Month: August 2023

On July 19, two days before Barbie and its soundtrack would arrive, over 150 independent record stores across the country were celebrating early with listening sessions of the star-studded Barbie: The Album. 

“We’ve actually never done [that] for a soundtrack release before,” says Kevin Weaver, Atlantic Records’ West Coast president and the album’s co-producer (alongside Mark Ronson and Atlantic’s executive vp/co-head of pop/rock A&R, Brandon Davis). Meanwhile, the label’s international teams were making sure that retailers around the world were involved, too, resulting in an impressive global reach.

“This is the largest scale activation we’ve ever done for something like this,” continues Weaver. “And the feedback that I got from our teams internally was that this was the most successful activation of this nature that we’ve ever done.”

Barbie: The Album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, boasting the largest sales week on vinyl for a theatrical film soundtrack (33,000) since Luminate began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. Overall, the album opened with the biggest week (by units earned) for a theatrical film soundtrack in over four years. (The last soundtrack to score a bigger week was Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born).

Weaver says he and his team thought about their vinyl strategy on day one of planning for the soundtrack. “We had identified the value and the importance of being able to deliver the music with enough time to be able to manufacture the vinyl and get it out into the world for street date. It was [one] of the most critical aspects of what we were doing.”

Nashville Record Pressing (NRP) began pressing the album in May (the plant says a 10-week lead time is typical), ensuring the physical copies would be ready by the album’s release date. The plant manufactured a total of seven variants, with five currently being offered on the soundtrack’s official web store: hot pink, sky blue, milky clear (Amazon exclusive), cotton candy (Barnes & Noble exclusive) and neon pink (Urban Outfitters exclusive). In all, the first run was estimated at 100,000. “That’s a good sized run for an [original soundtrack], and does indicate strong demand for the title,” says Drake Coker, CEO of NRP, which is owned by GZ Media. “Which makes sense, given the strength of the film.”

Given the months-long lead time, Weaver admits he and his team were “really nervous” about the music leaking. And while the label has a long track record of successful soundtrack releases, Barbie was its own beast. “We have songs from the biggest superstars in the world,” he says, noting a handful of whom were kept a secret until the last minute.

“Historically on these kind of projects – I’ve done The Greatest Showman, Suicide Squad, Fast and Furious – we’ve been able to get a physical product on day and date. Historically, that’s been a CD. Usually, we follow with the vinyl and it’s an afterthought,” says Weaver. “Here we just knew the critical importance of that not being the case.” While Barbie: The Album is also available on CD and cassette, he and his team identified early on that vinyl would be a key format for Barbie’s biggest fans. 

“We knew that the core demo was ferociously out there buying up whatever merch and product they could get their hands on, and we were able to work very closely with Mattel to really understand their core consumer,” says Weaver. “It just felt like it was going to be so culturally relevant that the vinyl was going to be a collector’s item as much as an audio listening experience.”

As such, various versions kept coming — and might still. On Friday (July 21), the release date for both the film and soundtrack, an expanded version of the album also arrived: Barbie The Album (Best Weekend Ever Edition). It featured two bonus tracks, including Ryan Gosling’s cover of “Push” by Matchbox Twenty (which Gosling sings in the film) and a cover of the Indigo Girls’ “Closer To Fine” — which also plays an integral role in the movie — performed by Brandi Carlile and her wife, Catherine Carlile. Weaver says those two songs have been added to “various configurations of the physical product.”

Fans will also notice “Barbie Dreams” by FIFTY FIFTY featuring Kaliii is missing from the original pressing of the soundtrack. That, along with “Choose Your Fighter” by Ava Max (which appears on the hot prink variant) has since been added to a limited edition repress of the sky blue vinyl. It’s currently available for pre-order, with a ship date of Sept. 22.

“We tried to keep feeding what would be available on the physical side,” says Weaver. “There are definitely overarching conversations between myself and my creative partners — [director] Greta Gerwig and Mark Ronson and filmmakers and the studio — about what are ways in which we can continue to support the music brands here and the appetite within.” An exclusive Record Store Day release isn’t out of the question, with Weaver promising “cool new iterations” ahead. (Weaver says the coolest of all is the custom version called Kevin the Album, made with exclusive cover art in honor of his birthday.)

While it seems the Barbie hype won’t die down anytime soon, Weaver is allowing himself a moment to look back on what he and his team pulled off. “Having the vinyl and being able to deliver it to the consumer the way that we did was one of the funnest aspects of the whole project,” he says. “It’s something that I’m really proud of and something that I’m really glad we were able to figure out how to accomplish.”

Jennifer Hudson and Common have been rumored to be dating since July of 2022, and the pair has played coy about the status of their relationship ever since. However, Hudson did give a hint as to what she thinks about the rapper’s looks in a brief conversation with TMZ.

