Taylor Swift, pictured here at the MTV Video Music Awards, has called Troye Sivan’s new release Wild, stunning and awesome. Picture: AP
Source: AP

Swift, whose multi-million-selling album of last year 1989 set the benchmark for modern pop and is still in the ARIA top 5 after nearly a year, posted to her 63 million followers that Sivan’s new mini-album is “stunning and awesome”.

GO @troyesivan WILD IS STUNNING AND AWESOME. (YES CAPS LOCK IS NECESSARY HERE.) #EPgoals

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) September 7, 2015

Perth-raised Sivan responded to his 2.9 million followers: “Taylor, thank you so much. This means the world to me. 1989 is most definitely #Albumgoals.”

@taylorswift13 TAYLOR THANK YOU SO MUCH. This means the world to me!!! 1989 is most definitely #AlbumGoals 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

— Troye Sivan (@troyesivan) September 7, 2015

Sivan’s Wild mini-album was released globally on Friday and shot straight to No. 1 on iTunes here and is expected to chart highly when the ARIA figures are released this week. As of this morning it was at No. 2 on the US iTunes chart, with Swift’s 1989 at No. 5.

Hot on the charts … Taylor Swift tweets Aussie singer Troye Sivan.
Source: Twitter

Grammy-winner Swift has form with Aussie pop artists — she was so enamoured with Melbourne singer-songwriter Vance Joy’s hit Riptide that she recorded her own cover version and then invited him to support her on her current stadium world tour.

Sivan has also expressed a desire to work with one of Swift’s besties, recently telling News Corp about his dream collaborators: “I would love to do something with Lorde — I think that would be really cool. Frank Ocean would be really awesome too.”

With his star rising around the world, Sivan has kicked off a whirlwind global promo tour, and is preparing and rehearsing for a live tour — his first live performances in years. The Swift/Sivan love in has also raised speculation that the Aussie singer might join the global superstar on stage for her Australia dates later this year, continuing her tradition of inviting local artists to perform with her.

“The thing that is daunting is when people say ‘things are going to get crazy for you’,” Sivan said of his growing profile and coming tour. “And when people talk about touring I get really nervous. I think I am a bit of a homebody. The idea of performing sounds appealing to me but the lifestyle sounds terrible, sitting on a bus all day and being away from my family.

“I just feel like it would be tiring and scary but I have a good team around me who is going to help me ease into it. I also know it’s one of those things that once I am in it, I am going to absolutely love it and never want to stop. I think it’s just those first couple of shows that will be really scary.”

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Rock on … Amity Affliction step up to arenas for their final tour of 2015. Picture; Supplied.
Source: Supplied

That was the case earlier this week when rumours circulated online that Australian melodic hardcore band chart-toppers Amity Affliction would be joining with their American mates A Day To Remember for a run of concerts in December.

The tour is a milestone for the Australian band, putting them into the same arenas hosting Sam Smith, Cold Chisel, Elton John and Oprah that month.

It also signals that hard rock, and we are talking the kind of music which is best played at volume of 11, is doing big business in Australia despite what the gatekeepers of the airwaves may think.

Amity Affliction’s album Let The Ocean Take Me went to No. 1 with gold sales last year before the band headed out on a sold-out tour of Australian beer barns and the first of several legs of shows in America and Europe.

Just back home from the Warped tour in America, vocalist and bassist Ahren Stringer said joining forces with A Day To Remember, with support acts Motionless In White and The Ghost Inside, gave them the “muscle” to stage the biggest tour of their career.

Naming rights … American band A Day To Remember won the battle to call it the Big Ass Tour. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied

“It’s pretty mind-blowing because we never thought we would be playing venues of this size,” Stringer says.

“I never thought this kind of music would get as popular as it is has. When we were telling our friends about the (arena) tour, they didn’t believe it. The most common response was ‘Holy s …!’”

Fans of the heavier brands of music, whether hardcore, metalcore or any of the subgenres under the umbrella of hard rock, are fiercely loyal.

They buy the new albums the week they come out and in enough volume for a top 10 debut.

