Year in Music
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Elton John’s Farewell stadium run was one of the biggest touring stories of the year, selling 2.07 million tickets and grossing $334.4 million, according to Billboard Boxscore. But even he felt the pain of being on the road in 2022. The singer, 75, postponed two shows early on when he caught COVID-19. John and his entourage of security and hairdressers had to travel in one bubble while his longtime band was in a separate one. And gas prices were astronomical.
“It’s emotionally and spiritually healthy for people to get back out and see shows again,” says David Furnish, John’s husband and manager, calling from the family’s Los Angeles home ahead of the tour’s Nov. 20 finale at the city’s Dodger Stadium. “We just eat the extra cost. You just have to acknowledge that’s the world we’re living in now and press on.”
In 2022, the biggest stars once again performed to packed venues. Bad Bunny’s aptly named World’s Hottest Tour finished in stadiums, selling 1.8 million tickets and earning $375.5 million, the highest-grossing Latin tour ever. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lady Gaga, Garth Brooks, Mötley Crüe/Def Leppard and The Weeknd played stadiums. Harry Styles sold out 15 straight nights at Madison Square Garden. Live Nation reported huge revenue all year, including $6.2 billion in the third quarter. “2022 has been an incredible year of returning to live events,” CEO Michael Rapino said in a November letter to investors.
Yet high costs, supply chain issues and canceled concerts due to COVID-19 and mental health concerns posited a bleak side to this triumphant touring return after a lost 2020 and wobbly 2021. When canceling a tour in September, Santigold posted about the challenges of being on the road: “We were met with the height of inflation — gas, tour buses, hotels and flight costs skyrocketed.” In November, Lorde, who had sold out shows in New York, Los Angeles, London and elsewhere, wrote a newsletter to fans detailing “truly mind-boggling” freight costs, crew shortages, overbooked trucks and other factors that created an “almost unprecedented level of difficulty.”
“The hardest thing for touring this year, which may be a one-time occurrence, is you’ve got three summers of touring in one,” says Lorde’s manager Jonathan Daniel. “The amount of choices for people is insane. You can’t cry for artists who are wildly successful — they just have to spend more for freight — but for the middle class, it’s really hard.”
yim-touring-billboard-2022-bb16-illustration-by-andrei-cojocaru-pro-1260The biggest stars largely skated over the problems. In touring with the “largest production he has ever taken on the road,” as Furnish calls it, John’s team created an elaborate COVID-19 protocol to protect the singer, his band and the crew, providing regular testing and updated vaccines and boosters. “It’s important we deliver the same quality show and entertainment for everybody,” Furnish says. “It didn’t even occur to us to reconfigure it in any way to try to make it cheaper.”
Country star Luke Combs, who sold out multiple stadiums in 2022, was determined to tour the same way as he had before the pandemic — including ticket prices. He employed his regular band and crew throughout 2020, then capped ticket prices at $100, employing Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan service to cut down on resales. (Some upcoming tickets, however, cost as much as $2,800 on secondary-market sites.) “You take the hit,” says Chris Kappy, Combs’ manager. “We locked everything in at pre-pandemic pricing and post-pandemic expenses.”
According to Fielding Logan, the Q Prime manager who represents Eric Church and other top country acts, bus prices are 30% to 80% higher than they were before the pandemic. But like Combs, Church maintained low ticket prices, putting many seats on sale for $40. “Eric eats the additional expenses and has the lower profit margin,” Logan says. Not every artist has the means to absorb the additional costs, though: Another of Logan’s clients, singer-songwriter Paul Cauthen, was hoping to graduate from a van to a tour bus, but high costs have complicated those plans. “Could this inflation temporarily put a bus out of his reach? Yes, it could,” he says.
Some agents and managers have predicted 2023 will bring back a more manageable, pre-pandemic-style touring roster now that artists are neither rushing to make up for lost revenue nor rescheduling canceled shows from the past two or three years. But in July, demand was so high for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s 2023 tour that resale seats on Ticketmaster cost over $5,000. And when Taylor Swift’s stadium tour went on sale in November, fans flooded the ticket-selling site to the point that it shut down. Meanwhile, Ed Sheeran and George Strait are among other stars playing stadiums next year. “2024 is probably where it really goes back — because everybody will have toured,” says Daniel, who also manages Green Day, Sia and Fall Out Boy. “Just having not everybody out at once is going to help.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
After being unable to tour behind his 2020 debut album, experimental alt artist Jean Dawson embarked on his first headlining tour this year with second full-length, Chaos Now, which hit No. 35 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart. Below, he reflects on the experience.
Being that I had no expectations, everything I received was hyper-special. The tour was completely sold out, which was wild, and the audiences were right there with me. I feel like I made thousands of friends in the span of a month. Nothing was expected, so everything was gifted.
The first Los Angeles show [at The Roxy in November] blew — there were so many suits in the building standing in VIP, just staring and analyzing, seeing how they could commodify the energy in the front, where the audience was at full throttle. I hated it. That show stood out because I could clearly see the disparity between love and greed. The true VIP was the pit where people were feeling the push and pull of what we do together. The area where the “important people” stood was a daycare center for those who feel above the true sentiment of what we did that night. The next night in Los Angeles was amazing, though.
When I did meet-and-greets, which was about every night, I got to see how many people felt a kinship with something that just lived in my head until it didn’t. It’s like getting 20,000 hugs all at once. I think I’ll spend my whole life trying to understand it and, moreover, appreciate that feeling. It was love. For the first time in my life, I felt like no one was judging me. The only challenges that felt like hurdles were not getting sick over and over, which ended up happening.
I’m trying to practice having no goals — sounds counterproductive, but I just want to be. Take everything with grace, gratitude and f–king heart. The shows will [continue to] be legendary because it isn’t about me — it’s about them.
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 10, 2022 issue of Billboard.
