BLACKPINK member Jennie has signed to Columbia Records as a solo artist in partnership with her record label and entertainment company ODDATELIER, it was announced Sunday (Sept. 8). The singer is slated to release a new solo single in October.

The news follows last December’s revelation that all BLACKPINK members had split with their label, YG Entertainment, for their solo output, while extending their contract with the label for group activities.

Last June, Jennie released “One of the Girls” alongside The Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp, her co-stars on HBO’s The Idol. The track has since been streamed more than 1 billion times on Spotify alone and has been certified platinum by the RIAA; it also peaked at No. 18 on Billboard‘s Pop Airplay chart. She followed that up in October with “You & Me,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart, making her the second member of BLACKPINK to hit No. 1 on the survey after Rosé’s “On the Ground.”

Earlier this year, Jennie dropped a pair of collaborative singles: “SPOT!” with ZICO and “Slow Motion” with Matt Champion. Her first solo single, the aptly-titled “SOLO,” was released in 2018 and went on to top Billboard‘s World Digital Song Sales chart.

Jennie was first introduced in 2016 as one-fourth of the K-pop girl group BLACKPINK, which in 2023 became the first Korean act ever to headline Coachella. The group has charted a total of nine songs on the Billboard Hot 100, with their highest-charting, “Ice Cream” with Selena Gomez, peaking at No. 13. With the release of the group’s second studio album, 2022’s Born Pink, BLACKPINK became only the third South Korean act ever to top the Billboard 200 after BTS‘ Proof and Stray Kids‘ Stray Kids Mini Album: Oddinary.

Music stocks were off sharply this week as global markets were roiled by worries about the health of the U.S. economy and Friday’s disappointing jobs report.  

K-pop stocks suffered big declines this week as a major Korean stock market index had its biggest one-day decline ever. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index fell 8.8% on Monday as investors were gripped with fear about a U.S. recession. The market improved the following day, but the KOSPI ended the week down 4.9% to 2,544.81.

South Korean music companies were unfortunate casualties during the week of upheaval. The four main K-pop companies fell an average of 10.8% and their average year-to-date loss increased to 40.9%. HYBE fell 10.2% to 165,000 won ($123.25), bringing its year-to-date loss to 29.1%. YG Entertainment slipped 9.8% to 30,800 won ($23.01). SM Entertainment fell 10.4% to 56,300 won ($42.05). JYP Entertainment fared the worst, dipping 13.0% to 44,450 ($33.20) and bringing its year-to-date loss to 56.1%. 

The Billboard Global Music Index fell 4.8% to 1,744.64, reducing the year-to-date gain to 13.7% and marking the index’s worst week since it fell 5.1% in the week ended Feb. 24, 2023. The broader stock market had a miserable week. In the United States, the Nasdaq composite fell 5.8% and the S&P 500 slipped 4.2%. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 lost 2.3%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 2.7%.

Just three of the BGMI’s 20 stocks finished the week in positive territory, and two of the three winners are among the index’s smallest contributors. The top stock, Believe, which gained 3.7% to 15.06 euros ($16.69), has a float of less than 4% after a consortium led by CEO Denis Ladegaillerie acquired nearly the entire share capital. 

The second-best performer, Anghami, has the smallest market capitalization of all index companies at $23 million. The Abu Dhabi-based music streamer gained 2.3% to $0.90 after announcing Thursday (Sept. 5) that its video streaming subscriptions increased 18% since the majority investment by OSN Group, owner of MENA-based video-on-demand streaming platform OSN+, in April.  

Live Nation fell 5.0% to $92.81 despite two positive analyst opinions this week. BofA Securities initiated coverage of Live Nation this week with a $125 price target and a “buy” rating. Oppenheimer, which dropped its Live Nation price target from $120 to $110 in May, raised it back to $120 on Friday. 

Sphere Entertainment Co. dropped 7.1% to $43.27 after Benchmark downgraded Sphere shares to “sell” with a $40 price target, well below the prior day’s $46.60 closing price. Benchmark analyst cited concerns about “scalability, high production costs, and a potentially underwhelming profitability outlook” for the $2.3 billion Las Vegas venue. 

The week’s largest decline came from SiriusXM, which fell 17.0% to $2.73. On Wednesday (Sept. 4), SiriusXM and Liberty Media announced the final exchange ratio for the pending merger of SiriusXM’s and Liberty Media’s tracking stock, Liberty SiriusXM Holdings. On Monday (Sept. 9), Liberty Media will redeem each outstanding share of Liberty SiriusXM common stock for 0.8375 shares of the new SiriusXM stock. SiriusXM shareholders will receive 0.1 shares of the new SiriusXM stock, which will trade under the same SIRI ticker as the current SiriusXM stock. Following the merger, former holders of Liberty SiriusXM stock will own roughly 81% of the new shares.

