Dance
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“I have a secret life. You’re looking at me, but what you see is not what I am.”
That’s just one of the illuminating self-reflections peppered throughout the new documentary Love to Love You, Donna Summer. The film premieres on HBO this weekend (May 20), coinciding with the anniversary of Summer’s death from lung cancer on May 17, 2012.
“The timing wasn’t pre-planned,” Summer’s daughter and the film’s co-director Brooklyn Sudano tells Billboard during a recent phone interview. “But with the anniversary of her passing, it feels like a full-circle moment; like it was meant to be.”
As was the pairing with her co-director, Academy Award winner Roger Ross Williams, because the duo have delivered a loving-yet-unvarnished look at the real woman — Donna Adrian Gaines — behind the artist who kept the club floors crowded with hot disco, R&B and pop hits such as “Love to Love You Baby,” “I Feel Love,” “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls” and “She Works Hard for the Money.”
As Williams noted to Billboard, Summer “was so much more than” the Queen of Disco. And through strikingly candid comments and recollections by family (including husband Bruce Sudano and daughters Mimi, Brooklyn and Amanda), creative colleagues (producer Giorgio Moroder), Summer herself and others, the documentary peels away the various layers underneath the star persona.
The five-time Grammy Award winner was also a daughter, sister, wife, mother, abuse survivor, painter and a very spiritual being, all while wrestling with the demands and sacrifices that come with stardom. Just as insightful are the accompanying family home movies and backstage/on-the-road videos that Summer shot, as well as memory-evoking concert footage that underscores what a multi-talent she truly was.
Brooklyn Sudano
Maria Dunlap Berlin
Asked what her mother’s reaction would be after watching Love to Love You, Donna Summer, Sudano says, “She would probably be laughing hysterically and saying, ‘See I told you so,’ because she always called me ‘the reporter.’ As a kid, I was always the great sharer of news at the dinner table. So it seems appropriate that my first film report is on her. [Laughs] But I think she’d be very proud.”
Below, find more from Billboard‘s interview with Sudano and Williams:
Before filming began, what was your vision?
Sudano: I had become a mother myself and had lost my mother. So I was grappling with that process and trying to understand it. At the same time, so many people were coming up to me and sharing their personal stories about interacting with my mom or how impactful her music had been in their own lives. I just felt there was so much to say and so much that people didn’t fully understand about my mother and her artistry. So about seven years ago, I talked to my dad about it and he’s like, “Let’s do it.” Then after a bit of time, Roger and I crossed paths. We were able to collaborate in a way that has been truly magical; we were lock-stepped in our vision.
Williams: It had been my dream to make a film about Donna Summer as I’m a huge fan. And when I met Brooklyn, the dream came true. It’s been an incredible journey; from the beginning we had the same vision of not making your typical music documentary, to really dive deep into the emotional core of who Donna was as a person and an artist.
How difficult was it to draw such candid comments from those you interviewed?
Sudano: I don’t think you can really understand somebody or their artistry unless you really know who they are; to see what they’ve been through. It gives deeper meaning to her journey and music. A lot of people were hesitant at first when they began speaking to Roger and I. But they were able to get things off their chest. It was cathartic for them talk about my mother in a way that they hadn’t been able to before. I give everybody credit for being honest and willing because it made the movie what we wanted it to be: deeply personal and deeply grounded. Hopefully, that will set this film apart from anything that’s ever been done on her life before.
Williams: Being interviewed by Donna’s daughter, I think, gave everyone in Donna’s life permission to open up and tell the truth. There were a lot of tears of joy and sorrow. It was a mourning and healing process for everyone involved. They got to talk about a woman they love.
Roger Ross Williams
Justin Bettman
What was the hardest challenge in doing this project?
Williams: For me, the most difficult part was sorting through such an incredible treasure trove of Donna’s home movies, videos and thousands and thousands of photos. There was so much material to create the collage that we did.
Sudano: I agree. When you have a personality and a life like my mother’s that was so full and spans decades, the challenge was in crystallizing all the moments that were the most impactful. And then the songs … using them in a way that was fresh but also as a way to move the storytelling forward. In trying to weave all those things together, I give a lot of credit to our amazing editor, Enat Sidi. Finding the proper structure in making this feel like a real immersive experience was probably the trickiest part.
What one thing did you learn in the process?
Sudano: A better depth of understanding about how intense stardom felt like for my mother and the sacrifices that it took for her and our family … like being a mother and having to be away from her daughters so much. As much as it’s my mother’s story, it’s our individual stories as well because we are part of her. On a personal level, having these conversations with other family members has brought a lot of healing for us. I just have a deep respect and gratitude for my mother’s sacrifices — and respect for the strength it took for her to survive that. What she did was not easy.
Williams: That Donna had this incredible sense of humor. The home movies that Donna would shoot or videos she filmed backstage and on the road were just hilarious. It was a real insight into her personality. Like many, I just knew Donna as the Queen of Disco. But she was so much more than that. She was the first woman to win a rock ‘n’ roll vocal Grammy [for “Hot Stuff” in 1980, when the best rock vocal performance, female prize was first awarded]. I mean come on … that’s an amazing accomplishment. She was the first Black woman artist to have a video on MTV. She was the first in so many things as an artist.
What do you want viewers to take away after watching?
Williams: Donna Summer is an incredibly layered, complex artist who, in my opinion, has been under-appreciated. Everyone who watches this film will see her immense talent and all the facets of her artistry. She deserves that.
