Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department clocks
a 14th week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated
Aug. 17), with 142,000 equivalent album units earned
in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 8 (up 98%) accord-
ing to Luminate.
The last album to spend at least 14 weeks at No. 1
was Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which
logged 19 total nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 between
March 2023 and this March. The last album by a
woman to spend at least 14 total weeks at No. 1 was
Adele’s 21, which earned 24 nonconsecutive weeks on
top in 2011-12.
Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, Ye
(formerly Kanye West) and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures
2 debuts at No. 2 with 107,000 equivalent album units,
marking the 13th Ye album to reach the top two (his
entirety of charting releases), while Ty Dolla $ign ups
his tally of top 10s to three.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular
albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric
consumption as measured in equivalent album units,
compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales,
track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equiva-
lent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or
10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-
supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand o-
cial audio and video streams generated by songs from
an album. The new Aug. 18, 2024-dated chart will be
posted in full onBillboard’s website on Aug. 13. For all
chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts
on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of The Tortured Poets Department’s 142,000 units
earned in the week ending Aug. 8, album sales com-
prise 84,000 (up 606%), SEA units comprise 57,500
(equaling 75.43 million on-demand ocial streams of
the set’s widely available deluxe edition’s 31 songs)
and TEA units comprise 500. Poets is No. 2 on the Top
Streaming Albums chart (behind Wallen’s One Thing
at a Time) and No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart.
Poets’ album sales in the latest tracking week were
bolstered by a number of drivers. The set was released
in five new digital album variants via Swift’s ocial
webstore for a limited time, each containing the
Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets
Department’ Clocks 14th Week
at No. 1 on Billboard 200
BY KEITH CAULFIELD
(continued)
YOUR DAILY ENTERTAINMENT NEWS UPDATE
Bulletin
AUGUST 12, 2024 Page 1 of 23
• Another Round:
Shaboozey’s ‘A Bar
Song (Tipsy)’ No. 1 on
Billboard Hot 100 for
Fifth Week
• Universal Music
and Meta Expand
Partnership For
‘Social Music
Opportunities’
• Billboard’s 2024
Latin Power Players’
Choice: Vote for
Music’s Most
Impactful Executive
(Seminals)
• Billboard’s Music
Industry Events
Calendar
• Red Hot Chili
Peppers Wrap
Unlimited Love Tour
With Over 3.4 Million
Tickets Sold
• Billie Eilish’s ‘Birds
of a Feather’ Soars
to No. 1 on Billboard
Global Charts
INSIDE
The Clive Davis Institute at New York University’s Tisch
School of the Arts is the first and only program of its kind
to provide professional business, artistic and academic
training toward a BFA in recorded music.
CDI recently relocated to Brooklyn, at 370 Jay St. — NYU’s
new home for media, technology and the arts.
For 20 years, CDI has provided students with the
necessary tools to become visionary creative
entrepreneurs in the evolving global music industry.
To honor CDI’s mission of higher education and support
of the next generation of music industry leaders, please
join Billboard in congratulating the institute and its
founder, Mr. Clive Davis, on its 20th anniversary.
2 0 2 4
I S SUE DA TE 8/24 AD CLOSE 8/13 M ATERIA LS DUE 8/15| |
CONTACTS
East Coast/Midwest: Joe Maimone | [email protected]
Touring and West Coast: Cynthia Mellow | [email protected]
International: Ryan O’Donnell | [email protected]
Latin: Marcia Olival | marciaolival29@gmail.com
Southeast: Lee Ann Photoglo | laphotoglo@gmail.com
Page 3 of 23
standard album’s 16 songs, along with one
exclusive bonus track for $4.99 each (one
album contained a “first draft phone memo”
version of “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite
Toys,” while the other four contained one
live track each from recent stops during her
The Eras Tour). In addition, for a limited
time, the store restocked three previously
available digital album variants with exclu-
sive bonus cuts, and a signed CD edition.
Her store also staged a brief sale pricing
promotion, whereby 16 previously avail-
able physical variants of the album were all
discounted by 13% (as 13 is Swift’s favorite
number).
With Poets — Swift’s longest-leading
album on the Billboard 200 — she adds her
83rd career week at No. 1 on the Billboard
200, extending her record among soloists.
(Elvis Presley has the second-most among
soloists, with 67.) The total encompasses her
14 No. 1 albums. (She’s tied with Jay-Z for
the most No. 1s among soloists.)
At No. 2 on the new Billboard 200, Ye and
Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 2 swoops in with
107,000 equivalent album units earned. The
album was released on Saturday (Aug. 3).
It’s the long-awaited sequel to the chart-top-
ping Vultures 1, which opened atop the Feb.
24-dated chart with 148,000 units. Of the
new album’s first-week figure, album sales
comprise 60,500 in album sales, SEA units
comprise 46,000 (equaling 50.44 million
on-demand ocial streams of the standard
set’s songs) and TEA units comprise 500
units. Vultures 2 also bows at No. 6 on the
Top Streaming Albums chart and No. 2 on
the Top Album Sales chart.
The opening sales of Vultures 2 were
aided by its availability across a widely
available standard explicit edition, and a
late-in-the-week-released clean edition (on
Aug. 8). Ye’s ocial webstore also issued five
additional explicit digital album variants
on Wednesday (Aug. 7) and Thursday (Aug.
8), each containing the standard album’s
16 tracks, along with one exclusive studio
bonus track per album. All digital albums on
Ye’s webstore sold for $5 each. The Vultures
2 album, both clean and explicit, was also
discounted to $4.99 in the iTunes Store in
the tracking week.
Vultures 2 was originally slated for re-
lease on March 8.
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a
Midwest Princess climbs to a new high, as
it rises from its prior No. 4 best to No. 3
with 64,000 equivalent album units earned
(up 20%). The album’s ascent comes after
Roan’s rousing reception at Lollapalooza on
Aug. 1.
Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a
Time dips 2-4 with 63,000 equivalent album
units (down 2%), while Billie Eilish’s Hit Me
Hard and Soft is steady at No. 5 with 57,000
units (up 8%).
Charli XCX’s Brat bolts 9-6 with 56,000
equivalent album units earned (up 39%),
following the release of the album’s “Guess”
remix with Eilish on Aug. 1.
Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar
Scene falls 3-7 (51,000 equivalent album
units; down 16%), Wallen’s former leader
Dangerous: The Double Album rises 11-8
(just over 37,000; down less than 1%), Noah
Kahan’s Stick Season lifts 10-9 (a little more
than 37,000; down 5%) and the Twisters: The
Album soundtrack drops 8-10 (37,000; down
16%).
Luminate, the independent data provider
to theBillboardcharts, completes a thorough
review of all data submissions used in com-
piling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate
reviews and authenticates data. In partner-
ship withBillboard, data deemed suspicious
or unverifiable is removed, using established
criteria, before final chart calculations are
made and published.
IN BRIEF
AUTHORITATIVE INTELLIGENCE.
DELIVERED DIGITALLY.
CLICK HERE
FOR FREE
DELIVERY
DIGITAL NEWSLETTERS
In our Aug. 24 issue, Billboard will celebrate the 25th
anniversary of the Americana Music Association. Since
its beginning in 1999, the association has given a voice
and a home to roots musicians all over the world.
Through its efforts, the Recording Academy now
recognizes the genre with multiple Grammy Awards,
including best Americana album, best American roots
performance, best American roots song and best
Americana performance. With the addition of
AMERICANAFEST, the Americana Music Association has
played a vital role in exposing the music and artists to a
global audience.
On its 25th anniversary, please join us in congratulating
the Americana Music Association on its remarkable
achievements on behalf of the many talented roots
musicians around the world.
2024
CONTACTS
East Coast/Midwest: Joe Maimone | joe.maimone@billboard.com
Touring & West Coast: Cynthia Mellow | cmellow615@gmail.com
Southeast: Lee Ann Photoglo | laphotoglo@gmail.com
Latin: Marcia Olival | marciaolival29@gmail.com
International: Ryan O’Donnell | rodonnell@pmc.com
I SSUE DATE 8/24 AD CLO SE 8/13 M ATERIALS DUE 8/15| |
2024
Another Round:
Shaboozey’s ‘A Bar
Song (Tipsy)’ No.
1 on Billboard Hot
100 for Fifth Week
BY GARY TRUST
S
haboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
adds a fifth nonconsecutive week
at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Notably, the single, the singer-
songwriter’s first leader on the Hot 100,
is the first song to rule in streams, radio
airplay and sales simultaneously since
Adele’s “Easy on Me” in 2021. As “A Bar
Song (Tipsy)” continues atop the Hot 100,
it rebounds for a 10th week at No. 1 on the
Digital Song Sales chart, notches a fourth
week atop Streaming Songs and adds a
second week atop Radio Songs.
Dating to the origin of Billboard’s Stream-
ing Songs chart in January 2013 (when it
joined Radio Songs, which began in 1990,
and Digital Song Sales, which first published
in 2005), “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” becomes one
of only a dozen hits to have ruled in the Hot
100’s three metrics simultaneously.
Plus, as “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” tops the
multimetric Hot Country Songs chart for
a ninth week, it’s the first song to reign in
streams, airplay and sales while leading both
the Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs.
“A Bar Song (Tipsy),” on American
Dogwood/EMPIRE (with country radio
promotion by Magnolia Music), is from Sha-
boozey’s album Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where
I’m Going.
The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. stream-
ing (ocial audio and ocial video), radio
airplay and sales data, the lattermost metric
reflecting purchases of physical singles and
digital tracks from full-service digital music
retailers; digital singles sales from direct-
to-consumer (D2C) sites are excluded from
chart calculations. All charts (dated Aug. 17,
2024) will update on Billboard.com tomor-
row, Aug. 13. For all chart news, you can
follow @billboard and @billboardcharts
on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and
Instagram.
‘Tipsy’ Still Tops: “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
dominates the Hot 100 for a fifth week with
90.5 million radio airplay audience impres-
sions (essentially even week-over-week),
33.9 million ocial streams (down 5%) and
12,000 sold (down 12%) in the United States
Aug. 2-8. As it tops Digital Song Sales for a
10th week, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is the first
title to reach double-digit frames at No. 1
since BTS’ “Butter” ran up a record-tying
18 weeks on top in 2021. It matched the run
of the group’s “Dynamite” in 2020-21. The
three are the only songs this decade to lead
for 10 or more weeks.
No. 1 in Streams, Airplay & Sales Simul-
taneously: “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is now one
of a select dozen hits to have led in the Hot
100’s three metrics simultaneously. Adele’s
“Easy On Me” last earned the honor, the
week that parent album 30 launched atop
the Billboard 200 in 2021. She is also the
only artist to claim the mark with two songs,
as “Hello” likewise led in each metric at
the same time in 2015. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
and “Easy on Me” are the only songs to gain
entry to the list this decade.