Since Amity Affliction released their last record in June, their Australian heavy rock peers Northlane claimed No. 1 with Node, Thy Art Is Murder debuted at No. 7 with Holy War and Skydancer by In Hearts Wake peaked at No.2. Dead Letter Circus are expected to debut in the top 10 this weekend with their hypermelodic third album Aesthesis.

Chart toppers … Northlane debuted at No. 1 with their latest album Node a few weeks ago. Picture: Peter Kelly.
Source: News Corp Australia

The devotion to hard rock music in Australia and demand to see it played on the big stages has kept the annual Soundwave event afloat as the other major national festivals which don’t target a niche audience struggled to survive.

Stringer said most forms of heavy rock are far more accessible than people suspect.

“Heavy music is becoming more and more popular and we are getting people from 16 — or younger — to 60 because I think they do find it is more community based,” he said.

“The fans feel connected in a way because it is positive music with generally positive lyrics which I think is a key factor.”

The closest hard rock gets to decent airplay is late night specialist shows on community stations but Triple J has been featuring more local acts across their programming with Northlane and Dead Letter Circus scoring the coveted feature album of the week recently.

The DIY ethic of the genre’s protagonists works in their favour because it creates a more direct link with fans via social media and shows.

“For a lack of a better word, we are self made and social media helps with that. We’ve never been given a leg-up by bigger Australian bands in our career or scored much support from the mainstream and I think it’s great to know we have got to this level on our own,” Stringer says.

While they are the bigger band on the bill, Amity Affliction lost a very Australia versus America cultural war over the naming of their joint tour with A Day To Remember.

It is called the Big Ass tour.

What happened to arse?

“We tried to tell the A Day To remember guys that you don’t spell arse like that in Australia. But the kids on the internet these days do spell it as ass. So there’s another word in danger of being Americanised now,” Stringer said.

The Big Ass Tour kicks off at Qantas Credit Union Arena, Sydney on December 12 and then heads ti Perth Arena on December 14, Adelaide Entertainment Centre on December 16, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne on December 17 and The Riverstage, Brisbane on December 19. Tickets are on sale from September 1.

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In demand … Safia have three singles out now including their own Embracing Me, one of the most played tracks in Australia. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied

Their own truly weird and wonderful tune Counting Sheep put the spotlight on their unique take on the Australian electro sound which has swept the world in the past couple of years.

And now Ben Woolner, Michael Bell and Harry Sayers have lent their talents to three new releases dropping within a few weeks.

It’s one of those rare clash of singles which cause ulcers for industry types who adhere to the outdated conventions of scheduling their releases.

First to drop was the new Peking Duk single Say My Name featuring “Benjamin Joseph’s, Safia’s own earworm Embracing Me and Alison Wonderland’s Take It To Reality.

Frontman Woolner, whose voice graces all three songs, said he adopted the pseudonym for Say My Name to avoid stealing some of the spotlight from Safia’s Embracing Me.

Woolner had co-written the track with the Duk’s Adam Hyde and hadn’t intended to sing on it because “I had already sung on one track for them”.

Good mates … Peking Duk and Safia have collaborated on two hits now. Picture: Supplied
Source: Supplied

Singles galore … Safia also feature on new Alison Wonderland track. Picture: Supplied.
Source: Supplied

“The vocal melody I wrote was quite all over the place and I didn’t think they could find anyone to be able to do it,” Woolner explains.

“The way it works is you plan to have these things out at separate times. The lucky thing is each song is being seen as an individual thing which was the intention.”

While Safia have generally kept their collaborations to mates, their success has opened the floodgates of requests.

“I consider myself a yes man and I have been saying yes to a lot of things; I don’t want to make people angry so I try to do as many as I can,” he says.

“But now I’m saying no. these will be the last ones for a while.”

Woolner and his bandmates will be too busy playing the sold-out shows on their Embracing Me tour.

In a sign of the times for local acts with hit singles, Safia were adding more and more dates to the itinerary as tickets were snapped up by an audience captivated by their intricate compositions and Woolner’s angelic vocals.

