Innholdsfortegnelse for June 10, 2023 i Billboard Magazine

TAYLOR SWIFT’S Midnights returns to the summit of the Billboard 200, while the album’s “Karma” surges to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, sparked by its remix with Ice Spice. The set, which tops the Billboard 200 for a sixth total week, earned 282,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending June 1 (up 389%), according to Luminate. On May 26, two deluxe versions were released — The Til Dawn Edition and The Late Night Edition — along with a new color vinyl variant of the original standard album. Of Midnights’ unit sum in the tracking week, album sales comprise 196,000 (up 1,529%) — the largest amount for an album since Midnights debuted with 1.1 million sold on the Nov. 5, 2022-dated chart. Streaming-equivalent…

THE CONCERT TRAVEL BUSINESS, once a reliably modest slice of the estimated global $25 billion concert industry, is being primed as a potential growth category as promoters of all sizes look for new revenue sources to offset rising costs. As the pandemic has receded and the demand for live entertainment has blossomed, inflation and scarcity have driven up expenses across the board, and the resulting rise in ticket prices is unlikely to cool soon — a recent report from the American Bus Association cited a driver shortage as part of the reason for higher costs and concluded another 7,300 drivers would need to be added to the 28,000 tour bus drivers now working just to meet current demand. With already tight margins squeezed further, concert promoters are looking for…

AMID THE SPORTS memorabilia in Tim Leiweke’s office, there’s a small framed quote with the word “Motivation” at the top. Leiweke is a 45-year veteran of the estimated global $25 billion concert industry who spent the pandemic building seven new arenas — five of which his company owns and operates — so he’s not one to hang inspirational thoughts from Wikiquotes on his wall. “Motivation” is followed by a question: “How does ASM differentiate itself from its main competitor, Oak View Group?” The answer comes from Ron Bension, president/CEO of ASM Global, and the most salient part reads: “There are other companies that are noisier, but we’re managing more buildings, with more content from Live Nation and AEG than anywhere else in the world.” Oak View Group, where Leiweke…

IN THE 12 MONTHS following the release of Un Verano Sin Ti, Bad Bunny became a global superstar. The album, released by the independent label Rimas, became the first Latin album, all-Spanish-language title and non-English-language album to finish as the biggest album of the year, racking up 3.4 million equivalent album units in the United States in 2022, according to Luminate. For The Orchard, which distributes Rimas, the album’s success led to the Sony-owned distributor’s biggest market share in its 25-year history, vacuuming up 6.39% of the U.S. market in 2022. So, what has The Orchard done as an encore? Boosted its market share even further, to 7.26% in 2023 through the week ending May 18 — besting all but three major labels along the way and taking in…

The singer-songwriter’s “Need a Favor” ascends 11-7 on Hot Country Songs. The track drew 18.1 million in airplay audience and 10.4 million official streams, and sold 5,000 in the United States May 26-June 1, according to Luminate. It becomes his top-charting hit, following the No. 8-peaking “Son of a Sinner,” his first top 10. NO. 11 Columbia’s New Best With a 16th week atop the Radio Songs chart, “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus (above) is now tied for the third-longest reign since the list began in December 1990 — and passes Adele’s “Easy on Me” for the longest rule for a Columbia Records single. Overall, it now follows only The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” (26 weeks at No. 1 in 2020) and Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” (18 weeks, 1998). “Flowers”…

STREAMS OF REGIONAL MEXICAN MUSIC have spiked sharply in the United States, with consumption of the genre jumping 42.1% year to date through May 25, according to Luminate. That outpaces gains in the Latin genre overall (up 21.7%), as well as country (21.7%), dance/electronic (15.5%), rock (12.4%), pop (10.3%) and the overall market (13.4%). Only K-pop, up 49.4% year to date as Korean music companies partner with U.S. labels to further penetrate the U.S. market, has performed better than regional Mexican. Regional Mexican is considered a legacy music with a history stretching back more than a hundred years, and it encompasses a handful of genres, including banda, corridos, norteño, sierreño and mariachi. But it has experienced a surge in popularity thanks to a new generation of Mexican and Mexican…

ARLO PARKS KNOWS her art can’t please everyone — a notion she leaned into on her second album, My Soft Machine, which arrived May 26 on Transgressive Records. Following her critically acclaimed 2021 debut, Collapsed in Sunbeams, which earned the London-based 22-year-old a best new artist Grammy nomination, her poetically complex and genre-agnostic follow-up doesn’t fit neatly into any boxes designed to cluster Black, women or queer artists — as intended. Inspired by a wide breadth of musical artists (Deftones, Tyler, The Creator) and writers (Zadie Smith, Ocean Vuong), Parks says, “I think my music is pretty cool. I know where it is coming from contextually, and people who enjoy my music understand that, too, and that’s all that’s important to me.” She has since found her people within…

BILLBOARD’S MIDYEAR REPORTS ARE IN, and once again, the box-office ticket sales data voluntarily submitted by promoters and venues shows continued growth in the top tier of tours. This year’s numbers are a strong signal of strength in the post-pandemic concert business. Still, a more in-depth look shows that the business may also have to adjust the way it looks at the touring calendar. For much of the history of the concert business, touring schedules were planned around the calendar year: Outdoor tours launched in spring, hit their high mark in summer and wrapped up in autumn, coming off the road just as winter began. But the growth of the indoor arena business — and growing importance of international markets — has upended the traditional touring calendar, in turn…

WOULD YOU RATHER OWN the rights to Bruce Springsteen’s song catalog or the musical scores to hit Nickelodeon TV shows such as iCarly, Victorious and Henry Danger? While those tween comedies may not be household names, fans stream them worldwide, and unlike Springsteen’s masters and publishing rights — which Sony bought for $500 million in 2021 — the rights to their scores sold for tens of millions, presenting, for some, an appealing and approachable investment. The Nickelodeon shows’ music is an example of the kinds of deals being done by a new crop of music investment funds that are focused on acquiring the one type of music they know best, often for a much lower price than the deals making headlines. Funds like Armada Music’s BEAT (focused on dance),…

Grammy-winning producer Dan Nigro never wanted to launch his own imprint — then he met Chappell Roan. After he and the fast-rising pop artist had been working on music together for years, Roan’s former label dropped her. “I was so in love with everything that we were doing,” says Nigro. “I just believe in [Chappell] so much that I was like, ‘Do I want this added stress in my life? Is it worth it? Yes.’ ” So Nigro formed Amusement Records, the independently funded imprint that has the freedom to partner with any label on any project. He unofficially announced its launch on Instagram in May with a selfie of himself and Olivia Rodrigo — with whom he won a Grammy for her blockbuster 2021 debut album, Sour. And…

Madonna had the music industry burning up so fast after she released her first single in 1982 that a short item about it in the Nov. 6 issue of Billboard introduced her as “a young New York duo.” (Forty-one years later, we’d like to offer an immaculate correction: Madonna is one person.) Since then, Billboard has lived to tell about the Queen of Pop’s 14 studio albums and 12 No. 1 Hot 100 hits. Now, as she prepares to embark on her career-spanning Celebration Tour, which starts July 15 in Vancouver, we’re sharing some confessions from our dance lore. ’BORDERLINE’ PRAISE By the time Madonna’s 1983 debut album came out, Billboard had figured out she was a person — a “young blonde singer/songwriter whose music is in the R&B/dance…