Sulinna Ong has been promoted to global head of editorial at Spotify, the company tells Billboard. Ong was previously head of music for the U.K. and Ireland.

Ong joined Spotify in April 2019 as head of artist & label services and acting head of music culture & editorial in the U.K. and Ireland. Three months later, she was named head of music in the region — a role created specifically for her. In that position, Ong oversaw the streamer’s U.K. artist and label services department and its music culture and editorial team while reporting to U.K. and Ireland managing director Tom Connaughton. The news was first reported by Hits.

During her time at Spotify, Ong — the daughter of a Persian mother and a Chinese father who fled the Iranian revolution when she was a baby — has helped launch the streamer’s RADAR emerging artist program, which has spotlighted artists including Griff, Park Hye Jin, Joy Crookes and Young T & Bugsey.

Prior to Spotify, Ong served as global vp and head of marketing at rival streaming service Deezer for two-and-a-half years, working directly with labels and content creators. She kicked off her music career in 2004, when she was hired as an international marketing manager, artist development at Sony BMG Music. She later worked in a variety of artist management and marketing roles at The Family Entertainment, Live Nation, Silver Horse Entertainment and app developer WholeWorldBand.

Don Toliver’s second album, Life of a Don, debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Oct. 23), selling 18,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 14, according to MRC Data. It’s just the third R&B/hip-hop album to reach No. 1 on the chart this year, following Tyler, the Creator’s Call Me If You Get Lost (July 10-dated chart) and J. Cole’s The Off-Season (May 29).

Toliver leads a busy top 10, as new projects from aespa, Trivium, Grateful Dead, Reba and Old Dominion also arrive in the region.

Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now MRC Data. Pure album sales were the measurement solely utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Korean pop group aespa sees its Savage album bow at No. 2 on Top Album Sales, with 17,000 copies sold. Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s Love for Sale falls 2-3 with 13,000 sold (down 65%). Olivia Rodrigo’s former No. 1 Sour climbs 6-4 with 10,000 sold (up 21%).

Rock act Trivium starts at No. 5 with In the Court of the Dragon (9,000), Grateful Dead’s latest archival live release Listen to the River: St. Louis ’71 ’72 ’73 debuts at at No. 6 (nearly 9,000) and Taylor Swift’s former No. 1 Fearless (Taylor’s Version) falls 1-7 with 8,000 (down 94%), after the album returned to No. 1 a week ago following its Oct. 1 release on signed CD and vinyl LP.

Reba’s Revived Remixed Revisited bows at No. 8 with 8,000 sold, NCT 127’s former No. 1 Sticker: The 3rd Album falls 5-9 with nearly 8,000 (down 16%) and Old Dominion’s Time, Tequila & Therapy starts at No. 10 with 7,500.

Kelly Clarkson and Jimmy Fallon transformed into Sonny & Cher for Thursday’s (Oct. 21) special Kellyoke duet of “I Got You Babe.”

In their own words, they “totally nailed” their cover, as Fallon got Clarkson to hold his hand and blend their dulcet vocals for the duet. And the late-night host recalled getting a little bit more PDA from Cher herself when they performed the song on The Tonight Show.

“We had a bit when she was gonna slap me like Moonstruck. And she goes, ‘You know, Jimmy? I don’t want to slap you.’ I go, ‘Why?’ She goes, ”Cause I like you too much, I don’t want it to be like I don’t like you,’” Fallon told the audience. “She goes, ‘Or maybe I’ll slap you then I’ll kiss you.’ I go, ‘Great.’ … So the show’s about to start, we’re behind the curtain, we’re gonna walk out holding hands. And I go, ‘Hey, which one are you gonna do: Are you gonna slap me or are you gonna kiss me?’ And she goes, ‘I’mma do whatever I want. I’m Cher.’”

But when it came time to plant one on him, Fallon confirmed she decided on the kiss and that he has “never washed this side of my face” again, while stroking his left cheek.

“I Got You Babe” was released as the first single from the duo’s debut studio album Look at Us in 1965. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Watch Clarkson and Fallon’s Kellyoke cover of “I Got You Babe” below.

Joel Deleón — formerly known as Joel Pimentel (of CNCO) — has released his debut solo single “La Culpa,” an acoustic, guitar-led melancholic song that marks the beginning of a new era.

The release of his debut solo single was preceded by a last-name change in an homage to his grandfather, Luis Deleón, who taught the 22-year-old Mexican-American artist to sing. He made the big announcement via social media days before unveiling the name of his first single.

“Deleón is something that I always wanted to carry high throughout my career and now that I have the opportunity, I am happy to do so because Deleón is why music is in my blood and I am very proud to be able to do that [now],” he told Billboard in an Instagram Live interview.  

A departure from the more uptempo, rhythmic songs he used to sing with CNCO, “La Culpa” finds a more stripped-down Deleón who regretfully sings about breaking a girl’s heart.

