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13 Oct 2022

Lizzo Takes an NSFW Ride on Tour

Lizzo went on an interesting type of ride while on tour in Minneapolis, Minn., this week.

The star took to her Instagram Stories on Wednesday (Oct. 12) to share a video of herself at the Twin Cities’ SexWorld adult entertainment store, where she rode a massive mechanical penis. Yup, you read that right. See her Story before it disappears here — but fair warning, it’s very NSFW.

Lizzo is currently on tour in support of her recent album, Special, which marked her first No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated July 30).

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Last week, the “About Damn Time” superstar seemed to have subtly responded to Kanye “Ye” West‘s comments about her weight during his appearance on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight. “I feel like everybody in America got my motherf—ing name in their motherf—ing mouth for no motherf—ing reason,” Lizzo told the crowd at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Friday (Oct. 7).

“I’m minding my fat Black beautiful business,” she added before asking the audience, “Can I stay here? Who can I marry for that dual citizenship?” 

During Ye’s interview with Carlson, the rapper shared his thoughts on the “demonic” promotion of obesity by the media that he said was part of a plot intended to hasten the “genocide of the Black race.” He also mentioned Lizzo specifically.

“When Lizzo loses 10 pounds and announces it, the bots … on Instagram, they attack her losing weight, because the media wants to put out a perception that being overweight is the new goal when it’s actually unhealthy,” he said. “It’s demonic.”

13 Oct 2022

Christian Music Icon Steven Curtis Chapman on Finding Inspiration From Another Icon, Bruce Springsteen, on New Album

After 35 years, 59 Gospel Music Assn. Dove Awards, five Grammys and 10 RIAA-certified gold or platinum albums, Steven Curtis Chapman wasn’t sure he’d ever make another album. But a surprising lesson from The Boss fueled Still, Chapman’s first new album of contemporary Christian music nearly a decade, out tomorrow (Oct. 14) via Sony Music/Provident Entertainment.

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“Bruce Springsteen’s last two records inspired me,” Chapman tells Billboard of 2019’s Western Stars and 2020’s Letter to You. “Here’s a guy who is in his 70s, and I heard him say, ‘I’ve had this incredible blessing of having years and years of conversations with people.’”

Springsteen’s music and perspective resonated with Chapman who decided he still had more to say. “I just love having those conversations and that’s what these songs are. They are my conversations with people and I want to keep doing that,” says Chapman, who, this year, became the first Christian music songwriter to receive the prestigious BMI Icon Award, joining a distinguished list that also includes Dolly Parton, Barry Manilow, Carole King, Kris Kristofferson and Sting.

Well-known as the most-awarded artist in Christian music, the Paducah, Kentucky native has built a successful career, with such hit singles as “The Great Adventure,” “More to This Life,” “Dive,” “For the Sake of the Call” and “Heaven in the Real World.” He released The Glorious Unfolding in 2013 and Worship and Believe in 2016 on Provident, and independently released Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows in 2019. “The worship record was a side thing, different from what I typically do,” he says, “and the bluegrass record was a passion project, something I’d always wanted to do — but again, it was different.”

When it was time to return to his usual musical lane, changes in the business and the way music is consumed made him hesitant: “It was a long process even of deciding, ‘Do I make another record?’ because making records now is so different and the business is so different.”

Chapman acknowledges that attention spans today are short, and geared toward streaming individual songs, while he’s always liked to tell long stories. But these days, he laments, “People don’t even read the whole book. I’m a storyteller. I want to take you on a journey. I’m an explorer and I want to share what I’ve learned: this is where my heart got broken, this is where my heart got full of hope, this is where I felt joy… but when you’ve got a world around you that says, ‘Just give me a song real quick because I’ve got a billion other songs barking for my attention,’ creatively it was a hard decision to do that.”

Yet Chapman chose to dive back in. Lyrically, he took the same approach he always has as a writer — being unfailingly vulnerable and just pouring his heart out — but sonically, Still is fresh and innovative. He worked with what he refers to as his “dream team,” consisting of longtime collaborator Brent Milligan along with Ben Shive, Brian Fowler and Micah Kuiper. He also enlisted his sons Will Franklin and Caleb, members of the band Colony House. “When I started thinking about who could help me grow and help me communicate these songs in the most relevant way while maintaining the integrity of it, I thought of Colony House, because they are so cool. Then I thought, ‘Wait a minute! I fed those guys a lot of meals for a lot of years. Maybe I’ll call in a favor,’” he says with a laugh. 