Sudano: I want people to understand that my mother was a real artist. That she used her gifts to spread love, joy and healing. And I hope that she’s remembered in the great lexicon of music and culture as somebody who was impactful and influential. This film is an extension of that legacy.
EDC Las Vegas, one of the world’s biggest music festivals, is set to launch tomorrow (May 19) at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Ahead of the event, Insomniac Events CEO Pasquale Rotella has warned of myriad travel delays attendees may face while getting to the mega-fest.
In an Instagram post ahead of the event, Rotella wrote that “If you’re flying to Vegas, it’s important to know there is ongoing construction at Harry Reid International Airport/McCarran Airport that has resulted in regular flight delays. If you’re driving, know there is construction along the 15 freeway on the way to Vegas that is causing delays depending on the time of day.”
As reported by Fox5Vegas, current airport delays are due to high winds, along with one runway currently closed for scheduled maintenance. Meanwhile, a 10.7 mile stretch of Interstate 15 connecting the Las Vegas Strip to the Motor Speedway is under construction, as the Interstate is widened from four to six lanes, along with the addition of a new weigh station, enforcement improvements, truck parking and an interchange addition.
These improvements are happening ahead of Las Vegas hosting the 2024 Super Bowl at the city’s freshly built Allegiant Stadium, and the city hosting the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix this November.
“If you have the flexibility to adjust your travel plans, you may want to consider arriving earlier,” Rotella’s post continues. “These potential issues are likely to be exacerbated with so many ravers coming to town. I highly recommend keeping in touch with your airlines to stay up to date on any flight schedule changes or other important information.”
The Las Vegas Motor Speedway is located roughly 17 miles north of the Vegas Strip via I-15. The three-day festival annually hosts roughly 400,000 attendees and this year will feature more than 230 dance artists including Kaytranada, Alison Wonderland, Martin Garrix, Armin van Buuren and many (many) of the world’s leading dance/electronic acts.
Traffic to and from the event is typically heavy, with attendees arriving largely by car and shuttle, and many artists and high-rolling attendees opting to skip traffic by taking a helicopter from the Strip to the Speedway.
Check out Rotella’s full statement via Instagram below:
ODESZA‘s 2022 The Last Goodbye Tour was, by all metrics, a smashing success. The 27-date run, which hit arenas and amphitheaters across North America, grossed $25.6 million and sold 395,000 tickets, according to numbers provided by Billboard Boxscore. This run — behind the duo’s The Last Goodbye LP, which hit No. 11 on the Billboard […]
Calvin Harris claims the mark for the most No. 1s in the history of Billboard’s Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart all to himself, as “Miracle,” with Ellie Goulding, rises to the top of the tally dated May 20. Harris adds his 13th leader on the list, which began in August 2003, moving one ahead of both David Guetta and Rihanna.
The trancey “Miracle” is Goulding’s sixth topper and second with Harris, after “Outside” in 2015. Here’s a look at Calvin Harris’s record 13 Dance/Mix Show Airplay No. 1s.
Title, Weeks at No. 1, Year(s):
“Miracle,” with Ellie Goulding, one to-date, 2023
“Promises,” with Sam Smith, two, 2018
“One Kiss,” with Dua Lipa, 10, 2018
“This Is What You Came For,” feat. Rihanna, 12, 2016
“How Deep Is Your Love,” with Disciples, four, 2015
“Outside,” feat. Ellie Goulding, six, 2015
“Blame,” feat. John Newman, six, 2014
“Summer,” 13, 2014
“Thinking About You,” feat. Ayah Marar, one, 2013
“Sweet Nothing,” feat. Florence Welch, nine, 2013
“Let’s Go,” feat. Ne-Yo, 10, 2012
“We Found Love,” Rihanna feat. Harris, 14, 2011-12
“Feel So Close,” eight weeks at No. 1, 2012
“Miracle” is drawing core-dance airplay on KMVQ-HD2 San Francisco, Music Choice’s Dance/EDM channel and WCPY (Dance Factory FM) Chicago in the May 5-11 tracking week, according to Luminate. (The Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart measures radio airplay on a select group of full-time dance stations, along with plays during mix shows on around 60 top 40-formatted reporters.)
Additionally on Dance/Mix Show Airplay, Steve Aoki, Galantis and Hayley Kiyoko bound 16-10 with “Hungry Heart,” the sixth, 10th and first top 10 for each respective act.
Shifting to the multi-metric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray lock in top Streaming Gainer honors with “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” (5-4), after the song’s official video premiered May 5. The track, a reworking of Haddaway’s 1993 hit “What Is Love,” earned 3.6 million official streams in the United States in the week ending May 11, up 15%. It also drew 7.3 million radio airplay audience impressions, up 13%, and sold 1,000 downloads, up 20%.
Concurrently, “Baby” bumps 13-6 on the Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs chart, giving Guetta his ninth top 10, Anne-Marie her second and Leray her first. It also pushes 5-3 on Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales.
Sticking with Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, viral sensation Odetari debuts at No. 8 with “Good Loyal Thots.” His second top 10 in quick succession, after “Narcissistic Personality” (No. 10, May 6), garnered 3.4 million streams in its opening frame. That figure also sparks a No. 11 start on Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs.
Meanwhile, Depeche Mode claims the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart’s top Sales Gainer award for “Ghosts Again” (30-19). The lead single from the act’s LP Memento Mori is up 103%, following the May 5 release of official remixes by Chris Liebing and Luke Slater, Miss Grit, Davide Rossi and more. “Ghosts” also gathered 542,000 streams, up 52%.
