State Champ Radio magazine
Page: 6
It’s Friday night in Las Vegas, and Voltaire, the intimate art deco-meets-Studio 54 new performance venue within the Venetian, has transformed into an extremely lit gay club. Beneath countless sparkling disco and glass balls, the crowd of 1,000 dances to the DJ’s mix of a who’s who of dance–pop — Jessie Ware, Spice Girls, ABBA, Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s recently revived “Murder on the Dancefloor.” Intermittently, elastic-limbed burlesque artists enter to striptease, dance and execute feats of dazzling flexibility. This is Voltaire’s Belle de Nuit “preshow.” And it’s just the warmup to the main event.
“It’s almost time for Kylie Minooooogue!” the evening’s MC declares. “Yeah, that’s right — Mother is coming!”
Trending on Billboard
The screams become truly deafening when, roughly 10 minutes later, the curtain opens to reveal the diminutive 55-year-old Australian pop star clad entirely in metallic gold. She launches into “Your Disco Needs You,” a rousing track from her 2000 album, Light Years: “Let’s dance through all our fears, war is over for a bit,” she sings. “The whole world should be moving, do your part, cure a lonely heart!”
For the next 70 minutes, Minogue follows her own command, belting songs from her three decades-and-counting career that have united listeners with their infectious dance-pop melodies and lyrics that, whether ebullient or bittersweet, are always anchored by a deep, sincere sense of joy. She shimmies to her cover of Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “The Loco-Motion,” one of her earliest hits from 1987 (and still her highest-charting Billboard Hot 100 entry, peaking at No. 3); she rises above the stage in a flowing red cape like some disco high priestess to sing her seductive current smash, and her biggest in the United States in more than 20 years, “Padam Padam.” She’s a consummate pop diva, stomping down the stage’s catwalk and striking poses — until each song ends. Then, she simply becomes Kylie: giggling, kicking up her stiletto heels in a happy dance and, at one point, speaking into her water bottle when she mistakes it for a microphone.
These two sides of Minogue — the glamorous, charismatic performer who has somehow also remained deeply relatable — have helped her to maintain a remarkably consistent yet organically evolving career amid the shifting waters of the music industry. “A feeling you get from Kylie’s music is that from an artistic point of view, she enjoys her place in pop culture. She doesn’t challenge it or try to run away from it — she looks to innovate herself and develop within that space,” says Stuart Price, the British electronic music producer who executive-produced Minogue’s pivotal 2010 album, Aphrodite. “And it’s infectious to see someone enjoying being themselves. There’s an openness there that creates a connection between Kylie and her fans.”
Richard Wilbraham dress, Magda Butrym jacket, Saint Laurent boots and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
Much of that core fan base feels connected to Minogue because they actually grew up with her. They met her as the feisty teenager Charlene on Australian soap opera Neighbours; followed her first era of pop stardom in the late ’80s as one of the flagship teen idols from the Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) “hit factory” that also produced Rick Astley and Bananarama; watched her break out of that mold in the ’90s on British label Deconstruction, exploring more experimental dance-pop on 1997’s Impossible Princess; and embraced her evolution into global star in the 2000s, especially in the United States, with the release of 2001’s Fever, her highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 (No. 3), which yielded “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” the song with a hypnotic “la-la-la” chorus that was a self-fulfilling prophecy and propelled it to No. 7 on the Hot 100.
Over all those years, Minogue has stayed both impressively prolific and commercially viable. Eleven of her albums — including her last nine studio releases dating back to Fever — reached the Billboard 200, and 10 appeared on the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, including Disco, a highlight of the dance-pop renaissance of 2020 that went to No. 1 on the latter. She has notched seven Hot 100 and five Mainstream Top 40 Airplay hits. It helps, of course, that her songs tend to “help people to smile and forget their daily problems for a bit as only a good piece of dance-pop music can do,” as disco legend Gloria Gaynor puts it. (She joined Minogue for “Can’t Stop Writing Songs About You” on an expanded rerelease of Disco.) But her releases also always feel fresh, genuine and intentional. “Every time she delivers an album, to her it’s like the first,” says Jamie Nelson, senior vp of new recordings U.K. at BMG, Minogue’s label, who is also her longtime A&R executive. “There’s nothing lazy or dialed-in about it.”
Minogue has long been considered pop royalty in the United Kingdom (she’s about to receive the BRIT Awards’ Global Icon honor), Europe and Australia, where she’s the highest-selling female solo artist born in the country of all time; still, her U.S. audience has never quite reached that level. But she has remained popular — and at the front of pop culture consciousness — for long enough that while her older fans stateside remain loyal, younger ones continue to discover her. And that happened in a big way last June, when she released one very unusually titled single and experienced the kind of bona fide U.S. breakthrough that few artists manage in their mid-50s.
[embedded content]
“Padam Padam” — an onomatopoeia for the sound of a heartbeat — went viral on TikTok, with everyone from actress Suki Waterhouse to employees of the British art supply chain Hobbycraft making videos with it; to date, videos using “Padam Padam” have been viewed over 1.3 billion times on the platform. Simultaneously, “padam” became part of the pop lexicon, thanks in large part to Minogue’s LGBTQ+ fans who encouraged use of it as a noun, verb, exclamation or really any part of speech that called for it.
The song was such a runaway hit that, Minogue says, BMG delayed releasing Tension’s title track as a second single, “because ‘Padam’ just kept… Padaming.” With that momentum, Tension became her highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 since 2010 (peaking at No. 21) and her second Top Dance/Electronic Albums No. 1. “Padam Padam,” which is now her second-most-streamed song in the United States after “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” became her first Mainstream Top 40 Airplay hit since 2004, her highest-peaking (No. 32) since 2003 and just garnered Minogue her second Grammy Award — the inaugural win in the new best pop dance recording category and her first since “Come Into My World” took home best dance recording two decades ago.
Now, with the Tension train still going strong (Xtension, an album of extended dance mixes, arrived in September) and her Vegas residency a coveted ticket, Billboard’s 2024 Women in Music Icon is energized and determined to make the most of this moment. “I told someone at my label: It’s happening now. There’s no snoozing,” Minogue says firmly. “I am wildly inspired right now. I’m at a point in my life where I know it’s not eternal. I just want to maximize this brilliant wave. If you’re not out paddling for when that wave comes along, you’ve got no hope.” And, she promises, she paddles — constantly.
The afternoon following the show in late January, Minogue is in her favorite sweats, sipping tea in the empty Voltaire space and looking surprisingly awake. She doesn’t go onstage each night until after 11, and a two-show weekend renders her “kind of the amoeba version of myself,” she admits, crumpling her tiny 5-foot frame up, amoeba-style. “I’ll have a momentary internal dialogue with myself like, ‘OK, try to go a bit cruise control tonight?’ But it doesn’t work.”
Autopilot has never been Minogue’s thing. When she started out with Stock Aitken Waterman, she found the hit factory’s way of doing things a natural fit — “It’s like working on a TV show: ‘Here’s the script, you know what to do, here’s some direction, do it’ ” — but once her four-year contract ended in 1992, “I was gone. I’m a curious person, and I wanted to do more.” She had observed how the trio of songwriters of SAW worked, seen the craft and diligence it took to create “that song” — but becoming one herself? “That took a bit of haggling,” she says. “It wasn’t easy to make that segue.”
Tony Ward Couture dress and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
Thanks to signing with Deconstruction, and particularly her second album with the label, 1997’s Impossible Princess, Minogue escaped the “normalness” of the SAW starlet image, Price recalls, and public perception of her started to shift to “Kylie the Artist.” When he met her around 2009 — a match made by her label at the time, Parlophone, where she had moved in 1999 — Price saw up close one way in which her soap opera training had benefited that artistry.
“She was able to so consistently deliver great performance after great performance,” he recalls — a skill, Minogue matter-of-factly told him, she supposed might come from the days when she would drive to set with a script she had just received and memorize her lines at traffic lights. “Her memory and recall is incredible, and it was the same when we were writing things together,” Price continues. “If she came up with a melody, it was just there — we could go eat a meal, then she’d bring it straight back up.”
“There’s probably a misconception out there that she’s not a traditional songwriter, but she’s phenomenal,” BMG’s Nelson says. “She’s got a belief that the song is God. She’ll really scrutinize her own music in comparison to outside songs, and anything that’s not up to scratch will get dismissed.” Minogue’s collaborators describe her as a fount of fully formed ideas. “The last three albums I’ve done with her, she has been coming up with whole ideas on her phone,” says Richard “Biff” Stannard, who co-wrote the 2002 hit “Love at First Sight” and, more recently, seven Tension tracks with Minogue. “She’s really confident to say, ‘I’ve got this melody that’s bugging me, I’ve got to get it out.’ It’s proper songwriter stuff.”
