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11 Oct 2023

Want to Be a Producer? Check Out These Audio Engineering Programs

Whether you’re a math-and-science whiz or an intuitive creative, there’s a prestigious audio engineering program that can prepare you for a career as a producer — or for whatever studio path you might follow — while emphasizing a well-rounded education in the process.

Here’s a selection of some of the best academic programs, along with sage professional advice from those who lead them.

Belmont University
Audio Engineering Technology

The program: Heavy on math and science, the curriculum teaches students to design systems, components and processes and prepare for careers as recording-studio and live-sound engineers and audio-software designers. “If it makes a noise or records a sound, somebody has to think about it, create it, program it, build it, use it, apply it,” program chair Michael Janas says.

The skills producers need most now: “Motivation. If they’re trying to force themselves as a square peg into a round hole, they’re going to struggle.”

Berklee College Of Music
Music Production and Engineering

The program: Working with artists, writers and other engineers, students learn technical skills (microphone placement, signal flow) and personal skills (critical listening, communication). “Reading the room, leveraging the strengths of artists, how you speak to people, deliver bad news — these are incredibly sensitive, difficult things,” program chair Rob Jaczko says. (Alums include Charlie Puth and Abe Laboriel Jr., Paul McCartney’s longtime drummer.)

The skills producers need most now: “Understanding the business landscape. We all need to have a better understanding of how we monetize our work.”

Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, New York University

The program: With six available studios, students here learn everything they need to know about becoming a producer or engineer — except for heavy-duty technical instruction. “We want to get them up and running and confident,” says Nick Sansano, program chair. “We’re not necessarily teaching them all the mathematics and circuitry.”

The top issues facing producers now: “Lack of access to money. You need some support to get things off the ground.”

Drexel University
Recording Arts and Music Production

The program: Students learn the basics of recording, production, arranging, composition, postproduction, mixing and mastering. In one sound-recording course, experienced artists (recently, members of John Legend’s band) work with students directly. After their sophomore year, students spend the summer working in live-sound engineering or another music-business sector. “They can go out and explore an area,” says Ryan Moys, who oversees the RAMP curriculum. “Sometimes you figure out what you don’t like.”

The skills producers need most now: “Knowing different software platforms: We teach Pro Tools, Ableton and Logic. And great communication skills. It all comes back to you’ve got to be a cool person to hang out with.”

Fredonia, State University of New York (SUNY)
Sound Recording Technology

The program: Drawing from European “tonmeister” curricula of the 1940s, which combine technical and musical instruction, the 35-year-old SRT program offers training in studio hardware, live sound, recording, editing, signal processing and sound reinforcement. “[Bachelor’s of science students] have a fairly good handle on the science side of the recording business,” says Bernd Gottinger, the professor who oversees the degree.

The top issues facing producers now: “Responsibility and trust. Gaining that trust is probably the most difficult achievement you can look at as a producer. Usually, it gets established by long years of working in a different world, until the band says, ‘Listen, you’ve been doing these recordings for us for 20 years, why don’t you actually produce them for us?’”

Frost School Of Music, University Of Miami
Music Engineering

The program: Developed in 1977, Frost centers on a recording studio with three full-size consoles. “Half our students end up at a company, like Dolby or Bose or Amazon Lab126 or Shure,” department chair Christopher Bennett says. “They work on the innards of devices that end up in the studios.”

The skills producers need most now: “The more you can learn under the hood, the better engineer or producer you’ll be. If they understand things like room acoustics and theory, it empowers them to make more creative choices.”

Jacobs School Of Music, Indiana University Bloomington
Audio Engineering and Sound Production

The program: Among IU’s 1,600 music students, prospective engineers and producers get hands-on experience in pursuit of their 80-recording-hours-per-semester standard as part of this 41-year-old program. “That level of responsibility makes a big difference,” department chair Michael Stucker says.

The skills producers need most now: “Signal flow is a concept that’s really important to us. Physics and acoustics as well.”

Middle Tennessee State University
Audio Production

The program: With five recording studios, plus a postproduction studio and separate labs for mixing, mastering and electronic music, students learn mixing and sound reinforcement and put on end-of-semester shows for live audiences. “We don’t really think of ourselves as training people for a job as a music producer,” says Bill Crabtree, director of the master of fine arts program in recording arts and technologies. “That’s not the kind of entry-level job you’re going to get right after college. It takes a while.” (Alums include Luke Laird, who has written No. 1 hits for Carrie Underwood and Eric Church, among others.)

The top issue facing producers now: “Artificial intelligence has the potential to disrupt a lot of things. However, it will be a tool. Having those skills — we think that’s important.”

Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology (OIART)

The program: OIART emphasizes highly technical skills for careers in music production and audio engineering and recording. “We’re not selling dreams of gold records. We’re very realistic with our employment goals and the types of careers students can expect,” says Lee While, OIART’s chief operating officer.

The skills producers need most now: “The student group has aspirations to work in a major studio and be a producer. But somebody who aspires to be a hip-hop producer suddenly discovers they have a real talent for sound design for video games.”

Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins
Music Engineering and Technology

The program: Bachelor’s degree programs range from highly technical, five-year studies emphasizing electrical engineering, math, science and computer science to a two-year graduate program working with classical ensembles and rock bands. “Some find, ‘I’m interested in how loudspeakers are designed or getting into programming with signal processing,’ ” program chair Scott Metcalfe says. “Others embrace their composition side.”

The skills producers need most now: “Musicianship. Understanding the goal of the artist and what the market is.”

