Record Labels
Will BTS’ Label Take a Big Hit From Band’s ‘Hiatus’?
HYBE will miss BTS — but not as much as it would have before acquiring Ithaca Holdings in 2021. On Tuesday (June 14), the band announced it was “going on a hiatus” to allow each member to focus on their solo projects. What that might mean for the label that launched BTS in 2013 is unclear. Companywide, BTS accounted for 27% of HYBE’s U.S. album sales and streams in 2021, according to the company’s fourth quarter 2021 investor presentation. In Japan — the world’s second-biggest music market — BTS accounted for about half of HYBE’s album sales, according to the company’s 2021 earnings. On top of that, BTS likely accounted for nearly all HYBE’s touring income that amounted to 191.1 billion ($148 million) in 2019 and 45.6 billion KRW ($36 million) 2021. HYBE’s acquisition of Ithica Projects in...
Warner Music’s Social Justice Fund Sets Event to ‘Spark New Ideas’ Among Grantees
The Warner Music Group/Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund announced a fourth set of grantee partners on Monday, as well as a first-ever event bringing together current recipients as part of a mission to “spark new ideas and drive collaborative change advancing racial justice.” WMG/BFF SJF’s inaugural ‘Grantee Convening’ event takes place this Thursday and Friday (June 16-17) and will include virtual sessions for grantees, a private reception, and three livestreamed events covering such topics as grant making, media messaging and the larger dialogue on global justice. Convening grantees, who were announced in January, include ARRAY, Bard Prison Initiative, the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Brazil Human Rights Fund, Girls Make Beats, Highlander Center, Manos Visibles, A New Way For...
The Azoff Company Launches Giant Music Record Label With First Release
Giant Music is officially in business. The label, a venture from Irving Azoff and his son Jeffrey Azoff, has launched in earnest with an announcement Wednesday (June 8) that Atlanta-based trap artist SwaVay has signed to Def Jam Recordings through Giant Music. The first song, “JUGG,” leads the act’s forthcoming project Almetha’s Son with release details to be announced soon. This partnership appears to be a one-off deal with Def Jam, and whether Giant Music will continue a relationship with Def Jam or its parent company Universal Music Group is yet to be seen. [embedded content] Giant Music is being run by Shawn Holiday, the former co-head of Columbia Records’ urban music division who also held a dual role at Sony/ATV Music Publishing, where he worked with Travis Scott and Cardi B, am...
Frank Ursoleo, Longtime BMG Exec & Iconoclassic Records Founder, Dies at 65
Frank Ursoleo, a former sales and marketing executive who held numerous label and distribution positions in the BMG network of companies before becoming the president of his own company Iconoclassic Records, died unexpectedly in his Cape Cod, Mass. home on May 5. He was 65. “Frank’s passion and knowledge, developed through decades of deep listening, found its fullest expression at Iconoclassic Records,” according to a tribute from Iconoclassic Records president Jeremy Holiday, who joined the label in 2021. “Here, he reissued Laura Nyro’s mid and late career work, to bust the myth that she peaked early.” Ursoleo, who graduated from Boston College, began his music industry career working at the Strawberries music chain. According to his LinkedIn profile, Ursoleo went on to be a sales represe...
The Changing World Of: Record Label Streaming
In 1999, Pavement put out the single “Spit On a Stranger,” pairing it with the B-side track “Harness Your Hopes” as a CD-only release. A decade later, in 2008, the band’s 1997 album Brighten The Corners was released in expanded form to digital retailers like Apple’s iTunes Store, complete with bonus tracks and B-Sides from those sessions, including “Harness Your Hopes,” which appeared digitally for the first time. And that’s where the journey for many of those songs would have ended: as footnotes and rarities for collectors and superfans. But the rise of streaming and social media changed all that. In 2017, for reasons that are still a little mysterious to both the band and its label Matador, “Harness Your Hopes” began to explode on Spotify, leaping into the top spot among Pavement’s most-...
Did Angel Olsen Just Show the Music Industry How to Make Vinyl Green?
Could there be a simpler way for the music industry to go green? While acts like Coldplay and Justin Bieber have been focused on bicycle-powered stadium shows and kinetic dancefloors, for her new album Big Time (out Friday on Jagjaguwar) Angel Olsen took a more straightforward approach that’s replicable for artists of all sizes. Each vinyl or CD copy of the album purchased from her label’s website has carbon offsets built into the pricing, meaning the environmental impact that went into producing — and will go into consuming — the vinyl album (for $1 each) or CD (50 cents each) is effectively neutralized. All the proceeds from these surcharges go to Native, a public benefit corporation specializing in carbon offsets, which will use the money to purchase carbon offsets supporting the Medfor...