Splendour benders … The electro pop trio got a packed tent singing and dancing ahead of sold-out tour. Picture: Supplied
Source: Supplied

They are up to four Corner Hotel gigs in Melbourne, three Factory Theatre shows in Sydney and two concerts in the other major capital or regional cities on the route.

Woolner is still coming down from the buzz of their Splendour In the Grass set a few weeks ago which brought tens of thousands of fans to their tent.

“It was a big surprise seeing that many people jammed in the tent and still engaged outside in the sun. I could see them all doing what we were asking them to do like singing Listen To Soul acapella to wake up anybody still sleeping off a hangover in their tents,” he says.

“Even though it always goes too quickly, you always have that moment during a gig when you see people responding to songs you have created and you are thinking ‘Everyone is dancing to our song.’ It’s surreal.”

All three are experienced in the rigours of the road having tried and failed with rock bands before “starting to dabble in electronic production” about four years ago.

“There’s a subtlety and art to bringing something that is purely digital and giving it life,” Woolner says.

But that life on the live stage comes with far more opportunities for things to go wrong than a guitar string breaking.

Woolner agrees they should hire an IT roadie.

“Computers break more than guitars. I was watching Tame Impala at Splendour and they had their stage techs dressed in lab coats looking like German scientists. I think it would be a genius idea to have an IT tech on tour. Although turning it on and off again works too,” he jokes.

All the time in the studio and touring the world meant the Safia lads were probably the last people on the planet to recognise a Home and Away star playing a lead role in the Embracing Me video.

David Roberts stars as the firey preacher in the cute clip of star-crossed lovers in an Amish community.

“It’s funny because we were all just recently watching the Matrix trilogy again and we recognised him thinking ‘Wow, he is in our video!’,” Woolner says.

Safia perform at the Corner Hotel, Melbourne, Aug 22 to 25, Woolly Mammoth, Brisbane on September 2 and 3, factory Theatre, Sydney on September 9 to 11, Fowler’s Live, Adelaide, September 18 and Amplifier Bar, Perth, September 19 and 21.

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Coming back … James Bay will be back for a national tour in January. Picture: Rohan Kelly
Source: News Corp Australia

The Hold Back The River star, who tried to cure his jet lag with a sprint across the Sydney Harbour Bridge at dawn on Wednesday, said he quit rugby to save his fingers for guitar shredding.

“I love skateboarding, but I had to stop playing sports to save my fingers. Playing the guitar means too much to me and having broken fingers is not an attractive thing.

“Broken anything isn’t good,” he said.

The rock cat in the hat has been one of the breakout chart stars of this year, with Hold Back The River and Let It Go keeping him on the road throughout Europe and America.

He is back in town for his second visit in six months, a sold-out gig in Sydney and to announce the Chaos and the Calm national tour in will return to Australia in early 2016.

Like Ed Sheeran, Bay plans to keep the Australian fan fires stoked with face time here where Hold Back The River claimed triple platinum sales, and Let It Go recently reached the platinum mark of 70,000 copies sold.

His debut album Chaos and the Calm has sold more than one million copies since its March release, with Bay performing in front of 70,000 people at the Glastonbury festival in the UK in June, and in front of tens of thousands of American fans at Lollapalooza in Chicago last week.

It’s a long way from the London pub basement gigs he was playing in front of 100 people before he scored a record deal.

Festival prince … Bay has been drawing crowds of tens of thousands of fans to sing along to Hold Back The River at his American and European festival sets. Picture: Rich Fury/Invision/AP
Source: AP

“It’s still just getting started for me, and I plan on making two or three more visits to all these places before I hide away to come back with new stuff,” he said.

One of Bay’s goals for world domination is to help orchestrate the return of the guitar solo.

With only a debut album’s worth of songs to play, he is relishing the opportunity to stretch out on the axe jams.

“Everyone was adamant the guitar solo had gone away and maybe people did bored of them,” Bay said.

“As long as it has a good melody, it will come around again. The sax and horns have come back and on a whole other level, the best thing about guitar solos is there are no rules.”

Tickets go on sale from August 20 for the national tour, which kicks off at Arts Centre, Fremantle on January 30 and heads to AEC Theatre, Adelaide on February 2, Festival Hall, Melbourne on February 3, Hordern Pavilion, Sydney on February 6 and Brisbane Convention Centre on February 7.