Purchase College, State University Of New York
Studio Production

The program: With nine studios at their disposal, students get hands-on experience, from arranging their own pieces to engineering sound in the Dolby Atmos format, in genres from classical to hip-hop. “We want them to be able to do everything. We don’t want people to be button-pushers,” says Peter Denenberg, coordinator of the music and technology program. (Alums include Grammy Award-winning jazz singer Samara Joy.)

The top issue facing producers now: “Being forced to deliver projects in spatial audio is an incredibly difficult ask. It just adds a level of complexity and difficulty.”

Steinhardt School Of Culture, Education And Human Development, New York University
Music Technology

The program: Director Paul Geluso says graduates of the program are “skilled professionals” who know hardware and software product design, audio engineering, and performance and composition: “The students do a little bit of everything their first two years and [then] they gravitate to one area.”

The skills producers need most now: “Our students take theory and history. We’re definitely music-first in our approach to our engineering side.”

Thornton School Of Music, University Of Southern California
Music Technology

The program: Offering a bachelor’s degree in music production and minors in production and recording, Thornton emphasizes songwriting. “We build this program around our students being strong musicians with a technical inclination,” program chair Rick Schmunk says. “They can write the song, arrange it, produce it, record, edit, mix, master.”

The skills producers need most now: “Arranging and songwriting. We don’t have much trouble finding students with enough technical skills to be effective.”

A version of this story originally appeared in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.

11 Oct 2023

Why Is AEG Presents Opening Up So Many Smaller Clubs?

Whether he’s building live-­music clubs and theaters or renovating them, Rick Mueller abides by a simple rule for his complex job: “The best venues bring out the best in the fans and the best in the band.”

As AEG Presents president of North America, Mueller, 50, oversees all of the rooms in the territory for which the company is the primary talent buyer.

His purview includes more than 100 U.S. properties — mostly theaters and clubs managed by one of 13 regional offices that report to him. Among them are those owned and operated by The Bowery Presents, a collection of destination plays such as Brooklyn Steel and Forest Hills Stadium in New York and a series of newly opened clubs in Boston, Denver, Atlanta and Cincinnati. He’s also heavily involved in business development, overseeing construction of new projects that AEG Presents will exclusively book, like Nashville Yards, as well as bringing existing venues like the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Bowl under AEG Presents management.

“We’re building AEG as [a collection] of more regionally run businesses,” he explains. “That allows us to be more responsive to those markets — what’s happening musically there and what the customer wants.”

Mueller, who is originally from the San Francisco Bay area and now lives in Los Angeles, contends that strategy gives AEG Presents a “distinct advantage” over its main competition, Live Nation, where he briefly worked. “Live Nation is a very centralized company,” he says. “They buy their talent centrally. They make their concession deals centrally. They probably have their alcohol sponsored, and it’s driving whatever they serve in their venues. I don’t know that they give a lot of specialized thought in any given city to what is a great experience.”

You have opened a lot of smaller clubs. How do you identify markets that need another venue?

Since the pandemic, we’ve opened The Eastern in Atlanta, Roadrunner in Boston and the MegaCorp Pavilion in Cincinnati. They’re all doing really well, and we want to continue to add a lot more venues to that list. We’ve got Nashville Yards, which will open up at the end of 2024 or early 2025. We’ve got a venue in Raleigh [N.C.] that will open up in the first half of 2025. These are brand-new builds. As for what markets we look at — any place there’s opportunity. Sometimes that’s a function of a certain capacity room that doesn’t exist in a marketplace.

What size venues are your sweet spot?

We’re focusing on locations with capacities of 1,500 to 5,000. There’s more and more bands that are coming out of this frictionless distribution of music. They are able to sell tickets, so there’s a huge demand for these size venues. The bands can’t find enough dates, and we want to make sure that we service that opportunity.

You’ve opened a club called Racket in Manhattan, a market where you already have a number of small clubs. Why open another?

New York is a market where we’ve invested in very small spaces because it’s a very important developmental market for our relationships and conversations with bands. We feel that finding any venue in Manhattan — in this case, we renovated the old Highline Ballroom —is an opportunity we’re going to look at every single time.

What niche will Racket fill?

Look, in New York there’s a variety of bands that could sell more tickets than probably any other market in the United States. It’s also a first statement-type play. These smaller rooms are where we do a lot of, call it R&D. We build relationships with young bands, and then we want them on a path to play our whole venue portfolio. We hope that carries all the way through to our bigger venues like Forest Hills. It’s a true vertical pipeline where we can service an artist’s needs at any level.

Are small music clubs the new A&R for artists?

I think the internet is A&R for artists. In this day of social media and frictionless distribution, artists can be their own advocates. As far as building a live base, New York is a very important market to start relationships with artists early. In key markets that can handle a lot of shows, we’re going to continue to invest in that.

A lot of live-industry innovations start at the club level. What are your priorities?

What you’re seeing across the board in the industry is the desire for more premium offerings. There’s a huge group of people out there who are willing to pay a little bit more whether it’s for a better seat, a better experience, a better drink, better dining. We’re looking at that, but we’re also tailoring our offerings so that there’s an experience for everybody. We want to make sure that we offer a range of experiences — from cheaper to high-end.

Billboard recently reported that Gen Z concertgoers aren’t big consumers of alcohol. How do you adapt?

We’re keeping a very close eye on that. It’s a big part of the business, and it certainly hasn’t dropped off a cliff. People are still drinking, and we’re doing more offerings, whether it’s nonalcoholic or specialty cocktails. Almost on a daily basis, we look at where our numbers are and try to understand why, but it’s something that’s really hard to see in the moment. You have to collect data, and by the time you see where the trends are going, you hope you’re in a position to adjust to it.

