Innholdsfortegnelse for October 7, 2023 i Billboard Magazine

DOJA CAT CAPTURES her third top 10 album on the Billboard 200 and returns to the summit of the Billboard Hot 100. The rapper-singer’s new studio set, Scarlet, starts at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with 72,000 equivalent album units earned Sept. 22-28, according to Luminate. Streaming-equivalent albums account for 65,000 units (translating to 88.4 million on-demand official audio and video streams of Scarlet’s 17 songs), album sales amount to 6,000 (with the collection available for purchase as a download, CD and deluxe box set with a T-shirt and CD), and track-equivalent album units equal 1,000. Meanwhile, the set’s “Paint the Town Red” rebounds for its second week at No. 1 on the Hot 100. Doja Cat’s second career chart-topper, which initially led three weeks earlier, is her…

SHORTLY AFTER Michael Cherman founded his apparel company, Market, in 2016, he designed and sold a tie-dyed T-shirt with the Grateful Dead’s dancing bears spiraling toward a center point. Spotting the trademarked image online, the Dead’s official merchandise company, Rhino Entertainment, contacted him and asked: “Would you like to do this more legit instead of bootlegging it?” “Yes,” he responded, and today, the company’s streetwear products include a $200 Grateful Dead screen-printing kit and a $45 trucker hat with the lightning-skull Stealie Rose logo. “This has unlocked the world for me,” says Cherman, whose company sells clothing licensed from the estates of Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and others. “People just came to us and said, ‘Hey, how can you do that for us?’ ” Since the Dead sold one…

WHEN IT COMES TO the music of Sofia Coppola’s films, “There’s always a bit of impressionism,” says Thomas Mars, the lead singer of Phoenix — who also happens to be married to the director. Think of My Bloody Valentine’s “Sometimes” scoring Scarlett Johanssen’s taxi ride through late-night Tokyo in Lost in Translation, Kirsten Dunst cavorting through a decadent young queen’s wardrobe as Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy” blasts in Marie Antoinette or the haunting chords of Air lending a foreboding tone to 1970s U.S. suburbia in The Virgin Suicides. And in Coppola’s latest film, Priscilla (out Nov. 3 from A24) — about when a teenage Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) and Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) met — one moment in particular seems destined to join the canon of the…

QUINCY JONES SAID it best,” explains Nile Rodgers: “A producer of a record is like the director of a film.” From his first production credits on tracks by Luther Vandross, Sister Sledge and Diana Ross to his more recent work with Beyoncé, Daft Punk and Coldplay, Rodgers is one of the rare producers who bridges the gap between the classic understanding of a record producer and today’s digital music-maker. In the 20th century, Rodgers and his contemporaries recorded songs to lumbering rolls of tape, bringing the visions of artists and songwriters to life with their ornamentation, arrangement and technical skill. While that is still true for some producers, the trade has changed dramatically. Around the turn of the millennium, increasingly powerful DIY recording tools and the piracy-inflicted bust of…

Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” adds to its record-breaking run on the Adult Contemporary chart. The single notches a 26th week at No. 1, extending the longest rule both for a song by a woman and for a title released on Columbia Records, dating to the chart’s 1961 inception. Among all songs, “Flowers” holds the fourth-longest command; Maroon 5’s “Girls Like You” dominated for a record 36 weeks in 2018-19. Meanwhile, Belinda Carlisle’s “If U Go” rises to No. 29 — her first AC entry since 1990. It’s from her EP Kismet, for which Diane Warren wrote all five tracks, reviving a partnership between the two: Carlisle sent the Warren-penned “I Get Weak” to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988. “I can’t say no to her,” Carlisle said…

For the first time in over two years, a woman without any accompanying artists tops the Country Airplay chart as Lainey Wilson scores her third No. 1 with “Watermelon Moonshine.” It reigns with 27.2 million audience impressions, up 5%, during the week of Sept. 22-28, according to Luminate. She was also the last woman to accomplish the feat, when her “Things a Man Oughta Know” led for a week in September 2021. Between then and the chart’s new No. 1, two all-women duets led: Elle King and Miranda Lambert’s “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)” and Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde’s “Never Wanted To Be That Girl,” both in spring 2022. Wilson has also ruled Country Airplay with “Never Say Never” (with Cole Swindell) for two weeks starting…

