International
Super Junior Break Down Every Song on ‘The Road : Keep on Going’ Album
After more than 15 years in the K-pop game, Super Junior is here to reassure fans the boy band has no intention of leaving. In fact, their new music is coming in multiple chapters to prove the point. The latest volume of new music, The Road : Keep on Going The 11th Album Vol. 1, unveiled on July 12, is packed with messages meant to raise listeners’ spirits during the summer and uplift their longtime fans, affectionately called E.L.F. for Ever Lasting Friends. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “The album title The Road : Keep on Going is about Super Junior’s path and how we will keep on going,” member Siwon tells Billboard. “It’s an album that tells the story of Super Junior’s present, includes a message of Super Junior’s now, as well as t...
BTS’ Label Recruits ARMY to Protect the Band From ‘Personal Attacks and Defamation’
BigHit Music, the South Korean record label, says it is going after “malicious postings” related to K-pop supergroup BTS – and is looking to fans to supply intel to aid in the crackdown. On June 29, BigHit released a note on social networking platform Weverse warning that the company had recently filed “additional criminal complaints against postings with personal attacks and defamation,” using new information provided by fans and collected through its own monitoring activities. The Weverse note came two weeks after BTS shook up the pop music world by revealing that the seven-member boy band was taking an indefinite break to pursue solo projects. The group’s fan group, known as ARMY, has lashed out on Twitter against journalists in the U.S. for their portrayals of the group’s break, which ...
How Brazil Is Stepping Up to Tackle Digital Piracy and Eying Metaverse Infringement
RIO DE JANEIRO – Authorities in Brazil are finding that fraudsters are using illegal download apps and websites to lure in music fans eager for a stronger connection to specific artists – and then profiting from reams of personal data they are mining from them. London-based IFPI and its recorded-music affiliate, Pró-Música Brasil, have been cooperating with a cybercrime unit of Brazil’s Ministry of Justice for over a year, working to root out services illegally peddling MP3 singles and albums from some of Brazil’s most popular artists, including Alok, Bruno & Marrone, Luccas Neto and Barōes da Pisadinha. Last month authorities shut down 461 illegal download apps and 11 websites — a record haul for a single anti-music piracy operation in Brazil. The apps generated more than 10.2 million...
SXSW Expands Into Australia
Austin’s famed South by Southwest conference and festival is headed to Australia. The Texas-born event bring its famed celebration of the technology, film and music industries to Sydney, Australia across seven days and nights from Oct. 15-22, 2023. SXSW Sydney will bring together the industries of music, gaming, film, television, technology and innovation much like the American version that launched in 1987. “Every day of the year we connect people to each other, developing events and content that celebrate the inter-relatedness of current and emerging topics. We continue to push our own boundaries by evolving and expanding as we strive to deliver an experience of unexpected discovery and inspiration,” said SXSW CEO Roland Swenson in a release. “We believe that Sydney’s similar future-focu...
The Ledger: HYBE Is Playing Moneyball With BTS’ Solo Projects
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. How does HYBE survive financially while BTS goes on break and its members pursue solo projects? Since HYBE can’t replace BTS, it will need to recreate the group — financially speaking. Movie buffs are familiar with HYBE’s predicament. In the 2011 movie Moneyball based on Michael Lewis’s best-selling book, Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (portrayed by Brad Pitt) was faced with a quandary: The budget-minded, small-market team was losing two of its two best players to wealthier teams. Beane knew he couldn’t afford to replace such productive players with two similarly effective players. His solution: recreate them “...
Italian Regulator Fines Viagogo 23M Euros for Inflating Ticket Prices to Maneskin, Dua Lipa Concerts
LONDON —Italy’s communications regulator has fined Viagogo 23.5 million euros ($24.8 million) for selling tickets to concerts by rock and pop stars like Maneskin, Pearl Jam and Dua Lipa at vastly inflated rates, thereby violating the country’s strict rules around the resale of concert tickets. Following a board meeting on June 23, Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM), a government regulator that oversees Italy’s telecommunications, audio visual and publishing industries, also ordered the secondary ticketing company to remove all “illegal content” listed on its platform within seven days. The fine follows an investigation by AGCOM and Italy’s financial crime enforcement agency, the Guardia di Finanza, which looked at tickets for 131 events listed on www.viagogo.it. As well a...
