Innholdsfortegnelse for October 26, 2024 i Billboard Magazine

YEAH YEAH YEAHS’ “MAPS” charts a second week at No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 (dated Oct. 19), while five songs, including four debuts, break into the top 10. “Maps,” a No. 9 Alternative Airplay hit in 2004, is driven by a pair of TikTok trends. One is a dance, while the other features creators using a filter to remove their facial features, only to have those features float back onto their faces, sometimes in the wrong spot. John Mackk’s “Pose for Me (Remix),” featuring Natalie Nunn, debuts at No. 3. The song arrived in March, but a remix that dropped Sept. 6 has driven the bulk of its activity since. Gracie Abrams’ “I Love You, I’m Sorry” reaches new heights, reentering at No. 4 partially due…

Throughout One Direction’s wildly successful run in the 2010s, Liam Payne was the ultimate utility player — able to deliver vocal power as a lead singer, gracious while harmonizing in the background, an affable performer on stadium stages and a skilled songwriter who penned tracks on each of the group’s five albums. Payne, who died Oct. 16 at the age of 31, helped turn the five-member boy band formed on The X Factor in 2010 into a generation-defining pop act, then scored a top 10 hit of his own on the Billboard Hot 100 with the 2017 single “Strip That Down,” featuring Quavo. After releasing a solo album, LP1, in 2019 through Republic Records, Payne collaborated with artists like Rita Ora, Alesso and J Balvin. His most recent single,…

EVEN BEFORE CHARLI XCX dominated the summer with her acclaimed album brat, there was internal chatter about a joint arena tour with her and Troye Sivan. “I was pretty unsure how it would work, honestly,” recalls creative director Imogene Strauss, citing how unusual it is for two artists to alternate within the set list. “I was like, ‘This is going to be a challenge’ — and I think everyone felt that way.” Ultimately, fusing two separate tours — Charli had debuted her solo brat shows during album release week at Primavera Sound in June while Sivan had embarked on his own European/ U.K. headlining tour in support of his third album, Something To Give Each Other, in May — for a fall co-headlining run proved easier than expected. The…

IN 2024, THE AVERAGE merchandise campaign consists of 50 pieces of artwork that can easily be adapted for use on varied tour and direct-to-consumer items, says Matt Young, president of Bravado, Universal Music Group’s merch and brand management company. But for Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS campaign, he says, “I think we’ve done at least 375 unique pieces of art.” Rodrigo’s singular vision for her first arena tour extended to the products sold at its kiosks. As the album rollout and tour details came together last year, the pop star coordinated with management, Bravado and label partners to ensure that each piece of merch “felt cohesive to the greater GUTS world,” says Michelle An, Interscope Geffen A&M president/head of creative strategy. The number of items kept…

How was “I Never Lie” created? I wrote it with Carson Chamberlain and Tim Nichols. I have one of my more clever rhymes on there with “Angel” and “April” in the first verse [“You still look like an angel/I heard you’re doing fine, got promoted back in April”]. We cut it pretty old-school with the band, and I sang and tracked the vocals as they were playing. They never hear the song until the day we record it. I’ll have an acoustic recording on my phone, and they hear it once or twice, and that’s it. It’s two or three takes, and we play it like we feel it. We might overdub a thing or two or add some fills, but it’s all played live. What has been your…

IN OCTOBER, NewJeans stars in the first edition of Billboard Artist, a new series of collectible art books produced by Billboard Korea. The inaugural edition tells the girl group’s story through a visual lens, showcasing the members’ style and fashion while incorporating interview highlights as well. NewJeans was honored as Group of the Year at Billboard’s 2024 Women in Music awards show. Billboard Korea launched in August with a star-studded event in Seoul — the K-Power 100 — bringing together the leaders of all of South Korea’s major music companies and featuring performances by some of the region’s most exciting talent. Billboard Artist, an initiative led by Billboard Korea creative director Woo Lee, is available for purchase on Weverse and through various other retailers.…

