Music

22 Mar 2023

The Ultra Set Where Avicii Got Booed During ‘Wake Me Up’ Debut Was 10 Years Ago Today: See New Footage From the Show

Wednesday (March 22) marks the 10-year anniversary of one of EDM’s milestone moments: the Ultra Music Festival performance where Avicii was booed while debuting his then-new single “Wake Me Up.”

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2013 was a heady time for dance music in the U.S., marking the height of the EDM explosion, the influx of money and fans to the scene and Avicii as its biggest star — a position he’d earned after releasing a litany of genre-defining hits, including his 2011 breakout track “Levels.”

But on March 22, 2013, things went sideways for Avicii, if only momentarily.

It was on this day that the artist born Tim Bergling used his mainstage set at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival to debut a new track. A group of musicians assembled onstage and proceeded to play a bluegrass song that had little resemblance to the maximalist EDM the assembled crowd was expecting.

Instead, they got banjo, two guitars and vocalist Aloe Blacc singing about carrying the weight of the world. According to those in the crowd that night, the performance “did not pop.”

“When we performed at Ultra, it was just awkward,” Blacc told Spin in 2019. “I don’t think even the sound people knew what they were doing. Everybody else at the festival had air cannons and pyro and half-naked girls dancing onstage. Then here comes Tim with drums, banjo, fiddle, guitar and three singers.”

But despite the audience really not getting it, the world soon would. That new track, “Wake Me Up,” soon exploded, ultimately becoming the most successful song in the Avicii catalog. It was the Swedish producer’s only top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 4 in October 2013. It spent 26 weeks at No. 1 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in 2013-14 and spent 10 weeks at No. 1 Dance/Mix Show Airplay. In the last decade it’s been streamed more than 2.97 billion times globally, according to Luminate.

But this Ultra 2013 performance — which also included a similarly frosty reception for the other new country-leaning Avicii track “Hey Brother” — contained much more than its most famous moment. Nearly 10 minutes of new footage released by the Avicii estate on Wednesday captures this show’s renditions of “Addicted to You” and “Dear Boy,” which (like “Wake Me Up” and “Hey Brother”) are also from Avicii’s 2013 album True. That LP was released six months after the 2013 Ultra show.

This footage of “Addicted to You” features guest vocalist Audra Mae, who is the great-great niece of Judy Garland, taking the stage. The song is followed by “Dear Boy,” which finds the late producer — who would die five years after this show — manning the decks while wearing his signature backward baseball hat as the lights flash in front of him and the crowd goes as wild as they eventually would for “Wake Me Up.” Watch the performance below.

22 Mar 2023

Joey Moi on Spending 100 Weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Producers Chart, Working With Morgan Wallen & More

Joey Moi is on a tear. The veteran producer/songwriter/engineer is fresh off the release of Morgan Wallen’s historic new LP One Thing at a Time, for which he produced all 36 of its tracks, and now, thanks to the success of the album, he becomes the first person to spend 100 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Producers chart (dated March 25).

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The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (dated March 18) with 501,000 equivalent album units earned in its opening week, according to Luminate. Not only is that the largest week of 2023 for any album (in terms of units earned), but it’s the largest week for any country album since Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) opened with 604,500 units in November 2021.

The set has also been a streaming juggernaut, as its 36-song tracklist tallied 498.28 million on-demand official U.S. streams in its first week, making it the fifth-largest streaming week ever for an album, after the opening weeks of Drake’s Scorpion (745.92 million in 2018) and Certified Lover Boy (743.67 million; 2021), Swift’s Midnights (549.26 million; 2022) and Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss (513.56 million; 2022).

One Thing at a Time‘s second-week numbers (259,000 units) were enough to help it fend off TWICE and Miley Cyrus to tally a second week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The last country album to log its first two weeks at No. 1? Wallen’s own Dangerous: The Double Album in 2021, which Moi also produced.

Singer-songwriter ERNEST, who’s credited as a co-songwriter on One Thing at a Time and is featured on the set’s “Cowgirls,” credits Moi as the through line on the whole album.

“I think about how many country music acts Joey Moi has helped craft into a sound, and how different all of those sounds are,” ERNEST told Billboard in a recent interview. ”My sound is a little more traditional, like [an] Opry band. [Fellow collaborator] HARDY’s got the rock stuff, and Morgan’s down to go the 808s route. But Joey is able to make it sound really f–king good every time.”

Moi reaches the 100-week milestone on Country Producers thanks to 33 production credits on the latest Hot Country Songs chart (dated March 25) – with all but one from One Thing at a Time. (See full recap at the bottom of this story.)

Billboard launched its Hot 100 Songwriters and Hot 100 Producers charts, as well as genre-specific rankings for country, rock & alternative, R&B/hip-hop, R&B, rap, Latin, Christian, gospel and dance/electronic, in June 2019. (Alternative and hard rock joined in 2020, along with seasonal holiday rankings in 2022.) Only two artists have reached the 100-week milestone on a producers chart: Tainy (119 total weeks at No. 1 on Latin Producers), and, now, Moi on Country Producers. Kirk Franklin recently became the first artist to score 100 weeks at No. 1 on a songwriters chart (gospel).

