business
Olivia Rodrigo Scores Another Chart Double In Australia
Staying with the ARIA Albums Chart, Australian Idol alum Shannon Noll bags his seventh Top Ten with Raw (Independent), an acoustic compilation of covers and new songs. It’s new at No. 3. Brisbane pop duo The Veronicas earn a fourth Top 10 with Godzilla (Sony Music), their first album in seven years. It’s new at No. 7. The Origliasso sisters have hit No. 2 on three separate occasions, with The Secret Life Of… (April 2006), Hook Me Up (November 2007) and The Veronicas (December 2014). But they’ve never had a No. 1. They’ll hope to change that when they release another new album, Human, on June 25. Also new to the chart this week is Allday’s Drinking with My Smoking Friends (Independent), at No. 13. It’s the Adelaide singer-songwriter/rapper’s fourth studio and the followup to Starry Ni...
Who Is Bill Ackman, UMG’s New Anchor Investor?
PSTH is sponsored by three investment funds managed by Pershing Square Capital Management, the storied New York-based hedge fund. PSTH has $5 billion available to invest in UMG through a $4 billion IPO on Sept. 11, 2020, on the New York Stock Exchange, at $20 a share and an additional $1 billion investment by Pershing Square. In addition, Pershing Square purchased $1 billion of units, each worth one share of Class A common stock and one-third of a redeemable warrant, at $20 per unit. It can buy an addition $2 billion of units in private placements. The PSTH-UMG deal would be unusual because SPACs typically target companies that want to go public. The SPAC, nothing more than shell company, acquires the target in what’s called a reverse merger, thereby al...
This Social Audio App Is Driving Millions of Streams With Unofficial Listening Parties
So when 400,000 total BTS fans joined a May 25 “Butter” streaming party on Stationhead hosted by user @BTSCHARTDATA, Stationhead says they drove 5.4 million streams of the song during the session. Then, they did it again — and again — with marathon streaming parties all week from users like @lifeofbts and @purplehourradio. “Butter” topped the chart due to a number of factors including 18.1 million radio airplay audience impressions and 242,800 download sales in the tracking week, according to MRC data, and the streaming figure provided by Stationhead wasn’t U.S.-specific or audited by the streaming services. Still, the Stationhead parties no doubt contributed to the 32.2 million ...
Jam Bands Lead a Concerts Revival, Aided By Livestream Boom
Jam bands have quietly become the surprise earners of the pandemic thanks to devoted fans and compelling livestreams, and are now poised to dominate touring as live concerts return. Unlike most pop and contemporary touring shows, jam and improvisation-heavy bands are constantly changing their sets and musical arrangements so that no two shows are the same, attracting fans willing to pay to see the same band play multiple sets of different material. Ticket sales for these kinds of acts have been exceptionally strong, says Don Strasburg, vp/senior talent buyer for AEG Live Rocky Mountains, though he’s hesitant to use the “jam” label, considering the genre’s diversity of styles from bluegrass to funk. Such acts that value “spontaneity and improvisation,” says Strasburg, “were already the larg...
Scooter Braun Hit With Fraud Lawsuit Over Scuttled Private Equity Fund
But in April 2018, according to Comisar, Braun repudiated financial commitments and stopped funding everything including Comisar’s salary. “Bolno, completely unrepentant, explained to Comisar that Braun never really believed he would have to perform and, brazenly, told him that ‘people in the entertainment industry do not honor their contractual agreements,'” states the complaint. “Bolno made clear that he and Braun believed that Braun was free to renege on his commitments with impunity and without consequences and would wreak havoc upon Comisar if he chose to pursue Braun on his commitments.” Comisar says he was threatened with a smear campaign that included falsely being fired from Goldman Sachs, dereliction of duties by devoting time to advisory servi...
Yo Gotti’s CMG Label Teams with Interscope Geffen A&M on Artist Development
“With 25 years under his belt as a successful artist, label head, manager and entrepreneur, Yo Gotti has built an impressive legacy in hip hop and remains one of the most exciting voices in music,” said IGA chairman John Janick in a statement. “We look forward to working closely with Gotti’s team to continue to build upon CMG’s incredible run in our business.” “I have a tremendous amount of respect for John Janick, Steve Berman, Nicole Wyskoarko and the entire Interscope team and their track record of success,” added Gotti. “We share the same vision about winning – we want to break barriers, disrupt the industry and develop the next generation of superstars. I’m thrilled to partner with them as I continue focusing on CMG’s expansion.” Founded in 2012, CMG has also worked to develop the car...