Given how hard nightlife was hit during the pandemic, with many clubs closing permanently, industry insiders are pleasantly surprised with its 2022 comeback. JoJo Walker, director of programming at New York’s Avant Gardner and Brooklyn Mirage, attests that the industry is generally doing “amazingly well,” even though “it’s more challenging now than ever before.”
As clubs reopened amid the lingering pandemic in mid-2021, venues scrambled to get DJs back behind the decks to play for fans eager to return to dancefloors. “2021 was a free-for-all because everybody wanted to party,” says Walker. “People were willing to pay high ticket prices, and the wheel was being fed from all angles.” This competitive market boosted DJ fees, which in many cases increased up to 20% for club and festival sets. But now, fees remain lodged at these higher rates even as demand has declined, creating headaches for dance promoters who are also navigating inflation’s effects on nightlife.
“It’s not just that artists are being greedy,” says Walker, “but for them to do what they need to in terms of traveling and making a living, they need to have their costs covered: flights, hotels, cars. Those costs are being passed on to the promoter, and now there’s not a wealthy part of the wheel that can be taken from.” Walker adds that many DJs are touring less after enjoying the pandemic’s slowed pace, prompting agents to negotiate higher paychecks for the shows these artists do play.
Promoters have had to get creative in order to turn a profit. Walker is currently structuring artist deals that involve a lower flat rate and a per-ticket bonus, which incentivizes DJs to promote their shows, as their final rates are relative to those shows’ success. Given that she books for multiple venues, along with the annual 100,000-person electronic festival Electric Zoo (owned by Avant Gardner), Walker also has the dexterity to offer multishow contracts, creating an advantage over promoters booking a single room.
Brig Dauber, entertainment director at long-standing Los Angeles club Avalon, says the venue has “kept on step” with new fee expectations while working harder to determine which artists are most viable in the current market. This year, Avalon has skewed toward theme-based nights centered on certain genres and musical eras to “diversify the patronage and avoid the risk of not actualizing profit versus artist fee.”
But whether booking a tiny space or an 8,000-capacity club like Brooklyn Mirage, the surge in venue overhead is resulting in consumers having to deal with higher ticket prices to cover costs. Walker says fans “can’t necessarily afford to go out in the same way they used to, so they’re much more selective about the shows they do attend.” This scrupulousness has created a major increase in week-of and day-of ticket sales, which in turn fosters even less certainty among promoters.
And yet, Walker remains confident things are heading in the right direction. “I feel like among everyone working in the industry there’s a lot of optimism that this will balance out. It’s just going to take some time.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
When the 2023 Grammy Award nominations were announced in mid-November, the Big Four categories included a slew of household names: Beyoncé, Adele, Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny, Doja Cat, Lizzo. None of them were surprises. The Grammy noms were star-studded to reflect the past year in popular music: Following a pandemic-stricken period in which pop’s upper tier mostly held off on releasing new projects, 2022 was dominated by the A-listers, many of whom made good on the commercial promise of their returns and added new hits to their impressive résumés.
“We’ve had almost every global superstar release music within a 12- to 18-month span,” says Joe Hadley, Spotify global head of artist partnerships and audience. Some of that overabundance of big names can surely be chalked up to coincidence: Artists like Adele, Beyoncé and Lamar had been dormant as recording artists for over five years before finally having new albums ready within an eight-month span, for instance. Yet their respective returns were combined with prolific artists like Swift, Drake, Doja Cat and Jack Harlow releasing new material this year after an active 2021; bankable names like Styles, Bad Bunny, BTS, Lady Gaga and The Weeknd headlining a crowded touring field; and reliable hit-makers like Lizzo, Post Malone, Sam Smith and Nicki Minaj collecting more top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits, making 2022 feel like a nonstop star parade.
“Anytime we have superstars putting out music, it’s good for the fans, for radio, for streaming,” says Mark Medina, program director for WHTZ (Z100) New York. (Indeed, recorded-music revenue in the United States grew 9% in the first half of 2022 compared with the same period in 2021, according to the RIAA.) Most of the major projects were spaced out across the calendar year, from Adele’s 30 last November to Styles’ Harry’s House in May to Swift’s Midnights in October, which gave each artist ample room to dominate listener attention and the cultural conversation. Even when their hits competed on the Billboard charts, streaming playlists and radio, as Medina says, “The more the merrier. You could never have too much good music from megastars, and we’ll always find a way to make that work.”
Part of the reason why pop music was so top-heavy this year is simple: The biggest artists delivered hits that matched their statures. Adele is no stranger to the peak of the Hot 100, but by spending 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1, “Easy on Me” matched the longest chart reign of her career. Later, Beyoncé scored her first solo Hot 100 chart-topper in 14 years when “Break My Soul” powered to No. 1 upon the July release of Renaissance. And after folk-leaning singles like “Cardigan” and “Willow” summited the Hot 100 in 2020, Swift returned with the ultra-catchy “Anti-Hero,” which has spent its first six weeks at No. 1 and, Medina says, has “big, big mass appeal” at pop radio.
Meanwhile, Styles and Bad Bunny scored the biggest years of their respective careers thanks to chart-topping albums, multiple top 10 hits and mega-selling tours. For Styles, whose 2019 album, Fine Line, unlocked his potential at pop radio, “As It Was” spending a whopping 15 weeks at No. 1 — the longest leader by a solo artist in Hot 100 history — demonstrated just how inescapable the former One Direction member has become on his own. “With Harry, it all rolled out together: He had this career growth from album to album, a great pop record, streaming and research [numbers], celebrity,” says Medina. “Everything was there.”
And just as Styles’ studio output fueled 15-night residencies at venues like New York’s Madison Square Garden and Inglewood, Calif.’s Kia Forum, Bad Bunny’s massive Un Verano Sin Ti album — which has spent 12 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this year, the most of any project — helped the Puerto Rican star graduate from arenas to stadiums. He finished 2022 as the year’s top touring act, crushing his own record for highest-grossing Latin tour in Billboard Boxscore history as his World’s Hottest Tour grossed $373.5 million from 1.8 million tickets across 65 shows. “Bad Bunny absolutely leveled up on the road in a way that was pretty unique,” says Jesse Lawrence, founder and president of TicketIQ.