Oscar de la Renta dress and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
That said, Minogue has never been precious about accepting material from other writers — “Padam Padam” was co-written by Norwegian singer-songwriter Ina Wroldsen and producer Lostboy — and she relishes figuring out not just whether a song presented to her is a likely hit, but a hit for her. “Songs like ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ and ‘Padam,’ I can’t reply fast enough,” she says. “Not only is it an amazing song, but it and me… it’s like, ‘I can do this!’ If someone else performed ‘Padam’ it could’ve been great, but it would have been different.” Lately, she has been spending time in Los Angeles (her home base is Melbourne), working with two entirely new collaborators she won’t reveal quite yet, other than to say she has long wanted to work with them. “I was on cloud nine for like the next couple of days” after their most recent sessions, she says, grinning.
But since 2020, Minogue has also become a lot more independent in the studio: By necessity, amid pandemic isolation, she taught herself Logic and other essential tools of production. “It’s so liberating,” she says. “I’ve had a lot of uncomfortable moments [in the studio]. No one would have known because I just pretended my way through it. But to have my own mic and do it on my own time? It’s amazing. I could go for hours.”
Minogue’s manager, Polly Bhowmik of A&P Artist Management, says Minogue’s infatuation with studio tech has gone so far that “there is now very much ‘studio engineer Kylie’ as well as artist Kylie.” (Minogue has vocal engineering credits on much of Disco and Tension.) At Stannard’s suggestion, I ask about her personal mic collection (“She’s really geeky about microphones now”), and she quivers with excitement describing her current favorite. “It’s a Telefunken 251, and it’s beautiful,” she gushes. “It’s more to carry, but it’s like graduating to the big leagues.”
Her new studio skill set has been both empowering and freeing (she can now record herself and work on music from her Vegas hotel room, for instance), as well as impressive to her collaborators. “She’s actually useful in the studio!” exclaims singer-songwriter Sia, who co-executive-produced Minogue’s 2014 album, Kiss Me Once, and just released the duet bop “Dance Alone” with her. “She’s actually good at her job. And I would say she’s one of the most prolific idea generators of all the artists I’ve worked with.”
Richard Wilbraham dress, Magda Butrym jacket, Saint Laurent boots and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
It has also helped her to achieve more vocal precision. “She’s very forensic about getting her vocals exactly how she’s happy with, and this has given her that ability,” Stannard says. On Tension, the strikingly wide range of Minogue’s voice — she goes from a sultry purr to full belt to stratospheric whistle tones, and at one point even raps — is on full display. The confidence she now has in her voice took time, Minogue says, and voice lessons starting in 2001 taught her techniques that have helped her preserve and develop it.
“Maturing as a person and my voice maturing too, add to that these past two years of self-recording — [my process] is becoming more vacuum-sealed, and that’s so pleasing to me,” Minogue says. “And to accept that I don’t have that big voice, but being proud I have my voice, and really owning that? That has again taken a long time. But I can adapt and be many voices, just like my [visual] presentation. I’m chameleon-like,” she concludes, satisfied. “That is who I am.”
The morning after her “Padam Padam” Grammy win in early February, Minogue still seems to be wrapping her head around what happened.
“I don’t think I’ve touched down yet,” she admits over the phone. She wore a bright “Padam red” gown; she marveled at Miley Cyrus’ hair (“Amazing. She absolutely smashed it”); she sat with Karol G at the ceremony (“I don’t assume anyone knows who I am, but she’d been on my radar for the last year”); she finally met fellow Aussie Troye Sivan. She was embraced by fans new and old, including Olivia Rodrigo, Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa, who invited Minogue to appear in her Studio 2054 pandemic-time livestream and, shortly after, featured on a remix of Minogue’s Disco track “Real Groove.”
As for the award itself: “It’s a big win for longevity — let’s put it that way,” Minogue says. It’s also concrete proof to both Minogue and her team that she has, as Sia puts it, “broken her glass ceiling” in the United States. “I’ve had this kind of to-and-fro thing with America,” Minogue reflects. “I was the ‘Loco-Motion’ girl for a long time, then I was the ‘la-la-la’ girl, and I guess I’m ‘Padam’ now. But now that we’ve got streaming, the algorithms will take you to discover more of my music.”
Kylie Minogue photographed on January 27, 2024 at Voltaire in Las Vegas. Tony Ward Couture dress, Christian Louboutin shoes and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
Nelson says BMG has seen “an uplift on the catalog” since the Vegas residency began in November (it runs through early May), but is careful to note that it’s the culmination of a gradual increase in listenership — beyond the devoted core fan base that already buys multiple vinyl and cassette versions of Minogue’s records — over the past few years. “We are firmly seeing a new audience embracing Kylie,” Bhowmik says, pointing out that 60% of “Padam Padam” and Tension streams have come from listeners under 35 and that her audience on TikTok has grown 43% since the song’s release.
And that expanded audience includes the U.S. market, where Minogue hasn’t done a major tour since 2011’s spectacular Aphrodite trek. Considering the momentum behind her now and the fact that the pandemic prevented her from touring Disco, the time seems ripe for a major Minogue tour hitting America — and indeed, UTA just signed her for representation in the United States and Canada. Bhowmik says that with “more opportunities and accolades than ever before,” there are plans for her to perform across the United States and internationally “in the not-too-distant future.”
It’s a rebirth for Minogue — but really just the latest of many she has had throughout her career. “It’s a continuation, not a comeback,” Price says. “Everything from [Tension], it’s just a short steppingstone away from every other hit she has had. They all sound like innovative pop records made in the year they were released that are ahead of their time. And what they all have in common is that Kylie fever.”
That ineffable Kylie essence is always present regardless of whether Minogue wrote on a song or not. It’s the fizzy effervescence that makes “Love at First Sight” a euphoric dance party starter. It’s the very adult, subtle magnetism that makes songs like “Hands” and “Tension” sexy rather than ridiculous. And above all, it’s the true joy — the kind that’s all the more meaningful because you’ve known sadness, too — that suffuses every moment of anthems like Aphrodite’s “All the Lovers,” Disco’s “Say Something” or Tension’s “Hold On to Now.”
“Joy can come from a dark place,” Minogue says. “But if someone’s able to feel that joy and they might not have felt it this morning? It’s a moment of release. I want the audience to feel…” She searches for the right word, waving her hands excitedly, and then just exclaims: “Feel! I’m a conduit for all the emotions.”
This story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Kicking off the new year in style, Coldplay leads Billboard’s Top Tours chart for January. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Chris Martin and company grossed $58.8 million and sold 417,000 tickets during the month, essentially doubling its closest competition.
January is traditionally the slowest month of the year, with Elton John and Tool crowning lists in 2020 and 2022, respectively, with less than $20 million each. John himself set a high mark in 2023 with $40.9 million, and now Coldplay improves upon that by 44%. This year’s top 30 tours grossed a collective $271 million, up 75% from last January’s total.
This marks the third time that Coldplay has been No. 1 on Top Tours, having crowned lists in March 2023 and July 2022. The band achieved its hat-trick with eight shows in Asia. Including another two dates in early February and eight shows in November, the latest leg of the Music of the Spheres tour earned $143.3 million.
Coldplay’s January shows break down to two at the Philippine Arena in Manila and six at Singapore’s National Stadium. The latter batch grossed $43.4 million and sold 321,000 tickets, leading Top Boxscores by a margin of 2.8-to-1.
While the phrase “world tour” often translates to the U.S., Canada and western Europe, Coldplay has taken its time to travel the globe. The Music of the Spheres Tour launched in March 2022 and has included three legs in Latin America, two in the U.S. and Canada, two in Europe, and now 18 shows in Asia. More dates in Europe and Oceania await in 2024.
In all, Coldplay’s massive global trek has sold 7.7 million tickets. Only Ed Sheeran’s Divide (÷) tour (2017-19) has sold more, at 8.9 million. With 43 shows scheduled between June and September, Coldplay would need to average about 28,000 tickets per show — less than half of the tour’s global average so far — to close the gap and become the bestselling tour in Boxscore history.
Speaking of Sheeran, he sits at No. 2 on January’s Top Tours chart with Asian concerts of his own. He grossed $31.7 million and sold 194,000 tickets over six dates, with five more in February to count toward next month’s recap.
Sheeran grossed $11.6 million over two nights in Osaka and another $10.6 million from a double-header in Dubai. Similar to Coldplay, his dates in Asia are part of a global endeavor, following legs in Europe, Oceania and North America.
Not only do both acts rub shoulders atop the all-time tally, they wrestle on the opposite end of the top 10. Sheeran’s The Mathematics Tour has now grossed $556.4 million and sold 5.8 million tickets since its April 2022 debut, squeezing into the top 10 highest grossing tours of all time. Collateral damage, Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour (2016-17) dips to No. 11, just as the British rock band encroaches on Sheeran’s prior tour at the all-time summit.
At No. 3 on Top Tours, Madonna brought in $31.2 million from a string of arena dates in January. That leaves her just $500,000 away from Sheeran’s runner-up spot, held back by a margin of less than 2%. All of Madonna’s 11 January dates appear on Top Boxscores, spotlighted by her three shows at Madison Square Garden. Those grossed $10.3 million from 41,200 tickets sold.
Now at $121 million, The Celebration Tour is Madonna’s sixth to cross the nine-digit threshold. Only The Rolling Stones (nine) and U2 (seven) have more. Bruce Springsteen and the Eagles also have six $100 million tours to their names.
