Music

10 Jan 2024

Skepta Apologizes For ‘Gas Me Up’ Single Art That Drew Holocaust Comparisons: ‘I Vow To Be More Mindful Going Forward’

British rapper Skepta has apologized for the offensive artwork for his upcoming single, “Gas Me Up (Diligent),” after facing fierce backlash for an image some saw as evoking the Holocaust. The artwork by artist Gabriel Moses was posted on Skepta’s Instagram on Monday — and has since been removed — featuring a photo of a group of men with shaved heads wearing matching drab uniforms with the words “Gas Me Up” tattooed on one of the subject’s heads.

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The photo drew comparisons to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust, including some commenters saying that the combination of the men dressed in similar uniforms with shaved heads — a common form of humiliation of Jews during the Holocaust — and the song title’s reference to “gas” were reminiscent of the Nazi’s use of gas chambers to murder six million Jews; at press time it did not appear as if photographer/artist Moses had responded to the controversy

After the backlash, Skepta removed the post and issued a statement on his Instagram Story in which he said, “I’ve been waiting to drop ‘Gas Me Up (Diligent)’ since teasing it April last year, worked hard getting the artwork right for my album rollout which is about my parents coming to the UK in the 80’s, Skinhead, Football culture and it has been taken offensively by many and I can promise you that was definitely not our plan so I have removed it and I vow to be more mindful going forward – Skepta.”

On Jan. 1, Skepta announced that he would release his first album in five years, Knife and Fork, with “Gas Me Up” slated to drop on Jan. 26. “It’s been years since I dropped my last album and I want to thank you for all the love during my hiatus,” he wrote in the post. “I’ve seen the messages, tweets and Tik Toks, I’m truly grateful that my music is still resonating with the world even in my absence, I’m happy to announce my next studio album #KnifeAndFork is loading, the first single #GasMeUp (Diligent) will be out January 26th.”

The posting of the controversial image came as reports that antisemitic incident across the U.S. soared in the months after militant group Hamas’ murderous assault on Israel on Oct. 7, in which the group killed more than 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped more than 240 men, women and children; Israel’s counter-attack on Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank has killed a reported 22,000 Palestinians in the months since the unprovoked attack.

The Anti-Defamation League — which had not responded to Billboard‘s request for comment on the Skepta controversy at press time — reported that antisemitic incidents in the U.S. soared 337% over the previous year’s figures between Oct. 7-Dec. 7, reaching the highest figures in any two-month period since the ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979, according to CBS News.

In addition, Reuters reported that officials in Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Russia and China have also reported a rash of antisemitic incidents and attacks at a time when the leading Republican presidential candidate, former one-term president Donald Trump, has drawn fire for referring to his enemies in speeches as “vermin,” a term echoing the language of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

See some of the critical tweets below.

10 Jan 2024

A Brief History of Genre at the Grammys

The Grammy Awards have had genre-specific categories from the very start, but the line-up looks a lot different today than when the first Grammys were presented in May 1959.  

Back then, when there were 28 categories, there were six categories reserved for classical music, two for jazz and one each for country & western and rhythm & blues.  

That meant some records were shoehorned into categories where they didn’t quite fit. Because there was no category for folk, The Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley” wound up winning best country & western performance. Because there was no category for rock and roll, The Champs’ “Tequila” won best rhythm & blues performance.

That first year, there were also no categories specifically earmarked for eventual staple Grammy genres like pop (though the awards for best vocal performance, male and female tended to go to pop artists), dance music (unless you count best performance by a dance band, won by Count Basie), blues, gospel or Latin — or such later-emerging genres as rock, metal, alternative, rap, Americana, Contemporary Christian or Global.  

The addition of these and other categories has made the number of categories swell to 94 by the time of the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, which will be presented on Feb. 4. That’s more than three times as many as at the first Grammy ceremony, but down from the all-time high of 110 categories that were presented in 2008 and 2009.

There was a major streamlining in 2012, when the number of categories plummeted from 109 to 78. In a recent interview with Billboard, Academy CEO Harvey Mason, jr. referred to it as “the great consolidation.” Two factors were responsible for the reduction: Many felt that the glut of categories devalued the award. Also, The Grammys opted for gender-neutral categories, which reduced the number of categories needed. 

Ahead of this year’s ceremony, we put together a guide to the history of 20 genres that are recognized on the big night, listed in the order they were first introduced on the Grammy ballot. We also rounded up some of the discontinued Grammy categories that have been lost to time. 

This story is part of Billboard’s Genre Now package, highlighting the artists pushing their musical genres forward — and even creating their own new ones.

A few notes first: many categories have had name changes over the years. At the Grammy Awards presented in 1969, country & western was shortened to country; rhythm & blues was abbreviated R&B. More recently, best urban contemporary album was renamed best progressive R&B album because some took umbrage at the term “urban.” Best world music album was renamed best global music album to get away from “connotations of colonialism, folk, and ‘non-American’ that the former term embodied,” according to an Academy statement. Best rap/sung collaboration became best rap/sung performance (it no longer had to be a collaboration); it is now best melodic rap performance. 

Some category names were changed because they were just too unwieldly. Best soundtrack album or recording of original cast from a motion picture or television, as the category was known in 1961-62, is now known by the much simpler best score soundtrack for visual media. Even when the original names weren’t that clunky, the new shorter versions are catchier, as when best long-form music video became best music film and best short-form music video became best music video. 

Read on for a brief, selective history of genre at the Grammys – the years shown are the years of the award presentations each genre first appeared.

10 Jan 2024

What New Top 10 Hits May Be Arriving Soon on the Hot 100?

The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week (for the upcoming Billboard Hot 100 dated Jan. 20), there may not be a ton of suspense towards the top of the Hot 100 — with Jack Harlow, Taylor Swift and Tate McRae likely to be holding strong in the top three — but other rising songs are threatening to break into the top 10 for the first time.

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Teddy Swims, “Lose Control” (SWIMS Int./Warner): One of the surprise slow-burn successes of late 2023, the big-voiced Teddy Swims‘ soulful crossover hit “Lose Control” continues to climb into the new year. “Control” spikes 48-12 on the Hot 100 this week — helped by streaming growth, as the song re-enters Streaming Songs at a new No. 10 peak this week, and also by impressive sales, with it rising to No. 2 on the Digital Song Sales chart. (Plus, the track has already hit the top 25 on Radio Songs.) A top 10 Hot 100 placement seems in reach for Swims in the next week or two as folks continue to discover the song for the first time — it’s also currently No. 2 on Shazam’s U.S. top 200 chart.

Nicki Minaj, “FTCU” (Young Money/Cash Money/Republic): Minaj‘s Pink Friday 2 breakout hit jumped from 53-17 on last week’s Hot 100 (dated Jan. 13) after the yearly deluge of holiday songs finally abated, and remains one of the early year’s strongest performers on streaming, holding in the top 10 of both Spotify’s and Apple Music’s daily U.S. listings. The big question for it will be radio: While top 40 seems to have jumped on the Lil Uzi Vert-featuring “Everybody” when that song initially had the most momentum from the PF2 tracklist — it debuts at No. 38 on Pop Airplay this week — “FTCU” has been slower to find its footing there, which it may ultimately need to do to make its mark on the top 10.