Assessing the Music Industry’s Progress 1 Year After Blackout Tuesday: ‘We Need to Build a Bigger Table’
#TheShowMustBePaused and other principals working to achieve sustainable diversity, equity and inclusion assess the industry’s progress so far. A year ago Wednesday (June 2), Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas brought the music industry to a standstill. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the global protests it spurred, the pair called for a day of racial reckoning — dubbed Blackout Tuesday by supporters — and simultaneously launched #TheShowMustBePaused to hold the industry accountable for its own systemic bias. “Our mission,” stated Agyemang and Thomas at the time, “is to hold the industry at large, including major corporations + their partners who benefit from the efforts, struggles and successes of Black people, accountable … it is the obligation of these entities to protect and e...
The Players Behind BTS’ ‘Butter’: See the Full Credits
Artists:Main Artist – BTS Songwriters:Composer Lyricist – Alex BilowitzComposer Lyricist – Jenna AndrewsComposer Lyricist – RMComposer Lyricist – Rob GrimaldiComposer Lyricist – Ron PerryComposer Lyricist – Sebastian GarciaComposer Lyricist – Stephen KirkVocal Arranger – Jenna AndrewsVocal Arranger – Rob GrimaldiVocal Arranger – Stephen Kirk Producers:Producer – Rob GrimaldiProducer – Ron PerryProducer – Stephen Kirk Engineers:Engineer – Juan “Saucy” PenaEngineer – Keith ParryMastering Engineer – Chris GehringerMixer – Serban Ghenea Labels:Distributor – The Orchard EnterprisesLabel – BIGHIT MUSIC/HYBE Explore the full “Butter” credits on Jaxsta her...
Splendour in the Grass 2021 Sets Virtual Event Featuring Khalid, CHVRCHES, The Killers & More
Australia’s popular mid-winter festival Splendour in the Grass will go digital next month, with a two-day virtual event featuring performances from Khalid, CHVRCHES, The Killers, Charlie XCX and many more. Also confirmed to the Splendour XR lineup are Denzel Curry, Phoebe Bridgers, Vance Joy, Little Simz, The Avalanches, Duke Dumont, Of Monsters and Men, Masked Wolf, Tash Sultana and Russ Millions, while Grimes will unleash her new project, Meteverse (Super Beta). “We could not be more excited about Splendour XR and the opportunity to take the Splendour goodness online to our existing community and also to new audiences around the globe,” comments SITG co-producers Jessica Ducrou and Paul Piticco. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined ...
40 Music Stars Who Are Overdue for Kennedy Center Honors
Because the Kennedy Center Honors were slow to embrace popular music forms, and because they also honor non-music performers, they are terribly backlogged in their music honors. The 43rd annual Kennedy Center Honors broadcast is set to air on Sunday, nearly six months later than usual — the delay due, of course, to the COVID-19 pandemic. Garth Brooks, Joan Baez, violinist Midori, Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Allen are this year’s honorees. Gloria Estefan, who received the honor in 2017, is hosting for the second time. The Kennedy Center Honors are highly competitive because they cover all aspects of arts and entertainment – not just music. When the awards program originated in 1978, the focus in its music selections was on classical, opera, jazz and traditional pop. The Honors slowly cam...
Atlantic Records Exec VP Juliette Jones Leaving Label
Jones joined the label in 2012 after moving from Warner Bros. Records to Atlantic as senior vp urban promotion; she was upped to executive vp the following year. During her tenure, she was the dynamo behind radio hits for Cardi B, Bruno Mars, Gucci Mane, Kodak Black and Lil Uzi Vert, among others, making a name herself as one of the rare upper-level female promotion executives — let alone a woman of color — to work at a major label. Prior to joining Warner, Jones served in roles at Virgin, J/RCA and Jive Records, where she was hired as the label’s first mid-Atlantic regional promotion director for urban music in 1994. You can read Jones’ full memo below. In alignment with my personal goals, I’ve decided that now is the time for me to move forward into the next exciting chapter ...
Moodagent Arrives In Australia as Global Rollout Ramps-Up
He’s joined at the Sydney office by director of music and editorial Toni Pipicelli and regional marketing director Bushra Abel. The mood-based listening platform will come online in NZ “shortly,” reads a statement. Moodagent confidently claims a personal and interactive user experience, based on its back-end blend of machine learning, audio analysis and “tens of thousands of hours” of human musicology. The service’s interactive playlists, or “moodagents,” are activated by mood sliders for Sensual, Tender, Happy, Angry and Tempo. Feel angry? The listener can let that out, and the playlists stay in your lane. The app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play, with its premium tier priced at A$11.99 ($9.30) per month. Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, Moodagent was ...
