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Grammy award-nominated singer-songwriter Tayla Parx has always been country. Hailing from Dallas, the 30-year-old multihyphenate became just the fourth Black woman in history to write a Country Airplay No. 1 with Dan + Shay’s “Glad You Exist” (2021), and a few months ago, Parx moved to Nashville.
There, she has been developing a sustainable ranch while prepping her forthcoming third album, Many Moons, Many Suns (out on her TaylaMade Records), which explores the unexpected end of her engagement and combines country, rock, house, soul and contemporary pop. “I’m buying goats, sheep and cows,” she says of her new home. “I’m already excited about the songs that I’ll create just being here.”
Below, Parx previews her new album and reflects on queer pop stardom.
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What’s the first thing you did when you woke up today?
The first thing I did when I woke up today was load a tractor. I got a tractor to live in and my friend just dropped it off. I’ve been working on my little ranch.
What drew you to Nashville?
I started to come down here last year, but maybe three or four months ago, I officially was [here] full time. I’m still in Los Angeles once or twice a week, but this is my home.
What was a key moment on the journey to your new album?
Being able to take four years, I finally was like, “I feel new again.” [We] go through these feelings of breaking down and building up and breaking down your new version of yourself … I’m in that moment now. [That’s] when it’s the right time for me to create, or finish, the album.
Last year you co-wrote on Troye Sivan’s “Got Me Started” and Janelle Monáe’s “Water Slide.” Did you carry any inspiration from those sessions into your own?
We have a problem in the songwriting world where you’ll see a queer artist and they have only straight writers on the project, and that’s a bit weird. Or we see a woman artist and they only have straight men as writers, and that’s also a bit weird. I’m not saying we can’t have that perspective, because I’ve written for a lot of different people and I haven’t experienced their version of life. However, it’s always important to have at least somebody be a part of the project that can see you in a very different way — and maybe that’s because they’re queer. So I’ve been choosing to write with a lot of artists [with whom] I can write from that perspective. I’ve been a lot more selective these days.
“Era” has heavy ballroom energy, as does “10s.” How did examining your relationship affect your influences while recording?
We have that ballroom energy, New Orleans energy, all the things that I’ve experienced in my life that are such a huge part of queer culture. With “10s,” I played a lot with pulling from my community, the different sounds that inspire us and make us move. I really wanted to go to the extreme. A lot of the music that is the most groundbreaking is ballroom. We’ve been forced to be out of the boundary, or seen as that, for so long that it was like, “F–k it. Well, I might as well be the best version of me — and do me to the max.”
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When you were coming up, who were the songwriters that made you feel most seen?
I feel like I’m just now having an opportunity in the past few years to have artists that actually make me feel seen. Around 2015, I was listening to Marika Hackman’s “Boyfriend,” and it’s a queer song and I had never heard something lyrically like [that.] That’s not to say that there [aren’t] any queer artists that have been out there being very forward, I’m just saying what spoke to me. Being born in ‘93 and a teenager in the 2000s, it’s a very different thing.
If you had to pick three essential tracks from the new record, what would they be?
I would say, “Standing Up to the Wind,” “Gentlewoman” and “I Don’t Talk About Texas.”
Beyond the album, what are your plans for the rest of the year?
We are getting back on the road. I’m super excited because it’s been a minute since I’ve been on the road. I went from consistently touring to taking a break and really allowing the music to come. We got some crazy sustainable and biodegradable merch coming, which is really cool. And more behind the scenes of the process — I’m making sure that everything within the TaylaMade world reflects [my] values.
A version of this story originally appeared in the June 22, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Early in May, the New York house music stalwarts at Nervous Records were enjoying two hits in the top 10 on the Beatport chart: A zippy, heavily syncopated reimagining of Kendrick Lamar‘s “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” by Liquid Rose and Trace (UZ), and a thunking version of Diddy and Keyshia Cole’s “Last Night” by Loofy.
In both cases, the older track was outfitted with a fresh vocal and re-tooled for dancefloors, swooping at just under 130 beats per minute. “There’s something special about being able to know all the lyrics and sing along to a brand new song — even though it’s not a brand new song,” says Rida Naser, associate director of music programming for SiriusXM’s BPM and The Pulse.
Many producers have taken note. Ghostbusterz tackled the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Running,” while Armonica, Zamna Soundsystem, and ROZYO took on the dance version of Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness;” both hit the Beatport Top 100. (Beatport, a popular site for DJs and electronic music enthusiasts, ranks songs according to the number of downloads.) Mr. Belt & Wezol’s re-do of Whitney Houston‘s resilient late-’90s classic “It’s Not Right But It’s OK” recently surpassed 65 million streams on Spotify.
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“We’ve been doing loads of these since 2018,” says Kevin McKay, a DJ, producer, and founder of the label Glasgow Underground. “A lot of artists were shying away from it because they felt it was uncool, or that they would be looked down on for it. Now almost all the labels are doing them.” For a time, Joe Wiseman, head of Insomniac Music Group, “was getting sent so many dance covers” that he considered issuing a moratorium on signing them.
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Dance music has a long history of referencing the past, often through club-ready remixes and prominent samples. But while most aspiring rockers cut their teeth in a cover band, “in dance music, that part gets skipped,” McKay says, “and people go straight to writing originals.”
Still, as anyone who’s ever attended a wedding knows, many people need to be coaxed onto the dance floor — often by hearing songs they already recognize. Plenty of club-goers need the same enticement.
Dance covers “evoke a sense of nostalgia, reminding [listeners] of the original hits and the memories associated with them,” says Wez Saunders, managing director of the label Defected Records. And those “reworks often serve as a gateway, drawing attention to the genre and leading listeners to discover new music.”
George Hess, a veteran dance radio promoter, believes the lack of shared experiences during the pandemic — when “new memories were difficult to create since people basically weren’t together enjoying each other’s company” — further heightened listeners’ desire for familiarity.
Around this time, mainstream pop saw a spike in “I know that one!” samples and in-your-face interpolations, offering some potential support for Hess’ theory. And two of the biggest singles to come out of the commercial dance world recently, ACRAZE’s “Do It To It” and David Guetta and Bebe Rexha’s “I’m Good (Blue),” borrowed liberally from old hits by Cherish and Eiffel 65, respectively.
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In a world where anyone with a computer can cobble together a dance track, it’s also possible that producers are increasingly incentivized to make covers as a way to lasso listeners overwhelmed with similar-sounding releases. In 2023, Luminate reported that more than 120,000 tracks hit streaming services daily. The flow of new tunes is more controlled at Beatport; still, between 20,000 and 25,000 fresh tracks hit the platform per week.
Nervous Records works with Louie Vega, “who always uses live musicians” to inject different tones and textures into his tracks, says label co-founder Mike Weiss. “With fewer producers doing that, a lot of them are all using the same plugins,” and covers offer a way to stand out.
McKay believes the covers trend may be more about channeling the knock-out top lines and gleaming hooks of the originals: “We have a dearth of songwriting talent, so when you’re on the dance floor, you get this amazing song from the past and it just blows away a lot of the current content.” Glasgow Underground has done well on the Beatport chart with covers of The S.O.S. Band, Kylie Minogue, ABBA and more.
In addition, the complex dynamics of the music business ensure that sampling or interpolating a song is an arduous process, potentially making covers a more attractive proposition. To clear a sample, a producer needs to obtain permission from the owner(s) of both the original composition and the recording. “Independent artists without representation might struggle to even get a response to their request,” explains Tim Kappel, an entertainment attorney and founder of the firm Wells Kappel. Their request might also be denied, he continues, or be granted only if the artist agrees to pay hefty up-front fees for using the material.
In contrast, artists can typically cover songs in the U.S. without the explicit approval of the original songwriters, under the somewhat vague condition that their “arrangement shall not change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work.” The original writers receive all the songwriting royalties from the resulting cover. “For a dance artist that just wants to consistently release music, the obstacles to clear samples and interpolations might outweigh the desire for the artist to have publishing on the underlying composition” and drive them to produce more covers, says Jodie Shihadeh, founder of Shihadeh Law.