In Billboard’s monthly emerging dance artist spotlight we get to know Salute, the Vienna-born, Manchester-based artist making colorful, comfy club tunes.
The Project: Shield EP, released earlier this month on Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint.
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The Origin: Salute, born Felix Nyajo, was raised in Vienna, Austria, in what they describe as a traditional working-class suburb. “Pretty chill, not too much happening,” they say. “Summers were super hot and the winds were super cold. It was good.”
Between their parents and older brother, the household playlist rotated American gospel, highlife, R&B, soul and hip-hop — but as far as their dance music influences go, video games were crucial. FIFA Street 2 and SSX brimmed with the exciting, frenetic sounds of jungle, grime and U.K. garage and inspired Salute to learn production.
When they were old enough to get in the mix of Vienna’s small club scene, they quickly hit their ceiling. “I kind of felt a bit suffocated, because I knew nothing was gonna come of me staying there and trying to have a career in music,” they say. To get closer to the industry, they moved to the U.K. in 2014. Going to clubs every weekend served as a crash course in U.K. dance music, from breaks and bass music to house and techno.
Over the next five years they continued releasing music, including the My Heart mixtape and Condition trilogy, based on themes of mourning. Salute’s sonic shift across these early releases is evident, from syrupy post-dubstep instrumentals inspired by Hudson Mohawke and Mount Kimbie to an acutely more clubby vibe. In September of 2021, their track “Joy” launched Atlantic Records U.K.’s dance imprint Signal > > Supply. And in what must be a career milestone for any U.K. artist, “Joy” also appeared on an episode of Love Island U.K.
The Sound: Salute, 27, describes their style as “fast and soulful house music,” a catch-all term encompassing their many influences including U.K. garage, techno, classic house and French house. It’s also incredibly warm, inviting and cozy — it just feels good.
The Record: Shield is Salute’s first EP on Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint. To some, the title connotes visions of protection and defense — literal armor. For Salute, “It’s just comfort. Most of these songs just feel very comfortable to me… Obviously a lot of them are very, but at the same time they feel like a blanket.”
The EP’s opening track, “Run Away With You,” sets this tone with a soaring mix of synths, vocal snippets and accents that, like a sunrise, inspire a mood of promise and possibility. Over a brisk rhythm and ballooning bassline, vocalist No Rome sings, “I would run away with you if you would run away with me, too.” Meanwhile, buzzing lead single “Wait For It” anticipates the ecstasy of partying all night. Made around the same time as “Joy,” it sat in Salute’s vault for years, just waiting for the right moment for release. Similarly, “Feels Like My Hands Are On Fire” has existed in several iterations over the past five years. Salute finally finished it with help from The 1975’s George Daniel, whose careful restructuring added a greater pop appeal.
“Peach” with Sammy Virji is the most recently produced of the bunch. A rolling bassline and crooning vocals coated in a silk finish, it rightfully caused a stir when Salute debuted it at their Boiler Room set last December. The song is also a callback to 2012-2013, the years they call “one of the golden eras of dance music … I feel like music back then was just super fun, and I think that’s one thing that kind of got lost over the years, up until recently.”
Managed By: Will Frost and Luke James of London’s House Of Us
Management Strategy: “Broadly, the strategy is always adapting,” says Frost, “but when it comes to Felix’s records, it’s always been having a huge degree of trust which we’ve built up over the years of working so closely together, around ten years now. When they’re putting together a project, I have complete trust in their vision for the body of work whether that’s creatively in the visuals or the music itself, and they’ve always given me space to help them with the right people to either write a vocal or get the right mix engineer or feature on the record and it all shows in Shield, which is some of their best work to date.
“Now with the excellent Luke on the management team, the strategy has very much become building a fanbase who will come to watch Felix play. Felix’s sets are so incredible, and the reception and interaction with the crowd because of their skill and energy is unmatched, so we want to maximize that by putting on amazing shows, capturing the atmosphere of the night and building an audience that will buy tickets to experience it for themselves — we are seeing it grow rapidly over the last few months globally and have some really exciting plans as we also develop it in to a live show that still maintains that energy from their DJ sets.”
First Song That Made Salute Love Dance Music: They cite Lethal Bizzle’s 2005 single “Kickback,” which appeared on the FIFA Street 2 soundtrack, as their introduction to grime. “I was completely blown away by it ’cause it was unlike anything I’ve ever heard,” they say. The moment led them down a YouTube rabbit hole where they discovered artists like Dizzee Rascal and Wiley on the way to dubstep, garage and the wider web of U.K. dance music.
Advice Every New Dance Artist Needs to Hear: “Just make as much music as possible. You can’t really skip that step. There’s no way to like, just overnight, become really good. If you’re starting out, what you’ll naturally tend to do is to imitate an artist that you really like, which is a good way to learn production. I actually encourage it.
“But after a while, you’re gonna have to make a decision about what it is you want to do in music. The only way you can do that is by thinking very intentionally about the space you want to take up. That requires asking yourself questions about what your taste is, what you want to achieve as a DJ or a producer, whether you want to DJ at all, what you want your place to be, why you enjoy making dance music, what it is about dance music that makes you happy. I feel like that allows you to develop a sense of identity, which is something that people who listen to music can latch onto… I think people can really sense when the music comes from somewhere special.”
Why They Make Music: “The most important thing when I make music is I’m having fun doing it, and that makes me really happy. Figuring out how to achieve that has been one of the biggest things for me… putting an idea from your brain into a computer is the funnest part of it all.”
