Dance
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Even by the standards of Baby’s All Right – the low-slung Williamsburg, Brooklyn music space with a tendency to become a turnt-up room both in terms of energy and literal heat — last Thursday (Feb. 23) was a crazy night. Jersey City’s irrepressible 18-year-old dance king Riovaz was back in the tristate area for the penultimate show of the sold-out RIORAVE, his first headlining tour of the States. It was also the eve of the release of Rio’s third EP, a rush of high-energy club bangers called Disturb The Norm.
“I’m home! I missed you all,” Rio declared halfway while tearing through 18 songs in less than an hour, adding: “It’s f–king hot up here!” Sure enough, the venue was drenched and jumping. A couple of times the mop-topped singer tried to get the 280-strong crowd to open up a pit – not the easiest feat in the narrow confines of the venue – but it spoke to who Riovaz is: A young artist making dance music with the soul of a rapper and a punk rocker.
You’d never know that he’s played fewer than 20 shows in his life. He has the onstage ease of a veteran, as if, like his childhood idol Michael Jackson, he was born to be there. Footage on YouTube of his first ever show, last June at Brooklyn indie mainstay Market Hotel, confirms he’s had that ease since day one of performing. A week earlier over Zoom from Texas, Rio confirms that the live part comes naturally. “When I’m on stage I feel like a whole different person,” he says. “Then I remember [that] before I had any sort of platform or was making any money off of music, I was really scared to be on stage. I thought I wasn’t gonna be good, and I wouldn’t even show my face on social media. I was really terrified to do that. But then, I don’t know why, when the time came, I just did it. I don’t know – it doesn’t make sense.”
Surely the level of adulation he gets from the RIORAVE audiences does wonders for that confidence, as the Riomania is off the charts. “The turnout has been crazy, the crowds have been screaming my songs,” he says. “It’s been so unreal.” They’re not just singing along with the song that put him on the map, 2020’s viral hit “Prom Night” (approaching 130M plays on Spotify alone), but also its multi-million-streaming successors, including “I Feel Fantastic”, “see u there” and “you’re a parasite.” Even new songs, like “Hypnotize” from Disturb The Norm, and older, lesser-known tracks he dips into (from his early incarnation as a melodic rapper and a bedroom-indie-pop artist) move the crowd. “The whole set list is like a journey through my discography. It’s cool to do switch-ups. And then to see that people know those songs, too?”
Switch-ups are pretty much the name of the game for Rio. Disturb The Norm could hardly be a more apt title — going against the grain and defying expectations are what he’s been doing for most of a still young career.
As any visit to the archives on his Soundcloud or Spotify will reveal, before he melded house, 2-step and drum’n’bass with emo lyrics about heartache, he was a much different artist. His DSPs serve as a fascinating scrapbook of a journey in real time. “I also like surprising myself, too,” he says. “So whenever I do disturb the norm, or whatever, at the end of the day I end up surprising myself, one-upping what I did before. And what comes with that is a disturbance to other people. ‘Cause they won’t get it; they won’t get it until it marinates. I feel like that title is very fitting for what I’m doing.”
If music wasn’t a preordained path for Riovaz, it was always around, growing up in the ‘00s and ‘10s in an Ecuadorian-American household in Jersey City with a musician brother and a sister who is a singer. “My family is very musical. They’d all show me, just playing music always in the house, so I was always tapped into music.” Prior to recording, he describes himself as “just an internet nerd” who played video games with his cousin, loved basketball and even entertained early hoop dreams before discovering music making at 13 through his cousin’s GarageBand.
To his surprise, his first single posted to SoundCloud quickly did more than 60,000 plays, stoking a fire. Discovering beatmakers, writing lyrics and melodies got him hooked, and hip-hop was his inevitable early landing place. New York’s Nebu Kiniza and Chicago’s Famous Dex were favorites for their finesse with trap and plug, as well as Dex’s skills as a live performer. But there were iconic alt-rock inspirations as well. “Famous Dex influenced me as far as how I am onstage,” he explains. “He was a wild performer. And Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana influenced me in terms of my voice, ‘cause I do have a kind of late ‘90s-early 2000s kind of alt-rock voice, over club beats. It’s a strange blend, but it works. All these influences mashed up into one and influenced my sound. And then my writing – like Morrissey, I feel like I take my writing a lot more seriously after listening to The Smiths a lot [during quarantine]. It’s an accumulation of everything.”
Riovaz – the name came from inverting the letters in his early artist alias, “Savior” and changing the “s” to a “z” – did respectable numbers early on, but he was restless. With many around him dismissing his music as more of a hobby than anything serious, by age 14, he was ready to hang it up, but with the encouragement of online friends — in particular like-minded indie rapper MrHeadA$$Trendy — Rio stuck it out. Over the next two years he honed his skills and upped his SoundCloud output. There were rap collabs with Trendy, melodic hip-hop standouts including “Endless Summer” and “Aquamarine” and a shift toward indie rock. A self-released first EP, 2020’s Into The Unknown, leads off with the breezy jangle of “Girl Who Chants Misery,” sounding more like Beach Fossils circa 2010 than the Riovaz operating now. The EP merges bedroom pop with melodic rap – a distillation of the two sides of Riovaz up to that point.
But there was a third side to come. Two pivotal events blew life open for Riovaz: call them The Break and The Change. In the spring of 2020, a once-in-a-century pandemic suddenly had the high school sophomore stuck at home and doing classes online. At the urging of friends and his brother, he finally dropped a song he’d been sitting on for months, a hazy, jittery but danceable track laced with heartbreak called “Prom Night.” Rio had never loved it, but the world thought otherwise. Buoyed by an edit community on Instagram that would set rap videos to indie tracks, Riovaz saw his unassuming song cut to visuals by the likes of Polo G and Ron Suno. Virality assured, “Prom Night” gained traction when the rocket fuel that is TikTok got involved. “The song was just mad catchy, nobody had heard it at the time, and people just kept making videos every day,” he recalls. “It was just a migration, from Instagram to TikTok.” The song reached its zenith nearly a year later, reaching No. 26 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, by which point Rio was already in what he calls a “transitional period.” “I never even really liked the song. So I was kind of over it, but I was excited that it was going up.”
