Innholdsfortegnelse for January 25, 2020 i Billboard Magazine

THE NEW YEAR IS PICKING UP WHERE 2019 LEFT off on the Billboard Hot 100: with an artist reigning with a first career No. 1. Roddy Ricch’s “The Box” rules the chart for a second week, gaining 13% to score 77.2 million U.S. streams, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data, as it leads the Streaming Songs chart for a third week. The track rises 8-7 on Digital Song Sales, up 26% to 13,000 sold, and enters Radio Songs at No. 50, surging by 70% to 18.5 million all-format airplay audience impressions. The rapper, 21, is the first artist this year to top the Hot 100 with an initial No. 1 after a whopping 10 artists led the list for the first time (in lead roles) in 2019 (starting with Swae…

ANDREW YANG SANG along to Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo’s performance of “Say It Ain’t So” at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, in November. Days later, Jack White screamed the ironic White Stripes “Icky Thump” line “Why don’t you kick yourself out/You’re an immigrant too?” under a Bernie Sanders sign in Detroit. That same month, Ben Harper changed a line in the song “People Lead” to “When Pete takes the lead,” endorsing Pete Buttigieg. Every candidate in the Feb. 3 Iowa Democratic caucus knows pop stars have the ability to draw attention to their campaigns even more than movie stars or other celebrities. Yang has smartly used artists like Cuomo and Childish Gambino for this purpose; Sanders is better known, but his progressive politics align seamlessly with liberal…

LAST AUGUST, WHEN Chris Brown decided to release 10 new tracks, RCA Records decided not to make them available as a new album or collection. Instead, the label added them to the beginning of his June 2019 album, Indigo, and called the new, 42-song work Extended (Indigo). One of the new tracks, “Overtime,” drew 10 million Spotify plays, boosting the deluxe album from No. 13 to No. 6 on the Billboard 200. Artists tacking on bonus tracks to previously released albums is hardly new — Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Rod Stewart, Lady Gaga and others have done this for years, both for CDs and iTunes. But in the streaming world, the “deluxe album” has a new benefit of extending the life of a big release. Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts,” originally…

BETTER NOISE In 2006, Allen Kovac, CEO of management and marketing company 10th Street Entertainment, launched the label Eleven Seven, later signing Sixx:A.M., Hellyeah, Buckcherry and Dirty Heads. After 13 years, he consolidated the label’s three imprints — hard-rock-focused Eleven Seven Music, alt-leaning Five Seven Music and genre catch-all Better Noise Records — rebranding in late 2019 as Better Noise Music. “Allen noticed that major labels were giving up on rock, so we brought in established artists who had been dropped [like Mötley Crüe and Papa Roach] and started building up a catalog,” says COO Steve Kline, who has been with 10th Street since 2004. Adds Kovac, “The old days of having different label identities for different genres are over.” Says Kline, “For the past couple years, we have…

Isaac Hayes Shaft, 1971 “THEME FROM SHAFT” SONG-ORIGINAL FOR THE PICTURE … I would like to thank a lady who’s here with me tonight, because years ago her prayers kept my feet [on] the path of righteousness, and that’s my grandmother… [In] a few days [it will be] her 80th birthday and… this is her present from me… Carmine Coppola (co-winner with Nino Rota) The Godfather Part II, 1974 ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE … I want to thank my son Francis Ford Coppola [who directed The Godfather, Part II] … because without him I wouldn’t be here. However, if I wasn’t here, he wouldn’t be here either, right? Paul Williams (co-winner with Barbra Streisand) A Star Is Born, 1976 “EVERGREEN (LOVE THEME FROM A STAR IS BORN)” ORIGINAL SONG ……

In early 2019, Columbia Records chairman/CEO Ron Perry DM’d Lil Nas X on Instagram. The rising artist wasn’t responding to Columbia’s A&R team, but he quickly hit Perry back — he liked the look of his feed. By March, the rapper signed to the label. It’s one of the most striking recent examples of how social media, and Instagram in particular, has become an increasingly important tool for artists and executives alike. “Commenting on artist pages, you see Ron Perry do that all the time. You see [Columbia co-head of urban music] Phylicia Fant telling Lil Nas X he’s doing such a great job or giving him the heart-eyes [emoji],” says Fadia Kader, music partnerships manager at Instagram. “It’s building a different kind of relationship between the artist and…