The end of 2022 doesn’t necessarily mean that pop’s biggest superstars are about to go into hibernation, though: With stadium tours from Swift, Bruce Springsteen, P!nk and Ed Sheeran on the books for next year, Lawrence believes that 2023 will be more significant for top-level tours than 2022 has been. “This time last year, there was still uncertainty about the pandemic dragging on into 2022, and there was too much risk for some of the megatours, which we’ll see in 2023,” says Lawrence. Plus, there’s one superstar whom Medina is “most interested in watching, as a fan and as a programmer,” for a potentially massive 2023: Rihanna, who will headline the Super Bowl halftime show in February and hopefully follow up the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever No. 2 single “Lift Me Up” with more new music.
Even if 2023 isn’t quite as jam-packed with new releases from A-listers, Hadley believes that some of the budding stars who broke through in 2022, including Steve Lacy and Zach Bryan — both of whom also recently scored Grammy noms — are poised to join that upper-class conversation. “I’m [always] thinking about superstar releases,” he says, “but I also think it’s a really exciting time for the next generation of superstars.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
Drake reigns as Billboard‘s Top Dance/Electronic Artist for the first time in 2022, thanks to the success of his underground house-focused album Honestly, Nevermind. The set also finishes as the year’s Top Dance/Electronic Album.
With just the singular performance of Honestly, Nevermind, Drake edges out Lady Gaga as the Top Dance/Electronic Albums Artist, who closes the year at No. 2 off the strength of her five charting albums during the chart year. Gaga is also No. 2 on the overall Top Dance/Electronic Artists list, after ending 2020 and 2021 at No. 1.
Explore All of Billboard’s 2022 Year-End Charts
Honestly debuted at No. 1 on the July 2-dated weekly edition of the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, amassing 19 weeks at No. 1 in the chart year. Drake sat at the summit every week since except one, when Madonna bowed at No. 1 with her career-spanning remix collection Finally Enough Love on September 3. Drake’s 19 weeks at the top were second only to Lady Gaga’s 25 with The Fame: no other album totaled more than one frame at No. 1 in the 2022 chart year.
Drake also completes 2022 at No. 3 on the multi-metric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Artists chart, with 10 Honestly tracks, the most of all acts, finishing the year in the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs top 50, led by “Massive” at No. 11. “Falling Back,” which became Drake’s first Hot Dance/Electronic Songs No. 1 (July 2), comes in at No. 15 on the year-end list. The album spawned six additional top 10s (eight in total) during the year, with year-end finishes as follows: “Texts Go Green” (No. 17), “A Keeper” (No. 18), “Calling My Name” (No. 19), “Currents” (No. 22), “Flight’s Booked” (No. 23) and “Overdrive” (No. 40).
Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts dated Nov. 20, 2021 through Nov. 12, 2022. The rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology details, and the November-November time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.
Speaking of the year-end Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, Elton John and Dua Lipa hold the No. 1 spot with “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix).” The inventive pop/dance remixed track, which references John classics “Rocket Man” and “Sacrifice,” spent 32 weeks at No. 1 on the weekly chart during the year, almost three times as many as any other song (Beyonce’s Grammy-nominated “Break My Soul” was next, with 11 weeks at No. 1; more on her below).
“Heart” first hit No. 1 on October 23, 2021, compiling four frames at No. 1 prior to the chart year; its 36 total weeks at No. 1 are second only to the 69 chart-topping weeks achieved in 2018-20 by Marshmello and Bastille’s “Happier” since the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart’s January 2013 inception.
Elton John also ends the year as the No. 1 Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Artist. He was the only artist to register more than one leader on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart in 2022, as in September he teamed with Britney Spears to follow “Heart” with “Hold Me Closer,” which also referenced John’s hits, including “Tiny Dancer,” “The One” and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” John is also the only act with more than one song in the year-end Hot Dance/Electronic Songs top 10, with “Closer” coming in at No. 9.
“Heart” also ends 2022 at No. 1 on the Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs and Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales charts, earning 32 weeks apiece at No. 1 during the year on both lists; the longest span of any song. Plus, John completes 2022 at No. 1 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales Artists chart, while Drake takes No. 1 honors on Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs Artists.
Circling back to Beyoncé, she finishes 2022 as the No. 2 Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Artist, with her Renaissance album leading to her first four Hot Dance/Electronic Songs top 10s, including the aforementioned “Break My Soul,” “Summer Renaissance,” “Pure/Honey” and “Thique.” “Break,” with its interpolation of Robin S.’s “Show Me Love,” ends at No. 2 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs year-end list, as it earned top 10 finishes on Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales (No. 2), Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs (No. 4) and Dance/Mix Show Airplay (No. 8).
David Guetta, who was the No. 1 Top Dance/Electronic Artist of 2015, had another banner year in 2022, this time finishing at No. 6 on the list. Guetta earned 16 chart entries on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in 2022, the most of all acts (his 72 charted titles in the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart’s history leads all acts too). His collaboration with Bebe Rexha, “I’m Good (Blue),” became Guetta’s second career leader in October, spending seven weeks at No. 1 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs (a total which continues to increase at press time); besides “Heart” and “Break,” “Good” was the only song to spend multiple frames at No. 1 in 2022.
The Grammy-nominated “Good,” based upon an interpolation of Eiffel 65’s 2000 Eurodance smash “Blue (Da Ba Dee),” grabs the No. 6 spot on the year-end Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart. It was also No. 4 for 2022 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales list, with Guetta also garnering a No. 4 finish on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales Artists chart.
Shifting gears, Acraze is the No. 1 Top Dance/Electronic New Artist, with his breakthrough hit, “Do It To It,” featuring Cherish, securing top 10 finishes on both the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs (No. 6) and Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales (No. 7) tallies. “Do It” did it at No. 3 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs for 12 weeks, from December-March, and the track even crossed to the Billboard Hot 100, darting as high as No. 65 in January.