Noah Kahan, “Stick Season” (Mercury/Republic): Speaking of songs debuting on Pop Airplay this week: Alt-folk singer-songwriter Noah Kahan makes his second bow on the chart, following last year’s “Dial Drunk” with Post Malone, with his somehow-still-rising breakout hit “Stick Season.” The 18-month-old title track to his unstoppable 2022 album, “Season” continues to grow on streaming while now also impacting radio, entering at No. 37 on Pop Airplay and rising 54-19 on the Hot 100, passing “Drunk” (at No. 48 this week, after reaching No. 25 last summer) for his biggest hit as a lead artist now on the latter chart. If the momentum continues, Kahan’s first-ever Hot 100 top 10 berth could only be a couple weeks away.

IN THE MIX

Drake feat. Sexyy Red & SZA, “Rich Baby Daddy” (OVO Sound/Republic): While “First Person Shooter” with J. Cole and “IDGAF” with Yeat were the two most immediate hits from Drake‘s Billboard 200-topping For All the Dogs late last year, it appears that the most enduring single from the set will be the Sexyy Red- and SZA-featuring “Rich Baby Daddy.” The album’s most obviously hooky and upbeat highlight, “Daddy” returns to the Hot 100’s top 20 this week (52-16) after previously debuting at No. 11, and continues to regain ground on streaming — but is slipping a little on radio (21-29 on Radio Songs), where it may need to recapture its momentum to really make a push for the top 10.

Billie Eilish, “What Was I Made For?” (Darkroom/WaterTower/Interscope/Atlantic): Eilish‘s devastating piano ballad peaked at No. 14 at the height of Barbie-mania, and hung around the Hot 100 throughout most of the holiday season, before finally falling off the chart last week. It’s back at No. 20 this week, while holding as a solid performer on streaming and radio, and now it has a new source of adrenaline: awards season. The song just picked up best original song at the Golden Globes, and is up for five Grammys in February, with an Oscar nomination and possible win the following month also seeming practically inevitable.

Chris Stapleton, “White Horse” (Sound/Mercury Nashville): Not many might’ve expected Stapleton‘s searing Higher lead single to hang around as a major chart contender through the new year, but “White Horse” has remained impressively resilient, sticking on the Hot 100 through the holidays and jumping from 56-18 on this week’s listing. As the song re-enters Streaming Songs at No. 23, radio may again be the ticket for a top 10 entry: “Horse” is just outside the top five on the Country Airplay chart this week, as the fiery song perhaps remains a slightly awkward fit on the genre’s traditionally genial airwaves.

Xavi, “La Diabla” (Interscope): You have to dig a little deeper in the chart this week to find Mexican-American breakout star Xavi — he’s at No. 34 with “La Diabla,” and also No. 56 with “La Victima” — but chances feel pretty good that he’ll be a force to be reckoned with higher on the Hot 100 in the months to come. With all sorts of early-year buzz and eye-popping forward momentum on streaming, it’s pretty hard not to compare the Arizona-born, Interscope-signed 19-year-old with another música Mexicana breakout star who started to burst around this time last year.

10 Jan 2024

The ‘Saltburn’ Bump: More ’00s Gems Than ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ Lifted by Viral Film

Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up column, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. 
 
This week: Myriad ’00s jams take off on streaming thanks to their Saltburn usage, He Is We sparks the early year’s most unlikely viral dance trend and a former president’s co-sign helps out an indie staple.

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Pop and Indie Favorites From Two Decades Ago ‘Saltburn’ing Up on Streaming



By now, you may have heard about one of the most fun Billboard Hot 100 success stories of the new year: veteran U.K. pop hitmaker Sophie Ellis-Bextor scoring a debut on the chart with the 22-year-old Gregg Alexander co-penned disco-pop gem “Murder on the Dancefloor.” Thanks to virality ensuing from its usage in the Emerald Fennell-directed 2023 film Saltburn, the song bows at No. 98 on the Hot 100 this week — the first-ever appearance on the chart for Ellis-Bextor, who reached the top 10 of the U.K.’s Official Songs Chart six times in the early 21st century.

But while “Murder” has gotten the biggest bump from the ’00s-set viral black comedy, it’s far from the only song to benefit from its usage in the film, as pretty much every other period favorite used in the movie is also way up in streams following its Dec. 22 bow on Amazon Prime. Mason vs. Princess Superstar’s 2007 U.K. smash “Perfect (Exceeder)” is another of the biggest Saltburn gainers, up 289% in official on-demand U.S. streams to over 1.4 million from the week ending Dec. 21 to the week ending Jan. 4, according to Luminate. Over the same period, MGMT’s psych-pop classic “Time to Pretend” is up 96% to 1.1 million streams, Bloc Party’s swooning rock gem “This Modern Love” is up 166% to 177,000 streams and Tomcraft’s barnstorming dancefloor anthem “Loneliness” is up 569% to 173,000 streams.

Even a couple absolutely unkillable ’00s staples see noticeable Saltburn bumps: Flo Rida’s Hot 100-topping “Low” is up 16% to 2.5 million, and the daddy of all ’00s indie anthems, The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” is up 15% to 5.2 million. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER

He Is We’s “I Wouldn’t Mind” Merrily Falls into Streaming Success Following Viral TikTok Trend 



Indie pop act He Is We has yet to impact a single Billboard chart, but that could very well change thanks to the viral TikTok trend powering their 2017 track “I Wouldn’t Mind.” 

According to Luminate, “I Wouldn’t Mind” logged 1.08 million official on-demand U.S. streams during the period of Dec. 29-Jan. 4. That marks a staggering 294% increase in streaming activity from just four weeks prior, when the track collected a little over 275,000 streams during the period of Dec. 8-14. For each of the past three weeks, streams for “I Wouldn’t Mind” have increased by approximately 57%. 

These massive week-over-week gains are due to a TikTok trend in which users execute Jersey club-inspired choreography to the song’s opening lines (“Merrily we fall / Out of line, out of line / I’d fall anywhere with you / I’m by your side”), yet another example for the TikTok generation’s penchant for stark sonic/visual juxtapositions. TikTok user @zaebriel first paired the dance with “I Wouldn’t Mind” in a Dec. 11 post that has since amassed over 2.4 million views. Four days later, TikTok creator @jerseyyjoe – who recently appeared in ScarLip’s “Blick” music video – posted his spin on the dance, garnering a whopping 16.2 million views and 2.3 million likes. The official “I Wouldn’t Mind” TikTok sound currently boasts over 130,7000 posts. 

While He Is We has yet to acknowledge the viral trend on any of their official social media pages, new fans of “I Wouldn’t Mind” have already flooded the comments of their most recent Instagram post with lots of love for the surprise hit. – KYLE DENIS

Big Thief Gets the Obama Bump



Indie rock stalwarts Big Thief‘s 2023 single “Vampire Empire” has experienced a sharp rise in streams in the past few weeks, thanks to an unlikely fan: Barack Obama.

The former president’s end-of-year playlists always spark internet chatter when they are posted — often because of the former President’s usually unnervingly hip, eclectic taste — and this holiday season was no different. Big Thief’s “Vampire Empire” was slated alongside other surprising indie rock gems like “Joiner” by Blondshell and “Younger and Dumber” by Indigo De Souza as well as more mainstream hits like Zach Bryan’s Hot 100-topping Kacey Musgraves duet “I Remember Everything,” Victoria Monet’s Grammy-nominated banger “On My Mama,” and Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar’s iconic team-up “America Has a Problem.”

