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What’s 2019 got in store for pop music?

From Kanye to Taylor, new year promises surprises

By Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times
Published: January 5, 2019, 6:00am

On this date in 2018, we didn’t know that Kanye West would visit the White House or that Beyonce would blow up Coachella. We didn’t know about Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize or Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.”

And though we might’ve suspected that BTS would release an album (or two), we didn’t know that the K-pop group would become the first of its kind to top the Billboard 200 (and then do it again a few months later).

Plenty more is sure to go down in pop music without warning in 2019, at least if we’re lucky.

WILL KANYE WEST CONTINUE HIS BROMANCE WITH DONALD TRUMP?: Looks like yes. After pledging in October to distance himself from politics — “My eyes are now wide open and now realize I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in,” he tweeted — the rapper re-embraced the president this week.

“Trump all day,” he wrote on Twitter, before adding that “from now on” he plans to perform while wearing his Trump hat, which he said represents the idea that “people can’t tell me what to do because I’m black.”

West has said he’s at work on a new album, possibly titled “Yandhi,” that was due to be released in September before being bumped to November and again to an unspecified date.

BACKSTREET MIGHT ACTUALLY BE BACK: It’s been years since the Backstreet Boys mattered — which isn’t to say that the veteran boy band hasn’t been out there trying, as anyone who’s seen the group’s recent awards-show appearances (or its painfully eager Las Vegas gig) can attest.

But with their latest single, the throbbing and sensual “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” the Backstreets have raised hopes for “DNA,” the act’s comeback album due Jan. 25.

SAY IT AIN’T SO: Speaking of nostalgia, Weezer last year returned to the upper reaches of the pop charts (and spawned a viral “Saturday Night Live” sketch) with its stunt cover of Toto’s indelible ’80s hit “Africa.”

Now the long-running L.A. alt-rock combo is using that renewed attention to unleash an experiment it’s been threatening forever: a self-titled effort, due March 1, known as the Black Album, which frontman Rivers Cuomo was saying as far back as 2016 would represent a striking about-face from its crunchy guitar-pop sound.

WHITHER JUSTIN BIEBER?: Thanks to his breathlessly documented relationship with Hailey Baldwin — that’s Mrs. Bieber, if you please — the one-time teen-pop idol was seen more than he was heard in 2018.

That said, the singer’s long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s “Purpose” may be on the way. Diplo said he’s been trading songs with Bieber for what he reckons is shaping up as “a Christian album.”

TAYLOR MIGHT BE SWIFT: The three years Taylor Swift put into 2017’s “Reputation” represented the longest stretch of time she’d ever taken to make a record — and then the thing went on to earn lukewarm reviews and no major nominations at next month’s Grammy Awards.

So although she’s said nothing about when we should expect her next album, perhaps it’s reasonable to think that Swift will work faster this time

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