Innholdsfortegnelse for June 15, 2019 i Billboard Magazine

Dr. John, who died June 6 at age 77, has been called “America’s premier roots musician,” but that’s not all he was. For 60 years, he was the leading global ambassador for the musical traditions of New Orleans. Though he worked with rock musicians, including Van Morrison and The Rolling Stones, he represented a direct connection to the city’s unique history of Dixieland, brass bands and swamp rhythms — which he learned directly from such masters as Fats Domino and Professor Longhair. In both his own work and numerous collaborations, he passed along the spirit of Mardi Gras to the likes of Aretha Franklin and Eric Clapton. Born Mac Rebennack, the shamanistic pianist hit the top 10 in 1973 with “Right Place Wrong Time” and won six Grammy Awards…

Nearly 15 years ago, Jack White dropped by Brendan Benson’s Detroit home for a cup of coffee. He walked out with a hit on his hands. At the time, Benson was working on a song that didn’t yet have lyrics and asked White to write something. The spontaneous collaboration resulted in “Steady, As She Goes” and prompted the pair to keep working together. Before they knew it, they had a whole album. With the addition of bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler, The Raconteurs were born. “If I had my pick of everybody I knew, these are the three guys I wanted to start a band with,” says White while calling from a London hotel. “We all came from nothing — everyone was just passionate.” “Steady, As She…

JULIA MICHAELS Honing your craft and knowing your sound and who you are really helps. I wasn’t prepping for it, but when I wrote “Issues,” it felt too personal for me to give away. Knowing people helps too: I’d been working closely with Republic with another artist, and the label had been trying to poach me. One day I sent them “Issues” and was like, “Want to put a song out? Let’s try it!” And it did way better than I ever anticipated. (Michaels will release the EP Inner Monologue Part 2 on June 28.)…

1. LOUIS BELL Broke out as a writer on DJ Snake and Justin Bieber’s “Let Me Love You” in 2016; now a studio mainstay for Post Malone Notable Hot 100 hits Halsey’s “Without Me” (No. 1), Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker” (No. 1), Post Malone’s “rockstar” (No. 1) 2. DRAKE 3. POST MALONE 4. CARDI B 5. FINNEAS O’CONNELL Billie Eilish’s main collaborator — and big bro — co-wrote and produced every song on her Billboard 200 No. 1 debut, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Notable Hot 100 hits Eilish’s “Bad Guy” (No. 2) and “Bury a Friend” (No. 14) 6. LIL BABY 7. JUICE WRLD 8. BILLY WALSH A Canadian songwriter/fashion designer who scored his big break writing on The Weeknd’s Starboy in 2016 before…

When a jury ruled in 2015 that Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” infringed on the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up,” legal experts warned the decision would inspire a wave of similar lawsuits. But copyright lawyer Barry I. Slotnick says that hasn’t happened: “It’s an odd case. I don’t see it as good law, but everyone [involved in the song] acknowledged that ‘Blurred Lines’ was an homage,” so the verdict wasn’t a shock. The lack of a sea change in court partly has to do with the idiosyncrasies of musical copyright. “If I say that someone infringed my book, my painting, my movie, the judge and the jury can look at them side by side,” says Slotnick. “But music requires musicologists. Because some circuits in New York…

Doug Morris is back on top. The only executive to have run each of the three major music groups — Warner Music, Universal Music and Sony Entertainment (departing Sony in 2017) — Morris is working atop the New York skyline: His independent 12 Tone Music Group, supported by Apple, has airy offices on an upper terraced floor in the landmarked Daily News Building in Midtown Manhattan. More importantly, Morris is back atop the charts. Since launching in 2018, 12 Tone has sent California rapper-singer Anderson. Paak to No. 1 on Billboard’s Independent Albums chart last December with Oxnard and No. 1 on the R&B Album Sales chart in April with Ventura. (Both albums were co-produced by Dr. Dre). Also, Louisiana bred Christian singer Lauren Daigle has spent 33 weeks…

