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There’s a moment in Adam Sandler’s new comedy special, Love You, when the comedian picks up an acoustic guitar and very intently and fluently plays “Malagueña,” the classical guitar instrumental by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona, before he launches into “Mutterin’,” a comedic song about murmuring negative asides under his breath.
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In Sandler’s first Netflix special in six years, he finds humor in most things — whether it be a low-brow, scatological sketch about a wish-granting genie, or a clever riff on non-sensical word pronunciations as he toggles between spoken bits and songs. But one thing Sandler takes very seriously is his musicianship.
“When I was a kid, my dad had an acoustic guitar, and he would play ‘Malagueña.’ That song means a lot to me,” Sandler tells Billboard. One day, Sandler — who was already taking guitar lessons while growing up in Manchester, New Hampshire — came upon a Stratocaster in a store window. “I was in bands all through junior high and high school and I said, ‘Oh my God, I would do anything for that guitar.’ My dad said, ‘I’m not just going to get it for you, but if you learn “Malagueña” note for note, I’ll get that guitar for you.’ I practiced it for a year until my father was impressed enough he got it for me when I was 12. I think of that every time I pick up a guitar.”
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And he picks up the guitar a lot in Love You, which was directed by Josh Safdie, whom Sandler worked with to great acclaim on the 2019 drama Uncut Gems. Instead of the usual comedy special where the comedian walks out onto a brightly lit stage to applause, Love You opens with a decidedly more frantic, in-your-face tone. Sandler pulls up to the venue dealing with a shattered windshield, he’s then barraged by autograph seekers, he can’t find a clean hoodie to wear, his coffee order is wrong, and he’s running late. Once he gets on stage in the darkly lit small club — a deliberately disheveled Nocturne Theater in Glendale, California — things aren’t much better: there are technical glitches with the screens, and a stray dog even wanders onto the stage.
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When Safdie came to him with his slightly skewed vision for the special, Sandler says, “It definitely took me a little while to go ‘yes.’ I just thought we were going to shoot the show because I had been doing the show for a while and I had that down, so I was excited to do that, but Josh kept saying, ‘Let’s try to do something different.’” The special is a scaled-down version of the arena show Sandler took on the road last fall, which grossed $28.5 million in 27 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Though Sandler knew some of the curveballs that were going to come his way at the Nocturne, Safdie’s plan kept Sandler on his toes, and gives the special a jagged edge. “That made it more exciting the days we were shooting,” Sandler says. “I definitely never knew when something was going to come at me and throw the rhythm off, and I had to try to react and keep the show going as smoothly as we could. It made it more of an electric vibe.”
As if there wasn’t enough disruption, an unplanned kerfuffle breaks out between some audience members. “It was kind of early on in the show, and then all of a sudden you felt some hostility in the crowd,” says Sandler, who quickly diffused the situation. “When you’re on the road, it’s going to happen. Things get out of control in the audience and you got to react to it and try to calm things down.”
Just as his 2018 special, 100% Fresh, ended with a sentimental, sweet musical tribute to the late Chris Farley, his friend and former Saturday Night Live castmate, Love You similarly concludes with “Here Comes the Comedy,” a warm salute to the healing power of comedy, as footage of the dozens of comedians who have influenced and delighted Sandler since his youth appear on the finally operational monitors. In the six-minute number, written by Sandler and his longtime musical partner Dan Bulla, Sandler plays the Stratocaster his father gave him when he was 12.
Sandler apologizes that he has to cut the interview short because he’s in the middle of pre-production on Happy Gilmore 2, his sequel to his 1996 comedy classic. The movie will start shooting in New Jersey next year and Sandler’s already teased that the new version will include a number of cameos, just as the original did, including Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who sported a Happy Gilmore cap at this April’s Coachella. “He’s gonna come by. He’s a very nice guy,” Sandler said on The Tonight Show on Aug. 20. “You guys would love him in real life. What a big, handsome guy. Funny and cool as hell. He’s a stud and he’s so funny.”
There’s no word on whether Kelce’s girlfriend, superstar Taylor Swift, will also make a cameo, but Sandler is an unabashed Swiftie. He and his family attended a Los Angeles show on the Eras tour in August 2023, as well as the Los Angeles premiere of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film. When asked his favorite Swift song, Sandler struggles to pick just one, but it’s clear he has plenty riffling through his head from years of being the ultimate girl dad.
“Everything [my two daughters] throw on I love, but one of the first ones they threw on when they were young was ‘The Best Day,’” he says of Swift’s sentimental track about her mom from 2008’s Fearless. “We connected with that when the kids were young. Every album, we listen the first day it comes out. There’s not a song they don’t know every word to.”
Like Swift, Sandler is no stranger to the Billboard charts. Between tunes like “The Chanukah Song,” The Wedding Singer’s “Grow Old with You” and “The Thanksgiving Song,” as well as his Grammy-nominated comedy albums, Sandler’s landed on 10 different charts, including topping the Comedy Albums chart in 2019 with his 100% Fresh album. It’s something he’s kept an eye on since his early days.
“When I was young and my albums came out, I worked with Brooks Arthur,” he says, referencing the renowned late music producer whom he collaborated with for nearly 30 years. “He used to talk to me about his charts and I’d ask him, ‘How are we doing on Billboard?’ I always wanted to know.”
In a year brimming with highly acclaimed releases from women in Nigerian music, Qing Madi’s voice is hard to ignore, set apart by its youthful resonance.
Before her emergence on the Afrobeats scene, Qing Madi (real name Chimamanda Pearl Chukwuma) had regular life plans like most young people: get a degree, then get a job. She had just moved from her birthplace of Benin City to Lagos with her family. This move brought on more opportunities in the form of songwriting gigs for artists such as Skales, Iyanya and Larry Gaaga.
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“One day, I was asked to do backup for Blaqbonez and showed up for the vocals. I met his producer Ramoni, and he played me this beat that I thought was so beautiful,” she tells Billboard via Zoom. “I asked to do a freestyle to the beat and titled it ‘See Finish.’”
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She uploaded it onto TikTok in 2022. “I used to post cover videos on TikTok and some of them would blow up,” Madi says, citing her renditions of “Overloading (OVERDOSE)” by Crayon, Ayra Starr, LADIPOE, Magixx and Boy Spyce and Burna Boy and Ed Sheeran’s “For My Hand” as examples. “I never put out anything original because I wasn’t bold enough and didn’t think people would like it.”
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But as “See Finish” went viral, Madi says she was swarmed by DMs from different local and international record labels. “My mom was so overwhelmed by what was happening from just this one freestyle, but we eventually decided that I would get signed to Jton Music and Columbia/Bu Vision,” she says. “The next step was to release an EP with songs I’d worked on.”
Released last November, her seven-track self-titled EP carries relatable reflections on great first loves, independence and a wide range of emotions one experiences on the journey to a fully-formed identity. On “Madi’s Medley,” she asserts strength in difficult situations. “Why” explores what it’s like to be your own person amid pressure to conform. Eight months later, Madi released its deluxe version featuring three new songs: the “Vision” remix with Chloe Bailey, the Kizz Daniel-assisted “YBIL (You Believe in Love)” and “Sins For U”.
Since then, Madi has performed in the U.S. for the first time as part of BNXN’s tour, gained co-signs from Afrobeats superstars Wizkid and Ayra Starr (with the former tapping her for background vocals on his “Diamonds” track last year) and earned a spot on Billboard’s 2024 21 Under 21 List. Still, the 18-year-old singer-songwriter admits she has moments where she can’t believe it’s all real. “Seeing the crowd screaming my songs back to me affects me in a big way,” she says. “I’m really writing songs for the whole world to listen to.”
Qing Madi spoke with Billboard about her mainstream success, the upsides of delusion and why she never feels the pressure to fit in.
In some interviews you refer to your music as “Afro-delulu.” How does this describe your sound?
Most of the stuff that I sang about on the EP was not part of my reality at the time. In “American Love,” I sang about traveling around the world, when I’d never even crossed the border. I was looking to the future and then it just started manifesting with all my current travels. I can be delusional, but I like to talk a lot about the things that I want, and somehow they always come to be. And “Afro-delulu” wasn’t even a term I came up with, my fans created that for me and I liked it and went with it.
Your music touches on themes like love and heartbreak in a relatable way. How do you bring these ideas to life?
Besides being delusional, I also write about things that happen to me or my friends. “See Finish” came from a friendship breakup that hurt me, and no one really talks about those, because they’re not supposed to hurt as much as heartbreak from romantic relationships. I’m not a confrontational person – so if I have an issue with someone, I’ll probably make a song about it, because it’s the easiest mode of expression for me.
This year, Afrobeats has been largely defined by women, each with their own distinct sound. What’s it like to be part of a rising crop of artists who decide to prioritize their own vision and go outside of the norm?
