Bumbershoot Announces 2023 Lineup With Sleater-Kinney, The Revivalists & More 

Seattle’s famed Bumbershoot music festival returns this fall with Washington natives Sleater-Kinney as headliners.

On Thursday (March 23), the music and arts festival announced their lineup with The Revivalists, Zhu, Jawbreaker, AFI, Brittany Howard, Fatboy Slim, Sunny Day Real Estate and Phantogram, among many others.

Band of Horses, Descendents, Matt and Kim, Bomba Estéreo, Durand Jones, Uncle Waffles, A-Trak, Valerie June, Ride, Benny the Butcher, Jacob Banks and more will also make appearances at the festival being held from Sept. 2-3 at Seattle Center. The Dip, Temples, Dandy Warhols, Hunx and His Punx, Thunderpussy, Reignwolf, Rebirth Brass Band, Screaming Females, The Black Tones and more will also make appearances at the festival that returns after a three-year hiatus. More artists are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Performers will grace multiple stages for their festival appearances. Bumbershoot will utilize spaces throughout the Seattle Center complex including Fisher Pavilion for Out of Sight and The Art Not Terminal for the Bumbershoot 50th Anniversary Retrospective for art installations.

This year’s festival will also mark the 50th anniversary of Bumbershoot and producers New Rising Sun, alongside partner/non-profit arts and education organization Third Stone, have launched the tuition-free Bumbershoot Workforce Development Program, designed to create a pipeline to support the next generation of music industry professionals and lay the groundwork for a more equitable and inclusive music scene. As part of Bumbershoot’s Workforce Development Program, Climate Pledge Arena will host students on a production tour of the arena giving future production and tour managers a live look at one of the busiest music venues in the world.

Third Stone, the non-profit arm of Bumbershoot, will launch the Workforce Development Program to offer young adults aged 17-25 the opportunity to learn critical business skills within the festival and live music setting. In partnership with The UC Theatre’s Concert Career Pathways (CCP) program, this six-month tuition-free, hands-on education experience and paid internship begins in April 2023 and will culminate in the opportunity to work on the grounds at the festival.

Weekend passes and single day tickets are available for purchase at bumbershoot.com. In celebration of the 50th anniversary, Bumbershoot and Amazon are offering prices 50% lower than when the event was last held in 2019 to create an opportunity for more of the Pacific Northwest community to enjoy the festival. Together with Third Stone, Amazon is also supporting the distribution of 5,000 free tickets directly to nonprofits and communities that have been underserved.

Check out the full lineup below.

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Amy Grant Talks First New Music in 10 Years and ‘The Gift’ of Life’s Fourth Quarter

As Amy Grant prepares to release her first new music in 10 years while in the midst of a 70-city headlining tour, the Christian-pop icon compares herself to a recently restored vehicle returning to the road. “I feel like an old car that got taken to the shop banged up and they’ve put in a new engine and a great paint job,” says Grant. “I feel like a classic.”

In the last three years, Grant, 62, has dealt with a series of medical issues and mishaps. In June 2020 she underwent open heart surgery to repair a rare congenital heart condition, then last summer she hit a pothole while riding her bike and sustained a serious head injury. In January, she had surgery to remove a cyst in her throat.

“There were so many hidden gifts,” she says of the bike wreck, explaining the trauma caused a pre-existing thyroglossal cyst to grow more rapidly — prompting its immediate removal. Following a five-hour surgery, she says “it was like somebody gave me my voice back.”

As a result, the poignant single “Trees We’ll Never See,” out Friday (March 24) via Capitol Christian Music Group, is a welcome return for the artist know for her distinctive voice and thoughtful lyrics. For decades, Grant — who launched her multi-platinum career as an earnest Nashville teen — has left listeners inspired while becoming the face of the Christian-pop crossover movement with such enduring hits as “Baby, Baby” and “Heart in Motion.” 

Today, Grant is healthy, happy and excited about making new music. She returned to the studio in February to work with songwriter and producer Marshall Altman — who produced her last studio album, 2013’s How Mercy Looks From Here, which peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 — on a yet-to-be-released feature for Cory Asbury. She says she was so moved by the experience that she and Altman began playing songs for each other they’d written, one of which was “Trees We’ll Never See” (which he co-wrote with Michael White). 

“Marshall wrote that song five years ago. I get choked up thinking about it,” says Grant. “It just felt like I could have written it. It’s so much how I see life … Everybody assumes I wrote it because it’s the mantra I have lived by.”