The wallpaper behind Jody Gerson’s desk shows a pastoral landscape filled with a menagerie of wildlife — lions, elephants and the creatures Gerson immediately focuses in on, birds. “I see soaring,” she says. “I want to soar.” Gerson has been doing just that ever since she became chairman/CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group in January 2015, making her the first woman chairman of a major global music company, as well as the first woman to be named CEO of a major music publisher. Since she took over, UMPG’s revenue has grown by 40%, with annual revenue surpassing $1 billion for the first time at the end of 2018. The year since has been even brighter: Through the first three quarters of 2019, UMPG enjoyed a 12.6% increase to $910…

“It is a responsibility, but certainly not a burden, to bring talented, diverse people along.” —In an interview with Billboard shortly before taking the reins as Sony/ATV Music Publishing chairman/CEO, JON PLATT spoke about the need for more diversity and inclusion in the music industry. He then set an example, over the past year hiring three women for high-level positions: senior vp global human resources ELICIA FELIX-HUGHEY, senior vp broadcast and media rights CATHY MERENDA and senior vp corporate communications DANA BAXTER. And though women are woefully underrepresented in the songwriting and production ranks of the industry, according to the second investigation by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative (released in February 2019), there were some positive developments in the industry’s C-suites: In April, SYLVIA RHONE was…

Artist managers represent the largest percentage increase — from 7% to 14% — among the sectors represented on this year’s tally, including those working with the top 10 acts on Billboard’s year-end Top Artists chart. While executives who work at record labels or distributors, and those who work in the live sector account for half of the list (at 30% and 20%, respectively), the next largest group after management are the executives classified as multisector, who work in more than one area of an increasingly complex business.…

“I was in Munich in my undies and was intermittently crying for 24 hours,” says Yola, recalling last November, when she learned of her first-ever Grammy Award nominations. “There’s not many things that will bring me to a standstill, but that was definitely one of them.” The 36-year-old British singer is battling bronchitis when we meet in the lobby of her New York hotel one afternoon in December, but she still beams when discussing her four nominations — including nods for best new artist and best Americana album — that capped an already impressive year. In addition to releasing her debut album, Walk Through Fire, which The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach produced and released on his Easy Eye Sound label, Yola shared the stage with Mavis Staples and Dolly…

AFTER THE UNIVERSITY of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released its first study in January 2018 highlighting a stark lack of women in the music industry, artists and executives jumped into action. The Recording Academy added a task force on diversity and inclusion, Spotify launched the EQL Directory of women audio professionals, and Alicia Keys introduced the organization She Is the Music, which hosts all-female songwriting camps. (Billboard is also a partner.) Now, the initiative’s third annual study, funded by Spotify, reveals that those efforts and others are beginning to move the needle. “While these shifts are small, collective action takes place when multiple companies, in multiple positions of gatekeeping, take action,” the initiative’s founder/director, Dr. Stacy L. Smith, tells Billboard. “We’re starting to see change.” Among the findings:…

CHERYL KOH, AN ASPIRING singer and student at the University of Southern California, was selected from thousands of applicants to sing in Mandarin over the opening credits of the 2018 hit movie Crazy Rich Asians. Koh was stunned by what she saw as her big break — but then became stressed: She had only a week to review the recording contract and no money to hire an attorney. Koh’s music industry professor, Dr. Paul Young, pointed her in the direction of University of California, Los Angeles’ Music Industry Clinic (MIC), a new student-run service created by law professor and Azoff MSG Entertainment co-president Susan Genco, who designed it as an experiential complement to her lecture course. Koh applied for the clinic’s free legal services and within a week, a…

