulous tone, an awkward fit for the cycle’s early expressions of young heartbreak, illuminated the existential anguish of a soul who has decided he’s better off lost. Rather than struggle with that anguish, Padmore’s narrator embraced it with a sense of finality beyond his years.

Padmore muscled his way through the cycle’s first 12 songs, summoning a pointed resonance but no real sense of line in Schubert’s gracious melodies. The milky softness of his tone in early recordings has curdled, and his technique, which used to cultivate mellifluousness with frequent use of a precise and floaty mixed voice, now produces a hard and unwieldy sound that veers out of tune.

His interpretation pivoted on the third song of the second half, “Die Krähe” (“The Crow”), where his narrator’s self-pity and mordant resentments transmogrified into macabre fascinations with death. As he gazed at the sky with a gruesome smile and welcomed the crows to pick at his bones, his grip on reality loosened. He nurtured a nascent misanthropy in “Im Dorfe” (“In the Village”) and “Der stürmische Morgen” (“The Stormy Morning”). His voice became less effortful as he no longer fought to muster volume; he settled into the modest size and natural point of his instrument with disturbing calm and carved fine slits in the air as though with an assassin’s blade.

In a way, Padmore’s diminished capabilities underlined the profundity of the narrator’s wizened state. In the last song, the narrator encounters a hurdy-gurdy player, a forgotten old man on the outskirts of town. The ghostly vision filled Padmore’s voice with awe as he contemplated joining the man in self-imposed exile.

Carnegie’s Perspectives series is an opportunity for artists to share their distinctive points of view on repertoire, and Uchida and Padmore did just that, taking the narrator to his bleakest moment in order to find a bit of light.

Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora are still ‘not in contact’ 11 years after split

Press Room — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 15:38:09 +0000

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It’s their life and their feud for now and forever, but fans remain curious about the relationship between former Bon Jovi bandmates Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, ahead of the release of their new docuseries.

The band’s frontman says that despite both rockers being involved in the upcoming Hulu production, “Thank You Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story,” communication between the two remains stalled.

“Not a word. That was [director] Gotham Chopra,” he told Ultimate Classic Rock of Sambora’s involvement. “This wasn’t a puff piece and this was no bulls—,” he added of the docuseries.

JON BON JOVI ON WHAT HE’S MOST PROUD OF IN 40-YEAR MUSIC CAREER: ‘IT’S BEYOND WORDS’

Lead singer of Bon Jovi, Jon Bon Jovi, shared that he and former bandmate Richie Sambora are “not in contact.” (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images For The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

“This is not us behind the scenes pulling strings. Oh, no, no, no. They interviewed Richie in London. I wasn’t there. I had nothing to do with it,” he explained. “I still haven’t seen the [finished] product.”

Sambora unexpectedly left the band in April 2013, hours before the band was set to play a show in Calgary. Canadian musician Phil X filled in for Sambora, as he had done similarly when Sambora went to rehab in 2011, for the remainder of Bon Jovi’s tour.

He became the band’s official lead guitarist in 2016.

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Phil X, pictured performing with Bon Jovi, officially became the band’s lead guitarist in 2016. (Getty Images)

Right now, Bon Jovi says he and Sambora don’t speak.

“We’re not in contact because he’s not in the organization any longer,” Bon Jovi explained of their fractured relationship. “Doesn’t mean that there’s not love forever, but it’s 11 years ago that he just didn’t show up anymore.”

While Jon Bon Jovi doesn’t consider himself to be on bad terms with Richie Sambora, he says the two men don’t speak. (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images)

“There were emotional issues that he was dealing with as a single dad, and there were substance abuse issues that, you know… Phil X had to show up one time, and then Phil X had to show up another time. And then, again, there’s a show that night. What are we gonna do?” Bon Jovi asked.

In 2020, Sambora spoke candidly about his decision to leave the band.

“It wasn’t a popular decision by any means, obviously, but there was really almost no choice about it. I had a lot of conscious work to do around [my personal life],” he told People magazine.

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Richie Sambora ultimately left Bon Jovi to focus on his family. (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)

“We’ve been through a lot of things together. That was a time of psychological maintenance for the family,” he shared. “You know, I ain’t no angel. But I realized, Ava needed me to be around at that point in time. Family had to come first, and that’s what happened.”

