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The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week (for the upcoming charts dated July 22), Taylor Swift once again leaves the rest of the pop world in the dust with perhaps her best-performing Taylor’s Version full-album recreation yet.
Taylor Swift, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (Republic): When it was released in 2010 as her third album, Speak Now became Taylor Swift’s first set to sell over a million copies in its first week. Her Taylor’s Version re-recording of the fan-favorite album might not post a seven-digit debut, but it’s already come closer than any other album in 2023. Billboard reported on Tuesday (July 11) that this Speak Now had passed 575,000 equivalent album units in just its first four days — already blowing past the 501,000 moved by previous mark-setter, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, in its first frame.
Those would be incredible numbers for any new release in 2023, let alone one where 16 of the 22 tracks included are near-soundalike re-dos of 13-year-old songs. Making the 400,000 in direct sales that the album has already accrued even more impressive is that the album is only available in a handful of physical editions – three vinyl variants (including an exclusive color for Target), a CD, a cassette, and a digital release – compared to many 2020s best-sellers (including Swift’s own 2022 blockbuster Midnights), which are released in dozens of physical editions to maximize fan purchases.
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) has already put Swift’s peers in its rearview, but how will it compare to her own recently set standards? It’s unlikely to get close to the first-week numbers of Midnights, which scored an unthinkable-for-2022 1.578 million units. But it has a very good chance of passing 2021’s Red (Taylor’s Version), which debuted with 605,000 units, to become the biggest first week for any of her three re-recordings to date.
To pass Red (Taylor’s Version) would also be pretty staggering for this Speak Now, considering it has fewer tracks (22 to Red (TV)’s 30) and lacks a song driving as much pre-release excitement as that set’s “All Too Well (10-Minute Version),” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week the new Red topped the Billboard 200. (“I Can See You,” one of the set’s six first-time recordings, did receive a music video co-starring Speak Now-era Taylorverse fixtures Joey King, Taylor Lautner and Presley Cash, and looks to be due for a major Hot 100 debut next week.)
In the Mix
Lucki, S*x M*ney Dr*gs (EMPIRE): One of the most acclaimed rappers from the current rising wave of Chicago MCs, Lucki reached a career-best No. 12 on the Billboard 200 with 2012’s Flawless Like Me set. He may do even better with this month’s S*x M*ney Dr*gs mixtape, which only features one guest (fellow cult favorite Veeze) on its 15 tracks, but is already posting career-best streaming numbers that most rappers would be, well, lucky to have in 2023.
Dominic Fike, Sunburn (Columbia): If you listened to Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist last week, you might have noticed that the lead track was not from Taylor Swift’s latest, but rather from the long-awaited second album for singer-songwriter Dominic Fike. Columbia executives still have big hopes for Fike, who greatly increased his profile last year with a big role on HBO phenomenon Euphoria, and he may have something of a breakout hit with the album’s “Mona Lisa” — written for and briefly included on the deluxe edition of Metro Boomin’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse soundtrack — which climbs to No. 36 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart this week.
Lana Del Rey, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (Polydor/Interscope): Lana Del Rey’s ninth album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in April — and while it’s remained on the chart for the past 15 weeks, it’s dropped all the way to No. 184. It should rebound significantly next week, though. thanks to a recent vinyl reissue with a cover featuring a partially nude photo of Del Rey. (She had previously considered the image for the album’s original cover, before deciding to “let the songs do the talking for now.”)
If Helen Grant, the daughter of late Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant, is selling a 10% share of the band’s music assets, as reported by Music Week and The Times, she’s in for a very nice payout.
According to that article, Grant owns not only an interest in the band’s record catalog and song publishing catalog but also a 10% share in other rights including trademarks, merchandising and other business ventures. When he died in 1995, Peter Grant, who owned a 20% stake in the band’s music assets, appears to have split that stake evenly between Helen and her brother Warren, leaving each of them a 10% share.
While Led Zeppelin originally signed to Atlantic Records back in 1968, in 1975 the band started its own record label, Swan Song, and began issuing its music under that logo beginning with its fifth album, Physical Graffiti. Like other superstar acts of its day, the band later negotiated to obtain ownership of its entire recorded masters catalog, not just the Swan Song records, according to sources.
It’s unclear if Led Zeppelin still owns the rest of the Swan Song catalog, which includes albums by Bad Company, the Pretty Things and Maggie Bell — and, if it does, whether Helen Grant has a stake in that and is offering it up for sale, too. At the very least, according to the most recent filing containing a list of shareholders for Bad Company Entertainment, the Peter Grant estate has a 20% stake in that company as well. It’s unclear if that interest is a part of any contemplated sale.