For Big Thief, this surprising spotlight amounted to new listenership for the song, which was released on July 19 and had already seen some viral growth on TikTok. The week before Obama’s post, the track earned 825,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, but the following week it rose 193% to 1.59 million streams, according to Luminate. – KRISTIN ROBINSON

10 Jan 2024

How Teejay Is Tapping Into Afrobeats to Design Dancehall’s Next Wave

September’s Hip-Hop Forever show at Madison Square Garden in New York — part of the yearlong celebration of the genre’s 50th anniversary — brought the stars out. Alongside legends who helped build hip-hop’s storied past was a slightly more unexpected booking: Jamaican dancehall king Sean Paul. He tore the house down with hits like “Give It Up to Me” and “Like Glue,” reminders of a time, in the early 2000s, when dancehall records topped the Billboard charts — when Paul, who has now traded his trademark cornrows for a crisp, neat Caeser, effortlessly mixed dancehall’s infectious riddims with hip-hop sensibilities and aesthetics. Blending reggae and dancehall with other popular genres wasn’t a new idea when Paul did it, but no one else besides Bob Marley and Shaggy had done so to greater effect. 

At least until now. That night, Paul wasn’t the only dancehall MC to bless the stage. One of the “special guests” teased on the show’s flier was a comparatively little-known 29-year-old guy from Montego Bay, Jamaica, that most audience members couldn’t pick out of a lineup if they were promised the numbers to the next Powerball. But though silence at first overtook the crowd when he stepped onstage, Teejay looked every inch the star when he arrived. 

Invited as a guest of Funkmaster Flex, the longtime Hot 97 DJ who oversaw the night’s proceedings, Teejay emerged dripped out in a Gucci jacket and matching sneakers. And when the opening chords of his current hit, “Drift,” blared out of the speakers, concertgoers slowly caught on: This was the guy who made the song that had taken over TikTok for a few months last year. As Teejay warmed up to the crowd, so did they, breaking into the signature dance that would help propel “Drift” to a No. 47 debut on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart three weeks after the Garden performance.

It was a big night for Teejay — one that affirmed that the hard work he’d been putting in over the past three years was finally paying off. So what if few can yet recognize him by face? They recognize his music. Well, sort of. 

“Most people still don’t know what I’m saying,” says Teejay with a laugh, thinking back to the Garden show. We’re in Los Angeles, meeting for the second time at his Billboard photoshoot, and his fit looks as if it costs more than most people’s monthly income. “But they love the vibe. They love the music. They love the sound. So, I just work with it.”

This digital cover story is part of Billboard’s Genre Now package, highlighting the artists pushing their musical genres forward — and even creating their own new ones.

Born Timoy Janeyo Jones in Montego Bay, Teejay learned early on to just work with it. To most people from outside Jamaica, Montego Bay is an idyllic resort city, but it has a shadier side that doesn’t make travel brochures or TV commercials. One in which families of nine like Teejay’s — he grew up with his mother, uncle, five brothers and one sister — live in small board houses, in sometimes dangerous neighborhoods (like Glendevon, where Teejay’s family lived). His brothers were all musicians who as kids picked up digital production and recording software like FruityLoops and Pro Tools to produce music. Naturally, Teejay took to them as well. 

“I started recording myself at the age of 9,” he says. “Every day, I would come home and see them recording with Pro Tools and I’d just sit there for hours, and when they’d gone, I’d just record myself.”

Teejay, Future of Genre

Michael Buckner

The autodidactic method worked. By the time Teejay was in seventh grade, he decided to leave school behind and focus on music full time. “My teacher asked me, ‘What do you want to be in life?’ And everybody in the class said they want to be a policeman, a lawyer, a judge, a doctor. I tell the teacher I want to be an artist. She said, ‘That’s not professional. Give me something else.’ I said, ‘Entertainer!’ ” When he was supposed to be taking notes, Teejay was instead tapping out riddims on his desk. His teacher told him that he needed to take that noise to the music class — so he did.

The way he saw it, he could help his family much more financially if he dedicated his time to growing into an artist like 2Pac or the Jamaican great Jah Cure — two of the MCs idolized in his neighborhood. “Growing up in my community, we listened to 2Pac every single day. Once you’re a Montegonian, you’re going to know about 2Pac and Jah Cure music.” 

His focus paid off when Tommy Lee — fellow Montegonian and controversial mentee of incarcerated dancehall star Vybz Kartel — let Teejay rock with him and his crew, even helping the fledgling artist score his first live performance in 2010. The experience left Teejay feeling like he could actually become a star. But it would take a good while longer before the dreams in his mind materialized outside of his head. 

Steve Jobs famously said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Teejay watched the artists who were remaking dancehall in the early 2000s — artists like Movado, Aidonia, Busy Signal and Tommy Lee, who were all more different than similar — and studied what made them connect not only with Jamaican fans, but the throngs of dancehall fans around the world. He took bits and pieces from each one’s style, creating a dancehall sound that was fluid, melodic and, at times, lyrically crazy. 

Over the next eight years, he produced a torrent of music, culminating in his 2018 regional hit, “Uptop Boss.” Though it didn’t make much noise in the United States, the slinky gangster dance track was a massive hit on the island; its official video has racked up over 16 million views on YouTube. 

Then, tragedy struck: Two of Teejay’s close friends, who often appeared in his videos and lyrics — Romario “Grimmy Boss” Wallen and Philip “Afro-Man” Lewis — were gunned down in St. Andrew, Jamaica, on June 4, 2020. (The two were reportedly just hanging out on the block when a shooter pulled up and opened fire.) Condolences poured out from fans and fellow dancehall artists, with many posting photos and comments on Instagram. But Teejay went quiet: He deleted everything on his Instagram page except for two posts of his departed friends. 

Wallen’s and Lewis’ deaths derailed Teejay’s momentum just as he was finding his footing as an artist — but they were also a wake-up call. He took time away from music, leaving the country for a bit and settling at a friend’s house in Miami to refocus his energy and clear his head. His friends’ deaths affected both his physical and mental health: He changed his diet and started to eat healthier, in turn losing a lot of weight. But the biggest change wasn’t what he was putting into his body — it was what he put into the world. 

He no longer wanted to make music that was overtly gangster. “Hardcore music has a barrier,” he says. “It can’t be played in a Christian home or in certain homes. I decided that we’re not going to go violent; I want to do something happy.” To achieve that, he decided to make some changes — starting with who handled his business. “Jamaican artists don’t even know what a proper management is,” Teejay says. “As a Jamaican artist, we have to still go out there and look for a chauffeur ourselves and an interview, everything. Some people don’t even know that some people in Jamaica who say that they’re a manager are basically a booking agent.”

Sharon Burke, the leader of Teejay’s new management team since 2021, is much more than a booking agent. Co-founder and president of the Kingston, Jamaica-based Solid Agency, Burke has worked for years to bring reggae and dancehall music to a global audience. She has had a hand in the success of many of Jamaica’s biggest superstars, including Freddie McGregor, Barrington Levy, Bounty Killer and Aidonia. And her company produces the annual Island Music Conference, bringing the wider music world to Jamaica. When it came time to set up the Verzuz battle between Bounty Killer and Beanie Man — ultimately watched by over 3 million — it was Burke who Verzuz creators Swizz Beatz and Timbaland turned to. 

Burke believes in Teejay — that he has what it takes to really leave a mark on the game much as some of her previous clients have — but she has impressed upon him that good music alone won’t take him to the top “I said, ‘Listen, if you’re just going to sit by and think it’s talent alone, I can’t work with you. It’s hard work. It’s about presentation. It’s about excellence. It’s about choreography in the way you move. So, if you’re ready for that journey, I will go it with you.’ ” 

Teejay, Future of Genre

Michael Buckner

One of the first things Burke did was to connect Teejay with Panda, one of their in-house producers. While Teejay was in Miami getting his mind right, he began to think beyond the boundaries of the genre he’d worked within for so long. He loves dancehall — it’s the music he was raised on and the music that changed his life — but he understands that, right now, dancehall and reggae aren’t as popular as they once were. 

