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Over the last three years, Odesza‘s The Last Goodbye Tour has spanned 54 shows at 48 venues throughout North America, including headlining sets at festivals like Governor’s Ball and Bonnaroo.
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Tomorrow marks the beginning of its end. From July 4-6, Odesza will play the three finale shows of The Last Goodbye run at The Gorge Amphitheatre, the iconic venue roughly 150 miles southeast from the duo’s hometown of Seattle. 66,000 fans are expected over the three nights, and if things go according to plan, almost all of them will pass through an on-site installation the band has created as a tangible, extraordinary and this time truly final goodbye.
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Called Echoes, the installation is built from six 30-foot towers, 120 LED screens and loads of cutting-edge tech that will involve projection mapping and, naturally, sound. Made of brushed aluminum so the installation reflects sunlight by day, after dark Echoes comes to life with video content incorporating brand new visual content from the band, the epic three-year tour and which is also, says the project’s head of creative Steve Bramucci, “in part inspired by the fans.”
This eight-minute video loop will be synced with sound mixed by Odesza’s Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight. Known for the meticulous attention to detail they bring to their music and all elements of the Odesza universe, the pair have also been heavily involved in the design and execution of Echoes.
Their 10-minute soundscape is built from gentle ambient music mixed with voice notes left for the band by fans about what the Last Goodbye era has meant to them, with people offering comments reflecting on things like how they never felt comfortable dancing in public until seeing the show, how the music helped them deal with the loss of parents, grandparents, best friends and relationships, how attending shows expanded their friend group and how this chapter of Odesza generally contributed joy to their lives.
It’s a soundtrack with the power to make one tear up while listening to it at their office desk, and it’s thus likely to have high emotional impact when experienced by fans onsite at The Gorge. (For fans who can’t make it The Gorge, the final show on July 6 will be livestreamed on Veeps.)
The project is designed “to be experienced in the ramping-up period before a show or ramping down after a show,” says Bramucci, “but you can tell that Odesza is thinking people are going sit in here for a few minutes. They’re not just gonna race through, take a couple Instagrams and bounce.” Given crowd flow at The Gorge, Bramucci expects “97 to 98%” of attendees will pass through Echoes. (Another 3% will enter through the VIP area that doesn’t lead past the installation.)
The hope is that fans will indeed spend some time in a project that a global team has dedicated the last two months of their lives to creating. Echoes takes influence from a design originally built in Russia by Russian creative studio Setup, with a second creative studio, The Vessel, expanding on that design and project managing Echoes in the States. The Vessel’s operator Jenny Feterovich serves as Echoes’ creative director.
Meanwhile, Bramucci’s team at Uproxx was tasked with user experience, coordination and storytelling around the project, with a host of other companies involved with AV and scenic building. A 30-person crew has been on site since June 30, working around the clock to get Echoes up and functioning by the time doors open tomorrow at 5:00 p.m.
Echoes being built this week at The Gorge Amphitheatre
This challenge has been compounded by the logistics of working at The Gorge. “It’s literally in the middle of nowhere,” says The Vessel’s co-founder Jenny Feterovich. “We have to truck everything that’s going there, and there is no room for error, because you can’t run back to an office that’s three hours away to go get something. Preparation here is of utmost importance.”
The other major challenge is the weather — with the build teams preparing for possible high winds and assured heat, with temperatures during the build in the mid-80s and temperatures on show days forecasted to hit the 90s, and Saturday expected to reach 100 degrees.
Echoes was designed on PCs equipped with Snapdragon, a microchip from Qualcomm that uses predictive AI to anticipate a user’s movements, in order to shut down and reignite programs and save battery life. On-site, Snapdragon-powered PCs will be used to projection-map, troubleshoot and modify designs in real time, with the team also running visual and audio elements with Snapdragon PCs. Qualcomm also subsidized the project, with the hard costs totaling in the high six figures.
“We’ve found that there are a lot of synergies between Snapdragon technology and this genre of music,” says Qualcomm CEO Don McGuire. “EDM artists embrace innovation and are open to experimenting with technology and new tools, making them great partners.”
Ultimately though, all of the tech is intended to elicit an exclusively human response.
