International
Iggy Pop and Ensemble Intercontemporain Named 2022 Polar Music Prize Laureates
Iggy Pop, one of the founding fathers of punk music, and Ensemble Intercontemporain, a classical music assemblage based in Paris, have been named the Laureates of the Polar Music Prize for 2022. The royal ceremony and banquet will take place in Stockholm on May 24 after a two-year COVID gap. Explore Explore Iggy Pop See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news This year marks the 30th anniversary of the first Polar Music Prize ceremony, which honored Paul McCartney and the Baltic States, in 1992. The Prize was founded and funded by Stig “Stikkan” Anderson, the noted Swedish songwriter, producer, label owner and music publisher who was the manager of ABBA. After the Nobel Prize Committee rejected Anderson’s suggestion of a Nobel Prize for music, he created the Polar...
BTS’ Jimin Discharged From Hospital After Appendicitis Surgery and Has Recovered From COVID-19
BTS‘ Jimin has been discharged from the hospital, Big Hit Music confirmed in a notice released on fan community platform Weverse on Saturday (Feb. 5). Jimin (born Park Ji-min) had been hospitalized on Jan. 30 with abdominal pain and a mild sore throat, and on Jan. 31 he underwent surgery for acute appendicitis. At that time, it was revealed that he’d also tested positive for COVID-19. On Feb. 2, Jimin checked in with fans to tell them he was “recovering well.” Explore Explore BTS See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Big Hit’s latest statement released to the BTS ARMY gave another reassuring update on Jimin’s health. “Hello. This is BIGHIT MUSIC. We would like to inform you that BTS Member Jimin’s quarantine has concluded after his surgery for acute appendic...
Spotify Closing In on Sponsorship Deal With Barcelona Soccer Club
MADRID — Spotify is close to reaching a sponsorship deal with F.C. Barcelona, one of Europe’s leading soccer clubs, less than a year after Spotify’s founder, Daniel Ek, made an unsuccessful takeover bid for U.K. club Arsenal. According to Spanish media, a sponsorship deal could be announced as early as next week. The club says it would not comment on ongoing negotiations, which have been prompted by the fact that Barcelona’s current jersey sponsor, Rakuten, decided not to renew its agreement with Barcelona, which ends in June. Last year, Ek sought to buy Arsenal, saying that it would fulfill a childhood dream. “I’ve cheered for Arsenal as long as I can remember,” he said. But the family of Stan Kroenke, which currently owns Arsenal, rejected the Swedish billionaire’s offer, saying they wer...
Sony Creating Joint Venture In India For Film and Music Ventures
Sony Group is leveraging its music and movie entertainment divisions to create a joint company focused on developing investment ventures for media talent in India. The new venture, to be named Sony Entertainment Talent Ventures India (SETVI), will draw from a “vast pool of commercial talent and star-power in India to build investment opportunities, partnerships, metaverse solutions and more,” the company says in a press release. Sony Music Entertainment is already a leading record label in India, with a strong presence in Bollywood and Tamil OST, across multiple genres that include national and regional pop. Sony Pictures Entertainment includes Sony Pictures Networks, a broadcast division with over 700 million viewers from 170 million households in 8,000 cities across India; Sony Pictures ...
Laidback Luke Says Today’s Biggest EDM Artists Are Brands That Get Consumed: ‘People Started Hacking It’
Despite his stage name and typically chill demeanor, Laidback Luke admits he was not always so Zen. The Dutch-Filipino DJ, born Lucas van Scheppingen, says he struggles with a “control freak” personality. He rails against the use of ghost producers to aid his musical productions, insisting on doing his own mixing and mastering and even filming and editing his own videos. “My wife sometimes tells me that I have the mind state of a mom-and-pop shop,” Luke tells Billboard. “She’s like, ‘Dude, Starbucks doesn’t make their own coffee anymore. It’s a multi [billion-dollar] conglomerate type of business. The way my mindset is, it’s like you’re a one-man band.” Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news But Luke worries that his fellow DJ-producers have strayed t...
‘The Voice of Holland’ Suspended From Dutch TV Amid Sexual Misconduct Allegations
The Voice of Holland, the original version of the global hit singing competition format, has been pulled off the air amid allegations of “very serious and shocking” sexual misconduct by members of the show’s production staff, according to a statement from its Dutch broadcaster. Jeroen Rietbergen, the show’s bandleader, resigned Saturday (Jan. 15) in a statement released to Dutch news service ANP. He admitted to “relationships of a sexual nature” with women involved in The Voice of Holland and said he “exchanged sexually explicit messages” with the women. Rietbergen said he did not believe he was abusing his position of power on the production, and he included an apology “to the women involved for things I should never have done.” Reitbergen said in his statement that the incident...