Chapman is appreciative of his young producers helping him frame this collection of songs in the best possible light, because they are all so personal — including addressing such significant life challenges as the death of a close friend, his brother-in-law losing his battle after being diagnosed with five brain tumors, and of course, the pandemic.  “I couldn’t have written these songs five years ago. I wouldn’t have had this perspective,” says Chapman, who turns 60 next month. “The way I process life is I’ve got to write a song about it. I needed to do this for my own heart and for my friends and family.”

Chapman’s deal with Provident was up and he was a free agent so he began talking to other labels after he finished the record, but in the end he decided to re-sign with Provident, Sony’s Christian music division, because of their enthusiasm for the new songs. The label is currently working “Don’t Lose Heart” to Christian radio. “I talk about feeling like you’ve lost the fight, and fear screaming out Your name. I’ve been there. Don’t feel ashamed. People have told me, ‘When you sing those words, knowing your journey, knowing your history, it’s a whole different thing. There is power in those words coming from you,’” says Chapman, who has known his share of tragedy — including the death of his five-year-old daughter Maria in 2008. 

Though he’s hopeful the song will do well at radio, as a veteran of 35 years in the business, Chapman is realistic. “I’ve been told, ‘Radio loves you, but you’re fighting a battle against your own history — because there’s recurrent songs, and quite a few No. 1s,” says Chapman, who has had 49 No. 1s.

One of the songs on the album that Chapman admits makes him nervous is “Living Color,” a poignant tribute to his best friend in seventh grade, Carlton Bell. He started the song 20 years ago and finally finished it, including keeping a line in the song where he expresses concern over writing about race. Ultimately, it came down to honoring his friend. “I was thinking about my buddy Carlton… I gathered a group of friends — black and white, different colors — around the fire pit one night and said, ‘How do I respond in the best way with the platform that I have?’ I don’t want to feel like I have to jump in some conversation. I just need to listen.”

As his memories of Bell continued to percolate, Chapman looked up his friend, who had moved away from Kentucky years ago and, sadly, he found Bell’s obit. “I’ve got so many great memories of Carlton,” he says. “We were different skin color, but it didn’t matter… I decided to write the song and I got to that last verse, and I was just super honest and said I was scared to even write the song, because I didn’t want to say it wrong. But I decided to write it, because if I didn’t, then this beautiful story of friendship wouldn’t be told. It’s a story I think the world needs to hear.”

Chapman will be sharing songs from his new collection next spring on the Still tour. “I’m so excited to get back out on the road,” he says. “We’ll be in theaters, sort of intimate, and we’ll get to take people on a journey. We’re going to create an interactive night. I feel like it’s a 35-year celebration for people who know my music, but also I want a person who walks in there and only knows one song — or maybe none — to feel like they got an incredible night that was rich for them in experience.”

13 Oct 2022

Longest-Leading No. 1s on the Top Latin Albums Chart: Bad Bunny, Selena, & More

Music distribution has changed over the years, and so has the way it’s consumed, but one thing remains certain: Whether it’s popping a disc into your CD player or downloading an entire track list to your phone, music obsessives love albums.

With Hispanic Heritage Month still in full swing, Billboard has put together all of the longest-leading No. 1 albums in the history of the Top Latin Albums chart, all of which have spent 20 weeks or more at the top. The list includes everything from albums that we were obsessed with in the ’90s, such as Selena’s Dreaming of You and Luis Miguel’s Segundo Romance to almost all of Bad Bunny’s sets of the last decade, including X100PRE and Un Verano Sin Ti.

Topping the list is Bunny’s YHLQMDLG, released just weeks before the global pandemic lockdown in 2020. The album, home to tracks such as “Safaera” and “Yo Perreo Sola,” peaked at No. 1 on March 14, 2020, and reigned on the chart for 70 weeks. The ultra-perreo set is followed by Gloria Estefan’s ultra-personal Mi Tierra, which peaked at No. 1 on July 10, 1993, and spent 58 weeks at the top.

Check out the complete list below.

The 20 longest-leading No. 1s on the Top Latin Albums chart recap is based on most weeks at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Latin Albums chart from the ranking’s first chart week, July 10, 1993, through the Oct. 8, 2022-dated chart. For albums with the same number of weeks at No. 1, ties were broken by the most total weeks spent on the chart.

