Innholdsfortegnelse for January 12, 2019 i Billboard Magazine

The U.S. music industry chalked up its fourth consecutive year of growth in 2018 thanks to streaming, with audio consumption units up 23.3 percent to nearly 618 million, from 501.1 million units in 2017. When factoring in on-demand video, total consumption units showed a 7.1 percent increase, to 695.3 million units (album sales plus track-equivalent albums plus streaming-equivalent albums). The boost was fueled by total on-demand streams growing to 901 billion, a whopping 42.6 percent increase from 631 billion streams in 2017 — on top of a 43 percent increase last year. Audio on-demand streams rose to 611.1 million, a 49.4 percent increase over the 409.1 million streams counted in 2017; video on-demand streams totaled nearly 290 million, a 30.3 percent increase over the 222.5 million counted in the…

In 1939, German-Jewish immigrant Alfred Lion and writer-musician-activist Max Margulis founded New York jazz label Blue Note Records. Eighty years and several ownership changes later, the imprint that was once home to Miles Davis continues to represent big-name contemporary artists including Robert Glasper, Norah Jones and Gregory Porter. 1950s Twelve-inch LPs were the new standard by the mid-’50s, and Blue Note’s first ones were Miles Davis, Volume1 and Volume 2 in 1956. Both album covers were among the earliest designed by Reid Miles, whose graphic, modern LP art quickly became one of the label’s calling cards. “Reid never heard a note of any Blue Note album — he hated jazz,” says Michael Cuscuna, co-founder of Mosaic Records and former director of Blue Note’s archives and reissues. “He made every…

In the four years since Sharon Van Etten, 37, hit an artistic peak with Are We There, she didn’t want to rush her next album. Instead, the singer-songwriter went back to school part time to become a therapist; wrote her first film score, for Katherine Dieckmann’s Strange Weather; launched an acting career (with a role in The OA and an appearance in David Lynch’s revived Twin Peaks); and gave birth to her first child. And on Jan. 18, the Brooklyn-based artist will release Remind Me Tomorrow, an experimental indie-rock album that probes newfound joy in a post-Donald Trump era. Here’s what she did to make it happen. 1 Took up a new instrument “After Are We There, I got my first piano, a cute little Melody grand that’s short…

FROM Miami AGE 24 LABEL Def Jam HEATING UP DaniLeigh, born Danielle Curiel, moved to Los Angeles with her mother and little sister at 16 to break through as a dancer and singer. She was part of a duo then, performing with a close friend under the moniker Curly Fryz. But when the pair broke up four years later, DaniLeigh kept working: “I felt like I wasn’t good enough to [continue] by myself because I couldn’t sing like Beyoncé or Whitney Houston.” SEAL OF ROYAL APPROVAL Before she went solo, Prince selected the then-18-year-old to direct and star in his 2013 music video “Breakfast Can Wait.” Two years later, she put her first compilation online, but only after sending it to the pop icon first. “He was like, ‘Make…

WE NEED TO FIGHT FOR OUR seat at the table.” That’s the mandate one majorlabel senior vp relayed to Billboard last April, summarizing an issue that had reached a breaking point: Why hadn’t the R&B/hip-hop boom elevated more black music executives to the industry’s C-suites? What followed during the next eight months was unprecedented: Some 20 seats were added to that top executive table. At the end of 2018, Columbia Records announced Shawn Holiday and Phylicia Fant’s promotions to co-heads of urban music, capping off a series of vp-and-higher appointments at labels, publishing firms, streaming companies and more. “If you think about it, there haven’t been 20 fucking black appointments like this in the last eight years,” says the aforementioned major-label senior vp. “The Billboard article was a catalyst…

