Innholdsfortegnelse for April 24, 2021 i Billboard Magazine

THE LIVE BUSINESS has a new champion: Bad Bunny. His 35-date North American El Último Tour del Mundo sold over 480,000 tickets at presale and more after for a total of $84 million in under a week after going on sale April 15, according to promoter Henry Cárdenas — Ticketmaster’s fastest-moving series of shows since Beyoncé and JAY-Z’s 2018 On the Run II Tour — kick-starting a concert business that has been closed for over a year. The Latin star brought in an average of $2.4 million per show (in 2019, only Metallica’s WorldWired tour had a higher per-show average), with most tickets priced at a face value of $240. Now tickets are selling for an average of 10-times face value on the resale market, higher than any tour…

FROM Horten, Norway AGE 22 LABEL AWAL FOUNDATION The singer-songwriter born Marie Ulven grew up loving The Smiths, The Shins and David Bowie but always thought she would be a teacher. Yet once her grandfather gifted her a guitar for her 13th birthday, she thought, “‘I want to pursue music, but if I pursue music, will I be poor forever?’ I knew it would be hard, but I decided to go down that path.” By 16, Ulven — who was then experimenting with pseudonyms like Lydia X and Lyfsuxx — was uploading original songs to SoundCloud and quickly gaining traction for her lovelorn, queer-coded songwriting. DISCOVERY In early 2018, Ulven’s single “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” had captured the attention of millions of listeners thanks to its front-facing, explicitly…

AS A FORMER LAWYER who rose to become GM of the global music group at UTA, Nastaskin never planned to make the jump to publishing. But when Larry Mestel was looking for a chief content officer last year — and secretly hoping she would be interested in the role — Nastaskin saw an opportunity to leverage her network and further tap into her creative skills. “It really enables me to ideate, create and execute deals around legendary [intellectual property], but with contemporary players,” says Nastaskin, who took on the newly created position in February. In her role, she will create content around Primary Wave’s catalog in areas such as TV, film and podcasts. “There’s nothing we’re not looking at right now,” she says, including non-fungible tokens and international markets.…

Elena Rose dressed up as Jennifer Lopez for Halloween at 8 years old and told her mother: “I want to be a singer, and one day J.Lo will know who I am.” Seventeen years later, the songwriter (born Andrea Elena Mangiamarchi) co-wrote the Lopez-Maluma hit “Pa’ Ti” (alongside Edgar Barrera) that peaked at No. 9 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart in October. Since, the 26-year-old has landed work with Selena Gomez and Marc Anthony while focusing on her upcoming solo project. The album includes R&B-tinged pop singles like “Fenomenal” and “La Ducha” that were released last year, while the more experimental track “Pimienta” will arrive April 23. Rose, who cites writing Becky G’s 2019 hit “Dollar” as her big break, says that her collaborators “have taught me how…

EMILY WARREN WAS FREAKING out. Back in 2012, the now Grammy Award-nominated songwriter was a student at New York University trying to get ahead in the music industry when a management deal fell apart. “I was distraught that I was missing my chance and was never going to have an opportunity,” she says. Scouring her inbox for promising contacts, she found an email from an Atlantic Records A&R assistant named Rhea Pasricha, who had once come to see Warren’s high school band perform and exchanged a few messages with her. Desperate to reconnect, Warren sent her a few songs she had been working on. It was fortuitous timing: Pasricha was about to start a new job at Prescription Songs, the independent publishing company launched in 2009 by songwriter-producer Lukasz…

AFORMER MARKETING executive at Island Def Jam, Virgin Records and Arista Records, Lowenberg joined Primary Wave in 2008 and steers innovative marketing campaigns. He says he’s guided by one mantra: “We always want to be the first to do something.” That stretches back to 2009, when Lowenberg brainstormed the first-ever artist-branded scratch-off lottery tickets for Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, which were promoted with a national commercial using the band’s hit “Dream On.” Fans could win prizes like free concert tickets, backstage passes and even a private performance by the group. “The [Kurt Cobain] Converse deal that Justin Shukat did and this Aerosmith deal enabled us to have two major proofs of concept,” says Lowenberg. When the first four weeks of the pandemic fueled a 23% rise in global streams of…

ARTISTS WORLDWIDE CREATE music to delight and inspire their fans. But they also need to get paid, whether through performance royalties (for songwriters and music publishers), mechanical royalties (for owners of sound-recording copyrights), digital performance royalties (paid in the United States by noninteractive digital streaming services) or neighboring rights royalties (earned outside the United States from the public performance of a master recording). Who can keep track? In the world’s top 10 markets as ranked by IFPI, these are the leading rights-collection organizations. Most are commonly identified by the widely used acronyms for their full names. 1. United States ASCAP BMI SESAC Global Music Rights HFA MLC SoundExchange 2. Japan JASRAC CPRA/Geindankyo 3. United Kingdom PRS for Music (including PPL and MCPS) 4. Germany GEMA…

WHILE THE PANDEMIC HAS ALL but shut down the live-music industry since March 2020, these are the companies that will lead the concert promotion business when touring returns, as ranked by Billboard Boxscore with data from Nov. 1, 2019, through Jan. 30, 2021. 1 Live Nation 2 AEG Presents 3 MSG Entertainment 4 OCESA-CIE 5 TEG Dainty/TEG Live/TEG MJR 6 Semmel Concerts 7 Cardenas Marketing Network 8 Caesars Entertainment 9 MGM Resorts International 10 SJM Concerts 11 Gelb Productions 12 FKP Scorpio Konzertproduktionen 13 André Rieu Productions 14 Jam Productions 15 CID Entertainment 16 Insomniac 17 evenko 18 Another Planet Entertainment 19 Phil McIntyre Entertainments 20 iHeartMedia…