Madonna has 32 shows left to report in the U.S., plus five in Mexico City. When all is said and done, The Celebration Tour will likely become her third to gross $200 million or more, behind stadium runs Sticky & Sweet Tour ($407.7 million; 2008-09) and the MDNA tour ($305.2 million; 2012).
K-pop offers bright spots in the top 10, with SEVENTEEN at No. 4 with $19.6 million and ENHYPEN at No. 7 with $13 million. Each group played batches of shows in Asia, just like Coldplay and Sheeran. With restrictive weather in the U.S. and Europe, stadiums in southern Asia and Australia are often pillars of early-in-the-year box office.
Comedians make their mark on Top Tours as well, with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Peter Kay, Kevin Hart, Jo Koy and Brett Goldstein all ranking between Nos. 14-20.
Though not without significant highlights, the Top Tours chart embraces the winter doldrums of years past, delivering the lowest top-30 gross since last January. John Mulaney and NieR Orchestra close out the top 30 under $1 million, matching 2023’s two sub-million earners. February marks the stage returns of Blink-182, Karol G and P!nk, while introducing new tours from Bad Bunny and Olivia Rodrigo.
A version of this story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Hi, everybody. My name is Karol G. I am from Medellín, Colombia. This is my first time at the Grammys, and this is my first time holding my own Grammy.”
To her tens of millions of fans and followers (68.2 million on Instagram alone) watching February’s Grammys telecast, that humble introduction from the winner of this year’s award for best música urbana album wasn’t surprising — Karol G’s openness and honesty, along with the personal nature of her music, are a big part of what has endeared her to so many. Still, the award felt a bit superfluous.
[embedded content]
At 33, Karol G just wrapped an extraordinary year in which she became the first woman (and second artist ever) to top the Billboard 200 with an all-Spanish-language album (Mañana Será Bonito, for which she won that Grammy); the top female Latin artist on Billboard’s year-end charts (behind only Bad Bunny and Peso Pluma); and the winner of album of the year at November’s Latin Grammys, as well as urban album of the year — the first woman to win the latter.
Trending on Billboard
Karol is also the first Latina (and still one of only a few women) to headline a global stadium tour and the highest-grossing Latin touring artist of 2023 by far: According to Billboard Boxscore, she grossed $155.3 million and sold 925,000 tickets from 20 shows, placing at No. 11 on Billboard’s all-genre year-end Top Tours chart. The only women who fared better on the list were Beyoncé and P!nk, who played 55 and 37 shows, respectively. (Taylor Swift did not report her 2023 touring numbers.)
And yet the artist born Carolina Giraldo still feels she has something to prove. “I’m certain many people still don’t know me and don’t know what I’ve done,” she says. So at the Grammys, “I wanted to make it clear, because I have so many projects planned, that I want them to know I’m working to accomplish far bigger things.”
And as Billboard’s 2024 Women in Music Woman of the Year — the first artist who records only in Spanish to receive the honor — Karol says she’s even more motivated to maintain her stunning upward trajectory. “It’s so meaningful and inspiring to get an award that’s not only ‘woman of this or that category’ but ‘Woman of the Year.’ I feel a huge responsibility to make the year on par with the title,” she says. (Karol’s sister Jessica Giraldo, an attorney who co-manages her with Noah Assad and Raymond Acosta of Habibi Entertainment, is on Billboard’s Women in Music executive list this year.)
Karol’s journey to the top of the charts has been slow and steady over the past decade. But in 2022, it accelerated (and went beyond language barriers) with her $trip Love U.S. arena tour, which grossed $72.2 million and sold 424,000 tickets. That helped send Mañana Será Bonito to a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 in February 2023, which, in turn, led to her first stadium tour and the release of a second album, Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season), which debuted at No. 3 in August.
Since the very beginning of 2024, Karol says she has “literally made music every day,” working with collaborators including longtime go-to producer Ovy on the Drums, who often meets up with her on the road and will be traveling with her during the Latin American leg of her tour. That kicked off Feb. 8 with the first of three sold-out dates at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca (80,000 seats per night, according to promoter OCESA). Karol will play 24 stadium dates in Latin America (most were already sold out at press time) before moving on to 16 arenas and stadiums in Europe, including three dates at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid.
“The fact that she headlined predominantly theaters in 2021, then arenas in 2022, then jumped to stadiums in 2023 is unprecedented for any genre,” Jbeau Lewis, Karol’s touring agent and partner at UTA, told Billboard last year. “It’s easy to talk about Karol as a leader in Latin music, but based on the success she has had, especially this year, she should be spoken about in the same breath as Taylor or Beyoncé.”
Balenciaga jacket, Intimissimi underwear, Replika Vintage shoes.
Vijat Mohindra
Karol is acutely aware that as her global audience grows, the stakes for what she does next keep rising. “I started this year with a completely different mindset,” she says. “Although this may sound like a beauty queen reply, the place I’m at right now is one of huge responsibility, and it demands that I’m very aware of what surrounds me so I don’t make missteps.”
To prepare, she took some time off over the winter holidays — an effort toward “working enormously on my mental state, black belt level,” she says with a laugh. “I’m very clear about my plans, my vision of the future and the order in which I want to release [music] and express myself.”
For a Colombian who grew up in Medellín in the aftermath of cartel leader Pablo Escobar’s death, when the country was consumed by drug warfare, that sense of responsibility is especially personal and profound. “My father always told us: ‘We have an obligation to give back — not what’s left over but what’s right,’ ” she says. That idea inspired her in 2021 to launch the Con Cora foundation, which supports women in vulnerable situations through actions in education and the arts.
“When I take the stage in a stadium, one of the reasons I cry is because I know one day this will all be over; I’ll be home remembering the time I was No. 1,” she says. “That’s life. But what I will have is a school I built, or a project we launched [through the foundation]. Today, and in 10 years and in 50 years, lives will change thanks to something we built.”
In the meantime, even as she tours, Karol is putting out singles and remains “very open to experimenting with new sounds,” as is clear on “Contigo,” her recently released song with Tiësto. “I’m feeling very proud because I’m working. I’m really rising to the challenge, and I have to push forward, push forward,” she says. “I may be a very important Latin artist, but I still have the whole world ahead of me.”
This story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.
In December 2021, when Michelle Jubelirer became Capitol Music Group chair/CEO — and Capitol’s first female chief executive in its 80-plus-year history — she didn’t take much time to dwell on her historic accomplishment: She had a flailing company to save.
“The challenges [I inherited] were plentiful,” Jubelirer admits. CMG faced a falling market share, staff turnover, pandemic challenges and an unwieldy artist roster. “The truth is,” she says, “a lot of change happened in a short period of time.”
Many believed Jubelirer, then CMG’s COO, was destined for Capitol’s top job the year prior. By that time, her résumé already included a stint at a white-shoe law firm, years in legal affairs at Sony and nearly a decade as an artist lawyer for acts like Nas, Pharrell Williams and Frank Ocean — plus almost a decade in Capitol’s top ranks. When her longtime mentor, Steve Barnett, stepped down as CMG chair/CEO at the end of 2020, Jubelirer seemed to some to be a natural choice to replace him. But Universal Music Group (UMG) chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge handed the role to Capitol Records president Jeff Vaughn instead. (In the shift, Jubelirer was elevated to CMG president/COO.) When Vaughn assumed his new role, the company was already on shaky ground; under his leadership, it continued to falter.
Trending on Billboard
After less than a year as CEO, Vaughn left the company, and Jubelirer was elevated to the post. With her guidance, the label group’s fortunes quickly started to change. At a time when minting new superstars is harder than ever, the company won a bidding war (alongside 10K Projects) in fall 2022 for Ice Spice, who would become the defining breakout star of 2023. It also topped the Billboard Hot 100 with queer anthem “Unholy” by Sam Smith and Kim Petras, worked with Universal Music Enterprises to bring back The Beatles with the artificial intelligence-powered single “Now and Then,” achieved TikTok virality with Doechii’s “Block Boy (What It Is)” (in a new partnership with Top Dawg Entertainment) and reinvigorated the art of the music video — which has declined in popularity in recent years — with Troye Sivan’s creative clips for “Rush,” “One of Your Girls” and “Got Me Started.”
Those successes didn’t insulate CMG from impact amid UMG’s widespread restructuring in 2024, though. On Feb. 1 — shortly after Jubelirer’s interview for this story — UMG revealed much of its plan: Its frontline label system would be split beneath one East Coast executive (Republic’s Monte Lipman) and one West Coast executive (Interscope’s John Janick), Grainge explained in a letter to staff. The restructure would have moved Jubelirer, who was reporting directly to Grainge, under Janick. Six days later, Jubelirer wrote a heartfelt message to her staff announcing her exit, effective immediately.
“When I joined Capitol, I made a stringent promise to myself,” Jubelirer said in a Feb. 2 speech at an Entertainment Law Initiative event in Los Angeles. “The day I stopped changing the record company more than it was changing me would be the day I would walk away.”
