Innholdsfortegnelse for October 12, 2019 i Billboard Magazine

LIZZO EARNS HER SECOND TOP 40 HIT ON THE BILLBOARD Hot 100 — and it’s her second to take a scenic route to the tally. “Truth Hurts” reigns for a sixth week, up 2% to 122 million airplay audience impressions, 1% to 27.8 million U.S. streams and 19% to 30,000 sold, according to Nielsen Music. Meanwhile, “Good As Hell” surges 43-30, gaining by 50% to 24.1 million in radio reach, 10% to 11.4 million streams and 16% to 12,000 sold. “Truth” was originally released in September 2017, but received renewed attention thanks to a synch in the Netflix film Someone Great, which premiered in April. The song was subsequently added to the deluxe version of Lizzo’s 2019 LP, Cuz I Love You, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard…

THE FIRST STRAINS of Pharrell Williams’ 2015 single “Freedom” play on the stage of Cirque du Soleil’s new show Messi10, where a faceoff between two groups of performers begins. As jersey-clad teammates encourage the audience to clap to the music, three soccer players dribble and spin balls on a stage that revolves and rises, while four human jugglers mirror the freestylers’ moves — only instead of balls, the acrobats toss one another in the air. Messi10, based on the story of soccer superstar Lionel Messi, premieres on Oct. 10 in Barcelona, where Messi and his club team reign over popular culture, positioning Sony Music to score big as well. The country is also home to many Cirque fans — Spain is the Montréal-based troupe’s second-biggest market, after the United…

IN SEPTEMBER 2016, THE INDIE-FOLK act Bon Iver returned from a five-year break with a new album, 22, A Million, that reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200. But lead singer Justin Vernon saw the album’s success as a chance to do something bigger. During a tour stop in Sydney, the band asked fans for donations to benefit one of the largest local shelters for abused women in the area, Northern Beaches Women’s Shelter; by the end of the evening, it had raised $11,000. That overwhelming response led Bon Iver to launch the 2ABillion campaign, through which the group raises money for human-rights charities at every stop on a given tour. 2AB collects funds from online auctions for concert ticket packages, a portion of merch sales and on-site donations.…

During the first of the annual festival’s two weekends, all three closing acts delivered throwback sets. On Oct. 4, Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain” offered a prime opportunity for headbanging (especially during Slash’s iconic solo); on Oct. 5, The Cure welcomed a singalong to its euphoric classic “Friday I’m in Love”; and on Oct. 6, Mumford & Sons closed out the weekend with a 10-year anniversary celebration of their debut album, Sigh No More. During the latter’s set, frontman Marcus Mumford said he wished he could be there for Cardi B’s pyro-fueled performance (left), which was going on at the same time. He wasn’t the only artist struggling with FOMO. Earlier in the day, Kacey Musgraves told her crowd that they “better fuckin’ run” to catch Lizzo’s performance at…

Since releasing his debut album in 2015, Feid has collaborated with Sebastián Yatra, Nacho and J Balvin, with whom he co-wrote “Ginza.” The track topped the Hot Latin Songs chart for a then-record-breaking 22 weeks. In May, the 27-year-old singer-songwriter born Salomón Villada Hoyos in Medellín, Colombia, released his second album, 19. At 29, Dalex, born Pedro David Daleccio Torres, has bounced from Philadelphia to Puerto Rico to Orlando, Fla., to Miami. He started as part of the duo Jayma y Dalex — the pair released its only album, Gravedad, in 2015 — before going solo. His first LP, the R&B-leaning Climaxxx, arrived this May and debuted at No. 8 on the Latin Rhythm Albums chart. Born Justin Quiles in Connecticut, this 29-year-old Boricua artist has co-written with J…

Before Dom McLennon joined hip-hop boy band Brockhampton in 2015, he was a rising rapper who felt intimidated by the Connecticut recording studios he frequented, noticing that the more established an artist was the better treatment he or she received. But once the group recorded its acclaimed Saturation trilogy in its Los Angeles home studio, McLennon had an epiphany: A studio could be whatever he wanted it to be. Soon after, he decided to create his own space with a simple goal: to welcome emerging artists who might be great at making music in their bedrooms, but have little to no experience working in studios. “We just tried to create an environment that revolves around this idea of going to your friend’s house — but your friend’s house has…

