[新聞] Beyonce Jay Z齊登「Power 100」首位
Billboard: The 2014 Billboard Power 100
http://www.billboard.com/biz/5869768/the-2014-billboard-power-100 名單
封面 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BetNe6MIcAA74c8.jpg
Beyonce Jay Z齊登「Power 100」首位
美國樂壇天后Beyonce與丈夫Jay Z時刻恩愛拍住上,他們更齊齊登上2014年Billboard「
Power 100」排行榜的首位,成為音樂界最具影響力的人物,把一眾舉足輕重的人士統統
壓過。Billboard根據市場佔有率、收入及其他數據得出排名,Justin Bieber的經理人
Scooter Braun、音樂製作人Dr. Luke等亦紛紛入榜。 ■文:Bosco
http://paper.wenweipo.com/2014/01/25/EN1401250041.htm
NO. 1
Jay Z & Beyonce: The 2014 Billboard Power 100
With two groundbreaking releases they focused fans on music and the business
on radical new ways of delivering it
What is power? At its base, it’s the ability to reshape the world around you
according to your vision. And who in the music industry did so better in the
last year than this power couple?
Leveraging their star power to release new albums in unprecedented ways—Jay
Z through Samsung and Beyoncé through iTunes—they instantly changed how the
industry and fans thought about interacting with music. He gave his album
away; she charged a premium price for hers. But they both used the element of
surprise to restore the excitement that used to accompany a new release,
before that impact was dulled by the endless thunder of carefully plotted
promotion.
In short, they proved that content truly is king. Or, in this case, king and
queen.
For years, Jay Z has been building the most powerful artist-driven empire in
music, ever since he founded Roc-a-Fella Records in 1996 to bypass a music
industry uninterested in his debut album, "Reasonable Doubt." By 2004, he’d
become president/CEO of Roc-a-Fella distributor Def Jam, and his concert
stage would feature an Oval Office set (in a few years, his friendship with
Barack Obama would get him much closer to the real thing). A major investor
in Steve Stoute’s Translation Advertising, he left Def Jam and founded the
multifaceted entertainment group Roc Nation in 2008, in partnership with Live
Nation. The company oversees a varied roster that includes Rihanna, Shakira,
Stargate, Calvin Harris, Timbaland and Deadmau5, and, in partnership with
Creative Artists Agency, has added sports to its oversight. And though he’s
cashed out his stake in NBA team the Brooklyn Nets, Jay Z remains an
influential presence at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, which he helped open in
2012 with a series of concerts.
Since parting ways with father Mathew Knowles as her longtime manager in
2011, Beyoncé has proved through her Parkwood Entertainment just how powerful
—and productive—a self-managed artist can be with Beyoncé. When the album
arrived just before year-end 2013, it silenced months of whispers about
delays, scrapped songs and missed deadlines, and it did so with 14 critically
acclaimed songs accompanied by 17 jaw-dropping videos, all meticulously
curated and co-edited by - Beyoncé herself.
“Artists have always had the power but courage is in short supply. It’s
just that the hip-hop generation believes in the possibilities,” says Lyor
Cohen (No. 74), a longtime associate of Jay Z’s from his days running Def
Jam in the mid-’90s, and founder of new music venture 300. “Jay and Beyoncé
don’t listen to the noise—they make the noise.”
The decision to release Jay Z’s Magna Carta . . . Holy Grail for free
exclusively for five days to 1 million Samsung customers was hailed as a
major coup for Samsung to build buzz against rival Apple as it launched its
Galaxy S4 smartphone. But the deal wouldn’t have happened had Jay and a Roc
Nation team led by business managers John Meneilly and Desiree Perez not been
actively seeking a partner to help them forge “#newrules,” as the rapper
famously tweeted from his rarely used Twitter account on June 17.
“We’ve got to continue to find ways to put music in the hands of the fans,
and I think this is a great way to do it,” Big Machine Label Group CEO Scott
Borchetta (No. 40) told Billboard at the time of the Jay Z announcement. “You
’ve got to have cutting-edge ideas with cutting-edge companies who are
ready, willing and able to reach a mass audience. It’s great Jay Z is
forcing all of us to think this way.”
Then there’s Beyoncé, Queen Bey’s Dec. 13 midnight surprise, which arrived
through a one-week exclusive, album-only release on iTunes. Like Jay Z’s
everything-at-once-release with Samsung, it shut out streaming, retail and
individual track sales, forcing listeners to focus on the album as a cohesive
work. The result seemed to transform everyone—industry executives,
journalists, Twitter cynics, casual listeners—back into a fan.
“She took a high risk and was highly rewarded for it,” says Guy Oseary (No.
38), who manages Madonna and U2 at his Untitled Entertainment. “I love what
she did. Thank you, Beyoncé—it brings much-needed excitement and buzz to
our industry.”
Though there was great discussion of the game-changing implications of both
releases—and whether they can ever be re-created—perhaps what’s most
important is that Jay Z and Beyoncé found ways to focus attention on music
itself. For years label bosses have said that audiences will pay for music if
they’re excited, and that turns out to be true: "Magna Carta . . . Holy
Grail" sold 528,000 in its first week, which beat Jay’s previous recent
releases, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In total, the album sold 1.1
million copies in 2013, one of only three rap releases to go platinum last
year. "Beyoncé" moved even quicker with the singer’s surprise blitz—in the
first three hours of release the album sold 80,000 copies through iTunes and,
sources say, 850,000 in the first week. In its four weeks of release it sold
1.3 million. That total was enough to make it the eighth-biggest-selling
album of 2013 in less than a month.
“The release of Beyoncé’s album was a great way to finish the year, and a
chief reminder for me that artists, songwriters and producers have really
good ideas,” says Warner/Chappell Music president of creative for North
America Jon Platt (No. 51), who brought both Beyoncé and Jay Z to the
powerful publisher. “We’re supposed to help them nurture and realize those
dreams, not kill them. At times, experienced company executives can be so
smart at outlining every reason why an idea can’t work instead of focusing
on how it can work. In the case of Beyoncé’s album, her team focused on how
it could work.”
Island Def Jam and Columbia, Jay Z and Beyoncé’s respective labels, worked
closely with the artists and their management teams to execute these
disruptive deals, but other label heads remain most impressed by the artists’
take-charge approach. “Just watching [the Beyoncé] phenomenon happen was
really exciting—and admittedly more enjoyable watching it from the sideline
than being in the midst of it,” says Republic Records president/COO Avery
Lipman (No. 17). “It said, ‘Look what a certain type of artist can do with
the press of a button.’”
And RCA Music Group president/COO Tom Corson and CEO Peter Edge (No. 21) see
the moves as part of a shift toward social media and partners outside the
traditional label system. “The dynamic of social media moving the needle is
now at the center of any smart campaign,” Corson says. But more than ever,
Edge argues, “finding [new] opportunities has become more significant—Jay Z
with Samsung, Justin [Timberlake] with Target and Budweiser. It’s not
terribly new, but it seems like this is the new dynamic of the business—to
find partners. We see ourselves as partners not only with the artists and
their camps but with other companies and aligned businesses.”
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