Warren ‘Waz’ Costello, Mushroom Group Label Veteran, Dies After Battle With Illness
Warren “Waz” Costello, a kingpin of Australia’s independent label industry, died Sunday (May 29) after a battle with cancer. He was 64. Costello co-founded Liberation Records with the late Mushroom Group founder Michael Gudinski, and remained one of Gudinski’s closest and most trusted allies until his own passing in March 2021. The Mushroom family is “deeply saddened by the passing of Warren Costello after a long battle with illness,” reads a statement from the indie music company. Since joining the label division “he has been an essential fabric of life at Mushroom. He was a true music man, a beloved friend to our artists and integral to the success of our business over the past three decades,” the message continues. “Warren was renowned for his positive energy, integrity and family value...
The Ledger: Sony Music’s Cautious Catalog Approach & Other Investor Call Highlights
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. Sony’s annual investor presentation was a rare opportunity for Rob Stringer, chairman of Sony Music Group and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, to go on record on the important financial issues of the day. Any analyst or investor listening in got some helpful insight into Stringer’s thinking about how Sony spends money and what will account for future revenue growth. Stringer’s presentation recapped Sony Music’s fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, as well as its double-digit growth over the previous five years. Revenues were up $3 billion since 2017, profit margins have improved and streaming now accounts for 70% of total ...
Live Nation Electronic Asia’s Label & Management Group Partners With Astralwerks, Capitol Records
Live Nation Electronic Asia (LNEA), Live Nation’s Asian electronic dance music division, has entered into a multi-year global licensing and distribution agreement for its recently launched Fabled Records label. The partnership with leading dance label Astralwerks and Capitol Records China is focused on supporting emerging Chinese electronic music and artists. Per the terms of this partnership, Astralwerks and Capitol Records China will work together on the global release and distribution of Fabled Records artists and projects, with such projects receiving access to Universal Music Group’s international divisions, with global marketing support in China helmed by Capitol Records China and Astralwerks in the rest of the world. UMG launched Astralwerks Asia in 2019 and Capitol Records China ea...
Sony Music Group Extends Program for Unrecouped Artists and Songwriters
More legacy artists and songwriters are going to be able to profit from the boom in streaming and other digital royalties after Sony Music Group expands its program for paying royalties to more artists with unrecouped royalty balances, chairman Rob Stringer announced Wednesday evening (May 25) during a presentation to Sony Corp. investors. With Artists Forward and Songwriters Forward, both launched in 2021, Sony Music decided to pay royalties to artists and songwriters who were signed before 2000 and haven’t received advance since. Sony Music didn’t wipe the slate clean by modifying contracts or adjusting the account balances. Instead, it would ignore the negative account balances of artists whose royalties earned over the previous two decades never caught up with their advance and expense...
Australia’s Music Biz Welcomes Fresh Start With New Prime Minister, Government
BRISBANE, Australia — The Australian Labor Party’s victory in the federal election has been welcomed by the nation’s music industry as a fresh start, and as “great news” for a community that felt abandoned by the previous leadership during the most treacherous months of the pandemic. Prime Minister elect Anthony Albanese was sworn in Monday (May 23) as Australia’s 31st prime minister at Government House in Canberra, the capital. Four senior frontbenchers were also officially sworn in. After nine years in opposition, the new PM got to work immediately. Later on Monday, he visited Japan for a meeting with the leaders of the Quad — the United States, India and Japan. The music industry is also keen to get down to work with the ALP, the major center-left political party, and Albanese, who, wit...
Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ Celebrates 40th Anniversary With Double-CD Set
Prefaced by Maxwelll’s emotive cover of “The Lady in My Life” at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards last evening (May 15), Sony Music and the Estate of Michael Jackson are formally announcing the release of Thriller 40. Arriving Nov. 18 in celebration of the groundbreaking album’s 40th anniversary, the double-CD set will package the original Thriller (whose nine songs included “Lady”) along with a bonus disc of never-released tracks that Jackson had worked on for the album. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Released Nov. 30, 1982, Thriller spun off seven top 10 singles with three achieving No. 1: “Beat It,” “Billie Jean” and the title track. In addition to winning eight Grammys and setting various chart records, the album has since bee...
