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31 Jan 2023

Vance Joy, Keith Urban Lead Rolling Stone Australia Awards Nominations


With three nominations, Vance Joy is the leader of the pack heading into the 2023 Rolling Stone Australia Awards.

The Melbourne singer and songwriter lands nominations for best record (his third studio album, In Our Own Sweet Time, which peaked at No. 3 on the ARIA Chart), best single (“Clarity”), and the coveted Rolling Stone Global Award, details for which were announced Tuesday (Feb. 1).

Also snagging multiple nominations is ARIA Award-winning star-on-the-rise Budjerah, veteran kid’s entertainers the Wiggles, indie-rock faves Spacey Jane, rock act Gang of Youths, and country star Keith Urban.

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Urban will have his work cut out in the Global Award category. It’s a starry list, in which he’s named along with Alison Wonderland, Gang of Youths, Iggy Azalea, Kylie Minogue, Rüfüs Du Sol, Tash Sultana, The Wiggles, Tones And I, Troye Sivan and Vance Joy.

Each year, Rolling Stone Australia invites international writers, including editors from the U.S. and U.K. brands, to vote in the Rolling Stone Global Award category.

“We take great pride in the fact that, by hosting our third annual Rolling Stone Australia Awards, we get to play a part in recognizing Australian music’s growth,” comments Poppy Reid, editor-in-chief at Rolling Stone Australia publisher the Brag Media.

The Rolling Stone Australia Awards return to Sydney on April 4. Sponsors this year include headline partner Shure alongside Australis, Canna, Panhead, JMC Academy and Jim Beam.

In the weeks ahead, RS Australia will reveal hosts, performers and the nominees in the Rolling Stone Readers’ Award.

“I am immensely proud to be part of the team pushing local acts worldwide through our awards judging process, and our editorial partnership with Rolling Stone parent company PMC,” adds Reid.

Winners at last year’s ceremony include Genesis Owusu, The Kid LAROI and King Stingray, with live performances from Amy Shark and Ruby Fields.

2023 Shure Rolling Stone Australia Awards Nominees:

Best Single
Amy Shark – “Only Wanna Be With You”
Budjerah – “Ready for the Sky”
Courtney Barnett – “Rae Street”
Keith Urban – “Brown Eyes Baby”
Ruel – “Growing up is _”
Spacey Jane – “Hardlight”
The Kid LAROI – “Thousand Miles”
Vance Joy – “Clarity”

Best New Artist
Blake Rose
Budjerah
Eliza & The Delusionals
Forest Claudette
James Johnston
Lara D
Merci, Mercy
Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers

Best Record
5 Seconds of Summer – 5SOS5
Gang of Youths – angel in realtime
Julia Jacklin – Pre Pleasure
Parkway Drive – Darker Still
Spacey Jane – Here Comes Everybody
The Wiggles – ReWiggled
Thelma Plum – Meanjin
Vance Joy – In Our Own Sweet Time

Rolling Stone Global Award
Alison Wonderland
Gang Of Youths
Iggy Azalea
Keith Urban
Kylie Minogue
Rüfüs Du Sol
Tash Sultana
The Wiggles
Tones And I
Troye Sivan
Vance Joy

31 Jan 2023

Anitta Says She Will ‘For Sure, Definitely’ End Her Singing Career in the Next 6 Years

Ahead of the Grammys this weekend, best new artist nominee Anitta is back for part two of her Billboard interview, sharing more of the backstory along with her plans for the next phase of her career.

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“I really wanted this because I heard so many times that it was impossible, and I wanted to prove that it was not, someone can do this,” Anitta says of the days she spent hustling in her native Brazil to make her career happen. When she was faced with the argument that Brazilians couldn’t cross over in the States, she says she simply “could not accept it.”

She tracks her hustling days, recalling the era when she’d perform in Brazil on Friday, Saturday and Sunday then fly to the States to network during the week, before flying back to Brazil to play shows on the weekend, all while taking English lessons and doing studio sessions in English to get used to recording in the language. “It was crazy,” she says, adding that she was “so tired.”

But of course, the work paid off, with Anitta crossing over in the States, particularly upon the release of her 2022 album, Versions of Me, and its big single “Envolver.” Of this success, Anitta says fans in her home country “are super happy and very supportive of me, whenever ‘Envolver’ was starting to get really really big on the charts out of Brazil, the Brazilians, they saw it and were like, ‘If you love your nation, you’ve gotta play this song.’ … When it was No. 1 global, it was a holiday.”