TWO YEARS AGO, KID CULTURE — A then 16-year-old producing prodigy from Seattle — created a bouncy beat with fellow producer Sasha Sitora. He later played the beat for Poo Bear, a frequent collaborator of Justin Bieber’s, during a trip to Los Angeles. “He loved it,” recalls Kid Culture today. “He played Justin my music, and he really loved it.” In October 2019, Bieber turned the beat into the foundation of “Yummy,” the sultry, R&B-flavored first single, released Jan. 3, off the highly anticipated followup to his 2015 album, Purpose. Following its release, the track became Bieber’s 17th Billboard Hot 100 top 10, debuting at No. 2 on the chart dated Jan. 18. Though Kid Culture (who prefers to keep his birth name a secret) has yet to meet…

SONGS Will 2020 finally be Diane Warren’s and Thomas Newman’s year? The veterans have earned their 11th and 15th respective Academy Award nominations without a previous win. Warren is vying for best original song for “I’m Standing With You” from Breakthrough (20th Century Fox), while Newman is nominated for best original score for best picture contender 1917 (Universal). They both face tough competition. Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s rousing “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from Rocketman (Paramount) is the best song front-runner following its Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Awards wins. If the song is triumphant, John would set a new record as the songwriter with the longest span of best original song Oscar wins: 26 years. (He won the 1994 award for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”…

IN LATE DECEMBER 2019, FOR the first time since Nielsen Music began electronically tracking music sales 29 years ago, vinyl albums surpassed 1 million copies in a single week. Among those most eager to capitalize on vinyl’s resurgence: the creators of film and TV scores and soundtracks. “There are fans who are score collectors and there are fans who are vinyl collectors. They’re both collectors’ markets,” says Brian McNelis, senior vp music and soundtracks at Lakeshore Entertainment. Lakeshore released seven scores and soundtracks on vinyl in 2015; last year, the number soared to 30. Film studios are now working to target this growing group of obsessive collectors with a flood of new vinyl offerings, even though they’ve stopped releasing as much film music on CDs. “Almost every soundtrack we…

—National Music Publishers’ Association president/CEO DAVID ISRAELITE reacting to Spotify’s March 2019 notice that it would appeal the Copyright Royalty Board’s decision to boost payments to songwriters and publishers by 44% between 2018 and 2022. It was one of three moves by the streaming service — with 113 million subscribers, the world’s largest — that riled the industry as it sought to reduce costs and approach profitability. In February, Spotify launched in India despite a legal injunction from Warner Music Group over songs published by WMG’s Warner Chappell (the two sides reached a deal this month). Spotify also filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission about the way its rival Apple sets and changes its app store practices. Spotify “is using its particular moment in the marketplace to…

“Artists don’t really have a seat at any table. Just the fact that we have a powerful group of people will scare everyone else to the table.” —IRVING AZOFF, who, in July 2019 — along with fellow talent managers CORAN CAPSHAW and JOHN SILVA; a group of artists that includes Don Henley, Dave Matthews, Maren Morris, Anderson. Paak and Meghan Trainor; and a number of industry executives and attorneys — formed the Music Artists Coalition to advocate for and protect artists’ rights. The organization hired Jack Quinn, former White House counsel under the Clinton administration, as its president; partnered with the RIAA and American Association of Independent Music to secure an amendment to California’s AB5 “gig economy” law affecting independent artists, songwriters and producers; and spoke out in support…

“I can’t play the guitar. I can’t write a song. But I can advocate very well for artists.” —Hipgnosis Songs Fund founder MERCK MERCURIADIS discussing his yearlong spree acquiring songwriter catalogs. The former manager of Elton John and Beyoncé, who deals directly with songwriters, has raised over $800 million to purchase the catalogs of Jack Antonoff, Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart, The-Dream, Timbaland and Snow Patrol keyboardist Johnny McDaid, who co-wrote “Shape of You” with Ed Sheeran, among other hits. Behind the scenes, executives in music publishing and the recorded-music industry express concern over how Hipgnosis, which went public in 2018, has driven up valuation multiples for songwriter catalogs, but Chic co-founder Nile Rodgers, who joined Hipgnosis’ advisory board (and is managed by Mercuriadis), offered a different perspective in an…

