#Columbia records lil nas x full
#Columbia records lil nas x plus

Gray says he didn’t have any question marks in his mind about whether Top 40 would play an unqualified ballad out of the gate, but it was up to the audience whether “Easy on Me” held on to the public imagination once the gate was well back in the rear-view mirror. The Adele song’s survival instincts really can’t be underrated: It’s essentially a piano ballad with almost no rhythm track to speak of, in a format that’s all about rhythm nowadays. So for these things to still hang around the hoop in that way and be that strong is incredibly powerful.” “We know what happens to listening behavior during those critical holiday weeks: Everyone gets thrown out at the top, and you know, it’s Mariah (Carey) and Bing Crosby. In all seriousness, though, it was funny to look at the Mediabase or Billboard charts throughout the holiday season and see the upper ranks populated almost entirely by Christmas oldies - plus, “Easy on Me” and “Stay,” songs that have proven not only capable of surviving the apocalypse but surviving Burl Ives. “If there’s a sequel to ‘Love, Actually,’ there should be a Christmas scene with Adele singing ‘Easy on Me.'” did think in those terms, it might seem ironic that America’s Christmas spirit was exemplified by… Adele being sad. does, in terms of placing some kind of importance on which non-holiday song has captured the national mood toward the end of December. “Īmerica doesn’t train public attention on the idea of a “Christmas single” the way the U.K. And our team is excellent at managing all of those things. It’s a lot of people, a lot of towns, a lot of time zones and a lot of math. So there was a really fun and unprecedented juggling act at the top of the chart to make sure that all three of them had their turns. 1s to ourselves - and in fact, ‘Stay’ went back to No. So we had to work to manage the top of the chart to ensure that Nas got that shot, which he very much deserved.

#Columbia records lil nas x full

“‘Stay” had been there for such a long time, it was important to us that Nas have his moment, also - full well knowing that Adele was heading to the top of the chart without anyone’s help. “We were orchestrating the handoff at the top of the chart,” says Gray. 1, there’s a science to working with radio and timing promotion to make sure no one misses out on a claim on the top spot, assuming the audience is first of all involved in making these planes stacked up over LaGuardia, as it were, all come in for a landing at the proper point. When you’re representing a single label that has multiple artists poised to become or stay at No.

#Columbia records lil nas x plus

You know, that’s like a lightning strike plus a lottery ticket.” 1 of her career.” And somewhere between the veteran and the newbie, “you have Nas X transitioning from the early stages of a pop artist to a fully realized superstar, in this case, with back-to-back No. Adele is Adele, and now she’s had the longest-running No. You have Leroi exploding on the scene to become a household name. “Our fundamental responsibility is to break new artists and to elevate the careers of superstars. 1, and Adele being on top for close to two months now- “no one’s going to look at it and say, ‘Something’s wrong.’ So if something is performing in that way” - speaking specifically about the Kid Laroi’s three months at No.

There are only so many spots on a playlist. “They want more confidence in the songs that they are playing. “Radio stations don’t necessarily want more songs,” Gray says. Gray is reluctant to thump his chest too much - “We have a lot of other headlines that we’re chasing this year,” he says, and he doesn’t want to jinx 2022 - but setting an all-time chart record isn’t anything to keep under wraps, either. Needless to say, he hasn’t given Sony any reason for buyers’ remorse, reaching this historic milestone just over a couple of years into his tenure there. Peter Gray, the executive VP/head of promotion at Columbia, came on board at the tail end of 2019, after leaving his executive VP/GM role at Warner Records. “Industry Baby” spent a single week at the top, but no one had reason to feel sorry Lil Nas X for not having a longer run, given his being shmushed right in-between those other two blockbusters… and given the wholly satisfying news that this represented Nas’ second straight single to go No. 1 at Top 40 for the last seven straight weeks - a personal record for as big a superstar as music has right now.