FROM Detroit AGE 27 LABEL Republic Records REAL-LIFE HUSTLERS Born Arkeisha Knight, Kash Doll started writing rhymes in fifth grade, honing her freestyle skills on the ride to school. “I would tell everybody, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be famous, and all y’all are going to want to be my friend,’” says Doll. After graduating high school, she worked at local strip clubs to fund the start of her musical career, paying for studio time. Soon enough, she was booking gigs rapping at clubs, public schools and charity events. ONE OF A KIND In 2017, Doll’s self-released single “For Everybody” became a viral hit. “It changed my life,” she says, explaining that it let her hire a lawyer who got her out of a “terrible” contract, though…

IN THE SUMMER OF 2017, ROSALÍA — then a rising star in the tradition-bound world of flamenco — sat on a stool and, accompanied only by a guitarist, played an intimate acoustic set at a Madrid festival. At the time, she had attracted critics’ attention in Spain with her independently released, Universal-distributed debut album, Los Ángeles. The festival audience was small, but it included two big names in Latin music: singer-songwriter Bebe and her superstar friend Juanes, who was so impressed by Rosalía that he invited her to perform with him in Madrid later that year. He was far from her only fan: Rosalía was already talking to labels including Universal and Sony, and Sony Music Spain president José María Barbat was especially enthralled. “He called and said: ‘I…

Over the past 10 years, Puerto Rican singer songwriter Pedro Capó has built a steady career on the strength of his romantic lyrics and pop-rock sound. He has recorded soulful duets with the likes of Thalía and Kany García, and on 2017’s En Letra de Otro, he paid tribute to ’90s Latin classics — scoring both a No. 5 peak on the Top Latin Albums chart and an HBO Latino concert special. Then in October 2018, he released a remix of his song “Calma” that featured reggaetónero Farruko — and in the process landed his first-ever Billboard Hot 100 entry, peaking at No. 71 in May. He’s well aware that an assist from the world of urbano — the umbrella term for more rhythmic-leaning Latin music, including reggaeton and…

RECORD OF THE YEAR “PARECEN VIERNES” Marc Anthony “VERDADES AFILADAS” Andrés Calamaro “AHÍ AHÍ” Vicente García “NO TENGO NADA” Alejandro Sanz “QUERER MEJOR” Juanes featuring Alessia Cara “LA PLATA” Juanes featuring Lalo Ebratt “AUTE COUTURE” Rosalía “MI PERSONA FAVORITA” Alejandro Sanz & Camila Cabello “KITIPUN” Juan Luis Guerra 4.40 “COBARDE” Ximena Sariñana ALBUM OF THE YEAR VISCERAL Paula Arenas PARAÍSO ROAD GANG Rubén Blades CARGAR LA SUERTE Andrés Calamaro AGUSTÍN Fonseca VIDA Luis Fonsi EL MAL QUERER Rosalía #ELDISCO Alejandro Sanz ¿DÓNDE BAILARÁN LAS NIÑAS? Ximena Sariñana MAS DE MI Tony Succar FANTASÍA Sebastián Yatra SONG OF THE YEAR “CALMA” Pedro Capó “DESCONSTRUÇÃO” Tiago Iorc “EL PAÍS” Rubén Blades “KITIPUN” Juan Luis Guerra 4.40 “MI PERSONA FAVORITA” Alejandro Sanz & Camila Cabello “NO TENGO NADA” Alejandro Sanz “QUÉDATE” Kany…

NO. 7 WHISKEY MYERS The Texas band debuts at No. 7 on the Artist 100 as its self-titled fourth LP launches at No. 1 on Top Country Albums and Americana/Folk Albums, No. 2 on Top Rock Albums and No. 6 on the Billboard 200, all career-best ranks. The set starts with 42,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music, boosted by a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer tied to the group’s 2019 tour. 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 MYERS: KHRIS POAGE. GATES: MICHAEL…

A YEAR AGO, WHEN President Donald Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, publishers and streaming services agreed on how to build a mechanical licensing organization. Now they’re debating how much it’s going to cost. If digital service providers like Spotify and Amazon Music and the publisher-run Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) created by the MMA can’t reach an agreement on how much it will cost to build and operate the agency by Feb. 18, 2020, the two sides will head to a Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) fee-assessment proceeding. Both sides are now preparing for that, even as they adhere to a timeline constructed to help facilitate settlement negotiations. The MLC will officially begin operating on Jan. 1, 2021. In order to make that possible, the MLC board is requesting $37.25…