The BGMI’s most valuable component, Spotify, fell 5.9% to $322.75. Another major stock on the index, Universal Music Group (UMG), dropped 3.0% to 22.93 euros ($25.42). UMG will host investors and analysts at its Capital Markets Day on Tuesday (Sept. 10). 

If investors and music companies want high streaming growth rates, they should look beyond the suddenly sluggish U.S. market.  

Of the few countries that have released midyear recorded music industry figures, the U.S. has the lowest growth rate for streaming — by far. Japan, Brazil, Italy, Germany and Spain each easily bested the 3.8% growth rate mustered by the U.S. in the first half of 2024, though they are far smaller markets.  

In Brazil, the ninth-largest market in 2023, streaming revenue improved 21.1% to 1.442 billion BRL ($284 million) in the first half of 2024, according to the country’s trade group, Pro-Música Brasil. Subscription revenue rocketed 28.4% to 995 million BRL ($196 million) while ad-supported streaming rose just 6.6% to 436 million BRL ($86 million).  

Streaming accounts for 99% of total revenue in Brazil, a market that was early to adopt streaming platforms. (Pro-Música Brasil did not include synch and performance royalties in the midyear numbers. In 2023, those two segments accounted for 12% of Brazil’s total revenue.) The former internet radio service Rdio — acquired by Pandora in 2015 — launched in Brazil in 2011. Muve Music, acquired by Deezer in 2015, launched a partnership with leading mobile carrier TIM in 2013. Deezer still powers TIM’s music streaming platform and extended that partnership in January.  

Important markets in Asia and Europe also delivered impressive streaming gains in the first half of the year. Spain nearly matched Brazil with 19.1% streaming growth and a 16.6% improvement in total revenue. In Italy, recorded music revenue jumped 15.1% and streaming revenue, which accounts for 80% of the total market, grew 18.1%. (Figures in currency were not provided by Italy’s trade group, FIMI.) The world’s second- and fourth-largest markets, Japan and Germany, had streaming gains of 12.7% and 9.0%, respectively.  

In aggregate, the five ex-U.S. markets grew 12.2% compared to the first half of 2023, with the smallest markets having the highest streaming growth rates. Brazil's market is less than 3% the size of the U.S., while Spain and Italy are 3% and 4% the size of the world’s largest market, respectively. Germany's market is 15% as big as the U.S. Japan is just a quarter of its size. 

What the U.S. lacks in momentum it makes up for in size. Based on total market revenue for 2023, the U.S. was more than twice the size of the five ex-U.S. markets combined — $11.04 billion to $5.47 billion, according to IFPI figures. In fact, the U.S. is so large that a 3.8% streaming gain was worth $404 million — more than the entire Spanish recorded music market ($355 million) and nearly as big as Italy's ($477 million). To reiterate, that's not just streaming — we're talking about those countries' entire market revenue.  

The rate of streaming growth underpins much of the money flowing into the music business. Investors and companies are betting the global market can generate nearly double-digit growth through the end of the decade. The latest Goldman Sachs “Music in the Air” report, a standard reference point for gauging the potential of music as an investment, forecasts that global streaming revenue will grow at a 10% compound annual growth rate through 2030. That would turn last year’s $19.3 billion streaming market into $37.8 billion by the end of the decade.

But the enormity of the U.S. market, which accounted for 42% of global streaming revenue in 2023, according to the IFPI, means other markets will need to continue those rapid paces for the global market to maintain that 10% streaming growth rate. The five ex-U.S. markets’ 12.2% growth rate is nearly halved to 6.4% when their $5.47 billion total value is combined with the U.S. market, which is worth $11.04 billion.  

Developing markets certainly have the potential to contribute to global growth, but many of the most populous countries — India, Indonesia, the Philippines — are relatively small and based more on advertising than high-value subscriptions. For the math to work, the global market needs a strong U.S. 

As part of our continuing efforts 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 conferences 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.

September

October

November

December

January 2025

February 2025

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April 2025

May 2025

June 2025

September 2025

Want your event listed? For more information contact joe.maimone@billboard.com.

Verizon is firing back at a lawsuit filed by the major record labels over allegations of “staggering” piracy on its network, arguing that music companies cannot trot out the “same playbook” they used to win a billion-dollar judgment against another internet service provider.

The case, filed in July by Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, claims that Verizon “buried its head in the sand” in the face of repeated warnings about piracy on its network, effectively encouraging its users to illegally share music.

But in a motion to dismiss the case on Friday (Sept. 6), Verizon blasted the “legally deficient” premise of the lawsuit: That an ISP itself can be held liable over the sins of its users.

