Dance
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In late May, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek made headlines when he tweeted, “Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content.”
One person who took offense is deadmau5, who put up an Instagram post over the weekend offering feedback on Ek’s comment. “Incorrect,” the producer’s caption reads. “The cost of creating content was 25+ years of my life and much of those proceeds going to your company you complete f–king idiot.”
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The post garnered nearly 38,000 likes and many comments, with one person writing, “We hate Spotify so much,” to which the Canadian electronic producer responded by saying, “feel that, I’m about to pull my catalog from these f–king vultures, enough’s enough.”
As of publishing, the producer’s catalog is still available on Spotify, where he currently boasts nearly 5 million monthly listeners.
“I’ve been saying for a long time that we as the IP owners, the artists, the artist managers and the major record companies have allowed these multibillion-dollar companies to build platforms and companies with our art and our fans, and now we’re locked out,” deadmau5’s manager Dean Wilson tells Billboard in regards to royalty rates on DSPs like Spotify. “We can’t talk to our fans on the platform with our art that we’ve built.
“When you say that out loud, it’s insane that we keep allowing that to happen,” Wilson continues. “They’re our fans that we drive to platforms with our art, and unless we pay [the platforms]…you can’t get to your fans. Or you don’t even know if you’re getting to your fans. It’s like, if you spend this amount of money and move this needle on that, you could get to maybe this amount of people.
“Then how much data do we get back in return? The bare minimum they can give you. Ask me today, ‘How much am I getting paid per stream on Spotify?’ I don’t know. And that’s our job. How crazy is that, that that’s our business, and if you stream my record for more than 30 seconds today, I can’t tell you what that generated. It’s in this mythical bucket.”
In April, Spotify reported that its first-quarter revenue jumped 20% and gross profit topped 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion), helping return the 18-year-old streaming company to profitability and putting it on track to meet its 2024 growth target.
Earlier this month, the streamer announced that it’s raising prices for the second consecutive year, with its premium individual plan in the U.S. increasing by a dollar to $11.99 a month starting July 1. The platform’s duo plan will also go up by a buck to $16.99 a month while the family plan will be increased by $3 to $19.99 a month.
Despite the price hikes, royalty rates recently went down for songwriters on the platform. By adding audiobooks to premium offerings like individual, duo and family plans, Spotify claims these subscriptions are now “bundles” — a type of plan that qualifies it for a discounted rate on U.S. mechanical royalties given that multiple products are offered under one price. According to Billboard estimates, the change means publishers and writers will earn about $150 million less in royalties over the course of Spotify’s first bundled year.
Since the bundling change was first reported, Spotify has been targeted by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) on multiple fronts. In May, it was hit with a lawsuit by the Mechanical Licensing Collective over the discounted rate. In response, Spotify has called the NMPA’s accusations “baseless” and “misleading” and argued of the MLC lawsuit that “bundles were a critical component” of the Phono IV agreement struck between publishers and streaming services.
Early in May, the New York house music stalwarts at Nervous Records were enjoying two hits in the top 10 on the Beatport chart: A zippy, heavily syncopated reimagining of Kendrick Lamar‘s “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” by Liquid Rose and Trace (UZ), and a thunking version of Diddy and Keyshia Cole’s “Last Night” by Loofy.
In both cases, the older track was outfitted with a fresh vocal and re-tooled for dancefloors, swooping at just under 130 beats per minute. “There’s something special about being able to know all the lyrics and sing along to a brand new song — even though it’s not a brand new song,” says Rida Naser, associate director of music programming for SiriusXM’s BPM and The Pulse.
Many producers have taken note. Ghostbusterz tackled the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Running,” while Armonica, Zamna Soundsystem, and ROZYO took on the dance version of Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness;” both hit the Beatport Top 100. (Beatport, a popular site for DJs and electronic music enthusiasts, ranks songs according to the number of downloads.) Mr. Belt & Wezol’s re-do of Whitney Houston‘s resilient late-’90s classic “It’s Not Right But It’s OK” recently surpassed 65 million streams on Spotify.