How does your division run differently than, say, Live Nation’s House of Blues chain and its smaller venues?

Live Nation takes more of, I’ll say, a cookie-cutter approach to music. House of Blues is a chain, and it’s the same somewhat uninspired experience anytime you go to one of them. We’re opening brands that we hope speak to their markets and stand with their own identity.

Have you noticed any changes in the way fans buy tickets since the pandemic?

When we first came back, the number of no-shows was much higher than we’re accustomed to. That pretty much leveled off and came back into what you’d call traditional ranges. There are trends where a fan might wait a little longer to buy tickets. That’s more market-specific, and that dynamic has always existed. When I first started in this business at Bill Graham Presents, Detroit was this crazy, huge, late-selling market and would do thousands of tickets week of show at some of the amphitheater properties. It doesn’t sell the same way now. San Francisco has had a lot of changeover in terms of its population. Sales are up, but we see [ticket purchases] shifting a little bit later in the overall cycle. We are seeing more of a strong close to a lot of shows there, and why that is I’m not sure. But as an industry, we’re still selling a lot of tickets early in the game, especially in big arenas and the stadium star category. Business has been incredibly good. You haven’t really heard about a lot of large-scale underperforming tours.

What are the hot genres for ticket sales?

Generally stated, country continues to explode, as well as the land that Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers and even Jason Isbell inhabit — they aren’t traditional-style country. Kelsea Ballerini’s most recent tour is exploding. We’ve also seen incredible results with dance music. If you look at what has gone on at Brooklyn Mirage, which is not in our company, they’ve had what appears to be a record season.

What headwinds do you see?

If there’s a negative trend in the business, it’s that more multigenre festivals have struggled to maintain success. The big experiences like Coachella, Lollapalooza, Outside Lands are stronger than ever. They’re brands that people trust, and the festival experience is great. Below that, some festivals have struggled, while you’re seeing more single-genre festivals — dance, for instance — succeed. Look at Electric Forest. It speaks to a very specific audience, and it’s stronger than ever.

A year ago, indie and smaller acts were canceling tours because they were losing money. Is that still happening?

It has leveled off. A lot of people had sold tickets at a different kind of ticket price before the pandemic and made their budgets on one set of dynamics. Then when it was time to go out and tour post-pandemic, it cost a lot more to be out on the road. If your sales weren’t that good or you weren’t expecting to earn any back-end, you could end up losing money, which is why I think some people pulled down their tour plans. Costs have gotten under control, but it’s still expensive to tour. The challenge for midlevel tours is finding a balance between prices that are welcome among the fan base and the costs of being out on the road. Sometimes you have to find a mix of festivals and soft-ticket money out there to help pay for the markets that don’t cover the nightly bill that you need to earn.

How does the currently high level of inflation affect AEG’s business?

It costs a lot more for security and the labor to run our shows. And again, in some of these big markets where there’s a lot of events going on on a given weekend, it can be hard just to find staff. So managing our labor costs has been a real challenge. We have to look carefully when we do an event and what that costs and if we can make enough money for it to be worthwhile. Sometimes you go into these unique situations where the artist doesn’t seem to make any money because it costs more to do the show, and we’re struggling to make money, but it’s an important look for the artist. So we are all going in with the right goals and intentions to grow that artist’s career so that they make money on their live shows when they come back to that market.

11 Oct 2023

Best Quotes from “The Rising Star Q&A with Manuel Turizo” at Billboard Latin Music Week 2023

Three-time winner at the Latin Billboard Music Award, Manuel Turizo joined the stage with Billboard Latin Assistant Editor, Jessica Roiz, as part of “The Rising Star Q&A” presented by Delta and LATAM Airlines at the 2023 Billboard Latin Music Week on Wednesday (Oct. 4).

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In a moderated discussion, Turizo talks about his Colombian heritage, making his permanent move to Miami to grow his career and the influences of global collaborations.

Below, see some memorable quotes from the conversation:

On collaborating with Marshmello on his now Latin Grammy-nominated summer hit, “El Merengue:”

“Days before we [Marshmello] met, I was listening to all the work he did, and it’s typically Anglo pop. But when we met, we sat down and started talking, also understanding the idea he had of coming and collaborating with me and with more Latin artists. It was to get him into Latin a little bit and understand it. We started to think, let’s really get him into something that IS Latin — to take advantage of the fact that he was with me and to show his audience something that they didn’t consume or listen to. To show them something that, ‘they don’t know how to do.’ Merengue is something totally Latin. So that’s how the idea was born and that’s how we decided to do it.

On his move to Miami from Colombia in 2019 to further pursue his music:

“When I came here, Juan Diego El Ciego, my manager, was on top of me all the time. For like a year, he’s been saying “Move to Miami,” so I said, okay I’m going to rent an apartment and come, but I’m not going to stay. I’ll stay for a week if I have to and then I’ll go back. But I don’t know, the lockdown, I got used to being here, I liked the rhythm of the work. It also got me out of my comfort zone and I feel it helped me meet new people, see another environment, and see another atmosphere. I feel that here in Miami, there are also many people making music that what I had back in Colombia. Here, you go to a studio, and you meet different producers, composers, singers, everything. So there is a lot more movement, and I like that too, so I stayed.”