It’s beautiful. I’m more proud of the audience than I am of the industry because the crowd is opening their ears to us. There have always been women with different sounds, but some never got the opportunity to be heard because the audience would be like, “This music is too slow, this isn’t what we want.” We’re all growing to the point where everyone has a genre that they truly enjoy, and since they’re more accepting of other kinds of music, we don’t have to subject ourselves to a particular pattern. It also helps that Nigerian music is more global than ever before, so I’m proud to be part of it, being on the inside and getting to watch the growth up close.
There’s some pressure on artists to have the perfect brand or to present themselves in the most appealing way to the public. How do you put your own perspective first?
When people think of a female artist, they usually picture someone whose style and appearance is very “feminine.” I’m not really trying to fit into that ideology, because that’s not who I am. Sometimes people say things like, “You’re a pretty girl! Why not dress more like this?” Or “If you change your style, you’re going to get a lot more [public approval].” But I try to stay true to myself and not become somebody else. There are people who are more accepting of a different kind of look and girls who just want to be comfortable. I’m trying to use my image to speak for them.
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Young artists today are also burdened with the focus on numbers, branding and engagement around their music. How do you handle these expectations?
I don’t focus on what people expect of me, because there’s always going to be criticism. My music is always from my heart, so if it doesn’t feel genuine to me, it won’t be released. When I put out “See Finish,” people were like, “She’s a one-hit wonder, she’s not going to do it again.” And when “Ole” [featuring BNXN] came out, they said, “You just got lucky with a major feature.”
If I listen to the negatives, it would mess with my mind, and if I rely on the positives, it would make me too comfortable and I would only stick to a particular sound and style. So I block everything out and I never read comments on anything. My focus remains only on creating.
As your music continues to attract audiences worldwide, what is your outlook for the future?
There has been a lot of growth, and I don’t think about limitations because of the fast pace at which we’re growing. Everything is falling in place and I’m just really hopeful. I only care about how my music is being received, how it resonates among the audience and how it contributes to the growth of Nigerian music and women in general. I feel like my album will be in the works soon, and it’ll represent how I feel and what I speak for.
On a 95-degree day in late July, Channel Tres shows up on Zoom from his place is Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood wearing a tank top and intermittently drinking from a large water bottle.
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It’s been a few weeks since the artist released his debut album, Head Rush, 17 tracks that package myriad elements of Tres’ psyche — “my love life, dealing with loss, dealing with the transition when my dreams become reality” — into a sophisticated, swaggy amalgamation of hip-hop, R&B and electronic music that tracks his rise from his native Compton to big tours and big festival stages.
“Now I’m somebody people will recognize sometimes,” he says. “I’m not just a bedroom musician anymore. I’m doing things. It was like, ‘I have all these things going on, and I only have this one brain to process it. That was the meaning of the title, Head Rush. It was something that could be euphoric, but it’s also something that can be a headache.”
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This characteristic depth is balanced by a lot of output that’s just purely danceable. This fall, Tres will go on a 15-date tour with Kaytanada for shows he predicts will be “the biggest dance parties of the year.” He’s also currently working on dance music that he’s testing out at DJ sets and afterhours. And the reach is real: When he recently went back to Compton to hang out on the set of Kenrick Lamar’s “Not LIke Us” video, he says “a lot of people came up to me like, ‘Yo man, we love what you’re doing. We’ve gotten into house music.’ I would never think going back home that I’d hear this from people. Stuff like that inspires me.”
Ahead of his performance at HARD Summer in Los Angeles this weekend, Tres talks about what he’s done, what he still wants to achieve and the times he’s just been able to enjoy the moment.
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It’s been a month since your album came out. What has this time been like for you?
The first two weeks were like hell, because I was reading everything. I would search my name on Twitter and read everything; I was reading Reddit, just engulfing myself in the positive and negative feedback. It was a lot for me, but I felt like it was important to get both sides of criticism, just because I want to teach myself how to take whatever it is and be okay with it.
That sounds intense.
I didn’t want to feed into all the positive feedback and fill my head up with all positive things, thinking I’m the shit when I still have things to work on. Then I wanted to also look at the negatives so I could build strength to have thicker skin so it won’t affect me as much. Because the more you get into this, you realize it’s just going to be all types of comments coming at you. I always safeguarded myself from that, but this time, I was like, “No, I’m going to engage.”
Then after that two weeks, I stopped. I was like, “Okay, cool. I’m going to go back to therapy, and instead of bi-weekly make it once a week.” [Laughs.] Then I just got really excited about the future. I was like, “Wow, I really put a chapter of my life into 17 songs and released it, and it feels so good.” I’m excited to take what I learned from this process to inform the next body of work.
Were able to shake off the best and worst things you read about yourself?
Yeah. I learned how to be like, “This is how I feel. I know what I was saying right here. I know how I freaked the production right here and what that means to me as a producer.” After it was all said and done, I was like, “Oh, I’m only in competition with me.” I get to do something I’m passionate about, and it serves me, and it serves my creative juices and the the child in me, but it also pays the bills. So wow, look at the life that I get to live.
You mentioned being recognized and having your profile rise. The last time you spoke with Billboard, in 2023, you said were “ready for big s–t… ready for the big stage type of energy.” Do you feel like you’ve achieved that with this album?
No, I don’t feel like I’ve achieved that. But I feel like I achieved what this album was supposed to achieve for me. I didn’t get to where I want to go with this album, but I’m thankful I did it, because there’s more stories to be told, and I want to leave a trail of [output.] Whenever that moment comes, cool. I feel successful already, but I know there’s places I want to go.
What places are those?
I still want to play Glastonbury. I still want to headline Coachella. There are certain things that I want automatic, like I want to get Tonight Show automatically. I want more excitement behind things I’m doing, but I’m not in a rush for that. I know those things come with the more work I put in.
Have there been moments when you’ve felt like you were getting exactly what you wanted or dreamed of?
I had an album release party for my project and Thundercat showed up, Ty Dolla $ign showed up, Kaytranada showed up, Estelle, Ravyn Lenae. I was wondering if they’re all going to show up. I was like, “Let me just go for the fans and give this body of work the appreciation it needs.” Then everybody showed up. We all listened to the album, then afterwards, everybody I mentioned came on stage, and I was able to play my favorite songs with them and vibe with the crowd. I was so full of love. I was like, “This is what it is. It’s about community.”
These are people I’ve looked up to since like, 2010, and now some of them I can call friends and collaborators. And my mom was there, my aunt, my grandma came. Everything clicked. At that point, nothing mattered — like the successes I want, or my personal ambitions. For my cousins or other people from L.A. that knew me before to see where I’ve gotten to now, that brought a lot of gratitude.
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Maybe this is an unfair question since you just released your album, but are you working on music right now?
I’ve already been working on new music. I’ve been finding new sounds. With Head Rush, I needed to rap more and incorporate some of my hip-hop roots and R&B roots. It’s an electronic album, but it’s not the dance album I wanted to make. It’s more of a album of self -expression, but I put some dance songs in there that are going to be good to perform. But I still have a really crazy electronic dance project I want to make.
Ooh. Tell me more.
I’ve been making dance music again. I mean, I never stopped, but I have a re-love for it again. I’ve been practicing DJing again, and I’ve been finding sounds and new BPMs. I’ve been doing more after parties and underground club parties and testing out records in my DJ sets. I’m getting hungry again about how I relate to dance music. I feel like how I felt when I first fell in love with it again, but in a new way, because I have more skills.
What are the best business decisions that you’ve made so far in your career?
I would say firing the team I started off with. I was very loyal in that situation, and I wasn’t necessarily getting the best work. When I came into the music, I’m thinking I’m working for my team, when in reality, I’m Channel Tres. I created Channel Tres. I’m in the studio creating the songs; I’m putting my life on the line going on these tours. So the people around me need to be held to a standard, and we need to be working together. Nobody’s working for anybody. Being able to let a situation go based on business and not being so loyal because you have emotional connections has been a really great thing for me. Because, yes, I’m very loyal. But sometimes that doesn’t mean that that person is doing the best work for you.
How have things shifted for you since you made that decision?
I feel like I have business partners now. We can look at Channel Tres objectively and make the best decisions for what we’re trying to get to. Because I am a musician and a creative, but I’m also well invested into the business of Channel and how we can further that. I know that I’m gonna show up, and I’m going to put the work in, and when I have somebody that’s working with me, and they have the same energy, I can sleep at night with that.
You’re going on tour with Kaytranada this summer. What’s that show going to look like?
When the Kaytranada tour offer came it was just like, “Wow, this is exactly what I need right now.” I was excited to go on tour by myself, but then I was like, “Nah, Kaytranada and I together on a tour is just going to be the biggest dance party of the year.”
[My team and I] are so locked in to capitalize on the things I’ve already done. My routine is better. Me and creative partner, we’ve gotten better. I’m open to learning, but I’m also coming with fire. I’ve been rehearsing, and I’m honing in on things I haven’t before. Even if it’s just a dance move I want to add to my repertoire. I’ve been watching a lot of Broadway shows like The Wiz. Now I’m walking around in the house, but I’m doing it in a Broadway fashion.