Here’s a recap of each song that has
achieved such a triple triumph:
“A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Shaboozey, Aug. 17,
2024
“Easy On Me,” Adele, Dec. 4, 2021
“Despacito,” Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee
feat. Justin Bieber, July 22 & 29; Aug. 5, 12 &
19, 2017
“Shape of You,” Ed Sheeran, March 25;
April 1, 8 & 15, 2017
“Closer,” The Chainsmokers feat. Halsey,
Oct. 15, 22 & 29; Nov. 5, 12 & 19, 2016
“Hello,” Adele, Nov. 28; Dec. 5 & 19, 2015
“The Hills,” The Weekend, Oct. 17 & 31,
2015
“Uptown Funk!,” Mark Ronson feat.
Bruno Mars, Feb. 7, 14 & 21; March 7, 14, 21 &
28; April 4 & 11, 2015
“Blank Space,” Taylor Swift, Dec. 27, 2014
“All About That Bass,” Meghan Trainor,
Oct. 11 & 18, 2014
“Fancy,” Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX,
June 28, 2014
“Happy,” Pharrell Williams, May 3, 2014
Reflecting its uncommon sonic mass ap-
peal, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” became the first
song to go top five (or even top 10) on all
four of the following Billboard radio charts:
Country Airplay, which it leads for a third
week; Pop Airplay, where it takes over at
No. 1; Rhythmic Airplay, where it reached
No. 3; and Adult Pop Airplay, where it’s
steady at its No. 5 high.
Post Malone & Wallen Lead Rest of
Top 10: Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help,”
featuring Morgan Wallen, holds at No. 2 on
the Hot 100, following six nonconsecutive
weeks on top beginning in May. It’s concur-
rently No. 1 on the multimetric Songs of the
Summer chart for an 11th week.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” repeats
at No. 3 on the Hot 100, four weeks after
it rebounded for a second week on top.
It crowns the multimetric Hot Rap Songs
chart for a 13th week and Hot R&B/Hip-
Hop Songs for an 11th week.
The Hot 100’s top five is stationary, with
Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” at No. 4,
after reaching No. 3, and Tommy Richman’s
“Million Dollar Baby” at No. 5, after hitting
No. 2, as it logs a 15th week atop the multi-
metric Hot R&B Songs chart.
Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” hits
a new Hot 100 high, rising 8-6, as does Billie
Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather,” which wings
10-7, surpassing its prior No. 9 peak. The lat-
ter also ascends to No. 1 on the multimetric
Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot
Alternative Songs charts, as Eilish earns
her fourth leader on each list, following
“Lunch” this June, “What Was I Made For?”
last year, “Happier Than Ever” in 2021 and
“My Future” in 2020.
Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” re-
bounds 9-8 on the Hot 100, after it became
her first No. 1 in June, and Teddy Swims’
“Lose Control,” which led for a week in
March, slips 6-9.
Rounding out the Hot 100’s top 10, Hozi-
er’s “Too Sweet” falls 7-10, following a week
at No. 1 in April, as it tops the multimetric
Hot Rock Songs chart for a 19th week.
Page 5 of 23
IN BRIEF
Editorial content subject to change
ON SALE 8/31 | AD CLOSE 8/20 | MATERIALS DUE 8/22
R&B/HIP-HOP POWER ISSUE
R&B/hip-hop dominates every other genre, claiming a quarter of all music consumption.
On Aug. 31, Billboard will publish its R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players list showcasing the producers,
creatives, executives and publishers who have made R&B/hip-hop the hottest genre on earth.
Advertise and congratulate the people who are driving this industry and reach
an influential audience of decision-makers in music and pop culture.
R&B
/
/
HIP-HOP POWER PLAYERS
HIP
-
HOP
YEARS OF
50
EXECUTIVEOF
THE YEAR
GAMMA’S
LARRY JACKSON
NAS’ANNIVERSARY
PARTY
LOVE LETTERS
TO THE CULTURE
+
INNOVATION
STILL RULES
LIL WAYNE’S
WORLD
10cover [P]_803167;46_View.indd 3 8/1/23 5:16 PM
R&B
//
HIP-HOP POWER PLAYERS
EXECUTIVEOF
THE YEAR
GAMMA’S
LARRY JACKSON
LIL WAYNE’S
WORLD
LOVE LETTERS
TO THE CULTURE
+
HOWNASHELPED
ORCHESTRATE A
GOLDEN CELEBRATION
HIP
-
HOP
YEARS OF
50
10cover [P]_803167;46_View.indd 6 8/1/23 5:16 PM
2024
CONTACT
Joe Maimone [email protected] Cynthia Mellow [email protected]
Ryan O’Donnell [email protected] Marcia Olival [email protected]
Lee Ann Photoglo [email protected]
Universal Music
and Meta Expand
Partnership For
‘Social Music
Opportunities’
BY LARS BRANDLE
U
niversal Music Group and Face-
book parent Meta have forged
an expanded agreement that will
“advance social music opportu-
nities” for the music major’s roster of artists
and songwriters across the tech giant’s
platforms.
The new arrangement, announced
Monday, Aug. 12, covers Meta’s platforms
including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger,
Horizon, Threads and for the first time,
WhatsApp.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed,
although a joint statement indicates the
partnership ensures that “artists and song-
writers are compensated fairly.”
Also, Meta and UMG will continue work-
ing together to address, among other things,
unauthorized AI-generated content that
could aect artists and songwriters.
UMG has been proactive on the issue of
AI in music over the past year, andtaken
stands to protect against what it sees
as harmful uses of AI. It was UMG that
partnered with YouTube on a series of
AI principles and an AI Music Incubator
to help artists use AI responsibly, formed
astrategic partnership with BandLabto
create a set of ethical practices around mu-
sic creation, andpartnered with Endelon
functional music, among other initiatives.
The origins of this arrangement can
be traced back to 2017, when Facebook
and Universal entered into what Billboard
described at the time as an unprecedented
and global licensing partnership that would
shake-up the way people listen to and share
music on the popular social platform.
With that deal, Facebook was finally on
good terms with its content partners after
a years-long relationship that was, for the
most part, frosty.
This renewed partnership “builds on the
recognition that music can help connect
us and bring fans, artists, and songwrit-
ers closer together, not only on established
platforms such as Instagram and Facebook,”
says Tamara Hrivnak, VP music and
content business Development at Meta, in a
statement, “but also in new ways on What-
sApp, and more.“We’re extremely grateful
to the Universal team, and look forward to
growing our partnership in the future.”
Adds Michael Nash, chief digital ocer
& EVP, Universal Music Group: “Since
our landmark 2017 agreement, Meta has
consistently demonstrated its commitment
to artists and songwriters by helping to
amplify the importance music holds across
its global network of engaged communities
and platforms, creating new opportunities
and applications where music amplifies and
leads engagement and conversations.”
In recent months, both parties have
collaborated on “landmark campaign
rollouts” across the Meta ecosystem for
artists including Billie Eilish, Karol G and
Taylor Swift.
Billboard’s 2024
Latin Power
Players’ Choice:
Vote for Music’s
Most Impactful
Executive
(Seminals)
BY TAYLOR MIMS
B
illboard’s peer-voted Latin Power
Players’ Choice Award is back for
2024 and asking music indus-
try members from all sectors to
honor the executive they believe had the
most impact across the Latin music genre in
the past year.
Voting is open to all Billboard Pro mem-
bers, both existing and new, with one vote
per member per round.
The Latin Power Players’ Choice Award
will run alongside Billboard’s annual
Latin Power Players ranking of the music
industry’s most influential executives in
the genre, which will be announced in
September.
Vote HERE
The second round of voting is now open
in order to narrow down the top 15 nomi-
nees into the final five top nominees.Semi-
finalist voting will conclude on Aug. 21 at
11:59 p.m. ET.
The third round of voting will begin Aug.
22 to select the winner from the final five
nominees. Voting will conclude on Sept. 4 at
11:59pm E.T.
Billboard launched its first Players’
Choice Award with the Power 100 list in
January 2023, followed by the first Coun-
try Power Players’ Choice Award that
concluded in June and the inaugural R&B/
Hip-Hop Power Players’ Choice Award
in August and the first Latin Power Play-
ers’ Choice Award in September, which
was won by WK Entertainment founder/
CEO Walter Kolm. In 2024, the peer-voted
award expanded to also cover International
Power Players and Top Music Lawyers.
Billboard’s Music
Industry Events
Calendar
BY CHRIS EGGGERTSEN
A
s part of our continuing eorts
to serve the music industry and
its creators, Billboard Pro now
features a music industry events
calendar for readers.
The calendar will act as music’s most
complete summary major national and
international industry events, from confer-
ences to festivals to networking mixers and
more. Just as Billboard is music’s must-read
source for news, charts and analysis, now it
also is the go-to for business happenings.
Page 7 of 23
IN BRIEF
#BILLBOARDLATINWEEK | BILLBOARDLATINMUSICWEEK.COM
FOR SPONSORSHIPS: MARCIAOLIV[email protected]
August
Aug. 13 - JYP Entertainment Q2 earn-
ings call
Aug. 13. - Tencent Music Entertainment
Q2 earnings call
Aug. 17 - Guild of Music Supervisors
State of Music in Media Conference (Cul-
ver City, Calif.)
Aug. 17-18 - Afro Nation Detroit (De-
troit)
Aug. 21 - ACM Honors (Nashville)
Aug. 21-25 - Reading & Leeds Festivals
(Reading & Leeds, England)
Aug. 22 - CTS Eventim H1 earnings call
Aug. 23 - MusiCares + Amazon Music
Showcase Live on the Lawn (Culver City,
Calif.)
Aug. 23 - The Greatest Beatles Story
Never Told (Los Angeles)
Aug. 23-24 - AFROPUNK BLKTOPIA
Brooklyn (New York)
Aug. 16-18, Aug. 23-25 - All Points East
(London)
Aug. 25-Sep. 2 - Burning Man (Black
Rock Desert, Nev.)
Aug. 27 - SOURCE Hall of Fame Awards
(Nashville)
Aug. 28 - BMG H1 earnings call
Aug. 30-Sept. 1 - Rocklahoma (Pryor,
Okla.)
Red Hot Chili
Peppers Wrap
Unlimited Love
Tour With Over
3.4 Million Tickets
Sold
BY ERIC FRANKENBERG
T
he Red Hot Chili Peppers
wrapped their multi-year, multi-
continent tour with the biggest
business of their multi-decade
career. According to figures reported to Bill-
board Boxscore, the Unlimited Love Tour
sold 3.4 million tickets over 86 shows.
Among rock tours, it finishes as the third
best-selling trek this decade, only behind
Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World
Tour and Elton John’s Farewell Yellow
Brick Road Tour.
Though not eligible for Boxscore report-
ing, the Red Hot Chili Peppers closed out
this touring cycle with a performance
tonight (Aug. 11) at the LA28 handover cel-
ebration at the Closing Ceremony of 2024
Olympics, where Paris passes the torch to
the Chili Peppers’ hometown of Los Ange-
les for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic
Games. Boxscore totals only include grosses
for ticketed headline shows, whereas the
Olympics performance is part of a larger
televised event.
The Unlimited Love Tour supported its
namesake album, which was released in
April 2022, as well as Return of the Dream
Canteen, which followed in October of that
year. Both sets led the Top Rock Albums
chart, and the former crowned the all-genre
Billboard 200.
