Innholdsfortegnelse for June 16, 2018 i Billboard Magazine

The global music industry is enjoying a golden age of queer representation: Bisexual phenomenon Halsey had her first top 10 hit in 2017 with “Bad at Love,” a song about queer romance; Hayley Kiyoko and Kehlani saw their first music video together gain millions of views in a matter of days; Troye Sivan even got to flaunt his sexuality during a Saturday Night Live performance in January. It’s a paradigm shift from decades past, during which openly queer artists like NSYNC’s Lance Bass, Ricky Martin and Years & Years singer Olly Alexander discussed being warned by others, both inside and outside the music industry, that coming out could be a career-ending move. One reason for the shift: Artists brave enough to discuss their own sexuality are scoring big points…

Buddy Guy plays 150 shows a year and releases a new album every 24 months, and his take on the blues, expressed through his plaintive voice and virtuosic guitar, is still scorching. On The Blues Is Alive and Well, out now on RCA/Silvertone, his impassioned campaign is two-pronged: Pay homage to his elders and make sure the genre still has a place in the world. In more than three dozen albums over six decades, the 81-year-old has yet to compromise: “Fashions come and go,” he says, “but the blues ain’t ever going out of style. The blues is the truth.” Is your album title wishful thinking or reality? Both. Truth is, I’m worried about the blues. When B.B. King was still alive, we had long talks about why, outside…

LOUIS BELL IS NOT YET A household name, but lately has found a home atop the charts. In the last six months alone, the studio manager-turned-vocal producer has seen Post Malone’s “rockstar” and Camila Cabello’s “Havana” — both of which he co-wrote, and the latter of which he also produced — go to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and has worked on standout tracks from Shawn Mendes and Cardi B. “You can’t build a reputation on things you’re going to do — you have to actually do it,” says Bell, 36. “Once it’s on your résumé, they can never take that away.” POST MALONE Bell says his close musical partnership with Post Malone, who he first met through the rapper-singer’s manager, Dre London, provided his big break.…

WHEN, IN 1977, PATTI SMITH PRESSED play on a tape Bruce Springsteen had scrawled “Because the Night” across, she immediately recognized the song’s power. “I stood there and I shook my head,” she recalls. “I might have said it out loud: ‘It’s one of those darn hit songs.’” “Because the Night” marked a turning point for both Smith, now 71, and aspiring producer Jimmy Iovine. Springsteen wrote and then set aside the song while working on his 1978 album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, which Iovine mixed and engineered. When Iovine took his first lead producer role on Patti Smith Group’s third album, 1978’s Easter, he brought the unfinished track to Smith in the hopes that she’d write the lyrics. It was a bold and brilliant move. The…

ON A COOL DESERT EVENING in late May, a crowd of men in baseball caps and women in cold-shoulder shirts mills around a makeshift stage by the pool at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. The guests, beers in hand, have come to the hotel for a software conference, but they’re at this private party to see The B-52s — Fred Schneider, 66; Cindy Wilson, 61; and Kate Pierson, 70, together with their four-piece band. It’s at first jarring to see The B-52s here, but a pool party at a Vegas casino is, in a way, the perfect place for the “tacky little dance band from Athens, Ga.,” as The B-52s have always called themselves. In May — a decade after their last studio album, Funplex, reached No. 11 on the…

On a recent Saturday night, a former banquet hall in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood looks like a queer party palace. Filipina pop star K Rizz, who is partial to cowboy hats and chaps, sings and raps as a massive disco ball spins overhead. ’80s and ’90s babies crowd the dancefloor, men and women alike wearing makeup and dresses. The party lasts all night. While frat boys frolic at Electric Zoo and most of New York’s nightclubs cater to wannabe “it” girls and boys, this party — once called The Spectrum, recently renamed The Dreamhouse — has become the place where queer young people come for the same liberated feeling that existed in house music’s early days at venues like Paradise Garage. On average, 1,000 people show up for the kind…