There aren’t that many dance artists that incorporate actual dancing into their live show. Why is that a compelling thing for you to do?
I’ve been dancing since I was a kid. In high school I was in ballet. I’m just an art kid. If I wasn’t doing music, I’d probably be doing a play. I have to make things interesting for myself. Also my first tour I ever went on was with Robyn. I got to watch her every night. The way she worked the crowd, you could feel the love and energy. There’s no mistake that the universe put me on that tour. I want to bring people that type of energy.
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Have you always been so able to freely express yourself, or has it taken a long time to get to this place of just following the impulses?
Naturally as a kid I was like that. But then I did a talent show in seventh grade, and I got booed and made fun of for the rest of the year. It shut me down for a while and I was reserved, and like “I’m just gonna be a producer and be in the background.”
What changed?
Something happened when I was in college. I was a drama minor. I started learning how to act and then kind of felt the energy again. I don’t live where I grew up anymore. I’m not the person that all those people knew anymore.
I experienced house music and dance music and was like, “There’s no time to be precious about this. I’m going get a choreographer. I’m going start taking classes. I’m going to practice and start being the person I want to be. Fuck it. There’s just no time to be cool. If it falls through the floor, it falls through the floor, but I’m just going to put myself out there, because you only get one life.” And it worked.
What was the seventh grade talent show performance?
I grew up in church, that’s how I got good at instruments. I grew up with my great grandparents, so I was wearing loafers and slacks. So I just was like, “I’m gonna bring this energy to school, and it’s gonna be good.” Me and my friend wrote a gospel song. I sang it. I was dancing, and it was just a sea of laughter.
That’s tough.
Because it wasn’t cool to be like that. I’m going to school in Compton. Either you play sports, or you’re a gangbanger. That shit wasn’t cool.
Well, if they could see you now.
They do.
Over three years into his solo career, Aaron Frazer is about to embark on his first headlining tour. Frazer – the drummer and vocalist for soul outfit Durand Jones & The Indications – released his first solo album Introducing… in January of 2021 when touring options were limited due to COVID-19 restrictions and only managed to fit in a few opening gigs with fellow retro-enthusiasts Black Pumas.
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For his sophomore set Into the Blue (out today via Dead Oceans), Frazer will support the new record across nearly 30 dates and multiple countries – a challenge he’s nervous, but ready to accept.
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“At this point in people’s careers, if they’re the front person up there without an instrument in their hands they have probably been doing it since they were a kid,” Frazer tells Billboard. “And I’ve spent a lot of time on my butt … behind a drum kit.”
But Frazer isn’t entirely untested as a headliner. His booking team floated the idea of a one-off show at the iconic Troubadour in Los Angeles (the city he now calls home) for February and, within minutes of onsale, it was sold out. The team added two more nights around the city including The Lodge Room and The Paramount in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, both of which also sold out.
“It moved really quick, which was cool, man,” says Frazer. “I don’t think anywhere in the world has my back the way L.A. has my back.”
Tonight, he’ll celebrate the release of Into the Blue at The Wiltern, which has a larger capacity than his Threepeat run combined, and will formally introduce his loyal audience to the 10-track collection that showcases an even wider range of Frazer’s talents. Following his heavily soul-focused debut, Into the Blue takes the listener from 1950s pop of “Perfect Strangers” to the ‘90s R&B-styled “Fly Away,” along with boleros-inspired Spanish-language track “Dime.” While the genres sound disparate, Frazer and co-producer Alex Goose manage to ground the album in Frazer’s slick drumming and signature falsetto.
Billboard caught up with Frazer prior to his album release gig to discuss growing into a frontman, his love for hip-hop and how he manages to create cohesion as a “genre-agnostic” artist.
Into the Blue takes you into even more genres than before with ‘90s R&B, 1950s/1960s rock’n’roll and, of course, soul. How do you make all these genres sound cohesive on one album?
I am extremely eclectic in my listening, but for some people I did want to avoid the feeling of whiplash. Finding these through-lines that you can weave together to make it a more cohesive listening experience. So, like, Italian film score, some of the spaghetti western stuff. Ennio Morricone was a big influence on this record, and David Axelrod. Both Morricone and Axelrod, you have these big operatic background vocals, but then you also have very tough drums – very breakbeat-oriented drums. For me, it is keeping the drums tough throughout.
For example, the opening track “Thinking of You” — I was listening to a lot of Black Ivory from Harlem when I was writing that. The true period take would be to actually dial back the drums a little bit, but I wanted to push the drums a little bit more forward so that it can also blend with a song like “Dime” which is part Little Beaver and part Kali Uchis. So, yeah, tough drums, the background vocals and I am still me in every context. That is also the tie that binds.
Speaking of “Dime” featuring Cancamusa, what made you want to add Spanish-language vocals to this track?
I was working with a Spanish co-writer. I had this beat that I had made in collaboration with Alex Goose, my co-producer, as well as Robin Hannibal from Rhye. We put this track together and it had this smooth, intimate romance to it and Spanish is such a romantic language – it literally is a romance language. It felt like the right context for a Spanish-speaking artist. I wrote the lyrics with a writer named Sofia Lafluente, and she brought the Spanish perspective to that. I love being able to shine a spotlight on other artists, whether it is with my production or if it’s on my own social media. So much of the soul audience that I have is Spanish-speaking, and I wanted to show respect to the culture and bring a Spanish-speaking artist onto the track.
Your career has been heavily influenced by older soul music. What drew you to that music?
I’ve always felt genre agnostic. Hip-hop for me has always been at the core of my musical DNA. That’s how I learned soul music in the first place. The first CD I ever owned was Big Willie Style by Will Smith. I wish it was a cooler album. [Laughs] You get what you get when you’re a kid. But on that record there is “Just the Two of Us” which is a Bill Withers interpolation and the “Men in Black” rap which is Patrice Rushen’s “Forget Me Nots.”
From the jump, my introduction to soul music was filtered through hip-hop. It’s always been part of how I’ve understood music. Every hip-hop record draws multiple lines outward to other records across generations. So, here’s a drum break from the ‘60s. Here’s a soul sample from the ‘70s. There’s a jazz piano snippet. That’s the core of my musical philosophy. All these genres and different decades, it’s all just one thing.
Despite the depth of genres and instruments you introduce on the album, the tracks never sound cluttered. How do accomplish that?
It definitely takes a lot of work the more elements you put in. A lot of my musical heroes are good at exactly that. Curtis Mayfield builds these huge arrangements but they’re never like, “Whoa! Okay, I get it.” It’s never overbearing. Lee Hazlewood is another one that I come back to a lot. He’s making country music but there’s a toughness to it and his arrangements are just cavernous. A lot of it comes down to the part arranging and being able to see when everything fits. There’s a call and response to create a conversation between the elements. That’s what it is a lot of the times.
You had a very successful Threepeat run of shows in Los Angeles earlier this year, but now you’re going on a full headlining tour. What can fans expect?
I have a drummer who signed on for this tour who also sings background and plays percussion. So, when I’m on the kit, he’ll be on percussion and background vocals and then when I go up front, he’ll be on the drums.
So, unlike previous gigs, you’re going to be even more of a frontman. How does that feel?
It feels naked. It feels like a fever dream where you walk on stage without your pants on. It is fun, but it is a challenge. It requires a certain amount of bravery. I’m learning as I go, but I’m looking forward to this opportunity to experiment with abandon. That’s something I admire so much about Durand as a front person – his sense of abandon, his freedom on stage.
I also need to figure out who I am as a front person. I don’t come out of the James Brown school of frontmanship. It would be weird if I did. Smokey Robinson had his own kind of stage presence that is more demure. Or Curtis Mayfield, his stage presence was interesting because he held a guitar for a lot of it, which is nice. When I have a guitar in my hand, I’m like, “Okay, I’m safe. I’m good. I have something to do with my limbs.”
On No One Gets Out Alive, singer-songwriter Maggie Rose is sending a message.
“The theme of this record is using this finite amount of time well while we have it,” she says of the recently released project. She was in a reflective mood as she wrote and recorded the dynamic work, having gone through the pandemic, seen some friendships come to their natural conclusion and lost her best friend’s dad to cancer. “All these things that made me feel connected to my community were gone,” she says.
With its folk-pop-soul, acoustic production and Rose’s expressive, smoky vocals, the album recalls works from Bonnie Raitt, Yola and Dusty Springfield.
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Rose says she doesn’t necessarily think about what listeners will learn about her from hearing to the album, but instead what they will learn about themselves: “I think I have a really strong belief in myself and what I’m doing,” she says. “[It’s] not as much as I want them to learn about me, but hopefully that they will draw from this.”