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While dance music remakes have increased, they are not an automatic home run. In Wiseman’s view, the most obvious source material is “never the best” — he’s not looking for a house remake of Britney Spear’s “Toxic,” for example. “You want to get that feeling where someone’s like, ‘I know I heard that song years ago, and I loved it back then, but I don’t quite remember it,’” he continues.
And several label executives also emphasized that covers are just one tool they use to hook audiences. “As a label who’s been around for 33 plus years, [covers] can’t be our sole focus,” says Andrew Salsano, vp of Nervous Records.
Nervous Records is hopeful that one more reimagined classic can light up dancefloors this summer: On July 19th, the label will put out a new version of Cher‘s “Believe” from Super Flu. While the original thrums like an overheated racecar engine, the Super Flu release builds slowly, replacing Cher’s Auto-Tune flourishes with a conversational delivery, trading in triumph for something more ambivalent.
DJs are already testing the Super Flu single in their sets. “I’ve been in clubs when it’s been played,” Weiss says. The dancers’ response?
“Very emotional.”
Tres Generaciones Tequila, a 50 year old brand introduced by the family that elevated tequila to a symbol of Mexican pride, and Billboard are partnering together for a year-long celebration of music’s transformative power to unveil the top songs that have energized, uplifted and excited six select cities, known as the ‘Get Up Anthems.’ These playlists are curated through a mix of editorial insight and data analytics, and honor the songs that define each city’s history and culture.
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In a tucked-away studio in Atlanta’s Westside, the A’s own Killer Mike and London on da Track sat with Billboard editors Damien Scott and Trevor Anderson to pay homage to the city’s musical legacy. As the deliberations unfolded over Tres Generaciones Tequila’s signature serve for the city of fAtlanta: The Batanga, Rocsi Diaz deftly moderated the passionate discussion of the top 10 Get Up Anthems. After sifting through an initial catalog of 30+ hometown hits, a consensus emerged: a tie for the coveted number-one spot. In this revered space, two tracks stand tall as epitomes of the city’s hip-hop prowess: “Player’s Ball” by OutKast and “Rubber Band Man” by T.I. Despite their release in different eras, both songs embody the city’s cultural impact and enduring influence on hip-hop.
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“There are two distinct eras in Atlanta!” emphasized the Grammy-award winning rapper as he adjusted his posture in the seat to defend the need for a tie. He explains that the first era marked Atlanta’s emergence with its own unique sound, distinguishing it from other cities like Miami and the second involved redefining that sound. “T.I.’s ‘Rubber Band Man’ is as equally important as ‘Player’s Ball’ because it defined what Atlanta was going to be for the next 20 years. And you can’t unimportant one of those for the other because they were both drastically informative of what we [Atlanta] were going to become.”
“Player’s Ball” burst onto the scene in 1993 as OutKast’s lead single off their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, marking the duo’s arrival as pioneers of Southern hip-hop and their first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number thirty-seven. Released when East and West Coast acts dominated the genre, the song helped shift the spotlight to the South, showcasing Atlanta’s unique musical identity. Its celebration of the player lifestyle and vivid portrayal of Southern culture resonated with audiences, establishing OutKast as an ambassador of Atlanta’s burgeoning hip-hop scene.
A decade later and “Rubber Band Man” emerges as a rallying cry for T.I., reflecting the grit and resilience of Atlanta’s streets. The track was pivotal in T.I.’s career, serving as a breakthrough single that propelled him to superstardom. Released amidst the burgeoning trap music movement, the song helped solidify T.I. ‘s reputation as a genre pioneer and established him as one of the leading voices in Southern hip-hop. Lyrically, “Rubber Band Man” explores themes of perseverance, hustle, and street authenticity, resonating with listeners who identified with T.I. ‘s come-up story and unapologetic swagger.
Both “Player’s Ball” and “Rubber Band Man” exhibit distinctive production styles that have garnered acclaim within hip-hop’s pantheon. “Player’s Ball,” helmed by Organized Noize, exudes a laid-back, funk-infused cadence that epitomizes the quintessence of Southern hip-hop. Its utilization of live instrumentation and soulful sampling constructs a sonic tapestry imbued with timelessness. Conversely, “Rubber Band Man,” produced by David Banner, introduces a darker, more foreboding palette punctuated by resounding 808s and haunting melodies. The track’s hypnotic cadence and atmospheric production mirror the gritty realities of Atlanta’s streets, providing the perfect backdrop for T.I. ‘s raw lyricism and commanding delivery.
Decades after its release, “Player’s Ball” remains a beloved classic in hip-hop culture. Its influence can be heard in the work of countless artists inspired by OutKast’s innovative approach to music and storytelling. The song’s infectious groove, clever wordplay, and timeless appeal continue to captivate audiences, solidifying its status as a cultural touchstone.
From OutKast’s infectious grooves to T.I.’s gritty lyricism, each song reflects the city’s rich tapestry of sounds, stories, and experiences. Through their distinctive production, compelling lyricism, and cultural resonance, these songs, although separated by decades, embody Atlanta’s spirit.
Watch the full Atlanta discussion HERE and be sure to follow along on all content for the Get Up Anthems series HERE
Somewhere on Gracie Abrams’ camera roll is a video of Taylor Swift in the pop superstar’s kitchen in Tribeca, deliriously extinguishing a bonfire threatening to consume her center island.
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Behind the lens, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter cry-laughs as her childhood hero works fearlessly to save them from danger. They’d both distantly heard the candle fall over earlier that night, but Swift had assured Abrams it was probably one of her cats thumping around. It’s well past 6 a.m., after a night of dinner and drinks – heavy on that second thing — when the fire finally goes out.
“She was such a legend – I don’t know how at this hour or in our state she knew what to do,” Abrams raves to Billboard six months later over Zoom. “We both had an insane cough from the fire extinguisher fumes for weeks.”
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The pair had just finished co-writing “Us,” the crown jewel of the California native’s 13-track sophomore studio album The Secret of Us – due out this Friday (June 21) — when the fiasco occurred. Before that, they’d spent the night previewing songs from Abrams’ new record and the 34-year-old hitmaker’s The Tortured Poets Department for each other before either project had even been announced. Abrams recalls singing and dancing “like theater kids” to “But Daddy I Love Him” and lying on the floor in disbelief after hearing “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” after which they started listening to instrumentals made by their mutual collaborator and friend Aaron Dessner.
“Something caught our ear at the same time very hard and fast,” Abrams says. “So we ran to the piano and started writing this song … I used to fantasize about that kind of a thing as a kid.”
“Us” ended up being the ribbon that tied together the material Abrams had been dreaming up with Dessner at his famed Long Pond Studios last year, after spending the summer opening for Swift’s Eras Tour, a role she’ll reprise on select dates in North America later this fall. Shortly after their near-death experience, the two women headed upstate to record the duet with the 48-year-old National founder, who recalls: “It was just really fun to watch the chemistry of Gracie and Taylor bouncing off each other, Gracie in total wonder and awe watching how Taylor records and produces her vocal performances and builds the world.”
“Taylor’s brilliant at synthesizing a whole story,” Dessner continues over Zoom, the wooden panels of Long Pond’s interior making up his backdrop. “[That song] just brought everything [about Gracie’s album] into focus in a beautiful way.”
Even without Swift’s name on the credits, The Secret of Us is easily Abrams’ most mainstream-friendly project to date. Though still rife with acoustic guitars and Dessner’s signature woodsiness, the project is sharper, hookier and more extroverted than ever, with light synths and the occasional ghost of a dance beat injecting newfound adrenaline into its DNA. The sound is best exemplified by Abrams’ most-recent single “Close to You,” which dropped earlier this month and is already shaping up to be her splashiest hit yet.
Abrams hadn’t set out to write a new album so quickly after her debut record Good Riddance dropped February 2023, peaking at No. 52 on the Billboard 200 — much less one that sounds so distinctly different from her past work. But the songs just kept coming to her as intuitively as on that spontaneous night in New York, many of them about unrequited love so strong it “felt like a sickness,” she says.
