Record Labels
UMG’s Music Health Alliance Partnership Is Literally Saving Musicians’ Lives
John Dufilho hadn’t had a routine physical in 10 years when the email from Universal Music Publishing Group arrived last fall. The film/TV composer and frontman of indie rock band The Deathray Davies worked as an independent contractor and could not afford health insurance. That changed when Dufilho, 52, learned from the email that UMPG, which handles his publishing, and parent company Universal Music Group (UMG) had partnered with Music Health Alliance (MHA), a Nashville-based nonprofit that since 2013 has saved 18,000 musicians, industry workers and their families an estimated $85 million in health care costs by helping them find insurance and navigate other healthcare issues, including counseling for survivors of the 2017 Route 91 Harvest festival mass shooting. Its services are free. D...
Sony Music Opens Singapore Office, Shifting Asia Hub From Hong Kong
Sony Music Group is moving its Southeast Asia headquarters to Singapore, joining a host of other music and tech companies that have shifted regional business hubs away from Hong Kong amid street protests and crackdowns by the Chinese government. The new Singapore office will house SMG companies Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Music Publishing and artists and label services company The Orchard, the company said in a press release Tuesday (March 22). It will also serve as the new base for Sony Interactive Entertainment, creators of PlayStation. A host of pan-regional specialists focused on Singapore and the wider region will work out of the new headquarters, including in marketing, data analytics, human resources, finance, digital innovation, business development, A&R, and publicity. Esta...
How Atlantic Records Plans to Promote 56 Songs From ‘American Song Contest’
The 56 artists competing in the inaugural edition of NBC’s American Song Contest – which debuted Monday (March 21) evening — will have their songs released by Atlantic Records, the legendary American label that has been home to iconic artists such as Aretha Franklin, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Ed Sheeran. Billboard spoke with Atlantic Records president, West Coast, Kevin Weaver about the label’s involvement with the competition and plans for the season. How did Atlantic Records become the label for the American Song Contest? Ben Silverman and Audrey Morrissey are both really good friends of mine. Ben propagated the deal to bring the format to the U.S. I talked to Ben very early on and then I saw the press announcements that NBC picked up the show and then they hired Audrey ...
Inside Track: Labels’ Back-to-Office Plans Include Massages, Mediation, Free Lunch & Concerts
As COVID-19 restrictions ease, music companies are welcoming back employees with a wide range of healthy perks to lessen the stress of returning to the office after two years of working from home. Warner Music Group and publishing arm Warner Chappell offer staffers massages, reiki sessions and even sound baths in their Los Angeles, New York and Nashville offices, as well as complimentary lunches and smoothies. Baristas also man coffee stations to encourage face-to-face conversation and collaboration among returning workers who may have only seen each other over Zoom for months. There is also a full slate of virtual programs ranging from yoga, wellness classes and meditation. WMG’s recorded music division began welcoming staffers back in late February, while the publishing company and corpo...
Nat King Cole Recordings Sold to Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group quietly acquired about 200 recordings by Nat King Cole from the iconic singer’s estate in January 2021, the company revealed Thursday (March 17), bringing all of his recordings under UMG ownership. The songs, recorded between 1961 and 1964, were previously licensed to Capitol Records — now owned by UMG — under a deal Cole negotiated following his rise to fame. His earlier recordings, also of about 200 songs, were all originally released on Capitol Records as well. The agreement was first reported by Forbes to be in the range of $10 to $20 million – a price range Billboard confirmed with a source familiar with the deal. Recordings included in the acquisition include such iconic songs as “Nature Boy,” “Mona Lisa,” “Unforgettable,” “The Christmas Song (Merry Christm...
Mushroom Group Aims for ‘New Heights’ Through Partnership With UMG’s Virgin Music
Mushroom Group, the independent music juggernaut, partners up with Universal Music Group’s indie label and artist services division on a multi-tiered arrangement that promises to lift the Australia company to “new heights” and secure global opportunities for its artists. The alliance, announced Thursday (March 17), is a two-way street, pumping fresh content into the Virgin Music Label & Artist Services (VLMAS) pipeline, and providing support and distribution services for Mushroom artists’ releases, for the world outside of Australia and New Zealand. Under the terms of the new deal, VLMAS will activate its global promotion, marketing and audience label services for Mushroom’s existing U.S. and U.K. activities, and, in situations where both parties agree on a project, certain Mushroom ar...