“When people do bad things online, their internet service providers are not typically the ones to blame. This lawsuit claims otherwise,” Verizon’s attorneys wrote. “The plaintiffs are massive record labels — together worth billions — alleging that some people illegally shared their artists’ songs over the internet. Yet they made a calculated choice not to sue those people.”

The new case is the latest in a long line of major lawsuits aimed at forcing internet service providers to take more proactive steps to eliminate piracy on their networks. Major labels have filed similar cases against Charter, RCN and other ISPs in courts around the country, often winning huge judgments. In one case, the labels initially won a $1 billion verdict against Cox Communications.

But in Friday’s response, Verizon said those “lucrative” cases had been incorrectly decided by other federal courts and must be rejected in the current battle, which is taking place in Manhattan’s influential federal court district.

“The Labels filed this lawsuit because the same playbook has worked against others,” Verizon’s lawyers wrote. “But the decisions blessing those lawsuits were wrong then and are even less persuasive now.”

Proving that an ISP is liable for secondary copyright infringement requires evidence of “culpable action, not passive inaction,” Verizon wrote. Other federal judges may have been persuaded that failing to shut off internet service counted as such “active” conduct, Verizon says, but that doesn’t make it so.

“The Labels do not allege that Verizon encouraged music piracy or even wanted it to happen,” the company’s lawyers wrote. “All Verizon did was sell general internet access, which some people abused to share copyrighted music with others.”

In particular, the telecom giant pointed to a 2023 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the justices ruled that Facebook, Twitter and Google could not be sued for aiding and abetting ISIS simply because the terrorist group had posted content to social media. Verizon argued that the legal argument in the copyright cases against ISPs directly conflicts with the high court’s recent ruling.

“As the first district court to consider the issue after [the Supreme Court’s decision], this court now has the chance to reject the premise,” Verizon’s lawyers added. “It should do so. The complaint should be dismissed.”

Few people are having a better week than Sabrina Carpenter. The singer capped one of the most complete ascents to pop stardom in recent memory with the release of her latest album, Short N’ Sweet — the culmination of an extended campaign in which she was able to build her career brick by brick, single by single, into the upper echelons of pop music and culture — which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 362,000 equivalent album units, the best week of her career and the third-highest debut week of the year so far.

That type of success doesn’t happen by accident: Carpenter’s team worked all sides for this project, which included radio (two songs, “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” are in the top 10 of Billboard‘s Radio Songs Chart), streaming (Short’ N Sweet also debuted at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Streaming Songs chart, with 233 million official on-demand streams) and sales (with nine vinyl variants, she sold 105,000 vinyl records, the second-largest week of the year and good for No. 1 on Billboard‘s Vinyl Albums chart). Four digital album variants, available for a limited time, moved 45,000 units, while five different CD editions added another 33,000 to the total. And all that activity and wide-ranging success helps Island Records’ senior vp/head of commercial strategy Marshall Nolan earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.

Here, Nolan walks through the strategy that led to Carpenter’s career-best debut. “The plan from the start was that every detail mattered,” Nolan says. “We knew to double down on her strengths, in areas like e-commerce, and once we built a rhythm there, it afforded us the time to nurture elements that still had room for growth.”

This week, Sabrina Carpenter landed her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with Short’ N Sweet. What key decision(s) did you make to make that happen?

Sabrina’s ability to world-build alongside her incredible team of creatives is unparalleled. We challenged ourselves to take that world and embed it into every e-commerce experience, building a range of carefully-curated collectibles for her superfans. 

In many ways, the rollout of this album was very traditional: single built on top of single, radio play and streaming build-up, all leading into the climactic album release. Was that the plan from the start, or did things evolve along the way?

The plan from the start was that every detail mattered. We knew to double down on her strengths, in areas like e-commerce, and once we built a rhythm there, it afforded us the time to nurture elements that still had room for growth.

How did her singles’ success at radio help the digital campaign for the album?

Constant communication with our promo team, who are the best in the business, allowed us to narrate each movement and growth spurt in real-time. We as a team never focused on the successes of an individual single; the intention was always to build Sabrina as an artist and brand first. We welcomed any success that came along with that. 

The album had nine vinyl variants, five CD editions and two cassettes available — what was the physical strategy for the album rollout, and what was behind the success of the vinyl in particular?

The variants are first and foremost a reflection of the incredible creative team surrounding Sabrina, who built products that fans immediately embraced as must-have collectible items. From the packaging finishes to the stylized content with which it was promoted, her passion for each variant came through in every detail. Each product paid special tribute to the many layers of Sabrina’s sharply sweet world.

How much does fan demand play into your commerce plan for any album?

This was another important factor in deciding to offer a wide range of album variants. Sabrina crafted a world we’re lucky to be a part of; we ensured that each album offering felt like an extension of it.

What did you learn from rolling out this release that you can take into other projects in the future?