13 Oct 2022

Who Is Eligible for Best New Artist at the 2023 Grammys & Who Isn’t?

Anitta, Zach Bryan, Dove Cameron, Becky G, Gayle, Latto, Måneskin, Muni Long, Lauren Spencer Smith and Lainey Wilson are among 368 artists who are vying for best new artist nominations at the 65th annual Grammy Awards. While the aforementioned artists appear to be front-runners to fill the 10 available slots, Grammy voters have a way of surprising us. And there are 358 other artists, some highly credible, who are also hoping to make the final list.

As expected, several newish artists who had previously received Grammy nominations were ruled ineligible, including Steve Lacy, Jack Harlow, Tems, Walker Hayes, Brent Faiyaz and Fivio Foreign. A previous nomination is an automatic disqualifier in this category (assuming the artist had released enough tracks to be eligible in a previous year).

But for the most part, the Academy tries to err on the side of inclusiveness in this category. In the past, Whitney Houston, Richard Marx, Lady Gaga and many more potential best new artist nominees and even winners were ruled ineligible based on what were sometimes nitpicky technicalities. The Academy now looks for ways to include artists, not rule them out. Indeed, several of the artists who were ruled eligible this year have been around awhile. Becky G won best new artist at the Latin Grammys four years ago. Other best new artist contenders who aren’t exactly new include Conan Gray, Joji, Moneybagg Yo, Orville Peck and Yungblud.

Here are more noteworthy artists, not already named, who are fighting for one of the 10 nomination slots: Amyl and the Sniffers, Omar Apollo, Tenille Arts, Beabadoobee, Em Beihold, Blxst, BRELAND, EST Gee, Fireboy DML,  FLETCHER, Ali Gatie, GloRilla, Cody Johnson, Hayley Kiyoko, Coi Leray, Lil Tjay, The Linda Lindas, Parker McCollum, Tate McRae, Mitski, Flo Milli, PinkPantheress, Rex Orange County, Rina Sawayama, SEVENTEEN, Soccer Mommy, Stray Kids, Don Toliver, Tomorrow X Together, Twice, Tai Verdes, Wet Leg, Yahritza Y Su Esencia, Yeat, and Bailey Zimmerman.

Several of these artists have already won new artist prizes at other award shows. Lainey Wilson and Parker McCollum won new female and male artist of the year, respectively, at the ACM Awards in March. Latto won best new artist at the BET Awards in June. Cameron won best new artist at the MTV Video Music Awards in August. GloRilla won best breakthrough hip-hop artist at the BET Hip Hop Awards in October.

Wilson is the leading nominee for the Country Music Awards, which will be presented on Nov. 9. She is nominated for new artist of the year at that show, along with Cody Johnson and Parker McCollum, who are also on the Grammy entry list, and HARDY and Walker Hayes, who are not.

The number of best new artist nominees at the Grammys jumped from five to eight four years ago, and from eight to 10 last year. The winners in the past four years, since the number of number of nominees expanded, were Dua Lipa (2018), Billie Eilish (2019), Megan Thee Stallion (2020) and Olivia Rodrigo (2021). As you can see, Grammy voters tend to favor female artists in this category. The 2017 winner (the last year there were just five nominees), was also a woman (Alessia Cara).

Last year’s nine other nominees — besides Rodrigo — were Arroj Aftab, Jimmie Allen, Baby Keem, FINNEAS, Glass Animals, Japanese Breakfast, The Kid LAROI, Arlo Parks and Saweetie.

The number of artists vying for nominations in this category (368) is down from last year, when there were 463. But it’s up from the three years before that. The number of contenders in this category peaked in 2013 at 670.

First-round voting for the 65th annual Grammy Awards opened on Thursday (Oct. 13) and closes Oct. 23. Nominees will be announced on Nov. 15. The final-round voting window extends from Dec. 14 through Jan. 4, 2023. Winners will be announced on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023, at Crypto.com Arena (formerly known as Staples Center) in Los Angeles.

13 Oct 2022

Cardi B Judge Says YouTuber Tasha K Must Pay $4M or Secure Funding During Defamation Appeal

The federal judge didn’t phrase it quite the same as Cardi B, but the message was the same.