On what he misses most about leaving Monterilla, Colombia:

“The food, it will never be the same. I love it here, but the food in Colombia will never be topped. I also feel that you develop your palate according to where you grow up, wherever you are from, you go where you are from and you are going to miss your seasoning.”

On the success and creative process of “La Bachata:”

“I wanted to release that song [“La Bachata”] but my team told me ‘no, that I wasn’t the right song. First, you are not a bachatero, second, you are not Dominican.’ But I was like ‘I like it, why can’t I release it?’ So now, if I am not Dominican, with a lot of respect to the Dominican culture because at the end of the day, if I am doing a bachata being Colombian, it is because of all the influence and the inspiration of the Dominican musical culture that has also reached my country [Colombia].

It’s important to follow your gut instinct. What I feel I have already achieved with my team, and with most of the people who follow me and are connected with my music, is that I am not necessarily rooted to a single musical sound, or a single musical style. On the contrary, I like to try different things all the time in my music.

On his collaboration with Grupo Frontera on “De Lunes a Lunes:”

The song is a vallenato. I wanted to do something related to Mexican culture several months ago, because after I started branching out from Colombia, Mexico was the first country that connected with me and my music, and I am very grateful. So, I wanted to do something that would blend what I do with the culture of Mexican music. Edgar Barrera introduced me to the guys of Grupo Fronter, and we started to put the song together. The truth is, I loved it, I fell in love with the song. That’s exactly why it was going to be a vallenato – the feeling that song has, I personally find it very strong, and it reminds me of that too. The vallenato of my country, the lyrics of Colombia…and with that musicality, we also combine it with the cumbia norteña that Frontera is doing right now.”

On why collaborating with other artists is so important to his creative development:

“I feel that you can learn and absorb information about how each person sees the music. There are people that when you hear them singing, you say ‘wow, that’s amazing,’ and there are others who have incredible production and musical ideas. You can absorb something from each one of them.”

11 Oct 2023

Dolly Parton Discusses Her Famous Image, Sexual Harassment & Politics: ‘My Look Came From a Very Serious Place’

Ahead of Dolly Parton‘s upcoming book Behind The Seams, which releases Oct. 17 and delves into decades worth of Parton’s iconic fashions from rhinestoned dresses to fringed jumpsuits, the 10-time Grammy winner discussed the pros and cons of her glamorous image in an interview with The Guardian.

Parton said that though many people failed to take her seriously over the years due to her famous image, she refused to change for anyone and kept her focus on her work. “Actually,” she says, “my look came from a very serious place. That’s how I thought I looked best. Sometimes that’s worked for me, sometimes it can work against you. It took me probably years longer to be taken serious, but I wasn’t willing to change it, and I figured if I had the talent, it’d show up sooner or later.”

Since releasing her debut country single, “Dumb Blonde,” in 1967, Parton has earned two No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits (“Islands in the Stream” and “9 to 5”) as well as 25 No. 1 Hot Country Songs hits. She’s been inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry, Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and earned the Country Music Association’s top honor, entertainer of the year, in 1978.

Parton added, especially as a woman in the 1960s and 1970s music industry, she was regularly dismissed by industry executives — but she didn’t back down.

“I would just say, ‘I think I have something that we can all make some money off of, and get over the fact that I’m a girl here, because my mind is on something else.’ I always knew how to maneuver in a crowd of men,” she said, noting that she grew with numerous brothers and uncles. “I never slept with anybody to get ahead, because to me it wouldn’t be worth it. That don’t usually work in the long haul either.”

She also noted that she did face sexual harassment along the way. “Oh, I did, but I always knew how to put a man in his place without making him feel bad. If sometimes that don’t work, I’m also strong as a boy – I know how to push you off and get the hell away from you.” Asked whether she’s had to push back against harassment both in her personal life and in her career, she said, “Both. And that’s a very uncomfortable situation. I was always able to get away before [a serious assault] would happen, but I feel sorry because some women are not able and some men are that aggressive.”

Parton’s story of modeling her image after the “town tramp,” as she says — a woman who wore high heels, red lipstick and low-cut tops — is well-known. Parton told The Guardian that her father and grandfather strongly disagreed with her choices, and at times, her grandfather physically punished her for it.

“I was willing to pay for it,” Parton said. “I’m very sensitive, I didn’t like being disciplined – it hurt my feelings so bad to be scolded or whipped or whatever. But sometimes there’s just that part of you that’s willing, if you want something bad enough, to go for it.”

The wide-ranging interview also finds Parton discussing her reason for deciding early in her career to not delve too deeply into political situations.

“Because you’re going to lose half your audience,” she said. “Even within my own family, especially the last few years since Trump and Biden, all that, it’s like we can’t even go to a family dinner any more. Especially if people are drinking – they get in a damn fight at the table. Don’t get so trapped where if you’re a Republican, you got to be this way, if you’re Democrat, you got to be that way. You’re not allowed to think nothing else. Well, how crippling is that? I’ve got as many Democrats as I do Republicans as fans, and I’m not going to insult any of them because I care about all of them. I ain’t that good a Christian to think that I am so good that I can judge people. That’s God’s job, not mine. So as far as politics, I hate politics. Hate politics.”

Parton also recently announced a four-part radio series, What Would Dolly Do?, set to air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Apple Music 1, beginning Oct. 25. The first episode features Parton with co-host Kelleigh Bannen, and finds Parton discussing her iconic image and career, as well as her book Behind the Seams.