Melissa Ormond COO of festivals, AEG Presents In 2019, AEG Presents’ festival division had its biggest year yet, growing its portfolio into over 40 properties. Ormond, among the top women executives in the live-music business, helped drive that growth. Each of the AEG Presents festivals on sale for this year is already outperforming last year’s results, including Electric Forest in Michigan, the Hangout Music Festival in Alabama, the Buku Music + Art Project in Louisiana, the Buckeye Country Superfest in Ohio and the Stagecoach Festival in California, says Ormond. (Stagecoach in 2019 had its most successful year to date, drawing 80,000 fans, according to AEG Presents.) “We worked hard to refine each festival individually through talent, experience, branding, partnerships, etc.,” says Ormond. “The effort is paying off.” Alana Balden…

FINNEAS O’CONNELL’S down-to-earth presence — he apologizes for running precisely “four minutes late” to meet me at a Highland Park cafe in Los Angeles — contrasts with the high-octane year he’s had: He cowrote and produced the explosive debut album by his younger sister Billie Eilish’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, then joined her for a world tour. And it doesn’t seem things will quiet down for O’Connell anytime soon. He’s nominated for three Grammys (album, record and song of the year) alongside Eilish, and scored two major nods on his own: best engineered album, nonclassical and producer of the year, non-classical (for which, at 22, he’s the youngest solo nominee ever). Whether or not he collects a statue, O’Connell is building a profile in…

FEW INDIES KNOW THE Grammys like ATO Records, the label Dave Matthews and his manager Coran Capshaw co-founded in 2000. Throughout the 2010s, ATO became a dependable presence in categories large and small: It secured four wins and nine nominations (including best new artist in 2012 and album of the year in 2015) for bluesrockers Alabama Shakes and helped launch Brandi Carlile to critical acclaim and her first nomination in 2015. Now, as it celebrates its 20th anniversary, the New York-based label is having its most fruitful year yet for Grammy nominations: seven nods, spread among five acts and four genre categories. Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard is up for best rock song and best rock performance; eclectic retrosoul duo Black Pumas for best new artist; ’80s R&B romantic Emily…

ON THE EVE OF MUSIC’S biggest night — the 62nd Grammy Awards — the most compelling drama may be unfolding offstage as the Recording Academy’s new CEO, Deborah Dugan, now on leave, squares off with the organization’s old guard in a verbal battle royale — complete with high-powered lawyers — featuring allegations of harassment, conflicts of interest and financial impropriety. Dugan started just five months ago, replacing Neil Portnow (who had led the Recording Academy for 17 years), and many music industry executives believed she would modernize a stodgy institution, scrutinized for its glaring underrepresentation of women and artists of color accepting awards during the televised show and a secretive nomination process. Now the leadership — and future — of the academy has been thrown into question just as…

MIAMI — During his November 2019 concert in front of 45,000 fans in his hometown of Medellín, Colombia, J Balvin did something he never had before: He gave a political speech. “I understand the situation the youth in this country are going through,” said Balvin, speaking for over three minutes to the crowd at Atanasio Girardot Stadium. “If they’re marching, it’s because something is not right.” The show coincided with a week of national strikes in the country. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to demand an array of changes to President Ivan Duque’s social policies, from education to minimum wage to the implementation of a peace treaty with guerrillas and armed fighters. As fellow Colombian artists took a stand, fans began to pressure Balvin to…

IN JANUARY 2014, SELENA GOMEZ was in Park City, Utah, to promote her role in Rudderless at the Sundance Film Festival. At the time, she was looking for the next step in her career, after growing up as an actress on a series of Disney shows and releasing four albums on Hollywood Records. Through her co-star Billy Crudup, she met Aleen Keshishian, one of Hollywood’s most formidable talent managers, whose star clients include Jennifer Aniston, Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow and Paul Rudd. Three months later, Keshishian signed Gomez and within a year helped broker a new record deal with Interscope and shepherd the release of Revival, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and produced Gomez’s first three Mainstream Top 40 No. 1s. After a decade at…