The song’s lyrics reflect Grant’s world view: “We’re all sons and daughters/Just ripples on the water/Trying to make it matter/Until our time to leave/One day they’ll carve your name in stone/Then send your soul on home/‘Till then it’s praying for rain. And pulling up the weeds/Planting trees we’ll never see.”

Amy Grant
Amy Grant

Grant, a six-time Grammy winner and recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2022, says she now sees her life in its fourth quarter. “I was thinking about my mom and how she died at 80. If we’re lucky we have four 20-year spans, I think the gift of fourth quarter is the perspective and awareness and the appreciation of all of it.”

“The first half of life you’re so worried about measuring up,” she continues. “‘They’ve got a better voice. I hope my songs don’t sound stupid’ — and then by the end, if you’ve opened up your own heart and mind to how loved everyone is, even people you don’t care for, that’s the gift of the last quarter.”

Grant’s heightened awareness of mortality has been fueled by the recent deaths of Bobby Caldwell, who co-wrote her chart-topping duet with Peter Cetera “The Next Time I Fall”; legendary bass player Michael Rhodes and friend Beth Nielsen Chapman’s husband Bob Sherman. “So much of your younger life is saying, ‘Now what’s that going to do? How does that play out? What am I going to see from this investment? In the fourth quarter we don’t have that luxury of time. You just have to say, ‘I am flinging love out there,’”  Grant says. “I’m passing the baton on and not because I don’t still have life to live, but I want to empower people who are coming behind me.”

Grant admits not everyone can appreciate her perspective, including her own children. “My kids — the ones I’ve birthed — are all in the second quarter. They don’t want to hear this crap,” she says with a laugh.  

Following “Trees,” Grant plans to release another single in April. Co-written with Natalie Hemby and Barry Dean, she played the song for Altman the same day he shared “Trees.” He immediately booked musicians and they recorded both songs within 10 days. (The new song was written after Grant attended a therapy session with one of her grown children, saying she and husband Vince Gill “gave the gift of therapy to our family…Natalie sat down at the piano, and I just felt the lyrics spilling out of me.”)  Grant says she’s “taking it two songs at a time. Hopefully, I’ll have one a month and by the end of the year, cull out the ones that weren’t good and put the rest out.”

The return to music has helped Grant put the last three years behind her — though she’s still adjusting in some ways.  Her memory has returned and she no longer has to rely on a notebook to remember extended family members’ names or a teleprompter to remember song lyrics. She used to take her bicycle on tour and ride 30 miles before a show, but now takes it a little easier. “I started building my stamina back by going to the Y probably every other day and I felt like I was swimming kind of slow. Now I feel like I’m starting to get my rhythm back,” she says. “It’s still hard for me to balance if I have my eyes closed, [which is] typical for a head injury.  But if nothing else changed, I would be fine . . .I feel like my mind has never felt so vibrant and active during a show.”

Perhaps the biggest change, Grant says, is that she doesn’t take anything for granted. “When I’m on stage, I’m just flooded with gratitude. It feels so good to have shared a journey for decades with an audience. I have a sense of humor about myself in my own songs. It’s not like we’re curing cancer here. It’s music, but music is something that we can share and participate in simultaneously.  You don’t have to agree with their politics, spirituality or anything.  Somebody buys a ticket and sings along and there’s a feeling of unity. That’s beautiful.”   

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Beyoncé & Adidas Walk Away From Ivy Park Partnership: Report

After coming together with Adidas in 2018 to relaunch her athleisure brand Ivy Park, Beyoncé has parted ways from the sportswear giant, in a move that sources tell The Hollywood Reporter was mutual.

The split was reportedly due to creative differences between Ivy Park and Adidas, with Beyoncé excited to “reclaim her brand, chart her own path and maintain creative freedom,” The Reporter writes.

During what Adidas referred to as “a partnership of a lifetime,” Ivy Park launched several collections, with the first launching in April 2019. The drop was fully equipped with a massive PR campaign involving closet-size traffic-cone-orange boxes being sent to celebrities including Missy Elliott, Cardi B, Kendall Jenner, Angela Bassett, Ciara, Reese Witherspoon and Hailey Bieber.

Despite the glittery promotional content, Ivy Park apparently did not live up to the hype Adidas was anticipating when they initially promised Beyoncé “guaranteed annual fees and creative control,” according to a Wall Street Journal piece from February. Instead of producing the hundreds of millions in revenue that Adidas expected — the company hoped Ivy Park would perform similarly to Ye’s Yeezy brand — Ivy Park releases undersold, with roughly half of the merchandise from five of the six releases remaining on shelves.

