Posts Tagged ‘Billboard’

What Will Be the Song of the Summer?

What will be the song of the summer for 2010? Well, your vote counts and you can help determine the song for the summer of 2010! Kind of, anyway. Billboard composes a chart every year for the songs of the summer and actually has quite a collection from 1985 until today. The chart is based on actual airplay and performances on the Billboard’s “hot” charts. So, the more people that buy the songs and the more they get played on the radio (as well as some other factors) determines how well an artist and a song does on the charts.

What is the most popular song so far for 2010? Well, if you sit back and think about it for a moment, you will probably come to the conclusion that the most popular, “hot” song of the summer is “California Gurls” by Katy Perry. Don’t like Katy Perry? Unless there is some major change, you will more-than-likely have to deal with the fact that she will have the song of the summer. But, you can always go to Billboard and “Show your love for the song” or “No love for this song.”

It might make you feel better to think you actually have a part in the music industry.

Here are the current top 5 songs, in order, of the summer:
1. “California Gurls” Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg
2. “OMG” Usher ft. will.i.am
3. “Airplanes” B.o.B ft. Hayley Williams
4. “Billionaire” Travie McCoy ft Bruno Mars
5. “Your Love is My Drug” Ke$ha

You can check out the complete list at Billboard.com.

Who is B.o.B.?

Who is B.o.B.?

Well, he is the guy who currently has the number 1 album on the charts. He is a 21 year old MC and producer straight out of Atlanta. Is he an overnight sensation? Yes… and no, not really. After graduating high school in 2006, he inked a deal with Atlantic Records in a partnership with Jim Jonsin’s Rebel Rock. While it took 4 years to get his record out, he has been putting in the hard work on the streets and getting his name out there.

B.o.B’s most recent success can be attributed to his song “Nothing On You.” The pop-friendly alternative hip-hop ballad featuring Bruno Mars singing the catchy chorus was #1 for the past two weeks and has been embraced by urban, pop, and rock radio stations. Followed by an equally great track, “Airplanes,” which features Paramore’s Haley Williams providing the hook. (Eminem makes an appearance on a second version of the song, “Airplanes, Part II.”)

For more on B.o.B., check out Yahoo! Be sure to check out iTunes to buy or download B.o.B.’s new album. Check out these videos below:

Beatboxing King of Leon

In this video from Billboard.com, Matisyahu, the Hasidic rapper previously nominated for a Best Reggae Album Grammy, applies his falsetto and beatboxing skills to a Kings of Leon hit “Use Somebody.” This is pretty good cover and the beat boxing is epic, if you will. Anyway, Billboard always does these Mashups and they come out on Mondays (and they are titled, surprisingly, Monday Mashups.

Matisyahu is not particularly a fan of Kings of Leon, but he says he really is a fan of this particular song. He says he thinks the vocals are what really carries “Use Somebody.” Check out the video and let me know what you think!

Elvis Record Shattered

I talked in a blog a while ago about Jimi Hendrix and how there was going to be a new album released of unheard recordings. Well, The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Valleys Of Neptune was release and entered the Billboard 200 at number 4, putting Hendrix in the top 5 nearly 40 years after he died. The only other artist to come close to doing this was Elvis Presley who had his album chart at number 3, 26 years after his death.

Valleys of Neptune is Jimi Hendrix’s 34th album to make it on the Billboard 200. Most people would be happy with just 1 album on the charts.

Unfortunately, Hendrix didn’t get to see much of his success or know how influential he would become to practically anyone who picked up a guitar. Jimi Hendrix’s life came to a tragic end when he was just the age of 27. He is truly a guitar hero – the guitar hero.

Top 10 Money Making Artist 2010

Here is a list from Billboard.com of the top 10 money making bands and artist. Pretty impressive list that should show even in bad economic times people still love their music. Here is the list of the top ten money makers.

10. Metallica $25,564,234 Metallica is still doing it bringing in $22.8 million in from their arena tour and $1.6 million in from album sales. They sold 694,000 albums last year.

9. Kenny Chesney $26,581,141 Kenny Chesney has sold over 1 million tickets for seven consecutive years – that is impressive. He also sold somewhere around a million albums – and that is not including digital sales.