BTS Planning Global Busan Concert to Bring the World Expo to South Korea in 2030
BTS might be eying a break after the whirlwind international success they’ve experienced over the last few years, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be absent from the global stage. On Friday (June 24), HYBE, the entertainment company that BTS calls home, announced that the septet will hold a concert to help South Korea’s bid to host the 2030 World Expo in Busan, South Korea. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The boy band will serve as ambassadors for the country’s effort to bring the world’s fair to Busan Metropolitan City, the second most populous city in South Korea, behind Seoul. “Given the importance of its bid as a nation to host the World Expo 2030 in Busan, BTS and HYBE will do our best to successfully bring the World Expo to ...
BTS Lands Sixth No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart With ‘Proof’
BTS’ new compilation album Proof debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated June 25), garnering the pop group its sixth chart-topper. The retrospective – consisting mostly of previously released material – bows with 314,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending June 16, according to Luminate. The overwhelmingly majority of that unit figure was driven by CD album sales. See latest videos, charts and news The anthology was released on June 10, four days before the group announced an indefinite “hiatus” to focus on solo ventures. The seven-member South Korean act was formed in 2010 and made its U.S. Billboard chart debut in 2013. BTS has tallied 15 entries on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Also in the new top 10, Carrie Underwood notches her 10th consecutive top...
Peter Scaping, Former General Manager of BPI, Dies at 76
LONDON — Tributes have been paid to British music executive Peter Scaping, a widely admired figure in the U.K. record business and former general manager of labels trade body BPI, who has died at the age of 76. Scaping joined BPI in 1976 from Decca Records and held the post of BPI general manager — where he was responsible for day-to-day affairs — until 2000, by which time his job had grown to encompass director of development and research for the London-based organization. Having joined BPI at a time when the demand for industry statistics was fast growing, Scaping oversaw production of the first BPI Yearbook in 1976, providing detailed analysis of U.K. record sales and consumption trends of the period. The text became a vital reference tool for U.K. music execs and Scaping would oversee ...
BTS Accounts for Nearly 1/3 of All U.S. K-Pop Sales & Streams: Their Domination, By the Numbers
BTS members’ decision to take time off for solo projects is bound to shake up K-pop music consumption in the U.S. because of the group’s dominance in the genre. And the band’s label, Big Hit Music — a division of HYBE, which Universal Music Group’s Geffen Records has distributed in the U.S. since last year — will have a tough time filling the hole. Since the beginning of 2021, BTS has accounted for 29.4% of sales and on-demand streams of K-pop music in the U.S., according to a Billboard analysis of Luminate data. Over that time, BTS did not release a new studio album but put out two “best of” collections — BTS, the Best in June 2021 and Proof on June 10, 2022. BTS also released multiple variations of the tracks “Butter” (including a remix with Megan Thee Stallion), “My Universe” and “Permi...
Will BTS’ Label Take a Big Hit From Band’s ‘Hiatus’?
HYBE will miss BTS — but not as much as it would have before acquiring Ithaca Holdings in 2021. On Tuesday (June 14), the band announced it was “going on a hiatus” to allow each member to focus on their solo projects. What that might mean for the label that launched BTS in 2013 is unclear. Companywide, BTS accounted for 27% of HYBE’s U.S. album sales and streams in 2021, according to the company’s fourth quarter 2021 investor presentation. In Japan — the world’s second-biggest music market — BTS accounted for about half of HYBE’s album sales, according to the company’s 2021 earnings. On top of that, BTS likely accounted for nearly all HYBE’s touring income that amounted to 191.1 billion ($148 million) in 2019 and 45.6 billion KRW ($36 million) 2021. HYBE’s acquisition of Ithica Projects in...
Microsoft-Made Glass Encoded With Thousands of Songs Headed to Doomsday Vault in Norway
LONDON —A Norwegian company that is planning to create a doomsday vault to preserve the world’s most important music works has partnered with Microsoft on what it calls a “paradigm-breaking” storage solution capable of holding recordings for many thousands of years. Oslo-based Elire Group teamed up with the tech giant to come up with a “proof of concept” silica glass platter that can be used as a medium for storing master-quality digital copies of music recordings, which are burnt into the glass using state-of-the-art laser optics. Elire plans to initially store the glass capsules in a dedicated space inside the Arctic World Archive, an existing underground storage facility located on a remote arctic island midway between Norway and the North Pole. Opened in 2017, the Arctic World Archive ...