The Wall Street Journal article also indicated differences in strategy between Adidas and Ivy Park when it came to marketing, with the German multinational corporation pushing for their own branding. At the end of 2022, Ivy Park was predicted to reach $40 million in sales, down from $93 million the year prior. Although Adidas was positioned to lose at least $10 million in 2022, Beyoncé was set to make the same amount in compensation as previous years: $20 million.

Beyonce launched Ivy Park in 2016 with Top Shop owner Sir Philip Green. When the partnership ended in 2018, Bey’s Parkwood Entertainment acquired full ownership of the streetwear brand. Despite the breakup, Beyonce has much to look forward to considering the frenzy surrounding her upcoming Renaissance World Tour, kicking off in May. The mega-tour has already caused mayhem among fans eager to see the superstar IRL and will begin in Stockholm, spanning dates throughout Europe and North America.

Billboard has reached out to reps for Beyoncé and Adidas for comment.

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Tamela Mann Notches Record 10th Gospel Airplay No. 1: ‘With Your Love and Support, We Did It!

Tamela Mann scores her record-breaking 10th leader on Billboard’s Gospel Airplay chart, as “Finished” ascends to No. 1 on the ranking dated March 25.

In the tracking week ending March 16, the song gained by 7% in plays, according to Luminate.

Mann co-wrote the hit with Travis Greene, who, as a recording artist, has earned five Gospel Airplay chart-toppers of his own.

Now with 10 No. 1s, Mann solely claims the most on Gospel Airplay, which began in March 2005, as she breaks out of a tie with Kirk Franklin. James Fortune & FIYA follow with eight leaders, while Jekalyn Carr, Todd Dulaney, Charles Jenkins & Fellowship Chicago and Marvin Sapp are next with six each.

“Thank you to everybody who listened and made this possible,” Mann tells Billboard. “An extra-special thank you from the bottom of my heart to gospel radio for making me a part of your music family and always believing in me. With your love and support, we did it – 10 No. 1s! To God be the glory.”

“Finished” follows Mann’s “He Did It,” which dominated Gospel Airplay for two frames last May. She has now linked four straight No. 1s, after “Help Me” ruled for four weeks starting in September 2021 and “Touch Me” governed the tally for five frames beginning in December 2020.

Mann boasts two other runs of three Gospel Airplay leaders in a row. She earned her first three No. 1s – “Take Me to the King” (25 weeks on top), “I Can Only Imagine” (13) and “This Place” (six) – in 2012-15 and achieved her next three – “God Provides” (13), “My World Needs You,” by Franklin, featuring Sarah Reeves, Tasha Cobbs and Mann (two), and “Change Me” (14) – in 2016-17.

Mann also extends her record for the most weeks totaled atop Gospel Airplay, across all her No. 1s: 85. James Fortune & FIYA rank second with 81 weeks in charge, followed by Sapp (79), Franklin (72) and Hezekiah Walker (59).

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TWICE Claim Third No. 1 on Top Album Sales Chart With ‘Ready to Be’

TWICE claim their third No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated March 25) as Ready to Be: 12th Mini Album debuts atop the list with the act’s best sales week ever. The nine-member South Korean pop act previously led the list with Between 1&2: 11th Mini Album (2022) and Taste of Love: The 10th Mini Album (2021).

Ready to Be launches with 145,500 copies sold in the United States in the week ending March 16, according to Luminate. That sum also marks the second-largest sales week of 2023 for any act, following the debut week of TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation (153,000; chart dated Feb. 11).

Ready to Be also logs a big week in vinyl album sales (nearly 18,000) – the largest for any all-female group since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991.

Also in the top 10 on the new Top Album Sales chart, Miley Cyrus achieves her biggest sales week in nearly a decade – and 14th top 10 – as Endless Summer Vacation enters at No. 2 with 55,000 copies sold. Endless also collects Cyrus’ biggest ever sales week on vinyl. Plus, rock band Periphery nets its third top 10 – all consecutive – as Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre debuts at No. 10.

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 Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement 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.

Of Ready to Be’s 145,500 copies sold, physical sales comprise 143,000 (125,000 on CD and nearly 18,000 on vinyl) and digital downloads comprise 2,500.

Like many K-pop releases, Ready to Be was issued in collectible physical format packages (11 different CDs [including exclusives for Barnes & Noble, Target and the group’s official webstore] and two vinyl LPs [one exclusive to Target and one exclusive to the act’s webstore). CD variants of Ready contain a standard set of items and randomized elements (such as a postcards, photo cards, etc.).

Unusually, Ready to Be had a vinyl version of the album available on the same wide release date as the CD edition of the album, as most major K-pop titles in the past were initially available only as a physical album on CD and on no other physical formats (like vinyl or cassette). The vinyl editions of the album did not include randomized items, but were packaged with a lenticular postcard, poster and slipmat. Target’s exclusive LP is marbled orchid-colored, while the act’s webstore exclusive is an ultra-clear vinyl edition.

