Billboard Magazine February 11, 2017

THE ACCOLADES CONTINUE TO ACCUMULATE for Alessia Cara, who earns her second top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 as “Scars to Your Beautiful” ascends 13-10 on the Feb. 11 chart. The Canadian singersongwriter, 20, first reached the top 10 with her breakthrough hit “Here,” which rose to No. 5 in February 2016. “Scars” stays at No. 2 on the Radio Songs chart (128 million in audience, according to Nielsen Music) and No. 25 on Digital Song Sales (22,000 downloads sold) and bounds 37-25 on Streaming Songs (12.6 million U.S. streams). After earning the Rule Breaker award at Billboard’s Women in Music event last December, Cara will be the musical guest on NBC’s Saturday Night Live on Feb. 4. Cara’s new top 10 accompanies a pair of notable changes to…

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S Jan. 27 executive order banning travel from seven Muslimmajority nations for 90 days has deeply complicated plans involving sectors of the U.S. music industry that work with those countries. Not only has the ban — which includes Iran, Iraq, Somalia and the Sudan — restricted the movement of those traveling into or out of the United States, but American labels and managers are scrambling to protect artists vulnerable to Trump’s policy. The annual South by Southwest festival, which takes place in March and is thus within that 90-day period, was quick to denounce the edict. “We are working to understand how the ban will impact our participants and how we can use our voice to support those directly affected by this executive order,” reads its statement, which…

Billboard and Pandora have announced an exclusive agreement that will add the streaming radio company’s data to the Billboard Hot 100, effective with the chart dated Feb. 11. Pandora also will feed Billboard’s streamingbased charts and Hot 100 formulabased genre rankings, including Hot Country Songs and Hot R&B/ Hip-Hop Songs. “With the inclusion of Pandora data, the Billboard charts that have guided listeners for decades reflect a truer measure of songs’ popularity,” says Pandora cofounder/ CEO Tim Westergren. Concurrently, many of Billboard’s genre album charts evolve into a consumption methodology (also on surveys dated Feb. 11), following the 2014 conversion of the all-genre Billboard 200 to a multimetric ranking, incorporating traditional album sales, track-equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming-equivalent albums (SEA). The formula of the amended album genre charts (covering country,…

Top 10 Songs In a rare occurrence for the Publishers Quarterly, the three major music publishing companies in the United States — Sony/ATV, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell — have a share in the same top song: “Closer,” by The Chainsmokers, which has six authors and is also the top radio song for the fourth quarter of 2016. The track helped Sony/ATV hold the No. 1 spot in market share for the 18th consecutive quarter. Although the company dropped two points to 25.86 percent from 27.87 in the third quarter, it placed 54 titles among the top 100 radio songs, five more than in the third quarter. Warner/Chappell holds at No. 2 with 19.01 percent market share and 46 songs (up from 17.49 and 45), and the publisher’s Tyler…

JACK SUSSMAN KEEPS A PIECE of bungee cord on his desk, a souvenir of having leaped off the world’s highest jump in South Africa with his two daughters. “It was unbelievably thrilling,” he says. “A little nerve-racking in the wait, but then over so quickly that you almost weren’t sure it actually happened.” Sussman’s depiction of his free-falling experience echoes descriptions of producing live TV events, his specialty since he first arrived at CBS 18 years ago — following roles at MTV, VH1, CNN and NBC — and especially since his 2006 promotion to executive vp specials, music and live events. His most high-profile gig is overseeing the Grammy Awards, which will air live from Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Feb. 12, and he also spearheads broadcasts of the Academy…

Sundance Film Festival: Music Movies And Artists Take Center Stage PARK CITY, UTAH, JAN.20-23 PHOTOGRAPHED BY AUSTIN HARGRAVE…