Innholdsfortegnelse for September 21, 2013 i Billboard Magazine

A new agreement by Clear Channel and Warner Music Group will make WMG the first major label to receive performance royalties for U.S. broadcast radio airplay. Announced the same week that Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., reiterated his plan to introduce legislation that would establish a performance right for labels, the groundbreaking arrangement covers not just royalties but also numerous promotional opportunities. ¶ WMG CEO Stephen Cooper said in a memo to employees that the deal is nonexclusive and Warner “will be discussing doing similar deals” with other broadcasters. ¶ The royalty component is big. Warner will share in revenue from both broadcast and digital platforms, although neither company revealed financial details. A source tells Billboard that the financial terms are better than the deals given to independent labels. Those deals…

Vivendi VIVENDI MULLS SPLIT Vivendi, the Firench conglomerate that owns Universal Music Group and SFR Telecom, among others, is mulling splitting itself in two. Under the plan, which will be studied by the company’s supervisory board, two new companies would be created, one focusing on media, the other on telco. The separation is viewed as an opportunity for both groups to pursue new strategies and partnerships independently. In its latest earnings report, Vivendi posted 4.9% growth in earnings before taxes for UMG, while net earnings overall fell 16.6%. PANDORA GETS NEW CHIEF EXEC Pandora has found a new president/CEO/chairman in Brian McAndrews, a digital advertising veteran and former president of online ad services firm aQuantive, a Microsoft company. McAndrews replaces former longtime Pandora leader Joe Kennedy, who announced he was…

Digital revenue is growing in many countries, but not at the same pace everywhere. And as the first half of 2013 shows, each market is unique. Thus, there’s not much reason to think that the United States will replicate the few success stories in the global recorded-music market. Scandinavian countries Norway and Sweden have been bright lights in a challenging global record business, and are examples of subscription services helping drive growth in total recorded-music revenue. Norway and Sweden are ahead of the curve in embracing the subscription model. Part of the reason is simple timing. Spotify launched in both regions in October 2008, more than two-and-a-half years before it arrived stateside. Numerous other services, like WiMP and Deezer, are also available in both markets. Norway’s 17% growth in recorded-music…

Super D Buys Alliance WHAT: Super D has acquired Alliance Entertainment to create a multipronged wholesaler with $920 million in revenue, split almost evenly between CDs and DVDs. The move creates a one-stop/rackjobber with about $450 million in music, selling music to indie retailers and chains; racking chains like Borders, Kmart and Meijers with CDs and DVDs; and supplying CD and DVD fulfillment services to online stores for retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy and hundreds of smaller Web stores. In addition, Super D and Alliance have exclusive independent distribution efforts (Super D, for instance, had the U.S. exclusive on the first Civil Wars CD release). Super D also owns and operates some of the largest online CD and DVD stores, including DeepDiscount.com and DVDPlanet.com. WHY: As the physical…

SONGS MUSIC PUBLISHING has announced a worldwide co-publishing agreement with the Weeknd, aka Abel tesfaye. The deal encompasses past and future releases, including his sophomore album, Kiss Land (Sept. 10, XO/ Universal), and last year’s certifedplatinum triple-album Trilogy, a compilation of his mixtapes House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence. In addition to the Weeknd, the SONGS roster includes such artists as Diplo, Nelly, Jose Gonzales and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. SONGS also maintains publishing stakes in such songs as Kelly Clarkson’s “Catch My Breath” and Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” remix featuring Nelly. . . . Victor Willis, the Village people lyricist and performer of songs like “Y.M.C.A.” and “In the Navy,” says he’s reclaimed the rights to 33 tunes that he wrote. Under a copyright law from 1978,…

The NATIONAL’ “Start a War” dates back two albums to 2007, but it’s the track the Brooklyn band will perform on the Oct. 31 episode of Fox’s “The Mindy Project.” The band’s presence adds to Mindy Kaling’ aura of cool and certainly assists in exposing the National to a TV audience most likely unfamiliar with its music. This kind of stunt casting is infirequent, but it’s smart when the demographics ft. The key for the National and its label, management and publisher is to maximize the exposure, and to do so they need a helping hand from Kaling, her cast and crew, the network and the production company: They need to tweet about it. It sounds so simple but it’s not being done enough at the network level, and it’s…

