rca records
There are a lot of recognizable names on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart: Green Day, Jack White and Linkin Park are all in the top 10, to name a few. But this week, one of the most successful bands in the chart’s history spends a second week at No. 1: Cage The Elephant, whose latest single “Rainbow” becomes their 12th leader on the chart, tying Linkin Park and the Foo Fighters for the third-most all time.
That’s a significant milestone for both the band and its label, RCA Records. But RCA’s success atop Alternative Airplay goes deeper, and more unconventional, this week: Myles Smith’s breakout single “Stargazing” reaches No. 2 on the chart, giving the label the top two songs there for the week. And Smith’s achievement is all the more remarkable because the song is his first charting hit in the U.S., a relative rarity for an artist making waves at alternative. And that one-two punch success helps RCA’s senior vp of pop/rock promotion Gary Gorman earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
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Here, Gorman explains the strategies that helped RCA hit those marks, the differences between veteran acts and new artists at alternative radio and how the promotions job has changed over the course of his extensive career. “The information and technology we have now vs. 15 years ago is staggering and allows us to be more strategic than ever,” Gorman says. “The bones of this job are, however, still the same. I expect that to continue, as long as music programing at radio is still editorialized.”
This week, Cage The Elephant spent its second week at No. 1 on Alternative Airplay with “Rainbow,” tied with Foo Fighters and Linkin Park for third-most all time, with 12 No. 1s. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
Cage The Elephant is a Goldilocks band for the alternative format. Their history of No. 1 songs and alternative chart success coming into the Neon Pill album cycle was undeniable. Not to mention, for my money, they are one of the most consistently ferocious live bands in the space. That being said, multiple No. 1s from any campaign are promised to no one, so a lot of the strategy here lies in the long tail of the promotional campaign and how to outline a comprehensive 24-plus-month plan. Our partners at Q Prime are an incredible asset and invaluable in all collective decisions from the timing, touring, artist participation and information sharing. One of the hardest and most discussed decisions wound up being about which single to lead with. Impacting the darker “Neon Pill” first into the lighter “Rainbow” still rings true for me.
With Myles Smith’s “Stargazing” at No. 2, RCA has both of the top two slots on the chart, with two vastly different songs. What strategy goes into making that happen?
So wildly different — it’s such an exciting moment. Cage is an established band at the format, and it had been many years since new Cage music, so the table was set and the anticipation was high. Myles, on the other hand, was a virtual unknown to alternative radio. As a result, the set up was more “door to door” as we sought early champions. A handful of alternative major-market programmers led the way, early, on the backs of a huge streaming story and we were off to the races. We couldn’t have achieved this level of success on this campaign without the early belief from those first alternative stations. Those folks have all my gratitude.
The upper tier of the Alternative Airplay chart is full of artists who have had careers stretching back 10 years or more — Cage, White, The Offspring, Linkin Park, Green Day — but Myles is a much newer artist, with “Stargazing” being his first charting hit in the U.S. How hard is it to break a new artist on alternative radio these days?
As Public Enemy once said, harder than you think. Alternative radio has always played a wide variety of new musical styles, but ultimately, it’s their gold libraries that hold everything together. One can say many of the most successful new songs at alternative have “connective tissue” sonically to a station’s music library. With the nostalgic feels coming out of the pandemic, heritage artists releasing new music have been a hot ticket item for many programmers, making shots on new artists even tougher. That being said, there certainly have been some brand-new artists with terrific runs at alternative in the last year. Myles Smith has been a triple threat with “Stargazing”: a sonic fit, incredible streaming and early power-worthy research.
On the flip side, why is the format so friendly to artists with long careers, when so much of pop radio is driven by new hits and new artists?
How much time do you have? Alternative radio today has remained true to their explosive origins, continuing to support a larger library of songs and artists dating back to the format’s inception. As a result, these stations tend to have a slightly older audience than pop, along with fewer current tracks in rotation at a given time. As mentioned, the wave of historic artists releasing new music has created quite a dilemma. Given the limited space for current music, it would seem many programmers have opted to lean into the artists they know have worked in the past. The irony, of course, is that we have seen some of the biggest researching songs of the year come from either new or unexpected artists at this format, with Myles Smith being a prime example.
How has radio promotion evolved over the course of your career?
The information and technology we have now vs. 15 years ago is staggering and allows us to be more strategic than ever. The bones of this job are, however, still the same. I expect that to continue, as long as music programing at radio is still editorialized. I learned a long time ago that the one constant in this business is change. Having a crackerjack team here at RCA across all formats, including the promo leadership from Keith Rothschild and Sam Selolwane, allows us to face new challenges and adopt new strategies while remaining focused and unrelenting in the amplification of our artists across the radio platform.
