Innholdsfortegnelse for October 23, 2021 i Billboard Magazine

LIL NAS X RAPS IN “INDUSTRY BABY”: “NEED TO GET THIS ALBUM done/Need a couple No. 1s.” Missions accomplished. The 22-year-old’s first studio album, Montero, arrived Sept. 17, and the project now boasts two Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers. “Baby,” with Jack Harlow, rises to No. 1, after Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” entered at the chart’s peak in April. Lil Nas X earns his third total leader; his debut smash, “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, ruled for a record 19 weeks in 2019. Harlow tops the Hot 100 for the first time and eclipses a previous No. 2 best from July 2020 in breakthrough hit “Whats Poppin” (featuring DaBaby, Tory Lanez and Lil Wayne). “Baby” scored 64 million radio airplay audience impressions and…

BOTTLEROCK HAS MADE playing until the plug gets pulled a rite of passage at its annual Napa, Calif., festival, where the event’s 10 p.m. curfew is enforced with a kill switch. The sudden loss of amplified sound can be jarring, but when the crowd chimes in to close out a song, like it did during this year’s Guns N’ Roses set — which included special guest Dave Grohl — bellowing together, “Oh, won’t you please take me ho-ome,” the inevitable viral video should have been marketing gold for the band’s headlining tour ticket sales. In 2021, the high-energy close may have served as a confidence booster for the hard-rock band, which recently made its post-pandemic return to the road to play 25 shows postponed from its 2020 tour, as…

FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1986, U.S. vinyl record sales could reach $1 billion this year, which already has the top four biggest sales weeks for the format since MRC Data began tracking music sales in 1991: Taylor Swift’s evermore (102,000 sold), Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour (76,000), Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever (73,000) and Swift’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (67,000). Even more surprising, three of those four weeks happened months after the albums hit streaming services. Partly as a result of the pandemic, which has kept music fans home and prevented them from spending money on concert tickets, vinyl sales have skyrocketed — unit sales in the United States grew 46.2% in 2020 and another 81% so far in 2021, according to MRC Data. But this growing demand has also caused…

DESPITE APPROXIMATELY 60,000 songs being uploaded to Spotify every day, unsigned and independent artists have recently found themselves with more options than ever before when it comes to financing their careers — and using that cash flow to help stand out in a crowded space. Among this fast-changing landscape, companies like Indify, beatBread and Cash App’s Cash App Studios have materialized, offering funding and advances to independent artists without asking for any ownership of intellectual property in return. Unlike a label services provider or distributor, these companies do not provide a staff of devoted professionals dedicated to your project; instead, their monetary investments are left open-ended, so that what you do with your funding is (mostly) up to you. “We think that bundling services with financing can create friction,”…

WITHIN LATIN MUSIC, SALES of regional Mexican repertoire as of Sept. 30 (including video streams) may still fall behind pop and urban, according to MRC Data, but they have risen 21% compared with last year — more than any other subgenre. Independent labels have always played a large role in launching regional Mexican artists: Musart backed Paquita la del Barrio and Pepe Aguilar early in his career; Jenni and Lupillo Rivera were initially signed to their father’s indie, Cintas Acuario; and Fonovisa grew to become the genre’s largest label before it was purchased by Univision and, later, Universal in 2008. But in the past five years, a new crop of indies has risen to prominence approaching the business with a digital-first mentality. Last year, seven of Billboard’s top 10…

HALSEY IS QUICK. Quick to joke about their New Jersey accent slipping out after a few drinks. Quick to flip into scholar mode, explaining that one of their new songs is named after Biblical Adam’s forgotten first wife, Lilith, who was jettisoned from Eden for daring to enjoy sex. Quick to share how, as a kid, she had to pay for school lunches with dollar bills so worn out they felt like “old T-shirts.” And amid all this, Halsey is quick to soothe infant son Ender Ridley Aydin when he makes his presence known from the next room, bouncing him up and down and cooing him back to sleep, whether decked out in spiky Mad Max leather or David Bowie glam effulgence for today’s photo shoot. When it came…

IN THE MIDDLE OF A giant, empty plot of land in the middle of Sacramento, Calif., the African and Caribbean diaspora is alive and thriving. Over 20,000 people — predominantly Nigerian, Ghanaian, Haitian and Jamaican Americans, cloaked in metallic gold and royal purple Ankara fabrics and waving the green, yellow, red and black flags of their motherlands — have traveled here from across the country for the United States’ first Afrobeats festival, Lost in Riddim, on the first weekend of October. As they await the headliner, Wizkid, around 10 p.m., the artist himself is changing from head-to-toe gray Gucci into a red Maison Margiela track suit — and waiting for some Chick-fil-A. He has been working up quite an appetite. Just off the plane from Los Angeles, he’ll close…