Back in 2003 — when Sean Paul was hopping on remixes with Busta Rhymes, when LL Cool J jumped on Wayne Wonder’s “No Letting Go” remix, when Elephant Man had everyone ponning de river — new dancehall artists were making serious waves in rap and R&B music. Fast forward to 2021, when the bestselling reggae and dancehall artists in the United States were Paul, Bob Marley and Shaggy. No new artists broke onto the Billboard Hot 100 that year. 

Now, another type of Black diasporic music, Afrobeats, has assumed the position reggae and dancehall once occupied. Over the past three years, an increasing number of new African artists have broken onto the charts with big singles, like Wizkid and Tems’ 2020 hit, “Essence,” the first Nigerian song in history to appear on the Hot 100, reaching No. 9 on the chart. Now, mainstream American rappers like Drake and Future and singers like Chris Brown are tapping the genre’s ascendant stars to help them move units. Future’s first Hot 100 No. 1 as a lead artist, for instance, came courtesy of a song that heavily samples Tems’ song “Higher” from her 2020 EP, Broken Ears. 

“They’re saying now that Afrobeats is bigger than dancehall,” Teejay says. “I was at a show where there was an Afrobeats artist on the stage — I won’t say any names — and he was saying ‘our music is your music’ because they took pieces of all the legendary [dancehall] artists’ music.” 

He took to the makeshift studio in the garage of his friend’s Miami house, puzzling over a riddim he’d had in his head for close to three years but couldn’t quite figure out how to translate into a workable beat. He wanted to make something that was new but also paid homage to the warm dancehall feeling that radiated from songs made by legends like Supacat and Shabba Ranks. Then, one day in 2022, he received a batch of beats from Panda. “I called the beat-maker and said, ‘Bro. You got it. This is good.’ ” 

What he got turned into “Drift,” the slick dancehall ditty that could easily be mistaken for an Afrobeats song if not for its decidedly dancehall drum programming and, of course, Teejay’s perfectly syncopated bars that swell into what has become an inescapable chorus. 

“Me and the team, we created something called ‘Afro dancehall,’ ” he says with a laugh. “It’s more of an Afrobeats song with a dancehall artist on it. At the time, dancehall music was kind of slow and really toxic, based on everything that was going on in Jamaica. I was like, ‘We need to embrace happiness [in] the world. Something everyone can dance to.’ We created that old dancehall feeling where people just want to dance. It’s simple math. We used less words and more melody so people can remember it.” 

That last, key idea came to Teejay from his mentor, Shaggy, the platinum-selling superstar who’s also one of Burke’s partners at Solid Agency. Combining reggae and dancehall with music from around the world and making it as simple as possible to sing along to has been a Shaggy trademark since he dropped the Marvin Gaye-sampling “Boombastic” back in 1995. “He has been telling me, ‘Listen: choice of words,’ ” Teejay says. “ ‘Try to say less, but make sure it’s effective and that people can understand it.’ ” 

“[Teejay’s] incredibly talented. He’s a guy that is making music outside of the box and he also works extremely f–king hard,” Shaggy says. “And I think that is the formula that is needed to have a very long and successful career.” 

A little luck also helps, and it was on Teejay’s side when it came to promoting “Drift.” He gave the song to a DJ who then leaked it on TikTok, and it took on a life of its own, becoming a top-used sound on the platform. Soon, celebrities like Jamaican Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt and Cardi B were making TikToks doing the dance from the music video. “Drift” became Teejay’s first Billboard chart entry, landing at No. 47 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay. 

While the song took Jamaican and U.S. audiences by surprise, its success isn’t that shocking to Shaggy. “In the early days, when I played stadiums in Africa, the majority of the music they were playing was dancehall,” he recalls. “The traditional music that you might hear from Fela Kuti and some of these original artists over there wasn’t the type of music you would hear in the nightclubs. Dancehall is what you heard in the nightclub. Whether it be Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, those are the songs that were played — dancehall. It has had a very strong influence on the African culture. So, to me, it’s all one.” 

What does the future of dancehall look like if one of its most popular artists is co-opting the sound of another genre to make waves internationally? “If you listen to dancehall from the 2000s, it’s a totally different dancehall than what we have today. The sound of it is different,” Shaggy says. “The dancehall they make today is more a trap kind of dancehall. That’s just evolution at the end of the day. With an artist like Teejay, it gives him the opportunity to experiment and try a different vibe.” 

On Dec. 15, 2023, Teejay released an official remix of “Drift” featuring none other than leading Afrobeats artist Davido (the song also has a couple of rap remixes at this point). He sounds perfectly at home on the track; if you didn’t know any better, you might assume that Teejay was the guest feature. Its success, and Teejay’s own, are proof that there’s an audience for this new sound, one that keeps dancehall’s driving groove intact while mixing in the breezy and blithe feel of Afrobeats. And if anything, it proves dancehall is at its best when pushed to new limits. 

“I hope [new artists] keep experimenting and keep finding new ways,” Shaggy says. In other words, they just got to work with it.

10 Jan 2024

Morgan Wallen’s ‘One Thing at a Time’ Is Luminate’s Top Album of 2023 in U.S.

Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time closed out 2023 as the most popular album of the year in the U.S., according to music data tracking firm Luminate. The album’s lead single, “Last Night,” was the year’s most-streamed song by on-demand audio streams, while Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” was the most-heard song on the radio. Total music consumption in the U.S. – as measured in equivalent album units – increased by 12.6% in 2023. (View the U.S. 2023 Luminate Year-End Music Report.)

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See the year’s top 10 albums chart, along with other year-end rankings and overall industry volume numbers, below.

But first, the fine print:

Equivalent album units – for album titles and chart rankings cited below (but not industry volume numbers) – comprise traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album, or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. Album titles and album chart rankings by equivalent album units do not include user-generated content (UGC) streams, but UGC streams are included in Luminate’s industry volume numbers. (UGC streams are not factored into any of Billboard’s weekly charts.)

For the sake of clarity, equivalent album units do not include listening to music on broadcast radio or digital radio broadcasts. All numbers cited in this story are rounded, and reflect U.S. consumption only.

Luminate’s equivalent album unit totals include SEA and TEA for an album’s songs registered before an album’s release, but during the tracking period of Dec. 30, 2022, through Dec. 28, 2023.

Luminate began tracking music sales in 1991 when the company was known as SoundScan. Luminate’s sales, streaming and airplay data is used to compile Billboard’s weekly charts. Luminate’s 2023 tracking year ran from Dec. 30, 2022, through Dec. 28, 2023.

Luminate is an independently operated company and a subsidiary of PME TopCo, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge. Billboard is an independently operated company owned by PME Holdings, a subsidiary of PME TopCo.