The Unlimited Love Tour kicked o on
June 4, 2022 with a performance at Estadio
de La Cartuja in Sevilla, Spain. That show
launched a 12-show leg in Europe that sold
659,000 tickets. Next was 19 shows in the
U.S. and Canada, adding 807,000 tickets.
That remains the highest-grossing and best-
selling leg of the tour.
What followed was a parade of shows
in Asia, Latin America, and Oceania, plus
returns to Europe and North America before
closing on July 30 in Maryland Heights, Mo.
While the first stateside run claimed top
honors for cumulative gross and attendance,
the Chili Peppers’ string of eight shows in
Australia and New Zealand (January-Febru-
ary 2023) boasted the best per-show ticket
sales, averaging 47,326. Those dates were
helped by the presence of Post Malone, join-
ing while on his Twelve Carat Tour.
As for individual engagements, the biggest
was a double-header at England’s London
Stadium on June 25-26, 2022. Those two
combined for 142,000 tickets sold. Among
one-night-stands, it’s the Nov. 10, 2023
concert at Estadio do Morumbi in Sao Paulo,
where the band played to 71,000 fans.
These final figures represent an en-
tirely new peak in the Chili Peppers’ career.
Though the band had dabbled with stadium
shows before, this was its first full tour
in the top-capacity venues. The tour’s 3.4
million attendance total is about 3.5x the
group’s previous best, when the By the Way
World Tour sold 979,000 in 2002-03. On
average, the tour paced 39,761 tickets per
show, up from 14,291 on the 1995-96 One
Hot Minute Tour.
Dating back to a 1985 Halloween show at
New York’s The Ritz, the Red Hot Chili Pep-
pers have sold 8.6 million tickets over 498
reported shows.
Billie Eilish’s ‘Birds
of a Feather’
Soars to No. 1 on
Billboard Global
Charts
BY GARY TRUST
B
illie Eilish earns her first No. 1
on both the Billboard Global
200 and Billboard Global Excl.
U.S. charts as “Birds of a Feather”
rises from the runner-up spot to perch atop
each survey.
Eilish also debuts in the top five of each
chart as Charli xcx’s “Guess,” on which
she’s featured, starts at No. 3 on the Global
200 and No. 5 on Global Excl. U.S.
The Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S.
charts, which began in September 2020,
rank songs based on streaming and sales ac-
tivity culled from more than 200 territories
around the world, as compiled by Luminate.
The Global 200 is inclusive of worldwide
data and the Global Excl. U.S. chart com-
prises data from territories excluding the
United States.
Chart ranks are based on a weighted
formula incorporating ocial-only streams
on both subscription and ad-supported
tiers of audio and video music services, as
well as download sales, the latter of which
reflect purchases from full-service digital
music retailers from around the world, with
Page 9 of 23
IN BRIEF
Voting members of the Recording Academy
ON SALE
Oct. 5
ISSUE CLOSE Sept. 24
MATERIALS DUE Sept. 26
PROMOTION
SUNDAY, FEB. 2, 2025
Special rates available for independent artists and companies.
Billboard will publish its annual GRAMMY®
Contenders special issue showcasing the
music and artists that made an impact
during the eligibility period for the 67th
GRAMMY Awards®.
This special issue will highlight the artists,
producers and other creative professionals
whose work is in contention this year in
categories including record of the year,
album of the year, song of the year, best
new artist, producer of the year, non-
classical and songwriter of the year,
non-classical.
Take this opportunity to remind the
industry of the accomplished work that
was released between Sept. 16, 2023, and
Aug. 30, 2024, as the members of the
Recording Academy prepare to cast their
ballots.
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2024
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will be mailed a copy of this
special issue
BONUS DISTRIBUTION
sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites
excluded from the charts’ calculations.
“Birds of a Feather” tops the Global 200
with 78.8 million streams (up 2%) and 7,000
sold (up 11%) worldwide Aug. 2-8. The
singer-songwriter previously peaked as
high as No. 2 on the chart with “What Was I
Made For?” in August 2023 and “Therefore I
Am” in November 2020.
Plus, Charli xcx’s “Guess,” featuring Eil-
ish, debuts at No. 3 on the Global 200 with
60.3 million streams and 9,000 sold world-
wide. The song surged by 999% and 848% in
the respective metrics following the Aug. 1
arrival of its remix with Eilish; it was first
released June 10 on Charli xcx’s Brat and
It’s the Same but There’s Three More Songs
So It’s Not, the deluxe version of her album
Brat, released June 7. Charli xcx notches
her first top 10 since the Global 200 began,
while Eilish adds her eighth.
Elsewhere in the Global 200’s top five, Sa-
brina Carpenter’s “Espresso” rebounds 3-2,
following three nonconsecutive weeks at
No. 1 beginning in June; Shaboozey’s “A Bar
Song (Tipsy)” holds at No. 4, after reaching
No. 3; and Jimin’s “Who” falls to No. 5 after
spending its first two weeks on the chart at
No. 1.
“Birds of a Feather” concurrently climbs
2-1 on Global Excl. U.S., with 57.3 million
streams (up 3%) and 3,000 sold (up 18%)
outside the U.S. Aug. 2-8. Eilish previously
reached a No. 2 peak with “Lunch” in June
and “Therefore I Am” in 2020. Both “Birds
of a Feather” and “Lunch” are from her
newest album, Hit Me Hard and Soft.
Charli xcx’s “Guess,” featuring Eilish,
opens at No. 5 on Global Excl. U.S. with 40.1
million streams and 4,000 sold globally. As
on the Global 200, Charli xcx claims her
first Global Excl. U.S. top 10, while Eilish
ups her count to eight.
In between Eilish’s concurrent top five
Global Excl. U.S. hits, Jimin’s “Who” slips to
No. 2 after logging its first two weeks on the
chart at No. 1; Carpenter’s “Espresso” holds
at No. 3, following eight nonconsecutive
weeks at No. 1 beginning in May; and Karol
G’s “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” keeps at
its No. 4 best.
The Billboard Global 200 and Billboard
Global Excl. U.S. charts (dated Aug. 17, 2024)
will update on Billboard.com tomorrow,
Aug. 13. For both charts, the top 100 titles
are available to all readers on Billboard.
com, while the complete 200-title rank-
ings are visible on Billboard Pro, Billboard’s
subscription-based service. For all chart
news, you can follow @billboard and @
billboardcharts on both X, formerly known
as Twitter, and Instagram.
Luminate, the independent data provider
to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough
review of all data submissions used in com-
piling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate
reviews and authenticates data. In partner-
ship with Billboard, data deemed suspicious
or unverifiable is removed, using established
criteria, before final chart calculations are
made and published.
*NSYNC’s ‘Bye
Bye Bye’ Rides
‘Deadpool &
Wolverine’
Spotlight to Top
10 on Global Excl.
U.S. Chart
BY GARY TRUST
*
NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” bounds to
the top 10, to No. 8 from No. 16, on the
Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart. The
song, originally a smash in 2000, is
newly fueled by its synch in the box oce
blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine, which
has grossed over $1 billion globally since it
premiered July 26.
The Billboard Global 200 and Global
Excl. U.S. charts, which began in September
2020 – where Billie Eilish rules the roost
with “Birds of a Feather” – rank songs based
on streaming and sales activity culled from
more than 200 territories around the world,
as compiled by Luminate. The Global 200 is
inclusive of worldwide data and the Global
Excl. U.S. chart comprises data from territo-
ries excluding the United States.
Chart ranks are based on a weighted
formula incorporating ocial-only streams
on both subscription and ad-supported
tiers of audio and video music services, as
well as download sales, the latter of which
reflect purchases from full-service digital
music retailers from around the world, with
sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites
excluded from the charts’ calculations.
“Bye Bye Bye” scales Global Excl. U.S.
with 42.4 million streams (up 50%) and
3,000 sold (up 5%) outside the U.S. Aug.
2-8, sparked by its placement in the early
moments of Deadpool & Wolverine, starring
Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. The
track debuted a week earlier, marking the
group’s first entry on the chart.
Beyond holiday hits, “Bye Bye Bye” –
which ruled Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart
for 10 weeks and the all-format Radio Songs
ranking, and hit No. 4 on the multimetric,
U.S.-based Billboard Hot 100 in 2000 – is
the second-oldest title to reach the Global
Excl. U.S. top 10; Kate Bush’s “Running Up
That Hill (A Deal With God),” originally
from 1985, reigned for a week in July 2022,
initially revived by its synch in Netflix’s
Stranger Things and subsequently promoted
as a single.
(Now in third place, Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s
“Murder on the Dancefloor,” from 2001,
hit No. 9 on Global Excl. U.S. this February,
renewed thanks to its appearance in the film
Saltburn, along with buzz on TikTok.)
“Bye Bye Bye” also jumps 18-12 on the
Global 200 and re-enters the Hot 100 at No.
45. It drew 10 million ocial streams (up
31%), 4.8 million in radio airplay audience
(up 8%) and 2,000 in sales in the U.S. Aug.
2-8.
To date, the anthem boasts 4.8 billion in
radio reach, 517 million ocial on-demand
streams and 1.3 million downloads sold in
the U.S. It won for best pop video at the
2000 MTV Video Music Awards (where
*NSYNC performed the song) and scored a
record of the year Grammy nomination.
The Billboard Global 200 and Billboard
Global Excl. U.S. charts (dated Aug. 17, 2024)
will update on Billboard.com tomorrow,
Aug. 13. For both charts, the top 100 titles
are available to all readers on Billboard.
Page 11 of 23
IN BRIEF
com, while the complete 200-title rank-
ings are visible on Billboard Pro, Billboard’s
subscription-based service. For all chart
news, you can follow @billboard and @
billboardcharts on both X, formerly known
as Twitter, and Instagram.
UMG Nashville
Joins Forces
with Timbaland’s
Mosley Music
BY JESSICA NICHOLSON
U
MG Nashville has teamed with
producer/artist/songwriter
Timbaland’s indie label Mosley
Music, with the two companies
set to explore rising talent and new music
discoveries.
“Over the past year, we have been work-
ing with Timbaland on the shared goal of
developing great artists together as well as
bridging the gaps in sound and culture in
country music,” says UMGN chair & CEO,
Cindy Mabe, via a statement. “I am so
happy to finally announce our collaboration
with Mosley Music on the heels of his pres-
tigious induction into the Songwriters Hall
of Fame. Timbaland is one of the most iconic
producers, songwriters, and artists in the
last 30 years, merging genres and opening
the doors to magnify cultural impact across
genres.Hailing from Norfolk, VA, Timbal-
and’s reach and impact have been felt across
pop, hip-hop, and country music including
working with and bridging sounds for artists
like Bubba Sparxxx, For King + Country, and
Brad Paisley.Timbaland continues to push
open the doors making innovative cultural
impact by pushing boundaries and I am
excited to join forces in breaking barriers in
country music.”
Timbaland added via a statement, “I’ve
been aligned with Universal Music Group
the majority of my career as an artist and
with my label Mosley Music, so UMG Nash-
ville felt like the right place to partner for
us in Country. I love their mission of taking
chances on special artists to meet culture.