Texas C3’s Austin City Limits Music Festival is spreading the love around the state: This year’s edition will feature acts including the National, Wild Belle and HAIM playing ACL-branded night-time shows at venues in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio during the festival, which takes place Oct. 4-6 and 11-13. For ACL-goers who don’t mind a road trip, it’s a great opportunity to explore the music, food and fun of all the Lone Star’s major cities in one trip. In this three-for-one special edition of T&E, industry insiders reveal the ins and outs of Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, one taco truck at a time. —Nick Williams DALLAS STAY Singer Ryan Cabrera, a Dallas native, is a regular at artsy Hotel Zaza: “They have a great bar called Dragonfly that’s kind…

Consumers love vinyl, and can’t get enough of it—sometimes literally. With presses running at capacity—and hampered to some degree by a production process that hasn’t technologically changed in decades—it’s possible that the top of the market may be limited by supply, not demand. Cost and production methods create limitations as well. The format is an expensive, time-consuming process. As a petroleum-based product, vinyl’s costs are dependent on oil prices. The cost of crude oil has risen from approximately $42 a barrel in January 2009 to $112 a barrel this month, according to InvestmentMine. Vinyl costs as much as 10 times to manufacture as CDs, at least $3.50 for the former to as little as 35 cents for the latter. It also can take two weeks to ready a record for…

There are three bachata tracks— prince royce’s “Darte un beso, ” enrique Iglesias’ “Loco” (a duet with romeo santos) and santos’ “propuesta Indecente”—in the top five of billboard’s Hot Latin songs chart. These three tracks have been duking it out for the top slot for the past several weeks, as other bachata songs bubble under. Although bachata is hot on the charts, it’s not the music du jour among advertisers or music supervisors. “There is interest for bachata as an urban act,” says Carlos muñoz, Vp/group account director at LatinWorks, an agency in Austin. “but the real interest is in crossover artists.” But crossover has changed since Iglesias, ricky martin and shakira first made a splash. A new generation of U.S.-grown Latin talent is creating a new kind of crossover—one…

Melophobia, the new album from Kentucky-based indieesque heavy-rock act Cage the Elephant (Oct. 8, RCA), translates to “fear of music,” which is also the name of Talking Heads’ 1979 Brian Eno-produced album. Vocalist Matt Shultz maintains he didn’t catch the similarity in the titles, and confesses he hadn’t been informed of it until just before speaking to Billboard. Though he may have name-dropped a seminal rock album in the process, for Shultz, crafting Melophobia meant not fearing music itself, but its conventions and clichés. “It’s a fear of creating music under false pretenses, catering to cool, or writing to project some sort of image that’s based upon social standards,” Shultz says. “[It’s] trying to sound artistic, poetic or intellectual, rather than just trying to communicate an honest thought or feeling…

Kerry Wolfe, country WMiL Milwaukee. Cole swindell, “Chillin’ it.” It just has that sound that’s working and connecting with my audience right now. Listeners love it and I do too. Aaron Lewis, “Granddaddy’s Gun.” This is a great country record. No fear of this one crossing over. Research and requests are big right now for this one. Keith Urban and Miranda Lambert, “We Were Us.” What’s not to love? Two of our format’s biggest stars singing a great song. Added straight to medium rotation.…

Forty-two years after the breakup of that little band he was in, Paul McCartney has released perhaps the most Beatles-esque single of his solo career. The melody and structure of “New” are informed by a bit of “Got to Get You Into My Life,” the cheery bounce of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and a nod to a songwriting peer (the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson)—not to mention the sudden appearance of a harpsichord. Meanwhile, Mark Ronson’s production re-creates the superb depth of feld in McCartney’s ’70s classics Band on the Run and Venus and Mars. While “New” certainly finds a well-traveled middle ground (lyrically, it’s about personal satisfaction derived from taking control of one’s life), the completed construction of the track makes it stand out from McCartney’s last two decades of songs. Here…

A surprise success story even in a summer filled with them (“Blurred Lines,” “The Fox”), Lana Del Rey is celebrating the first crossover hit of her career and a recent re-entry into the top 20 of the Billboard 200 thanks to a dark-horse dance remix of a song released in its original form nearly 20 months ago. “Summertime Sadness (Cedric Gervais Remix)” reenters the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 6 after peaking at No. 9 the week of Aug. 28. But the song wasn’t actually intended for release in America, climbing its way to the U.S. top 10 from an unlikely start in Germany seven months ago. Initially commissioned in January for Universal Germany, Del Rey’s American and U.K. labels—Interscope and Polydor, respectively—at first passed on the remix, which by…