SOS by SZA charts new territory on Top R&B Albums, having surpassed the record for the most weeks atop the list since the chart’s launch in 2013. It broke the record when it claimed its 41st week at No. 1 and surpassed the previous record-holder, The Weeknd’s After Hours. SOS pads its lead with its 42nd week at No. 1 (on the current chart). SZA’s album has yet to cede the throne since it debuted on the chart last December. The set’s consistency traces to its steady run of singles, most notably “Kill Bill” and current hit “Snooze.” The former, SZA’s first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, rolled to a record 21-week stay atop Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs; the latter earned a recent twin boost from its Aug. 25 music…

Bad Bunny extends his top 10 record on Hot Latin Songs to 62 entries with “Un Preview,” his second top 10 of the year. After Bad Bunny released the track, produced by Tainy, MAG and La Paciencia, on his WhatsApp channel as a teaser of what’s to come in 2024, the song debuts at No. 8 powered almost entirely by streams. Following its release on Sept. 25, it registered 7.6 million official U.S. streams in its four days of activity during the Sept. 22-28 tracking week. The single also enters at No. 5 on Latin Streaming Songs. Sales also assist the new song’s high debut on the multimetric list with 1,000 downloads, enough for a No. 2 start on Latin Digital Song Sales. Bad Bunny strengthens his lead for…

Kylie Minogue collects her second No. 1 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums as her new studio release, Tension, debuts atop the chart. The set, previewed by the No. 7-peaking “Padam Padam” on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, earned 24,500 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending Sept. 28, according to Luminate. That marks Minogue’s best week, by units, since the industry began measuring with that metric in December 2014. On the Billboard 200, Tension enters at No. 21, marking Minogue’s highest-charting album in over a decade, since Aphrodite hit No. 19 in July 2010. Tension also starts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with 19,500 copies sold — Minogue’s biggest sales week in nearly 20 years. She last sold more albums in a single week when Body…

Wallen adds his 11th and 12th top 10s on the Country Airplay chart: “Thinkin’ Bout Me” (11-7) and “Everything I Love” (12-10). They follow his crossover smash “Last Night,” which began an eight-week command in May. All three songs are from his album One Thing at a Time, which has now generated six total top 10s.…

IN JULY, BEYONCÉ SET THE RECORD for the highest one-month gross in the history of Billboard Boxscore (dating to 1985) with $127.6 million. The following month, she again rewrites herstory: Queen Bey earned $179.3 million across 14 shows on the Renaissance world tour in August, according to figures reported to Boxscore, surpassing her impressive sum in July by a sizable 40%. With the back-to-back totals, she now lays claim to two of just four $100 million months since the charts launched in February 2019. When Beyoncé first reached the leading slot of Billboard’s Top Tours chart in May, she became the first woman to do so since P!nk accomplished the feat in July 2019. Now, with Beyoncé still at No. 1, P!nk is back up to No. 2, marking…

“ARE YOU GUYS DOING SOMETHING?” Taylor Swift asked the members of *NSYNC on Sept. 12 while onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards, where the reunited boy band had just arrived to shrieks and presented Swift the best pop trophy. “I need to know what it is!” *NSYNC was back, and even pop’s biggest superstar was amped. Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone demurred at the time, but soon after the VMAs, *NSYNC announced “Better Place,” its first new song together in over two decades. The shimmering, falsetto-heavy disco-pop track was created for Trolls Band Together, the third installment in the hit animated film series in which Timberlake voices a main character, Branch, and has contributed hits to each of the first two Trolls…

