Table of contents for January 25, 2025 in Billboard Magazine

AS THE MUSIC COMMUNITY GRAPPLES with the enormous devastation wrought by the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles, the industry’s power dynamics — which we examine every year in this issue — are the last thing on anyone’s mind. It’s not the time to celebrate power. The focus now is on caring for friends and colleagues. More than 300 artists and executives have lost their homes, according to a spreadsheet circulating in the business that links to some of their GoFundMe pages. With this in mind, we canceled our annual Power 100 event, following the lead of the three major labels, which scrapped their own Grammy festivities and instead pledged millions to support relief efforts. We chose not to cancel this list, however. Why? To give credit to the executives…

101 Soundtrack Moana 2 Following its release on CD and vinyl (Jan. 10), the soundtrack hits a new high on the Billboard 200 (146-101), Soundtracks (5-3) and Kid Albums charts (2-1, where it trades positions with the first Moana album from 2016). 147 Ringo Starr Look Up The 20th charting set on the Billboard 200 for Starr also scores a No. 27 debut on Top Country Albums, marking his second title to reach that list following Beaucoups of Blues (No. 35 peak in 1970). 157 Rio Da Yung OG RIO FREE The rapper debuts on the Billboard 200 driven by streaming activity of the set’s 10 songs. Collectively, they earned 12.5 million on-demand official streams in the United States in the week ending Jan. 16, according to Luminate. 53…

Linkin Park earns its seventh No. 1 on Rock & Alternative Airplay, and the second from the band’s new album, From Zero, as “Heavy Is the Crown” jumps three spots to the top of the chart. The song reigns with 4.7 million in audience, up 11%, in the week ending Jan. 16, according to Luminate. The takeover follows the 15-week rule of From Zero lead single “The Emptiness Machine” that began last September. Of Linkin Park’s seven No. 1s, the latest two are with new co-lead singer Emily Armstrong (above, with co-lead vocalist Mike Shinoda), who joined the band in 2024.…

MANY QUESTIONED the Recording Academy’s decision, announced Jan. 13, to go forward with the 67th annual Grammy Awards at Crypto. com Arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, despite the wildfires that have devastated the city since Jan. 7. Even before the Grammys announced that the show would go on, Lucas Keller, founder and president of Milk & Honey Management, announced that he was canceling the company’s popular Grammy party. “It would be tone deaf to celebrate, and I hope all other companies will follow suit,” he wrote on his Instagram Story. Most did just that. Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy and MusiCares, held a webinar for academy members on Jan. 15 during which he tried to quell the controversy. “The first thing that I hear…

Cash Cobain Bronx rapper-producer Cash Cobain is the mastermind behind “sexy drill,” which reimagines samples from pop, rap and R&B, and has become ubiquitous in various pockets of the culture. Last year, the 26-year-old polymath guested on tracks with A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie (“Body”) and Don Toliver (“Attitude”); the latter sampled Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams’ 2003 hit “Beautiful” and became Cobain’s first Billboard Hot 100 entry. Yet his breakout song, “Fisherrr,” a flirtatious viral hit featuring Bay Swag, intrigued fellow Bronx native Ice Spice, who hopped on the remix last April. Since, Cobain has earned co-signs from rap’s elite including Drake and J. Cole, the latter of whom was featured on Cobain’s “Grippy.” After releasing his debut album, Play Cash Cobain, last August and opening on Ice…

TAYLOR SWIFT SECURES her 15th No. 1 on Top Album Sales as her 2023 set Lover: Live From Paris reenters the list following its reissue on vinyl, as well as its first release as a download album. The set, which was exclusively available through Swift’s official web store, sold 202,500 copies in the United States in the tracking week ending Jan. 16, according to Luminate. Of that sum, 161,000 were vinyl sales — the largest sales week for a live album in the format since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991. The eight-song Lover: Live From Paris was first released exclusively as a limited-edition heart-shaped, double-vinyl set, sold only through Swift’s web store. It spent one week on Top Album Sales at No. 5 and on the Billboard 200…

