business
Hipgnosis Songs Buys Big Deal Music
Merck Mercuriadis‘ Hipgnosis Songs has acquired independent publisher Big Deal Music, Billboard has learned. A formal announcement is expected as soon as Thursday. Under the deal, Big Deal will keep its Los Angeles-area office and staff, rebrand under the Hipgnosis banner and operate as Hipgnosis’ full-service U.S. office, a source familiar with the situation tells Billboard. Big Deal’s catalog includes songwriters Teddy Geiger (Shawn Mendes, Niall Horan), Kamasi Washington, Gary Numan, Ross Golan (Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande), and Sleater-Kinney, among others, as well as joint venture deals with Ricky Reed (Lizzo, Jason Derulo) and Diplo‘s Mad Decent. The company was founded by publishing vet Kenny MacPherson, whose resume includes founding Redhead Music Publishing...
SiriusXM Boosts 2020 Subscriber Forecast on ‘Strong’ Demand
Audio entertainment giant SiriusXM has raised its 2020 subscriber forecast ahead of an appearance by CEO Jim Meyer at a virtual investor conference on Wednesday. SiriusXM now expects full-year self-pay subscriber net additions of approximately 700,000, up from 500,000. The company reiterated its financial guidance for the year. “Our business continues to demonstrate strong performance and favorable trends since we resumed providing our subscriber and financial guidance in conjunction with our second- quarter earnings report” following the initial hit from the novel coronavirus pandemic, Meyer said in a statement. “It’s clear that demand for SiriusXM remains strong – quite simply, consumers continue to find immense value in our unique audio bundle and all of the ente...
BMI Posts Record Revenue Despite Pandemic Hit to Licensing
Collections from April to June fell by an estimated $60 million, but a digital boost helped make up the difference. BMI generated $1.311 billion in revenue in the year ended June 30, 2020, a 2.2% increase over the $1.283 billion it reported in the year earlier period. Distributions were up too, totaling $1.233 billion — a 3.1% increase from the $1.196 billion paid out to songwriters and publishers in the prior fiscal year. Domestically, the performance rights organization collected $961 million, increasing 1.9% from the year-earlier period. Foreign receipts grew 2.9% to $350 million. As a percentage of revenue, that breaks out to 73.3% domestic and 26.7% foreign, a 0.2% shift in favor of international collections compared to the prior year. BMI estimates that its fourth quarter reven...
The Players Behind DaBaby & Roddy Ricch’s ‘Rockstar’: See the Full Credits
DaBaby’s “Rockstar” feat. Roddy Ricch officially finished out the season at No. 1 on Billboard’s 2020 Songs of the Summer chart, having led the tally for 13 out of 15 tracking weeks. The annual chart tracks the most popular songs based on their cumulative performance on the weekly streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Billboard Hot 100 chart between Memorial Day and Labor Day. In addition, “Rockstar” was the most streamed song of the summer, having racked up 514.6 million streams, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. It topped the Hot 100 for a total of seven weeks. Explore the team of musicians, producers, engineers and more behind the track with recording credits provided by Jaxsta below. ArtistsMain Artist – DaBabyFeatured Artist – Roddy Ricch Songwriters:Composer Lyricist &#...
2020 ACM Awards: Carrie Underwood, Trisha Yearwood and This Dynamic Duo Are Set to Perform
All five of this year’s entertainer of the year nominees will perform on the show. Carrie Underwood, Trisha Yearwood and the team of Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani will perform at the 55th ACM Awards on Sept. 16, as the Academy of Country Music, dick clark productions and CBS announced on Wednesday (Sept. 9). Underwood will perform from the Grand Ole Opry and will honor trailblazing female Opry members by performing a medley of songs by Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, Martina McBride, Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton. Underwood teamed with McEntire and Parton to co-host last year’s CMA Awards, sponsored by the rival Country Music Association. Underwood is nominated for the ACM award for entertainer of the year, an award she won at the ceremonies in 2009 and 2010. ...
Hometown Heroes: Country Ties Emotional Messages to Physical Roots
When Big Loud singer-songwriter HARDY drove back to Nashville after a visit with his dad in Philadelphia, Miss., sometime in the last two years, his father told him to hit Play on the CD in the dash at a specific point in the journey. His father had queued up Travis Meadows‘ reflective “Mississippi,” and as the track’s storyline unfolded with every-day, familial images about “the home I couldn’t wait to leave behind,” the journey away from his hometown weighed heavily on HARDY. “I just lost it,” he says. “I completely started crying, and I started thinking about how proud I was to be from where I was from. But I don’t know why that is.” Maybe not, but HARDY — like many of his fellow country artists and songwriters...