IN MAY, THE RECORDING Academy announced the end of a short-lived but controversial eligibility provision: The “33% rule,” which was enacted in 2017 and excluded songwriters and producers from recognition in the album of the year category if they didn’t write or produce at least one-third of the album. The rule was originally supposed to be a win for songwriters. Before 2017, the album of the year category only recognized artists, producers, engineers and featured guests on a title, which — according to critics — left out some of the talent most instrumental in making the body of work. But the rule soon had some important casualties. Country hitmaker Luke Laird, who co-wrote the first two (and highly acclaimed) singles from Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, 2019’s album of the…

NO. 1 DRAKE Drake tallies his 36th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100, extending his mark for the most among male acts dating to the chart’s 2014 inception. His latest album, Certified Lover Boy, spends a fourth week atop the Billboard 200 (see page 20). AIRPLAY/STREAMING & SALES DATA COMPILED BY THE WEEK’S MOST POPULAR ARTISTS ACROSS ALL GENRES, RANKED BY ALBUM AND TRACK SALES AS MEASURED BY MRC DATA, RADIO AIRPLAY AUDIENCE IMPRESSIONS AS MEASURED BY MRC DATA, STREAMING ACTIVITY DATA FROM ONLINE MUSIC SOURCES TRACKED BY MRC DATA. SEE CHARTS LEGEND ON BILLBOARD.COM FOR COMPLETE RULES AND EXPLANATIONS. © 2021, BILLBOARD MEDIA, LLC AND MRC DATA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.…

FINNEAS, Bayley Hold Steady FINNEAS notches a 30th week at No. 1 on the Rock Producers chart thanks to eight production credits on the latest Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart (see page 210), all performed by Billie Eilish. Leading the pack is her “Happier Than Ever,” which places at No. 4 after ruling for four weeks. Only Jake Sinclair has spent more time at No. 1 on the ranking, with 42 weeks. Glass Animals frontman Dave Bayley tallies a 20th week atop Rock Songwriters thanks to his writing credits on “Heat Waves” (No. 1 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs for a fifth week) and “I Don’t Wanna Talk (I Just Wanna Dance)” (No. 34). He’s one week away from tying the record for the most weeks spent…

I DON’T KNOW ABOUT you, but I feel good,” sings Pitbull as he pedals an Echelon stationary bicycle in the music video for his saxophone-infused EDM track, “I Feel Good.” It’s not just a product endorsement. The video is a piece of a partnership announced in June, in which Pitbull invested in the home-workout equipment company. Now he lends his name to an in-app channel, a co-branded bike and the song, written specifically for Echelon, which peaked at No. 15 on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart in early October and gave its name to his U.S. summer tour. He’s not the only artist who has discovered a flair for fitness. Over the past year, exercise technology company Peloton has partnered with Beyoncé and Verzuz on classes that incorporate their…

LESS THAN A MONTH AFTER A $54 billion stock spinoff by Universal Music Group (UMG), three of the world’s biggest private equity players — KKR, Blackstone and Apollo Global Management — are making billion-dollar bets on the music business. KKR, which has $429 billion in assets under management and in March announced that it would partner with BMG on a $1 billion fund to buy recording and publishing rights, on Oct. 19 closed its own deal to buy Kobalt Music Royalty Fund II, a package of recording and publishing rights, for $1.1 billion, with a group of investors called Chord Music Partners. Blackstone, which has $684 billion in assets under management, is also doubling down on the music business. After purchasing performing rights organization SESAC in early 2016 for…

LONDON — In April 2022, when Ed Sheeran begins his + – = ÷ x shows — which he’s calling the Mathematics Tour — dozens of trucks from the U.K. hauler KB Event will transport his production and crew to 15 or so European countries. But while KB’s trucks used to set out from the company’s base in Pinxton in central England for Sheeran’s tours, this time they will depart from its new depot in Dublin — some seven hours away by road and ferry. This has nothing to do with routing or convenience, but rather with complex new European Union regulations that will have far-reaching repercussions for every act looking to tour Europe next year. As of Jan. 1, 2022, when the post-Brexit trade deal between the EU…

THE SUMMER OF 2020 WAS APPROACHING, and BTS needed a seasonal hit. On the hunt for this smash song was Columbia Records CEO Ron Perry, who put in a call to Neil Jacobson, founder/CEO of Hallwood Media, a Los Angeles-based agency that exclusively represents songwriters and producers. Jacobson passed the brief to his client, David Stewart, and he got to work. By late August, BTS’ “Dynamite,” the song Stewart had co-written and produced, was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. While Stewart was already well-established with previously co-written singles, like “What a Man Gotta Do” for the Jonas Brothers, having Jacobson play middleman led to his biggest break yet. It also allowed him to focus exclusively on the music. “Dealing with my own negotiations was difficult, because I…