American Aquarium Arrives As Lauv rules the Emerging Artists chart for a second week, American Aquarium (above) debuts at No. 5 as the band’s Things Change starts at No. 7 on Americana/Folk Albums and No. 20 on Top Country Albums with 5,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music. The LP is the first for the group, which formed in Raleigh, N.C., in 2006, on New West Records, and its first to make the Billboard 200 (No. 154). Israeli singer Dennis Lloyd debuts at No. 30 on Emerging Artists, powered by his breakthrough single, “Nevermind.” The song, a top five hit on multiple European charts, reaches a new high on Alternative, rising 36-29. Plus, Mexican singer Raymix logs a new Emerging Artists peak (22-14) as his first hit, “Oye…

Grande’s ‘Sweet’ Social Gain News of the preorder for Sweetener, the forthcoming album by Ariana Grande (below), and an appearance on the cover of the British edition of Vogue launches the singer 9-3 on the Social 50. She gathered a 71 percent boost in Twitter mentions in the week ending June 7, according to Next Big Sound. But those aren’t the only reasons Grande is in the news: She also posted a video with now-fiancé Pete Davidson (the Saturday Night Live star poked fun at her knowledge of Harry Potter lore) and showed off a sneak peek of a new Sweetener track at KIIS Los Angeles’ Wango Tango concert on June 2. Chief Keef returns to the Social 50 for the first time since March 2016, re-entering at a…

Ghost Scares Up Second No. 1 Ghost (above) lands its second No. 1, and first leader with a full-length, on the Top Rock Albums and Hard Rock Albums charts as Prequelle debuts with 66,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music. The metal band first topped both tallies with its Popestar EP in 2016. Meanwhile, the LP’s lead single, “Rats,” reaches a new No. 3 high on the Mainstream Rock airplay chart. Gorillaz return to Hot Rock Songs with two new songs — and on one, the cartoon band brings along soul/jazz legend George Benson. “Humility” (featuring Benson), the lead single from upcoming album The Now Now (June 29), starts at No. 7 on the strength of 7.5 million U.S. streams and 8,000 downloads sold; it also becomes Gorillaz’s…

Wardlaw Brothers ‘Stand’ At No. 1 Stand There by The Wardlaw Brothers (above) arrives at No. 1 on Top Gospel Albums, bowing with 1,000 equivalent album units (nearly all in traditional album sales), according to Nielsen Music. The set is the first such chart leader for the five-sibling group from Lyons, Ga. It follows God’s Been There, which spent a week at No. 50 in March 2013. The new album’s lead single, “God Has Kept Me,” reached No. 22 on Gospel Airplay. Natalie Grant notches her 10th top 10 on Christian Airplay as “More Than Anything” moves 11-10 (5.3 million audience impressions, up 1 percent). On Hot Christian Songs, which blends airplay, streaming and sales data, the track rises 15-13. The Seattle native first reached the Christian Airplay top…

Lil Wayne settles a legal battle with Cash Money Records, clearing the way for the release of his long-delayed Tha Carter V album. Azealia Banks’ Twitter account is deactivated after she fired insulting tweets at RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10 queen Monét X Change. With his latest release, Vibras, J Balvin earns the most first-week global streams ever for a Latin album on Apple Music.…

THE PULSE OF MUSIC RIGHT NOW THE STARRING ROLE IN A DRAG-HEAVY Broadway musical may seem like an odd fit for a former emo-pop poster boy. But it turns out that Kinky Boots was a long time coming for Panic! at the Disco’s Brendon Urie. Not only did he wear out his mother’s VHS copy of The Sound of Music as a child, but he’d also dress like Julie Andrews after watching it. “I used to cross-dress all the time,” says Urie, 31. “Me and my siblings had this thing called the ‘dress-up box.’ We made home movies. I was the little brother so they’d put me in a dress to fuck with me, but I didn’t mind at all. I was like, ‘Put me in a wig; put…