Glastonbury Festival Slid to Record £3.1 Million Loss Last Year Amid Pandemic
LONDON – Glastonbury Festival lost £3.1 million ($4.2 million) last year when it cancelled the event for a second consecutive summer because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the company’s latest financial results. Accounts filed with Companies House, the U.K.’s registrar of businesses, reveal that in the year ended March 31, 2021, turnover fell to £936,000 ($1.3 million), down from £45 million ($61 million) in the previous financial year. The total operating loss of just over £3.1 million for 2021, which followed a loss of £358,780 ($487,600) in 2020, is understood to be a record drop for the 52-year-old festival. But Glastonbury said it was able to cover the losses with profits retained from previous years. Paul McCartney, Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift had been due to headline the...
Departure Festival Cancels Playa Del Carmen Event
Departure Festival has canceled its inaugural show in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. The electronic event was scheduled to begin Friday (Jan. 7) in the resort destination and extend through Jan. 11 with a stacked lineup featuring more than 70 artists, including Black Coffee, Adam Beyer, Amelie Lens, Vintage Culture, Lee Foss and many more. “We have been liaising with local authorities from Playa Del Carmen and with the recent severe rise in the cases of Omicron in the past few days, the Governor announced last night that Playa Del Carmen is returning to yellow tier COVID restrictions and therefore we cannot continue with a show of this size as planned,” organizers wrote in a statement posted to social media on Friday. The statement continues that attendees, some of whom have already arrived in ...
UK Music Sales Up 8.7% as Vinyl Outpaces Streaming Growth
LONDON – Vinyl sales grew twice as fast as streaming in the United Kingdom last year, helping drive an 8.7% rise in overall music spending, according to year-end figures from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA). Vinyl album sales rose by 23% to £136 million ($184 million) in 2021, compared to 10.9% growth in subscription streaming revenue over the same period. Overall music spending rose to £1.68 billion ($2.3 billion), the organization says in its preliminary annual figures published on Wednesday (Jan. 5). While vinyl sales outpaced streaming, digital music services like Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music and Apple Music account for almost 80% of recorded music spending in the U.K., with subscription revenues climbing to a record high of £1.3 billion ($1.8 billion), up 10.9% f...
Supergroup GOT the Beat Debuts ‘Step Back’ at Record-Breaking SMTOWN Live Concert
GOT the Beat, a new seven-member supergroup made up of BoA, Girls’ Generation‘s Taeyeon and Hyoyeon, Red Velvet’s Seulgi and Wendy and Aespa’s Karina and Winter, rang in 2022 with their debut single, “Step Back.” The group brought the song, which has Yoo Young Jin and Dem Jointz among its producers, to the stage for a special performance at SMTOWN Live 2022 on New Year’s Eve. “Step Back” was officially released as a single on Jan. 3. Explore See latest videos, charts and news GOT the Beat is the “first unit” of a new SM Entertainment project known as Girls on Top, set to bring together and highlight the company’s female artists in various groups. SMTOWN Live 2022, a free event for fans around the world that took place at the “SMCU Express Station” in a virtual space known as “KWANGYA,” fea...
BE:FIRST and Its Fans Achieve Success on Hot Trending Songs Charts
BE:FIRST, a Japanese group led by musician and music producer SKY-HI, is enjoying tremendous success on the U.S. Billboard charts. The Hot Trending Songs global charts track Twitter posts by artists’ fans and other Twitter users around the world. BE:FIRST’s debut single “Gifted.” — which was released on Nov. 3 — took the No. 1 spot with a commanding lead, a rarity for a Japanese artist. Even now, a month after the single’s release, it still enjoys a high place on the charts. Posts from BESTY, BE:FIRST’s supporters, are generating constant buzz on Twitter. There are also fan accounts who share daily chart updates. [embedded content] As reported in numerous news articles, “Gifted.” took the No. 1 position on the Nov. 10 Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, dominating the digital metrics of downloa...
Record Industry Makes Strides Toward Greener Future With Music Climate Pact
LONDON – When Will Hutton was appointed Beggars Group’s inaugural head of sustainability in September of last year, his first task was tackling “low hanging fruit” at the indie powerhouse, which includes labels 4AD, Matador, Rough Trade, XL Recordings and Young labels. That included calculating the businesses’ carbon footprint and identifying areas where action could be taken quickly, such as reducing business travel, installing solar panels at Beggars Group’s London offices and improving the sustainability of products. “Now the conversation moves onto what we need to do as an industry,” says Hutton. This month, the global music business took a significant step towards a greener, more sustainable future when all three major record companies — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment...
