business
StubHub Clears Final Hurdle of Viagogo Merger With Sale of Non-U.S. Assets
The sale ends a period of government-imposed silence between the two firms, which were allowed to communicate while the agreement worked its ways through the U.K. regulator system. “We are finally allowed to collaborate and begin planning the integration between the two companies,” says Jill Krimmel, StubHub’s interim president who said she will stay on as president once the integration is complete. That process couldn’t begin until the sale of StubHub’s international business was completed. It’s unclear how much Digital Fuel Capital paid for the international assets, which include 23 companies and limited liability corporations held by StubHub including its branded marketplaces in the U.K., Germany, Taiwan and parts of Europe through its Luxembourg ...
Yebba’s ‘Dawn’: The Long, Difficult Road to the Stunning Singer’s Debut
But just before 2016 ended, Yebba agreed to perform alongside Chance the Rapper for his Saturday Night Live appearance — and ended up stealing the show. She and her team, then a bare-bones operation led by co-manager Ross Michaels and his Park Avenue Artists team, decided to capitalize on the moment and uploaded a clip from the Sofar set of Yebba singing her first original song, “My Mind.” It went viral, raking in over 18 million YouTube views. “It was like a one-two punch,” says Michaels. That kind of start-stop trajectory has hampered Yebba’s promising launch for nearly five years, with her fans begging for her debut album online. “There has never been a moment where I was like, ‘Man, we really lost out,’ because when she puts out a song, it’s amazing,” says Michaels. “It has this e...
Iron Maiden Battles Drake For U.K. Chart Crown
In the first half of the cycle, 8,000 combined sales separate the two albums, according to the OCC. Bruce Dickinson and Co. have five U.K. No. 1 albums from a 40-year career, with their latest two studio LPs Final Frontier (from 2010) and The Book of Souls (2015) going-back-to-back. Meanwhile, Drake has three career U.K. No. 1 albums and, with CLB, he should snag his tenth Top 10. Coming in at No. 3 on the albums chart blast is London rapper Little Simz’s Sometime I Might Be Introvert (Age 101), while Newcastle rockers The Wildhearts are set for a career high with 21st Century Love Songs (Graphite), new at No. 4 on the midweek chart. Kanye West’s Donda (Def Jam) falls 1-5, as ABBA’s Gold (Polydor) is fueled by the Swedish pop greats’ comeback announcement and the release of two songs. The ...
Kanye West’s ‘Donda’ Debuts at No. 1 In U.K.
Also new to the Official U.K. Albums Chart is Maisie Peters’s debut album You Signed Up For This (Gingerbread Man), which starts at No. 2, while Scottish synth-pop outfit Chvrches bow at No. 4 with Screen Violence (Virgin), their fourth studio effort. Halsey completes the Top 5 with If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power (EMI), her fourth LP. It’s the U.K.’s best-selling album on vinyl in the latest cycle. British singer and songwriter Becky Hill enjoys a Top 10 start with her debut Only Honest At The Weekend (Polydor), new No. 7, while KSI’s All Over The Place (BMG) vaults 20-10 following the release of a deluxe edition. With ABBA making a much-hyped comeback, fans of the Swedish pop legends are digging for Gold. ABBA’s Greatest Hits (Polydor) lifts 14-12 following news of their new...
ABBA Eyeing Return to U.K. Top 10
Both songs have been streamed over 500,000 times this weekend, the OCC reports, and “Don’t Shut Me Down” is the most downloaded song so far this week. The tracks, should they hold their momentum, will mark ABBA’s first U.K. Top 10 singles since “One Of Us”, which peaked at No. 3 in December 1981. The two new singles are taken from Voyage, ABBA’s first new studio album in 39 years, due out Nov. 5. The foursome will support the LP with a 2022 concert event, featuring avatars of Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid, accompanied by a 10-piece live band, in a custom-built arena at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, East London. Tickets go on sales Tuesday (Sept. 7). Currently, ABBA has nine U.K. No. 1 singles and 19 Top 10s. They’ve also landed nine No. 1 albums in the territory. Meanwhile, Dra...
Drake Breaks Apple Music’s One-Day Song Streaming Record Three Times
“Girls Want Girls (feat. Lil Baby),” “Champagne Poetry,” and “Fair Trade (feat. Travis Scott)” Drake’s sixth album, Certified Lover Boy continues to break records on Apple Music, with three songs from the project beating the record for most-streamed songs in 24 hours, Apple Music tells Billboard. “Girls Want Girls (feat. Lil Baby),” “Champagne Poetry,” and “Fair Trade (feat. Travis Scott)” are the three biggest song debuts ever on the platform, surpassing Drake’s “Nonstop” from his 2018 album Scorpion. Released just after midnight eastern on Friday (Sep 3), the project has also landed at the top spot on Apple Music’s Top Albums chart in 145 countries in its first day of release, and songs from Certified Lover Boy earned the number one spot on 51 of Apple Music’s Daily Top 100 charts, and s...
Drake Raps About Owning His Masters on ‘Certified Lover Boy,’ His First Full OVO Album
Scorpion from 2018 was the project that allowed Drake to fulfill his contractual obligations to Young Money/Cash Money, which he rapped about on “Is There More,” the final track on Side A: “Soon as this album drop I’m out of the deal.” On Certified Lover Boy‘s final track, “The Remorse,” he boasts, “And you know what I’m on, blowing past ya, owning masters,” which indeed seems to be the case for the OVO rapper. For the new album, Drake also partnered with Republic Records — which is home to major superstars like Taylor Swift, who started releasing her studio albums starting with 2019’s Lover and beyond under the UMG label following her departure from Big Machine Label Group — to distribute&nb...
Annenberg Inclusion Initiative Takes Swipes at Recording Academy’s Diversity Efforts
The Recording Academy’s Women in the Mix initiative was launched in 2019 whereby 650 music professionals pledged to consider at least two women in the selection process every time a producer or engineer is hired. The goal was to increase abysmal representation by women in studios. The tweet would seem to reference a survey, open until Sept. 20, which is part of a broader partnership between the academy, Berklee College of Music Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship and Arizona State University, that launched in March with an analysis of gender representation within the 63rd Grammy Awards. The goal of the study is to help guide diversity, equity and inclusion objectives within the Recording Academy and the industry at large. The Annenberg Inclusive Initiative’s tweet appears to...
Drake’s ‘Certified Lover Boy’ Breaks Apple Music’s One-Day Streaming Record
Certified Lover Boy is Drake’s sixth studio album, and includes a lengthy list of features from superstar rappers including Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Future, Rick Ross and Lil Baby. Drake’s 2018 album Scorpion held the record previously on Apple Music, with 170 million streams in its first 24 hours. The 21-song project has also broken records on Spotify, becoming the most-streamed album in a day on the platform as well, the company confirmed to Billboard earlier Friday. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
Drake Breaks Apple Music’s 2021 Records for Most-Streamed Album, Artist in a Day
Certified Lover Boy features a long list of top-tier collaborations, including appearances from Jay-Z, Lil Baby, 21 Savage, Lil Durk, Rick Ross, Ty Dolla $ign, Lil Wayne and Tems, among others. In the description for the project on Apple Music, Drake describes Certified Lover Boy as “a combination of toxic masculinity and acceptance of truth which is inevitably heartbreaking.” Apple Music has had two consecutive record-breaking weeks, with Kanye West’s latest album Donda breaking a long list of records on the platform, some of which may fall before the first week of Certified Lover Boy comes to a close. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful peopl...
Nicole Scherzinger Sued Over Pussycat Dolls Reunion
Scherzinger did promote the tour, it’s acknowledged in the complaint, but then the pandemic halted music touring worldwide. She “now refuses to participate in the tour,” states the complaint, adding she “demanded to renegotiate the terms of the MOU.” According to the complaint, Scherzinger now wants to be a 75% owner with final decision-making authority, and she’s refusing to participate in the reunion tour unless she gets what she wants. And now because tour dates can’t be confirmed, Live Nation is said to be demanding $600,000 that it put up. Because of COVID, tours are only slowly ramping up at this point, and this suit comes with a not extremely common claim of anticipatory breach of contract (along with other contract claims and one for fiduciary duty). Scherzi...
The Deals: Primary Wave Acquires Gin Blossoms Catalog; WMG Licenses to Kuaishou
Warner Music Group has signed a licensing deal with China-based short-form video platform Kuaishou. Under the agreement, WMG will make its artists’ music available on all of Kuaishou’s overseas products, including the apps Kwai and SnackVideo. According to a release, Kuaishou boasts over one billion users worldwide, a milestone it hit in June. Outside of China, it has more than 180 million active users in territories including Latin America and MENA (Kwai) and South and Southeast Asia (SnackVideo). The platform encourages its “global community to share their activities, habits, and more with the core mission to ‘embrace all lifestyles.’” Oana Ruxandra, chief digital officer & executive vp of business development at WMG, said, “We’re excited to bring our diverse music ...
