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Gunna Gearing Up for First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart
Plus: The 1975 set for top 10 debut with “Notes on a Conditional Form.” Gunna is set for his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, according to industry forecasters. Sources suggest his new effort, Wunna, may launch atop next week’s tally with perhaps over 100,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending May 28. Nearly all of the album’s first-week units will be driven by streaming activity. Wunna was released on May 22 via Young Stoner Life/300. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which comprises traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the June 6-dated Billboard 200 chart (where Wunna could debut at No. 1) is scheduled t...
ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus Named President of CISAC
Björn Ulvaeus, a co-founder of ABBA who wrote the group’s hits with his bandmate Benny Andersson, was today (May 29) named the president of CISAC, the global confederation of authors societies. Known for his business-savvy, as well as his interest in technology, Ulvaeus steps into the role at a time when Internet companies and collecting societies are learning to live with one another but still have very different views on how streaming services should work and what they should pay creators. “I tend to think that creators get too little, of course, because I’m a songwriter, and I think that in the long run we have to take a closer look at how things are divided,” Ulvaeus told Billboard over Zoom before his appointment became official. “It all starts with the song, as far as I’m concerned. ...
How We Work Now: NMPA President/CEO David Israelite
In a series amid the coronavirus pandemic, Billboard is asking individuals from all sectors of the music business to share stories of how they work now, with much of the world quarantined at home and unable to take in-person meetings, attend conferences or even go into the office. Submissions for the series can be sent to HowWeWorkNow@Billboard.com. Read the full series here. This installment is with David Israelite, the president/CEO of music publishing trade association NMPA. David Israelite: We’ve just been in a kind of holding pattern. We have a lot of of pending issues [for which] we’re waiting for decisions from government bodies or legal bodies. Right before the shutdown, on March 10, we had our oral arguments regarding the appeal of the copyright royalty board rates by Spotif...
Guy Oseary Stepping Away From Day-to-Day Role at Maverick
He will continue to manage Madonna and U2 and consult Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, extending his deal with the touring company. Guy Oseary is stepping away from his day-to-day role at his management collective Maverick to consult for Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and further concentrate on his tech and entertainment entrepreneurial interests. The news comes with a three-year extension of Oseary’s existing partnership with Live Nation, which purchased Maverick in 2013. He will still continue to manage Madonna and U2 under the Maverick banner. Other managers using the Maverick umbrella will continue to operate under Live Nation’s Artist Nation division. “I’m ready for my new chapter and welcome the opportunity to have more time to focus on management of Madonna and U2 while f...
The 1975 Looking to Extend Chart Streak In U.K.
The 1975 are edging closer to a fourth consecutive chart crown in the U.K. with Notes on a Conditional Form (Dirty Hit/Polydor), though it’s a tight race with KSI‘s debut album Dissimulation (BMG) close behind. The 22-track Notes on a Conditional Form is the leader on the Official Chart Update, and takes an advantage on CD and vinyl sales into the final straight of the chart week. Matt Healy and Co. are on a perfect 3-0 winning streak with their previous albums all ruling the chart, The 1975 (2013), I Like It When You Sleep… (2016), and A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (2018). British rapper and YouTuber KSI is making a fight of it with Dissimulation, which starts at No. 2 on the midweek chart and leads all albums on streams and downloads. Four tracks from Dissimu...
How We Work Now: Midem Director Alexandre Deniot
In a new series amid the coronavirus pandemic, Billboard is asking individuals from all sectors of the music business to share stories of how they work now, with much of the world quarantined at home and unable to take in-person meetings, attend conferences or even go into the office. Submissions for the series can be sent to HowWeWorkNow@Billboard.com. Read the full series here. This installment is with Midem director Alexandre Deniot, who was forced to make some big decisions about this year’s music business conference as the pandemic shut down France less than eight weeks before the annual event. Here, he speaks about how he balanced home and work while shifting the focus of the conference, which kicks off next week and runs June 2-5, to the first digital version of Midem in its 5...
Which Artist Should Do a Drive-In Concert Next? Vote!