WHEN VETERAN concert promoter Louis Messina weighs adding an act to Messina Touring Group’s impressive stable of superstar artists, his eyes aren’t focused on the stage. Instead, he’s intently surveying the concert audience. “I watch eyes and lips: eyes, if they’re really focusing on the artists, and lips, if they’re singing along and if they’re smiling,” he says. “When I see that happening, that’s when I know I need to be involved. It’s rare that you see artists that can do that and [aren’t] just going through the motions. You know they bring this unique connection.” Messina knows that feeling well; he remembers first experiencing it at just 7 years old, when his father took him to see Elvis Presley in his hometown of New Orleans. “I’ve never forgotten…

8 BigXthaPlug Take Care The rapper hits the top 10 as Take Care debuts at No. 8 with a career-high 48,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending Oct. 17, according to Luminate. It’s his first top 40 entry on the chart. 29 Coldplay Moon Music It’s the third album in 2024 to fall from No. 1 to outside the top 20 the following week. TWICE’s With YOU-th dropped 1-35 in March, and Travis Scott’s Days Before Rodeo fell off entirely after topping the chart in October. 179 Rüfüs Du Sol Inhale / Exhale The Australian trio lands its first Billboard 200 entry, and third top 10 on the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, as the group’s new set enters with 8,000 equivalent album units…

WHEN WARNER Records signed Zach Bryan in 2021, it wasn’t initially seen as a momentous move. But the Oklahoma rock/country singer has since become one of the biggest stars in any genre, selling out arenas and scoring No. 1 entries on both the Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums charts. In hindsight, his signing signaled a watershed moment. Bryan’s massive success has proved an act no longer needs Nashville’s long-term artist development methods — there’s a reason it’s called a “10-year town” — including country radio, to break through. “The marketplace has provided an avenue for these artists who are working outside the traditional system of the Nashville-driven machine,” says Tom Corson, Warner Records co-chair/COO. Three years later, the reverberations continue as Nashville labels face increasing competition from their…

PIANOS ANCHOR BOTH Abigail Barlow’s and Emily Bear’s Los Angeles apartments. Self-described “Barbie girl” Barlow, 25, has a shiny magenta lacquered Yamaha U1, as brightly hued as her hair and her bedazzled Stanley mug. The “old-ass” Steinway upright — a refurbished turn-of-the-century specimen purchased from “a random warehouse downtown” — belongs to 23-year-old Bear. It would be tempting to assume that the two musicians are polar opposites, based on their instruments as well as their backstories. Barlow is a pop singer-songwriter who first dreamed of becoming “a musical theater actrice”; Bear was a wunderkind classical and jazz pianist, a Quincy Jones protegée who played for Beyoncé on the Renaissance tour and was intent on writing film/TV scores. And while both entered the industry in their teens, it wasn’t until…

As the pandemic was waning, John Summit, an emerging Chicago DJ whose music had blown up online during lockdown, had a plan to translate that internet presence to real life. “Our strategy was to be everywhere,” says Summit’s manager, Holt Harmon. “Like, omnipresent.” In 2021 and early 2022, Summit and his team canvassed North American nightclubs as they reopened, showing promoters (and themselves) that Summit’s online hype could turn into in-person fun. In May 2021, he sold out a 500-capacity venue in Tempe, Ariz., in just 12 seconds. The team then transitioned from clubs to 2,000-capacity rooms, investing profits into production for stage rigs. “We were smart with how we were living at the time,” Harmon says. “I did everything from a kitchen table with my business partner, and…

AT MOST HUGE pop tours, there’s a moment when shrieking fans reach a true fever pitch — when the lights dim right before the show begins, or when the intro to the artist’s biggest hit kicks in, or during the break before the encore. All of those happened at Olivia Rodrigo’s first arena tour — but her favorite part of the show was when those eardrum-rattling cries were, in fact, mad as hell. “When we play ‘allamerican bitch,’ ” Rodrigo tells Billboard, “there’s a part at the end of the song where I ask the audience to think about something that pisses them off and then tell them to scream about it when the lights go off.” On the opener to her 2023 album, GUTS, Rodrigo juxtaposes folksy, facetious…