Moi has been a consistent hitmaker on Billboard’s charts since the early 2000s. He notched his first charting song on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2003, with Nickelback’s “Someday,” which climbed all the way to No. 7. He returned to the top 10 with the group’s “Photograph” (No. 2 in 2005), “Far Away” (No. 8; 2006), “Rockstar” (No. 6; 2007) and “Gotta Be Somebody” (No. 10; 2008).

It wasn’t until 2013 that Moi returned to the Hot 100’s top 10 via his work on Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise,” featuring Nelly, a No. 4-peaking hit that also spent 24 weeks on top of Hot Country Songs (a record at the time) and three weeks atop Country Airplay. He’s scored eight additional top 10s on the Hot 100, all since 2020, thanks to his work with Wallen.

Last week, nearly 20 years after “Someday” debuted, Moi achieved his first No. 1 hit on the Hot 100 as a producer, when Wallen’s “Last Night” reached the summit. It became the first shared Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs No. 1 country song on the Hot 100 by an unaccompanied male solo artist since Eddie Rabbitt’s “I Love a Rainy Night” in 1981.

“It’s kind of mind-blowing,” Moi tells Billboard of his success. “You’re lucky if this happens once in your life, or at all in your life.”

In addition to his production work, Moi is a partner and president of A&R at Big Loud Management, which he founded in 2011 with Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer/partner Craig Wiseman, CEO/partner Seth England and Kevin “Chief” Zaruk. The label, which also features Lauren Alaina, ERNEST, HARDY and Jake Owen on its roster, was named Billboard’s No. 1 Hot Country Songs Label in 2021 and 2022, largely thanks to Wallen, while Wallen’s “Wasted on You” and “You Proof” finished 2022 as the Nos. 1 and 2 year-end Hot Country Songs titles of the year.

Shortly after the March 3 release of One Thing at a Time, Moi spoke with Billboard about his historic milestone on Country Producers, his latest project with Wallen and how he ventured from producing rock music in Canada to spearheading the year’s biggest country album in Nashville.

(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.)

Taking a look at the recent chart listings, you’ve produced a No. 1 song on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart (Wallen’s “Thought You Should Know”), a No. 1 song on the Hot 100 (Wallen’s “Last Night”), the No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 (One Thing at a Time) and now you’ve spent 100 weeks as the No. 1 country producer in the U.S. How does it feel to reach these milestones and see yourself at No. 1 in all these areas?

I feel like I have a lot of cool friends that have got us to this place. You never really think anything like that is going to happen, and you don’t even really realize it’s happening. I’m an introverted studio rat, and I just keep my head down and keep working and keep feeding the company songs. You lift your head up and all of a sudden you’re doing an interview for Billboard over some crazy numbers.

You grew up in Canada and primarily worked with rock artists at the beginning of your career (Nickelback, Theory of a Deadman). How did you get involved in the country space and Nashville community?

Growing up, I remember when CMT first came to Canada, and I thought it was amazing. I would sit in front of my television with CMT on and I would try and play along with my stupid little nylon string guitar that I had at the time and try and learn the songs, and I just kind of fell in love with country music and became a fan. Fast-forward two years through college, I started making some rock music with [Chad Kroeger] of Nickelback, who’s a great songwriter and was also a great country fan. We would always bond over country songs and rock songs and stuff. We would listen to everything: rock songs, metal songs, pop songs, country songs. We were living that à la carte music life even back then before all the DSPs came out.

Then the top 40 chart kind of changed. All of a sudden the Dr. Luke and Max Martin era took over [the pop] chart, and guitars and drums and guys who sang with gravelly voices weren’t as relevant anymore.

Then you started seeing those rock flavors happen in country music. I remember me and one of my dear friends, Dallas Smith, who is a Canadian country artist now and was originally in a band called Default, which was an early project that I had worked on—we decided to come to Nashville for some songwriting, because he was going to pivot out of rock and roll and go country. My first trip was to come down here with Dallas and try and convert this rock guy into a country singer.

I came down here and did some co-writes. I met my current business partners here the first day I got into town and we wrote songs for a week down here with all these great songwriters. I ended up coming back, and I just fell in love with the place. It felt like country was moving more into that [rock hybrid], more energetic, contemporary production and style. It really felt like the right move for me to make.

I fell in love with the city. I fell in love with a bunch of people here, and picked up my whole life in Vancouver and moved it down to Nashville and I haven’t looked back. It was a pretty easy transition. I was able to take all of my rock chops and continue using them here.

Your first big country hits were Jake Owen’s “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” and then Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise,” both of which were No. 1 Country Airplay hits. “Cruise” even reached the top five of the Hot 100. How did those happen?

[“Barefoot Blue Jean Night”] was my very first country single that I ever got to produce. There’s a roundabout way it was introduced to me. Jake Owen asked [songwriter Rodney Clawson] to produce some music and Rodney said, “Well, why don’t we bring Joey in because he’s a producer and I’m a songwriter, so it’ll be a great combination and we’ll cut some songs?” We went in and one of my very first record productions was with Rodney on a Jake Owen song. And Jake, being the guy he is, was down to take a risk with a long-haired rock guy who had been working in Canada for 15 years. We cut four songs and then, in the 11th hour, “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” showed up in a demo form.