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“We’ve been doing loads of these since 2018,” says Kevin McKay, a DJ, producer, and founder of the label Glasgow Underground. “A lot of artists were shying away from it because they felt it was uncool, or that they would be looked down on for it. Now almost all the labels are doing them.” For a time, Joe Wiseman, head of Insomniac Music Group, “was getting sent so many dance covers” that he considered issuing a moratorium on signing them.
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Dance music has a long history of referencing the past, often through club-ready remixes and prominent samples. But while most aspiring rockers cut their teeth in a cover band, “in dance music, that part gets skipped,” McKay says, “and people go straight to writing originals.”
Still, as anyone who’s ever attended a wedding knows, many people need to be coaxed onto the dance floor — often by hearing songs they already recognize. Plenty of club-goers need the same enticement.
Dance covers “evoke a sense of nostalgia, reminding [listeners] of the original hits and the memories associated with them,” says Wez Saunders, managing director of the label Defected Records. And those “reworks often serve as a gateway, drawing attention to the genre and leading listeners to discover new music.”
George Hess, a veteran dance radio promoter, believes the lack of shared experiences during the pandemic — when “new memories were difficult to create since people basically weren’t together enjoying each other’s company” — further heightened listeners’ desire for familiarity.
Around this time, mainstream pop saw a spike in “I know that one!” samples and in-your-face interpolations, offering some potential support for Hess’ theory. And two of the biggest singles to come out of the commercial dance world recently, ACRAZE’s “Do It To It” and David Guetta and Bebe Rexha’s “I’m Good (Blue),” borrowed liberally from old hits by Cherish and Eiffel 65, respectively.
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In a world where anyone with a computer can cobble together a dance track, it’s also possible that producers are increasingly incentivized to make covers as a way to lasso listeners overwhelmed with similar-sounding releases. In 2023, Luminate reported that more than 120,000 tracks hit streaming services daily. The flow of new tunes is more controlled at Beatport; still, between 20,000 and 25,000 fresh tracks hit the platform per week.
Nervous Records works with Louie Vega, “who always uses live musicians” to inject different tones and textures into his tracks, says label co-founder Mike Weiss. “With fewer producers doing that, a lot of them are all using the same plugins,” and covers offer a way to stand out.
McKay believes the covers trend may be more about channeling the knock-out top lines and gleaming hooks of the originals: “We have a dearth of songwriting talent, so when you’re on the dance floor, you get this amazing song from the past and it just blows away a lot of the current content.” Glasgow Underground has done well on the Beatport chart with covers of The S.O.S. Band, Kylie Minogue, ABBA and more.
In addition, the complex dynamics of the music business ensure that sampling or interpolating a song is an arduous process, potentially making covers a more attractive proposition. To clear a sample, a producer needs to obtain permission from the owner(s) of both the original composition and the recording. “Independent artists without representation might struggle to even get a response to their request,” explains Tim Kappel, an entertainment attorney and founder of the firm Wells Kappel. Their request might also be denied, he continues, or be granted only if the artist agrees to pay hefty up-front fees for using the material.
In contrast, artists can typically cover songs in the U.S. without the explicit approval of the original songwriters, under the somewhat vague condition that their “arrangement shall not change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work.” The original writers receive all the songwriting royalties from the resulting cover. “For a dance artist that just wants to consistently release music, the obstacles to clear samples and interpolations might outweigh the desire for the artist to have publishing on the underlying composition” and drive them to produce more covers, says Jodie Shihadeh, founder of Shihadeh Law.
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While dance music remakes have increased, they are not an automatic home run. In Wiseman’s view, the most obvious source material is “never the best” — he’s not looking for a house remake of Britney Spear’s “Toxic,” for example. “You want to get that feeling where someone’s like, ‘I know I heard that song years ago, and I loved it back then, but I don’t quite remember it,’” he continues.
