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31 Dec 2024

Anyma’s Historic Sphere Residency: 5 Best Moments

After Sphere opened with fanfare in September of 2023, there was a lot of talk, in the electronic music world at least, about which electronic artist would be the first to play Las Vegas’ new space ship of a venue.

Presumably many would’ve jumped at the chance. Las Vegas is a dance music nexus, with billboards along Interstate 15 into the city bearing the faces of new and longtime resident artists at Marquee, Hakkasan, XS and other nightclubs on the Strip.

But ultimately it was a new face that made the cut, with Sphere announcing in July that Italian-American techno and melodic techno producer Anyma — who hadn’t previously had a residency in the city — would be The One.

With the news, talk shifted as people outside of dance music familiarized themselves with the artist, a sizable name within the genre, but still a relative unknown to the gen pop. Who was he, and what would he do, people asked? Meanwhile, talk inside the dance world was that this show was going to be, in colloquial terms, totally bananas.

Certainly the bar was set mighty high after well-received residencies from Sphere’s previous artists U2, Phish, the Eagles and Dead & Company. But those are bands, and this would be a DJ. Still, interest for Anyma was abundantly and statistically clear: tickets for the eight-night residency sold out the same day they went on sale in July, with Anyma reporting selling 100,000 tickets for these shows and more dates subsequently added, bringing the total number of shows to eight.

Officially and grandly titled Afterlife Presents Anyma: The End of Genesys, the figurative curtain for the show lifted Dec. 27, when the residency began amid one of the busiest times of year in Las Vegas, bringing ravers to Sphere for the very first time.

Two days later, on Dec. 29, attendees sporting ravey attire and the de facto Afterlife uniform of black leather everything and sunglasses inside milled around the venue between sets from openers Cassian b2b Kevin de Vries and Charlotte de Witte. (Anyma’s support acts are different for every night of the residency, with the Dec. 28 opener Amelie Lens becoming the venue’s first ever officially billed female artist.)

Anyma came onstage promptly at 11 p.m., appearing on top of a riser placed on the floor of the venue from which glowing cords emanated. The two other risers on each side of him each contained a cello and the robot arms that played the instrument throughout the show, emphasizing the machine vs. human quality of both the overall Anyma aesthetic and the show we were all about to see.

It was, in fact, bananas. Starting with a robot breaking through a wall of glass in tandem with the music, the performance ultimately turned several standard dance music conventions on their head. Many large-scale shows, for example, take place in seated venues like Madison Square Garden, Kia Forum and Red Rocks, but Sphere is arguably the only one where attendees in the seated areas (Sphere also has standing room on the floor) have a vested interest in staying butt-to-chair, given that the seats are programmed to shake and rumble with the bass. (Or in the case of live acts, the drums.)

Certainly many people were on their feet raving in place, but by and large this was a sit down show, making the experience at times feel more akin to a futuristic movie theater than a nightclub or any standard large-scale dance performance.

In ways, Anyma and the Dec. 29 special guest artists — Delilah Montagu and Ellie Goulding — were secondary to the visuals. You might not have even noticed they were there in person, given the focus demanded by the screen and everything happening on it. Born Matteo Milleri, Anyma has long been been half of the duo Tale of Us, with the pair cultivating a signature visual aesthetic via their own output and releases on their influential label Afterlife and its affiliated shows.

This sort of transhumanist aesthetic and human meets machine ideology is so well-suited for Sphere that one can’t help but assume it’s a not insignifcant part of the reason Anyma secured these shows. Any act playing the venue needs to have a well-established and world-building visual identity (which is part of the reason Sphere functions so well for legacy acts like the Dead, who have a huge visual history to pull from.) But Sphere’s mind-bending technical capabilities are providing Anyma and his team the opportunity to both show off and expand their epic, trippy, frequently dark and often beautiful cyborg narrative.

And expand they did. These are five of the best parts of the performance.

The Visuals, Obviously

Image Credit: Courtesy of Anyma

Where to even start. Sphere is ultimately all about an artist’s visual presentation, and previous residents have discussed feeling almost upstaged by the venue, or at least feeling a necessity to level up musically in order to compete with what’s happening on the screens.

But while Anyma’s musical performance was stellar (more on that in a bit), the star of the show was obviously the visuals, with the performance starting with the female cyborg character who’d appear throughout the show breaking through a wall of glass, which elicited cheers and created a moment of collective lift off. This robot then eventually flew to space (with her free fall creating a moment of exiting physical dizziness and disorientation) before being catapulted through realms including but not limited to a verdant garden (where the show’s other main character, a human man, made his first appearance), a lush cityscape that devolved into a fiery inferno, an arid desert and many other realms during the four-act show. Meanwhile other visual segments were more conceptual, with the screens at one point populated entirely by blinking eyeballs.

