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Nashville Restrictions on Home Recording Studio Overturned
The controversial ordinance was first enacted in 1998. Home recording studios in Nashville can open for business once again. A longstanding law restricting client visits to home-based businesses in Nashville has been eliminated by the city’s Metro Council in a new bill, allowing home recording studios to legally operate in the city for the first time since 1998. Enacted on July 8, the amended ordinance now permits up to six customer visits per day between the hours of 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. To qualify under the new regulations, recording studios and other businesses that host customers on site and/or employ those who live outside the dwelling must first apply for a “home occupation” permit that requires proof of written notifications to owners of adjacent properties, as...
The Chicks’ ‘Gaslighter’ Ignites at No. 1 on Top Country Albums Chart
The trio makes a record arrival among groups historically. The Chicks (formerly Dixie Chicks) score their fifth No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Country Albums chart with Gaslighter. The act’s first album of new material in 14 years blasts in atop the Aug. 1-dated survey with 84,000 equivalent album units earned in its first week, ending July 23, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. [embedded content] With the launch, the trio of lead singer Natalie Maines and multi-instrumentalists Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire claims sole ownership of the most Top Country Albums No. 1s among female duos or groups, passing The Judds’ total of four. On the all-genre Billboard 200, Gaslighter bounds in at No. 3, marking The Chicks’ fifth top 10. The 12-song set, which the group produced w...
Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ Set For Big Opening Sales Week In U.K.
TayTay is blowing away her rivals in the U.K. chart race. Taylor Swift’s surprise album release Folklore (EMI) has raced to the lead of the midweek chart, and is outperforming the rest of the Top 5 combined, the Official Charts Company reports. Swift’s eighth and latest album was the most downloaded and streamed LP over the weekend, according to the OCC, and is on track to become the pop star’s fifth U.K. No. 1 following Red (2012), 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017) and Lover (2019). As previously reported, three songs from the new set are tracking for Top 10 debuts on the Official U.K. Singles Chart, led by “Cardigan” at No. 4 (“Exile” with Bon Iver is at No. 7 on the Official Chart Update and “The 1” starts at No. 9). Folklore should enjoy another chart punch in months to come when it’...
Juice WRLD’s ‘Legends Never Die’ Rises to No. 1 In Australia
Juice WRLD’s posthumous album Legends Never Die (Interscope/Universal) climbs to the chart summit in Australia, as Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)” (Columbia/Sony) enters a fourth consecutive week atop the national singles survey. Legends Never Die, which has ruled the albums chart on both sides of the Atlantic, now completes the job in Australia where it rises 3-1 in its second week. It’s the second posthumous hip-hop LP to top the survey in three weeks, following the No. 1 entry of Pop Smoke’s Universal set Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon (it improves 4-3 on the current frame). Lighting up the Australian tally is Gaslighter (Columbia/Sony), The Chicks’ first album release in 14 years. The American country trio (formerly The Dix...
Taylor Swift Set to Land Three ‘Folklore’ Tracks In U.K. Top 10
Taylor Swift’s isolation album Folklore is ready for a chart party in the U.K. No less than three songs from it are on track for Top 10 debuts on the Official U.K. Singles Chart, based on early sales and streaming activity. The single “Cardigan” (EMI), which was accompanied with an official music video, is on target to snare the week’s highest new entry. It’s at No. 4 on the Official Chart First Look, based on 48 hours of data. Also, Swift’s “The 1” is at No. 5 and “Exile,” her duet with Bon Iver, is at No. 7. If all three hold inside the Top 10, it would lift the pop star’s tally of U.K. Top 10s to 16. Taylor’s eighth studio album arrived with just 24 hours’ notice, and judging by the reaction from fans and critics, it couldn’t have come soon enough. Folklore has sold over 1.3...
Ellie Goulding’s ‘Brightest Blue’ Bows at No. 1 In U.K.
Ellie Goulding bags her third U.K. No. 1 album with Brightest Blue (Polydor), while “Head & Heart” skips past “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)” to give Joel Corry and MNEK their first leader on the national singles chart. Goulding’s collab-stacked new album bows at the summit of the Official U.K. Albums Chart, eclipsing the No. 3 peak of its processor, Delirium from 2015, and equaling the feats of her debut Lights from 2010 and its followup Halcyon from 2014. Brightest Blue features a collaboration with the late rapper Juice WRLD, whose posthumous album Legends Never Die (Interscope), slips 1-2 on the current tally, while Bob Dylan’s former leader Rough And Rowdy Ways (Columbia) bounces 16-4 following its release on vinyl. The Chicks complete their comeback with a top...
