Indholdsfortegnelse for January 11, 2025 i Billboard Magazine

CLAIMING A WIN with a grin, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” hits No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. In its 20th week on the chart, the ballad soars from No. 17 after it initially reached No. 2 for four weeks in November. All the titles in the Jan. 11-dated top 10 are returners to the region, a week after holiday songs decorated the entire tier — and dashed all the way through the top 16 spots — for the first time. The single totaled 59.7 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 11% week over week), 27.1 million official streams (up 11%) and 6,000 sold (up 41%) in the United States Dec. 27, 2024-Jan. 2, 2025, according to Luminate. It also logs its first week…

Mufasa: The Lion King moves into the top 10 on the Soundtracks chart, clawing its way 21-8 in its second week on the list. The companion album to the film of the same name surges up the ranking largely thanks to streaming activity of the set’s “I Always Wanted a Brother.” It earned 7,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending Jan. 2 (up 64%), according to Luminate, with streaming activity accounting for 79% of that sum. “I Always Wanted a Brother” — which has become a viral meme on social media where users create clips set to the title lyric — generated 3.1 million on-demand official streams during the tracking week (the most streamed song on the album and 39% of the album’s total…

DAYS AFTER A PANEL of federal judges voted to uphold a new law that would ban TikTok in the United States beginning Jan. 19, independent label Artist Partner Group started assessing how that could impact its marketing campaigns — and how to adapt. “It’s hard to imagine a reality where Tik-Tok actually goes down,” says Alec Henderson, head of digital at APG. “But we need to be prepared. We are doing video shoots ahead of time, so if it does go, we have top-tier content hitting other short-form video platforms very quickly.” Casadei Collective Marketing Agency founder J.D. Tuminski is also advising clients to be ready. “If folks are being smart right now,” he says, “they’re already putting plans in place for other platforms and thinking about alternative marketing…

Few American-made mythologies loom larger than L. Frank Baum’s Oz. His 1900 book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was an instant sensation that was made into theatrical productions and films, and later inspired songs by Elton John, America, ELO and even the Melvins. Now, Jon M. Chu’s blockbuster Wicked is taking audiences beyond the yellow brick road, thanks to bewitching performances by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. So put on your emerald-colored glasses for a look back at Billboard’s coverage of a story that transported people over the rainbow to another world. NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE Just two years after Baum published his book, a musical adaptation, The Wizard of Oz, opened in a Chicago theater. Thanks to vaudeville veterans Fred Stone and David C. Montgomery playing the Scarecrow…

Lola Young notches her first top 40 Billboard Hot 100 hit as a lead artist, and second overall, as “Messy” bounds from No. 61 to No. 25 on the Jan. 11-dated chart. In addition to its growing popularity on TikTok, the song drew 12.5 million official streams (up 22% week over week), 1.4 million in all-format radio airplay audience (up 37%) and 3,000 sold (up 43%) in the United States in the week ending Jan. 2, according to Luminate. The track outpaces the South London native’s other current Hot 100 hit, Tyler, The Creator’s “Like Him,” on which she’s featured. The collaboration, which rises 66-37, reached No. 29 on the Nov. 16, 2024-dated chart a week after it became Young’s first entry on the chart. It’s from Tyler, The…

Following the U.S. release of the Timothée Chalamet-starring Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown on Dec. 25, on-demand official streams of the folk-rock icon’s catalog grew 74% domestically in the week ending Jan. 2, according to Luminate, bounding from 11.6 million to 20.2 million.…

After chart triumphs in 2024, Kendrick Lamar extends his supremacy into the early stages of 2025 with the top three titles on the Hot Rap Songs chart for a sixth consecutive week. On the current ranking, “Luther,” a collaboration with SZA, leads for a fourth week, while former one-week champs “TV Off” (featuring Lefty Gunplay) and “Squabble Up” are at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively. In addition to his current six-week streak of owning the top three spots, Lamar achieved the same feat three times in 2024 with “Not Like Us,” “Euphoria” and “Like That,” a collaboration with Future and Metro Boomin. The combined total makes the superstar the first artist to occupy Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on Hot Rap Songs for nine weeks. He breaks a tie…

AFTER HELPING TO create the watery pink-and-gray cover art for Linkin Park’s 2024 album, From Zero, Frank Maddocks — Warner Records vp of creative and the band’s art director for 24 years — chopped the visual into five pieces and adapted them into collages for four alternate vinyl releases. His work resulted in 17 physical versions of From Zero. Known as variants, they included 11 vinyl albums, three CDs, a CD box set and two cassettes. The combined sales contributed to Linkin Park’s debut at No. 1 on four of Billboard’s rock album charts in November, including Top Rock Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums. It’s standard in today’s industry for hit artists to market variants at a premium to collectors and superfans, but that trend appears to be…

THERE’S DEFINITELY BEEN moments where I wished I could be in two places at the same time,” says Brandon Creed, reflecting on a year filled with culture-defining moments across his company’s roster. He’s gotten close — in early March, he had to be on separate coasts within 48 hours. On March 8, Ariana Grande released her critically praised seventh album, Eternal Sunshine. On March 9, she was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in New York — Creed was there. On March 10, Grande presented an Oscar at the 96th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, where client Mark Ronson was also performing in the night’s biggest spectacle: a star-studded live debut of Ryan Gosling’s Barbie song “I’m Just Ken” — Creed was there, too. “It was definitely…

Three Days Grace notches its 18th No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart — and its first since 2013 featuring vocals from original frontman Adam Gontier — with “Mayday.” The band moves within one spot of the all-time No. 1 record on the chart, which began in 1981, behind Shinedown’s 19 leaders. Of Three Days Grace’s 18 Mainstream Rock Airplay No. 1s, the group earned its first 11 with Gontier, beginning with “Just Like You” in 2004. Following his 2013 departure, the band racked up six leaders with vocalist Matt Walst, starting in 2014 with “Painkiller.” “Mayday” is the first single since Gontier rejoined the band, with him and Walst trading vocals on it. “Mayday” is currently a stand-alone single, as Three Days Grace is recording its eighth…

Y2K TO TODAY: SWIFT LEADS THE WAY The superstar is the No. 1 artist through the quarter-century mark TAYLOR SWIFT REIGNS as the top artist on Billboard’s recap of the first 25 years of the 21st century. Even with the country-turned-pop superstar not making her Billboard chart debut until July 1, 2006 — with the then-16-year-old’s co-written debut single, “Tim McGraw” — Swift has rung up 14 No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, the most among women of all time, and 12 chart-topping songs on the Billboard Hot 100. Among other achievements, Swift became the first artist to claim each of the Hot 100’s top 10 positions when songs from her album Midnights debuted on the chart dated Nov. 5, 2022. She then repeated the feat — and…

BigXthaPlug THE BOOMING VOICE IN RAP WITH SOMETHING TO SAY Billboard Hot 100 hits and Coachella sets were never part of BigXtha-Plug’s plans for himself. Growing up in Dallas, the 26-year-old with the deep, bellowing voice had gridiron dreams of playing in the NFL — and even at his Billboard photo shoot, he throws a football around and speaks of his success in the game’s terms. BigX compares his industry journey to that of former quarterback Cam Newton, who starred at a junior college before becoming a Heisman Trophy winner at Auburn University and, eventually, an NFL MVP. “I basically just pulled a Cam Newton,” he states. “Instead of going through all the steps, I just went crazy at that [junior college] and could’ve damn near went to the…