Innholdsfortegnelse for March 9, 2024 i Billboard Magazine

TWICE ACHIEVES ITS first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 as With YOU-th debuts with 95,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending Feb. 29 — with 90,000 in traditional album sales — according to Luminate. The set is the pop ensemble’s fifth top 10, all of which have been earned consecutively dating to June 2021. Sales of the album (which arrived Feb. 23) were bolstered by its availability across 14 CD variants (including exclusives for Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart and the act’s web store, all containing branded paper merchandise as well as randomized elements) and three vinyl picture discs, including one Target-exclusive version. With YOU-th is the third Billboard 200 No. 1 by an all-woman group in less than three years —…

Billy Joel boasts his best placement on the Adult Contemporary chart in over 30 years as “Turn the Lights Back On” — his first single since 2007 — rises 9-7 as the list’s Greatest Gainer (gaining 11% in plays Feb. 23-29, according to Luminate). His 24th top 10 on the chart sparks his highest rank reached since “All About Soul” hit No. 6 in January 1994. Joel scales Adult Contemporary one week after the 50th anniversary of his first appearance on the chart: On the list dated March 2, 1974, he debuted at No. 48 with his breakthrough classic, “Piano Man,” which went on to become his first top 10, peaking at No. 4 that April. Joel, 74, has sent eight songs to No. 1, from “Just the Way…

WHEN 21-YEAR-OLD SINGER ericdoa released the song titled “>one” last March, he had an unusual collaborator: Valorant. That’s not another artist; it’s a popular shooter game that attracted 17.8 million players in February, according to gaming stats platform Tracker Network. Riot Games, the company behind Valorant, used “>one” — which references the game in its lyrics — as a synch for a trailer that introduced a playable character named Gekko. The result: “>one” is now ericdoa’s second-most-popular track on Spotify, with over 35 million streams. “That was a huge spiritual win,” says Maria Egan, global head of music and events for Riot Games. She adds that the company’s executives are now asking themselves, “How do we unlock our platform and other gaming platforms to be the new place that…

BOLSTERED BY ACTS LIKE Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan and Luke Combs, country music in 2023 experienced its biggest growth spurt in more than 30 years — way back when Garth Brooks soared to superstardom. Already, this year seems on track to continue that explosion, as country stars and pop icons alike are capitalizing on the genre’s recent boom. In February, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to top Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart with her galloping hit, “Texas Hold ’Em,” from her upcoming Act II, expected to be a full-on country album, out March 29. Post Malone has teased a duet with Combs on social media and written with other genre stars including Wallen and HARDY for his upcoming country album. And Lana Del Rey — who declared that…

FROM Sydney AGE 37 LABEL Because Music FOUNDATION Samantha Poulter took piano lessons as a child but “didn’t like that formal type of training,” she says. Yet she dreamed of being a performer, taking inspiration from Michael Jackson and 1990s-era British pop star Peter Andre. She had a keen ear from a young age, too: “I’d be like, ‘I would do this differently,’ and have ideas about how music should sound without the training to communicate that or create it myself.” That changed when she started producing electronic music in her early 20s, weaving high school-era influences like Destiny’s Child and Aaliyah into her cerebral productions. DISCOVERY Poulter and her husband, DJ-producer Tom McAlister, started producing electronic music together in 2016 when she “felt there was a lull” in…

Thirty-three shows by Latin artists — including Christian Nodal, Camilo, Emilia, Nicki Nicole and Eladio Carrión — are set to take place at the WiZink Center arena in Madrid this year, out of a total of 97 planned concerts. That’s triple the number of shows by Latin artists who performed at the venue in 2019. Nearby, at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, which will soon reopen after a three-plus-year renovation, Mexican star Luis Miguel will be the first artist to play two back-to-back shows at the venue when he headlines in July. The numbers provide a glimpse of Spain’s shifting musical tastes and exploding touring market. According to the country’s Association of Musical Promoters, 2022 ticket revenue reached a record gross of 459 million euros ($492 million); the 2023 Primavera Sound…

SZA rings up her 10th Billboard Hot 100 top 10 as “Saturn” debuts at No. 6. The song launches with 25 million official U.S. streams, 960,000 in airplay audience and 2,000 paid downloads for the Feb. 23-29 tracking week, according to Luminate. It also sits atop the Hot R&B Songs chart, replacing her own “Snooze.” GO TO BILLBOARD.COM FOR COMPLETE CHART DATA…

Led by a surge in streaming, “Carnival” by Ye (formerly known as Kanye West; above, right) and Ty Dolla $ign (above, left) rises to No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The track, featuring Rich the Kid and Playboi Carti, nabs the chart’s top Streaming Gainer honor with 32.2 million official U.S. streams in the week ending Feb. 29, according to Luminate — a 31% gain from the prior week. “Carnival” also improves in sales, with 3,000 downloads (up 29%), and radio airplay, reaching 2.1 million in audience (up 258%). With “Carnival,” Ye scores his ninth Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs No. 1 and first since 2021’s “Hurricane.” Ty Dolla $ign lands his second leader after his featured spot on Post Malone’s “Psycho” in 2018, while Rich the Kid and Playboi Carti…

The late Frankie Ruiz (above, left) returns to the top 10 of Tropical Airplay for the first time since 1998 (the year he died) thanks to his featured role on “Otra Noche Más” by Victor Manuelle (above, right), which debuts at No. 9. It’s Ruiz’s seventh top 10 and Manuelle’s record-extending 65th. “Otra Noche Más,” a tribute to the legacy of one of salsa’s biggest artists, integrates excerpts from Ruiz’s 1989 single “Deseándote” and musical arrangements by Junito Dávila. The track is Ruiz’s first entry on the chart since 2012 and debuts with 2 million audience impressions earned in the United States during the week ending Feb. 29, according to Luminate. The song arrived Feb. 22. The time-traveling collaboration previews Manuelle’s upcoming Retromántico, an album that pays homage to…