“Prom Night” opened doors. But by summer of 2021 it was an evolved Riovaz who was ready to walk through them. The change was sparked when, months earlier, he came across the cheeky fun of “Naked” by Atlanta underground pop artist Bickle. “I found the song on TikTok, and then saw the video,” he recalls. “And I thought, ‘Holy sh-t, this is so cool, I could definitely do this.’ I couldn’t stop listening to it, and it really was my gateway into dance music. That song just made me dig deeper, and I fell in love with the genre, people singing over any sort of club beat.”
That led to summer 2021’s “Leaving You” – the moment at which the new Riovaz showed himself to the world. Fully four-on-the-floor, topped by staccato synths and a smooth vocal, it was a kiss-off song for the clubs. Some described the song as merely an evolution, but it felt like more. “When I made it, it felt like a rebirth,” he concedes. “I made that song, and it switched my whole perspective on music, and who I wanted to be. And that was a good time, bro. I miss the feeling of making that song and being, ‘Alright, I want to keep making dance songs!’”
After that, the reborn Rio came with a flood of new club-ready tracks: the irresistible “I Feel Fantastic,” with its skittish 2-step vibes and lyrics addressing a breakup, anchored last spring’s Better Late Than Forever. That EP also featured “God Save The Girl,” a song whose disco vibes and squiggly synth runs came with a charmer of a video inspired by the 1956 French film The Red Balloon — filmed in Paris’ iconic Montmartre district by New York director Dito, to boot. More singles followed in the fall: “you’re a parasite,” “Tell Me Your Fears,” the insistent fan-favorite “Tantrum (Pace Yourself)” and this January’s earworm “U Neva.” The latter two tracks are included on Disturb The Norm, along with the high-energy electricity of “Hypnotized,” featuring Rio’s friend and collaborator, U.K. artist skaiwater. The track’s frantic night-out video is another Dito creation, filmed in London’s clublands of Shoreditch and Soho, and also cinema-inspired, by the 1999 rave movie Human Traffic.
This flood of hectic club music has raised in many a write-up a question: what exactly to call Rio’s sound? It’s undeniably dance – but beyond that? While “Leaving You” and “U Neva” are house-adjacent, “see u there” and “parasite” feel more like glitchy drum’n’bass, and the “untz-untz” ‘90s feel of “Tantrum,” “Tell Me Your Fears” and little ripper “The Rex” practically mandate glow sticks. The new EP delivers Rio’s poppiest, bounciest hook to date in “HeartStrung,” while “Can’t Keep Myself Intact” nods to ‘80s New Romantics. (Speaking of which, can we please get Duran Duran’s iconic “Rio” as his play-on music? Sure, it’s about a woman, but it’s too perfect.) I’ve never met a musician who wanted to be put in a genre box — least of all a young artist who’s still evolving — and Rio bristles at it, though he does laugh when I show him a 13-year-old “Genre Shirt” from the ironic erstwhile indie blog Hipster Runoff that’s covered in absurd micro-genre names, like “metal bloghouse” and “techno-boyband-core.” [“That’s fire!” Rio raves.]
Rio took to social media a while back to shut down those calling his music “hyperpop.” While he is friends with the capital letter-eschewing young luminaries from that caffeinated 2020s scene – he toured with glaive last fall, and features on aldn’s infectious single “say what u mean” – Riovaz is hardly hyperpop. And while Rio makes club music and is from New Jersey, it’s not “Jersey club,” a term usually referring the sound that’s dominated the Newark scene for most of the century. He even thought about adopting “New Rave” before realizing that already has another meaning. Ultimately, he stuck with his own name for his sound. “I just say it’s ‘Riovaz,’” he explains. “’Cause really, there’s no other Riovaz. There’s no other artist that sounds like me.”
One consistent feature of Rio’s music – a thematic throughline across the genres he’s hopscotched – is heartbreak. As it happened, our Zoom call took place on Valentine’s Day, which, given his steady flow of sad sack lyrics about unrequited feelings and busted relationships, you might imagine is not his favorite holiday. While he hedges on the question of whether he has a current valentine, he admits the breakups that are part of the Rio brand come from real life. “Yeah, usually all the relationships I have been in have ended in a toxic way,” he says with a laugh. “But like, I say it in my lyrics, ‘dance the pain away’ [from ‘God Save The Girl’]. I’m young, so I don’t hang myself over what just happened. I just move on, and dance the pain away, or sing the pain away. But yeah! Sh-t always ends up, like, toxic as hell! Either from my part or the other person’s part.”
A glimpse into one of those situations came last year, in the opening of Better Late Than Forever, as Rio dropped in a voice message from an old flame, berating him about making “everything about you” and being “a narcissist.” “That was a real message from my ex,” he says. “She sent me that, and I was like, ‘I have to use that for a song, I don’t care. It’s so fire.’ And she was like, ‘No! No!’ But she likes it now. She’s fine with it now, and that’s what matters.” As for being a narcissist, the artist who sings in “Tantrum,” “I love me way too much girl, I’m my ecstasy” adds: “I feel like it took me a while to really love myself. Like growing up, as a kid, of course, on the internet. To where now, I kind of embrace it. I f–king love myself now, so I feel like that could also rub people the wrong way.”
If TikTok paid some mighty dividends with “Prom Night,” Rio knows slow and steady often wins the race, and is interested in a long game that’s open to evolution – a view that he says is understood by his label Darkroom Records, in partnership with Geffen. (He signed with the imprint last summer.) “Right after I graduated, I was just in L.A. a lot, talking to a lot of label people,” he recounts. “I just really clicked with Darkroom. Justin [Lubliner, CEO] at the label was just really dope. And then we have Tom March from Geffen [president] who is really fire, and all of our ideas just really meshed well together. They just get it. And working with a team like that, it helps a lot.”
Not long after his tristate homecoming show in Brooklyn, Rio jetted off to Europe – as a famously receptive dance market, it’s key to the Rio plan. But for all his success in the club space, to think Riovaz will forever remain strictly a dance artist would be a mistake. Lowkey, he’s an increasingly avid fan of punk and hardcore, and don’t be surprised if there are more pivots to come.