6 MONTHS AGO Virgin GM Ashley Burns and her team led the U.S. ascension of Bastille’s debut Bad Blood, which first arrived in the United Kingdom on March 4 through Universal. Initiating an early grassroots strategy with several U.S. tent-pole events, the act appeared at South by Southwest, performing as part of Filter magazine’s Day Party on March 14, and was also featured on MTV Hive’s March 7 list of breakout bands to play the festival. Releasing the U.S.-only EP Haunt on May 28, Bastille’s “Pompeii” was iTunes’ Single of the Week the same week. In June, the EP reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart. 1-3 MONTHS AGO Performing at Pop Scene in San Francisco (July 22) and Los Angeles’ Troubadour (July 23), the band slowly introduced its…

LEGEND Bullets indicate titles with greatest weekly gains. Album Charts Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA) certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 500,000 albums (Gold). RIAA certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 1 million units (Platinum). Numeral noted with Platinum symbol indicates album’s multiplatinum level. RIAA certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 10 million units (Diamond). Numeral noted with Diamond symbol indicates album’s multiplatinum level. Latin albums certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 50,000 units (Oro). Latin albums certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 100,000 units (Platino). Numeral noted with Platinum symbol indicates album’s multi-platinum level. Digital Songs Charts RIAA certification for 500,000 paid downloads (Gold). RIAA certification for 1 million paid downloads (Platinum). Numeral noted with platinum symbol indicates…

With limited opportunities available for Christian/ gospel artists on mainstream TV, Gaither Music Group is tackling the challenge by launching a 24-hour channel on satellite operator Dish Network, Billboard has learned. The new network will launch to Dish’s 14 million subscribers on Sept. 16 and is already being pitched to other cable and satellite operators for wider coverage across the United States. While the bulk of the content will be Gaither Music’s own, the launch of a dedicated Christian network with a focus on music is expected to give the wider genre a boost with renewed interest from other Christian media businesses in the cable network format. “We talked about it for years, and now is the first time we can take that step forward,” Gaither Music Group VP Paul…

Courtney Holt Most adults save up for a house or a new car as their first major purchase. Courtney Holt saved up to buy a nightclub—the Echo in Los Angeles. His passion for music dates back to his teens, when he worked three gigs—reviewing albums for the Boston Herald, managing venues and clerking at a record store—to pay his way through college. He later became head of new media at A&M Records, then senior VP of new media at Interscope Gefen A&M. He’s also been executive VP of digital strategy at MTV Networks and president of Myspace Music. Now, as COO of Maker Studios, the 45-year-old executive is still in the music biz. One of the videos in Maker’s network, “Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney,” earned a gold certification from…

Internet radio company Songza has raised $4.7 million in firesh funding that will help grow its advertising business. The funding will allow Songza to establish its solution to create native advertising—advertising that’s built into the listening experiences. Whereas a typical Internet radio service streams music based on genre, artist or song, Songza allows listeners to select music for activities. This approach to curation allows Songza to integrate brands into what the company calls “life moments” like working out, driving or entertaining. Native advertising has the potential beneft of creating harmony between the listening and advertising experiences. Advertising—especially audio ads—tends to disrupt the listening experience. And although radio listeners have shown a tolerance for at least some advertisements, Internet radio services could beneft from finding ways to integrate ads in less…

Anderson Merchandisers. Super D’s acquisition of Alliance may give Anderson’s rackjobbing a run for its money. Anderson started out racking Walmart but its expansion to other types of accounts hasn’t gone as smoothly. Bet on Super D to challenge Anderson for Best Buy in the near future. Warner Home Video, Disney. CEO Bruce Ogilvie’ Super D has long sought to work with these Alliance-distributed studios. Will they stay onboard now that Super D is in control? Creditors like studios and major labels are always wary when retail and/or wholesale accounts take on debt. Baker & Taylor. B&T is one of the largest book distributors, but it was a distant fourth in music wholesaling. The deal creates new opportunities for B&T with indie distributors who favor Alliance but harbor grudges against…