There was a sort of poetry in the presentation, with the human ingenuity and science and engineering powering Sphere mirrored by End of Genesys‘ narrative focused on the meeting of organic (the man) and robotic (his female counterpart), with humanity, at least in the show eventually winning out towards the end when the male character inserts a beating heart inside the female, a moment that drew cheers from the crowd.
The Special Guests

Image Credit: Courtesy of Anyma

Guests who appeared both onscreen and in the flesh included FKA twigs, who showed up in a segment where she danced underwater to the Anyma remix of her own “Eusexua,” Grimes, who appeared in a brief onscreen segment in which she writhed around in a glowing box, vocalist Delilah Montagu, who appeared live at the venue to sing her Anyma collab “I Believe In You.” Meanwhile, Ellie Goulding appeared both in the flesh and onscreen, singing an unreleased Anyma collab while close-up imagery of her face morphed hypnotically.
Loads of Unreleased Songs, Including a Forthcoming Ellie Goulding Collab

Image Credit: Courtesy of Anyma

Anyma’s “Hear Me Now,” and “Walking With a Ghost,” drew some of the loudest music-related cheers of the two-hour show, which was also populated with his remix of Fred again.. and Swedish House Mafia’s “Turn On the Lights again…” But a lot of performance was assembled from music that returned no Shazam results, possibly/presumably meaning that a good deal of fresh Anyma output is en route. The most significant forthcoming track is arguably “Hypnotized,” the aforementioned Ellie Goulding collab that Goulding showed up in person to help debut on Dec. 29. The slinky earworm marks the first collaboration between Anyma and the British artist, one of dance music’s most important and enduring voices, and will be released January 10.
Anyma’s Quick Cameo

As previously mentioned, the main characters in the visual show are the human man and the cyborg woman, who keep meeting up to embrace each other and exchange longing glances in various gorgeously rendered sci-fi locations. While other Sphere residencies have incorporated live footage of the band into shows, this was not the case with Anyma, who appeared onscreen only once at the end of the performance, when the man character briefly transformed into a digital (and shirtless) rendition of Milleri, tattoos and all.
The Historic Nature of the Entire Situation

Image Credit: Courtesy of Anyma

Electronic music is a sort scrappy genre that’s always fought for space in the mainstream, with varying levels of success over the last 40-plus years. Having an electronic artist in the venue, not to mention one who’s sold it out many times over, further demonstrates the wide appeal of the genre along with its overall health, especially in the live sector. It also underlined that, given that large-scale modern electronic live shows heavily incorporate big-ass stage setups and expansive visuals, Sphere is a very good fit for the genre.

31 Dec 2024

Jingle Punks & Audio Up Founder Jared Gutstadt Sued for Sexual Assault

Jingle Punks and Audio Up Media founder Jared Gutstadt has been accused of sexual assault in a new lawsuit filed by singer-songwriter and actor Mary Koons (known professionally as Scarlett Burke), who alleges that the influential executive “trapped” her “in a cycle of manipulation, abuse and exploitation” for years.

Filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday (Dec. 31), the complaint alleges that Gutstadt “manipulated” Koons “into a sexual relationship under the guise of advancing her career”; repeatedly sexually and physically assaulted her; “isolated” her from professional opportunities “unless she complied with his sexual and logistical demands”; and “engaged in stalking, harassment, intimidation and retaliation” when she tried to escape his control — in the process “causing her significant and irreparable financial and professional harm.”

Audio Up and Anthem Entertainment — the former parent company of creative music agency Jingle Punks, which Gutstadt founded in 2008 — are also named as defendants in the lawsuit for allegedly facilitating Guststadt’s grip over Koons “by exerting substantial financial control and decision-making power over [her] professional opportunities and working conditions, particularly through her employment and contractual relationships with Jingle Punks.”

The allegations were first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Gutstadt is best known for founding Jingle Punks and Audio Up, a podcast network he launched in 2020. Anthem (then known as ole Music Publishing) acquired Jingle Punks in 2015, ultimately leading to Gutstadt’s exit four years later. In July, Anthem and Gutstadt struck a joint venture enabling Audio Up to develop scripted podcasts from some of the publishing and intellectual property assets he created at Jingle Punks. In October, Jingle Punks was acquired by music licensing company Slipstream along with Anthem’s other production music businesses. (Slipstream is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.)