“If I see the face of even one fan who has a serious emotional connection to it, who’s like, ‘the aperture of my appreciation for music and what it means to connect to music has shifted because of this installation, then that’s the perfect win,” says Bramucci.
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There is a thin line between competition and conflict and in the ever-evolving landscape of Rap and Hip-Hop, all it takes is a few words or actions to tilt the scale towards beef.
At their best, the beefs gave us quotables and songs that have become a part of our cultural catalogue from KRS-One’s iconic lines on “The Bridge is Over” or Jay-Z’s jab at Nas’ iconic song “The World is Mine” on “Takeover.” At their worst, the beefs led to violent interactions that served as warnings for the future (rest in powerful peace Tupac Shakur, Christopher Wallace and too many more).
Whether you rooted for the underdog or cheered for the villain, here is a list of nine Hip-Hop beefs that altered the way we listened to the culture’s music to this day.
9. Kool Moe Dee and LL Cool J
Considered by many as one of the first instances of rap beef, the two’s feud not only produced some of the biggest rap moments (Kool Moe Dee’s rap Grammy performance and LL’s Jack the Ripper series), but also set a precedent of using rap disses to enlarge both stars’ brand. For LL, he’d become one of rap’s earliest commercial successes, leading the line of success and respect into the 90s and beyond. His rise also foreshadowed a theme with the pioneer’s anger with younger MC’s who felt slighted by the next generation’s hubris.
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8. Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown
Kim’s ascent into rap in 1996 alongside the Notorious B.I.G. and Junior Mafia brought a new aesthetic for female rappers as she embraced a more sexual and aggressive energy. Unfortunately, competition between her and fellow Brooklyn rapper Foxy Brown became inevitable as the two traded words over the years on various songs including Kim’s verse on Lil Cease’s 1999 song, “Play Around,” “The Notorious Kim”, and Mobb Deep’s “Quiet Storm Remix”. Foxy’s venomous verse on “Bang Bang” proved prophetic, and the violence and residual tension that followed over the years make it one of rap’s most memorable beefs.
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7. Gucci Mane and Young Jeezy
For these two southern MC’s who have since gone on to rectify their differences, their dispute over Gucci’s first commercial record, “So Icy,” ushered in a flurry of diss records back and forth that escalated to alleged violence off the records. Unfortunately, their antics and the energy behind it ushered in a new dimension of dissing enemies, encapsulated by Gucci’s gesture of smoking on the remains of an enemy, a move he’s since condemned.
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6. LL Cool J and Canibus
For Canibus, the rising phenom in rap at the time, being featured on a song with someone as accomplished as LL Cool J was an honor. His initial verse on the posse cut, “4,3,2,1,” however innocent, prompted LL’s furious response, and the records that followed only made LL’s battle rap status grow larger. Canibus’ “Second Round KO” and L’s “The Ripper Strikes Back” also introduced whether fans preferred battle records from overtly lyrical rappers or more commercially renowned artists.
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5. 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G.
Largely remembered for the shocking claims made by 2Pac against Biggie on the song “Hit Em Up”, the primarily one-sided beef spurred a slew of responses from Biggie and others, both directly and subliminally which fueled the environment that led to their untimely deaths. The behind-the-scenes antics between Bad Boy Records and Death Row only exacerbated the tension and forced former friends to cross all types of lines that rap had yet to see before then.
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4. Jay-Z and Nas
After years of tension and perceived disrespect, Jay-Z and Nas’ early 2000s beef produced two of rap’s biggest diss records, “Takeover” and “Ether,” and simultaneously added to both stars’ classic repertoire of albums and songs. Despite the propensity for violence that existed, both men’s decisions to end their issue and work together represented a rare display of maturity, unlike anything we’d seen at that time for stars of their magnitude.
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3. Ja Rule and 50 Cent
Arguably one of the most influential rap beefs of the early 2000s, 50 Cent’s and Ja’s behind-the-scenes issues spilt onto the national stage when 50 attacked Ja multiple times on his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. 50’s unrelenting vendetta against Ja and Murder Inc. successfully made him a legend in many eyes and all but erased the stellar run of one of rap’s most influential and successful rap labels. Despite both artists moving on to different endeavours, the beef between them remains one of rap’s most noticeable land mines, going off at least once a year on social media without fail.