The Music Week article reports that Helen Grant has hired Ian Penman of New Media Law to shop her share of the Zeppelin assets. Penmen didn’t respond to an e-mail request seeking to confirm the potential asset sale. Warner Music Group declined to comment, while queries to other possible press representatives for the band went unanswered.
According to a list of shareholders included in the last filing from Superhype Tapes Ltd — one of the dozen or so companies affiliated with the Led Zeppelin principals that have filings in Companies House (the U.K. equivalent of the U.S. SEC) — dated July 30, 2014, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page owns 80% of the shares of Led Zeppelin music assets, while Helen and Warren Grant own 10% each. However, in the company’s July 25, 2000, filing, Page and the estate of Peter Grant were each listed as having a 50% stake in the company, while Page and fellow Led Zeppelin members Robert Plant and John Baldwin [aka John Paul Jones], as well as Joan Hudson of the band’s accounting firm, were listed as directors of the company. It’s unclear how or when the percentages changed and if it occurred through a negotiation or an earlier buyout of a portion of the Grant estate’s share in the company.
It’s also unclear which Led Zeppelin assets fall under this company, although its incorporation document, filed in October 1969, states that it was established to manufacture, produce, buy, sell, exploit and deal in gramophone records, tapes, sound recordings and other sound bearing devices and musical instruments, among other possible business lines. On the other hand, as noted, Superhype Tapes appears to be one of about a dozen companies incorporated for Led Zeppelin that have listings in Companies House, although some of those listed companies are dormant. Consequently, it’s unclear which Led Zeppelin music assets fall under the control of Superhype Tapes.
Another Led Zeppelin-affiliated company, United Blag Productions, shows Helen Grant with a 10% stake, while the other three living Led Zeppelin members each have 22.5%, as do the Bonham heirs, collectively.
According to what appears to be incorporation papers for United Blag — filed under its previous name of Langwest on Aug. 16, 1974 — around the time of the formation of Swan Song, the purpose of the company was to act as managers for singers, musicians and other creative entertainers as well as to produce and distribute sound recordings of all kinds as well as handling pictures, films and TV show appearances of all kinds.
Regardless of the incongruent ownership stakes listed for the Led Zeppelin members for Superhype Tapes and United Blag Productions, it looks like Helen Grant is selling a 10% stake in the band’s assets controlled by those two companies, which would mean she is selling a passive royalty income stream.
Still, the iconic Led Zeppelin catalog remains a considerable economic driver — averaging just over 1 million album consumption units annually in the United States alone over the last three years. As such, Billboard estimates that the band’s master recordings catalog generates about $24 million in revenue annually and that after deducting for production and distribution, the band likely reaped about $21 million of that amount. If the recordings carried a 20 times multiple, that would give the Led Zeppelin recorded masters catalog a nearly $420 million valuation — 10% of which would be $42 million.
Meanwhile, Billboard estimates that the publishing catalog averaged about $10.4 million annually over the last three years. After deducting a 10% administration fee, that would leave $9.4 million in revenue for the band, which at a 25 times multiple would be worth about $235 million.
While that valuation uses a high multiple, which some music asset traders might question, that concern would likely be offset by the upside potential for generating additional revenue through synch licensing. While synch typically can comprise about 25% of a publishing portfolio’s revenue base, Led Zeppelin has been very selective in granting licensing opportunities, which likely has depressed the band’s overall publishing revenue. Billboard’s valuation model uses a much smaller percentage than 25% of revenue for synch royalties in extrapolating overall publishing revenue.
Regardless of the publishing catalog’s valuation, it’s unclear how Grant would be paid from that considering that the principal songwriters in the band likely each own their publishing, as well as their songwriter share.
On the other hand, it’s conceivable that the band, along with Grant, collectively owns its publishing, which would divide 50% among the four band members and the Grant heirs, leaving the other 50%, or $6.35 million, for the songwriters to split; or that Grant owned 20% of the publishing and the band members owned the remaining publishing stakes in each of the songs they composed. Either way, that could leave Helen Grant with a 10% stake in the publishing, or a 5% stake in the publishing revenue, resulting in a $15 million-$16 million valuation, if the Grant estate indeed does own a stake in the band’s publishing.
But Billboard could find no mention of a Grant ownership stake in the sole Led Zeppelin publishing company that appears to be an ongoing operation, Flames of Albion Music, listed at Companies House.
