business
Adele’s ‘Easy On Me’ Is Powering to No. 1 In U.K.
If it holds its course, it would be Adele’s third U.K. chart-topper, following “Somebody Like You” (2011) and “Hello” (2015). Since it dropped Oct. 14, “Easy on Me” has already broken streaming globally on several platforms, and powered her previous albums up the U.K. chart. “Easy on Me” set the new record for global streams on Spotify in a single day, received “the most first-day Alexa song requests in Amazon Music history,” and its set to make a “splashy” start on the Billboard Hot 100, a chart she has led on four separate occasions. It’s the lead track from the north Londoner’s forthcoming fourth album, 30, slated for release Nov. 19. The Official U.K. Singles Chart is published late Friday, local time. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So...
Live Nation, Oak View Group and GL Events Team Up for New São Paolo Arena
The 20,000-capacity venue begins construction next year and is slated to open in 2024. Live Nation, the world’s largest entertainment company, and global development company Oak View Group are teaming up for a 20,000-capacity arena in São Paulo, Brazil. The city’s mayor, Ricardo Nunes, announced the collaboration — which will be in partnership with Brazilian-based event company GL Events — on Friday (Oct. 15). The city of São Paulo, which has a population of 12 million, awarded the three entities a 30-year lease for the Anhembi campus, which spans 4 million square feet. Arena São Paulo, as it will be called, will anchor the Anhembi entertainment district and produce live even...
LeBron James’ SpringHill Co. Sells “Significant” Minority Stake to Nike and Epic Games
LeBron James‘ SpringHill Company has reportedly sold a “significant” portion of its minority stake to major companies RedBird Capital Partners, Fenway Sports Group, Nike and Epic Games. According to Deadline, SpringHill is valued at $725 million USD. The latest investments will allow SpringHill to continue to expand their portfolio into existing businesses in live events, content creation, commerce, brand consulting and IP development. On the digital front, the company is looking to tap into the creator community and build games and other experiences to further their online footprint. Their new partnership with Epic opens up SpringHill to a broad range of content for the metaverse. RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale said, “Our partnership with SpringHill should enable us collectively to opt...
Beatles Royalties & Family Conflicts: We Read UMG’s 300-Page Prospectus. Here’s What We Found
In order to become a publicly traded, stand-alone company, Vivendi had to do an internal reorganization in 2020 to align the parameters of what would become Universal Music Group. As part of that, some of the liabilities directly assumed by Vivendi had to be transferred to UMG for the latter company to have control of all the music assets. It also had to assume the obligations and liabilities that came with them. One such Vivendi obligation that UMG had to take on was to provide security for royalty payments capped at $100 million euros to the Beatles, Yoko Ono and certain Apple entities. But that’s not surprising considering that the ownership of EMI, acquired in 2012, was directly under Vivendi, not UMG, so they had to do some internal asset a...
ARIA Board Strips Denis Handlin of His Icon Award
The trade body’s Icon Award is periodically presented at a VIP ceremony in Sydney, in the hours prior to the annual ARIA Awards. Just five ARIA Icons have been awarded. The first went to the late Mushroom Group founder Michael Gudinski in 2013, followed by Handlin, Sebastian Chase (2016), Roger Davies (2017) and Michael Chugg (2019). ARIA’s u-turn follows the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s premiere Monday night (Oct. 11) of Facing the Music: The Sony Music Scandal, a 47-minute documentary which exposed the “culture of fear, harassment and bullying” in a workplace Handlin led for 37 years. The following day, trade body Q Music revoked the honorary award presented to Handlin at the 2020 Queensland Music Awards, in his hometown Brisbane. The documentary, noted QMusic CEO Kris Stewart, ...
Mell Hall’s ‘Knock Knock’ Sets Australian Club Chart Record
The previous record belonged to fellow Australian Zoe Badwi’s “Release Me,” which dominated the ARIA club chart for seven-straight weeks in 2008. “Knock Knock” opened its chart account 11 weeks ago, before going on to claim the top position, with Hall becoming only the fifth Australian solo female artist to get there. “Knock Knock” also becomes the first ARIA club chart leader to feature two Australian female artists in collaboration, and it marks Thandi Phoenix’s first appearance on the tally. “So grateful to see my debut record getting so much love,” comments Hall. “Knock Knock” was a “joy to make, a joy to work with Thandi Phoenix and knowing that it brings audiences and my peers alike joy, what more could a girl want!? Big love to Team Sweat for the endless support. Feeling the moment ...