“I didn’t even think we were making [an album], and neither did Gracie,” says Dessner. “The first song that we made is ‘Gave You I Gave You I.’ That immediately established a very different palette and sonic world, and it evolved from there.”
“We just had a good time realizing that we can make things that sound totally different,” Abrams adds. “It was permission, this album, to try whatever the f—k we want.”
This time around, the duo – who first teamed up on Abrams’ 2021 EP This Is What It Feels Like — also had a cowriter in the singer’s best friend since she was 10, Audrey Hobert. Abrams and Hobert have technically been working together since they were in middle school, writing and directing Video Star movies together, but the tracks on Secret of Us co-penned by Hobert mark her first foray into songwriting.
The friend duo’s closeness allowed Abrams to be more vulnerable than she ever could’ve been with any other collaborator, and Hobert even stars as a main character in the bittersweet lyrics to “Good Luck Charlie,” which the former says is about observing a relationship end between two friends and “having a lot of love for both people … half mourning it and half wishing well on everyone involved.” (The title, she clarifies, is totally unrelated to the Disney Channel show of the same name — “I wasn’t a Disney kid growing up … I feel like I missed out.”)
“I trust her with my life, and she knows me so well,” Abrams says of her friend. “There was no pretending.”
Plus, after hitting the road with Swift, Abrams realized she was ready to perform music that commanded a little more presence in the stadiums she was warming up, which she hopes to translate to her own headlining tour of theater-sized venues across the U.S. kicking off Sept. 5 in Portland. That’s why you’ll hear her properly belting for the first time in multiple places on The Secret of Us, as teased in lead single “Risk,” which dropped May 1.
“I think it’s just time,” she says of honing her vocal abilities. “I wasn’t a singer. I was a writer, and no one else would sing my songs when I was little. I was singing my songs to myself in my room, so it didn’t require much projection. I could stay very quiet and curled up into a ball. Being onstage, it’s a different game.”
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But as her star has risen with Eras exposure and residual Good Riddance hype – and as naysayers have finally moved on from poking at her “nepo baby” status, being the daughter of director J.J. Abrams — her singing chops have invited some criticism, even though her crackling alto is the thing many fans love most about her.
“There are vocalists that are worth calling out [for their skills], and that’s not me,” Abrams admits. “I love to sing so f—king much, because I love to sing things that I write. It’s an extension of the writing for me, so I’m always trying to improve upon that skill. But I wouldn’t lead with ‘I’m a singer.’ I’d say, ‘I’m a writer.’”
Abrams and Dessner are already working on the former’s next project — “We don’t know what it is yet,” she says, “but we’ve been making a bunch of new music that feels already wildly different from this album.” Still, she feels like the style and subject matter of Secret of Us is fully evocative of her current state of mind, as opposed to past works that felt like “revisiting old wounds” to perform live.
“It can feel like this funny ghost,” Abrams adds. “And with The Secret of Us, it feels very topical still. That’s so me.”
If there’s one exception, though, it’s “Close to You,” which Abrams first recorded seven years ago with producer Sam de Jong before scrapping it, feeling unready to embrace such a distinctly pop sound. That didn’t stop fans from obsessing over a seconds-long snippet of the track Abrams uploaded online last decade, and she’s been receiving almost daily requests – plus some gentle pushing from her team at Interscope – to release it ever since.
With Secret of Us being as pop-facing as it is, “Close to You” finally has a home that makes sense. It appears at the very end of the tracklist and serves as the second single, with Abrams officially dropping it to fans’ elation June 7. (For those wondering whether another years-old cast-off, the deeply Swiftian “In Between,” will get the same second-life treatment, Abrams teases it’s “looking like a deluxe situation.”)
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Her label’s patience was rewarded, with the track debuting at No. 49 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, her first-ever solo entry on the chart. It follows her appearance on the remix to “Everywhere, Everything,” Noah Kahan’s Stick Season anthem, reaching No. 79 in December.
“Gracie is truly one of those brick-by-brick artist development stories, building such a dedicated following one fan at a time and never wanting to skip steps,” Sam Riback, president of IGA and head of Pop/Rock A&R, tells Billboard over email. “It was her connection to her fanbase, built over a long period of time, that was truly unique and special to her arrival on the mainstream stage. It is that bond between Gracie and her fans that will propel her all the way to the top and keep her there.”
If Secret of Us makes as big a statement as Abrams and her team hope it does, then “the top” is definitely in reach. Since she first spoke to Billboard less than a year and a half ago, the star has nearly doubled her Spotify listener count (15 million+), picked up her first Grammy nomination and held her own on the biggest tour of all time.
On a more personal front, Abrams says she’s also more self-assured – as a person and artist – than she’s ever been before. “I just know that I trust myself solo,” she says. “This album has meant so much to me because it has supported me through a period of transitions. I’ve learned about how I like to spend my time, about what works for me or doesn’t in relationships, about how having friends is ultimately the priority for me. I don’t need to know who I want to wake up next to every day, but I know that I want to be there for every chapter of my friends’ lives.”
“I’m learning every five seconds,” Abrams adds. “We’ll have to find out what it all turns into, but that’s me today.”
Gracie Abrams
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When The Weeknd’s “Die for You” came out in 2016, it was just a modest hit, failing to crack the top 40 on the Hot 100. But the track was rejuvenated during the pandemic, thanks in part to the community of TikTok users who love sped-up and slowed-down remixes. Interest in “Die for You” eventually spiked enough that it was promoted to radio as if it were a new record, and after Ariana Grande hopped on a remix, the ballad lumbered to No. 1 on the Hot 100 in March 2023, more than six years after its release.
In recent years, starting especially during the pandemic, major hits following a similar trajectory have become a regular feature of the pop landscape. Two months after “Die for You” peaked, Miguel’s early 2010s R&B hit “Sure Thing” climbed to No. 1 on the Pop Airplay chart — No. 11 on the Hot 100 — more than a dozen years after its original release. And in October, Taylor Swift‘s “Cruel Summer” topped the Hot 100, four years after it came out as a deep cut on 2019’s Lover.
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“There’s a huge trend for music that’s chronologically old to have a second life,” Amazon Music global head of music programming Mike Tierney told Billboard in 2022. “The lines are getting incredibly blurry.”
It felt reasonable to assume that this blurring process would continue. In a surprising turnaround, however, those lines look more solid this year: So far, no catalog tracks — defined as more than 18 months old — have made it to the upper reaches of the Hot 100.
The closest thing would be Djo’s neo-glam hit “End of Beginning,” which peaked at No. 11 at the end of March, just around 18 months after its original release. Early in the year, Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s 2002 nu disco cut “Murder on the Dancefloor” looked like it might become ubiquitous after its revival via the hit film Saltburn, but in the end, it topped out at No. 51 — pretty good for a song released more than two decades ago, but not at the same level as the reincarnated hits of 2023.
Executives believe this change is partly due to the deluge of superstars and breakout artists vaccuming up attention with new releases, preventing listeners from wandering aimlessly towards oldies. In addition, they say, disruptions to the pipeline of film and TV last year, and the music ecosystem on TikTok this year, closed off some avenues for old songs to transform into new hits.
While it’s not even halfway through 2024, the new-release calendar has already been packed with high-flying albums — a pair from Future & Metro Boomin, double-LP-sized releases from Beyonce and Taylor Swift, plus full-lengths from Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, J. Cole, and more A-listers. Kendrick Lamar and Drake didn’t put out albums, yet they still commanded everyone’s attention for weeks with diss records. “The quality of new music that’s come out this year is so high that there hasn’t been the need to bring back old records to use on TikTok,” says Mike Weiss, vp of music and head of A&R at the distribution company UnitedMasters.
This sentiment was echoed by R Dub, director of programming at Z90, a top 40 station in San Diego: Playing rejuvenated oldies “is a little easier to justify,” he says, “when there just isn’t enough top-tier current product coming out.”
This matters because when catalog hits are on the verge of being massive, radio functions as a closer. After these songs have gone bananas on short-form video platforms and seen a similar bump on streaming services, then it becomes radio’s turn to blanket the rest of the population. Not only did “Die for You” and “Sure Thing” top Pop Airplay, “Cruel Summer” spent longer at No. 1 on that chart than any of Swift’s many other hits.
