Music Industry News
Old Music Now Makes Up Nearly 70% of American Consumption: Report
Is old music killing new music? A new study suggests that old songs make up a larger share of the market than ever before. In a new essay, jazz critic and music historian Ted Gioia lays out the facts on modern-day music consumption. According to the most recent information collected by MRC Data, “old” music — released more than 18 months ago — makes up 69.8 percent of the current American music market. That’s a 19.3 percent change in volume from 2020, when its share was only 65.1 percent. “Just consider these facts,” he writes, “the 200 most popular tracks now account for less than 5% of total streams. It was twice that rate just three years ago.” Gioia goes on to use iTunes purchase trends as evidence of old music’s rising popularity. Apparently, the list of the currently most-purchased t...
Bruce Springsteen Sells Catalog to Sony for $500 Million
Bruce Springsteen has sold his music’s masters and publishing to Sony Music for a reported total of $500 million, according to Billboard. The Boss has been signed to Sony’s Columbia Records since he launched his career, and was previously given ownership of his earlier albums. But now the label owns his wide-spanning catalog, which includes the 15-times platinum album Born in the U.S.A. and five-times platinum album The River. All told, Springsteen’s discography spans 300 songs, 20 studio albums, and 23 live recordings. Springsteen’s deal is the latest transaction involving a veteran artist looking to cash in on their back catalog — especially as the pandemic put a halt to touring. Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Shakira, Jimmy Iovine, and Dav...
R.I.P. Ethel Gabriel, First Female Record Producer for a Major Label Dead at 99
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-19T17:51:01+00:00“>April 19, 2021 | 1:51pm ET Ethel Gabriel, the Grammy-winning record producer who became a trailblazer for other women in the music industry, has died at the age of 99. She passed away from dementia at a memory care facility in Rochester, New York on March 23rd, reports The Washington Post. Born Ethel Mary Nagy on November 16th, 1921 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she took to music at a young ago by studying trombone and starting a local swing band. Gabriel decided to pursue music as a career and set off for college, receiving a music teaching degree in 1943 from Temple University in Philadelphia and later attending Columbia University afterwards. Technically, G...
HYBE, Home of BTS, Acquires Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings
HYBE, the South Korean entertainment company formerly known as Big Hit Entertainment, has acquired Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. The merger, as first reported by Variety, brings acts like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Demi Lovato under the same umbrella as BTS, TXT, Seventeen, and other K-pop stars managed by HYBE. Under terms of the deal, HYBE will acquire 100% of Ithaca Holdings and its properties, including SB Projects, Big Machine Label Group, and Braun’s management clients. “The two companies will work closely together leveraging our proven track records of success, know-how, and expertise to create synergy, transcend borders and break down cultural barriers,” said HYBE chairman and CEO Bang Si-Hyuk in a statement. “Please look forward to the endless possibilities of HYBE and I...
The Artist-Superfan’s Brave New Superstore
Primary Wave, run by long-time music executive Larry Mestel, may steal the headlines. His company uses billions to buy the music publishing and masters of mega-artists like Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, Bob Marley, Prince, and Whitney Houston. But Twitter shaman Jack Dorsey’s recent acquisition of Jay-Z’s streaming service, Tidal, by his company, Square, is equally tantalizing. And it points to something that is bubbling up in the business right now that is still early, but ultimately will build into a huge, new movement of massively monetizing direct artist-fan connection and engagement. Dorsey’s rationale for buying Tidal is to give artists a direct path to easily transact with their fans (think merchandise, for example), much like retailers use Square to cut out the credit card middlema...
A New Album Hasn’t Cracked the Billboard Top 10 in Three Weeks
For the first time since 2000, a newly released album has failed to appear in the Billboard Top 10 for three consecutive weeks. Per Billboard, Foo Fighters’ Medicine at Midnight and Pooh Shiesty’s Sheisty Season were the most recent albums to have cracked the Top 10 upon their first week of release — back on February 20th. In the three weeks since then, the charts have been dominated by older releases, including Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Dangerous Album, which has now spent eight straight weeks at No. 1, as well as Ariana Grande’s Positions, Pop Smoke’s Shoot For the Stars Aim for the Moon, Lil Durk’s The Voice, The Weeknd’s After Hours, and Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia. Many of these releases — such as Grande’s Positions, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, and BTS’s BE — have been fuel...