Highlights from Luminate’s 2023 year-end data:

  • Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time was Luminate’s top album of 2023. It’s the second time Wallen has led the year-end list. He also was tops in 2021 with Dangerous: The Double Album.
  • On Luminate’s 2023 U.S. year-end top 10 most popular albums ranking, Taylor Swift has five of the top 10 titles – a single-year Luminate-era record.
  • Total U.S. album consumption increased by 12.6% in 2023.
  • R&B/hip-hop continues to hold firm as the top U.S. core genre by total album consumption; the world music genre – inclusive of the Korean pop (K-pop) genre – had the largest percentage gain year-over-year.
  • Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” tallied 1.015 billion U.S. on-demand audio streams in 2023 — the most U.S. on-demand audio streams a song has earned in a calendar year. It is only the second song ever to exceed 1 billion on-demand audio streams in a calendar year.
  • Yearly U.S. on-demand audio streams surpassed 1 trillion for the second time.
  • 27% of all on-demand audio streams in the U.S. in 2023 were R&B/hip-hop songs, the largest share of any core genre.
  • Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is the first vinyl album in Luminate history to sell 1 million copies in a calendar year in the U.S.
  • Swift sold more albums in 2023 than any other act, accounting for 6% of all albums sold, industry-wide.
  • The top 10-selling CD albums of 2023 were all by Swift or K-pop acts.
  • Total U.S. album sales grew 5.2% in 2023 – just the second year that album sales grew in the last 10 years.
  • U.S. vinyl album sales outsold CDs for the third year in a row. 2023 marked the 18th consecutive year vinyl album sales grew in the U.S., and the largest year for vinyl album sales since Luminate began tracking data in 1991.
  • 47.1% of all albums sold in 2023 in the U.S. – across all configurations, physical & digital combined – were vinyl LPs. 57% of all physical albums sold were vinyl.
  • Total U.S. album sales for the year (physical and digital download purchases combined) grew by 5.2%.
  • Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) sold 1.975 million in traditional album sales in the U.S. in 2023 – the biggest-selling album of any year since 2015.

One Thing at a Time debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart dated March 18, 2023, and spent 16 nonconsecutive weeks atop the tally. That marked the most weeks at No. 1 for any album since Adele’s blockbuster 21 spent 24 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2011-12. One Thing at a Time is the second Wallen album to be named Luminate’s year-end No. 1 album, after his previous release, Dangerous: The Double Album, in 2021. Wallen is the first artist to have Luminate’s year-end No. 1 album twice in a three-year span since Drake led the year-end ranking in 2018 (with Scorpion) and in 2016 (with Views).

Nearly all of One Thing at a Time’s units earned in 2023 were powered by on-demand streams of its 36 songs. Its collected tracks generated 6.657 billion on-demand streams in the U.S., equaling 92.5% of the album’s total activity for the year (or, 4.962 million SEA units of its total 5.362 million units). One Thing at a Time was also the most-streamed album of 2023.

One Thing at a Time sold 326,000 in traditional album sales in 2023 (making it the No. 13-biggest-selling album of the year). The set also generated 745,000 in individual digital track sales, equaling nearly 75,000 in TEA units.

2023 marks the eighth year in a row in which Luminate’s year-end top album is by a solo male artist. The last time a solo male didn’t finish at No. 1 was in 2015, when Adele’s 25 ruled.

One Thing at a Time’s 5.362 million equivalent album units earned in 2023 is the largest sum for any album measured in a calendar year since 2015, when Adele’s 25 tallied 8.008 million and was the year’s top album.

One Thing at a Time spun off the massive multi-format chart hit “Last Night,” which spent 16 weeks atop the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. The tune also closes 2023 as the most-streamed song by on-demand audio streams.

TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023 IN U.S., BY TOTAL EQUIVALENT ALBUM UNITS
1. Morgan Wallen, One Thing at a Time (5.362 million)
2. Taylor Swift, Midnights (3.209 million)
3. SZA, SOS (3.172 million)
4. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (2.872 million)
5. Morgan Wallen, Dangerous: The Double Album (2.179 million)
6. Taylor Swift, Lover (1.875 million)
7. Travis Scott, Utopia (1.782 million)
8. Taylor Swift, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (1.775 million)
9. Taylor Swift, Folklore (1.612 million)
10. Metro Boomin, Heroes & Villains (1.573 million)

Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through Dec. 28, 2023. UGC streams are not included in this chart, but are included in Luminate’s on-demand streaming charts (below).

While Wallen has a pair of titles in the year-end top 10, Taylor Swift looms even larger. Swift has five albums among Luminate’s year-end top 10 – the first time any act has placed that many albums among Luminate’s year-end top 10 since the company began tracking data in 1991. Previously, the most titles any single act had among the year’s top 10 was three, achieved by Garth Brooks in 1993.

On Luminate’s year-end top 10 albums ranking, Swift is found at No. 2 (Midnights, 3.209 million units), No. 4 (1989 [Taylor’s Version], 2.872 million), No. 6 (Lover, 1.875 million), No. 8 (Speak Now [Taylor’s Version], 1.775 million) and No. 9 (Folklore, 1.612 million). Just two of those albums were released in 2023: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Midnights was issued in late 2022, while Folklore bowed in 2020 and Lover arrived in 2019. All of Swift’s catalog in 2023 was buoyed by her stadium-filling The Eras Tour and its film adaptation Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.

Swift also has five of the top 10-selling albums of 2023, five of the year’s top 10-selling vinyl albums and three of the top 10-selling CD albums. She’s also No. 1 on each of the three rankings. (See lists, below.)

TOTAL ALBUM CONSUMPTION INCREASES 12.6%: Equivalent album units increased by 12.6% in 2023, to 1.097 billion (up from 974.9 million in 2022). There were 28 albums that earned at least 1 million equivalent album units in 2023 – up from 19 in 2022.

R&B/HIP-HOP LEADS AMONG GENRES: R&B/hip-hop continues to hold firm as the top genre by total album consumption, with 277.27 million units earned in 2023 – equating to 25.3% of total volume (1.097 billion units) last year across all of Luminate’s core genres measured. R&B/hip-hop consumption increased by 5.9% in 2023 over its volume in 2022 (261.72 million). However, R&B/hip-hop’s share of total consumption decreased from 26.8% in 2022 to 25.3% in 2023. (R&B/hip-hop is an umbrella genre for Luminate that contains most titles categorized as R&B and/or rap.)

2023’s second-largest genre, by total album consumption, was rock with 212.42 million units (up 9.1% from 194.72 million in 2022). Pop music was third, with 135.32 million (up 9.4% from 123.72 million in 2022), country was fourth, with 92.19 million (up 21.8% from 75.69 million in 2022) and Latin was fifth, with 75.26 million (up 21.9% from 61.73 million in 2022).

In terms of the largest percentage gains among Luminate’s core genres, year-over-year, the world music genre had the biggest increase in 2023. The genre’s 34.1% gain last year (29.94 million units vs. 22.32 million in 2022) is inclusive of Korean pop (K-pop) music. (K-pop is one of the many music genres housed within the larger world music core genre.) The second-and-third-largest percentage increases in 2023 among Luminate’s core genres belonged to Latin (up 21.9%, to 75.26 million in 2023, vs. 61.73 million in 2022) and country (up 21.8%, to 92.19 million, vs. 75.69 million in 2022).

TAYLOR SWIFT’S ‘1989 (TAYLOR’S VERSION)’ IS 2023’s TOP-SELLING ALBUM: Taylor Swift’s most recent release, and her fourth re-recorded project, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), was 2023’s top-selling album in the U.S., with 1.975 million copies sold across all configurations (physical and digital combined: CD, vinyl LP, cassette, digital download album). See the top 10-selling albums, below.

TOP 10-SELLING ALBUMS OF 2023 IN U.S. (PHYSICAL & DIGITAL SALES COMBINED)
1. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (1.975 million)
2. Taylor Swift, Midnights (973,000)
3. Taylor Swift, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (908,000)
4. Travis Scott, Utopia (575,000)
5. Stray Kids, 5-STAR (526,000)
6. Taylor Swift, Folklore (466,000)
7. TOMORROW X TOGETHER, The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION (444,000)
8. Taylor Swift, Lover (425,000)
9. Olivia Rodrigo, Guts (404,000)
10. Stray Kids, ROCK-STAR (229,000)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through Dec. 28, 2023.