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Billboard Power 100 Darryl Eaton, Mitch Rose, Rick Roskin co-heads of contemporary music for North America FIRST CONCERT Rose: “Don Ho, with The Young Rascals, [in Honolulu] with my grandmother and brother.” Women In Music Emma Banks, Marlene Tsuchii co-heads of international Carole Kinzel, Caroline Yim agents FIRST CONCERT Banks: “Dire Straits at the Birmingham [England] N.E.C. in 1985.” Branding Power Players David Aussenberg music brand partnerships agent FIRST CONCERT “Billy Ray Cyrus at the Houston Astrodome in 1992.” Country Power Players Rod Essig, John Huie founders, CAA Nashville Marc Dennis, Darin Murphy co-heads, CAA Nashville FIRST CONCERT Huie: “The Beatles, Atlanta Stadium, Aug. 18, 1965.” Dance Power Players Macquarie Clark, Hunter Williams FIRST CONCERT Clark: “[It should have been] Miles Davis at Jones Beach [in Wantagh, N.Y., in…

While many agents at CAA have spent their entire careers at the agency, Nat Farnham and Scott Morris are among those lured to the firm by its competitive advantages. “The whole concept of inviting new agents into the lives and careers of established, superstar clients is uniquely CAA,” says Farnham, who previously worked at Evolution Talent Agency. “Trust me, this does not happen at the other shops.” Farnham arrived at CAA in 2004 with a relatively small roster of artists but has since worked with KISS, Journey, Steely Dan, John Mellencamp and others. “The whole notion of collaborative team-agenting is singular to CAA,” he says. Morris, who came to CAA from ICM in 2012, says that he loves “working at a place where the team truly is motivated, curious…

Hip-Hop Rules Post-Holidays The Billboard 200 gets a big shake-up after Christmas as the tally cleanses itself of nearly all holiday albums, causing a lot of movement and re-entries from familiar faces. A trio of albums return to the top 10: Post Malone’s beerbongs & bentleys (11-4, its highest position since it was No. 4 on the Aug. 18, 2018-dated list), the soundtrack to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (13-5, returning to the peak position that it achieved in its debut frame three weeks ago) and Drake’s Scorpion (14-6). Atop the tally, 21 Savage’s I Am > I Was holds at No. 1 for a second week, earning 65,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Jan. 3 (down 51 percent), according to Nielsen Music. Hip-hop’s dominance at streaming services…

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,…

Post Malone & Swae Lee Swing To No. 1 Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower” shines atop Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs with a 2-1 climb. The move secures Post Malone’s third No. 1, following 14-week champ “Rockstar,” featuring 21 Savage and the Ty Dolla $ign-assisted “Psycho.” Lee, meanwhile, collects his first victor as a solo artist. “Sunflower,” from the soundtrack to the animated film Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse (above), gains 3-2 on R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs, with a 12 percent bump to 40.7 million U.S. clicks in the week ending Jan. 3, according to Nielsen Music. The tune retains its No. 1 rank on R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Song Sales for a fifth week, despite an 8 percent slide to 40,000 sold in the same period. Moreover, Post Malone collects his 11th…

Kelly & Franklin Lead “Never Alone” by Tori Kelly (above), featuring Kirk Franklin, ascends 2-1 on the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot Gospel Songs chart, becoming Kelly’s first leader on the list and Franklin’s sixth. The track reigns in its 19th week with 3.7 million in airplay audience and 339,000 on-demand U.S. streams, according to Nielsen Music. “I’m so humbled that people are loving and listening to this song,” Kelly tells Billboard. “It’s amazing to see a positive reaction to something that came straight from my heart. I’m forever grateful.” Kelly and Franklin wrote the song, and the latter also produced parent album Hiding Place, Kelly’s first faith-based set. It arrived as her first No. 1 on the Top Gospel Albums chart dated Sept. 29, 2018. “Alone” also ranks…

MAGGIE ROGERS SLIPS INTO A booth inside a no-frills bar on the East Side of Manhattan and kicks her Western boots up on the checkered upholstery. “OK, bring it on,” she says. It’s a Thursday afternoon, and Rogers is on something of a press blitz before heading home to celebrate Christmas in Easton, Md., the rural town where she grew up playing the harp, taught herself guitar and eventually picked up the banjo. At 24, she’s three weeks away from the highly anticipated Jan. 18 release of Heard It in a Past Life, and she’s got sparklers in her stomach. “I’ve thrown the most vulnerable part of me up into the air,” she says. “I’m waiting for someone to catch it.” Rogers, who has long, ash-blond hair parted down…