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2. Ice Cube and N.W.A
In the eyes of many rap fans including Cube himself, his 1991 diss response “No Vaseline” is arguably the most known and well-crafted. Before rap fans became accustomed to the idea of a 20 v 1 type battle, Cube took it upon himself to diss his former group N.W.A singlehandedly, so much so that they decided not to respond. At the top of his game both critically and commercially, his diss carried the same weight as Jay-Z and Nas with a level of sophistication and execution that has yet to be reached by a diss record since.
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1. Kendrick Lamar and Drake
Much like how Jay-Z and Nas’ beef festered over the years before exploding onto the scene, Kendrick and Drake’s feud following his verse on Big Sean’s “Control” grew, culminating in years of subliminal jabs. Kendrick’s feature on the Future and Metro Boomin’ single, “Like That” forced both sides into the competition and from there, we got more rap disses in a week than we’d ever seen from two competitors. The speed of their releases, rollout strategies and cleverness upped the ante for rap feuds that typically played out over time and showed us the lyrical brilliance of both camps regardless of who you felt was the victor.
Culturally, the response to Kendrick’s song, “Not Like Us” both online and during Kendrick’s Juneteenth concert, continues the communal call-and-response aspect of rap disses that we’ve loved since its inception. In a short amount of time Not Like Us has become a rap anthem and one of the year’s most streamed songs, much like Drake’s Back to Back became a Grammy-nominated song.
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HipHopWired Featured Video
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In an exclusive interview with Amazon Music’s Phylicia Fant, HipHopWired got to talk about her love of music, her career journey and her motivation.
As Black Music Month is underway, we have an appreciation of the artists who bring us the music that we remember as well as those who’ve worked to support those artists in their careers through their own visionary efforts. Phylicia Fant, who is currently serving as the head of music industry partnerships at Amazon Music, is definitely one of those figures.
Before taking that role the Marietta, Georgia, native forged a sterling career as the former head of urban music at Columbia Records and the vice president of publicity and lifestyle at Warner Records after rising as a public relations genius working with numerous artists including Erykah Badu and Amy Winehouse with her firm, The Purple Agency, in 2008. HipHopWired got the opportunity to speak to Phylicia Fant about the significance of music, the connections, and how it helped her understand and utilize “the pivot” on her career journey.
HipHopWired: What was your first moment of true connection with music? And how did that love direct you to work in the music industry through public relations?
Phylicia Fant: I think true connection always comes from—I won’t say always, but I think if you grew up in the church, then you’re connected to music in the church. That is something that I think when parents are trying to find activities for you to do. My dad is a deacon, and my mom is a deaconess. My great-grandmother on my dad’s side was a pastor, which was rare for females in the South. So music was always kind of in your life. Now, I can’t sing at all. [Laughs] Okay, I will make sure I say that. But you know, they’re always nice to kids.
But what you recognize in those moments is a certain emotion. Even if you’re not the best singer, there’s nothing like that energy where you get up, you sing in front of the church, and they support you, right? It’s that kind of conversation. And then when the soloist comes out, and they bring people to tears, you understand the effects of music in that way. That’s the immersive experience.
My dad played piano as well, so he would have vinyl in my room growing up. And then my first concert was seeing Michael Jackson with my parents. So I’ve always had parents who kind of kept me in different spaces of music and culture, and I think between church, between the vinyl that was placed in my room strategically, which was Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, and the first Sugar Hill Gang record, those are the kinds of ways you will discover music though you may not understand it [then].
What I’ve learned over time is the importance of the pivot and how many times I have pivoted, but at the same time, within those pivots, how I still am true to what I love at my core.
How’s it been so far in your role at Amazon Music in terms of expanding all that the platform has to offer? What challenges and successes have you faced?
I always get nervous with the word challenges, because I think they are more or less about challenges than pushing yourself into a different thought process, right? If you grew up in the label system like I did, then it’s always been very much art as sport, right? So how do I relate to an artist who has to deal with criticism, has to deal with their own personal schedules, their own personal lives? How do I build trust with that artist? So the trust factor kind of leads me into the Amazon conversation in that, while we are a tech company, the principle is to make sure we are making sure the consumer is happy.