Cindy, Chelsea, Charlene, Rob, Lori, Mike,
and the rest of the team at UMG Nashville
understand our vision and I know will be
a great partner for us to continue to break
artists.”
UMG Nashville consists of imprints
Capitol Records Nashville, EMI Records
Nashville, MCA Nashville and Mercury
Nashville, with artists including Luke Bryan,
Eric Church, Mickey Guyton, Alan Jackson,
Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban and more.
The label group has recently added to its
oerings, launching the TV/film production
company Sing Me Back Home Productions,
Silver Wings Records, and the comedy divi-
sion Capitol Comedy Nashville.
Mosley Music Group’s roster includes
Timbaland, One Republic, and Carson Lu-
eder. In 2017, Paisley worked with creatives
including Timbaland on his album Love
and War. In 2001, Bubba Sparxxx and Tim-
baland earned a No. 15 Billboard Hot 100 hit
with “Ugly.”
Isaac Hayes Estate
Sues Donald
Trump for Using
‘Hold On, I’m
Coming’ at Rallies
BY LARS BRANDLE
D
onald Trump has another law-
suit on his hands, this time from
the estate of Isaac Hayes.
Lawyers for Isaac Hayes En-
terprises filed a notice of copyright infringe-
ment, stating that the late artist’s song “Hold
On, I’m Coming” was used on “multiple
occasions during various political rallies,”
without authorization.
The paperwork, dated Monday, Aug. 11,
identifies 134 counts copyright infringement
at campaign rallies from 2022-2024.
“We demand the cessation of use, removal
of all related videos, a public disclaimer,
and payment of $3 million in licensing fees
by August 16, 2024. Failure to comply will
result in further legal action,” reads a state-
ment posted on Hayes’ son, Isaac Hayes III.
However, given no choice, the paperwork
reads, that legal action could extend to “fed-
eral litigation.”
Trump, the Republican presidential
nominee, has been here before. Scores of
top artists and songwriters have objected to
his campaign’s use of their songs at politi-
cal rallies since he first ran for president
in 2015 — among them The Rolling Stones,
Adele, Rihanna, Sinead O’Connor‘s estate
and Aerosmith‘s Steven Tyler.
Yet as recently as July 31, in Harrisburg,
Pa., Trump has been using “Hold On, I’m
Comin’” to close his rallies — prompting this
legal action.
“It is most unfortunate that these artists
have publicly posted on their social media
and asked Team Trump and other candi-
dates not to use their music — and yet their
candidates keep using their music,” James L.
Walker Jr., an attorney for Hayes Enterpris-
es, previously stated.
The Rolling Stones,Adele,Rihan-
na,Sinead O’Connor‘s estate andAeros-
mith‘sSteven Tyler are among the artists
who’ve objected touse of their songs at
political rallies since Trump first ran for
president in 2015.
Hayes died Aug. 10, 2008, at the age of
65. For the “Theme from Shaft,” he was
awarded the Oscar for best original song
in 1972, making him just the third Black
person, after Hattie McDaniel and Sidney
Poitier, to win an Academy Award in any
competitive field.
Hayes and David Porter wrote “Hold On,
I’m Coming,” which was recorded by soul
duo Sam & Dave and issued on the Stax label
in 1966, peaking at No. 21 on the Billboard
Hot 100.
Page 12 of 23
IN BRIEF
UMG Share Price
Regains Some
Losses (With
Help from WMG)
During Chaotic
Week for Stocks
BY GLENN PEOPLES
D
uring a chaotic week for stock
markets around the world,
Universal Music Group (UMG)
shares rose 3.3% to 22.15 euros
($24.20), enough to make the Amsterdam-
listed company the top-performing music
stock of the week.
Stocks were hammered on Monday
(Aug. 5) as markets reacted to a disappoint-
ing U.S. jobs report the prior Friday (Aug. 2),
leading to mounting concerns the economy
could fall into a recession. The Billboard
Global Music Index fell 2.0% on Monday,
though it experienced a lighter decline than
both the Nasdaq (down 3.4%) and the S&P
500 (down 3.0%). Investors didn’t panic,
however, and markets made gains over the
remainder of the week. On Friday (Aug. 9),
the Nasdaq closed down 0.2% for the week
while the S&P 500 broke even.
UMG received a boost on Wednesday
(Aug. 7) from Warner Music Group’s quar-
terly earnings report — a welcome change
after a second-quarter slowdown in UMG’s
streaming growth so worried investors that
the company’s shares fell 24% the following
day. WMG’s latest earnings results, which
showed that recorded music streaming
revenue grew 8.7% after a few adjustments,
may have convinced some UMG investors
that they overreacted. In light of this new in-
formation, UMG shares jumped 6.6% to 22.74
euros ($24.85) on Wednesday. Notably, this
Friday’s closing price is 14% above the lowest
closing price — 21.12 euros ($23.08) — since
the 24% decline occurred on July 25.
WMG shares rose 0.3% to $28.34 this
week after the company announced that
quarterly revenue dropped 1% and net profit
improved 14%. The third-largest major’s
streaming gains satisfied some, but not all,
analysts. Morgan Stanley analysts cited
“lowered streaming growth outlook” in
lowering their price target to $35 from $41.
Guggenheim, encouraged by WMG’s sub-
scription revenue growth acceleration and
performance relative to UMG, maintained
its $44 price target. JP Morgan, which sees
WMG as “well positioned” to capture paid
streaming adoption, left its $41 price target
unchanged.
The Billboard Global Music Index, a
float-adjusted measure of 20 companies’
market capitalizations, rose 3.1%, breaking
a streak of four consecutive weeks with a
loss. Spotify, the index’s largest component,
gained 2.6% to $339.69. Tencent Music En-
tertainment, which will report earnings on
Tuesday (Aug. 13), rose 2.8% to $12.97.
In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100
declined 3.6% to 8,168.10. South Korea’s
KOSPI composite index fell 3.3% to 2,588.43.
China’s Shanghai composite index dropped
1.5% to 2,862.19.
iHeartMedia shares fell 10.7% to $1.33
following the company’s second-quarter
earnings on Thursday (Aug. 8). The
company reported a 1% increase in second-
quarter revenue and sounded optimistic that
political advertising will provide a boost to
the full-year results. Both third-quarter and
full-year revenue are expected to be up by
mid-single digits.
Shares of radio broadcaster Townsquare
Media dropped 5.8% following the com-
pany’s second-quarter results on Tuesday.
Revenue fell 2.5% and net loss increased to
$48.9 million from $2.7 million in the prior-
year period. Its $0.14 earnings per share
missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of
$0.42.
Belmont
Conference
Addresses the
Unique Mental
Health Challenges
On Nashville’s
Music Row
BY TOM ROLAND
M
usic industry professionals
are not, by definition, first re-
sponders, but they do have the
ability to rescue people.
That fact alone may be a buoy for many
music-aliated workers who are suering
their own form of burnout, despondency or
depression.
Reminding music professionals of their
product’s impact is one of the finer points
delivered during 24/7: A Mental Health in
Entertainment Conference, presented Aug. 7
by Belmont University in Nashville.
“I’ll have individuals in the industry come
to me and say, ‘Well, it’s not like we’re doing
brain surgery. I know our place in the music
industry isn’t that important,’ “ Entertain-
ment Health Services president Elizabeth
Portersaid during the conference’s “Work/
Life Unbalanced” workshop. “I say it’s more
important ... I say there’s two big influenc-
ers in the world: the entertainment industry
and politics.”
Politics is all too often divisive. Music,
at its best, can rally a group — or, at least,
an individual. Porter’s Call founder Al
Andrewsremembered a “very dark and sui-
cidal time” decades ago when he discovered
Jennifer Warnes’ “Song of Bernadette,” and
he played it repeatedly, reveling in its heal-
ing message as he bounced back. During his
work as a therapist, Andrews has encoun-
tered numerous stories about songs that led
his patients back from the brink.
“We all have moments when we are res-
cued, moments where we were sinking and
Page 13 of 23
IN BRIEF
someone threw a rope to us and pulled us
in,” he said during the day’s closing session.
“Often music is involved. Hope is accompa-
nied by a soundtrack. It almost always is.”
The power of music is what pulls many
into the industry’s labor force. But the
experience of working daily with emo-
tions — particularly when companies are
understaed and the job never seems to stop
— makes music’s employees particularly
vulnerable to burnout and depression. The
allure of a vocation connected to fame and
entertainment compounds the issue.
“We have a really unique industry because
I think it’s one of the only ones that ties
so closely to our personal identities,” C3
Presents festival director Brad Parker said.
“The pandemic showed that to a lot of us.
I kind of felt like part of me was stripped
away whenever live music went away dur-
ing the pandemic, and I did a lot of soul
searching to really reinforce that people
enjoy Brad Parker outside of the identity of
‘He’s the Bonnaroo guy.’ “
Parker recalled how he was more than
willing, during the first five to seven years of
his career, to take work-related after-hours
calls, fearing that if he didn’t, others were
standing in line to replace him. It’s that kind
of fear that keeps many of the industry’s
worker bees buzzing on the job into the
evening.
“The industry is 24/7,” Shading the Lime-
light founder Cristi Williams said, “hence
the title of this conference.”
Williams, in the event’s first presentation,
explored the mindset of celebrities, whose
emotions and behaviors influence their
stas and ripple outward across the rest of
the industry. Fame, she said, is accompanied
by two driving forces: a sense of unworthi-
ness that creates self-imposed shame and a
competing sense of entitlement that leads to
unrealistic expectations. The celebrity’s out-
look rides a pendulum, Williams said, that
swings back and forth between those points.
If that phenomenon goes uncontrolled, the
pendulum can become a wrecking ball.
“Success is a lot harder to manage than
failure,” she said, “and when the pendulum
is oscillating further and faster, it tends to
derail us.”
That pendulum — and others — are un-
avoidable. Mental health, Williams main-
tained, comes from controlling the swing
and the emotional reaction to it.
In recognition of the industry’s fragility,
Belmont’s Curb College of Entertainment &
Music Business dean Brittany Schaeran-
nounced plans to create a Center for Mental
Health in Entertainment. She cited four
leaders for a steering committee — Andrews,
Onsite Workshops vp of entertainment
and specialized services Debbie Carroll,
Prescription Songs A&R manager Rachel
Weinand Music Health Alliance founder/
CEO Tatum Hauck Allsep— charged with
shaping the program, which will eventually
be housed in Belmont’s Music Row building,
projected to open in 2028.
“Until then,” Schaer said, “we are going
to work on building out the team to support
the center so that it can exist long before the
building does.”
Warner Music Nashville co-head/co-CEO
Cris Lacylaid out four issues that trip up
the emotional well-being of artists and the
industry around them: the tendency to com-
pare their careers to their peers, negative
criticism from social media, executives who
prioritize self-promotion over their support
role and a “texture of scarcity” that, presum-
ably, leads to fear and depression.