Why did you drop the album the day before Christmas? I was working on it for the past six months. We initially spoke about releasing it in November, and really, I finished the album around Dec. 21. I didn’t want 2018 to end without my album out. Now people can begin their year with these songs. How did you know it was ready? The last song I recorded was “Solo de Mi.” It wasn’t that I was looking for another song. In fact, that morning I was going to the studio to put the finishing touches on the mix, and while I showered, the chorus came to me: “No me digas más bebé” (“Don’t call me baby anymore”). I got out of the shower, recorded it and that was…

Mötley Crüe’s 2001 group memoir, The Dirt, is aptly named in more ways than one: a filter-free chronicle of the hair metal band’s debaucherous 1980s, the stories within range from the obscene-and-fun (tourmate Ozzy Osbourne snorts ants before lapping Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx’s urine off the sidewalk!) to the obscene-and-disturbing (drummer Tommy Lee knocks out his then-girlfriend’s teeth, having discovered she sold sexually explicit photos of them to a porn magazine). The tonal whiplash of the book seemed to render it unadaptable, until now: Netflix’s film of the same name debuts March 29, with rapper Machine Gun Kelly — going by his government name, Colson Baker — rocking a magnificent shag as Lee. “I read The Dirt when I was 13. It was my Bible,” says Baker, though he…

DURING THE WEEK OF Dec. 9, Stevie Wonder headlined his annual House Full of Toys benefit concert at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, while on the opposite coast, Bruce Springsteen began the final week of his acclaimed run on Broadway, just days ahead of the release of a Netflix special adapted from his one-man show. Across the Atlantic, Def Leppard rocked a homecoming show in Sheffield, England, on the U.K. leg of a tour that, earlier that year, had packed North American amphitheaters on a joint bill with Journey. In India, Beyoncé played a private wedding and Instagrammed herself in a red-and-gold dress and gold headpiece. Back across the Pacific Ocean, the Eagles had packed Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, ahead of a 2019 tour of New Zealand and…

Ed Sheeran, whom CAA represents outside North America, didn’t just claim the No. 1 spot on Billboard Boxscore’s ranking of 2018’s top tours. His four-night stand in June at Wembley Stadium in London also ranked as the top Boxscore gross of the year, with $28.9 million. “The best comment I’ve heard about [us] is, ‘If you want to break a superstar globally, CAA is always the first call,’” says Mike Greek, who runs the agency’s London office with Emma Banks, coordinating bookings with their fellow co-heads of international, Chris Dalston and Marlene Tsuchii, who are based in Los Angeles. “What started as a service area [in 1995] allows clients to extend their careers by [playing] multiple territories beyond the United States and Europe and is now a key contributor…

Palisades Park On Emerging Artists Palisades (above) debut at No. 12 on Emerging Artists as the post-hardcore rock group’s fourth LP, Erase the Pain, arrives at No. 9 on Hard Rock Albums with 6,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music. The set also starts at No. 175 on the Billboard 200, marking the only debut on the chart in a quiet time for new releases post-holidays. Returning to No. 1 on Emerging Artists for a sixth total week on top is lovelytheband. The trio’s first hit, “Broken,” ranks at No. 3 on Hot Rock Songs, while follow-up “These Are My Friends” hits a new high at No. 20. Plus, 21-year-old rapper Blueface makes his Billboard chart debut, arriving at No. 49 on Emerging Artists thanks to his breakthrough…