Anitta also reveals that she “for sure, definitely” will end her singing career in the next five or six years, saying that she loves “change, challenges and trying news things” and is eager to develop her acting career. (She notes that she’s already been invited to appear in a number of films.)

Given her penchant for both hustle and success, money is on Anitta achieving anything she sets out to get. Watch the complete interview above, and tune in to the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS to see if Anitta wins for best new artist.

31 Jan 2023

Elton John Scoring the Highest-Grossing Tour of All Time Is Just the Latest in His Long Line of Billboard Records

Elton John has made Billboard Boxscore history. His Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour is the highest-grossing concert tour of all time.

As Eric Frankenberg reported on Monday: “According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour has grossed $817.9 million across 278 shows so far — more than any tour in Boxscore history. Bypassing Ed Sheeran’s The Divide Tour ($776.4 million), it is the first tour in Billboard’s archives to cross the $800 million benchmark.”

Frankenberg adds that Elton owns another Billboard Boxscore record. “Dating back to reports for John’s Ice on Fire Tour (1986), and including his share of co-headline runs with Eric Clapton, James Taylor, Tina Turner and, many times over, Billy Joel, John has grossed $1.863 billion and sold 19.9 million tickets over 1,573 reported shows. That’s the highest career gross and attendance for a solo artist in Boxscore history, having passed Bruce Springsteen and Madonna while on this tour.”

These are remarkable achievements, but then most Billboard readers know that Elton John has been setting Billboard records for decades. He has amassed seven No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and nine No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 (counting his contribution to Dionne & Friends’ 1986 smash “That’s What Friends Are For”). He has topped or climbed high on many other charts as well. In 1974, his funky “Bennie and the Jets” reached No. 15 on Hot Soul Singles, the forerunner of today’s Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart, a rarity for a white pop artist at that time.

Here are 10 times Elton made Billboard history:

31 Jan 2023

Why Babyface Calls His 2023 Grammy Nomination ‘An Extra Honor’ After 5 Decades of Hits

Over five decades as a hitmaking performer, writer and producer, Babyface has seemingly done it all. He’s produced six Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers (including Boyz II Men’s 14-week No. 1 “I’ll Make Love to You” and 13-week No. 1 “End of the Road”); won 11 competitive Grammy Awards and a 2021 Grammy Trustees Award; and written and produced top 40 hits in every decade from the 1980s through the 2020s.

But that doesn’t mean he’s beyond getting excited about major career achievements, like scoring his latest of dozens of Grammy nominations this year: best traditional R&B performance for “Keeps on Fallin’,” featuring Ella Mai, from his most recent album, 2021’s Girls Night Out.

Babyface

Black Music Month: Babyface Reflects on the Feel-Good Effect of ‘Soul Food’ & Its Hit Soundtrack…

“To get it at this point, to still be in the place of being nominated and not to be honored for past work you’ve done but the work that you do now, it makes it an extra honor,” Babyface tells Billboard‘s Pop Shop Podcast (listen below) for our new Grammy Preview Episode ahead of Sunday’s awards show. “It’s a privilege to be in the conversation and to be part of it. So it’s a very important nomination for me at this point.”

Girls Night Out is a collaborative album, for which Babyface teamed up with a lineup of all-female singers, including Kehlani, Ari Lennox and Muni Long. Ahead of the recording sessions, Babyface says some of the singers came in with preconceived notions about what kind of sound the producer/writer might create for them.

“A few of them definitely came in a little concerned that it was going to be an older, ’90s sound. And they weren’t sure that I would know how to go around that or be open to their ideas and open to going where they would want to go,” he recalls. “And being open to it allowed us to be able to take them places that they wouldn’t necessarily go. So that was the trusting part of it. And once you get comfortable with each other, then you just make music.”

One song created during those sessions was SZA’s “Snooze,” which the R&B superstar opted to keep for her own album, the seven-week Billboard 200-topping blockbuster SOS. When the project arrived in December, “Snooze” debuted in the Hot 100 top 40 – giving Babyface his first hit in the region this decade. “I think SZA is amazing,” Babyface says. “I think she’s very deserving of this. I feel like she’s been underappreciated, the talent that this girl has. She’s so unique and I’m amazed by her talent, to be honest, and very happy for her success. I think it’s very well-deserved.”

We also asked Babyface what his secret has been to working with a cross-generational, cross-genre collection of artists over five distinct decades, and how he manages to stay in tune with an ever-changing music landscape. He says the trick is checking your ego at the door.

