Innholdsfortegnelse for May 11, 2024 i Billboard Magazine

TAYLOR SWIFT CONTINUES to dominate the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 a week after her debut atop both charts. On the former, The Tortured Poets Department became her 14th No. 1, tying her with Jay-Z for the most leaders among soloists in the chart’s 68-year history. The set earned 439,000 equivalent album units in the United States in its second week (ending May 2), according to Luminate, following its 2.6 million-unit opening week. It launched with 1.9 million in domestic album sales and sold 107,000 in its second week, becoming Swift’s 11th album to pass 2 million purchases — and her first to reach the milestone after only two weeks of availability. The set looms so large in sales that its sum represents 8.4% of all albums sold…

SABRINA CARPENTER’S “Espresso” percolates from No. 17 to No. 2 on the Billboard Global 200 two weeks after it entered at No. 10, becoming her first hit in the chart’s top tier. The song drew 85.8 million streams (up 35%) and sold 6,000 (up 18%) worldwide April 26-May 2, according to Luminate. It also becomes the first top five hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for the singer-songwriter-actress. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” flies 33-6 on the Global 200 with 56.4 million streams (up 68%) and 25,000 sold (up 48%) worldwide, marking his first top 10. The track interpolates J-Kwon’s “Tipsy,” which crowned Hot Rap Songs for five weeks in 2004. Shaboozey concurrently scores his first top 10 on the Hot 100 with his single and tops Hot Country…

ILLIT’s first EP, Super Real Me, soars in at No. 2 on the World Albums chart, as well as No. 9 on Top Album Sales with 8,000 copies sold. Powering the set is the South Korean quintet’s breakthrough single, “Magnetic,” which has become its first Billboard Hot 100 hit and has reached the top 10 of the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts. The track has led Hong Kong Songs, Malaysia Songs, Singapore Songs, South Korea Songs and Taiwan Songs. ILLIT formed in 2023 through the Korean JTBC reality show R U Next? GO TO BILLBOARD.COM FOR COMPLETE CHART DATA…

MUSIC BUSINESSAssociation president Portia Sabin’s career has reached most of the corners of the music industry, including drumming in all-female punk power-pop band The Hissyfits in the late 1990s. She founded Shotclock Management in the early 2000s and, beginning in 2006, ran the indie label Kill Rock Stars for 13 years. (She is married to its founder, Slim Moon.) During that time, she served on the boards of directors for both U.S. label trade associations — the American Association of Independent Music and the RIAA — and the Recording Academy’s Pacific Northwest chapter. “I made a lot of connections across the industry through them and got a good sense of what part trade associations play in the ecosystem, as well as ideas about board management,” she says. That experience…

WE WERE PRETTY prepared for this moment,” says Shaboozey, lounging on the floor of a Los Angeles recording studio. While putting the finishing touches on his forthcoming album, Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going (due out May 31), the fast-rising country artist is — perhaps for the first time — reflecting on how he arrived at this point in his career. Not only has the buzzy 29-year-old been working in music for nearly a decade, but a recent assist from Beyoncé helped spark a career-shifting breakout moment of his own. After appearing as a featured guest on a pair of songs on the icon’s chart-topping and record-breaking Cowboy Carter (“Spaghettii” with Linda Martell and “Sweet * Honey * Buckiin”), Shaboozey released a solo single: the jaunty country-rap anthem…

WHEN LAINEY WILSON played Australia for the first time in March, she made sure to meet the country’s animal ambassadors: She held a koala; she pet a kangaroo. But it wasn’t all furry fun. “I got crapped on by a bird twice,” Wilson says in her thick Louisiana drawl, shaking her head in bemused disbelief. “In the exact same spot. I heard it was good fortune, so I was like, ‘Go ahead. Do what you got to do, bird.’ ” But if there’s anyone who doesn’t need luck, it’s Wilson. With a perseverance and grit that’s reflected in her music, the ascendant 31-year-old country star has made her own. After she moved to Nashville in 2011, Wilson endured a decade of disheartening struggles — including seven American Idol rejections.…