Months after the superstar rapper tweeted BBHMM – “bitch better have my money” – Judge William Ray ruled Thursday that a gossip blogger who made salacious claims about Cardi must either immediately pay her an almost $4 million defamation verdict, or secure a bond covering the entire amount.

With the blogger Tasha K seeking to pause the huge judgment while she appeals it, Judge Ray said he would only do so if she can post a so-called supersedeas bond covering the entire amount. If Tasha (real name Latasha Kebe) loses her appeal, that money will then be automatically handed to Cardi.

Issued by private lenders, such bonds allow a losing litigant to delay paying a full judgment while they appeal. But they typically require large upfront deposits and property collateral to cover an eventual payment in the event that the appeal is unsuccessful.

Cardi’s lawyers asked for the bond last month, citing Tasha’s own public statements like one suggesting she had perhaps moved to Africa. They said they were worried she might use the delay caused by the appeal to avoid paying entirely.

“This is more than a hypothetical concern in this case,” attorney Lisa F. Moore and Cardi’s other lawyers wrote Friday. “During the litigation, Kebe bragged publicly that she had taken steps to insulate herself from a judgment. And there have been recent online reports that Kebe has moved from Georgia to avoid enforcement of the judgment.”

The judge did order additional briefing on the total amount of the bond, saying he might consider “an amount less than the full amount of the judgment” if properly persuaded. Lawyers for Tasha did not immediately return requests for comment. Lawyers for Cardi declined to comment.

Cardi B (real name Belcalis Almánzar) sued Tasha in 2019, seeking to end what the rapper’s lawyers called a “malicious campaign” to hurt Cardi’s reputation. The star’s attorneys said they had repeatedly tried – and failed – to get her to pull her videos down.

One Tasha video cited in the lawsuit includes a statement that Cardi had done sex acts “with beer bottles on f—ing stripper stages.” Others videos said the superstar had contracted herpes; that she had been a prostitute; that she had cheated on her husband; and that she had done hard drugs.

Following a trial in January, jurors sided decisively with Cardi B, holding Tasha liable for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They awarded more than $2.5 million in damages and another $1.3 million in legal fees incurred by the rapper, and Judge Ray later issued an injunction forcing her to pull the videos from the internet.

Tasha appealed that verdict last month, arguing in her opening appellate brief that Judge Ray withheld key details from jurors and the verdict was the result of a “very lopsided” trial. She’s vowed to keep fighting the case “all the way to the Supreme Court if need be,” even if it “takes years” to do so.

But Thursday’s order means that appeal will not offer Tasha much reprieve from the judgment unless she wins it. And appeals like the one Tasha is fighting face long odds, particularly when they seek to overturn a jury’s verdict.

It’s unclear if she would be able to pay the judgment or secure a supersedeas bond; in a recent Instagram post, she claimed to have withdrawn the last $1,083 from her bank account. Federal bankruptcy is an option, though civil judgments and other debts incurred by wrongdoing aren’t always discharged through that process.

13 Oct 2022

Kelly Clarkson Is ‘Queen of the Night’ in New Whitney Houston Cover: Watch

Kelly Clarkson may be a queen of daytime talk shows, but now she’s also queen of the night. For the latest installment of The Kelly Clarkson Show‘s Kellyoke series, the three-time Grammy winner showed off her voice by covering a song by the “Voice” herself, Whitney Houston‘s “Queen of the Night.”

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Clarkson and her band, Y’all, started by putting their own twist on Houston’s rocking dance hit, which was originally released on the soundtrack for her 1992 film The Bodyguard. While the late legend’s original mix starts out with an immediately uptempo beat, Clarkson sang the first lines slowly over suspended chords, backup singers dramatically echoing her with each lyric.

Then, the lights started flashing, the drums began pounding, and the “Stronger” singer went full Whitney mode — taking lines up the octave, sprinkling in sky-high riffs and belting long notes with show-stopping force.

“I’ve got more than enough to make you drop to your knees/ Cause I’m the queen of the night, oh yeah,” she sang, leading seamlessly into an epic electric guitar solo.

With a Billboard Pop Airplay chart peak of No. 17, “Queen of the Night” is one of several hits recorded by Houston as part of The Bodyguard‘s soundtrack. Also on the album are 14-week Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “I Will Always Love You” and No. 4s “I Have Nothing” and “I’m Every Woman.” The Grammy-winning soundtrack itself topped the Billboard 200 for a whopping 20 weeks in 1992, the year the film debuted, and remained on the chart for 176 weeks total.