“I think as a musician, I’ve always tried to not be one particular thing and be able to cross different genres,” he says. “I always kind of look at it [as], if you’re a full musician, then you should be able to do more than one thing. And what allows you to do that is to not have an ego, to the point to where you think what you do is the best thing and always the best. So it’s always great to collaborate and get into a room and learn.

“I would always listen to songs that might become big hit songs that maybe my initial reaction was like, ‘I don’t understand it,’” he adds. “I would listen to figure out, ‘OK, what is it that people love about it?’ And ultimately, once I would listen closely, then I’d figure those things out and I could appreciate it just as much. And so it’s a question of always pushing yourself to not necessarily fight things, but to really kind of listen to everything with an open ear.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Babyface talks about his upcoming tour dates with Anita Baker, kicking off next month, as well as his history of working with Madonna and whether there’s any chance he might join the Queen of Pop onstage for her Celebration Tour.

The 65th annual Grammy Awards air Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS, preceded by the Grammy Premiere Ceremony starting at 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT, streaming on the Recording Academy’s YouTube page.

The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s senior director of charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)

31 Jan 2023

Matt Pincus’ MUSIC Invests in LVRN: ’Young and Seasoned Is Really Hard to Find’

MUSIC, a holding company co-founded by SONGS Music Publishing founder Matt Pincus, has invested in LVRN (Love Renaissance), the Atlanta-based label and management company behind R&B recording artists Summer Walker, 6lack and BRS Kash.

The investment values LVRN at more than $100 million. Pincus declined to reveal the amount of the investment but disclosed to Billboard that he’s invested a total of $80 million across four deals — including Kobalt, U.K.-based ticketing company Dice and Mayk.it, an AI generative platform — in amounts ranging from $10 million to $40 million. The size of the LVRN investment is “over the midpoint of that range,” he says.

LVRN is expected to use the new capital to expand benefits and programs for its employees while continuing to expand internationally, with a focus on the U.K. and West Africa.

LVRN was founded in 2012 by Georgia State University students Carlon Ramong, Justice Baiden, Junia Abaidoo, Sean Famoso McNichol and Tunde Balogun. Its management clients include dvsn, a Toronto R&B duo signed to Drake‘s OVO Sound label. LVRN’s label is distributed through Universal Music Group’s Interscope Records. It also has a publishing partnership with Warner Chappell Music.

Pincus says he was attracted to LVRN for its combination of youth and experience. “They’re just really good,” he says of LVRN’s founding team. “Young and seasoned is really hard to find.” The co-founders, who were joined by former Capitol Music Group executive Amber Grimes as executive vp/gm in 2022, have built solid relationships throughout the industry, he adds. “They’ve done a good job at championing their artists but also getting people to champion them because they’re good people.”

Pincus’s MUSIC, a joint venture with merchant bank LionTree, with additional backing from JS Capital Management and Schusterman Family Investments, raised $200 million in May 2022.

Previously, Pincus founded SONGS Music Publishing, which was acquired by Kobalt Capital for a reported $160 million in 2017.

Balogun cited Pincus’s entrepreneurship as a crucial factor in his involvement with LVRN. “His hard-earned expertise makes him a very valuable resource for LVRN and we are so fortunate to have him play a role in our continued expansion,” he said in a statement. “This infusion of capital will empower us to continue to expand our operations globally and support local Black-founded businesses as we do so.”

31 Jan 2023

Bobby Shmurda “Rats,” Wiz Khalifa “Mercury Retrograde” & More | Daily Visuals 1.31.23

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2022 Revolt Summit

Source: Prince Williams / Getty

Bobby Shmurda knows a thing or two about keeping his lips sealed and doing his prison bid like a real one, so when the Brooklyn rapper states that he doesn’t like tattle-telling a** fools running around the streets, best believe he’s keeping it a buck.

Such is the notion for his latest visuals to “Rats” in which Bobby and his man roll up on an office filled with thick female workers to exterminate their rodent problem before getting them to twerk, bounce and turn all the way up with poison-packin’ Bobby. Leave it to Shmurda to dance around with a backpack sprayer filled with toxic poison.

Wiz Khalifa meanwhile looks to get things poppin’ himself and in his clip to “Mercury Retrograde” hops on a flight to Las Vegas where he links up with Benny The Butcher in the studio before taking to the stage and rocking a crowd of adoring fans who can’t get enough of that Khalifa Kush.

Check out the rest of today’s drops including work from Kelela, NuMoney featuring Boosie Badazz, and more.