Up Next: Salute is currently on the U.S. leg of their international spring/summer tour, with stops Thursday (May 18) in San Francisco, Friday (May 19) in Los Angeles and their first EDC Las Vegas set this Saturday (May 20.) “I’d hear about [EDC] on podcasts that I was listening to like, ten years ago,” they say. “When I got the offer to play it, I kind of laughed to myself ‘cause like, that’s actually quite crazy.”
After Vegas, it’s non-stop until September: Salute is scheduled to play a full slate of festivals — Parklife, Glastonbury and Defected Croatia among them — while also touring Asia for the first time and later playing Ibiza’s lauded Circoloco.
San Francisco’s Portola festival is coming back hot in its second year, with a lineup headed by Eric Prydz and Skrillex. Announced today (May 17), the lineup puts Prydz in the Friday night headlining slot with his lauded visual spectacle HOLO and Skrillex topping the bill for Saturday. The festival returns to the city’s Pier […]
“To be clear, there’s almost no commercial incentive for me to do this,” says Moby, breaking into a chuckle.
The Grammy-nominated electronic musician is 57 years old, his well-cropped beard more white than gray and his head as bald as it was in 1999 when his breakthrough album Play made him an MTV mainstay.
A “vegan” neck tattoo peeks out from his gray hooded sweatshirt, which stands out just enough from his white wall and beige window curtain as we talk via Zoom, but his minimalist approach to decor stands in contrast to his penchant for intellectual verbosity and philosophical musings.
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“At the risk of sounding melodramatic, one of my goals in life is to never go on tour again as long as I live,” he says. “It’s not like I’ve rerecorded these in the interest of promoting an upcoming tour. Also, in the spirit of honesty and full disclosure, it probably costs more to make these orchestral records with tons of guests and fancy orchestras than will ever be generated in revenue. So it’s purely… and maybe I even feel a little guilty about this because it seems quite selfish… it’s just a labor of love.”
That labor is materialized in Resound NYC, an ambitious album on which Moby recreates 15 of his biggest hits and personal favorites with orchestral accompaniment and a powerful cast of vocalists. Grammy-winning jazz singer Gregory Porter, Lady Blackbird, The Temper Trap’s Doug Mandagi and Pussycat Dolls lead singer Nicole Scherzinger all make appearances on a tracklist that includes “Extreme Ways,” “South Side,” “In This World,” “When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die” and more.
It follows in the footsteps of 2021’s Reprise, which was also released on the 125-year-old classical music label, Deutsche Grammophon. Yet Resound NYC feels bigger and bolder, focusing specifically on songs written and released during Moby’s time living in New York City, a period encompassing 1994 to 2010.
“One thing that New York really taught me is how wonderful and exciting juxtaposition can be when it shouldn’t exist,” Moby says. “The fact that New York is a filthy, dirty, hard place that’s also beautiful and can be very elegant and poignant. Especially in the ‘70s and ‘80, walking down the street and hearing hip-hop juxtaposed with someone playing classical cello, juxtaposed with salsa, juxtaposed with Arabic music. I think that encoded itself into my DNA to make me think culture should not be siloed. Culture should be a melting pot. It should be this weird, unexpected surprise that if [the parts] were a little bit off wouldn’t work.”
Resound NYC embodies that mix of sonic flavors, bringing new depth and grandeur to beloved fan favorites, offering fresh and welcomed dimensions to familiar melodies. The album opens with the hopeful tinkering of a piano on “In My Heart” and immediately explodes into a wall of sound that ebbs and swells with furious passion until the final notes of closing track “Walk With Me.”
Moby’s career-spanning examinations of hope and sadness, mortality and exultation, feel richer and more alive as his palette of blues, jazz, funk, rock and gospel are recreated by a sonic army, each song hitting new dramatic heights to elicit tears or dance freakouts, or both.
“When I was really young, like nine years old, I studied music theory, classical music and jazz, and I didn’t love it, because it was more technical and academic than it was emotional,” Moby says. “Oftentimes the most powerful emotional expression can be the most rudimentary. You think of blues or punk rock. Think of Neil Young; very simple music that’s very emotional. I try to take that ethos, that spirit of almost reductive emotional simplicity and apply that to an orchestra — even though an orchestra by definition is complicated.”
“Simple” seems a strange word to describe Resound NYC’s expansive and maximalist layers of sound, but sit with each instrument’s part, and you’ll hear how a series of long-held notes and straightforward rhythms build one piece at a time to create moments of eruption and release.
“I find myself really resenting art and music that doesn’t have that generosity of spirit,” Moby says, “meaning the willingness to try and reach the audience, whether it’s one person or a lot of people, in a way that potentially — presumptuously — might be rewarding for them. A lot of musicians, sadly, are very afraid of emotion, like the pursuit of cool is more important than the pursuit of beauty or the pursuit of emotion. I, embarrassingly, would much rather ignore the pursuit of cool and simply try to create beauty in so far as I can.”
Moby no longer lives in New York. He moved to Los Angeles in 2010, a few years after putting himself through rehab to kick increasingly problematic addictions to alcohol and drugs. Fans who’ve read his autobiographies Porcelain and Then It Fell Apart know how dark and uncomfortable his struggles became. In the latter especially, the producer writes in detail about sloppy and desperate nights spent chasing fame, glamour, ego and sex before finally succumbing to depression and even a 2008 suicide attempt.
Just as with writing those books, the task of transcribing, recomposing and rerecording some of his seminal works from that time has been a strange mirror.