Sambora shares daughter Ava with ex-wife and actress Heather Locklear, who has her own substance abuse issues.

“When I look back and start to list the tours… 18-and-a-half months of being on the road, 52 countries… It’s like, wow. It was really time for a break. We did that 14 times over a 31-year period,” Sambora said.

The Hulu docuseries on the rock group will premiere on April 26 and be released in four parts.

Celine Dion shares health update in rare photo with sons

Press Room — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 11:32:07 +0000

Singer Celine Dion shared an update about her diagnosis of stiff-person syndrome alongside a rare photo of herself and her three sons.

In her post, Dion noted that March 15 was International Stiff-Person Syndrome Awareness Day, saying that “trying to overcome” stiff-person syndrome was “one of the hardest experiences” of her life.

Dion announced her diagnosis with the condition in 2022, saying at the time that the illness had impacted her ability to sing and walk, and in May 2023, she canceled all upcoming performance dates. In December 2023, Dion’s sister Claudette told a French publication that the singer no longer had control of her muscles.

The disease is an incurable neurological condition with features of an autoimmune disease, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Fewer than 5,000 people in the United States are believed to have the illness, according to the Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center.

“I remain determined to one day get back onto the stage and to live as normal of a life as possible,” Dion wrote. “I am deeply grateful for the love and support from my kids, family, team and all of you!”

The photo shows Dion and her three sons, René-Charles, Nelson and Eddy Angélil smiling on a podium for K1 Speed, a go-kart racing organization. Dion shares all three sons with her late husband and manager, René Angélil. Angélil died in 2016.

Dion has only made a handful of public appearances since her diagnosis, including presenting the Album of the Year award to Taylor Swift at the 2023 Grammys. Before that, she was most recently seen at a hockey game with her sons.

Dion ended her message with a note of support for others struggling with stiff-person syndrome.

“I want to send my encouragement and support to all those around the world that have been affected by SPS,” the star wrote. “I want you to know you can do it! We can do it!”

Kerry Breen

Kerry Breen is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.

Becky G’s Rowdy Obsession and 8 More New Songs

Press Room — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 07:30:31 +0000

Becky G knows better than to keep returning, like a boomerang, to a liar who doesn’t love her — but she can’t resist. And the ingenious, rhythm-forward production of “Boomerang” makes her obsession sound like a village-wide celebration, with the plink of a thumb piano, flamenco-like handclaps, a thudding reggaeton bass line and a rowdy backup chorus that cheerfully supports her misplaced affections.

In “Fire Excape,” Zsela croons what turns out to be a love song — but only eventually, after she notes, “There’s a fire in the ocean when the oil starts spilling.” The song takes shape over a lurching, stop-stop beat, with some gaping silences, odd harmonic turns and sudden electronic surges, but amid the asymmetries Zsela proffers some husky reassurance: “We’ll get along quite fine, thank you.”

Willow, ‘Symptom of Life’

Willow Smith ponders self-knowledge, reinvention, mortality and beauty in “Symptom of Life”: “Looking into the shadow/now I notice the light,” she sings. “Magic is real when you see it inside.” It’s a meter-shifting math-pop tune, with Willow’s voice blithely hopscotching amid jazzy piano clusters, brisk drumming and a bass countermelody, vigorously affirming that her search for meaning continues.

Tierra Whack, ‘Numb’

Six years after she released her 15-song, 15-minute EP, “Whack World,” the rapper, singer and video auteur Tierra Whack is releasing her full-length album, “World Wide Whack,” which veers from boasting and absurd humor to troubled reflections on her mental health. “Numb” is joyless: a recitation of mental-health symptoms over inhuman, pulsating synthesizer chords. Other songs on the album suggest she has overcome her malaise, but this track memorializes it.

A snappy jungle break beat propels Nia Archives as she explores a nagging, growing conviction about her partner: “I got a feelin’ you have unfinished business somewhere else.” Her voice moves from feigned nonchalance to simmering annoyance; “Nobody comes with a clean slate,” she allows, but clearly her patience is limited.