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For the second straight year, and third in the last four, the top honors in the Big Four Grammy categories were all split among different record labels, as Republic Records (Taylor Swift, album of the year for Midnights), Columbia Records (Miley Cyrus, record of the year for “Flowers”), Interscope Geffen A&M/Atlantic Records (Billie Eilish, song of the year for “What Was I Made For?”) and RCA Records (Victoria Monét, best new artist) all divvied up the major prizes.
This year, that breaks down into a split among the three major label groups, as both Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME) accounted for two each, while Warner Music Group (WMG) earned one. (The discrepancy between the four categories and five label wins is because Eilish’s win for song of the year is technically split; she is a Darkroom/Interscope recording artist for UMG, but the song appeared on the Barbie soundtrack, which was released by WMG’s Atlantic Records.) In 2023, the top four was split evenly across the three majors and an independent, with Columbia (Harry Styles, album of the year for Harry’s House), Atlantic (Lizzo, record of the year for “About Damn Time”), Verve (Samara Joy, best new artist) and indie label Redwing (Bonnie Raitt, song of the year for “Just Like That”) scoring wins.
Among the Big Four and the top seven genres by U.S. market share — pop, rock, R&B, hip-hop, Latin, country and dance — RCA and Atlantic picked up the most wins, tying for five apiece, as Monét (best new artist, best R&B album) and SZA (best pop duo/group performance, best R&B song, best progressive R&B album) led the way for RCA while Eilish (song of the year for her track on the Barbie album), Fred Again… (best dance/electronic recording with Skrillex and Flowdan, best dance/electronic music album) and Paramore (best rock album, best alternative music performance) paced Atlantic. Interscope, through Eilish and a trio of awards for acclaimed group boygenius (best rock song, best rock performance and best alternative music album) landed four, while Loma Vista/Concord, off a big night for Killer Mike (best rap album, best rap song, best rap performance), racked up three.
Aside from that, honors were largely evenly divided, with no other label picking up more than two awards. Swift led Republic’s pair of wins (she also won best pop vocal album), while Cyrus led Columbia’s two (she also earned best pop solo performance); a pair of victories for Chris Stapleton (best country song and best country solo performance) landed two wins for UMG Nashville; BMG got two for best pop dance recording for Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” and best country album for Lainey Wilson’s Bell Bottom Country; and UMG Latin earned best musica urbano album for Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonita and Juanes’ Vida Cotidiana, which came in a tie with Natalia Lafourcade’s De Todas Las Flores (Sony Latin) for best Latin rock or alternative album.
The rest were spread across a number of labels, including Def Jam (Coco Jones, best R&B performance), Warner Records (Zach Bryan, best country duo/group performance with Kacey Musgraves), Alamo (Lil Durk, best melodic rap performance with J. Cole), EMPIRE (PJ Morton, best traditional R&B performance with Susan Carol), Blackened (Metallica, best metal performance) Prajin/The Orchard (Peso Pluma, best Música Mexicana album), Cosmica (Gaby Moreno, best Latin pop album) and Ruben Blades Music (Ruben Blades, best tropical Latin album).
Overall, that gave Universal Music Group 11 of those victories, with indies racking up 10, Sony nine and Warner Music Group six.
In early 2011, Miguel was a rising R&B singer who had just released his debut album, All I Want Is You, and was seeing his single “Sure Thing” gain traction on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. The song would eventually reach No. 1 that May, while also climbing to the summit of Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and peaking at No. 36 on the Hot 100, where it spent 23 weeks between March and August, when it fell from the chart. After 59 weeks on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, it eventually fell from that chart in 2012.
And that was the extent of its chart run — until this year, when a TikTok trend led to an explosion in streams, catapulting it back onto the charts — and to entirely new territory. Earlier this month, “Sure Thing” broke the record for most weeks on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at 76 (it is now at 78), and this week it achieved a mainstream crossover, 12 years after its initial debut on the charts, by reaching No. 1 on Pop Airplay, the longest trip to the top of that chart from a song’s release in history.
It’s the latest example of older songs being reinvigorated and reaching new chart heights in recent months, following The Weeknd’s “Die For You” (after a remix featuring Ariana Grande) and Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary,” which also benefited from a TikTok trend. And it helps RCA senior vp of digital marketing Tarek Al-Hamdouni earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Al-Hamdouni explains how the track came back after such a long break, and how RCA helped spur it into a new realm. “We know activity can spring up at a moment’s notice, and when it does, the best labels are able to move quickly and turn a spark into a flame before it goes out,” Al-Hamdouni says.
This week, Miguel’s “Sure Thing” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart, 12 years after its initial chart run. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
The climb to No. 1 began in November of 2022 when we first saw the signs of organic growth and engagement on “Sure Thing” across socials and streaming services. The first major decision came in us validating the opportunity and investing in sustaining the activity across TikTok, Reels, Shorts & Snapchat. The initial goal was to “see how far we could take the trend,” knowing every jump in creations and streams was broadening our listener base and building familiarity, which would eventually result in bigger opportunities.
