It’s Friday and we’re breaking down all the new music drops such as Jisoo, Charlie Puth & Dan + Shay, Becky G and Peso Pluma and more! Megan Thee Stallion rocked a custom Astros jersey as she showed up for her hometown baseball team on opening day. All your favorite acts were out for the GLAAD Media Awards, and we are rounding up all the fire fits. We take a deep dive into what record labels do in our new episode of Billboard Explains: Record Labels!
It’s been one year since the devastating death of The Wanted‘s Tom Parker, who lost a long battle with brain cancer at age 33.
On the anniversary of his passing, the star’s wife Kelsey Hardwick Parker took to Instagram to pay tribute to her late husband. “One year without you [red heart emoji] forever my soul mate,” she captioned a sweet photo of the duo smiling at each other, face-to-face. She shares two children with the musician, Aurelia Rose Parker and Bodhi Thomas Paris Parker.
Parker publicly shared his battle with brain cancer and revealed in October 2020 that he was diagnosed with the illness. On Nov. 4, Parker updated his Instagram followers on his condition and reported that his latest brain scan came back as stable.
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Hardwick confirmed his death in 2022 with a black and white photo of the singer. “It is with the heaviest of hearts that we confirm Tom passed away peacefully earlier today with all of his family by his side,” she captioned the photo. “Our hearts are broken, Tom was the centre of our world and we can’t imagine life without his infectious smile and energetic presence. We are truly thankful for the outpouring of love and support and ask that we all unite to ensure Tom’s light continues to shine for his beautiful children. Thank you to everyone who has supported in his care throughout, he fought until the very end. I’m forever proud of you.”
As a member of The Wanted, Parker and bandmates Max George, Siva Kaneswaran, Jay McGuiness and Nathan Sykes found mainstream success in 2012 with singles “Glad You Came” and “Chasing the Sun,” which peaked at No. 3 and No. 50 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
Record labels have been around for decades and, for a long time, being signed to one meant that an artist made it in the music industry. But what does a label actually do, how do they make a profit and how are they evolving? The latest episode of Billboard Explains answers all those questions.
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There are two types of labels: major labels, which are organized into umbrella companies called label groups, and independent labels. The three major labels in today’s industry are Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group — with each having their own subsidiaries. Independent labels differ from major labels, as they operate on their own funding. They can also outsource distribution and publishing, while majors do that themselves.
“When you think about a record label now, it’s really important to focus on the fact that they have massive marketing and publicity muscle,” says Dan Rys, Billboard‘s senior writer. “They are the ones who are able to put a billboard up in Los Angeles. They’re the ones who can get you placement on streaming services.”
Labels typically make money on songs’ master recordings one of three ways: through music sales, downloads and streaming of an artist; brand partnerships where an artist endorses a product; and master licensing, using the exact recording of a song for a commercial, movie or TV show. Labels can also make money on touring, merch and other opportunities based on deals signed with artists.
Thanks to social media, the way labels recruit artists has changed drastically. “There was a time when record labels were the only way that anyone could actually get their music out to the public,” says Keith Caulfield, Billboard‘s managing director of charts and data operations. “They controlled all the marketing and distribution of getting your music into stores. Today, that’s greatly different because you have the Internet.”
Watch the latest Billboard Explains above. After the video, catch up on more Billboard Explains videos and learn about the origins of hip-hop, how Beyoncé arrived at Renaissance, the evolution of girl groups, BBMAs, NFTs, SXSW, the magic of boy bands, American Music Awards, the Billboard Latin Music Awards, the Hot 100 chart, how R&B/hip-hop became the biggest genre in the U.S., how festivals book their lineups, Billie Eilish’s formula for success, the history of rap battles, nonbinary awareness in music, the Billboard Music Awards, the Free Britney movement, rise of K-pop in the U.S., why Taylor Swift is re-recording her first six albums, the boom of hit all-female collaborations, how Grammy nominees and winners are chosen, why songwriters are selling their publishing catalogs, how the Super Bowl halftime show is booked and why Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” was able to shoot to No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Christina Aguilera embraced her inner “Fighter” on Thursday night when she spoke out at the 2023 GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles.