It ended up being Jake’s biggest single, and it happened to be my very first entry into country music down here. And that sort of opened the door to everything else that’s happened — that kind of put me on the map. Florida Georgia Line showed up after that, and we could always point to “Barefoot Blue Jean Night,” for validation.

You must’ve felt destined to be in the country space after seeing those early songs do so well, no?

Yeah, and whether I liked it or not, there was definitely a lot of opportunity that came from that. The Jake songs turned into another Jake record, and the FGL songs turned into finishing that record and a record after that, and then it just started snowballing. Now I’m sitting here in the building of our own record company and publishing company and management company. The snowball keeps snowballing.

How did you first meet Morgan Wallen?

I believe it came from an agent friend of ours, Kevin Neal, who was originally involved with Florida Georgia Line. Kevin was like, “Hey, you got to meet this kid. He’s a really good singer and he’s got some songwriting chops, you guys might be inspired by his voice.”

By that time, we had already started [Big Loud], and Morgan came into my studio here on Music Row and sat down on a couple stools with his original guitar player, Sergio [Sanchez], and they played three or four songs that Morgan and his friends had written. But then he played an Eric Church cover, of “Talladega,” and he sang it absolutely perfectly. Hearing him sing his own songs is one thing, but [“Talladega”] is a smash song and he sang every lick, note-for-note, and it was perfect. He didn’t even know how good he was at that time.

I remember Seth and I gave each other a look across the room like, “Holy crap, this kid is amazing.” At that moment we knew we had to somehow get Morgan as a part of the family and start making music with him. It started with a publishing deal just to get him in here writing songs. I think one of his first writes was the song “Chasin’ You,” which ended up being a No. 1 Country Airplay hit, and the rest is obviously history.

Getting Eric Church on the new album for “Man Made a Bar” must’ve been a full-circle moment for all of you.

He’s obviously one of Morgan’s favorite artists. And for me, I was a somewhat big Church fan­ — I think he’s awesome. I love the records that him and [producer] Jay Joyce make. I just love their approach to everything, how they live in that alternative-but-mainstream space. He was just a blast, we sat around for probably three or four hours to shoot the shit, talking about golf or talking about anything. Morgan and I were just laughing, looking across the room at each other, just giggling. Can’t believe the whole thing’s happening.

You’ve worked on all three of Morgan’s studio albums now: If I Know Me, Dangerous: The Double Album, and now One Thing at a Time. This new album has already outperformed the first two. How was it different in the studio this time around compared to the previous two albums?

In the beginning of an artist’s career, you have a lot of obligations. [Morgan] was touring aggressively at the time and developing his career, so from Wednesday all the way through to Monday, he was gone. I would literally have Morgan for two days a week to come in and sing and get his opinion on the music. And then when we’re finishing songs and closing up mixes, we’re usually doing it remote. I’m sending him songs and he’s got to approve it on his phone or get some headphones or find a stereo somewhere. We were just so remote.

For Dangerous, we did a lot better with the calendar and he was able to be a lot more present. He was there for the majority of the songs we cut, but there was still a lot of obligations where he had to go take off. He was still touring and playing shows, and then he’d sneak back in and we’d allocate a couple of days here and there for him to come sing and knock it out. We were still doing a remote process because it was in the middle of COVID, so we still we had our challenges.

This is the very first record that Morgan was able to sit beside me in the room from the very first beat to the very last beat, for every single vocal take, for every single part recorded, for every hour of me mixing every song. It was really cool to have him sit with me the whole time, and for us be able to develop a real shorthand communication as to what we thought about the songs, and have him weigh in on creative ideas and the directions. It’s just so much easier. It’s really stressful when you’re shifting the direction of the song by yourself and the artist isn’t there, and you’re like, “Okay, well, I hope he likes this.” But we didn’t have to do that this time. It just made it a lot more fun.

How do you wrap your head around releasing 36 songs on an album and how do you keep the quality up with every one?

My saying is, there’s only one way to eat an elephant, and that’s one bite at a time. It can get overwhelming with the amount of work you have to do, but I’ve got a pretty meticulous Excel spreadsheet where I can mark my progress and keep myself and my anxiety levels low. It allows us to create freely and have fun. But as long as you just have enough days to get it done, it’s not that bad. You just have to stay methodical and make sure you get your tasks done for the day, and eventually you’ll get to the end of it.

Once you get about a third of the way through, you do start to get overwhelmed at the amount of work you have to get done. And then once you get to that 50% point, you’re like, all right, we’ve got this many days left and it’s only taken us this much time to get here, and I’ve got Morgan for this much time. You start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

One of Morgan’s great abilities is he’s a prolific songwriter and he’s got a great group of very passionate collaborators that always spend a lot of time writing with him in mind, and would kickstart some ideas and bring them in. And then outside of that, you’ve got everybody in town who’s on the peripheral still writing, trying to get a song on the record. We had a lot of music coming our way.

It feels almost like a reversed approach. Many artists will release an album, and then release a deluxe version a few weeks later with a whole slew of new tracks to keep the momentum going. But for this album, it seems like you took a “here’s everything we’ve got” approach, and released it all at once.