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Produced by Ben Tanner, the album guitarist Sadler Vaden and drummer Chad Gamble from Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit, keyboardist Peter Levin (Amanda Shires, Gregg Allman), bassist Zac Cockrell (Alabama Shakes) and keyboardist Kaitlyn Connor and guitarist Kyle Lewis from Rose’s own band. “I believed in this Field of Dreams idea of build it and they will come,” she says, of assembling the players.
Rose, who released her first album in 2009, delivered the completed project to Big Loud Records, which didn’t change a thing, including the sequencing. “I am not by any means jaded, but it wasn’t what I was expecting a label on Music Row to deliver for me and fully embrace what I was doing,” she says. “I think that just is a testament to Big Loud and how progressive and artist forward they are. But all the tentativeness that I had just from having operated around Music Row for so long, that all went away just because I felt like I was really understood. This is the partnership I’ve been waiting for.”
Rose has played the Grand Ole Opry 106 times, and if mainstream country music gatekeepers have yet to embrace her, she feels totally accepted on that vaunted stage. “I think it speaks to all the different iterations of what the Nashville music scene is,” she says. “The fact that the Grand Ole Opry has been around for almost 100 years is probably due to the fact that they are malleable and they’re trying to adapt, and also be progressive and cast a little bit of a wider net than maybe our friends at country radio are doing. I don’t know that my music is like a bullseye for what you would typically expect to hear at the Grand Ole Opry, but I feel very much part of a community that I want to see go on for another 100 years.”
Below, Rose picks her five favorite tracks from the new album — though she admits her top selections can change on any given day — with explanations in her own words for each pick.
“No One Gets Out Alive”
The title by itself: If you just hear ‘No one gets out alive,’ it sounds really ominous and dark. When you hear the song in its entirety, it’s anything but. It’s really hopeful. I’d had this title just kind of rolling around in my head. I knew the day that I wrote this song with Sunny Sweeney and Natalie Hemby, that most likely I would end up naming the album that — just because I’d already written some other songs that were about moving on with only what you need and taking advantage of the time that you have. It was me letting go of some emotions that were holding me back creatively and keeping me from living to my full potential and extracting all the joy I can from what we’re doing.
I wanted this really dramatic ending, and I even got kind of scared of it. I said to Ben Tanner, “People are going to think I’m being too dramatic or over the top with this.” And he’s like, “You deserve to step into that theater and drama. That’s what the song is about.” There’s urgency. It’s demanding people live in the present right now.
“Mad Love” (feat. John Paul White)
“Mad Love” and “No One Gets Out Alive” are a little like twin songs. Every song has its little counterpart that it belongs with. “Mad Love” has that same kind of cinematic, Tarantino soundtrack feel as “Alive.” It was almost like I was trying to manifest this character that was a little braver than I was at the time. I’m like, this is Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill and pretending to step into this role. And maybe if I write this story and create this person in this persona, I’ll able to fulfill it and live up to it. I love performing that song. It just gives me like [Lee] Hazelwood/Nancy Sinatra, spaghetti western vibes. And it’s also goes with the theme of relationships running their course, and of owning a little bit of that anger and moving on from it.
I love John Paul White. He’s got the haunting melody/ harmony thing down. I was like, “What better voice than John Paul’s to have on a song like ‘Mad Love’?” And I didn’t even tell him what parts to sing. He’s just doing his own thing. It truly just adds this ghostly beauty to the song that I love.
“Fake Flowers”
I wrote it with Chuck Harmony and Claude Kelly, who have become really good friends of mine. It was maybe one of the first songs that I had written when I started to realize there’s an album that’s starting to galvanize here. Chuck and Claude are known for writing these huge, diva pop melodies, and have written for Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, Whitney Houston and Britney Spears. We probably made nine efforts, just the three of us, for songs to be contenders for this record and “Fake Flowers” was one of them.
I felt like I owned my anger, which is not necessarily something women are always encouraged to do. It’s one that I really look forward to during the live show, because it’s so dynamic and it has [these] kind of spooky, intimate verses and then this explosive Motown chorus, where it kind of mimics raging out. I love when music and the sentiment of a song can really marry together so well like that. I have a fondness in thinking about writing that with them and knowing that the three of us really had something special.
“Too Young”
The song I wrote with Natalie Hemby is about ageism. Natalie and I both were drawing from our similar experiences of moving to Nashville when we were teenagers. Knowing that we were talented, knowing that we have good people or established people around us and things going for us, but we were kind of undermined in thinking that we didn’t know what was best for ourselves and our careers. We wrote the song based on that. Knowing that I’ve been in Nashville for 16 years and was feeling like, “OK, I’m 35 and making another record.”
I wanted to include at the end that you’re never too old to chase your dreams. No one is. I think ageism is a really tough subject to write about, but I feel like Natalie and I did a good job. And it was such an intimate day of us laughing and crying and going down memory lane of different things that we had experienced throughout our careers. There was a lot of beauty to it, too, and anticipation for what’s to come.
We have to push against that stigma within our industry. It’s ridiculous. I love hearing from artists who have lived experiences and who can draw from wisdom. I feel more rooted in what I have to say now than I ever have.
“Under the Sun”
I love the groove of it. It has this fun Fleetwood Mac feel, but the lyrics are this really strong juxtaposition of sadness and the idea that we’ve exhausted every effort to reconcile and it’s not going to happen. There’s a little sarcasm to it as well: I guess there’s nothing out there for us that will bring us back together. I just like when you are grooving along to a song and you think it’s like this happy bop and it reveals itself to you as “Oh, this is actually pretty introspective and kind of sad.” It’s one that I really look forward to playing live. The production’s kind of fun and it adds a cool element to collection of songs that makes it really well rounded.
Josh Groban shocked the theater community when he and his Sweeney Todd co-star Annaleigh Ashford announced that they will be playing their final shows on Jan. 14, 2024, with Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster set to replace the pair. While Groban expressed gratitude for getting to be in the show in his departure announcement, the star provided additional context as to why he left in a new interview with Billboard News.
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“I think that we feel whether we stayed in it another year, whether we left tomorrow, I think Annaleigh and I feel like we did what we came to do,” Groban explained to Billboard‘s Rebecca Milzoff. “We wanted to get it off the ground in a way that we were really proud of, to get a response that [Stephen] Sondheim would have been really excited by and proud of, we wanted to bring our essence to the role and do something to it that we personally would be really proud of. And then it comes down to, how long do you stay fresh in that and how long do you feel like you have something really vital in your tank to give it.”
Their revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, to use its full title, received eight Tony nominations, including best revival of a musical and best actor and actress in a musical for Groban and Ashford. The cast album from the show is nominated for a Grammy for best musical theater album. Final-round voting is currently underway. The awards will be presented on Feb. 4.
Elsewhere during Groban’s interview, he spoke about his link to David Foster, who mentored him throughout the process of recording his 2001 self-titled debut album, and revealed that the experience gave him the tools necessary to soar on his sophomore follow-up, Closer. Groban reflected on the album hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and being surprised because it felt “a little more expressive” than his debut.
“I remember it didn’t open at No. 1. I remember being surprised [when] I got the call that it had gone No. 1 when that’s usually not the case. Usually, you have your big opening week, at least that’s the way the business is now, so that was a really special feeling.”
Closer entered the Billboard 200 at No. 4 in November 2003 and finally reached No. 1 in its ninth week in January 2004. “You Raise Me Up,” a Foster-produced track from the album, became his first hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and brought him his first Grammy nod (best male pop vocal performance).
“That was the first album I started to write on,” Groban recalls. “I felt like that was the first album that I started to explore more eclectic taste and took more risks and dipped my toes into waters that felt a little more self-expressive.”
He continued, “Your first album you’re just so careful, you got a lot of chefs in the kitchen. When you got someone like David Foster, you’ve got Gordon Ramsey in your kitchen — in a good way. So that album doing what it did really made me realize that my fans are in it for the long run. That album going to No. 1 made me realize, ‘Oh we’re gonna have a journey together.’ … They were open to other styles. They were open to me being me.”
Watch Groban’s full interview with Billboard News in the video above.
Tiga‘s Turbo Recordings has delivered fresh, inventive music reflecting the darkly alluring world of techno for 25 years, which is a pretty long time.
Today (Nov. 17), the Montreal-based producer and the label are celebrating this quarter century of existence with a 25-track compilation album, composed of music by a globe-spanning collection of artists including Seth Troxler, Spanish producer Adrian Marth, Chilean-German artist Matias Aguayo, Germany-based Biesmans and a 2manyDJs edit of Tiga’s own “Woke.” There’s also a flurry of other productions that exist in a place that’s simultaneously tough, cerebral and transcendent.
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In other words, the compilation is made for the club, which has been the producer’s home away from home since he started releasing music in the late ’90s. Over time, Tiga has become a hero of the electronic realm with smart, consistent releases that hit emotional buttons without ever veering into cheesiness.