“It’s like being reintroduced to yourself, but you’re sort of a stranger,” he says. “I was a mess, and sometimes it was a fun, dramatic mess. Other times it was just an embarrassing mess. There’s a temptation to be dismissive and say ‘I was just young and stupid,’ but that was still me. I was that awkward person making bad choices and having bad priorities. To lead a full integrated life, sadly, you have to be willing to look at that Jungian shadow self. I always thought the Jungian shadow self was your cool, violent, sexy, dark, goth self. But I’ve come to realize mine is just awkward, uncomfortable and probably talks too fast.”
Living in L.A. has given the artist a chance to refresh his own lifestyle and perspective. It’s also given him a front-row seat to the cartoonish attempts its citizens make to grasp ageless glamour, “from face-tuning to vampire facials.”
“I’ve been having this conversation a lot because of the rise of A.I., but there is a psychological, philosophical, existential aspect to [the] many ways in which humans feel they can technically improve upon themselves,” he says. “It’s so much more interesting when people accept their humanity, accept aging, the vulnerability [and] frailty. True strength, as far as I’m concerned, is both accepting the entropy that comes along with the human condition and being willing to be seen in that vulnerable, human state. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but one of my goals is to push myself to try and express that, either on my own or working with other people.”
He speaks at length about his love of the human voice for this very reason. It’s the instrument that best reveals the nuanced levels of emotional complexity.
“It’s almost comical the number of singers I’ve worked with and the weird diversity,” he says, “everybody from David Bowie to Ozzy Osborne to Britney Spears. I can’t even begin to think of the hundreds if not possibly thousands of singers I’ve worked with, all in pursuit of that vocal beauty and power. When it works, it’s remarkable. When it doesn’t, it’s incredibly frustrating.”
One of his favorite tricks? Recording a singer’s first few practice takes under the auspices that he’ll “do the real passes later,” knowing he’ll most likely get a more vulnerable performance when the singer thinks they’re not in the hot seat. Technical perfection is so rarely the harbinger of emotion. Like Moby says, “Would you rather listen to a 19-year-old pop singer with perfect pitch who’s been autotuned within an inch of their life? Or Leonard Cohen singing ‘Hallelujah?’”
No such ruses were needed to capture the soulful vocals on Resound NYC’s version of “Run On.” One of the barest and most stripped-down tracks on the LP, the tune originally started with a big brass section, live drums, percussion, a quintet, electric guitar, bass and piano.
“I had this big version of the song done, and [singer] Danielle Ponder was visiting her dad, who’s 89 years old and very ill, in his hospital bed,” Moby says. “He remembered singing this song when he was a little boy, so she held her iPhone up to him while he sang it. She sent me the recording, and I threw away everything I had done for that song and rewrote it around his vocal. Then she came in and did a duet with her dad’s hospital bed iPhone recording.
“In terms of authenticity? Dear God,” Moby continues. “I could listen to just an isolated acappella of him singing that song. It’s so special.”
When he isn’t seeking to expose the gooiest parts of humanity on record, Moby’s been keeping busy recording his Moby Pod podcast and launching a film and TV production company called Little Walnut.
The team recently released Punk Rock Vegan Movie, a full-length documentary that explores the little-discussed connection between the rise of plant-based lifestyles and the hardcore scenes of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Moby narrated, directed and soundtracked the effort, which includes on-camera chats with members of Bad Brains, the Misfits, Crass, Fugazi, The Damned, The Germs and many more. (Punk Rock Vegan Movie is available to watch on YouTube.)
“As time has passed, I’ve come to realize that my day job is actually animal rights activism,” Moby says. “That’s my primary purpose, and part of that was making this movie and giving it away for free. I wanted to try and do my little part to remind people that principles are good, and compromising principles is generally a bad idea… This algorithm accommodating culture that we live in it, it’s making my brain hurt. Who on their deathbed wants to remember, ‘Oh, I did a mildly effective job accommodating algorithms invented by someone in China.’ That’s not a good life.”
The decision to retire from touring is part of his own eternal search for that philosophical “good life.” The whole idea of moving from plane to green room to stage to hotel over and over again feels “unhealthy” and “uncomfortable.” Instead, he’s content to sit in his studio “which looks a lot like a monastic cell,” transcribing his life’s work into orchestral movements, recording podcasts, writing activist documentaries and just generally being.
“I really love sleeping in my bedroom here with the windows open, waking up, having a smoothie and going for a hike,” he says. “It doesn’t pay well, and there’s no ego gratification there, but it just feels so much healthier and nicer than waking up on a tour bus in a parking lot somewhere, sitting backstage waiting for some ego validation. I am thrilled that I finally ended up in a banal place, that I’m very happy.”
LP Giobbi is busy as hell. After opening for her musical besties Sofi Tukker in Mexico City, playing a Coachella pool party and then the festival itself in the span of three days, it’s reasonable she’d be tired.
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And another big week is looming. Before her Coachella weekend two set she’ll open for Yaeji in L.A. and play two shows in Denver. After Coachella, she’ll trek to rave mecca Ibiza to open for Bedouin and speak at the IMS conference, immediately after which she’ll circle back across the globe to Guatemala for Empire Music Festival.
Despite this insanely busy life on the road — she hasn’t been back to her home in Austin, Texas since January — LP is bright-eyed and enthusiastic. Her presence is both energizing and grounding, reflective of who she is as an artist: joyful, optimistic, supportive, inclusive, self-assured and driven. Despite having just over an hour before she’s due onstage at L.A.’s Novo theater, she takes her time while sitting down with Billboard to discuss her new album.