Yes. And again, if it didn’t all show up upfront, we would probably choose the other method of like, “Here’s the first chunk and then here’s the next chunk and here’s the chunk after.” Usually, with the staggered release [approach], there are still songs coming in, or they’re still cutting songs and they’re adding to it. There’s a whole bunch of different circumstances which lead to artists doing that. It could be influenced by their touring schedule and how that aligns with their cycle. There’s a million ways it can happen, and a million different things that can affect why you release a certain way.

But just the sheer fact that Morgan is such a good writer and he’s got such a good camp of people around him that he collaborates with, we cut 42 [songs] and we peeled six songs off that are still great songs.

A lot of the beats on the album sound like they were influenced by hip-hop, like “180 (Lifestyle),” “I Wrote the Book,” “Cowgirls”).

You have to be careful and kind of selective as to what topic you’re saying over top of those [beats]. Thankfully, Morgan has got one of those universal voices where country is his main format, but he can sing on a trap beat like that and make that beat sound like a Morgan Wallen song. And he can sing on a real super-dry country-ass track, and that sounds like a Morgan Wallen song, too. I mean, we’ve got some old rock flavors on there as well, but his voice still brings that into his project. His voice is truly the glue to all those genre flavors that we add in there.

We’ve attempted that with some different voices before and landed flat on our face because some people are just only a country singer and that’s it. Or they’re just a pop singer and that’s it — they’re not multilingual, you know what I mean?

At this point, Morgan seems to be in a commercial league of his own, especially in the country space. His streaming totals are comparable to Taylor Swift and Drake. What is it about him and his music that you think resonates with people and makes him a pillar of the music industry right now?

He’s very honest. He’s very particular about what he says and how he says it. He’s just truly authentic, and I think we’re just in that era of authenticity where people really gravitate towards that. He comes across as kind of a normal small-town dude, and he makes sure that what he is saying is honest and that the fans can relate to what he’s saying. I could be wrong, but that’s my scientific theory on the whole situation.

Joey Moi’s Production Credits on the Latest March 25-Dated Hot Country Songs Chart
Rank, Artist Billing, Title (co-producers in addition to Joey Moi)
No. 1, Morgan Wallen, “Last Night”
No. 2, Morgan Wallen, “Thought You Should Know”
No. 3, Morgan Wallen, “You Proof” (Charlie Handsome)
No. 5, Morgan Wallen, “One Thing at a Time”
No. 6, Morgan Wallen, “Thinkin’ Bout Me” (Charlie Handsome)
No. 9, Morgan Wallen, “Everything I Love”
No. 11, Morgan Wallen, “Ain’t That Some”
No. 12, Morgan Wallen, “I Wrote the Book” (Jacob Durrett, Cameron Montgomery)
No. 14, Morgan Wallen feat. Erich Church, “Man Made a Bar”
No. 15, HARDY feat. Lainey Wilson, “Wait in the Truck” (HARDY, Derek Wells, Jordan M. Schmidt)
No. 16, Morgan Wallen, ”’98 Braves”
No. 17, Morgan Wallen, “Sunrise”
No. 19, Morgan Wallen feat. ERNEST, “Cowgirls” (Jacob Durrett)
No. 22, Morgan Wallen, “Whiskey Friends”
No. 24, Morgan Wallen, “Devil Don’t Know”
No. 26, Morgan Wallen, “Born With a Beer in My Hand”
No. 27, Morgan Wallen, “Dying Man”
No. 29, Morgan Wallen, “Tennessee Numbers”
No. 30, Morgan Wallen, “Neon Star (Country Boy Lullaby)” (Jacob Durrett)
No. 31, Morgan Wallen, “Tennessee Fan”
No. 33, Morgan Wallen, “Hope That’s True”
No. 34, Morgan Wallen, “Keith Whitley”
No. 35, Morgan Wallen, “Me + All Your Reasons”
No. 36, Morgan Wallen, “I Deserve a Drink”
No. 38, Morgan Wallen feat. HARDY, “In the Bible”
No. 39, Morgan Wallen, “Single Than She Was”
No. 40, Morgan Wallen, “180 (Lifestyle)” (Jacob Durrett)
No. 41, Morgan Wallen, “F150-50”
No. 42, Morgan Wallen, “Wine Into Water”
No. 43, Morgan Wallen, “Days That End in Why”
No. 45, Morgan Wallen, “Good Girl Gone Missin’” (Charlie Handsome)
No. 47, Morgan Wallen, “Last Drive Down Main”
No. 48, Morgan Wallen, “Me to Me”
No. 49, Morgan Wallen, “Outlook”

22 Mar 2023

Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour Outfits: Then and Now

Taylor Swift is taking fans on a trip through each of her albums on The Eras Tour, which launched with back-to-back shows on March 17 and 18 in Glendale, Ariz., and her costumes are part of the journey.

As the superstar took the stage at State Farm Arena on the first night, her attention to detail was ever present, as each of her outfits harkened back to a previous tour or live appearance from her 17-year career in the spotlight.

