Innholdsfortegnelse for December 18, 2021 i Billboard Magazine

IF YOU SEARCH “Christmas 2021” on Spotify, the top result will be a massive playlist — 124 tracks and six hours long — that opens with Queen’s “Thank God It’s Christmas,” then dips into a range of old and new holiday songs from Bing Crosby, Katy Perry, Ella Fitzgerald, Kacey Musgraves and others before landing on “I Want You Home (#heimnachten),” a track from last year by European relative unknowns Bowie & Pyrah. It’s not user-generated. Rather, it’s carefully curated by Universal Music Group, using “data, insight, analytics,” according to Mike Biggane, UMG’s executive vp music strategy and tactics. “Our hope is somebody’s going to discover our playlists by the holidays, put it on and just let it go,” he says. “They won’t have the urge to change.” The…

Jimmie Allen didn’t technically release a new album in 2021, but his Rolodex still grew significantly: The country singer-songwriter welcomed Monica and Babyface on the deluxe edition of last year’s Bettie James album and teamed with Elton John on “Beauty in the Bones,” which was included on the pop legend’s The Lockdown Sessions. Allen also earned long-awaited awards recognition, winning new male artist of the year at the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards and new artist of the year from the Country Music Association (CMA), as well as snagging a best new artist Grammy nom. Although he has become one of the most exciting rising artists in the genre, music was just one of an array of creative ventures by him this year: He launched his Bettie James…

WHEN KALI UCHIS told her father she wanted to skip college to become a professional musician, his answer wasn’t quite what she had hoped for. “ ‘There are a lot of girls prettier than you and that have a better voice than you,’” Uchis recalls him telling her. “ ‘What would make you stand out from them?’” She wasn’t dissuaded. “ ‘Well, there can be a million girls more pretty than me and with a better voice than me,’” she answered. “ ‘But they’ll never be me.’” Today, it’s precisely that other-ness that has led 27-year-old Uchis — the bilingual, bicultural, genre-bending singer-songwriter whose vocals flow effortlessly between English and Spanish — to become an unlikely star with the song “Telepatía,” a trippy fantasy in which she sings of…

DRAKE IS NO. 1 on Billboard’s yearend Top Artists chart for a second time, while 2021 marks the fifth straight year that a male artist has finished atop the list. Post Malone led the way in both 2019 and 2020, while Drake was the top artist for the first time in 2018 and Ed Sheeran ruled in 2017. The 35-year-old Drake is this year’s top artist thanks not only to the success of his latest Billboard 200 No. 1 album, Certified Lover Boy (his 10th chart-topper), and its accompanying hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — he also holds the top spot thanks to the continued presence of his catalog of previously released albums on the Billboard 200. Certified Lover Boy debuted at No. 1 on the Sept. 18,…

As songwriters and producers continue to score management deals, brand partnerships and other front-facing opportunities, the three studio vets below had particularly stellar years — and each topped the Billboard Hot 100. By working with K-pop superstars BTS through remote technology, Jenna Andrews proved how resourceful the industry could be during the pandemic when she co-wrote the group’s record-breaking chart-topper “Butter.” Dernst “D’Mile” Emile, who was already coming off a hot year working with Grammy- and Academy Award-winning R&B star H.E.R., continued his winning streak in 2021 by pairing with superduo Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak) on its debut album, including lead single “Leave the Door Open.” And reigning producer of the year, non-classical Grammy winner Andrew Watt remained prolific after a dominant 2020, with studio work…

Since becoming the first signee to Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker’s DTA Records in 2020, jxdn has grown into a pop-punk star, leading a new wave of artists tapping into the genre. This year, the TikTok star and singer released his debut album, Tell Me About Tomorrow; opened on tour for close friend Machine Gun Kelly; played festivals like Lollapalooza; and wrapped 2021 with the deluxe version of his full-length, which includes the aptly titled emo holiday song “Christmas Sucks.” By working with Barker, jxdn says he’s now better able to “pay respects to the people who have already done this for so long, like the Blinks, Hawthorne Heights, Finch — everybody who came before us and laid down the foundation, that’s important to me.” Now, after DTA welcomed its…

Britney Spears hasn’t released new music since 2016, but her fans have been more than occupied with the #FreeBritney movement. After the singer entered the hospital twice in January 2008 under a 5150 psychiatric hold, the Los Angeles Superior Court fulfilled her father Jamie Spears’ request to put her in an emergency temporary conservatorship, and for the next decade continued extending its length. But last fall, Britney argued to make her conservatorship case public for the first time, writing in a court filing, “The whole world is watching.” Since, supporters have closely surveilled the court-ordered conservatorship that has controlled Spears’ personal and financial affairs for the last 13 years – and this year were finally able to celebrate the 40-year-old superstar’s freedom. Feb. 5 FRAMING BRITNEY SPEARS DOCUMENTARY ARRIVES…

THREE YEARS AGO, an energetic 20-year-old who looked like a young boxer hungry for his big fight stepped onto the tiny stage at Iron City Bham, a historic concert venue in Birmingham, Ala. It was the very first stop on Jack Harlow’s very first tour, but it wasn’t off to a great start: Only about 20 people had come out for the show. Still, undeterred by the low turnout, the rapper approached his set with the enthusiasm of a Coachella headliner, flashing a cocky grin and cracking jokes with the few people in the audience, even sticking around after to pose for pictures with anybody who wanted one. Flash forward to November, and Harlow is back in Birmingham, at the same venue — in front of a sold-out crowd…

