Innholdsfortegnelse for December 5, 2020 i Billboard Magazine

IN LATE 2017, singer-songwriter Jessie J flew to Changsha, China, with her then-manager Andrew Spalter to compete on the local reality TV competition Singer. Spalter soon realized that the show wouldn’t be Jessie J’s only challenge: The social media platforms he was used to, including Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, are blocked by the Chinese government. Spalter spent the next four months learning about Chinese social media and streaming services, which ultimately helped Jessie J earn viewers’ votes—and become the first international artist to win Singer. “We dove into it to build her presence from the ground up,” recalls Spalter. “That was the first time that I was like, ‘There is an opportunity in this market.’ ” A decade ago, China’s recorded-music business was dominated by piracy. Since then, technology…

BACK IN JUNE, DUA LIPA FOUND HERSELF IN a very strange place: in a London Airbnb on text chains with some of her musical heroes. It had been an eventful spring, to say the least. Her flat in the city had flooded, so she had decamped to a temporary rental. Her hotly anticipated second album, Future Nostalgia, had leaked, forcing her to move up its release date by a week. And the coronavirus pandemic threatened to upend not just her daily life but the months of work and planning she had put into the record. So you can imagine how she felt when Madonna and Missy Elliott started lighting up her phone. Lipa, 25, had asked them to join her on a revved-up new version of her song “Levitating”…

THE DAY A MULTIBILLION dollar industry stood still: That’s how June 2, 2020, will always be remembered by those in the music business, thanks to the fearless impulse of two young Black female executives. After Minneapolis police suffocated George Floyd in late May, protests against racial injustice erupted nationwide, and friends Brianna Agyemang, 32, and Jamila Thomas, 35, considered taking a day away from work to vent their own frustration and anger. Instead, the New York natives turned their proposed time off into a movement. Calling for a day of widespread reckoning — dubbed Blackout Tuesday by some supporters — Agyemang, who is the senior artist campaign manager at Apple’s Platoon division, and Thomas, the senior director of marketing at Atlantic Records, took the entire industry to task for…

LIFE GOES ON” BY SOUTH KOREA’S BTS enters at No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 with 152.5 million streams and 84,000 downloads sold globally in the week ending Nov. 26, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The streaming sum is the best in a single week since the chart launched in September, surpassing the weekly high for Blackpink’s “Lovesick Girls” (123.8 million, Oct. 17). BTS is the first act with three Global 200 No. 1s, following “Dynamite,” which reigned for three weeks, and Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo’s “Savage Love (Laxed — Siren Beat),” which led for a week, boosted by BTS remixes. No other act has more than one chart-topper so far. Meanwhile, Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber’s “Monster” scares up a No. 4 Global 200 debut, with…

Shaws’ Big ‘Little’ Move Mat & Savanna Shaw (above) return for a second total week atop the Emerging Artists chart as the Utah father-and-daughter duo’s Merry Little Christmas debuts at No. 1 on Classical Albums with 13,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. It’s the pair’s biggest unit total and second leader on the latter list — just a month after Picture This launched at No. 1. Plus, Ricky Montgomery enters Emerging Artists at No. 41 as his breakthrough song, “Line Without a Hook,” jumps 23-14 on Rock Streaming Songs, up 21% to 3.9 million U.S. streams. —XANDER ZELLNER CHART BEAT CAMPELL’S SIDE PROJECT DEBUTS The Dirty Knobs, fronted by Mike Campbell, longtime guitarist of Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, make…

Live Louis News Sparks Gain A livestream concert by Louis Tomlinson (above) is coming to readers’ screens, and news of the show vaults the One Direction member back onto the Social 50 at No. 7. Tomlinson’s Twitter account was mentioned 1 million times, up 547%, alongside 684,000 Twitter reactions (both in the week ending Nov. 26), according to Next Big Sound. After last tweeting Nov. 9, Tomlinson teased “exciting stuff” on Nov. 24, followed by the announcement of the concert, which is planned for Dec. 12. The show will benefit five different causes, including his own touring crew. Tomlinson returns to the Social 50’s top 10 for the first time since mid-September and for just the fifth time in 2020, following a year during which he released his debut…