Everything starts with trust — learning to build it, continuing to maintain it and working to strengthen it every step of the way. We never take for granted the role we are fortunate enough to play in maximizing and achieving an artist’s wildest dreams. Sabrina taught us all to allow time for a slow rise, there is so much to learn and look forward to along the way.

The gaming platform Roblox announced on Friday (Sept. 6) that it will roll out music charts early in 2025, bringing songs a new level of potential visibility for its nearly 80 million daily active users.

At the Roblox Developer Conference, the company also said it was entering a new partnership with DistroKid, allowing the distributor’s acts to make their music available in the Roblox ecosystem, which consists of millions of games. This marks the platform’s first partnership with a major rightsholder in the music business. However, the independent artists who avail themselves of this opportunity won’t make any money from Roblox when their songs are used, underscoring the thorny relationship between the music and gaming industries. 

Artists and labels are dying for better ways to reach gamers — a hefty chunk of the world’s population, many of them young, who often get just as enthusiastic about music as they do about the games they love. But artists and labels also want to be paid for their work. 

Across the aisle, games would love to benefit from artists’ credibility and add pizzazz to their soundtracks. But they often have little patience for the music industry’s licensing system, which they view as old-fashioned and overly complicated, and its interest in steep up-front fees. And games’ success usually does not depend on music industry involvement.

The chasm between these views has limited the opportunities for artists in gaming — especially those who aren’t already stars — outside of a few titles. 

But the music industry would still like to bridge the gap, and Roblox’s virtual universe is a particularly tempting target. That’s because it has a tantalizing number of users whose avatars are wandering around, hanging out with friends, or flocking to games like Adopt Me!, where they raise virtual pets. Labels would love to reach these crowds. 

Roblox chief product officer Manuel Bronstein says the platform wants to help. To drive more music discovery, it will add a sort of audio player that can show users what track is playing in the Roblox experience they are enjoying. 

As a result, “users are going to be able to see the name of the song, the artist [behind it], and even like the song,” Bronstein says. That information will then flow into the platform’s music charts, which will rank tracks according to engagement. In an ideal world, charts function like a two-way mirror — they reflect listening habits but also facilitate discovery for curious listeners. (Roblox will also set up a separate ranking that tallies the popularity of music experiences on the platform to help players seeking out what are known as “rhythm games,” where activity is usually linked with playing an instrument or dancing.) 

The music industry’s approach to Roblox has evolved gradually in the last few years. Initially, stars like Lil Nas X made headlines with one-off concerts. However, these are expensive and time-consuming to put together, and the payoff is short-lived. They have largely gone out of vogue. 

Artists and labels have also built their own Roblox experiences. But it’s tough to stand out in the land of a million-plus games, and a big name does not ensure a big audience. 

On Aug. 29, for example, the electronic producer Zedd announced that he was taking over Universal Music Group’s Roblox experience, Beat Galaxy. Visits jumped up from around 4,000 on the 28th to around 10,000 a day later, according to the site RoMonitor, which tracks Roblox activity. Not bad, except that that amounts to a drop in the platform’s ocean-sized audience. Piggy, where players try to escape a homicidal swine wielding a baseball bat, attracted more than 2.7 million visits the same day. And RoMonitor’s data indicates that there are over 30 Roblox experiences earning more daily visitors than Piggy. 

“There are so many games on the platform,” says Mat Ombler, who works as a music and gaming consultant while also editing MusicEXP, a newsletter about the intersection of the two worlds. “There is absolutely no guarantee that launching an activation will get artists in front of those 80 million players.” 

Some artists have had success “activating in already thriving experiences,” according to Jesse Wylde, senior director of artist and business development at Artist Partner Group (APG). “And short-form Roblox UGC edits across socials” — clips of Roblox activity posted on TikTok and elsewhere — “continue to be a key driver for consumption across APGs roster.” (In the future, Wylde would love to see “more native means for players to save songs and/or follow artists on streaming services while remaining in Roblox.”)

For Ombler, Charli XCX’s recent collaboration with the wildly popular game Dress to Impress represents a new high-water mark for artists in Roblox. In his newsletter, he noted that “daily visits for Dress to Impress jumped from 22.49 million on Aug. 16 to 34.09 million on [the collaboration’s Aug. 17] launch, an increase of 41%.” Concurrent users also jumped from a peak of 290,000 to a peak of 641,000.

But Charli XCX, a well-known artist with major hits, doesn’t need Roblox to break through. The Holy Knives are interested in the platform’s partnership with DistroKid because it could afford smaller acts like them a chance to find new listeners. “Majors probably don’t need more exposure,” says Kody Valentine, a member of the duo along with his brother Kyle. “As independent artists, that’s the number one thing we need. If that can come through Roblox, that is amazing.”