And several label executives also emphasized that covers are just one tool they use to hook audiences. “As a label who’s been around for 33 plus years, [covers] can’t be our sole focus,” says Andrew Salsano, vp of Nervous Records.
Nervous Records is hopeful that one more reimagined classic can light up dancefloors this summer: On July 19th, the label will put out a new version of Cher‘s “Believe” from Super Flu. While the original thrums like an overheated racecar engine, the Super Flu release builds slowly, replacing Cher’s Auto-Tune flourishes with a conversational delivery, trading in triumph for something more ambivalent.
DJs are already testing the Super Flu single in their sets. “I’ve been in clubs when it’s been played,” Weiss says. The dancers’ response?
“Very emotional.”
Once again, the annual Broadway Bares charity burlesque benefit show not only raised temperatures, but also raised a bevy of money for a good cause. Over two sold-out shows on June 23 at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, more than 200 dancers strutted their stuff and helped generate $2,259,134 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) – […]
Last week, the Recording Academy unveiled a flurry of rule tweaks that will be implemented at the 2025 awards. Among these 10 changes, three are directly related to the dance/electronic categories and a fourth also affects the dance/electronic categories.
One of the changes involves an award that was introduced to the Grammys just this year, with the “best pop dance recording” category now being called “best dance pop recording.” This tweak is not just a matter of aesthetics, but meant to make the category more accurately reflect the well-established style of dance pop music it was created to showcase.
The proposal for this name change, reviewed by Billboard, stated that “last year we conceded with Recording Academy staff to amend the award name to ‘Pop Dance’ rather than ‘Dance Pop’ for the purposes of classifying and defining: ‘what kind of Dance’. However, the result of this decision has been one of regular confusion and clarification. Numerous articles in mainstream media would either ‘correct’ or get ‘confused’ or ‘incorrectly label’ the Grammy Award.
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“The confusion,” the proposal continues, “has also led some people to question if this is a Pop category award, or a Dance category award. It is of extreme importance to the Dance/Electronic community, and the driving intention of the invention of the award, that it be recognized in the Dance category, albeit for the most Pop-leaning sounds of Dance music.”
With this new category functioning as intended during its debut this year, this new change is likely to only help the category establish itself as a home for electronic music with a pop lean, allowing space in the best dance/electronic recording category for more traditional electronic tracks and generally creating more space for dance/electronic music at the Grammys.
The next rule change involves the best remixed recording category, which has long focused on dance/electronic artists but was never an official dance/electronic category.
That changes in 2025, with this category being moved from the production, engineering, composition & arrangement field into the pop & dance/electronic field, a shift that makes sense given how deeply remixing is embedded in and largely synonymous with the dance/electronic realm.
To wit, the 2024 nominees in this category included tech house titan Dom Dolla and longstanding producer Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, with winners since the award was introduced in 1998 having included genre legends like Frankie Knuckles, Deep Dish, Roger Sanchez, Louie Vega, Justice, David Guetta, Skrillex and Tiësto.
The next tweak changes the name of the “best dance/electronic music album” to “best dance/electronic album.” The title change was made given that the word “music” was more or less considered unnecessary.
More crucially, this change also amends the definition of the category, which now states that “albums must be made up of at least 50% dance/electronic recordings to qualify.” This change is quite likely a result of the nomination of and subsequent win for Beyoncè’s Renaissance in 2023. Given that the album is not composed entirely of dance/electronic music, Renaissance‘s inclusion in the dance/electronic album category was the cause of major debate within the electronic music community.
Many felt it wasn’t a purely dance/electronic album, while others embraced it not only for its music but for how it shined a light on the Black and LGBTQ origins of the genre music itself. Given this definition change, however, it’s possible a similar album might be included in the dance/electronic album category going forward.
And while the final change is one that affects many categories, it’s especially significant for dance music. The tweak states that all eligibly credited featured artists with under 50% playtime will now be awarded a winners’ certificate for all genre album categories. These certificates previously went only to producers and engineers with less than 50% playing time; mastering engineers (if they weren’t also the artist) and immersive producers and immersive engineer/mixers.