The Turbo 25 project comes amid new work from Tiga’s LMZ project, a collaboration with Hudson Mohawke that’s delivered resonant collaborations with Channel Tres and most recently, Jesse Boykins III. Here, Tiga reflects on the compilation, 25 years of Turbo, and how — while he’s occasionally considered throwing in the towel on the label — he’s “never considered quitting” music.
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1. Where are you in the world right now, and what’s the setting like?
Amsterdam. I’ve been staring out my window like a house cat. Looks very alive.
2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
With my own money: the first Duran Duran album. On cassette, bootleg Indian edition, at a hotel lobby giftshop in Bombay. 1981 or 82.
3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do or did they think of what you do for a living now?
My mother was a full-time mom, she took very good care of me and was always there for me. My dad was a stock trader. They were both extremely supportive from step one, even when I dropped out of school at 18. They knew their son, and knew how serious and passionate I was, and they supported me completely with zero judgment.
4. What’s the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?
Good question. A pair of Yamamoto boots.
5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into electronic music, what would you give them?
Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works.
6. What’s the last song you listened to?
Leonard Cohen, “It’s Torn.”
7. You spent the early years of your life in Goa, India. What are your strongest memories of that time? Did it set you up to be a producer?
I don’t think it set me up as a producer, but as a person I got used to being around wild people and got used to the idea it was okay to be different and strange. I also grew up around a lot of hippies and weirdos, so I always wanted to work hard to end up “successful.”
8. Goa trance, love it or leave it?
When it’s done well, I like it. But what I really love is just good trance that happens to be played in Goa.
9. How were the 25 tracks on the compilation collected and selected? What was the criteria for what made it on? Is there anyone you’re particularly excited about having on the compilation?
It was a collection of our existing family of artists and new artists that we have had an eye on. We sent out invite letters to everybody and then just had some back and forth with them. It is always quite informal. I was very happy to work with Matias Aguayo, because he’s one of my favorites and he delivered something really special.
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10. What does this compilation say about the past/present/future of Turbo?
That we still do what we do.
11. The compilation’s album’s fine print that it was “made possible in part by the Government of Canada.” What did the Canadian government bestow upon the album?
We get some grant money for certain projects from the Canadian arts endowment. They support Canadian artists. Its tax money well spent.
12. Does Turbo have a brick-and-mortar headquarters? If so, paint us a picture of that space. If not, what’s your fantasy HQ?
We had a gorgeous office from about 2012 to 2018. It had a studio, a giant wall of fame with every single physical release mounted in order. We closed it pre-pandemic, and now it’s all laptops and remote control. But it’s my plan to open a new HQ in the next few years, on a mountain top in the countryside.
13. Twenty-five years is a respectable amount of time for any artistic endeavor. Was there ever a time in your career when you considered quitting? Do you see yourself making music and traveling the world in perpetuity?
I never considered quitting personally. Never. I obviously go in and out of the love affair with travel and touring, but generally it’s still an almost unbeatable occupation. As for the label: Yes. There were a few times over the years when I almost threw in the towel.
14. If you could time travel to any era of dance music, to when would you go and why?
I would have liked to go to a few legit early acid house parties: early 80’s Ibiza, late ’80s U.K. I also would have loved to have been to some serious Belgian industrial/new beat clubs at inception. I would love to have been at a club like the Hacienda the first time Blue Monday played.
15. In the sprawling ecosystem of dance music, what niche does Turbo fill?
I like to think we make dignified bangers.
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16. Dance music is obviously intended to make people… dance, but are there any dance songs that reliably make you cry?
I don’t think I’ve ever actually shed a tear to a dance song. There are a few Aphex tracks like “Polynomial/C” and “Every Day” that make me very emotional, but not actual tears.
17. What’s the proudest moment of your career thus far?
I was proud of the first time I did a live show, in Berlin, in 2015. Singing in front of an audience, etc. Also, my first real shows in Berlin back in 2001.jamb
18. What’s the best business decision you’ve ever made?
Never having a boss.
19. Who’s been your greatest mentor, and what’s the best advice they gave you?
I don’t really have a mentor, and I would love to have one. It’s healthy. But my dad told me when I was about one, “Just find something you love to do, and do it.” And that was great advice.
20. One piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
Get paid in Bitcoin for a few years, 2015-2016, and be generous with the people around you.
Whether you know him as Green Velvet, as Cajmere, as one half of Get Real or as one of his other aliases, the fact is that Curtis Jones’ productions are as vital now as they was when he started making house music back in the early ’90s.
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The Chicago-born artist scored dance world hits early in his career, with Cajmere’s “Percolator” and “Brighter Days” — both released in 1992 — becoming club staples (and in the former’s case, also a jock jam essential.) Both of those songs were also played during Beyoncé‘s 2023 tour behind Renaissance, an album Green Velvet contributed to the as the co-producer of “COZY.” His hefty catalog includes collaborations with a spectrum-spanning collection of dance artists including Chris Lake, Patrick Topping, Flosstradamus, Walker & Royce and many more.
Jones’ most recent release is “The Greatest Thing Alive,” a characteristically funky collaboration with Mark Knight and James Hurr released via Knight’s longstanding label, Toolroom. The last two months of the year will find him playing gigs in the U.K., Mexico, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Arizona.
But before all that, we found him at home in Chicago. Here, Green Velvet talks about how Beyoncé helped deliver one of the proudest moments of his career, his respect for Prince and why – after so much success — he doesn’t yet feel like a legend.
1. Where are you in the world right now, and what’s the setting like?
Right now I’m home in Chicago working in my studio, and the setting is peaceful and inspiring.
2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
This is very difficult for me to answer, because with my father being a DJ and working in my aunt’s record store I grew up around music. My favorite album, however, was Parliament’s Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome.
3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do or did they think of what you do for a living now?
My father was an electrical engineer, an entrepreneur and DJ. My mother was a dietitian. My father passed away more than 10 years ago. He was very proud of what I was doing. My mother still wants me to go back to school to get a PhD so we will have a doctor in the family.
4. What’s the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?
A tacky, used, stick-shift red sports car.
5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into dance/electronic music, what would you give them?
Prince’s 1999. The man was a genius, and he knew how to bring synthesizers to life.
6. What’s the last song you listened to?
My upcoming release with DJ E-Clyps and Dajae, ”Hot N Spicy.”
7. The word “legend” is associated with your name. Do you feel legendary?
No, I don’t feel legendary, because my best work is yet to come.
8. Your latest track is “The Greatest Thing Alive.” What, for you, are the greatest things alive?
Babies, puppies and people with love in their hearts.
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9. The song is also very much about feeling yourself. In what moments do you feel like the greatest thing alive?
When I am helping others.
10. You’ve been doing this for more than three decades. What’s the key to your longevity?
God blessing me with creativity and wisdom to make music that continues to resonate with fans, young and old.
11. And in those 30 years you’ve obviously seen the dance world change a lot. How does this moment compare to 10 or 20 or 30 years ago?
Now it is pop culture, where in the past it was underground.
12. You’ve talked before about your religious conversion after having your drink spiked with GhB roughly 20 years ago. How do your faith and your career intersect?
I have always been religious, and a lot of my music reflects that. After by the grace of God I survived my drink being spiked, it made my faith even stronger.
13. What’s the best city in the world for dance music currently? Why?
The music is really global now and one of the results of the pandemic — especially with the internet and streaming — is people have learned to have a good time no matter where they are in the world.
14. The most exciting thing happening in dance music currently is _____?
The return of oversized clothes.
15. The most annoying thing happening in dance music currently is _____?
People having their cell phones stolen at music events.
16. Do you have guilty pleasure music?
My guilty music pleasure is listening to classical music.
17. What’s been the proudest moment of your career thus far?
There are actually two. Hearing “Percolator” on the radio in 1992 and having Beyoncé play “Percolator” and “Brighter Days” during her Renaissance Tour.
18. What’s the best business decision you’ve ever made?
Leaving graduate school at the UC Berkeley Department of Chemical Engineering for music.
19. Who was your greatest mentor, and what was the best advice they gave you?
My music career has been influenced by many people and experiences, but unfortunately, I didn’t have a mentor.
20. One piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
Get your own drinks and never leave it unattended!!!
When music attorney Don Passman was starting his career five decades ago, he talked his first client out of signing a 15-year contract that would have paid her manager half her earnings. Today, that same artist could get the same career-saving advice from Passman’s revered guide, All You Need to Know About the Music Business, for just $35 retail.
A partner at Los Angeles-based Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman, Inc., Passman is hesitant to discuss his high-wattage clients — he is said to represent Taylor Swift and Adele, among others — but is always eager to share the lessons he has learned from five decades of representing them. The 11th edition of All You Need to Know About the Music Business, to be released by Simon & Schuster on Oct. 24, arrives at a critical time for many musicians. Increasingly, artists are deciding to remain independent and use the high-powered tools at their disposal — everything from recording applications to digital distribution to social media apps like TikTok — to build a fan base. Both opportunity and the ability to make poor decisions have never been greater.