The band opted to make their music available on Roblox so that game developers can put it into experiences. (DistroKid artists must opt in to be part of the program.) The hope is that they will gain enough fans to offset the fact that they won’t be directly compensated for any use of their songs. 

Bronstein points out that if artists like The Holy Knives are discovered on Roblox, “they also have means to monetize outside of the platform” — if players go stream the band elsewhere, for example. (It’s also easy for artists to start selling virtual merch on Roblox, which has been lucrative for some stars; Ombler believes more artists should try this.) But Roblox is “starting as a promotional vehicle to begin with,” Bronstein notes. 

Artists only have one career, so they will often trade royalty income for exposure. DistroKid earns money when artists sign up to distribute their music and doesn’t share in the royalties they make, so it doesn’t have a dog in the fight. For the major labels, on the other hand, giving away music for free is a tough pill to swallow, especially recently. 

UMG CEO Lucian Grainge made this clear during a speech in 2022. Initially, “[we] were given a lot of reasons why our artists shouldn’t get paid” by MTV and YouTube, Grainge recalled. “People said, ‘It’s great promotion,’ or ‘you can use it as a platform for discovering new artists.’ Technology platforms were built on the backs of the artists’ hard work.”

When asked about the potential for future monetization opportunities, Bronstein says, “We want to get there. Once you get the momentum, you have the opportunity to think about creative ways in which artists can monetize.” (Karibi Dagogo-Jack, who previously served as Roblox’s head of music partnerships, is no longer with the company.) But the music industry’s fear is that the opposite thing happens: Platforms get momentum and then use that leverage to argue they should pay even less for music.

Alex Tarrand, COO/co-founder of STYNGR, has tried to come up with a way for rightsholders to get their music played on Roblox but also get paid for it. STYNGR has licenses with all the major labels and publishers; game developers can then use that music without paying up-front. 

In the Roblox universe, this music comes out of a boombox — old-school radio in a newfangled virtual world. Users either shell out for listening time, or developers can put an ad-funded version of the product into their experiences. The revenue from user payments and advertisements is then shared between major labels, publishers, game developers and STYNGR. “Session lengths go up for the people who are actively engaging with the music player,” according to Tarrand. “And we see session frequency go up.”

Despite some of the ongoing friction between the music industry and Roblox, the search for common ground continues. This week, Tarrand flew to the Roblox Developer Conference to meet with more developers. “Music is a big topic of conversation at this RDC,” he says. “That’s promising.” 

k.d. lang and The Reclines will perform together for the first time in 35 years in Edmonton on Sept. 14 for the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) Awards. 

lang may have found international fame as a pop superstar with a powerful and emotionally expressive voice and as a queer icon, but her roots in country music run deep. She first made her mark in Canadian music as a maverick cowpunk artist back in the ’80s, at the start of a career that has spanned over four decades.

“Reuniting with The Reclines after 35 years in Edmonton for the CCMA Awards feels like a full-circle moment,” shares lang. “The bond we shared, both musically and personally, remains as strong as ever, and revisiting a song that shaped our journey together is incredibly special. I’m thrilled to bring this experience to life on such a celebrated stage and share it with fans, both old and new.”

Based in her birthplace of Edmonton, k.d. lang and the Reclines were together from 1983 to 1989, after starting out as a Patsy Cline tribute act. The first band featured Stu Macdougal on keys, Dave Bjarnson on drums, Gary Koligar on guitar and Farley Scott on bass.

After regular gigging at Edmonton’s Sidetrack Café, the group gained national attention with its 1984 album, A Truly Western Experience. Her unique sense of fashion and energetic performance style caught the attention of Rolling Stone, who dubbed her “a Canadian Cowpunk.” lang earned a 1985 Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist, famously accepting the award wearing a borrowed wedding dress.

k.d. lang will also be inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame, adding to her remarkable legacy of accolades. –Kerry Doole

The Billboard Canada Women in Music Industry Spotlight

This week, Billboard Canada unveiled the full Billboard Canada Women in Music honours. 

Stars like Alanis Morissette, Charlotte Cardin and LU KALA will be at the Billboard Canada Women in Music event on September 7 in Toronto. 

In addition to those award-winners, which include Executive of the Year Kristen Burke, the head of Warner Music Canada and the only female major label head in the country, there is also an Industry Spotlight list of women from throughout the Canadian music industry. 

From label boardrooms to influential positions in radio, touring, festivals, artist funding and more, women and gender-diverse people are shaping music. 

Each person featured on the Industry Spotlight list also gave their advice for the next generation of women in the music industry, from speaking honestly and authentically, to surrounding yourself with other talented and supportive women.

There are also exclusive videos of interviews and performances of Billboard Canada Women in Music honourees, including The Beaches, Allison Russell and artist manager Laurie Lee Boutet.