Swedish occult-rock group Ghost just released its first album since a 2017 lawsuit in which four former bandmates accused frontman Tobias Forge of financial misconduct — which made public Forge’s identity as the secretive group’s mastermind. While the members’ anonymity seemed central to Ghost’s mystique since its inception in 2006, Forge, who is now the sole permanent member amid pending litigation, is unfazed by the turn of events, performing as “new” bandleader Cardinal Copia. And he has pushed Ghost into even more over-the-top territory on latest album Prequelle (Loma Vista Recordings) that debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, with a 20-date U.S. arena and theater tour heavy on theatrics — all of which make up the band’s most wonderfully weird effort to date. 1. He Looked…

JIMMY IOVINE “Because the Night” producer on… its perspective “When the lyrics are that powerful, it’s something you’re attracted to, and you want the whole world to hear it. I wanted to do the best that I could to help everybody hear Patti Smith, because she was such an incredible person. Still is.” SHIRLEY MANSON Singer who covered the song with Garbage on… its radicalism “To hear a woman talk about lust is so unusual. Back in the ’70s, when this was recorded, women were expected somehow not to have sexual desire. That was such a taboo, and Patti talks about it in such blatant terms. It’s so thrilling. The inference was so powerful.” BONO Singer who covered the song with U2 on… its impact “It was a sound…

I was about 18 when I finally told my parents and friends, “Yeah, I’m gay.” I grew up in a liberal family, and they kind of went, “Yeah, no shit.” So when I moved to Los Angeles at 19, 20, I was very much living my life as an out gay man. By the time I did American Idol, I had been very gay for years. I guess I didn’t realize I had to [publicly] label myself; I wasn’t a celebrity yet, so I wasn’t looking at myself from the outside. [Lambert didn’t declare his sexuality until after Idol.] I didn’t get fully obsessed with Queen until I was in my early 20s, and Freddie was one of my heroes. Musically, I loved his attack: He was very aggressive…

AS EARLY AS TRANSGENDER singer Shea Diamond can remember, she identified as a girl — and was punished for it. “I got whoopings for walking like a girl, for using the restroom sitting down like a girl,” says Diamond today. “Even singing when I was little, I remember being corrected: ‘Put some bass in your voice.’ It was like robbing me of the only joy I had in this world.” She ran away from home in Flint, Mich., as a teen, and at age 20 robbed a convenience store at gunpoint — desperate, she says, to fund her gender-affirming surgery. According to records, she was incarcerated at various men’s correctional facilities in Michigan from 1999 until 2009. Behind bars, Diamond found her voice as a songwriter. After her release,…

LESS THAN A YEAR AGO, KIM Petras released her debut single, the pop gem “I Don’t Want It at All.” But already, she has learned to toe a tricky line: how to keep people’s focus on her music without downplaying her transgender identity. “I’ve been asked in a meeting at a company I was debating signing with if I was transgender because it’s trendy,” says the 25-year-old, cocking her head. “I’m like, ‘Bitch, I’ve been transgender my whole life.’” Petras grew up in Cologne, Germany, and at 16 became famous as one of the world’s youngest persons to undergo gender-affirmation surgery. By then, she had started songwriting, but Germany’s music industry “didn’t want to take me seriously at all. It was just like, ‘Nope, joke.’” She came to the…

SINCE DEBUTING IN 2011, The Internet has quietly become one of bedroom R&B’s torchbearers, thanks to the plush melodies of singer-songwriter Syd. The quintet scored a surprise Grammy Award nomination for their 2015 album, Ego Death, which hit No. 3 on Billboard’s R&B Albums chart, and is gearing up for the July 20 release of Hive Mind, an assured set of intimate ballads and bops. Credit that newfound confidence to Syd, 26, who has at long last made peace with her position as one of the few prominent gay black women in music. In 2010, she was the DJ — and the sole female, out member — of hip-hop collective Odd Future, and she didn’t mind staying in the background. “If you ranked Odd Future,” she says, “I was…

West’s Eighth No. 1 Kanye West lands his eighth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 as his new studio album, ye, bows atop the list. The set earned 208,000 equivalent album units in the week ending June 7, according to Nielsen Music, and is the fifth-largest frame for an album in 2018. Of ye’s starting sum, 85,000 were in traditional album sales. With West scoring his eighth leader, he ties Eminem for the second-most No. 1 albums among hip-hop acts in the history of the tally. Only JAY-Z is ahead of them, with 14 chart-toppers. (Among all acts, The Beatles have the most No. 1s, with 19.) As ye starts with 208,000 equivalent album units, it logs the fifth-biggest week for an LP in 2018. Further, of ye’s first-week…