Watch Kelly Clarkson perform Whitney Houston’s “Queen of the Night” on The Kelly Clarkson Show above.

13 Oct 2022

XXXTENTACION’s Mother Shows Off Iced-Out Pendant Of Her Late Son

XXXTENTACION‘s mother Cleopatra Bernard continues to honor the late Florida rapper with a dazzling new piece of jewelry.

Unveiled on Instagram by jeweler Eric Mavani, the custom-made pendant is a lifelike design of XXXTENTACION’s face, along with his unique facial tattoos, and diamonds can be seen glistening along his shoulders and within his signature dreadlocks.

“@xxxtentacion may be gone but never forgotten,” Mavani wrote as the Kanye West-assisted X single “True Love” soundtracked the post. “A gift from my bro @mrrugs to @cleao_ohsojazzy to keep him close! #LLJ.”

Take a look at the icy XXXTENTACION piece below:

XXXTENTACION’s latest posthumous compilation record Look At Me dropped in June, with the “True Love” single tacked towards the end of the 25-song “companion” piece to the Hulu documentary Look At Me: XXXTENTACION. The song also appears on Ye’s DONDA 2 LP, which dropped exclusively via his $200 stem player in February.

In one scene from the aforementioned documentary, Bernard is seen meeting with Geneva Ayala, X’s ex-girlfriend who accused him of abuse, to address her son’s alleged behavior.

“My son is no longer here, and I feel like it’s up to me now to make amends and try to right his wrongs as much as I can,” Bernard told Ayala, who was 21 at the time. “I would actually like to hear you tell your story because like I said, my son died, and he’s never admitted it to me — I don’t think he would want me to see him in that light or know that side of him.

She continued: “Jahseh was wrong for what he did. There’s no excuse for that, period. But I just want the world to know that he wasn’t that same person anymore, but the past is still part of his story.”

While the late rapper’s murderers are behind bars awaiting trial, an attorney for one of the accused is trying to utilize an interaction their client had with Kodak Black to help prove their client’s innocence.

According to VladTV, Mauricio Padilla has filed a motion requesting footage of his client Dedrick Williams’ 2018 stint at the Broward County Jail. Padilla asked for it to be admitted as evidence in his ongoing murder case.

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Williams was the first of four men charged in the June 18, 2018 death of XXXTENTACION.

Padilla specifically requested surveillance footage of his client interacting with Kodak, who was held in the same facility from July 15 to July 17, and who reportedly received his “Road Runner” tattoo from Williams. It’s unclear how Padilla intends to use this footage to prove Williams’s innocence, but the request was very detailed as to the time frame Padilla wanted.

Earlier in September, another defendant, Robert Allen pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree murder and robbery with a firearm. He also agreed to testify against Williams, Michael Boatwright, and Trayvon Newsome, to avoid a life sentence.

“Mr. Allen’s role in this, it was much less than the other three,” his attorney Jim Lewis told NBC 6 South Florida. “More of an accessory after the fact than really part of the planning. Certainly, he never got out of the car, never had a gun, never shot anybody.”

Williams had previously requested to be released from prison in 2020, for fear of contracting COVID-19.

13 Oct 2022

Can Tennessee Solve America’s Vinyl Shortage?

For the record… We’re hiring!” reads the lawn sign in front of Nashville’s United Record Pressing, the largest vinyl pressing plant in the United States. With an expansion underway that will bring in 48 new presses — upping the manufacturer’s count to nearly 100 and more than doubling its total output from approximately 40,000 to over 100,000 units of vinyl per day — the need to staff up is crucial. And URP isn’t the only Tennessee plant on the prowl.

As the vinyl boom continues — the format generated $570 million in revenue through June 2022 (up 22% year over year), according to the Mid-Year 2022 RIAA Music Revenue Report — pressing plants around the world are not only striving to keep up with demand but planning how to get ahead of it. Tennessee is aiming to take the lead, increasing its number of plants from two to five in 2022 and planting a flag as the U.S. vinyl hub. The state offers advantages in distribution, in taxes and, most notably, in culture.

“All music resonates from Tennessee,” says Brandon Seavers, CEO of Memphis Record Pressing (MRP), which was founded in 2014 and is undergoing its own $30 million expansion. “We really take pride in our musical heritage.”