8. Coldplay $27,326,562 Despite being sued they still had a killer year. They earned $24.7 million touring and sold over 852,000 albums in 2009.

7. Jonas Brothers $33,596,576 Shouldn’t be any real surprises here. They brought in $31 million from their tour and $1.3 million in CD royalties.

6. Pink $36,347,658 Her impressive arena show brought in $35 million. Pink has come a long ways as and artist, she has put in hard work and it is definitely paying off.

5. Britney Spears $38,885,267 After a case of the crazies, she came back and is on top again. She sold 763,000 copies of albums and 7.5 digital downloads. All of that is still not as impressive as the $36.4 million she brought in from her arena tour.

4. AC/DC $43,650,466 Who would have thought this band could make that kind of money in this day and age? With selling 1.1 million albums and bringing in $41 million from a tour, it should be easy to see.

3. Madonna $47,237,774 She had a huge year with her tour – not so much in the area of record sells, but it was still impressive. Her well diversified portfolio of licensed music, endorsements, and merchandising helped a little too.

2. Bruce Springsteen $57,619,037 This was one of the biggest surprises to me. Apparently he went on a huge tour and sold a lot of albums – pretty good!

1. U2 $108,601,283 Now, when you finish first with $50 million over second, you are doing pretty good. U2 is well on its way to having the highest grossing tour in history and that is where they are making all of their money.

Well, I hope you all see the value in touring over selling albums. Just because an artist has sold a bunch of albums and downloads, doesn’t make them instant millionaires. It is all in the live shows. Of course, I would take a million bucks for selling some albums!

Be sure to check out the full top 40 list on Billboard.com! There are plenty of surprises!

Where To Start – Songwriting

If you want to learn how to write effective “hit” songs, you probably feel overwhelmed and think that you just cannot do it. Well, fortunately, you can do it. Now, I will define a “hit” song as a radio friendly song or a song that sells thousands if not millions of albums and downloads. Songwriters and publishers are the ones who make the money in the music industry – and the best part is someone else (band/artist) does the work for you! Of course, you can use great song writing for you own band to “make it” as well! So, if you are ready to be on your way to writing great commercial songs, then let’s get started!

In this post, I will just start from the very novice person – the one who doesn’t have a clue where to begin. What you will need to do is find a popular mainstream radio song that you like (in whatever style you are comfortable with). A Good place to find current radio songs is Billboard.com – they have rock, country, R&B, pop, and many other charts for the songs on the radio. Once you have the song you like picked out, download it if you don’t already have it. (If you have the sheet music for it too – even better.) Now that you have your song picked out, let us continue.

This is purely for practicing songwriting, so do not take your finished product and try to use it as your own – the melody and lyrics are already copyrighted. What we are going to do is take your song your picked out, which has already proven as success, and learn the techniques used, learn new, useful habits, and to help you learn “hit” song strutcture. When you get done with this excercise, you shouldn’t even be able to tell from where the song came.

Okay, well listen to your song a few times and try and learn the melody while writing out all of the lyrics. This will help you later – figuring out how the syllabuls and the melodies match up. Once you have done this, figure out what the chorus to the song is and locate the hook line. The hook is usually located at the beginning or the end of the chorus and in the title of the song – but not always! Now that you have the hook in mind, rewrite the lyrics to the melody. Make these lyrics something you want the song to be about (common themes are love, hate, tragedy, etc.) and remember, you are rewriting the lyrics not the melody! Once you have a good solid, catchy hook line with your own lyrics, continue own to write the remaining lyrics to the chorus – and again just rewrite the lyrics and keep the original melody. (Make sure the rest of your chorus matches up with your hook.)