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Low sales … Meghan Trainor has hit No. 1 for the fourth time this week, but with less than 5000 sales. Picture: Supplied
Source: News Corp Australia

If you’re US star Meghan Trainor, it was just 4149 copies of her album Title sold nationwide this week.

Plunging album sales have seen 2015 getting dangerously close to matching an unenviable record: the lowest selling No. 1 album in Australian chart history.

That low benchmark was set five years ago by metal band Bring Me The Horizon, who topped the ARIA album chart on just 3600 sales in what was a particularly grim week for sales.

However, in June this year, Ed Sheeran’s X made No. 1 on just 3777 sales.

Sheeran, like Trainor, have each returned to the top of the charts four separate times this year due to consistent sales and a several low sales weeks.

How many? … Meghan Trainor sold just 4149 albums last week and still made No.1.
Source: Splash News Australia

2015 has also yet to see a huge ‘blockbuster’ album, with Sheeran, Sam Smith and Taylor Swift’s albums from last year still regularly lodged in the Top 10.

The lower sales also reflect the fact more people are now streaming albums than buying them, which is good for the consumer but not so much for artist royalties.

The ARIA album chart is calculated from physical and digital sales, and has yet to include data from popular streaming sites including Spotify, Rdio and Apple.

“People have not stopped listening to music, they have only changed how they consume it,” Paul Cashmere, of music website Noise 11, said.

i love how music can take u to another place. for example meghan trainor is playing in this cafe so now im going to a different cafe

— emma,,, (@goldenliights) August 7, 2015

Trainor’s fourth stint on top was bad news for Sydney musician Josh Pyke.

His album But for All These Shrinking Hearts missed out being his first No. 1 by just 403 copies.

It is Pyke’s fifth Top 10 album, beating his previous peak of No. 3 for Chimneys Afire in 2008.

Iconic hip hop producer Dr Dre is likely to top next week’s ARIA chart with Compton, his long-awaited album.

The album is currently exclusive to iTunes and Apple Music, their streaming service.

Almost … Josh Pyke got rockblocked from No. 1 by Meghan Trainor. Picture: Richard Dobson
Source: News Corp Australia

Next week’s chart will also see Sydney band The Rubensdebut, while Josh Groban’s Stages has enjoyed a sales boost after a performance aired on Dancing With the Stars on Sunday.

On the singles chart, One Direction achieved a healthy 30,766 downloads of their first release as a four piece, Drag Me Down, to top the ARIA chart.

That is about double what Lost Frequencies sold last week at No. 1 on the singles chart.

ARIA included streaming figures into the singles chart last November, with 175 streams of a song counting as one sale or download.

The UK started including streaming figures into their album charts in March.

Their charts take the 12 most streamed tracks from the standard version of an album and then the top two songs are down-weighted in line with the average streams of the rest of the songs.

The total of those streams are then divided by 1000 and added to the physical and digital sales of that album — the 1000 ratio is designed to reflect the difference between the cost of streaming compared to the cost of buying an album either physically or digitally.

Aiming low … In June this year, Ed Sheeran’s X made No. 1 on just 3777 sales. Picture: Supplied
Source: Supplied

The Billboard album chart started including streaming last December — in the US 1500 song streams from one album are equivalent to one album sale.

Record companies will be hoping new albums from Bon Jovi, Rob Thomas and Disclosure see sales pick up, with persistent rumours of new Adele and Coldplay albums arriving before Christmas.

Sheeran has sold over 420,000 copies of his album X in Australia, Swift has sold over 350,000 copies of 1989, while Trainor’s Title is platinum with 70,000 sales.

Biggest sales to hit No. 1 in 2015

Taylor Swift — 19,246

Florence & the Machine — 15,706

Muse — 12,047

Tame Impala — 11,415

Mumford & Sons -11,038

Hermitude — 10,352

Smallest sales to hit No. 1 in 2015

Ed Sheeran — 3777 (53rd week on chart)

Megan Trainor — 4149 (30th week on chart)

John Farnham & Olivia-Newton John — 4765 (second week on chart)

Madonna — 6,962 (debut week on chart)

Northlane — 5824 (debut week on chart)

www.news.com.au/entertainment/music

Tyler the Creator wants to come to Australia, but his fans might’ve ruined his chance.
Source: Supplied

US RAPPER Tyler the Creator has been accused of using “dog whistle tactics” to rally fans to attack an Australian woman who wants him banned from entering the country.