According to the complaint — filed by L.A.-based attorney Samuel Brown at Hennig Kramer along with Parisis Filippatos, Tanvir Rahman and Gabrielle Rosen Harvey at New York firm Filippatos — Koons met Gutstadt in 2017, when she was 27 and he was 39. Over the next several years, she alleges she endured “psychological manipulation, physical violence and sexual abuse, leading to severe emotional and psychological trauma,” according to the complaint. “The relentless pattern of abuse culminated in an environment where Ms. Koons felt she had no choice but to comply with Mr. Gutstadt’s sexual demands, to avoid the horrifying consequences of refusing him.”

In the lawsuit, Koons claims she met Gutstadt in May 2017 at the Peppermint Club in West Hollywood, where Gustadt’s band, The Jingle Punks Hipster Orchestra, had a residency. That night, she says, Gutstadt “fixated” on her immediately and later had his assistant contact Koons’ then-manager to arrange a meeting. Over the next several weeks, Koons claims Gutstadt “launched a calculated campaign to groom” her, “bombarding her with messages about prestigious career opportunities designed to captivate and overwhelm her,” inviting her to dinners with high-profile music and TV executives, and bringing her along on trips to Nashville and Lake Tahoe “under the guise of collaborating on music projects” for Jingle Punks’ then-parent company ole Music (later Anthem).

Koons says that within a week of meeting Gutstadt, he requested that she record “Let the Dice Roll,” a song he was planning to pitch as the theme for the Netflix series Girls Incarcerated. “This marked the start of her employment with Jingle Punks and her entrapment in his manipulative control,” according to the suit. After Netflix acquired the song, Koons claims Gutstadt paid her only $500 (“a glaring underpayment that disregarded the value of her work and contribution”) and kept the rights to the song for himself.

According to the lawsuit, the first flash of Koons’ alleged abuse occurred “in or around” June 2017 after Gutstadt invited Koons to a dinner that had “several prominent music executives” in attendance. After driving her back to her Studio City apartment, Koons says Gustadt “began incessantly pressuring” her to kiss him, and, when she obliged by agreeing to kiss him on the cheek, he “turned his head at the last moment, tricking her into kissing him on the lips.”

The following month, Koons said that Gutstadt invited her to join him in Nashville for a week of writing sessions with him and his team, during which she says she was put up in a seedy “motel along the interstate,” half an hour’s drive from the Thompson Hotel where Gutstadt was staying. Claiming she felt unsafe, she says she asked Gutstadt to move her to a different hotel and that, instead of providing her with her own room, he manipulated her into staying in his. Koons claims the first sexual assault happened that night, when she alleges Gutstadt “forcibly grabbed her hand and put it on his penis” and “ignored her pleas for him to stop.”

Over the next several months, Koons says Gustadt “overwhelmed” her with “lavish gifts and gestures,” including freelance work opportunities, and “deliberately isolated” her from supportive people in her life, including her manager, “who, like many others, recognized that something was wrong and tried to separate” her from Gutstadt.

In a pattern of alleged abusive behavior that Koons says occurred over the next seven and a half years, she says Gutstadt’s “manipulative tactics paved the way for his coercive sexual relationship” with her. “In or around” August 2017, she says Koons invited her to a Jingle Punks company retreat in Lake Tahoe, only to again deceive her into sharing a hotel room with him and failing to include her in any of the “team building activities.” It was around this time that Koons says she became aware of a “misogynistic” culture at Jingle Punks and Anthem, including an alleged incident at the Tahoe retreat in which a male Jingle Punks music supervisor attempted to assault a female Jingle Punks composer in her hotel room. Koons claims that despite the company being aware of the alleged incident, “no action was taken” to address it.

Koons says she was subsequently “lured into an intermittent extramarital affair” with Gutstadt, who she says “would also constantly resort to coercion and manipulation to convince Ms. Koons she had to stay with him in order to advance her career” — all while being denied the opportunity to “reap the benefits of her work” as a songwriter for the company and being cut off from outside work opportunities. In one account, she says that when the Deutsch advertising agency reached out to her with an offer of work, Gutstadt “became enraged” and verbally abused her before compelling her to tell the Deutsch executive that any future offers needed to be run through Gutstadt and Jingle Punks.

According to the lawsuit, Koons says that Gutstadt, in a bid at “entrenching his dominance over her,” eventually left her completely financially dependent on him, after which she says “the abuse escalated significantly.” Each time she says she tried to release his grip on her, he would allegedly lure her back with lucrative work opportunities on high-profile projects, including paid writing sessions for the movie Trolls and an opportunity to write for country star Chris Stapleton.

In the fall of 2018, Koons says that after taking her to an Emmy Awards party, Gutstadt effectively forced her to have sex with him at his office after making her “feel indebted to him” for the invite. “This was not consensual sex,” the lawsuit reads. That same October, she says Gutstadt manipulated her into signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) “not tied to any specific project” with Gutstadt or his company. After signing it, she says Gustadt “warned her that if she ever spoke out, no one would believe her, and that breaching the NDA would not only destroy her career but allow him to ruin her entirely.” She claims that as a party to the NDA, ole Music (now Anthem) “exerted additional control over Ms. Koons by restricting her ability to speak out” about Gutstadt’s alleged abuse.