“We’ve got wine country in California,” adds Drake Coker, CEO of Nashville Record Pressing, one of three new manufacturers that have come online in the past year in Music City. “Tennessee is going to be vinyl country.”

The growth in Tennessee’s vinyl production capacity is substantial. MRP — owned by Czech Republic-based GZ Media, the world’s largest vinyl record manufacturer — is adding 33,000 square feet to house 36 new presses to be up and running by early 2023; NRP, also owned by GZ Media, opened in June. Physical Music Products, a smaller plant with three presses currently online (and five more expected by early 2023) that was founded by Nashville-based mastering engineer Piper Payne, opened in March, and The Vinyl Lab, a music venue and boutique two-press plant, has been operational since April 2021.

“Nashville is exploding right now,” says URP CEO Mark Michaels. He cites everything from “attractive” economics and state tax rates to the presence of tech giants like Amazon and Oracle as drivers for the city’s growth.

And, as Coker points out, an estimated 75% of the U.S. population lives within a 24-hour drive of Nashville, making it what he calls “a distribution heaven.” (Nashville and Memphis are centrally located to two of the country’s major distributors in Franklin, Ind., and La Vergne, Tenn.)

It’s not just proximity to distributors that makes Nashville and Memphis ideal cities to house a pressing plant. The Vinyl Lab founder Scott Lemasters believes it’s about proximity to everything. “The components that you need to make a record: the mastering houses and studios, the people who cut the lacquers. There’s even a plating facility in town. Everything is within a 10-minute radius,” he says. “Half our jobs are just running around town.”

But not everything can be done locally, and surely not everything can be sourced locally. So how did so many plants within one state manage to break ground on expansions or entirely new facilities all at once — and during a global supply-chain shortage?

Michaels believes URP, which was founded in 1949, had a bit of luck on its side. After the plant relocated to its current, larger facility in 2017, Michaels never thought it would need to further expand. “And then, as we saw 2020 and the growth of vinyl, it created an incredible acceleration and demand,” he says. “All of our customers were just crying for capacity.” By the top of 2021, URP decided to grow its operations yet again — fortuitous timing, with Michaels noting that supply-chain challenges got much worse soon after.

It’s something Seavers can attest to as well. At the start of 2021, MRP booked three-and-a-half months of work in five weeks. “It was more than a flood,” he says. “It strained every system that we had.” With the financial support of GZ Media, MRP added another 36 presses to its facility for a total of 52, which will eventually boost its vinyl units per day from 36,000 to 130,000. “Having GZ behind it all really has been key,” says Seavers.

The hustle to get GZ-backed sister plant NRP operational is further proof of how essential that kind of backing can be for a plant at any stage and of any size. For decades, GZ has been building a family of plants across North America, including Precision Record Pressing in Ontario. It was that plant’s president, Shawn Johnson, who approached Coker about relocating to Nashville to head up the newest sibling. Coker arrived in fall 2021, secured a space for NRP by December (because of Nashville’s current growth, he says commercial real estate was hard to come by) and started construction and operations in March. He compares the process to a plane leaving the runway as it’s still being built.

Capital and technological support from GZ have allowed that plane to take off, fueled by already existing customer relationships. “Every record that we can make in the next four years is already presold,” Coker says. “Who gets to start a company and not worry about sales?”

The Vinyl Lab — a multifunctional space that includes a pressing plant and a venue that will open in October — has enjoyed a similar safety net from the start. Scott first conceived the idea for The Vinyl Lab in 2015 and, after a series of setbacks, leased its space in January 2020. The following December, the Grand Ole Opry called. The Opry had continued holding shows in an empty hall during the pandemic, recording each one and eventually choosing 12 performances to release as an album — which it wanted on vinyl. “They called us, and we were like, ‘Our machine is not even in its final resting spot yet,’ ” he recalls with a laugh, noting he secured the company’s first Phoenix Alpha press in 2019. “We were fully transparent with [the Opry]. That order was due on June 3, and we delivered it on June 2.”

Lemasters, who operates The Vinyl Lab alongside Clint Elliott and Heather Gray, says their orders have mostly been word-of-mouth (in addition to ads they posted in bathroom stalls). He praises both the city and the vinyl community as a whole for the eagerness to help one another, recalling the time Jack White and Ben Blackwell of Third Man Records referred Dualtone Records to The Vinyl Lab, which led to a steady flow of work early on.