WHETHER YOU’RE A math-and-science whiz or an intuitive creative, there’s a prestigious audio engineering program that can prepare you for a career as a producer — or for whatever studio path you might follow — while emphasizing a well-rounded education in the process. Here’s a selection of some of the best academic programs, along with sage professional advice from those who lead them. Belmont University AUDIO ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY The program Heavy on math and science, the curriculum teaches students to design systems, components and processes and prepare for careers as recording-studio and live-sound engineers and audio-software designers. “If it makes a noise or records a sound, somebody has to think about it, create it, program it, build it, use it, apply it,” program chair Michael Janas says. The skills…

THE FIRST TIME Gracie Abrams met Aaron Dessner, at his famed Long Pond studio near Hudson, N.Y., the pair wrote over 10 songs. “We hit it off,” recalls Dessner, 47, of their first session in spring 2021. That’s a bit of an understatement, considering what followed: Dessner went on to produce and co-write Abrams’ acclaimed debut album, Good Riddance, released in February and brimming with honest reflections sung in her delicate voice that float over intriguing chord progressions and indie-rock riffs. In June, following the album’s vinyl release, Abrams topped Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart. In early September, following appearances by both on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour (Abrams as an opener, Dessner as a guest), the duo played three sold-out, intimate acoustic shows in New York, Nashville and Los Angeles,…

COUNTRY MUSIC IS HAVING a major mainstream moment. Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” spent 16 nonconsecutive weeks from March to August at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, claiming the undisputed song of the summer crown — and is one of four country songs to top both the Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs charts in 2023, the most in a year since 1975. And Wallen’s success story is far from the genre’s only recent standout. Thanks to artists like Luke Combs, whose cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” spent eight weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100, and Zach Bryan, whose breakthrough single, “Something in the Orange,” reached the top 10 of the Hot 100 while his album American Heartbreak reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200,…

Doja Cat scores her first No. 1 on the all-genre Streaming Songs chart with “Paint the Town Red.” The track earned 27.5 million official U.S. streams in its eighth week on the chart, up 3%, the week of Sept. 22-28, according to Luminate. The track’s first week on top follows the Sept. 22 release of parent album Scarlet, which concurrently debuts at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. Previously, Doja Cat hit a No. 2 best on Streaming Songs with “Kiss Me More” (featuring SZA) in May 2021. Also, “Paint the Town Red” returns to No. 1 on R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs, spending a fifth week atop the chart. It’s Doja Cat’s third No. 1, following “You Right” (with The Weeknd) and “Ain’t Shit,” both in 2021. It also tops…

Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor” claims Greatest Gainer honors on Adult Top 40, up 12% in plays the week of Sept. 22-28, according to Luminate. The song previously commanded Country Airplay for four weeks beginning in August and Mainstream Rock Airplay for three weeks in July — the first single to top both charts in the more than 33 years that the lists have coexisted. With its lyrics referencing God, prayer, church and the hymn “Amazing Grace,” the song is somewhat atypical for pop radio. “ ‘Need a Favor’ is a record that leaves you thinking from the first listen because it sounds so different from what you might expect,” says Steve Pereira, pop programming manager for Music Choice, whose Pop Hits channel has played the track over 500…

Blink-182’s newest single, “One More Time,” scales multiple charts, including leaping to No. 3 in its second week on the Alternative Airplay ranking. It ties the quickest jump to the top three in 2023, alongside Linkin Park’s “Lost” in March. “One More Time” is the trio’s second single from its album of the same name, following “Edging,” which reigned on Alternative Airplay for 13 weeks beginning in November 2022. The new track concurrently jumps 8-3 on the all-rock-format Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 6.1 million impressions in its first full tracking week, according to Luminate. It also vaults 44-14 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and 37-25 on Mainstream Rock Airplay, and it debuts at No. 62 on the Billboard Hot 100, where “Edging” hit No. 61 in…