One obvious solution for artists and the
business as a whole lies in the industry’s
own product. There is, Andrews suggested,
a “noble purpose” in music, and every
person in the business contributes to its
influence.
“If you’re in the industry, every one of
you is a part of getting the songs out there,”
he said. “Everybody in this room has a song
that saved their life, and you’re a part of the
songs that get out there into people’s hearts.
Some of those people, like you and me, are
lingering on the edge or not in a good place,
or maybe they’re just fighting a great battle,
and you’ve brewed [hope]. I want you to
believe that. I want you to embrace that. Be
encouraged today for what you do.”
FIFTY FIFTY
New Members
Announced
as Departed
Bandmates Sign
With New Label
BY HANNAH DAILEY
L
ots of changes are happening for
FIFTY FIFTY.
Three former members of the
K-pop girl group — Saena, Aran
and Sio — have reportedly signed with a
new label after their fallout with the group’s
agency ATTRAKT. Meanwhile, ATTRAKT
has announced the addition of four new
FIFTY FIFTY members.
On Monday (Aug. 12), IOK Company an-
nounced the launch of a new label, MAS-
SIVE E&C, of which Saena, Aran and Sio
are three of the first signees. “We plan to
fully support these talented and passionate
members to help them achieve even greater
success worldwide,” a spokesperson for the
company said in a statement, according to
Soompi. “With the team behind the success
of ‘Cupid,’ we aim to create a new success
story in the global market.”
Shortly after the success of FIFTY
FIFTY’s single “Cupid,” which reached No.
17 on the Billboard Hot 100, Saena, Aran
and Sio — along with another former FIFTY
FIFTY member, Keena — alleged that AT-
TRAKT had breached its contract with
them by “failing to provide accounting data”
and neglecting the group’s mental health,
according to the Korea Times. Though Kee-
na later dropped her lawsuit and returned
to the agency, ATTRAKT terminated the
contracts of Saena, Aran and Sio in October,
with the agency alleging they “slandered
and defamed” it.
This past week, ATTRAKT has been an-
nouncing the band’s replacements, sharing
a video of Keena with the four new girls on
Instagram Thursday (Aug. 8) and unveiling
Page 14 of 23
IN BRIEF
three of their names: CHANELLE MOON,
YEWON and HANA. On Sunday (Aug. 11),
the company shared the name of the fourth
new member — ATHENA — with a video
titled “We are FIFTY FIFTY.”
Morgan Wallen
Felony Hearing
Moved to
December
BY MELINDA NEWMAN
M
organ Wallen’s Nashville
court date for throwing a chair
o the roof ofEric Church’s
bar has moved from Thursday
(Aug. 15) to Dec. 12 after the judge granted a
continuance in the case.
Wallen, who is headed to Sweden later
this month to kick o the European leg of
his tour, was arrested in Nashville on April
7 in connection to the chair-throwing inci-
dent. Two Metro Nashville Police Depart-
ment ocers were reportedly standing on
the street below Chief’s on Broadway, when
the chair landed near the ocers. After the
arrest, the country star was charged with
three felony counts of reckless endanger-
ment and one misdemeanor count of disor-
derly conduct.
At an initial court hearing on May
3, Wallen’s attorney Worrick Robinson
appeared on behalf of the star before a
Nashville judge, who set the new (now
moved) court date for Aug. 15. The hearing
did not involve entering a plea, and Wallen
had waived his right to appear in person,
but Robinson said the star himself would
be at the next hearing. Wallen, whose tour
ends Oct. 19 in Charlotte, North Carolina, is
expected to attend the hearing.
“This is obviously very complicated case
and it’s not going to resolve itself without
subpoenas and witnesses,” Robinson told
the media after the May 3 hearing. “The
state will subpoena witnesses and we’ll
work on the case on our end… several things
can happen in the case. We might have a
hearing, we might settle the case or the case
might continue. Those are the options.”
“I’m not proud of my behavior, and I
accept responsibility,” Wallen saidin a
statement on April 19 following the April
7 incident. “I have the utmost respect for
the ocers working every day to keep us
all safe. Regarding my tour, there will be no
change.”
Inglewood Mayor
Addresses HARD
Summer 2024
Noise Complaints:
‘Lessons Learned’
BY KATIE BAIN
F
ollowing a flurry of noise com-
plaints about HARD Summer 2024,
Inglewood, Calif., Mayor James
T. Butts Jr. has released a state-
ment about the issues experienced at the
electronic music festival that took place last
Saturday and Sunday (Aug. 3-4) at the city’s
Hollywood Park Complex at SoFi Stadium.
“We were perplexed at the sound
propagation experienced in the South Bay,
because there have been multiple outdoor
concerts on the SoFi campus without this
issue,” Butts wrote in a statement released
by the Mayor’s Oce Friday (Aug. 9) and
provided to Billboard. “After meeting with
representatives from the event promoter
and the venue, we conducted a thorough re-
view of the modifications and changes made
between Saturday and Sunday of HARD
Summer, specifically in response to noise
complaints from neighboring communities.”
This is the first time HARD Summer,
which has been happening at locations
around Southern California since 2008, has
been held at Hollywood Park.
Butts’ statement continues, “It is impor-
tant to clarify that the sound and vibration
issues experienced over the weekend were
related to certain bass frequencies,” adding
that such frequencies can be aected by
stage position, reflection o of buildings and
weather factors like the wind.
Butts notes that bass vibrations were first
reported in nearby El Segundo on Satur-
day afternoon, not long after the two-day
festival began, although online commenters
first reported experiencing the noise issues
on Friday (Aug. 2) while the festival was
doing sound checks. Local paper The Daily
Breeze reported that “the El Segundo Police
Department received so many complaints
on the festival’s first night that the law
enforcement agencyposted a noticeon the
social media platform X asking residents to
stop calling 911.”
HARD Summer is produced by Insomniac
Events, which puts on many major global
electronic music festivals including EDC Las
Vegas. The HARD Summer 2024 lineup fea-
tured electronic artists including Disclosure,
Major Lazer, deadmau5, Sub Focus, Chase
& Status, Sofi Tukker and many more. The
300-acre Hollywood Park Complex adjacent
to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood featured four
stages during the festival, with one of them
located in the Stadium’s American Airlines
Plaza and the other three located around the
Complex’s sprawling parking lot.
Butts’ statement notes that the stage in
the American Airlines Plaza was “a major
contributor to the issue” given that the area
is elevated. He adds that no stages will be
permitted in this area for future events and
that “we will require even greater sound en-
gineering with a more comprehensive plan
when it comes to addressing sound and bass
frequency management.”
Following the noise complaints, Butts
writes that “city authorities engaged the
event promoter and the venue and imple-
mented several critical adjustments to each
stage and established enhanced monitor-
ing plans for overall sound and bass levels.
Additional sound engineers were strategi-
cally positioned in areas of concern from
Saturday afternoon through Sunday and
were promptly dispatched to make neces-
sary adjustments in real time. As a result,
a significant decrease in call volume was
observed on Sunday in the initially impacted
areas.”
He continues that despite these changes,
some in the area continued to experience
Page 15 of 23
IN BRIEF
the eects of the bass vibrations — including
rattling windows and doors — adding that
“with the lessons learned this past weekend,
we are prepared to better monitor and su-
pervise future event organizers to minimize
the sound and vibration impact on the com-
munity outside the venue.”
Two other festivals are currently sched-
uled to take place at the Hollywood Park
Complex: Fool In Love on Aug. 31 featur-
ing Lionel Richie and Diana Ross and, in
March 2025, Rolling Loud. The lineup for
the latter event has yet to be announced.
“Over the past 10 years Inglewood has
re-emerged as a premier hub for sports and
entertainment,” Butts’ statement concludes.
“That title comes with significant responsi-
bility and we are committed to maintaining
the highest standards.”
MTV Bumps
Date of 2024
VMAs; Sabrina
Carpenter,
Chappell Roan &
More to Perform
BY PAUL GREIN
M
TV has bumped the date of
the 2024 MTV Video Music
Awards from Tuesday Sept.
10 to Wednesday Sept. 11 to
avoid conflicting with the planned U.S.
Presidential debate between vice president
Kamala Harris and former president Don-
ald Trump.
The conflict with the debate would have
posed an image problem for MTV, which
has made boosting voter turnout and civic
engagement a part of its brand since the
1992 election, in which Bill Clinton unseated
George H.W. Bush. Also, the intense interest
in the first (and conceivably only) Trump/
Harris debate threatened to completely
overwhelm the VMAs.
Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter,
Camila Cabello, GloRilla and Rauw Ale-
jandro are the first artists slated to perform
at the awards. This will be Cabello’s third
main-stage performance on the VMAs, but
the first for these other artists. Carpenter
performed a mash-up of “Feather” and
“Nonsense” on last year’s pre-show. (The
fact that Carpenter was booked on the pre-
show, rather than the main show, just one
year ago is a dramatic sign of how fast her
rise has been this year.)
All five of the scheduled performers are
2024 VMA nominees. Carpenter is up for
six awards, GloRilla for three, Roan and
Alejandro for two and Cabello for one.
The show will air live from UBS Arena in
New York on Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 8 p.m.
ET/PT. This will mark the first time the
show has been held on 9/11 since the terror-
ist attack in 2001 made that date infamous.
In observance of the 23rd anniversary of
9/11, MTV will again support the nonprofit
9/11 Day, which organizes the September 11
National Day of Service and Remembrance,
and Tuesday’s Children, which serves the
families of 9/11.
The 2024 show will be held just three
days shy of the 40th anniversary of the inau-
gural VMAs at Radio City Music Hall, where
Madonna stole the show.
Cabello is set to perform a song from her
fourth studio album, C,XOXO, which has
so far reached No. 13 on the Billboard 200.
Cabello’s previous main-stage performances
were in 2019, alongside then-beau Shawn
Mendes on “Señorita” and in 2021 on “Don’t
Go Yet.” (As part of Fifth Harmony, she
performed “Boss” on the VMAs pre-show in
2014.) Alejandro will perform a song from
his forthcoming fifth studio album.
Latin and Latin pop crossover music has
been an important part of the performance
mix on VMA broadcasts since 2018. Last
year, four Latin artists performed on the
show – Shakira (as part of her Video Van-
guard award presentation), Karol G, Peso
Pluma and Anitta (the latter both solo and
in tandem with K-pop stars TOMORROW X
TOGETHER).
Prior to that, in 2022, J Balvin (with Ryan
Castro), Anitta and Bad Bunny performed.
In 2021, Ozuna, Cabello and Tainy (in tan-
dem with Mendes) represented Latin music.
In 2020, Maluma, CNCO and Nicky Jam
(in tandem with Black Eyed Peas and Tyga)
did the honors. In 2019, CNCO (in the pre-
show), Cabello (with Mendes), Rosalía and
Ozuna (in a joint performance) and J Balvin
and Bad Bunny (also in a joint performance)
all performed. In 2018, Jennifer Lopez
(receiving a Video Vanguard award) and
Maluma performed.
