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US Music Business
The highs and lows of music in 2023
December 31, 2023 at 17:52
If we were to give the music world of 2023 a subtitle, what would it be?
By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN
Let's think about it. Taylor Swift-mania crescendoed to an all-time high. A generation of people got to experience the release of a new Beatles song. Ill-mannered concertgoers developed a weird habit of throwing objects at artists performing on stage. Indie sensation Mitski's viral hit "My Love Mine All Mine" transcended TikTok and deservedly landed on former US President Barack Obama's favorite music of 2023 list. Elsewhere, some performances went awry while others broke attendance and viewership records, a country music icon went rock as the genre experienced an identity crisis of its own and Britney Spears told all.
| HIGH: Taylor-mania To put it delicately, Taylor Swift was literally everywhere this year. The “Anti-Hero” singer’s record-breaking “Eras Tour” started in March and is on track to become the highest-earning tour in history according to some estimates. Along the way, she’s been credited for boosting the economy, public transportation and the movie theater industry when her “Eras Tour” concert film smashed the box office in October. She broke numerous streaming and attendance records, was named Time's "Person of the Year," released two re-recorded albums and even began a new romance with "guy on the Chiefs" Travis Kelce – all while ushering in an era of friendship and girl power. Let’s not forget that she gave her tour's trucking staff a $100,000 bonus each, and then became a billionaire. Now that’s some good “Karma.” Jeff Kravitz/TAS23/Getty Images |
| HIGH: The return of the mega-tour When it comes to mega-tours, Beyoncé has mastered the craft. With a little help from her 11-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter, the “Break My Soul” singer launched her record-breaking “Renaissance” world tour in May. Swift, Harry Styles, Drake, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd and Pink, among others, also hit the road on major stadium tours this year, marking a turn in the live music space as the world readjusted to a post-pandemic landscape. Live Nation, the world’s largest live entertainment company, reported in May that the company sold nearly 90 million tickets for concerts at that point – a more than 20% increase over the same point in 2022. Whether people chose to attend a stadium-sized mega-tour or see an indie band at a smaller venue, music-lovers far and wide showed that live music is back in full swing. Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images |
| LOW: Unruly concertgoers When did concertgoers forget their manners? Artists such as Bebe Rexha, Kelsea Ballerini, Ava Max and Drake all became the target of objects thrown on stage by audience members during live shows this year, with some suffering injuries. Rexha was hospitalized after being struck in the head by a cell phone, and Ballerini paused her show to regroup after she, too, was hit in the head by an object thrown toward the stage. Adele was having none of this, and issued a profanity-laced order urging people to “stop throwing things at the artist” during her Las Vegas concert in July. We think it might be best to listen to her. Christopher Polk/Billboard/Getty Images |
| HIGH: Dolly Parton is a ‘Rockstar’ Dolly Parton, one of country music’s most revered voices, released her hotly anticipated album “Rockstar” in November. Marking her rock genre debut, the “Jolene” singer took on the project when she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year, an honor she notoriously declined at first, saying she didn’t feel she’d “earned that right.” The album is an impressive 30-track collection featuring rock icons Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Elton John and Stevie Nicks, among others. It hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart in November. Hopefully, Parton now feels like the rock 'n' roll legend that she is. Butterfly Records/AP |
| HIGH and LOW: The ‘last’ Beatles song November hit a “high” note when Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr released “Now and Then,” a new track featuring all “fab four” members of The Beatles that was written and recorded by the late John Lennon in the '70s. “Now and Then” features Lennon’s original vocals that were preserved using the same AI restoration techniques that Peter Jackson used in his “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary. With new instrumentation by McCartney and Starr, and guitar recordings by the late George Harrison from the '90s, “Now and Then” was finally completed this year. The “low” here is that this is, indeed, the “last” Beatles song, according to McCartney. Fiona Adams/Redferns/Getty Images |
| HIGH: Rihanna’s Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show Rihanna worked her first live performance in seven years when she headlined the Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show in February. The Grammy-winner performed a medley of her iconic hits in a performance that became the most-watched Halftime Show in history when she drew 118.7 million viewers, topping previous record-holder Katy Perry's 118.5 million viewers. She also unveiled her second pregnancy in unforgettable fashion while on stage, sending the internet into a frenzy. Rihanna is now mom to two sons, whom she shares with rapper A$AP Rocky. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images |
| HIGH: Britney Spears tells her story Britney Spears finally got to tell her story, her way. In October, Spears released her memoir “The Woman in Me,” wherein she details her experience being placed under a court-ordered conservatorship for 13 years before it ended in 2021. The book is filled with revelations that made for some of the year’s splashiest headlines. Oscar nominee Michelle Williams narrated the audiobook, and the physical book sold over one million copies in its first week. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images |
| LOW: Jann Wenner faces the music Jann Wenner, co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine, was expelled from the board of the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation – an organization he helped establish in 1983 – after facing widespread criticism for remarks made in a September interview with the New York Times in which he spoke disparagingly about female and Black artists from the heyday of rock 'n' roll when trying to explain their exclusion from his book "The Masters." As CNN contributor Gene Seymour noted in a September op-ed, the fallout he faced “feels like a moment of reckoning, not just for the co-founder and longtime publisher/editor of Rolling Stone magazine, but for a whole era of pop culture — and how the history of that era is presented.” Taylor Hill/Getty Images |
| LOW: Health setbacks Bruce Springsteen, Lewis Capaldi, Madonna and Celine Dion cited health concerns when they announced respective breaks from performing live this year. Dion shared in May that the remaining dates of her "Courage World Tour" were canceled as she continues to fight Stiff-Person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder she was diagnosed with last year. Madonna was hospitalized with a bacterial infection in June and was forced to delay the start of her "Celebration Tour," but the Queen of Pop was able to recover and returned to the stage in October. Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images |
| HIGH and LOW: Country music's identity crisis Country music served as a polarizing force in 2023, perhaps best illustrated by the popularity of Luke Combs’ (right) cover of Tracy Chapman's 1988 hit "Fast Car," and Jason Aldean’s (left) controversialsong “Try That in a Small Town.” The viral nature of both songs spurred an influx of analysesquestioning what exactly country music is today, as listeners propped up two vastly different voices within the same community. Singer Maren Morris, for one, had enough of country music altogether and said she was distancing herself from the genre going forward. Chapman, meanwhile, became the first Black woman to top the Country Airplay chart since it came into existence in 1990, with "Fast Car" -- a high note this year that's worth singing about. Getty Images |
| HIGH: Hip-hop turns 50 On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc threw a party in the Bronx that brought together the sounds, the culture and the dancing that would come to define the hip-hop genre. Throughout this year, various celebrations were put on to celebrate hip-hop's cultural and musical impact as the genre marked its 50th anniversary, including an epic performance at the Grammy Awards featuring icons LL Cool J, Run DMC, Salt-N-Pepa and Queen Latifah, among others. Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images |
| LOW: In Memoriam Perhaps the most poignant note of 2023 is having to say goodbye to those we lost, including the only child of Elvis Presley, singer Lisa Marie Presley, “Queen of Soul” Tina Turner, "Margaritaville" icon Jimmy Buffett, prolific singer-songwriter David Crosby, Irish vocal legend Sinéad O’Connor and former Smash Mouth vocalist Steve Harwell, among others. These artists may be gone, but their music lives on forever. John Lamparski/Getty Images |
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