Koons claims the abuse further escalated after she signed the NDA and that she was forced to take jobs with Gustadt, Jingle Punks, ole Music and Audio Up, including through signing multiple agreements with the companies that served “to strip her of her creative ownership” and deny her adequate financial compensation. According to the lawsuit, one of these alleged agreements — a development deal with Jingle Punks and ole Music for Make It Up As We Go, a podcast series based around Koons’ original music — saw Koons effectively “signing away her creative rights” to the project and being paid just $10,000, described as “a paltry and insulting amount that grossly undervalued her contributions and highlighted the agreement’s exploitative nature.”

The lawsuit includes multiple allegations of physical abuse. In one April 2019 incident described in the complaint, Koons claims that after allegedly protesting when Gutstadt “took most of the money” she earned from participating in a two-day Deutsch songwriting session, he “became violent” and began hitting both her and her dog. In another alleged incident in October 2019, Koons claims that Gustadt “violently tackled her to the ground” after she attempted to read text messages between him and his wife.

In another account of alleged abuse, Koons claims that while recording two songs with him and another songwriter at Audio Up’s Audio Chateau in L.A. in January 2022, she awoke in the middle of the night to find Gutstadt “raping her in her sleep.” She claims Gutstadt raped her again in September 2023 — while they were staying at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena, Calif., during an Audio Up writing retreat — after Gutstadt became enraged when Koons “refused his sexual advances.”

Throughout Koons’ alleged relationship with Gutstadt, she says Anthem/ole Music “enabled” a culture of “harassment and coercion,” thereby “solidifying its complicity in the ongoing mistreatment” of Koons as well as multiple other female employees by Jingle Punks staffers.

“Mr. Gutstadt’s deliberate and vindictive behavior has marginalized Ms. Koons, stunting her professional growth and obstructing her visibility within the industry,” the complaint reads, adding that she “has suffered and continues to suffer from profound emotional distress,” including post-traumatic stress disorder.

Koons is seeking compensatory damages, lost wages and earnings, a money judgment for “mental pain and anguish and severe emotional distress,” and punitive and exemplary damages, among other relief.

Representatives for Gutstadt, Anthem and Audio Up had not responded to Billboard‘s request for comment at press time.

31 Dec 2024

Inside Luis Miguel’s Record-Breaking Tour With Fenix Entertainment Owner Marcelo Figoli

Marcelo Figoli is no stranger to big numbers. As the founder and owner of Fenix Entertainment — the Argentina-based conglomerate that encompasses live shows, amusement parks, soccer teams and media — Figoli has offices in eight countries, produces more than 100 live events per year and has successfully promoted tours by the likes of Ricardo Arjona, Ricky Martin, Romeo Santos and Shakira.

But Figoli capped 2024 with his biggest tour ever: namely, the Luis Miguel 2023-24 Tour — co-promoted alongside Henry Cardenas’ CMN — which became not only the highest-grossing Latin tour of the year but also the highest-grossing Latin tour of all time, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore.

In December, when Billboard published its top tours of the year recap, the Miguel tour had reported more than 2 million tickets sold over 128 shows, generating a gross income of $290.4 million in 2024 alone. That number doesn’t include the 2023 figures or Miguel’s final Mexico City shows.

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“I was very emotional [when I heard the news],” Figoli tells Billboard of his record. “I felt immense happiness, for the artist and for the work we did.”

Below, Billboard speaks with Figoli about the stunning success of the Miguel tour and how it broke all records.

Despite its size, Fenix is an independent company. How do you distinguish yourself from other promoters worldwide?

We offer something different. We do more artisanal work, if you will, and put more thought into each of the artists and the products. I throw myself into it. I’m passionate, I go crazy, I review sales numbers every day, I’m a workaholic. I’m very calm when it comes to handling the stress generated by these massive events that I organize, but I’m very nervous in the day-to-day work leading up to achieving success.

We can provide a plus in markets like Latin America and in some cases — as with Luis Miguel and Arjona— in the entire world. Also, Fenix has partnered with CMN in recent years, and that consolidation continues to open a space for us.

Had you worked with Luis Miguel before?

We did countless concerts with Luis Miguel, but we had worked in the South American markets. Never a global tour like this one. But we’d worked very well because we have great respect and great admiration for his career. For us, he is one of the greatest artists in the world in any language, and we firmly believe in his career and that is why we bet on his tour. I thought the tour was going to be big, solid, strong. It may have exceeded my expectations, but I did know that this tour was going to do what it did. Initially, we were going to partner with CMN only in the United States and we ended up partnering for everything.