BOBBY SHMURDA – “RATS”



WIZ KHALIFA – “MERCURY RETROGRADE”



NUMONEY FT. BOOSIE BADAZZ – “JAIL FUNDS”



QUEZZ RUTHLESS FT. BIG SCARR & BABY K – “STICKS IN THE PARTY”



KELELA – “CONTACT”



RICH BRIAN – “SUNDANCE FREESTYLE”



AKEEM ALI – “HE’S BAD”



SADA BABY – “CASADA JR”



BURNA BOY – “COMMON PERSON”



31 Jan 2023

Hip-Hop Wired Presents: CRT FRSH [Certified Fresh] Playlist 1.27.23

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Young man listening music with headphones

Source: Nando Vidal / Getty

What up, Hip-Hop Wired Nation? We’re back on our biweekly schedule with CRT FRSH AKA Certified Fresh! Part of our duty as a publication and crew is to school the masses on who is doing what musically and there’s no better way to do that beyond our CRT FRSH (Certified Fresh) bi-weekly playlist.

Disclaimer:

The CRT FRSH playlist is a labor of love. We don’t take payments nor do we do favors. We only add joints to our playlist that fit the theme and vision we’re going for and don’t seek to waste the time of the listener. Further, we don’t stick to one lane of Hip-Hop. We believe that all aspects of the music should get some light, whether it’s young lions in the trenches or those hoping for that one shot to blow up to grizzled veterans puffing out their chests with lots more to say.

One thing about doing a playlist is that it’s really tough to keep up with the glut of new music that comes out weekly and it doesn’t help that a lot of artists exist in their own ecosystems and social spaces online that discovering all the gold out there is difficult. That said, we believe in the art of (digital) crate digging because there is so much good music out there that we want to make sure we’re always highlighting.

We updated the playlist last Friday (Jan. 27) and tried our best to include other joints we missed in the last part of 2022 and early 2023. We’re pretty sure there are joints that should be here and we hope that someone reading this takes notice and puts us on to the new. Now, on with the show.

We open up this week’s playlist by honoring the life of Lola “Gangsta Boo” Mitchell, who passed away at the top of the year. The path Gangsta Boo laid for other women rappers from the south cannot be denied and her time in Three 6 Mafia solidified her place in the annals of Hip-Hop. We added GloRilla’s “FTCU” to round out the brief tribute, which features Gangsta Boo and further proves how vital Memphis is to the culture.

Keeping it in Memphis, Finesse2Tymes joins forces with Tay Keith for the track “Still With It” and Metro Boomin’s solid compilation HEROES & VILLIANS is packed with several songs we could’ve chosen for the list but we went with “Feel The Fiyaaaah” featuring A$AP Rocky and the late Takeoff.

DJ Drama is back on his Gangsta Grillz grizzly, and his tape with Icewear Vezzo, Paint The City, is another strong entry in the catalog. Joining Vezzo on “Trippin” is 2 Chainz in a scene-stealing turn. Again, we head back down to Memphis with the late Young Dolph and Key Glock joint “Thats How” from the rapper’s posthumous album, Paper Route Frank.

Back to Gangsta Grillz, French Montana’s Coke Boys 6 gets the mixtape treatment, and the track “RZA” features Black Soprano Family honcho Benny The Butcher in top form per usual.

It’s always dope to hear DJ Premier’s production and the legend lends his talents to the vocals of Seattle’s Macklemore on his track HEROES from his forthcoming album, Ben. And for those listeners of a certain age, the news that De La Soul’s catalog is coming to streaming services was huge. The veteran trio’s “The Magic Number” is the first of many tracks to come and we can’t wait.

Salute to the likes of Privaledge, Armani White, Denzel Curry, Cordae, Anderson .Paak, Russ, Styles P, Rasheed Chappell, 38 Spesh, Ty Farris, Mickey Diamond, YUDU featuring Godsilla, Eto, Oddisee, Poe Mack, Van Gunz, Mourning Run, Radio B, Ray Vaughn and more.

Check out the playlist below.

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Photo: Getty

31 Jan 2023

An Indie Artist Just Snagged an Opening Slot on Lewis Capaldi’s Tour with a Drunk DM

Need some proof that it’s time to just shoot your shot? Indie artist Rachel Chinouriri drunkenly decided to slide into Lewis Capaldi‘s DMs recently, and it landed her a spot on his tour.

The U.K. singer-songwriter shared the video along with the news on social media last week in a frankly hilarious Twitter thread. According to Chinouriri, she managed to get up the (liquid) courage after the “Forget Me” crooner shared her song “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Trying)” on Instagram and gave her a follow.