Musician Michael Franti, in concert with his selfdescribed “better half ” Sara Agah, has launched the non-profit Do It for the Love Foundation. Do It for the Love focuses on using music to help uplift those with life-threatening illnesses or challenging disabilities. Utilizing a growing network of artists, venues and promoters, the foundation aims to arrange unforgettable concert experiences, from providing show tickets to setting up face-to-face meetings with artists. Franti fan Steve Dezember planted the initial seed. Dezember, who lives with advanced stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease, contacted the artist about attending one of his shows. “When I met Steve, he was in a wheelchair,” Franti says. “But during the set, he whispered to his wife Hope that he wanted to get up and dance. And he got up…

Dance music label Ministry of Sound has reportedly sued Spotify in the United Kingdom over playlists of MoS’ well-known compilation albums—even though MoS doesn’t license to Spotify. How can you tell it’s an MoS compilation? Because Spotify’s playlists say so. And therein lies the rub. While the case turns on the application of U.K. and potentially European law to the facts, there are several overarching themes that should interest rights holders and producers everywhere. This is particularly true as Apple prepares its iTunes Radio streaming service, which will more likely be designed to stimulate digital sales. Compilation problems for digital retailers: MoS’ core problem with Spotify isn’t new. When digital retailers restarted the singles business, they fought album-only downloads, which is tough for compilation producers. Streaming services like Spotify are…

Good news, hungry music fans: Austin’s reputation as a foodie destination is starting to rival its status as a musical mecca. “Chefs are the new rock stars here,” says Andy Langer, afternoon DJ at triple A KGSR Austin. To that end, at Austin City Limits— the city’s premier outdoor music festival, taking place the first two weekends in October—the food offerings are almost as much of a draw as the musical ones (which this year include headliners Depeche Mode, Lionel Richie, Kings of Leon and others). “The thing ACL’s done right was not serve ‘state-fair food,’ but instead look to local restaurants and purveyors,” Langer says. “They take food seriously.” Local gastronomic luminary Emily Stengel—founder of Austin’s HOPE Farmers Market and chief of the EATS food court for ACL organizer…

Near the entrance of the Whole Foods on West Third Street and Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles—between the juice bar and the body-care products—you’ll find something unusual: vinyl albums. Racked in 18 slots are about 200 copies of varied titles ranging from contemporary to classic: Phoenix’s Bankrupt!, the Black Keys’El Camino and Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience tucked in with a Led Zeppelin boxed set, AC/DC’s Back in Black and assorted Rolling Stones releases. With vinyl growing into a steady, profitable niche business and showing no signs of slowing, other merchants beyond core music stores are taking a chance on the format. In Los Angeles, the Whole Foods chain is experimenting with vinyl inventory in five of its 340 locations, and Target—the fourth-largest music retailer in the United States, with…

THIRTY-ONE NEW SHOWS JOIN THE BROADCAST TV schedule this season. With “Smash” out of NBC’s lineup, only one program is producing original music, ABC’s second season of “Nashville,” and only one is guaranteeing new recordings, the fifth season of Fox’s “Glee.” Shows typically begin to reveal their musical f avor within three or four episodes and few returning programs are likely to expand or trim their musical offerings. Adventurous programming, by and large, has been relegated to cable networks where risk is factored into each element, whether it’s the size of the episode order or the soundtrack. Opportunities for contemporary music still exist at two of the networks’ most aggressive players in the space, ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and the CW’s “Hart of Dixie,” both of which are music-supervised by Alexandra…

“It came in fits and starts,” Joan Jett says of her eleventh solo album. “I’d think, ‘I can’t do this anymore’— but the more I just let go, things started pouring out.” There’s certainly a sense of catharsis to Unvarnished, Jett’s first album in seven years, and her first set of original songs in more than a decade. Though it retains the classic guitar crunch that’s made Jett an iconic presence since “I Love Rock ’N’ Roll” spent seven weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982, it’s also the most autobiographical and political record of her career. “I had more life changes than just sex, drugs and rock’n’roll to comment on,” Jett says. In a sense, she’s seen her world turned upside down. Unvarnished comes in the wake of…