There’s a big leap from a “solid” and “strong” tour to the most successful in history. What do you attribute it to?

For me, the key to success was, first, how high we aimed. And second, how we planned the tour launch at the same time at a global scale, rather than market to market. We launched the global tour on the same day. The same day we put all the cities up for sale, and on the same day, with the same launch, we created a global explosion. We were able to get hundreds of thousands of fans around the world talking about it at the same time. We had billboards up in every city that went on sale, and we had digital and radio campaigns in each of those cities from day one. It’s the kind of launch that I have only seen for mass-consumer products. It was important to show that confidence and aggressiveness in the tour, and positioning it as a global tour, not a local tour. The way we framed it made it go viral.

How was working with CMN?

A lot of coming together, a lot of pre-production before launch. We work very well with the CMN team and the artist’s team. Plus, Henry is a legendary promoter.

It strikes me that Luis Miguel didn’t even have a new album or single…

But he was having a good personal and artistic moment, and that had an influence. Also, the launch strategy around the tour. In addition, we did a great job with our marketing teams, influencers, etc. But the basis is in the greatness of the artist. I’ve worked with so many artists, and I can’t think of many who could pull off a tour [of this magnitude and stamina]. He has demonstrated extraordinary professionalism and courtesy.

How do you see next year for Latin tours?

Excellent. We’re trying to convince Ricardo Montaner to do a farewell tour. Obviously we are negotiating for Ricardo Arona’s global tour. And with artists in development, we’ve had extraordinary success with Emilia Mernes and her 10 Arenas Movistar in Buenos Aires, where she played to over 290,000 people. I think Emilia is going to be a big deal in 2025.

31 Dec 2024

Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Oregon Ducks Livestream: Here’s How to Watch the Rose Bowl Online for Free

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

The Rose Bowl has been “The Granddaddy of Them All” in for more than 120 years, while the game is also the College Football Playoff quarterfinal with two NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision powerhouses.

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The No. 6-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes (11-2) take on the No. 1-ranked Oregon Ducks (13-0) at Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California on Wednesday, Jan. 1.

When Does Ohio State vs. Oregon Start?

The Ohio State vs. Oregon game broadcasts live, with kickoff at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT. The game airs on ESPN.

Where to Watch Ohio State vs. Oregon for Free

For cord-cutters, there are a few ways to watch Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Oregon Ducks, if you don’t have cable — especially if you want to watch for free. DirecTV Stream has a five-day free trial, while other streaming services — such as Hulu + Live TV — also offers a free trial, so you can watch ESPN for free.

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Keep reading for more details on how to watch the Ohio State-Oregon game with DirecTV Stream and Hulu + Live TV.

How to Watch Ohio State vs. Oregon with DirecTV Stream

A subscription to DirecTV Stream — which comes with ESPN for Ohio State vs. Oregon — gets you access to live TV, local and cable channels, starting at $74.99 per month. The service even offers a five-day free trial to watch for free, if you sign up now.

You can watch local networks such as NBC, ABC, Fox, and PBS, while you can also watch many cable networks, including FS1, Lifetime, FX, AMC, A&E, Bravo, BET, MTV, Paramount Network, Cartoon Network, VH1, Fuse, CNN, Food Network, CNBC and many others.

How to Watch Ohio State vs. Oregon with Hulu + Live TV

The Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Oregon Ducks game on ESPN is available to watch with Hulu + Live TV too. Prices for the cable alternative start at $82.99 per month, while each plan comes with Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ at no additional cost.

Hulu + Live TV might be best for those who want all of these streaming services together in one bundle. It also features many other networks, including ABC, Hallmark Channel, BET, CMT, Disney Channel, NBC, Fox Sports and more.

Who Is Performing During Ohio State vs. Oregon Halftime Show

Since it’s a college football game, the Ohio State University Marching Band and Oregon Marching Band are both likely set to perform at halftime of the Rose Bowl game.

How to Buy Ohio State vs. Oregon Tickets Online

Want to attend the Ohio State-Oregon game in person? There are still last-minute tickets to the Rose Bowl game available via Vivid Seats (get $20 off purchases of $200 and over with code BB2024), SeatGeek (your first purchases can get $10 off ticket order $250 and with code BILLBOARD10), StubHub and GameTime (score $20 off ticket orders of $150 and over with code SAVE20). Prices vary depending on the city and seats available.

Moreover, you can save $150 off when you spend $500 with promo code BILLBOARD150, or $300 off when you spend $1,000 with promo code BILLBOARD300 at TicketNetwork.com.

