BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE APRIL 13, 2020 | PAGE 4 OF 19 ON THE CHARTS JIM ASKER [email protected] Bulletin SamHunt’s Southside Rules Top Country YOURAlbu DAILYms; BrettENTERTAINMENT Young ‘Catc NEWSh UPDATE’-es Fifth AirplayFEBRUARY 25, 2021 Page 1 of 37 Leader; Travis Denning Makes History INSIDE Daft Punk Collectible Sales Sam Hunt’s second studio full-length, and first in over five years, Southside sales (up 21%) in the tracking week. On Country Airplay, it hops 18-15 (11.9 mil- (MCA Nashville/Universal Music Group Nashville), debutsSkyrocket at No. 1 on Billboard’s lion audience After impressions, Breakup: up 16%). Top Country• Spotify Albums Takes onchart dated April 18. In its first week (ending April 9), it earned$1.3B 46,000 in equivalentDebt album units, including 16,000 in album sales, ac- TRY TO ‘CATCH’ UP WITH YOUNG Brett Youngachieves his fifth consecutive cording• Taylor to Nielsen Swift Music/MRCFiles Data. ‘I Could’veand total Made Country Airplay No.$100,000’ 1 as “Catch” (Big Machine Label Group) ascends SouthsideHer Own marks Lawsuit Hunt’s in second No. 1 on the 2-1, increasing 13% to 36.6 million impressions. chartEscalating and fourth Theme top 10. It follows freshman LP BY STEVE KNOPPER Young’s first of six chart entries, “Sleep With- MontevalloPark, which Battle arrived at the summit in No - out You,” reached No. 2 in December 2016. He vember 2014 and reigned for nine weeks. To date, followed with the multiweek No. 1s “In Case You In the 24 hours following Daft Punk’s breakup Thomas, who figured out how to build the helmets Montevallo• Mumford has andearned Sons’ 3.9 million units, with 1.4 Didn’t Know” (two weeks, June 2017), “Like I Loved millionBen in Lovettalbum sales. Talks Monday, Dylan Thomas’ Etsy storefront sold six years agoYou” and, (three, through January his 2018), company, “Mercy” KirmyProps, (two, August MontevalloNew Amphitheater: has spent 267 weeks$22,000 on the list, worth tying of custom helmets made to look like prepares for2018) about and 20 “Here orders Tonight” every (two, Halloween April 2019). for his Luke ‘There’sBryan’s Crash Just Not My Party as thethe sixth-longest- group’s iconic robot heads — and could have sold gold-chrome helmets“Catch” completes with flashing his longest LED journey lights tothat No. 1, runningEnough titles in Great the chart’s 56-yearmore, history. if he’d had the time to build the merchandise. sell for $2,000having a piece. taken “This 46 weeks took to me reach off the guard. apex. ItYou out - Venues’ On the all-genre Billboard 200,“I could’veSouthside made ar- $100,000,” says the 37-year-old from would thinkpaces when the a 30-weekband breaks climb up, of “Here people Tonight.” are pissed rives at No. 5, awarding Hunt his second top 10 On Hot Country Songs, “Catch” pushes 7-5 for • Creative Artist HUNT YOUNG after the No. 3-peaking MontevalloSylva,. North Carolina, whose day job is working for a about it.” a new high. Agency Names Hunt first released the EPX2C management, which debuted company overseeing paint and pressure- Daft Punk’s futuristic helmets and reclusive mys- Joe Hadley and and peaked at No. 5 on Top Countrywashing Albums crews. in “It August blows 2014. my mind. Following My friendCOMBS goes, ‘DOES’ tiqueIT AGAIN have Luke been Combs the centerpiece’ “Does to Me” of (River an elaborate House/Columbia mer- Mark Cheatham as Montevallo, Between the Pines: Acoustic Mixtape started at its No. 7 high in Nashville), featuring Eric Church, ascends 11-8 on Country Airplay, up 10% to Co-Heads of Global ‘Dude, quit your job and capitalize on this.’ But there’s chandising and marketing campaign for decades — November 2015. 24.7 million in audience. The song is Combs’ eighth straight career-opening Hip-Hop/R&B no guarantee.” and Monday’s breakup heightened consumer interest. Montevallo produced five singles, four of which hit the pinnacle of Country top 10, following a record run of seven consecutive out-of-the-gate, properly Following the French duo’s , On Discogs, copies of Random Access Memories are Airplay:• Rina “Leave Sawayama the Night On,” “Take Your Time,” “House Party” announcementand “Make promoted No. 1 singles. YouProtest Miss Me.” Prompts “Break BRIT Up in a Smallwhich Town” came peaked after at 28 No. years 2. as one of electronicChurch dance adds hisalways 15th Countrypopular Airplay — usually top 10. No. 3 or No. 4 in sales among HuntAwards co-penned & Mercury all 12 songsmusic’s on Southside most, influential including “Body acts, Likefans a Backwent on extreme the music marketplace’s 8 million users, according to Road,”Prize which to wasChange released in 2017.buying The binges,smash hit flooding ruled Country