“Most often,” the proposal for this change stated, “a Featured Artist would be a Vocalist that performed on one or multiple songs on the record, but didn’t achieve 50% playtime as a whole (otherwise they would be a Grammy winner).”
While featured artists could still previously get a certificate, this certificate did not come automatically, and many featured artists were unaware that they were eligible to apply for a certificate, which also previously cost $150. This was different from the process for contributors like engineers and producers, who received certificates automatically and didn’t have to pay the fee.
The Rules and Guidelines booklet for the upcoming 67th annual Grammy Awards sheds some light on certificates: “Individuals on a Grammy-winning recording whose roles are listed under Certificate receive a Winners Certificate from the Academy after the telecast but are not Grammy nominees or Grammy winners. These individuals can say they ‘worked on a Grammy winning project’ but are not ‘Grammy winners.’
“Additionally, those who worked in certain roles on Grammy-winning and Grammy-nominated projects but are not nominees, winners or recipients of Winners Certificates can order a Participation Certificate. These can be ordered for a fee from the Academy website.”
The proposal, introduced by members of the electronic music community, argued that in dance, this difference “disproportionately affects female creators or people of color,” stating that “vocalists in the Dance/Electronic community are predominantly people of color and female.” The last four winning albums in dance/electronic category (Fred again’s Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9 2022), Beyoncè’s Renaissance, Black Coffee’s Subconciously and Kaytranada’s Bubba) included 27 featured artists, 14 of whom are women and 21 of whom are people of color.
Given that the dance/electronic categories have had a dicey history in terms of representing women and people of color, this change opens up the category to recognize a more diverse group of artists. The change was co-proposed by Aluna, who last year expressed frustration about the number of white men nominated in the categories.
“You can say awards are bullshit but they ARE career builders,” the producer/writer/singer and label founder wrote upon the announcement of the new rule tweaks. “Today I got word that a change I fought for was implemented at the Grammys and I want to explain why it’s MASSIVE! As a Black woman in Dance music you get the message loud and clear; your value is as the Featured Artist not the main act. Labels, managers, leading (white male) artists in the field, festival bookers and media all tell us that our voices are incredibly valuable but investing in us as artists is rarely on the table.
“Now, while I can’t change this culture overnight with my label Noir Fever,” the statement continues, “I saw that while being featured artists is our bread and butter, it’s someone else’s Grammy award so there’s a simple shift that could be made; Featured artists need the credit they deserve when contributing to Albums. In the past if you poured your heart into a song on another artists’ Album that won you still went home with nothing. Now I’m proud to share that every featured artist who has sung on a Grammy winning album will get a certificate.”
Life Is Beautiful is getting a makeover. The longstanding Las Vegas festival announced major changes for its 2024 event on Tuesday (June 25), with the event trimming down from a three- to two-day show and moving to a new site not far from the old one in downtown Las Vegas.
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While Life Is Beautiful previously happened across 18 city blocks in the downtown Arts District, this year’s show is happening at a smaller site on the other side of downtown’s Fremont Street Experience, a five-minute walk from The Arts District.
The lineup is also more focused this year, with the Sept. 27-28 party featuring 14 electronic acts including LCD Soundsystem, Justice, Peggy Gou, James Blake, Jungle, Jamie xx, Neil Frances, LP Giobbi, Thundercat and Badbadnotgood. Sets will not overlap, with performances starting in each evening at 5 p.m. and happening one after the other until 2 a.m. Tickets go on sale Thursday, June 27, at 10 a.m. PT.
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This year, the festival is called Life Is Beautiful Presents: A Big Beautiful Block Party. The event is now entirely owned by Rolling Stone, which first acquired a majority stake in the festival 2022. (Rolling Stone is owned by Billboard‘s parent company, Penske Media Corporation.)