The “Dirrty” singer was in attendance to receive the organization’s advocate for change award, awarded to “a person who, through their work, has changed the game for LGBTQ people around the world.” Madonna and Bill Clinton previously received the award.
Presented her award by Michael Anderson, one of the survivors of the Club Q shooting in Colorado, Aguilera quickly thanked GLAAD and Anderson for the honor. “You have no idea how much this truly means to me,” she said. “This is the stuff that really matters in life.”
Launching into her speech, Aguilera spoke at length about her “lifelong” relationship with the LGBTQ community. “So much of who I am and what I do is because of each of you, and the shared experience of having to fight for equality and freedom in some capacity,” she said.
The “Genie in a Bottle” singer applauded the community for their continued endurance against an onslaught of attacks, especially from Republican legislators around the U.S. “I am constantly impressed by your examples of the courage it takes to fight for acceptance, respect and safety that every human being deserves,” she said. “When you’ve been a victim of violence, abuse or trauma, it is incredibly hard and scary to find your voice and fight back. Having grown up in a home with domestic violence, it was seeing my mom in a powerless position that first ignited the fire in me to speak up for all of the people whose voices don’t get heard.”
After speaking about her mission to “creatively empower others through my music,” Aguilera closed her speech by calling for queer people to keep up their fight for equality. “We all need to raise our voices if we want to live in a world that is free of discrimination, hate and violence,” she said. “My greater purpose is to use the platform I have to change lives for the better, so thank you GLAAD for this and for all that you do to make every voice in the LGBTQ community heard. We can’t help each other if we can’t hear each other.”
The singer was just one of the celebrities awarded on Thursday evening — Bad Bunny received the annual vanguard award for his allyship towards the community, while out Broadway star Jeremy Pope received the Stephen F. Kolzak award for his work in raising visibility for queer people in media.
Check out Christina Aguilera’s full acceptance speech at the GLAAD Media Awards below.
This week, our New Music Latin roundup — a compilation of the best new Latin songs, albums and videos recommended by the Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors each week — is powered by new music from Natti Natasha, Becky G and Peso Pluma, and Yahritza Y Su Esencia, to name a few.
The list includes Natti Natasha’s “Algarete,” a risqué reggaeton track about the joy and thrill that comes from letting loose. “It’s a song that I dedicate to those who, although they no longer have the same opportunity to go out as before, when they do, they have the chance to relive their years of intense partying. With this track, the nights in Paris really inspired me and you can feel the same vibe I felt when I first got the idea for the song,” she said in a statement.
Also on the list are new collaborations such as Becky G and up-and-comer Peso Pluma, who team up for “Chanel.” In this track, Becky further testifies her genre versatility. With a voice well laid back, or bien tumbada, and an octave deeper than usual, the Inglewood star leaves the past behind her and pushes forward with lyrics that express better days ahead. The song is Becky G’s first single from an upcoming all-regional mexicano album she’s set to release later this year with more collaborations to be announced soon.
Additionally, Gaby Moreno reels in renowned actor Oscar Isaac into music to serenade fans with a touching interpretation of the Guatemalan classic “Luna de Xelajú”. The single is the lead track from Moreno’s upcoming acoustic album X MÍ (VOL. 1) to be released on May 5. The duet intertwines their voices to give a profound and soulful acoustic performance of the classic written in 1944 by Paco Perez that has become a second anthem of their country.
Vote for your new favorite release below, followed by our weekly New Music Latin playlist:
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Nestled between the pale sands of South Beach and the hustle and bustle of Collins Avenue sits the vibrant W Hotel South Beach. The seemingly hidden gem located steps from the Atlantic Ocean is one of several W Hotels where tourists and locals convene to enjoy live music.