11 Oct 2023

Pharrell Williams Reflects on 10 Years of Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’: ‘I Thought I Was Writing For Someone Else’

10 years ago, Daft Punk and Pharrell Williams enjoyed one of the biggest hits of their respective careers with “Get Lucky” — which spent five consecutive weeks at a peak of No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. On Wednesday (Oct. 11), the Oscar-nominated hitmaker is reflecting on the creation of that smash hit.

Williams appears in the latest episode of Daft Punk’s Memory Tapes series — a collection of interviews with key Random Access Memories collaborators in commemoration of the record’s 10-year anniversary. In his interview, Williams recounts his journey from being invited to be one of the album’s songwriters to eventually providing vocals for two songs on the final tracklist.

“When they brought me in to write on the album, I thought I was just writing for someone else,” Williams mused. “So, in my mind, I’m like, ‘Oh, okay, I’m writing this for someone. Okay, I think this is Michael-esque…’ It’s all feeling.”

That feeling resulted in “Get Lucky,” a seismic hit single that won two Grammys — including one for record of the year — and reached the top 10 of eight different Billboard airplay genre charts. Williams noted that while the songwriting process was fairly seamless, the recording process was particularly meticulous, with Daft Punk members Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo urging him to re-record certain sections several times over. “Now I understand the value of taking the time to iron it out, it could be perfection,” he says. “That’s the difference between a human and a robot.”

Williams also revealed that the road to “Get Lucky” was a bit longer than some might think. “By the time the song was done, I didn’t know who was gon’ end up singing it,” he recounted. “I didn’t hear it for a year, I forgot what the song sounded like — both of them.” “Both” is in reference to “Lose Yourself to Dance,” the other Random Access Memories track that Williams provided lead vocals for.

The rest of Williams episode also included footage of him hearing the final mixes of his Random Access Memories cuts and more reflective musings about what working with Daft Punk taught him about himself and the universe. “We must remember, we are part of the universe,” he said. “We don’t run the universe.”

Random Access Memories peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and won five Grammys, including the award for album of the year.

Additional guests in Daft Punk’s Memory Tapes series include album collaborators Julian Casablancas, Chilly Gonzales, DJ Falcon, Todd Edwards, Nile Rodgers, Paul Williams and Chris Caswell. Rodgers’ episode will debut on Oct. 25, while an interview with Williams & Caswell is set for Nov. 8.

Watch Pharrell Williams reflect on the making of “Get Lucky” above.

11 Oct 2023

Shakira & Nicky Jam’s ‘Perro Fiel’ Music Video Hits 1 Billion Views on YouTube

Six years after its release, Shakira and Nicky Jam‘s “Perro Fiel” music video scored a new milestone. The three-minute clip has officially reached one billion views on YouTube. The music video is both Shakira and Nicky Jam’s seventh entry in the Billion Views Club as a lead, featured artist or collaborator, according to the video streaming platform.

The track, released in 2017, marked the first collaboration between the Colombian star and the reggaetón hitmaker. “Perro Fiel” is part of Shakira’s El Dorado, which peaked at No. 1 for five weeks on Billboard‘s Top Latin Albums chart. Meanwhile, the song peaked at No. 6 on the Hot Latin Songs chart.

The track thrives on an electronic production that serves as a canvas for Shakira and Nicky Jam’s vocals throughout the track — laced with reggaetón drums and thumping beats. As for the video, both appear on their own at times but come together on a motorcycle track that is as intense as their feelings and emotions towards each other.

Most recently, both artists took center stage at the Billboard Latin Music Week 2023 in Miami. Nicky Jam hosted two editions of his popular The Rock Star Show featuring interviews with Ivy Queen and Fuerza Regida’s frontman, Jesús Ortiz Paz. As for Shakira, the superstar artist spoke candidly with Billboard’s Leila Cobo about her creative process, making history as one of the most successful Billboard chart-toppers and what comes next. (Read the Q&A here.)

Revisit Shakira and Nicky Jam’s “Perro Fiel” in the video above.

11 Oct 2023

Cher Denies Allegations She Plotted to Kidnap Her Son: ‘That Rumor Is Not True’

Cher is addressing the allegations that she hired men to kidnap her adult son Elijah Blue Allman.

Speaking to People about the claims made last year by his estranged wife, Marieangela King, in divorce documents, which alleged that the pop icon had sent four men to kidnap Allman from a New York City hotel room, Cher simply said, “That rumor is not true.”

The star declined to comment further on the event described by King, but she did tell the magazine that the family matter was related to her son’s substance abuse issues, which he has previously spoken about. “I’m not suffering from any problem that millions of people in the United States aren’t,” Cher said.

“I’m a mother,” she continued. “This is my job — one way or another, to try to help my children. You do anything for your children. Whenever you can help them, you just do it because that’s what being a mother is. But it’s joy, even with heartache — mostly, when you think of your children, you just smile and you love them, and you try to be there for them.” 

Though the kidnapping plot accusations were first made in court documents filed in December, the allegations recently surfaced amid ongoing divorce proceedings between King and Allman, whose father is late rock star Greg Allman. King alleged in her filing that Cher, concerned for Elijah’s well-being, hired four men to get her 47-year-old son out of the hotel where he was staying with King as the two worked to reconcile their marriage.

This holiday season will hopefully be more cheerful than last year for Cher and her family, especially as the Burlesque star gears up to release her festive upcoming album, Christmas. Her first ever Christmas album, the project will feature Stevie Wonder, Michael Bublé, Cyndi Lauper and Tyga.

“They’re not ‘Christmas Christmas’ songs, OK, they’re just great songs,” she recently told Billboard of the LP. “And I never say that because I almost never like what I do. But I mean people love it and I’m happy. I’m so particular, but I love the songs and everyone who hears them loves them.”

