Innholdsfortegnelse for November 7, 2020 i Billboard Magazine

ARIANA GRANDE EARNS HER FIFTH BILLBOARD HOT 100 NO. 1 with the arrival of “Positions.” She extends her record for the most chart-topping debuts on the tally as all five of her leaders have blasted in at the summit. She pulls further ahead of Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Drake and Travis Scott, each with three No. 1 starts. Grande also becomes the first artist with three such Hot 100 debuts in a single year as “Positions” joins “Rain on Me” (with Lady Gaga) and “Stuck With U” (with Bieber) as her three 2020 chart-topping entrants. “Positions,” which arrived Oct. 23 as the title track to Grande’s new album (released Oct. 30), premieres with 35.3 million U.S. streams, 19.9 million radio airplay audience impressions and 34,000 sold, according to Nielsen…

NATHAN APODACA’S cran-raspberry-sipping skateboard video, set to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” became a hit on TikTok soon after he posted it on Sept. 25 — but the 22-second clip didn’t really go viral until after the band’s managers and record label juiced it. Within days, the band shared the video on its Twitter account (“We love this!”) and its label, Warner Music, began paying social influencers to spread the word. Warner started with what Kevin Gore, president of global catalog for recorded music, calls “basic blocking and tackling”: hitting up radio stations and streaming services for airplay and playlist exposure. The label also hired the Nashville startup Songfluencer, which companies employ to pay social media influencers to “add a little kerosene to the fire,” says co-founder/CEO Johnny Cloherty. Soon,…

IN JANUARY, DARKROOM FOUNDER/CEO Justin Lubliner had what he calls “the best day of my life.” He attended the 62nd annual Grammys in Los Angeles, where his label’s star, 18-year-old Billie Eilish, was up for six awards. She went home with five and became only the second musician in the ceremony’s history to sweep the Big Four categories. “I was the craziest person in the crowd, screaming the entire time,” recalls Lubliner, 30. It was the culmination of years of hard work for Lubliner, who signed Eilish in partnership with Interscope in 2016 and has watched the “bad guy” singer become a next-generation icon: Her triple-platinum 2019 debut, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, was the first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 by an…

In January, Spirit Music Group signed a joint venture with Rudy Pérez, instantly aligning the independent publisher with one of the top figures in Latin music. Pérez, who assumed the title of Spirit Music Miami president, has composed over 300 No. 1 or top 10 songs for such artists as Beyoncé, Christina Aguilera, Luis Fonsi, Luis Miguel, Marco Antonio Solís, Marc Anthony and dozens more. Despite a schedule that already demanded his full attention, Billboard’s 2010 Producer of the Decade couldn’t resist joining Spirit. “Both [Spirit chairman] Jon Singer and I share an incredible passion for Latin music. We talked, and I said, ‘We should open up a branch of Spirit in Miami,’ ” says Pérez. “Jon’s hands-on involvement has given Latin songwriters an amazing home. We definitely…

LONDON — When the Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro started planning its 2021 concerts — set to begin April 11 at Liverpool’s Mountford Hall — lead singer Simon Neil suggested a title that suits the mood of Europe’s live sector: the Fingers Crossed Tour. Biffy’s six-city U.K. tour, with dates set for London, Bristol and Cambridge, is planned for the earliest that most promoters in the country — and elsewhere in Europe — expect to mount full-capacity shows. “We’re all adapting, readapting and trying to navigate [the] ever-changing landscape,” says Biffy Clyro manager Paul Craig. A second wave of COVID-19 outbreaks is forcing European promoters to postpone major tours to the latter half of 2021, and in some cases into 2022 — which could deal a devastating blow to…

SPIRIT MUSIC GROUP chairman Jon Singer and his team have a mantra: “250,000 song copyrights and a valuation of $1 billion.” As the company celebrates its 25th anniversary, it is on a solid path to reach those goals, due to a smart business plan bolstered by a 2019 recapitalization and buyout by Singer and Ross Cameron, the co-founding partner of Lyric Capital Group. The way forward combines expansion into emerging markets, with a continued focus on catalog acquisition. At a time when publishers are acquiring other companies, Singer, a former senior label executive at Island Records, Island Def Jam and Decca Label Group who has been at Spirit since 2011, says, “We decided we’re buyers, not sellers.” He and Cameron raised $350 million with private equity partners to form…

