Innholdsfortegnelse for November 16, 2019 i Billboard Magazine

MAROON 5 EARNS ITS 15TH BILLBOARD HOT 100 TOP 10 — OVER 15 years after its first such hit. “Memories” ascends 11-9 on the chart, with 57.7 million in airplay audience, 16.6 million U.S. streams and 18,000 sold in the tracking week, according to Nielsen Music. The Adam Levine-led band first appeared in the top tier with “This Love,” which reached No. 5 in April 2004. The act’s sum of 15 top 10s marks the most among groups or duos since then, ahead of runners-up The Black Eyed Peas, with nine. Next up in the category during that stretch: One Direction (six) and The Chainsmokers (five). “Memories” concurrently becomes Maroon 5’s record-extending 22nd top five hit on the Adult Top 40 airplay chart and its 21st top 10 on…

ALMOST EVERY ORGANIZATION ON THE publishing side of the music business supports changes to the consent decrees that regulate ASCAP and BMI, seeking more leverage to negotiate bigger payouts from streaming services. But they don’t agree on the details: Some publishers say ASCAP and BMI have begun voicing concerns about the National Music Publishers’ Association suggestion to the U.S. Department of Justice that the consent decrees be amended so publishers or songwriters can selectively withdraw rights for digital services, allowing them to negotiate direct deals with the likes of Spotify and Pandora. In an Oct. 28 letter sent to the DOJ that was signed by the three major publishers and many of the biggest indies, music publishers agreed with the NMPA’s request to be able to withdraw rights. The…

Los Angeles’ Dirty Honey isn’t the only emerging band with a sound that harks back to the riff-driven classic rock of the 1970s and ’80s — there’s blues-rock group DOROTHY, Arizona-bred The Black Moods and the Grammy Award-nominated Greta Van Fleet. Only Dirty Honey, though, has scored a No. 1 song at radio while remaining unsigned. The group became the first label-less act to top Billboard’s Mainstream Rock airplay chart in October with the Aerosmith-meets-Led Zeppelin track “When I’m Gone” — it garnered 172,000 streams that same week, according to Nielsen Music. Says Red Light Management’s Mark DiDia, who started managing the band in 2018: “When I heard that song, I flipped out. I thought it could be a No. 1 rock record.” DiDia and his handpicked team, along…

MULTIHYPHENATE CYNTHIA ERIVO brings famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman to life in Focus Features’ Harriet: along with playing the titular role, the 32-year-old British actress co-wrote and performed closing-credit anthem “Stand Up.” Erivo, already the recipient of a Tony, Emmy and Grammy, could become the third artist in three years to receive a nomination for acting as well as best original song for the same film, following Mary J. Blige for 2017’s Mudbound and Lady Gaga for 2018’s A Star Is Born. This had never happened prior to 2017. What responsibility did you feel to portray Harriet Tubman, and how did that inspire the writing of “Stand Up”? It was a huge responsibility, because you don’t see those kinds of movies at all — or very often. I wanted to…

DANIELLE DIEGO Executive vp/head of music, 20th Century Fox YEAR IN REVIEW Diego, who started at Fox 23 years ago, worked on Ford v Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit and Spies in Disguise, among other films this year. “The most rewarding part of the job is collaborating with incredible filmmakers to help them realize their musical vision, and ultimately, their film,” says Diego. “We get to be in the process from the predevelopment stage all the way to final delivery, so it’s a complete journey that ends with something tangible that we can be proud of.” FAVE 2019 SCORE Michael Giacchino’s Jojo Rabbit RANDY SPENDLOVE President of worldwide music and publishing, Paramount YEAR IN REVIEW Working on the music for Rocketman was “a long and complicated load,” but also exhilarating, says…

On the occasion of Billboard’s 125th anniversary, our charts team created an equally monumental ranking. Using a formula blending all titles tallied on both the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart (since its inception on Aug. 4, 1958) and the Billboard 200 albums chart (since it became a combined stereo/mono survey on Aug. 17, 1963), they assembled a list of music’s all-time top artists. Due to changes in chart methodology and title turnover rates, certain periods for each chart recap were weighted differently to ensure as equal a representation as possible among all eras. The result: a group of truly iconic acts whose achievements prove that the history of Billboard mirrors the history of pop music itself. 1 THE BEATLES 2 THE ROLLING STONES 3 ELTON JOHN 4 MARIAH CAREY…

