The 56 artists competing in the inaugural edition of NBC’s American Song Contest – which debuted Monday (March 21) evening — will have their songs released by Atlantic Records, the legendary American label that has been home to iconic artists such as Aretha Franklin, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Ed Sheeran.
Billboard spoke with Atlantic Records president, West Coast, Kevin Weaver about the label’s involvement with the competition and plans for the season.
How did Atlantic Records become the label for the American Song Contest?
Ben Silverman and Audrey Morrissey are both really good friends of mine. Ben propagated the deal to bring the format to the U.S. I talked to Ben very early on and then I saw the press announcements that NBC picked up the show and then they hired Audrey as the showrunner. Audrey and I have done a ton of stuff together and we started talking about it and we got really excited about it. I felt it was a huge opportunity and a great platform for developing and established artists — and everything in between — and jumped in and figured out how to get in business with them.
Could you explain your involvement with artist and song selection?
We got involved very early and helped the show with the casting of the artists who are representing all of the states and territories. So we were super involved with that, and there was a lot of input, feedback and dialogue back and forth between us and the network and the producers of the show. And then we gave them the opportunity to access our A&R services. Some people came with their own music. They didn’t want to have Atlantic involved in the A&R at all. That was a minority of folks and then a ton of people wanted the benefit of what we offered as far as helping them get records recorded, finding songs, getting records mixed, the whole process of making records as great as we could make them, and it was really fun to be in it like that on many songs.
What was it like working on 56 songs at the same time? What kind of team did you put in place to handle that many titles?
It definitely took a lot of time and energy. But I have a great A&R staff over here, so I enlisted them. On our A&R team, a couple folks in particular: Pete Ganbarg, who’s our president of A&R. Pete was in the trenches with me. Brandon Davis is svp of A&R and he’s worked on many of my big soundtrack projects. He also works with Lizzo and a bunch of our artists over here. So Brandon was deep in it. We have this incredible young A&R person named Kelly Sayer. Kelly was the glue of keeping the machine of 56 artists on the tracks and she was phenomenal. She’s having huge success with an artist that she’s day-to-day A&R on now, an artist named GAYLE who has a song, “abcdefu,” which is a giant smash. So I’m surrounded by great people and I’m fortunate to have an incredible team. I also brought in a dear friend of mine who I’ve done a lot of stuff with over the years, a producer/songwriter/mixer named Allie D. I cut a deal with her to work on a lot of the records. Between all of us, we assigned things out and everybody had their own responsibility and then we all met back up the middle. A lot of hands on, a lot of rolling up our sleeves and everybody was definitely in the trenches together.
Are all 56 contestants now Atlantic artists or is there an option to sign those you want for the label?
We have the majority of the singles on the show and we have deals on all those songs and we’re developing relationships with all these artists. The hope is that we break a bunch of artists by way of the show and the fact that we’re in business with them and we’re their partners from inception would lead me to believe that we’re going to be in it for the long haul.
Did any artists come into this already signed to a label, like the legacy artists as well as the newcomers?
A handful did, a minority, and I was able to work out situations with pretty much all of them. I was able to figure out how to make it work with virtually everybody regardless of what their specific situation was.
What is the release pattern over the eight-week run of the series?
Each week, we will put up the 11 songs that are performed on that episode for those five weeks that new music is being premiered. And I’m putting out a bundle each week, so there will be an album as well as the individual tracks for streaming and download.
A physical album?
Not physical. A digital download album. You can buy it as a body of work, an album. You can take the tracks and piecemeal them or you can stream it on every platform. It will be available everywhere music is consumed at this point and then probably somewhere down the line, we’ll combine it and have a physical product.
Any promotion for the songs planned beyond the fact they’re on a primetime network television show? Is it even possible to promote 56 songs?
We’re definitely putting promotion efforts behind every track we’re releasing in connection with the show. We have an overarching strategy and we are working with our partners around these bundles and these individual track releases to get unique visibility and partnership opportunity. I have an incredible marketing team, just like I have an incredible A&R team and I’ve gotten all hands on deck for over a year and we’re in the trenches on that, making sure that every one of these songs gets meaningful visibility around its release in connection with the show.
Are you going for radio airplay as well?
It’s going to come down to what raises its hand. What are the real records here? You have 56 songs. The great thing is we live in a world where records talk back instantly. We’ll know with streaming. We’ll know what’s reacting on TikTok. And just like any other record here to a large extent, we will move quickly based on how records are talking to us as they get in the marketplace.
Can you talk about the legacy artists? Because you’ve got some that are very well known in the industry like Michael Bolton, Macy Gray and Jewel.
I’ve been at Atlantic for 28 years. I was here with Jewel when she had her first run as an Atlantic artist, so I know her very well. It’s awesome to be back in it with her and putting out music together. I’m excited about these legacy artists and their releases and super interested to see how this all works on the show and how the legacy artists’ performances are in comparison to the developing artists.
I know you can’t name them, but do you already have your eye on songs that will be huge hits?
There are definitely some standouts going into it. I think I’ll be surprised as well. As much as I have a sense of what I think could be big records from the show, I wouldn’t be shocked if some records happen that were not those records as well. I can’t wait to see how it all plays out.
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