Kordhell comes in second on the Top Dance/Electronic New Artist list, as his viral hit “Murder In My Mind” made it to No. 7 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in October. Another viral act, Dxrk, ranked third on the Top Dance/Electronic New Artist tally, with his “Rave” reaching No. 9 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in May.
Sickick was fourth on the Top Dance/Electronic New Artist list, thanks to two viral tracks: “I Can Feel It” (which mashes up Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” and Michael Jackson’s “Remember The Time”) and “Frozen,” Madonna’s 1998 Ray of Light electronic ballad which began as a remix and became a collaboration with Madonna, Fireboy DML and 070 Shake.
Meanwhile, Doja Cat clawed her way to No. 1 on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay Artist listing, with six titles hitting the chart during the year (only second to Guetta’s seven), including top 10s “Get Into It (Yuh)” and “Vegas.” Consistency and longevity was Doja’s strategy, as all six of her songs peaked between Nos. 10 and 12, with three logging 20 weeks or more on the chart.
Harry Styles shined bright as the No. 2 Dance/Mix Show Airplay Artist, with his “As It Was” ending as the No. 1 Dance/Mix Show Airplay Song. Next on that year-end list, at No. 2, is Kx5’s first offering, “Escape,” featuring Hayla. “Escape” spent eight weeks at No. 1 from April-June; only “Cold Heart” reigned for longer. Kx5, the team of Deadmau5 and Kaskade (new as an entity in 2022), also finishes at No. 5 on the Top Dance/Electronic New Artist list.
When Bad Bunny appeared at No. 24 on 2021’s year-end Streaming Songs Artists chart, he found himself in a fairly elite group of acts who primarily record within Latin genres and in the Spanish language to make the annual list. What was more: he did so by virtue of multiple entries on the weekly Streaming Songs ranking. His predecessors, Luis Fonsi (No. 19, 2017) and Daddy Yankee (No. 25, 2017), made that year’s rundown solely on the strength of the Justin Bieber-featuring global phenomenon “Despacito,” also that year’s top-streamed song. Conversely, Bad Bunny’s 2021 included a slew of entries, including a pair of No. 2-peaking songs on the weekly survey (“Dakiti,” alongside Jhay Cortez, in November 2020 and “Yonaguni” in June 2021).
But the artist born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio leveled up in 2022 with May’s Un Verano Sin Ti. The streaming juggernaut of an album – by way of the streaming popularity of its songs –lands him at No. 1 on 2022’s Streaming Songs Artists chart.
In doing so, Bad Bunny becomes the first artist who records primarily in a language other than English to rule the year-end ranking, besting the likes of Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Morgan Wallen and Drake at Nos. 2-5, respectively. (The annual year-end Streaming Songs Artist recap began in 2013.)
Explore All of Billboard’s 2022 Year-End Charts
2022 saw Bad Bunny land his first weekly Streaming Songs No. 1, the two-week ruler “Me Porto Bonito” with Chencho Corleone. Exemplifying the long-tail virality of Un Verano, the song didn’t even hit No. 1 until its 10th week on the ranking and was still in the top five well into October.
Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts dated Nov. 20, 2021 through Nov. 12, 2022. The rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology details, and the November-November time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.
Six songs from the album debuted within the top 10 upon release week (May 21, 2022), too, with “Titi Me Pregunto” (No. 4) remaining in the top five or 10 through October, too.
In 2021, two Bad Bunny songs – “Dakiti” (No. 13) and “Yonaguni” (No. 62) – appeared on the year-end Streaming Songs ranking. 2022 finds him with eight, including his first top 10s: “Bonito” (No. 5) and “Pregunto” (No. 6).
The year, however, wasn’t all about Bad Bunny on streaming services – no matter what it may have felt like at times. After falling off Streaming Songs Artists entirely in 2021, Taylor Swift roars back with a vengeance at No. 2, her first time in the top 10 since she was No. 4 in 2015 and her highest year-end rank since it began being tabulated.
Chalk that one up to two different albums in the tracking period – one with fully new material, the other rerecorded. Her Red (Taylor’s Version), released in November 2021, boasted a weekly No. 1 in “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” and a collection of top 10s, while the release of November 2022’s Midnights marked the second time ever that an act occupied the entire top 10 of Streaming Songs in a single week, paced by “Anti-Hero.”
The sheer volume of Swift material to make the chart throughout 2022 is so staggering, in fact, that on the year-end song ranking, she appears just once – at No. 66 – with “All Too Well.”
An artist like Glass Animals took a separate approach. “Heat Waves” ranks as the No. 1 entry on the year-end Streaming Songs tally, while the band appears at No. 10 on the artists ranking, all by virtue of just one charting song on the weekly survey.
Originally released in 2020, “Heat Waves” first made the weekly Streaming Songs in April 2021 and had broken into the top 10 by the end of the 2021 chart year. The song never actually rose higher than No. 3, but it spent the entirety of the weeks Jan. 29-May 7, 2022 anywhere between Nos. 3 and 8, and largely in the top 20 after that. Basically, the song – which now holds the record for the most weeks spent on the Billboard Hot 100 in its history (91) – refused to go away, and even when it felt like it wasn’t everywhere anymore, it was still in the periphery.
“Heat Waves” becomes the second song in a row to reign over the year-end Streaming Songs chart despite having not been released in that chart year, following Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” which ruled in 2021 after premiering in March 2020. The similarities don’t stop there, either – guess where “Levitating” peaked on the weekly Streaming Songs? That’s right, No. 3. Steady wins the game.
Harry Styles appears at No. 3 on the year-end Streaming Songs Artists survey after never ranking higher than No. 15 (2020). His 2022 finish was buoyed by two-week No. 1 “As It Was,” the year’s overall No. 2 (and, due to “Heat Waves,” the highest-ranking song actually released in 2022).