Rolling Stone CEO Gus Wenner tells Billboard that “for a number of reasons, we had to explore new locations,” but that it was “super important” for the festival to stay in downtown Las Vegas.
While the festival team considered taking a year off from the event, they instead landed on this new format, although Wenner says “our intention is to bring back the full-scale thing” in the coming years. While this three-day, multi-genre format will likely return, “this block party concept is something we might do quite a bit of” as well.
For now, though, “it was exciting for us to put something a little more focused together that wasn’t so multi genre.” He says electronic music has always been a core element of Life Is Beautiful lineups, and that “if you look at the festival landscape, I think this is a product there should probably be more of, as opposed to these big box festivals where you’ve got huge pop acts that are all playing the festival circuit with little permutations on different [events].”
Las Vegas is of course a historically strong market for electronic music, although A Big Beautiful Block Party “is a little bit different than what you get across a lot of Vegas,” Wenner says. “It’s less EDM and more indie electronic — more instruments on stage, riskier. We feel there is room in the market for this lineup and not just pulling mega-DJs that play in clubs on the Strip together into one spot. This has a unique point of view.”
A Big Beautiful Block Party happens on the same days at San Francisco’s electronic festival Portola, which will also feature performances by Justice, LP Giobbi, Empress Of, Neil Frances and Jamie xx. Wenner says “seeing how well people responded to Portola was was a really good sign for us. it’s something they’re excited about.”
Wenner says that since he got involved in the festival, he’s been “kind of overwhelmed at how much support there is for Life Is Beautiful in Las Vegas … I’d been told that, but to meet all the players and spend time in the community and talk to the small businesses that have been in and around the festival for for 10 years now, it’s been transformative. It definitely gives us a lot of appreciation and respect for what’s been built.”
Life Is Beautiful was founded in 2013 by Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of Zappos and an entrepreneur who had the vision to transform and revitalize the downtown Las Vegas community. Hsieh died in 2020 at the age of 46. Wenner says this year’s show “honors Hsieh’s legacy and the legacy of Life Is Beautiful and the spirit of it, while also evolving.”
While the festival looks different this year, the goal of A Big Beautiful Block Party is more or less the same as it’s always been.
“Bottom line,” Wenner says, “is we want to throw a f–king party.”
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL
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Earlier this month, the story of a terminally ill dog named Kygo went viral, with the dog’s owner stating that it would be a dream come true for the pup to meet his namesake, Kygo the Norwegian electronic music producer.
That story resulted in Kygo the DJ inviting Kygo the dog (and his owner) to the human Kygo’s Palm Tree Music Festival, which happened in Southampton, N.Y., on Saturday (June 22).
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Happily, the dog and his crew made it to the show, with the Kygos convening backstage to pose for photos and swap merch. Kygo the DJ gave the dog a Palm Tree Crew bandanna, while Kygo the dog (and his owner) gifted a “Kygo Krew” hat and T-shirts with the dog’s face on it.
“That’s why I want a dog,” human Kygo said during the meeting, “just to have someone to come back home to and it’s just pure pleasure.”
The story originally went viral after the dog and its owner were featured on the dog-centric Instagram account The Dogist. The pup at the heart of the story is a seven-year-old husky, malamute, poodle and collie mix who’s been diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. Earlier this month, his owner stated that “he doesn’t have much longer.”
Kygo the DJ & Kygo the dog at Palm Tree Music Festival New York 2024.
Johannes Lovund
The Dogist host Elias Weiss Friedman was also on site for the meeting, posting that Kygo the DJ “invited us all out to his concert in Southampton to meet up before the show. It turns out, despite not growing up with dogs or having one at the moment, Kygo fully understood the importance of a dog and what they mean to their person. I want to thank Kygo the man for making Kygo the dog’s second bucket list dream come true.”
The post also notes that Kygo the dog’s owner received a $10,000 donation from the animal-focused nonprofit The Brady Hunter Foundation to help pay for treatment costs.