Sensational Start For Yung Gravy Rapper/trap singer Yung Gravy (above) makes his Billboard chart debut, entering at No. 7 on Emerging Artists as his first LP, Sensational, starts at No. 30 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums with 12,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music. The set includes guests Juicy J and Lil Baby. Atlanta’s Blanco Brown also makes his chart debut, arriving on Emerging Artists at No. 41 as his single “The Git Up” begins at No. 16 on Country Digital Song Sales (4,000 sold) and No. 38 on Hot Country Songs. Plus, Dominic Fike arrives at No. 50 on Emerging Artists as the breakout track from the Naples, Fla., native, “3 Nights,” continues scaling Alternative and Rock Airplay, reaching a new No. 19 high on each ranking. —Xander…

Lauv Debuts With BTS Selfie Lauv (below) launches on the Social 50 chart at No. 16, marking one of the top debuts for an artist in 2019. The pop singer bows with 459,000 Twitter mentions and 219,000 reactions to his tweets in the week ending June 6, according to Next Big Sound. That’s thanks in large part to a June 2 photo he tweeted with BTS, the Social 50’s No. 1 act for a 130th week. Lauv’s debut is the best for a living artist on the Social 50 since Lil Dicky started at No. 12 on the May 4 list. One spot below Lauv, Stray Kids reenter the Social 50 at No. 17, registering boosts of 986% and 206% in Twitter reactions and mentions, respectively. Excitement around the…

Sum 41’s New ‘Blood’ Sum 41 (above) reaches the top 20 of a Billboard airplay chart for the first time in over 14 years as “Out for Blood” rises 21-20 on Mainstream Rock. The Canadian rockers notch their first top 20 entry on the tally, as well as their first top 20 hit on any airplay ranking, since “Pieces” hit No. 14 on Alternative in February 2005. “Blood” is the band’s first airplay chart entry since 2011, when “Screaming Bloody Murder” reached No. 37 on Alternative. Further down Mainstream Rock, Perry Farrell makes his first unaccompanied appearance on an airplay chart as “Pirate Punk Politician” debuts at No. 39. The lead single from Kind Heaven, the genre vet’s first solo LP since 2001’s Song Yet to Be Sung, follows…

Franklin’s Five Is A First Kirk Franklin (above) becomes the first artist to top all five Billboard gospel charts simultaneously: Top Gospel Albums, Hot Gospel Songs, Gospel Airplay, Gospel Streaming Songs and Gospel Digital Song Sales. Franklin posts his 13th No. 1 on Top Gospel Albums as Long Live Love arrives with 20,000 equivalent album units earned in its first week, according to Nielsen Music. He first reigned with Kirk Franklin and the Family beginning Dec. 11, 1993, and his 13 leaders are the most of all acts since then; Fred Hammond follows with 10 in that span. The new set’s lead single, “Love Theory,” leads the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot Gospel Songs chart for a 19th week. It tops Gospel Airplay for an eighth week and Gospel…

Jack White says that he and Brendan Benson, who began writing together in 2004, mix things up to avoid patterns that could stifle their creativity. “It has been very fruitful that way, where some things are 50/50 and some are 90/10, and we just keep hacking away at it,” he says. “The good thing about it — why I think we’re still writing together — is it never got to a point of being shallow or competitive or selfish.” White compares a “songwriter” (he uses air quotes around the word) to a security guard: “You are not in control of the song very much. You’re just helping move it along” — an understanding he and Benson share. Similarly, Benson believes he and White write so easily together because of…

ARTIST BABY ROSE DISTRIBUTOR Q&A/HUMAN RE SOURCES Digital distributor Human Re Sources, which in April merged with Troy Carter and J Erving’s music/technology company Q&A, has signed 24-year-old R&B artist Baby Rose. As the deal is for distribution only, Rose will remain independent and own her master recordings. Human Re Sources is targeting key curated playlists on Apple Music and Spotify (where Carter was global head of creator services from 2016 to 2018, after working with Erving at entertainment agency Atom Factory) to generate streaming revenue. Vp A&R Austin Thomas first met Rose’s manager, Kevon “KJ” Jaundoo, late last year through a mutual friend in the artist’s home base of Atlanta and “quickly fell in love” with her rock-tinged sound and Nina Simone like vocals. (She’s originally from Washington,…