Miguel attends the 65th GRAMMY Awards on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.
Matt Winkelmeyer/GI for The Recording Academy
We knew the record was already a favorite among fans since its release, but the key component to this new activity is that it was coming from new listeners. This led us to make the key decision to treat “Sure Thing” as a new record in our marketing efforts, also giving us the new task of turning listeners into fans. To connect the dots, we worked closely with Miguel — who deserves all the credit in the world for leaning in with curiosity, passion and optimism around this new activity — to start to engage with fans and content across socials.
Our promotion team did a fantastic job in following along with all the activity we were generating and timed their impact such that we were already receiving pull from the markets and stations. The last key decision I’ll offer up is the move to leverage the activity around “Sure Thing” to prime the market for new music from Miguel, something that we kicked off with his new single, “Give It To Me.”
In its original run, the song was an R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay hit. Why did the song work at Pop radio this time around?
I think the beauty of an artist like Miguel is that he’s always been ahead of his time. While often thrown into the “R&B” box, his music and artistry have always pulled from diverse corners of the music spectrum. And when you look at the freedom streaming has given Gen Z to bounce from record to record and genre to genre with such ease, it’s no wonder they gravitate towards a forward-thinking artist like Miguel.
It’s also worth noting that the dynamic between data and radio has strengthened at a rapid pace over the last few years. This has given us the opportunity to build our case in advance of an impact, showing the audience potential and, in a lot of ways, letting the story and streams reach critical mass with core Gen Z music fans before taking it to the broader audiences that only radio can reach.
The song’s resurgence originated on TikTok with a sped-up version. How did that come about? How often are these sped-up versions of tracks spawning new life for songs?
The sped-up version of “Sure Thing” emerged purely as organic UGC on TikTok. It wasn’t necessarily a surprise to see the activity come from such an edit, as sped-up sounds have been a trend on TikTok and across UGC for quite some time now. That said, I do think it’s fair to say that sped-up sounds hit a bit of critical mass in early 2023 as we started to see platforms like TikTok create specific playlists centered around the phenomenon, all of which gave us more editorial placements and ways for Miguel to lean in.
The opportunities to breathe new life into a record through a sped-up sound are plentiful, but it’s important to note the viral success of a record like “Sure Thing” is still a huge outlier in terms of how much effect a campaign could have. At this point, I expect most singles to be accompanied by a sped-up version at some point in their life cycle.
This is the latest example of an older track coming back to be a force at radio and in pop culture — something that almost never used to happen. Are you guys increasingly focused on working catalog songs in a similar manner to new songs?
We don’t focus solely on the “catalog” aspect of any record at this point as much as we’re focused on using the influx of data we receive from social and streaming platforms to ensure we never miss an opportunity. We know activity can spring up at a moment’s notice, and when it does, the best labels are able to move quickly and turn a spark into a flame before it goes out.
The reliance on data is important because our core mission as marketers is to create this activity and engagement out of the gate. By collaborating with our internal data teams, we can build tools to monitor the key aspects we believe drive streaming growth while spending the majority of our time and energy collaborating with our artists and building next-level marketing campaigns.
Although to be fair, I think the rediscovery of music by the next generation of listeners is something that has happened for quite some time. Prior to shortform video, syncs played a huge role in this rediscovery, going back to examples like Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” in Volkswagen’s 2000 Cabrio commercial to the much more recent lift of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” off the back of its inclusion in season four of Stranger Things.
The song also broke the record for most weeks ever spent on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, now at 78. How did you help market the track beyond radio and TikTok?
Outside of those two platforms, we worked to ensure this record and Miguel’s content was spread far and wide across the internet. We built custom campaigns for Instagram and YouTube, we drove awareness and engagement through savvy ad spends and boost campaigns. And we worked closely with media accounts and press outlets to drive consistent presence in front of a wide range of audiences.
What have you learned from the song’s surprise success that you can use moving forward on other projects and songs?
When you zoom out far enough, you start to see that the equation we’re chasing with a resurgence is new context for a great record with a new, young and engaged audience. Additionally, the benefits of driving engagement through a catalog record doesn’t require the type of success we’re seeing on Miguel to be meaningful. Going forward, we see this as a key way to drive engagement and build demand for new music for any artist with an established catalog.
Previous Executive of the Week: Corey Calder of APG
RCA kicked off 2023 on a hot streak — this week, SZA’s album S.O.S. spent its 10th week on the Billboard 200, dominating the early part of the year (and she was also named Woman of the Year at Billboard’s Women in Music event this week as well). And this week RCA also landed a double feat atop the charts as P!nk’s latest album, Trustfall, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, with the majority of its first-week units coming from sales.
