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It’s an accomplishment for an artist to partner with a swanky fashion house, yet a next-level achievement is unlocked by designing a collection one’s self, from inspiration to garment. For Steven Zhu, better known as Grammy-nominated producer ZHU, the feat has been reached with the debut of his rave culture-inspired NIGHTDAY fashion line.
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This past March, ZHU hosted a private preview to those in the merchandising world in his showroom at the California Market Center in downtown Los Angeles. This past Friday, he opened this same showroom to fans for the first public viewing of the line. The entirely self-funded collection is designed by ZHU himself, in collaboration with his former creative director and fashion designer Emmy Slattery, who’s also worked with electronic-centric artists and brands including Monolink, Lightning In a Bottle and Production Club.
Soon, the collection will be sold through select boutiques and retailers. While pricing is not yet set, tags will be high-end, in line with other luxury brands. (You can see exclusive images of NIGHTDAY below.)
Though the NIGHTDAY collection was previewed at his 2022 EDC Las Vegas – where ZHU performed while hosting a live fashion show on a specially constructed runway – it’s been a project at least seven years in the making.
“I’m a pretty visual person. I’m very inspired by rave culture; this is something that I’ve been a part of, I’m embedded in,” says the L.A.-based multi-hyphenate. “I feel like my style has just now become influential in a way where I’ve been finally able to get the ideas from my head to a pen to silhouettes to being on a body to those bodies being in person and people seeing them.”
The NIGHTDAY line is named after his 2014 debut EP, The Nightday. ZHU says at the time of the project’s release, “Nobody knew who I was, and it was very much about the club and dance floor.” This underground essence still plays a significant factor in his artistry – from music to clothing. Nodding at underground club culture, the NIGHTDAY collection is comprised of mostly all-black fits — from logo-free tees and hoodies to luxe leather duffles. The line focuses on the intersection of functionality and style, a flex as neither component is compromised on the dance floor.
“It’s about paying homage to the club. I’m an artist who came through the club originally by being a producer and DJ and making people dance, to evolving into somebody who is writing music and now playing at festivals and arenas,” he says. “As I’m taking this little piece of the club culture into a larger audience, I don’t want those people to forget where the fundamental origins came from — and what I’m doing with fashion is another way to tell that story.”
He cites Yohji Yamamoto, Rick Owens and Alexander McQueen as the designers and fashion houses he most admires, with the understated designs of Bottega Veneta and Prada also serving as inspiration. True to ZHU’s aesthetic, NIGHTDAY is the epitome of minimalist chic meets gritty nightlife with clean hemlines juxtaposed with glitzy fabrication.
ZHU recalls witnessing the fusion of dance music with high fashion over five years ago at the Kris Van Assche Dior Homme Autumn/Winter 2017 show and seeing a way he could elevate the effort.
“It was all rave inspired, but they weren’t booking the DJs or taking parts of the culture and putting it into their plan. I was frustrated,” ZHU says. “In hip-hop, you have artists and designers coming together in fashion and people sitting there at shows, and culturally, it’s integrating. But I feel like that’s not the case with dance music and fashion. So, a big part of this is that I can bring a bit of the culture into fashion. Hopefully, both sides can play off each other and create something exciting beyond just me.”
Bucking the cycles and seasons customary to the fashion world, ZHU aims to bend the rules by adopting a more spontaneous approach with NIGHTDAY. He mentions timing as a critical component of his decision to pursue fashion.
“You could have the best thing, but it is at the wrong time, and no one will care. Then, you could have the wrong thing, but if it’s at the right time, everybody will care,” he says. “So, I try to stay tapped into what I’m feeling on the ground level and what the streets are feeling, then move in that way.”
Jason Renaud
Jason Renaud
Jason Renaud
Jason Renaud
When the sun goes down on the first Friday of Coachella, an electrifying energy surges from the desert field. Shaking off the heat from the sun, festival goers reignite for the day as the grounds visually light up around them. Palm trees and art pieces glow, and crowds flow from stage to stage like moths pursuing light.
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In the Gobi, a large tent lined with chandeliers, a crowd has gathered, entranced by a cube of LED screens blacked out with turquoise text that reads, “Hello… I am Whyte Fang.”
Following this introduction, the set rumbles to life, jumping from experimental bass to techno to elements of trance and drum ‘n bass. A mix of Whyte Fang originals from her recently released Genesis album make up a majority of the hour, from the wobbling “333” to the punchy “Transport God.” In a highlight moment, Brooklyn rapper Erick the Architect, one of the album’s few collaborators, joins Whyte Fang on stage for a live rendition of “SCREAM.”
A collage of visuals flirt between the futuristic and the bizarre – a swirl of swiveling robotic eyes pulse in time with the beat before transforming into a swath of glittering snakes, then butterflies, then spiders that scuttle across the screens. We see flashes of a blacklight-lit figure outlined in neon: neon embellishments glow in her hair, on her jacket, her sleeves, her pants, and most prominently, in an X on her exposed pregnant belly.
Whyte Fang never picks up the microphone to speak to the crowd, communicating only through a vocoded voice and text on the stage’s screens. Besides occasional glimpses of the neon-adorned figure at the decks, the artist is mainly represented by an illustrated head with long hair and fairy-like ears who makes several appearances throughout the show visuals. Leading up to the show, the Whyte Fang project reportedly experienced a 2,000% bump in streaming on Spotify.
While Whyte Fang may have felt the need to introduce herself at Coachella, to most, she is already well known as her alter-ego Alison Wonderland, the Australian producer who’s become a superstar of the electronic scene, playing the world’s biggest dance music festival, becoming a regular at storied venues like Colorado’s Red Rocks (where she breezily sold out two nights in a row in 2022) and scoring a pair of No. 1 LPs on Top Dance/Electronic Albums.
As Alison Wonderland, the artist born Alex Scholler also earned the title as the highest billed female DJ in Coachella’s history. Since then, she has continued to reign as a coveted headliner on festival lineups, like this month’s EDC Las Vegas, where she’s set to perform for the last time in the foreseeable future, as she is currently eight months pregnant with her first child. (The father is her longtime partner, director Ti West.)