His most experimental track ever ends Disturb The Norm. In less than two minutes, “Grown Hatred For You” goes from screamo, Linkin Park-esque rock aimed an ex-friend to a spoken word section about someone with an acute sensitivity to noise (performed by his brother) to a brief, orchestral coda. That bold little track just might preview what’s to come. “I wanted it to feel like a finale, but not like the end of anything. Just like the end of the beginning, because that’s also a hint of what my album’s gonna sound like.”
Despite that tease, Rio insists he’s not thinking too much about his debut album just yet, only that, “I know how it’s gonna feel. It’s gonna be more like, hard-hitting, rock sh-t, but with strings and stuff. It’s gonna be really different from Disturb The Norm, and it’s gonna be incredible.” So, get ready for Riovaz, rocker? Maybe. Because for Rio, disturbing the norm is more than an EP title — it’s an ethos.
Movement has revealed the complete lineup for its 2023 fest.
Basement Jaxx has been added as the three-day events third headliner, joining Charlotte de Witte and Underworld. Also joining the lineup is Skrillex, Bonobo (who’ll play a DJ set rather than a live show), Zeds Dead playing as their new Altered States project, Adam Port of Keinemusik, a reunion set from Detroit legend Cybotron, Kaskade doing one of his underground Redux sets, hip-hop stars Three 6 Mafia, techno queen Ida Engberg, Jersey Club star Uniiqu3, and techno pioneer Ricardo Villalobos.
Altogether nearly 150 artists will play across the event.
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With Detroit of course the hometown of techno itself, Movement 2023 will return to its longstanding base in the city’s Hart Plaza from May 27-29. Tickets are currently on sale.
Movement is produced by Detroit-based Paxahau, which launched in 1998 as an underground party promoter. The dance-focused company has produced Movement for the past 17 years, helping it gain global renown as one of the world’s premiere techno festivals.
“It was truly joyful to be back in the city for the many of us who fell in love with Detroit through Movement and its music,” Billboard contributor Ana Monroy Yglesias said of the festival last year. “The event also marked a triumphant family reunion for the techno all-stars and superfans who call Detroit home. Altogether, it was a stellar three days of techno, house, hip-hop, love, connection, positive vibes and dancing, and a much-needed respite from the pain of current events.”
See the complete 2023 Movement lineup below.
Courtesy Photo
The process of collecting public performance royalties from DJ sets has long been a tricky one in the United States, with uneven data collection processes often obscuring what songs are played at dance festivals. That makes it difficult for artists with the rights to the music to get paid what they’re due.
But one music market with a firm grasp on the performance royalties collection and distribution process as it relates to the dance world is The Netherlands, where electronic music is deeply woven into the country’s social fabric.
Buma/Stemra, one of the world’s most progressive collective management organizations (CMOs) for electronic music producers, operates within a live music market that generated 34 million euros ($36 million) in public performance royalties in 2022. Of this revenue, 7.2 million euros ($7.6 million) came from dance festivals, with roughly 1 million euros ($1.1 million) from clubs, making dance music comprises a quarter of the Netherlands’ total performance royalties
Since dance music incorporates so much different music from different artists in a set, that leaves a lot of rights holders to be identified. For this, Buma/Stemra uses audio fingerprinting technology that monitors and identifies songs played during sets.
“In the Netherlands, we have such a wide range of successful DJs with worldwide success,” says Juliette Tetteroo, accounts manager of dance events at Buma/Stemra. “As Buma/Stemra, that’s also why we find it really important to be at the front of developments like fingerprinting technology.”
For its fingerprinting, Buma/Stemra primarily uses Amsterdam-based DJ Monitor, an electronic music monitoring technology. DJ Monitor functions much like Apple-owned audio-recognition mobile app Shazam, identifying tracks within its library — a database of roughly 100 million songs submitted to DJ Monitor by global performance rights organizations (PROs) — and creating set lists for any given set with 93% accuracy, the company reports. (Billboard‘s recently published lists of the top 50 tracks and the top 50 artists played at Dutch dance festivals in 2022 was made with data collected by DJ Monitor.)
DJ Monitor is one of a number of music recognition technologies, including Pioneer’s KUVO, that can make the monitoring and reporting of DJ sets easier and more accurate. Buma/Stemra says that DJ Monitor has the highest identifying rates of all audio fingerprinting technology.
DJ Monitor is currently employed by CMOs in France, Germany, Finland, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. and The Netherlands, where it fingerprints 70% of all festivals. (Another fingerprinting company, Soundware, is also used by some Dutch events.)
Buma/Stemra’s work collecting performance royalties from a given event begins well before any tracks are even played. The CMO begins by determining licensing fees for any given event; for festivals with revenue lower than 110,000 euros ($116,000), the festival organizer pays the standard 7% licensing rate for events. This percentage is based on the assumption that more than two-thirds of songs played during the course of a given event are in Buma/Stemra’s repertoire. (If the event organizer provides a setlist showing that less than two-thirds of the music played was Buma/Stemra repertoire, the licensing fee drops to between 3% and 5%.)
For festivals with revenue higher than 110,000 euros, the event organizer provides Buma/Stemra with audio from the events to be fingerprinted. The festival can submit the audio manually, or upload it to the Buma/Stemra server, where it is then fingerprinted by DJ Monitor. The festival can also let DJ Monitor monitor audio during live performances, in which case DJ Monitor tech is implemented at every stage at the festival.
For bigger events, Buma/Stemra pays for fingerprinting costs, as, they say, it serves their goal of paying royalties on every song played at a given event.
“Our goal is to work towards one-on-one collection and distribution,” says Tetteroo. “It is all about the quality of what we do. [Paying for fingerprinting costs] also helps in encouraging organizers to pay, because they know that the money they pay goes to the composers and their publishers of the songs that have been paid. This is why we happily invest in technology that points in this direction.”
Buma/Stemra receives hundreds of songs from any given festival, given that most events host multiple stages and often run for three days. DJ Monitor typically identifies between 80% to 90% of this music (more than 80% if monitoring electronic music; 90% if monitoring open format/pop music) and sends formatted lists of the data to Buma/Stemra. Buma/Stemra imports this data, 60% to 70% of which is typically imported automatically — given that roughly that amount of music from any given event is recognized as something already in the Buma/Stemra database.