SPAIN IS ALIVE WITH THE sound of music. In the last 12 months alone, the country launched a new Academy of Music and will hold its first awards in Spain in May; it also hosted the Latin Grammys in Seville in November, the first time the awards show was presented outside the United States. And music sales are booming. Total music revenue in 2022 reached its highest mark since 2006 — 462 million euros ($498 million) — while revenue from sales and streaming rose 11.5% in the first half of 2023 to 214.3 million euros ($231 million), compared with the same period in 2006, according to trade group Promusicae. In the live-music arena, 2022 ticket revenue reached a record gross of 459 million euros ($495 million), according to Spain’s…

SADDLE UP: There’s a big anniversary in Asbury Park, N.J. The Stone Pony, birthplace of Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes, is celebrating 50 years. In February 1974, New York native Jack Roig opened the Ocean Avenue club, situated across from the Asbury Park boardwalk, and local superstar Bruce Springsteen soon brought it to national fame. The Jukes started playing regularly at the Pony in 1974 as one of the venue’s first house bands — and early incarnations included future E Street Band member Little Steven Van Zandt. Springsteen began to hang around soon after. The 1976 record release party for the Jukes’ debut, I Don’t Want To Go Home, helped put the club on the map. Springsteen, members of the E Street Band and legendary singers Ronnie Spector…

Sum 41 returns to No. 1 on the Alternative Airplay chart with “Landmines.” The group scores its second leader after “Fat Lip” reigned for a week in August 2001. The band’s break of 22 years, five months and three weeks between No. 1s is the longest in the chart’s 35-year history, surpassing the 13 years and six months that The Killers waited between “When You Were Young” in October 2006 and “Caution” in April 2020. Concurrently, “Landmines” rises 6-5 on the all-rock-format Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, having earned 4.8 million audience impressions Feb. 23-29, according to Luminate. The song is the lead single from Heaven :x: Hell, Sum 41’s eighth studio album and first since 2019’s Order in Decline. Due March 29, the set is billed as the…

AT MANY OF THE MORE THAN 1,500 independent record stores in the United States, vinyl sales have been growing at a healthy clip for almost a decade — 14.2% with all retailers in 2023, according to Billboard’s data provider, Luminate. So why did it track 46.4% fewer vinyl sales in January than it did for the same month in 2023? On its face, such a precipitous drop might appear troubling — and puzzling — given the surge of vinyl sales since the pandemic. In actuality, the decline is mostly a result of Luminate changing the decades-old methodology it had used since Billboard adopted SoundScan’s measurement system in 1991 to count sales at indie retail outlets — a change that Luminate had warned last year would make 2024’s vinyl sales…

Last year, the Black Music Action Coalition and the Academy of Country Music joined together to launch OnRamp, a new initiative designed to create economic empowerment and access to the music industry for young Black creatives and industry executives, giving them a year of guaranteed income and a menu of mentorship services from music industry leaders. Following the success of the OnRamp program, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has united with the BMAC to continue this important work and support both young female and Black creatives and industry professionals in search of careers as musicians, songwriters, producers and executives. The program assists young creatives with basic needs such as rent, utilities and food, as well as opens the door for previously challenging activities such as studio time,…

WHEN KATIE CRUTCHFIELD, the 35-year-old singer-songwriter better known as Waxahatchee, released her country-tinged fifth album, Saint Cloud, in March 2020, its intimacy connected with listeners in early-pandemic lockdown and it topped Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart. But for her follow-up (and ANTI-debut), Tigers Blood, out March 22, Crutchfield kept a healthy distance from the acclaim of Saint Cloud. “Internalizing people’s praise is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than internalizing criticism,” she says from her Kansas City, Mo., home. Tigers Blood carries on in Saint Cloud’s alt-country vein, and like that record, it was made in just two weeks at Texas studio Sonic Ranch with producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Snail Mail). But the album has a character all its own, thanks in part to Crutchfield’s new backing band:…

IT’S THE TATTOOS that really make Christian Nodal stick out like a sore thumb. With his inked-up body — and face — he looks more like a rapper or rock star than the exploding regional Mexican artist he is. “I didn’t want to be anyone’s shadow,” Nodal declares. “I felt that the genre was stigmatized under all these stereotypes, and I wanted to break all of that because I was unsatisfied to see that our genre wasn’t going far enough.” Since launching his career in 2017, Nodal, now 25, has made a name for himself (sometimes with sharp elbows) as a maverick in a genre long bound by tradition. From the time he started at age 18, he has revolutionized regional Mexican music by pioneering mariacheño, a subgenre fusing…

As the Spanish music market grows stronger, with live-music attendance at a record high and more interest than ever in Spanish-language artists, the Community of Madrid — the region that includes the nation’s capital city — has launched several initiatives to expand its musical footprint. Initiatives range from Sesión Vermú — a concert series that in 2023 featured 90 shows by 46 bands in 24 municipalities — to the massive concerts by Latin headliners Camilo and Carlos Vives at the iconic Puerta de Alcalá, in the center of the city. “Madrid is the musical bridge between Latin America and Europe,” says Community of Madrid president Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “The Community of Madrid is dedicated to supporting new talent and young creation and offering fans the best emerging music from…