Flash forward two weeks after Coachella, and Scholler has exchanged her neon Whyte Fang look for her more signature oversized t-shirt and sweatpants. In the comfort of her L.A. home , she sits on her couch with her fluffy black dog, Molly. Over a takeout order of veggie dumplings from Din Tai Fung (an L.A. favorite for soup dumplings and Taiwanese eats, and her latest pregnancy craving), she shares that her mom recently came to visit from Australia to see her perform at Coachella and help her prepare a room in her house for the baby, who’s set to arrive in a few weeks.
“If I drink some water, you might be able to feel some kicking,” Scholler says with a smile, chugging a gulp of water to demonstrate. At eight months pregnant, it’s a cherished moment of calm. Her past few months, however, have been anything but. Here, she shares the story of resurrecting Whyte Fang, performing while pregnant, and what the future looks like.
Whyte Fang is obviously such a fully formed concept. What is the project’s origin story?
Whyte Fang was my original production name I had been producing as before I ever released music as Alison Wonderland. I was DJing as Alison Wonderland, but the music was coming out as Whyte Fang. I really wanted to have no face. I already felt judged for how I looked and how I presented myself as Alison, and I wanted my music to be taken seriously. Whyte Fang did get some attention back in the day — it was picked up by local radio stations [in Australia] and BBC Radio 1 played me, and I was a finalist in a producer competition. Flume and I were both finalists in that competition actually, and we both lost.
Whyte Fang
Peter Don
Where did you take the project from there?
When I signed as Alison and started releasing music, I always wanted to eventually go back to Whyte Fang — but when I did, I wanted it to be executed exactly how I envisioned it. At the time, I just didn’t have the resources, and didn’t feel experienced enough as a producer to really reach what was in my head. I knew there was a vision and I could see it, but it didn’t feel like the right time.
It finally felt like the right time to shift my focus to Whyte Fang now — I’d done an EP and three albums as Alison Wonderland. I’m not really the face of Whyte Fang, and I’m not really the voice of it either. The music I make with Whyte Fang is darker and more industrial. It’s detached from my personal life. I do make beats like I do with Whyte Fang, even as Alison, but people who have interviewed me in the past have always said those songs sound so different, but it’s not really. Those types of songs just don’t shine because songs with me singing or that are more pop are the ones that shine with my Alison project. So I wanted to give those songs a proper home.
When did you begin focusing on Whyte Fang again?
I’d say it started in a more intense way after I released Loner [in 2022.] Most of the Genesis album was made within the last year.
So, while pregnant?
While pregnant, yes. A lot of the tracks were made while I was pregnant and I was feeling super creative. So many people told me I was going to lose my creativity and I was not going to feel the same, and I was really scared of that. Then as soon as I got pregnant, it felt the opposite.
I hadn’t felt the flow like that in a long time. I had just released an album that was so emotionally heavy, so it felt good to create stuff that was a bit more detached to my personal journey in terms of lyrics and working with other vocalists. I also love working with other vocalists, and I feel like this kind of project is where that makes sense for me.
With Whyte Fang, I just saw it. I knew the colors. I knew Whyte Fang was green and red. I knew what she looked like. I knew when she was performing, I didn’t want to be speaking. When I do the live show, she narrates occasionally. She has her own thing going on that’s greater than us humans, you know?
What went into the preparation for Coachella?
I worked with Tyler [Lamptrees], who does visuals for all my projects. He’s the only person I’ve ever worked with who visually sees what’s inside of my brain. It’s so rare to see something materialize like that when you’ve had such a strong vision. When we started working on the show around August 2020, we didn’t even have Coachella yet. My goal was to get Coachella so I could show people what this was on a bigger, not genre-specific scale. I was so fortunate to get it — but then when I found out I had Coachella, there wasn’t an album finished yet. I thought to myself, “This is what I want to do. I need to finish this body of work.” It was a kick up the butt to really get this album done. I look back and think, “How did I make an entire show and an album while pregnant?” But I did.
Were there any certain things or special accommodations you had to make to adjust to pregnancy through the process?
There were things I was supposed to do, that I didn’t… like rest. I think the best thing I actually did for my pregnancy was to keep living my life and letting the baby cook while living my life. I think it would’ve been a lot more intense for me if I had stopped.
I definitely don’t feel the same while pregnant. I was definitely exhausted at certain points, but I pushed through it because I had this vision that was so strong. If I really did feel like I needed a day off, I would take it, but I just knew this was something I had to finish.
After your Weekend 1 show, a statistic came out about Whyte Fang becoming the biggest-growing Spotify artist at Coachella in advance of their performance, with a 2,000% increase in streams on the service. Can you talk about that?
I never expected that! I was nervous no one would hear it. Every artist feels that, especially when you put a lot of effort and love into something. But this was the best surprise.
I still haven’t processed it properly. The fact that people are listening to an entire album in 2023 means so much to me as well, because I made this as an album. It wasn’t just meant for a single, it’s a journey. Genesis is a journey.
Performing while eight months pregnant with your belly out was such a powerful moment during the show.
I feel like a bad b–ch playing while eight months pregnant. It hasn’t been an easy road for me to become pregnant, so that in itself was a big achievement for me. I’m so proud that I got here. I never thought I would physically be able to become a mother. It’s so special for me, and I want to embrace it and be present in this moment as much as I can.
Whyte Fang
Peter Don
You shared a post recently about how early in your career, people in the industry warned you about becoming a mother and how it could affect your career.
Yeah, I was once told by someone in the music industry that I worked with that he hoped I would never become pregnant because it would ruin my career. Those words have rung so loudly in my ear, especially during these past few months.
It may have been the best thing anyone’s ever said to me, because it made me go, “well f–k you, watch this.” Being pregnant doesn’t define you, it just expands you. Literally. [Laughs.] Becoming a mother and having a family doesn’t define me. I don’t consider it a negative in any way. It’s just an add-on in my life, which is exciting and a new journey.
