Nearly two decades after his death, Michael Jackson is the biggest artist in the United States. The late superstar, who died in 2009, tops the Billboard Artist 100 chart for the first time, powered by the continued success of the Michael biopic and a massive resurgence across streaming, radio and sales.

The Artist 100, which Billboard launched in 2014, ranks the top artists in the U.S. based on artists’ activity across streaming, radio airplay, album sales and track sales. The chart combines those metrics into a weekly multidimensional ranking of artist popularity.

Here’s a closer look at the numbers behind Jackson’s historic week.

Streaming Is Soaring

Jackson’s solo catalog generated 161.2 million chart-inclusive on-demand official U.S. streams during the May 8-14 tracking week, according to Luminate (up 6% week to week). That’s the third highest total of the week among all artists, after only Drake (248.6 million) and Morgan Wallen (201.4 million).

Radio Airplay Continues to Thrive

Jackson’s music has continued to thrive on radio, drawing a combined 93.4 million radio airplay audience impressions in the U.S. during the tracking week (up 2%). That’s the eighth-most among all artists, after Bruno Mars (197.1 million), Wallen (172.3 million), Taylor Swift (143.7 million), Olivia Dean (139.6 million), Ella Langley (129.5 million), Luke Combs (128.3 million) and Justin Bieber (98.3 million), all of whom are fueled by current releases.

Album Sales Are Spiking

Jackson’s solo catalog sold a combined 46,000 albums in the U.S. during the week (up 8%) — the second-highest total among all acts. Only CORTIS sold more (86,000), largely driven by its new EP GREENGREEN, which sold 81,000 alone.

Digital Song Sales Are Booming

Jackson’s songs sold 20,000 digital downloads combined during the tracking week, placing him narrowly behind Langley (also roughly 20,000) for the second highest total among all acts.

Together, those metrics make Jackson the biggest artist in the U.S. this week, a feat sparked by the major cultural and commercial impact of Michael. The film has become second-highest grossing film of the year and has reignited interest in Jackson’s catalog, which in turn has sent many of his songs and albums back onto Billboard’s charts.

On the latest Billboard Hot 100, Jackson places six songs — the most he’s ever charted simultaneously: “Billie Jean” (up 17-15), “Human Nature” (29-21), “Beat It” (32-29), “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” (42-36), “Dirty Diana” (No. 44 reentry) and “Rock With You” (No. 47 reentry). Five of those classics topped the chart between 1979 and 1988, while “Human Nature” hit the top 10 in 1983.

“Billie Jean” also rises to No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 chart for the first time, becoming the biggest song in the world this week.

Jackson additionally places six albums on the Billboard 200: Thriller (No. 5), Number Ones (No. 6), The Essential Michael Jackson (No. 83), Off the Wall (No. 93), Dangerous (No. 135) and Xscape (No. 192 reentry).

Jackson becomes the sixth artist to top the Artist 100 posthumously. He joins David Bowie, who led the week after his death in January 2016; Prince, who spent two weeks at No. 1 following his death the same year; XXXTentacion, who led twice following his death in 2018; Juice WRLD, who returned to No. 1 after he died in December 2019; and Pop Smoke, who was No. 1 in July 2020 after the posthumous release of Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon.

Notably, the Jacksons are also benefiting from the Michael resurgence, as the group reenters the latest Artist 100 at No. 98.

Holli’ Gabrielle Conway, Jade Milan and Stoney B. Woods are set to portray Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, respectively, in CrazySexyCool — The TLC Musical. As noted in an earlier Billboard story, the show — produced by special arrangement with Bill Diggins — will debut this summer at Arena Stage’s Kreeger Theater in Washington, D.C. It will run from June 12 through Aug. 9. The musical’s debut will precede the upcoming It’s Iconic Tour, co-headlined by TLC and Salt-N-Pepa with special guest En Vogue. The tour launches Aug. 15 in Franklin, Tenn.

Based on music recorded and performed by the four-time Grammy Award-winning group — featuring signature songs such as Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits “No Scrubs,” “Creep,” Waterfalls” and “Unpretty” — CrazySexyCool is written and directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah. His credits include One Love: The Bob Marley Musical. Additional members of the production’s creative team include choreographer Chloe O. Davis (Gypsy), Tony Award-nominated music supervisor David Holcenberg (MJ the Musical) and music director Jaret Landon (Smokey Joe’s Café).

“CrazySexyCool is as bold, fearless and unapologetic as TLC themselves,” said Arena Stage artistic director Hana S. Sharif in the press release. “It holds space for the music we love and the reality that lies behind it, making room for both the joy of their success and the complexity of everything that came with it.”

