LISA’s first full-length studio album, Alter Ego, debuts No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated March 15). The set sold 28,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending March 6, according to Luminate.

LISA is the second member of the quartet BLACKPINK to notch a solo No. 1 on Top Album Sales, following ROSÉ’s rosie, which bowed atop the list dated Dec. 21, 2024. BLACKPINK itself has logged three top 10s, including two No. 1s: The Album (in 2020) and BORN PINK (2022).

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 (TEA) units and streaming equivalent album (SEA) units.

During the album’s release week, LISA performed on the Academy Awards (March 2), taking part in a tribute to the music of the James Bond film series, where she performed Wings’ “Live and Let Die.” She recently made her acting debut in the third season of HBO’s The White Lotus (which premiered on Feb. 16).

Alter Ego was available to purchase as a standard 12-song album (digital download, CD and vinyl), a 15-song set (with three bonus tracks, as a digital download) and a 19-track set (with three additional remixes and a voice note from the artist, sold as a digital download exclusively on LISA’s official webstore). The set was issued across nine CD variants (including a signed edition; with all containing collectible paper ephemera such as randomized photocards), six deluxe CD boxed sets (each containing a copy of the album on CD and a branded piece of clothing) and two vinyl variants (including one signed edition).

LISA’s Alter Ego is the lone debut in the top 10 on the latest Top Album Sales chart. Notably, a third member of BLACKPINK could capture her first entry on the chart next week (on the list dated March 22), as JENNIE’s Ruby was released on March 7.

The following story contains spoilers about the celebrity revealed on Wednesday night’s (March 12) episode of The Masked Singer.

Space Ranger made his debut on last week’s Masked Singer, bounding out with his neon-tinged swagger and a silver space suit topped by a glowing, planet be-decked cowboy hat. It was a fitting ‘fit for what came next: an electrifying performance in which he bounced around, dropped to his knees and flashed finger guns with so much rizz that judge Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg was convinced he must be a famous comedian.

If you were paying any attention at all, the clues (and his one-of-a-kind voice) made it pretty obvious: He’s futuristic, lives on his own planet and a childhood report card included an A+ in, ahem, “PE.” Oh, also, sometimes, he said, you have to show them all that you’re “worth the hype,” as he showed off a belt that appeared to have a clock face on it.

His debut performance, of a track by his “bestie,” was a spirited run through Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” that left judge Ken Jeong dumbstruck, while host Nick Cannon knew right away that it was one of his “favorite people” on the planet.

Both Robin Thicke and Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg agreed that it could be comedian/actor Tracy Morgan, while always-wrong Jeong — who said he’s opened for Morgan on the road — thought the space case was retired boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Rita Ora suggested a showman like actor/comedian Marlon Wayans.

Wednesday night’s Ghostbusters-themed episode was back with more super obvious clues, including one about his gig “schlepping furniture” in New York as a young man before he and his partner came up with a crazy idea for a career change with help from a “beastly band of boys” who boosted their career.

For his second song, he went in another direction with the swinging Busboys’ Ghostbusters soundtrack album tune “Cleanin’ Up the Town,” which further showcased his showmanship and vocal dexterity. The second performance made Jeong think it was DJ Jazzy Jeff, even as Thicke doubled down on his Morgan guess, while Ora and McCarthy-Wahlberg totally figured out that it was none other than Public Enemy hype man rapper Flavor Flav.

Before his elimination, Billboard spoke with Flav, who described the joy of getting the special dispensation to cover Swift, his shock at the judges’ guesses, and why he wanted to hang around just a bit longer.

You said being on the show has been on your bucket list for years. Why? What took you so long?

I don’t know what took it so long ’cause I’ve been wanting to do this show for years! So when I was asked to be on the show, I said, “Wow! Finally? OK, let’s go!” One thing about me is I love surprising people, I love amusing people, and I love keeping people in suspense. So this show put me on that platform to do all of these things.

People know you as the hype man from PE, but were you nervous to try singing on national TV, especially a Taylor Swift song?

One thing about Flav — Flav is never, ever nervous. I always love being the center of attention. I love being the most positive, talked-about. I’m the biggest hype man, I’m the original hype man, so I could not wait to get out there on that stage and hype up the world.

You are the self-proclaimed “King Swiftie” and there’s never been a Taylor song on Masked Singer. Was that an extra layer of pressure?

Nah, I wasn’t nervous at all, and I was honored that Taylor Swift and them did clear the song for me to do. Because Masked Singer been trying to get a Taylor Swift song cleared for years and they could not get one cleared, until Flavor Flav, King Swiftie, came on their show. [A spokesperson for the show confirmed that it was the first-ever Swift cover on the series.] They cleared it for King Swiftie. I’m honored and proud that Taylor Swift and them cleared me to do “Bad Blood.” I said, “I’m gonna have fun with this song and I know I’m gonna do a good job with it.” I ain’t gonna lie, I am my biggest fan and I do amuse myself and I love watching me on TV.