When I posted that on Instagram, a lot of other artists — big female artists who aren’t even in my genre — responded and said “thank you” and told me that they have also been so scared about wanting to become pregnant, thinking that it might end their career too. A lot of people I was shocked to hear from, because I didn’t even think they’d know who I was. I spoke to Grimes about it, and she was like, “Honestly, it’s punk rock.” And I agree.
You’re set to play EDC in a few weeks, which will be your last show for a while. How are you preparing?
My doctors are a little concerned about it. I’m going to be in and out for the set, and I’ll have a chair ready for me to sit on.
Everyone has been asking me if I’m sure I want to do this — and look, if I can’t because of medical reasons, I won’t fight that. I’m getting checked two days before to make sure. But I love playing music. It brings me joy, it’s not a burden. So being able to do what I love, that doesn’t feel hard to me.
Physically, it’s a lot. There will be no jumping. But again, I have an amazing team that is going to look after me, and Insomniac and EDC have always been super supportive to me and to women in general, so I know I’m in good hands. I am supposed to double in size though, so if you see a waddling bowling ball walking your way, make way.
What’s next? Maternity leave?
For Whyte Fang, I plan to tour the show and more music will come out. I’m taking a few months off and then I’ll be back for Red Rocks in October. I did have to cancel two festivals so I could take a maternity leave, but those were the only two shows I had to cancel. The festivals were incredibly understanding and obviously I look forward to making them up.
I actually found out that I was pregnant the day I played Red Rocks last year, so that will be a very poetic, full circle moment for me. I want to bring the baby to Red Rocks and be like, “This is where it all started for us!”
Tiësto races onto Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart (dated May 6) with Drive. The set starts at No. 2 with 12,000 equivalent album units earned in the April 21-27 tracking week, according to Luminate.
The veteran superstar DJ/producer adds his 19th top 10, extending his mark for the most among all acts dating to the chart’s 2001 inception. Louie DeVito is next, with 15 top 10s. Drive is also Tiësto’s 23rd total title to chart, second only to Armin van Buuren’s 33.
With the album’s launch, Tiësto concurrently scores the top debut on the multi-metric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart with “Chills (LA Hills),” with A Boogie Wit da Hoodie (No. 11). Tiësto’s 39th appearance and the rapper’s second, “Chills” eases in with 1.9 million U.S. streams.
Drive also fuels other Hot Dance/Electronic Songs action for Tiësto, including top Sales Gainer “10:35,” featuring Tate McRae (5-5; nearly 1,000 sold, up 37%) and top Streaming Gainer “Lay Low” (17-15; 1.1 million streams, up 18%). Plus, the set includes former top 10s “The Business” (No. 2, March 2021); “The Motto,” with Ava Max (No. 2, March 2022); and “Hot in It,” with Charli XCX (No. 10, July 2022).
Girl Power
Continuing with the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, Everything But the Girl returns to the top 10 with Fuse, new at No. 3 (10,000 units) – the UK duo’s highest rank among four career entries and top 10s. The set is the pair’s first showing since 2005’s Adapt or Die: Ten Years of Remixes (No. 9). Previously, the act logged the top 10s Like the Deserts Miss the Rain (No. 5, 2003) and Back to Mine (No. 10, 2001); the former takes its title from the twosome’s signature smash, “Missing,” which hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1996.
Madonna in the ‘Mix’
Further on Top Dance/Electronic Albums, Madonna debuts at No. 6 with a limited Record Store Day (April 22) exclusive vinyl release, American Life: Mixshow Mix (Honoring Peter Rauhofer) (6,000 sold). The set, which contains six previously unreleased remix edits and four by late New York City-based DJ Rauhofer, is Madonna’s fifth top 10. Her American Life album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in May 2003.
READ MORE: https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/madonna-american-life-revisit-8359092/
Good ‘V I B R A T I O N’
Kaleena Zanders and Shift K3Y top the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart with “V I B R A T I O N,” which vaults 7-1. Zanders’ first leader and K3Y’s second is notching core-dance airplay on Music Choice’s Dance/EDM channel, WCPY (Dance Factory FM) Chicago and KMVQ-HD2 San Francisco, among other outlets. (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, MK claims his fifth top 10 and Dom Dolla adds his second with “Rhyme Dust” (13-8).
‘90s Nostalgia in Top 10
Returning to Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, Odetari reaps his first Billboard top 10 with “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” (11-10). The viral hit earned 2.6 million streams, up 10%, in the tracking week.
Meanwhile, the trend of modern takes on ‘90s dance continues with two new entries on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs. First, Rita Ora’s reworking of Fatboy Slim’s 1999 alternative/dance hit “Praise You,” titled “Praising You,” featuring Fatboy Slim, debuts at No. 27. Ora’s eighth appearance and Fatboy Slim’s third, “Praising” prances in with 1.3 million radio airplay audience impressions and 512,000 streams. It’s the second charted remake of the original “Praise” – Fatboy Slim’s highest-charting Hot 100 hit (No. 36, 1999) – after club favorite “Praise You (2018)” (No. 30, 2019).
Plus, producer Hypaton achieves his first Hot Dance/Electronic Songs hit, teaming with David Guetta on “Be My Lover (2023 Mix),” featuring the original’s La Bouche (No. 29). It’s Guetta’s 77th entry (and La Bouche’s first), extending his lead for the most among all acts (over Kygo, with 62). The “Lover” cover earned 513,000 streams and sold nearly 500, also good for a No. 17 start on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart. The original “Lover” hit No. 6 on the Hot 100 in 1996.
Clad in a backwards baseball cap and tie-dye hoodie that complement his chill demeanor, Illenium fills the frame of my computer screen.
“Now,” he says, “it’s like super-grind mode.”
Indeed, the producer has spent the last five months painstakingly designing his upcoming tour. The run is not only his biggest yet, but one that firmly places him in the elite echelon of electronic artists who can play arenas, stadiums and amphitheaters, venues that few acts in this genre ultimately reach.