The percentage that’s not automatically recognized goes to an outsourced supplier in India that works to manually identify it. Money collected from a festival is then divided and paid out based on a system that assigns points to songs.
Given that a certain percentage of songs aren’t recognized, hundreds of hours of unclaimed music aggregates over the year because, says Buma/Stemra’s music processing manager Rob van den Reek, “we have a real lot of festivals here in the Netherlands.”
Buma/Stemra publishes this unclaimed music on their website, where artists can find and claim their songs. Artists are able to make a claim for up to three years after the song is posted online. If no one has claimed it after three years, the money owed to all unclaimed music is divided between rightsholders included in what’s called a “reference repertoire” — or a Buma/Stemra-compiled sample of common songs played at festivals. Introduced four years ago, this claiming system adds another layer of transparency — and more opportunity for creators to get the money they’re owed.
“Transparency is one of the benefits that stands out the most from the way we work,” says Buma/Stemra marketing manager Annabel Heijen. “That’s where we’ve made the most progress.”
There is one fault with the Buma/Stemra system that’s in the process of being addressed. Currently Buma/Stemra pays out based on the length of a full song that’s registered — not how much of it was actually played in a DJ set. If a song was registered at a length of three minutes, but only played for two minutes, Buma/Stemra pays based on that full, original timestamp. Buma/Stemra is currently building a new system that will pay out against the real timestamp identified during DJ sets that the organization expects to release by the end of 2023 or early 2024.
With The Netherlands hosting more than 200 electronic music festivals every year, it’s reasonable to figure that music by thousands and thousands of artists is played during the Dutch dance festival season.
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But in 2022, 50 artists were played more than all the others, with the list below representing the most-played acts at Dutch dance fests last year. This list was compiled based on plays and performances from 211 events from February to November, across roughly 800 stages at events throughout the Netherlands. Data was collected by DJ Monitor, a global leader in electronic music monitoring with exclusive access to performance data from festivals, clubs, venues and online streams. DJ Monitor identifies music for Collective Management Organizations, rights users, and technology companies worldwide.
Topping the list is afrobeats star Burna Boy, who’s followed by Colombian phenom J Balvin and UK hardstyle producer Act of Rage. Puerto Rico’s eternal favorite Daddy Yankee follows in fourth, with Dutch hip-hop outfit Broederliefde rounding out the top five. The rest of the list spans techno, hardstyle, disco, dubstep and more.
These were the top 50 artists compiled from the data, with tracks with the same list number indicating a tie.
1. Burna Boy
2. J Balvin
3. Act of Rage
4. Daddy Yankee
5. Broederliefde
6. D-Block & S-te-Fan
7. Bizzey
8. Warface
9. Rihanna
10. Frenna
11. Beyoncé
12. Sean Paul
13. Angerfist
14. Rema
15. DSturb
16. Drake
17. Rebelion
18. Dopebwoy
19. Sickmode
20. Rejecta
21. Bad Bunny
22. Chris Brown
23. Ran-D
24. Farruko
25. Tha Playah
26. WizKid
27. Rooler
28. Sub Zero Project
29. DJ Snake
30. Skrillex
30. SFB
32. Usher
32. Kris Kross Amsterdam
32. Radical Redemption
35. Afro Bros
36. Ronnie Flex
36. Vertile
38. Da Tweekaz
39. Headhunterz
40. Jonna Fraser
40. Dr. Peacock
42. Frequencerz
43. Deadly Guns
44. Tekno
45. ABBA
46. CHO
47. Charly Black
47. Don Omar
47. David Guetta
50. Armin van Buuren
This week in dance music: we were at Madison Square Garden for the much-hyped (and rightly so) show from Skrillex, Four Tet and Fred Again.., we ranked all the songs on Madonna’s clubbiest album Ray Of Light, Daft Punk announced an extended edition of their 2013 classic Random Access Memories, six Rihanna songs entered Hot Dance/Electronic Songs following her Super Bowl halftime show performance and we spoke with Channel Tres about kicking his addictions and entering a new phase of life and artistry.
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That’s a lot, but there is, in fact, more. Let’s dig in.
The Blessed Madonna feat. The Joy, “Shades of Love”
Following previous singles “Serotonin Moonbeam” and “We Still Believe,” The Blessed Madonna is back with another dopamine delivery in the form of her newest song, “Shades of Love.” Another homage to the roots of club culture, “Shades” is an instant transport to house heaven with its ringing bells, rolling piano-key melodies and synth lines fizzing with zest for life. At its center, South African group The Joy bring gorgeous harmonies and lyrics of encouragement: “Like the sun through the rainbow/ In the light/ You can glow/ Never forget that.”
“‘Shades of Love’ is about the one thing that we all truly share in common as humans. We need to be loved,” writes The Blessed Madonna. “That might be a different kind of love for every person but it’s still love and it’s what ties us together.” — KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ
Everything But the Girl, “Caution to the Wind”
The much-anticipated comeback from the U.K. duo gets steamier with “Caution to the Wind,” a contemplative slow burn come hither. The track is the second single from the duo’s Fuse, coming April 21. “Lyrically, ‘Caution To The Wind’ is a simple song about arrival and seizing the moment,” says EBTG’s Tracey Thorn, “so with the music we tried to capture the feeling of a perpetual point in time.”
“I let the words quickly collapse and loop inside the production,” continues the group’s Ben Watt. “The drums emerge and repeat, and everything then starts to unfold in cycles of anticipation and release. I guess it’s just classic nightclub tension and euphoria.” — KATIE BAIN
Barry Can’t Swim, “Sunsleeper”
For nearly a year, Barry Can’t Swim has soundtracked some of our tenderest and most introspective moments with his music, a delicate blend of textures and softened rhythms, found in songs such as “Like the Old Days” and “Sonder.” But now it’s time to get back to dancing.
To start his 2023, the London-based producer has released a new single, “Sunsleeper,” which marks his debut on Ninja Tune. (Previously, he appeared on their Technicolour imprint.) Barry channels the power of the titular star to create a song that’s positively beaming in its dazzling percussion, euphoric vocals and gilded piano riffs, while still maintaining his key tenderness and intricacy. “Sunsleeper” is fun, fresh and balmy — festival season will surely come calling its name.
