business
Adam Lambert Returns to WMG With EastWest Records Deal
Singer-songwriter and Queen collaborator Adam Lambert has returned to the Warner Music fold, signing a global deal with EastWest Records ahead of new music. The American Idol runner-up’s first release under the deal, a cover of Noël Coward’s “Mad About The Boy” for a documentary about the witty playwright, arrives Friday (Oct. 7). According to the label, fans of Lambert can expect more music soon and a new album next year. Lambert’s first pairing with WMG — for flagship Warner Records — resulted in 2015’s The Original High, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart. That album, his third studio effort, followed a successful run at Sony Music’s RCA, where he scored a No. 1 album for 2012’s Trespassing and top-3 finish for his debut, 2009’s For Your Entertainment. The singer and LGBTQ...
Death Row’s Blockchain Ambitions Take Shape As Snoop Dogg Manager Joins Gala Music Advisory Board
After buying Death Row Records and promising to make it an “NFT label” earlier this year, those metaverse ambitions are beginning to take shape through an exclusive partnership with Web3 platform Gala Music, where Snoop Dogg‘s manager for brand partnerships, Nick Adler, has joined the advisory board. The newly-created board is rounded out by Tupac’s former manager Leila Steinberg, as well as Grammy-nominated DJ and composer BT, and record label executive DJ EFN. The board will focus on bringing more superstar artists into Web3 and explore crossovers into film and gaming through Gala’s sister companies. “The creation of our advisory board is an exciting next step in Gala Music’s growth,” said Brandon Tatum, vp and global head of music business at Gala Music. “We look forward to leveraging t...
Maria Fernandez, EVP/COO of Sony Music Latin Iberia on ‘Latin Hitmaker’ Podcast
As COO and executive vp of Sony Music Latin Iberia, María Fernández is one of the most powerful women in Latin music. But power is rarely on her mind. “Power is something I never sought and something I never really think about,” says Fernández. “To me, real power is the power that doesn’t need to be displayed.” Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Fernández was long a Sony secret weapon who worked largely behind-the-scenes, until her boss, CEO/president Afo Verde, nudged her forward. “He’s the one who told me that to truly understand this business and contribute to it, I had to spend more time with managers, with artists, with people in the industry. It allowed me to have a vision that normally people that are in finance may not have,” says Fernánde...
Blake Shelton Sells Master Recordings Ownership to Influence Media Partners
Country hitmaker Blake Shelton has sold the ownership of his commercially-released master recordings from 2001-2019 to Influence Media Partners, the company announced Tuesday (Oct. 4). Over his career, Shelton has enjoyed 72 Hot Country Songs entries, including 14 No. 1s and 33 top 10s; 58 Country Airplay entries, including 28 No. 1s (3rd-most all-time) and 36 top 10s; two No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200; and seven No. 1 albums on Top Country Albums. The catalog sale includes tracks like “Boys ‘Round Here,” “Honeybee,” “Nobody But You” (with Gwen Stefani), “God’s Country” and “Austin,” among others. Additionally, Shelton will team up with Influence Media for a joint venture that will serve to promote his music while still allowing him to earn a share of the profit generated fro...
James Brown, Godfather of Soul and Radio Station Owner, Among 2022 Radio Hall of Fame ‘Legends of Radio’ Inductees
James Brown was one of the 10 inaugural inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. Now, he’s also a member of the Radio Hall of Fame. The Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago announced on Tuesday (Oct. 4) that Brown is among 10 “Legends of Radio” inductees into the Radio Hall of Fame for 2022. The award recognizes “the talents and efforts of air personalities, programmers and operators who contributed with greatness to the radio industry and have since passed away.” Brown is honored as a radio station owner of WJBE in Knoxille, Tenn. He bought the station in the late ’60s, changing its name to WJBE. (The call letters stood for James Brown Enterprises). Brown died in Atlanta on Christmas Day 2005. These 10 radio pros — eight men and two women — take their place in...
Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw Festival Will Not Return for 2022
Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw festival in Los Angeles is skipping 2022, his manager Chris Clancy tells Billboard, and is planning to bring the festival back next year. “It’s really not that deep,” says Clancy of the Goldenvoice-produced event. “Tyler toured all year and was busy with a number of projects. Reading the tea leaves and what’s happening with festivals coming out of the pandemic, we thought it would be best to come back next year.” This has been an unusual year for festivals, as large-scale events largely returned from the pandemic. The festival space was more crowded and oversaturated in 2022 than many expected as promoters created new events to take advantage of an uptick in ticket buying and fan demand at the beginning of the year for events like Coachella and Outside L...