Following the release of his self-titled fifth studio album this past Friday (April 28), on May 27 Illenium will set out on a 37-date tour with stops across North America, Europe, and Australia. The 27-show domestic leg, which cost nearly $9 million to produce and which will position Illenium on 60- to 80-foot-wide stages, is the largest of the three. The run will be supported by six semis and a stockpile of pyro.
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After the self-titled set, released via Warner Records, went off to a vinyl pressing plant upon Illenium finishing it last November, the DJ-producer began conceiving its live show, a process during which he transformed the album he’d just made for the live format. This audiovisual experience — complete with longstanding Illenium-centric imagery of phoenixes and ash trees — narratively positions ILLENIUM as the prequel to his four prior albums, while indulging his love for fantasy and world-building.
“The show creates the baseline world that my music lives in,” he says. “If you watch it five times, you’ll notice new things each time and will see how deep it is.”
After opening at the Gorge Amphitheater on May 27, the amphitheater-focused North American leg will make stops at 13 other open-air venues, including three stadiums. Not counting the two festivals included in the tour — Electric Forest in Michigan and Veld Music Festival in Ontario– nearly half of its domestic dates are at outdoor venues.
The decision to lean more heavily into amphitheaters and other open-air spaces comes down to their ability to accommodate Illenium’s large-scale production needs.
“Amphitheaters usually fit our big goals and dreams; we have a lot of custom pieces that require a large stage,” says Illenium’s manager Sean Flynn. “Whereas a lot of the time when we come up with some crazy production that fits some huge stage and we have to work around a smaller stage, amphitheaters already fit what we want to do.”
Synchronicity between a venue’s capabilities and the specs of this tour is paramount, particularly given its full-band format that echoes the live rock focused sound of the latest album. Like 2019’s ASCEND tour, the ILLENIUM live show will feature a full band, including a pianist, drummer, guitarist, and, for the first time, a string instrumentalist. (Illenium will also play guitar and some drum pads.) The space required by these musicians, along with supporting acts like hardcore band I Prevail, demanded venues that could hold all these elements.
“We’d rather sell 85% of a 20,000-person venue with every production need that we want,” Illenium says, “versus a sold-out 10,000-person venue with production restrictions.”
Although the ASCEND tour took Illenium across the country in 2019 and later sent him to Australia at the start of 2020, he and his team did not announce the tour’s domestic and international dates simultaneously. He says their choice to do so this time around feels “much more impactful.” Fans appear to agree: 27 days out from the first stop, the tour has sold roughly 160,000 tickets.
In October, the tour heads to Europe and come November, to Australia. Some of the stages in these European venues are “much smaller” than those in the United States and Australia — just one of the challenges of international travel. Touring with a full band is costly, and without the six semis, the team will take a more minimalistic approach to hardware. Still, Illenium pledges to bring the “sweaty crazy rock show vibes,” and Flynn is adamant that the international portion is “an investment in the future.”
“We’ve played some European shows before, and getting to the point where we can bring the band has always been in the back of our minds,” Flynn says. “It just feels like a natural progression — and if these shows are successful, it’s only going to help grow everything.”
The crown jewel of the tour, however, is Trilogy: Colorado, to be held on June 17 at Empower Field at Mile High in Illenium’s hometown of Denver. With a 76,125-capacity, the stadium — home of the Denver Broncos — dwarfs Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, where the producer held his first Trilogy show on July 3, 2021 to a sold-out audience, becoming the first artist to play the venue in the process. (Although Allegiant Stadium can hold a maximum of 65,000 people, the size of Illenium’s production reduced the stadium’s capacity to 40,000). The event grossed $3.9 million and sold 33,000 tickets, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
On March 30, Illenium announced that Trilogy: Colorado has already outsold its predecessor. “It’s gonna be the biggest show I’ve ever played,” he says, in a tone more even-keeled than one might expect given the magnitude of the statement. (At the ILLENIUM release party on April 28, the producer also confirmed that a third Trilogy show is in the works and will come to Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium in 2024.)
Illenium is used to setting and shattering his own records. In recent years, he’s arisen as one of dance music’s most prominent, active and successful acts, playing — and selling out — some of the country’s largest stadiums and arenas, including Madison Square Garden in September of 2019. While interest in dance music in the United States is healthy, only a few of its acts — Kaskade, Kx5, Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex with Fred again.. & Four Tet and ODESZA among them — sell out arenas and stadiums, and in some cases only for one-off shows. Illenium became one of these acts through a strategic focus on scaling the size of his events year over year.
“Everything we’ve done throughout Nick’s career has always come down to asking, ‘How do we push things forward?’” Flynn says. “When booking a tour, we’ve always looked to the next highest capacity venue in the area and tried to secure that for the next tour. Or if that didn’t make sense, we’d try to do two nights at the same venue… We’ve always just tried to take whatever that next step was in major markets.”
Fans are of course at the heart of this success. Illenium’s music forges deep bonds with listeners, who have “grown with Nick from when we first started,” says Flynn. The debut Illenium album dropped in 2016, and although he has yet to score a top 40 crossover hit on the Hot 100 (his sole entry to date, “Takeaway” with The Chainsmokers and Lennon Stella, peaked at No. 69), his dance stardom is well-illustrated on Dance/Electronic Songs, where he’s earned seven top 10 hits. Forty-eight of his songs have graced the chart, including ILLENIUM’s lead single, “Luv Me a Little.”
In recent years, his success has also extended well beyond the charts. In 2022, he won his first Billboard Music Award when Fallen Embers triumphed in the top dance/electronic album category, an award handed out on the live telecast. In 2021, the same LP scored him his first Grammy nomination for best dance/electronic album. Fans have come along for the ride, with many catching flights to Cancún to attend his festival, Ember Shores. Following its 2021 launch, the event sold out in less than two hours. Its 2022 installment also sold out, and this year’s iteration this December is on track to do the same.