But a track doesn’t typically make it big at radio without a big label push, and right now, with so much current-release firepower, labels don’t feel the need to dust off old records and present them to program directors as if they’re fresh. “It’s exciting to be at top 40 again, because of all these great new singles,” says Jay Michaels, brand manager for Y101, a pop station in Mississippi. “They’re different styles, from pop to country to hip-hop to alternative; they’re big, and they’re legit.”
Importantly, these songs aren’t just coming from the usual suspects among the pop elite: First-time acts also appear to be breaking through at a steady clip, after several years of stagnation.
In 2022, executives described the landscape for important new artists as “abysmal” and “dry as f–k.” In recent months, however, Shaboozey, Sabrina Carpenter, Sexyy Red, Chappell Roan, Benson Boone, Tommy Richman, and other newbies have all been vying for chart real estate simultaneously. Their approaches vary widely: Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” is a falsetto-smeared homage to underground Memphis hip-hop; Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is a country club-wrecker; Boone prefers heaving pop power ballads.
The emergence of all these artists in close succession over the course of a few months is a welcome sign in the music industry. Artist development suffered “because of the pandemic,” according to Weiss. Now, he says, “it feels like we’re over that hump, there’s been enough time to really make great records, develop artists and put the work in” – building the type of foundations that can lead to sustained breakthroughs.
This means that new music has enjoyed a surge of top reinforcements as it battles with legions of oldies for eyes and ears. At the same time, catalog has been fighting with one hand tied behind its back for many months.
First, retrenchment and belt-tightening in Hollywood – combined with dual strikes in 2023 – slowed the flow of new TV shows and movies. Netflix plans to reduce the amount of original movies it makes by nearly half, according to Variety. And Deadline noted in December that while 2023 “counted 124 wide theatrical releases (opening in 1,000-plus theaters), the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes forced a bulk of tentpole delays that are leaving 2024 with only 107 wide titles.” That leaves fewer opportunities for the synch soundtrack moments that often jolt catalog records to life.
At the start of this year, catalog was hobbled further when licensing negotiations between Universal Music Group and TikTok crumbled. “Many of the titles that ‘come back’ do so via TikTok — they just explode out of nowhere,” R Dub notes. That process was impeded when UMG and TikTok failed to reach an agreement at the end of January.
Most of the labels’ official recordings were then yanked from the platform. After a month, most recordings featuring contributions from Universal Music Publishing Group’s songwriters were pulled as well.
As a result, a large swath of popular music was much harder to stumble across on the app that plays an outsized role in music discovery — especially for younger listeners. And those listeners are more likely to hear a catalog track and experience it as new, simply because they’re younger and have heard less music. An 18-year-old TikToker was around four or five when “Sure Thing” first came out.
Despite this turbulence, several executives believe that catalog hits are just experiencing a temporary downturn. Mike Biggane, a former UMG and Spotify executive, predicts that “older music will continue to be rediscovered outside of the release moment.”
The star-packed release schedule can’t continue at this pace forever, leaving more room for rediscovery. And UMG and TikTok reached a deal in May.
“As long as people have a platform like TikTok where they have a viral mechanism for sharing their own interpretation of their favorite songs, you’ll continue to see these moments [where old tracks] pop up,” says Benjamin Klein, a manager who also runs Hundred Days Digital, a TikTok marketing agency.
The question is: Now that the pandemic is in the rear-view mirror, when these throwback singles re-emerge, will they look more like “Die for You” or “Murder on the Dancefloor”?
When artists set out to promote a new album, their publicists often encourage them to have “a story.” Mark Oliver Everett, otherwise known as E, frontman and chief songwriter of the band EELS, has a lollapalooza of a tale. His father, Hugh Everett III, developed the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Today, his theory powers the Marvel multiverse and countless other movies, TV shows and novels about parallel worlds, but Everett wasn’t recognized for his work until late in his brief life. He died of a massive heart attack in 1982.
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E, who was 19 then, discovered his father’s body, and, a decade later, endured the deaths of his sister, who committed suicide, and his mother, from cancer. Left without a family, he chronicled his experiences in EELS’ 1998 masterpiece, Electro-Shock Blues, and his inspirational and funny 2008 autobiography, Things the Grandchildren Should Know.
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In 2017, the Everett bloodline rebooted when E became a father at the age of 54. But the story does not end there. Shortly after the band’s post-pandemic Lockdown Hurricane tour, his CT scan revealed an aortic aneurysm, and E underwent open-heart surgery to have it repaired.
The health scare did not curb his creativity. On June 7, EELs released its 15th studio album since forming in 1996 (not counting his two solo records in 1992 and ’93). “After 25 or 30 years, whatever it’s been, our time has finally come. It’s finally EELS time,” he says — which, if you put an exclamation point at the end, is the album’s title.
EELS TIME!
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After a spate of hard-rocking songs, EELS TIME! finds E, now 61, in a contemplative and grateful mindset accentuated with a poppier sound. Below, E discusses the album’s collaborative efforts with All-American Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter, the poignant music video for “Time,” which depicts three generations of the Everett family, and much more.
You’ve experienced quite a lot over the last few years: fatherhood, divorce, open-heart surgery.
It’s always something right? I got used to that a long time ago.
You’ve had quite a lot of experience with mortality. How is dealing with your mortality different from dealing with the deaths of loved ones?
Well, the one thing I don’t have any experience in is hospital experience. I’ve never been in a hospital before, which was a great run. I’m thankful for that. I was in the hospital for a week, so that’s a big deal. It turned out great. I’m totally good as new now.
It’s great that you were staying on top of your health.
It’s the one good thing that came out of my father having a heart attack and dying at 51. Doctors would tell me heart stuff can be very hereditary so keep an eye on stuff. Get scans. Whatever the best scan is technology-wise, get that. It was a CT chest scan that discovered the problem. [My condition] was not related to what happened to my father. It’s a different thing, but it’s still a heart related-thing and it’s only because of his early death that I found out about it.
How did working with Tyson Ritter change your creative process? Did you collaborate in the same room or were you throwing stuff back and forth via email?
It’s funny because we found out we were neighbors and literally live three blocks away from each other. But we did it all remotely. It was still the pandemic and I have a little kid in school. I didn’t want to be the asshole that shuts down his school by getting Covid.
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You also feature on indie-pop artist meija’s “Possum.” How did that come about?
The thing with Tyson started with me singing on a song he did, too. And then the meija thing happened. That just came out of the blue. A mutual friend contacted me and said, “Hey, this guy would really like to have you on a song.” He sent me the song, and I was like, “Oh, this is cool. Yeah, I’ll do it.” I even went so far as to be in the video.
“If I’m Gonna Go Anywhere” is one of my favorite songs on the album. It has a Bobby Gillespie/Primal Scream vibe,
That one is all credit to Tyson, by the way. That’s his musical doing. I’m singing and writing lyrics mostly on that.
In the chorus, you sing that if you’re going anywhere, you’re going “there.” Where is “there”?
There is simply if you have a choice to make, why not make the nice choice. Why not choose love.
“Sweet Smile” is like that, too.
That’s exactly what “Sweet Smile” is about. Sometimes I’ll be walking down the sidewalk and I’ll realize I’m not scowling but I’m not smiling. I’ll think smile. And I’ll smile and it’s weird. It’s like, everything feels better and easier when you smile. With that song, I wanted to to write my version of [The Seekers] “Georgy Girl.” Just a nice, innocent song about walking down the street.
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“We Won’t See Her Like Again” seems to be about someone you lost. I realize not every song is autobiographical, but I’m wondering if you wrote that about your mother or sister, who you lost at a young age.
I wrote that one with Chet from the EELS, and I don’t feel like it was specifically about anybody at the time. A lot of the songs that I’ve done over the years I can’t access if there is a personal experience that I’m writing about. And years later, I’ll look back and go, “Oh, that’s what I was writing about.” I think it’s a coping mechanism that helps me write unfiltered — to not let myself know that I’m disclosing all these things about myself in some cases.