To Passman — who doesn’t take major record labels as clients, although his firm “occasionally” represents an independent label, he says — the proliferation of do-it-yourself marketing tools has brought equity to a business long marred by power imbalances. Unlike the early years in Passman’s career, when record labels, retailers and radio stations acted as powerful gatekeepers, today’s artists go directly to fans using digital distributors and powerful tools such as TikTok and YouTube. With such low barriers to entry, more than 100,000 tracks are uploaded to digital service providers every day. Being a professional musician is easy. Being a successful professional musician is far more difficult.
“Now the game has become [about] how do you break through the noise?” says Passman in a recent Zoom call. “The record labels have made a conscious decision to wait and see what artists can get traction on their own. And then when they get enough heat, the record company starts to chase them.”
As the tools of the trade have changed, so too has the path to success. With the exception of K-pop labels, companies rarely pluck unknown artists from obscurity and spend years developing their careers. Artists are expected to build their own careers and develop enough momentum to warrant a record label’s commitment. That often requires building a team — manager, agent, attorney and an army of consultants — and taking more of a CEO role. For a generation of aspiring artists, Passman’s advice has never been more important.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
In the new version of All You Need to Know About the Music Business, you write that the music business has become far more democratic since the last edition of your book. What do you mean by that?
Now it’s about how you connect with your fans. I have a section that I’ve expanded this time about how to go about doing that. Whether you want to do it yourself completely, or whether you want to go to a label, you’ve got to start a buzz on your own and you’ve got to make things happen. The companies get the same data, they’re all chasing the same artists and you’re getting bidding wars. And artists are able to get deals that in history they could have never gotten for their first record deal.
The downside is that you get people who have a billion streams but have never played in front of a live audience. I’m exaggerating, but they don’t have years on the road of developing their chops and don’t have a show. Maybe they’ve only got a few songs. If you look at the statistics from Billboard, there are less new artists in the top 100 over the last few years. It’s been declining. And there’s a concern that we’re in we’re in the hip-building business rather than the career-building business and no one’s quite sure why or what to do about it other than feed the short attention span and the virality of some of these things. But it’s challenging in that sense to build a long-term career.
From where you sit as an attorney, are things working out for these artists that have some do-it-yourself success and then get signed? How’s that next step going for them?
The reality is I don’t do a lot of those kinds of deals, just because we’re a small firm and I don’t take a lot of business. And so, I don’t take as many shots with brand new artists. I do here and there, but not a lot.
It also depends on the smartness of your manager and the innate talent of the artists to follow it up. But the ones that are real artists, and the ones that are well managed, can launch a good career off of it. The ones that are one-shot wonders don’t do so well. They can’t follow it up. I don’t know what the statistics are on the ones that get these massive deals, but I’m going to guess there’s a pretty good rate of failure beyond the first record.
But the companies have gotten more sophisticated. They’re not just looking for something that’s got hundreds of millions of streams. They’re also looking for fan engagement. They’re looking to see whether there’s a real connection with the artists because today it’s all about connecting with fans. And the artists that do that well and maintain it and build their connections and their image and their buzz, are going to have much healthier careers than the ones who just happen to catch a moment.
The front of the new edition of your book says artists have more power than ever in the history of the business. Where’s that power coming from?
From what we’ve discussed about how the labels are chasing people who already have a buzz. What happens is that two or three labels start to chase the same artist and if the artist is trending upward during the fox hunt, the numbers get bigger and bigger, and the labels are bidding against each other out of FOMO. And so, the artists now have a lot of power to demand things that they’ve never gotten before in history, like a share of the profits, like ownership of their masters that revert after a period of time. It used to be that you had had to be massive to get those things, but not anymore.
What about artists who are already established? Do they have more power? Is there a ceiling to how powerful a Taylor Swift or somebody can be in her negotiations?
Well, there’s a ceiling. But the ceiling in any negotiation is just simply the pain tolerance of the other side. My personal philosophy is that you there’s such a thing as making too good a deal — if you leave the other side so battered that they have no incentive to do anything, in particular with the artist if something goes wrong, because they just can’t make enough of a return on it. I think there’s such a thing as going over the line. Now, I’m happy to go up to the line and maybe an inch or two over. In fact, I’m probably not doing my job if I don’t. But when you get to the massive superstars, you get to figure out where the lines are, and you get to do something that’s never been done before. And that, to me, is the most fun part of the business.
The 360-degree multi-rights contract was dominant for a time. Artists pushed back. They didn’t want to share other revenue streams other than recorded music. And is that still a starting point for contracts is the 360 and then you carve out exceptions?
Yes, and yes. Most of all, labels will ask for something. If there’s any kind of bidding war, it goes away pretty quickly. A few labels are stubborn and think they’re entitled to it no matter what. But most labels, if there’s any kind of bidding, it’ll go away. Or at worst, it gets reduced radically to relatively small amounts.
So that’s a sign of artists having more power is getting better terms in these recording contracts.
Correct.
What things still exist in recording contracts that have had a bad reputation? I’m thinking of reserves for returns or control composition clauses or ways that labels would keep a little money for themselves at the expense of artists. Do these things still exist?
They do but they’re becoming much less relevant. Certainly, the returns reserve if the item is physical goods still applies. Although vinyl is surging, it’s still less than 10% of the business. So, it applies to that. And the same thing with the control composition clause. It doesn’t really apply to digital. It only applies to physical product in any relatively recent deals. And so, it’s become less relevant and easier for the artists to get better terms on it.
What would you like to completely rid from contracts?
The contracts have gotten reasonably artist-friendly over time. I mean, obviously, they’re still going to want to take an edge and a corner. I will tell you that re-recording restrictions have gotten tougher in recent years for reasons you can probably figure out. And those used to be much broader than they are now.
What’s a typical restriction?
They don’t want you to duplicate your recordings — like ever — and then they will limit the other types of recordings you can do. So, it’s gotten tougher as the labels get more concerned about artists re-recording or catalogs.
There’s a lot of concern about artificial intelligence these days — about properly harnessing the technology, concerns about getting paid, concerns about unauthorized use of artists, voice or songwriters’ compositions from a legal perspective. How challenging is this new generation of AI technologies?
We’re not going to put AI back in the bottle. It’s here. The real problem with AI, apart from the fact that artists may not like it, is that it can dilute the money that’s paid out to real artists. If I got 1,000 plays, and there’s 10,000 in a month, I’m gonna get 10% of the money, right? The problem is that if part of those plays are AI, and the streamer isn’t paying anybody, because there’s no copyright in AI, and there’s no ability to get paid for it, then they’re taking a chunk of money that’s not going out to the real artists. So, the challenge is to make sure that they can’t use AI to dilute what’s going to the record companies and artists. And obviously, the companies are all over this and I think will be successful if they aren’t already — it’s not public — in making sure that doesn’t happen. But that’s a major concern coming out of AI that we need to be careful about.
But there’s also potential, too. I can imagine estates using AI to bring to life deceased artists.
Yes, of course, all of those things are possible. Interestingly, there’s no copyright in AI. So, if you use it to create something, it may be that anything you create, anybody else can use for free, and you can’t necessarily get paid for it. So, I do think AI has a place in helping artists and helping enhance materials and so forth, but the law gets a little tricky because you can only get a copyright on what’s created by a human is pretty well settled. And so, the part created by the AI doesn’t have a copyright, so you don’t end up owning 100% of your material.
If something is created with AI, would part of that be copyrighted and then some portion would not, based on whatever the AI created?
Yes, that’s correct.
And then how is the split determined?
It depends on how much creativity the human put into it. If I go to an AI machine, and I say, “Write spa music,” and it knocks out a bunch of spa-sounding music, I haven’t done anything creative. I’ve just said, “Go make spa music”. If, on the other hand, I say, “Draw a picture of Kim Jong Un and Abraham Lincoln in a wrestling match on a roof in Mumbai,” maybe I’ve got enough creativity to get something of the copyright — but not in the drawing.
There’s a recent case with the Copyright Office about Zarya of the Dawn, where the author wrote a story and then had AI create the pictures for a graphic novel. The copyright office said there’s no copyright in the individual images. There is [copyright] on the story. But there’s interestingly what’s called a compilation copyright in the novel, meaning the way you arrange the pictures. The law in copyright says if I arrange un-copyrighted material in a particular way, I can get a copyright in the arrangement even though the underlying materials aren’t copyrighted, like a phone book, for example, the names aren’t copyrightable, but you can get a copyright in the way they’re arranged in the phonebook. And so that same principle applies here when you’ve got a number of copyrightable drawings in a particular way. But anybody could copy one of the drawings separately.
In your book, you give artists some advice: “All the superstars I’ve known have a clear vision of who they are and what their music is.” But there are also countless stories of artists, perhaps with clear visions, running into record labels’ A&R teams and sometimes that vision changes. What separates the superstar artists that you’ve known from the artists that didn’t reach that status?