He’s followed by Morgan Wallen, who backs up being No. 11 in 2021 by rising to No. 4 on the Streaming Songs Artists roundup. All that despite not releasing an album in the tracking year; many of the country star’s streams came from 2021’s Dangerous: The Double Album, plus a trio of newly released singles and a featured role on Lil Durk’s “Broadway Girls.”
Wallen is the first act releasing music primarily in the country genre to appear in the ranking’s year-end top 10, let alone top five. And he paces a slew of artists from the genre who make the 25-position list; he’s followed by newcomer Bailey Zimmerman (No. 16), veteran Chris Stapleton (No. 22) and newer-guard acts Walker Hayes, Zach Bryan and Luke Combs at Nos. 23-25, respectively. Last year? It was just Wallen and Combs.
2022 also marks the return of Disney film franchises to the year-end chart, particularly its top 10. Encanto’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” a 13-week No. 1 at the start of the year, ends up at No. 7 on the Streaming Songs tally, following in the footsteps of Idina Menzel’s “Let It Go” from 2013’s Frozen, the No. 5 on the year-end 2014 list.
It’s ostensibly a big morning for Greg Kurstin. As we speak in the sunlit lounge of his Hollywood recording studio, the Grammy nominations are being announced — and as is often the case, the veteran producer’s name is connected with a few very big artists expected to make significant showings.
But if Kurstin is at all nervous, he doesn’t show it. Whether out of politeness or commitment to his “maybe boring” daily routine — drop his two kids at school, come back to the studio, make hits, get home in time for dinner — Kurstin, 53, neither tunes in to the broadcast nor checks his phone as the nominees are announced.
Instead, Kurstin has the same focus as always: the music that got him here. A lifelong pianist, he amalgamates his considerable abilities on a range of instruments, his love of jazz and his history as both a session musician and band member (Geggy Tah, The Bird and the Bee) into an improvisational accompanist’s approach to pop music. The artists who’ve called on him as producer — a wide range including Paul McCartney, Sia, Beck, Halsey, Foo Fighters and Maren Morris — look to Kurstin not for a distinct, signature sound, but for his ability to bring out the best within them.
The most famous of those collaborators, of course, is Adele. Since her 2015 album, 25, and its smash “Hello,” she and Kurstin have had a prolific creative relationship — one that continued in 2022 with 30. He co-wrote, produced or co-produced six of the 12 tracks on the album, which spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. One of those was lead single “Easy on Me,” which tied “Hello” for Adele’s longest No. 1 run on the Billboard Hot 100 (10 weeks) and led Radio Songs for 15 weeks — her personal best and the sixth-longest in the chart’s history.
All of that went a long way toward making Kurstin Billboard’s top Hot 100 producer of 2022. And by the end of our conversation, the nine-time Grammy winner (including two for producer of the year, non-classical) will rack up another five nominations: best pop vocal album; song, record and album of the year (all for 30); and best country album (for Morris’ Humble Quest, which he produced). But here in the studio — emitting cool dad vibes in jeans and a T-shirt — he’s immersed in the 9-to-5 that produces that award-worthy work, insulated from much of the buzz it has generated.
“Sometimes I’ll do a song with an artist,” Kurstin says, “and I’ll be like, ‘I wonder if that song did well?’ And then you go see their show and it’s like, ‘Oh, these people know the song!’ ”
It seems like you have the luxury of choice, in terms of artists you agree to work with. Besides your track record of hits, what do you think they’re looking for from you?
I’d like to think that they’re coming to me because I want to support their vision and learn where they’re going musically and try to achieve that somehow, to bring out the best song they could possibly need at this point in their career. Everyone is different. A lot of people I work with are people I’ve worked with before, over and over, and so there’s a lot of history there, too.
You’ve said that artists come to you for the support you provide during the process, rather than for a particular sound.
I don’t think I necessarily have a sound or a particular style that’s recognizable. People have said to me, “I could tell you did that song,” and I’m like, “Really?” I just bring it all back to when I was just a side musician accompanist working with a singer. I would try to support what they’re doing and not be a distraction, but to bring out the best emotion by finding the right chords and the right arrangements. I translated that to production, in a way.
Adele’s songs in particular are so intensely personal. To what extent are you helping her unpack that emotion?
I’m definitely there to navigate that emotional terrain. I have to find the right sequence of chords or the beginning of a song that ignites something in her and whatever lyric she’s wanting to write that day. So, I will search. Sometimes it takes a long time; sometimes it happens immediately; sometimes it’s at the very end of the day. Usually, I’ll just improvise, trying to imagine where she wants to go.
Are there conversations happening as you work?
We don’t really discuss it… I get on the piano and then I’ll get a sense of, “Oh, she likes this little bit I’m playing right now,” so I’ll stay there. Sometimes I do that for an hour or two while she’s formulating lyrics, and I just know I don’t want to move; I don’t want to change anything, because if she’s writing, I feel like it’s going well. So I’ll stay where I am. It’s like a meditation. Also, it’s amazing how much she remembers — just a little seed we started like, a year ago, she’ll say, “What about that little thing we did?”
Is the pressure around a new Adele album something you have to try to tune out?
Yeah. I mean, it’s so hard for me to tune it out. It definitely stresses me out, in a very positive way. There’s excitement, but there’s also just the feeling of like, “I don’t want to be responsible for something not performing.” That’s just me. I probably would take it personally, which I shouldn’t, but a lot of us artists have issues where our self-worth is wrapped up in our performance. But I try to stay grounded and healthy and just know it’s out of my control… Grammy time brings up a lot of those feelings again, because the attention on the album starts coming back.
Despite your accomplishments, you keep a low profile. What’s your day-to-day life like?
My days are pretty normal. I mean, aside from that I work with these extraordinary artists. I take the kids to school, then go to the studio. I just focus on the thing I’m working on, try to do a good job with that, then try to get home by dinnertime. That’s pretty much my life, which is kind of unusual in my line of work. A lot of producers work on the opposite time frame. When I’m going to bed, they’re starting.