Over the past few years, as she picked up steam with a string of euphoric singles (including “Sinner” with Bklava, “Somebody To Love” with Ben Kim, “Say A Little Prayer” with Amazonian Rockstar, “Carry Us” with Kaleena Zanders), she had over 13 labels reach out to her, eventually finding a home with Ninja Tune’s Counter Records. All the while — on trains and planes and in stolen moments in airports, hotels and rented studio space — she was writing her debut album Light Places, out this past Friday, May 12.
The album is a kaleidoscopic sonic tapestry of synths, percussion, LP’s signature piano riffs and a chorus of uplifting female vocalists including Sofi Tukker, Caroline Byrne, Little Jet and Monogem. There’s a strong undercurrent of joy throughout, yet many of the tracks showcase a different side of LP’s sound, particularly the stripped-down beauty of opener “If Love Is A Skill” with her longtime champion Sofi Tukker, along with the psychedelic sun-soaked vibe of “All In A Dream” with DJ Tennis and Joseph Ashworth and the sweet melancholy of “All I Need.”
The recently announced All In An Airstream Tour will see LP and DJ Tennis travel in an Airstream to locations across the U.S. including Joshua Tree, Berkeley, Big Sur, Asheville and New Orleans for pop-up performances. LP’s 2023 tour schedule also includes big festival sets at Lighting in a Bottle, Tomorrowland, Defected Croatia and Ibiza, along with a stage takeover of her Femme House brand at Elements Music & Arts Festival.
Beyond additional dates in Ibiza and Brazil, a residency at Superstition in Austin and multiple treks across North America, she’ll also be serving up her Grateful Dead-inspired Dead House shows for official Dead & Company afterparties — which, as the daughter of Deadheads, is something she’s still freaking out about. Jerry Garcia’s estate also recently tapped her to remix his 1972 debut solo album via Garcia (Remixed), a trippy marriage of LP’s love of jam bands, psych rock and dance music.
It’s all wonderful — and a lot to unpack. Below, the producer breaks it down.
Did having the format of the album and the pressure of it being your first help you hone in on your sound or the way that you worked on the songs?
Up until now, I’ve been a singles artist. The best thing about this process for me was that it allowed me to write B-sides [lets out sigh of relief], tracks that didn’t need to be hugely successful on Spotify or have a vocal hook in the first 10 seconds.
I wrote most of the album on planes, trains and in hotels. Then I flew to Paris and got in the studio with [DJ] Tennis and [Joseph] Ashworth and [Michael] Cheever. We took all the MIDI parts and rerouted them through vintage synths; we were in this amazing studio that had every vintage synth possible. We put everything into the same world sonically. We also recorded live drummers and layered that with electronic drums.
This album isn’t necessarily for the club, it’s more of a musical journey. I actually ended up making club edits for pretty much all of the tracks, which are the versions I play out, but the album itself got to stand alone and fueled me in a different musical way.
You talked about being in motion with a lot of the album, but where did you start and how did you know when you were done?
Well, you never know. You know you’re done when the label’s like, “We need the f—ing album.” When I signed this deal, I really took my time. I had 13 label offers. I picked the label thinking, “How do I want this music to identify? Who do I want this music to identify with? How do I want it to be seen or shaped?” So, when I landed on Ninja Tune, I had an idea of how deep I wanted to go with the album versus a more mainstream dance label.
I had hundreds of bits of songs and maybe 50 tracks. And I started road testing some of them to see what’s working for the dance floor, and maybe what’s not; I wanted to balance both. Along the listening process, the album told me what it needed. I just had to listen.
The album sounds like you sat down and spent time with it.
Oh, my God, I wish. I’m always writing and always touring. I’m hearing more artists all over the world and I’m deeply influenced by what I’ve heard and where I am. The music I’m writing now is very much for the club, I don’t want any vocals on it. It’s sort of the opposite direction [of the album]. It’s been fun to see where this body of music takes me.
I wanted to talk about “All I Need” and its interlude with the sweet voicemail — is that your grandma?
It’s actually [my tour manager] Xander’s grandma. We had just played this amazing gay music festival, Utopia, in Isla Mujeres. The day after, the promoter took us out on a boat, and Sophie was there and we were having drinks. It was one of those “life is good” moments. Xander’s grandma Shirley called him the next day and [left a voicemail saying], “I hope you got a good tour, I saw you sitting on a boat with a drink in your hand, looking like a millionaire.”
Light Places is named after your dad’s favorite Grateful Dead lyrics.
It’s from the song “Scarlet Begonias”: “Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.” I was in Australia and was feeling extremely ungrounded and untethered. When I’m home, my dad and I pass a notebook back and forth to write a poem together. I called him and asked if we could do that when I’m on the road. Now, we write a poem before every show I play. It brings me back home. On his 70th birthday, I made it into a book for him, and it’s now a merch item. It’s my favorite thing that I do.
That’s so great.
I was like, “Dad, I need a name for my album. What are some of your favorite Grateful Dead lyrics?” He sent me this huge email where he broke down all of his favorite lyrics to different songs. I had just finished a gig in Ibiza, it was four in the morning, and I’m reading his email. I was deliriously tired and read that line and “light places” danced in front of me. I realized, “that’s LP.” It’s so funny how language can give meaning to us. I realized that’s what I want to do, create emotionally light places for people.