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“Music has been such a big part of our DNA,” Carly Van Sickle, senior director, global brand marketing at W Hotels, told Billboard during a visit to the South Beach location last week. “We’ve always supported up-and-coming musicians and artists. More recently, working with Leah ‘LP Giobbi’ Chisholm [global director of music at W Hotel], our team has really been focusing on the electronic and dance scene, but also making sure that [the experiences are] still varied and connected to local culture.”
With electronic and dance music surging in popularity, and megastars like Beyoncé and Drake exploring the space, the hotel is digging even deeper into the genre by way of W Presents, an “innovative live electronic showcase” featuring artists handpicked by Chisholm, including opening acts from her organization, FEMME House, which creates “equitable opportunities” for women and gender-expansive individuals in the music industry.
The live music series, announced Wednesday (March 28), will take place in the W’s lobby/lounge area called Living Rooms. Rapper and producer Channel Tres will kick off the series with a performance at the new W Hotel Toronto on April 6.
The live music series comes on the heels of the W South Beach’s Miami Music Week celebration. The hotel hosted a series of events attended by influencers and tastemakers in the EDM scene, including Diplo and Frances Mercier.
Fans from all over the world flocked to Miami for the 10-year anniversary of Miami Music Week. The annual celebration, which was held from March 21-26, coincided with this year’s Ultra Music Festival.
W South Beach invited Billboard to attend its Miami Music Week events and installations, the first of which was an invite-only dinner at Irma’s W South Beach on March 22. The hotel teamed with Senza Fine to present a fine-dining experience co-hosted by Chisholm and Senza Fine co-founder Carlita and sponsored by Volcan De Mi Tierra Tequila.
Attendees at the W Hotels x Senza Fine Dinner in Miami Beach, FL on March 23, 2023.
Diana Zapata/BFA.com
Attendees included EDM titans and VIPs such as Diplo, Pete Tong, Damien Lazarus, Bedouin, Thomas & Julien de Bie (a.k.a. the “Parallells”), Ape Drums of Major Lazer, Anfisa Letyago, Mercier, Joplyn, Arielle Free, Spotify head of electronic dance development Ronny Ho, WME head of electronic music Stephanie LaFera, and Nü Androids founder Nayef Issa.
The menu, courtesy of DJ Tennis, featured small bites served on tennis rackets and seafood dishes such as blue crab with polenta, wild-caught swordfish, ragu paccheri pasta and fish cigars.
Day 2 kicked off with a yoga session on the beach, led by Ahana Yoga, followed by a breakfast mixer with sounds provided by a guest DJ. New York City wellness company WTHN provided cupping and custom ear seeds, while guests enjoyed fresh fruits, breakfast bites and sips of cacao.
“We want to make sure that W is showing up during cultural music moments, but showing up in a way that isn’t just always a party,” explained Van Sickle. “That’s why we had the dinner and wellness event. We know that it’s super important to take care of artists and people in the industry at large and to take care of mental health and wellness.”
For night 2, the W partnered with Mercier’s Deep Root record label for “Deep Root Tribe,” an Afro-House music event at W South Beach’s WET Deck, sponsored by El Cristiano 1761 Tequila. The event, which was held March 23 and open to the public, featured intimate sets from EDM stars including Major League DJz, &Friends, Bontan, HoneyLuv, Nico De Andrea, Ninetoes, samblacky, D’WITCHES, Gianni Petrarca, Sam Haze and a special performance from Mercier and Diplo.
Diplo and Francis Mercier perform at W Hotels x Deep Root Showcase in Miami Beach, FL on March 23, 2023.
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“Our Wet Decks and pools are a really good platform for music too,” Van Sickle noted. “In Barcelona, for example, they do what they call their Wet Deck summer series. Every summer [there’s] a different lineup, again, free to the public. We want the locals to come in. We want people traveling to know that if they’re looking for music experiences, they can go to W Hotel. We’re popping up in a lot of different ways. Just making sure we’re always activating around that passion point of music.”