Ready to Be’s nearly 18,000 vinyl sales marks the largest week for a vinyl album by a female group since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991. It’s also the second-largest sales week on vinyl for any K-pop album, following the debut week of BTS’ Love Yourself: Her earlier in 2023 (18,000; chart dated Jan. 21). Unlike Ready to Be, the Love Yourself: Her vinyl LP arrived to market more than five years after the album’s original release on CD and digital download in 2017.

Beyond the physical editions of the album, TWICE’s U.S. webstore also issued four alternative digital album downloads of Ready to Be – each with a different cover, digital replicas of individual group members’ signatures, and a bonus track (a voice memo from different group members).

Miley Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation debuts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with her biggest sales week in nearly a decade, as it bows with 55,000 copies sold. Cyrus last had a larger sales week when Bangerz sold a little more than 63,000 during Christmas week of 2013 (reflected on the Top Album Sales chart dated Jan. 11, 2014). Bangerz earlier debuted at No. 1 on Top Album Sales with 270,500 copies sold (Oct. 26, 2013 chart).

Of Endless Summer Vacation’s 55,000 copies sold, physical sales comprise 37,500 (12,500 on CD and 25,000 on vinyl) and digital downloads comprise 17,500. Endless logs Cyrus’ largest sales week for a vinyl album since Luminate began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. On the Vinyl Albums chart, Endless debuts at No. 1 – her second leader on the list following Plastic Hearts in 2021.

Endless was released in four vinyl variants: standard black vinyl, a white-colored edition exclusive to Target and two color editions exclusive to Cyrus’ webstore (red and silver). All vinyl LPs came packaged with a poster.

CD sales were also aided by two deluxe boxed sets (one with a puzzle and a CD, the other with a beach towel and a CD) sold exclusively through her webstore.

Endless is Cyrus’ 14th top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales, including those albums credited to her Disney Channel character Hannah Montana.

A trio of former No. 1s is next on Top Album Sales: Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time (1-3 in its second week with 21,000; down 81%), TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation (6-4 with 11,000; up 5%) and Taylor Swift’s Midnights (7-5 with 10,000; up 3%).

NCT 127’s Ay-Yo: The 4th Album Repackage falls 2-6 on Top Album Sales (9,500; down 67%), P!nk’s former leader Trustfall rises 9-7 (8,500; down 5%), Gorillaz’s chart-topping Cracker Island is a non-mover at No. 8 (6,000; down 37%) and Stray Kids’ former No. 1 MAXIDENT climbs 13-9 (6,000; up 17%).

Closing out the top 10 is rock band Periphery, which scores its third top 10 – all consecutive – as Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre debuts at No. 10 with nearly 6,000 sold. 55% of the sales came from the vinyl edition of the set.

In the week ending March 16, there were 1.961 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 0.9% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.605 million (up 5.3%) and digital albums comprised 355,000 (down 21.9%).

There were 733,000 CD albums sold in the week ending March 16 (up 10% week-over-week) and 862,000 vinyl albums sold (up 1.8%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 6.925 million (up 2.5% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 9.678 million (up 25.4%).

Overall year-to-date album sales total 20.609 million (up 8.1% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 16.705 million (up 14.7%) and digital album sales total 3.904 million (down 13%).

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Eric Nam Reveals Plans to Release ‘Brand-New Album’ & Go on Tour This Summer

Eric Nam is gearing up for a busy 2023. The South Korean singer caught up with Billboard News and gave fans an idea of what to expect from him in the coming months, explaining the inspiration behind releasing his re-recorded version of his 2022 album There and Back Again.

There and Back Again was release in January 2022. The set peaked at No. 22 on Billboard‘s Top Album Sales chart, but Nam wanted to re-record it in order to keep up with people’s decreasing attention span with music.

“I felt like in today’s time and age, music…people get bored really easily. They get really sick of things really fast, but it doesn’t mean you wrote a bad song,” he said of the re-released album, which arrived earlier this month. “I feel like art has been so short, so I wanted to give people a reason to go back to some of the songs I think were great because they weren’t the single.”

As for what’s next for Nam, the singer tweeted on March 15 and teased that a “new Eric Nam era is loading,” which might be coming even sooner than fans think. “I have a brand-new album that I’ll be putting out in the summer, I think? And a tour soon after that!” he told Billboard News host Tetris Kelly.

Listen to Eric Nam talk about his new music and future album release plans in his Billboard News interview in the video above.

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