Ryan Hurd ‘Never Expected’ Maren Morris Duet ‘Chasing After You’ to Become a Hot 100 Hit
On Friday (Oct. 15), Hurd celebrates another career first with the release of his full-length debut album, Pelago, out via Arista Nashville. The album is a major milestone for the Michigan native, who initially moved to Nashville to be a songwriter instead of an artist. Hurd is signed with House of 42 for management (which also manages Morris), WME for booking and Big Machine Music for publishing. While studying sociology at Belmont University, Hurd focused on bettering his songcraft, and later found success writing for other artists, including two No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits for Luke Bryan, “Sunburn, Sunset, Repeat,” and “Waves.” Hurd also penned “Last Turn Home” for Tim McGraw, “You Look Good” and “What If I Never G...
L.A.’s Hollywood Park Expands Workforce with 22 New Hires and Promotions
“We continue to add an accomplished and diverse group of leaders to our growing team,” said SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park managing director Jason Gannon in a release. “We are working hard to bring SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park to life, and we are excited to welcome these team members on our journey to deliver a global sports and entertainment destination.” For faculty and campus operations, Hollywood Park promoted Otto Bendict to svp of facility and campus operations, while Chan Onechanh becomes vp of facility operations. The department also welcomed Tina Suca as vp of event operations. Nate Goldstien was promoted to senior counsel in legal, while ...
Elton John Sets U.K. Chart Record With ‘Cold Heart’
With his latest feat, Elton eclipses the efforts of five other music greats – Elvis Presley, Cher, Cliff Richard, Michael Jackson and David Bowie – all of whom landed at least one Top 10 single in five different decades. Across his glittering career, Elton has been crowned on the Official U.K. Singles Chart on seven occasions. He could stretch that tally to eight with “Cold Heart,” which leads the midweek chart and is poised to usurp “Ed Sheeran’s “Shivers” after three weeks at No. 2. “Cold Heart” is lifted from John’s forthcoming collaborative studio album, The Lockdown Sessions, set for release Oct. 22. In his homeland, John has 32 Top 10 albums, with seven hitting the summit. His last LP to reach No. 1 was 2012’s Good Morning to the Night, Pnau’s mashup of his classic songs. The Officia...
Five Ways the Music Industry Has Changed Since Adele Last Released an Album
What we’ve heard of “Easy On Me” so far sounds much like the Adele that the world fell in love with a decade-plus ago. But even if the sound of her new music is in line with her earlier blockbusters, the music industry has evolved at a rapid pace since 2015. Her continued streak of hits is close to a foregone conclusion, but what success looks like in 2021 is slipperier and harder to define by the old metrics. Here are five ways that the music industry has changed since we last heard from Adele. Streaming windows have gone out of style Back in the mid-2010s, streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music had already begun reshaping music consumption and driving down traditional sales even further from the decline previously brought about by filesharing at the turn of the centu...
John Ashton Thomas, Conductor and Orchestrator on ‘Black Panther,’ Dies at 60
The pair also teamed on the Paul Greengrass-directed The Bourne Supremacy (2004), United 93 (2006) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007); three Ice Age films and two Rio films helmed by Carlos Saldanha; Happy Feet and Kung Fu movies; and The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), The Italian Job (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), among other efforts. Thomas partnered with composer James Newton Howard on films including The Last Airbender (2010), The Bourne Legacy (2012) and installments of the Hunger Games, Fantastic Beasts and Maleficent franchises. More recently, he worked on Captain Marvel (2019), Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019), The Call of the Wild (2020), The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) and Operation Mincemeat, set for release next year. He also wrote ar...
Latin Music Streaming Soars, US Market Share Hits 5.8% at Mid-Year: RIAA
Latin music now represents a 5.8% share of the overall U.S. market with revenues hitting $407 million in the first half of 2021 — 96% of which came from streaming for $393 million. The genre’s growth has been rapid over the past few years: The genre’s revenue for the first half of 2019 was $250 million, and then jumped to $298 in the first half of 2020. Paid streaming subscriptions grew 41% to $279 million, while ad-supported on-demand streaming revenue increased 30% to $77 million. Revenues from digital and custom radio services also rebounded, growing 24% to $37 million after a slight decline in 2020. “It’s incredible to see continued double-digit growth in Latin music — outpacing the already strong performance we’ve seen across other music segments and catego...