So, the consumer being the person that’s listening to the music, but also the consumer, as I think we expand that definition to the artists and to the people that we collaborate with, to have a symbiotic relationship of how data and music can come together for the greater good of how we expand music for people. So the benefit of me being on this side is, while I am always “artist first” and have been, it’s great for me to know what products are being made to make that experience that much better. And that’s not something I’ve really thought about until I got here, right? You look at it as, “Oh, it’s just streaming.” But then you realize it’s much more than streaming.
How you share music, or how you use music, what technology is, is created for you to be able to have that maximum experience to even think about what it means to actually collect music and create a playlist. I wasn’t thinking about that type of conversation inside a tech company. You just think these things are there. And because they’re there, when you recognize what it takes to get these things off the ground, there becomes a respect for the type of collaboration behind the scenes that makes your music experience seamless.
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So that takes me to this next question in terms of your path and being a Black woman who’s carved out such a brilliant path in the industry. For those that are coming up, what’s the most important thing to you that you share with those who inquire about making their own way?
It’s funny because I just got off the phone with one of my mentees, and she was talking about how she loves sports and how she doesn’t know how to get into sports. I said that what I’ve learned over time is the importance of the pivot and how many times I have pivoted, but at the same time, within those pivots, how I still am true to what I love at my core. At the core, I love music. And what you recognize in loving music is that the music extends to different places.
So my career evolved, because I recognize where music could take me. It wasn’t just within the walls of a concert, it was now in the walls of an arena, it was Fashion Week, first row. Taking people like JoJo and Lindsay Lohan to fashion week, when the city was at its peak and living in New York, you recognize different ways to use it to carry you in different spaces.
And so once you realize that your core passion can also expand those doors, and you don’t see it as a linear situation, then the pivot becomes more fascinating. It doesn’t become easier. But it becomes fascinating in the sense of, “Oh, I can take this thing that I love, I can open up different doors.” I can understand music from a seat perspective and see what it’s like to have a song placed on television.
Because now I understand how music works in film. I understand music works with intelligence. “Oh, I can get this artist’s song played in the stadium, like Lil Nas X, and see how people react. And see this song becomes a chance for Texas Tech before they get ready to play the game because it pumps them up. I can look at who was curating music for fashion shows when I was in New York. So it still stems from music. But music opened doors for me to go into all these different spaces because I recognize music is universal for a reason.
It is Black Music Month, and I couldn’t end this interview without asking you for your favorite artists that we should be checking for if we aren’t already – like what would be on your select playlist?
It’s such a unique thing because I think about – like, I love Andra Day because I think she has a richness. I worked with Amy Winehouse and I think the ability to blend jazz and R&B and all those conversations is great. But I also love Tommy Richmond’s new song “Million Dollar Baby” because I love what the HBCUs and the Divine Nine’s step teams have done with that song and how you can take one song and it becomes a movement and become also a self-esteem booster at the same time. So there’s different artists I think for different reasons, different moods that I really like. I gotta think about that.
I think that people don’t know this artist named Q live on Columbia Records, who’s R&B. I think Durand [Bernarr], you might know him as a backup vocalist like I do, but his voice is just rich. It’s absolutely phenomenal. I’m really proud of the R&B space, like Muni Long – even though the song became viral on TikTok I like her ability to be bold and kind of say what’s on people’s minds, which is why I think I’m excited about music right now where I think a couple of years ago, I was frustrated because I do think we are looking for our next superstars.
But, you know, I’m also an old-school girl. Never gonna not want to hear Marvin Gaye and Prince. They inspire me all the time. Those are staples on my playlist as well as Stevie Wonder. It’s just a place to take me to. I love Mariah Carey, you know, I’ll never not love her. So I think it’s that constant lens of past, present, and future, which I think is ironic because of our campaign which is called “Forever The Influence.” And if you think about people like Uncle Charlie [Wilson], who will pop up on a Don Tolliver record, who I also love. So I think it will always be a combination of past, present, and future, and I’m excited about the future, but these are the artists that have stuck out to me.
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.
Billboard
This story will appear in the June 1, 2024, issue of Billboard.