Because of the incredible contributions of women and gender-diverse individuals, Billboard Canada Women in Music is not only a celebration of women, but of Canadian music as a whole – and a vision for where it can go next. –Richard Trapunski

AP Dhillon Safe Following Reports of Gunshots at His Home Near Victoria, B.C.

Gunshots were fired into the home of Punjabi-Canadian musician AP Dhillon early Monday morning (September 2).

B.C. police are investigating the incident, with CTV News reporting that around 1:15 a.m. the RCMP was called to the house. There are reports of two vehicles set on fire, in addition to multiple gunshots, as well as reported video of the shooting circulating online.

“I’m safe. My people are safe,” Dhillon shared on Instagram.

The Times of India reports that an associate of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang has claimed responsibility for the shooting on social media, threatening Dhillon for working with Salman Khan. The actor and producer Khan had a cameo appearance in the video for Dhillon’s new Billboard Canadian Hot 100-charting single, “Old Money,” and the gang reportedly has a history of targeting Khan.

“Preliminary investigation suggests that this was a targeted event and there is no information to believe that the general public is at any further risk as a result,” says a statement from the West Shore RCMP detachment.

The gunfire follows Dhillon’s recent major label signing with Republic Records, with “Old Money” marking the first release as part of that deal. –Rosie Long Decter

Last spring, while working with Post Malone on his upcoming country album, his songwriting collaborators took a break. Malone started noodling on guitar. “He’d be playing, like, old B-sides, Toby Keith songs, that nobody knew,” recalls Chase McGill, a Nashville veteran who has written songs for Morgan Wallen, Kenny Chesney and many others. “But he knew everything.”

When Malone’s F-1 Trillion came out in late August, the pop and hip-hop star had an advantage that previous country crossover hopefuls have lacked. He plunged into the country-music business, and into Nashville, working with respected local songwriters (like McGill, Taylor Phillips and James McNair), gigging at key local clubs (Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and the Bluebird Cafe), collaborating with veterans (he performed with Dwight Yoakam on SiriusXM) and recording duets with other stars (Hank Williams Jr., Dolly Parton, Blake Shelton, Luke Combs and Wallen are on the album).

“That’s the difference when somebody brushes up against the genre vs. someone who immersed themselves into the genre,” says Randy Chase, programming executive vp for Summit Media, the Birmingham, Ala., broadcaster that owns nine country stations. “When people try to cross into country from other genres, a lot of times it’s on their terms, and they want to put their foot into the pool. He went all in, even with the risk that it could hurt him down the road.” Adds Tom Poleman, chief programming officer for top broadcast chain iHeartMedia: “He understands country music. It’s not like he’s just trying to learn how to be a country artist overnight.”

Post’s duet with Wallen, “I Had Some Help,” debuted at No. 1 on Hot Country Songs and the Hot 100 in late May, scoring 76.4 million streams and, earlier this week, topped Billboard’s Songs of the Summer chart. 

Adding “I Had Some Help” to heavy rotation was “a no-brainer,” says Steve Stewart, Cox Media Group’s director of country content. “Morgan continues to be one of the hottest artists on the planet, so that immediately gave us the green light.” Similarly, Summit’s country stations played “I Had Some Help” twice an hour throughout its debut day, then once an hour the next day and repeatedly through the weekend. “I heard the song about two weeks before it came out,” adds Summit’s Chase. “I said, ‘This is a country record that is also going to go pop.'” 

Last week, F-1 Trillion landed atop the Billboard 200, Post’s first No. 1 since his pop album Hollywood’s Bleeding in 2019. (The new album also hit No. 1 on Top Country Albums in its debut week.) “There are legitimately 15-plus songs that could be radio singles,” says Scott Donato, program director and operations manager for WGTY, a country station in York, Penn. “It reminds me of late-’90s, early-2000s country. He’s been able to capture every corner of the format.”

Before Post Malone became famous as a hip-hop artist with 2015’s “White Iverson,” he performed at a Dallas-area Italian restaurant where he worked during high school, and later covered songs by Hank Williams and Bob Dylan in videos he posted online. He became an established star who could fill U.S. arenas, then began transitioning to country around 2018.

The marketing teams at Big Loud Records and major label Mercury/Republic Records, already working together on Wallen’s releases, soon began brainstorming Post Malone marketing plans from the conference room at Big Loud headquarters in Nashville. (The two labels are teaming up on radio promotion – Big Loud for country, Mercury for Top 40 and other formats.) “Post ingratiated himself within the creative community — opened up to writers, collaborators and session musicians — that were the throughline of this campaign,” says Patch Culbertson, executive vp and general manager of Big Loud, adding that his company helped make introductions to Parton, Shelton, Williams and others. “They had a great vision from the beginning.”