When I hear “I Can’t Believe It’s True,” I’m thinking could E have found love?
Yeah, I’m hoping that song will be one that people will play at their weddings. We’ve had songs go on to become really popular that we never would have thought of as a single at the time they were released. They take on this big life because of being played at weddings or whatever. Really, the inspiration in the back of my mind was thinking about my kid. So, maybe it can be played at weddings and births.
Has your son Archie formed his own band yet?
No, I got him a little drum set because he’s at the exact age that I was when I started playing drums. And I didn’t want to push it on him. He likes to bang around on everything, but he has not shown anywhere near the kind of interest I had in it so far. But that’s fine.
It’s there if he decides he’s into it, but also I think I should probably get him an instrument that would make [him] more money.
In the letter you published on the EELS website a few days ago, you wrote that you almost lost your mind during the first part of the Lockdown Hurricane show. What was overwhelming you?
First of all, I was super jetlagged. Going to Europe overnight; that always makes me crazy. We hadn’t played in almost four years or something because of the pandemic. You might remember the pandemic. So, we finally got out there to play, and it was an extreme culture shock for me because it was the double whammy of being a new father — a new divorced father — during those years of lockdown. I got really used to nobody caring about me. Do you know what I mean? When you’re a father, you’re the last person in the family anyone gives a shit about. Then suddenly, from the first show of the first tour in almost four years, it was like everybody super cared about me and it really fucked with my head. I didn’t know how to process it, and I didn’t know how to act. I don’t get stage fright normally. I’m usually very comfortable being on stage, but I started to have a panic attack right before the first show. For the first week, I was just insane. Then I got my bearings, and it was, “Okay, it’s coming back to me now. I know how to do this.” I’m sure a lot of people have gone through situations like that from being in such an extreme situation during the lockdown years and then being thrown out. Then it was great. It was like, “Oh, people. This is fun.”
Will you be touring behind this album?
I don’t know when we’re going on tour yet. The last one took a lot out of me. It was a good one, and we worked really hard. But since we just went, it might be too soon to go right now. Maybe we’ll go in late summer or the fall. We don’t know yet.
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“Song for You Know Who” is about not repeating the missteps of the past and forgiveness. Is that directed at yourself or someone else?
I’ll never tell. My favorite thing about that song is going to become my least favorite thing about it, too, which is that everyone I know is going to suspect it’s about them. I couldn’t resist calling it that because I just thought, it’s going to drive everybody crazy around me. But I’ll never tell.
The video for “Time” is very poignant and emotional to watch. And having read your book, understanding the sense that you had no family and to see now you do have family, it’s really touching. Did that idea just come to you or was it something that you wanted to do for a long time?
When I wrote and recorded the song I didn’t have the video concept in my mind. It wasn’t until later – I can’t remember what sparked I, but I just thought, “Oh, wait a minute. There’s three verses. We can do photos of my dad in the first verse.” It fits the theme of each verse.
Then the second one where it says, “I’m riding on the train, I’m ready to stop anywhere and see what’s out there,” that’s like young me going into teenage me and EELS me. Then the last verse is about how I want to be here and I don’t want to ever leave because I like being close to the ones I love, and that’s my son.
The beard looks very strong in the “Time” video
That was filmed the day after I came home from our tour, and I couldn’t wait to get rid of the beard. That was my pandemic beard, and I was like, “Oh, we’re finally going on tour. I’ll save it for that. It’ll look cool onstage or whatever.” Then I couldn’t wait to get rid of it by the end of the tour because a beard like that is a lot of maintenance and a lot of work. So I called the director of the video and said, “I’m going to get rid of the beard.” He was like, “No, just keep it for one day after the tour and we’ll shoot it then.” The next day I trimmed it down extensively.
Okay, so you’re not in Fidel Castro territory anymore.
At the moment, no. But it can always come back. It comes back overnight if I want it to. I’ve got a lot of testosterone.
In 1971, a few hundred young people from around the world stood on a verdant hilltop in Italy and sang about their collective desire to “buy the world a Coke.” This now iconic Coca-Cola commercial became a hallmark moment in advertising history and a bona fide hit: A version of “I’d Like To Teach the World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)” by British pop group The New Seekers reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972.
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Half a century later, Coca-Cola has its eyes on the charts again, but with a very different strategy: through music created by superstar artists in collaboration with Coke itself; promoted and distributed by those artists’ labels; and supported by label partner Universal Music Group (UMG), which will assist with promotional and playlist strategy. On a recent day in Seoul, for instance, K-pop sensation NewJeans recorded R&B-infused pop track “How Sweet,” sung in English and Korean, which arrived May 24 as both the lead 2024 Coke Studio song and the title track to the act’s latest mini-album.
The girl group is just one example of the global stars Coke has signed to its roster. Colombian phenomenon Karol G is working with the brand, and internationally in-demand electronic producer Peggy Gou has created a club banger with, as Coke puts it, a “timeless beat” that “will cross borders and genres.” Coke will roll out two more original songs in 2024, with all three 2024 Coke Studio artists (plus another two still to be announced) taking part in Coke Studio-sponsored music festival experiences and yet-to-be-revealed live performances. Coke Studio is also the first client of AUX, Spotify’s in-house music advisory agency for brands.
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If the songs take off, Coke Studio will, as it has historically, boost visibility and streaming royalties for the artists involved, as well as further expand Coke’s own customer base and worldwide soda sales. Coke Studio is Coca-Cola’s biggest global music program of 2024, with the songs from each involved artist set to be used in the brand’s marketing in more than 150 countries — roughly 75% of the world.
This new phase of Coke Studio arrives at a moment when Coca-Cola is eager to expand its dominance of the carbonated soft-drink industry, a realm in which it has had “over 50% market share on a global basis for a very long time,” says Filippo Falorni, director and equity research analyst at Citi, where he tracks the beverage sector. The company reported $45.8 billion in net revenue for 2023 and a 3% net revenue growth in first-quarter 2024. Year to date (and as of press time), its stock price has risen from $59.82 to $62.
At the same time, its biggest rival, PepsiCo, is in the midst of cost-saving initiatives as it attempts to increase profit margins on the beverage side of its business (the company also owns Frito-Lay), which Falorni says have dipped in recent years. “Pepsi went through a period where they were almost deemphasizing the carbonated soft-drink business because they were focusing on [healthier] brands,” he says, “and that ultimately hurt the brand.”
As part of its belt-tightening, PepsiCo ended its contract as Super Bowl halftime show sponsor in 2022; its remaining music initiatives include its sponsorship of the National Battle of the Bands competition for marching bands from historically Black colleges and universities and its partnership with Mary J. Blige for May’s three-day Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit in New York. (Asked how Coke’s efforts compare with its direct competitors, Josh Burke, global head of music and culture marketing at the Coca-Cola Company, demurs: “We prefer to focus on what we’re doing versus on what our competitors are doing.”)
As Falorni explains, the respective companies’ business models directly influence their marketing strategies. While PepsiCo owns the majority of the bottling companies that produce Pepsi beverages, Coca-Cola sells the syrup that Coke products are made from to a global network of franchised bottlers, allowing Coca-Cola to “leave the execution of the lower-margin business to their bottlers and focus on marketing, which is what they’re best at,” Falorni says, citing campaigns throughout the company’s history that have framed its products as “refreshing, enjoyable and shareable” and created “strong brand equity.”
While it’s difficult to quantify the direct impact of Coca-Cola’s music-related marketing on sales (a representative for Coca-Cola did not respond to questions on the matter), Falorni says music-driven projects like Coke Studio “make the brand very relevant to consumers” — particularly young ones whom, he notes, soda brands in general are having a harder time reaching, given that the demographic is more health-conscious than previous generations. But the internationally popular, of-the-moment artists creating the music that powers Coke Studio — with the brand’s spirit of uplifting inclusivity in mind — is helping to attract that younger demo to Coca-Cola. This formula differentiates the initiative from how “other brands or even our competitors have been approaching music,” Burke says.