11 Oct 2023

Meet the Producers Powering Country’s Hot 100 Dominance

Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange” spent six weeks atop Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. But the track wasn’t recorded anywhere near Nashville — it was crafted alongside producer Ryan Hadlock, over 2,000 miles away at Bear Creek, the rustic barn-turned-studio that Hadlock’s parents had built in 1977 just outside of Seattle, not far from the birthplace of grunge. The genre-fluid song didn’t just top the country chart — it peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, too.

“Even the term ‘country music’ is almost becoming passé in some ways because in working with Zach, in a lot of ways, he doesn’t really consider himself a straight-up country musician,” says Hadlock, who also produced Bryan’s “From Austin.” “He’s a singer-songwriter who happens to be from Oklahoma, has an accent and sings about the world he’s in… I think he will be doing amazing things for a really long time.”

Within Nashville, too, a similar genre-mashing ethos has bubbled up on hits such as Morgan Wallen’s muted, acoustic-based chart juggernaut “Last Night,” which spent 16 nonconsecutive weeks atop the Hot 100 in 2023. “He has one of those magical voices that allows him to span multiple formats, really,” says producer Joey Moi, who has worked with Wallen since his debut album. “He can sing a traditional country song, or over a hip-hop, contemporary production or a contemporary country production, and it still sounds like a Morgan Wallen song.”

As more and more country tracks have risen to the upper reaches of the Hot 100 this past year, many of the standouts — not only “Something in the Orange” and “Last Night,” in addition to other tracks by Bryan and Wallen, but also Luke Combs’ rendition of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” (which reached No. 2), Bailey Zimmerman’s “Rock and a Hard Place” (which hit the top 10) and Jelly Roll’s rock and country-blending “Need a Favor” (which broke into the top 20) — demonstrate an instinct for crafting sounds that appeal beyond the genre.

A mix of newcomers and veterans, they include Hadlock; Wallen’s “Last Night” producers, Moi and Charlie Handsome; Zimmerman producer Austin Shawn; Combs’ “Fast Car” co-producers, Jonathan Singleton and Chip Matthews; and Jelly Roll producer Austin Nivarel.

Notably, many of these studio creatives have résumés that extend beyond country. Before working with Big Loud artists like Wallen and Florida Georgia Line, Moi produced Canadian rock band Nickelback. Hadlock has worked with names ranging from Foo Fighters to Brandi Carlile, while Handsome’s credits include Post Malone, Kanye West, Juice WRLD and Lil Wayne.

For Wallen and Bryan, scaled-back production proved essential to the genre-traversing success of their respective hits. “We purposefully kept it simple,” Moi says of “Last Night.” “There are a handful of parts going on, but it’s more about the negative space and making it about the story, the vocal and the instrumental that runs throughout. It lends itself to being accessible by more lanes as far as radio formats; it was tougher to define as just a country song, or just a pop song or [adult top 40] song. It kind of fit everywhere.”

Moi says the song’s sparse production partially resulted from Wallen’s own creative inclinations. “My natural instinct is to build these larger-than-life productions, and Morgan is great about coming behind me and being like, ‘Take this out and that part out,’ making sure I’m not doing too much on certain things,” Moi says. “I’d say he has had his best opportunity on the last two records to really imprint upon every aspect of it, from the songwriting to demos to our approach to tracking in the studio and postproduction. You can hear his contemporary, youthful thoughts over all of it.”

Similarly, Hadlock notes the minimal production on “Something in the Orange,” which utilized vintage mics and gear. “Sometimes old equipment is better at capturing emotion, and part of it is having a good room; I think people don’t always realize how much an instrument the room is that people are playing in,” says Hadlock, whose goal was a recording that sounded like Bryan was “playing right in front of you,” that would make “people listen to it and say, ‘Wow, that’s an amazing live recording.’ ”

For Shawn, the freedom to experiment was key in landing the right feel for Zimmerman’s “Rock and a Hard Place.” He and Zimmerman produced the song a half-dozen different ways before landing on the approach they used for the final recording. “We produced an almost John Mayer-esque, real smooth-sounding [version], then the acoustic version and one that was a dark piano ballad, with strings and fiddle that sounded almost like you were listening to a country Goo Goo Dolls song,” Shawn says.

As he did with “Fall in Love,” Shawn incorporated a “three-minute-long sample of just wind” into “Rock and a Hard Place.” “It feels like you are in a desert, and I wanted to feel that open style — we added fiddle and pedal steel, just subtly to bring out the emotive aspect. We wanted this song to feel like you could play it on acoustic guitar, but at the same time, it can still fit into a country radio modern format.”

Shawn, who co-wrote Zimmerman’s “Fall in Love,” recalls the no-barriers approach he and Zimmerman took early on in developing his sound. “We thought about the kinds of songs he would want to hear and made the music as fans, just encompassing everything we love… There’s no gimmicks with this kid. His gift is making the music that defines him and his lifestyle.”

Ultimately, producers who encourage such experimentation — whether Combs’ cover of a 1980s folk-pop classic, Bryan’s poetic blend of country, folk and rock or Wallen’s country-to-hip-hop range — have shaped songs that are resonating with a multitude of listeners.

“He has always wanted to stay in the country lane, but we all knew he had a sort of contemporary side,” Moi says of Wallen. “If we planted our roots and built our foundation in a good spot, [we knew] we’d have the opportunity to explore other genres, and I think we’re in a sweet spot for that right now.”

This story originally appeared in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.