As she finalizes the details of her exit from UMG, Jubelirer declined to discuss her future plans — or Capitol’s. But whether she stays in the label business, goes into management or does something else entirely, her impact on Capitol and its artists is clear. “She’s the fiercest when it comes to protecting artists,” says Jody Gerson, chair/CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) and Jubelirer’s longtime friend. “She’s not afraid to fight for what she believes is right.”
“I’m so honored to have worked with such a great woman and boss like Michelle,” Ice Spice says. “She always believed in me and supported my vision from the very beginning. I’m so grateful for her and all that she has done.”
Jubelirer with her son, Stone.
Yuri Hasegawa
What are some of your biggest wins over the last two years?
First and foremost, I think the biggest win is the incredible team. And what we’ve been able to do in two short years, I think it’s the fastest turnaround of a record label. And quite frankly, we’ve been able to sign a diverse roster of artists and modernize the label while prioritizing artists and ensuring that each artist gets uniquely what they need.
How do you balance Capitol’s storied history and what you want it to represent today?
Given that it has been in existence for 80-plus years, it wasn’t lost on me that I was the first woman chair/CEO. And that’s not a great fact, let’s admit, for all women. But the reality is the grandeur of the company and its [previous] artists’ paths are not the focus. The focus is the new, fresh artists that we are breaking day in and day out.
How has your background at Capitol helped you as chair/CEO?
It’s kind of funny: I think I’ve been leading the company all along in my 11-plus years here. [When I became CEO], I knew all of our team, I knew all of the artists. That really helped. But first and foremost, the most educational piece for me was before I got to Capitol, when I was an attorney. In my heart of hearts — no matter what my title is or where I work — I am an artist advocate at my core. That’s who I am. That’s the thought I bring every single day to my job.
What was your first move as CEO to course-correct Capitol?
The three primary pillars I worked on were signing a diverse group of artists, ensuring that the company was reorganized in a way for artists to interact with labels in the way that fans interact with artists and ensuring that artists were prioritized in a way that was right for them specifically.
Capitol Records/10K Projects signee Ice Spice was one of 2023’s biggest breakout stars. What sets her apart?
There’s no question about it: She is the breakout artist of 2023. I don’t think anyone could argue otherwise. And getting into business with her [has been] incredibly exciting and motivating. Ice is a girl’s girl, and she surrounded herself with strong women and signed with strong women. I’m just one of them. She signed with [UMPG’s] Jody Gerson on the publishing side. She has made the right choices in her career every step of the way, from her look to her flow to her collaborations. She knows exactly who she is, and she’s unwavering about it.
What is the key to label success today? You’ve had new successes in the last year while many labels have struggled to break any artists.
Ultimately, everything is about the artist and the team of people. We have those both in spades. I mean, it was incredible to see the fact that we were the No. 1 TikTok label for 2023. Who would have thought that a year or two ago for Capitol Music Group?
Did you always dream of being a record-label CEO?
My dad died when I was 3 years old. I watched my mother struggle to figure out how to take care of our family. Music got me through all of the hard times. Unlike our artists, however, I had zero talent, and I knew it from a young age. (Laughs.) I wasn’t getting into music based on any talent that I had.
My father was a lawyer, and I knew that financially I needed a way to take care of myself. So I went to law school, graduated with a lot of debt and became a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at a big white-shoe law firm in Manhattan. If you know anything about me, you know that I am not the conservative type; I often wear a “F–k you” belt. I didn’t really fit in at the white-shoe law firm, but I had a plan to go into the music industry.
As soon as I paid off my loans, I got a job as a lawyer at Sony Music. I was there for two years, and I did not love being a cog. I had been in New York City for 10 years at that time and was ready to try Los Angeles. I was also dating a guy in Los Angeles, and that was part of the reason that I moved — as I tell you that, I see the feminism seeping outside of my body, but that’s true.
When I got to L.A., I called all the lawyers I had negotiated against who were artists’ attorneys and met Peter Paterno. I got a job working for him [at the firm now known as King Holmes Paterno & Soriano] and told him that for one year I would service his clients, and then I would have all my own clients after that.
While that may seem like bravado, that came to fruition. I became a partner there after three years and practiced law there for nine years, representing artists. Then I met Steve Barnett, who was co-head of Columbia Records at the time. We negotiated against each other in a deal for Odd Future and Tyler, The Creator. He said, “You pantsed me in that deal, you pantsed Columbia in that deal. If I ever go somewhere else, you’re going to be my first hire.” And it happened. I was his first hire [when he became CMG CEO].
Yuri Hasegawa
How did he convince you to move to the label side?
I always dreamed of running a record label from when I was 12 years old. I didn’t know if it would ever happen because, quite frankly, I absolutely love representing artists and the artists that I had. When Steve approached me, believe me, I put him through the wringer. I asked him every hard-hitting question I could as I decided whether I could still be myself and be an artist advocate within the system.
Ultimately, I chose to make the transition for two reasons. No. 1: I felt like now, more than ever, artists and record labels need to partner with each other. And you need an artist advocate within the label in order for an artist to feel truly comfortable and at home. No. 2: I felt like I could make a bigger change at a record label than I could make being an artist attorney.
In your career, have you faced adversity or discrimination that your male counterparts haven’t?
Since I entered the music industry as a lawyer, I’ve been afforded a shield that many women in the music industry don’t have. Because of that I have been protected from a lot — because, quite frankly, people are afraid of lawyers.
But the reality is, when I started as a lawyer, I didn’t have that shield. In one of my first annual reviews at [my first law firm], I was wearing a white shirt. I’m someone who always wears black, and the partner giving me my review took his water bottle [and] sprayed it on me. You can imagine what he could see. Then he said, “All right, we’re ready for your review now.” At the time, I folded my arms and just plodded on and let him give me his review. I did nothing about it. I beat myself up to this day that I did nothing about it because I’m sure he then did that to multiple women after me. Now I will not be quiet when things like that happen around me.
This story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.
As the five members of NewJeans file gracefully down the stairs at their Billboard photo shoot in Seoul, they greet me with bright smiles and genuine greetings of “Nice to meet you.” Just a few days prior, the exploding K-pop girl group won artist of the year and song of the year at both the Melon Music Awards and MAMA Awards, two of South Korea’s most prestigious music prizes — and just two of the roughly 10 awards shows they attended and performed at in the country this past December and early January. Yet despite the hectic schedule of winter awards season there, they exude warmth and enthusiasm.
That infectious energy has endeared the women of NewJeans — Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein, who range in age from 16 to 19 — to fans both in South Korea and worldwide. Since debuting in July 2022, NewJeans has swiftly ascended to the top of the K-pop pantheon. Six of its eight released singles have reached No. 1 or No. 2 on South Korea’s dominant streaming measure, the Circle Digital Chart. The act has made inroads on several Billboard charts as well, including three top 10 hits on the Global 200 and four on the Global Excl. U.S. chart, five entries on the Billboard Hot 100 and six top 10s on World Digital Song Sales (the highest-reaching was “Super Shy,” peaking at No. 2 last July). The group’s songs have gained 931.6 million official U.S. on-demand streams, according to Luminate.
Trending on Billboard
Along the way, NewJeans has smashed expectations in K-pop, helping lead a new era of female influence in a genre long dominated by male groups. While it was once accepted industry wisdom that only boy bands could build a core fandom and widespread commercial success (selling both albums and concert tickets), NewJeans is part of a girl-group generation that has done both, shifting the paradigm of what achievement entails for young female groups. And NewJeans has done so under the guidance of an equally innovative leader: It’s the first act to debut under ADOR (All Doors One Room), led by founder and CEO Min Hee Jin, the rare woman leading a K-pop label and management company.
About a decade ago — when this writer started working in K-pop as a producer — it sounded very differently. Record labels emphasized melody, dynamic vocal range and cohesive track arrangements, while dance performance was simply considered support for a song. Over time, the music trended toward bombastic anthems well-suited to choreography, and so-called “easy listening” songs (those preferred by the South Korean general public, who of late have not been K-pop’s core audience) tended to get lost. But NewJeans has proved that strong performances and easy listening need not be mutually exclusive. And as Billboard’s Women in Music Group of the Year says in person in Seoul, the act is just getting started.
Danielle
Ssam Kim
Haerin
Ssam Kim
How did it feel to win artist of the year and song of the year at the Melon Music Awards and MAMA Awards?
Hanni: It was really surreal to win such big awards. Honestly, for us, when it comes to these types of awards shows, we are just excited to be there. Just to be invited is an honor. We never expected [to win]. We really are just thankful for everyone who has put in a lot of hard work toward our content and music and all the people that really enjoyed it, so I think it just makes it more fun.
Danielle: I agree with Hanni. There are so many people that put in so much effort and hard work into what we do, and we are just so honored that so many people are enjoying it just as much as we are enjoying it. Sharing that happiness and positive energy through our music is such an honor in itself.
You have a small discography but so many big songs like “Ditto,” which won song of the year at the Melon and MAMA awards. Which did you expect to become as big as they did?