“It’s been a while since I’ve written a tune like this, pure party energy,” says Barry. “Stylistically it’s like the cousin of [my track] ‘Blackpool Boulevard,’ but with a Spanish vocal sample layered over it to bring even more warmth and energy. I wanted this to be the first release of the year — it’s all the core emotions of my sound, but bigger. And that’s what this year is about.”
Indeed, this year is already shaping up quite nicely for Barry. He heads stateside next month for a short tour, with dates in Austin, San Francisco, L.A. and Florida’s Okeechobee festival. — K.R.
Ric Wilson, Chromeo & A-Trak, “Pay It No Mind”
Nothing says “hell yes, it’s Friday” like some feel-good funk, and this new Ric Wilson, Chromeo and A-Trak collaboration “Pay It No Mind” is the feel-goodin’est tune this side of disco paradise.
“Pay It No Mind” sees the Chicago rapper drip carefree honey-dipped bars over a golden-sunset groove by world-renown DJ-producer A-Trak and his brother Dave-1’s band. That super cool robot voice singing on the hook? That’s Dave-1’s partner P-Thugg giving this tune the ultimate Chromeo treatment. What’s even sweeter? It sounds like there’s a whole album coming soon, based on what A-Trak said in this Instagram caption.
“In the summer of 2020 during lockdown, I got connected to @ricwilsonisme (s/o @rrstampede),” A-Trak writes. “Loved his music right away, and loved that he was rapping over funk tracks while also talking about serious subject matters like social justice and activism. Come to find out he’s an actual organizer based in Chicago. I remember thinking about how the architects of funk music (James Brown, P-Funk, Sly etc) were also making political music. This felt super pertinent to what was going on in the world too. I played his music to @dave1 and he said ‘let’s do a project with him!’ So Ric came over to @chromeo’s Private Sector studio (remember doing covid tests before studio sessions?) and we got to work with @peethugg. We continued to link up and eventually we had a full project on our hands. CLUSTERFUNK is really Ric’s vision; @chromeo and I just tried to tailor a soundscape for him to do what he does and show how unique he is.” – KAT BEIN
MK & Dom Dolla, “Rhyme Dust”
After going hella viral on Tiktok, MK and Dom Dolla’s deliciously groovy “Rhyme Dust” is officially out via MK’s own Area10 Records. Based on a steady, heavy beat and a synth wave that sounds a lot like the Twin Peaks theme, the track is a slice of undeniable tech house with a backstory as big as its kick. “We used to post stuff online to see if people liked it, and then if people like it you wrap it up, you finish it and you release it,” Dom Dolla recently told Dancing Astronaut. “We posted [this one] on TikTok to see what the vibe was…the internet ran away with it…but all the sudden the amount of hype and demand for the record to be release immediately was very intense.”
It was, however, Christmas time, so labels were closed and the guys were on tour. After waiting until the biz came back online, the guys each retooled their release schedules, got the sample (from Q-Tip’s 1999 “Breathe & Stop”) cleared, then rush delivered this rightfully very in demand heater. Thank you, internet. — K. Bain
Jayda G, “Circle Back Around”
Mark Twain famously said “write what you know,” and the same artistic approach applies for music. When a producer or musician opens their heart to their audience, deeply-personal stories resonate with the whole world. Jayda G’s “Circle Back Around” from her forthcoming LP, Guy, is a beautiful example of that technique made brilliant. The music video opens with a clip of her father, William Richard Guy, who passed when she was only 10 years old, speaking into a camera about his experience running from the cops as a young man. That story then becomes the foundation for G’s poetic lyrics and the movements of a dancer on screen.
The story continues to evolve, as we see her father return once again, explaining how he was diagnosed with a fatal disease and now films himself speaking to his family in order to cherish and preserve his life for decades to come. Now, that story becomes something we can all learn from, dance to and celebrate.
“I wanted the album to be a blend of storytelling, about the African American experience, death, grief and understanding,” G says. “It’s about my dad and his story, and naturally in part my story, too, but it’s also about so many people who wanted more for themselves and went on a search to find that. This album is just so much for people who have been oppressed and who have not had easy lives.” Guy is due out on Ninja Tune June 9th. We’re hooked already. – K. Bein
Electronic music is in the DNA of Dutch culture. The country has not only bred countless globally renowned DJs and producers, but, naturally, the Dutch music scene is also rich with festivals focused on the genre, including Awakenings, Decibel, DGTK, Dekmantel, ITW, Milkshake, Shelter and many more. These shows host tens of thousands of fans throughout the season and feature techno, house, EDM, hardstyle and other sounds spanning the electronic genre.
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Now, we know the top tracks played at these Dutch festivals in 2022. This list was compiled based on plays and performances from 211 events from February to November, across roughly 800 stages at events throughout the Netherlands. Data was collected by DJ Monitor, a global leader in electronic music monitoring with exclusive access to performance data from festivals, clubs, venues and online streams. DJ Monitor identifies music for Collective Management Organizations, rights users, and technology companies worldwide.
The top track of the year was Farruko‘s unstoppable “Pepas,” followed by “Soundgasm,” the 2022 Afrobeats hit from Nigerian artist Rema. Third in line was J. Balvin and Skrillex‘s ever-hyphy “In Da Ghetto,” followed by the similarly amped “Schudden” from Dutch rapper Def Rhymz. Closing out the top five is the 1997 Eurodance classic “Freed From Desire” by Gala.
These were the top 50 tracks compiled from the data, with tracks with the same list number indicating a tie.