The actresses playing the three members of the pioneering R&B/pop group have previously performed on Broadway. Conway appeared in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Milan was in Hell’s Kitchen and Woods acted in The Book of Mormon. “One of the most meaningful parts of this process is showing how TLC’s impact has lasted for generations,” said the trio in a joint statement. “Every song brings you back to a moment in your life. Stepping into that nostalgia, while furthering TLC’s legacy of resilience, creativity and sisterhood has been one of the coolest and most rewarding parts of telling this story. The chemistry and trust between us have become a huge part of what makes this show feel special.”

In speaking about the musical’s titular group, cast and creative team, Kwei-Armah commented, “TLC’s music was the soundtrack to a very meaningful part of my life. The cast we have assembled is fire, and the creative team is out of this world. I haven’t been this excited in a long time.”

For additional information about CrazySexyCool — The TLC Musical and tickets, visit the show’s website here.

Universal Music Group (UMG) expects the newly acquired Downtown Music Group to add 15 to 20 million euros in revenue in the coming years, further bolstering Virgin Music Group’s growth, which is outpacing UMG’s recorded music division overall, UMG CFO Matt Ellis said on Monday (May 18).

“In terms of the return, we’re driving 15 to 20 million euros of synergies over the next couple of years … a mid-teens [internal rate of return] for that investment,” Ellis said at a conference hosted by JPMorgan.

Ellis made the remarks during a wide-ranging discussion about factors that are pressuring UMG’s margins and how growth in lower-margin businesses like Downtown’s is impacting the complexion of its overall growth.

“Virgin is certainly growing faster, especially with the addition of Downtown,” Ellis said. “So we will continue to focus on driving revenue and EBITDA more so than just worried about the short-term margin impact.”

The discussion comes a little over a month since billionaire investor Bill Ackman criticized UMG’s investor communications and disclosures as “suboptimal” in his company Pershing Square’s offer to move UMG to the United States through a merger transaction. UMG has since taken steps toward providing more information to investors, including breaking out Downtown and Virgin Music Group’s financials in its recent first-quarter results, the company’s first since UMG closed its $775-million acquisition of Downtown.

Addressing questions about UMG’s overall flat margins in 2025, Ellis said the company’s strength is the overall operating leverage gained from its individual businesses, three of which — Virgin Music Group, physical distribution and publishing — are currently growing at faster rates than the recorded music division overall.

While they’re growing faster than recorded music, Ellis said those comparatively lower profit-margin businesses are having “a mixed effect on the gross margin line.”

Ellis declined to provide an update on when UMG may proceed with listing on a U.S. stock exchange, saying the board continues to review market conditions for such a move. Ellis similarly declined to say how UMG’s contractual agreements with BMG and Concord, which recently announced plans to merge and contract with UMG for certain services, would change post-merger.

Artist advances totaled more than 400 million euros in 2025, and Ellis said that line item has grown by 8% over the past six years. He called these advances a “working capital investment” that the company can recover from future sales of an artist’s work and revenue generated by an artist’s back catalog.

“As the total using industry has grown, it’s not surprising that advances have grown as well,” Ellis said, pointing to UMG’s 11% total revenue growth and nearly 14% adjusted earnings before income, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) over the same six-year period. “The fact that they’re growing is a reflection of the health of the music business, and we continue to look to deepen the relationship with our artists and the success that they’ve delivered.”

Ellis said he expects streaming revenue to rise in the coming year now that three higher-priced deals that UMG struck with streaming platforms in 2025 are going into effect, but he did not disclose specific guidance.

Asked about UMG’s merchandise acting as a drag on company margins over the past year, Ellis said he is optimistic about the top-line growth and demand from fans and artists alike for specialty T-shirts, jackets and other merchandise, but added they need to address operational issues that will result in higher margins.

Could Florida Georgia Line be set to resume playing some concerts? Possibly, says Tyler Hubbard.

As duo Florida Georgia Line, Hubbard and Brian Kelley earned massive hits including “Cruise,” “H.O.L.Y.” and “This Is How We Roll.” They split in 2022 over differing views over balancing the duo with solo careers, but recently, Hubbard and Kelley have been spending more time together. In January, Kelley posted a video from a hike they took together, and the duo were spotted at the CMA Awards together last fall.

Those photos and videos sparked intense fan speculation that the duo could be reuniting. During a red carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight at Sunday night’s ACM Awards, Hubbard gave fans an update on his professional and personal relationship with Kelley, and what that means for FGL.

“One photo and the world thinks you’re back on tour automatically,” Hubbard quipped. “To be honest, we’ve had a blast. It’s been a really fun season of healing…we’ve been hanging out, laughing, been cuttin’ up and goofin’ around. It just feels like the old days. For us, we’re just trying to soak it up, make the most of it, not rush anything, be really smart about it.