The fourth Hamptons iteration of Kygo’s traveling Palm Tree Music Festival featured performances by artists including Swedish House Mafia, Sofi Tukker, Purple Disco Machine and Kygo himself. The producer’s fifth studio album, Kygo, was released this past Friday, June 21.
See the Dogist’s update on the meeting of the Kygos:
An new album by late producer Sophie will be released Sept. 24. This project marks the first time new music from Sophie has been released since the boundary-pushing Scottish producer died after an accidental fall in Greece in January 2021. She was 34 years old. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, […]
This week in dance music: the queen Charli XCX ascended to No. 1 on Dance/Electronic Albums with Brat, tracks from which also currently make up a third of Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, and Lorne Padman was named president of Steve Aoki’s venerable Dim Mak label.
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It’s also a big day for big name releases. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
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Zedd feat. Bea Miller, “Out of Time”
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It’s been [checks watch] nine years since Zedd’s last studio album True Colors, and while he’s released a flurry of singles since — including his 2018 Maren Morris collab “The Middle,” which hit No. 5 on the Hot 100 — the album cycle is finally rumbling back to life for the artist born Anton Zaslavski. The lead single from his forthcoming Telos, coming August 30 through Interscope Records, is “Out of Time,” an urgent, elegant affair that leans hard into indie pop (a realm his buddy Porter Robinson is also currently exploring) while maintaining a firm electronic backbone. It all serves as a foundation for Bea Miller to go HAM on vocals, with the whole production building to a place that’s more a crescendo than a drop. The Telos tour starts September 6 in Los Angeles.
TSHA & Rose Gray, “Girls”
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With the bouncy, punchy, electro-flavored “girls” TSHA delivers the lead single from her second album Sad Girl, coming in September via Ninja Tune. A collaboration with singer/songwriter Rose Grey, the song rides the line between pop bop and the kind of blissful dancefloor track that facilitates getting out of your head and fully into physical motion. So it shall be all summer long for TSHA, who’s playing a run of dates across the U.S. and Europe — which includes Michigan’s Electric Forest this weekend, and a residency at Hï Ibiza through the end of August.
Rüfüs du Sol, “Music Is Better”
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Three years after Surrender, which won a Grammy for best dance/electronic album, the Rüfüs trinity is back with music that, like a dancefloor ouroboros, is about the joys of music itself. “Music sounds better when we’re together,” sing’s the Aussie trio’s Tyrone Lindqvist, with the sentiment melding with the group’s signature lush melodic house. The single comes after a surprise Rüfüs set at SoCal’s Lightning in a Bottle last month and ahead of the group’s only currently announced show, a headlining slot at Portola in San Francisco this September.
Jamie xx feat. Robyn, “Life”
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Dance royalty Robyn swaggers onto Jamie xx’s forthcoming album, In Waves, with their brassy, Latin-leaning “Life.” Sophisticated yet unapologetically fun, the song is the third single from the LP and one which the U.K. producers says he “made pretty fast (for me) and loved it from day one. When I first heard Robyn’s vocal it was at 6am after finishing playing at Pacha in Ibiza, it was the perfect moment. Robyn and I have spent time working together and hanging out for some years now, it’s always a joy and always inspiring, I’m so glad and grateful that she is a part of In Waves. Thank you Robyn for bringing this track to life!”
Purple Disco Machine & Chromeo, “Heartbreaker”
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Both Chromeo and Purple Disco Machine have managed to make the camp factor of their respective public images work, given that their music has always been great enough to support the kooky but intellectual brands of fun. So, putting these two acts together is something you’d expect to totally work, and it does. On “Heartbreaker,” PDM’s slick disco fuses with Chromeo’s modern funk, with the three guys together leaning into pop while also keeping it nuanced and characteristically groovy. “He brought this demo to us, and it basically produced itself,” Chromeo says of working with the German producer. “We hope that our lyrical twists and synth touches add a little chrome je-ne-sais-quoi to his winning formula.”