WHEN I FIRST CAME TO LOS Angeles in 2015, I had some meetings [with labels] and got some interest. I didn’t have any leverage, so none of it made sense really. And then by the time I got established, I think they assumed I just didn’t want to [sign]. It’s just me [on my TrapHouseJodeci label]. I’ve got producers and songwriters that I consistently work with, but I would want a bigger financial partner to be able to sign some people I want. Since I’ve done music, I’ve done modeling. Sometimes I get booked because they know about my music, and then sometimes I get booked because of my face. I’m good with either one, because I can use either opportunity to raise awareness with the music. I bring…

WE FELT LIKE [SIGNING WITH Columbia] made sense at the time. It was a two-album deal with the option of continuing, and when we did the second record [Still Run in 2018], we were going through a tumultuous time personally, as a band and with our management. I think second records are just difficult in general. After your first album, which you’ve had your whole life to write, you’re scrambling to find material and cement yourself as a voice. Also, we had a lot of turnover in our team at Columbia — which is really common at major labels, and I didn’t know that when I was young and [first] signed. There were different people who had come in that we didn’t really align with creatively, and we felt…

IN AUGUST 2019, D’Mile received a fateful message from fellow producer James Fauntleroy. “He texts me out of the blue on a Wednesday and asks me what I’m doing on Friday,” recalls D’Mile (real name: Dernst Emile II). “Luckily I was free.” As it turns out, Bruno Mars had personally requested him at the studio — and they soon embarked on making what would become An Evening With Silk Sonic, the highly anticipated album from Mars’ supergroup with Anderson. Paak out Nov. 12. The duo’s first single, “Leave the Door Open,” topped the Billboard Hot 100 this spring, and given the artists’ Grammys history — they have 15 wins between them — the song is a likely nominee for song and record of the year, among other possible awards.…

TYLER ARNOLD WAS ONLY 20 minutes into Bo Burnham’s latest musical comedy special, Bo Burnham: Inside, released on Netflix in May, when he started searching for the songs online. When he couldn’t find them, the Republic Records A&R executive immediately reached out to the comedian’s team to change that. The album Inside (The Songs) arrived on streaming platforms on June 10, and it has remained on the Billboard 200 for 19 weeks, including five in the top 10 — a remarkable achievement for a comedy album, and a sign of the project’s widespread resonance. (It has already won three Emmy Awards.) “From day one, we knew this album could compete at the highest level and didn’t want to box it into a comedy-only campaign,” says Arnold. Indeed: This month,…

BEST MÚSICA URBANA ALBUM As reggaetón and Latin trap music have become major forces in pop culture, the Recording Academy has seemed unsure of how to recognize those genres’ influence. Over the years, the organization has shuffled the “urban” label among multigenre categories, at different times making its biggest names compete against more traditional Latin pop stars, as well as rock and alternative artists. This new category gives urbano music a chance to shine. Likely contenders include Bad Bunny (El Último Tour Del Mundo) — who won his first Grammy in March for YHLQMDLG in the best Latin pop or urban album category — as well as Anuel AA and Ozuna (Los Dioses), Karol G (KG0516), Rauw Alejandro (Vice Versa) and Myke Towers (Like Myke). BEST POP DUO/GROUP PERFORMANCE…

AT THE END OF OCTOBER, ROUND Hill Music co-founder/CEO Josh Gruss will take two weeks off from running one of the more important new competitors in the music publishing business, but not for the beaches of St. Barts or the ski trails of Sun Valley, Idaho. He’ll be on the road opening for Buckcherry with Rubikon, the hard rock band he has played guitar with for the last 20 years. A few years ago, when Round Hill was still operating as a purely private company, some of Gruss’ industry peers disparaged him behind closed doors as a wannabe rock’n’roller playing with his family’s wealth. His father, Martin, ran a hedge fund, Gruss Asset Management, and Gruss, 43, worked there after a six-year stint in the U.S. Coast Guard. (“I…

NEW ORLEANS-BRED punk-rap duo $uicideboy$ has never charted on the Billboard Hot 100 or any airplay tally, but it has turned its SoundCloud-era success into an underground empire — and collected 5.3 billion streams along the way, according to MRC Data. Known early on for its shock-rap style and depression-laced lyrics, the duo’s origin story (which dates back to 2014) involved a long-mythologized suicide pact: If the music didn’t work out, there would be nothing left to live for. Thankfully, it has more than worked out. Today, cousins $crim and Ruby da Cherry are entrepreneurs, launching their own label collective, G*59 Records, in 2017 with distribution from Virgin. This year, $uicideboy$ signed a “strong eight-figure deal” with The Orchard; meanwhile, the duo is on a headlining U.S. tour that…