Taylor Swift leads the nominations for
the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, with
10 nods. Her “Fortnight” collaborator Post
Malone is second, with nine nods – eight
in tandem with Swift plus one for his hit “I
Had Some Help,” featuring Morgan Wal-
len. They are followed by Ariana Grande,
Eminem and Carpenter (six nods each);
Megan Thee Stallion and SZA (five each),
and LISA, Olivia Rodrigo and Teddy Swims
(four each).
Other artists with multiple nominations
are Anitta, Benson Boone, Bleachers, Glo-
Rilla, Dua Lipa and Tyla, with three each;
and Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish, Roan, Charli
XCX, Coldplay, Drake, Jelly Roll, Jessie
Murph, Jung Kook, Latto, Alejandro, Sexyy
Red, Tate McRae, Usher and Victoria Monét,
with two each.
Fans can vote for their favorites across 15
gender-neutral categories by visiting vote.
mtv.com through Friday, Aug. 30. Voting for
best new artist will remain active into the
show on Tuesday, Sept. 10. Nominations in
social categories will be announced at a later
date.
Bruce Gillmer and Den of Thieves
co-founder Jesse Ignjatovic are execu-
tive producers for the 2024 VMAs. Barb
Bialkowski is co-executive producer. Alicia
Portugal and Jackie Barba serve as execu-
tives in charge of production. Wendy Plaut
is executive in charge of celebrity talent.
Lisa Lauricella is music talent executive.
Page 16 of 23
IN BRIEF
Page 17 of 23
Travis Scott,
Future & Playboi
Carti to Headline
Rolling Loud
Miami’s 10th
Anniversary
Festival
BY MICHAEL SAPONARA
R
olling Loud is celebrating its
10th anniversary this year, and
the rap festival unveiled its
loaded lineup for Rolling Loud
Miami 2024 on Monday (Aug. 12).
Travis Scott, Future and Playboi Carti
will serve as headliners when the festival
takes over Miami Gardens’ Hard Rock
Stadium for the weekend of Dec. 13 through
Dec. 15.
“ROLLING LOUD 10-YEAR ANNIVER-
SARY MIAMI, FL •DECEMBER 13-15,
2024 GOOGLE PAY EXCLUSIVE PRESALE
STARTS WED @ 11AM ET ALL TIX ON
SALE FRIDAY @ 12PM ET,” the festival
wrote to its social media accounts.
Fans are encouraged to sign up for “first
access” on RL’s website which will have
various general admission and VIP packages
available for the three-day run.
It’s a decorated and versatile cast of
rappers on the bill with Friday (Dec. 13)
enlisting Yeat, Metro Boomin, Lil Yachty,
BigXThaPlug, Bossman Dlow, JT, Hunxho,
Wolfacejoeyy and more. Saturday (Dec. 14)
recruits Don Toliver, Kodak Black, Sexyy
Red and Lil Tjay while Sunday (Dec. 15)
brings the heat to close out the festival with
Lil Baby, Bryson Tiller, Polo G, Shaboozey,
Ken Carson and Rich The Kid.
RL co-founder Tariq Cherif added:
“Flawlëss@rollingloud10 year anniversary
lineup featuring our new rebrand. On sale
Friday. Presale with Google Pay on Wednes-
day. See you in Miami in December!”
Fans seemed to be excited about the
lineup, as some deemed it to be “worth the
wait” as the festival temporarily delayed the
rollout. “i will be there no matter what,” one
fan wrote while another chimed in: “Yea dis
the best lineup i’ve ever seen ngl.”
Find the full Rolling Loud Miami 2024
lineup here.
Susan Wojcicki,
Longtime YouTube
CEO and Google
Executive, Dies at
56
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
S
usan Wojcicki, a pioneer-
ing tech executive who helped
shapeGoogleand YouTube, has
died, her husband said. She was 56.
Wojcicki played a key role in Google’s
creation and served nine years as YouTube’s
CEO,stepping downlast year to focus on
her “family, health, and personal projects
I’m passionate about,” she said at the time.
She was one of the most respected female
executives in the male-dominated tech
industry.
Her collaboration with Google co-found-
ersLarry Page and Sergey Brinbegan
shortly after they incorporated their search
engine into a business in 1998. Wojcicki
rented the garage of her Menlo Park, Cali-
fornia, home to them for $1,700 a month,
cementing a formative partnership. Page
and Brin — both 25 at the time — continued
to refine their search engine in Wojcicki’s
garage for five months before moving
Google into a more formal oce and later
persuaded their former landlord to come
work for their company.
Wojcicki joined Google, now known as
Alphabet, as its marketing manager in 1999
and served in various positions as Google
grew its online advertising presence by
acquiring YouTube in 2006 and Double-
Clickin 2008. She served as Google’s senior
vice president of advertising and commerce
from 2011 to early 2014 and CEO of YouTube
from 2014 to 2023.
“Her loss is devastating for all of us who
know and love her, for the thousands of
Googlers she led over the years, and for
millions of people all over the world who
looked up to her, benefited from her advo-
cacy and leadership, and felt the impact of
the incredible things she created at Google,
YouTube, and beyond,” Google and Alpha-
bet CEO Sundar Pichai said in a note to
employees.
Former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg,
who was vice president of Google’s sales
and operations from 2001 to 2008 before
decamping to Facebook, said in a Facebook
post that Wojcicki was formative in her tech
career.
“She taught me the business and helped
me navigate a growing, fairly chaotic orga-
nization at the beginning of my career in
tech,” Sandberg wrote. “She was the person
I turned to for advice over and over again.
And she was this person for so many others
too.”
Her husband, Dennis Troper, announced
her death in a social media post late Friday.
“My beloved wife of 26 years and mother
to our five children left us today after 2 years
of living with non small cell lung cancer,” he
wrote.
“Susan was not just my best friend and
partner in life, but a brilliant mind, a loving
mother, and a dear friend to many,” Troper
said.
No other details of her death were imme-
diately provided.
Wojcicki and Troper’s 19-year-old son,
Marco Troper,died in Februaryat the UC
Berkeley campus where he resided as a
freshman student.
IN BRIEF
Page 18 of 23
Chappell Roan
Snags First U.K.
No. 1 With ‘The
Rise and Fall of a
Midwest Princess’
BY LARS BRANDLE
C
happell Roan is finally crowned
on the U.K. chart.
Almost a year since its release,
Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Mid-
west Princess (Island) lifts 4-1 on the Ocial
U.K. Albums Chart, for its first stint at the
top of the leaderboard.
Roan’s ascent can be seen on charts
around the globe, including the United
States, Australia and now the U.K., where
Midwest Princess completes its climb in its
17th week on the chart, published Friday,
Aug. 9.
Just last week, the Missouri artist broke
the daytime attendance record for a per-
formance at Lollapalooza Chicago. Also, her
single “Good Luck, Babe” has become the
highest-charting song in her career, entering
the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the
Ocial U.K. Singles Chart, where it’s cur-
rently at No. 2.
Originally dropping in September 2023,
Midwest Princess enjoys a lift in the U.K. fol-
lowing its release on vinyl, with over half of
its seven-day total made up of physical sales,
the Ocial Charts Company reports.
The “Popstar Edition” wax pressing leads
this week’s Ocial Vinyl Albums Chart.
Charli xcx’s BRAT summer continues to
heat up, as her Mercury Prize-nominated
Atlantic album returns to its previous peak,
No. 2.
Also new to the national tally is Vultures
2 (YZY) from Ye, the artist formerly known
as Kanye West, and Ty Dolla $ign. Vultures 2
swoops in at No. 7. It’s the followup to their
first collaborative record, Vultures, which
peaked at No. 2 in February.
Finally, Jack White nabs his seventh solo
U.K. top 40 appearance with No Name (Third
Man). It’s new at No. 33. No Name enjoyed
a conventional release after vinyl versions
of the album were handed out at three of
White’s Third Man Records outlets.
Charli XCX
Becomes First
British Artist to
Reach No. 1 on
U.K. Singles Chart
in 2024
BY PAUL GREIN
F
inally! We’re well into August and
it took up until this week for a Brit-
ish act to reach No. 1 on the Ocial
U.K. Singles Chart in 2024.
Charli XCX achieves the feat as her
remix of “Guess,” featuring Billie Eilish,
debuts at No. 1. It’s the first song by a British
artist to top the Ocial U.K. Singles Chart
since Wham!’s 1984 holiday perennial “Last
Christmas” wrapped up a four-week run
at No. 1 over the 2023 holidays. Since then,
the No. 1 spot on the U.K. chart was held
by seven American acts and one Irish act
(Hozier, who led for two weeks with “Too
Sweet”).
Sabrina Carpenter has held the top
spot on the Ocial U.K. Singles Chart for
a total of 12 weeks (so far) in 2024 – seven
for “Espresso” and five for “Please Please
Please.” The other hits by American acts
that have topped the U.K. chart so far in
2024 are Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season”
(seven weeks), Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em”
(five weeks), Benson Boone’s “Beautiful
Things” (two weeks), Taylor Swift feat.
Post Malone’s “Fortnight” (one week) and
Eminem’s “Houdini” (two weeks).
“Guess” becomes Charli’s second No. 1 in
the U.K. — and her first as a lead artist. She
first topped the chart in 2013 as the featured
artist on Icona Pop’s “I Love It.”
“Guess” is the third U.K. chart-topper for
Eilish, which is two more than she has had
in her home country. (“Bad Guy” remains
her only No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 to
date.) Moreover, “Guess” is Eilish’s first U.K.
No. 1 that wasn’t from a film. Her two previ-
ous U.K. No. 1s are “No Time to Die” (2020)
and “What Was I Made For?” (2023), her
Oscar-winning songs from the James Bond
film of the same name and Barbie, respec-
tively.
“Guess” first appeared on the deluxe
edition of Charli XCX’s album Brat, dubbed
Brat and It’s the Same but There’s Three
More Songs So It’s Not.
“Guess” has yet to appear on the Bill-
board Hot 100, but, writing in the weekly
Trending Up column, Jason Lipshutz sug-
gests that that will soon change: “Don’t be
shocked if ‘Guess’ crashes the top 20 of the
Hot 100 next week.”
Chappell Roan’s first full-length album,
The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,
reaches No. 1 on the Ocial U.K. Albums
Chart in its 17th week. That’s higher than
the album has climbed on the Billboard
200, where it inches up to No. 4 this week,
its highest ranking to date.
Roan is the ninth American artist to reach
No. 1 on the Ocial U.K. Albums chart in
2024, following Green Day, Kahan, Ari-
ana Grande, Beyoncé, Swift, Eilish, Gracie
Abrams and Eminem.
T.I. and Wife Tiny
Hit With Sexual
Assault Lawsuit
Over Alleged
2005 Hotel
Incident (Updated)
BY BILL DONAHUE
U
PDATE (Aug. 9): A judge has
dismissed the sexual assault law-
suit filed against T.I. and his wife
Tiny Harris after the pair’s Jane
Doe accuser failed to respond to the couple’s
motion to dismiss the case in a timely man-
IN BRIEF
Page 19 of 23
ner, according to documents filed in Los
Angeles court Thursday (Aug. 8).