These wins are why Illenium, who calls himself “super-sensitive to crap online” and says he’s previously deleted his social media apps, became “a little more nervous” in the weeks leading up to the release of his eponymous LP. Although rock elements are not new to his music, ILLENIUM marks his heaviest embrace of them yet. With “symphonic Hans Zimmer-esque stuff” and features from Blink-182’s Travis Barker and All Time Low, the album diverges from the synth drop dominance of his previous LPs. In a December 2022 Reddit comment that felt like a disclaimer, Illenium called the LP his “favorite” — but acknowledged, “it’s definitely not gonna be everyone’s favorite.”
“Even though the majority of my fans definitely support whatever I’m going to try, I’m susceptible to the trolls,” he says. “Everyone has emotions and is a human … it’s easy to second guess myself, even though [the album] is already done.”
He says he’s transformed the album for the tour, and that while “it’s still gonna be extremely live and rock, I’ve made a lot of changes to the live show so it’s still familiar to fans.”
“It’s not just full-on metal freaking craziness,” he continues. “It’s this middle ground that I think people are gonna be really surprised by and stoked about. I think it’s gonna sound better than any of the other live shows [I’ve done].”
Now 32, Illenium has both the self-possession of an artist who knows how the game works and the openness of one who’s new to it. With a sharp sense of self and what music he finds “fulfilling” to make along with clarity of what he wants out of his career — “an impact that is original and unique” — it seems that stifling his creative interests for fear of what people might say would sting more than any negative comment could.
He says he’s gained insight and clarity over the last few years, but remains a “very impatient” person who struggles to “take a second and just chill,” making the delineation between his personal and professional often opaque.
“I’m a recovering drug addict,” he says, “and I’m very one-track-minded, like addicted-mode-on for the show. Whatever it is, [I focus on] doing it and maxing out as hard as I possibly can on it. I haven’t really grown out of that.”
Illenium, who previously struggled with opiate addiction and got clean in 2012 after overdosing on heroin, is partnering with the non-profit End Overdose on the tour to train attendees on how to administer naloxone — used to reverse opiate overdoses — and recognize signs of an overdose.
At this stage in his life and career, he’s also newly thinking about his legacy. Making albums that are essentially copies of each other strikes him as “soulless,” and ILLENIUM — a project that he calls “the core sound of who I am” — has roots in his middle school days, when alt rock, metalcore and pop-punk first forged his own bond with music. Though much has changed for him since, his love for these genres has not. By engaging with these early influences on ILLENIUM, he’s arguably the most himself that he’s ever been on an album.
“Whenever you first listen to something and it has a deep impact on you, I think that stays with you, and I think that’s what happened to me with this type of music,” he says. “It’s just a very deep emotional connection.”
The Four Tet and Fred again.. collaboration train continues, this time with a new guest: Brian Eno.
Today on social media Four Tet announced that his label, Text Records, will release a collaborative album from Fred again.. and Eno this Friday, May 5. Four Tet called the LP, called Secret Life, “the most beautiful album of 2023.”
The collaboration is one among friends, as Brian Eno is a longtime mentor of Fred again.. the U.K. producer born Fred Gibson.
“I think of Fred as my mentor as well,” Eno told Zane Lowe last fall, “in that I learnt so much about contemporary music from watching him working. When I first worked with Fred I could see he was brilliant. It’s very clear. He’s a very very sensitive and good artist, and I was very impressed by that. But I didn’t really understand a lot of what he was doing. It took me quite awhile to think ‘oh my gosh, this is really a new idea about how you can make music.’ So I learned a lot from him. It’s a two way relationship.”
Four Tet, who’s playing three shows in Los Angeles this week tonight through Thursday (May 2-4), also noted that the album will get physical releases on vinyl and CD. A companion online radio station, secretlife.fm has been broadcasting daily starting at 10 p.m. U.K. time.
Secret Life is the first album from Fred again.. since the November 2022 release of his third studio LP, Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 22, 2022). Eno’s last studio album, ForeverAndEverNoMore, was released in October of 2022. It was the legend’s 29th solo studio LP.
Meanwhile, Four Tet and Fred again.. are on an epic run, having headlined the second weekend of Coachella with Skrillex. The trio were added to the festival’s Sunday night lineup just the day before the event started, after the weekend one Sunday night headliner Frank Ocean dropped out after a leg injury.
Four Tet also released a new single, the eight-plus minute “Three Drums,” last week on Text Records.
See the cover art for the new collaboration below.
Marshmello and Farruko score a top 10 debut on Billboard’s multimetric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart (dated April 29) with “Esta Vida” at No. 10. The collab drew 2.2 million official streams and 450,000 radio airplay audience impressions and sold 600 downloads in the April 14-20 tracking week, according to Luminate.
“Vida” is Marshmello’s 15th top 10, the fifth-most among all acts since the chart began in January 2013; only Kygo (24), The Chainsmokers, Calvin Harris (22 each) and David Guetta (21) have more. The track is also Marshmello’s 57th total charted title, lifting him out of a tie with Skrillex for the third-most, after Guetta (76) and Kygo (62).
Marshmello owns three Hot Dance/Electronic Songs No. 1s, including “Happier” (with Bastille), which spent a record 69 weeks at the summit in 2018-20.
“Vida” is Farruko’s fifth top 10 on the tally, a collection that includes his 2021 nine-week No. 1 “Pepas.”
The EDM-Latin crossover “Vida” also bows on Latin Pop Digital Song Sales (No. 3), Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales (No. 7), Latin Pop Streaming Songs (No. 10) and Hot Latin Songs (No. 42), among other chart placements.
‘A Little’ More
On the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, ILLENIUM and Nina Nesbitt return to No. 1 for a third frame on top (after a one-week hiatus) with “Luv Me a Little.”
Continuing with the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, three team-ups hit the top 10 for the first time. First, Calvin Harris collects his 21st top 10 and Ellie Goulding grabs her 11th with “Miracle” (11-8). With the move, Harris passes Justin Bieber for a solo share of the third-most top 10s since the chart began in August 2003; only David Guetta (34) and Rihanna (24) have more.