With 1.975 million copies sold, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is the biggest-selling album of any year since 2015, when Adele’s 25 sold 7.441 million copies. An album by Swift has been the year’s top-seller in six of the last 10 years: 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in 2023, Midnights in 2022, Folklore in 2020, Lover in 2019, Reputation in 2017 and 1989 in 2014. She also had the top-seller in 2009 with Fearless. Swift is the only act to have the top-selling album of the year at least seven times since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991.

1989 (Taylor’s Version) was also the top-selling vinyl LP of 2023 (1.014 million sold) and the top-selling CD album of the year (800,000 sold). 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is the first album to sell a million copies on vinyl in a calendar year since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991.

Sales of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) were bolstered by its availability across 15 physical configurations: five color vinyl variants, eight CD editions and two cassette albums. Further, of the five vinyl variants, Target carried a color edition that includes one bonus track (“Sweeter Than Fiction”). The set was also issued in two download editions – a standard 21-song version and a deluxe 22-track edition which adds a re-recorded version of the album’s “Bad Blood,” featuring Kendrick Lamar.

Swift, like many acts, leaned into creating additional versions of an album for purchase by superfans. All of the top 10-selling albums of 2023 were aided by their availability across multiple iterations, including many that contained collectible branded merchandise or color vinyl.

Swift by far sold the most albums of any act in 2023 in the U.S., as her collected catalog sold 6.172 million copies (across all configurations, physical and digital combined). Her sales accounted for 6% of all album sales last year across all albums by all artists. The second-biggest selling act, in terms of album sales in 2023, was K-pop group Stray Kids with 1.205 million copies sold.

TOTAL U.S. ALBUM SALES INCREASE BY 5.2%: Total U.S. album sales increased by 5.2% in 2023 to 105.32 million copies sold (up from 100.09 million in 2022). 2023 marked just the second year album sales increased in the last 10 years, following 2021. Album sales declined in every year from 2012-20, and again in 2022, as fans increasingly adopt streaming services as a means to consume music.

Total U.S. physical album sales (CD, vinyl LP, cassette, etc.) increased by 8.9% to 87 million in 2023 (up from 79.89 million in 2022). Digital album sales declined by 9.3% to 18.32 million in 2023 (down from 20.2 million in 2022).

VINYL REIGNS: For the third consecutive year, and the third year since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991, vinyl albums outsold CD albums in the U.S. Vinyl once again is the leading configuration for album purchases for the third year in a row.

Vinyl was the dominant configuration for album purchases in the U.S. up until the early 1980s. After that, cassettes took hold until the early 1990s, when the CD configuration blossomed and remained king until 2021, when vinyl retook the top slot.

49.61 million vinyl albums were sold in 2023 (up 14.2% from 43.46 million in 2022). 2023 marked the 18th consecutive year vinyl album sales grew in the U.S., and the largest year for vinyl album sales since Luminate began tracking data in 1991.

TOP 10-SELLING VINYL ALBUMS OF 2023 IN U.S.
1. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (1.014 million)
2. Taylor Swift, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (510,000)
3. Taylor Swift, Midnights (492,000)
4. Travis Scott, Utopia (373,000)
5. Taylor Swift, Folklore (308,000)
6. Olivia Rodrigo, Guts (267,000)
7. Taylor Swift, Lover (256,000)
8. Lana Del Rey, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (215,000)
9. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (206,000)
10. Lana Del Rey, Born to Die (192,000)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through Dec. 28, 2023.

The top-selling vinyl album of 2023 is Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) with 1.014 million sold. That marks the largest yearly sales total for a vinyl album, and the first vinyl set to sell a million in a calendar year, since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991. The effort also scored the largest sales week for a vinyl set since 1991 when it debuted with 693,000 copies sold in its first week.

Swift closed 2023 with five of the top 10-selling vinyl albums. Further, her catalog of albums sold 3.484 million copies on vinyl in 2023 – the most of any artist. (Lana Del Rey was the second-biggest selling act on vinyl in 2023, with 646,000 sold.) Swift’s vinyl sales accounted for 7% of the industry’s total vinyl album sales in 2023.

Vinyl album sales comprised 47.1% of all album sales in the U.S. in 2023 (49.61 million of 105.32 million). Vinyl LPs accounted for 57% of all physical album sold last year (49.61 million of 87 million). Both sums are Luminate-era records for vinyl’s share of the album sales market in the U.S.

In 2023 a total of 99 albums each sold at least 50,000 copies on vinyl – up from 88 in 2022. Comparatively, 65 albums on the CD configuration sold at least 50,000 copies in 2023 (up from 56 in 2022).

CD ALBUM SALES INCREASE, SWIFT & K-POP DOMINATE: 36.83 million CD albums were sold in 2023 (up 2.7% compared to 35.87 million in 2022), making it the second-most popular configuration for album purchases.

The top 10-selling CD albums of 2023 are comprised entirely of releases by Swift and K-pop artists. All profit from their availability across multiple collectible editions for superfans.

Swift sold the most CD albums in 2023, with 1.985 million copies sold across her entire catalog of titles. Stray Kids wrap as the No. 2-seller on CD, with 1.188 million sold. Swift’s CD sales represented 5.4% of all CD albums sold in 2023, industry-wide.

TOP 10-SELLING CD ALBUMS OF 2023 IN U.S.
1. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (800,000)
2. Stray Kids, 5-STAR (520,000)
3. TOMORROW X TOGETHER, The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION (442,000)
4. Stray Kids, ROCK-STAR (381,000)
5. NewJeans, 2nd EP Get Up (332,000)
6. TWICE, Ready to Be (303,000)
7. SEVENTEEN, SEVENTEEN 10th Mini Album Fml (288,000)
8. Taylor Swift, Midnights (276,000)
9. Taylor Swift, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (267,000)
10. Jung Kook, Golden (244,000)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through Dec. 28, 2023.

Digital album sales were the third-most popular configuration in 2023 for album purchases, and the category dropped by 9.3% to 18.32 million (down from 20.2 million in 2022). The top-selling digital album of 2023 was Swift’s Midnights, with 201,000 downloads sold. Swift additionally was the top-selling artist in terms of digital albums in 2023, with 667,000 downloads sold. Morgan Wallen was the second-biggest-selling artist in terms of download albums, with 187,000 sold. Swift’s digital sales presented 3.6% of all download albums sold, industry-wide.

CASSETTE SALES STEADY: After cassette album sales jumped 28% in 2022, the niche configuration mostly stayed steady in 2023, slipping just 0.75%. In 2023, a total of 436,400 cassette albums were sold – a sliver less than the 439,700 sold in 2022. Cassettes were the leading album configuration for purchases from the early 1980s until the early 1990s. Today, cassette tapes are frequently sold exclusively on an artist’s webstore and in collectible editions. In 2023, the Billboard 200 chart saw No. 1 albums that boasted a cassette configuration from Blink-182’s One More Time, Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts and Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and Midnights (which first led the list in 2022).

TOTAL STREAMING INCREASES 14.6%, ON-DEMAND AUDIO UP 12.7%: Total U.S. on-demand song streams (audio and video combined, inclusive of UGC streams) increased by 14.6% to 1.453 trillion in 2023 (up from 1.268 trillion in 2022). Yearly on-demand audio streams (again, inclusive of UGC) surpassed 1 trillion for a second time, with 1.249 trillion (up 12.7% from 1.108 trillion in 2022).