“When brands work with music, it’s typically very traditional,” he continues. “You license a song for a commercial or might have an artist smile and take a picture for Instagram. That’s effective and is something we do in our normal marketing, but when we’re working with music, we’re looking at our role in being authentic and connected to output and storytelling that’s going to contribute back to the music community versus just renting from the music industry. It’s very important for us that we’re adding value back into the ecosystem of music and fandom versus just borrowing from it.”
Coke Studio began in Brazil in 2007 as a musical variety show of the same name featuring performances by local artists. While it didn’t produce strong results in its first year, its 2008 launch in Pakistan became a phenomenon. There, the project took the form of a TV show called Coke Studio. Coca-Cola’s creative team recognized cultural tensions between younger and older Pakistanis and based their concept on bridging generations. “Whenever there’s such a tension, we try to find vehicles to tell a point of view [on it] from the brand perspective,” Coca-Cola global vp of creative Islam ElDessouky says. “Coca-Cola has always been a connector. We’re always inclusive and trying to bring people together.”
Coca-Cola’s team decided to center its Pakistan initiative on music, a format that ElDessouky says the team predicted would make “the point of view of the brand extremely evident.” Coke Studio Pakistan went to market as a TV musical variety show featuring Pakistani talents performing music in traditional regional styles — qawwali, ghazal, bhangra — along with hip-hop, rock and pop. Now in its 15th season there, Coke Studio has produced over 260 original songs in Pakistan and has over 5 billion streams on its YouTube channel alone. “Pasoori,” the 2022 Coke Studio collaboration from Pakistani American singer Ali Sethi and Pakistani vocalist Shae Gill, is now Spotify’s most streamed Pakistani song of all time, and in 2021, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged Coke Studio for its “subtle forces of cultural diplomacy.”
Following its success in Pakistan, Coke Studio expanded to India in 2011, African territories in 2013, the Philippines in 2017 and Bangladesh in 2022. These projects were also filmed as variety shows featuring local artists performing traditional and original music. In 2022, Coke Studio expanded from these regional-market initiatives into a global program.
This push was marked by a project called “The Conductor,” a song and music video featuring seven rising acts, including Nigerian star Tems and American R&B artist Ari Lennox, performing a collaborative cover of Queen’s 1986 hit “A Kind of Magic.” Each artist recorded their own version of the song; those were then all combined — along with a live orchestra and a Freddie Mercury sample — into a two-minute video in which all seven artists performed parts of the song in their respective styles. The clip has 14 million YouTube views, and its top comment serves as proof of concept: “When the ads are so good you actually search for them.”
In 2023, Coke Studio signed 16 acts from around the world — Jon Batiste, Sam Smith and Imagine Dragons among them — to the program, pairing acts that lived far from one another for original collaborations. One such duo was Colombian singer-songwriter Camilo and Indian artist Diljit Dosanjh. Sung in Spanish and Punjabi, their song, “Palpita,” has 19.5 million global on-demand streams, according to Luminate.
Illustration by Matt Chase
Coca-Cola measures this music’s success by how it resonates with fans and through data on streaming and fan engagement, particularly in countries where the artist in question didn’t previously have a huge presence. “Coke Studio has been instrumental in helping us tap into new languages and cultures, particularly with our recent collaboration with Camilo,” says Dosanjh’s business manager, Sonali Singh. “This partnership has opened the doors to new markets that would have otherwise taken longer to reach.” Singh says Dosanjh’s three Coke Studio collaborations over the last 10 years have helped him ascend to playing arenas and stadiums in North America and making his Coachella debut last year.
As the music industry at large now contemplates how to unlock the market power of superfans and fan armies, Coke Studio’s latest iteration is focused on exactly that — “especially given that Gen Z acts are more global and connected than previous generations,” ElDessouky says.
For Coke Studio, the goal is to tap into the attention (and spending power) of each artist’s fan base by giving them new music associated with Coke, a strategy ElDessouky calls a “value exchange that will result in loyalty and love associated with Coca-Cola.” Curating this latest group of artists “wasn’t necessarily about how many Instagram followers they have or how many monthly listeners they have on Spotify,” Burke says. “It was [finding] artists that have a high engagement and special connection with their fans” — particularly a “certain type of warmth or care.”
While the Coca-Cola team chose regional-market Coke Studio artists by first listening to their music without knowing who they were (to help identify “that ‘it’ factor,” Burke says), getting artists to sign on for this latest season was easy and a matter of simply reaching out. Burke says that while many artist teams inquire about involvement, this year, the team knew who it wanted to involve and sent the invites.
It also deliberately chose artists with “a footprint across the world,” ElDessouky says — such as K-pop act NewJeans; Berlin-based Gou, who represents both her native South Korea and the European electronic scene; and Karol G, the world’s biggest female Latin artist. (The pair of forthcoming artist announcements will expand the footprint of Coke Studio’s 2024 season to the United States and Africa.)
ElDessouky says the biggest incentive Coke Studio can offer artists is, well, Coca-Cola: “The brand itself has this magic and charm.” Plus, Coke Studio delivers artists and their work to audiences in 150 countries, including places where the act may not yet have a strong presence.
While the team declines to share Coca-Cola’s overall investment in Coke Studio, ElDessouky says the 2024 budget is spread across departments and that its total number is “not extravagant, because we are very much a conscious company in how we spend our money. But it’s not nothing either, because everybody needs to be successful and make gains off their services.” Still, Burke emphasizes that Coke Studio “is not just a paycheck or advertising partner” for artists. “We want to be looked at as a partner that can actually help propel the artist’s career.”
After the 2024 deals were signed, the artists got to work in their own studios. (Coke Studio doesn’t have physical locations.) Burke says while there’s minimal back-and-forth in terms of song approval, the brief is for artists to make music that ticks Coke Studio’s boxes — uplifting, inclusive and without explicit content — while staying true to their respective styles. “Peggy Gou, for example, made a banger,” Burke says. “She made a song that no matter where you are in the world or what time of day it is, you’re going to want to dance.”
Given this remit, Coca-Cola also encourages artists to be collaborative. For instance, Gou came up with ideas on how to tease her music and how she wants to appear on social media. “We love that,” ElDessouky says. “If we were able to just do things on our own as a brand, why would we collaborate with artists?”
Corporations and musicians partner frequently; still, Coca-Cola’s model of developing and underwriting music by internationally famous names is unique. While Pepsi has had stars like Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Madonna and Britney Spears appear in commercials over the years, all of these ads used either preexisting music from an artist’s catalog or original songs directly referencing the brand — an approach Coca-Cola also tried in 2021 when it had Tyler, The Creator write and perform “Tell Me How” for a campaign.
But while any company can “write a check and get an artist to do something,” Burke says, Coke Studio has more closely resembled a record label. The music is released through UMG, where Burke previously was vp of marketing and enterprise partnerships at the label’s London office. (Like him, several members of the Coke Studio creative team have a music industry background.)
While roughly 50% of the artists who have participated in Coke Studio are UMG acts, being signed to the label isn’t a requirement. (Karol G is signed to Interscope Records/UMG, while NewJeans and Gou are signed to ADOR and XL Recordings, respectively.) Coke Studio has retained an ownership share of the more than 40 songs made for its previous global initiatives but will not own the rights to or participate in any royalties from the music made for this year’s project.
Released “as if it was any other single from these artists,” Burke says, music created through the initiative appears on Coke Studio’s channels along with the artists’ own platforms. The partnership also includes social media activations and performances. The Coke Studio program is developed in collaboration with the marketing teams in the company’s many global markets, with content distributed for local use — like billboards in Japan featuring Karol G.
The Coke Studio x Spotify studio space in the latter’s Los Angeles office offers emerging talent access to equipment and facilities.
Courtesy of the Coca-Cola Company
Coke Studio also partnered with Spotify, which has a dedicated recording studio in its Los Angeles office for emerging artists curated in partnership with Spotify and not limited to Coke Studio-affiliated acts. Spotify, through AUX, will produce live events in partnership with Coke Studio for NewJeans, Karol G, Gou and the two artists yet to be revealed upon the release of their songs. Coke Studio has activations at more than 60 international music festivals including Belgium’s Tomorrowland and Coachella in the United States (where, this year, attendees could digitally insert themselves into music videos — and also just hang out in the air-conditioning).