For decades, publishing royalties were largely divided between mechanical rights (derived from physical album sales) and performance rights (from public performances and radio/TV broadcasts). Both of those income streams are becoming more convoluted in the digital era. While mechanical and performance royalties respectively amount to $631.4 million and $2.8 billion in the United States annually, Billboard estimates, that revenue comes from more sources than ever. Furthermore, unlike royalties paid to master recording rights holders, where there is only a single owner, publishing rights can be held by multiple parties who contribute to a song in different ways and claim different fractions of the composition. Such “splits” make tracking revenue even more complex. And as the number of credits on songs grows ever higher (and more unwieldy), that data is…

GABE SAPORTA In the ’90s, some of my favorite bands would only sell 100,000 or 200,000 albums — they weren’t household names by any means, but they lived comfortably. When the digital revolution decimated the value of recorded music, those prospects for middle class artists went away. A lot of talented kids who would have been artists or started bands saw that and moved to Los Angeles to become songwriters instead, because that was how you could still make money. But we’re seeing a reemergence of those middle-class artists as [digital streaming platforms] have cracked the monetization code — a young artist has a better shot to make it now than they’ve had in 20 years. It might be just as hard, if not harder, to break through to…

More and more, it seems. Just look at the average number of songwriters for a Hot 100 No. 1 in a given year during the past decade — since 2009, it has more than doubled. Why? The prevalence of writing camps and increasingly collaborative approaches to music-making (see: the stat-skewing 30 writers on Travis Scott’s 2018 hit “Sicko Mode”); the use of samples and interpolations to give a song an extra edge; and changing attitudes about what constitutes a songwriting contribution (see previous spread) all help ratchet up the credit count.…

Giving advances to superstar artists is pretty much the norm in the music business. But the idea of unrecoupable advances is becoming more important to performing rights organizations (PROs). Earlier this year, before Kendrick Lamar signed with BMI for an undisclosed sum, his management team was shopping a deal asking PROs for an advance north of $10 million — with a significant portion unrecoupable, sources say. Five years ago, such unrecouped advances were rare, but they’re becoming less so as competition heats up from the two invite-only PROs, SESAC and GMR. As for-profit companies, SESAC and GMR can determine the size of the royalty pool they will distribute. But ASCAP and BMI operate under consent decrees signed with the Department of Justice and must accept any songwriter who wants…

The record companies featured on Billboard’s Indie Power Players list are defined as independent because they are not owned by one of the three major music groups: Sony, Warner and Universal. Distributors are defined as independent based on the repertoire they market, which is largely from labels not under the majors’ umbrellas, regardless of corporate ownership. Eleven of the distributors included here are both independently owned and bring releases to the marketplace from independent labels and artists. However, the majors own four other distributors here — The Orchard (by Sony), Alternative Distribution Alliance (Warner) and Caroline and Ingrooves (Universal). But they still market indie releases. The aforementioned criteria differ from how Billboard and Nielsen Music classify titles for the Independent Albums chart. That chart tallies releases distributed by both…

Rhett’s Road Leads Thomas Rhett notches his second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 as Center Point Road debuts atop the chart. The LP, the first country set to lead the list in 2019, earned 76,000 equivalent album units during the week ending June 6, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 45,000 were in album sales. Both totals represent the biggest weeks of 2019 for any country album. The last country set to hit No. 1 was Kane Brown’s Experiment, which opened atop the list dated Nov. 24, 2018. Experiment also had the last largest week for a country album in both units and album sales when it started with 126,000 units earned in its first week, with 107,000 of that sum in album sales. Further, Center…