Danielle: When our CEO has a new song and she’s prepared to make a new album, she gets us all in her studio and we listen to all the songs together. I remember the first time we heard the songs for our album Get Up, we were just blown away. Because we truly were just like, “This is so us! This is so NewJeans.” When I first heard “Ditto,” I felt a connection to it — I guess I felt if people hear this, I want them to feel they’re healed in some way. So to know that people out there are receiving somewhat of a positive energy, it’s really amazing. Every time we release new music, we wonder if people are going to enjoy it just as much as we do. To see people out there jamming to our songs, it puts a really big smile on our faces.
Hanni
Ssam Kim
From left: NewJeans’ Minji, Danielle, Haerin, Hanni and Hyein photographed on December 4, 2023 at Seongbuk Songjae in Seoul.
Ssam Kim
Traditionally, men have run the K-pop industry, and ADOR was notably founded by a woman. What was it like training under a CEO who has that shared perspective?
Danielle: I can’t imagine what it would be like if it wasn’t for our CEO, Min Hee Jin. We are so close to her, and we feel such a strong connection to her. After a conversation with her, we’d just be inspired and learn so much. When we go overseas and stuff, she’d take us out shopping and we’d have dinner together, and we’d spend hours and hours laughing and talking about what happened and how we’ve been and telling stories.
Hyein: She is very consistent. She’s always wondering about us and worrying about us. She’s very friendly and reaches out [to us] first, which helps us feel really comfortable around her. She gives us advice like a mother would. She’s not just a great CEO but a great human being in general.
Historically, core fandoms have been harder for women to achieve in K-pop. But in the last few years that has completely changed, and NewJeans is at the forefront of that. Why do you think you’ve been able to capture that?
Minji: It may have to do with the fact that the K-pop market became a lot bigger. That’s one of the reasons why we started with so much attention and love from the general public. We never really set a specific [goal], but rather aimed to put on a performance that we love with songs that we love. I think this probably helped our fans love us from early on.
Haerin: I agree with Minji. I think it’s also because there are so many channels we can use to communicate with our fans and the public.
Hyein
Ssam Kim
Minji
Ssam Kim
I think NewJeans has changed how music sounds in K-pop, with a trend toward returning to easy listening music. Do you agree?
Danielle: Music itself is always changing. But before we debuted, our CEO told us that she wanted to do something new, something fresh and different. But with that, she wanted it to be, no matter who you are, no matter what age or gender, you can listen to it and enjoy it. So I think with that came the easy listening music. We didn’t really think, “Oh, we’re going to change music, that’s crazy.” (All laugh.) We just wanted to try something new and fun.
You’ve accomplished so much in a short time. Where do you want to go from here?
Haerin: I want our songs to move people. My goal is not only to have songs that are emotional but also to share the emotions with people onstage and through our music.
Minji: I have similar thoughts to Haerin, but I want our music to be remembered for a long time. For example, I want people to think of last winter when they hear “Ditto.”
Danielle: Besides music and performing, I just want to become someone who stays true to myself and is always open-hearted and open-minded and modest and tries really hard because there are so many things I want to do and so many places I want to go. I want to experience a lot and learn a lot and just enjoy the time being with the [NewJeans] members.
This story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.
As Billboard publishes its 136th volume throughout 2024, stay in the know on the magazine’s print schedule for the year, along with each issue’s corresponding theme. This is an updating post, so be sure to check back for any changes.
Issue Date: Jan. 27, 2024Theme: The Billboard Power 100
Issue Date: Feb. 10, 2024Theme: Sports
Issue Date: March 2, 2024Theme: Women in Music
Issue Date: March 9, 2024Theme: SXSW
Trending on Billboard
Issue Date: March 30, 2024Theme: Environment*This issue will include Top Music Lawyers
Issue Date: April 20, 2024*This issue will include International Power Players
Issue Date: May 11, 2024Theme: Country Power Players
Issue Date: June 1, 2024Theme: Branding*This issue will include 40 Under 40
Issue Date: June 8, 2024Theme: Indie*This issue will include Indie Power Players
Issue Date: June 22, 2024Theme: Pride/Black Music Month
Issue Date: July 13, 2024Theme: Jazz
Issue Date: Aug. 3, 2024Theme: R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players
Issue Date: Aug. 24, 2024Theme: Fall Music Preview
Issue Date: Sept. 21, 2024Theme: Latin Music Week
Issue Date: Oct. 5, 2024 (Double Issue)Theme: Grammy Preview/Producers
Issue Date: Oct. 26, 2024Theme: Touring*This issue will include Top Music Business Schools
Issue Date: Nov. 16, 2024Theme: BBMAs*This issue will include Top Music Business Managers
Issue Date: Dec. 7, 2024Theme: No. 1’s and Year in Music
Issue Date: Dec. 14, 2024Theme: Grammy Voter Guide
The nominees for best original song and score discuss soundtracking, and defining, a movie’s biggest moments.
Songs
Two tracks from Barbie are competing for best original song at the 2024 Academy Awards. The Greta Gerwig blockbuster is the first film to have two best song nominees since La La Land seven years ago. Plus: Oscar perennial Diane Warren was nominated for best original song for the 15th time — a benchmark that only five other songwriters have reached.
“I’m Just Ken”Barbie (Warner Bros.)Music and lyrics by Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt
[embedded content]
Five years after winning for “Shallow” from A Star Is Born, Ronson and Wyatt are back with this comic highlight from the year’s top box-office hit.
What direction did you get from Barbie director Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach?
Mark Ronson: They’re like, “If we’re going to have something for Barbie, then we need something that speaks from Ken’s point of view.” That’s the amazing thing about this film: It definitely is a story driven by women. But there is this wonderful little offshoot of this story of Ken — somebody who’s not as smart or as enlightened as Barbie trying to find their self-worth and value. So I just had an idea [of] what the song should be. And then when we saw the first marketing campaign, like, “She’s everything, he’s just Ken,” we were like, “Wow, they’re really doubling down on this song.”
You and Andrew Wyatt co-wrote another song that was vying for a nomination, Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night,” but Oscar rules state that no more than two songs from a film can be nominated. Is that bittersweet?
Ronson: It is because Dua’s song is still the biggest song from the soundtrack and Dua was really the first artist of anywhere near her stature that committed to the film. It really set the bar for what the whole soundtrack could be. So Dua definitely deserves all the credit for that, and it would have been lovely to have her as well.
“It Never Went Away”American Symphony (Netflix)Music and lyrics by Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson
[embedded content]
Batiste, who won the best original score Oscar in 2021 for Soul, stars in this moving documentary about his composing a symphony and receiving 11 Grammy nominations while dealing with his wife’s recurring leukemia. Semisonic’s Wilson has previously written with Adele, Taylor Swift and The Chicks.
Did you originally write this as a lullaby to your wife, Suleika?
Jon Batiste: Yes. She is a best-selling author and couldn’t put pen to paper because the medication blurred her vision badly, so she began to paint and I began to write lullabies. These lullabies were meant for her to go to sleep easier and have peace in the hospital. They were never meant to be released publicly. One of the themes of our relationship is creativity as an act of survival.
Why did you bring in Dan Wilson to co-write?
Batiste: His ability to sit with artists in their most personal and vulnerable moments and not usurp or influence the authenticity of the expression. I like to have a mirror — I felt that collaboration space would be sacred.
Dan, Jon obviously felt you were a kindred spirit.
Dan Wilson: When “Closing Time” was coming out, my first daughter was in the hospital the entire year … I felt I could understand what it’s like to have your most glorious musical successes accompanied by personal difficulty.
“What Was I Made For?”Barbie (Warner Bros.)Music and lyrics by Billie Eilish, FINNEAS
[embedded content]
This is the sibling duo’s second nomination following a nod and ultimate win in 2022 with their sweeping James Bond track, “No Time To Die.” “What Was I Made For?” was made with a specific purpose in mind: to become a pinnacle song in the Barbie film. The hit also won song of the year at the Grammys.
How did this nomination feel different from your first?
FINNEAS: Because we were on tour last time, this has been our first time attending the Critics Choice Awards and the [Golden] Globes. So this whole season I’ve been buzzing more.
How do TV and film awards shows compare to a music awards show?
FINNEAS: I do joke that when you go to the Grammys, they’re like, “One minute back from commercial,” and everyone’s up and talking and climbing over chairs. And you’re at the Oscars and they’re like, “30 seconds,” and everyone’s already in their seat waiting silently. It’s a room full of people with a real understanding of being live.
How did you balance this song being so specific to Barbie yet so universally felt?
FINNEAS: The goal is always to do that: to write something about the human experience. And the way that you do that is to examine the humanity of the character, however far-fetched and fantastical the story is … We haven’t all been Barbies, but the first time anything good [or] bad happens to you, you go through it with this naiveté. We were trying to write about how devastating it is to feel anything for the first time.
“The Fire Inside”Flamin’ Hot (Hulu/Searchlight Pictures)Music and lyrics by Diane Warren
[embedded content]
The title of Warren’s latest Oscar contender — her seventh in a row — can be interpreted two ways. On one level, it refers to the burning sensation one would get from eating too many Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (the snack food concocted by the movie’s subject, Richard Montañez). But that “fire inside” can also refer to inner drive, something Warren has in abundance.
I like the title’s double meaning.