EUGENE “GENE” SMITH, the charismatic advertising executive who during nearly four decades at Billboard was instrumental in building the brand’s Latin and international businesses, died April 17 of cardiac arrest. He was 88. A gregarious figure, immediately recognizable for his impeccable fashion style and shock of white hair, Smith sold ads for Billboard until the week of his death. Smith began his run at Billboard in 1985 as associate publisher and directories publisher but is best known for his role as managing director of Latin. Although he wasn’t Latin and barely spoke Spanish, Smith co-founded the long-running Billboard Latin Music Conference and Awards, the brand’s longest-running event. “Gene Smith,” says concert promoter Phil Rodriguez, “was, unquestionably, one of the good guys in our business.” “He will be missed.”…

IT WASN’T LONG AFTER the release of Porter Robinson’s lauded 2014 debut full-length, Worlds, that he convinced himself he would no longer be able to make music. The album had hit No. 18 on the Billboard 200, debuted at No. 1 on Dance/Electronic Albums and established Robinson, then 22, as a pioneer of a fresh, smart style of electronic music made for kids raised on the internet and anime. The pressure to make an equally innovative follow-up was crippling. By 2016, Robinson had been working on a new album for two years and had maybe two ideas to show for it. Thinking that he just wasn’t working hard enough, he cut out everything in his life that didn’t have to do with music — friends, fun, life experiences that…

IN 2019, GIVEON AND HIS longtime producer, Sevn Thomas, and a friend walked into a sports bar to watch a Toronto Raptors game when the friend spotted a reminder of his ex-girlfriend. The three were all going through breakups at the time, and after the game Giveon and Thomas decided to use that as inspiration in the studio. “That’s when the whole ‘Heartbreak Anniversary’ idea came about,” says Thomas. At the studio, the two began reflecting on their own heartbreak. “It was almost like a therapy session,” recalls Thomas. “We let our guard down completely with each other and just talked about real-life situations.” The sessions resulted in Take Time, Giveon’s 2020 debut EP on Epic Records. “I had just left a [five-year] relationship while working on this project,”…

IN MARCH, PRIMARY WAVE MUSIC FOUNDER/CEO Larry Mestel visited his office at the independent publishing company’s headquarters in New York’s Gramercy Park neighborhood for the first time in nearly a year. The Brooklyn native had been waiting out the pandemic at his vacation home in Vermont, but he had good reason for making the 200-plus-mile trek. Mestel was meeting the manager of an iconic singer-songwriter and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee to discuss a catalog acquisition — one of 33 deals he currently has in motion. In the 15 years since Mestel founded Primary Wave, it has amassed a 20,000-song catalog that contains the copyrights to works by Smokey Robinson, Aerosmith, Bob Marley, Whitney Houston, Burt Bacharach, Paul Anka, Prince and Hall & Oates. With outposts in…

ANYONE WHO KNOWS SHUKAT knows that he loves to talk. Thankfully, it’s a skill crucial to his work at Primary Wave, where he is responsible for new writer signings, content acquisitions and facilitating recordings. “It all comes down to communication,” says Shukat, a former marketing executive at Arista Records and Epic Records. “It’s not sending an email or a text. It’s getting on the phone and having conversations. Every Monday morning, we go through our roster [and ask], ‘Who needs to be communicated to?’” Among the first songwriters Shukat signed was LP, who penned Rihanna’s Billboard Hot 100 top 10 “Cheers (I’ll Drink to That)” in 2011. The roster is now home to hit writers Jeremih, Anthony “Tone” Jones, Teddy Sinclair, PVRIS and Kiiara. Recent Hot 100 entries include…

WHEN IFPI RELEASED ITS 2021 Global Music Report in March, it confirmed that only one region in the world experienced a double-digital rate of revenue growth in the preceding year — Latin America, where revenue increased by 15.9%. That growth boosted the region’s share of the global recorded-music market to 3.6%, up from 3.3% in 2019. (Music consumption in the region outpaces that market share. Were it not for currency devaluation, the region would account for a higher share of global revenue.) Streaming revenue grew by 30.2% and accounted for 84.1% of Latin America’s total revenue. The growth is driven by the strength of the region’s artists, including multiple performers who are global superstars. For a snapshot of that talent, Billboard highlights some of the most influential talents in…

DYNAMITE BTS MOOD 24kGoldn feat. iann dior BLINDING LIGHTS The Weeknd HAWÁI Maluma DAKITI Bad Bunny & Jhay Cortez SAVAGE LOVE (LAXED-SIREN BEAT) Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo HEAD & HEART Joel Corry x MNEK WAP Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion LEMONADE Internet Money and Gunna feat. Don Toliver & NAV POSITIONS Ariana Grande Source The Top 10 Hottest Songs recap is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart for the period of Sept. 19, 2020, through April 10, 2021. Songs are ranked by their cumulative chart points using the chart’s weekly formula, which blends streaming and sales as tabulated by MRC Data.…