HARDY Hoists ‘Beer’ To No. 1 HARDY (above) scores his first Country Airplay No. 1 as a recording artist as “One Beer” (featuring Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson) rises 3-1 with 33.1 million audience impressions, up 10%, in the week ending Nov. 29, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Alaina and Dawson earn their third and first No. 1, respectively. As a songwriter, HARDY adds his seventh Country Airplay leader and second in a row on the chart as the song supplants Morgan Wallen’s “More Than My Hometown” after a week on top. Wallen, meanwhile, becomes the first artist to have two titles simultaneously debut in the top 10 on the airplay-, sales- and streaming-based Hot Country Songs chart, with “Somebody’s Problem” at No. 3 and “Still Goin Down” at…

Uchis Goes Top 10 Sin Miedo (Del Amor y Otros Demonios), the sophomore album from Kali Uchis (above), surges 21-8 on Top Latin Albums, earning the Colombian her first top 10 on the chart. Her Spanish-language debut earns 7,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Nov. 26, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Uchis is the only female artist to score a top 10 on the tally in 2020 with a new album. Bad Bunny and Daddy Yankee’s “La Santa” jumps 5-1 on Latin Airplay with 11 million audience impressions (week ending Nov. 29, up 57%). It’s Daddy Yankee’s 22nd No. 1, breaking him out of a tie with Ozuna for the third-most leaders. Lastly, Bad Bunny’s El Ultimo Tour del Mundo arrives at No. 20 on Top Latin…

No. 40 ON BILLBOARD’S MAINSTREAM TOP 40 CHART Dixie D’Amelio had an unconventional senior year of high school. The month before attending a socially distant, outdoor graduation, the 19-year-old TikTok star was in the studio recording “Be Happy,” her debut single that raked in 3.1 million U.S. streams in its first week of release, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. She followed her younger sister Charli onto TikTok in October 2019 — and found a huge following. (She now has over 44 million.) Landing at No. 41 on Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart in July represented the first step in translating her viral fame into music stardom. At the top of 2020, the sisters signed a deal with UTA; around the same time, Dixie met with veteran songwriter, music executive and…

IN JULY, DARLENE LOVE celebrated her 79th birthday by taking a 7-mile walk across the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge in New York. She has always approached her career like an athlete in training — she kickboxes four times a week at 5:30 a.m. — and for the past 21 years, Love’s peak season has been Christmastime. Love has made roughly 80% of her annual touring income from her yearly Christmas trek alone, spreading holiday cheer with her 1963 classic “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” This year, the ongoing pandemic made her three-month outing impossible — but Love wasn’t going to miss it. Instead, she’s streaming directly into fans’ homes with her pretaped, pay-per-view Love for the Holidays show on Dec. 5; it will be available through Dec. 25.…

FROM South West London AGE 20 LABEL Transgressive Records FOUNDATION “I’ve always felt very connected to people,” says Arlo Parks (born Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho), whose habit of striking up conversations with strangers sometimes got her in trouble as a kid. As she recalls with a laugh, “I once went up to some woman in the supermarket when I was 3 and was like, ‘Why do you have wrinkles?’ ” At home, she poured her feelings into short stories and poems, inspired by Audre Lorde and Sylvia Plath. She was first motivated to turn her writing into music after listening to English singer King Krule’s debut album, 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, as a teenager: “It was very gritty and dark,” she says, “but I felt very moved by…

Veteran pop tunesmith Ali Tamposi — who has co-penned smashes for Kelly Clarkson, Camila Cabello and 5 Seconds of Summer, among others — admits it has taken time to feel comfortable writing over Zoom during the coronavirus pandemic. Now, while she’s thankful to be having inperson sessions again with close collaborator Andrew Watt (after everyone gets tested, of course), she says the adjustment taught her a valuable lesson: “The workload isn’t nearly as intense this year, but we’re starting to understand quality over quantity.” Since wrapping 2019 as BMI’s pop songwriter of the year honoree (an award she shared with Watt), Tamposi, 31, has used the pandemic to home in on a more select group of projects, including Creative Waves Foundation, a program she founded with her mother, Candy,…

