Apogee Artists on the Billboard 200
(Week of May 2, 2016)
Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation with this week’s Apogee Artists on the Billboard 200. These powerful women have found themselves consistently on the charts making them a force to be reckoned with. Each artist’s album had a little help from producers and engineers using Apogee products. Let’s celebrate women in music by taking a look at three albums on the Billboard 200 created by today’s influential women.
Beyoncé | Lemonade
#1
Beyoncé made waves with the release of Lemonade—finding herself at #1 on the Billboard 200 this week selling 485,000 copies in the first week. The visual album was accompanied by a one-hour film on HBO upon its release. Beyoncé became the first female to chart 12 or more songs on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time, with every song on the album debuting on the chart.
Diplo, an Apogee Quartet user, is credited for two songs on Lemonade—”Hold Up” and “All Night.”
Taylor Swift | 1989
#42
Taylor Swift is no stranger to the Billboard charts. With 1989 reaching #1 in November of 2014, the album has spent an outstanding 79 weeks on the Billboard 200. The preceding album, Red, also debuted at #1 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies—making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings. As of March 2015, she has sold 27.67 million albums in the United States, making her the seventh-largest-selling female artist, in terms of album sales, since Nielsen began tracking sales in 1991
Producer/Songwriters Ryan Tedder and Nathan Chapman are credited on Swift’s 1989. Tedder having a hand in “Welcome to New York” and “I Know Places.” You can hear Chapman’s production contributions on “This Love.” Both producers are avid Apogee users fond of the Symphony I/O and Groove.
“I’ve always trusted Apogee to produce impeccable sound quality and conversion and the Groove delivers.”
“I was astounded at the Symphony I/O. The depth, the 3-D characteristic to it is kind of an intangible thing that you can’t really explain…You FEEL it. There was a feeling of more of that openness and air around everything and the detail and the 3-D quality that is what we all really hope for when we record music.”
Selena Gomez | Revival
#57
Selena Gomez has been in the spotlight for years ranging from acting to music to her publicized relationship with Justin Bieber. Her recent album, Revival, quickly reached #1 and has spent 29 weeks on the Billboard 200.
Part way through the recording process, Gomez and her team traveled to Mexico to find inspiration. She said: “Hit-Boy and a few [members] of his producing team, Rock Mafia, and [songwriters] Justin Tranter and Julia Michaels. It was all of us in one house for five or six days. We would go out, listen to live music, and go back and create in this studio – in a closet, basically. We did four songs there. Only two ended up making the record [‘Revival’ and ‘Body Heat’], but that trip was so crucial. I was just figuring out what I wanted to say.”
Rock Mafia posted a photo on Facebook on October 5, 2015 of the the studio setup featuring an Apogee Quartet.