AFI has been a band for two decades, releasing eight albums since its 1995 punk-rock debut, Answer That and Stay Fashionable. But the act’s latest single, “17 Crimes,” of the upcoming Burials (Oct. 22, Republic), sets a few new milestones: Its placement in the film “Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is AFI’s first film synch. Burials is the group’s first album for Republic Records, which signed AFI earlier this year. The “Mortal Instruments” soundtrack is also out on Republic and includes an LA Riots remix of the single. The original plays over the movie’s end credits. “The goal is to have the song heard by as many people as possible,” says David Benveniste, founder/president of Velvet Hammer Music and Management Group. “There was a lot of excitement surrounding ‘Mortal Instruments,’…

For those expecting the history of punk to be condensed into 90 minutes: “CBGB” is not your movie. Television, the Ramones, the Dead Boys, Blondie, Talking Heads and Patti Smith are all here, but the film’s focus is Hilly Krystal, the man who created the famous New York club and ran it with a headstrong passion for artistic originality. Alan Rickman’s steely portrayal of Krystal, whose crusty personality mirrors the club’s decaying Bowery home, composes the heart of “CBGB.” Krystal is an underdog who champions other underdogs, be they young musicians or down-on-their-luck locals. Rickman’s commanding performance is the film’s strongest selling point. With the exception of the Ramones, “CBGB” features the musical hits and misses associated with acts from the club’s heyday, opting to violate chronological history for the…

After a six-year wait, Celine Dion returns with a new English-language studio album, Loved Me Back to Life, due Nov. 1 on Columbia. The album, her first since 2007’s Taking Chances, is ushered in by its sweeping title track, co-written by Sia. The cut debuts at No. 26 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. 40 “Loved Me Back to Life” becomes Dion’s 40th entry on the AC chart, thus granting her entrance to the elite club of women who have notched 40 entries on the tally. Ahead of her are Barbra Streisand (with 64 hits), Dionne Warwick (45), Linda Ronstadt (43) and Anne Murray (41). The alltime leader, among all acts, is Elton John, with 69 AC hits. 30% 30K Dion’s new song sold 23,000 downloads in its first week, according…

Saints March In A year ago, Saints of Valory competed in Billboard’s Battle of the Bands competition. Fast forward to this week and the quartet logs its first entry on a songs chart, as “Neon Eyes” (Atlantic) debuts on Triple A at No. 27. The song appears on the EP Possibilities, which bowed on Heatseekers Albums at No. 21 in July. The band shot the video for “Neon Eyes” at “an otherworldly location on the salt flats and sand dunes of Utah,” vocalist Gavin Jasper says. “We wanted a young and adventurous feel, [to] capture the emotion of the song.” ‘Home’ Team Following in the footsteps of British boy band One Direction, American vocal group Midnight Red is popping with its single “Take Me Home.” (Unlike One Direction, Midnight Red…

This week we look at three weeks’ worth of data, highlighting top percentage gainers of the week that also gained during the previous two weeks. Airplay data courtesy of Nielsen BDS data courtesy of Nielsen BDS 1 ROBIN THICKE FEATURING KENDRICK Lamar “Give it 2 u”This week: 51 (25.5 million) Last week: 63 (19.1 million) 2 weeks ago: 75 (14.8 million) The singer’s follow-up to Billboard’s song of the summer reaches a new peak on a multitude of charts this week, including a No. 19 rank on the Rhythmic Airplay tally with a 20% increase to 6.5 million listeners. KGZG Spokane, Wash., is the song’s biggest supporter, spinning it 100 times in that period. Digitally, the song sold 59,000 downloads this week to push its total sales to 211,000, according…

Difference Media. Other leaders in the Christian/gospel entertainment business will watch how well the Gaither network performs. One example is Difference Media, a division of Pastor John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church in San Antonio that includes a record company. Joey & Rory. The country duo released its first gospel CD, Inspired, in July on Gaither Music Group. A companion DVD will debut Sept. 16 on the Gaither channel and air repeatedly during launch week. The pair has its own show on the RFD network, but will get added exposure from Gaither’s Dish deal.…