W South Beach’s Miami Music Week event series commenced with a panel presented by FEMME House and a cocktail industry mixer at W South Beach’s Living Room. The panel was hosted by FEMME House co-founders Chisholm and HERMIXALOT and discussed creating opportunities for marginalized communities, providing safe spaces for diversity and building “authentic community” in music.
Apart from special events, exquisite rooms and sprawling views, the W Hotel further caters to music fans and creators by offering private recording studios and writer’s rooms. The Sound Suites are available at a few locations, including the W Hollywood, W Seattle and W Bali.
“Ultimately, our goal obviously is to have people stay with us, but we want to make sure that our experiences are open to others too,” said Van Sickle. “We don’t want [these experiences] to be exclusive. We’re inclusive. We want everyone to come, be themselves, have fun and experience the music.
“So it’s both sides of the artist community,” she continued. “It’s a creative space for the community, kind of like a mix of both: fans, but also for artists as well.”
Tapping into the local community is a large part of creating live music experiences at W Hotels around the world. “Local culture is a really big thing for us that we want to tap into,” added Van Sickle.
“I think that post-COVID, we want to make sure we’re bringing these experiences back in a really accessible way, but a fun, innovative, culturally relevant way too.”
Lauren London honored the late Nipsey Hussle on the fourth anniversary of his death on Friday (March 31) with a touching post on social media.
The You People actress, who was in a relationship with Hussle from 2013 until his murder in 2019, posted a pair of stark black-and-white portraits of the South Central Los Angeles native on her Instagram feed, writing, “I hold my breath all of March knowing I have to face the memory of the day you transitioned…. Holding on to ancient wisdom but the pain is the pain and nothing was ever the same… Eternal Being… Ermias Asghedom… I Love You.”
London then quoted a passage about death from the sacred writings of the Baha’i faith, adding, “‘To consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage. Our body is like the cage, and the spirit is like the bird. We see that without the cage this bird flies in the world of sleep; therefore, if the cage becomes broken, the bird will continue and exist. Its feelings will be even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness increased. In truth, from hell it reaches a paradise of delights because for the thankful birds there is no paradise greater than freedom.’”
In February, Nipsey’s killer received a sentence of 60 years to life in prison after being found guilty of first-degree murder for gunning down the “Grinding All My Life” rapper outside his Crenshaw neighborhood clothing store the Marathon. Since his death, Hussle has been honored with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is being memorialized in a new Hulu documentary.
Read London’s tribute to Hussle’s memory below.
Even if classical music made up just 1% of U.S. music consumption in 2022, according to Luminate, Apple’s new streaming service dedicated to the genre could mean big things for the subscription market.
Global recorded music revenues rose for the eighth straight year in 2022 — but markets are maturing, and the once high-flying growth rate fell to single digits. That doesn’t mean the music subscription business is getting stale, though. In fact, there are plenty of new ideas and much-needed innovations that can help push the streaming market forward.
The latest, and one of the best, examples of how the music business can build a better mousetrap is Apple Music Classical. Apple wanted to better serve classical music fans but realized the best path was to break away from the Apple Music subscription app that works fine for every other genre. So, it built Apple Music Classical, a standalone app for Apple’s iOS devices — the Android app will arrive later — that launched on Tuesday to some rave reviews (GQ called it “a ton of fun”).
Classical music has always been a second-class citizen in digital music because of the way its metadata — information about the recording — is organized. For most genres, describing music by artist, track and album is an adequate way to organize a massive number of recordings. Download stores and streaming services are built around this classification system. But since the advent of iTunes and download purchases, people have recognized that classical music doesn’t fit well in the standard metadata system. In classical music, music is better organized by such categories as conductor, orchestra and movement. This could help explain why classical music accounted for 2.7% of U.S. digital album sales but just 0.8% of on-demand streams in the U.S. last year, according to Luminate.