How did “Tell Ur Girlfriend” come together? I make songs based on real-life experiences. I walked in the studio with [co-writer/producer] Johnny Goldstein and [co-writer] Ink, sat there for two hours before we made the song, and I broke down the situation. I came up with some things that I liked, and then [Ink] helped me piece together the hook. I freestyled verses; I just said how I felt. I actually had to rerecord it because I felt like some things needed to be changed to make it a little more truthful. It was probably a two-week process to get this song where I really wanted it to be. The song is No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart. What is your relationship like with the internet?…

NATE SMITH IS hunkered down in a Nashville studio working on his forthcoming second album — but the rising country-rocker can’t help but revisit his past. This is the same studio, he says, where he recorded his independently released debut EP, 2020’s Reckless, which included his breakout hit, “Wildfire.” When the longing, twangy song went viral on TikTok, it helped Smith score management, publishing and record deals. But that almost never happened. “I was able to record that because my sister’s husband loaned me $4,000 and we made a little investment deal,” recalls Smith over Zoom, eyes widening in lingering astonishment. “They took a huge risk... But they were able to make enough to put a down payment on their house from [my music].” During his wildly successful past…

“ ‘Austin’ was written out of a lot of rage,” says singer-songwriter Dasha, 24, recalling a session in early 2023 for her breakout smash, during which she poured out a personal story of a tumultuous relationship. “Austin” exudes irresistible dance grooves while defiantly detailing the country-pop artist hightailing it to Los Angeles and leaving her no-good lover a drunken mess in Texas. Though she says she had never been to the state’s capital at the time, “the emotions that drove the story were real.” The independent release — the second single from second album What Happens Now?, which arrived in February — has likewise resonated with listeners. It became Dasha’s first Billboard Hot 100 entry in March, since reaching a No. 28 high, and hit No. 3 on Hot…

2 Morgan Wallen One Thing at a Time Following Wallen’s festival-closing headlining spot at Stagecoach on April 28, his three full-length studio sets all jump up the list, with Dangerous: The Double Album (No. 6) ascending to its highest rank in nearly a year. 10 PartyNextDoor PartyNextDoor 4 (P4) The artist lands his third top 10-charting set on the Billboard 200 (37,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending May 2, according to Luminate) and fifth on Top R&B Albums (No. 2). 174 Def Leppard Pyromania The album returns to the chart for the first time in over six years thanks to a 40th-anniversary deluxe reissue. It peaked at No. 2 in 1983 for two weeks, behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller. 18 Laufey Bewitched Laufey’s…

Luke Hemmings leads the Emerging Artists chart for the first time, reentering at No. 1 thanks to his new project, Boy. The seven-track set, released April 26, starts at No. 5 on Top Album Sales with 10,000 sold. It’s his second solo entry on the chart after his debut full-length, When Facing the Things We Turn Away From, hit No. 9 in August 2021. Hemmings is the lead singer/rhythm guitarist of Australian group 5 Seconds of Summer. The act charted three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 in 2014-18.…

SONY MUSIC PUBLISHING swept Billboard’s Publishers Quarterly rankings for the first three months of 2024 — its fifth consecutive quarter atop the Top Radio Airplay and Hot 100 Songs lists. Sony also had a piece of the song that ruled both charts — Jack Harlow’s “Lovin on Me.” The other top 10 publishers with a stake in the song: Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), Warner Chappell Music and Kobalt. The first quarter’s top songwriter on the Hot 100 Songs ranking was Noah Kahan. He landed at the peak due to two songs, including the No. 10 track on the chart, “Stick Season.” Not surprisingly, on Top Radio Airplay, Taylor Swift was the No. 1 songwriter thanks to the success of three songs on that list, including “Is It Over…

WHEN TUNJI BALOGUN took over Def Jam in January 2022 after a career working with stars such as Kendrick Lamar at Interscope; Khalid, Bryson Tiller, H.E.R. and Wizkid at RCA; and Normani at his own Keep Cool imprint, he says he found a label with “a lot of question marks. There was a lot of instability. It seemed like there were a lot of different perspectives.” In the five years prior to Balogun’s tenure, Def Jam had been in a state of near-continual upheaval. After Steve Bartels exited as CEO in 2018, Eminem manager and Shady Records co-founder Paul Rosenberg took the job but lasted only two years. Jeffrey Harleston, executive vp of business affairs/general counsel of the label’s parent company, Universal Music Group (UMG), ran Def Jam on…