Did she approve it because she knew you were going to do it?

They knew I was going to do it, that’s why the song got cleared. They only cleared it because of me! They weren’t clearing it for nobody else! And you know what? I don’t think they’re gonna get another Taylor Swift song after this.

You have an iconic, signature look. So how did it feel to be in that ridiculous costume? Did it help you relax to be covered up?

It was real fun jumping in and out of that costume. When I first seen the costume, I was like, “Wow, how am I gonna pull this off?” But, you know, I can make anything work, I can pull this off. I really had fun… but it was a little hot and muggy up in there and I was running out of fresh air. But I said, “Keep it going. KIM — keep it movin’ Flav, you got this!”

Not gonna lie, I’ve been covering you for 30 years and so this was the easiest mystery to guess in the history of the show. From the way you walked out , to the super obvious clues and your one-of-a-kind voice it seemed almost too easy. 

What do we say when we pick up the phone? “Heloooooooo?” C’mon now, it was the biggest, easiest giveaway! My voice is distinctive like James Earl Jones, like Samuel L. Jackson, like Morgan Freeman. I have the most sampled voice in the history of music and my voice is very, very recognizable. So when you take my voice and match it up with them easy-ass clues… the easiest clues! The first one was “PE.” C’mon now, everybody knows Flavor Flav is Public Enemy! Everybody knows that I’m famous for my hardware that I wear around my neck [holds up giant clock pendant]. It’s clocks. And also the other easy giveaways was the clock belt and they showed the belt twice! I’m like, “C’mon man, everybody knows that’s Flav!” I was trending number 3 on Twitter [after his first episode] and everybody on Twitter was like, “Man, that was the most easiest giveaway ever!” I think they should have did me better.

Be honest: Did you want to win?

I didn’t go on that show to win. I went on that show to have fun. Did I expect to win? No. But I did want to last a little longer than I did and last as long as I can. At least I could say I had fun. At least I could say I was onstage with one of my favorite people on the planet too, Nick Cannon. I’ve always been a Nick Cannon fan and when Nick said “I know who this is! This is one of my favorite people on the planet!” When he said that, you don’t know how honored I was and how proud I was to hear those words come out of his mouth. ‘Cause before Nick Cannon was Wildin’ Out, I was wildin’ out first, since 1986! The surprising thing was when the judges were trying to guess me… where the hell did they get Tracy Morgan from? [Laughs] The weirdest one was Floyd Mayweather. What in the world is Floyd Mayweather going to be doing in a costume?

Hipgnosis, the catalog company with rights to songs by artists including the Red Hot Chili Peppers that became the face of music-as-an-asset-class for Wall Street investors, is being renamed Recognition Music Group, the company said on Wednesday (March 12).

The new name covers what was previously three separate companies that each had Hipgnosis in the name: Hipgnosis Songs Fund, a publicly traded music royalty investment fund formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange; Hipgnosis Songs Assets, a privately-held royalty fund backed by Blackstone; and Hipgnosis Song Management, the investment manager previously run by founder Merck Mercuriadis that worked to generate a return on the song rights held in the catalog funds.

Mercuriadis did not respond to a request for comment.

Since Blackstone acquired Hipgnosis’s public fund for $1.47 billion and Mercuriadis stepped down from his role as chair of the investment manager last year, the company decided it was time to shed the old name, CEO Ben Katovsky tells Billboard.

Recognition’s portfolio of publishing and master recording rights to some 45,000 songs include stakes in megahits like Shakira‘s “Whenever, Whereever,” The B-52s’ “Love Shack,” Fleetwood Mac‘s “Go Your Own Way” and Diana Ross‘ “I’m coming out.” A video made by the company to promote its new name to its roughly 40 employees weaves together lyrics from these and other songs in its portfolio to send a message that despite their history as separate entities, the Hipgnosis companies are meant to “get together,” even if one almost went its “own way” during Blackstone’s billion-dollar bidding war with Concord. Nearly a year after it consolidated ownership, Blackstone and Katovsky “want the world to know” this is a new company.

“It’s impossible not to have those songs resonate in your mind,” Katovsky says from Recognition’s London offices. He tells Billboard that the new name refers to “a combination of how easy it is to recognize those songs day to day and also to recognize the talent of the artists and songwriters and musicians who made those songs.”

Qasim Abbas, Blackstone’s head of tactical opportunities international, the division of the global financial fund that owns Recognition, said in a statement that last year showed “strong investor conviction in this asset class.”

“The company is now set to build on its position as a leading independent investor in music rights; owning and managing an incredible portfolio of songs and recordings,” Abbas added.