Coca-Cola will hold the 14th annual edition of its own festival, the Coca-Cola Music Experience, in September in Madrid. (A Coke representative says the company can’t confirm if 2024 Coke Studio artists will appear.) Fan participation also occurs through bottles of Coca-Cola, with QR codes on the packaging unlocking access to concert tickets, music, videos and more.
As the industry increasingly focuses on “glocalization,” which considers strategy from both local and global perspectives, Coke Studio is a way for artists with specific points of view to leverage the brand’s ubiquity in a manner that transcends traditional advertising and is arguably more authentic then just singing a jingle. A Coca-Cola representative says the company sells over 1 billion servings of Coca-Cola a day, offering unprecedented crossover potential for the artists involved.
For Coca-Cola, the possibility of reaching the fans of its chosen artists provides this same opportunity. But at a time when it’s harder than ever to cut through the noise, Coke will face plenty of competition trying to bubble its new tunes up the charts.
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This story will appear in the June 1, 2024, issue of Billboard.
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Some phrases often heard when discussing Sean “Diddy” Combs lately include “How did he get away with it?” or “No one said anything?” In a new exposé from Rolling Stone, some of those questions are answered as the magazine took an in-depth look at the sordid behavior that the multihyphenate mogul has seemingly been practicing all along during his rise as a Hip-Hop icon.
It’s not hyperbole that Diddy is now officially disgraced after CNN revealed video footage of the Bad Boy Records founder brutally beating his then girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, in a hotel lobby back in 2016. By now you’ve probably heard the story—Cassie filed a lawsuit against Diddy accusing him of rape and sex trafficking, amongst other offenses, that he quickly settled the next day.
Cassie’s bravery in coming forward with her truth opened the door for more women, and a man, to come forward with lawsuits accusing Combs of a myriad of heinous charges that include sexual assault, trafficking and even illegal firearms. Save for the faux-apology he delivered after the hotel footage’s release, Diddy has been adamant that all the other acclaims are essentially money grabs and that he is the actual victim.
Well, Rolling Stone sorted through all the receipts in the aforementioned lawsuits and also reached out to former Bad Boy employees, artists, friends and associates to paint a picture of who they describe as an “abusive, menacing figure.” The 6-month investigation led to the painting of a figure who has basically been a problem since his school days at Howard University when he was the party promoter and student who also finessed his way into an internship at Uptown Records, and eventually on to Hip-Hop stardom. During that ascent, there have allegedly been dozens of people traumatized by his behavior.
To say that what Rolling Stone’s investigative report is damning would be an understatement. Here are some of the wildest revelations and allegations in the story.
1. Her Too
Gina Huynh is an ex-girlfriend of Diddy who accused him of abuse while speaking to gossip blogger Tasha K (yes, the same one who owes Cardi B money) back in 2019. However, her story didn’t get much traction.
Also worth noting, a personal chef who sued Diddy claims she walked in on him and Huynh engaging in “sexual activity.” The chef, Cindy Rueda, sued Diddy for sexual harassment, and it was settled out of court.
2. No Way
Former Bad Boy President Kirk Burrow told Rolling Stone that after the mag approached Bad Boy about a Notorious B.I.G. cover after the rapper’s death, Diddy instead pushed for his own cover to help promote his own debut album, No Way Out. Bruh.
“I was telling Sean, ‘Let’s make it Biggie. You still have a chance [for a cover in the future],’” Burrowes recalls. “He’s like ‘No, he’s dead. I’m putting out [Combs’ debut album, No Way Out] in July. I need to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.’”
3. Not Kim
Source:Getty
Much has been said about Kim Porter being Diddy’s one true love. However, the late model who shared three children with Diddy was also allegedly physically abused by him as well. And it goes without saying that he was anything but faithful. She reportedly broke up with him when he had another child while she was pregnant with her twin girls.
4. Shakir Stewart was minding his business…
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Shakir Stewart was a decorated music executive who passed away in 2008 (he was Def Jam’s VP of A&R at the time). But back in 2000, he made the mistake of daring to be romantically involved with Kim Porter, which in turn enrage Mr. Combs.
Per Rolling Stone: In 2000, Porter’s fledgling courtship with late music executive Shakir Stewart enraged Combs. When the industry gathered for L.A. Reid’s wedding in Italy that summer, Combs went to Stewart’s room after the ceremony and allegedly broke a chair over Stewart’s head, Stewart’s mother and two of his close friends tell Rolling Stone. “He left him bleeding on a hotel floor in Italy,” Stewart’s mother, Portia, says. “He had to have stitches and then [Combs] threatened him … ‘I’m going to kill you’ … That’s when I said you need to get out of this business. This man is crazy.”
5. Hate Me Now
Source:Getty
Too often forgotten is how back in 1999, Diddy and his bodyguards barged into then Interscope Records executive Steve Stoute’s office laid hands and feet on him. Reportedly, Diddy was upset with the edit of Nas’ “Hate Me Now” video that was sent to MTV. They settled out of court for about $500K (at minimum), and are still friends. But yeah, that happened.
6. Tupac Was Cool On Puff
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Apparently Tupac’s “I Get Around” was studied by Bad Boy Records execs in how to make a commercial Hip-Hop hit. Diddy tried to befriend Pac, but while the latter rapper was cool, for a time, with the Notorious B.I.G., he considered Puff a “corny” executive according to photographer and Biggie’s homie Monqiue Bunn.
7. P. Satan?
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Andre Harrell was Diddy’s mentor, but the student became terror in the office at Uptown Records. So much so that the other execs reportedly referred to him as “Satan” behind his back. Eventually, Harrell fired him.
8. HU Diddy
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Part of Diddy’s origin story is the couple of years he spent at HBCU Howard University as an undergrad where he gained a rep for throwing incredible parties. Unfortunately, Rolling Stone tracked down witnesses who said he beat a girlfriend on campus with a belt in a fit of rage.
“Puff is out here acting crazy. He’s beating her,” the fellow students said, according to the classmate.”
9. Bad Boy x BMF
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The Black Mafia Family was infamous in the streets. But BMF allegedly planting see money for Bad Boy Records wasn’t on our bing card. A stray line from a portion about the Feds raiding Diddy’s homes in Miami and Los Angeles reads: “Agents may also examine Combs’ alleged ties to the infamous Black Mafia Family cartel after the Detroit Jane Doe alleged in her suit that the group “is rumored to have seeded Bad Boy.” (No criminal charges have been announced as of publication.)”
In the opening chapters of Darius Rucker’s new memoir, Life’s Too Short, out earlier this week via Dey Street Books, the three-time-Grammy-winning lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish and successful country solo artist details a near-death experience in the late 1990s, when actor Woody Harrelson saved him from drowning near Harrelson’s home in Hawaii.
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“I hear Woody from Cheers, simple, direct, a little goofy,” Rucker writes in his book, recalling the actor saying, “’Die? S–t. Not on my watch.’” (They later traveled to Willie Nelson’s Hawaii home to play golf with Nelson and Kris Kristofferson).
Elsewhere in the first pages of the book, he recounts the time a roadie who had spent time working with well-known rock bands took a look at what Rucker describes as “the mountain range of the snowy-peaked white powder we’d laid out on the table in front of us,” with the roadie saying, “I’ve been around a lot of bands and nobody comes close to you guys, not close.’”
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From stories of celebrity pals to tales of intense drug use, Rucker’s memoir makes it clear that the South Carolina native with the distinct, honeyed voice is holding nothing back.
“I wanted to open the book that way to break the ice, to let people know this was going to be a book about real s–t that happened in my life,’” Rucker tells Billboard.
Rucker opens up about his life story, as the youngest of five children being raised by a single mother in Charleston, South Carolina. He describes growing up in a working-class household and first realizing his vocal gift at age six, while performing Al Green songs in his living room for his mother and her friends.