It’s the ninth top 10 album of P!nk’s career, and her first since 2019’s Hurts 2B Human, while the single “Never Gonna Not Dance Again” became the artist’s 30th Pop Airplay hit and 35th entry on the Hot 100, milestone marks for a decorated career. And the continued success of P!nk and her latest project help earn RCA Records’ senior vp/head of marketing Val Pensa the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Pensa discusses the marketing effort behind the latest P!nk album, the importance of setting up a worldwide campaign for an artist with such a global reach and fan base, and her long history of working with the artist, which stretches back years. “I learned very early on that P!nk is a fierce competitor who is willing to take risks,” Pensa says. “She is always open to evolving and growing based on the ever-changing marketplace and has a hunger to learn. I often joke that she could teach a masterclass in how to be a global superstar, but all jokes aside, she is one of the smartest, hardest-working, businesswomen out there and that shows in everything she does.”
This week, P!nk’s Trustfall debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, her ninth top 10 album on the chart. What key decision did you make to help make that happen?
P!nk is a global superstar, so one of the key elements in her campaign is always to make sure that the album is set up properly in every single market around the world to leverage the best of the best in terms of global opportunities and exposure. We have an amazing partner in Roger Davies, who manages P!nk, and puts in a great deal of work to help us make sure that all partners around the world have access to music, understand P!nk’s vision and to ensure we have the right activations in place to support the music. This is a project that every single department at RCA touches, and my job, along with that of my marketing partner in crime on this project, Aaron Stern, is to work to ensure that timelines, assets and vision are communicated to the team at large to allow everyone to deliver top-notch plans within their respective fields.
This is her first album since 2019. How did you approach the marketing campaign for this album?
We had the exciting task of creating a well-rounded campaign that incorporated traditional media, digital activations, in-person activations and a lot of fan-focused events. We really honed in on creating a campaign that would reach P!nk’s massive audience and then from there developed a marketing strategy that would engage and bring in new fans. Shortform content is a sweet spot for P!nk and we had a lot of fun getting creative in that space. Aaron and I worked with the team at large to develop ideas around the “Never Gonna Not Dance Again” music video which lead to us creating the hotline and infomercial for Vicious Bitches Chipses, which was a fun companion piece for the music video and generated additional excitement upon launch.
One of P!nk’s most notable and memorable qualities is her ability to move people through her songwriting and vocal performances. Alex John, who spearhead’s P!nk’s press here, crafted an incredible campaign that allowed P!nk to touch viewers through traditional television performances and interviews, which in addition to reaching her core audience, also served as the catalyst for additional conversation around the album.
Her single “Never Not Gonna Dance Again” also became her 30th Pop Airplay chart entry and 35th song to reach the Hot 100. How big is radio to the full campaign and rollout?
Radio has historically always been super supportive of P!nk and is a major way for us to reach her audience around the world. The RCA radio team put together an incredible radio strategy to support this campaign. We always engage with radio early on; in this case the radio programmers were among the first to get to hear the album — we hosted a playback at our RCA Studio space and P!nk got the opportunity to see the programmers in person and share her vision for the album and her influences and meaning behind her songs with them directly.
This album also debuted with 59,000 of its 74,500 units coming from sales. In a streaming-dominant business, how do you still make sure that record sales are prioritized in a campaign?
For a campaign like this we spend a lot of time thinking about who the audience is and how to reach them and give them what they want. In this case, we had every physical configuration on a global scale that was possible and put a long pre-order window into place that allowed us to really double down on marketing the album date, the creative and the configurations with all the various retail partners. The support has been incredible, which speaks to the long-standing relationships that P!nk has made across the industry throughout her career.
You’ve worked with P!nk for years. What have you learned over that period working with her that you applied to the rollout of this album?
I learned very early on that P!nk is a fierce competitor who is willing to take risks. She is always open to evolving and growing based on the ever-changing marketplace and has a hunger to learn. I often joke that she could teach a masterclass in how to be a global superstar, but all jokes aside, she is one of the smartest, hardest-working, businesswomen out there and that shows in everything she does. As it relates to our marketing approach in the rollout, we worked to present a plan where P!nk is undeniably everywhere, knowing full well that she will always bring her A game and deliver.
You’ve been head of marketing at RCA for around 18 months now. What is your marketing philosophy for the label? Are there any good examples you can point to that illustrate that?
The marketing team constantly hears me talking about “the art of the campaign.” Every song, every album, every artist deserves a fully thought-out campaign that is targeted to support both the artists’ vision and tailored to reach their audience. One of the best examples of that is Doja Cat’s Planet Her campaign that helped us to keep the album in the top 10 well over a year after album release.
Previous Executive of the Week: Lallie Jones of 300 Entertainment
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