BEFORE COMPOSER Ludwig Göransson even received his engraved Academy Award for winning best original score in 2019 for Black Panther, the win was already paying dividends. “The next day after the Oscars, I got the call from Christopher Nolan’s people saying that Chris wanted to hire him on his next movie, Tenet,” says Amos Newman, Göransson’s agent at WME. While receiving any award is good for the ego and the mantelpiece, the Oscar is seen as the pinnacle for composers — and most likely to yield the biggest financial payoff. “If you’re a recording artist and making records, a Grammy is your Oscar in a way, and it makes a difference in those careers,” says Laura Engel, a partner at Kraft-Engel Management who represents two-time Oscar recipient Alexandre Desplat…

Rob Stringer Chairman, Sony Music Group Dennis Kooker President, global digital business, Sony Music Entertainment Kevin Kelleher COO, Sony Music Entertainment Julie Swidler Executive vp business affairs/general counsel, Sony Music Entertainment Tom Mackay President, premium content, Sony Music Entertainment On Aug. 1, 2019, Stringer rose to the role of chairman of the newly created Sony Music Group, which comprises the recorded-music operations of Sony Music Entertainment as well as Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which is run by newly appointed chairman/CEO Jon Platt (see page 118). “The ‘one Sony’ concept is becoming a reality,” says Stringer, who detailed the company’s successes in a year-end letter to his staff. “Our creative and business strategy this year was as wide, dynamic and complex as any year in our history,” he wrote. As the…

Atlantic Records is No. 1 among the top 10 major labels of 2019, with a current market share of 12.12% that was driven by the success of Lizzo, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Kodak Black, Ed Sheeran and the continuing consumption of the soundtrack to The Greatest Showman, released in 2017. Interscope Geffen A&M, home to Billie Eilish, Selena Gomez and DaBaby, ranks at No. 2. Republic Records comes in at No. 3 thanks to Ariana Grande, the reunited Jonas Brothers and Post Malone, the top artist of 2019. Source: Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Current market share counts activity of music released in the last 18 months, or longer for albums that have remained in the top half of the Billboard 200, or songs that are still current at hit…

TANAYA TUCKER IS DANCING around her West Nashville home to her own music, an American Spirit cigarette in one hand and her 20-year-old daughter Laylas shoulder in the other. A few minutes ago, Tucker introduced the song playing as her masterpiece.Ž She fetched a small speaker and pulled her youngest child into a modified waltz as the tune played around the kitchen „ the only corner of her new house that feels particularly lived in. According to her 28-year-old son, Grayson, who also drifts in and out on this rainy December afternoon, hanging out around the counter like this is her favorite thing to do. Well, next to singing and watching horse racing. (Just dont offer her a mint julep: Tuckers a tequila girl, all the way.) around her…

EVERY DECEMBER, THE YEAR’S MOST dedicated road warriors reach the end of their touring cycles and wrap monthslong treks or pause ongoing runs for a holiday break. But while the biggest names in pop, rock, hip-hop and beyond enter the briefest of hibernations, Trans-Siberian Orchestra ramps it up — and rakes it in. Last year was no different, as the holiday-rock symphony ascends to the top of Billboard’s monthly Top Tours ranking with a $46.8 million December gross following a roughly $20 million warmup in November. The group played 69 shows and sold 705,863 tickets between Dec. 1 and 30, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. The overall $66.8 million haul makes 2019 a record year for Trans-Siberian Orchestra, marking the biggest gross of its 20-year touring career.…

DADDY YANKEE WAS only planning to perform four shows when he announced that he was bringing his Con Calma tour to the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot in San Juan in December. But after the Dec. 5-8 shows sold out in under an hour, Rafael Pina, Daddy Yankee’s manager and the producer of the reggaetón star’s hometown run, kept adding more shows throughout the month, eventually capping the run at a record-breaking 12 gigs — the most for any artist in the arena’s 15-year history. The 12 sold-out concerts ultimately attracted 162,000 people and brought in a $12 million gross for the venue. Coliseo GM Eduardo Cajina reflects on the record-breaking run and how the San Juan community is coping with the series of earthquakes that have…