On-demand audio streams comprised 86% of all on-demand streams in 2023, with the remainder generated by on-demand video.

The R&B/hip-hop genre accounted for the most on-demand streams (audio and video combined, inclusive of UGC) in 2023, among Luminate’s core genres, with 26.6% of the year’s volume (387.09 billion of 1.453 trillion).

Rock had the second-largest share of on-demand song streams (audio and video combined, inclusive of UGC) in 2023, with 16.2% of volume (235.11 billion of 1.453 trillion). Pop was third with 12.6% (182.63 billion of 1.453 trillion), Latin was fourth with 8.3% (120.18 billion of 1.453 trillion) country was fifth with 7.8% (113.09 billion of 1.453 trillion).

As for year-over-year growth in total on-demand streams (audio and video combined, inclusive of UGC) among Luminate’s core genres, world music had the largest percentage growth, increasing by 33.3% to 35.97 billion, as compared to 26.98 billion in 2022. The respective second- and third-biggest increases, by percentage, belonged to the genres of dance/electronic (23.2% to 54.37 billion, up from 44.14 billion in 2022) and country (22.2% to 113.09 billion, up from 92.52 billion in 2022).

Looking just at on-demand audio streams for 2023 (inclusive of UGC), R&B/hip-hop was tops with 27% of volume (337.21 billion of 1.249 trillion). Rock (17%; 211.72 billion of 1.249 trillion), pop (11.8%; 147.11 billion of 1.249 trillion), country (8.5%; 106.28 billion of 1.249 trillion) and Latin (8%; 99.71 billion of 1.249 trillion) were Nos. 2-5 for 2023, respectively, as they were in 2022 and 2021.

The genres that saw the largest percentage growth in year-over-year on-demand audio streams (inclusive of UGC) were world music (up 26.2% to 27.52 billion, up from 21.8 billion in 2022), Latin (up 24.1% to 99.71 billion, up from 80.34 billion in 2022) and country (up 23.7% to 106.28 billion, up from 85.91 billion in 2022).

Note: UGC streams are included in Luminate’s industry streaming on-demand volume numbers and its year-end streaming song charts. UGC streams are not factored into any of Billboard’s weekly charts.

‘LAST NIGHT’ SURPASSED 1 BILLION ON-DEMAND AUDIO STREAMS: Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” was the most-streamed song of 2023 in the U.S. by on-demand audio streams (inclusive of UGC), with 1.015 billion – the most U.S. on-demand audio streams a song has earned in a calendar year.

“Last Night” is the second song to surpass 1 billion on-demand audio streams in a calendar year in the U.S., following Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” (featuring Billy Ray Cyrus), which cleared 1.002 billion in 2019.

See the top 10 most-streamed songs, by on-demand audio, below.

TOP 10 MOST STREAMED SONGS OF 2023 IN U.S., ON DEMAND AUDIO
1. Morgan Wallen, “Last Night” (1.015 billion)
2. SZA, “Kill Bill” (802.60 million)
3. Zach Bryan, “Something in the Orange” (656.07 million)
4. Miley Cyrus, “Flowers” (634.42 million)
5. SZA, “Snooze” (550.83 million)
6. The Weeknd, “Die for You” (539.29 million)
7. Eslabon Armado x Peso Pluma, “Ella Baila Sola” (526.34 million)
8. Luke Combs, “Fast Car” (525.51 million)
9. Morgan Wallen, “You Proof” (517.58 million)
10. Taylor Swift, “Cruel Summer” (507.78 million)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through Dec. 28, 2023. Includes UGC streams.

DIGITAL TRACK SALES DECLINE FOR 11TH YEAR IN A ROW: Digital track sales declined for an 11th consecutive year, falling 11.9% to 133.88 million in 2023 (down from 151.9 million in 2022). The top-selling digital song of 2023 was Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” with 497,000 downloads sold. It was the second year in a row that no song sold more than a half-million downloads. Prior to 2022, it last happened in the early days of downloading, in 2004 (the first full year of the iTunes Store, which launched in mid-2003). Further, 2023 marks the second year in a row that no song sold 1 million copies. Before 2022, the industry last had a year without a million-selling download in 2005.

TOP 10-SELLING DIGITAL SONGS OF 2023 IN U.S.
1. Jason Aldean, “Try That in a Small Town” (497,000)
2. Miley Cyrus, “Flowers” (428,000)
3. Oliver Anthony Music, “Rich Men North of Richmond” (358,000)
4. Morgan Wallen, “Last Night” (302,000)
5. Jimin, “Like Crazy” (296,000)
6. Luke Combs, “Fast Car” (251,000)
7. Jung Kook featuring Latto, “Seven” (228,000)
8. Jelly Roll, “Need a Favor” (181,000)
9. Jung Kook, “Standing Next to You” (163,000)
10. Rema & Selena Gomez, “Calm Down” (159,000)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022 through Dec. 28, 2023.

CYRUS’ ‘FLOWERS’ BLOOMED ON RADIO: Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” was tops on radio in 2023, with 3.919 billion audience impressions earned across all monitored radio stations in the U.S. Audience impressions are measured by cross-referencing plays with Nielsen Audio audience data – i.e., a play of a song on a top-rated New York station at 8 a.m. on a Monday has more listeners (audience) than an overnight weekend play in a smaller city.

TOP 10 RADIO SONGS OF 2023 IN U.S. (BASED ON AUDIENCE IMPRESSIONS)
1. Miley Cyrus, “Flowers” (3.919 billion)
2. Rema & Selena Gomez, “Calm Down” (3.643 billion)
3. Metro Boomin, The Weeknd & 21 Savage, “Creepin’” (3.529 billion)
4. The Weeknd, “Die for You” (2.628 billion)
5. SZA, “Kill Bill” (2.623 billion)
6. Taylor Swift, “Anti-Hero” (2.491 billion)
7. David Guetta & Bebe Rexha, “I’m Good (Blue)” (2.448 billion)
8. Morgan Wallen, “Last Night” (2.435 billion)
9. Luke Combs, “Fast Car” (2.358 billion)
10. Harry Styles, “As It Was” (2.199 billion)
Source: Luminate, for the tracking period Dec. 30, 2022, through Dec. 28, 2023.

10 Jan 2024

*NSYNC’s Joey Fatone and Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean Hitting Road Together for 2024 ‘Legendary Night’ Tour

Joey Fatone and AJ McLean are crossing over. The *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys members announced on Tuesday (Jan. 9) that they are hitting the road together in March for an eight-date joint tour they’ve dubbed “A Legendary Night.”

In a post announcing the one-of-a-kind outing, Fatone wrote, “This is going to be fun!!!! @aj_mclean my dude … here we go!!!!,” with the BSB singer responding, “LEGENDARY [sign of the horns emoji].

The outing is slated to kick off on March 15 at the Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula, CA and hit the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage, CA before moving on to the East Coast for gigs in Wallingford, CT, Boston and Newark before wrapping with a trio of shows in Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando and Jacksonville, FL. Click here for details on the artist pre-sale and general on-sale, with the latter slated to kick off on Friday (Jan. 12) at 10 a.m. local time.

According to a release from promoter Live Nation, the tour will find the old friends teaming up to perform choreo, their beloved 1990s and early 2000s hits accompanied by a seven-piece band and “intimate conversations of never-before-told stories from their time on the road.” The singers, both 46, booked the tour after performing together at a gig dubbed “Joey Fatone & Friends — Welcome to Tampa 90s Party” in September; they also previously shared the stage in 2021 during Fatone’s “The AFTR PRTY” Las Vegas residency, which featured the *NSYNC member performing with McLean, Wanya Morris (Boyz II Men) and McLean’s BSB bandmate, Nick Carter.