The last document for that company, filed on May 11, 2016, listed Page, Plant, Baldwin and the Bonham heirs — Patricia Bonham, Jason Bonham and Zoe Bonham — as shareholders, while neither of the Grant heirs are listed.
But there is still merch revenue, trademarks and likeness and image to consider. Billboard estimates that Led Zeppelin averages about $2 million in merch each year. At a 10-times multiple, that would arrive at a $20 million valuation, with a 10% stake translating to $2 million. (Collectively, Billboard‘s valuation for Led Zeppelin’s recorded music, publishing and merch is about $670 million.)
When Madonna was forced to reschedule her 84-date Celebration Tour on Wednesday after she was stricken with a bacterial infection and hospitalized in the ICU, concern immediately turned to the pop superstar’s health (luckily, she’s expected to make a full recovery). But for industry watchers, the postponement also raises an interesting question: Just how much does it cost to reschedule a tour of that magnitude?
It’s impossible to come up with a solid number given all of the moving parts involved in a tour of this scale, particularly without having access to any insurance policies or contracts with venues and vendors. But postponing that large of a tour just over two weeks short of the July 15 opener at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Canada — and then rescheduling it — will nonetheless amount to a huge endeavor requiring hours of phone calls, disruptions to people’s lives and plenty of sunk costs for venues, show crew members, ticket buyers and Madonna herself.
Live Nation and Madonna’s touring team have already spent millions on equipment and infrastructure. While much of the show is custom-built and designed, there are plenty of production pieces — from speakers to staging — that are rented from major backline companies. The tour has also chartered buses and trucks and rented venues, which are expenditures that require deposits with varying costs depending on demand and availability.
Live Nation and the Madonna tour will have to pay some of these deposits, especially for those high-demand items that can’t be redirected toward other tours. In some cases, they will also be on the hook for venue deposits for canceled shows, although most venues will waive the cost to maintain a good relationship with Live Nation, which brings many arenas most of their touring content.
The largest group impacted by the postponement will be the approximately 1.2 million fans who purchased tickets for the tour, representing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Some fans booked airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental properties around the tour, and some of those purchases will be deemed non-refundable. Those fans will have to make new plans after the rescheduled Madonna dates are announced, likely sometime in the next few weeks. Those who can’t attend might be able to get a refund, depending on what Madonna’s team decides, or sell their tickets on either a fan-to-fan exchange for face value or on a ticket resale site like StubHub or Vivid Seats.
The largest human costs will be borne by a much smaller group: the men and women working as roadies, touring professionals and support staff for the tour. With just over two weeks to go before opening, most positions on the tour have been filled, and many have started work building sets, editing content and rehearsing. As independent contractors, rescheduling the tour means their pay will be interrupted too, potentially leaving hundreds of people unemployed when they had planned to be working. While many, depending on the state, will receive a small severance and qualify for limited unemployment benefits, the disruption caused by the postponement will almost certainly mean that many touring professionals will not generate the income they had budgeted for this year and will now have to spend the months they thought they had secure employment looking for new work.
Fortunately, because the concert business is currently so strong at the highest level, there are more work opportunities in touring now than ever before, and some crew members will be able to immediately find replacement gigs. Others, however, will have to wait months until the rescheduled Madonna tour launches.
For the touring operation itself, the costs of the postponement could easily add up to millions of dollars. But the Celebration Tour has been so successful — more than 600,000 tickets were sold the first day tickets went on sale — that it will still amount to a huge financial windfall for Live Nation and Madonna when the tour eventually hits the road. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy for everyone getting there
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week (for the upcoming charts dated July 1), a star rapper looks to continue his hot streak, while hard rock veterans and K-poppers also put the top spot in their sights.
Gunna, A Gift and a Curse (YSL/300): Though Gunna has been under attack on social media since last December for his supposed “snitching” in accepting an Alford plea — a formal admission of guilt while also maintaining innocence — for his part in the YSL RICO trial, it appears that he remains a prolific performer on streaming. (He denied any cooperation with the prosecution.) His new album A Gift and a Curse has littered the Spotify and Apple Music real-time charts since its release last Friday (June 16), with the shout-along “fukumean” already seeming like a breakout hit from the set.
The rapper born Sergio Giavanni Kitchens has been a regular visitor to the top spot of the Billboard 200 since his late-’10s rise to stardom. And he’s already been there three times this decade – with his own Wunna (2020) and DS4Ever (2022) albums, and as a co-lead on the YSL showcase compilation Slime Language 2 (2021). DS4Ever, Gunna’s most recent set, was also his most popular, moving 150,000 first-week units and topping even The Weeknd’s new Dawn FM to claim the top spot.