Big Loud execs persuaded Mercury’s team to start the album’s campaign earlier than planned, so it could set up a splashy CMA Fest appearance, in which Post and Shelton performed “Pour Me a Drink.” “He got the hit on TV, which is a whole different demo from what he was used to serving,” says Candice Watkins, Big Loud’s senior vp of marketing. “He got to meet the industry.”

In April, Post performed at the Stagecoach Festival, where Jordan Pettit, the Grand Ole Opry’s director of artist relations and programming, was in attendance. Pettis later spoke to Alex Coslov, executive vp of Mercury Records, and “there was immediate interest on their behalf to pursue his Opry debut as part of their launch plan,” Pettit recalls.

Post performed at the Opry for the first time in mid-August. “It began to take on the feel that this was not just a pop artist leaning into country music for a moment in time,” Pettit says. Coslov added to Billboard: “Our core strategy was built around showcasing the authenticity of Post’s entry into country music by highlighting his time in Nashville.”

Several country programmers say Post is the type of artist who will be able to toggle between genres, depending on his musical impulses, and may not be absent from Top 40 and hip-hop radio playlists for long after F-1 Trillion. (His first three albums combined for 11 billion to 12 billion on-demand streams apiece, according to Luminate, but he dipped on 2022’s Twelve Carat Toothache, with just 1.88 billion streams.) “This is a guy who went, ‘This is my art, here it is,'” says Tim Roberts, vp of programming and format captain for radio chain Audacy. “Could he make a whole pop album next year? Absolutely.” Post’s tour begins this Sunday in Salt Lake City, and “it really is all country-based,” according to Big Loud’s Watkins, although she expects pop hits, too.

So far, Post’s pop-to-country transition has far surpassed  similar moves by Sheryl Crow, Jessica Simpson, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, or even Beyoncé, whose Cowboy Carter album was a culture-dominating hit earlier this year, but did not stick to country radio formats. “The Beyoncé songs weren’t great country songs; they were great Beyoncé songs,” says Nate Deaton, general manager of online country station KRTY.com in San Jose. “The Sheryl Crow country record was really good, but it didn’t have any hits on it — it didn’t have ‘Pour Me a Drink.’ It didn’t have one of those songs that was a standout runaway smash.'”

Deaton calls Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker’s debut country album, 2008’s Learn to Live, a more apt comparison: “He did the exact same thing that Post Malone did. He went to Nashville and ingratiated himself with Nashville songwriters. Darius got on a bus and went to all these radio stations, even though he was a big star.” For Post Malone, Deaton adds, “It would not surprise me at all to see an ongoing country career, a la Darius.”

Travis Scott was fired up. “IM FCKING JUMPING THRU WALLS,” he wrote on Instagram. The reason: He planned to officially re-release Days Before Rodeo, his decade-old pre-stardom mixtape, on streaming services on August 23. 

Sabrina Carpenter‘s Short n’ Sweet was slated to come out the same day, and before Scott’s announcement, it was expected to coast to the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart — an inevitable coronation after a string of high-flying singles. Instead, Carpenter’s release squeaked out a No. 1 finish, earning 362,000 units to Scott’s 361,000. 

Short n’ Sweet out-streamed the rapper’s old mixtape by a wide margin, racking up 233 million official on-demand streams to Scott’s 40.6 million. But remarkably, he sold 300,000 digital downloads of Days Before Rodeo, according to Luminate. On the final day of the tracking week, Scott put out six different digital variations of his album — each of which included at least two extra tracks and cost just $4.99, the minimum price for chart eligibility — as part of a ferocious last-ditch attempt to snatch victory from Carpenter. She responded in kind, serving up three $4.99 digital variants of her own and ultimately selling 45,000 digital downloads. (Eight of the nine variants were available exclusively on the artists’ web stores.) 

This tactic has been around for years: Release digital variants near the end of the week; sell them cheap; polish off a rival; tout the accomplishment. The technique is getting more attention lately because clashes between titans are being decided by digital variant release strategies. Scott was nearly able to erase Carpenter’s mile-wide streaming lead thanks in part to his blitz of variants. And these duels have spurred the latest round of music industry conversations about whether artists and labels are trying to game the charts — or take advantage of their most devoted followers.

“People are keeping that ammo in the chamber: ‘Let’s save these four variants that we know we’re going to have to drop at different times throughout this week,'” says one major-label A&R who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “Does it enhance the fan experience, or does it actually lessen it? I think it’s manipulative.”

When asked about this practice, another prominent manager who has been involved in close chart races in the past expressed frustration that Billboard allows such last-minute digital album sales to count on its charts. (“Billboard is always reviewing, in consultation with Luminate and the industry at large, what sales channels are included for chart eligibility, and has updated its policies when necessary based on market behavior,” Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard‘s executive vp of charts and data partnerships, said in a statement.) 