LONDON — When Imogen Heap announced that she was canceling a leg of her fall European tour due to the “extreme uncertainties of traveling throughout the [European Union], so soon after Brexit,” it brought attention to one of the most pressing issues facing the live-music business. The English singer-songwriter wasn’t the only one concerned. In the past few months, other touring acts have canceled or turned down bookings to ensure they don’t get stuck in the red-tape nightmare many Europeans are anticipating when the United Kingdom prepares to pull out of the EU on Oct. 31. “We have made sure our European acts are not booked into a U.K. tour in November and vice versa for the U.K. acts,” says Steven Braines, CEO of The Weird & The Wonderful,…

The Recording Academy held its annual District Advocate Day on Oct. 2, with events across the country uniting the music industry and members of Congress. From left: Record producer Harvey Mason Jr., the academy’s Qiana Conley, singer-songwriter Claudia Brant and Rep. Brad Sherman at the Los Angeles event, where Sherman presented the academy with an American flag.…

By the time Roger Gengo was 17, he already had founded the music blog Masked Gorilla — but he had his sights set on more. In June 2009, he tweeted: “I want to start up a record label, it’s been on my mind my whole life.” In the decade since, Gengo, now 28, has expanded Masked Gorilla to a concert series called Unmasked — a showcase of underground talent — and now, finally, a record label. In September, Masked Gorilla announced its joint venture with Warner Records to launch Masked Records, signing rapper 2KBABY as its first artist. “Our partnership is a logical next step, as Warner Records wants to be positioned with not only people who can identify talent, but people who can also relate to and help…

ON JIMMY EAT WORLD’S 2002 breakthrough hit, “The Middle,” frontman Jim Adkins sings of a teenage punk struggling to shut out the naysayers and fit in. Now, 18 years later, he has realized how close to home its storyline hits. Though the track helped the Arizona rockers emerge as stars of the early-2000s emopunk boom — they have since scored seven top 10 hits on Billboard’s Alternative chart — Adkins, now 43, struggled with how to handle success. But on the band’s 10th album, Survival — a collection of polished alt-rock pick-me-ups and feel-good collaborations out on RCA — he emerged mentally stronger than ever. “In a weird way, ‘The Middle’ sums up my entire philosophy now,” he says. “This idea — I could never express it properly back…

As founder/CEO of Cárdenas Marketing Network (CMN), Henry Cárdenas has long been the top independent Latin music promoter in the United States, the man behind a bevy of successful arena tours by megawatt stars like Marc Anthony, Chayanne, Daddy Yankee and, most recently, Maluma and Bad Bunny. But lately, Cárdenas, 63, has felt others rattling his cage. “We were fat and happy,” he says. “Then, everywhere I looked, there was Live Nation breathing down my neck. And that motivated me to get up and see what was happening.” What was happening was a flow of talent beyond the big superstars CMN had long promoted. So Cárdenas got to work, looking for emerging talent — and scooping it up before anyone else did. Cárdenas opened a booking arm at CMN…

GINGER BAKER, WHO died on Oct. 6 at age 80, is best known as the drummer in the late-’60s British rock band Cream, where he showed that a drummer could be a star, as well as a soloist. And after achieving a level of fame few drummers had at the time, he moved to Nigeria and played with Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, became a formidable polo player and earned a reputation as one of rock’s more cantankerous characters. Peter Baker — nicknamed Ginger for his red hair — grew up in South London, the son of a bricklayer who died in World War II. Baker started drumming as a teenager and in his early 20s began his career in Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, where he replaced future Rolling Stones…

Spotify is looking for a new executive to lead the teams and global strategy for editorial, programming, catalog, talent relations and more. (Nick Holmstén, who previously held the role, moved to an advisory position in September.) The new head of music will guide the streaming giant as it expands its global paying subscriber base. Spotify expects to have more than 1 billion paying subscribers by 2030, up from 108 million announced in July. REQUIREMENTS A background in music and technology is a must. Ideal candidates will have proven managerial skills and leadership experience because this role oversees more than 100 employees, a number of different teams and more than 5,000 Spotify-owned playlists. A flair for innovation is also key, as the global head of music is one of the…