IN THE BEGINNING, EVERY label was an indie. At the turn of the 20th century, as phonographs became household staples, companies like Columbia and Victor began slapping labels on the center of their shellac discs, marking the birth of the record label and the beginnings of the recorded music business. As technology evolved — Columbia introduced the 33 rpm LP in 1948, RCA Victor the 45 rpm in 1949 — the business grew into a global operation of superstar artists — and, eventually, executives — of all kinds. By the time rock’n’roll caught fire, the record industry was booming, with companies like EMI, Decca, RCA and Columbia snapping up smaller companies and launching genre-specific imprints, introducing the concept of the major label. And record label functions expanded: Content owners…

FOR NEARLY 70 YEARS after the passage of the Copyright Act of 1909 during the Tin Pan Alley era, music publishing was considered an arcane backwater of the music industry that dealt mainly in pennies. Beginning in 1986, publishing evolved into a multibillion-dollar sector that has the clout to get Congress to pass laws like the Music Modernization Act and fight for a bigger slice of the music dollar. From 1909 through 1977, every music format — piano rolls, shellac, tape or vinyl — paid a mechanical rate of 2 cents per song for each copy sold, while performance royalty rates were smothered by consent decrees that performing rights organizations (PROs) ASCAP and BMI first signed with the Department of Justice in 1941. It wasn’t until Jan. 1, 1978,…

OVER THE PAST century, music distribution has changed more dramatically than almost any other sector of the business. From an environment defined by limited dollars and shelf space, it has evolved into a business without gatekeepers, where virtual shelf space is unlimited and money only changes hands when music is consumed. In the early days of the music industry, though, the regional independent distribution network was king. During the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, record labels relied on regional distributors that covered geographic areas as large as four or five states to get their records into independent stores, local department-store chains and one stop wholesalers, which also sold to indie stores. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, distribution began to change drastically. Companies that would become major labels —…

STEVE MILLER CALLED it a “private boys’ club.” Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyoncé. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl. editor Evelyn McDonnell accused it of “the manhandling of rock’n’roll history.” And a critic for The Guardian said it should be “put out of its misery.” Such is the reputation of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But John Sykes, the Hall Foundation’s new chairman as of Jan. 1, 2020, says he plans to expand the foundation’s board “to better reflect the nominees we’re inducting.” Sykes, iHeartMedia’s president of entertainment enterprises, says he has invited two new people already to join a board that includes industry heavyweights like Eagles manager Irving Azoff, Live Nation Entertainment president/CEO Michael Rapino and Sony Music Entertainment CEO Rob Stringer. He’s taking over a…

IN 2007, VIJAY GUPTA WAS one of the youngest violinists to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but his path in music took an unexpected turn when he met Nathaniel Ayers — a Juilliard-trained double bassist whose crippling schizophrenia ended his professional career and left him homeless. Actor Jamie Foxx portrayed Ayers in the 2009 movie based on his harrowing life story, The Soloist. “[Nathaniel] had a more encyclopedic knowledge of music than my professors at Yale,” says Gupta. “This was his oxygen, this was his survival. A lot of people on Skid Row turned to self-medicating with drugs, but Nathaniel turned to music.” When Gupta would visit his unlikely new friend at his home on Skid Row — a mere 50 blocks from the Phil’s gleaming Disney Hall —…

BILLBOARD’S LIVE MUSIC SUMMIT AND AWARDS BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF., NOV. 5-6 Nearly 100 talent agents, promoters and chart-topping acts like deadmau5 and Hootie & The Blowfish discussed the most pressing issues facing artists and executives on the road at Billboard’s annual Live Music Summit and Awards. During panels, Woodstock ’69 co-founder Michael Lang took aim at investors for the failed Woodstock 50 festival, StubHub president Sukhinder Singh Cassidy talked about transparency in ticketing, and Goldenvoice president/CEO Paul Tollett looked back on Coachella’s history-making performances, like Beyoncé’s 2018 set as the festival’s first black female headliner. “These are all great memories; we’re just in search of the next one,” he said. At the Nov. 5 awards, P!nk, who became the first solo female artist to be named Legend of Live,…

