SONY STARTS FISCAL YEAR ON FIRE

No fooling here: 4/1 marked the kickoff of Sony Music’s fiscal calendar, and the Rob Stringer-led music group’s Q1has begun just as its Q4 ended: en fuego.

On the album side, Sony is delivering the year’s biggest back-to-back debuts with Future & Metro Boomin’s WE DON’T TRUST YOU (Boominati/Republic/Freebandz/Epic) and Beyoncé’s COWBOY CARTER (Parkwood/Columbia).

Future & Metro’s album not only delivered the biggest streaming weeks of the hitmakers’ careers, it’s armed with the biggest new song in the U.S. in “Like That” f/Kendrick Lamar, which has notched the most weekly streams for a song since Miley Cyrus’ massive “Flowers.” TRUST isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Queen Bey, meanwhile, leads off Sony’s fiscal year with a genre-bending blockbuster that’s achieving both commercial and critical acclaim—just as Sony has seen with SZA, Tyler, The Creator and Harry Styles. COWBOY CARTER will be Bey’s biggest debut since 2016’s Lemonade and should be a lock for top-tier recognition come Grammy time.

Sony was already hot on the song front—thanks to tracks by AWAL’s Djo, RCA’s Bryson Tiller, Alamo’s Bossman Dlow, Cactus Jack/Epic’s Travis Scott and RCA’s Tate McRae—before Future, Hozier ("Too Sweet") and Bey ("TEXAS HOLD 'EM") delivered hits in the last two weeks; the trio currently holds the top three spots at Spotify U.S. Bey’s “II MOST WANTED” f/Cyrus has the early hallmarks of a smash as well. Another Sony hitmaker, Kemosabe/RCA’s Doja Cat, just announced that a new cut will arrive on Friday, with her giant look as a Coachella headliner looming.

The logjam of Sony releases at the top of the DSP charts isn’t expected to break up anytime soon. Future & Metro have another album dropping 4/12 and rap fans can’t wait to see if additional Drake-dissing tracks are on it. Until Taylor Swift clears the deck on 4/19, expect Beyoncé and Future & Metro to trade #1 and #2 with 100k+ weeks.

Word has it that, inspired by SME’s killer run, aspiring industry professionals have started eating mince and potatoes for lunch.