Zack O'Malley Greenburg's Blog, page 53

The Rolling Stones And Taylor Swift: Two Shows, Two Days, Many Similarities

On A Roll: The Rolling Stones rocked Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo on July 11th, 24 hours and 350 miles away from a Taylor Swift show with a surprising amount of similarities. (Photo by Danielle La Rocco for Forbes).

At approximately 9:15 p.m. last Friday, MetLife Stadium went dark, prompting the sold-out crowd of 60,000 to release the sort of banshee wail that rises to such a high pitch that the sound rattles to a blur in your ears, the inverse of a trunk-clunking subwoofer. Then Taylor Sw...

50 Cent Files For Bankruptcy In Rapid Fall From Financial Grace

Power Ower: A string of lawsuitsappears to have sent 50 Cent into a fiscal tailspin. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Starz).

50 Cent couldsoon be worth less than his nickname: the rapper filed for individual Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Connecticut this morning.

According to the filing, 50 Cent,whose real name is Curtis James Jackson III, has incurred debts of $10 to $50 million, most recently a $5 million judgment in a sex tape case. His legal team did not respond to areques...

Midyear Music Winners: Taylor Swift, Streaming, Vinyl

Taylor Swift on her 1989 World Tour in Dublin. (Photo by Carrie Davenport/Getty Images for TAS).

Taylor Swift’s relationship with streaming is as fraught as her relationship with any flame she’s taken to task in her songs.

Late last year, she famously pulled her music from Spotifyover its refusal to remove her work from its free tier. More recently, she called Apple out for not paying musicians during a trial period of its new streaming service; the company eventually caved and attributed its...

Beyoncé, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Pearl Jam To Headline Global Citizen Festival 2015

Beyonce has appeared at previous Global Citizen Festivals via video and as a surprise guest; this year, she’ll be a headliner. (Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/GettyImages)

It’s been quite awhile since Coldplay was an opening act—these days, the British pop-rockers are arena headliners who, on average, draw north of 38,000 fans and gross $3.4 million per city.

But on September 26th, they’ll be an opener once again in front of 60,000 people at this year’s Global Citizen Festival in New York’s Centr...

Red Bull, Awolnation And The Evaporating Division Between Bands And Brands

Awolnation is the most successful example to date of a band releasing music through a brand. It won’t be the last. (Photo by Matthias Heschl).

Just a few years ago, Aaron Bruno was the definition of a struggling musician—he was $30,000 in debt and sleeping on a couch in his friend’s grandmother’s garage in Los Angeles. Says Bruno: “I wasn’t sure how to pay the bills, or how to find money to buy that next bean-rice-and-cheese burrito from El Pollo Loco.”

Then, in fairytale rock-and-roll fashio...

When In Rome: Katy Perry Reveals Italian Travel Dreams

Katy Perry had never been to Rome before last month, but she found herself adjusting quickly and comfortably to the Italian lifestyle.

“I’ve had pasta twice today,” she said during an interview for the FORBES cover story on how she became the top-earning non-boxer celebrity on the planet. “And we’re not even at dinner.”

Perry came to Rome on business—for both our cover shoot and a film shoot (she has a cameo in a yet-to-be-disclosed movie)—but she’s already eager to plan a longer stay in Ital...

The Celebrity 100: Aftermath & Analysis 2015

Katy Perry pulled in $135 million to earn the No. 3 spot on our list. (Photo by Jamel Toppin for Forbes).

Last week we launched the latest edition of our annual Celebrity 100 list–but for the first time since its inception in 1999, we ranked the list only by earnings rather than a mix of pay and power.

The result was a very different top ten from last year’sversion, with only three holdovers from 2014: Robert Downey, Jr., who jumped from No. 10 to No. 8 as his earnings edged upfrom $75 millio...

What Jackie Chan Taught Will Smith And Jay Z

Jackie Chan, photographed by Ethan Pines at the Montage Hotel in Los Angeles.

On a recent visit to Los Angeles, Jackie Chan joined a group of Hollywood power players for a dinner party at Will Smith’s house. As soon as the meal was over, Chan stood up, grabbed his half-consumed glass of water and dumped the rest onto a potted plant.

“What are you doing?” asked Smith, as Chan tells it.

The Rush Hour star explained that in Los Angeles, like in Beijing, people constantly waste water—even during...

Why Katy Perry Wanted To Be On The Cover Of FORBES

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When Katy Perry took the field at halftime during this year’s Super Bowl, her performance smacked of the unexpected. There was the towering animatronic lion that she rode in on, the lackadaisical “Left Shark” that spawned a meme to rival the game itself—and, perhaps most of all, the fact that she wasn’t pushing a new album or U.S. tour.

“It was so crazy,” says Perry. “I didn’t have anything to sell after the Super Bowl.”

She took the gig because she saw it as a chance to show br...

Katy Perry: The FORBES Cover Story In 15 Tweets

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Katy Perry earned $135 million over the past year, enough to earn her the No. 3 spot on our annual Celebrity 100 list–and a place on the cover as America’s top pop export.

FORBES traveled to Rome to interview and photograph Perry for the story, a six-page feature that appears in the July 20th, 2015 issue (read it here). For those looking for the abridged version, we’ve boiled the piece down to 15 tweets, accompanied by a handful of gifs. Enjoy.

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