To unseat Morgan Wallen – who returns to No. 1 for a 13th frame with his One Thing at a Time blockbuster this chart week – he’ll need to do it almost entirely with streaming (with help from digital sales), as the album is not yet for sale in any physical format. Wallen posted 115,000 units in its most recent week, so if Gunna can approach his DS4ever debut performance with his new set, he should have a pretty good shot of becoming the latest act to interrupt the country star’s months-long reign.
Ateez, The World Ep.2: Outlaw (KQ/RCA/Legacy): It’s going to be a classic case of sales vs. streams in next week’s competition for top debut on the Billboard 200. Eight-piece Korean boy band Ateez has yet to establish a big stateside presence on streaming services, but like many popular K-pop acts, the act sells physical copies by the truckload – which has already helped their Spin Off: From the Witness set hit No. 7 earlier this year, and their The World Ep.1: Movement EP get all the way to No. 3 on the Billboard 200 last August.
The sequel to that latter EP, The World Ep. 2: Outlaw is also expected to make a pretty big chart splash next week, again thanks to robust physical sales. To maximize that opportunity, the octet has released 21 different collectible CD editions of Outlaw, including some signed variants, all containing branded merchandise and randomized items (action cards, partner cards, photo cards) — as well as a Target-exclusive edition.
Queens of the Stone Age, In Times New Roman… (Matador): Queens of the Stone Age albums are becoming increasingly infrequent – it’s been six years since the band’s Villains – but the veteran hard rock band has historically been a strong performer on the Billboard 200, and it even topped the chart two albums ago with 2013’s …Like Clockwork. This month’s In Times New Roman… will be helped by a series of different-colored vinyl variants, though thus far the album lacks a hit single to match Villains’ top 10-charting Rock Airplay hit “The Way You Used to Do.”
In the Mix
J. Cole, Born Sinner (ByStorm/Columbia/Dreamville/Roc Nation): As fans eagerly await a new album from Cole — and as he sticks around the top five on the BillboardHot 100 with his appearance on Lil Durk’s smash “All My Life” — fans also have new goodies to tide them over with the vinyl reissue of his 2013 chart-topper Born Sinner. The LP is available in a trio of color variants, including a translucent red exclusive to Target.
Asake, Work of Art (YNBL/Empire): Asake’s debut album Mr. Money With the Vibe was one of the most-acclaimed and best-received Afrobeats albums of 2022, reaching the top half of the Billboard 200. The Nigerian singer/songwriter looks to do even better than that set’s No. 66 bow with this month’s Work of Art, which has already scored a pair of top 10 hits on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart with advance tracks “Amapiano” (with Olamide) and “2:30.”
After a fan struck Bebe Rexha in the face with a cellphone during a June 18 show in New York, should the music industry consider banning mobile devices at concerts? For years, touring stars such as Bob Dylan, Jack White and Dave Chappelle have said video-recording on phones have detracted from the live experience — and that was before the airborne cellphone assault went viral on social media. But, experts say, change won’t happen immediately.
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While celebrities and musicians including Demi Lovato, John Stamos, Hayley Kiyoko and Lauren Jauregui all expressed concern for Rexha after she was rushed to a hospital and shared a photo of a black eye after the incident, Steven Adelman, vice president of the Event Safety Alliance, says, “This is not going to change anything — yet.”
“But,” he adds, “it’s the first crack in a wall that eventually is going to fall.”
Whether cellphones take away from the concert-going experience is not a new debate — but Rexha’s attack is the first major case of the devices being used for a violent act. Just last year, Silk Sonic‘s Bruno Mars griped, “With the cameras, you’re like, ‘I don’t know if I want to try out this dance move tonight.’”
“I’ve always thought, at some point, there would be a ban on cellphones because it violates an important piece of intellectual property for the artist — their live performance,” Adelman says. The challenge, he continues, is fans carry mobile tickets on phones and pay for merch and concessions via online-billing apps such as Apple Pay: “There are obviously very strong competing interests here.”
The Rexha concert incident at The Rooftop at Pier 17 is unlikely to spread, though: The alleged assailant, Nicolas Malvagna, said in a criminal complaint that he thought “it would be funny” to throw the phone. He was arraigned June 19 on harassment and assault charges, both misdemeanors. “The key here is that person was arrested and will be prosecuted, and that sends a great message: ‘You can’t do this,’” says David Yorio, who co-owns Citadel Security Agency, which works with concerts and festivals in New York. “There’s no impunity from this.” (The man who slapped Ava Max during a concert Tuesday night in Los Angeles, in contrast, was hauled away but has not been criminally charged.)