ARI LENNOX “ELEVATES HER STATUS AS A NEO-SOUL TOUCHSTONE”NPR BAS “‘THE JACKIE’ IS A CAFFEINATED, HEAVY-HITTING TRAP SONG THAT ACTS AS AN ODE OF SORTS TO NEW YORK SUMMER NIGHTS.”CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND BILLIE EILISH “HER EXCELLENT SOPHOMORE ALBUM FEELS DOWNRIGHT HEROIC, THE WORK OF AN ARTIST REFUSING TO STAY STILL”ROLLING STONE BLACKPINK “BLACKPINK EXCEL AT LEAVING THEIR AUDIENCE WANTING MORE”ROLLING STONE CELESTE “A STUNNING DEBUT”NPR DAVE “THERE WILL NO DOUBT BE ESSAYS UPON ESSAYS WRITTEN ABOUT THIS ALBUM”COMPLEX UK FINNEAS “A MAJOR CREATIVE FORCE.”WALL STREET JOURNAL LANA DEL REY “WHEN ALL OF ITS VIRTUES ARE WORKING IN TANDEM — RICH MELODIES, COMPOSITIONAL SURPRISES, ONLY-LANA-WOULD-SAY-IT TURNS OF PHRASE — DEL REY’S MUSIC CASTS AN ENGROSSING SPELL.”THE NEW YORK TIMES DEAR EVAN HANSEN “THE RIGHT MESSAGE AT EXACTLY THE RIGHT TIME”THE…

R&B POSSIBLE CATEGORIES • best R&B song • best R&B performance “WOMAN” Planet Her’s tropical opening track blasted onto the R&B charts, hitting the top five on both Hot R&B Songs and R&B Streaming Songs. “STREETS” Buoyed by a viral TikTok challenge, this surprise-hit slow jam became the last of nearly half a dozen singles from Hot Pink, hitting a No. 3 peak on the Hot R&B Songs chart in March. “YOU RIGHT” (with The Weeknd) A multiformat hit, this duet has lit up both Pop Airplay (where it cracked the top 10) and Hot R&B Songs (where it peaked at No. 1 in September). POP POSSIBLE CATEGORIES • record of the year • song of the year • best pop solo performance • best pop duo/group performance “KISS…

MAXIMAL In lieu of theater-style row seating at Los Angeles’ Staples Center, the Recording Academy sat guests and award hopefuls at two-person tables in a special outdoor space strung up with fairy lights. That led to a more electric atmosphere as A-listers were free to move around and visit with one another, and a sense of anything-can-happen stakes as the city’s ambiance — “Damn, car!” Megan Thee Stallion said as a revving motor interrupted her best new artist acceptance speech — provided its own unexpected soundtrack. LIVE-MUSIC MAGIC The Grammys have always been one big concert at heart, and without a traditional live audience to entertain, the 2021 telecast leaned all the way in, kicking off the festivities with a string of back-to-back performances taking place in the round.…

FOR BRITISH SINGER-songwriter Arlo Parks, connecting with fans onstage isn’t the only good thing about the return of live music — she also gets to play tourist. “Every single place feels completely brand-new,” she says while enjoying some tacos on a sunny day in Detroit. “It feels like an adventure. I’m really excited.” At 21 years old, Parks has plenty to be excited about. Her first U.S. tour, which wraps at the end of October, caps the kind of breakthrough year many artists dream of. In January, she released her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams — a collection of sparse, stirring vignettes exploring everything from alt-rock to jazz — on London-based indie label Transgressive Records. Since then, she has won some of the most prestigious honors in the U.K.…

AS SUMMER TURNED TO FALL, OUTDOOR U.S. stadiums stayed open in September for Los Bukis. The legendary Mexican group fronted by Marco Antonio Solís reunited for the first time in 25 years, scoring the biggest tour of the month with a brief sweep through Chicago and Texas. With just five shows, the band earned $22.1 million and sold 181,000 tickets, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. Stadiums and amphitheaters fill out the Top Tours chart, with Dead & Company and Alanis Morissette at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively. The No. 1 Boxscore of September belongs to Another Planet Entertainment, bringing in $18.3 million with the return of the Life Is Beautiful Festival. After a hiatus in 2020, the Las Vegas event returned with an intake bump of 2%…

BILLBOARD ISN’T QUITE OLD ENOUGH to have reviewed the angels heard on high or the mountains in reply, but it had a front-of-the-fireplace seat for the birth of Christmas music as we know it. Like the holiday itself, seasonal songs gradually grew into commercial silver and gold, as well as sentimental favorites, and by 2018, streaming had made the business worth a Billboard-estimated $177 million in the United States alone. The most popular holiday recordings are hits every year — gifts that keep on giving. MAKE THAT A GREEN CHRISTMAS Irving Berlin, a Jewish-Russian immigrant who became a beloved American songwriter, did Bing Crosby a mitzvah when he wrote “White Christmas” for the 1942 movie musical Holiday Inn. Billboard was quick to notice the song’s “peaceful, gracious” charm, and…