“We have been toying around, flirting with the idea of playing a handful of shows next year, so that gets us both excited. But right now, like I said, we’re trying to be patient with it, trying to enjoy this kind of like ‘honeymoon’ phase if you will,” he said, adding that he was planning to fly from Las Vegas to the beach to hang out with Kelley and his family. “We’re just enjoying this time together.”

He also added that there is no new FGL music in the works at the moment. “Haven’t gotten there yet,” he said, adding, “No new FGL music, I’m too busy working on my solo stuff at the moment. But I do know that…the idea of playing shows together sounds like a lot of fun, and we’re just trying to keep it low stress and nothing but a good time.”

Hubbard also discussed what hearing that positive feedback and excitement from fans has meant to him.

“For the world to get to experience a little taste of the emotion and healing we’ve gotten to feel, it’s really special and it’s bigger than just us, it’s bigger than just the music. It’s actually a story and a powerful testimony to grace and forgiveness, healing and all those things, so we’re leaning into that…it feels like the world is feeling what we’re feeling and it feels good.”

During this year’s Country Radio Seminar, the duo did briefly reunite onstage to honor Jason Aldean by performing Aldean’s hit song “You Make It Easy,” which Kelley and Hubbard co-wrote with Morgan Wallen and songwriter Jordan Schmidt.

Billboard has reached out to reps for both Hubbard and Kelley for comment.

Just when Whitney Smith felt she’d finally gotten a handle on touring costs in the post-COVID landscape, skyrocketing fuel prices threw everything back into disarray.

“I feel like we’ve just been starting to get to a place where we’re forecasting what things are going to cost more accurately again,” says Smith, the director of touring for full-service artist management company Alternate Side. “And then with these rising fuel prices, that’s thrown a lot into uncertain territory again, to put it mildly.”

Since the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran on Feb. 28, leading the Iranian government to close the Strait of Hormuz — a key shipping route through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows — the cost of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, has soared to more than $100 a barrel, up from about $70 a barrel prior to the strikes, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. As a result, fuel prices — including gasoline and diesel, the latter of which is used in buses and trucks critical to live music tours — have risen roughly 50% in the U.S. While minor price variations are normal, the nearly unprecedented increase has forced touring transportation companies to tack on hefty surcharges to account for the ballooning costs. For artists already squeezed by post-COVID touring cost increases, the spike has been yet another hit to their bottom lines.

“Since COVID…the cost of transportation and just touring in general is up a ton,” says Rich Thomson, founder and CEO of Dreamliner Luxury Coaches, whose fleet includes 220 tour buses and 70 trucks. Now, with the surge in fuel prices, “You take a bunch of people that are [already] trying to cut costs and find ways to tour cheaper, and you’re just crushing them.”

According to Nick Weathers, the owner of Egotrips, which has a fleet of 12 tour buses and 35 trucks, his company has been tacking on surcharges of between 25 cents and 35 cents a mile since gas prices shot up. “That can add up on a 15, 20 truck tour,” he says. “Thousands of dollars.” For some touring acts, these increases could mean the difference between making a small profit and no money at all. “I [recently] had someone reach out for a tour bus quote,” Weathers adds. “And I sent the quote back, and the guy just vented…He’s like, ‘If we took this bus, we would make zero money on the tour.’”

Unfortunately for artists who were either already on the road or had already committed to tours when the war broke out, these jacked-up costs will eat into the profits they’d expected to make.

“We negotiate our contracts with our bus companies months in advance, and our fuel rate is based on average price, and we budget off that price,” says Smith. But there was no way to plan for a spike of this magnitude. “When something like that jumps up so much unexpectedly,” she adds, “you’re just absorbing that cost.”

For artists who have booked fly dates — traveling from date to date by plane as opposed to taking vans or buses — the cost of airfare has also spiked since the war broke out. According to weekly data provided by travel website Kayak.com, the price of a domestic plane ticket on commercial flights has risen 13% since the start of the conflict, while the price of an international ticket has risen 55%. With no end to the war in sight, despite repeated assurances to the contrary, some tour managers are buying tickets extra early in case prices continue to rise. “If you have a one-off fly date for a college show…booking flights as far in advance as we can is the move,” says Peyton Marek, a manager at Challenger Artists (the management division of Mammoth Live) who reps bands including TOLEDO and Post Sex Nachos.

Rising fuel prices extend to other aspects of touring as well — from merch shipping costs to food. One less-obvious effect of the increases has been less reliable timelines for freight shipping — particularly boats, which have been slowing their speeds in order to save on fuel. According to Jason Danter, a production manager who has worked with artists including Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, that has only added to the unreliability of ocean freight, a cheaper but slower alternative to air freight. “When you talk to [an artist’s] business management, and they go, ‘Well, we can do this by ocean,’ [and] you go, ‘We can, as long as you’re good when I phone you and say, It’s on the water, it’s going slower, it’s now added another stop which wasn’t scheduled, we won’t make it for the first show,’” he says. “And then they go, ‘Well, that’s no good.’”