ONE OF THE MOST ENDURING images of this year’s Super Bowl halftime show occurred just past the halfway mark: Jennifer Lopez hoisted herself above the ground, gripped a pole with her thighs and lay flat in the air, with only one hand holding on for support — a move that fans of her stripper-heist film, Hustlers, might know as “the tabletop.” Coming off of awards season buzz for her starring role in the 2019 movie, it seemed like the then-50-year-old multihyphenate was reminding the show’s estimated 103 million viewers that there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do. In reality, Lopez had only recently decided to stop worrying about others’ expectations. “It really came to fruition for me when I got snubbed for an Oscar” that January, she says. “Because it…

Desiree Perez EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR 2019 CEO, Roc Nation This was the year Roc Nation client Megan Thee Stallion claimed superstardom, at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Savage” (featuring Beyoncé) and as the featured artist on Cardi B’s “WAP,” which topped the Hot 100 for four weeks. Rostermates Lil Uzi Vert, Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey all reached new peaks. And Roc Nation, after partnering with the NFL to use its platform for entertainment and social justice, in February co-produced the Super Bowl halftime show with Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. Reprise: A Roc Nation Album raised funds for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Foundation for Criminal Justice, and JAY-Z successfully lobbied for passage of probation reform legislation in California. Through it all, says…

BTS’ Be Bows On Top BTS nets its second No. 1 album of 2020 on the Billboard 200, and fifth overall, as Be debuts at the peak with 242,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending Nov. 26, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Of that sum, 177,000 are album sales. The pop group topped the list earlier in 2020 with Map of the Soul: 7. Unlike many other high-selling albums that benefit from an array of formats and exclusive/limited editions, including previous BTS sets, Be was available in only two formats. It was issued as a standard digital album that cost about $9 and a deluxe CD package (containing such paper goods as a photobook and postcards) that sold for around $50. (Exact prices…

Eilish Sets Alt Record With her sixth top 10 on the Alternative airplay chart, Billie Eilish (above) takes sole possession of the most such hits by a solo woman or band with female lead vocals in the tally’s 32-year history. Her “Therefore I Am” leaps 15-9 in its third week on Alternative. It follows “Everything I Am,” which reigned for five weeks beginning in February, becoming her third No. 1 and tying her with Beck and Alanis Morissette for the most among soloists. Eilish exceeds the five top 10s each for five groups sporting female vocals: 10,000 Maniacs (all sung by Natalie Merchant), The B-52s (Katie Pierson and Cindy Wilson), Garbage (Shirley Manson), No Doubt (Gwen Stefani) and Paramore (Hayley Williams). The track also jumps 43-31 on the all-format…

Mann Ties Gospel Mark Tamela Mann (above) banks her record-tying seventh Gospel Airplay No. 1 as “Touch From You” ascends 3-1, up by 19% in plays in the week ending Nov. 29, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Mann, who last led with “Change Me” for 14 weeks beginning in July 2017, matches the No. 1 sums of James Fortune and Kirk Franklin, dating to the chart’s inception in March 2005. Plus, Cain notches its first Christian Airplay leader as debut single “Rise Up (Lazarus)” rises 2-1 with 7 million audience impressions. The Nashville-based sibling trio comprises Logan Cain, Madison Cain Johnson and Taylor Cain Matz. The song is the first rookie single to scale the summit since We the Kingdom’s “Holy Water” dominated for four weeks beginning in March.…

While making her debut solo album, Paris Jackson wasn’t concerned about flaunting her musical heritage. “It’s really just about the music itself,” says the 22-year-old singer-songwriter and daughter of Michael Jackson. “I’ve been writing for a really long time, and I wanted to get into the studio.” The end result is the recently released wilted, an ethereal concept record on “heartbreak, betrayal, grief and rebirth” that, says Jackson, “tells my journey.” She reveals who awoke her inner artist — and what she surrounded herself with in order to open up. MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA Jackson, who is a “massive fan” of the Atlanta indie-rock band, worked with frontman Andy Hull — her lifelong hero — to write, produce and record wilted. “Manchester Orchestra was the soundtrack to the most vital time…

AFROBEAT SINGER KELVYN BOY’S love of music started in church. His father sang in the choir and raised his son (born Kelvyn Brown) on gospel, reggae greats like Lucky Dube and country music, which Kelvyn Boy says shares many of the same chord progressions as church music. By 2010, when he was 19, he started performing genre-spanning covers at local Assin Fosu pubs and noticed how many people would approach him afterward to ask if he had his own music. “That was when I realized what I could do,” he recalls. Though Kelvyn Boy was eager to pursue a music career, his father encouraged him to finish his education first. “He was like, ‘You’re not going to get money. I did music and got nothing.’ But I knew what…