“Miracle” is drawing core-dance airplay on Music Choice’s Dance/EDM channel, KMVQ-HD2 San Francisco and iHeartRadio’s Pride Radio, among other outlets. (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 70 top 40-formatted reporters.)
The track, for which a remix by Hardwell was released April 14, also earns top Streaming gainer honors on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs (at No. 9), up 15% to 2.8 million streams. “Miracle” also improves on Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs (15-13) and Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales, reaching a new high (11-5; 700 sold, up 59%). Further gains could be reflected on next week’s charts, following the April 21 release of its Mau P remix.
Further on Dance/Mix Show Airplay, the second new top 10 collab belongs to Audien and Codeko with “Antidote,” featuring JT Roach (15-9). The sixth top 10 for Audien, “Antidote” is the first each for Codeko and Roach.
Last but not least, Icona Pop parades to its fifth Dance/Mix Show Airplay top 10, while Galantis gets its ninth, with “I Want You” (12-10).
The annual IMS Business Report was presented today (April 26) at IMS Ibiza. The dance industry conference annually presents the report, which breaks down notable growth (and lag) sectors of the scene and also provides a yearly valuation of the worldwide industry.
For the first time, the report was authored by MIDiA Research’s Mark Mulligan, who presented it today to a packed room. These are eight of the key findings.
1. The Global Dance Music Industry Grew By 34% In 2022, Reaching a Value Of $11.3 Billion
This number is 16% higher than it was before the pandemic, during which the value of the global industry reached historic lows as live events shut down. But, the report states, “2022 saw festivals and clubs rebound, finally shaking off most of the effects of the pandemic, representing nearly half of all dance industry revenues.”
The report notes that hardware and software combined were the next largest revenue source, but also the slowest growing. Music rights around recording and publishing grew by 14,% representing just under a fifth of the overall total.
2. The U.S., Germany & U.K. Have the Three Biggest Spotify Monthly Listener Bases for Electronic Music
This makes sense, given that these countries are also three of the world’s biggest music markets. But while Netherlands and Australia are smaller, they are multiple times higher as a share of the total population (Netherlands rate is seven times higher than the US). This means that electronic music simply has more cultural reach and impact here in these two countries.
3. Electronic Music Is Outperforming Hip-Hop In Social Follower Growth
Electronic music’s fanbase growth is happening most powerfully on social platforms, and TikTok especially. Here it’s growing 10 times faster than hip hop. TikTok launched #ElectronicMusic as its latest genre campaign in 2021 and hosted LIVE events from artists including Disclosure, BICEP and David Guetta As of March 2023, since June 2022, average daily creations for #ElectronicMusic are up 113% on the platform.
4. Music Software, Skills & Hardware Are Becoming Increasingly Valuable
Music production boomed during the pandemic, fostering more creators than ever before. And although growth slowed in 2022, revenues around software, hardware and production skills hit $6.6 billion, of which $2.8 billion was from dance producers and DJs.
5. Electronic Music Artists Represented 39% of All Festival Bookings In 2022
That’s up from 33% in 2021.
6. Female DJs Gained Traction, But 2022 Still Saw Male DJs Increase Their Share of Global Bookings
Though female DJs represented 15% of top 100 DJ bookings at festivals and other events, in 2022, this share fell from 21% in 2021. In the post-Covid return to live, male top 100 DJs saw their bookings grow 1.7 times faster than their female counterparts. Meanwhile, 67% of female artists reported feeling pressure to look good, while only 14% of male DJs reported feeling this same pressure.
7. Ibiza Came Back Big Following the Pandemic
Ibiza club ticketing revenue reached €124 million ($137 million) in 2022, up 55% from the €80 million ($88 million)registered in 2019. This growth was a result of increases in the number of events per venue, average ticket prices, and the total number of tickets sold going from two million in 2019 to 2.5 million in 2022.
8. Tech House Remains Beatport’s Leading Genre
The genre is followed in popularity by techno, house, melodic house and techno and drum and bass, dance/electropop, deep house, progressive house, indie dance, minimal/deep tech and trance. Despite the dominance of these sounds, 33% of all sales on the dance world digital download platform come from genres outside the platform’s top 10.
9. SoundCloud Is Foundational to Dance Music Culture
The platform saw a 24% growth in dance/electronic plays in 2022. The platform also hosts DJ sets, mash ups, rarities not presented on other platforms, and allows DJs and producers to connect with their fans in a way Spotify does not.
10. The Dance Scene Is In a Better Place Than It Was Pre-Pandemic
The reports states that “the dance music industry has shaken off the effects of the pandemic, coming out the other side, bigger, better, stronger and more relevant than ever.”
As the release of his self-titled fifth studio album approaches, Illenium is raising awareness about a topic that hits close to home: drug-related overdoses.
The 32-year-old producer first opened up about his history of addiction in 2018. “Six years ago I overdosed on heroin. I struggled with opiate addiction from a young age. I was trapped in it, had no passion, no direction, and truly hated myself. It was such a dark time for me and my family because when it gets bad enough, hope begins to dim and there’s no escaping reality,” he wrote in a poignant letter to fans posted on his social media. Born Nick Miller, the Grammy Award-nominated producer got clean following this 2012 overdose.
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Now, as part of a new partnership with the non-profit organization End Overdose, Illenium is empowering fans with the education to identify and promptly respond to drug-related overdoses. At 5 p.m. ET today (April 26), Illenium will take to Instagram Live (via his own channel) to teach viewers how to administer naloxone (commonly referred to as Narcan), a medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration to rapidly reverse opioid overdoses.
“I want to use my platform to amplify the work that End Overdose is doing to educate people on how to identify and respond to an opiate overdose,” Illenium tells Billboard. “With how rampant fentanyl is in our communities, it’s important for everyone, regardless of whether they use these drugs or not, to be able to recognize the signs and symptoms of an overdose and know how to provide aid if needed. This issue is very personal to me as a recovering addict and someone who has overdosed in the past. Providing education and free naloxone to those who need it will save lives.”