“Working with Chromeo on my album is a real moment for me in my career,” adds Purple Disco Machine, who also just announced a new album coming in September. “Both as a ‘fanboy,’ as I’ve followed these guys for years and they are a real influence on Purple Disco Machine, but also as a ‘producer,’ as 10 years ago I couldn’t even dream about a day when I would go into the studio with Dave and Patrick and make a record together. And…probably only these guys could get me singing and dancing in a video!”
John Summit & Kaskade feat. Julia Church, “Resonate”
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Call it bromance, call it mentorship, call it power in numbers, but the musical tag team of John Summit and Kaskade firms up today with the duo’s first collaborative single, “Resonate.” Coming after Summit opened for Kx5 at the Coliseum in 2022 and then played b2b with Kaskade at Hard Summer 2023, the song hails from Summit’s forthcoming LP, Comfort in Chaos, falling in the same dreamy, progressive house singalong sonic wheelhouse as the album’s previously released tracks. Vocals here come from Julia Church, who also sings on Comfort In Chaos‘ previously released Sub Focus collab “Go Back.” Summit is also headlining Madison Square Garden next weekend.
Mind Against, “Love Seeking”
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The Italian duo give a warm and experimental take on disco with their latest, “Love Seeking.” Out on DJ Tennis’ Life & Death label, the song is like a very cold glass of rosé at 6:00 p.m. on a summer Friday, slowing down midway before warming back up to a warm, sensual swirl that’s the sonic and spiritual opposite of the duo’s typically dark and more pummeling output, but which proves they can do both equally well.
Steve Aoki‘s longstanding Dim Mak label has a new president, with Lorne Padman — the imprint’s vp for the last decade — assuming the position. In the role, the Los Angeles-based Padman will oversee strategy for the imprint, which was founded by Aoki in 1996 while he was a student at UC Santa Barbara.
The current Dim Mak roster includes producers like Henry Fong, Chyl, Ookay, Deorro, Cash Cash, Cheyenne Giles, Sikdope, 4B and more, with upcoming releases from Ray Ray, Mila Falls, Nostalgix and Aoki and Afrojack’s collaborative Afroki project, among others.
“Throughout Lorne’s ten years as vice president, he has been an integral part of the label’s success story,” Aoki tells Billboard. “His ability to cultivate strong relationships within the industry has been critical in elevating the reputation of Dim Mak’s brand. I’m confident that Lorne’s leadership and hard work will continue to steer the label toward further growth and excellence.”
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Padman tells Billboard that for him, the label’s health and vibrancy is demonstrated by the fact that artists from across the roster collaborate often, without being pushed to by management. “For me,” he says, “that’s an indication we must be doing something right, if we’re creating an ecosystem of talent that all want to work with each other and get along socially and musically.”
These artists make many different styles of electronic music, with Dim Mak focused less on cultivating a specific sound and more on releasing compelling, relevant output. The idea, Padman says, is to offer a “complementary roster of different sounds, from really fresh underground and cool and new. But also, a bit like a financial portfolio, you can’t only be taking moonshots, you also need to have some established things that will guard our reputation and can also financially open the possibility of being able to take swings at emerging artists.”
Taking swings is built into Dim Mak’s business model, with the label’s New Noise imprint having released music from a totally new artist every two weeks for the last decade. This structure offers artists with what is often their first official release, providing them with the Dim Mak visibility boost while helping the label identify emerging sounds and trends. Altogether, Padman says, it’s “an avenue to market for development artists that are potentially too small for some other other labels.”
Padman brings decades of experience to the role, having DJ’d in Australia for 18 years. (“With only six Saturday off,” he says.) He was part of the development teams for the first releases by Avicii and The Chainsmokers and also has experience in management, radio, television, production and songwriting.
This history gives him the ability to speak the same language as artists and offer feedback in technical terms. But, he says, “I only ever feel like I have 49% of the vote” regarding the creative decisions any artist or member of the team — which includes staff across A&R, video, marketing, social media and art direction — should make.