Starting at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT, Rose Bowl 2025: Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Oregon Ducks broadcasts on ESPN, while it’s also available to livestream on DirecTV Stream for free on Wednesday, Jan. 1.

Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best Xbox deals, studio headphones and Nintendo Switch accessories.

31 Dec 2024

Blackstone Is Fielding Private Equity Offers For SESAC. But Is the PRO Up For Sale?

In the end, 2024 was the year that the U.S. performance rights societies found out what type of valuations they can command when they are put up on the block. As the year comes to a close, a select group of private equity suitors is kicking the tires on yet another performance rights organization, SESAC, according to sources.

Those sources say that deals like New Mountain Capital’s acquisition of BMI in February and Hellman & Friedman signing a letter of intent in September to replace Taxes Pacific Group as the majority owner of Global Music Rights that gave GMR a $3.3 billion valuation served as a catalyst for some private equity firms to reach out to SESAC’s corporate owner Blackstone to see if it was interested in selling.

Consequently, Blackstone is fielding inbound interest from a group of private equity firms that unsuccessfully bid on GMR, according to a source familiar with the matter.

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Many private equity firms look at GMR and are “all shocked by the final valuation,” says a music asset investor. “Those firms have a real appetite for music because music assets are doing well.” In fact, some sources suggest that SESAC has been a fantastic performer for Blackstone. Nevertheless, as an investment firm representing institutional clients, Blackstone has a fiduciary obligation to maximize returns on their investments. So with the aid of the Moelis & Co. and Morgan Stanley investment banks, Blackstone is selectively and informally shopping the PRO and its subsidiaries to a targeted group of private equity firms, while so far eschewing to reach out to potential strategic buyers, sources say. “You can’t blame Blackstone for testing to see what the market will pay for SESAC,” says one music asset buyer.

SESAC, Blackstone, Moelis and Morgan Stanley executives either declined to comment or didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Blackstone, which bought SESAC in 2017 for $1.125 billion, has since invested in the company as the PRO, led by chairman John Josephson, has been making subsequent add-on acquisitions to complement its core business. During Josephson’s tenure, SESAC has acquired the Harry Fox Agency and Audiam to go along with earlier acquisitions like RumbleFish and Christian Copyright Licensing International. What’s more, in 2021, when Blackstone bought Hasbro’s music assets, including the MNRK record label and the Audio Network production music house, the latter company was added to SESAC’s portfolio. (Sources say Audio Network is included in the SESAC assets being looked at, but Billboard could not determine if MNRK is also included in any potential deal.)

Along the way, Blackstone loaded up SESAC with about $1 billion in debt through a series of asset-backed bond offerings, with the latest securitization for $180 million happening earlier this year. On Feb. 8, Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) noted that the proceeds from that bond sale would be used for “distribution to equity investors” as well as to pay certain transaction expenses and make deposits into certain transaction accounts.

According to that credit rating report, SESAC had revenue of $388.6 million in 2024, presumably the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2024. It also said that the company is expected to hit over $400 million in its current fiscal year, likely the one that will end Jan. 31, 2025. What’s more, that $388.6 million revenue total tracks only the SESAC businesses that are part of the collateral for the February 2024 securitization offering, which included SESAC, Christian Copyrights and Audio Network. Revenue from the Harry Fox Agency (HFA), the Stephen Arnold Group (SAG) and a few other smaller entities are not included as collateral. With HFA and SGA consistently reaching a combined total of $20 million to $25 million, according to revenue numbers given in earlier SESAC bond rating documents — published by the likes of Morningstar and the Kroll Bond Rating Agency — for 2022 and 2019 SESAC bond offerings, it’s conceivable that SESAC’s revenue was already above $400 million by the end of its most recent fiscal year. Those assets are included in what’s being shopped, sources say.

A 2019 Morningstar analysis found that SESAC has had a 12.9% annual growth rate since 1994. While that report didn’t cite revenue from those earlier years, other SESAC-related documents obtained by Billboard through the years show that SESAC had grown from $9 million in revenue in 1994 to about $57 million by 2004, then to about $206 million by 2014 and about $275 million by 2018.

While it’s unclear what price will tempt Blackstone to sell, sources say that as recently as last year, Blackstone and SESAC executives were saying that the PRO and its subsidiary companies were carrying about a $2 billion to $2.5 billion valuation. However, that’s when its securitized net cash flow was $118 million on collections (revenue) of about $318 million, versus the latest financials, which put securitized net cash flow at $147 million on $388.6 million in revenue, according to the Kroll report. That represents increases of 24.6% in securitized net cash flow and nearly 22.2% in collections/revenue over the prior year. Besides that growth, the implied valuation of SESAC is further enhanced by the BMI and GMR deals, which shows that PROs are attractive to private equity, sources say.