Diane Warren: The song’s really about passion. As I was writing it, I’m thinking, “I’m like that, too.” I’m the person always having to convince people and fight for what I believe in. I’ve always been a self-starter. I’m pretty persistent. This is kind of my theme song, too, I have to say.
Of your 15 nominated songs, 10 — including this one — scored the film’s only nomination.
Warren: I am always the little underdog, which I love. Maybe it’s weird for some people to see me as that, but I have to fight for a lot of stuff. Even with this song, I kind of did this on my own. It was the only Disney song that got through [to a nomination]. They had some pretty big movies — The Little Mermaid and Wish — that they spent a lot of money on. And this little song got through.
“Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)”Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)Music and lyrics by Scott George
[embedded content]
George has already made history, becoming the first Native American to land an Oscar nomination for best original song with the Osage Tribal Singers for “Wahzhazhe,” a celebratory song that soundtracks the film’s final scene.
You’ve said your life is defined by music. What song defines this moment now?
Scott George: That’s kind of why we made [this song]. We didn’t want [it to] just be for the movie. Because that, to us, felt like a death sentence. So our intention was to create something that they could use in a movie, but we could also use later to honor our people in celebration.
What was the biggest challenge throughout this process?
George: Trying to submit [the song] to the Oscars. None of our music is written down. It’s all held on to by memory. But one of the submission requirements was that it would be in a written form. And I just happen to know a person that took that on several years back as part of his education … And so he used that recorder that you got to take home in elementary school to find all the notes and write it all out. Within three to four days, he had it finished, and we got it submitted in time.
Clockwise from top: Robbie Robertson, Margot Robbie and Rhea Perlman in Barbie, Scott George and Ludwig Göransson.
Illustration by Klawe Rzeczy; Frazer Harrison/Getty Images; John Phillips/Getty Images; Stephen Lovekin/Variety; Lara Cornell/Warner Bos./Courtesy Everett Collection
Scores
John Williams received his 49th Oscar nomination for best original score, and his 54th overall, which pulls him closer to Walt Disney’s all-time record of 59 nods for an individual. Robbie Robertson, who died in August, is the first composer to be posthumously nominated in this category since Bernard Herrmann was cited 47 years ago for both Obsession and Taxi Driver.
American FictionLaura Karpman (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios)
Karpman, a Primetime Emmy winner in 2020 who is up for her first Oscar for the score to the Cord Jefferson-directed satirical tale, says the nomination is “a validation on so many levels.”
Was it a given that the score would be jazz-oriented since Jeffrey Wright’s character is named Thelonious and nicknamed “Monk”?
Laura Karpman: It was a mandate because of the obvious reference to Monk, but it goes deeper than that. There’s something jazzy about the interplay between the cast members. It’s fast, it’s smart, it’s talky. It works. It’s not just that it was “Monk.” It felt like the right vibe in terms of the rhythms of the action.
You were scoring The Marvels at the same time. Did that creep into this score at all?
Karpman: There’s a really amazing young [flutist], Elena Pinderhughes, and I had the idea of using her for the sound of the villain in The Marvels and I thought, “How perfect. Let’s use a flute as one of the lead instruments in American Fiction.”
The score, including the two main themes, “Monk’s Theme” and “Family Theme,” was composed on your father’s newly restored piano, which you had just gotten back that day.
Karpman: It was the first time I played the piano since it had been restored. I was improvising and came up with the “Family Theme.” For sure, my dad came through that thing. It flowed out of the piano into my hands and back out again. It was weird.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of DestinyJohn Williams (Disney)
Williams, who lands his 54th total Oscar nomination, scored the fifth and last installment of the Indiana Jones series and will be vying for his sixth Oscar.
You previously said you may just do the movie’s themes. What made you change your mind and do the entire film?
John Williams: When I saw the film, I loved both Harrison [Ford] and Phoebe [Waller-Bridge] so much that I became proprietary and didn’t want anybody else to write music for them. Their performances were simply so good that I couldn’t resist.
“Helena’s Theme” is timeless. How did that piece come about?
Williams: The film is set in the 1960s, and Phoebe inspired me to recall the movie sirens of the ’30s and ’40s such as Lauren Bacall and Lana Turner. Helena was a woman who smoked, drank, gambled and had countless adventures, all the while looking breathtakingly beautiful, just like the great femme fatales of yesteryear.
This was your fifth Indiana Jones movie. How did it feel knowing this would be the final chapter?
Williams: I’ve always loved Harrison in all the films he has made, and I’ve been particularly privileged to accompany so many of them with music, among them Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Presumed Innocent and Sabrina. It has always been an honor working with such a great actor, and I have both my friends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to thank for this great opportunity.
Poor ThingsJerskin Fendrix (Searchlight Pictures)
Musician Fendrix had never worked on a film prior to Poor Things — and director Yorgos Lanthimos had never worked on a film with a composer. And yet, both emerged better for it, as the film’s score earned Fendrix his first Oscar nod.
How did you find out about your nomination?
Jerskin Fendrix: I was by myself in the countryside. I’d gone back to my home to do some recording, and then I had a look and then a lot of people called me. And then my mom came home from work, and [we] had some nice champagne. It was great.
This was a surprising opportunity. How did you prepare?
Fendrix: We didn’t want any references. This had to be a really unique world, very special and exclusive to itself. I deliberately didn’t watch anything for quite a while and didn’t think about other film scores or any other music — I tried to have a look around and see what was already in my head.
You started composing just off the script, is that right?
Fendrix: I also had this very big, 200-page document of all the concept artworks: the set and costume designs and what the sky was going to look like and so on. So I had a good sense of how exuberant and how kaleidoscopic the whole thing looked. And that was very important for knowing what instruments I would choose, what textures I wanted, especially because up until this point, Yorgos’ films have been slightly more sober in their palette. So I was kind of surprised at how bright and insane everything looked. And I did ask, and he said that it’ll be pared down by the time we get to shooting — and it wasn’t.
From left: Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon, Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer and Emma Stone in Poor Things.
Illustration by Klawe Rzeczy; Melinda Sue Gordon; Atsushi Nishijima
Killers of the Flower MoonRobbie Robertson (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)
This was the 12th and last Martin Scorsese film that Robertson worked on. Robertson, who died in August at age 80, is the first composer to be nominated in this category posthumously since Bernard Herrmann 47 years ago for both Obsession and Taxi Driver.
What did you have in mind for the score initially – what emotions did you want to evoke?
Martin Scorsese: Over the years, Robbie and I had figured out how to communicate with each other — we found a common language. For the scene with the oil gusher, I told Robbie that I wanted a gusher of sound, and that’s what he delivered. For the scene where Lily gets into Leo’s cab for the first time, I said that I wanted something dangerous and fleshy, and he gave me something dangerous and fleshy — and in so doing, he gave us a rhythm and a texture that became the heartbeat of the whole picture.
How does this nomination honor Robbie’s legacy?
Scorsese: I know that Killers of the Flower Moon meant a great deal to Robbie, for many reasons. I suppose we both realized that it might be our last chance to collaborate on a picture. And then there was the fact that it was a story set in the world of the First Nations, reflecting one of the worst chapters in the long history of suffering, injustice, real tragedy. As Robbie grew older, his Mohawk and Cayuga heritage became more and more important to him. Because of our friendship, along with other more personal reasons, it became important to me, too, that we work together on a project that dealt with that terrible history and at the same time brought indigenous culture itself, in this case Osage culture, to cinematic life, so to speak. So for us, on many levels, it was a culmination. Robbie’s score is one of the most beautiful in the history of movies.
As for his greater legacy as an artist, his entire body of work speaks for itself. He was a giant. He still is.
OppenheimerLudwig Göransson (Universal)
Göransson, who won this category in 2019 for Black Panther, has already taken home a Golden Globe and a Grammy for his often tense score for Christopher Nolan’s epic about the primary creator of the atomic bomb.
Had you and Nolan developed a shorthand from working previously on his 2020 film, Tenet?
Ludwig Göransson: We were able to enter this film on speed 10, which was needed because there’s a lot to go through. I started writing music based on the script and talking about the characters and the feelings. We were creating our sound world before we started shooting the film.
Your wife, Serena McKinney, plays violin on the score.
Göransson: When the main theme came together, a big part of that was her performance of the melody on the violin, how intimate and fragile that sounded. When I sent that to Chris, the performance really resonated with him and with me, too, so [it] was a huge turning point.
You approached this through J. Robert Oppenheimer’s eyes. How heavy was that for you?
Göransson: It’s a very complex character, and he goes through some very interesting but also at times very dark places. To try to get those emotions out definitely was very challenging.
This story originally appeared in the Feb. 10, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Using our editorial expertise and Boxscore metrics, Billboard has selected 26 venues that artists clamor to play and fans gather at to enjoy. These selections are divided by region and venue type, as well as fan-favorite categories honoring the elements that add magic and energy to local music scenes.
Top West Coast Stadium: SoFi Stadium (Inglewood, Calif.)