Kicking off with 2019’s Lover, Swift opened the show using a light pink acoustic guitar reminiscent of the instrument she strummed while performing at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, where she delivered a medley of the title track and “You Need to Calm Down.” To run through early hits such as “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” from 2008’s Fearless, she brought back her classic style from her sophomore era, donning a gold fringed dress and trading her pink guitar for a sparkly silver edition — the only thing missing was a nod to her famous mane of teenage curls.

When it came time to revisit Reputation, Tay resurrected the popular snake motif from the era (long live Karyn!), channeling her aesthetic from “Look What You Made Me Do” in a dark, asymmetrical body suit covered in glittering red serpents. And while only one song from 2010’s Speak Now was featured on the opening night’s setlist (an extended edition of deep cut “Enchanted”), the singer changed into a fairytale-like ball gown fit for a princess.

During the part of the setlist dedicated to 2012’s Red, Swift showed off a new version of the T-shirt she wore in the music video for “22” — this time emblazoned with her famously cryptic phrase “Not a lot going on at the moment.” And perhaps the most major set change during the show occurred as she welcomed the audience into the Folklorian woods of her surprise 2020 album by recreating a version of the moss-covered cabin she called home to perform a medley of “Cardigan,” “August” and Evermore lead single “Willow” at the 2021 Grammys with collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.

The final fashion reference on the tour came when Swift went back to 1989 by changing into a crop top and short skirt, just like the many she wore back in the day with her squad.

Click through the gallery below to check out the looks from Taylor’s Eras Tour as well as their counterparts from earlier eras in her career.

22 Mar 2023

Skai Jackson Says She Still Has the Note Justin Bieber Left Her as a Kid: ‘He Was So Sweet’

Skai Jackson stopped by The Jennifer Hudson Show on Wednesday (March 22) to reminisce about meeting Justin Bieber as a child star.

The 20-year-old actress, who grew up as a diehard Belieber, told Hudson it was only after a number of missed opportunities and waiting “hours” at a time that she finally came face to face with her childhood idol when he was filming at a soundstage next door to where she was working.

“One day we were filming and next thing, I come out and I see him and Selena Gomez standing there, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh!’” she told host Jennifer Hudson. “And he was so sweet, he was so sweet.”

Only later did the Jessie alum realize that the superstar had snuck into her dressing room to leave her a handwritten, autographed note that read, “Skai, nice to meet you! You are very cute, make sure to always stay sweet!! God bless.”

“I still have it to this day,” Jackson admitted. “I was cleaning my closet and I found it again. I was like, ‘Thank god!’ So I put it away. But it’s been like 10 years, so I still have it.”

These days, the Biebs is continuing to recover from the Ramsay Hunt syndrome diagnosis that left half of his face temporarily paralyzed. At the start of the month, he appeared to cancel all remaining dates on his long-postponed Justice World Tour just days before making a surprise appearance during Don Toliver’s set at Rolling Loud in California.

Watch Jackson talk about meeting Bieber below.

22 Mar 2023

Pete Wentz Says Ashlee Simpson Divorce & Fall Out Boy Break Felt Like a ‘Bomb Had Gone Off’

Pete Wentz delved into a reflection on the ups and downs of his life in the newest issue of Nylon published this week, and how he’s grown from it.

One particular turning point in his life was in 2010, when he was in the process of splitting from then-wife Ashlee Simpson, raising their son Bronx and dealing with the reality that Fall Out Boy was going on a break. “My life was just like… a bomb had gone off in it,” he said of that time period, noting that he then had a crucial realization. “You’ve atrophied all of these life skills. I was like, ‘Oh. You have to figure out how to be happy as an adult.’”

Since then, the bomb has settled. The rocker has been with his longtime partner, Megan Camper, since 2011 and the couple shares Together, they share eight-year-old son Saint and four-year-old daughter Marvel.

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Fall Out Boy has also found their way back together. They’ve released a number of albums since their break, including 2013’s Save Rock and Roll, 2015’s American Beauty/American Psycho and 2018’s Mania. Now, the band is just days away from unveiling their eighth studio album, So Much (for) Stardust on March 24.

“Why don’t you just do the s— you want to do?” Wentz says is his current life philosophy. “Life is so short, and it’s so long, that maybe you should try crazy s— because it will break you out of the feeling of nihilism.”

Read the full interview here.

22 Mar 2023

What Does Working in the Studio With Daft Punk Sound Like? Hear New Audio of Their Process

Fans all know what the finished product of Daft Punk‘s studio time sounds like, and now they know more about what it sounds like to be inside the studio with the French icons.

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“The Writing of Fragments of Time,” a new release from Daft Punk released Wednesday (March 22), is a more than eight-minute audio recording of Daft’s Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo in the studio with American DJ-producer-vocalist Todd Edwards more a decade ago, while the trio were working on the track “Fragments of Time.”

The song was featured on Daft Punk’s 2013 album Random Access Memories, which is getting an expanded release in May. “The Writing of Fragments of Time” is the first release from this expanded edition and features audio on which you can hear Bangalter and Edwards (who first collaborated with Daft Punk on 2001’s “Face To Face”) working out the song’s lyrics.

This audio was taken at the Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles on Feb. 29, 2012, with a tape running for the full session.

