Innholdsfortegnelse for October 17, 2020 i Billboard Magazine

Lenny Waronker, Warner Bros. Records president from 1982 to 1994, was vp/head of A&R when Van Halen signed with the label in 1977. Ted [Templeman, Warner Brothers vp/staff producer,] was the driving force, and Mo [Ostin, Warner Records CEO,] had an enormous amount of respect for Ted, who could tell Eddie had a real gift. They signed Van Halen on the spot [after seeing them at the Starwood nightclub in West Hollywood]. When you sign an artist like Van Halen, what happens to the label — it’s a special thing. They got off to a quick start, and people started to realize they were cool. They weren’t just a rock band — they were beyond that. Eddie was special. As a person, you just felt good being around him.…

BARELY A YEAR after graduating from high school in May 2017, iann dior was living part time in a recording studio in his hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas. Recently fired from his job at UPS, he used the opportunity to go allin on his dream of making music, regularly posting songs to SoundCloud. “I wasn’t always the best in school, but I found myself interested in essays, just making up my own stories,” he says. “That really helped influence a lot of my songs — I wanted to put stories into music. So that’s how I got my jump.” One of his earliest tracks, “Where You At,” raked in tens of thousands of streams on SoundCloud and eventually found its way to Internet Money producer Touch of Trent, who…

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE pandemic shutdown in March, California rapper Saweetie was cooking a lot — and wondering when would be the right time to release music again. “You know the Spider-Man meme?” she asks, comparing the one where two or more Spider-Men point at one another to how she and other artists felt at the time. “It was like, ‘Who’s going to go?’ ” Two months prior, the 26-year-old was in a Hollywood studio preparing tracks for her upcoming debut album, Pretty Bitch Music. One day, she walked in wearing camo pants and a jersey, lit some vanilla candles, poured a drink and wrote what became the project’s lead single, “Tap In.” The bouncy hip-hop track, featuring a Bay Area beat produced by Dr. Luke that samples…

FROM Patterson, Calif. AGES 17-19 LABEL DEL Records FOUNDATION Pedro Tovar (18, lead vocalist and songwriter), his brother Brian (17, bass and bajoloche player) and friend Gabriel Hidalgo (19, harmony and background vocals) first started playing together as Eslabon Armado in 2019. The Tovar brothers kept running into Hidalgo, who was in another band at the time, at a handful of hometown tocadas (gigs), playing mostly weddings and quinceañeras. After learning that Hidalgo was familiar with their music, they asked him to join, and the trio soon started recording its 10-track debut album, last April’s Tu Veneno Mortal, in the Tovars’ home garage. DISCOVERY That same month, the rising regional Mexican trio signed a recording contract with DEL Records and, as a result, graduated from its makeshift studio. The…

“ALEGRIA, ALEGRIA” Caetano Veloso (1967) One of Brazil’s best-known singers and political activists, Veloso purposely wrote this upbeat tune about freedom in a rock’n’roll style, hoping to provoke Brazilian youth as a military dictatorship engulfed the country. Though Veloso’s use of electric guitars drew boos from a festival crowd, the song still became one of the most revered of the tropicália movement, and Veloso’s most popular in his five-decade career, with its urgent refrain about wanting “to keep living”: “Why not? Why not?” —ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO “MANIFIESTO” Víctor Jara (1974) The Chilean singer-songwriter and Communist activist wrote this hauntingly wistful folk song — a testament to his reason for becoming a revolutionary artist — just weeks before he was tortured and shot to death by soldiers of Augusto Pinochet in…

Today’s music distributors do far more than just that: Most also offer a suite of services, from marketing to synch licensing, through flexible contracts that allow artists to own their masters. That’s increasingly attractive to independent-minded acts in the Latin market, where these three companies — which are owned by and work in tandem with major-label groups — are driving hits for its biggest and fastest-rising stars. THE ORCHARD Founded in 1997 and acquired by Sony Music Entertainment in 2015, The Orchard was not only among the first digital distributors but also arguably the first to seriously invest in the Latin space. That began when it struck a deal with Argentine label EPSA Music in 2003, which brought label head Laura Tesoriero — now The Orchard’s vp Latin America…