K-Pop Label JYP Entertainment Doing ‘Full-Scale’ Expansion Into US
One of K-pop’s biggest record labels is firmly planting its foot into the U.S. market in the latest move to indicate South Korean pop music is increasingly creating significant stateside business. JYP USA, the North American subsidiary of JYP Entertainment, will focus on the U.S. development of JYP’s roster, as part of a “full-scale North American market development and global expansion maximization” by the South Korean label, Billboard has learned. JYP Entertainment, one of South Korea’s publicly traded agencies, was founded in the late 1990s by musician-producer J.Y. Park, who created early breakout stars like Wonder Girls, the first K-pop act to enter the Hot 100 chart in 2009. The North American launch follows last month’s news that JYP’s strategic partnership with Republic Records wou...
Jack White Implores Major Labels to Build Vinyl Pressing Plants Amid Backlog
Jack White is calling on the major labels — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group — to build their own vinyl pressing plants amid explosive growth in the format that has led to industry-wide backlogs. White made the request via an open letter and accompanying video released on Monday (March 14). “With industry-wide turnaround times for vinyl currently leaning towards the length of a human pregnancy, it’s obvious, in a world so contingent on being of-the-moment and timed just right (a single, an album, a tour etc.), these timelines are the killers of momentum, soul, artistic expression, and far too often, livelihoods,” White wrote in the letter. White, who owns the Detroit-based Third Man Pressing plant — opened in 2017 — with his independent label Third Man...
The Ledger: Leaving Russia Will Have Little Impact on Streaming Services, Record Labels
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. Strong steps taken by Western music companies to cease operations in Russia will have a big impact on the country but will do little damage to the global market. Russia is the 16th largest recorded music market in the world with a trade value $199 million in 2020, according to the IFPI. That was on par with Sweden, which has about 7% of Russia’s population, as well as Mexico, India and Switzerland. For the largest record labels, music publishers and music streaming companies, each with multi-billion-dollar revenues, Russia is a tiny part of their worldwide businesses. Spotify’s decision to suspend operations in Rus...
Colombian Producer Bull Nene Launches New Label With Virgin
Colombian songwriter and producer Bull Nene (real name René David Cano) has launched his own record label, called God Willing, and signed a global distribution deal with Virgin Music US Latin. The Medellín-born Bull Nene, known for his work with the likes of J Balvin, Karol G, Maluma and Juanes among others, is known for his more melodic urban sound. His first signing is 23-year old Medellín native Mar Mejía, who sings a blend of soul and pop with urban beats. Mejía’s first single under the label is “Money,” a bilingual track about ambition and dreams, written by Bull Nene with Vibarco, Zenzei and Puerto Rican singer/songwriter Gale. [embedded content] Tapping an artist from Medellín and basing his new label in his hometown was a deliberate decision, says Bull Nene. “I felt it was the righ...
Sony Music Suspends Operations in Russia Over Ukraine Invasion
Sony Music Group has joined a growing list of global music companies pulling out of Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. “Sony Music Group calls for peace in Ukraine and an end to the violence,” the company said in a statement on Thursday. “We have suspended operations in Russia and will continue our support of global humanitarian relief efforts to aid victims in need.” The move by Sony to suspend its operations in Russia, where it has roughly three dozen employees, follows similar actions by Universal Music Group, Spotify, YouTube, TikTok and Live Nation, among others. A source familiar with Sony’s decision tells Billboard that the company will continues to provide financial and wellbeing assistance to the impacted employees but could not elaborate further.This is a develop...
Geffen Records Names Tom March U.S. President
Tom March has been named the new president of Geffen Records in the United States, the company announced today (March 7). March, who spent the past six years as co-president of Polydor in the U.K., will take up his new post in July and report to Interscope Geffen A&M chairman/CEO John Janick. March joins at a period when Geffen is on an upswing it hasn’t experienced in some time, with Olivia Rodrigo having broken out into superstar status in the past year with her album SOUR and nominations in each of the Big Four categories coming up at the Grammys in April. Geffen, in addition to INgrooves and Universal Music Group, will also be the distribution home for BTS when they make their UMG debut after leaving Columbia Records last fall, while another signing, the rapper Yeat, saw his latest...