“There are certain parts I’m getting choked up, because it’s so damn emotional just putting these three weeks into words, it’s really intense. I’ve never felt anything like this,” Edwards says toward the end of the new track.

“It’s making it forever,” Bangalter adds.

“I worked two weeks in L.A. with Daft Punk for their Random Access Memories album,” Edwards told Billboard in 2021. “I called my mom during that first week; she could hear the calm and happiness in my voice and said, ‘You need to be out there. There’s nothing for you in New Jersey. I’ll miss you when you go, but I’d feel worse if you stayed.’ That summer I packed up a truck with all my gear and drove across country to move to L.A.”

The new edition of Random Access Memories — which won the Grammy for album of the year in 2014 — will include 35 minutes of additional material across nine tracks, including unreleased demos and studio outtakes like the one out now. Fans will have their choice of two different formats for the project: a double CD or a vinyl set with three LPs. The CD set will include a 20-page digital booklet, while the vinyl set will include a special Lose Yourself to Dance poster and 16-page booklet. For the first time ever, an Atmos mix of the original album will be made available on streaming.

Check out “The Writing of Fragments of Time” below:

22 Mar 2023

Taylor Swift Catalog Rises in Streams Following Eras Tour Kickoff


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: Big hits and deep cuts across Taylor Swift’s catalog gain in the wake of her Eras Tour kickoff, while Coco Jones scores a breakout ballad and Fifty Fifty hits a “Cupid” bullseye.

Taylor Swift’s Tour Kickoff Yields Streaming Bumps Across “Eras”

Last week, Taylor Swift kicked off her Eras stadium tour with a career-spanning, three-hour-plus extravaganza at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., setting social media ablaze with setlist reactions and outfit exclamations on Friday and Saturday (Mar. 17 & 18). The dozens of thousands in attendance in Arizona were lucky enough to see all 44 songs live — but plenty of other Swifties across the U.S. celebrated the superstar’s first proper headlining concert in over four years by pressing play on some of the hits that were at long last being taken on the road.

Beginning last Friday, when the Eras tour officially kicked off, daily streams for some of Swift’s most notable hits scored noticeable upticks. “Blank Space,” her Billboard Hot 100-topping smash from 1989, was up 18% in daily official on-demand U.S. streams on Friday compared to the previous day, according to Luminate, while the Lover title track posted a daily gain of 20%. 

“Cruel Summer,” the first full song to be performed within the Eras setlist, did even better: Its daily streams more than doubled between the day before the tour launch (352,000 streams) and Monday (750,000), as more social clips of Swift finally performing the 2019 hit were feverishly shared. The current singles from Swift’s most recent album, Midnights, also enjoyed notable bumps: “Anti-Hero” rose 14% in daily streams from Thursday to Friday, while “Lavender Haze” earned a 31% increase on the same day.

Also contributing to Swift’s overall streaming totals coinciding with the Eras tour kickoff: the four “From The Vault” songs that she shared on Friday, which include three “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings of previously released songs (“Safe and Sound,” “Eyes Open” and “If This Was a Movie”) as well as an unreleased track, “All the Girls You Loved Before,” from the Lover sessions. The latter has gotten off to a hot start at streaming, scoring over 4 million streams on its release day, to go with 11,000 U.S. digital sales on Friday. As “Girls” continues to reside within the upper reaches of daily streaming charts on Spotify and Apple Music, Swift could notch another nice Hot 100 debut next week, after she takes the Eras tour to its second stop in Las Vegas this weekend. — JASON LIPSHUTZ

Coco Jones Slows Things Down on TikTok With “ICU”

While Coco Jones may currently be best known to audiences as the actress behind Hilary Banks on the Peacock reboot Bel Air, she may be following in the multi-platform footsteps of Tatyana Ali — who played cousin Ashley on the ’90s Fresh Prince, and reached the Hot 100’s top 10 in 1998 with “Daydreamin’” — with a hit single of her own. Following its Nov. 2022 release, Jones’ “ICU” has been gradually going viral on TikTok over the past few weeks — and bucking trends on the app in the process.

While an increasing majority of TikTok hits in the past year or so have taken off via sped-up versions — or sounded sped-up to begin with — “ICU” is a pointedly slow-and-low love song, near-stunning in its patience. And rather than crank the BPM back up, users have responded to it in its original tempo by responding to Jones’ vocal challenge and recording their own duet verses for the track. Consequently, the song has climbed 59% from just under 2 million official on-demand streams the chart tracking week ending Feb. 23 to over 3.1 million on the week ending March 16, according to Luminate. And it’s still climbing, meaning “ICU” may be moving to the waiting room for numerous Billboard charts soon. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER

Fifty Fifty Scores an Odds-On Hit With “Cupid”

Korean pop artists haven’t necessarily been able to score the kind of breakout crossover streaming hits on the Billboard charts that many of their English- and Spanish-language counterparts have found via TikTok and other virality-boosting platforms — but recent singles by girl groups NewJeans (who scored a pair of Hot 100 hits earlier this year) and now Fifty Fifty indicate that their luck may be starting to change.