1. Farruko, “Pepas” 2. Rema, “Soundgasm”3. J Balvin & Skrillex, “In Da Getto”4. Def Rhymz, “Schudden”5. Gala, “Freed From Desire”6. Acraze feat. Cherish, “Do It To It”7. La Fuente, “I Want You”8. Kevin Lyttle feat. Spragga Benz, “Turn Me On” 8. Burna Boy, “On the Low10. Bizzey feat. Jozo & Kraantje Pappie, “Traag”11. Sean Paul, “Temperature”12. FMG, “Boot”13. Wiley X Sean Paul x Stefflon Don feat. Idris Elba, “Boasty” 14. Blaiz Fayah & Tribal Kush, “Bad” 14. Tekno “Go” 14. Daddy Yankee, “Gasolina” 17. James Hype & Miggy Dela Rosa, “Ferrari”18. Charly Black, “Gyal You A Party Animal”19. J Balvin & Willy William feat. Beyonce, “Mi Gente”20. Masters At Work feat. Puppah Nas-T & Denise, “Work” 21. Ronnie Flex feat. Frenna, “Energie” 21. Gregor Salto, “Para Voce”23. K-Liber & Dr. Rude, “Viben”24. Eurythmics, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”24. Burna Boy, “Kilometre” 24. Poke, “Lekker He” 24. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton, “Can’t Hold Us” 28. Aya Nakamura feat. Maluma, “Djadja” 29. Adje, “Hele Meneer”30. Usher feat. Lil Jon & Ludacris, “Yeah!”30. Trobi, Ronnie Flex, Chivv & ADF Samski, “Okee Shordy 32. J Balvin, Bad Bunny & Mr Eazi, “Como Un Bebe”32. Kris Kross Amsterdam, Antoon & Sigourney K, “Vluchtstrook”34. Soca Boys, “Follow the Leader” 34. MC Fioti, Future, J Balvin, Stefflon Don & Juan Magan, “Bum Bum Tam Tam”34. Lojay x Sarz x Chris Brown, “Monalisa [Mixed]” 37. ABBA, “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”37. Mart Hoogkamer, “Ik Ga Zwemmen” 39. Beyonce feat. Jay-Z, “Crazy In Love” 39. CKay, “Love Nwantiti (Acoustic Version)”39. ValsBezig, “BUK” 42. Bruno Mars, “24K Magic” 42. Tota Lopi, “Catxor Ta Micha so Ku 1 Pe” 44. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, “Low”44. Panjabi MC, “Mundian To Bach Ke” 46. Shouse, “Love Tonight”46. Idaly & Emms, “Amazin’”46. Avicii, “Levels”49. CKay, “Emiliana”50. Bellini, “Samba De Janeiro” 50. El Alfa x CJ x Chael Produciendo feat. El Cherry Scom, “La Mamá de la Mamá” 50. J Capri x Charly Black, “Whine & Kotch”
Rihanna runs onto Billboard‘s multimetric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart (dated Feb. 25) with eight songs, including six in the top 10, following her Super Bowl halftime show extravaganza on Feb. 12.
“We Found Love,” featuring Calvin Harris (No. 3), and “Only Girl (In the World)” (No. 4), both performed at the show, lead the way on the chart. “Love,” from 2011, earned 8.1 million official U.S. streams, up 236%, while “Girl,” from 2010, tallied 6.8 million, up 212%, respectively, in the Feb. 10-16 tracking week, according to Luminate.
Concurrently on the Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs chart (which started in 2013), “Love” leaps 24-3 and “Girl” debuts at No. 4. Five of Rihanna’s seven career top 10s on the chart are new this week.
“Love” also sold 5,900 downloads, up 1,035%, while “Girl” moved 5,600, up 977%. Those figures are also good for vaults on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart, with the former up 17-2 and the latter, 18-3. Rihanna has now totaled nine career top 10s on the tally (which began in 2010), with “Girl” and two others notched since the Super Bowl: “Don’t Stop the Music” (re-entry at No. 5; 3,000, up 651%) and “S&M” (24-9; 2,400, up 398%).
Returning to the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart (which began in 2013), the other new Rihanna top 10s are “Don’t Stop the Music” (No. 7), “Where Have You Been” (No. 8), “S&M” (No. 9) and “Disturbia” (No. 10).
The six songs by a single act in the top 10 are the most since July 2, 2022, when eight tracks from Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind debuted, including his first No. 1, “Falling Back.”
Additionally, Calvin Harris’ “This Is What You Came For,” featuring Rihanna, which spent three weeks at No. 1 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in 2016 (one of Harris’ four toppers and Rihanna’s sole leader), restarts at No. 11. Rihanna’s “SOS” rounds out the list of her appearances in its initial showing (No. 14). All mark Rihanna’s first visits to the survey since April 22, 2017, the last week that “This Is…” was on the chart.
Rihanna boasts nine career Hot Dance/Electronic Songs top 10s, also including “Right Now,” featuring David Guetta (No. 5, 2013).
As previously reported, Rihanna claims her first week at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100, with five albums in the top 50 of the Billboard 200, sparked by her best streaming week ever.
Other Super Bowl halftime show performers have tackled Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in recent years, including Jennifer Lopez with “On the Floor,” featuring Pitbull (No. 4, Feb. 15, 2020), after her headlining set with Shakira at Super Bowl LIV. Before that, Lady Gaga landed two top 10s (“Bad Romance,” No. 6, and “Poker Face,” No. 8, on Feb. 25, 2017) among six chart hits after headlining the Super Bowl LI halftime show.
Winning weekend: Jason Derulo and David Guetta’s “Saturday / Sunday” enters Hot Dance/Electronic Songs at No. 18. The fourth charted title for Derulo (and second with Guetta, after their “Goodbye,” featuring Nicki Minaj and Willy William; No. 9, 2018) is the record-extending 74th for Guetta. (Kygo is next with 61.)
Madonna’s ‘Sorry’ returns: Also noteworthy on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs is a debut from Blond:ish, Eran Hersh, Darmon and Madonna, “Sorry” (No. 39). The new remix of Madonna’s “Sorry” brings the initial appearance each for the first three credited acts and the sixth for Madonna. She last charted with another freshly remixed version of an older hit, 1998’s “Frozen,” with Sickick (No. 10, April 2022).
The original “Sorry” spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart in 2006, Madonna’s second-longest-leading No. 1 among her seven leaders; only previous Confessions on a Dance Floor single “Hung Up” clocked more time on top, eight weeks in 2005.
Englund celebrates ‘like Christmas morning’: Shifting to the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, Anabel Englund achieves her third leader with “Need Me Right” (3-1). Englund also led with “Picture Us” (October 2020) and “Underwater” (April 2021). Dating to Englund’s first top 10 ink in May 2020, with the No. 2-peaking “So Hot,” she is tied with David Guetta and Joel Corry for the most top 10s among all acts, with eight each.