Drive-in concerts are all the rave now, but which touring artist would you rave to from inside your car if they put on a drive-in show? Kesha would have embarked on her 2020 High Road Tour with Big Freedia had it not been for the coronavirus pandemic, but these two could raise hell from the road without ever leaving it. Similarly, Kenny Chesney pushed his NFL stadium Chillaxification Tour to 2021, apologizing to his heart-broken fans, “Sadly, we can’t find a way to make it safe, to navigate water that’s just not getting any clearer.” But the country legend has a shot at navigating those waters by finding outdoor fields that are roughly the same size of NFL stadiums and letting the shows go on. Pearl Jam ran into the same bump in the road when the band wanted to p...
Bucky Baxter, Guitarist Who Worked on Bob Dylan’s ‘Time Out of Mind’, Dies at 65
Bucky Baxter, an in-demand guitarist who performed on Bob Dylan three-time Grammy Award-winning album Time Out of Mind, died Monday (May 25) in Sanibel Island, Florida at the age of 65. No cause of death was revealed. Baxter’s passing was revealed by his son Rayland in a post on social media. “He is my everything and now he is an angel. My heart is broken yet I am blinded by joy,” he wrote. Born in Melbourne, Florida in 1955, Baxter was a founding member of Steve Earle’s backing band, The Dukes, and played guitars on a string of the rocker’s albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the international breakout album Copperhead Road. Baxter also worked on R.E.M.’s Green and cut albums with Ben Folds, Ryan Adams, Joe Henry and others, but it’s his years-long association with Dylan f...
Big Hit Entertainment, Home to BTS, Strikes Deal With Seventeen Label PLEDIS
Expanding its strategy to build a multi-label structure, Big Hit is now the largest shareholder of PLEDIS Entertainment. South Korea-based powerhouse Big Hit Entertainment has become the largest shareholder of record label PLEDIS Entertainment, home to K-pop superstars Seventeen and NU’EST, it was announced Monday. Under the terms of the deal, PLEDIS will retain its independence as a label, though its artists will now receive support from Big Hit’s business entities and support organizations to expand their reach into overseas markets — similar to the way Big Hit turned boy band BTS into a top-charting phenomenon across the globe. The PLEDIS deal is the latest move in Big Hit’s strategy to expand its multi-label structure following the company’s acquisition of Source Music last ...
Little Richard Statue to be Erected Outside Childhood Home
A statue of the late rock ‘n’ roll legend Little Richard is expected to be installed outside his childhood home in Macon, Georgia. The Little Richard House Resource Center Facebook page announced the tribute during a live Zoom meeting, news outlets reported. Little Richard, also known as Richard Wayne Penniman, died May 9 in Nashville at the age of 87. He was laid to rest Wednesday at his alma mater Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama. A fund established by Friends of the Little Richard House and the Community Foundation of Central Georgia will be used to pay for the statue and a replica of Little Richard’s Hollywood Walk of Fame. Rep. James Beverly, D-Macon, said the fund will also be used to support organizations that provide music education to low to moderate-income students...
Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande’s ‘Rain on Me’ Leads U.K. Chart Race
Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande’s pop mega-collaboration “Rain on Me” is reigning over the U.K. singles chart. The new single, which dropped last Friday with an accompanying music video, rules the Official Chart First Look Top 20 with a lead of 7,000 chart sales over its nearest rival, DaBaby’s “Rockstar” featuring Roddy Ricch. [embedded content] “Rain on Me,” lifted from Gaga’s delayed sixth studio album Chromatica, due out this Friday May 29, holds the advantage on downloads and streams after the weekend’s activity. If it holds its position when the Official U.K. Singles Chart is published this Friday, “Rain on Me” will mark the sixth No. 1 for Gaga and Grande. Also making a big splash on the sales blast is British rapper KSI, who places three songs in the top 2...
Future Flies ‘High’ With Seventh No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart
Plus: Polo G’s “The Goat” debuts at No. 2, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit’s “Reunions” surges into top 10 after wide release. Future flies in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with his seventh chart-topper, as High Off Life enters at No. 1. The album, which was released via Freebandz/Epic Records on May 15, earned 153,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending May 21, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data — Future’s biggest week, in terms of units, for a solo album. Of High Off Life’s first-week units, 16,000 are in album sales, while nearly all of the remaining units are from streaming activity. Also in the new top 10: Polo G’s The Goat bows at No. 2 with 99,000 units, and Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit’s Reunions jumps from No. 149 to No. 9 after its first week ...