Unlike BMI and ASCAP, SESAC and GMR are not stymied by consent decrees, which is also a positive as far as private equity is concerned. A further deal point is that SESAC has a diversified revenue base. According to the Kroll report, at the end of fiscal year 2024, SESAC derived 37.2% of its annual revenue from general licensing, 21.7% from digital, 18.9% from TV, 9.7% from Audio Network, 6.4% from radio, 0.7% from foreign affiliates and 5.5% from other efforts.

On the other hand, that percentage breakout shows that even with the company’s diversification efforts into related music industry functions, its core business remains SESAC’s performance rights licensing, which it does through a boutique strategy of inviting songwriters to join as members. Through this strategy, it has landed such clients as Bob Dylan, Adele and Neil Diamond.

Still yet another plus that suitors will find attractive, says a music industry source, is the savvy stewardship of SESAC under Josephson. “He is been very effective there,” that source adds.

Moreover, in order to improve profitability, SESAC has been quietly pruning songwriters who are not generating enough royalties from their catalog. According to Kroll, the number of songwriter and publisher affiliates (with the former presumably the preponderance of the total), has shrunk from 35,000 in 2019 to 15,000 last year.

Pricing is paramount in whether Blackstone will do a deal. But it will be weighted against the possible return on investment if it chooses to retain ownership of SESAC. As it is, Blackstone and its equity investors likely have already clawed back a good portion of their initial investment in SESAC. In addition to the aforementioned possible equity distribution from the February bond offering, during the eight years it has owned SESAC, it’s likely that Blackstone made earlier dividend payouts to investors from the PRO’s profits down through the years; and possibly from earlier bond offerings, too. Besides that, Blackstone has provided itself with an annual $30 million management fee as measured against 16% of SESAC’s core retained collections, whichever is greater. (While the rating agencies do not define core retained collections, that could be the equivalent of net publisher share — what’s left after making royalty payments to songwriters and publishers.)

As for possible suitors, so far the only private equity firm that has come up in more than one conversation with music industry sources is TA Associates, a Boston-based private equity firm that says it has raised $65 billion in capital. A perusal of the investment firm’s website reveals that it has invested in another music company: In 2022, it acquired TouchTunes, the digital jukebox network that supplies music to bars, clubs, restaurants and other social spaces in North America and Europe. Moreover, a source says that TA may have even looked at SESAC in the past; SESAC has come up for sale a few times over the years and consequently had a few other institutional investor owners in the past, including Rizvi Traverse; before that, Oct-Ziff Capital Management Group was a minority shareholder in the company.

TA Associates representatives couldn’t be reached for comment over the year-end holidays.

Moelis, which is one of the banks said to be shopping SESAC, has made its mark elsewhere in the music business in 2024. Earlier this year, it was the buy-side advisor to New Mountain Capital in its BMI acquisition and the sell-side advisor for GMR in its search for an investor to replace the Texas Pacific Group. Morgan Stanley has music industry experience, including investing with Kobalt in making music acquisitions, among other deals.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall.

31 Dec 2024

Brenda Lee’s ‘Christmas Tree’ Collection Climbs to No. 1 on Top Country Albums Chart

Brenda Lee reaches another landmark as the legend notches her first chart-topper on Billboard’s Top Country Albums survey (dated Jan. 4, 2025).

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree: The Decca Christmas Recordings ascends a spot to No. 1 following a 40% burst to 53,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. Dec. 20-26, according to Luminate.

Lee, who is 80 years young and a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame (inducted in 1997) and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (2002), earns her first Top Country Albums No. 1 among six top 10s. The release is also her first leader on any Billboard album survey.

The set features 18 songs, including Lee’s 1958 multigenerational title-smash, which led the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks last holiday season, and such Yuletide favorites as “Blue Christmas,” “I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus” and “White Christmas.”

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The LP, which first hit the Top Country Albums top 10 in 2019, follows Lee’s prior top 10s: Brenda, (No. 7 peak, 1973); The Brenda Lee Story (No. 6, 1973); New Sunrise (No. 3, 1974); …The Winning Hand, with Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton (No. 4, 1983); and The Best of Brenda Lee: 20th Century Masters, The Christmas Collection (No. 6, 2019).

On the all-genre Billboard 200, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree: The Decca Christmas Recordings jingles 19-15, surpassing its prior No. 17 high – and marking a new best rank for Lee over her 61-plus-year span of appearing on the chart. She previously hit the top 40 with Too Many Rivers (No. 36, 1965) and Let Me Sing (No. 39, 1964).