ANYONE WHO HAS WATCHED A major Latin music awards show in the past 15 years has seen the work of either Francisco “Cisco” Suárez or Mary Black Suárez. They started their production careers in the early 1990s at rival Latin networks. In recent years, Mary has produced Telemundo’s live events, such as the Latin American Music Awards [Latin AMAs], and Cisco has produced Univision’s, including the Latin Grammys. In the age of cord-cutting, the networks face new challenges; Mary and Cisco have had to battle harder — and battle each other — for fewer eyeballs. But their business rivalry also has a romantic twist: Mary and Cisco have been married for over 30 years. The two producers first met at a TV summit in 1991. “I was going up…

Styling by Samantha Burkhart Michael Kors Collection dress, Piers Atkinson headpiece, Pleaser boots with Amy Shehab jewelry, Bvlgari earrings, ring and bracelet. When ROSALÍA WAS 16 YEARS OLD, SHE LOST her voice. She had been singing too much without proper technique, and she needed a vocal cord operation. “For a whole year, I was in rehabilitation, just listening to music,” she says. “I learned how to really listen.” The experience was formative for an artist who has become an international superstar thanks in part to her attention to detail, from the intricate sounds of her genre-bending productions to every shot of her avant-garde videos. To this day, Rosalía always carries her “little pad” or her phone, writing down “everything I’m going to do, my ideas, the next step,” she…

Freestyle battles are routine events in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, where fans regularly pour into the city’s plazas to watch the best MCs square off. In recent years, however, these showcases have become hotbeds of the country’s flourishing trap scene, which has produced a number of breakout artists vying for global attention. There’s Paulo Londra, the crackly-voiced rapper who is the most-streamed Argentine act on Spotify and has collaborated with Ed Sheeran; emo kid Cazzu, who has signed to indie label Rimas Entertainment, home to Puerto Rican sensation Bad Bunny; and Nicki Nicole, the 18-year-old who in August hit No. 3 on the Billboard Argentina Hot 100 with her track “BZRP Music Session, Vol. 13.” “This is exploding at an international level,” says Federico Lauría, head of Argentine…

IN 2000, THE INAUGURAL Latin Grammy Awards, held at Los Angeles’ Staples Center and broadcast on CBS, became the first bilingual TV show to air on a primetime network — and capped a pivotal year for Latin music on the main-stream pop charts, led by crossover stars Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez. It was “the best investment the academy ever made,” Michael Greene, then-president/CEO of The Recording Academy, told Billboard at the time. It was Greene, Rob Senn and Michael Melvoin of the academy who established The Latin Recording Academy in 1997, and by 2002, a board of trustees was in place. The Latin Recording Academy has since grown from roughly 1,500 members and four staffers to 3,500 members representing 36 countries and a full-time staff of 28, and…

“The Latin Grammys brought together the community of Miami in the midst of the controversy [in 2003] over Cuban visas. It’s that controversy that gave birth to the Latin Grammy street parties, which have reached millions of fans and produced 60 music festivals across the U.S. Why? Because the academy said, ‘We are community partners.’” NELSON ALBAREDA, CEO, Loud and Live “During Person of the Year Juan Gabriel’s performance in 2009, the world saw how he commanded the stage. The mariachi and dancers were an extension of himself as a songwriter, interpreter and representative of ranchera music. I have been a mariachi for many years, but when this guy did that it was like, ‘Hell, yeah. We’re not just restaurant musicians.’ It made me super proud.” CARLOS ALVAREZ, director…

Harrison Rules Rock Songwriters George Harrison (above) tops the Rock Songwriters chart, thanks to a pair of Beatles classics on the Hot Rock Songs ranking that he solely wrote: “Here Comes the Sun” reenters at No. 3, and “Something” debuts at No. 12. The tracks appear on the Fab Four’s Abbey Road, which zooms 71-3 on the Billboard 200 due to a reissue commemorating its 50th anniversary (see page 90). Meanwhile, DaBaby dominates the Hot 100 Songwriters chart for the first time, fueled by 18 titles on the Billboard Hot 100, including all 13 tracks from his album KIRK, which debuts in the penthouse on the Billboard 200. Louis Bell logs his 13th week atop Hot 100 Producers, powered by 11 production credits on the Hot 100. —XANDER ZELLNER…