“That’s what’s great about the industry right now, is that we are still in a very collaborative phase,” says Seavers. “We would never be where we are if we hadn’t had that.” 

13 Oct 2022

The Killers Score Multi-Format Airplay No. 1 With ‘Boy’

The Killers reach No. 1 on Billboard‘s Adult Alternative Airplay chart (dated Oct. 15) with “Boy,” their third leader on the list.

The song is the Brandon Flowers-fronted act’s first No. 1 on the survey since “The Man,” which ruled for a week in 2017. The group first led with “Read My Mind” for six weeks in 2007.

In between “The Man” and “Boy,” The Killers appeared on Adult Alternative Airplay five times, paced by the No. 2-peaking “Caution” in 2020.

“Boy” has ruled three Billboard airplay charts, including two individual-format tallies. The song tops Adult Alternative Airplay as it begins descending Alternative Airplay, where it falls to No. 3 after six weeks at No. 1. “Boy” is The Killers’ first song to lead both Alternative Airplay and Adult Alternative Airplay; the band also boasts three rulers on the former, with “Boy” preceded by “Caution” in 2020 and “When You Were Young” in 2006.

On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, “Boy” led for five weeks and currently ranks at No. 3 with 3.6 million audience impressions, according to Luminate.

Elsewhere, “Boy” places at No. 23 on the multi-metric Hot Alternative Songs chart and No. 38 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, after reaching Nos. 12 and 17, respectively, upon its August debut. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 594,000 official U.S. streams in the tracking week ending Oct. 6.

“Boy” has also crossed over to Adult Pop Airplay, where it bullets at No. 33, after reaching No. 32 the week before. It’s the band’s eighth entry on the chart.

The song is currently a standalone single, having been recorded during the sessions for The Killers’ previous album, 2021’s Pressure Machine. The band is currently working on its eighth studio set.

13 Oct 2022

GARNiDELiA Talk New Single ‘Gen’ai Yuugi,’ NFT Project & More: Interview 

GARNiDELiA are a J-pop duo who launched their career on the Japanese video-sharing platform Nico Nico Douga and have since produced numerous songs tailored for animated works.

The male-female pair released their latest digital single called “Gen’ai Yuugi” on Sept. 30, created as the opener for the Japanese TV anime series My Master Has No Tail. The track, inspired by vintage Japanese pop and anime songs, breaks new ground for the unit that has produced signature tracks infused with traditional Japanese music-flavored melodies.

In a recent interview with Billboard Japan, MARiA and toku of GARNiDELiA spoke about the production of their latest single and shared their thoughts on the music that accompany animated works.

You recently launched an NFT art project using numerous stage costumes as motifs called the GARNiDELiA 3.0 Project. You always seem to be challenging yourselves to try new things. Could you tell us your thoughts on releasing this new NFT project based on your stage outfits at this point in time?

MARiA: We have many fans based outside of Japan so we’re often asked to take on new challenges on a global scale. We’re experimenting and challenging ourselves as we go along. We participated in its launch, but we’re also looking forward to seeing how the project will expand from here. I think there will be unexpected developments in the future that will make us go, “Oh, I didn’t expect this to go in that direction.” We think there are various ways to do this, so we’re still exploring and hope to make this something we can enjoy with all of our fans.

You also restarted your J-pop cover project, GARNiDELiA Cover Collection, in March.

MARiA: This project originally got started on YouTube due to the pandemic. It’s become something of a hobby of ours, so we enjoy doing it just for fun.

toku: The songs we cover are well-known, so I thought people would enjoy the difference after we infused them with some GARNiDELiA flair and presented them with MARiA’s vocals. The series allows us to see people’s reactions right away, like when we used to upload our songs to Nico Nico Douga and get a reaction immediately upon release.

MARiA: It’s really like those vocaloid cover challenges on video sharing platforms (that originated from Nico Nico Douga). We’re originally from that niche pop culture, so I guess it’s just that the focus has shifted from vocaloid numbers to J-pop songs. The boundary between vocaloid culture and mainstream J-pop is blurring now, and songs written by producers of vocaloid music are now leading the current mainstream J-pop scene. So a strange phenomenon where whenever I cover a hit J-pop song, I still end up singing vocaloid music (like in the old days) is happening. [Laughs] I think this mix of cultures is what makes the current J-pop scene so interesting.

