Innholdsfortegnelse for January 30, 2021 i Billboard Magazine

OLIVIA RODRIGO’S “DRIVERS LICENSE” PARKS AT NO. 1 ON the Billboard Hot 100 for a second week, after speeding in atop the tally a week earlier. Rodrigo’s first leader scored 59.7 million U.S. streams and 21.5 million radio airplay audience impressions and sold 27,000 downloads in its second frame, according to MRC Data. The track adds a second week at No. 1 on both the Streaming Songs and Digital Song Sales charts and enters Radio Songs at No. 36. It also revs 31-20 on Mainstream Top 40 and 37-24 on Adult Top 40. The 17-year-old singer-songwriter-actress initially broke through with roles on Disney Channel’s Bizaardvark in 2016 and Disney+’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series in 2019. Her background helped spark the song’s high profile, which has also…

AS THE MUSIC BUSINESS becomes more attractive to investors, it’s also becoming a magnet for alternative investment vehicles. And one of the most popular in the last two years is the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which provides a way for private companies to go public — and for individual investors to profit from that. Essentially, a SPAC is a shell company that goes public with the intention of buying a private firm. Its investors have the opportunity to get in early on a startup, which in turn can gain a public listing without the disclosure and regulatory requirements of a traditional initial public offering. And they’re becoming more popular: SPACs raised $78 billion in 2020, half of the total amount that went to IPOs in North America,…

LONDON — Amid a worsening coronavirus crisis, leading representatives of the British music industry hastily convened virtually on Jan. 20 with Oliver Dowden, U.K. secretary of state for culture, media and sport, to solve another looming problem: how Brexit and the recent European Union trade deal could keep U.K. artists from touring freely in countries like France and Spain — and European acts from doing the same in the United Kingdom. When live shows return, tours could face extra customs checks, higher costs and border delays — not to mention possible taxes on everything from T-shirts to vinyl. Crews and musicians could also need new work permits for shows in Europe. The end of decades of unrestricted movement across the 27 countries in the EU means red tape and…

THE MORE MUSIC YOU have in the world, the fuller it is,” declares Viola Davis as the title character in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Much of the music heard in the lauded Netflix adaptation of August Wilson’s 1985 Tony Award-nominated play about pioneering blues artist Rainey in the 1920s comes from acclaimed saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who scored the George C. Wolfe-directed film and produced the music Rainey and her band perform in the movie. Marsalis was in Australia working with the Australian Chamber Orchestra when Wolfe called to ask if he would work on the film. “I say, ‘I’d love to. When do you need it?’ ” recalls Marsalis. “He said, ‘We need to have finished music in three weeks.’ I said, ‘What the fuck?’ ” (While Marsalis had…

MINARI, THE MOVING TALE OF A Korean family that relocates to Arkansas to follow the father’s farming dream, won both the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize (in U.S. Dramatic) at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. The fictional drama, which is based loosely on elements from director-writer Lee Isaac Chung’s childhood, is now poised as a leading Academy Award contender, including for best original score. The film’s 35-year-old composer, Emile Mosseri, whose graceful, emotional score anchors the movie (he also wrote “Rain Song,” the end-title track), says that it’s a bit of a heady experience, given that his first theatrical score came only two years ago with 2019’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco. How did you get involved in Minari? I met Isaac at the Los Angeles…

Sony/ATV Music Publishing is the #1 global music publisher and home to the world’s best songwriters… from legends including The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Carole King, Queen and The Rolling Stones, to contemporary superstars such as Ed Sheeran, Beyoncé, Pharrell Williams, Lady Gaga, among many others. Headquartered in New York, the company also owns or administers history-making music catalogues including those from Jobete/Motown and Leiber & Stoller Sony/ATV Music Publishing can trace its roots back to the founding of Associated Television (ATV). ATV acquired Pye Records, which was one of the major record companies in the U.K., and later created ATV Music Publishing. ATV then acquired Northern Songs in 1968, which represented songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In 1985, the ATV catalogue was acquired by…

music groups Towalame Austin Executive vp philanthropy and social impact, Sony Music Group Jeff Walker Executive vp business and legal affairs, global digital business, Sony Music Entertainment Tiffany R. Warren Executive vp/chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sony Music Group “This past year has been dominated by extraordinary struggles,” says Walker of the collision of the pandemic, the fight for racial justice, natural disasters linked to climate change, gun violence and “a bitterly divided political sphere.” They “all demand our attention,” he says, and “they will continue to dominate the 2021 landscape.” Walker joined Sony colleagues in seeking the repeal of New York state’s Civil Rights Law Section 50-A, which shielded the public release of police disciplinary records. (In June, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill repealing the law.) Austin,…