Look at you! You have your first chorus. Next, you need to write some verse lyrics over the verse melody. Verses usually tell a story, so try and relate them to the chorus while telling a story of how it got to whatever your chorus is about. (You can repeat these steps for the ‘bridge’ section of the song – your bridge, most of the time in my opinion, should paraphrase the story, so that if that is all the listener heard, they would know what the song is about.) Now that you have completed all the new lyrics, lets change the melody up a little bit. (I would start with the chorus.) Take the words you have written and just read them out loud one line at a time. Pay attention to how you say them – differences in length of words, annunciation, and pitch. Now, take how you say the line and exaggerate them and do this until you made it through the song. Once you get the first line, listen to the original song and notice how the lines variate in melody and do the exact same thing with your melody. (If line 1 is like line 3, then your new melody should have line 1 like line 3.)

Congratulations, you just made it through learning how to start writing a song! You got your own melody and lyrics and the original song should be hidden. You can also change up the chord progression – if you would like – but you don’t have too. You have learned some new techniques that the professionals use! I would recommend doing this several times before jumping into actually writing a song. In doing this, you will learn more techniques and get your creative juices flowing! Remember, this exercise is just for practice and the lyrics and melody of the hit song are copyrighted. Keep up the good work!

Hollywood’s Top-Earning Couple.. They’re Singers.

This is a list of the top earning Hollywood couples according to Forbes. The top couple is a pair of singers that have overtaken the hip-hop world and brought in 122 million dollars between June 2008 and June 2009. If you don’t know already, the top-earning couple is Jay Z and Beyonce Knowles. They have produced and sang on many top hits over the year, but that isn’t how they made so much money. They brought in a lot of it by diversifying. (Diversifying is the best way to make money and not risk losing it all at once. It is very smart.) The couple oversee clothing lines, perform around the world, and endorse products from companies like American Express. See what working hard can get you? Oh, and Beyonce brought in well over half of the money which shouldn’t be a surprise. She will also be taking the next 6 months off to enjoy life – I think she has earned it. Literally.





Also making the list is Country’s Jay Z and Beyonce – Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. Together they brought in $28 million. Check this out – Every time that NBC plays their Sunday Night Football theme, Faith Hill gets a check. Musician royalties are great if you own the publishing and hit something big! And Tim McGraw has done great with a double platinum album. So, logically what is next after you have conquered music? Movies, naturally. McGraw will star along side Gwyneth Paltrow in Love Don’t Let Me Down.

The last couple on the list that involve a musician is Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman. Together they brought in a little over $17 million. They both earned about the same amount. Keith Urban did it all with the album Defying Gravity which went all the way to Number 1 on the Billboard 200. Quite an accomplishment, but I am sure he is use to it by now.

Working hard really pays off. You just need a plan and steps to get to your end goal. For the whole story, check out Forbes.com. They even have a slideshow – if you aren’t a reader!

New, Unreleased Recordings From Jimi Hendrix

In March, a legendary guitarist will be returning with brand new, unreleased studio recordings. Referred to not as a ‘lost’ album, but an important, creative point in the career of Jimi Hendrix. These recordings are taken from several 1969 session with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. “Valley of Neptune” is the name of the album and has plans to be released on March 9th by Sony Legacy Recordings. We will be able to catch a glimpse of the title track when it is released as a single globally on February 2. I definitely cannot wait to hear the recordings from this guitar virtuoso.

Oh, and if you didn’t know, September 2010 will mark the 40th Anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s Death. If you want to know more about the new album, check out Billboard.com.

All Female Music Record

For the first time in history, the Billboard 200 top 5 were all solo female artist. (For the week ending January 3, 2010.) It has been almost 20 years since an event like this has happened, and the last time it was just the the top 4 spots. The first spot belonged to one of 2009 Britain’s Got Talent finalist, Susan Boyle and her album I Dreamed A Dream. Second was the very talented Lady Gaga and her album The Fame. Number three was one of my favorite singers, Alicia Keys, with The Element Of Freedom. Coming in fourth was the great Mary J. Blige and her album Stronger with Each Tear. And finally, fifth was the amazing Taylor Swift (who happens to be one of my favorite song writers) and her album Fearless.

I just wanted to point this out because I don’t think it really got quite the attention it deserves. Congrats ladies!

Be sure to check out their music:

Susan Boyle – I Dreamed A Dream
Lady Gaga – The Fame
Alicia Keys – The Element Of Freedom
Mary J. Blige – Stronger with Each Tear
Taylor Swift – Fearless