Beans, ‘Zwaard 2’

The rapper Beans, formerly of Anti-Pop Consortium, faces turning 50 with adamant defiance on his new album, “Zwaard,” which doesn’t bother with individual song titles. Zwaard is Finnish for sword, and the album is Beans’s collaboration with the Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti, who also records as Vladislav Delay, among other pseudonyms. Ripatti backs Beans with hectic, abrasive tracks akin to Chicago footwork; “Zwaard 2” is a fusillade of bent bell tones, punching-bag beats and wordless singsong voices. Beans writes lyrics that veer between rap rhymes and spoken-word exposition in a constant rush. In “Zwaard 2,” he juggles self-mythologizing, stark autobiography and glimpses of politics and psychology. He notes his receding hairline and promises to be “one of the flyest MCs on AARP,” and he insists, “What I am is both the pen and the sword, the disciple and the lord.”

Ernest and Jelly Roll, ‘I Went to College/I Went to Jail’

False equivalency tops a slick country waltz in “I Went to College/I Went to Jail.” In the lyrics, Ernest (college) and Jelly Roll (jail) play up contrasts — “I could have been a doctor/I should have been dead” — but both are proud to have arrived on Music Row, backed by fiddle and pedal steel: a Nashville happy ending.

Allison Russell gathered a choir of three-dozen singers — including Brittany Howard, Brittney Spencer, Devon Gilfillian, Amanda Shires, Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile and Emmylou Harris — for a single to support the candidacy of State Representative Gloria Johnson, Democrat of Tennessee, for U.S. Senate. It’s a slow-rolling, gospelly song that invokes civil-rights watchwords, worries over gun violence and exhorts, “We’ve come so far, so far/but there’s so much left to do.”

Willie Nelson, ‘The Border’

Never one to avoid a fraught subject, Willie Nelson chose “The Border” — a song Rodney Crowell co-wrote and first recorded on his 2019 album “Texas” — as the title song of his next album. It’s a Tex-Mex bolero narrated by a Border Patrol officer who has witnessed smuggling, corruption and desperation. “From the shacks and the shanties come the hungry and poor,” he sings, “Some to drown at the crossing/Some to suffer no more.” Nelson digs almost unrecognizably low in his range, sounding scarred and gruff and resigned: “It’s just the border, you know,” the chorus concludes.

‘Jeopardy!’ contestants stumped by Taylor Swift question: ‘We’re going to get killed for that’

Press Room — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 03:26:14 +0000

A Taylor Swift question stumped all three “Jeopardy: Tournament of Champions” contestants during a recent episode of the long-running game show.

On Thursday’s episode, competitors Ben Chan, Yogesh Raut and Troy Meyer proved they were not Swifties when they missed a $400 clue about the 34-year-old pop star in the “Jeopardy!” category “Songs of Youth.”

The prompt given by host Ken Jennings to the contestants said, “Inspired by her bestie, Tay Tay sang when ‘somebody tells you they love you’ at this title age ‘you’re gonna believe them.'”

A Taylor Swift question stumped all three “Jeopardy: Tournament of Champions” contestants during a recent episode. (Getty)

Meyer of Tampa Bay, Florida, and a music executive guessed 17, while Raut, a psychologist from Vancouver, Washington guessed 22.

‘JEOPARDY!’ FANS OUTRAGED OVER MISLEADING CLUE THAT COST CONTESTANT THE GAME

The correct answer was “Fifteen,” the title of Swift’s country pop song from her second studio album, 2008’s “Fearless.” The musician has previously said “Fifteen” was inspired by her high school best friend Abigail Anderson, who experienced a painful breakup with a boyfriend when she and Swift were both 15.

“We’re gonna get killed for that,” Meyer said with a laugh.

The Swift clue was the only “triple-stumper” of Thursday’s episode, according to the “Jeopardy!” archives via Newsweek.

Meyer, Raut and Chan, a philosophy professor from Green Bay, Wisconsin, are competing for the $250,000 prize in the best-of-seven finals. Chan, a nine-time champion, is ahead with two wins while six-game champion Meyer and three-game champion Raut have each scored one win.

The clue was read by host Ken Jennings during Thursday’s episode. (Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty Images)

After all three champions missed the question, “Jeopardy!” fans took to social media to express their disbelief.