Etsy stores Airplay and for drivingTHAT up TOOK QUITEspokesperson ‘A FEW’ MONTHSAub Driver Travis —Denning but Tuesday shatters band’s the record cata for- three weeksTheir and Rules the airplay-, streaming-eBay prices and wheresales-based a sealed Hot Countrytwo-LP Songs copy of the mostband’s weeks logit has sales taken spiked to penetrate about the3,650%, Country from Airplay around top 1040 as copies “After chart for a then-record 34 frames. It now ranks second only to Bebe Rexha and a Few” (Mercury Nashville) climbs 12-10 in its 57th week, up 4% to 21.4 mil - FloridaMARKET Georgia WATCH Line’s “Meant to2013 Be” album (50 weeksRandom atop the Access latter list Memories in 2017-18). was uplion to in $355 radio reach.a day to 1,500. And customers’ “wants” for Daft Punk “Downtown’sPAGE 34 Dead,” which isby also Wednesday on the new afternoon, set, reached a Nos.limited-edition 14 and 15 action-The song surpassesmusic two also tracks increased that took over 50 500% weeks duringeach to enterthat span, the top 10: on HotSONGWRITERS Country Songs and Countryfigure Airplay, set respectively,was going for in $406June 2018.and sellers “Kin- wereEaston asking Corbin ’sfrom “A Girl less Like than You,” 1,000 which to morereached than No. 6,000. 10 in January 2018 be- folks”& ledPRODUCERS Country Airplay on Feb.astronomical 29, becoming prices Hunt’s for seventh rare memorabilia, No. 1. It hit likefore a peaking “Get at No.“This 6 that February,is the type and of Aaron thing Watson we see ’swith “Outta artists’ Style,” which No. 3 on Hot Country Songs. achieved its No. 10 high in December 2017. CHARTS Lucky” condom for $10,000. deaths all the time. We saw it with Prince,” Driver LatestPAGES single 35 “Hard - 37 to Forget” jumps 17-9 on Hot Country Songs. It’s his “After” is Denning’s second Country Airplay entry. “David Ashley Parker “Yesterday, I got seven orders in one day,” says (continued) eighth top 10, having corralled 8.2 million U.S. streams (up 96%) and 5,000 in From Powder Springs” traveled to No. 32 in September 2018. ETHAN MICHAEL YOUNG: VIA MARTIN/NHLI GETTY HUNT: IMAGES. IMAGES MILLER/GETTY Page 3 of 37 IN BRIEF says. “We’re still riding pretty high as far as But buyer beware. “The condoms are five purposes” — a term loose enough to cover people’s interest. I don’t think it’s going to or six years old,” he adds. “So you’re defi- capital expenditures, marketing or strategic go away.” nitely taking a chance.” acquisitions. Such a large amount suggests Daft Punk tribute stores everywhere have Spotify doesn’t intend to use the money for had to contend with sudden demand. Ar- everyday costs of running the company. In- tem Medvedev, a 24-year-old electrical-en- Spotify Takes on stead, $1.3 billion is enough to make numer- gineering student in Athens, Georgia, earns ous acquisitions to build out its podcasting $2,000 a month through sales of helmets, $1.3B in Debt business, for example, and have a cushion gloves and do-it-yourself kits — until Mon- for any uncertainty its leadership foresees in day, when sales spiked nearly sevenfold. BY GLENN PEOPLES 2021 and beyond. “Everyone just decided, ‘Today’s the day,’” Spotify will reserve the right to redeem he says. potify USA intends to offer $1.3 the notes in a variety of scenarios. Until Ben Gottfried, a 25-year-old in Fort Col- billion in exchangeable notes due March 20, 2024, Spotify has the option to lins, Colo., invested last fall in vinyl copies of in 2026, the company announced redeem the notes with cash, shares or a the band’s 2010 soundtrack for Tron: Legacy, Wednesday. In addition, Spotify combination of the two if the company’s and sales went up 50-70% this week, with SUSA expects to grant the initial buyers of share price “exceeds 130% of the exchange prices increasing from $100-150 to $200- the notes an option to purchase an addi- price for a period of time.” Spotify USA can 250. “It’s a bit of a FOMO thing: ‘I should tional $200 million. also redeem the notes “at any time in con- really get this Daft Punk,’” says Gottfried, While some music companies have taken nection with certain changes in tax law.” whose full time job is running an online on debt during the pandemic — including store called Book of Resell on Discord, Live Nation and Madison Square Garden Instagram and others. “It creates this nice Entertainment — or sold notes to replace uptick.” existing debt, Spotify has operated and ac- As for the $10,000 condom, it has yet to quired companies with cash on hand. Dur- sell on eBay — although its owner, Philip ing 2020, Spotify had $259 million in cash Gomes, a Columbia Records A&R man- from operations and posted a net increase ager from 2011 to 2015, remains hopeful.