“Since I left the band, I’ve been in the studio almost 24/7 trying to find different sounds and things that come naturally to me,” he said. “We’ve made many other things, different genres, very different sounds to what [my fans] have heard me do before, and it is something that makes me very emotional. I already want everyone to hear everything.”

“La Culpa” is the first single from his forthcoming debut album, which Deleón teases will see him go back to basics. “Over the years, I’ve had many ideas and I can finally express myself 100% with my vision. You will know a lot about the project soon but you are going to see elements that I started with in music alongside my grandfather. Everything will come from my heart,” he added.  

On May 9, CNCO announced Deleón was leaving the band to move on to a new chapter of his career. “It’s time for me to grow and explore new artistic avenues, it’s time to start building my own path and career. This is why I’ve decided to leave the band,” he wrote in a statement.

He added: “To Erick, Chris, Richard and Zabdiel, I truly wish you the best as you continue on with the CNCO legacy. We’ve lived through so much together that we’re family now. I can’t wait to share my new project with y’all. This is just a new beginning.”

Google Play is reducing the service fee it charges all subscription-based developers from 30% to 15% the moment they become available in the Android app store, while the service fee for streaming services will be reduced from 15% to 10%. Previously, most subscription-based developers were assessed a 30% fee in their first year on the platform, followed by a 15% fee thereafter.

Revealed Thursday (Oct. 21) in a company blog post by Google vp product management Sameer Samat, the fee decrease goes into effect Jan. 1, 2022. In making the announcement, Samat noted that Google has interfaced with subscription-based app developers in various industries “to understand the nuances of their businesses.” Though Google Play previously cut the fee to 15% after the first 12 months of a recurring subscription, he writes, “we’ve heard that customer churn makes it challenging for subscription businesses to benefit from that reduced rate. So, we’re simplifying things to ensure they can.”

Music streaming services like Spotify — which has been a vocal critic of the service fees charged by Apple’s App Store specifically — will now be “eligible” for a service fee as low as 10%, Samat writes, though he refrained from laying out eligibility requirements in the post. That benefit will extend to ebooks, which was folded into Google Play’s “Media Experience program” earlier this year alongside on-demand music streamers. Samat adds that the fee cut was being implemented “to better accommodate differences in these categories,” for which “content costs account for the majority of sales.”

“The new rates recognize industry economics of media content verticals and make Google Play work better for developers and the communities of artists, musicians and authors they represent,” Samat continued of the decision to cut rates for music streamers and ebook developers.

That decision is notable, though it wouldn’t affect Spotify as things stand now; currently, the streamer does not allow users to pay for subscriptions through Google Play or Apple’s App Store due to the service fees assessed by those platforms. (In September, Apple announced that beginning next year, it would allow select apps it had designated as “readers,” including Spotify and Netflix, to include in-app links to external sign-ups, something it does not currently allow.)

Spotify did not respond to a request for comment.

Though Samat’s post doesn’t mention any of the recent legal, regulatory and legislative broadsides lobbed against Google and other tech giants, it nonetheless follows a host of significant developments on that front. This past July, attorneys general from 36 U.S. states and one district filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, claiming the company had formed an unlawful monopoly in the Android app market. Among other alleged practices, the suit accused the tech giant of blocking Android apps not listed in Google Play from advertising on Google’s platforms, as well as mandating that all apps on Google Play use Google’s in-house billing method — thereby forcing consumers to unknowingly pay higher amounts that included service fees. (After the lawsuit was filed, Google called the attorneys general’s accusations “meritless.”)

Apple has also been a target of lawsuits over its App Store practices. Just last month, in a case brought by Fortnite developer Epic Games, a federal judge ruled that Apple violated California laws barring unfair competition by preventing third-party app developers from directing customers to alternative payment methods as a means of skirting the App Store’s service fees, which are structured the same as Google’s: 30% the first year and 15% thereafter. The ruling amounted to a mixed bag, however, as the judge stopped short of finding that Apple ran a monopoly — a charge that formed the crux of Epic’s complaint.

In the U.S. Senate on Monday, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Charles E. Grassley (R-IA) introduced the American Innovation and Choice Online Act – a companion bill to one passed in June by the House Judiciary Committee – which would prohibit conduct deemed to be “harmful to small businesses, entrepreneurs and consumers, but that do not have any pro-competitive benefit.” Though the House bill is currently awaiting a vote in the full chamber as its sponsors haven’t yet secured the support needed for passage, bipartisan support for reining in big tech continues to gather steam on Capitol Hill.

In a statement, Spotify head of global affairs and chief legal officer Horacio Gutierrez hailed the Senate bill, writing, “Gatekeeper platforms use their power to distort markets by manufacturing self-serving advantages at the expense of American consumers and competitors. They offer users fewer, less innovative choices and insulate themselves from competition, which leads to higher prices for consumers.” He added that Spotify looks “forward to Congress bringing an end to these discriminatory practices for the sake of consumer choice and the digital economy.”

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