Volunteers from End Overdose will also provide live training at select stops on Illenium’s world tour in support of the album, to be released via Warner Records this Friday, April 28. In-person instruction will be offered at stops including San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Denver, Rothbury, Austin, Atlanta, Brooklyn, Detroit, and Bridgeview. Illenium is currently working with End Overdose to extend the training sessions to additional cities on the tour.
With dates across North America, Europe, and Australia, the ILLENIUM Live tour opens at the Gorge Amphitheater on May 27. All four of Illenium’s previously released albums have charted in the top 10 of Top Dance/Electronic Albums, with 2019’s Ascend and 2021’s Fallen Embers both hitting No. 1.
The annual IMS Ibiza dance music industry conference launches today (April 26), marking the opening weekend on the famed Spanish clubbing mecca.
IMS Ibiza 2023, the dance second largest conference after Amsterdam’s ADE, is expecting roughly 1,300 delegates from around the world at the luxe Destino Pacha Ibiza resort, which IMS is once again taking over for the three-day event. Co-hosted by dance world legend Pete Tong and BBC Radio 1 DJ and dance producer Jaguar, IMS 2023 is happening April 26-28 with a cavalcade of artists, agents, managers, journalists, managers, label owners and more, altogether representing a flurry of companies including YouTube, Tunecore, Deezer, BBC Radio 1, WME, Wasserman, Beatport, Ultra Music Publishing, the Association For Electronic Music and more.
The intensely robust IMS 2023 schedule — “An absolute monster in terms of curation and the level of speakers coming,” says IMS co-founder Ben Turner — features more than 130 keynotes, discussions, parties, workshops and networking events happening at Destino and satellite locations. Naturally, these include the island’s prestige clubs including Amnesia and Hï, along with the historic Dalt Villa, a UNESCO world heritage site that will once again become a rave during the IMS closing party.
But while the conference will span many topics, Turner anticipates the practicalities and legalities of artificial intelligence to be a major topic of conversation as the music industry at large grapples with how to not just profit from AI, but to understand its potential and sustainably contain its capabilities.
“Electronic music culture has been driven by independence from its roots,” Turner says, “and I think that’s still is a core component of why we’re different… I think our industry is in the best position to embrace AI, because of that independent spirit and that understanding of ownership of IP, and how ownership of masters and publishing gives you more freedom to experiment with this stuff — whereas the majors are just going to do what they always do, which is freak out and shut all the doors.”
IMS will also once again feature the presentation of its annual business report, which surveys the health of the dance music industry across sectors including streaming and live events, and which serves as an industry tool to determine growth sectors. For the first time this year, the report has been prepared by MIDiA Research, and will find new focuses in music publishing and the creator economy, “which around electronic music is obviously huge,” says Turner. This year’s report also reflects “a huge bounce back” of the industry following the pandemic, with this year’s report reflecting 2022 metrics.
IMS Ibiza 2022
Courtesy of IMS Ibiza
Also new this year is IMS’ partnership with Beatport, the digital download platform that acquired a 51% majority stake in IMS this past January. With conferences typically presenting slim margins and IMS’ 2022 partnership with Pollen falling through in the wake of that company’s collapse, the Beatport sale has allowed IMS to create a new level of financial solvency.
“Being really honest about it,” says Turner, “we nearly didn’t survive the pandemic. We had to do refunds, we didn’t have a show for three years, we had zero income coming in, we had to cut overhead, we had to cut our small but core team. There was a big question of, ‘Can we still do this? Can we afford to still do this? And can we afford to risk doing this?’”
Turner emphasizes that he and the other IMS founders are maintaining organizational and curatorial control the conference, that Beatport can help IMS grow and that the IMS team has “been really encouraged and feel extremely supported by them.”
But while the Beatport acquisition is presenting new opportunities, it also came with baggage due to a 2022 VICE article alleging sexism, racism and a toxic work culture within Beatport. Following Beatport’s acquisition of IMS, longstanding music industry diversity and inclusion advocacy group shesaid.so announced — after a seven year partnership with IMS — that it would be putting a “temporary pause” on its participation in IMS this year. (Read shesaid.so’s complete statement on the topic.)
So too did U.K. advocacy group Black Artist Database, which suspended its partnership with Beatport last August. The organization also recently released a statement that it would not be sending any members to IMS 2023. In an April 13 statement, IMS noted that the conference “understands and respects the need to make such decisions and will continue to remain strong supporters of both organizations and the values that they stand for. Our continued, long-term, widely-acknowledged commitment to diversity, inclusion and equality in all its intersections is demonstrated in our 2023 programming and it remains a core tenet of our ethos.”
“We understand why they needed to make their statements, Turner says. “Our door is always open, and we hope that we can work with both organizations in the future. I don’t see why that can’t happen. I think there needs to be dialogue between all of the parties, I don’t think this gets resolved any other way than people communicating and trying to understand each others perspective.”
“I’m on a mission is to help make dance music a more equal place that is representative of minorities, while supporting emerging artists,” IMS co-host Jaguar adds. “I’m really proud of the work we are doing alongside Ben and the IMS team to achieve this at the summit.” She adds that “It wouldn’t feel right to go into this week without extending my love, support and solidarity to Black Artist Database and shesaid.so, who will sadly not be present at IMS this year. What [they] both stand for is incredibly close to my heart and so important.”
While IMS delegates largely arrive from throughout Europe, Turner reports “a growing number of hardcore American attendees,” a demographic he attributes to the fact that “there isn’t a conference with a narrative left around the business of electronic music in America.” (IMS did host a one-day event in Los Angeles for five years, during the apex of the EDM boom.) He says if IMS is to add another event to its schedule, it will be in the U.S.
“I think we’re globally-minded in our output, but I do think America has its own set of issues, its own dialogue, its own need for its own Summit, no question. Because America is so big, and there’s an inward looking industry, quite a lot of people don’t think much beyond America in terms of their travel or their even in some cases, their ambitions. There’s a very strong home grown scene that deserves to have its own moment.”