When I first started pursuing music, I didn’t know if it was a worthy enough endeavor. I was in school and did a lot of women’s empowerment studies and wanted to be an activist. My mom said, “The Grateful Dead shows that me and your father went to would hold me through and are what gave me so much joy in my life. If that’s what you do, that’s enough.” That is what I want people to feel when they leave my show.
How have your parents inspired you?
I dedicated the album to them. “Sometimes you get shown the light in the strangest of places when you look at it right” is kind of an ethos of how they raised us. We’d come home from school like, “This thing happened and it sucked,” and my dad would always tell us [the tale of] a guy and he breaks his leg in the summertime, but then there’s a war and everybody but him gets drafted.
They also really instilled the importance of live music in me at a very young age. There was always music playing in the house and we were always going to shows. That was kind of our church, standing in a community of people, being part of something greater than yourself. Also, they’re front row for everything. Every iteration of everything that I’ve done, they’ve been there cheering me on.
I played with Dead & Company and there’s a great video that somebody took where my mom is wearing my merch, riding the rail and as the song drops, she just starts head banging and smacks the person next to her.
What was it like playing with Dead & Company?
It was crazy. It’s Dead & Company’s last tour, and I’m doing their after parties in some key markets. I got to introduce my parents to Bob Weir, their hero. My mom said to him, “Thank you so much for all the joy you’ve given my family over so many years.” And he put his hand to his heart and said “The pleasure is all mine” with the most sincerity in the world. Deadheads are f—ing crazy; that fan base is so intense. To have toured and done this for 60 years and to have heard that and still “hand-to-heart” feel that way was mind-blowing. It was such an inspirational moment to me.
And you remixed one of Jerry’s albums. How did you get connected with them?
I became a female producer and in order to be taken seriously, I started wearing baggy clothes. It’s really f—ed up. My parents gave me their vintage Grateful Dead shirts, so I started wearing those, and children of Deadheads started connecting with me. In fact, DJ Tennis and I became friends because I went to one of his shows and he was wearing a Grateful Dead shirt.
A friend was working in a studio and saw that I was wearing these shirts and sent me some of their stems. When I was livestreaming and wanted to make it interesting for myself, I took their guitars and reworked and re-pitched them and started sampling them in my sequencer and layering them over different things. I would take Jerry’s voice and warp it and start playing around with that over other tracks.
I did a livestream that Bob Weir was also on, and his manager saw my set and called him. The Garcia estate — his daughter, Trixie Garcia — reached out to me and asked if I wanted to do an official remix for the 50th anniversary of his first solo album, which was crazy.
Jerry’s voice is like my uncle. It’s the voice that I heard the most in my house growing up. It was overwhelming, and an honor. Then they asked me to play at their festival and do these after parties for the last tour.
When you got asked to do the remix album, were you worried about messing with it?
For sure, the pressure was so intense and so real. There are some old school Deadheads that f—ing hate what I did, and they were not afraid to let me know. At first, that made me really sad [because] I’m just trying to bring this music to my community. But I had a few amazing moments that made that not matter to me.
I played my first Dead House show in Eugene, where I’m from, and this father and son flew in from L.A. and New York to come to the show. Afterwards, the dad pulled me aside and was like, “We’re a dysfunctional family. My son and I do not get along, and we hate each other’s music. I’m a Deadhead and he’s a raver. This was the first two hours that we’ve been in a room and shared happiness, affection and joy together. Thank you so much for providing that.”
You occupy this psychedelic space in dance music that is very fresh and inviting. Is that intentional or just a product of who you are, and the music that you were raised on?
It’s intentional in the way that I had to work hard to find myself and be okay with myself. Once I let go of needing to be cool, or following other people’s [ideas of] what’s cool in dance music right now, it [became] so natural to me. I grew up a jam band kid. Once I finally was like “this is who I am,” it started flowing more naturally and was way more fun.
Can you speak to your creative relationship and friendship with Sofi Tukker?
I owe a lot to them. The biggest currency you can be gifted is belief. And they did that from the very beginning. They saw me play a horrible DJ set, I didn’t even know how to DJ yet, and I was opening up for them at an afterparty at a festival. I was in a band at the time. They were like, “We loved your energy, we want you to go on tour with us.” They were doing their first tour and had just released “Drinkee.”
I literally learned how to DJ in front of their loving audience. I was so f—ing bad, and they gave me so much love and support. I’d get offstage and Tucker would give me some tips and talk me through the set. They literally built stages for me and started a label [Animal Talk] for me to release music. They have supported me every single step of the way. Their friendship and support have meant the world to me. Seeing the power that artists can have on another artist’s career was a huge influence for me to start Femme House and pay that forward.
What’s the next era of Femme House? Where are you taking it? It’s grown so much.
That’s a really good question and also overwhelming. My co-founder Lauren Spaulding and I have tried to do dream sessions, but I couldn’t even dream that this was possible. I’m hoping it naturally reveals itself. I’ve sort of spent my whole life driving and grinding, and now I’m really hoping that I’m in a phase where I can lean into the more knowing feminine energy and wait for it to come to me.
One day, I’d love to have a [Femme House] festival and all that stuff. Education is an important part of why there are so few female producers, as is visual representation. So, we’ve done a lot of stage takeovers and live activations, that’s been a big focus for us the last few years. We want to meet more cool people who believe in this mission and work with them.
What has helped you the most in getting to this point? Did getting the right team impact where you’re at?