In an Instagram Live chat hyping the tour on Tuesday, Fatone promised fans that the new dates will be a “crazy” twist on the previous team-ups, with plenty of songs from both men’s groups, as well as some tracks “that never really hit on albums or records” and some throwback 90s tracks. The show will also include a “wheel of songs” segment in which they’ll spin and sing different tracks ecah night. “Obviously a blast a lot of fun,” Fatone promised.

“You guys are in for one hell of a show,” McLean added, noting that fans will know “every song,” while teasing that he will also be performing a couple of his new tracks.

Fatone reunited with his *NSYNC mates at last year’s MTV VMAs in a surprise moment that preceded the release of the defunct group’s first song in 22 years, the Trolls Band Together single “Better Place.”

Check out the “A Legendary Night” tour announcement, teaser video and dates below.

March 15 – Temecula, CA @ Pechanga Theatre

March 16 – Rancho Mirage, CA @ The Show at Agua Caliente

March 21 – Wallingford, CT @ Toyota Oakdale Theatre

March 22 – Boston, MA @ Citizens House of Blues

March 23 – Newark, NJ @ New Jersey Performing Arts Center

March 28 – Fort Lauderdale, FL @ AuRene Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts

March 29 – Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live

March 30 – Jacksonville, FL @ Florida Theatre

10 Jan 2024

Selena Gomez Taking Another Social Media Break: ‘I’m Focusing on What Really Matters’

Selena Gomez is taking another social media break. According to People magazine, the Only Murders In the Building star posted an Instagram Story on Tuesday (Jan. 9) detailing her latest social rest in an attempt to focus on “what really matters.” The Story was accompanied by an image of of boyfriend producer Benny Blanco goofing around with two unidentified young children as Gomez announced, “I’m off social media for a while. I’m focusing on what really matters.”

Gomez announced a similar social time out in October due to what she dubbed the “hate, violence and terror” around the world, adding, that “people being tortured and killed or any act of hate towards any one group is horrific” and that “ALL people” need to be protected, “especially children.” That post came weeks after Hamas militants stormed into Israel and murdered more than 1,200 Israelis and took 240 hostages in the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, kicking off a three-month Israeli military response that has reportedly killed more than 22,000 Palestinians.

Gomez did not specify what prompted her latest social pause in Tuesday’s comment, though it came shortly after she took to the comments section on Insta to respond to rumors about the viral Golden Globes moment she shared with pal Taylor Swift at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards. The rampant, gossipy speculation about what the two women were discussing reached such a fevered pitch that Gomez felt it necessary to explain what she, Swift and Swift’s seatmate, Miles Teller’s Wife, Keleigh, were discussing.

“Was Selena Gomez Gossiping About Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet at Golden Globes?” asked an E! News headline on Instagram, to which Gomez responded: “Noooooo I told Taylor about two of my friends who hooked up. Not that that’s anyone business.”

Gomez previously announced a social pause in Feb. 2023 — telling followers on TikTok “I’m too old for this” — after telling InStyle in Jan. 2022 that, “Taking a break from social media was the best decision that I’ve ever made for my mental health.” At the time the singer/actress who currently has 429 million Instagram followers explained that she’d created a system “where I still don’t have my passwords. And the unnecessary hate and comparisons went away once I put my phone down. I’ll have moments where that weird feeling will come back, but now I have a much better relationship with myself.”

10 Jan 2024

Olivia Rodrigo Open to Acting Return: ‘I Love Movies, I Love Telling Stories’

Olivia Rodrigo is open to going back to the start. The “Vampire” singer who got her start as a kid and teen actor on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and Bizaardvark told Variety magazine at the Academy’s Governors Awards on Tuesday night (Jan. 9) that she’d totally be up for a return to acting if the right part came along.

“I love movies, I love telling stories,” said the singer. “I really want to do a coming-of-age thing maybe before I’m actually of age. Maybe I am of age already,” added the star who turns 21 on Feb. 20. “I just love telling stories, whether that be in a song or movie, that’s really something that really excites me.”

Rodrigo was at the Awards show to hype her The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes soundtrack song “Can’t Catch Me Now,” which has been shortlisted for this year’s Oscars; nominations slated to be announced later this month. The singer — who won the best new artist Grammy in 2022 for her debut album, Sour — has six Grammy noms this year for her sophomore album, GUTS and also said she’d totally be down for recording a duet with one of this year’s best new artist nominees, Noah Kahan.

“I think he’s so great and he’s very inspiring,” she said of the “Dial Drunk” star, crossing her fingers and adding, “One of these days.”

While she waits for that dream to manifest, Rodrigo is gearing up to kick off her GUTS world tour on Feb. 23 in Palm Springs, CA, with The Breeders, Chapel Roan, PinkPantheress and Remi Wolf slated to open on select dates.

10 Jan 2024

Spice Up Your Life? Mel B Confirms ‘Really Good’ Spice Girls News Is Coming Soon

Thirty years after the Spice Girls formed, triggering a wave of Girl Power that spread the globe, the classic lineup will reunite for a project.

Though details remain under lock and key, founding member Mel B let the news slip out during her appearance on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna.

When asked about the chances of a Spice Girls reunion, Mel B (real name Melanie Brown) told Hoda Kotb, “I’ve been saying it forever. But now we’re actually going to be releasing some really good news in about a few weeks that involves all five of us.”

A reunion isn’t a sinch, she continues. “There’s five of us, five separate diaries, we’re all parents.”

The famous five is, of course, Baby (Emma Bunton), Posh (Victoria Beckham), Ginger (Geri Halliwell-Horner), Sporty (Melanie Chisholm) and Scary Spice (Mel B) – an outfit that landed No. 1s on both sides of the Atlantic during a hot streak in the late 1990s.

Will Spicemaniacs be satisfied by what’s to come? Apparently so. “100%,” enthuses Mel B. “And it’s going to be the gift that keeps on giving, without saying too much about it. I’m going to get myself into so much trouble.”

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The Spice Girls assembled in 1994, and had a global phenomenon two years later with their debut single, 1996’s “Wannabe.” The catchy track logged four weeks at the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1997, and is one of the group’s nine U.K. No. 1 singles. “Wannabe” is still powering along, passing one billion streams on Spotify over the recent holiday period. The Brits’ debut LP Spice spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and 15 weeks at the summit of the Official U.K. Albums Chart (followup Spiceworld logged three weeks at No. 1 in the U.K. in 1997).

It takes something special to gather the girls. The last time all five performed together was for the London Olympics in 2012, though the pop act hit the road for a tour in 2019, doing so as a four-piece without Victoria Beckham.

The Spice Girls did reunite in 2022 for the occasion of Geri’s 50th birthday, an event that doubled-up as the 25th anniversary of their Spiceworld, their sophomore album. Geri had left the group in 1998 to embark on a solo career, but returning to the fold in 2007 for the Return of the Spice Girls Tour.

Reunion talk aside, Mel B used her stint on the Today with Hoda & Jenna couch to discuss her return to the America’s Got Talent judging panel, her MBE, her book, her forthcoming wedding and the Royal Mail’s special collection of Spice Girls stamps. “It is massive,” she says of the new stamp issue. “For the Royal Mail, it’s usually the Queen, and the King” on the stamps. “And now it’s the Spice Girls.”

Watch the interview below.