“I can’t believe the one triple stumper this episode was about Taylor Swift,” one X user wrote.

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“Yes #jeopardy! Players, Twitter is going to rip you apart for not knowing 15 by taylor swift,” added another fan.

“Found a common weakness among the 3 finalists in the @Jeopardy Tournament of Champions… @taylorswift13,” a fan commented on X.

“The only wrong response in the entire last #Jeopardy episode is of a Tay Tay song. Don’t let the Swifties know about this…,” wrote another X user.

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“The Swifties about to descend on the Alex Trebek Stage… #Jeopardy,” one viewer wrote.

Thursday’s episode was not the first to include a Swift-related question that stumped all the contestants. In May, competitors Diandra D’Alessio, Nathan Dennis and Ilhana Redzovic missed a Final Jeopardy question that many fans of the 12-time Grammy Award winner guessed immediately on social media.

In January, “Jeopardy! dedicated an entire category to Swift. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

The clue, which was in the “Literary Groups” category, said, “Windermere, Thirlmere & Grasmere are three of the sites that helped give a 19th-century literary group this name.”

The correct answer was “What is the Lake Poets?” Swift’s song, “The Lakes,” which was featured on the deluxe edition of her 2020 album, “Folklore,” included lyrics that referred to the sites mentioned in the question as well as the Lake Poets.

During a July 2022 episode of “Jeopardy!,” all three contestants were stumped by a question that referred to one of Swift’s most famous songs.

After contestant Matt Mierswa chose a clue in the “Title That Completes the Rhyme” category for $400, Jennings read the prompt, “And I’m just like oh-oh oh-oh oh-oh oh-oh oh-oh, you need to just stop, like can you just not step on my gown?”

“I really wish this was Johnny [Gilbert] reading these,” Jennings responded when Mierswa was unable to guess the answer. “This is ‘You Need to Calm Down’ by Taylor Swift.”

In January, “Jeopardy!” paid tribute to Swift with an entire round of categories inspired by the singer. The first four categories featured titles of Swift’s songs “Love Story,” “Our Song,” “Bad Blood,” “Shake It Off” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” while the fifth category, “The Errors Tour,” referred to her record-breaking The Eras Tour.

Ashley Hume is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to ashley.hume@fox.com and on Twitter: @ashleyhume

Glen Hansard talks new album and long music career

Press Room — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 23:10:20 +0000

Glen Hansard talks new album and long music career – CBS News

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Over his long career, Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard has taken home an Oscar and been nominated for multiple Grammy Awards. He sat down recently with Jeff Glor to talk about his career, fatherhood and the unique way he developed his most recent album “All That Was East Is West of Me Now.”

7 Artists Shaping the Sound of 2024

Press Room — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 18:36:28 +0000

Dear listeners,

It’s Jon — I’m filling in for Lindsay today for a very special installment of The Amplifier. By way of introduction, I’ve been a pop music critic at the Times for … around 15 years? (Let us not speak of that further.) I am also the host of Popcast, our weekly music podcast, and the co-host, with Joe Coscarelli, of Popcast (Deluxe), our YouTube conversation show. Like and subscribe!

The primary reason I’ve enjoyed this job for so long is that it’s never boring. Surprise lurks around every corner and in every online wormhole. New artists with novel twists on old ideas — or, from time to time, wholly new ideas — emerge constantly. Pop is centerless and ambitious and forever mutating. If you think things are stagnant, you’re not listening hard enough.

And so here’s a list of seven emerging artists who I think have real potential, from a range of genres and styles: People you might want to pay attention to in order to get a taste of what this year, and probably the coming ones too, will sound like.

Listen along while you read.

1. Tanner Adell: “FU-150”

There’s about to be a tremendous amount of discourse about Black inclusion and exclusion from country music, owing to Beyoncé’s forthcoming album, “Cowboy Carter.” But there are countless Black artists who have been working on the front lines of Nashville for years. For a taste of someone with an extremely modern approach to country hybridity, try Tanner Adell’s “FU-150,” a startling blend of rural flexing, hip-hop production flourishes, R&B harmony and pop certainty.