The Los Angeles NFL venue is the highest-grossing stadium for concerts in the world, according to Billboard’s 2023 year-end Boxscore chart, reporting 19 concerts that grossed $175 million in ticket sales to Billboard Boxscore. SoFi Stadium also nabbed the top-grossing Boxscore of the year with Beyoncé’s three-night run in September, which brought in $45.5 million. Unlike other football palaces, SoFi Stadium was built with concerts in mind, and it already has an eclectic mix of pop, rock, R&B/hip-hop and Latin dates on the books for 2024.
Top Central U.S. Stadium: NRG Stadium (Houston)
Dallas’ AT&T Stadium has long dominated the Lone Star State, but in 2023, NRG Stadium showed it could hold its own. Last year, both facilities landed three Taylor Swift shows, but the latter, managed by ASM, hosted two Beyoncé concerts over Dallas’ one, shifting the balance of power back down to southern Texas and the greater Houston metroplex.
Taylor Swift at NRG Stadium in Houston.
Bob Levey/TAS23/Getty Images
Top East Coast Stadium: Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta)
The home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons has dominated Georgia as the region’s must-play stadium since its 2017 opening. In 2023, Mercedes-Benz Stadium hosted its biggest year of concerts ever with multiple dates from Beyoncé, Swift, Ed Sheeran, Karol G, Grupo Firme and George Strait.
Top International Stadium: Foro Sol (Mexico City)
This 30-year-old racetrack and stadium has become Mexico’s must-play venue and the second-highest-grossing stadium in the world. In 2023, Foro Sol generated $145 million in sales from 33 concerts, including a five-show run by Daddy Yankee in November that netted $24 million.
Top International Festival Location: Hyde Park (London)
Ever since AEG took over programming for one of London’s largest green spaces — the Royal Parks Society’s Hyde Park near Buckingham Palace — the concert promoter has transformed the region into a global music destination with its British Summertime Series. Last year’s programming didn’t disappoint with a series of one-day festivals headlined by P!nk, Take That and Bruce Springsteen.
Top U.S. Festival Location: The Gorge (George, Wash.)
The Gorge — a natural amphitheater in rural Washington that overlooks the Columbia River — is a pristine venue for all genres of music. Managed by Live Nation, the Gorge is home to festivals like Beyond Wonderland and Watershed Festival and last year hosted multinight residencies by Brandi Carlile (featuring Joni Mitchell), Dead & Company and more.
Joni Mitchell (left) and Brandi Carlile at The Gorge in George, Wash.
Gary Miller/Getty Images
Top West Coast Arena: Kia Forum (Los Angeles)
The former home of the Showtime-era Los Angeles Lakers has not had a tenant team since 1999, but in 2012, Madison Square Garden Co. purchased the arena and converted it into a music-only venue with clean sightlines, incredible acoustics and the invite-only Forum Club. Since 2019, the Forum has held the distinction as the highest-grossing arena in California and the third-highest-grossing in the world.
Top Central U.S. Arena: Fiserv Forum (Milwaukee)
Few venues have enhanced the musical trajectory of their host city quite like Fiserv Forum. Milwaukee had long been passed over for tour stops in favor of larger cities in the region like Chicago, but the flurry of concerts booked at the arena since its 2019 opening has changed the map for artists trekking across the upper Midwest, particularly for Spanish-language acts, given the facility’s frequent booking of Latin talent. In 2023, Fiserv Forum hosted nine tours that ranked on Billboard’s year-end Top 40 Boxscores chart.
Top East Coast Arena: Madison Square Garden (New York)
Nicknamed the “World’s Most Famous Arena,” Madison Square Garden is still the biggest game in town — and on the planet — with hundreds of artists clamoring each year to play the Midtown Manhattan landmark. The Garden has been the highest-grossing arena in North America since the launch of Boxscore in 2005, only failing to grab the No. 1 spot in 2011 and 2012, when a $1 billion renovation restricted the venue’s calendar. In 2023, MSG was the highest-grossing arena in the world, generating $223 million from 116 shows.
Top International Arena: O2 Arena (London)
Since its reopening as a world-class music venue in 2007, O2 Arena has consistently been among the top-grossing buildings in the world. While the former Millennium Dome took second place on Billboard’s Top Venues chart (15,001-plus capacity) in 2023, grossing $220 million to MSG’s $223 million, O2 Arena still has its best years ahead thanks to future bookings from top artists, including Doja Cat, Nicki Minaj and Karol G making appearances this spring.
Top West Coast Amphitheater: Edgefield (Portland, Ore.)
This sprawling family farm in northern Oregon, home to a winery and resort hotel, is a cultural and musical hub of Portland’s live-music scene. Managed and owned by Pacific Northwest brewer and restaurant group McMenamins, Edgefield is both a tranquil and energetic outdoor concert venue and a popular stopover for indie, Americana and electro-pop bands.
Top Central U.S. Amphitheater: PNC Pavilion at Riverbend (Cincinnati)
During Cincinnati’s hot summer months, the breeze rolling off the Ohio River cools this spacious waterfront amphitheater. Located inside the Riverbend Music Center, PNC Pavilion is booked and promoted by leading Ohio entertainment company MEMI, which brings in national tours from acts such as The Smashing Pumpkins, Alicia Keys and Charlie Puth and has been developing homegrown talent in the city since 2001.
Top East Coast Amphitheater: The Orion (Huntsville, Ala.)
Designed by Mumford & Sons member Ben Lovett’s The Venue Group and financially supported by a who’s who of heavyweights including Forest Hills Stadium’s Mike Luba and Red Light Management’s Coran Capshaw, the classically designed amphitheater draws visitors from all over the world but was built specifically for Huntsville residents. The space is open year-round as a popular dining destination and includes a farmers market, art gallery and large meeting space.
Top West Coast Club or Theater: The Regent (Los Angeles)
Located in Downtown L.A.’s old Broadway theater district, the 110-year-old theater — once a home for grindhouse flicks and adult films — today serves as a friendly neighborhood music venue that rarely suffers a dark night. When The Regent isn’t hosting national tours by performers such as Iggy Pop, The Pretenders, Matt & Kim and Black Country, New Road, it’s hosting oddball theme nights like Grinch Raves or free movie screenings.
Top Central U.S. Club or Theater: Brooklyn Bowl (Nashville)
Come for the Margo Price concert, stay for the fried chicken from in-house culinary group Blue Ribbon. The Nashville outpost of promoter Peter Shapiro’s Brooklyn Bowl was set to open in mid-March 2020 but pivoted to streaming-only concerts during the pandemic before starting to stage in-person events in June 2021. Since, the venue has successfully united the jam band crowd and the fast-growing Americana and indie country scene under one Nashville roof. Every show is fueled by a culinary program led by head chef Steven Stewart, a student of Nashville’s first father of foodies, Jody Faison.
Top East Coast Club or Theater: Roadrunner (Boston)
AEG partner The Bowery Presents manages Roadrunner, which is located in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood and was built in homage to the city’s former Sinclair venue in Harvard Square. Opened in March 2022 and taking its name from the Modern Lovers song “Roadrunner,” the venue is home to New England’s largest general-admission dancefloor and includes a wrap-around mezzanine for stellar views from above. It also features commissioned artwork from local muralist Felipe Ortiz that complements the venue’s understated design.
Top Residency Venue: Resorts World Theater (Las Vegas)
Located at the Resorts World hotel, Sin City’s newest theater reopened after the coronavirus pandemic with a record-breaking Katy Perry residency. Featuring 900 more seats than the neighboring Colosseum at Caesars Palace, the venue’s size and scale helped it land atop the Boxscore chart for venues under 5,000 capacity for the second year in a row. In 2023, Resorts World Theater grossed $45 million from 90 shows attended by 319,000 fans.
The ‘Wow’ Factor: Sphere (Las Vegas)
Few venues have gained as much attention in a single year as MSG’s Sphere at the Venetian in Las Vegas, a $2 billion music venue built by MSG’s James Dolan. Made famous by its LED exosphere and fully immersive interior cinematic screens, Sphere’s opening run with U2 — a $100 million deal brokered in part by Live Nation’s Arthur Fogel and Brooklyn Bowl’s Shapiro — will be followed by a four-night stand by Phish in April.
Sphere in Las Vegas with its LED exosphere as an eyeball.
David Becker/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Top Bucket List Venue: Red Rocks Amphitheatre (Morrison, Colo.)
With a memorable disc-shaped stage cast against a canvas of red sandstone, Red Rocks is North America’s most aspirational venue for both touring artists who long to play the natural amphitheater and fans who travel thousands of miles to attend one of the 200-plus concerts held there annually. Owned and managed by the City of Denver, Red Rocks is one of the few venues of its size that is ticketing-system neutral and nonexclusive to promoters.
Best Concept: The Salt Shed (Chicago)
Opened in 2022 on land previously owned by Morton Salt for nearly 100 years, The Salt Shed features two performance spaces: a 3,500-capacity reimagined indoor shed and a 5,000-capacity outdoor space known as the Fairground that overlooks the Chicago River and Goose Island.