For me to be healthy, I have to have a schedule, a structure. The way my mind works, it will start to race, and if I work too late, then I have trouble sleeping and that messes up my next day. Artists are happy to adapt to working that schedule. I want to do a great song for them and send them on their way so they can have a life and go out at night to do whatever they want to do. I’m totally friends with a lot of artists I work with… but I don’t want to keep someone longer than they want to be there.
You mentioned the anticipation you feel around Grammy season. What is your relationship with the awards?
It’s a crazy experience to be invited or involved, and I know I won’t be invited forever. There will be a point where people will be like, “OK, you can go now.” (Laughs.)
Eventually they’ll show you out the back door.
Exactly. Like, “We’ve had enough of you.” While it’s happening, I’m just going for the ride. It feels very good for your work to be recognized. I don’t take it lightly when people are voting for stuff I’ve worked on. I have fun when I go, although it makes me nervous when I’m there, because I hate speaking in the microphone, but that’s also a good problem to have.
Where do you keep the nine Grammys you’ve already won?
They’re in the bedroom, kind of staring at me. If I’m in a bad mood, I can look up and be like, “Come on! Chin up.”
All that said, do you want to check and see if you’ve been nominated this year?
(Looks at phone.) OK, I got best pop vocal album, song of the year, album of the year, country album and record of the year. So there’s that!
This story will appear in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
Musicals, whether onstage or onscreen, take time — lots of time — to develop. For Lin-Manuel Miranda, the story of 2022’s Encanto really began six years ago, on opening weekend for a different Disney animated musical, Moana. Miranda was a late addition to that film’s three-person musical team, and he had seen “how seriously and faithfully [Disney] took the responsibility of representing a culture we don’t see onscreen a lot” — in Moana’s case, that of the Polynesian islands — and “making sure that part of the world would be proud,” he recalls. So he told Tom MacDougall, then executive vp of music for Disney Animation and Pixar, “Listen, I know you guys have some Latin-themed things up your sleeve. If there’s going to be a Disney Latina princess, I’ve been training all my life!”
That opening weekend, MacDougall cryptically told Miranda: “You’ll be there from the beginning on the next one.” And with Encanto, he kept his word. “We don’t just go celebrity to celebrity for people to write these shows,” says MacDougall, now president of Walt Disney Music. “But there was a project being talked about that was going to happen in Latin America, and I said, ‘Hey, Lin wants to do this, we love him — what would a full Lin show look like start to finish?”
The answer: a historic hit. Miranda’s eight songs for the Encanto soundtrack all charted on the Billboard Hot 100, leading him to spend 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 Songwriters chart and to ultimately be named Billboard’s top Hot 100 songwriter of 2022. Much of that was thanks to the unlikely and explosive leader of the pack: the intricate, multicharacter showstopper “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” which spent five weeks at No. 1 and, according to Billboard’s GOAT methodology, is now the biggest Disney song of all time.
Of course, don’t tell that to the “Surface Pressure” hive, whose passion for strongwoman Luisa’s reggaetón-inflected solo pushed it to a No. 8 peak, or to the teary masses who sent the poetic “Dos Oruguitas” (sung entirely in Spanish by Sebastián Yatra) to No. 2 and No. 36 peaks, respectively, on Hot Latin Songs and the Hot 100. “It’s pretty unorthodox in terms of a musical,” MacDougall says of Encanto. “That ‘Bruno’ would become one of the most popular songs of all time, that all the songs would be in the top 100 — we would have never expected it.”
But if that sounds like the foundation for a new blueprint for Disney blockbusters, think again. Miranda, 42, insists there’s no formula for Encanto-level success, paraphrasing the late Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim: “Surprise is the thing you’re chasing. If you can bottle surprise, you can have a career in this business.”
You were in the throes of writing Encanto’s music in spring 2020. What was it like essentially putting this soundtrack together in lockdown?
In retrospect, I do think some of the lockdown seeps into the songwriting. There’s a reason “Surface Pressure” and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” which were written in April and May of 2020, respectively, resonate in a different way. At the core of “Surface Pressure” is this question of, how do I keep my family safe — and who am I if I can’t? I think that’s a variation of what every parent felt then. And then “Bruno” — I was locked up with my in-laws. There is a subtext there of, “What are we allowed to talk about in front of your mother?” (Laughs.) My brother-in-law was living with us at the time — he works in real estate, and we barely saw him, he’d just work in his corner, he’d join us for dinner, he’d go back to his corner. When I showed him the rough storyboard and the song started, he was like, “Is this about me? Am I the uncle in the walls?” (Laughs.)
The level of input from the larger creative team is pretty high in the world of animation. How did that typically play out?
Our call was every Friday night at 9 p.m. my time, which meant I could tuck in my kids and then wake myself back up and do the call. I felt comfortable bringing in half songs — like, “Here’s the first two verses of ‘Bruno.’ Is this a good direction? Should I keep going?” I don’t think there’s one song in this where I was like, “This is it, it’s done.”
Well, other members of the creative team do talk about “Bruno” as if you started playing it for them fully formed. What’s your side of that story?
I knew the vibe for it very quickly. This was a song that was my pitch: Can we please do a family gossip number? I knew it was just going to be like (Miranda plays the piano bassline.), which felt very Afro-Latino, rhythmic, spooky. The challenge was to get something simple yet [distinctive] enough that you could put a lot of different stories on top of it. It was really one long night of writing it.
You have a longtime friendship with Bobby Lopez [who, with wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez, wrote the music for Frozen, Frozen II and Coco]. Does someone like him provide a kind of creative support system when you’re working on a project like Encanto?