01 Justin Bieber became the first solo male to debut at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 in the same week thanks to “Peaches” and Justice, respectively, on April 3. Overall, only he, Swift, Drake and BTS have landed the achievement. 10:13 Thanks to its 10-minute, 13-second expansion, Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” became the longest Hot 100 No. 1 by run time. It passed Don McLean’s 8-minute, 37-second “American Pie (Parts I & II).” 09 On the Sept. 18-dated Hot 100, Drake dominated with a record nine songs in the top 10 — including the entire top five, joining only The Beatles, who monopolized the top five on the chart dated April 4, 1964. 90 The Weeknd’s No. 1 hit “Blinding Lights” went…

WHEN THE CONCERT business unilaterally shut down in March 2020, many executives didn’t expect live music to return until after the pandemic ended. But the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines across North America and the rest of the globe meant that live music’s return was within reach, and shows began in early summer and increased in number as more people got the jab. As the months rolled on, however, vaccination rates stagnated, and the delta variant became the dominant strain in the United States. And a new reality began to settle in — that the pandemic may never end in the definitive sense that many had expected. And fans seem to be OK with that. Ticket sales picked up significantly after capacity restrictions were lifted in June and July…

MARIAH CAREY IS CONSIDERED THE QUEEN OF CHRISTMAS for good reason: Her 1994 classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which she co-wrote with Walter Afanasieff, recently became the first holiday recording to achieve RIAA diamond certification. The King could well be Johnny Marks, a songwriter active in the 1950s and ’60s who wrote “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” among others. In total, Marks’ songs accounted for almost 7% of all holiday on-demand audio streams in the first four weeks of November (Oct. 29-Nov. 25), according to MRC Data and its list of the top 5,000 tracks. Unsurprisingly, Christmas listening is dominated by a relatively small number of big songs — “Winter Wonderland,” “The Christmas Song,” “White Christmas” —…

The spike in vinyl has been at a steady incline for over a decade, with sales growing year over year since the mid-2000s. But, during a pandemic in which concerts were canceled and music fans were kept inside, interest in vinyl exploded, dating back to July 2020 and continued with vinyl unit sales in the United States growing 81% as of October 2021, according to MRC Data (compared with 46.2% by the end of 2020). That growth now suggests an estimated year-end 2021 revenue of $1 billion. Interestingly, around the same time that a time-honored physical format started to soar, so too did the very intangible, very online nonfungible tokens in the music space. (An NFT is a one-of-a-kind digital token that exists on a blockchain, most often Ethereum,…

Johnny Minardi, Elektra Music Group’s vp A&R, began a fruitful relationship with Blink-182’s Travis Barker in 2019, when the two worked on projects for EMG acts Fever 333 and nothing, nowhere. The multihyphenate drummer soon started showing Minardi the amount of work he was doing for other labels — and it became increasingly sensible to have a conversation with him about starting his own. By the end of the year, Barker launched DTA Records in a joint-venture agreement with EMG. “I watched how he built songs, treated artists and took time to help their vision get to the next level,” says Minardi. “The idea [for a partnership] was built off him already doing this, but just not having that outlet.” In the time since the deal, poppunk has soared…

INSIDE THE NEW $1.5 BILLION UBS ARENA in Elmont, N.Y., 18,500 fans scream in unison as they await Harry Styles. It’s Nov. 28, the last night of the “Watermelon Sugar” singer’s Love on Tour trek, and the first concert at the new venue, which took two years to build. As Styles takes the stage, the screams become a deafening roar — a sound that must be music to the ears of executives from the company hosting him, Oak View Group. The global sports and entertainment company, founded in 2015 by CEO Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff, is part of a joint venture with Sterling Equities and NHL team the New York Islanders. Together, they make up the New York Arena Partners, which was established in 2017 to build the…

“‘LEVITATING’ DOING I TS THING on the Billboard chart is absolutely surreal,” marvels Dua Lipa. The singer-songwriter’s ’80s-inspired pop smash “Levitating” triumphs as the No. 1 hit on Billboard’s 2021 yearend Hot 100 Songs chart following its record-breaking run on the weekly ranking, which blends streaming, radio airplay and sales data. The song peaked at No. 2 on the May 22, 2021-dated chart and placed in the top 40 each week of the 2021 chart year, including 41 in the top 10, a record for a song by a woman in the history of the Hot 100. “It’s nice after you work so hard, especially despite the pandemic, when you’ve got limited resources,” says Lipa of her achievement. “It means a lot to me.” The persistent performance of “Levitating”…

When Mae Muller signed with Capitol Records UK in 2018, she came with a clear vision: “I want to be a pop star. I want to travel the world. I want to be on the charts,” she says. “I never shied away from that.” Seeing Muller’s potential, her team sent her to Los Angeles to work with industry stars like Jimmy Napes (Sam Smith, Tori Kelly) and Blake Slatkin (Lil Nas X, The Kid LAROI), and help her “level up a bit,” as Jo Charrington, Capitol Records UK co-president, says. But the pandemic forced a new approach. Unable to travel to the United States for songwriting sessions, Muller decided to be more open to collaborating on music written by other artists. In November 2020, she traveled to Stockholm for…