“The rumors say a lot of things,” Hudson said when asked to clarify the status of her relationship. “He’s a beautiful man, I will give you that.” Elsewhere during her interaction with the media outlet, Hudson said “thank you” when told she and Common makes a beautiful couple.

Hudson and Common’s dating rumors first sparked once they were spotted spending time together while filming their upcoming action-thriller movie, Breathe. When asked about a potential romance after their first public outing, the talk show host stated that the moment was nothing more than co-workers going out to lunch during a break.

“People create their narratives of it and it’s like, OK, you know, how you feel,” she told Entertainment Tonight last September. “We shot a film together and he played my husband. We gotta eat in between those moments.”

Common hasn’t let too much slip of his and Hudson’s possible relationship, but also called her beautiful in a June interview with TODAY. “I’ve always been inspired by her,” he said. “She’s one of the most beautiful people I ever met on the planet. Incredible heart, and she’s just dope, man.”

Watch Hudson address her relationship with Common here.

From Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” to Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice & Aqua’s “Barbie World,” 2023 has gifted us scores of summer anthems. One dark horse in the search for the song of the summer lies in That Chick Angel and Saucy Santana’s “One Margarita (The Margarita Song),” a gloriously explicit ode to the drink’s potential as an aphrodisiac that strips away sexual inhibitions with each glass.

The music video for the track opens with supermodel Cindy Crawford re-creating her iconic 1992 Pepsi ad, with a margarita taking the place of the soft drink. Sporting the same tousled brown tresses, white tank and denim cutoffs as she did 31 years ago, Crawford saunters into a Mexican restaurant and downs the margarita in one go before That Chick Angel and Saucy Santana launch into their delightfully raunchy verses. Notably, Crawford turned her cameo into something of a family affair; the margarita she drinks is made with Casamigos, a tequila brand co-founded by her husband, Rande Gerber.

“One Margarita (The Margarita Song)” was originally improvised by That Chick Angel in May during an episode of her Here’s The Thing podcast, which she co-hosts with comedian KevOnStage. Through “One Margarita,” That Chick Angel flips a clip of evangelical Christian preacher Sister Cindy proselytizing to students at Louisiana State University about how buying a woman one margarita could cause her to “spread her legs.” “Give me one margarita, I’ma open my legs / Give me two margaritas, I’ma give you some head / Give me three margaritas, I’ma put it in my p—y,” goes the hook.

Last Friday (July 28), That Chick Angel released the Saucy Santana remix of “One Margarita (The Margarita Song).” The remix marks Santana’s third collaboration of the year following “Whole Family” (with Flo Milli) and “Pinot Noir” (with IDK & Jucee Froot).

The microphone Cardi B chucked into the crowd during a recent performance at Las Vegas’ Drai’s Beachclub — in retaliation against a fan who splashed water in her face — is now up for auction on eBay, and the highest bid is closing in on $90,000.

Posted on eBay as “Shure Axient digital Mic Cardi B threw at a person,” the piece of equipment is currently in the possession of Scott Fisher, owner of The Wave, the audio production company used by Drai’s. According to Fisher’s listing, proceeds from the sale — which had a starting bid of $500 — will be given to charity.

At the time of publication, the highest of 61 bids so far was an even $85,000, with the auction scheduled to close at 11:15 a.m. on Tuesday (Aug. 8).

Fisher told TMZ that the mic — which still works — originally cost $1,000, and was pretty easy to locate after Cardi tossed it because it still had tape across it that read “MAIN.” Fisher added that the money from the sale will go to Wounded Warrior Project and local non-profit Friendship Circle Las Vegas, which helps kids, teens and young adults with special needs.

The auction capitalizes on a viral incident that went down over the weekend, during which Cardi was performing for a gathering at Drai’s when a fan threw the contents of their cup at the rapper mid song. In response, Cardi hurled the mic she was using at the concertgoer.

Footage shared by TMZ shows that Cardi appeared to have asked the crowd to splash her with water to help cool her down in the summer heat. “Throw me some water here, b–ch, ’cause I’m hot,” she said cheerfully. “Woo! That s–t feel good.”

She took issue, though, when a fan later aimed and fired a cup of liquid, rather than just a little spritz, dousing Cardi’s face while she was in the middle of a song. A fan has since filed a police report alleging battery, claiming she was “struck by an item that was thrown from the stage.”

Las Vegas police did not mention Cardi by name when confirming a report had been filed, but the location of the alleged incident in the report matched the address of the venue at which the rapper was performing. In a Monday (July 31) statement, the police said that no arrest or citations had been issued, and that “no further details will be provided at this time.”