Carlos Vives, the first Colombian artist to truly take his country’s traditional rhythms to the world, will be honored at the Billboard Latin Music Awards on Oct. 21 for his career of breaking musical boundaries and promoting music education. He has found a kindred spirit in Gustavo Dudamel, the dynamic music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic; a product of Venezuela’s El Sistema, which gives children the opportunity to learn an instrument and play in orchestras, the maestro has sparked a revolution of his own by bringing classical music together with jazz, rock, gospel and rap. “Dudamel has popularized something that’s very sophisticated, and I’ve sophisticated something very popular,” says Vives during the conversation. Dudamel, who has helped replicate El Sistema around the world, calls music “a…

MARK & BRIAN Mark Thompson, 64, and Brian Phelps, 61, were longtime morning hosts at KLOS (95.5) Los Angeles. At its peak, The Mark & Brian Show was syndicated to 21 other markets in the western United States. Presenter: Donny Osmond COKIE ROBERTS Roberts, who died in 2019 at age 75, was a political reporter and analyst for National Public Radio and ABC News. Her parents, Hale and Lindy Boggs, served in the U.S. House of Representatives for a combined 44 years. Acceptor: Rebecca Roberts, daughter ANGIE MARTINEZ Martinez, 49, is a radio/TV personality, rapper, actress and New York Times best-selling author. Her 20-plus-year tenure at hip-hop stations WQHT (Hot 97) and WWPR (Power 105.1) gave her the nickname “the Voice of New York.” Presenter: Salaam Remi THE BREAKFAST…

A Savage Week As “Savage Love” tops the Billboard Hot 100, 21 Savage and Metro Boomin’s third collaborative album, Savage Mode II, debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Of Savage Mode II’s 171,000 units earned in the tracking week ending Oct. 8, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data, streaming-equivalent album units comprise 148,000 (equaling 200.1 million on-demand streams of the title’s songs), album sales total 22,000 (helped in part by merchandise/album bundles) and track-equivalent album units comprise 1,000. The album launches with the biggest week in terms of overall units earned for either artist. Savage Mode II marks the fourth top 10 for 21 Savage, and second No. 1, following I Am > I Was (No. 1 in 2019), Without Warning (a collaborative set credited to 21 Savage,…

What initially stood out to you about iann dior? It’s difficult for an artist to be able to say early, “This is who I am, and this is what I want to be.” Iann dior had a very clear vision: He knew the sort of music that he wanted to record, and he knew the beats he wanted to cut on. He’s a complete star. Why do you think that he’s a good fit for 10K Projects? I look at it the other way around: Why can 10K be a good fit for the artist? We’re independent. We don’t cater to 70-80 artists to convince them they’re [all] a No. 1 priority. For iann dior in particular, it was a grassroots digital marketing exercise through SoundCloud. When we…

LAST OCTOBER, MALUMA WAS in the middle of a sold-out show at New York’s Madison Square Garden when he brought out a surprise guest: hometown hero Jennifer Lopez, who looked quite literally like the queen of the city in a spiky golden gown and headpiece that matched Maluma’s glittery blazer. They duetted on “No Me Ames,” a song from her first album — a meeting of two Latin superstars at the height of their powers. Maluma was touring in support of 11:11, his third consecutive No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart, while Lopez had completed her own arena tour earlier that year — her first trek since her blockbuster Las Vegas residency launched in 2016. Fans with camera phones in hand weren’t the only ones recording the…

In 2017, “Despacito,” from Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee (with a remix featuring Justin Bieber), ushered in a new era of global mainstream hits by Latin artists. Three years later, Universal Music Latin can point to success in the United States and around the world with artists like Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Karol G and Christian Nodal. And non-Latin stars are eager to collaborate and claim chart-toppers with them. “Everything started with ‘Despacito,’ ” says Jesús López, chairman/CEO of Universal Music Latin America & Iberian Peninsula, whose roster includes 700 artists. “I feel I truly have a seat at the table, with the same plate as my Interscope colleague, for example. And the full backing of [Universal Music Group chairman/CEO] Lucian Grainge, who serves the dinner.” Massive streaming numbers…