Ben Stiller’s next film, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” will not be in theaters until Christmas but it’s already having an afect on the band Of Monsters and Men. “Dirty Paws,” a track from the act’s Republic Records debut My Head Is an Animal, had a signifcant sales spike in August after it provided the soundtrack to the first “Walter Mitty” trailer, which runs two minutes and seven seconds. Released a year-and-a-half ago and never worked at radio, “Dirty Paws” sold 34,000 downloads in August—an average of 6,700 per week—after 17 months of weekly sales around 1,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The song’s presence prompted alternative KROQ Los Angeles to give the song 17 spins between Aug. 26 and Sept. 1, according to Nielsen BDS. Republic is exploring a…

What did you wake up thinking about this morning? The New York Giants. I am concerned about their defensive secondary not being deep enough. But I quickly pivoted to the challenges facing the independent music community. We do our work in three areas: advocacy, commerce and member services. We have a great team but it is a small team, so we have to target where we will have an impact: What can we do today to make a better environment for the members of our community? How can we do a better job communicating to our labels’ business partners that the independent label community isn’t an afterthought and worthy of the same deal terms as any other copyright owner? We have 34% market share, and you ignore that share at…

DIGITAL Vevo appoints Nielsen veteran Jonathan Carson as its first chief revenue ofcer. Carson will lead the music video and entertainment company’s global sales team across advertising and brand partnerships, and will effectively fill some of the duties held by former Vevo sales chief David Kohl, who left in April. “In the coming years we’re going to see a convergence of video marketplace television, online and mobile collapsing into a single ecosystem, and that’s going to have a dramatic impact,” says Carson, who is based in New York and reports to Vevo president/CEO Rio Caraef. “Vevo is extremely well-positioned to take advantage of that.” Carson most recently served as CEO of digital at Nielsen. A thought leader in social media marketing, he also co-founded BuzzMetrics, the trade group Word of…

Business Matters Glenn peoples @BillBoardGlenn The Struggle Continues Imagine thousands of artists going on strike against digital music services, demanding their content be pulled to protest a business model that has been widely criticized during the last few years. Imagine what would happen to these services’ catalogs. The absence of a few thousand artists wouldn’t put much of a dent in a catalog of more than 20 million songs, but there’s a good chance any one listener would notice that some favorite acts had gone missing. An all-you-can-eat service would lose value as music started disappearing. People go on strike all the time. Fast food workers in more than 60 U.S. cities have gone on strike this year to protest their wages. Inspired by them, Walmart employees protested their wages…

“I want to empower a million more Electric Ladies to go out to the community and inspire.” —Janelle Moná Janelle Monáe’s Fashion Week Win Janelle Monáe took over New York during Fashion Week ahead of her new album, The Electric Lady, rocking Rebecca Minkoff ’s runway show and throwing an albumrelease jam that drew Diddy and Atlantic Records’ Julie Greenwald OVER Heard Mad cities: Billboard hears that ICM Partners, which handles bookings for Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé and others, has landed Lamar a coveted slot opening for fellow Dr. Dre protégé Eminem when he tours next year. Lamar’s cameo in Em’s recent “Berzerk” video certainly makes it seem a little more likely. Billboard reached out to ICM as well as Interscope and Top Dawg Entertainment, the Compton, Calif., rapper’s label homes,…

The night sky fashes white with a Zeusian crash over the tiny town of Boom in Belgium, but it’s unclear what’s making the light and sound. Is it the countless beams firing upward from the massive festival stage, the fireworks that periodically explode without warning, or the storm that’s been threatening all day? They’re all one to the teeming crowd of 40,000 crammed before the stage, a functioning volcano spewing LED colored fog and foamy water. It’s Saturday night at Tomorrowland, a three day fantasy-themed festival (July 26-28) that draws 180,000 to Boom each year, and Avicii is at the decks for the weekend’s marquee set, nestled safely at the base of the mighty mountain. The 23-year-old DJ/producer, his high Swedish cheekbones projected above the crowd on three mega-sized screens,…

In 2002, when he was 13 years old, Geofirey Rojas decided he wanted to be a singer. It took him six years to develop a sound, a look and an identity, to turn himself into Prince Royce. It took him another two years to top the charts, and one more to release the topselling Latin album of 2011, Prince Royce. He stands now as the most successful breakout Latin act in recent years, though his greatest accomplishments may lie just ahead. Royce is that rarest of commodities: a Latin crossover star in the making, and—armed with a new manager who’s helped guide the Black Eyed Peas, a new major-label deal that will see him releasing albums in both Spanish and English, and one of the most powerful brand partners in…