Alan Menken’s Daytime Emmy Makes Him an EGOT
Menken was born in New York City. Remarkably, the same is true of six other EGOTS. Alan Menken won a Daytime Emmy on June 12, which makes him the 16th EGOT. He won for composing “Waiting in the Wings” from Tangled: The Series: Rapunzel and the Great Tree, with lyrics by Glenn Slater. The song won outstanding original song in a children’s, young adult or animated program. Menken is the third of the 16 EGOT winners whose only Emmy is a Daytime Emmy, not a Primetime Emmy, which are higher-profile awards. Whoopi Goldberg and Robert Lopez have also won only Daytime Emmys—two each, in both cases. Goldberg won for co-hosting The View (2009) and hosting Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel (2002), about the pioneering performer who was the first African American to receive an Osc...
One Direction’s Streams Leap 174 Percent Amid Boy Band’s 10th Anniversary
The band’s catalog drew 21 million U.S. on-demand streams on July 23, the day of the band’s formation 10 years prior. In celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the formation of One Direction, the boy band’s catalog saw a 173.6 percent gain in U.S. on-demand streams the day of the anniversary (July 23), according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. On July 23, One Direction’s catalog, which includes five full-length albums, drew 21 million U.S. streams. That’s up 173.6 percent from July 22, which saw the band garner 7.7 million. Assisting in the streaming boost: One Direction’s Twitter account, which had been dormant for nearly two years, posted multiple times about the anniversary, as did the most recent lineup of the group — Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson. ...
Juice WRLD’s ‘Legends Never Die’ Spends Second Week at No. 1 on Billboard 200 Chart
Plus: The Chicks’ ‘Gaslighter’ debuts at No. 3 and Jhené Aiko’s ‘Chilombo’ surges 43-6 after reissue. Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die holds atop the Billboard 200 albums chart for a second week, as the set earned 162,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending July 23 (down 67 percent), according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The album blasted in at No. 1 a week ago with 497,000 units — 2020’s biggest week for any release. Meanwhile, The Chicks (formerly The Dixie Chicks) debut at No. 3 with their first studio album in 14 years, Gaslighter, and Jhené Aiko’s Chilombo roars back into the top 10, surging 43-6, after it was reissued with additional tracks. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on m...
Neumos in Seattle, in a Pandemic: ‘We Employ a Lot of People … I Paid 10,000 People Last Year’
Steven Severin, co-owner of Neumos in Seattle, says indie clubs contribute $35 billion to the music industry and that needs to be recognized with government funding during the crisis. As co-owner of Seattle’s popular independent venue Neumos in Capitol Hill, Steven Severin has been a staple in the Seattle music industry for more than 20 years. Roughly 10 years ago, he helped create the Seattle Nightlife and Music Association to bring together the area’s live event insiders, and for the past 16 years has helped run Neumos with its sister club Barboza and the accompanying Runaway bar. As part of Billboard’s efforts to best cover the coronavirus pandemic and its impacts on the music industry, we will be speaking with Severin every two weeks to chronicle his experience throughou...
Annie Ross, Grammy-Winning Jazz Singer, Dies at 89
Annie Ross, the dexterous jazz singer and leading practitioner of the art of “vocalese” heard on her signature song, “Twisted,” has died. She was 89. Ross died Tuesday at her home in Manhattan of complications from emphysema and heart disease, her former manager, Jim Coleman, told The Washington Post. Ross performed with fellow vocalists Dave Lambert and Jon Hendricks in the acclaimed jazz trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross from 1957 to 1962. They made dozens of instrumental classics their own and recorded several albums, starting with 1957’s Sing a Song of Basie, which employed overdubs to multiply their voices. In 1952, Ross and vocalist King Pleasure had teamed on an album for Prestige that included “Twisted,” her treatment of saxophonist Wardel...
‘Total F*cking Godhead’ Author Corbin Reiff Details the Origins of Soundgarden’s ‘Black Hole Sun’
In his most recent book, TOTAL F*CKING GODHEAD: THE BIOGRAPHY OF CHRIS CORNELL (Out July 28), author Corbin Reiff presents the comprehensive life story of one of the most celebrated singers and songwriters in rock history — from his beginnings in Soundgarden, through Temple Of The Dog, Audioslave and beyond. In this exclusive excerpt, Reiff recounts the story behind the creation of one of Cornell’s most celebrated songs: “Black Hole Sun.” Chris had secured his place as the preeminent screamer in rock, but as he wrote this latest batch of songs, he tried to explore the full dynamic range of his voice. He went deeper, and remained more subdued in spots, which only made the moments when he took off into the stratosphere that much more explosive. Each of the tracks on Superunknown has it...