One day while attending the University of Southern California on an academic scholarship, 24kGoldn interrupted his professor during class to announce that he was leaving the school. A year later, the 19-year-old San Francisco native has no regrets, especially after his breakout hit, “Mood,” featuring iann dior and released in July, hit the Billboard Hot 100’s top five. After reading a story on DJBooth in May 2018 about how critics unfairly dismiss SoundCloud rappers, 24kGoldn decided to contact the story’s writer on Twitter, offering to send his own music for consideration. The writer listened and soon after praised him in a DJBooth post that caught the eye of hip-hop producer D.A. Doman, who then reached out to 24kGoldn and asked to hear more. 24kGoldn sent “Valentino,” which Doman immediately…

BLACKPINK’S “LOVESICK GIRLS” lands at No. 1 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart and No. 2 on the Billboard Global 200. The track, sung in English and Korean, drew 123.8 million streams and sold 26,000 downloads globally in the week ending Oct. 8 (with 114 million streams and 17,000 sold in territories outside the United States), according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The song is from the group’s debut full-length, The Album. All eight of the set’s tracks rank in the top half of both tallies, with five infusing the Global Excl. U.S. top 20. Notably, over the Global Excl. U.S. chart’s first five weeks, acts from outside the States have monopolized the top spot. South Korean groups have spent the four most recent frames at No. 1, thanks…

COPYRIGHT PROTECTION “While there is no shortage of issues that differentiate Trump and Biden, music is generally not one of them,” says Daryl Friedman, chief advocacy officer for the Recording Academy. “Both candidates have a record of pro-music politics and accomplishments.” The most important policy issue in the music business right now is copyright, which both tickets have been strong on. President Donald Trump has a reputation for taking a transactional approach to intellectual property issues in treaties, but Vice President Mike Pence has been what one music lobbyist calls a “go-to back channel” for issues that affect creators and rights holders. Pence has been “incredibly supportive of creators’ rights,” according to RIAA chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who for eight years served as chairman of…

COLOMBIAN SINGER-songwriter Camilo, 26, first started using TikTok in 2019 to promote his Pedro Capóassisted single “Tutu.” But in March, following the release of his track “Favorito,” he decided to become more active on the platform — and go all-in on dance challenges. In the span of five months over the course of the ongoing pandemic, Camilo increased his TikTok following by 10 million (his count jumped from 6 million to just over 16 million), surpassing J Balvin to become the most-followed Latin artist on the app. His secret weapon? His wife, actress-singer Evaluna, 23. “Whenever he has an idea or before he posts something, he asks for my opinion,” she says. “Everything posted on TikTok is a team effort.” She says that they usually plan a dance challenge…

Sony Music Latin’s extraordinarily successful 2020 began with the groundbreaking Super Bowl LIV halftime performance by Sony Latin artist Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, who releases her Spanish-language music through Sony. “These two women marked a historic moment,” says Afo Verde, chairman/CEO of Sony Music Latin Iberia. “It was absolutely outstanding for us as a team.” In another milestone, “Hawái” from Sony Latin artist Maluma became the first song to top Billboard’s newly launched Global Excl. U.S. chart in September, which “highlighted the power and muscle of both Latin music and the company,” says Alex Gallardo, president of Sony Music U.S. Latin. New albums by Anuel AA, Ozuna, Maluma and Camilo — all released during the pandemic — have further highlighted Sony’s ability to take local and regional music global.…

“Artists And The Vote” BECKY G and LOS TIGRES DEL NORTE They represent different generations and genres, but the 23-year-old singer and the veteran regional Mexican group are both dedicated to telling immigrants’ stories as well as advocating for their voting rights. “I take the responsibility of being an American and having the right to vote very seriously,” says Becky G, the daughter of Mexican immigrants. “My abuelitos went through a lot to get to this country and become citizens so that their children and grandchildren could have a better future.” Adds Los Tigres lead singer Jorge Hernández (pictured): “It is extremely important to represent the Latino community with my vote. Any of us who has the right to vote but does not is continuing the belief that our…