I think the simple answer is their drive and their passion. The superstars have an unlimited amount of drive and are willing to walk through walls and they don’t get discouraged, and they keep getting up when they get knocked down and they just keep going. I think that’s what separates them. I think it could arguably be more important than talent. I mean, you and I could both name some moderately talented superstars just as we can name amazingly talented people who’ve never had much of a career. And the difference, I think, is their drive and their ability to want to do the work. It’s just a lot of work to have to have a serious career in any field really, but particularly in entertainment when you there’s no set path to get on. You just have to do it yourself.
Are the superstars equally demanding of their attorneys? Do they have high expectations for you as well?
I hope so. You know, it depends on the artist, and it depends on the situation. A lot of them are not that interested in business, or they may be interested but they want to spend their time being creative, which is a smart decision. So, they have people around them. But I think they deserve the utmost time and attention.
Your book details quite well how the music business can get really complicated and have a lot of pitfalls. What are some mistakes you see artists and their attorneys still making that they shouldn’t?
Well, in the early stages, the biggest mistakes artists make are signing long-term deals and not having any kind of an out if things aren’t working and they can get hung up with a manager that can really impact your career. They can get hung up on a record deal that’s not very good or a publishing deal that’s not very good, and no ability to ever get out of it. I think those are the things to watch for in the beginning.
That recalls your first client. I believe a manager was trying to get 50% out of your first entertainment client?
Yeah, for 15 years.
So, there would have been an out at some point, but 15 years is a long time.
Yeah, it was a completely stupid deal, but I was so young I was scared to death. But I did talk her out of it.
Artists and songwriters can sell their catalogs for pretty large sums these days. It seems to me that those deals haven’t changed the balance of power much because they go to artists who are already the most successful. Would you agree or disagree with that?
Catalog sales are happening at every level; the ones who get the headlines are the most successful. At almost every level somebody is selling their catalogs. I’ll give you my philosophy on it: For most people, I think it’s a mistake, and I try to talk them out of it. And I can give you the reasons if you’re interested. There’s a section in the book on this as well.
Yes, please do.
Historically, everybody who sold their catalog has regretted it. The Beatles catalog sold a Michael Jackson for $47 million; it’s probably worth $1 billion today. There’s people over the years who have sold their royalty stream and with the changes in technology, they now make almost as much every year it would have made them as what they sold it for, or at least two or three years’ worth. And the other exercise is a pretty simple one: Take the money that you get from the sale, deduct your expenses of selling, pay your taxes, and when you look at what’s leftover can you invest it and get the same amount of money you were getting before? And do you have the same upside potential your catalogue has? A lot of time the answer is no. And prices are definitely at a historic high. I’ve never seen them this high.
On the other hand, these are pretty smart financial people on the other side, and they’re betting that the market is going to grow and subscription prices will go up and there’ll be more people subscribing as an industry matures, and they think that the income is going to go up.
So, now having said all that, I do think it makes sense in the following circumstance: If you’re an older artist, if your heirs don’t know how to handle your catalog, or will kill each other trying to handle it, it could make sense to sell it. It could also make sense if you don’t have enough cash to pay estate tax on the value of your catalog when it comes around, and they have to do a fire sale, and you’re worried about that for your heirs. Or if you desperately need money at any level. I think it should be one of the last assets to go. It’s a place to get money, but you could also borrow against it to some degree depending on what you’re looking to do. I’ve obviously done a number of these because not everybody agrees with me and a lot of them are in the circumstances I’ve described. But for the most part, and certainly for younger artists, I think it’s something to be very careful about
How often are you able to dissuade people of selling? Do you make a convincing argument?
I have a pretty good track record of it, yeah. By the way, it’s not in my personal interest. I’d love to get it large fee for selling a catalog, but I always try and do what’s best for the artists.
Sometimes, in the middle of a set, Fatboy Slim steps back from the decks — barefoot, because he doesn’t play with shoes on — and takes a moment.
“I look at the crowd and feel the atmosphere and the evening and take a little mental snapshot,” the producer born Norman Cook tells Billboard over Zoom from his home office in Brighton Beach, U.K. “Maybe everyone’s like ‘What the hell’s he doing? Is he having some sort of major panic attack?’ But it’s a good thing.’”
These instances are Cook consciously absorbing his work and his life and the general fun and power of what he does. It’s a habit cultivated amidst a four-decade career in which some moments have been lost in a haze of partying (Cook marked 14 years of sobriety this past March). As of late, there’s been a lot of to absorb.
A global star for decades now, Cook, 60, has been touring heavily, hitting Europe, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and beyond this year. In 2022, he celebrated the 20-year anniversary of his first Big Beach Boutique event — which in 2002 drew 250,000 people to the beach in Cook’s hometown of Brighton — and also launched his own festival, All Back to Minehead. That event returns to Minehead, U.K. this November.
Ahead of that, Cook is also playing a rare Los Angeles set this Saturday (Sept. 23), headlining downtown L.A.’s Pershing Square for a show produced by L.A. promoter Framework and featuring support from DJ Holographic and Francis Mercier.
The party continues next month, with the 25-year anniversary of Fatboy Slim’s massive 1998 LP You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby. One of the definitive albums of the big beat era, the project contained the crossover classics “The Rockafeller Skank” and “Praise You” and hit No. 34 on the Billboard 200 in May of 1999. In all, the Fatboy Slim catalog has aggregated 390 million on demand streams in the U.S., according to Luminate.
Funny, deep and affable over Zoom, Cook compares the heights of this album to “what being on top of a wave must feel like.” Here, he reflects on that period, shares what he’s learned from David Byrne (his collaborator on the currently running Broadway show Here Lies Love), and reflects on a forgotten night out with Cher.
1. Where are you in the world right now, and what’s the setting like?
I am on Brighton Beach. We’re experiencing a heat wave, which is very un-British. But it’s very British to have heat waves at the wrong time. It’s like, 32 degrees [90 degrees Fahrenheit] here.
2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
The first album I ever bought was a cassette of Black and Blue by The Rolling Stones. That’s the first time I could afford to buy an actual real pre-recorded cassette. It was very groundbreaking, because it was the first time I got into production.
There’s a tune on on it called “Fool to Cry.” It’s a really beautiful song, and it started with this noise, and I became obsessed with finding out what this noise was, because it wasn’t a guitar. Then someone said, ‘Oh, it’s a Fender Rhodes played through a chorus.” That was the first time I asked, “How do you make that noise?” I’ve spent the rest of my career asking that same question. I’m a little bit more informed these days.
3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what did they think of what you’ve done and do now?
My dad worked for a glass company, but he actually launched bottle banks. He launched recycling in England. It wasn’t his idea. He just got landed with that job. So he introduced the idea of bottle banks and glass recycling to the country and got the MBE for it, which is quite cool. My mum was a teacher.
My mum is very, very proud of me and always loved music and my capacity to enjoy and perform music. My dad, not so much. He was a negative influence, because he told me that pop music is rubbish and “you want to get yourself a proper job.” So I had kind of good cop, bad cop. One person telling me it was a terrible thing to do, which made me want to do it more. And then another person telling me that was a really great thing to do, which made me want to do it more.
4. What is the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?
Non-gear? Oh, right. Equipment you mean. Gear means something else in England. [laughs] Right. The first thing I bought was a car that worked and got you from A to B. I was the only one in the band with a car. It was my first luxury. It was a Chrysler Alpine.
5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into dance music, what would you give them?
I would say, just to not be obvious, Duck Rock by Malcolm McLaren. Malcolm McLaren was the manager of the Sex Pistols, okay. And he was like a svengali character and after the Sex Pistols split up, he was very much an arbiter of what was going on. He was working in New York and picked up on hip-hop really early, got invited to these the Bronx parties with Bambaata and everyone. And so he made this album called Duck Rock, and it had DJs and scratching and rapping on it. He also went to South Africa and worked with a lot of South African musicians and then he glued them on to the tunes he made with the DJs and with rappers, and then he did a song about double dutch skipping. It was like a snapshot of everything that interesting that was going on in the world of culture.
The cover was done by Keith Haring, and that’s the first time I’d ever seen Keith Haring’s work, and so that introduced me to the world of art and opened my eyes to the idea of sampling things from around the world and bringing them together and making dance music.
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6. What’s the last song you listened to?
The last song I listened to, let me have a look… [he looks into his computer] .. a tune called “Beginners” by Angelo Ferreri. Just a tune for my sets. Didn’t listen to it for pleasure, though. It kind of is a pleasure, but it was like a work thing. Do you want to hear a bit of it?
Sure! [we listen]
So that’s why I spend most of my days doing, just trolling the internet looking for songs to go into my DJ sets… I’ll be honest, most of them I get sent. I’m kind of seen as an influential DJ, and so record companies send me stuff. I get about 30 emails a day with people sending me the new tunes, but I make it a point to give everyone at least five seconds listen. Most of them I dislike. Like, “Okay, that’s drum and bass.” “Okay, that’s EDM.” But if I get one new good tune a week… that’s why I get so excited when I find one I really like.