“It’s the works-based nature of classical,” says Dart Music founder Chris McMurtry, now a vp at Pex, a digital music rights company. “That’s why Apple had to build a separate app.” McMurtry addressed that problem at Dart Music, a digital distributor that focused on classical music and built a database with metadata fields better suited for the genre.
Apple wasn’t the first company to see an opportunity in classical music. Dart Music launched in 2015 to tackle the metadata angle (its assets were acquired in 2017 by Haawk), and classical-focused streaming isn’t new, either. Idagio debuted in 2015. Primephonic launched in 2019 and was acquired by Apple in 2021. Universal Music Group’s Deutsche Grammophon imprint debuted its own service, Stage+, in 2022.
But Apple’s entry into the classical music streaming market could be the most impactful to date. Apple has billions of customers around the globe and an increasingly successful services business that includes the Apple Music subscription app and Apple TV+, a streaming video-on-demand platform. Those cloud-based services, combined with Apple’s bread-and-butter business of selling smartphones and laptops, give the company the resources and marketing might to activate a passionate group of music aficionados that has been underserved by streaming platforms better suited for rock, pop and hip-hop.
“It exceeded my expectations,” says McMurtry, who looked up well-known names and obscure composers to appreciate the app’s level of detail. He says he was impressed by the depth of metadata — the producers, engineers, mixers, other contributors, year of the recording and even the composers’ birth and death years. “It’s a very educational experience.”
If Apple Music Classical can hook McMurtry, maybe it can lure more people into the music subscription market. In 2022, there were 92 million subscribers to streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music, according to the RIAA. In total, 214 million Americans — 75% of the population 12 and older — streamed music in the past month, according to a January 2023 survey by Edison Research. Younger consumers were far more likely to stream music than older listeners, however, with 53% of people over the age of 55 having done so compared to 89% of 12-to-34-year-olds and 85% of 35-to-54-year-olds. A good classical music app can help narrow that sizable gap, attract more subscribers and generate more subscription revenue.
Going after classical music fans makes financial sense, too. For starters, they’re plentiful, says Russ Crupnick, partner at market research firm MusicWatch. “By comparison, they are somewhat larger than the entire population of vinyl buyers,” he says. As older consumers, they can afford a standalone classical music app: Crupnick says classical music fans’ mean income is 35% higher than average. They’re also twice as likely to purchase expensive, audiophile stereo equipment. When asked if obtaining the highest-quality sound format is important, 64% of classical music fans said yes, and 54% are willing to pay more to get it. Fortunately for them, Apple Music Classical is free of charge to Apple Music subscribers. “It will be interesting to see whether Apple eventually adds fees to monetize the service, or subsidizes it as they have higher resolution audio,” says Crupnick.
There’s great potential outside of the United States, too. Apple Music Classical will eventually be available in three strong markets for classical music: Japan, China and South Korea. In China, the fifth-largest recorded music market in 2022, according to the IFPI, classical music has been a phenomenon since the Cultural Revolution. Gramophone magazine described it as a “gargantuan market for the consumption of recorded classical music even if only as a study aid or as a residue of having Mozart and Beethoven sonatas tinkling through the family home.”
The digital market has performed incredibly well without a mass appeal offering tailored for classical music fans. Record labels generated $16.9 billion from streaming in 2022 while mostly ignoring an important subset of the market. With Apple Music Classical, Idagio and Stage+ super-serving classical music fans, there’s potential to do better.
Eladio Carrión has been keeping it lit. He is freshly off releasing a Billboard-charting album 3MEN2 KBRN (pronounced tremendo cabrón), preparing his first ever festival Sauce Boyz Fest and plotting a national tour, which includes a stop at Coachella.
While in Austin for his Billboard Presents The Stage at SXSW performance earlier this month, the Puerto Rican rapper sat down with Leila Cobo, chief content officer of Billboard Latin/Español, to discuss his history and latest whereabouts.