I always say I won the lottery twice. Once when I was born to my parents, and then again when I got my piano teacher. That has continued to happen, via the people I met in my life who have supported and encouraged me and shown up and given me opportunities. That’s mostly why I’m here. I do work my ass off, but it takes so much more than that.
I have a really, really good team now. My day-to-day Julie is a beast. I’m gonna give a ton of credit to Xander. I would not be here without him, on an emotional and physical level. He does what I do, except his job is way worse. He has to be the first one up and the last one to bed and always shows up with a smile.
Do you dream of a Billboard hit?
No, I really don’t. Fame is a funny thing. The tiny bit that I’ve experienced of it, I’m like, “no.” At the end of the day, I want to be on my deathbed really proud of my art.
ILLENIUM bows at No. 1 on Billboard’s consumption-based Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart (dated May 13) with his self-titled set. ILLENIUM earned 17,000 equivalent album units, including 7,000 from traditional album sales, in the April 28-May 4 tracking week, according to Luminate.
It’s ILLENIUM’s second-best sales week yet, trailing only the debut frame of his first No. 1, Ascend (25,000 units; Aug. 31, 2019). ILLENIUM now owns three total No. 1s, as his new entry follows Fallen Embers (one week, 2021) and Ascend (eight weeks, 2019). All six of his chart entries have hit the top 10, a history that also includes Ascend (Remixes) (No. 5, 2020), Awake (No. 3, 2017) and Ashes (No. 6, 2016).
ILLENIUM’s start halts Beyoncé’s 24-week streak at No. 1, which began last November, with Renaissance (No. 2; 13,000 units, down 7%). Dating to the chart’s 2001 inception, no album has logged more consecutive weeks at No. 1 beginning with its debut week. Plus, 24 weeks in a row at No. 1 mark the most for any album, a feat also achieved only by Lady Gaga’s The Fame (December 2009-May 2010). The Fame leads all albums in total weeks at No. 1, with 175 since its 2008 release.
ILLENIUM yields nine new entries on the multi-metric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, led by “Eyes Wide Shut,” with Avril Lavigne and Travis Barker (No. 9). With those, all 16 ILLENIUM tracks have hit the chart, as the other seven tracks on the album debuted previously.
“Eyes,” however, is ILLENIUM’s first top 10 from the LP and the eighth in his career. It’s also his 57th total charted title since the chart originated in January 2013, tying him with Marshmello for the third-most, after David Guetta (78) and Kygo (62). “Eyes” marks the first appearance on the chart for Lavigne and the third (and first top 10) for Barker.
“Eyes” earned 2.2 million official streams and sold 500 downloads in the United States in the tracking week, also good for starts on the Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs (No. 18) and Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales (No. 11) charts.
Grimes is fully aware that her way is not necessarily the path most people would choose. In a conversation with Julia Fox on the model’s Forbidden Fruits Spotify podcast this week, the singer dove into cancel culture and why her unique choices often get her on society’s do-not-call list.
“I think it’s fairly obvious… I’m very easy to cancel and canceled very often,” Grimes said while explaining why the traditional album promotional cycle of release-press-tour-TV/radio appearances just has never worked for her. “I’ve always been exceptionally canceled. People call me a ‘techno-fascist’… I agree a lot of things have been mishandled and we’re in this giant hiccup into a different part of civilization that is extremely unprecedented.”
In this brave new world, Grimes said it’s sometimes unclear where ethical boundaries exist, while fully admitting that she’s said some “dumb stuff” in the past. “I say a lot of dumb stuff… above average I’d say,” Grimes told Fox, who countered, “you say a lot of smart stuff too!”
“I think we need a better discourse… the way I wish people would approach me in better faith — I approach everyone in good faith — if people are being hateful on the internet those people are mad because they want a better world,” Grimes offered.
The conversation, of course, also touched on Grimes’ recent deep dive into AI on what she described as a “data collecting and spy mission” in her new hometown in the Bay Area to find out what’s happening in the space these days. “I’m pretty for it, I would say I’m fairly optimistic, I think there are some potential bad outcomes but I don’t think it’s constructive to even discuss that publicly per se,” she said, noting that too much talk could scare a potentially not super-informed public.
The tech-savvy singer then tried to explain neural nets and machine learning to Fox, lamenting that there are too much scary depictions of AI in the media these days that are freaking people out. “I think right now there is sorta a moral imperative to make more positive AI depictions because it’s literally training on the data. It will see itself on how we are seeing it right now, in many ways, and it’s a concern that is brought up often,” she said.
Grimes also delved into how she sees AI applying to the music industry at a time when she has opened up her music to the general public in an experiment in which she has promised to split profits 50/50 with anyone who uses her voice on an original AI song. “I think the engineers who create the tools that we use are often very under appreciated – all music right now is pretty much a dialogue between the engineers and the artists. We have just been given a plethora of tools that are very unprecedented,” she said of what she sees as the democritization of music.
“Over the last 15 years of music, we’ve seen a lot more regular people, not just people who’ve been christened by the labels,” she said. “You go on TikTok and you see all these kids making stuff in their bedrooms, this is the result of engineering and technology, and this has been a thing that is like really beautiful for our culture.”
The singer touched on her recent split with Columbia Records, noting that they parted on “good terms” after she realized she couldn’t be on a major label because “I can’t function normally… and the normal promo things don’t work for me.”
And, if once again you’re wondering where her long-awaited next album is, Grimes said she’s sitting on a completed LP that, frankly, she’s just “really bored” with at the moment. “It’s like two years old and I’m starting to make new things,” she said.
Listen to the interview below.