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 © 2019,…

Cardi B’s ‘Press’ Charges Cardi B (above) earns her 11th top 10 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs as “Press” starts at No. 6. The single opens with 22.2 million U.S. streams earned in the week ending June 6, according to Nielsen Music, prompting a No. 8 entrance on R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs. “Press” begins at No. 2 on R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Song Sales, with 20,000 downloads registered in the same period. Radio play, meanwhile, moves into high gear with a 50-35 leap on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay due to a 45% surge to 4.6 million in audience in the week ending June 9. The “Press” push is one of three milestones for the rapper on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay: Her featured turn on husband Offset’s “Clout” secures her 13th top 20 hit with its 22-20 ascent,…

‘World’ Domination The Chainsmokers (above) chug in at No. 1 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums with World War Joy. The four-track EP starts with 12,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music. It’s the duo’s fourth chart-topper, following Collage (14 weeks at No. 1, beginning Nov. 26, 2016), Memories… Do Not Open (46 weeks, April 29, 2017) and Sick Boy (14 weeks, Oct. 6, 2018). Joy track “Call You Mine,” with Bebe Rexha, bows at No. 3 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, the chart’s highest debut this year. The Chainsmokers’ 17th top 10 (only Calvin Harris, with 18, has more) and Rexha’s fourth culled 8.3 million U.S. streams and sold 13,000 downloads in the tracking week. Avicii opens at No. 2 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums with the posthumous set TIM. Released…

JUSTIN TRANTER SONGWRITER; CO-FOUNDER, FACET RECORDS As one of today’s most prolific songwriters, Justin Tranter has racked up credits for Ariana Grande, Camila Cabello, Imagine Dragons and the Jonas Brothers — and that’s just since last year. The 39-year-old began their career as the lead singer of glam-rock act Semi Precious Weapons. But after getting dropped from “four different record deals,” Tranter — who identifies as queer, uses they/them pronouns and serves on the board of GLAAD — found a second act behind the scenes. In 2012 they inked a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell, and four years later, during the week of March 12, 2016, Tranter joined pop’s songwriting elite with three left-field bops that cracked the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100: Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” (No. 4),…

On May 31, Thomas Rhett’s Center Point Road scored him his second Billboard 200 No. 1 — and his first streaming smash. The album raked in 33.59 million on-demand audio streams in its debut week (according to Nielsen Music), the biggest first streaming week ever for a country album. Meanwhile, Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus are enjoying a 10th week atop the Billboard Hot 100 and the Streaming Songs chart with “Old Town Road”; Rhett, Blake Shelton and Morgan Wallen are also charting on the latter list. “Country music fans are really starting to discover and appreciate the benefits of streaming,” says Apple Music global head of country music Jay Liepis. Between January and April, country streams on Apple Music jumped an estimated 49.3% in the United…

“There’s definitely a lot more collaboration, and that’s not a bad thing,” says Claude Kelly of the industry’s current creative environment. The veteran writer — he has worked with Whitney Houston, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Bruno Mars, among others — can work out “a piece of a song, send it to Los Angeles for someone to finish, then send that version to London to have it tweaked. But,” he adds, “when you start to see 10, 12, 15 names on a song, you lose sight of who really was behind the work.” In recent years, it has become common for managers — including Scooter Braun (Justin Bieber), Brock Korsan (Nicki Minaj, Drake), and Cardi B’s former manager Klenord “Shaft” Raphael, though the details of their contributions are unknown…

Labels and publishers’ practice of assembling dozens of writers to churn out potential hits has long been standard in many genres. But as pop gets more personal, with stars like Billie Eilish and Halsey releasing disarmingly intimate music, some hitmakers are rethinking the value of camps. “They just feel… corporate,” says Benny Blanco (Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran). “You hear someone say ‘writing camp’ and you’re like, ‘Ew.’” Perhaps that’s why more artists are taking them into their own hands. After weeks of sessions for her 2018 album Always in Between, Jess Glynne fled to the English countryside with a group of handpicked collaborators, saying “it was the most productive week I could’ve had.” Late last year, Ariana Grande recruited friends like songwriter Tayla Parx for her soul-baring Thank U,…