Fifty Fifty’s bilingual disco-pop jam “Cupid,” released in February, has taken off through a series of dance challenges and other uses on TikTok, and was given additional life by a new “Twin Version” recorded entirely in English. The song has exploded from an already-impressive 2 million official on-demand streams in its first full tracking week (ending March 2) to nearly 4.7 million for the week ending March 16 — a rise of 131%, according to Luminate. “Cupid” debuts at No. 106 on the Global 200 dated March 25 this week, and if it keeps growing, it might aim its bow and arrow at the Hot 100 before long. — A.U.

22 Mar 2023

Will Morgan Wallen ‘Surrender’ No. 1 to U2 Re-Recordings?

Welcome to The Contenders, 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 charts dated April 1), Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time juggernaut faces competition from a new U2 album of old U2 songs, as well as a rising star from the Latin world and a pop icon coming to a stadium near you.  

U2, Songs of Surrender (Island/Interscope). The members of U2 are no strangers to the top of the Billboard 200, having reached No. 1 eight times in their 43-year recording history, most recently in 2017 with the debut of Songs of Experience. Many of the songs from those albums can be found on Songs of Surrender — a collection of reinvented re-recordings spanning the band’s entire career.

Released on St. Patrick’s Day (March. 17), the collection is also available in 16-track standard, 20-track deluxe and 40-track super deluxe editions (with the later divided into four 10-track discs each named after a band member). Sales will also be helped by a dozen vinyl variants of the album, including exclusives for Target, Amazon and independent retailers — and even a Boston Celtics Limited Edition vinyl, with team-inspired packaging containing an exclusive poster.  

Eladio Carrión, 3men2 Kbrn (Rimas). An international swimmer turned social media influencer turned Latin trap hitmaker, Eladio Carrión has become one of this decade’s breakout stars from Rimas Entertainment, home to global superstar Bad Bunny. If his name isn’t yet familiar to you, some of the A-list features on his latest album 3men2 Kbrn will be – they include 50 Cent, Future, Lil Wayne, and of course El Conejo Malo himself, who appears on the set’s lead single “Coco Chanel.”  

Taylor Swift, Lover (Republic). As you may have heard, Taylor Swift recently launched her first U.S. tour in six years – and It’s not just the more than 100,000 fans in attendance at the first two dates in Glendale, Ariz. over the weekend who are psyched to see her, Swift’s sales and streams have spiked across her catalog, but the album poised to benefit most on the Billboard 200 is her 2019 set Lover. It’s appropriate, given how it’s the Swift album fans have waited the longest to see on tour, as she was forced to cancel immediate support plans during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.  

IN THE MIX 

EST Gee, Mad (CMG/Interscope). Louisville rapper EST Gee has long seemed to be on the verge of a mainstream breakthrough, in the wake of high-profile early-decade guest appearances on Billboard Hot 100 hits like Lil Baby’s “Real as It Gets” and Jack Harlow’s “Backstage Passes.” He’s reached the Billboard 200’s top 10 three times already, most recently with official debut LP I Never Felt Nun in Sept. 2022, and looks to go for four with last Friday’s Mad mixtape – though outside of southern rap stalwart Boosie Badazz, the set is light on big-name guests.  

100 Gecs, 10,000 Gecs (Dog Show/Atlantic): The hyperpop paragons lean more into thick guitar riffs while maintaining their absurdist sense of humor on second album 10,000 Gecs, their first since making the jump to Atlantic. The critically acclaimed set — supported by their first Alternative Airplay-charting hit single, “Hollywood Baby” — is likely to give the duo its highest-charting entry yet on the Billboard 200, following the No. 92 peak of its debut album, appropriately titled 1,000 Gecs.

22 Mar 2023

Tania Domínguez, Michi Sanz, Cammie & More Emerging Artists to Discover

Every month, Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors will feature a small group of new or relatively unknown artists whose music we love. Think “diamantes en bruto,” or “diamonds in the rough.” These are newcomers who have yet to impact the mainstream — but whose music excites us, and who we believe our readers should make a point to discover. In honor of Women’s History Month, our newest “On The Radar Latin” list includes up-and-coming mujeres that you should be listening to.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

See our recommendations below:

Artist: Cammie

Country: Brazil

Why they should be on your radar: Brazilian pop/soul singer Cammie may have just released her first single with L.A.-based indie record label Super Pop, “Baby I Love You,” but the 22-year-old is far from being new to music and the entertainment business. A semifinalist of The Voice Brasil 2016, the bilingual artist (Portuguese/English) from Rio de Janeiro with a powerful voice began her career at the age of nine, appearing in various musicals and as a voice actress in the Portuguese versions of movies including Toy Story. In 2012 she made her singing debut in a jingle, and last year she released the seven-song EP Doce Como Bala, with romantic mixes of samba-tinged soul, and guests like R&B singer Anchietx and samba vocalist Ferrugem. Throughout the deliciously funky “I Love You”, which Cammie co-wrote with producer Guilherme França, you can hear her undeniable influences of ‘70-‘80s-era Brazilian soul/funk. — SIGAL RATNER-ARIAS.