“Getting a Billboard No. 1 feels like opening my eyes on Christmas morning,” Englund tells Billboard. “I’m so grateful for all of the success ‘Need Me Right’ has been having. Writing this song was fun and felt effortless working with two people, James Hurr and Paul Harris [of Dirty Vegas], that I love.”
“Need” is drawing core-dance airplay on SiriusXM’s BPM, Music Choice’s Dance/EDM channel and WCPY (Dance Factory FM) Chicago, among others. (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.)
Also on Dance/Mix Show Airplay, BONNIE X CLYDE collects its second top 10 and FOMO experiences its first with “Need Ya” (12-9).
Daft Punk‘s critically acclaimed album Random Access Memories is getting a 2023 re-release in honor of the project’s 10-year anniversary, the duo announced via Twitter on Wednesday (Feb. 22).
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The new edition of Random Access Memories — which won the Grammy for album of the year in 2014 — will include 35 minutes of additional material across nine tracks, including unreleased demos and studio outtakes. Fans will have their choice of two different formats for the project: a double CD or a vinyl set with three LPs. The CD set will include a 20-page digital booklet, while the vinyl set will include a special Lose Yourself to Dance poster and 16-page booklet. For the first time ever, an Atmos mix of the original album will be made available on streaming.
Tracks on the album include the singles “Get Lucky” (Grammy winner for record of the year in 2014) and “Lose Yourself to Dance,” both featuring Pharrell Williams, as well as “Instant Crush” with Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, “Doin’ It Right” and “Give Life Back to Music.”
Released in May 2013, Random Access Memories spent a total of 54 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, including two weeks in the No. 1 spot. Lead single “Get Lucky” spent five weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The 10th-anniversary edition of Random Access Memories is available to pre-order now; the LP will begin to ship on May 12. See Daft Punk’s announcement and the album’s official track list below.
Random Access Memories 10th-anniversary track list
“Give Life Back to Music”“The Game of Love”“Giorgio by Moroder”“Within”“Instant Crush”“Lose Yourself to Dance”“Touch”“Get Lucky”“Beyond’”“Motherboard”“Fragments of Time”“Doin’ It right”“Contact”“Horizon” (Japan CD)“GLBTM”(Studio Outtakes)“Infinity Repeating” (2013 Demo)“GL” (Early Take)“Prime” (2012 Unfinished)“LYTD” (Vocoder Tests)“The Writing of Fragments of Time”“Touch” (2021 Epilogue)
It seems hard to imagine now, what with all the provocative TikToks, trap remixes and tour announcements in which she asks Amy Schumer how she licks a certain part of her husband’s anatomy. But there was a time back in the mid-1990s when Madonna appeared to be settling into adult contemporary respectability.
There was Something to Remember, the 1995 compilation that rounded up her ballads. A year later came Evita, the big-screen adaptation of a Broadway musical that saw her belt out Andrew Lloyd Webber-composed classics like “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” (and nabbed her a Golden Globe). Not to mention her mid-‘90s smash “Take a Bow” — a demure, lush love song co-written by Babyface that topped the Adult Contemporary chart and became her longest-running Hot 100 No. 1 ever.
Of course, they don’t call Madge the Master of Reinvention for nothing. Exquisitely co-produced by then-relatively unknown ambient maestro William Orbit, her seventh studio album, Ray of Light, proved to be her most forward-thinking, a vibrant amalgamation of trip-hop, trance, techno and countless other electronic genres that don’t necessarily begin with the letter ‘T.’
Heavily informed by the birth of her daughter Lourdes and her newfound interest in all things spiritual, Ray of Light undeniably restored Madonna’s reputation as the Queen of Pop. Not only did it notch the highest first-week sales by a female artist in the Nielsen SoundScan Era up until that point, but it spawned four Hot 100 hits, won four Grammy Awards and has sold 3.9 million copies in the U.S., per Luminate. It’s also generated 123.1 million on-demand official U.S. streams to date, according to Luminate.
In celebration of its 25th anniversary (Feb. 22), here’s a ranking of the career-defining record which proved that she could still very much dance.
“I can’t believe we threw a rave at Madison Square Garden,” Skrillex announced at the mid-way point of his marathon set at the venue Saturday night (Feb. 18.) in New York City.
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Indeed, gazing around around the packed arena — where hanging Knicks jerseys were lit with the flickery glow of the six disco balls spinning for the show — the vibe was vastly more Boiler Room than big room, with loads of fans in sunglasses, fuzzy hats, bunny ears and other ravey paraphernalia altogether giving the arena a loose, festive, familial feel that ramped up in tandem with the music during the five-hour headlining show from Skrillex, Four Tet and Fred again…
Indeed, after a long absence, dance music was back at the Garden for a night that felt ecstatic, historic and rare. Throughout the evening both Skrillex and Fred again.. noted that playing MSG had been Four Tet’s idea, and what a stroke of genius it was, with the show selling out two — yes, two — minutes after going on sale the Wednesday (Feb. 15) prior, after having been announced just earlier that day.
The trio — key figureheads from different generations of dance music who’ve been referring to each other as “brothers” in their recent Instagram posts — played b2b2b from 7p.m. until the house lights came back on at midnight. It was altogether the climax of a week-long commandeering of New York City, with the guys playing small room pop-up shows in Brooklyn and Manhattan on Tuesday and Thursday and on Friday (Feb. 17) pulling a crowd of thousands to Times Square to celebrate that day’s release of Skrillex’s sophomore album, Quest For Fire.
This masterclass of album rollout hype-building began in January with a litany of new Skrillex singles, with the impeccably orchestrated effort reaching a place beyond frenzy last night when, around 10:30 p.m., Skrillex got on the mic to announce “I dropped an album last night, and I dropped another one right now.”
Indeed, the 20,000-person celebration for Quest For Fire incorporated the surprise release of Don’t Get Too Close, the second Skrillex album in 24 hours and his third in nine years, with the pair of LPs coming after the long stretch following the producer’s 2014 debut, Recess. “Surpriiiiise!” Skrillex said upon announcing this second album, which features Justin Bieber, Pink PinkPantheress and Bibi Bourelly among others, and which Skrillex described as “not really as much rave music as something you guys can listen to on the way home.”