In her order, Judge Sherilyn Peace
Garnett writes that after the lawsuit was
filed, T.I. and Tiny put forth two chal-
lenges to the woman’s complaint: that it was
barred by the statute of limitations; and that
the woman failed to provide any “factual
allegations” to back up her claim that the
couple drugged and sexually assaulted her
at a nightclub in 2005. However, the judge
left the door open for the woman to file an
amended complaint within 21 days.
PREVIOUSLY (Jan. 3): T.I. and his wife
Tiny Harris are facing a new civil lawsuit
that claims they drugged and sexually as-
saulted a woman they met in a Los Angeles
nightclub in 2005.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Los An-
geles court, lawyers for a Jane Doe accuser
say T.I. (Cliord Harris) and Tiny (Tameka
Harris) gave her a spiked drink after she was
introduced to them in the VIP section of a
club, then brought her back to their hotel
room where they “forced her to get naked”
and assaulted her.
“Plainti did not consent to any of the
sexual assault or misconduct and did not
have the capacity to consent after being
drugged by defendants,” lawyers for the al-
leged victim write in the lawsuit, which was
obtained by Billboard.
Attorneys for accuser, who they say was
in her early twenties and serving in the U.S.
Air Force at the time, claim she was intro-
duced to the couple by an associate named
“Caviar,” who she says she met the previous
night at the house of the rapper Coolio.
Midway through the alleged incident, after
she allegedly drank a beverage oered her
by Tiny, she began to feel “extremely dizzy
and lightheaded” and later passed out.
In a statement to Billboard on Wednesday,
T.I. and Tiny “emphatically and categori-
cally” denied the allegations and vowed to
fight back against a lawsuit that they said
the plainti had been threatening to file for
years.
“For THREE years we have maintained
our innocence and refused to pay these
extortionate demands for things we didn’t
do,” the couple wrote. “For THREE years,
we’ve maintained the same position while
the claims in this story have changed time
and time again. Our position is clear… We
are innocent of these fake claims, we will
not be shaken down, and we look forward to
our day in court.”
Tuesday’s lawsuit shares similarities
with previously-reported accusations. In
2021, the New York Times reported a police
investigation over an alleged 2005 incident
in which “a military veteran” claimed the
famous couple had “raped her in a hotel
room” after she had become “incapacitated”
while drinking with them in the “VIP sec-
tion” at a Los Angeles club.
At the time, the couple strongly denied
any wrongdoing, saying the accusations
were part of “a sordid shakedown cam-
paign.” Prosecutors later declined to bring
charges over the allegations, citing the expi-
ration of a 10-year statute of limitations.
The new case is filed under California’s
Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountabil-
ity Act, which created a four-year window
through 2026 for alleged victims to bring
cases that would otherwise be barred by
the statute of limitations. The law is similar
to New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which
recently led to a wave of sexual abuse
cases in that state before the statute expired
in November.
Representatives for the Harrises and their
label, Grand Hustle Records, did not im-
mediately return requests for comment on
the lawsuit’s allegations. The attorney who
represented the couple during the earlier
police investigation also did return a request
for comment.
The new lawsuit against the Harrises
contains explicit details of the alleged sexual
assault.
After meeting T.I. and Tiny at the
nightclub, the accuser’s lawyers claim Tiny
“handed plainti a drink” and “watched
her take a drink.” A short time later, the trio
allegedly returned to a nearby hotel, where
Tiny “took o all of plainti’s clothing,” got
undressed herself, and they were joined by
a nude T.I.
“Plainti was then directed to get in
the shower and T.I. and Tiny entered the
shower with her,” her lawyers write. “Plain-
ti was extremely shocked and uncomfort-
able.” After the shower, the accuser claims
she began to feel “extremely dizzy and
lightheaded” and was “visibly drugged” as
T.I. told her to get into bed.
“Plainti could tell she was experiencing
something serious and debilitating that was
not a symptom of a typical drink or a few
drinks,” her lawyers say.
After T.I. allegedly forced her to watch
pornographic movies, he then “demanded
she begin rubbing oil on his back and naked
body, while Tiny “proceeded to get on plain-
ti’s back, while she was still naked, and
grind back and forth” on top of her. Then,
“while Tiny was straddled on plainti’s back
and pinning her down,” the accuser claims
that T.I. “proceeded to slide his toes into
plainti’s vagina.”
“Plainti grew increasingly sicker and
felt extremely ill by the assault and battery
she was experiencing,” the Doe’s attorneys
write. Eventually, she “forced herself up and
went into the bathroom where she pro-
ceeded to vomit.” She later emerged from
the bathroom “naked, dazed, sickened, and
weak” and passed out on a couch.
When she was awoken by a security guard
the next morning, the accuser claims she
“immediately noticed her vagina was in
serious pain.” As she was crying, she says
the security guard then escorted her out of
the room.
The lawsuit is the latest in a recent flood
of lawsuits alleging sexual assault and sexu-
al harassment by men in the music industry.
Over the past year, such cases have been
filed against hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy”
Combs, Aerosmith star Steven Tyler, Inter-
scope Records co-founder Jimmy Iovine and
former Recording Academy president Neil
Portnow, among many others.
IN BRIEF
Page 20 of 23
Taylor Swift’s
‘Eras Tour’
Movie Premieres
on Austrian
TV for Free in
Partnership With
Disney+ After
Vienna Show
Cancellations
BY ASHLEY IASIMONE
S
treaming platform Disney+ an-
nounced on social media that it
partnered with Austria’s ORF to
broadcast Taylor Swift: The Eras
Tour (Taylor’s Version) on television for free
Saturday night (Aug. 10), one of three eve-
nings that Swift was supposed to perform
live in Vienna. The Vienna Eras Tour dates,
scheduled for Aug. 9, 10 and 11, were can-
celed earlier this week due to the threat of
a terror attack at the city’s 65,000-capacity
Ernst Happel Stadium.
The streamer addressed a letter posted
to Swift’s fans (“Dear Swifties”) on the
Disney+ DE Instagram account on Aug. 10
that, translated from German to English,
announced the free TV showing of The Eras
Tour film.
ORF, a national broadcaster in Austria,
showed Swift’s concert movie at 9:45 p.m.
local time on the public channel ORF 1.
Disney+ also oered a free 7-day trial
subscription for those who wish to stream
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour on the platform
in Austria and Germany. The announce-
ment, which states the promotion runs
through Aug. 12, is pinned to Disney+ DE’s
account.
Three people were detained by Austrian
authorities in connection with a potential
terror attack at Swift’s now-canceled Eras
Tour concerts in the city of Vienna. An
18-year-old man was arrested on Thursday,
following previously reported arrests of
19-year-old and 17-year-old suspects taken
into custody on Tuesday. Ocials described
a plot to carry out what could have been
a mass casualty event over the weekend
among the crowd of fans outside Ernst Hap-
pel Stadium.
Swift has not publicly commented on
what happened in Vienna, with news
of the event cancelations first delivered
on Wednesday via Barracuda Music, the
concert promoter for the pop star’s Aus-
trian tour dates: “With confirmation from
government ocials of a planned terrorist
attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have
no choice but to cancel the three scheduled
shows for everyone’s safety. All tickets will
be automatically refunded within the next
10 business days,” read the promoter’s state-
ment, which was reposted by Taylor Nation,
an account associated with Swift’s team.
Saturday night, as seen in the embedded
posts from X (formerly Twitter) here, fans
in Vienna posted snapshots and video clips
while watching The Eras Tour concert film
air on ORF 1 at bars, in hotel rooms and in
the comfort of their own homes.
“not how we planned to spend our satur-
day night… but thankful that austrian tv de-
cided to show the eras tour movie tonight,”
wrote one of the Swifties in Austria.
Vienna, where Swift was set to play three
nights in a row, was to be the second-to-last
city on the map for the European leg of The
Eras Tour.
The Tortured Poets Department hitmaker
is currently scheduled for five nights at
London’s Wembley Stadium (Aug. 15, 16, 17,
19 and 20), followed by a break before she
resumes the tour in North America from
October-December — with multiple dates in
the cities of Miami, New Orleans, Indianap-
olis, Toronto and Vancouver.
Travis Scott
Released From
Police Custody
After Arrest
Over Paris Hotel
Altercation
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
T
ravis Scott was released from
French police custody without a
charge after his arrest at a Paris
hotel following an altercation with
a security guard, French prosecutors said
Saturday (Aug. 10).
In a statement, the Paris prosecutor’s
oce said, “the police custody order for
Travis Scott has been lifted and all proceed-
ings (against him) were terminated because
the incident was minor.”
A rep for Scott confirmed to Billboard
that the rapper had been released with no
charges. Sources close to the “Sicko Mode”
rapper say there are no plans to charge for
him to be charged in the future and that
there were no injuries to any party, includ-
ing his security. Scott had been swarmed
by paparazzi while in Paris and blamed his
security for not adequately protecting him.
Scott was arrested early Friday after
police were called to the Georges V hotel to
detain a man “nicknamed Travis Scott for
violence against a security guard,” according
to a statement from the Paris prosecutor’s
oce.
Ocials said the hotel security guard had
attempted to intervene in an altercation be-
tween Scott (born Jacques Bermon Webster
II), 33, and his personal bodyguard in the
early morning hours.
Scott was in Paris for the Olympics and
was spotted at the U.S. men’s basketball
game, where All-stars Steph Curry and
LeBron James helped lead the veteran team
to a thrilling come-from-behind win against
Serbia to punch the team’s ticket to Satur-
day’s final against France.
IN BRIEF
Page 21 of 23
Scott is one of the biggest stars in hip-hop.
He has more than 100 songs that made the
Billboard Hot 100 and released four singles
that topped the chart: “Sicko Mode,” “High-
est in the Room,” “The Scotts,” and “Fran-
chise.”
He has two children with his former
girlfriend, media personality and business-
woman Kylie Jenner.
In June, Scott was arrested in Miami
Beach on misdemeanor charges of trespass-
ing and public intoxication after ocers
said they had found him at the city’s marina
shouting obscenities at people on a yacht
and disobeyed their order to leave.
Kacey Musgraves
Helps Bring Fans
‘Deeper Into the
Well’ With New
Etsy Partnership:
‘It’s a Treasure
Trove of Unique
Things’
BY JESSICA NICHOLSON
A
fter Kacey Musgraves released
her 14-song Deeper Well — a proj-
ect that delved into self-reflec-
tion while excavating raw truths
— she found that she still had perspectives
to share and more songs to sing after the
March release.
“Deeper Well was so cathartic to me, I just
didn’t want that era to end,” the seven-time
Grammy winner tells Billboard of her fifth
studio album.
So earlier this month, Musgraves released
the extended deluxe album Deeper Into
the Well, adding seven new songs, a mix of
older and newer tracks, with some that she
calls “just further ruminations on some of
the emotions that I explored on the original
record. I thought, ‘What if Deeper Well
had some summer bops, what would those
sound like? So, there’s a couple on there.”
New songs include the funky Leon
Bridges collaboration “Superbloom,” and
the solemn “Irish Goodbye,” which Mus-
graves notes as “an anthem for anyone who’s
been ghosted. I think that’s something that
happens these days in this kind of transient
temporary mindset that a lot of people have
when it comes to dating and love.”