Hipgnosis was known for acquiring dozens of catalogs a year between 2018 and 2021, earning it a reputation of contributing to a run-up in the market for music royalties. In contrast, Recognition intends to be a “selective buyer” of music rights, Katovsky says.

“Our ambition is to continue to grow the portfolio, and we already have scale as a business,” Katovsky says. “The scale allows us to invest … but it also means we’re not under any pressure to deploy capital.”

Recognition’s portfolio remains heavily weighted to publishing rights, which comprise roughly 80% of its assets; the remainder are mostly master recording rights. Blackstone still owns Hipgnosis Songs Group, the subsidiary that has housed Big Deal Music’s administration business since Hipgnosis acquired the independent publisher in 2020. The company has said the division is under strategic review, and Recognition is now looking to partner with publishers and music companies for the administration of its assets.

“Recognition Music will be a very collaborative player in this space in ways that it was not historically,” Katovsky says. “We want to work with other partners in this industry to do that.”

Spotify released its annual Loud & Clear report on Wednesday (March 12), trumpeting the growing number of musicians earning robust royalty income from the platform, along with its users’ increasingly global listening patterns.

“The number of artists generating $10,000, $100,000, and $1 million dollars on Spotify alone has at least tripled since 2017,” says Sam Duboff, the platform’s global head of marketing and policy, music business.

And those artists are coming from a wider variety of countries. “Ten years ago, you probably had to be singing in English and maybe Spanish to have a really high ceiling,” Duboff adds. “Now we see eight languages where songs are generating $100 million a year [in royalties] just on Spotify” — not only English and Spanish, but also German, Portuguese, French, Japanese, Korean and Italian. In addition, “the majority of artists generating significant revenue on Spotify have the majority of their royalties coming from outside their home market.”

Perhaps more than past iterations of Loud & Clear, the latest report aimed to push back on popular complaints about the streaming era.

One frustration voiced frequently about streaming is that the platforms’ payouts have crippled most aspiring artists’ ability to build a career. Last year, for example, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) introduced the Living Wage for Musicians Act in the House of Representatives; the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW), which helped draft the act, said it was necessary because “artists continue to be underpaid, misled and otherwise exploited by streaming platforms.” Across the Atlantic, members of the European Parliament also called on the music industry to explore “fairer models of streaming revenue allocation.”

Spotify has a sunnier view of the streaming economy: Loud & Clear notes that “more artists than ever before are generating royalties at every career stage.” The company argues that much of the discontent with the modern music landscape stems from the fact that an unprecedented number of people are uploading music to streaming services, and “the sheer volume of uploaders means the fraction [of acts] who find success appears smaller over time.”

On Spotify, the number of artists making at least $10,000 grew nearly 8% in 2024, to 71,200, according to the platform’s data, while the number of acts making at least $100,000 from Spotify increased a similar percentage, rising to 12,500. 

Those royalty-income brackets on Spotify grew faster than total music consumption in the U.S. last year (5.6%, according to Luminate) but not as fast as they did in 2023. “There are always fluctuations,” Duboff says. He is unconcerned by chatter about streaming growth tapering off, especially in the U.S. and Western Europe. “We still see a ton of growth in mature markets,” he says. “We also see a lot of really exciting growth in emerging markets.”

Another idea targeted by Loud & Clear as a “misconception”: the notion of per-stream payouts. “One of the top conversations we have with artists is about this perception of our per-stream rate,” Duboff explains. “The way you hear people on social media talk, you’d think every streaming service pays out based on per-stream rate.

“But no major streaming service pays out based on a fixed per-stream rate,” Duboff continues. “Every major streaming service pays out based on stream share,” meaning the royalty pool is divided up according to rights holders’ portion of total streams. 

Duboff hopes that Loud & Clear can start to “demystify the idea of stream share” and “help artists think through the actual ways in which royalties are generated.” Though it’s possible that, even after thinking this through, acts might still advocate for alternative payout methods, like the user-centric model that was in vogue a couple of years ago. The Living Wage for Musicians Act proposed to fund additional royalty payments — one penny per stream partially generated by charging an extra fee for every streaming subscription — on top of the current payout system. 

Spotify also hopes to change perceptions about its highest earners. “When I ask people what type of artist would be generating $1 million a year just from Spotify, the first assumption is it’s the biggest stars with the biggest hits,” Duboff says. “The second thing we hear a lot is, ‘It’s just a lot of legacy acts who were popular decades ago.’ The third is that it must be American, Canadian and Western European artists.”

Spotify’s data flies in the face of those assumptions, according to Duboff. For the second year in a row, 80% of the $1 million earners — close to 1,500 artists — never had a track crack Spotify’s Global Daily Top 50, he says, and more than half of them started their career after 2010. Plus, those acts sing or rap in 17 different languages.

With “momentum on Spotify, you have access to hundreds of millions of listeners all over the world,” Duboff adds, “and the revenue that they bring in.”