AIRPLAY DATA COMPILED BY RADIO SONGS: The week’s most popular songs, ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen Music. Stations are electronically monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. DIGITAL SONG SALES: The week’s top-downloaded songs, ranked by sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music. POP/RHYTHMIC/ADULT: The week’s most popular current songs at mainstream top 40, rhythmic, adult contemporary and adult top 40 formats, respectively, ranked by radio airplay detections, as measured by Nielsen Music. Songs are defined as current if they are relatively recently-released titles, or songs receiving widespread airplay and/or sales activity for the first time. Stations are electronically monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. See Charts Legend on billboard.com/biz for complete rules and explanations. All charts © 2018,…

West Bests Aretha Franklin As ye by Kanye West (above) arrives at No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 (see page 92) and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, all seven of the set’s tracks debut inside the top 25 of Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. With the arrivals, West’s total of top 40 hits on the latter list rises to 81, pushing him ahead of Aretha Franklin for the fifth-most top 40 hits of all time on the tally. Franklin has 80, while ahead of West are Drake (156), Lil Wayne (97) JAY-Z (96) and James Brown (91). On Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, ye marks West’s eighth leader. Only 2016’s The Life of Pablo missed the top, peaking at No. 2. Elsewhere on the charts, Cardi B clocks her seventh top 10…

Simon’s Remixed Graceland Debuts Paul Simon notches his first entry on Dance/Electronic Album Sales, debuting at No. 3 with Graceland: The Remixes. The new take on his classic 1986 album starts with 1,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen Music. The original Graceland reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in April 1987, won the Grammy Award for album of the year and spun off three Billboard Hot 100 hits: “You Can Call Me Al” (No. 23), the title track (No. 81) and “The Boy in the Bubble” (No. 86). Remixes reinterprets all 11 of the original album’s tracks, including “Al,” by Groove Armada, as well as cuts by Paul Oakenfold, Sharam, Thievery Corporation and Joris Voorn. Simon scored his only previous dance chart action in 1980, when “Late in…

P!nk Soars In North America P!nk (above) hits the Boxscore chart nine times based on box-office sales reported from the first leg of her Beautiful Trauma World Tour. With 38 arenas booked in U.S. and Canadian markets, the tour’s opening jaunt began in March and continued through June 1. A total of 712,369 tickets were sold at 46 performances during the three-month run that generated over $100 million in ticket sales. A two-night stint at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., earns P!nk the No. 9 ranking, her highest on the June 16 chart based on $4.7 million in revenue, but it is her third-highest gross among all the venues on the tour so far. Her top sales were logged at two arenas that charted in prior weeks: New York’s…

YOUTUBE’S OFFICE COMPLEX on the fifth floor of Chelsea Market in Manhattan is nearly empty at 9 in the morning. But Lyor Cohen’s day has already started. “My primary job is to create connective tissue between the labels and the creative community and Google and YouTube. And that’s a lot of meetings together,” he says, sitting down to a bowl of cornflakes in the office’s high-ceiling micro kitchen. Cohen, 58, has had his work cut out for him in the year-plus since he left the independent label he co-founded, 300 Entertainment, to take on the role of global head of music at YouTube. The video giant has had a fraught relationship with the music business, criticized for what the industry sees as low payouts on its ad-supported platform and…

After flying out media and friends to a remote location in Wyoming to hear his chart-topping eighth album, ye, Kanye West tried to re-create listening session magic in California for Kids See Ghosts, his collaborative project with Kid Cudi. On June 7, Los Angeles invitees boarded chartered buses to a deserted ranch in Santa Clarita to hear the album hours before it hit streaming — and to take in all of the celebrities who made the trek. ARIANA GRANDE & PETE DAVIDSON The newly engaged couple delivered lots of PDA, with Grande hugging Davidson at every turn as he smoked a joint with friends. “They really wanted people to know they’re together,” noted one attendee who works at a label. TAKASHI MURAKAMI The listening was a reunion of sorts…