Promoters can continue to ban phones at certain events, “just another layer” of security and logistics, Yorio adds, but for larger events, like festivals, “Logistically, it’s a nightmare.”
Certain artists’ anti-phone sentiment is so robust that a startup, Yondr, has spent the last nine years providing pouches for fans to store their phones before attending concerts. Adelman is sympathetic to this approach because artists make most of their money off touring these days, and exclusive concert footage shouldn’t have to turn into free social media content against their will. “People who can just raise their cellphone and hit record are essentially violating a contract with the artist, which is [to] be part of the show-going experience,” he says.
But he adds: “People should not throw phones. And you can quote me on that.”
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Twitter is facing a lawsuit from dozens of music publishers over copyright infringement; Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee and other reggaeton stars fight back against a massive lawsuit; unsealed documents offer key details on the gun charges against Boosie BadAzz; and much more.
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THE BIG STORY: Twitter’s $250 Million Music Problem
In last week’s least surprising development, the music publishers sued Twitter. After years of warnings from National Music Publishers’ Association — David Israelite called Elon Musk’s website his “top legal focus” earlier this year — dozens of the group’s members filed a sweeping copyright lawsuit in federal court.
Surprise or not, the case is a big deal. The publishers claim that Twitter has infringed over 1,700 different songs from writers like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé — a claim that, if proven, could put the social media giant on the hook for as much as $255 million in damages.
Damages aren’t likely the end goal for the publishers. Licensing deals outside the realm of plain ole music streaming, ranging from social media sites like Instagram to gaming platforms like Roblox to fitness services like Peloton, have become an increasingly large slice of the revenue pie for publishers and songwriters in recent years. But many of those deals only came as settlements to lawsuits — just ask Roblox and Peloton. Twitter, the publishers say, is one of the last holdouts refusing to sign such a deal.
To read more about the lawsuit, including the actual complaint itself, go read our entire story here.
If it doesn’t end in a quick settlement, the case will also be a fascinating look at the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, a federal law that limits how websites like Twitter can be sued over copyright infringement by their users — and one that has long frustrated content owners. The DMCA provides sites like Twitter with immunity from litigation over material uploaded by their users, so long as they promptly remove infringing content and ban repeated violators from the platform. The new lawsuit claims Twitter failed to do either of those things, meaning the site has legally forfeited the DMCA’s protections.
In that sense, the lawsuit against Twitter is something of spiritual sequel to a series of cases filed against internet service providers like Cox, which pioneered the argument that providers had waived the DMCA’s safe harbor by failing to crack down on subscribers who repeatedly infringed. After a federal judge ruled that Cox had lost the DMCA’s protections, a jury later ordered the company to pay $1 billion in damages to the three major music companies. Yes, billion, with a “B.”
Will those same arguments work against Twitter? Stay tuned.
Other top stories this week…
MASSIVE REGGAETON CASE – Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee, Karol G and dozens of other artists asked a federal judge to toss out a sprawling copyright lawsuit that claims hundreds of reggaeton tracks infringed a single 1989 song. In their motion to end the case, Daddy Yankee and many other stars argued that the accusers are “effectively claiming ownership of an entire genre of music.” Bad Bunny, in his own filing, said the case aims to “stake monopolistic control over the reggaeton genre.”
BOOSIE BADAZZ GUN CHARGE – Newly-unsealed charging documents against rapper Boosie Badazz revealed that his recent federal gun charge came after San Diego police tracked his Instagram account and even used a helicopter to locate him in an allegedly gang-affiliated neighborhood.
BAD SERVICE? A judge ruled that Sony Music Entertainment could serve a copyright lawsuit on a TikTok rapper by sending him a message through his DMs. The ruling detailed how the label’s lawyers had spent months unsuccessfully trying to do so in-person — including showing up to his mom’s house on Mother’s Day “in hopes that he would be there to celebrate with her.”
50 CENT ENDS BOOZE BATTLE – The rapper reached a settlement with Rémy Martin to resolve a lawsuit that claimed his Branson brand of cognac copied the design of the company’s bottles. The confidential deal will end litigation that 50 Cent’s company had called “meritless” and designed to “destroy a competitor.”
Luke Combs has driven his “Fast Car” to the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 – and Tracy Chapman is riding shotgun.
