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Stanley Mills, Former Music Publisher, Dies at 91
Stanley Mills, a former music publisher who served on the boards of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and the Harry Fox Agency, has died at the age of 91. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Mills, the son of Mills Music Publishing Company founder Jack Mills, died on Thursday (Dec. 29) at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y. A cause of death was not provided. Mills was born on Feb. 18, 1931. He began his career by working for his father at Mills Music. He remained with the company after it was sold to EMI Music Publishing in 1964. Two years later, he joined E.B. Marks (now Carlin America). In 1968, with the urging of his songwriter friends, Mills founded September Music and Galahad Music, representing...
How Pentatonix Became Today’s Most Popular Holiday Act
Mariah Carey may have had the most popular song of the 2022 holiday season, but Pentatonix was its most-listened-to act. The five-person vocal group had 92 recordings in the top 10,000 holiday tracks and total consumption of 2.58 million song units, based on sales and streams from Nov. 4 to Dec. 22, according to Luminate — more than any other artist. While Pentatonix doesn’t have the same kinds of smash singles as Christmas-time mainstays like Carey, Andy Williams and Burl Ives, the group uses a combination of quantity and popularity to drive its seasonal success. Pentatonix’s top holiday track, a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” ranked No. 43 and accounted for about 10.5% of its total track consumption. Its cover of the David Foster-Jennifer Thompson-Jenner song “Grown Up Chr...
LiveOne Podcasting Division Files With SEC for Spinoff
Music streaming company LiveOne’s podcasting division, PodcastOne, filed an S-1 with the Securities Exchange Commission on Tuesday as a prelude to becoming a standalone, publicly traded company. LiveOne has set a record date of Jan. 16 for PodcastOne’s special dividend to LiveOne shareholders of record. The spinoff “will meaningfully enhance our industry market perception,” the company wrote in the filing, “thereby providing greater growth opportunities for us than our consolidated operation as a private subsidiary of LiveOne.” LiveOne will remain PodcastOne’s majority shareholder and will distribute approximately 6.2% of outstanding shares to LiveOne shareholders. LiveOne will retain 86.3% of outstanding shares. The remaining shares will be held by holders of bridge notes as well as...
How Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ Became a Christmas Hit Decades After Its Release
Since the business of Christmas music is growing so fast – it occupies five of the top 10 places on the Billboard Hot 100 this week – we are re-presenting some of our stories from Christmas past. This piece, about how Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” came to be considered a holiday song, originally ran in 2019. The story of the song is recounted in the recent documentary Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song. Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” with its ambiguous, imagistic lyrics about sex and spirituality, was once described by Jeff Buckley, perhaps the song’s most famous interpreter, as “the hallelujah of the orgasm.” So how did an a cappella version by Pentatonix get to No. 21 on the Billboard Holiday 100 in 2018 — after peaking on that chart at No. 2 in 2016...
These Two Former Billboard Staffers Produced One of Rap’s Biggest Christmas Hits
Since the business of Christmas music is growing so fast – it occupies five of the top 10 places on the Billboard Hot 100 this week – we are re-presenting some of our stories from Christmas past. This piece, about how two former Billboard staffers produced the holiday hit “Christmas Rappin’” for then-up-and-coming rapper Kurtis Blow, originally ran in 2019. Since then, in 2020, Robert Ford passed away. One groundbreaking Christmas hit didn’t just make the Billboard charts — it was produced by two former employees. In 1979, J.B. Moore and Robert Ford left the magazine to produce “Christmas Rappin’ ” for an up-and-coming rapper named Kurtis Blow. Released on Mercury Records, the single went gold, and Blow became the first rapper to sign a major-label deal. At Billboard, Moore ...
Allen Becker, Who Built PACE Concerts Into a Live Promotion Powerhouse, Dies at 90
In the 1970s, Louis Messina visited the Houston Astrodome to check out the events his new business partner, Allen J. Becker, was putting on. “He’s doing boat shows and having Evel Knievel jump over 150 cars and thrill shows and demolition derbies,” Messina recalls. “I went, ‘Holy crap, there are 60,000 people here!’ A guy jumped from the top of the Astrodome into the air bag.” Becker, 90, who died Monday (Dec. 12) at his Houston home, first approached Messina, then a New Orleans rock promoter, in 1975 to form a concert-promotion partnership. Their company, PACE Concerts, went on to dominate Texas and much of the South for more than 20 years, booking stars from The Who to Bruce Springsteen to Rush. “Allen had an old saying: ‘I’d rather lose money with you than you make a dime without me’ — ...