His fans took to social media to launch their attack, and the results were deeply disturbing.

Tyler, aka Tyler Okonma, is due to appear in Australia for a national tour starting on September 3.

The 24-year-old from California burst onto the music scene in 2009 with his first self-released album, Bastard.

His music earned him fans around the world, including many in Australia, but his lyrics were deemed offensive towards women.

It’s easy to see why. His songs include the lyrics: “Rape’s fun”, “Rape(d) a pregnant b*tch and told my friends I had a threesome” and “I wanna tie her body up and throw her in my basement.”

Coralie Alison from Collective Shout — an organisation campaigning against the objectification of women in the media and in popular culture — took particular offence.

She was so offended that she wrote a letter to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton requesting Okonmo be refused a visa.

“Tyler the Creator seeks to enter Australia in order to profit from the broadcasting and selling of these lyrics,” she wrote.

“While his activities are therefore commercial, the content of the product he sells propagates discriminatory ideas about women and other groups, and represent a danger to a segment of the Australian community on the potential basis of incitement to acts of hatred.”

On Monday Okonmo took to Twitter to congratulate Ms Alison for her success, though the Department of Immigration has yet to confirm Okonmo will be banned from Australia.

“T IS NOW BANNED FROM AUSTRALIA, YOU WON @coraliealison IM HAPPY FOR YOU <3,” he wrote.

Okonmo’s fans followed by threatening to rape and murder Ms Alison, who retweeted the threats to her followers.

The tweets, many of which were unsuitable for reproduction, included great detail about how the Australian would be murdered and sexually assaulted.

“F***ing kill yourself you worthless peice (sic) of f***ing shit,” @FaythIX wrote.

“Drink bleach and die slut,” @Bigjsweg wrote.

“Take a bath with your toaster please,” @Nacitynac wrote.

“We will all rape you b*tch,” @Aaronboy31098 wrote.

Author and advocate for women Melinda Tankard Reist said the threats were the worst she has ever seen.

“The treatment of Coralie Alison demonstrates what happens to women when they speak out on social media,” she told news.com.au.

“This is just the latest example of the vilification and online hatred, the rape threats, death threats, mutilation threats women receive when they dare have an opinion.

“He has set his attack dogs onto Coralie, illustrating our case (to deny him a visa).

“How can we possibly roll out the red carpet to this women hating rapper who promotes and eroticises and glamorises that very same violence.”

Over 48 hours of non-stop online abuse directed at me and it’s still coming. @fucktyler knew this would be the outcome when he tagged me

— Coralie Alison (@CoralieAlison) July 29, 2015

She said Okonmo “incited discord”, which would put him in breach of a visa.

“We hope Dutton will take urgent action,” Ms Tankard Reist said.

“He is performing at all ages concerts. He is grooming and conditioning and socialising boys to think violence against women is normal and glam.”

It’s not the first time Collective Shout has gone head-to-head with an American rapper.

Last year the group asked then-Immigration Minister Scott Morrison to ban rapper Eminem and had previously tried, unsuccessfully, to have Snoop Dogg’s visa revoked.

In 2013 the group led a similar campaign against Tyler the Creator and its then-campaign leader Talitha Stone was also threatened online.

On Twitter on Thursday Okonmo appeared resigned to the fact he would not be gracing Australian stages in September.

“I am so bummed that I can’t go to a place that I fell in love with,” he wrote.

“But yo, I am not responsible for what others say. No way. Ever.”

I AM SO BUMMED THAT I CANT GO TO A PLACE THAT I FELL IN LOVE WITH, IT SUCKS, BUT YO, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT OTHERS SAY, NO WAY, EVER

— Tyler, The Creator (@fucktyler) July 29, 2015

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