11 Oct 2023

Meet SZA’s Secret Weapons: Her ‘SOS’ Producers

When producers Carter Lang and ­ThankGod4Cody worked on SZA’s culture-­shifting 2017 debut album, Ctrl, the vibes were cozy and casual.

“We’d all bunker up and pretty much camp out in the stu’ and just be making stuff for weeks, if not months, at a time. Those adventures bonded us for life,” says Lang, 32. Adds Cody, 31: “I don’t even remember what the ultimate goal was except for making a fire album.”

But that “fire album” — one that’s still sizzling on the Billboard 200, 329 weeks after it debuted at No. 3 — created lots of unpredictable “pandemonium,” Lang says, from fans and the industry, and substantially raised the stakes for SZA, who waited five years before she released its follow-up, SOS.

“There was a little pressure to help her complete the tasks that she had at hand and for her to be happy with the final product and not have a sophomore slump,” Cody says. Yet re-creating Ctrl’s mellow, free-flowing and dependable environment was crucial to ensuring the artist felt comfortable enough to produce another masterpiece. Upon its release, SOS spent 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, bolstering SZA’s superstar status. She earned her first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 with “Kill Bill,” which she made with Lang and Rob Bisel, 31, both of whom also worked on other SOS top 10 hits “Good Days,” “Nobody Gets Me” and “I Hate U” (the lattermost of which Cody also co-wrote and co-produced).

“The three of us are the people she probably would trust the most to finish the music and bring it home,” says Cody, who with Lang and Bisel has credits on 19 of SOS’ 23 songs. “I feel like we all were involved in everything, except the artwork. It was like a group project in college.”

ThankGod4Cody

ThankGod4Cody

The7views

Cody met SZA in 2014, when he was working closely with her Top Dawg Entertainment labelmate Isaiah Rashad, after she heard Cody making a beat in the room next door, came in and spontaneously recorded the song “Sobriety.” A year later, Lang — who had been working with R&B and hip-hop artists from his Chicago hometown like Chance the Rapper and Ravyn Lenae — ran into SZA at a studio and soon after joined her band while she toured her third EP, Z. He eventually met Cody at TDE’s Carson, Calif., headquarters while working on Ctrl.

Around Ctrl’s release, Bisel briefly met SZA while she was recording at Rick Rubin’s Malibu, Calif., studio, Shangri-La, where he had worked his way up from intern to house engineer. The two eventually reconnected at the beginning of 2020, when he flew out to Rubin’s house in Hawaii to help her record SOS. The album was not only made all over the place — from Lang’s Glendale, Calif.-based studio to SZA’s Malibu home to Westlake Recording Studios — but also with a variety of other producers, like Jay Versace, Michael Uzowuru and even Babyface.

“Back in the day, it would be Timbaland or Pharrell [Williams] and one person, or just them. Now it’s you and six other people, and you might figure out that there are two other people you had no idea about afterward,” Cody explains. “You have to be comfortable with collaboration. It’s a must at this point.”

Set the scene when you’re working with SZA. What’s her creative approach like?

Carter Lang: She takes her time to get in her zone, so it’s about being patient with each other. I can just sit there and jam on something or play beats and not feel like we’re giving any invisible pressure to each other to create. The music can really inspire [her], and she’ll just want to riff on something. It feels more like vibing out around a campfire.

How do you all work with each other and the other collaborators SZA brings into the fold?

Lang: We might be in different places, but the day after, we’ll be in communication about what has happened. We’ll send a track around, or she’ll incubate it. Having our own studios and then being able to converge ­without having to be in the same place is ­special, and that was created by our friendships and how fond we are of each other. We trust each other’s voices and what we’re going to put on the track.

Rob Bisel: It was a lot of jamming. [With] “Seek & Destroy,” that was all of us hanging out one afternoon like, “All right, we got to make something more upbeat.” It just felt like everyone was doing one thing at once, and, suddenly, a track fell into place.

Lang: That one was like butter. I stepped out of the room for a second and came back and saw all three of you guys [Cody, Bisel and Tyran “Scum” Donaldson] ripping on your parts. I was like, “OK, this is obviously a crazy moment.”

Carter Lang

Carter Lang

Nate Guenther

Are you surprised by SOS’ tremendous success?

Bisel: I knew people would love it, but I didn’t know commercially how that would be reflected. I thought it would do well, but 10 weeks [at No. 1] is insane. I’m still processing that one. There was some stat about Aretha Franklin that we beat [becoming the longest-reigning No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums by a solo woman, beating out Franklin’s 1968 set, Aretha Now] and that one was like, “Whoa.”

Why do you think “Kill Bill” resonated so much?

Lang: It had this personality to it already. You can just see a cartoon playing out in your brain. The fact that people loved it and lifted it up like that echoes the sentiment of being able to put your thoughts out there in the most authentic and even aggressive way, but over such a sweet-sounding, psychedelic-sounding beat.

Bisel: A pretty common piece of wisdom you’ll hear from producers and songwriters [is], “Make the music that you would want to listen to yourself.” And that was 1,000% the case with that song. The first night we made it, I was like, “Wow, I think we really did something special.” I vividly remember [Cody being] one of the early believers in that song.

ThankGod4Cody: I remember we were talking about how to make [the title] appropriate. (Laughs.)

Bisel: I remember thinking, “I wonder if we need to give this a more on-the-nose title, like ‘Kill My Ex’ or something.” But the more we lived with the “Kill Bill” title, I was like, “Ah, this feels cool. I think it’ll stick with people.”