Koe Wetzel’s and Jessie Murph’s first Country Airplay entry, “High Road,” leads for a fifth week (31.4 million in reach). It marks the sixth rookie hit to dominate for five or more weeks; Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” leads the category with its seven-week command that began last August. Meanwhile, Murph (above), from Huntsville, Ala., is the first woman to top the chart for five or more weeks with her first single promoted to country radio since January and February 2006, when Carrie Underwood logged a six-week No. 1 stay with “Jesus, Take the Wheel.”…

RINGO STARR IS IN A playful mood. He’s modeling cowboy hats in his hotel suite in Los Angeles. First, he dons a white cattleman’s crease style before running into the bedroom to switch to a black version. “I’m doing a Western thing. I need a couple,” he says of the items he procured from the internet. His “Western thing” is his new country album, Look Up, Starr’s first full-length in six years that arrived Jan. 10 through Lost Highway/Universal Music Group Nashville. The T Bone Burnett-produced set was put into motion a few years ago when Starr ran into the noted songwriter-producer at a 2022 event. There, Starr asked Burnett, whom he had long admired, if he had a song for him to record. “In my head, I was…

Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, No Doubt, Lady Gaga, U2, Katy Perry and a small army of music stars will take part in FireAid, a Jan. 30 benefit concert with a lineup so large it will take over both the Intuit Dome and the Kia Forum to raise money for the victims of the ongoing wildfire crisis that has devastated Los Angeles County. Among the acts also scheduled to perform at the event are Jelly Roll, Stevie Wonder, Peso Pluma, Alanis Morissette, Tate McRae, Rod Stewart, Sting, Stevie Nicks, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dave Matthews, John Mayer, Earth, Wind & Fire, Green Day, Gracie Abrams, Joni Mitchell, Lil Baby, P!nk, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills, with more expected to be added. Produced by Irving Azoff; his wife, Shelli; and the…

How did “Indigo” come together? It was the first time I’d ever met Avery [in person]. I think we had messaged online, and then we finally got a write together. She’s like, “I have this idea called ‘Indigo.’ ” At first, I didn’t fully understand how we were going to mix it into a song, but then we wrote two lines and looked at each other and went, “This could be really cool.” Andy Sheridan helped write it as well. We went to his house and wrote it in an hour or two. It was one of the quicker ones — and that’s for every song I’ve written with Avery. The title track to your November album, Restless Mind, also features Avery. What stands out to you about her…

“APT.” by Rosé (above) and Bruno Mars is now solely the highest-charting hit by an act prominent in K-pop on Billboard’s Mainstream Top 40 ranking, ascending a spot to No. 4. The Blackpink star’s single surpasses BTS’ “Dynamite,” which peaked at No. 5 on the radio chart in December 2020.…

Few of the leaders on the following pages want to celebrate their power right now — nearly all of them are tending to family members, friends and colleagues affected by the Los Angeles fires, and some are among the hundreds of artists and executives who lost their homes. But we are recognizing them in order to shine a light on those behind the industry’s recent growth who will pilot the music community through this crisis, as well as the challenges ahead, from navigating a constantly shifting marketplace to the pressing issues surrounding generative artificial intelligence. The music business changes faster than ever, and encouragingly, there are more than 40 new rainmakers on this year’s list — 16 of them at labels, which have given some big jobs to young…

Alex Warren is in the middle of packing when he logs on to Zoom, sitting in a room with only a bed and some taped-up boxes behind him. It’s just before the holidays, and the pop singer-songwriter is preparing to move from Los Angeles to Nashville with his wife (and fellow internet personality), Kouvr Annon. “We’re young,” he reasons. “Let’s experience some other things and see what we like.” It’s the latest in a string of whirlwind life changes for the 24-year-old, who along with Annon was a major player in Hype House, a popular group of TikTok content creators formed in 2019 that collaborated and lived together until disbanding in 2022. He then shifted his focus to music full time, after independently releasing his aching debut single, “One…