Just Because COVID-19 Restrictions Are Lifting Doesn’t Mean Venues Are Opening
Over the past 24 hours, several states have reduced the restrictions in place to curb the spread of COVID-19. On Tuesday, both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves abruptly decided to lift all capacity restrictions on businesses and end their states’ mask mandates starting next week. Then today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that plays, concerts, and other performances can resume indoors at limited capacity beginning next month. Just because music venues are allowed to reopen, however, doesn’t mean they’re all jumping at the opportunity to do so. The intensity and longevity of the coronavirus pandemic has been a major burden, if not an outright death bell, for independent music venues over the past year. Despite Congress allocating $15 billion for thea...
Neil Young Sells 50% of Rights to His Entire Song Catalog
Neil Young is the latest prominent artist to sign away publishing rights, adding to an ongoing trend in the music industry. The deal sees publishing house Hipgnosis acquire half the worldwide copyright of and any resulting income from Young’s over 1,180 original songs. Exactly how much cash the sale netted the folk rock icon isn’t known, but it’s almost undoubtedly a nine-figure sum. It’s the latest major deal made just this week by Hipgnosis, founded in 2018 by artist manager Merck Mercuriadis (Elton John, Beyoncé). Earlier, the company closed on 100% of Fleetwood Mac member Lindsay Buckingham’s catalog, as well as for producer royalties for 259 songs by Beats founder Jimmy Iovine. Young’s catalog now joins those and others owned by Hipgnosis, including Timbaland, The-Dream, Mark Ronson, ...
Vinyl Just Had Its Best Sales Week in History
We already knew vinyl was making a tremendous comeback, but the format has downright shattered records this month. The most important of them all: vinyl just had its best sales week ever. As Billboard reports, there were 1.842 million (!) LP’s sold in the US during the week leading up to Christmas, ending on December 24th. That’s the biggest week the format has had since Nielsen/MRC Data began tracking sales information in 1991. The previous record was achieved just a week prior, when 1.445 million vinyl records were sold between December 10th and December 17th. These gargantuan figures arrive at the end of a year that’s been historically great for vinyl. For the first time in 34 years, LP sales outpaced CDs during four separate weeks in 2020 (all of them since September), w...
Guitar Center Is Officially Filing for Bankruptcy
Following a report last month that Guitar Center was considering filing for bankruptcy, the instrument retailer has indeed decided to go that route in an effort to save the company. According to a press release, Guitar Center will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, striking a deal with key investors and… Please click the link below to read the full article. Guitar Center Is Officially Filing for Bankruptcy Jon Hadusek 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.
Scooter Braun Sells Taylor Swift’s Masters For Estimated $300 Million, Swift Still Intends to Re-Record Her Old Albums
Scooter Braun has sold the masters for Taylor Swift’s first six albums to investment fund called Shamrock Holdings. According to Variety, the transaction was estimated to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 million. Swift addressed the sale in a statement posted to social media on Monday. She said her team… Please click the link below to read the full article. Scooter Braun Sells Taylor Swift’s Masters For Estimated $300 Million, Swift Still Intends to Re-Record Her Old Albums Eli Enis 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 user...
Phoebe Bridgers Announces Her Own Record Label Saddest Factory
Don’t look now, but Phoebe Bridgers has launched her very own record label. In partnership with Dead Oceans, she’s announced the creation of Saddest Factory. Bridgers will serve as the label’s CEO and intends to release music of all variety. “The vision of the label is simple: good songs, regardless of genre,” she said in a press release announcing the label’s formation. In an interview with Billboard, Bridgers said she is especially excited to be involved in the marketing of music, which she describes as her “secret passion.” She explained further: “I love thinking of bus bench ideas and Instagram filters and stuff. It’s very corporate of me, but I’m kind of obsessed.” As such, Bridges described her role at the label as the liaison “from artist [brain] to corporate brain.” Saddest Fa...