Usher, Summer Walker and 21 Savage’s “Good Good” rises to No. 1 on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. It’s Usher’s first chart-topper since October 2016, when “No Limit” (featuring Young Thug) spent two weeks on top. “Good Good” marks Usher’s 17th No. 1, a count that puts him at fourth all time on the chart; Drake holds the most with 45 dating to the list’s 1993 inception. As for Walker, it’s her first chart-topper, surpassing the No. 2 peak of “Karma” in June. It’s 21 Savage’s sixth, following the two-week reign of his Drake collaboration, “Spin Bout U,” in May. “Good Good” concurrently jumps 3-2 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, 6-3 on Rhythmic Airplay, 13-11 on Adult R&B Airplay and 35-29 on Mainstream Top 40. The song is scheduled to appear…

Chris Tomlin’s “Holy Forever” hits No. 1 on the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot Christian Songs chart. With its 59-week trip to the top, it completes the longest climb to No. 1 in the chart’s 20-year history, surpassing Elevation Worship’s “Graves Into Gardens” (featuring Brandon Lake), which took 46 weeks in 2020-21. Tomlin scores his seventh No. 1 on the chart and first since “Good Good Father,” which dominated for seven weeks beginning in February 2016. “Holy Forever” ruled Christian Airplay for six weeks beginning in August, awarding Tomlin his 11th No. 1. “Ultimately, what this chart represents is impact,” Tomlin says of his latest Hot Christian Songs No. 1, “and to be a part of a song like ‘Holy Forever’ and experiencing its impact is an honor. My…

THIS YEAR has been defined by consistency at the top of the charts, and one record label has led in current market share in each of the first three quarters: Republic Records, which has 12.28% of the market through Sept. 28, according to Luminate. That’s a negligible drop from last quarter’s 12.46% and more than four percentage points higher than the 8.77% share the label had for the same period last year. Republic’s market share — much like the year overall — has been headlined by the massive Morgan Wallen album One Thing at a Time, which has racked up more than 4.5 million equivalent album units since its March debut, and Taylor Swift’s prolific release schedule, which not only includes her latest collection of new tracks, Midnights, but…

THE HUNGER GAMES films are no stranger to haunting musical moments that produce real-life hits, with six singles from four movies hitting the Billboard Hot 100 — including top 20 hits for Taylor Swift and even Jennifer Lawrence. When the prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes hits theaters on Nov. 17, a batch of new songs will take center stage thanks to Rachel Zegler, who delivers a nuanced portrayal of a nomadic balladeer thrown into a dystopian fight to the death. Almost two years after winning a Golden Globe for Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, Zegler is preparing to show audiences she can deliver gritty country-folk just as deftly as Broadway classics. To ensure the music of the film convincingly conjured her character’s Appalachiaesque…

WE ALL MUST make a choice — to be a hero or a villain.” The familiarity of Morgan Freeman’s commanding voice couldn’t calm down the fans — 80,000 of them, reportedly — standing around Coachella’s Sahara Tent. The perilous tone of his monologue, paired with producer Mike Dean’s sinister synths, stressed the festival’s need for a hero. And comic book animations projected on either side of the stage illustrated there was only one man for the job. Wearing a custom black Chrome Hearts suit, a masked Metro Boomin emerged from beneath the stage, his purple cross-embroidered cape fluttering in the desert wind. But regardless of the Academy Award-winning actor’s resounding introduction, it was the usually soft-spoken producer’s booming voice that caught festivalgoers — and one of his many guest…

I JUST NEED TO make one edit. Could we start talking while I do it?” Mike Dean asks, lowering himself into a leather office chair in his Los Angeles home studio. He swivels his seat to face a widescreen monitor and scrolls through scores of waveforms in his Pro Tools session, searching for the right spot to doctor. It’s a song from Diddy’s just-released The Love Album: Off the Grid called “Another One of Me” (featuring The Weeknd, French Montana and 21 Savage), and mere days before its Sept. 15 release, Dean has been tasked with crafting a slightly cleaner version of 21’s verse. Despite the clear urgency of the work, Dean appears unfazed, steady. “It’s OK. I like to do eight things at a time,” he explains while…

Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” climbs 2-1 to crown the Radio Songs chart, up 2% to 76.1 million in audience the week of Sept. 22-28, according to Luminate. The song becomes Swift’s eighth No. 1, as she breaks out of a tie with Maroon 5, Katy Perry and Usher for the fourth-most since the chart launched in December 1990. Rihanna leads with 13 No. 1s, followed by Mariah Carey (11) and Bruno Mars (nine). “Cruel Summer” appeared on Swift’s 2019 album, Lover. Republic Records began promoting it as a single in June, as Swift has performed it on her Eras Tour, her first in which she has been able to spotlight songs from Lover. (The album was released shortly before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.) “Cruel Summer” also becomes…

Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 Billboard Hot 100 top 10 rolls into its second week atop the Hot Country Songs chart after logging 19 weeks at No. 2. It tallied 75.2 million all-format airplay impressions, 16 million official streams and 4,000 downloads sold in the United States in the week of Sept. 22-28, according to Luminate. “It has been so cool to see everyone enjoying this song, whether it was people who were hearing the song for the first time or people [for whom] it brought back memories of Tracy’s timeless recording,” Combs says. “I’m just glad this song got another life because it deserves to be around forever.” The single marks Combs’ sixth No. 1 on Hot Country Songs. It previously topped Country Airplay for five…

The Rolling Stones are back in the top 10 of a Billboard airplay chart with “Angry,” which lifts 16-10 in its third week on Triple A Airplay. The song is the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ first top 10 on the chart since “Living in a Ghost Town,” which climbed to No. 4 in 2020. (The group first reached the top 10 on a songs ranking when “Time Is on My Side” hit the top tier on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Nov. 21, 1964.) The new song also premieres at No. 39 on Mainstream Rock Airplay, where it’s the band’s first entry since “Doom and Gloom,” which peaked at No. 35 in December 2012. “Angry” also jumps 24-18 on Rock & Alternative Airplay with 1.7 million impressions,…

Karol G notches her 16th No. 1 on Latin Airplay as “Mi Ex Tenía Razón” rises 3-1 in its seventh chart week. The song earned 9.8 million audience impressions in the United States in the week ending Sept. 28, according to Luminate, a 16% gain from the previous week. With the new No. 1, Karol G becomes the first woman to achieve a chart-topper as a soloist unaccompanied by another act this year. The last woman to do so was Rosalía with “Despechá” in October 2022. Among her 16 career chart-toppers, five of Karol G’s No. 1s have been without another artist. Prior to “Mi Ex Tenía Razón,” “Provenza” was her last solo No. 1, for one week, in July 2022. In between, “TQG” (with Shakira) spent two weeks…

Atlanta-based Anthony David and Algebra Blessett’s “Heaven” rises from No. 5 to No. 1 on the Gospel Airplay chart, up 15% in plays in the week of Sept. 22-28, according to Luminate. The singers’ first collaboration in over a decade marks their first entry on the chart. Billed as Anthony David featuring Algebra, they reached No. 2 on Adult R&B Airplay in 2011 with “4Evermore.” “Heaven” was originally recorded by gospel greats BeBe & CeCe Winans and released as the title track to their 1989 set that led Top Gospel Albums, becoming the duo’s first of three chart-toppers. BeBe Winans co-wrote the song with Keith Thomas. “We’re definitely happy to be embraced by the gospel community,” David and Blessett said in a statement. “Our whole mission in music is…

Illenium’s “Other Side” (featuring Vera Blue) hits No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart. It’s the artist’s fifth No. 1 on the list, as he ties David Guetta for the most among all acts since his first chart-topper in November 2019, when he led with “Takeaway” (with The Chainsmokers and featuring Lennon Stella). In between, the Illinois native reigned with “Nightlight” in November 2020, “Hearts on Fire” (with Dabin and Lights) in April 2021 and “Luv Me a Little” (featuring Nina Nesbitt) this April. Australian singer-songwriter Blue hits No. 1 in her first visit to the chart. Elsewhere, The Weeknd, Playboi Carti and Madonna debut on Dance/Mix Show Airplay at No. 34 with “Popular.” Madonna has now reached the ranking in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s (dating to…