Alongside the release of Deeper Into the
Well, she’s inviting fans to dig deeper into
a curated collection of approximately
50 Etsy pieces — all hand-selected by
Musgraves — that complement the album’s
music.
Earlier this year, she also co-designed
a range of necklace charms, sold on Etsy,
that highlight dierent songs on Deeper
Well. A self-described “Etsy superfan from
way back,” Musgraves says that many of her
favorite pieces of home décor and clothing
were found on Etsy.
“It’s a treasure trove of unique things you
can’t find anywhere else. It’s like the world’s
greatest estate sale at your fingertips,”
Musgraves says. “I find myself on Etsy at all
hours of the night when I can’t sleep, and I
get into these crazy wormholes finding the
most interesting things.”
The new collection features a range
of items selected by Musgraves, includ-
ing hand-painted candles, quilts, wicker
baskets, wooden cardinal whistles, boots,
incense holders, ceramic mugs and printed
linens, including pieces from Etsy designer
Julie Peach.
“I love that folk art and cottage core have
been having such big moments, because
those are a lot of the things that I gravitate
towards myself,” Musgraves says. “So, Etsy
is the perfect place to find all kinds of things
like that.”
For Musgraves, supporting small busi-
nesses was an integral element of her work
with Etsy. “I come from two small business-
owning parents,” the Texas native says.
“They’ve had a small print shop ever since
I’ve been alive, and every paycheck mattered
greatly to them.I just have always known
the true eect of putting your money in the
hands of people, that it really can make or
break things for them. And so, I would much
rather shop at Etsy than go to a big box store
where it’s just not going to have the same
eect.”
Musgraves’ mother, Karen Musgraves,
is one of the featured artists in the Etsy
partnership. Among the items the singer-
songwriter favorited is a piece her mother
crafted, a black ceramic container with a
bunny-shaped lid.
“I have one in my house in my bathroom,
but I was like, ‘Mom, I have to put this on
my favorites list,” Musgraves says. “She’s a
brilliant creator in all mediums. She’s mostly
a painter, but her brain is always coming
up with the coolest things. And she’s been
inspired to make ceramic vessels and things
like that.”
On Aug. 4, Musgraves surprised fans to
celebrate the release of Deeper Into the Well
with pop-up shops at farmers markets in
Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, and New
York City, where fans could buy merchan-
dise including T-shirts and vinyl records.
Ahead, Musgraves’ Deeper Well World Tour
runs through the end of the year. Having
already completed a slate of U.K. tour dates,
the outing will return stateside Sept. 4 and
will feature openers Father John Misty,
Lord Huron and Nickel Creek on select
dates.
“Designing this show has been so fun
and therapeutic and I think it’s going to be
a stunning mix of eye candy and music,”
Musgraves says. “I can’t wait for people to
see it.”
IN BRIEF
Page 22 of 23
Charles Cross,
Seattle Author
Who Wrote Books
on Nirvana and
Jimi Hendrix, Dies
at 67
BY LARS BRANDLE
C
harles R. Cross, the celebrated
Seattle music writer who penned
books on Nirvana and Jimi Hen-
drix, and was editor of influential
Pacific Northwest magazine The Rocket,
died Friday, Aug. 9. He was 67.
“We are sorry to share that Charles Cross
has passed,” reads a statement from his
family. “He died peacefully of natural causes
in his sleep on August 9th, 2024. We are all
grief-stricken and trying to get through this
dicult process of dealing with the next
steps.”
Cross wrote nine books including Heavier
Than Heaven: The Biography of Kurt Cobain,
which won the 2002 ASCAP Award for out-
standing biography and was one of his three
New York Times bestsellers. Three years
later, Cross published his 2005 bestselling
Hendrix biography Room Full of Mirrors,
lauded by Vibe magazine as one of the
greatest-ever books on music.
His works include the 2012 book with
Ann and Nancy Wilson of Rock And Roll
Hall of Famers Heart, Kicking & Dreaming,
also a NY Times bestseller.
A prolific writer for magazines, Cross was
founding editor of Backstreets, the Bruce
Springsteen fanzine, plus “a couple other
short-lived leftist Northwest magazines,” he
quips in his biog.
Cross climbed the ranks in the ‘80s, be-
coming a senior editor of The Rocket in 1982,
the editor in 1986, and the publisher in the
same year.
Fellow music journalist Chris Morris
remembers Cross as one of the best in the
business. “I am hard pressed to think of a
journalist more central to the music scene
in the Pacific Northwest during its most glit-
tering era,” he writes on social media. “I’m
sure many I know are as stunned by this
news as I am.”
The late author’s other published works
include Cobain Unseen; Here We Are Now:
The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain; Back-
streets: Springsteen The Man and His Music;
Led Zeppelin: Heaven and Hell; Led Zep-
pelin: Shadows Taller Than Our Souls; and
Nirvana: Nevermind.
The Cobain biography was optioned by
Universal Pictures, Variety reports, lead-
ing to widespread speculation about which
young actor could play the Nirvana star, but
the project never made it out of develop-
ment.
Earlier this year, Cross was a guest on
Charles Brownstein’s Records in My Life
podcast, for which he discussed the albums
that influenced him. Albums by Hendrix and
Neil Young were among them. The birth-
place of grunge is a town he held dear. “I
can’t get away from Seattle,” he remarked.
Vinyl Editions of
Trance Classics
by Tiësto, Armin
van Buuren, Sasha
& More Being
Auctioned for
Charity
BY KATIE BRAIN
T
rance fans rejoice, and prepare to
open your wallets.
On Monday (Aug. 12), 12-inch
vinyl editions of more than 50
classic trance tracks and albums are going
up for auction via Amplifyd, the online auc-
tion platforms that specializes in music col-
lections and experiences and has previously
hosted auctions for artists like Danny Tena-
glia and events including EDC Las Vegas.
This latest auction includes all-time clas-
sics like Tiësto’s 2004 remix of “Silence”
by Delerium featuring Sarah McLachlan,
Sasha’s 1999 Xpander EP, Chicane’s 1999
“Saltwater,” a flurry of Armin van Buuren
albums and other music by genre titans
including Gouryella, BT, Ferry Corsten, Paul
Oakenfold and System F.
The records are all original pressings
from their respective release years and are
each autographed by the artist.
The auction starts Aug. 12 at 9 a.m. ET
and extends through Sept. 8. The sale aims
to raise $10,000, with proceeds going to a
charity of the artist’s choosing, with organi-
zations like WWF, St. Jude’s Children’s Re-
search Hospital New York and The Cancer
Research Institute of London all benefiting.
The sale was organized by Amplifyd
founder and CEO Dan Willis, who worked
with each artist on their participation in the
sale. “These iconic records hold a special
place in the hearts of trance fans and the
broader electronic music community,”
Willis says in a statement. “Curating this
project has been a unique celebration of the
historical significance of songs responsible
for countless unforgettable performances.
I’m thrilled that all of the artists agreed to
participate, each supporting their chosen
charity.”
Drake Helps Raise
$40 Million for
Italian Soccer
Club to Avoid
Bankruptcy
BY MICHAEL SAPONARA
W
hen an Italian soccer club
was staring down bank-
ruptcy, an unlikely hero
showed up at Venezia FC’s
doorstep ready to lace up his shinguards.
According to GQ Italia, Drake played an
integral role in helping raise $40 million
for the Venice soccer club to stay afloat in
IN BRIEF
Page 23 of 23
Serie A. The franchise was looking at filing
for bankruptcy heading into the 2023-2024
season and possibly being demoted to the
lowest Serie D with a poor performance.
“I got a call from Brad Katsuyama,
co-owner of Venezia and a good friend of
mine,” said Drake’s CBO Matte Babel, who
also works in management. “He laid out the
problem to me in a simple way: Venezia has
to raise €10 million in a couple of weeks, and
then at least €30 million in a few months, or
the club will go bankrupt.”
Babel gave Drake a call and the ball was
immediately rolling to help Venezia FC
get back on its feet. It only took two weeks
to raise the money needed to hang up the
phone on bankruptcy thanks to Drake and
his team mobilizing eorts. Billboard has
reached out to Drake’s reps for comment.
“Venice is an incredible city andVenezia
has always been a special club. I spoke to
Drake, then Brad and I discussed the details
of how we could help. Within two weeks we
had a deal, raised the money needed to pay
the salaries and avoid bankruptcy.”
GQ Italia continues to report that the
$40 million came from a group of North
American investors and heavily credited the
6 God’s involvement. The new ownership
crew formed an Operating Committee to
“oversee the strategic direction of the club.”
“Matte was my first call when I knew the
club needed help,” Katsuyama said. “Drake’s
value to any football club is undeniable,
given his scale as a global superstar and
the reach of his brand. This intersection of
culture and sport is exactly where we want
to be, and the chance to collaborate with a
brand like NOCTA, who is moving along the
same lines, is incredibly valuable.”
Venezia FC also struck an apparel part-
nership deal with Drake’s Nocta line, who
help design their new uniforms. The city
made a €315 milllion investment into build-
ing a new stadium and an indoor arena with
state-of-the-art facilities, which the team
hopes to open in Venice for the start of the
2027 season.
Huey Lewis
To Star in
Mockumentary-
Style Sitcom
‘Whatever
Happened to
Huey Lewis’ For
Fox
BY GIL KAUFMAN
I
f you’ve ever wondered: “why hasn’t
anyone pitched a Curb Your Enthusi-
asm-style mockumentary sitcom about
beloved 1980s pop singer Huey Lewis
in which the News leader tries to figure out
what life looks like after hearing loss with
the help of his eccentric friends and clingy
family?”
Well, your prayers are answered, because
according to Deadline Fox has ordered
the show Whatever Happened to Huey
Lewis, in which Lewis will star and execu-
tive produce a half-hour sitcom and play a
fictionalized version of himself. The single-
camera comedy is a co-production of Aaron
Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, late night
talker Jimmy Kimmel’s Kimmelot and Fox
Entertainment Studios; Kimmel and Lewis
are longtime fly-fishing friends.
The show is being written and executive
produced by Kirker Butler (Only Murders in
the Building) and the news comes six years
after Lewis revealed significant hearing
loss as a result of Ménière’s disease. This
will mark the second time that Lewis’ life
has inspired a spin-o production, com-
ing on the heels of the brief two-month
spring 2024 Broadway run of The Heart of
Rock and Roll, a jukebox musical revolving
around the band’s catalog.
In addition to being the voice of such
indelible hits as “I Want a New Drug,” “The
Heart of Rock & Roll,” “Power of Love,”
“Heart and Soul,” Hip to Be Square” and “If
This Is It,” Lewis has also dipped into the
film world, from his uncredited cameo in
1985’s Back to the Future, to appearances in
Robert Altman’s 1993 Hollywood send-up
Short Cuts, as well as a starring role in Duets
with Gwyneth Paltrow. Lewis also played
the lead role of Billy Flynn in Chicago on
Broadway in 2005 and 2007.
IN BRIEF