The surprise success of Combs’ cover has been a minor windfall for Chapman, the sole songwriter of the 1988 hit from her breakthrough debut album. Billboard estimates that Combs’ version has generated about $500,000 in publishing royalties globally from its March 17 debut through June 8. Chapman alone is pocketing a sizable portion of that total.
Most of the royalties have come from 154 million U.S. on-demand audio streams from services such as Spotify and Apple Music from March 17 to June 8, according to Luminate. During that period, “Fast Car” also had 6 million video streams and 28 million programmed audio streams in the United States. The track has also been purchased 86,000 times, while the album on which it appears, Combs’ Gettin’ Old, has been purchased 68,000 times in both digital and physical formats. The United States accounts for more than three quarters of the song’s global consumption — a high ratio not atypical for a country artist.
What’s more, Combs’ success with “Fast Car” has also given Chapman’s original recording a boost. Weekly consumption — measured by track sales and streaming converted into equivalent track units — increased 44% since Combs’ version was released, while average weekly radio spins improved about 11%. That’s resulted in a boost in U.S. recorded revenues of about $54,000, with $13,000 coming from publishing royalties, Billboard estimates. (Warner Music Group’s Elektra Records, not Chapman, owns the recorded music rights.) Interest in Chapman herself appears to have increased, too: U.S. Google searches for the singer almost tripled from the weeks ended March 18 to June 3, according to Google Trends.
“Fast Car,” the first single for Chapman’s eponymous debut album, has been covered by the likes of Sam Smith, Khalid, Black Pumas and English producer Jonas Blue, whose dance version reached No. 2 on The Official U.K. Singles Chart and No. 98 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016. But in the United States, Combs’ version became the most successful to date by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 (dated June 17), surpassing Chapman’s original which reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988, and helped her debut album reach triple platinum within a year of its release.
Combs’ “Fast Car” peaked at No. 1 on the Country Digital Song Sales chart (dated June 10) and No. 2 on the Country Streaming Songs chart (dated April 29). It also reached No. 6 on the Country Airplay chart (dated June 17) in just its eighth week on the tally and hit No. 2 on the Hot Country Songs chart (dated May 6), which combines radio airplay and streams. North of the U.S. border, “Fast Car” reached No. 2 on the Canadian Digital Song Sales chart (dated May 6), No. 5 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 chart (dated May 27) and No. 36 on the Canada All-Format Airplay chart (dated June 10).
Tracking the ownership of “Fast Car” is like a brief lesson in the history of major publishing dealmaking of the last four decades. Chapman signed a publishing deal with SBK Entertainment prior to signing with Elektra Records in 1987. SBK was acquired by EMI Music Publishing in 1989. Citi took control of EMI in 2011 after private equity firm Terra Firma defaulted on its debt from a 2007 acquisition. A consortium of investors led by Sony Music Entertainment acquired EMI Music Publishing in 2012. In 2018, Sony Corporation bought out the remaining 60% of EMI Music Publishing. But the rights to “Fast Car” reverted to Chapman a few years ago, according to a Sony Music Publishing spokesperson. As sole owner of the songwriting and publishing rights, Chapman can pocket all royalties generated from “Fast Car” and other songs in her catalog, less any fees paid to a third party for administration services.
“Fast Car” is a rarity in an age of sampling, interpolations and Taylor Swift’s re-recordings. Outside of holiday music, cover songs rarely appear in the top 10 of the Hot 100 singles chart. In fact, the last time a cover entered the top 10 of the Hot 100 was Anna Kendrick’s version of “Cups,” a folk song written in 1931 and recorded by Hendricks for the movie Pitch Perfect that reached No. 6 in 2013. Prior to “Cups,” two cover versions from the TV show Glee appeared in the top 10: “Don’t Stop Believin’” (originally by Journey) in 2009 and “Teenage Dream” (originally by Katy Perry) in 2010. Chapman earns some royalties when “Fast Car” is sampled or used in an interpolation – Chris Brown‘s 2017 song “Runaway,” for example — but she keeps 100% of the songwriting and publishing royalties of cover songs.
While superstar musicians from Puerto Rico, Colombia and across the Americas have raised the profile — and bottom line — of Latin music in recent years, 2023 is turning out to be a breakout year for a particular kind of Latin music.
Regional Mexican music consumption in the United States jumped 42.1% year to date through May 25, according to Luminate. The genre — comprised of banda, corridos, norteño, sierreño, mariachi and more subgenres — had 5.81 million equivalent album units [EAUs] in the first 21 weeks of 2023 compared to 4.09 million EAUs in the prior-year period. EAUs combine album sales in addition to track sales and streams converted into album units.
