When gearing up for the follow-up to his breakout album Stick Season, Noah Kahan and his team knew there was a lot riding on the project. “Expectations were otherworldly, and pressure was palpable,” says his manager, Drew Simmons at Foundations.
But that new album, The Great Divide, has met and exceeded those expectations: Following its release on April 30, the set flew to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 389,000 equivalent album units, making it Kahan’s first chart-topper and best week ever. What’s more, The Great Divide’s debut marked the third-biggest week for any artist of the year, the biggest week for a rock album since 2014, the largest streaming week for any album this year and, at 118,000 vinyl units, the biggest vinyl sales week for a rock album in the modern era, dating to 1991.
The album, which was preceded by a Netflix documentary and will be followed by a stadium headlining tour, is a big moment for Kahan. After nearly a decade signed to Republic Records (he is now on REPUBLIC’s Mercury Records), his breakout moment finally arrived in 2024, when the single “Stick Season” climbed all the way to the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10, peaking at No. 9. With this new project, Kahan bested that mark — the title track has reached No. 6 — on the way to landing all of the album’s 21 tracks on the chart, making him just the 13th artist to chart that many tracks there simultaneously.
And now, it helps Simmons earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week. Here, he talks about the album’s massive debut, the work that went into the rollout and how the team came through amid the massive expectations and pressure that existed following Kahan’s big break. “Everything we do as a team filters through the question: What makes for the best fan experience?” Simmons says. “Noah and his team care deeply about their fans, treating them like friends and bringing them along with genuine, consistent attention throughout the rollout.”
This week, Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 389,000 equivalent album units, the biggest week for an album classified as rock since 2014 and the biggest streaming week for any album of this year. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
Noah made a brilliant record — everything starts with the music. The demand we built throughout the rollout was driven by the strength of what was teased and Noah’s ability to connect with his audience. Behind it were years of thoughtful decisions from the core team, from assembling the creative team to giving Noah the space to step back and live life.
Key moments of the campaign included revealing the first single just before the Grammys and debuting the video during the broadcast, thanks to Mastercard. The Netflix documentary, Noah Kahan: Out of Body, captured the end of the Stick Season touring cycle and the transition into making The Great Divide. We set out to chronicle that journey and it resulted in an honest look at Noah’s relationships with family, friends and his community. Directed by Nick Sweeney, it premiered 11 days before the album and helped contextualize the project.
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Across Foundations and Mercury Records, there is an amazingly supportive and talented group of people weighing in on decisions, all focused around what serves Noah and his art most sincerely. As a team, we were intentional about creating the perfect storm around this release and building momentum — sharing songs live and on socials while developing a visual world that matched the introspective lyrics and strong sense of place created by Noah. Everything we do as a team filters through the question: What makes for the best fan experience? Noah and his team care deeply about their fans, treating them like friends and bringing them along with genuine, consistent attention throughout the rollout.
Some notable members of the creative team are producers Gabe Simon and Aaron Dessner and collaborators Carrie K, Sam Westhoff, Noah Levine, Dylan Jones, Nina Devitri, Todd Clark and Amy Allen, mixer Ryan Hewitt and creative director Mikey Laviolette at Without Contrast.
This is Noah’s first No. 1 album, and his first project since “Stick Season” became a global phenomenon. How did you approach this album differently given the success of the last one?
Expectations were otherworldly, and pressure was palpable. Although it is Noah’s fourth album, The Great Divide is effectively his sophomore release given how much his world changed through Stick Season. There were many challenging hurdles along the way, but we kept reminding ourselves that we need to trust our instincts, continue to be ourselves and pursue the songs that genuinely moved us emotionally. At times, it was a grind in the studio, and at moments we had to step away to allow the creative process space. Patience was key, and our belief in Noah’s ability never wavered.
Noah’s 118,000 vinyl sales are also the best sales week on vinyl for a rock album in the modern era. With eight vinyl variants available, what was your physical release strategy for the album?
The sales were driven by a deep relationship between Noah and his audience. It’s mostly a reflection of how invested fans are in Noah’s music and him as a meaningful artist. All the variants were themed as extensions of the album details. We wanted to offer an intentional and meaningful variety, and made a point to share offerings with his longtime fans first.
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How did that Netflix documentary help introduce this release to fans, and how has it helped Noah tell his story?
The documentary was one of the cornerstones of our rollout. Noah is a beautifully articulate narrator and such a sincere, funny and humble person. Through the documentary, we wanted to offer insight into Noah’s unique and charismatic perspective. We worked with the team at Radical Films — Dave Sirulnick, Samantha Mustari and Stacey Reiss — over a three-year period of time, capturing Noah’s life. On the management side, Noah’s operations manager, Ryan Langlois, was the engine behind this process.
Noah was incredibly brave in exposing some of his most personal vulnerabilities. It takes a caring and compassionate person to reveal their biggest struggles for the world to see, simply in the hope that it will help viewers feel seen and help someone know that the challenges they face are human.
Noah is about to embark on his first stadium tour, which sold out, just three years after he was on the road as an opening act. How do you help manage a career that has blown up so quickly?
I have been working with Noah for 12 years. The first eight years of development helped him gain experience on stage and navigate the trials of touring. Even with a solid base to build on, nothing can fully prepare someone for the new reality that comes with fame and demand. Artists can be the best versions of themselves when they have trusting, caring and empathetic support around them. Having a capable and experienced community helps to minimize some of the challenges brought about by taking leaps forward in scale. When we don’t have the direct experience to solve a growth issue, we bring in people that have been through it before and seek their guidance. For me, having the community of my team at Foundations to troubleshoot with has been invaluable.
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Noah has been open about his mental health struggles, and has worked as a mental health advocate through his Busyhead project. How have you supported him on that front?
Noah and I launched The Busyhead Project together. It came from his desire to walk the walk of supporting the mental health community. It was a natural evolution and an answer to, “What good can we do with the platform we have?” The Busyhead Project is a career-long and deeply fulfilling endeavor. We set out to try to raise $1 million for mental health, and over three years we now have raised $6.6 million and counting.
We have an annual golf tournament and concert where 100% of proceeds go to supporting mental health care providers, and we integrate TBP into every ticket sale, every tour experience and every brand deal we do. We commit a lot of time and energy to continuing its growth. We work with partners like Jeb Gutelius and Lindsay Rosenberg at Sailworks to run the operations of TBP, as well as Hilary Gleason at Backline to offer access to care for our community in the music industry. We have big ambitions for the future years of The Busyhead Project and are really proud of what it has become.
What’s next for Noah in addition to this tour?
Bringing this album to venues around the world, continuing to grow The Busyhead Project and finding new ways to create and expand Noah’s community.