This was just one of many high points of the extended affair, with Fred — wearing a black T-shirt and saggy khakis — getting on the mic at 8:15 p.m. to advise a crowd steadily filling out the venue from the pit to the rafters that, “We’ve got four more hours. We’re going to build this thing slow.”
Indeed, the show started with the house lights on, with the scene and sound, as promised, growing darker, louder and more intense (think lots of lasers, the aforementioned disco balls and, inevatibly, a burst of white confetti) as they together played the breadth of Skrillex catalog, from classic collabs like “Where Are Ü Now” with Jack Ü and Bieber and “In Da Ghetto” with J. Balvin, to long stretches of straight-up body pummeling dubstep including the all-time Skrillex classic “Bangarang” (special shout out to everyone in Section 106, rows 1-5, who all headbanged in tandem), along with every track from Quest For Fire, a deeply texturous, sophisticated, heavy, smart, danceable and often euphoric album that’s not only been extremely well received in the 60 hours since its release, but which sounds even better through stadium speakers.
Quest For Fire‘s Lead single “Rumble” — which based on the crowd reaction can be filed as a new classic less than two months after its release — was rinsed at least four times, with plays later in the night trading the “killers in the jungle” lyrics for “Skrillex in the jungle, Fred again.. in the jungle, Four Tet is in the jungle.” The words became a sort of mantra for the show itself and the three artists at its center, who powered the sweaty, loud, often raucous party from a simple set-up located on a slightly raised platform on the floor of the Garden. While MSG famously became an EDM prestige play during the genre boom 10 years ago, Saturday night the vibe was much more pared down from the massive stage setups of old, reflecting the maturation of the U.S. scene itself.
Added to this friend group was Porter Robinson, who came out to play his ecstatic Quest For Fire closer “Still Here (with the ones that I came with)” a sentiment that felt especially special and true given the duration of Robinson and Skrillex’s friendship. (“I love you,” Robinson told Skrillex over the mic, the only thing he said during his appearance.) Everything else from Quest For Fire — particularly “Tears,” “Hydrate and “Inhale Exhale” — sounded tough, rich, massive and the right kind of aggressive. It was especially thrilling when Skrill stretched out the Missy Elliott featuring “RATATA” — winding the crowd up by stop-starting five or so times until letting it play out, to ecstatic effect.
“This is a very special night,” Skrillex announced amidst this long tease. “This night will never happen again.”
But while Skrillex was the reason for the season, it was also very much Fred Again.. and Four Tet’s show. Each of the U.K. producers played their own biggest songs, including Fred’s “Kammy (like i do),” “Strong” and “Jungle” — the latter of which came near the end of the set and created such intense energy rush throughout the crowd that a lot of people were simply just screaming with their hands in the air. Four Tet, dressed first in a pink hoodie and then a pink T-shirt, was playful as always, remixing Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” over percussion-heavy IDM while dropping loads of riddim and U.K. bass, along with his most recent hit “Looking at Your Pager” and his edit slow-build edit of Donna Lewis’ “I Love You Always Forever,” which deserves an official release and which saw many in the crowd FaceTiming those who couldn’t be there, with those joining via screen seen dancing in their respective kitchens and living rooms.
It was, as intended, a special night, with the factors leading to show creating a singular energy that everyone in the room could feel — and that Fred, Four Tet and Skrillex seemed acutely aware of throughout the evening.
“A couple of days ago, we were in the Empire State Building just hanging out, and I had to go downstairs to make a phone call,” Skrillex announced at one point. “I knew we had just put the tickets on sale for this show. I thought maybe the day of, maybe we’ll almost sell out — you know, maybe. But then Kieran comes downstairs and he’s like, ‘It’s done. It’s done mate.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean it’s done?’ He’s like, ‘It’s done, all the tickets are done.’ I almost fainted, all the blood rushed out of my face.”
Whether or not this supergroup will continue beyond Saturday night remains to be seen, but the show demonstrated how much cross-collaboration they’ve done over a relatively short time, with Four Tet on Quest For Fire‘s “Butterflies,” Four Tet working on Fred’s “Jungle,” Fred working on “Rumble,” etc. What’s certain is that the NYC takeover and the music that’s powered it has, if only ephemeral, been a meeting of the masters, with Saturday night pulling a Venn diagram of the fans who love them. Many younger fans knew more Fred than Four Tet songs, with others in the crowd dancing more heavily to Four Tet’s output and pretty much everyone in attendance going hard for Skrillex, who 12 years after exploding into the scene, remains one of its best and most beloved artists.
“I want to thank everyone here so much for just being here,” Skrill continued in his speech. “It’s simple, it’s not that deep, we’re just here dancing together. I really like this crowd, everyone here looks really respectful. Everyone’s got room to dance, everyone’s taking care of each other; everyone’s allowing each other to be themselves. We’re all family out here. There’s enough s–t going on in the world. We can have this moment right now and just love each other and appreciate the differences in each other and love each other for the different parts. Fred, Kieran and I are all from different backgrounds, but somehow we made it on the stage at MSG with all you people, and, I don’t know — that’s it.”
Skrillex — who started the night in a black puffer jacket and who by the end was wearing a Skrillex jersey given to him by someone in the crowd along with a towel on his head — then spent the next several minutes just standing on the decks, soaking up the the energy of the arena as thousands of fans held their phone flashlights in the air and cheered for him. One felt truly happy for the guy, who — after previously addressing that he’s had a tough year following the death of his mother– has returned in rare form with an excellent album (two, actually) a sold-out show at one of the world’s prestige venues and backing from a pair of good pals who also just happen to be fellow scene heroes.
Perhaps Skrillex could have done it all on his own, but certainly it felt better and more special to celebrate alongside friends. That same energy extended into the the crowd, where people who’d been strangers at the beginning of the night were seen hugging each other goodbye, grateful to have shared the experience.
The set fittingly wrapped with a mashup of Skrillex’s 2011 “Cinema” remix, Four Tet’s “Teenage Birdsong” and Fred’s “Danielle (smile on my face)” then a Skrillex-led singalong of Fred’s “Billie (loving arms.)” Fred, who spent a good deal of the show dancing on the decks, then got on the mic once more, closing the night with incredulous gratitude.
“Thank you so much for coming out tonight,” he said. “I swear, it is the honor of our lives, thank you so much. We will never forget this. What is going on?”