When songwriter-producer Frank Rogers was named CEO of Spirit Music Nashville in May 2019, he had already won five Country Music Association Awards, including album of the year for producing Brad Paisley’s 2005 release, Time Well Wasted. He has also produced/co-written No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart including Paisley’s “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song)” and Darius Rucker’s “This.” Rogers liked the way Spirit operated, and had already been in business with the publisher through its 2016 acquisition of his share of Sea Gayle Music and a joint venture that allowed him to bring writers to the company. “They have a global reach, yet this is still a small, independent publisher at its core,” says Rogers. “I want us to be pound for pound, writer…

SPOTIFY’S OCT. 29 third-quarter earnings call was full of good news. The service now reaches 320 million monthly users with 144 million paid subscribers (up from 299 million and 138 million in the previous quarter, respectively), and its advertising business “returned to growth” after a pandemic-related decline. “There’s a significant pent-up demand for Spotify around the world,” said co-founder/CEO Daniel Ek, “even in places where our service has yet to launch.” The rest of the month wasn’t so sunny. Two days earlier, podcaster Joe Rogan had right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his Spotify-exclusive podcast; Jones ranted about how Bill Gates was trafficking in vaccines that spread polio (which he’s not), angering Spotify staffers who had already spoken out about previous Rogan episodes that they considered transphobic. It’s a…

WHEN GUY MOOT AND CARIANNE Marshall took over as co-chairs and CEO and COO, respectively, of Warner Chappell Music in April 2019, they had one overarching goal: to reshape the publisher, which traces its history back to 1811, into a company with its sights set on a global future. So far though, the way forward has been more complicated than the two executives might have hoped, due to a pandemic that forced the company to operate remotely and will almost certainly cause public performance revenue to drop, a public offering for Warner Music and a nationwide reckoning over racial injustice that resonated particularly strongly in the music business. “It’s a bit like doing your job, but not living your job,” says Moot, referring to the endless Zoom video meetings…

When Joe starts a typical day in Los Angeles, at around 9:30 a.m., a wave of emails from his colleagues at Seoul-based media giant YG Entertainment awaits him. By the time his day winds down around 5 p.m., those same colleagues are just arriving at headquarters — which means calls, meetings and more emails. It’s not uncommon for him to stay plugged in past 11 p.m. “You need a balance in your life,” says Joe, 39, with a laugh. “The thing is, if I don’t talk to Korea during the evening, the day just goes away. Sometimes I need an approval, and if I don’t get it overnight, I can’t progress the next day.” The past few months have required plenty of late nights for Joe, who, by steering…

In 2017, Spirit Music Group expanded into the business of film and TV production music. To launch the service, Spirit purchased the production music division of Alan Ett Creative Group. Ett, 68, now serves as CEO of Spirit Production Music, which maintains a library of over 200,000 precleared tracks and 60 music catalogs serving all manner of visual media. Spirit Production Music has placed tracks in such films as Girls Trip and Despicable Me 3, TV series including This Is Us and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and advertising campaigns for General Motors and American Express. While the pandemic halted production on many film and TV projects, Ett says Spirit still found a way to blossom during the shutdown. “Reality shows with one host and a few contestants, training videos and vlogs…

Asked what distinguishes Spirit from its competitors, Rakesh Sanghvi uses an old boxing analogy. “Our whole ethos is about moving people up and developing writers to try and get them into a title fight. That’s what music publishing is supposed to be, but it’s having the time, ability and the mandate to go out and do that,” says the 53-year-old executive, who spent 15 years at Sony/ATV (including seven years running its U.K. division) before joining Spirit in 2015 as managing director of U.K./international of Spirit B-Unique. In April 2019, Sanghvi was upped to global president, responsible for overseeing all creative aspects of Spirit’s worldwide operations. Based in the company’s London office, he works closely with Borrino on strategy. “Every single deal goes through us,” says Sanghvi, adding that…