It’s fascinating how cohesive the album is, given how stylistically different the tracks are. How were you able to balance them out?

Cody: Even though it is different, it’s still all of us. We all listen to everything, including her. We’ll come back and be playing new music that each other has found, and it’s the most random music you’ll probably ever hear.

Bisel: But at the end of the day, she’s writing all of these songs and they come from such a genuine place. That is the glue that binds it all together.

Rob Bisel

Rob Bisel

Nic Khang

How have you seen SZA grow while making SOS?

Lang: She’s always exceeding her own potential. When I finally saw the tour and how insane she was going with her choreography, range and stamina, and then recalling all the moments we rocked out onstage, it really hit me. The transformation was super apparent. She feels refreshed and revitalized and excited to perform her music. She sounds so amazing, always has, but she has grown into her voice so well.

Bisel: She was already a pretty phenomenal writer when I met her, but her pen got sharper and more personal. I also think she got a lot faster, and the process of writing became even more natural to her the more time she spent working on this album. She’d have songs like “I Hate U” or “Kill Bill” where she would write them in under an hour. The ideas flowed more effortlessly from her.

How have you seen yourselves grow?

Lang: I learned a different level of collaboration where I really get a kick out of watching my friends play instruments. [Before], I used to want to be a part of everything and play, play, play. Being a backboard in the most neutral way and just letting the music happen was a different part of the process.

Bisel: [Working on SOS] forced me to step up. [When it comes to] my own creative output, [I] made so much stuff. For every song that I worked on that made the album, I probably made 100. It forced me to be more resilient and knowing you got to keep stepping up to the plate no matter how many times you strike out.

Cody: I learned what producing really consists of and how it’s deeper than music. It’s [about] you setting the vibe of the whole room, setting the vibe for the day and making sure that the artist is good and comfortable and in the best space to get out whatever ideas they have.

This story originally appeared in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.

11 Oct 2023

Will Drake Fetch Another Big Week With ‘For All the Dogs’? 

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 charts dated Oct. 21), Drake seems sure to land one of the year’s biggest first weeks with his latest album For All the Dogs, but will have to do so without much in the way of physical sales. 

Drake, For All the Dogs (OVO/Republic): After seemingly countless delays and false starts, Drake’s long-anticipated For All the Dogs finally arrived at 6:00 a.m. ET on Friday morning (Oct. 6). The rapper’s eighth official solo studio album – not counting collaborative sets, compilations, mixtapes or “playlists” — came not only as the superstar rapper was winding down his It’s All a Blur tour alongside Her Loss co-lead 21 Savage, but right before he announced that Dogs would be his last work before an extended hiatus, as he tended to health issues.  

If it’s the last of Drake that fans will get for a while, Dogs is certainly plenty: 23 tracks and 84 minutes, including guest appearances from fellow stars J. Cole, Bad Bunny, SZA (again) and of course Savage, among other big-name and rising artists. The album has received mostly unflattering reviews, but has still dominated streaming services, with 12 of its tracks still in the top 25 of Spotify’s Daily Top USA chart, and all 23 tracks still in the Apple Music real-time top 25 — both currently led by the set’s “IDGAF” featuring Yeat, the leading early contender to become the set’s major breakout hit. 

The album should not have a ton of competition for the Billboard 200’s top spot next week – it’s more of a question of how big his debut atop the chart will be. It will have to come without help from a physical release: Despite other A-list stars of his level putting increasing emphasis on vinyl and CD sets to help bolster their first-week numbers, Drake continues to be digital-only, likely in large part due to his tendency to make last-minute edits to his albums. Nonetheless, lack of physical product didn’t hold Her Loss from posting over 400,000 units in its first week last year, or Certified Lover Boy from over 600,000 in 2021 – with For All the Dogs likely to fall somewhere between those two sets in its debut frame.  

IN THE MIX 

NCT 127, The 5th Album Fact Check (SM Entertainment): South Korean pop group NCT 127 has been a strong contender on the Billboard 200 with each release this decade, hitting the chart’s top five with each of their last three albums (2020’s Neo Zone, 2021’s Sticker and 2022’s Baddies). The group hopes to make it four albums in four years with their fifth LP, Fact Check. Sales of the set will be bolstered by multiple CD packages, including retailer-exclusive variants for Target and Walmart, while the group’s official webstore is also selling nine different alternative versions of the album digitally (each with a different cover and an additional unique bonus track) and three deluxe boxed sets, containing a branded piece of clothing or accessory, along with a physical copy of the album. 

(G)I-dle, Heat (88 Rising/Cube Entertainment): Elsewhere in South Korea, popular girl group (G)I-dle are also back with a new set, the Heat EP. This set is for sale in multiple collectible physical versions (all CD packages), including retailer-exclusive variants for Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Target, with some containing randomized merchandise contents (including photocards and bookmarks). The quintet hit No. 41 on the Billboard 200 earlier this year with their prior EP, I Feel. 

Junior H, $ad Boyz 4 Life II (Warner Music Latina/Rancho Humilde): Junior H has long been one of the most exciting and acclaimed young artists in Mexican music, but his status hasn’t always shown on the Billboard 200, where he’s yet to reach above No. 138. That should change next week with the release of his latest corridos tumbados collection $ad Boyz 4 Life II – his first since gaining extra crossover attention alongside superstar Peso Pluma on hits like “Lady Gaga” and “Bipolar,” both of which are still on the Hot 100 this week. None of those are on his own album, however, which does not include any collaborations – or have any physical versions for sale — but is still expected to stream very well.