Song for Your Playlist: “Baby I Love You”

Artist: Ela Taubert

Country: Colombia

Why they should be on your radar: Thanks to a video that Feid reacted to on TikTok — where she’s singing a piano-heavy ballad version of his “Si Te La Encuentras Por Ahí“ — I discovered Taubert, a 22-year-old singer-songwriter from Colombia. But far beyond a couple of covers on social media, Taubert holds a sweet potent vocal range that’s both melancholic and mesmerizing that can be heard in her own original music, such as her debut single “Salto de Fe” in 2019, as well as “¿Cómo es que tú?,” and “Crecer.” A well-rounded pop artist, Taubert has been taken under the wings of Latin Grammy-winning producer Julio Reyes Copello, and has already shared stages with renowned stars Diego Torres and Alejandro Sanz. Showcasing her vulnerability and maturity, amongst other qualities, Taubert sings about love, heartbreak and dreams. She forms part of the inaugural generation of Universal Music Latin’s Abbey Road Institute & Art House Academy. — JESSICA ROIZ

Song For Your Playlist: “Yo Primero”

Artist: La Favi

Country: The United States (Los Angeles via Bay Area) 

Why they should be on your radar: On her latest bilingual EP, Para Ti, West Coast singer-songwriter La Favi brings her enigmatic allure to the dance floor. Yet it starts with her spellbinding serene croon against melancholy guitar arpeggios and dingy electronic beats. It’s a gripping contrast that straddles dreamy sad-girl lyricism, occasional flamenco melismas (“Wachu Did”) and glitchy reggaetón production. The five-track EP was produced by Ulises “El Licenciado” Lozano of Kinky fame, who has also been at the helm of helping cultivate the neoperreo (Ms Nina, Tomasa del Real) scene that’s been buzzing on SoundCloud and beyond. La Favi, whose of Spanish descent, is the newest signee to Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak En Fuego label, and she is beautifully repping the freaky urbano movement with ease, confidence, and a tinge of salacity for good measure. — ISABELA RAYGOZA

Song For Your Playlist: “Para Ti” feat. YAWNS

Artist: Michi Sanz

Country: Venezuela

Why they should be on your radar: Three years ago, Michi Sanz (real name: Michelle Valentina Sanz Mateu) dropped her debut single “123,” backed by hip-op beats and accompanied by artists Splitmusic and Dakeator. Her dulcet, high vocals set the tone for her next musical projects, all of which are innovative and experimental in their own right. Based in Miami, Sanz has explored ’80s retro funk as heard in “VIBES,” reggaetón-pop as heard in “+58,” and most recently, punk rock in her new single “FKN indirectas.” 

She has composed music for other artists, including popular Peruvian act Leslie Shaw, and just performed at her first SXSW in Austin, Texas. “My lyrics define real-life situations and moments that we have all gone through,” Sanz, who describes herself as “super pana” (cool in Venezuelan slang), notes on her Spotify profile. “They are stories that will lead me to sing to the world that we can dream, love, cry, and dance.” — J.R.

Song For Your Playlist: “FKN Indirectas”

Artist: Tania Domínguez

Country: Mexican-American

Why They Should Be On Your Radar: Mexican Music with a twist. Tania Domínguez’s refreshing take on the legacy genre is head-turning. While most artists from her generation have taken on the sierreño or urban-infused route, Dominguez is placing all bets on an almost jazz-like alternative sound to stand out from the crowd. At least that’s the route the Rancho Humilde-signed artist — who previously served in the U.S. Army and spent her days in South Korea listening to music and discovering artists such as Ariel Camacho and Junior H — has taken for “Enamorarse Suavecito,” No Me Puedo Detener” and “No Puedo Olvidarte” with label mate Ivonne Galaz. The new tracks are a departure from the sad sierreño songs the 23-year-old singer-songwriter first released, which showcase her slick guitar skills and gristly vocals. — GRISELDA FLORES

Song For Your Playlist: “Enamorarse Suavecito”

22 Mar 2023

Dolly Parton Reveals Upcoming Book ‘Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones’

Dolly Parton is adding to her book collection, with the upcoming Oct. 17 release Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, an in-depth look at the country icon’s lifelong passion for style.

Parton collaborated on the book with author/journalist Holly George-Warren, with curation by Rebecca Seaver, Parton’s director of archive services. George-Warren has authored more than a dozen books, including the Janis Joplin biography, Janis: Her Life and Music.

“I am happy, proud and excited to present my book Behind the Seams to the public,” Parton said in a statement. “It is my hope that you will enjoy a look at my life in costume and hair and get to know some of the great people who have helped shape my life and my look. Enjoy!”

Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones offers a look at Parton’s private costume archive, with photographs highlighting many of her most iconic looks, beginning with the 1960s (Parton released her debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly, in 1967) and chronicling her style through present-day. The book spotlights her famous wigs, towering heels and sparkly stage clothes — including the bunny suit she wore on the cover of Playboy, attire worn at the storied Studio 54, and costumes from many of her film and television roles.

In true Parton style, the book is also filled with stories and plenty of humor, as she also discusses fashion that had an impact on her childhood and career, such as the clothes her mother would sew out of feed sacks (including her famous “Coat of Many Colors”). The book is the second in a trilogy that started with Songteller: My Life in Lyrics, which Parton wrote with esteemed author/journalist Robert K. Oermann.

Last year, Parton also teamed with author James Patterson on the fiction book Run Rose Run.