NOT EVEN JENNIFER Lopez could liven up an empty Times Square this New Year’s Eve, when she headlined the annual ball drop for a handful of shivering crew members and front-line workers. The real party was online, where a parade of flashy pay-per-view livestream concerts rang in the new year around the world: Justin Bieber marked his first performance since 2017 with a Beverly Hills, Calif., show in partnership with T-Mobile; KISS broke two Guinness World Records by setting off $1 million worth of pyrotechnics in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and BTS headlined Big Hit Labels’ three-hour celebration in South Korea with guests Halsey and Lauv. It was a fitting way to cap the year that livestreaming transformed from a niche business to an essential, eight-figure industry amid the…

WHEN OLIVIA SHALHOUP TUNED IN to an online music-business conference in early April, she noticed that only two of the 20 panelists were women. Worse, their male peers interrupted them almost every time they spoke. Shalhoup, a former intern at Maverick Management subsidiary Jarjour and ICM Partners assistant, had joined the panel hoping for career advice. But it wasn’t very useful without the perspectives of women, who experience different challenges in an industry where they’re outnumbered in senior roles. Afterward, “I scoured the internet looking for female-centered panels and couldn’t find any,” says Shalhoup. “I thought to myself, ‘There must be other women looking for it, too.’” Later in April, Shalhoup launched Amethyst Collaborative, a first-of-its-kind series of online panels for women about different facets of the music business.…

THE FILM’S DIRECTOR, FISHER Stevens, called me. He had been working with someone else and needed to make a change. I knew I would be spending part of my summer on my family’s compound in South Carolina. I had just had quite a bit of work, and I hadn’t imagined that I would be scoring something at the moment because there were a lot of things that COVID-19 had knocked out of the water. I asked, “What are you hearing?” and he said, “Guitar and cello.” I watched the film and thought it would be a great palette. We had our spotting session outside in Brooklyn before I left for South Carolina. I like to go up in my hidy-hole, have that initial connection, then go do my work.…

Heavy-hitting task forces were assembled to tackle racial inequality amid a wave of national protests against police brutality, while music’s biggest companies committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the cause. Artists and their managers, agents and promoters — many of whom saw their income plummet in the pandemic — were forced to reinvent their businesses as they sought relief from organizations fighting to help the live industry survive. Through it all, music professionals marched in the streets, encouraged people to vote in a historic election, brainstormed solutions on virtual panels and mourned the loss of family, friends and music legends to COVID-19. In other words, it didn’t feel much like a year for congratulating music’s most powerful people on how powerful they still are. So instead of compiling…

On February 20th, Billboard will showcase the most in demand business managers whose financial expertise ensure their music industry clients invest (and spend) their money wisely. Making money in the music industry is hard enough for artists and executives which is why they turn to an elite few to help with financial profit and investment. As a result of the rise of branding deals and streaming services, the task of managing artist income has become more complicated than ever making the role of music business managers invaluable. Advertise in this issue and reach an elite group of influencers who guide their clients' financial fortunes and know a thing or two about how to invest their own money. CONTACTS Joe Maimone 201.301.5933 | joe.maimone@mrcentertainment.com Lee Ann Photoglo 615.376.7931 | laphotoglo@gmail.com…

Raleigh Music Group was founded in 2016 by industry veteran partners Peter Raleigh and Steven Storch. The company is headquartered in the heart of Times Square, NYC with offices in Los Angeles. In its first five years has experienced remarkable global growth and expansion. The boutique music publishing company attributes its success to its "client first" approach to music publishing - delivering a high touch, high service experience to a select roster of music publishing clients it represents. The company has benefitted from the support of Susan Aberbach, an owner of the Elvis Presley catalog and an early stage investor. Raleigh's client services are provided by A&R staff in NY and LA, a synch licensing team with strong relationships in the film/tv, advertising and gaming industries, and a first-class…

MINNEAPOLIS. Seattle. Atlanta. Guernsey? Most music executives probably don’t know much about the island, a 25-square-mile British Crown Dependency in the English Channel that’s best known for dairy cows and tax avoidance. But the way financial regulations there allow music publishing ventures to organize their assets and operations into separate companies has made it a surprising hot spot, and home to some prominent recent entrants in the business: Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited, Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Limited and Tailwind Acquisition Cor Well, sort of. Those companies don’t have real offices on the island, and their top executives aren’t among its 63,000 inhabitants. In fact, those executives are technically employed by the investment advisory firms that work with those companies: The Family (Music) Limited (which works with Hipgnosis), Round…

OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, as streaming runs out of room to grow, labels and publishers have been ramping up their efforts to license technology companies that use their content: Think Facebook, TikTok and now Twitch and Twitter. These efforts often involve taking services that operate under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — the 1998 law that offers online platforms limited “safe harbor” for users’ copyright infringement as long as they respond to takedown notices — and bringing them to the negotiating table with talk of business benefits, threats of legal action or some mix of the two. It’s a game that’s almost as old as online music itself. But Twitter won’t play, multiple sources close to the situation tell Billboard. So far, the company — which lets users…

SONGS Leslie Odom Jr. could be headed for two Academy Award nominations (best original song and best supporting actor) for his work in One Night in Miami, to go with the Tony and Grammy he won for Hamilton: An American Musical. Meanwhile, Diane Warren could land her 12th best original song nod. Those are just two of the storylines that are building during the approach of the 93rd annual Oscar nominations that will be announced March 15. The awards will be presented April 25. These are 25 top contenders for best original song based on the songwriters’ Oscar history, the buzz generated by their projects, early-indicator awards and nominations the films have received and, of course, the tunes themselves. (Songs are listed alphabetically by film title.) “Turntables” Janelle “Django…

ON FEB. 9, WHEN THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES REVEALS its shortlists in nine categories, there could be multiple composing teams in the running for best original score for the first time. Since the academy started revealing its shortlists in music categories in 2019, just two composing teams have been in the running: Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury for Annihilation (2018) and Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders for Ford v Ferrari (2019). In the run-up to the 93rd annual Academy Awards, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who won best original score 10 years ago for The Social Network, have two strong candidates for this year’s category. They are the only pair to win for best original score in the past 20 years. This year, these nine…

WHEN “(I’M GONNA) Love Me Again” from Rocketman won the Academy Award for best original song last year, it became the 20th honoree in that category that came from a film that didn’t receive any other Oscar nominations. While it’s hardly a shock that You Light Up My Life and Thank God It’s Friday didn’t get any love outside of the best original song category, it’s more surprising that such highly regarded films as The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dirty Dancing, 8 Mile and Once were otherwise snubbed. Following is a complete list of Oscar winners — shown in reverse chronological order — from films that didn’t receive any other nominations, with a bit of context for the most compelling situations. ▶ “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from…

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” asks the man in the pinstriped suit. “About me?” The conversation in question is, in fact, about a nearby Los Angeles recording studio. But much as the sun will rise in the east and set in the west and all roads lead to Rome, so too do all discussions among this group ultimately return to the man in the pinstripes. “Hi,” he says, reaching for a handshake. “I’m Abel.” Abel is Abel Tesfaye, a quiet charmer who makes small talk about his holiday plans, remembers my name and apologizes when, just once, he interrupts while I’m talking. Abel Tesfaye is also, of course, The Weeknd — the sometimes-brooding, always-intriguing, silk-voiced underground R&B golden child turned pop prince. In the suit, a fur-collared overcoat and…

IN A YEAR OF turmoil, music companies of all sizes reckoned with their roles in perpetuating historic biases and sought effective ways to transform corporate culture. But when it comes to moving the world forward on a personal level, the challenge can seem intimidatingly large: Where to start? And how to do so in a way that feels purposeful and personal? As Jordan Wolosky — COO/GM at AG Artists who works with Shawn Mendes’ charitable foundation — says, “Change doesn’t necessarily always have to be on a macro scale. It could be as simple as what kind of language you use in conversation.” He and other Change Agent honorees offer their advice on how to start making a difference in 2021, one step at a time. Do Your Research…

WHEN SUPER BOWL LV TAKES PLACE in Tampa, Fla., on Feb. 7, odds are one winner will be The Weeknd, who will headline the halftime show — and get the streaming and sales boost that comes with it. Compared with other big artist showcases like the Grammy Awards though, the Super Bowl hasn’t meant much to music for long: For decades, most halftime shows featured marching bands, with occasional appearances from crooners like Andy Williams or oddballs like magician Elvis Presto. Then, in 1993, a blockbuster Michael Jackson performance changed the game — plus drew 5 million more viewers than the main event. THEY GOT GAME In late 1985, Walter Payton and some Chicago Bears teammates released “The Super Bowl Shuffle” weeks before they went on to win the…