National Music Publishers’ Association president/CEO David Israelite, among others. Songwriting is one of the most regulated businesses in the United States — mechanical royalties are set by the government — so its future depends not only on what happens in the studio, but in Washington as well. Last year, the industry united to lobby for the Music Modernization Act, which will set up an organization to collect and distribute mechanical royalties (among other provisions), though there’s now some disagreement over who will run it and how it will operate. At the center of this debate, and others, is publishing’s man in the capital. It took years to pass the MMA, and now there’s some question of who will run the Mechanical Licensing Collective the law calls for: the NMPA-backed…

ON A TUESDAY IN APRIL, LINDA MORAN did two things that were a little unusual: She didn’t respond to phone calls or emails for most of the day, and she spent that time talking about herself. To be clear, Moran enjoys talking — there are no short conversations with Linda Moran — but she doesn’t take naturally to putting herself at the center of her own stories. Moran, president/CEO of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, is one of the music industry’s first female power brokers, having risen through the ranks at Atlantic Records to become the first female executive at Warner Music Group in 1991. “I checked our records, and I see that Linda started working for our music group at Atlantic in 1970,” said Time Warner CEO Jerry…

NO. 1 Thomas Rhett Rhett tops the Artist 100 for a second total week as his new album, Center Point Road, launches atop the Billboard 200 with 76,000 equivalent album units earned, according to Nielsen Music (see page 80). AIRPLAY/STREAMING & SALES DATA COMPILED BY SOCIAL DATA COMPILED BY The week’s most popular artists across all genres, ranked by album and track sales as measured by Nielsen Music, radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen Music, streaming activity data from online music sources tracked by Nielsen Music and fan interaction on social networking sites as compiled by Next Big Sound. See Charts Legend on billboard.com/biz for complete rules and explanations. © 2019, Prometheus Global Media, LLC and Nielsen Music, Inc. All rights reserved.…

Diamonds Shines As John’s 20th Top 10 LP Elton John collects his 20th top 10 on the Billboard 200 as his greatest-hits package Diamonds vaults from No. 23 to No. 7. The album is basking in the glow of the recent release of Rocketman, the fantastical musical film based on John’s life, and earned nearly 32,000 equivalent album units (up 83%) in the week ending June 6, according to Nielsen Music. Rocketman, which was released in U.S. theaters on May 31, stars Taron Egerton, who sings a bevy of classic John tracks like “Bennie and the Jets,” “I’m Still Standing” and “Crocodile Rock.” While its soundtrack album (which moves 58-50 on the Billboard 200; 12,000 units; up 13%) largely consists of Egerton’s covers, Diamonds contains John’s originals. The Billboard…

‘Beer’ Breaks Through “Beer Never Broke My Heart” by Luke Combs (above) ascends to the Country Airplay top 10 (11-10) in its fifth week, up 4% to 22.8 million impressions. The song completes the quickest trip to the top 10 since September 2016, when Kenny Chesney’s “Setting the World on Fire” (featuring P!nk) also needed five frames. Brett Eldredge nets his eighth Hot Country Songs top 10 with “Love Someone” (11-9). The track rises 5-4 on Country Airplay (31.3 million, up 8%). Trisha Yearwood scores her best career debut on Country Airplay as “Every Girl in This Town” arrives at No. 21 (8.5 million). The song was released, and aided by hourly plays on participating iHeartMedia radio stations, on June 6. Yearwood tops her former highest start, set by…

Bad Bunny & Tainy’s ‘Callaíta’ Arrives Bad Bunny (above) logs his 14th top 10 on Hot Latin Songs as “Callaíta,” with Tainy, arrives at No. 8. It’s Tainy’s first chart entry. “Callaíta” earns Bad Bunny his highest debut in over five months, since “Solo de Mi” landed at No. 6 (Dec. 29, 2018). In between, he claimed 14 debuts — most of them from his album X 100PRE. “Callaíta” starts mainly on the strength of streaming activity and digital sales. It logged 7 million streams and sold 4,000 downloads in the week ending June 6, according to Nielsen Music. On the Tropical Albums chart, two tropical heavy hitters debut in the top 10 as Gilberto Santa Rosa and Juan Luis Guerra return with new albums. Santa Rosa notches his…

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…