Poppins Perks Up In Movie Music’s Big Week Soundtracks hold a monopoly on Top Album Sales’ first three slots as The Greatest Showman, A Star Is Born and Mary Poppins Returns rule at Nos. 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The last time the week’s top three sellers were soundtracks (or near-soundtracks) was way back on the Billboard 200 dated Dec. 17, 1966, when it was a purely sales-ranked list. That week, The Monkees’ self-titled debut album was tops, followed by the film soundtracks to Doctor Zhivago and The Sound of Music at Nos. 2 and 3. The Monkees was effectively a companion release to the group’s smash TV series of the same name, with 11 of its 12 songs featured in the show — yet the album was not…

Dan + Shay Stretch Reign Dan + Shay (above) continue their domination of Country Airplay and the airplay-, streamingand sales-fueled Hot Country Songs chart with “Speechless.” The love song leads Country Airplay for a fourth week, increasing by 15 percent to 39.4 million audience impressions in the week ending Jan. 6, according to Nielsen Music. The track is the first four-week Country Airplay leader since Luke Combs’ “She Got the Best of Me,” which led for four frames beginning on Oct. 27, 2018. As for duos, Dan + Shay are the first to rule four weeks since Florida Georgia Line’s “Stay” led for four frames in January 2014. “Speechless” concurrently controls Hot Country Songs for a seventh week. Along with its airplay gain, the track increases by 19 percent…

AFTER A YEAR-AND-A-HALF transition, Mitch Glazier just became chairman/CEO of the RIAA, succeeding Cary Sherman, who retired in December after more than 20 years at the organization. “Cary is such an icon that I came in today feeling like I was walking into dad’s office,” Glazier told Billboard on Jan. 2. His first official act: promoting to COO Michele Ballantyne, who will manage the organization on a day-to-day basis. “This plays to both her talents and the needs of the organization,” says Glazier. “She’s a phenomenal manager who has great relationships within the music communities in Nashville, New York, Los Angeles and everywhere else.” Glazier, who has worked at the RIAA since 2000, played a key role last fall in pushing the Music Modernization Act over the finish line,…

Emily Lazar PRESIDENT/CHIEF MASTERING ENGINEER AT THE LODGE HER ROLE Grammy-nominated Lazar, who has worked with artists including David Bowie, mastered Heard It in a Past Life. ON COLLABORATING “Maggie and I bonded immediately. We spoke at length on the specific sound she was looking to achieve on her tracks and also about the difficulties artists sometimes face during the recording and production processes.” Marlene Tsuchii CO-HEAD OF INTERNATIONAL TOURING, CAA HER ROLE As a global agent, Tsuchii has helped plan Rogers’ 33-city world tour that kicks off in Dublin on Feb. 15. TOP MOMENT “We literally screamed on the phone together when we heard the news about her SNL appearance. That pure euphoria and joy epitomizes Maggie’s spirit.” OLIVIA BEE PHOTOGRAPHER-DIRECTOR HER ROLE A close…

On her 28th birthday, Dec. 20, 2018, JoJo surprise-dropped covers of her first two albums, 2004’s JoJo and 2006’s The High Road. Both were originally released on Blackground Records, which she signed to in 2003. But after the label held her third LP, she entered a legal battle to break her seven-album contract. She did so in December 2013, but Blackground still owned the master licenses to the recordings. In August 2017, JoJo launched her own imprint through Interscope Records, Clover Music, and by early 2018 was plotting to retrieve her material. “[Legal counsel] told us if we redo every instrument, every sound, reproduce each song and have JoJo re-sing every note, we were within our rights,” says her co-manager Katie Gallagher. Adds JoJo: “There was a misconception that…

It began with a Caesar salad: a hunk of romaine, dipped like a candied apple in dressing and crushed croutons, plated and then served to Pharrell Williams in Paris six years ago. For Beyoncé, it was the abstract, paper-thin fruit salad. “They wanted to know who the chef was. It was that simple,” says Jean Imbert, the 37-year-old who would go on to cook privately for both superstars. “Each of those dishes captures a moment for me — they’re part of a story.” One that begins with learning to cook as a child in the L’Haÿles-Roses suburb of Paris and now continues with Encore, the farm-to-table Meatpacking District eatery that he named for Jay-Z’s 2003 hit. Before grabbing a seat in the private room where Lenny Kravitz and Dua…