For this week, though, the moment will once again be in Ibiza. Billboard will be reporting from the conference this week.
Grimes loves to push the envelope. But after telling her fans that she’s down with “open sourcing all art and killing copyright” in a series of tweets on Sunday night, and offering to split royalties 50/50 with any successful AI-generated song that uses her voice,” the no rules singer realized she might need some guardrails after all.
“Ok hate this part but we may do copyright takedowns ONLY for rly rly toxic lyrics w Grimes voice,” she tweeted on Monday afternoon (April 24). “imo you’d rly have to push it for me to wanna take smthn down but I guess plz don’t be *the worst*. as in, try not to exit the current Overton window of lyrical content w regards to sex/violence. Like no baby murder songs plz.”
The mother of two with ex Elon Musk then went further, openly debating with herself whether issuing takedown notices after making the open call for facsimile Grimes songs with no limits would make her a hypocrite. “I think I’m Streisand effecting this now but I don’t wanna have to issue a takedown and be a hypocrite later,” she said in reference to an attempt to censor or hide a piece of information that only serves to further shine a spotlight on it.
“***That’s the only rule. Rly don’t like to do a rule but don’t wanna be responsible for a Nazi anthem unless it’s somehow in jest a la producers I guess,” she added in a nod to the 1967 Mel Brooks satirical comedy, The Producers, about the staging a Nazi musical. (Grimes admitted in a later tweet that she has never seen The Producers and that the plan was to wing it and “send takedown notices to scary stuff,” before adding that she’s not even sure her team is capable of sending takedown notices.)
“wud prefer avoiding political stuff but If it’s a small meme with ur friends we prob won’t penalize that. Probably just if smthn is viral and anti abortion or smthn like that,” she said, reiterating that she really doesn’t like adding rules after the fact and apologizing and saying “but this is the only thing.”
When a commenter said it sounded like Grimes was definitely “streisand-ing this situation,” she responded, “Yes but I gotta say it. And if it’s a meme to make awful grimes songs it’ll prob be a week of hard work for us but not a boring outcome. I imagine the DAN// Sidney Bing going murderous equivalent will have to happen with vocal deepfakes and I’m entertained if that happens to us.”
Another commenter noted that the potential for offensive or gross posts “should’ve been their [Grimes’ team’s] first thought,” which the singer said it actually was. “I just didn’t think the original post abt ai wud be a thing, like it was sort of a casual post so my poor team is just catching up with now having to organize all this,” she said.
In a tweet referencing this weekend’s disastrous roll-up of non-paying blue checkmarks on Musk’s Twitter — which was chaotic and later reversed in part for some well-known users who adamantly refused to pay for their legacy checkmarks — a user joked that Grimes had “learned from Elon! Twitter announcement first, then let’s figure out the details after.”
Grimes turned what could have been a diss into a positive, noting, “In my defense this has always been a Grimes feature too.”
The back-and-forth continued when a user said even with takedowns Grimes could still end up in an “uncomfortable situation” where an offensive song could still be out in the world “misleading people until the end of time,” as things tend to do on the internet.
Her response to that one was classic Grimes : “We expect a certain amount of chaos,” she said. “Grimes is an art project, not a music project. The ultimate goal has always been to push boundaries rather than have a nice song. The point is to poke holes in the simulation and see what happens even if it’s a bad outcome for us.”
Most importantly, fans wanted to know when the software will be available for other artists to try it out with their voices. The good news, according to Grimes, is that it’s already out there and she was busy collecting resources. In even better news, she also told her followers that she has “lots of real Grimes songs ready to go too.”
Fans have been eagerly awaiting any news about Grimes’ next album, the as-yet-unscheduled BOOK 1, after she recently said that “music is my side quest now. Tbh reduced pressure x increased freedom = prob more music just ideally ‘Low key I’ll always do my best to entertain whilst depleting my literal reputation I hope that’s ok I love y’all.”
The musician’s most recent album was 2020’s Miss Anthropocene, which included the singles “Violence,” “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth,” “My Name Is Dark” and “Delete Forever.” Since then, she’s also released one-off songs including 2021’s “Player of Games” and last year’s “Shinigami Eyes.”
Grimes’ AI tease came a week after a fake song featuring A.I.-generated vocals from Drake and The Weeknd, “Heart on My Sleeve,” was pulled from streaming services after going viral.
“I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice,” she promised while announcing the AI project, a stance that was in stark opposition to Universal Music Group, which acted quickly to condemn the “infringing content created with generative AI” that produced the phony superstar duet.
Check out Grimes’ tweets below.
Ok hate this part but we may do copyright takedowns ONLY for rly rly toxic lyrics w grimes voice: imo you’d rly have to push it for me to wanna take smthn down but I guess plz don’t be *the worst*. as in, try not to exit the current Overton window of lyrical content w regards to…— 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (@Grimezsz) April 24, 2023
Yes but I gotta say it. And if it’s a meme to make awful grimes songs it’ll prob be a week of hard work for us but not a boring outcome. I imagine the DAN// Sidney Bing going murderous equivalent will have to happen with vocal deepfakes and I’m entertained if that happens to us— 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (@Grimezsz) April 24, 2023
This was their first thought haha – I just didn’t think the original post abt ai wud be a thing, like it was sort of a casual post so my poor team is just catching up with now having to organize all this— 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (@Grimezsz) April 24, 2023
In my defense this has always been a grimes feature too— 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (@Grimezsz) April 24, 2023
Oh, I never saw the producers – I guess we just play it by ear and send takedown notices to scary stuff. I’m not sure we can even send takedown notices tbh. Like curious what the actual legality is, i think I chose not to copyright my name and likeness back when that was a…— 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (@Grimezsz) April 24, 2023
We expect a certain amount of chaos. grimes is an art project, not a music project. The ultimate goal has always been to push boundaries rather than have a nice song. The point is to poke holes in the simulation and see what happens even if it’s a bad outcome for us https://t.co/RSAW4xQCAi— 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (@Grimezsz) April 24, 2023