7. I understand you’re an art collector. What’s your collection like?
It’s expanding rapidly at the moment. It started with Keith Haring. Basically I dug what he did on the Malcolm McLaren album, and then when I travelled being in a band, first place we went to Amsterdam, and first show I saw was a museum with a Keith Haring exhibition. I’m like, “That’s the dude that did the album cover,” so I went, and it just blew me away. It must have been about 1985.
So I started collecting Keith Haring, and then I was really into mainly street art. I’ve always collected it, but over the years as I’ve diversified a bit I’ve started working with artists. I love it, because I’m a complete fanboy with artists. With other musicians, we’ll talk shop, and the magic is somehow lost because I know how they make the records. But with artists it’s like, “How do you do that? How do you come up with ideas?”
8. You’re doing your own festival, All Back to Minehead, in the U.K. in November. You obviously play around the world and see every type of event. What are you doing to make this one uniquely yours?
Obviously I curate all the acts and entertainment. But the main two things for me are that the venue is a classic British holiday camp. In the ’50s and ’60s, that was what English people did, we went to holiday camps. They’re kind of chalets — some of them are like borderline army barracks… There’s this whole culture about it. It’s where The Beatles cut their teeth, and all the bands used to go and play there. It’s a very British institution. A few of these holiday camps still exist, and they’re kind of [struggling], because now everybody can afford to go off to Ibiza and Spain.
The other thing is that the only thing uniting [the festival] is people who like my taste in music and my sense of humor. It’s all ages, very strange cross section of society, but then you put 5,000 of them in a little village where we all live together for a weekend, and it’s hilarious. It’s like the British version of Burning Man, only it’s not sunny or very picturesque. It’s quite down and everybody dresses quite stupid and we don’t think we’re very cool. But there is that feeling of community. I did it for the first time last year and didn’t know if it would work, and it just absolutely knocked my socks off how everybody got involved.
9. Next month is the 25-year anniversary of You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby. What are your strongest memories of the release of the time the album was released, and its insane success?
The main thing I remember is just the momentum of it all. I’m not a surfer, but I can imagine it was what being on top of a wave must feel like. There’s something behind you driving it along, and all you can do is try and stay on and ride it with a bit of style, because it’s going there anyway.
Musically, the whole big beat thing, everybody wanted a piece of us, because we were doing something different. I’d just gotten married to the most famous TV presenter in England, so we’d become the celebrity couple. All of these things were driving it along. We were just having a lot of fun trying to stay on and throw a few shapes before the wave crested.
10. Are you satisfied with how you did on that wave?
I’m still alive — which wasn’t a given, considering some of my behavior at the time. I survived it. I rode it to the shore, but I didn’t get on the next one.
11. By choice?
Yeah. It did freak me out somewhat. Because by that point, I’d already been in the music business for 10 or 15 years, so it wasn’t my first rodeo. But this just engulfs your whole life, and when you’ve got photographers following you wherever you go, and if you fart in the wrong place you end up on the front page of the newspapers, it was quite scary. It wasn’t quite what I was signed up for. You know I’ve always loved music, and I wanted to be a success and be appreciated for the music I made. But I never signed up for being famous. So I kind of took my foot off the gas, deliberately a bit — which, with the benefit of hindsight, 25 years later, here I stand. I still have a career, and I still have my health. So I think I did all right.
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12. Do you see your career ever coming to a close? Is there a retirement plan, or does it just go in perpetuity?
No, I tried retirement during lockdown. I had an enforced retirement for a year. Didn’t agree with me at all. I think I’ve gotten to a point now where I can probably ride this one out until I drop. In some shape or form I think they’ll always be a place for me to be doing something. As long as I’m enjoying it and other people are still enjoying it, I don’t see any reason to stop.
13. Or even slowing down?
I mean, I don’t do it at the same pace I used to. I turned 60 this year. I can’t do the stupid things I used to, but I’m quite happy to play until I drop. Athletes have to retire early, boy bands have to retire early, but with DJs, it’s not about our looks or our fitness or anything like that. We can go gray and bald and fat, because we were never supposed to be pinups anyway.
14. You mentioned the forced retirement of the pandemic. I imagine the disparity between being onstage, then just being in the silence and quiet of your house, and how that gulf is so wide. What was that time like for you?
I’m all right with that. The thing I couldn’t deal with is not having an outlet for my joy of music, because my love of music involves sharing it with other people. If I hear a new tune, I’ve got to play it with someone. Like a tree falling in the forest, and no one hearing it — if I don’t share these tunes with people, for me, they don’t have a life. That’s what I noticed during lockdown. That’s why I did a weekly podcast, because I still had to play these tunes to people.
Obviously, I don’t want to live my whole life in that glamorous travel world, so I love coming home and doing the school run and being a quiet dad. But all the while I’m stoking the fire, getting tunes ready for the next weekend.
15. You’ve been touring around the world this year, Europe, all over the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and a few days in the U.S. Is there anything special about American audiences?
I’m always aware of the history. I played Chicago the other weekend, and just being in Chicago, where it all happened… I was in New York doing this show that I did with David Byrne, and Todd Terry turned up to the musical. To some of the Broadway producers, I was like, “F–king Todd Terry is here!” And they were like, “Who’s Todd Terry?”
I’m like, “God, he invented house music right under your noses 30 or 40 years ago.” In England he’s revered as God because of what he did, but he kind of had to come to Europe to get famous. So I’m very aware of going back to where things started, Detroit or Chicago or New York, where the music was was made.
16. Say more about that?
I’ve kind of had a bit of a checkered history [in the U.S.] I first came around 25 years ago, and things were going really well in America. I was over there a lot. Then EDM happened, and I didn’t want to be on that wave, so I let things slip in America. I probably don’t travel enough to America. There’s tons of stuff going on in Brazil and Argentina and Australia and Japan. And so yeah, America got a bit forgotten — which I do apologize for. But I like that I can come over and people are really not blown out, because they haven’t seen me for 10 years.
17. What’s been the proudest moment of your career thus far?
The gigs on Brighton Beach. I’ve had six enormous gigs on the beach in my hometown. It doesn’t get any much better than this, because I love the city that I live in. I’m very, very proud of it. And they seem to be proud of me. It’s a bit like a scene from the film, like the triumphant homecoming and local boy does good.
18. What’s the best business decision you’ve ever made?
Employing my manager. The first person I met who wasn’t my record company, in the music business, was a guy called Garry Blackburn. He was my plugger at first. That was 1985, and I’ve worked with him ever since. He’s only about six years older than me, but he’s like my dad. We’ve been through heaven and hell together. More heaven than hell, but he’s been there for me during the crunchy bits. He’s been really good for me, because he just allows me to do what I do and then translates that into business. I’m useless in business. I have no idea.
19. Maybe you just answered my next question, but who’s been your greatest mentor and what’s the best advice they ever gave you?
The person who’s most inspired me is David Byrne. He musically inspired me, then I worked with him writing this musical 15 or 20 years ago. Working with him really set me on a [path] of where I am today, doing other things outside music.
Look what he did: He started a record label and started putting out Brazilian music, then he does art things. He’s got such an inquisitive mind about everything, always asking, “How can we make it more fun?” I’ve just found him such an inspiration. He’s been the blueprint. After working with him, I looked at all the other things he’d done and said, “Well, that’s how you do longevity, by not being held back by, ‘I’ve got to make an album every three years and have hits.’
Once you’ve done enough albums to have hits and have a name, then it’s like, “Well, let’s flex some other muscles.” Let’s do an art project and other things in your life that interest you, let’s invite them into your life. If you’re respected enough, if your reputation is enough, then you get to hang out with other people and swap ideas and do things that aren’t necessarily just about having hit records. He does things that interest him, rather than just being on the hamster wheel.
20. What’s one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?
Apart from, “Try not to do that, or marry that” — you know, notable mistakes — I would say just try and savor and remember more of it. There are huge amounts of things I don’t remember from my partying days. Someone will say “What is Cher like?” and I’m like “I never met Cher,” and they’re like, “Yes you did, you spent an evening with her” and then they show me photos of me and Cher having a night out, and I’m like, “Oh my God.”
Someone said to me, when I got married, “Take time for the two of you to walk away from your guests for a couple of minutes and soak up the moment, because you want to remember your life.” That was really good advice — and it did work, because we remember that moment.
I just wish I’d done a bit more of that, rather than doing everything by instinct and adrenaline, that I’d sat back and took it all in, because I’ve had the most beautiful life. I’ve gotten to work my whole career in an industry I love, in and around music I love. Most people don’t get to do that. I’ve done some really excellent and excellently fulfilling things. I just wish I remembered all of them.