Tunji Balogun has an eye for boundary-pushing R&B and hip-hop talent: The 35-year-old executive vp A&R at RCA Records signed Childish Gambino and Khalid and was on the team that signed SZA, among others. Now, he’s pulling double duty as co-founder of RCA joint venture Keep Cool, where he signed Normani as his first artist last April. How does Normani embody what you hope to accomplish with Keep Cool? It has been so long since we’ve had a young, black woman who can appeal to the mainstream audience and the urban audience and be right in that middle zone. That’s exactly the type of artist that I want to be a part of this label, and exactly the type of artist that I’ve had success with in my career…

Last November, “Falling Down” — a collaboration between Lil Peep and XXXTentacion, two rapper-singers who had died within the previous 12 months — debuted at No. 40 on Billboard’s 40-spot Alternative Songs ranking. Its cameo on the chart was brief, peaking at No. 35 in December and falling off altogether by the end of the month. But as the first entry on Alternative Songs for both artists, neither of whom had ever been fully embraced by hip-hop radio, it was a sign of things to come. As traditional rock becomes ever less synonymous with pop music, alternative radio has been forced to expand its definition to include more left-of-center artists from other genres. “This generation has maybe never even gone to a record store or CD store where there…

NOT SO LONG AGO, JORDAN THORPE WAS clocking hours as a middle school substitute teacher in a down-and-out Hudson Valley New York town. Then one day, the school stopped calling — not because of his abilities as an educator, but because his students had discovered his alter ego: the rapper Pardison Fontaine, who at the time had a locally viral hit called “Oyyy!” (It might’ve had something to do with lyrics like “You mad ’cause your bitch treat my dick like a shake weight.”) Three years, two Grammy nominations and one rowdy BET Awards performance later, the 29-year-old rapper says “the school wants me to come back” — but his schedule these days might make that tricky. Pardi (as he’s known to fans) has in short order racked up…

Shania Twain, who ranked among the top touring artists of 2018, according to Billboard Boxscore, was only one of the recent success stories of CAA’s Nashville office, which also helped attain achievements in the past year for country, rock, pop, EDM and R&B clients including Kelsea Ballerini, Leon Bridges, Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, Brett Eldredge, Midland, twenty one pilots and the Zac Brown Band. “Our most notable accomplishment, however, is the number of young agents and trainees who have been promoted and are thriving in our system,” says Marc Dennis, co-head of CAA Nashville with Brian Manning and Darin Murphy. Logan Handelsman was promoted to agent in March 2017, Bennett Beckner and Madison Lee in December 2017 and Katie Germano in April 2018, while Kara Enos and Emily…

“CAA is gender-blind,” says Carole Kinzel, the first female agent in the firm’s music department. “There [once] were so few women in the industry doing this job. Now, a significant number of our senior agents and executives are women [35 percent, according to CAA]. I have never once felt that being a woman has held me back.” The agency has both informal (mentorship) and formal ways of advancing the status of women. An employee committee called FORWARD is “dedicated to engaging, inspiring and developing women at the agency and helping to empower and connect women across the industry,” says Kinzel. Jenna Adler, who started at CAA in 1990, describes herself as its first “home-grown” female agent. “Gender equality is a priority,” she says. “CAA has committed to 50/50 [gender]…

Joe Hadley was three months into his job at CAA in Los Angeles when music division head Rob Light invited him to join a meeting with Beyoncé’s manager, Steve Pamon. “From that meeting, a relationship was built, and I was eventually brought onto Beyoncé’s team [at the agency]. The culture of CAA is all about empowerment.” Other young agents at CAA have taken on leadership roles within the music department and reflect the strength and diversity of the agency’s bench. They share similar tales. “The collaborative culture is not just a tagline,” says Nashville music agent Meredith Jones. “One of my mailroom ‘classmates,’ Cat Carson, now a television agent [based in Los Angeles], routinely closes major deals for our Nashville-based [music] clients and managers.” “Egos are out the door,…