That outpaces gains in the Latin genre overall (+23.1%), as well as country (+21.7%), dance/electronic (+15.5%), rock (+12.4%) and pop (+10.3%), as well as the overall market (+13.4%). Only K-pop — up 49.4% year to date as Korean music companies partner with U.S. labels to further penetrate the U.S. market — has performed better than regional Mexican.
The numbers are on track with Mexican music’s exponential and global growth — which Billboard has been reporting on — over the past few years. The legacy genre, which has been around for more than a century and a half, has experienced a newfound popularity, ushered in by a new generation of Mexican and Mexican-American artists who have subtly fused core traditional sounds with urbano/hip-hop styles appealing to a younger, digitally connected audience — mostly notably Eslabon Armado, Peso Pluma and Grupo Frontera.
About 99% of regional Mexican consumption comes from streaming. Through May 25, on-demand audio streaming from services such as Spotify and Apple Music accounted for about 90% of consumption of regional Mexican music. The remaining streaming consumption came from video streaming platforms such as YouTube and programmed streams from Pandora and other non-interactive radio services. Physical sales are not important for the genre — some artists are digital only — accounting for about 1% of total consumption.
Collaborations have driven success for regional Mexican artists, with Elsabon Armado and Pluma’s hit single, “Ella Baila Sola,” and Grupo Frontera’s collab with Bad Bunny both reaching the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 in May. Both songs are currently part of a handful of regional Mexican songs that are surging on the Billboard Global 200 chart, where representation of the genre went from notably absent to now comprising nearly 10% of the entire ranking. Sixteen regional Mexican songs have debuted on the Hot 100 as of June 2; the chart dated May 6 set a record, with 14 positions occupied by regional Mexican tracks and another held down by a remix of Latin urban artist Ynvg Lvcas’s “La Bebe” featuring Pluma.
Latin music has soared in recent years with the help of artists such as Puerto Rico’s Bad Bunny and Colombia’s Karol G. In 2022, Latin music consumption grew 28.2% and was the No. 5 genre in the U.S. behind R&B/hip hop, rock, pop and country. Bad Bunny alone accounted for 6.7% of Latin consumption in 2022 when his album Un Verano Sin Ti finished the year as the top album in the United States and put 24 tracks into the Hot 100 chart.
Regional Mexican represented 18.2% of Latin consumption in 2022, about the same as the prior two years (19% and 18.7%). But through May 25, a handful of standout successes helped regional Mexican increase its share of Latin consumption to 20.1%.
Eslabon Armado is the leading regional Mexican act thus far in 2023. The four-piece group from California’s central valley accounted for about 8% of regional Mexican consumption through May 25 and boasted the second-highest consumption of any Latin artist behind Bad Bunny. That’s translated into chart success, including reaching No. 4 on the Hot 100 with “Ella Baile Sola” and reaching No. 6 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with Desvelado on DEL Records. The second- and third-leading regional Mexican artists, Ivan Cornejo and Junior H, both rank amongst the 11 most popular Latin artists in terms of EAUs — behind Colombian superstar Shakira and ahead of American-born Puerto Rican rapper Eladio Carrion.
This year, the top regional Mexican albums are dominated by artists, not compilations. Sony Music Latin’s Fuerza Regida has both the top album, Pa Que Hablan, and the No. 4 album, Sigan Hablando. Last year’s top albums, Modo Despecho and Cantina Mega Mix, rank at No. 6 and No. 7, respectively. In the same period in 2022, nine of the top 10 regional Mexican albums were compilations such as Universal Music Group’s Modo Despecho, Cantina Mega Mix and Cumbias de Microbusera. Corta Venas by DEL Records’ Eslabon Armado was the lone artist album in last year’s top 25 regional Mexican albums.
Collaborations have added to regional Mexican artists’ success in 2023. Eslabon Armado’s share of the subgenre increases from about 8% to 9.6% when collaborations with Cornejo, Junior H, Grupo Frontera, Fuerza Regida and Luis R. Conriquez are counted. Fuerza Regida’s standalone recordings and collaborations with Grupo Frontera, Natanael Cano, Peso Pluma, Juanpa Salazar, Marca Registrada, Cornejo, Becky G and others in the top 200 regional Mexican artists give the group a 9.2% share of regional Mexican consumption.