Best Venue Under 500-Capacity: The Rebel Lounge (Phoenix)
This desert oasis of brick, steel and rust has long served as an important tour stop for developing bands traveling Interstate 10. Housed in what used to be the Mason Jar nightclub, The Rebel Lounge is managed by Psyko Steve Presents owner Stephen Chilton and serves as ground zero for Phoenix’s budding music scene with nearly nightly bookings and a loyal following of local supporters.
Local Favorite: Dickies Arena (Fort Worth, Texas)
From its round brick exterior to its western-themed hand-cut tile murals and bronze statues of cowboys and Comanches, Dickies Arena in Fort Worth exudes plenty of Lone Star State pride. And now, less than five years after opening, it is the No. 1 venue in the 10,001- to 15,000-capacity category, grossing $70 million from 110 shows in 2023, according to Boxscore.
Keeping It Indie: First Avenue (Minneapolis)
Authenticity matters to music fans, especially those who want to support independent artists in a rapidly commercializing world. And few venues possess as much authenticity as First Avenue, the anchor nightclub for Minneapolis promoter Dayna Frank, who served as the founding president of the National Independent Venue Association. Frank has run First Avenue since 2009, when she took over the business from her father and longtime owner, Byron, modeling the club’s look, design and attitude after her own experience growing up in the Twin Cities.
Best Food and Music Pairing: Triple Door (Seattle)
Located in Downtown Seattle across from Benaroya Hall on Union Street, Triple Door combines world-class entertainment with a world-renowned menu inspired by local Pacific Northwest ingredients. The Mainstage Theatre features national touring acts, while its MQ Stage & Lounge is considered one the city’s best destinations for happy hour and evening eats. Triple Door’s kitchen focuses on fresh local seafood and Southeast Asian dishes from sister restaurant Wild Ginger.
Most Unforgettable Experience: Snug Harbor (New Orleans)
Located on New Orleans’ jazz-heavy Frenchman Street, Snug Harbor is known for its world-famous Creole cuisine and its hourly jazz sessions featuring local talent from nearly every Big Easy parish. The venue’s food operation is fabled for its giant broiled gulf shrimp, lack of pretension and waiters who won’t take your plate away if you’re drawn to the dancefloor in the middle of supper.
Most Environmentally Friendly: Climate Pledge Arena (Seattle)
In renovating the KeyArena at Seattle Center, developer and operator Oak View Group designed it to be the first net-zero carbon arena and the most sustainable professional sports facility in the world. Named and branded in a historic sponsorship deal inked by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, the building was North America’s first to generate zero waste from operations — and it uses reclaimed rainwater to create the greenest hockey ice in the NHL.
This story originally appeared in the Feb. 10, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Since investing in the Chicago Sky in 2006, singer Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child fame has sung the national anthem at multiple games, joined a Sky star in a photo-op with local high school players, hung out with fans at a meet-and-greet — and, of course, enjoyed the best seats in the house.
With her minority stake in the 2021 WNBA champion team, Williams belongs to an exclusive group of pop stars who own a slice of a sports team, including Usher, J. Cole, Pitbull, Fergie, Marc Anthony and Justin Timberlake. And with the Sky recently valued at $85 million, her investment is paying off in multiple ways.
“It checks a lot of the boxes — [she] is from the city, a fan of the sport, a woman, a member of an iconic group,” says Jonathan Azu, founder and CEO of Culture Collective, which manages Williams. “It has the hallmarks of why you would do something like that: ‘I’m associated with this team, so it brings a lot of value to my brand.’ ”
Michelle Williams speaks to kids at a the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boys and Girls Club Monday, Feb. 27, 2006 in Chicago.
Jeff Roberson/AP Images
For an artist, that kind of value is both figurative and literal. Whether it’s Usher buying a small stake in the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, Anthony and Fergie becoming minority owners of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, Cole buying into the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets or Pitbull becoming co-owner of NASCAR’s Trackhouse Racing Team, money is a primary motivator.
“The stock market can go down, but the value of, say, the Texas Rangers is not going to go down,” says Michael Rapkoch, founder and CEO of Dallas-based Sports Value Consulting. Usher’s $9 million Cavs investment, for instance, may have more than quadrupled in value since he first made it in 2005, according to Forbes estimates. “I’m very happy to say that I don’t just have a basketball team, I have a championship team,” Usher tells Billboard, noting the Cavs won in 2016 under his watch. “That legacy is associated with something that I made an investment in.”
Perhaps the best-known artist-turned-team owner is Jay-Z, who spent $1 million on a small stake in the NBA’s Nets in 2004, helped move the franchise from New Jersey to his native Brooklyn, then divested from the team in 2013 to avoid a conflict of interest with his Roc Nation Sports agency. His windfall from that deal, according to Forbes, was an estimated $1.4 million.
Marc Anthony attends the NFL, ESPN/ESPN Deportes and the Miami Dolphins press conference at the Time Warner Center on July 21, 2009 in New York City.
Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images
Investing in a team can also mean easy self-marketing. When Timberlake, whose investing group owns a reported 2.8% of his hometown NBA team, the Memphis Grizzlies, played camera operator at home games, Sports Illustrated covered the story. “Sports is entertainment. There is crossover at every level,” Mark Cuban, who recently sold his majority stake in the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks for a reported $3.5 billion, tells Billboard.
That said, even a minority stake can be risky — “no different than any business,” as Cuban says. “If it’s not well run [and] customers aren’t happy, you can lose a lot of money.” That’s why none of longtime Bay Area music business manager Tim Jorstad’s clients have ever bought stakes in teams, even though many of his clients, which include the Doobie Brothers, Jefferson Airplane and members of Journey and the Grateful Dead, are regional sports fans.
Nonetheless, the perks tend to outweigh the potential downside for artists craving a piece of the sports pie. “It’s a fun investment. [Artist-owners] go to a lot of games and get to sit in the owners’ box and go onto the field and schmooze,” Jorstad says. “There are very few other normal investments where you get that kind of public exposure.”
J. Cole during the Miami Heat vs Charlotte Hornets game at FTX Arena on November 10, 2022 in Miami, Florida.
Lauren Sopourn/Getty Images
Additional reporting by Gail Mitchell.
This story will appear in the Feb. 10, 2024, issue of Billboard.
The $10 billion-a-year sports agency business is almost as hard to break into as the big leagues themselves — the gatekeepers are entrenched and powerful, and the cost of competing with them can be prohibitive. Right now, though, a growing disconnect between athletes and agents — players want their agents to find them lucrative ways to leverage their fame, while agents want to focus on the high-dollar contracts — is creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to disrupt the business. Some of them are coming from the music industry, leveraging their own cultural cachet to find clients and opportunities, including Jay-Z, whose Roc Nation includes a sports agency business; Young Money APAA Sports; and Quality Control Sports. More music stars are on their way this year too.
The business is now dominated by five firms — CAA Sports, Wasserman Sports, WME Sports, Excel Sports and Octagon — which together generate half of the $6 billion in commissions that the top 20 firms collected, according to Forbes. On the surface, these companies operate a bit like music and film/TV agencies, where executives identify opportunities for their clients and negotiate on their behalf. But the vast majority of the money comes from long-term player contracts that deliver giant commissions, and many athletes think this leads agents to ignore sports-adjacent opportunities and investments. Roc Nation and Rich Paul’s Klutch Sports, built on their reputation for combining sports and entertainment, used this to challenge the entrenched players, successfully enough that they are now ranked No. 7 and No. 9 by revenue, respectively, according to Forbes.
Does that mean other musicians and music executives will follow their lead — or even that they should? Launching a sports agency is expensive — it can take between $40 million and $50 million, according to Forbes, which is a big bet even for most stars. So that usually means finding additional investors, in the form of financial backers or other entrepreneurs, plus athletes who are either looking for an agent or a new one.
Roc Nation, which had a rock-solid source of both cash and credibility in Jay-Z, entered the sports business in 2013, five years after the company’s launch, with four-time All-Star Yankees second baseman Robinson Canó. Its sports division now has 190 clients, including Charlotte Hornets point guard LaMelo Ball and New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley, and about $2 billion in player salaries and another $500 million in sponsorships and nonsalary deals, according to Forbes, which estimates that the company’s sports operations generate $203 million a year. (Roc Nation declined to comment on its finances.) Klutch Sports, where Paul is agent and manager for LeBron James, as well as a board member for Live Nation Entertainment, generates about half that.
That kind of success brings competition, including from music executives Kevin “Coach K” Lee and Pierre “P” Thomas, who launched Quality Control Sports in 2019, four years before HYBE purchased their company. Their agency’s clients include New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara and Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Richie James. The Lil Wayne-owned Young Money APAA Sports has also put points on the board by signing University of Miami’s Leonard Taylor III ahead of the 2024 NFL draft.
That doesn’t mean every venture succeeds, though. Jeezy started his Sports 99 agency in 2019, but it closed during the pandemic, and Kanye West’s Donda Sports, launched in 2022 with basketball players Aaron Donald and Jaylen Brown, imploded within months after West made a series of antisemitic comments.
The fast-paced evolution of both the sports and music businesses may continue to tempt musicians with money and influence, but anyone who enters the sports agency business, no matter how famous, will probably do so as an underdog.
This story will appear in the Feb. 10, 2024, issue of Billboard.