Binance burns $1.8M in LUNC trading fees following community proposal
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it completed the first burn of Terra Classic tokens’ trading fees in response to a community proposal from September. In an Oct. 3 update, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the exchange had burned roughly $1.8 million worth of Terra Classic (LUNC) — formerly Terra (LUNA) — trading fees for LUNC/BUSD and LUNC/USDT spot and margin trading pairs. According to Binance, the burn included the equivalent of 1,863,213.47 Tether (USDT) — roughly 5.5 million LUNC. First LUNC burn, $1.8 million ish.https://t.co/b86RlCYqe3 — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) October 3, 2022 The exchange’s original announcement from Sept. 26 said the burns would be completed every Monday — making the next event on Oct. 10 — sending trading fees to a LUNC burn address. Many in the Terr...
Kim Kardashian Paying $1.26M to SEC Over Crypto Promotion
Kim Kardashian has agreed to pay $1.26 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency on Instagram without disclosing she’d been paid $250,000 to do so. The SEC said Monday that the reality TV star and entrepreneur has agreed to cooperate with its ongoing investigation. The SEC said Kardashian failed to disclose that she was paid to publish a post on her Instagram account about EMAX tokens, a crypto asset security being offered by EthereumMax. Kardashian’s post contained a link to the EthereumMax website, which provided instructions for potential investors to purchase EMAX tokens. “The federal securities laws are clear that any celebrity or other individual who promotes a crypto asset security must disclose the nature, source, and amount of ...
BMG to Hit 1 Billion Euros in Revenues by 2024
BMG says it will start generating one billion euros in revenue starting in 2024, achieving a financial target the company set for itself a full two years ahead of schedule, according to a corporate presentation made last week. The record label and publisher improved its growth forecast thanks to strategic investments from parent company Bertelsmann and a strong performance from several recently acquired song catalogs, BMG chief executive Hartwig Masuch told a gathering of senior Bertelsmann executives. Meeting its billion-euro goal will make BMG one of the fastest-growing new music companies in the industry, executives said. Founded in 2008, BMG generated 663 million euros ($784.13 million) in revenues in 2021, a 10.1% increase from 2020. In the first half of 2022, the company reported rev...
Binance launches New Zealand-based offices following regulatory approval
Global cryptocurrency exchange Binance has registered with New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and opened local offices in the country. In a Sept. 29 tweet, Binance said it was registered as a financial service provider in New Zealand, allowing residents to access services including spot trading, nonfungible tokens and staking. The move to the crypto-friendly Pacific nation followed regulators in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kazakhstan and Italy giving the green light for Binance to open an offshoot. “New Zealand is an exciting market with a strong history of fintech innovation,” said Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. New Zealand! We are kiwis. https://t.co/UtxbVlvXFV — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) September 30, 2022 New Zealand lawmakers and regulators have largely not imposed strict...
The CD Turns 40: How the ‘Shiny, Tiny’ Discs Took Over
On Oct. 1, 1982, in Japan, when Billy Joel‘s 52nd Street became the first-ever CD to go on sale, two electronics giants had been pushing for years to switch from the beloved vinyl LP to the shiny new digital-optical disc. Sony in Japan and Philips in Eindhoven, Netherlands, had invented the compact-disc hardware, and they were aggressively lobbying the world’s biggest labels to provide the software – music – to go with it. Up to that point, the labels wouldn’t cooperate – not even CBS Records, Sony’s longtime partner for years before the electronics company bought it outright in 1987. “If there would have been rotten eggs available, they would have thrown them at me,” recalls Jan Timmer, then head of Philips Worldwide, of an Athens, Greece, music-industry conference where he attempted to i...
Defected Records’ New Owner Wez Saunders On Protecting The Label’s Legacy: I’m Not Here To Reinvent The Wheel’
On a late summer morning in London, Wez Saunders walked into work at the Defected Records headquarters and greeted his staff as he has for years. But on this otherwise normal day, something felt different: “Just for a split second,” Saunders recalls, “it was like, ‘Wow, I own this now.’” On August 23, Defected announced that its founder, Simon Dunmore, was stepping down as CEO, with Saunders, who has been with the label in various roles since 2014, acquiring the music company and all its subsidiaries. (Dunmore will stay on in a new role as A&R consultant.) Though Saunders had worked closely with Dunmore in running Defected’s day-to-day operations, there’s a pressure in taking over a label with so much history. When Dunmore launched Defected in 1999, its first release, Soulsearche...