After topping the chart for five weeks in late 2022 — including a decade-best debut in November, with over 1.5 million equivalent album units moved — Taylor Swift‘s Midnights returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart this week (chart dated June 10), interrupting Morgan Wallen‘s 12 straight weeks atop the ranking with One Thing at a Time.
While the album didn’t have far to climb — it was No. 3 on the June 3 chart, and has spent all of 2023 in the top 10 — Midnights‘ return to No. 1 comes off a 389% spike in equivalent album units in the United States this week, up to 282,000. That’s thanks to a variety of new physical and digital re-issues of the album, released May 26. Those included the new “love potion” purple marble variant of Midnights that was available in independent stores (and was also briefly for preorder sale on her web store earlier in the week), as well as two new deluxe editions.
There’s also the Til Dawn edition of Midnights that includes three bonus tracks: another version of the original album’s Lana Del Rey-featuring “Snow on the Beach” (this time with more Del Rey), a remix of “Karma” featuring buzzy rapper Ice Spice and “Hits Different,” previously available only on the Target-exclusive physical edition of Midnights.
And there’s also Midnights (The Late Night Edition) — which was very briefly for sale as a digital download on Swift’s web store, and then in CD form at her three live shows at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on May 26-28 — which includes those new takes on “Snow” and “Karma,” and an original bonus cut, “You’re Losing Me,” which is not yet available for streaming.
This is all in addition to the previously existing 3am Edition of Midnights, originally released just hours after the set’s standard edition.
All those variants combined to give Midnights its biggest week of the year, as well as — in terms of pure sales — the biggest single-week number for any album since Midnights debuted in November. Of the week’s 282,000 equivalent album units, nearly 70% came from album sales (196,000) — with a decent chunk also coming in streaming equivalent albums (SEA) and a much smaller sliver also in track equivalent albums (TEA).
Of those 196,000 total unit sales, 62% were digital with 122,000 units, while the venue sales during those three MetLife dates also contributed about 22% for 43,000 units and internet/mail order purchases made up almost 11% for 21,000 units.
Breaking it down by format, digital still ruled the day for Midnights the past week, with 122,000 units sold — followed by CD (45,600) and vinyl (27,300), with cassette sales (100) making up only a small fraction of the pie.
Of the four editions of Midnights available for sale, the most purchased version was the Late Night Edition that was for sale at the MetLife shows and featured the previously unreleased “You’re Losing Me.” That version accounted for almost 75% of all sales with 146,300 units. The album’s standard edition sold 30,600 units, making up almost 16%; and the Til Dawn Edition sold 18,500 units for over 9% of all sales.
When you look at total sales of all four editions of the album since its Oct. 21 release, however, the standard edition is still dominant. That version has sold over 2 million units, while the 3am Edition and Late Night Edition follow with 162,800 and 146,300 units, respectively.
Breaking down Midnights’ total overall sales since release, vinyl leads with 1,167,300 units, followed by CDs with 786,900 units and digital sales with 391,300 units.
* Midnights (standard edition) = (13-tracks, physical + digital) – inclusive of: the newly released the “Love Potion” color vinyl variant; plus the previously released iTunes-exclusive version with a bonus spoken word track, four standard CD editions (each with a different cover); four vinyl LP editions (each with a different cover and colored vinyl) and a cassette tape; a Target-exclusive “Lavender” edition of the album on CD and colored-vinyl LP, with the CD including three bonus tracks; signed copies of the four standard CD albums and the four standard vinyl LPs; and a deluxe boxed set with a CD edition of the standard album and a Swift-branded T-shirt, exclusively for Capital One cardholders; four digital alternative cover variants, each with a “behind the song” spoken word bonus track from Swift.
Midnights (The 3am Edition) = (20 tracks: 13 standard tracks + 7 bonus tracks; digital sales only, not available as a physical album)
Midnights (The Til Dawn Edition) = (23 tracks: 13 standard tracks + 7 ‘3am Edition’ tracks + 3 new bonus tracks; Digital Sales Only, not available as a physical album)
Midnights (The Late Night Edition) = (21 tracks: 13 standard tracks + 5 ‘3am Edition’ tracks + 3 bonus tracks; Physical + Digital)
Additional reporting by Keith Caulfield.
Stock markets ended the week on a positive note as investors showed optimism believing that Congress can negotiate a deal to increase the nation’s debt limit and avoid a historic default. The S&P 500 increased 1.3% to $4,205.45, up 0.3% on the week, while the Nasdaq composite climbed 2.2% on Friday (May 26) to finish […]