Justin Carbone, executive vp of live touring at Rock-It Cargo, says that due to the Iran war, cargo ships have also been avoiding sailing through the Middle East, forcing them to take longer routes. “That’s added some days,” he says, though he hastens to add that “with proper planning, we’re able to mitigate those longer distances.”

Though all levels of tours will be affected by the fuel price spikes — from club acts to stadium superstars — most people who spoke with Billboard for this story agreed that smaller to mid-level artists will be hurt the worst. “The artists at the club level, their grosses are just less, and so the margins are tighter, and they’re gonna feel it more,” says Doug Oliver, general manager at Pioneer Coach. “The big tours are going to feel it too, but I think it’s gonna be more real to a smaller band.”

Smith says she’s slightly more worried about “middle-class acts” than smaller artists, as the former typically has a higher overhead and is saddled with expectations by fans to put on a more elaborate show. “With lower costs to put a show on…it might be a little bit different for a baby artist than a band that’s trying to continue what they’ve built already, or get to a bigger point, because those people have a lot of built-in expenses and have to put on a bigger show in many ways,” she says.

Still, artist manager Ari Fouriezos — who works with acts including Caroline Rose, Julia Jacklin and Cassandra Jenkins at Friendly Announcer — is concerned about higher fuel prices further discouraging baby acts from going on the road. “I worry for the future generation of indie bands that are coming up right now,” she says. “I feel like they for years have been pretty discouraged when it comes to building touring fan bases, because they feel like it’s not accessible to them. I think stuff like this is just adding fuel to the fire.”

Faced with post-COVID cost increases, and now with higher fuel prices, many tours have been forced to get creative to come out in the green. Multiple artist managers who spoke with Billboard for this story have, where it makes sense, leaned into offering VIP ticket packages for fans that include perks such as meet-and-greets, sound check parties and exclusive merch items to get the most out of every ticket. Fouriezos also says more artists are “becoming more hyper-local” by doing shows in their immediate locations versus going on expensive cross-country tours.

With her artist Caroline Rose, Fouriezos says the strategy for the singer-songwriter’s upcoming summer tour has been to book multiple nights in the same city, and “even two shows in the same night” at the same venue, to save on travel costs. For several stops on the tour, they’ve also rented venues so they can control the ticketing themselves. In this scenario, they’re betting that Rose will sell out those shows — in which case, Fouriezos says, they’ll make “slightly more” than they would have if they’d gone the traditional route. Without the added fees from a ticketing company like Ticketmaster or AXS — a point they’ve promoted to Rose’s followers on social media — this also effectively allows them to lower ticket prices for fans, with the hope that some will spend what they saved on the ticket on merch. “Everyone is more price sensitive right now, but more willing to spend their hard-earned money if they are confident it’s supporting their favorite artists” versus a company like Live Nation, she says.

Cutting down on production costs is another way to increase margins. Thomson says he’s recently had some clients step back from confirming tours as they figure out where else they can trim. “Conversations are just going to get tougher and more about, ‘Where can we cut? Let me see every line item,’” he says. “That’s because of the fuel, but it’s been going on before the war happened because of the [rising] cost of transportation in general.”

There’s also a more direct way to deal with rising costs: passing them on to fans. For tours that are already in motion, however, raising prices on tickets isn’t feasible. “A lot of their contracts are priced in, and they can’t raise the price of concert tickets,” says Oliver. For those who are still able to raise prices, it can be a tricky balancing act in an economy where fans are paying more for everything, from food to filling up their tanks — not to mention the costs of attending a concert beyond just the price of admission.

“Not only are fans having to pay for tickets, but oftentimes it’s the parking as well, and drinks, and maybe it’s merch and dinner before, or if [it’s] an older demographic, you’re having to pay for a babysitter,” says Marek.

Another possible area to increase prices is merch — but as with ticket prices, Smith says it’s best to proceed with caution. “Theoretically, we could raise prices on merch, but again, fans are pretty price sensitive when the cost of living increases,” she says. “Potentially it can impact ticket sales and merch sales. So, we just have to be really careful with that.”

As it stands, many experts say that even if the Strait of Hormuz were to open up tomorrow, fuel prices will remain elevated at least through the end of the year — meaning tours are staring down, at a minimum, several more months of inflated costs.

For Fouriezos, at least, there’s a silver lining. If nothing else, she says, the extra squeeze will force artists and their teams to get more creative — and possibly devise new paradigms for a touring market that’s grown increasingly hostile to artists over the last several years. “I hope that other people will be inspired to think outside the box…and question the norms and be like, ‘How can we do things a little bit differently?’” she says. “And it’s not easy. It’s actually really, really hard to do things like that.”