ON JULY 18, THE MEMBERS OF CHVRCHES strode onstage at the Stadio San Siro football stadium in Milan for a sold-out show with nearly 58,000 people in attendance, according to Billboard Boxscore. The performance was nearly one year to the day since the Scottish synth-pop trio had performed its first show together. At that point, the group had released f ve songs commercially, compared with the 300 tracks released by the band Chvrches were opening for, Depeche Mode. The humble members of Chvrches—Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty—swallowed hard and did their best to reach out and touch a football stadium full of unfamiliar alt-rock fans with the songs from their first album, The Bones of What You Believe, which was more than two months away from release. “If…

KISHI BASHI When K Ishibashi spun of a solo career from Brooklyn synth-rock group Jupiter One in 2011, he didn’t just transition into one man and his guitar. Instead, the artist began layering instruments behind his vocals and reinvented himself as Kishi Bashi. The result was a unique indie/ psychedelic pop sound, showcasing Iishibashi’s skill on the violin, keyboard, guitar and electronic soundboard. “I sort of think of it as avant-pop,” he says. Iishibashi got his start playing with indie rock act of Montreal. After deciding to go it on his own, Iishibashi signed with Joyful Noise Recordings. “We listened to his demo and it blew our minds,” label president Karl Hofsetter says. In 2012 Ishibashi released his first full-length, 151a, an upbeat and dreamlike record that succeeds as both…

Baauer lucky me/mad Decent producer Harry bauer rodrigues, better-known as baauer, rose from unknown brooklynite to worldwide fame early this year when first single “Harlem shake” became a youtube phenomenon. this fall, he’s heading out on tour with guests Araabmuzik, DJ mustard and s-type, and hopes to release his debut album in 2014. Aiding him with his jaunt is Am Only agent De’mont callender. Routing: rather than simply route baauer across America, callender focused on smaller college towns with big audiences. “i wanted to hit a lot of the college markets where it’s in the middle of nowhere but has a huge college campus,” he says. “like the knitting Factory in boise, idaho [Oct. 31] or the WOW music Hall in eugene, Ore. [Oct. 30].” callender hopes to connect the…

Alt Super ‘Heroine’ Ten months after foating her debut EP online for free in her native New Zealand, teenage singer/songwriter Lorde has conjured an immense amount of stateside interest in her first full-length. Pure Heroine delivers on the promise of Lorde’s top 10 hit “Royals” and then some. Built around deep bass rumbles, lilting loops and programmed beats, the album evokes Massive Attack and the XX. In the center of the heaviness, however, is a 16-year-old with a dynamic voice and an even better pop sensibility: “Ribs” finds Lorde waxing poetic about the scariness of getting older, while upcoming single “Team” fashions a commanding hook out of the singer’s disillusionment with modern pop. “We’re dancing in this world alone,” she concludes on fnale “A World Alone.” Even if that’s true,…

With U.S. Latin album sales at an all-time low, Alejandro Fernandez notched the highest sales week of his career with his 15th studio album, Confdencias (Universal Music Latino). The set debuted atop Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart on Sept. 14—where it remains this week—and entered the Billboard 200 at No. 19, marking the first time Fernandez has broken into that chart’s top 20. Confdencias, an album of Latin standards, sold 21,000 copies its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, topping Fernandez’s previous best sales frame the week of Jan. 10, 1998, when Me Estoy Enamorando sold 20,000 Christmas-week units. Although Fernandez has landed four previous No. 1s on Top Latin Albums, including Me Estoy Enamorando, which held the slot for 12 weeks, he hasn’t logged such first-week sales in more…

OVER THE COUNTER KEITH CAULFIELD Dueling Ladies Lead The Billboard 200 Though it seemed like there was going to be a race for No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Ariana Grande’Yours Truly comes out on top by a sizable margin. The debut effort from the 20-yearold singer/actress bows atop the list with 138,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Behind it, R&B singer/reality TV star Tamar Braxton debuts with Love & War, which launches at No. 2 with 114,000. (Braxton also bows at No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top R&B Albums charts.) Grande is the first female artist to debut at No. 1 with her first album since January 2010, when Ke$ha’Animal opened atop the chart. In total, Grande is just the 15th woman to bow at…