“Kaikaikitan” Cover by GARNiDELiA from the GARNiDELiA Cover Collection

Let’s talk about your new song “Gen’ai Yuugi.” It contains elements of vintage and current J-pop while maintaining the feel of a standard anime number. The song is signature GARNiDELiA in the way various essences are condensed into it. This song was created as the opener for the TV anime My Master Has No Tail. How did the collaboration begin? 

toku: The producers of the anime series said they wanted “a dance track with a traditional Japanese-style melody, and also add horns to make it flashy.”

MARiA: Our previous song, “Otome no kokoroe,” was the opener for another anime series from last year called Taisho Otome Fairy Tale that was set in Japan’s Taisho period (1912-1926), so that was the same (as My Master Has No Tail). What’s more, the request for horns for a big band feel was the same as our previous track, so we had to find a way to differentiate the two. So after some discussion, we came to the conclusion that we wanted “Gen’ai Yuugi” to have a glaring edge to the flamboyance.

What do you mean by “glaring edge”?

MARiA: My Master Has No Tail is a story about mastering an artistic skill, and although the visuals of the anime is pop, the characters say some edgy things about the world they live in. The story starts out with the idea that you have to be out of your mind to want to live in the arts, and I thought that applied to us (GARNiDELiA) too. [Laughs] As someone who has been in the arts for a long time, I felt a strong connection with (the anime), so in the end we were able to differentiate the new song from the previous one.

toku: My Master Has No Tail is about rakugo [traditional comic storytelling], so I thought it’d be good to pack words into it, with more notes in the chorus than our usual numbers. That way it’d sound more flamboyant when the horns were added in-between. That’s what I focused on.

Combined with the vision depicted in the lyrics, it makes for a thrilling track, while also tapping into the genres of vintage J-pop and oldies-but-goodies anime music. All that while maintaining your signature sound. So it’s really a perfect balance.

MARiA: We’re not sure how we’re giving off that GARNiDELiA vibe anymore, actually. [Laughs] We’ve worked on such a wide variety of genres at this point that everything we create together just ends up like, “Well, that sure sounds like us, doesn’t it?”

toku: Anime music itself is a mixture of various genres and it’s where lots of music that will become the cutting edge of contemporary J-pop is born.

MARiA:  It has rock and EDM and even vintage J-pop styles, too.

toku: Anything is possible, and it can be taken as cute or cool depending on the listener, so I guess anything goes so long as it’s effectively linked to the anime work. I feel that people who listen to a variety of anime songs are really in tune with things. That’s one of the things that makes us nervous every time we write a song.

And you’re already set to drop your next digital single called “Oukaranman” on Oct. 19. This is the latest song from your Odocchattemita dance challenge series featuring GARNiDELiA tracks, and it’s different from “Gen’ai Yuugi” in that it’s a pretty straightforward GARNiDELiA number that mixes modern EDM tracks with traditional Japanese music.

MARiA: Miume, the dancer we were working with on the Odocchattemita series, is retiring from the stage at the end of October. This will be the last piece the three of us will work on together, so we started out by discussing what kind of piece it should be. We wanted the song to be a culmination of what we’d built together.

toku: I included a little bit of the melodies and arrangements that give a glimpse of parts of each song in the dance challenge series so far, so it’d be great if listeners take it as a summary of the series.

It’s an irresistible tune for those who enjoyed the series. You really did come up with two completely different songs.

MARiA: It’s interesting, isn’t it? We have so much fun. Both titles are inspired by Japanese four-character idioms, and from the time we wrote the song “Kyoukiranbu,” we thought we’d run out of songs flavored with traditionally Japanese sounds that have four-character idiom-like titles. But we still managed to make a few. [Laughs] Since we’re fortunate that our fans, not only from Japan but from around the world, ask for more, we can’t just say we’ve run out and have to come up with what they want.

toku: I was thrilled when the song that’s an extension of the Odocchatta series was chosen as the opener for My Master Has No Tail.

MARiA: That is how big an impact the Odocchattemita series had on us. It’s a project that changed our lives. It helped us meet lots of people and gave us opportunities. I think it was reason why we were able to create the song “Oukaranman.”

GARNiDELiA’s catalog can be heard here.

—This interview by Tomokazu Nishibiro first appeared on Billboard Japan