You learn quickly that there’s very few people you can talk to about this kind of gig. My friendship with Bobby goes beyond songwriting — we went to school together, he’s been a mentor to me my whole career. There was a moment when I was struggling with something in Mirabel’s song “Waiting on a Miracle,” and it was this really specific shop talk of like, “I think this is the right song for the right moment but it’s not doing this thing you’re so good at that I want it to do — it’s not lifting off at the end in the way I want it to.” So I sent it to Bobby and Kristen and they were like, “Give us a couple hours,” and they got on a Zoom with me and were like, “Go up a whole step not a half step, have her sing this note.” It was a very music theory mathematical thing and it made all the difference in the world. That’s the kind of thing you can only ask someone who’s been in this space before you and knows the lay of the land.
“Bruno” is now the biggest Disney song of all time. What are your personal top Disney songs of all time?
No. 1 is “Under the Sea.” I mean, it’s like Sebastian making the case for a way of life and presenting us with a world so much more beautiful than our own! I wanted to go f–king live under the sea! “Out There,” from Hunchback [of Notre Dame] — Stephen Schwartz wrote the lyrics. “Into the Unknown” from Frozen II, that song is outrageous in setup and execution. “When She Loved Me” by Randy Newman — Toy Story 2 is among my favorite movies of all time, full stop. That was really a big inspiration for “Dos Oruguitas.” And I agree with everyone on the internet about the entirety of Tarzan. You know that meme that’s like, “Phil Collins didn’t have to go that hard but he did.” (Miranda starts belting “Strangers Like Me.”) Well, he did, and we’re all the better for it. It should not go that hard! (Laughs.)
You’ve admitted that you didn’t think “Bruno” would become the big Encanto hit. Why do you think it did?
I didn’t think it was going to be a big song because group numbers never are — with the exception of “Summer [Nights]” from Grease. But I also think there’s something to the fact that music has stratified to a big extent, and TikTok is a big part of the reason this song was such a hit. Every verse and chorus of this is like a bite-sized TikTok number. I didn’t have TikTok when I wrote it, but you realize after the fact, “Oh, if Camilo’s your favorite guy, you can listen to that bit,” and each bit became its own kind of hit. It was amazing that sections of “Bruno” were becoming popular.
“Dos Oruguitas” soundtracks Encanto’s tearjerking montage. Was that always the plan?
I mean, that was the hope. Some of it is what it isn’t: It isn’t a moment of Abuela singing to Mirabel, because Abuela singing, “Your grandfather was shot” — that’s a trauma too deep to sing. I looked at the imagery in the film of the butterfly that leads them to the miracle, and I had the idea of these two caterpillars in love and the change that has to happen. You have to undergo metamorphosis and trauma to become who you are, and you have to trust that you’ll still be yourself on the other side of whatever hard things come your way. And once I had that, I wrote it pretty quickly — though the speed of my Spanish is not the speed of my English, so it took longer to find the right words.
Then there’s “Surface Pressure.” Were you aware of all the people rooting for it to surpass “Bruno” on the charts?
I love it. I mean, there’s not a lot of precedent for that tune. In my head I was trying to cross a really tough reggaetón song with like, “[The] Lovecats” by The Cure, the quietest vocals I can imagine on a pop song. I think we had the song before we cast the role, but the drawing of Luisa existed, so I knew she’d have a deeper voice, and I was like, “Please, please, please find me an alto.” And Jess Darrow has such a wonderful and distinctive voice. The character never doesn’t sound like herself, and I love that about it.
To me it’s the most recognizably Lin song in this movie. It just feels like what naturally comes out of you. Was it that organic for you to write?
I don’t know…what I sound like? Ask any composer, they don’t know what their moves are. But I guess that’s what I sound like! I think the internal rhyminess of the verses and choruses, for sure. It was an early one to try to write; I was feeling my way towards it in an organic way. The hardest one is always the “I Want” song. Mirabel’s was originally called “I’m More Than What I’m Not,” and it was very poppy. It was a bop! But it was just not right.
Is there one song that you wish found a wider audience?
I would be insane to complain about any of them. But I’ll tell you, my expectations were upended. My expectation was that “Colombia, Mi Encanto” would be the easiest song to pull out of the story — it’s just a love letter to Colombia, it namechecks towns, it’s Carlos Vives singing it — so I just thought, “Maybe at soccer stadiums they’ll play this!” [It peaked at No. 100 on the Hot 100.] To see the character-iest, most involved-in-the plot songs rise to the top was an amazing and welcome surprise.
Does Encanto’s chart success feel like a unicorn situation? Or can it serve as a model for how Disney thinks about animated musicals in the future?
Well, I think once you think you have a template, you’re dead meat. Look at the two songs that had the most success: what people embraced was what’s new. As long as Disney’s musicals can continue to push on the template of what a Disney musical can be, I think they’ll be a success. It’s when we get hip to it — “Oh, here comes the sidekick song” — that we feel like we’ve seen it before. I think the lesson is to find the musical moments we haven’t seen before, and that’s true of theater as well. I know I’m here because Howard Ashman was here, and he felt like musical theater had a lot to teach animated movies about how music and animation could coexist. Everything I’m doing builds on what he knew and practiced with Alan Menken during that golden era I was lucky enough to be a kid during. And our job is to continue to push that envelope.
There is a rumor that a demo exists of you singing all 10 “Bruno” parts. Will we ever hear it?
Uh, yes, it exists — I mean, there’s me demos of all of them. But I also know why you want it, you jerks! You want to make funny TikToks with my face on them, and I will not give you the satisfaction! So they will stay on my computer, thank you very much. You want to make your funny little memes! (Laughs.) I will not be here for your meme-ery.
This story will appear in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
For the second time in his career, Greg Kurstin is the No. 1 Hot 100 Producer of the year.
Thanks to his work with Adele, Maren Morris and Tate McRae, he returns as the year’s top producer for the first time since 2016. Kurstin scored nine entries on the Billboard Hot 100 as a producer during the 2022 chart eligibility period, including Adele’s 10-week No. 1 “Easy On Me.”