“Few month pass, I’m drunk out of my mind in a cab, I’m on Instagram and I see Lewis’ posts about tour and drunk me begins thinking… ‘what the harm in asking,’ the singer tweeted, adding. “My friends are like YASSS.”

From there, she posted the video, in which she pleads her enthusiastic, glorious case as follows with minimal slurring and only a couple extreme close-ups: “Lewis. I will absolutely f—ing regret this video in the morning, but I’m drunk out of my mind. Word on the street is that on your tour, you need someone to open. So I’m not saying, like, force it to be me, like, I’m literally not saying that. But I’m just like, if you have no one, I can sing songs on stage. I’ll be really good, I’m really nice, I’m really friendly. If you have, like, no one to open for your gig, I will happily [accidentally hits self] ow, I will happily contribute myself. What’s the thing? I will happily volunteer as tribute. [gives a thumbs up] Literally, if you have no one I swear I’ll be really, really good at the job, like, I believe in myself. Umm, yeah. So please don’t ever judge me for this video

Regret set in almost instantly the next day when she woke up hungover to the realization that Capaldi had watched her DM and left her on “Seen.”

Well, a few months after muting Capaldi’s Stories out of pure humiliation, Chinouriri got a call from her management that she’s in contention to open for the tour in question. (Mortified, she kept mum about the video at the time.)

“Fast forward: my mgmt tell me I got the slot, then my manager calls me. I tell him what I did. He laughs & found it pretty funny actually. I realised I’m an over thinker and now I’m going on an Arena Tour with @LewisCapaldi and I am so happy,” she wrote before concluding, “Moral of the story: drink less.”

In a follow-up tweet, Chinouriri said she didn’t know if the drunk video actually tipped her hand, but plans on asking Capaldi about it when she sees joins him on tour in February.

Experience Chinouriri’s entire story in all its glory below.

31 Jan 2023

Spotify Shares Up 12% After Q4 Earnings Release

Spotify’s share price rose 12.7% to $112.71 on Tuesday (Jan. 31) following the company’s earnings release for 2022’s fourth quarter earlier in the day.

Now with a market capitalization of $21.8 billion, Spotify has more than overcome the investor exodus following its underwhelming third-quarter earnings results. After delivering a weaker-than-expected gross margin on Oct. 25, Spotify’s share price fell 13% to $84.42 and bottomed out at $69.29 on Nov. 4. Tuesday’s closing price marked a 62.7% improvement in fewer than three months.

Investors want Spotify to continue adding subscribers while improving its margins. Tuesday’s earnings results delivered on both fronts. Its fourth-quarter subscriber growth of 10 million handily beat guidance of 7 million, giving the company 205 million subscribers globally. The company’s monthly active user base of 489 million was 10 million ahead of guidance.

In the fourth quarter, Spotify’s gross margin of 25.3% was 80 basis points — eight-tenths of a percentage point — above guidance “due primarily to lower podcast spend along with broad-based favorability in our core music business,” said CFO Paul Vogel during Tuesday’s earnings call.

Spotify’s licensing deals with record labels and publishers give it little room for improvement on recorded music margins, which were 28% in 2021. Podcasting, however, gives Spotify an opportunity to attract advertising dollars with meaningfully better margins. During a June 2022 presentation to investors, Spotify executives said they expect podcast margins to reach 30-35% within three to five years and 40-50% further in the future.

Just last week, investors were shown a new commitment to cost-cutting when Spotify announced on Jan. 23 that it would lay off 6% of its global headcount. Among the departures — though technically not part of the layoffs — was chief content officer Dawn Ostroff, the engineer of the company’s strategy to build its podcast business by attracting marquee names such as Joe Rogan, Kim Kardashian and Barack and Michelle Obama. Her exit could signal an end to an era of expensive content deals that helped make Spotify the most popular podcast platform in many markets.

For the first quarter of 2023, Spotify forecasts 3.1 billion euros ($3.37 billion) of total revenue and gross margins of roughly 25% excluding severance charges, and an operating loss of 194 million euros ($211 million), including 35 million euros to 45 million euros ($38 million to $49 million) in severance charges.

“Gross margins and operating expenses are expected to improve throughout the year,” said Vogel, adding that first-quarter margins will be the low point for 2023 because “some of the investments we made in the back half of [2022] is still slightly impacting Q1.” In addition, with the recent 6% reduction in headcount, “we see our operating expenses growing slower with a material improvement in our operating loss compared with 2022,” he added.