“Tremendo cabrón because this album has all the cabrones,” says Cobo, congratulating the artist for his star-studded release, which includes guests such as Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Future, Fivio Foreign, Bad Bunny and more.
“We really got to get my favorite artists on this album. This one is a very special album for me and my team,” says Carrión. “[Lil Wayne] is one of my favorite rappers,” says Carrión. “He’s the reason why I don’t wait every four bars for a punchline. Every bar can have a punchline. Wayne used to do it, so I do it.” (The “A Milli” rapper starred on Carrión’s remix for “Gladiador.”)
The Latin trap star mentions that there was never a Plan B for the album, “If Plan A does not happen, let’s wait until it does. Plan A until the end of the world.”
Born in Kansas City, the Puerto Rican, whose father was in the Army, moved around often during his youth, from Hawaii to Baltimore and Alaska. And before he became a rapper, he was a comedian as well as a songwriter to other artists. “There came a point when I just wasn’t satisfied [writing for others] when the music came out,” he reveals. “I was just giving them a piece of me, and it was some personal stuff, it was like, ‘D–n, he didn’t go through that, I went through that. I want to tell my story.’”
Carrión discovered his love for the stage, saying that performing is a big part of what made him fall in love with being an artist and wanting to be an artist. He also tells Cobo to expect big surprises for his Coachella gig, which will take place the weekends of April 14 and April 21.
On May 18-20, the rapper will kick off his first-ever festival in Puerto Rico, and to expect performances from Argentine giants Bizarrap and Duki, as well as Dominican dembow performer Tokischa.
This week, his 3MEN2 KBRN album debuted at No. 3 on Top Latin Albums Chart, and reached No. 16 on Billboard 200.
Watch Billboard‘s full interview with Eladio Carrión above.
Luke Combs, whose new LP, Gettin’ Old, was released March 24 on River House/Columbia Nashville, places six titles, all from the set, on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated April 8).
Dating to the ranking’s 1990 inception, Combs ties the record for the most titles in the tally’s top 60 by a single artist at once, excluding holiday fare. The feat has been achieved just five times – and now twice within a month, as Morgan Wallen logged six on the March 18 survey, concurrent with the chart launch of his new album, One Thing at a Time (on Big Loud/Mercury Republic).
Before that, Blake Shelton last earned the honor in 2017, following Kenny Chesney in 2008 and Garth Brooks in 1997.
Combs’ 15th Country Airplay No. 1, “Going, Going, Gone,” which led the list for two frames in March, ranks at No. 4, with 23.6 million impressions March 24-30, according to Luminate. His others (all debuts) on the current chart: “Five Leaf Clover” (No. 48); “Love You Anyway” (No. 49); “Still” (No. 57); “Growin’ Up and Getting’ Old” (No. 58) and “Hannah Ford Road” (No. 59).
Also on the newest Country Airplay chart, Wallen boasts two tracks scaling the top 20: promoted country single “One Thing at a Time” (18-13; 13.8 million, up 18%) and pop/country hit, and former Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, “Last Night” (22-18; 10.2 million, up 28%). (The latter concurrently pushes 24-23 on Adult Pop Airplay and 26-24 on Pop Airplay.)
For a format accustomed to acts climbing Country Airplay with one single over months, Steve Hodges, Sony Music Nashville executive vice president says, “Radio seems to realize the value of exposing more than just one song at a time from a superstar artist.”
“I’m excited to see radio continuing to invest in our format’s core artists,” muses Big Loud vp of promotion Ali Matkosky. “In a time where listeners are pointing out daily what they want to hear [via streaming services], it makes more and more sense to lean into that data.”
Elsewhere, Tyler Hubbard notches his second Country Airplay top 10 as a soloist, as “Dancin’ in the Country” twirls 12-10 (17 million, up 23%).
The song follows “5 Foot 9,” which led for a week last November.
Florida Georgia Line, comprising Hubbard and Brian Kelley, has posted 19 Country Airplay top 10s, including 16 No. 1s.