SoundCloud Revenue Rose 19% in 2021 Thanks to Subscriber Growth, Creator Tools Adoption
SoundCloud Holdings GmbH and its subsidiaries reported revenue in 2021 of 230.7 million euros ($273 million at the average exchange rate in 2021 of 1.18308), up 19% from the prior year, according to audited financial statements published by the privately held company in Germany on Tuesday (Dec. 13). SoundCloud, which originally gained popularity for its embeddable streaming widget, has a unique business model that mixes tools for music creators and listening for fans. Fan revenue — from advertising and subscriptions — improved 16.6% to 143.3 million euros ($170 million), or 62.2% of total revenue, down from 63.5% in 2020. Revenue from subscribers grew 20% year over year and exceeded internal expectations, according to the financial statements. Advertising revenue was in line with exp...
SoundCloud, Third & Hayden Team Up for Joint Venture
SoundCloud has linked up with Third & Hayden, the Atlanta management and services company founded by music exec Kei Henderson, for a joint venture, the companies announced today (Dec. 5). The new venture will see Third & Hayden signing new acts to its label and developing them with the help of SoundCloud’s services division, which will provide marketing, A&R, distribution and promotion support, as well as financial backing. The first two acts to sign to the new venture are Los Angeles singer/songwriter Jordan Hawkins and Atlanta-based rapper Key!. The deal is the latest for SoundCloud’s new roster initiative, which has previously inked a joint venture with Quality Control’s Solid Foundation Management to work on new acts and signed distribution deals with Lil Pump, Tekno and Al...
The Ledger: Music Stocks Are Rebounding at the End of a Rough Year
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. After a miserable year for music stocks — and stocks in general — 2022 could end on a string of positive notes. As rising interest rates have hammered stocks and erased big gains made during the pandemic, the Billboard Global Music Index, a float-adjusted group of 20 publicly traded music companies, is down 36.1% in 2022, and shares of vital companies such as Spotify and Warner Music Group are down 65.7% and 20.5%, respectively. But in recent weeks, the momentum has reversed dramatically. The Billboard Global Music Index is up 12.6% over the last two weeks and 14.6% in the five weeks since Oct. 28....
The Ledger: Music Stocks Are Rebounding at the End of a Rough Year
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. After a miserable year for music stocks — and stocks in general — 2022 could end on a string of positive notes. As rising interest rates have hammered stocks and erased big gains made during the pandemic, the Billboard Global Music Index, a float-adjusted group of 20 publicly traded music companies, is down 36.1% in 2022, and shares of vital companies such as Spotify and Warner Music Group are down 65.7% and 20.5%, respectively. But in recent weeks, the momentum has reversed dramatically. The Billboard Global Music Index is up 12.6% over the last two weeks and 14.6% in the five weeks since Oct. 28....
Jeff Blackburn Retires as Head of Amazon’s Global Entertainment Group
Jeff Blackburn is retiring. The head of Amazon’s Global Entertainment Group will sign off from the company in January after more than two decades with the retail giant and streaming platform. The moves were announced Friday via internal memos from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and Blackburn himself. The news comes a year and a half after Blackburn returned from a yearlong sabbatical in a new role as head of the company’s global entertainment group that included combined oversight of music, audio entertainment, games and video for the company. Blackburn’s decision to retire comes after a busy week at Amazon. The e-commerce giant this week fully integrated MGM into its exec ranks after its $8.5 billion purchase of the storied studio closed in May. Amazon Studios head Jennifer Sal...
Concord Taps Bond Market With $1.65 Billion Asset-Backed Security
Independent music company Concord is the latest to tap into a growing market for music royalty-backed securities with Concord Music Royalties, LLC, Series 2022-1, a $1.65 billion asset-backed security. The bond will be supported by mechanical, performance and synchronization royalties from more than 1 million assets. The proceeds will be used to fund reserve accounts, pay transaction expenses, repay debt and for other general corporate purposes, according to a report by ratings agency KBRA. KBRA gave Series 2022-1 a preliminary rating of A+ (on a scale ranging from AAA to D), citing the “large, diversified catalog with globally recognized songs and artists” such as R.E.M., Plain White T’s, Creed, Evanescence, Genesis, Phill Collins and Mike + The Mechanics — the latter t...