On the other hand, some label executives believe that digital variants help create eye-catching first-week totals and race-to-the-finish-line dramas that are good for the music industry, sort of like its version of Barbenheimer: Before Taylor Swift’s showdown with Billie Eilish in May and Carpenter vs. Scott more recently, it had been a whopping eight years since two albums cracked the 300,000-unit mark during the same week. 

And the contest between Carpenter and Scott was a nail-biter until the end, as both camps released their final variant in the last two hours of the tracking week. Since January 2020, there have only been seven weeks when the gap between Nos. 1 and 2 was less than 1,000 units. (Representatives for Carpenter and Scott did not respond to requests for comment.) 

Despite the prominence of digital albums in some recent release campaigns, digital album sales have plummeted from 103.3 million in 2015 to 18.3 million in 2023, according to Luminate’s annual reports. Within this category, Luminate also tracks an “others” grouping that reflects sales from artists’ direct-to-consumer web stores along with non-major digital retailers. So far this year, sales in “others” total just 1.7 million, which amounts to 0.23% of year-to-date total album consumption (730.45 million equivalent album units*).

While this represents a tiny sliver of overall activity, it can make a difference in close chart races. Swift released additional digital variants when she went head to head with Eilish and against Ye and Ty Dolla $ign‘s Vultures 2 in August. (Eilish and Ye and Ty released their own as well, to no avail.) And Blink-182 used a digital variant of One More Time as part of a successful effort to scrape by Drake‘s For All the Dogs and nab No. 1 in October. 

These face-offs also demonstrate how far labels and artists are willing to go to try to get that top spot. Getting a No. 1 demonstrates that labels “still have the ability to move the needle,” says industry veteran Ray Daniels. “That is a big reason why certain artists will go to certain labels.” And “ego is a lot of it,” adds Joey Arbagey, a former major-label A&R executive. 

Most prominent artists want to top the chart as well, though they may be loath to admit it. “It’s a way of an artist on the rise saying they have arrived,” Daniels says. And scoring a No. 1 can then serve as a springboard, creating “a domino effect of other opportunities, whether that’s working with brands or getting significant press,” according to Nick Groff, an artist manager and former A&R. 

In more recent years, artists and labels have used hyper-aggressive price discounting, bundling albums with tickets or merchandise, box sets, vinyl variants and other techniques to try to jack up an album’s chart position. (There are dissenters: “It’s crazy how much time and energy is wasted on shit like this,” says one former major label executive, practically eye-rolling through the phone, “instead of focusing on signing good artists and making good music.”) When chart rules change, so do the industry’s strategies for impacting them. 

Some of these options disappeared in 2020 after Billboard stopped counting albums sold in merchandise bundles and ticket bundle offers. Label executives say selling digital variant downloads is one of the few maneuvers they have left to goose numbers late in a chart week. The other is putting a deluxe version of the album with additional tracks on streaming services, also an increasingly common tactic.

But adding an unreleased track or two onto the album and selling it exclusively through an artist’s web store is a more potent option. This can also be done quickly and at the last minute, as a Hail Mary when a chart race suddenly becomes competitive. Acts usually make these releases available for a limited time only, which both further juices fan interest and underscores that the artists are focusing on the all-important release week. 

In many cases, this strategy is effectively a sale of a lone song masquerading as an album purchase — artists often just add one live track or unreleased loosie to the original project and make it available as a new variant. Some artists don’t even include a new song in a digital variant; they just change up the artwork, or digitally “sign” the album art.

“If there is exclusive music available in these variant releases, that can be a great strategy and a fun way to engage with your fan base,” says Greg Hirschhorn, founder of the distribution company Too Lost. “If there is only a change in the track list or a different album artwork, I feel like the only real goal or outcome is chart manipulation.”

Steeply discounted digital variants also threaten to snub the diehards who ordered an album ahead of time at full price. If a fan pays $9.99 for a pre-order on iTunes, they may feel like a sucker when they see the same album augmented with bonus material and made available for just $4.99 near the end of the tracking week. “It feels like people should wait until Thursday afternoon to buy the album” and get the best deal, the major-label A&R says.

But for now, any potential fan backlash to the rise of variants appears to be outweighed by their impact on the charts. “When you’re in it and you’re fighting so hard for No. 1, it can seem obnoxious [to people outside the industry], but that’s the only thing that matters,”Arbagey says. “They’re pulling out all the stops.”

“I’ve definitely been in one of those heated races,” Groff adds. “You figure out everything you can possibly do to boost the numbers.”

*Through the week ending Aug. 29, total U.S. album consumption in 2024, as represented by equivalent album units — excluding units caused by user generated content — equals 730.45 million, according to Luminate. Each equivalent album 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 official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.