Deep roots Named by her Jamaican mother after jazz great Ella Fitzgerald, 23-year-old Ella Mai grew up in London listening to Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys: “I learned to braid my hair and [play] piano because of [Keys].” She joined her local church choir and auditioned for school musicals, realizing by elementary school that “[singing] was the one real passion I had.” She lost her voice in New York… When she was 12, Mai moved to New York so her mother could take a teaching job. She quit pursuing music and became known as the new kid with a British accent who “didn’t want attention,” devoting her time to soccer instead — until, at high school graduation, she shocked everyone by singing the national anthem: “They were…

FREDERICK DUNSON WAS 17 WHEN HE first rode a rickety freight elevator to the sprawling industrial space where music history was being made. When the doors opened, the desolate Chicago neighborhood below fell away. The lights were dim and pulsing. The crowd was art-student chic. The music was the style that would come to be known as house. The men playing it were, like Dunson and many other attendees that night, young, black and gay. It was 1975, and the club at 555 W. Adams St. and local venues like it were sonic and social revelations. By year’s end, the venue had moved to a members-only space nearby that was officially named US Studio, but was called “The Warehouse” by attendees. Revelers shortened that name to “house” to describe…

As A Label Executive Allow queer songwriters and artists to tell their own stories honestly and specifically. Audiences are ready for it, and it will sell. Halsey’s “Bad at Love” [which Tranter co-wrote] is an amazing example: She uses male pronouns in the first verse and female pronouns in the second verse, and Jeremy Vuernick, who’s a part of her A&R team, didn’t even flinch at it. He was like, “This is amazing — how can we be a part of something that’s telling even more layers of truth?” To have a label that wants her to live her truth openly is the definition of “allyship.” As A Publicist A publicist for an LGBTQ artist should be even more educated on LGBTQ issues than their client is. If you’re…

Father John Misty, Daltrey Debut Father John Misty nabs his third top 40-charting effort on the Billboard 200 with God’s Favorite Customer, while The Who frontman Roger Daltrey collects his first entry on the list in over 25 years with As Long As I Have You. Misty’s new set starts at No. 18 with 22,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending June 7, according to Nielsen Music. The majority of that sum (19,000) was in traditional album sales (enabling the LP’s bow at No. 6 on Top Album Sales). Notably, the title also debuts atop the Vinyl Albums chart with 11,000 vinyl LPs sold — the fifth-largest sales week for a vinyl album in 2018. The only others to yield larger vinyl weeks in 2018 have been…

Bentley Reigns; FGL Triples Up “Woman, Amen” by Dierks Bentley (above) climbs 3-1 on Country Airplay, up 9 percent to 42.2 million audience impressions, according to Nielsen Music. “The most gratifying thing has been seeing people connect the song to the woman in their life who has been there for them,” says Bentley of his 16th leader on the list. “Fans honoring the woman who has supported and sacrificed for them has definitely added more meaning to the song.” As Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line’s “Meant to Be” tops Hot Country Songs for a 28th week, FGL makes history in the top 10. Following its June 1 commercial release, the duo’s new single, “Simple,” rockets 46-5, entering Country Digital Song Sales at No. 1 with 34,000 sold. The…

‘Amor’ Arrives At No. 1 Spanish singer-songwriter Abraham Mateo (above right) earns his first Latin Airplay No. 1 as “Se Acabó el Amor” with Yandel (above left) and Jennifer Lopez (above center) reaches the summit. The song leaps 7-1 with a 61 percent gain in airplay audience in the week ending June 10, according to Nielsen Music. “Se Acabó el Amor” is the 11th No. 1 for Yandel, placing him in a five-way tie for the fifth-most No. 1s in the history of the chart. Meanwhile, it’s Lopez’s seventh leader and second of 2018 — the first time she has notched two No. 1s in a calendar year. She previously ruled the tally for a week with “Amor, Amor, Amor” (featuring Wisin) on Feb. 3. Concurrently, “Se Acabó el…