Explore All of Billboard’s 2022 Year-End Charts
Here’s a look at all nine of Kurstin’s production credits on the Hot 100 during the 2022 tracking period, which all contribute to his placement on the year-end ranking—Kurstin is the sole credited producer on eight of the songs below, helping boost his chart points (as he does not share chart points with any other individuals):
Peak Position, Artist Billing, Title (producers in addition to Kurstin)No. 1, Adele, “Easy On Me”No. 5, Adele, “Oh My God”No. 18, Adele, “I Drink Wine”No. 23, Adele, “My Little Love”No. 44, Adele “Cry Your Heart Out”No. 44, Tate McRae, “She’s All I Wanna Be”No. 52, Maren Morris, “Circles Around This Town”No. 53, Adele with Erroll Garner, “All Night Parking (Interlude)” (Joey Pecoraro)No. 80, Tate McRae, “Chaotic”
Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts dated Nov. 20, 2021 through Nov. 12, 2022. The rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology details, and the November-November time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.
Kurstin’s 2016 finish as the year’s top producer was also partly powered by Adele. He ruled the year thanks to his work on Adele’s 10-week leader “Hello” and “Water Under The Bridge” (No. 26 peak), plus Ellie Goulding’s “Something In The Way You Move” (No. 43), Sia’s four-week No. 1 “Cheap Thrills” featuring Sean Paul, and Kelly Clarkson’s “Piece By Piece” (No. 8).
Kurstin has been a consistent hitmaker on Billboard’s charts since the late 2010s. His first production credit to chart on the Hot 100 was Lily Allen’s “F*ck You” and “The Fear,” which debuted at Nos. 68 and 91, respectively, on the Feb. 28, 2009 chart. Since then, he’s earned nine top 10s as a producer and four No. 1s: “Hello,” “Cheap Thrills,” “Easy On Me” and Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” in 2012.
Just below Kurstin on the year-end Hot 100 Producers ranking, Dr. Luke (real name: Lukasz Gottwald) finishes at No. 2, thanks to seven production credits on the Hot 100 during the eligibility period. Three of those tracks reached the top 10: Doja Cat’s “Need To Know” (No. 8), Latto’s “Big Energy” (No. 3) and Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl,” which spent a week at No. 1. Doja Cat and The Weeknd’s “You Right” came close, peaking at No. 11. Dr. Luke has earned 18 No. 1 hits on the Hot 100 in his career, the third-most of all time (as of this writing) after George Martin and Max Martin, who each have 23.
Plus, Joey Moi finishes at No. 3 on the year-end producers list, largely thanks to his work with Morgan Wallen. Two hits by the country singer-songwriter and produced by Moi reached the top 10 during the chart eligibility period: “Don’t Think Jesus” (No. 7 in April) and “You Proof” (No. 5 in October).
Rounding out the top 5 Hot 100 Producers: Glass Animals’ Dave Bayley closes the year at No. 4, thanks to his production of his record-breaking hit “Heat Waves” (the year’s No. 1 Hot 100 Song), and MAG (real name: Marco Borero) finishes at No. 5, thanks to multiple production credits on the Hot 100, all of which were by Bad Bunny, including the top 10 hits “Moscow Mule” and “Me Porto Bonito,” with Chencho Corleone.
Things, for a while, have been unprecedented. Following an 18-month quiet period for concert venues worldwide, doors slowly opened, first in the U.S. and increasingly so around the globe. This made for an excepted review of touring in 2021, but the full return of live music presents a much fuller picture this year. With the 2022 year-end Boxscore recap, precedents continue to fade as Bad Bunny finishes as the year’s top touring act (No. 1 on Top Tours) with total gross of $373.5 million from 1.8 million tickets across 65 shows.
Explore All of Billboard’s 2022 Year-End Charts
Bad Bunny is the first Latin act, and first act who doesn’t perform in English, to finish atop Billboard’s year-end Top Tours chart. Beyond the historic nature of his win for genre and language, he is the only artist to mount separate $100-million tours in the same year.
Further, while Boxscore charts often favor older acts with deeper histories on the road, like 2020 and 2021 champs Elton John and The Rolling Stones, Bad Bunny’s win this year is a testament to the growing power of contemporary stadium acts. In fact, the 28-year-old is just the third artist to simultaneously crown the year-end Top Tours and overall Top Artists charts, following Taylor Swift in 2015 and One Direction in 2014.
Bad Bunny’s year in touring breaks down into several parts. First, he played two hometown stadium shows at San Juan’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium, earning $6.5 million on Dec. 10-11, 2021. That was followed by El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo, an arena run named after his 2020 album that broke ground as the first all-Spanish-language set to top the weekly Billboard 200 chart. On that trek, he earned $116.8 million from 35 shows, enough to set a record for the highest-grossing Latin tour in Boxscore history.
Billboard’s Year-End Boxscore charts are based on figures reported to Billboard Boxscore for engagements that played between Nov. 1, 2021-Oct. 31, 2022.
That tour broke local records in Inglewood, Calif., Miami, Houston, Seattle, and more, setting the stage for an even bigger fall in 2022. After releasing Un Verano Sin Ti and spending most the summer at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Bad Bunny played three Puerto Rico shows for a $4 million gross, and then properly embarked on World’s Hottest Tour, living up to its name at each stop.
The trek leveled Bad Bunny to stadiums and took in $232.5 million in North America, plus another $13.8 million from its first four Latin American shows. After setting arena records throughout the U.S. in the spring, he set revenue records in 12 of the 15 domestic markets he played in the fall. While Daddy Yankee’s La Ultima Vuelta World Tour quickly stole Bunny’s all-time Latin tour record from earlier this year, World’s Hottest Tour re-sets the pace as the first pan-American stadium tour of its size.
All of that combines to $373.5 million during the twelve-month tracking period, amounting to a record-setting, historic No. 1 finish, eclipsing Elton John and Ed Sheeran at Nos. 2-3, each of whom was a previous year-end victor.
These men lead the most eye-popping Top Tours chart ever. Five acts grossed more than $200 million, beating the previous high of four in 2018, and 16 acts generated more than $100 million in ticket sales, nearly doubling the previous high of nine in 2017 and 2018.