CRIS LACY WAS promoted in April 2019 to executive vp A&R at Warner Music Nashville, where half of her six-person team are women. Her younger self wouldn’t have believed it. When she started out in the male-dominated realm of the industry over two decades ago, “I felt like there was one spot in the A&R department for a female,” she recalls. “Once that spot was filled, that was it.” While the music industry as a whole in recent years has made progress in addressing its longstanding gender disparities, many female executives say that A&R — the fiercely competitive artists and repertoire department responsible for signing and developing acts — has been the slowest to become more inclusive, due as much to lingering stereotypes about the role as to its…

SHE IS THE MUSIC, THE nonprofit founded in 2018 with the goal of increasing the number of women working in the music industry, kicked off 2020 in March with a songwriting camp hosted by Cyndi Lauper. Then COVID-19 hit and decimated the job market, making SITM’s mission all the more challenging — and forcing executive director Michelle Arkuski to shift strategy. She spoke to Billboard about the organization’s evolving approach and the obstacles it’s still confronting. How has She Is the Music pivoted to serve its community during the pandemic? I’m most proud of our first virtual mentorship program over the summer, called Connect Together. We had artists like Syd, Big Freedia and Mickey Guyton paired with [mentees] from Guatemala, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia. We also did our…

Groban Finds Harmony In Top 10 Josh Groban nabs his 10th top 10 on the Album Sales chart as his new studio release, Harmony, debuts at No. 4 with 25,000 copies sold in the United States in the week ending Nov. 26, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Helping his first-week sales: a bevy of media appearances by Groban, including performances on ABC’s Good Morning America (Nov. 20), Live With Kelly and Ryan (Nov. 23), NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (Nov. 23) and his own livestream concert (Nov. 26). Plus, Target carried an exclusive CD edition of the album with enhanced packaging. Harmony was released Nov. 20, exactly 19 years after Groban’s self-titled debut was issued Nov. 20, 2001. It later became his first top 10 on Album…

AIRPLAY & SALES DATA COMPILED BY RADIO SONGS: THE WEEK’S MOST POPULAR SONGS, RANKED BY RADIO AIRPLAY AUDIENCE IMPRESSIONS AS MEASURED BY NIELSEN MUSIC/MRC DATA. 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/MRC DATA. 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/MRC DATA. 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…

‘Good’ And ‘Bad’ No. 1s Megan Thee Stallion (above) scoops up her first No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums as Good News begins with 100,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Nov. 26, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Ten of its tracks debut on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, led by “Body” at No. 4. The title starts with 22.5 million U.S. streams and enters atop the all-genre Streaming Songs and R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs charts, becoming the Houston rapper’s third No. 1 on both lists. Meanwhile, Usher’s “Bad Habits” jumps 4-1 on Adult R&B with a 21% boost in plays (week ending Nov. 29) — his sixth No. 1 and second this year after “Don’t Waste My Time” (featuring Ella Mai). The radio gains push “Habits” 11-9 on R&B/Hip-Hop…

Sigala., James Arthur Ascend Sigala. and James Arthur’s “Lasting Lover” lifts 2-1 on Dance/Mix Show Airplay. The track, co-written by Lewis Capaldi, is each artist’s first No. 1, with core dance spins at airplay leaders BPM (SiriusXM), WCPY Chicago and KMVQ-HD2 San Francisco, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. On Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, Cannons shoot to their first top 10 with “Fire for You” (11-10). The song by the Los Angeles trio earned 691,000 U.S. streams and sold 1,000 downloads in the tracking week. It also bullets at its best ranks on Alternative Airplay (No. 6) and Triple A (No. 29). —GORDON MURRAY SALES, AIRPLAY & STREAMING DATA COMPILED BY HOT DANCE/ELECTRONIC SONGS: THE WEEK’S MOST POPULAR CURRENT DANCE/ELECTRONIC SONGS, RANKED BY RADIO AIRPLAY AUDIENCE IMPRESSIONS AS MEASURED BY…