【what is the proper following distance behind a motorcyclist】Disturbed Frontman Explains Why It’s ‘Strange’ To Compete Against Beyonce for Best Rock Performance Grammy
On Tuesday morning (Dec. 6),what is the proper following distance behind a motorcyclist hard-rock vets
Disturbed
secured the second Grammy nomination of their career, as their somber live rendition of
Simon & Garfunkel
’s “The Sound of Silence” was among the finalists for Best Rock Performance. The Chicago quartet, who included the cover on their 2015 album
Immortalized
, will compete against Twenty One Pilots’ Top 10 smash “Heathens”; the title track from
David Bowie
’s final album,
Blackstar
; a live performance of
Alabama Shakes
’ “Joe”; and “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” from Beyonce featuring
Jack White
.
When asked about that last nominee — Beyonce’s first appearance in the rock category, from her Album of the Year nominee
Lemonade
— Disturbed frontman David Draiman tells Billboard that, yes, competing with Queen Bey in this context
is a little startling
. “I have mad respect for all the artists in this category, including and especially Jack White,” Draiman says. “Is it strange [to be up against Beyonce]? I think the reason you asked the question is because it is. It definitely stands out — like, one of these things is not like the other, you know? But what are you going to do?”
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Yet Beyonce’s unexpected nomination in the rock field is “not what bothers” Draiman, whose group has scored five No. 1 albums on the
Billboard 200
chart since its formation two decades ago. “What bothers me is that everybody in this category are giants of the field,” he explains. “These are the biggest of the big, the people who made a serious impact this year. Those boys in Twenty One Pilots did some damage this year. And Bowie, a posthumous award happens all the time, and who more deserving? It’s crazy the amount of talent in this category.”
Draiman continues, “When did it all become ‘rock’? If you look at every other genre, there are so many categories and sub-categories. For rock, this is all we’ve got, so everything ends up being jammed into these four categories. Is it diverse? Absolutely. It’s too diverse! When you can have, with all due respect, a Beyonce and a Disturbed in the same category, something has gone wrong. Not taking anything away from her whatsoever, we’re just very different from each other.”
To be nominated for “The Sound of Silence,” which started climbing the Hot 100 chart after a March performance on
Conan
and eventually peaked at No. 42, is “very humbling,” says Draiman. After 20 years of delivering intense rock singles like “Down With the Sickness” and “Ten Thousand Fists,” Disturbed has the chance to snag its first Grammy Award, after being nominated and losing — for “Inside the Fire,” in the now-defunct Best Hard Rock Performance category — in 2009.
“It wasn’t something that we expected,” admits Draiman. “This song seems to have touched and affected so many different people. It feels wonderful. It’s been tangible now, maybe more than ever — the recognition factor has multiplied like tenfold, which is weird for me.”
Would Disturbed perform at the Grammys if asked? “I would love to do it,” says Draiman. And asked about the group’s chances of winning, the frontman is already assuming Bowie’s “Blackstar” has it in the bag. “If we’re gonna lose to someone, I’d love for it to be Bowie,” he says. “The nice thing about Bowie is that he’s been nominated in five categories, so he can give us this one!” Draiman laughs. “It’s a pipe dream, dude, but even pipe dreams are worth smoking.”
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- 5%, led by a 17% increase in average ticket and a slight decline in traffic. Growth in the quarter reflected the impact of households stocking up on essentials like paper goods and cleaning supplies as the pandemic became a nationwide concern, along with strength in discretionary categories as the quarter came to a close and stimulus dollars and tax refunds were disbursed.
As shown below, the results in the quarter materially changed the trend in two-year stacked comps for each of the banners, along with a significant acceleration for consolidated comps.
The increase in consolidated comps was the primary driver of an 8% increase in revenues to $6.3 billion. The company ended the quarter with 15,370 locations, up less than 1% year-over-year. This reflects a 7% increase in Dollar Tree units, offset by a 4% decline in Family Dollar units.
The top-line results at each banner flowed through to their respective income statements, with Dollar Tree gross margins and operating margins declining year-over-year while Family Dollar gross margins and operating margins expanded year-over-year. On a consolidated basis, gross margins contracted by 120 basis points in the quarter to 28.5%, reflective of a shift to lower-margin consumables, tariff costs and the impact of markdowns from the Easter headwinds at the Dollar Tree banner. The company saw slight operating leverage on SG&A from higher comps, with the net result being an 80 basis point contraction in operating margins to 5.8%, with operating income declining 5% to $366 million. This is not adjusted for $73 million of pandemic-related costs, such as PPE supplies.
In the first quarter, the company opened 85 stores (net of closures) and completed 220 Family Dollar renovations to the H2 format. Importantly, comps at renovated Family Dollar stores continue to outpace the chain average by more than 10%. On the call, management indicated that they plan on reducing both the number of new store openings (from 550 to 500) and the number of H2 renovations (from 1,250 to 750) in 2020.
Personally, given the fact that Family Dollar is seeing material benefits to its business from the pandemic with new or lapsed customers coming into its stores, I think the company should try to get more aggressive with its renovation plans, not less. On the other hand, you could argue that renovations cause short-term disruptions and limit their ability to fully capitalize on the business momentum they are currently experiencing.
As a result of fewer new stores and remodels, management now expects 2020 capital expenditures to total $1.0 billion compared to previous guidance of $1.2 billion. In addition, the company has temporarily suspended share repurchases. At quarter's end, the company had $1.8 billion in cash on its balance sheet compared to $4.3 billion in total debt.
Conclusion
In recent years, Dollar Tree has been a tale of two cities. While its namesake banner has generally delivered impressive financial results, Family Dollar has been a persistent underperformer. This quarter, those results flipped, and given what we've seen in the weeks since quarter's end, there's a decent possibility that we will see something similar in the coming months. As the CEO noted, the second quarter is off to a very good start at Family Dollar.
Here's the important question: how useful is that information is in terms of making future predictions about the business? Will recent success at Family Dollar translate into long-term success for the banner? The optimistic take is that new or lapsed customers, especially those visiting the renovated stores, could become recurring business for the banner. The pessimistic take is that they have experienced short-term success out of necessity as people went to any store that was open to try and find essentials like toilet paper and hand sanitizer that were largely out of stock throughout the retail landscape. From that view, many of these customers could abandon the retailer when life returns to normal. As Philbin noted on the conference call, early on [during the pandemic], folks needed us. Will people still shop as much at Family Dollar when it's no longer a necessity?
Personally, I do not place too much weight on the recent results. I will need to see incremental data points that indicate that Family Dollar has truly won sustained business from these new customers. While I still believe that the Dollar Tree banner is a well-positioned retailer with attractive unit returns, I'm not yet willing to say the same thing for Family Dollar. For that reason, along with the recent run-up in the stock price, I plan on staying on the sidelines for now.
Disclosure: None
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