Shaboozey Scores Sole Longest No. 1 Run This Decade

Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” logs a 28th week at No. 1 on Hot Country Songs, becoming the sole longest-leading hit of the 2020s. The track, co-written by the Virginian (born Collins Obinna Chibueze), first hit the summit in May and now passes Gabby Barrett’s debut smash “I Hope,” which governed for 27 frames beginning in July 2020.

Only two songs have led longer since Hot Country Songs became an all-encompassing genre ranking in 1958. Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line’s “Meant To Be” ruled for a record 50 weeks starting in December 2017, surpassing Sam Hunt’s “Body Like a Back Road” (34 weeks, beginning February 2017). All four songs became hits at both country and pop radio formats, further fortifying their chart performances.

“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” spent a record-tying 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 between July and November.

Shaboozey’s multiformat monster totaled 59.9 million airplay audience impressions, 16 million official streams and 5,000 sold in the U.S. Dec. 20-26.

31 Dec 2024

Here’s How Fans Reacted to Rihanna Performing Her Own Songs at Karaoke

Rihanna surprised fans with an impromptu visit to a New York City karaoke bar.

On Saturday (Dec. 28), the 36-year-old singer and entrepreneur made an unexpected stop at Manhattan’s Girls Love Karaoke, where she took the stage to perform “Needed Me” and “Sex With Me” from her 2016 album, Anti.

In fan-captured footage from the event, RiRi can be heard telling the excited crowd that she only had about five minutes to spare, joking that her “battery” was “about to burn out.” The Grammy-winning superstar, also a mother of two, added a dose of star power to the evening while playfully teasing fans who have been eagerly awaiting new music, nearly nine years after the release of Anti.

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Following the performance, Rihanna’s Navy flooded social media with reactions to the karaoke surprise. “Imagine going to [karaoke] night and you get a free Rihanna performance,” one fan wrote on X. Another added, “Awee she’s having fun.” Someone else gushed, “Her voice reminds me of Whitney Houston.”

But not all responses were so positive. “Chii ? the mic was bleeding,” one commenter quipped on X. Another person wrote, “Help this is horrible ??.” A third user critiqued, “I didn’t know singing a simple note was this hard.” And yet another questioned, “Is this really Rihanna? My cat can sing better.”

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Some disgruntled fans took to social media to call out the Fenty Beauty founder for performing at a karaoke bar instead of focusing on new music.

“So she wanna f— around with karaoke instead of getting her ass in the booth. wtf Rihanna ?,” one person wrote on X. Another added, “Karaoke to your own 2016 hits with nothing new released?!!?” alongside a Simpsons meme that read “Pathetic.”

Earlier this year, Rihanna — who shares two young children with boyfriend A$AP Rocky — teased that her upcoming music will be worth the wait.

“I already got stuff that I feel like I could make hits out of,” she told ET in April. “Me and Rocky are really trying to figure out who’s gonna use what because it’s so good.”

In March, Rihanna performed live for the first time in eight years when she took the stage for a pre-wedding celebration for the son of Asia’s richest man.

31 Dec 2024

Charli XCX Celebrates Her ‘Highs in 2024’ With Memory-Filled Photo Carousel: ‘Thank You for Everything’

Charli XCX had a landmark 2024, and she’s looking back on the best moments of her year on social media.

“So many highs in 2024 and i cba to post them all but here’s some of my fav memories and fav people. love you all so much and thank you for everything. sorry i’m a lot sometimes xx,” she captioned her Instagram photo set posted on New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31), in which she shares memories from the rollout of her pop culture-dominating album Brat, selfies with her famous friends, live performances and much more.

Check out her post here.

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Charli XCX dropped Brat back in June, and peaked at No. 3 Billboard 200 albums chart. It also led the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart for a whopping 29 weeks. “I didn’t want any metaphors — like, at all,” Charli told Billboard of the project for her July cover story. “I wanted this record to feel like I was having a conversation with the listener in a true way. I could say that to you in the back of a cab on the way to a club. Like tonight? I want to dance with A. G.”

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She added, “With Brat, it was really interesting to just do things for the fan base and make that feel exclusive — but then once you’re in the club, it’s actually very inclusive. Actually, everyone can join the club. It’s just that everybody joins at slightly different times in slightly different ways — whether that be on my private Instagram posts, or the 400-person Boiler Room, or a random cinema screening of a new music video in L.A., or a text message from me.”

In the fall, Charli wrapped up her Sweat tour with Troye Sivan. Over the course of 22 shows, the run earned $28 million and 297,000 tickets sold, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.

31 Dec 2024

Laufey Says New Album Is “Pushing the Limits of her Comfort Zone,” Releasing ‘A Night at the Symphony’ | New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2025

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