WITHOUT SCORING ANY HITS of his own in 2019, 54-year-old rock icon Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails had his biggest impact on pop music since his mid-1990s heyday: 5 Seconds of Summer interpolated his band’s “Closer” for its Billboard Hot 100 hit “Easier”; Miley Cyrus radically reinterpreted NIN’s “Head Like a Hole” as the character Ashley O in sci-fi series Black Mirror; while Reznor and longtime collaborator Atticus Ross earned writer-producer credits on the longest-reigning Hot 100 No. 1 of all time when Lil Nas X sampled their “34 Ghosts IV” instrumental for “Old Town Road.” But Reznor isn’t coasting on the revival — he and Ross are releasing the score to the first season of HBO’s Watchmen adaptation as three albums, and they’ll score the upcoming Disney/Pixar…

HILDUR GUÐNADÓTTIR, 37, has been composing for almost two decades, but in the past year, she has risen to the highest ranks of film/TV composers. The Icelandic musician — who is now based in Berlin — won her first Primetime Emmy Award in September for scoring HBO’s Chernobyl; her first blockbuster film, Joker, has raked in $985 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo; and her cello-based score for the film is a strong candidate to receive an Academy Award nomination for best original score. How did you get hired for Joker? Todd [Phillips, the director] called me up and said he was working on a film and asked if I was interested in reading a script — I loved it, I really related to it. [Then] he asked…

IT HAS BEEN A PROLIFIC year for revered singer-songwriter-composer Randy Newman: He scored his fourth Toy Story installment, wrote two original songs for the Pixar animated franchise and composed the music for Noah Baumbach’s unsparing drama Marriage Story. The 20-time nominee, 75, has won two Academy Awards for best original song and is a strong contender for both best original song and score nominations at the upcoming Oscars. Marriage Story opens with two extremely long musical cues as Scarlett Johansson’s and Adam Driver’s characters talk about what they love about each other. Is that exhilarating or terrifying for a composer to set the tone? You can’t let it [scare you]. Animated pictures can be really terrifying because you’ll see a chase scene and people are really moving, and [you…

7.27.40 The first top 10 singles chart, Best Selling Retail Records, debuts with Tommy Dorsey’s “I’ll Never Smile Again” at No. 1 (with vocals by Frank Sinatra, above). 10.24.42 The first R&B chart, Harlem Hit Parade, is published. 1.8.44 The first country chart, Most Played Juke Box Folk Records, is published. 11.12.55 The Top 100 singles chart launches, with “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing” by The Four Aces (above) at No. 1. 3.24.56 The first regularly published weekly albums chart, Best Selling Popular Albums, debuts. 8.4.58 The Billboard Hot 100 launches, replacing the Top 100. The first No. 1: “Poor Little Fool” by Ricky Nelson (above). 6.7.75 Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy becomes the first LP to debut at No. 1 on the albums…

DIGITAL DATA TODAY DRIVES every aspect of the $19.1 billion global music business, in the torrent of information produced by music streaming, the insights offered by online ticket sales, the royalties earned by songwriters and publishers and more. Billboard’s annual Digital Power Players report highlights the work of those responsible for driving the success of the music business through the use of digital data. We’ve chosen executives from streaming services, music groups and record labels; distributors and music publishers; radio chains and social media platforms; promoters and booking agents; performing rights organizations and trade groups; and more. Whatever their industry sector, everyone involved in the music business is living through an era in which the speed of change is unprecedented. It was less than five years ago that IFPI,…

AS ONEREPUBLIC TOOK the stage at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside of Denver, giant monitors displayed what appeared to some fans to be too good to be true: a phone number for the band. “Hey it’s OneRepublic!” read the message sent to roughly 2,000 fans who tried texting the number that night in the sold-out, 9,500-seat venue. “This is an autotext to let you know we got your text. From now on it will be us. Make sure you click the link and add yourself to our contacts so we can text you back.” As a result, the band racked up contact information and locations for most of those attendees, to whom it can now sell concert tickets, merchandise and music directly by sending text messages to the specific…

IN 2002, BRAD SERLING received an unexpected call from a representative for Phish, inviting him to a meeting at the then-disbanded jam act’s barn in Burlington, Vt. A well-regarded tape head, Serling had founded the website Nugs.net in 1993 as a shared, free streaming site for jam band fans to trade recordings of live shows. When he arrived, the band and its managers told him the group was reuniting — and the members wanted him to help them launch a live-music site of their own. The result was Live Phish, which later merged into Nugs.net when the group broke up again in 2004. Today, Nugs.net offers over 30,000 hours of live music from top touring acts like Dead & Company, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Phish, Bruce Springsteen and Wilco through…

JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Streaming adoption has laid the foundation for Southeast Asia to emerge as Spotify’s fastest-growing region, according to the company. And among the places flashing the most potential is Indonesia, an almost all-digital music market with 270 million people that is growing despite lingering concerns about high levels of piracy. Indonesian artists’ songs have been streamed close to 10 billion times on Spotify since the service launched in the country in March 2016, according to Spotify data provided to Billboard. And more than most Asian countries, Indonesia — particularly its capital, Jakarta, with its more than 10 million people — exerts influence over musical taste beyond its borders. It is “home to a number of music streaming ‘trigger cities’ — cities that have an influence on global…

FOUR YEARS AFTER releasing her second solo album, Selena Gomez returned in October with a somber, bare-bones post-breakup song — and “Lose You to Love Me,” the lead single from her upcoming album, promptly became her first Hot 100 No. 1. It also started strong at pop radio, logging 38.8 million U.S. streams in the week ending Oct. 31, according to Nielsen Music. Gomez wrote the song in February with Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter — who co-wrote previous hits like “Hands to Myself” and “Bad Liar” with the pop star — as well as production duo Mattman & Robin. (Finneas, Billie Eilish’s brother, later added production work.) Michaels says they started writing “Love Me” on Valentine’s Day: “We were in the studio and all of us were not…

SCORE History could be made in the field of best original score when the nominations for the 92nd annual Academy Awards are announced Jan. 13: If both Pinar Toprak (Captain Marvel) and Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker) receive nods, it would be the first time that two female composers were nominated in the category in the same year. In addition to Captain Marvel, two other Marvel Cinematic Universe films are contenders for best original score nominations: Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Last year, Black Panther became the first MCU film to receive a nomination — and subsequent Oscar — for best original score. Ahead of the Oscars ceremony on Feb. 9, the members of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (which determines the…

RANDY NEWMAN IS THE ONLY songwriter in Academy Awards history to receive a nomination for best original song for three films from the same franchise. His tunes have been nominated for each of the first three Toy Story films — “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” (1995), “When She Loved Me” (1999) and 2010 winner “We Belong Together” — and he could extend his streak come Jan. 13, 2020, with a nomination for Toy Story 4, from which he has two eligible titles: “The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy” and “I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away.” Alan Menken and the teams of Elton John and Tim Rice, and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, are also vying for best original song nominations for their work on franchises that have…

1968 was quite a time for us: Otis Redding’s death in December [1967], Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s murder in April, the loss of our distribution relationship with Atlantic, along with all of the masters. We were having difficulty getting Otis played, even on black radio stations. Many of the black DJs said he was too ’Bama, too Southern, too bluesy. After the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, he stayed in Northern California for some time and started writing “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” Then he came back to Memphis, got with [guitarist] Steve Cropper and completed it. Jerry Wexler heard the song several days after Otis’ death [in a plane crash] and insisted it be released immediately. I know Otis would have been pleased by the reaction…

WHEN BUFFALO Bill Cody told big-city audiences that the live Western show they were watching included members of the Native American tribes that had defeated Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, he was usually exaggerating. But Cody knew that authenticity didn’t really matter in places like New York and London: If it looked real, the audience would enjoy the show. By the time he died in 1917, Cody’s shows had given way to dozens of competing touring productions, from rodeos to circuses to a new style of music known as jazz and stars like soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet. That pushed live entertainment indoors and led to the advent of dance halls, which began popping up nationwide in the early 20th century, followed by genre-based touring…

FROM “ROLLING IN THE DEEP” to “Shallow,” and “TiK ToK” to TikTok, Billboard’s charts in the 2010s reflected not only memorable musical moments, but the industry’s ever-evolving technological landscape. When the decade began, the Billboard 200 albums chart was based purely on weekly sales. In December 2014, as retail waned and streaming swelled, the survey switched to a hybrid methodology ranking multimetric consumption, as measured in equivalent album units (with units comprising traditional album sales, track-equivalent albums and streaming-equivalent albums). In early 2017, most genre album charts followed suit. Similarly, in 2010, the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart largely blended download sales and radio airplay. Streaming joined the list’s data feed on a widespread level in March 2012, and by late 2015, it became, on average, the Hot 100’s…