“I want the artists to feel good and empowered, and I definitely don’t want to feel like Dim Mak is a distributor and that we’re not adding any value,” he says. “But at the same time, I don’t want them to feel like they’re being told what to be, because they have to choose that themselves.”
Padman’s previous label experience includes a run as national promotions and label manager at Australia’s Vicious Recordings, where he was working when he met Aoki. “At that time I felt Vicious was quite successful,” Padman says, “then Steve said something to the effect of, ‘But no one’s wearing a Vicious t-shirt.’ That stuck in my head. People will wear Dim Mak shirts and get Dim Mak tattoos, but no one’s wearing Sony or Warner or Universal or Republic shirts. There are labels and lifestyle labels. I always have to keep cognizant of the fact that Dim Mak is a lifestyle label.”
Padman also has a close working relationship with the dance/electronic categories at the Grammys, having co-authored proposals including the one that introduced the Dance Pop category to last year’s awards.
“I’ve always felt that it’s about reputation more than anything really,” he says of his and Dim Mak’s position in the wider industry ecosystem. “I’ve always felt like that if I can live my life through the four principles [of coaching expert Dan Sullivan] of showing up on time, doing what I say I’ll do, finishing what I started and saying please and thank you, then I’m going to be referable.”
Charli XCX blankets Billboard’s June 22-dated dance charts following the release of her sixth studio LP, Brat. The set opens at No. 1 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums (her first leader there), while all 15 of its standard-edition tracks – plus two bonus cuts – cover Hot Dance/Electronic Songs.
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Brat debuts with 77,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending June 13, according to Luminate. That marks the biggest week of Charli’s career, by units. It also earns her highest rank on the all-genre Billboard 200, where it starts at No. 3.
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The album’s first-week sum includes 30,000 copies sold on vinyl, fueling its No. 1 debut on the Vinyl Albums ranking.
Brat drew 46.72 million on-demand official streams of its deluxe edition’s 18 songs, equaling 37,000 SEA units (streaming-equivalent albums).
Brat was released on June 7 with 15 tracks and its deluxe edition arrived three days later. The deluxe edition was aptly titled Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not, dominates Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, with 17 of its 18 titles appearing on this week’s 50-position chart. That gives Charli more than one third (34%) of the dance chart’s total real estate. Only Skrillex has ever logged more simultaneous entries, when he had 20 songs on the March 4, 2023-dated edition.
Thirteen of Charli’s 17 appearances are debuts, led by “Talk Talk” at No. 5. Four more new cuts crack the top 20, including “Sympathy Is A Knife,” “365” and “Everything is Romantic,” all between Nos. 10-14.
Charli released a handful of singles in the lead-up to Brat, and those make big moves. “360” is the week’s Greatest Gainer/Streaming, up 95% to 6.6 million clicks, pushing it from No. 7 to a new peak of No. 3. “Von Dutch” is the Greatest Gainer/Sales, buoying 25-7, returning to its debut-week high. Plus, “Club Classic” and “B2B” both re-enter the list at new peaks, back at Nos. 11 and 19, respectively.
The avalanche of Brat tracks nearly triples Charli’s history on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, where she’d previously charted 10 songs. Notably, the new album’s “Von Dutch” and the other pre-release singles marked her first solo unaccompanied entries on the list. “360” scores her highest rank as a lead artist, while she had topped the chart in 2013 via her featured turn on Icona Pop’s “I Love It.”
Brat isn’t the only new release impacting this week’s dance charts. Kaytranada’s Timeless debuts at No. 2 on Top Dance/Electronic Songs with 21,000 units, while also hitting No. 2 on Top R&B Albums, No. 6 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and No. 28 on the Billboard 200.
Nine of the album’s tracks debut on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, topped by “Witchy,” featuring Childish Gambino, at No. 12. Other entries include collaborations with Anderson .Paak, Don Toliver, and PinkPantheress.