New Year, Same Kanye Another Social 50 chart, another eventful week for Kanye West (below) on social media. The rapper leaps 34-8 on the latest list with a boost of 618 percent in Twitter reactions (545,000 total) and 260 percent in Twitter mentions (167,000), according to Next Big Sound, in the week ending Jan. 3. In addition to more tweets about his feud with Drake, West received much of his social engagement from a series of Jan. 1 posts led by his tweet of “Trump all day,” followed by “Just so in 2019 you know where I stand.” One spot below West, Wanna One zooms 20-9, rising in all social metrics. The K-pop boy band was on the minds of many because their contract with Swing Entertainment ended Dec.…

Rogers Shines At No. 1 Maggie Rogers (above) earns her first Billboard No. 1, rising 2-1 on the Triple A airplay chart with “Light On.” The lead single from Rogers’ debut major-label LP, Heard It in a Past Life (Jan. 18), became her first top 10 on the list in November 2018, surpassing the No. 13 peak of her breakthrough hit, “Alaska,” in February 2017. “Light” concurrently lifts 43-42 on the all-rock-format Rock Airplay chart, up 8 percent to 1.5 million audience impressions, according to Nielsen Music. Weezer tallies its 16th top 10 on the Alternative airplay chart with “Can’t Knock the Hustle” (11-10), tying Muse for ninth place for the most in the chart’s history. The Rivers Cuomo-led Weezer, which first reached the region with “Undone – The…

Bad Bunny Rules Bad Bunny starts the new year by remaining at No. 1 on the Top Latin Albums chart as his surprise-release debut album, X 100PRE, holds the crown after its first full tracking week of activity. The set earned 36,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Jan. 3, according to Nielsen Music — up 20 percent. The album entered at No. 1 on the Jan. 5-dated list from a partial week of activity (30,000 units in the week ending Dec. 27, 2018) after it arrived with little warning on Dec. 24 (a Tuesday, instead of the usual Friday for new albums, which is also the first day of Nielsen’s tracking week). X 100PRE now owns two of the top three biggest weeks for a Latin album…

Grande Gets ‘Next’ No. 1 Ariana Grande (above) earns her fifth No. 1 on Dance Club Songs with “Thank U, Next” (2-1). The former Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 was remixed by Joe Gauthreaux, Dirty Disco and Dirty Werk, among others. Since Grande led Dance Club Songs on June 23 with “No Tears Left to Cry,” she has logged the most No. 1s of all artists: four. The only other acts with multiple toppers in that span are Jonas Blue (three) and Sabrina Carpenter (two). Grande’s other No. 1s in that period were “Breathin” (Dec. 8) and “God Is a Woman” (Oct. 13). Grande first led the list as featured on Nathan Sykes’ “Over and Over Again” in February 2016. Dating to her first charted title, “Baby I” (No.…

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 30,000 units (Oro). Latin albums certification for physical shipments & digital downloads of 60,000 units (Platino). Numeral noted with Platino symbol indicates album’s multiplatinum level. Digital Songs Charts RIAA certification for 500,000 paid downloads and on-demand streams where 100 streams equal 1 download (Gold). RIAA certification for 1…

FAME DID NOT COME EASY FOR LADY Gaga. By the time she began working on what would become her breakout single, “Just Dance,” the singer-songwriter born Stefani Germanotta had already been dropped by Def Jam Recordings in 2006 after just three months on the label. Interscope took a chance on her next, and in 2007, Gaga wrote “Just Dance,” a shimmering synth-pop track about a woozy night in the club, with chart-topping singer Akon and the song’s producer RedOne, then known stateside for his work on Kat DeLuna’s “Whine Up.” RedOne told Entertainment Weekly in 2018 that when he played “Just Dance” for Interscope’s Jimmy Iovine, the label boss asked if he could give the song to another act on his imprint, The Pussycat Dolls. “And Akon was like,…