Craig David Signs Worldwide Publishing Deal With Round Hill Music
British R&B star Craig David has signed a global publishing deal with Round Hill Music. The new arrangement, announced Wednesday (Sept. 9), includes all of David’s catalog, including his U.K. chart-topping debut album Born to Do It, and a futures agreement that will see all his new music administered by the independent music publisher. The 39-year-old singer is one of Britain’s most successful male solo artists of the millennium, with 23 U.K. top 40 singles, including two No. 1s (“Fill Me In” and “7 Days”), and a pair of No. 1 albums. In the U.S., David has twice cracked the Top 40 on the Billboard 200 and he has landed three songs on the Hot 100 chart, including a career-best No. 10 with “7 Days”. His trophy cabinet includes three Ivor Novello Awards and a brace of MTV Europe Mu...
Liz Phair Signs With Chrysalis Records for Forthcoming Album
After relaunching as a frontline label in February, U.K.-based Chrysalis Records has signed singer-songwriter Liz Phair for the release of her forthcoming album. The deal was announced Wednesday (Sept. 9). Phair’s signing with Chrysalis follows that of Laura Marling, whose Mercury Prize-nominated album Song For Our Daughter was released in April by the relaunched label in partnership with Partisan Records. A two-time Grammy nominee, Phair scored a breakthrough with her influential 1993 debut album Exile in Guyville, which finished at the top of the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics’ poll that year. She followed it up with five more studio albums, including the Gold-selling Whip-Smart and 2003’s pop-driven Liz Phair. The latter album’s lead single, “Why Can’t I?”, netted Phair ...
The Rolling Stones Heading For Big Splash on U.K. Chart With ‘Goats Head Soup’ Reissue
A 21-year-old Englishman stands in the way of another Rolling Stones chart triumph. Declan McKenna leads the U.K.’s midweek albums chart with his sophomore effort Zeros (Columbia), ahead of the Stones’ Goats Heads Soup (Polydor) reissue. Based on weekend sales activity reported by the Official Charts Company, Zeros has shifted the most physical units in the week so far to lead the Official Chart Update. McKenna got his break in 2015 when he won Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition. His debut album What Do You Think About The Car? peaked at No. 11 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart following its release in 2017. Meanwhile, the Stones are rolling on to another big chart impact with Goats Heads Soup, an album that ruled the national sales tallies on both sides of ...
Ted Cockle, Amy Thomson Join Hipgnosis Songs
Ted Cockle, the Universal Music Group stalwart who most recently served as Virgin EMI president, has joined Merck Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis Songs. Three months after announcing his departure from the U.K. label, Cockle is today (Aug. 8) unveiled as president of Hipgnosis Songs. Also joining the company is Amy Thomson, a management and marketing veteran who takes the role as chief catalog officer. The incoming executives will be expected to help “grow and care for songs and their legacy” within the expanding Hipgnosis Songs catalog, reads a statement announcing their arrival. “It’s a testament to the iconic song catalog that we have assembled over the last two plus years, and our songwriters, that we have been able to attract executives with the extraordinary talent, pedigree and success of Te...
Metallica Rock Australia’s Albums Chart With ‘S&M2’
Metallica come out swinging on Australia’s albums chart as S&M2 (Virgin/Universal) bows at No. 1, while Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” (Atlantic/Warner) enters a third straight week atop the national singles survey. More than 20 years after Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony led the ARIA Albums Chart with S&M, the unlikely partnership yields another leader. The live compilation, recorded last September at San Francisco’s Chase Center, gives Metallica their seventh No. 1 album Down Under following Metallica (August 1991), Load (June 1996), S&M (November 1999), St. Anger (June 2003), Death Magnetic (September 2008), Hardwired…To Self-Destruct (2016). New mom Katy Perry returns to the top tier of the albums chart with Smile (Capitol/EMI), new at No. 2. It’s th...
Patrick Donovan, Founding CEO of Music Victoria, Announces Departure
Patrick Donovan is stepping down as chief executive of Music Victoria, the trade association that he played a central role in launching a decade ago. “It’s been an exciting journey over the last ten years being at the helm of Music Victoria,” Donovan tells Billboard. “I remember when I went to SXSW in 2011 and I struggled to get people to meet with me because they had hardly heard of Melbourne. And now we’re recognized globally as a leading music city with best practice live music laws.” Prior to joining MV as its founding CEO, Donovan was The Age newspaper’s chief music writer, and he’s an adjunct professor of RMIT’s Bachelor of Arts (Music Business) Course. Donovan will leave the organization later this year having ticked-off a long list of accomplishments. During his tenure, MV pl...