In 1986, while attending the University of South Carolina, Rucker teamed with Mark Bryan, Brantley Smith and Dean Felber, forming the band Hootie & the Blowfish (Smith soon left the group and was replaced by Jim “Soni” Sonefeld). They garnered a following as a regional act, performing in dive bars and frat houses. The band’s 1993 homespun EP, Kootchypop, included “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be With You” — songs that would later be included on the group’s Atlantic Records major label debut, 1994’s Cracked Rear View.
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That debut LP went on to become one of the defining albums of the 1990s, being certified 21 times platinum by the RIAA and spawning three Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits (“Only Wanna Be With You,” “Hold My Hand” and ‘Let Her Cry”) in less than a year. The band’s acoustic-driven, pop-laced songs upended the melancholy grunge rock sound that had dominated music culture in the early-mid 1990s, but also drew intense vitriol from critics.
Still, the band found champions within the industry from day one — including David Crosby, who lent background vocals to “Hold My Hand.”
“We’re this little pop-rock band from South Carolina and as soon as we got to Los Angeles to write a record, a friend of our A&R guy said, ‘I want to get David Crosby to sing on the record,’” Rucker recalls of the recording. “I was like, ‘Yeah, right. Nobody knows who the hell we are.’ But sure enough, one day she walked in with David Crosby and he was awesome. He was exactly what we needed at the time. It was just great to be with him and when he started singing on the record, it was just amazing.”
Rucker says in writing Life’s Too Short with author Alan Eisenstock, he aimed for the book to seem like he was sitting down with the reader at a favorite bar, swapping stories over a few drinks. He began working on the book nearly two years ago, though he says various companies had brought up the idea to him for years.
“I always said I wouldn’t do it until my kids were old enough to read it,” Rucker says, referring to his three adult children. “If I was going to do it, I was going to tell the truth, so I felt I’d know when it was time.”
Rucker’s memoir pulls back the curtain on a life that has been filled with lofty career highs, but also relational hardships. He explores his complex relationship with his older brother Ricky, as well as the impact of Ricky’s death after falling and hitting his head while intoxicated. Rucker also addresses his estranged relationship with his father, who was largely absent from Rucker’s life, and writes about the 1992 death of his mother Carolyn, who died of a heart attack before Hootie & the Blowfish ever made it to the big leagues. Carolyn is the namesake of Rucker’s 2023 country album Carolyn’s Boy.
“That was tough to take, because we were playing these s–tholes,” Rucker recalls. “I wish she’d gotten to see us play the bigger stuff, but I know she did. That was tough to write. Everything I put in there, it’s like, ‘Should I put it in or should I not?’ I wouldn’t say it was great to relive it again, but it was healthy to live it again and see it now that it was a long time ago. It was therapy and it was hard, but I’m glad I did.”
Throughout the book, Rucker traces his life’s story through the lens of 23 songs that pulled him in and left an indelible imprint over the years, punctuating the memories and milestones with songs including The Black Crowes’ “She Talks to Angels,” KISS’ “Detroit Rock City,” Al Green’s “For the Good Times” and Lady A’s “Need You Now.”
Rucker explores the swift rise of Hootie & the Blowfish, starting with their life-changing 1994 performance of “Hold My Hand” on The David Letterman Show (in 2015, the band bookended that experience by performing on one of the show’s final episodes, 21 years after their initial debut). He also describes the arc of the Hootie & the Blowfish members’ relationships with each other as the years passed and they matured into various stages of life, detailing the band’s hiatus in 2008 and their reunion in 2019 for the Group Therapy Tour, commemorating the 25th anniversary of Cracked Rear View.
“Mark [Bryan] and I had one moment, 39 years ago, and since then, there’s never been a bad argument,” Rucker recalls. “There’s never been a fight, never been any of that stuff. We just don’t do that. We have too much respect for each other, and that’s why we can not play together for five years, 15 years, and then get back together and play again. We have so much respect for each other.”
When Hootie & the Blowfish went on hiatus, Rucker used the time to pursue his lifelong love of country music. In the book, Rucker writes that he was well aware of the obstacles as a Black artist pursuing a career in country music — even with his pop star bona fides. “The country music world will never accept a Black country singer…happened exactly once, Charley Pride. He made it big…but that was 25 years ago. Sorry Darius, it can’t happen,” he wrote about the thinking at the time.
“People think I’m kidding, but I really didn’t expect any success,” he tells Billboard. “I just wanted to come here [to Nashville] and do a couple of records, even if I had to do it myself.”
He didn’t have to make the record by himself — his then-manager, Doc McGhee, landed Rucker a deal with one of the biggest country music labels, Capitol Records Nashville, led by then-chairman/CEO Mike Dungan. In the book, Rucker writes that Dungan called 13 “tastemakers” in Nashville, noting that all but one — producer/songwriter Frank Rogers — told him that the prospect of signing Rucker was unlikely to be a successful venture. Dungan signed Rucker anyway, while Rogers has been a mainstay writer-producer with Rucker since his 2008 country debut Learn to Live. Rogers also produced Rucker’s first single to country radio, “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It.”
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“To get Mike to believe in me and back me the way he did, and Capitol, it was a game-changer,” Rucker says. “Mike truly championed me when a lot of people were telling him it would never happen. Frank championed me. It’s very sweet to look back on that and know that a lot of people were saying ‘It’s never going to work’ — but here we are, 16 years later.”
When promoting “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” to country radio, Rucker put in the work, too, spending six weeks on a radio tour, and personally visiting more than 100 stations.
It was during a radio station visit in Tampa, Florida in October 2008, that Rucker was told that “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” became his first No. 1 country radio hit. With that, Rucker also became the first Black solo artist to earn a No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart since Charley Pride rose to the top spot with “Night Games” in 1983. The song spent two weeks at No. 1.
“It paid off. It worked. I remember I cried when I found out,” Rucker recalls.
Now, 16 years later, Rucker has earned nine Country Airplay No. 1s, including the three-week 2009 chart-topper “It Won’t Be Like This For Long.” His remake of Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel” was certified Diamond by the RIAA and spent two weeks atop the Country Airplay chart in 2013.
For Rucker, one of the most defining moments of his country music career was when Brad Paisley invited him to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry on Oct. 2, 2012, and he was inducted two weeks later.
“I had played the Opry every chance I got for six or seven years,” Rucker recalls. “It was important to me and I loved it. But getting to be a member of the Opry — that’s really where I thought, ‘Okay, I’m in. I’m part of country music.’”
Given how music serves as a vessel guiding the chapters of the book, Rucker says he and his team considered recording a companion album, with Rucker performing the songs listed throughout the book, but that they ultimately decided against it. Still, he says, “I’ve thought about doing a covers record, just a whole bunch of songs that I love. That’s probably something I’ll do down the line.”
More than anything, Rucker hopes readers take away from his journey “that it’s a real story, and it’s a story of American triumph.”
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It’s official; the Indiana Pacers are going to Cancun. The Boston Celtics swept them in the NBA Eastern Finals.
As reported by ESPN the Celtics have proven to be the best NBA team in the Eastern Conference. On Monday, May 27 they won their fourth straight game against the Indiana Pacers. While Andrew Nembhard and his squad fought hard they couldn’t maintain their 98-90 lead with under six minutes left in the fourth quarter. Boston’s clutch defense caused the Pacers to miss several shots and turnover the ball. The Celtics outscored Indiana 15-4 to close out the series.
Jaylen Brown lead his team with 29 points, three steals, six rebounds, two assists and one block. At the end of the game he was given the Larry Bird Trophy as the Eastern Conference MVP. He made it clear the honor came to him as a surprise. “I wasn’t expecting it at all” he said. “I don’t never win sh*t.” The Marietta, Georgia native went on salute the Pacers during their celebration. “And give credit to Indiana, they played us tough. I know people think that Indiana wasn’t a good team or whatever the case may be, but I thought they were as tough as anybody we played all season. They were physical, they were fast, they put a lot of pressure on us. So shout out to them, and respect to them.”
When asked about his second trip to the NBA Finals Jayson Tatum responded “it’s special.” He added “even though we’ve been there before, most of us have, you don’t take it for granted. We were excited.” The Dallas Mavericks currently lead the Minnesota Timberwolves 3-0 in the Western Conference Finals.