Scoreboard: FGL, Barbra, Britney

Scoreboard takes on Week 1 of the fall release season featuring Florida Georgia Line, Barbra Streisand, and Britney Spears.

Billboard Artist Top 10

For the magazine dated September 17, 2016

See the full chart at http://www.billboard.com/charts/artist-100

The Scoreboard is switching it up for the fall release season, highlighting the three biggest artist moves each week. On the latest Scoreboard, the three artists are country duo Florida Georgia Line, the Broadway icon Barbra Streisand, and the legendary Ms. Britney Spears. Among the three, Streisand has the new #1 album in the country, Spears the highest charting single, and FGL take #1 on the Artist 100.

Florida Georgia Line Dig Their Roots

Country bros Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard took their genre by storm in 2012 with “Cruise” and crossed over to the Hot 100 in 2013 with a hip-hop mashup of the song with Nelly. This week FGL take #1 on the Artist 100 with their third album Dig Your Roots, which features cameos from Ziggy Marley, Tim McGraw, and, most inexplicably, Backstreet Boys. Since Billboard debuted the Artist 100 in 2014, only two country acts have been to #1 – Zac Brown Band and FGL, for whom this week is the second time they have reached the top. On their new single “May We All,” FGL sing about how they “play the Travis Tritt right above the 2Pac,” and that looks like the winning country formula in 2016.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJ3NAfaAN3E/?taken-by=flagaline

Indeed

Barbra Streisand’s 51 Years of Number Ones

It may seem like Barbra Streisand has been around forever and her accolades are innumerable, but the Scoreboard will try its best to enumerate the success of @barbrastreisand. Her latest #1 album, Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, is the 11th #1 album of her career. Streisand has had more #1 albums than any other female singer and her stretch of number ones dates back over 51 years and 10 months to 1964. At 74 years of age, Streisand also has a lot of runway left. Just two years ago, Tony Bennett beat his own record for oldest artist to have a Billboard #1 album at age 88. That gives Streisand plenty of time to work the Broadway formula in new ways. The most recent album turns to actors, rather than than singers, to help Barbra deliver classics such as “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” from The Sound of Music and “Anything You Can Do” from Annie Get Your Gun. She had a 10 date tour to promote the album in August, and in her seventh decade as a musical icon @barbrastreisand continues delivering on the Scoreboard.

Barbra is full of gratitude to all who helped her get back to #1

Glory Comes for Britney Spears

Although Britney Spears’s career is significantly shorter than Streisand’s, in many ways her ability to stay relevant for 17 years since “…Baby One More Time” deserves as much respect as Streisand’s 51 years of reliably delivering showtunes. There was a stretch in the mid-aughts when the world worried if Britney was going to make it, but make it she did, scoring three Hot 100 #1s between 2008 and 2011, and this week she makes a big move on the Scoreboard with her 9th studio album Glory. The album not only has the typical Britney dancefloor bangers and romantic drama, but also explores hip-hop and EDM. On some tracks she sounds like Flume ft. Kai, on others like Fifth Harmony ft. Fetty Wap, but because it is Britney, the Scoreboard cannot blame her for appropriation. Pop artists use the Hollywood production machine behind the scenes and Britney is certainly entitled to employ Cashmere Cat and DJ Mustard if she wants to. Check out the sexy “Make Me” (ft. G-Eazy) music video below and check in to the Scoreboard every week this fall to see if Britney can stay in the Top 10: