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MELBOURNE, Australia — Mushroom Group, the mighty, Melbourne based-independent music company, sends-out the invitations to its 50th birthday party, an occasion that will include a “once-in-a-lifetime” all-star concert.
A raft of releases, both musical, visual and branded merchandise, will drop in the lead-up to the major live event, set for November.
The action starts from today (March 23) with the release of The Temper Trap’s interpretation of The Church’s Billboard Hot 100 hit “Under The Milky Way,” the first in a collection of starry covers of classic Mushroom songs.
In the weeks ahead Missy Higgins, Bliss n Eso, Paul Kelly and others will share their contributions, which, ultimately, will form a Mushroom 50 compilation album.
Founded in 1972 by a then 21-year-old Michael Gudinski, the Mushroom brand has shaped Australia’s music culture ever since.
Today, the group is a two-dozen-strong collection of affiliates active in every conceivable area of the music and entertainment industries, from touring to booking agencies, publishing, merch and marketing services, venues, exhibition and events production, neighboring rights, branding, labels, talent management and more.
Matt Gudinski is now at the helm of the group, as CEO, following the passing of his father Michael in 2021.
The Mushroom 50 concert, says Matt Gudinski “will feature a huge line-up of sensational artists, celebrating some of Australia’s most iconic songs – this will be a once in a lifetime event.”
He continues, “We’ve teamed up with some of the best artists in the world to deliver these reimagined Mushroom hits. Each artist is bringing their own distinct sound and vision to their cover. I’m sure you’ll love them.”
A snapshot of the Mushroom Group story is told in a 90-second promo, which carries the strapline “50 Years of Making Noise.” Keep an eye out for cameos from the likes of Missy Higgins, Jimmy Barnes and Ed Sheeran, whose most recent tour of Australia, produced by Mushroom Group’s Frontier Touring company, was a record-smasher.
The celebration continues with the release later this year of a feature documentary on Michael Gudinski, a legendary character whose death was mourned by many of the giants he worked with, from Paul McCartney to Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl and his bestie, Ed Sheeran. The film project, which traces MG’s remarkable life and career, was green-lit last year and will premiere in cinemas across the country.
Also, a limited-edition range of Mushroom 50 merch is now available on mushroom50.com.
“This news is just the beginning,” reads a statement, “expect more exciting announcements to come in the months ahead.” The line-up, venue and ticket details for the anniversary concert will be revealed in due course.
Tame Impala got an unexpected shout-out when senator David Pocock wore a branded band tee for an impromptu interview in Parliament House.
Pocock, a former captain of the Wallabies, Australia’s national men’s rugby union team, spoke to media in Canberra’s halls of power, fronting the scrum in a black, Tame Impala number.
Politics is no ordinary contact sport. When footage went wide of the independent senator rocking the Western Australian psychedelic-pop act, criticism rained down from the right-wing Sky News, the domestic affiliate of Fox News, which blasted Pocock for not wearing a “collared shirt.”
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“I’d come straight from an early morning game of tennis to celebrate 100 years of Tennis ACT and agreed to do a door stop (not a prearranged interview) in the hallway on the way out of the Press Gallery after a morning radio interview,” was Pocock’s response. “Great to see the big issues being reported,” he fired back.
What do you think? Play on? 
I’d come straight from an early morning game of tennis to celebrate 100 years of Tennis ACT and agreed to do a door stop (not a prearranged interview) in the hallway on the way out of the Press Gallery after a morning radio interview. Great to… pic.twitter.com/GNzXkg1i4c— David Pocock (@DavidPocock) March 22, 2023
Pocock is something of a renaissance man. Born in Zimbabwe, he represented Australia at the highest level of rugby, with 83 Tests to his name, and is a three-time nominee for world player of the year. He holds a Master of Sustainable Agriculture from Charles Sturt University, and campaigned for conservationism and social justice when he chose to retire from professional sports. He went on to run a successful campaign in 2022 for one of the Australian Capital Territory’s two Senate seats, and is now considered one of the most powerful people of Australia’s federal parliament.
Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker got a feel for life as an elite rugby player when, in recent weeks, he fractured his hip. To correct the injury, the production whizz underwent surgery to have screws and rods inserted into his femur, the strongest bone in the body.
In better news for Parker, his band Tame Impala released “Wings of Time,” on March 10, a soundtrack to Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and he collaborated with Gorillaz on “New Gold,” which appears on Cracker Island, a recent No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart.
MELBOURNE, Australia — Live Nation Australia has secured a multi-year lease to operate Festival Hall, the iconic Melbourne live music and sports venue.
Through the arrangement, confirmed late Friday (March 17), LN is expected to invest in several upgrades on the versatile space, which was built during WW1 and currently boasts a capacity of 5,405.
Festival Hall slots into the concerts giant’s existing portfolio of venues, which includes The Palais Theatre in Melbourne, the Fortitude Music Hall in Brisbane, the Hindley Street Music Hall in Adelaide, and Anita’s Theatre, a historic venue in Thirroul, a northern seaside suburb of Wollongong, which last year became LN’s first push into regional Australia.
“We are extremely excited to be delivering the next chapter of Festival Hall’s life,” comments Roger Field, president LN APAC, “not only because it will help support the growing demand of shows that are coming down the pipeline across the industry, but also to put the iconic venue firmly back on the global live entertainment map.”
LN’s vision for Festival Hall, Field continues, is to ensure that the venue “remains a cornerstone of the State’s live music scene for artists, industry, and fans alike.”
The launch of this new project will support 200 full-time equivalent jobs on event days, sources say.
Festival Hall has a storied history. The multi-purpose space at 300 Dudley Street, in West Melbourne, was originally built back in 1915 by John Wren, chairman of Stadiums Pty Ltd. Fire ripped through the room in 1955, but a rebuild was completed in time for the 1956 Olympics Games, where hosted gymnastics and wrestling.
Over time, the likes of the Beatles, Bill Haley, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Liberace, Shirley Bassey, Foo Fighters, Ed Sheeran and Lorde have played to packed houses at Festival Hall.
In October 2020, the venue was purchased by Hillsong Church with the intention to create a community hub to support live music, entertainment, and other events. At the time Hillsong stated, “it’s a way to give back to Melbourne and continue the venue’s legacy.”
It’s understood the church will continue to use the venue for weekend services and other events.
Miley Cyrus is now head of the Cyrus clan.
The U.S. pop star’s “Flowers” (via Columbia/Sony) logs an eighth consecutive week at No. 1 on Australia’s chart, beating the old Cyrus mark set by Billy Ray back in 1992 with “Achy Breaky Heart,” which ruled the ARIA survey for seven weeks.
Don’t expect “Flowers” to wither anytime soon; Cyrus’ eighth studio album, Endless Summer Vacation, which features the two-times platinum single, dropped Friday (March 10).
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Meanwhile, PinkPantheress’ “Boy’s A Liar” (Parlophone/Warner) is “very close behind” at No. 2, ARIA reports, with the Weeknd’s “Die For You” (Universal), which features a fresh assist from Ariana Grande, completing an unchanged podium.
Over on the ARIA Albums Chart, Harry Styles nabs a 10th non-consecutive week at No. 1 with Harry’s House (Columbia/Sony), his third solo album. The former One Direction star recently wrapped a lap of stadiums in these parts, for the domestic leg of his Love On Tour, produced by Live Nation.
The afterglow of those seven trans-Tasman dates can be seen up and down the charts. His sophomore longplay Fine Line dips 5-6, and his debut self-titled holds at No. 12 on the albums survey, while “As It Was,” IFPI’s top global single for 2022, holds at No. 5 on the singles tally; it’s one of the English singer’s 14 tracks currently impacting the top 100.
Harry’s House holds-off two debut releases on the latest ARIA Chart. Coming in at No. 2 on the latest survey, published March 10, is One Day At A Time (Mercury/Universal), the third studio effort by U.S. country star Morgan Wallen.
The sprawling, 36-track album is the followup to 2021’s The Double Album, which has spent more than two years on the ARIA Chart and is currently at No. 31.
The third spot belongs to Ruel, with his first full-length album 4th Wall (RCA/Sony). The 20-year-old Sydney singer won the ARIA Award for breakthrough artist (now the Michael Gudinski breakthrough artist award) in 2018, and bagged a No. 3 on the national survey with his 2019 EP, Free Time.
Finally, Korean boy band NCT 127 enjoys a top 20 debut with Ay-Yo – The 4th Album Repackage (Virgin Music Australia/Universal), at No. 13; Mornington Peninsula-based four-piece indie act Teenage Dads start at No. 28 with the Midnight Driving EP (via MGM); and Melbourne singer-songwriter Jen Cloher bows at No. 30 with I Am The River, The River Is Me (Inertia), her fifth studio album.
Republic Records: Kids & Family announced on Monday the signing of ARIA Hall of Fame inductee, singer, songwriter, actor and performer Sam Moran. His first single is to be released later this month.
“There is no other team that I would rather be working with than Republic Kids. The energy and creativity they are bringing to my debut project is exactly what I was looking for when venturing out on my own,” says Moran. “We have so many surprises in store that I know my fans are going to love so, get ready!”
Moran is an Australian-born performer best known for his work on the Wiggles television show, both as recurring characters and as Yellow Wiggle from 2006 to 2012.
“When launching Republic Kids I knew I had to sign Sam as an artist,” says Bree Bowles, vp of marketing and strategy. “He is the perfect complement to our mission of producing world-class music that can be enjoyed by both kids and their parents. Sam’s musical talents are beloved by so many and these new efforts will help to redefine the future of ‘kids’ music.”
Jonathan Shank from Terrapin Station Entertainment will manage Moran, telling Billboard: “We are so excited to be working alongside Sam and Republic for this release and know it’s the start of magical things to come.”
Moran said some of his material is meant to inspire kids who had a hard time emerging from the pandemic and that “there’s no better way to help them rediscover themselves than through music. I want to give them a voice that reflects how they see the world — with, of course, a bunch of fun along the way!”
BRISBANE, Australia — A brouhaha between Bluesfest and a touring party that includes the Soul Rebels and Big Freedia is entering legal territory after the groups — which also includes Talib Kweli and GZA — has jointly claimed they were canceled by the Australian event “in bad faith and in breach of contract.”
All of those acts were initially slated to perform at the festival this Easter in Byron Bay, in addition to several theater shows on Australia’s east coast promoted by Bluesfest Touring.
And then, they weren’t.
When the second artist announcement for Bluesfest dropped in October 2022, the growing lineup included The Soul Rebels & Friends with special guests Talib Kweli, GZA and Big Freedia.
The bill as it stands for Bluesfest 2023 no longer features the four acts.
A strongly worded statement from the tour’s reps, seen by Billboard, lays all the blame at Bluesfest and its director Peter Noble.
“The artists had fully executed signed contracts with Peter Noble and had already booked travel to Australia and were looking forward to returning to the country to perform for their fans,” the statement reads.
“Peter Noble removed the artists and the tour without further communication or reason from Bluesfest other than him stating his decision to not want to pay the artists.”
Furthermore, it continues, “these are all black artists, and Big Freedia is an LGBTQ icon.”
Bluesfest
Courtesy Bluesfest
The statement then points to the controversial Australian rock group Sticky Fingers, which, after a weeks-long backlash, has been removed from the lineup.
“It appears the tour may have been replaced by other artists including Sticky Fingers,” reads the statement, which was originally distributed to a handful of media outlets in late February, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Double J network. “We are uncertain about who else on Bluesfest may have also been cancelled.”
Noble’s “cancellation of the tour of the aforementioned artists and on Bluesfest has resulted in significant financial loss to the artist,” the statement continues. “Peter’s egregious treatment and disregard of his contractual and moral obligations and disrespect can be completely supported by his actions and written communications.”
Speaking with Billboard on Friday (March 3), Noble read from a prepared statement from Bluesfest’s lawyers.
“The termination of the Soul Rebels contract by Bluesfest has nothing to do with the announcement of Sticky Fingers playing at Bluesfest 2023,” the statement reads. “The Soul Rebels contract was terminated because they did not comply with the contractual terms. By that, we mean, Soul Rebels, Big Freedia, GZA and Talib Kweli.”
Noble declined to go off script.
The impresario and his long-running festival have rolled with many punches these past few years, from the pandemic to floods, to the border closures and public health orders which saw the 2021 edition nixed just hours before showtime.
In the new year, a new problem.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Sampa The Great recently bailed from the bill, a boycott to the booking of Sticky Fingers, whose frontman has a well-publicized and controversial past.
On Thursday of this week, after a weeks-long backlash on social media, Noble and Bluesfest announced that Sticky Fingers “is to step off the Bluesfest 2023 line-up.”
The 2023 edition of Bluesfest is set for April 6-10 at Byron Events Farm, with headliners including Gang of Youths, Paolo Nutini, Tash Sultana, Bonnie Raitt, the Doobie Brothers and more. Last year’s event reported more than 100,000 attendees.
Harry Styles is king of the road, and king of the charts as Harry’s House returns to No. 1 in Australia.
As he winds his way around the country for a run of stadium shows, Styles’ third studio album returns to No. 1 on the national chart for a ninth non-consecutive week, ARIA reports.
Harry’s House first summited in May 2022 and stayed there for three weeks. Then, a four-week block at No. 1 in July and August, and another week-long stint in late August 2022.
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Styles seven-show Love On Tour lap of Australia and New Zealand, produced by Live Nation, has also put heat on his sophomore album Fine Line, up 7-5, and a string of singles.
Gorillaz swing in at No. 2 on the ARIA Albums Chart, published March 3, with Cracker Island.
The album, which features collaborations with Perth, Australia producer and Tame Impala leader Kevin Parker, plus Bad Bunny, Stevie Nicks, Adeleye Omotayo, Thundercat and others, is the virtual band’s eighth studio set and second leader after Plastic Beach, which reached the penthouse in 2010.
Also new to the latest albums survey is The Twin Set’s Tines of Stars Unfurled, the solo debut from You Am I frontman Tim Rogers. It’s new at No. 4. Also, U.S. pop artist Adam Lambert debuts at No. 7 with High Drama.
Over on the ARIA Singles Chart, Miley Cyrus’ ”Flowers” locks down a seventh consecutive week at No. 1, equaling the reign of Miley’s dad Billy Ray Cyrus, with 1992’s “Breaky Heart.”
Following the release of fresh cut with Ariana Grande, The Weeknd’s 2016 track “Die For You” finds new life, blasting 41-3 to the national chart, for a new peak position.
The top debut on the latest tally belongs to Harry Styles’ former One Direction bandmate Niall Horan, with “Heaven,” opening at No. 30, while homegrown house producer Dom Dollar marks his first appearance on the ARIA Top 50 with “Rhyme Dust.” A collaboration with U.S. electronic producer MK, “Rhyme Dust” bows at No. 32.
BRISBANE, Australia — KFC is cooking up a campaign with Australian artist Shannon “Nollsie” Noll that plays into two codes of football with a special menu item and a new “anthem,” fresh out the frier.
Noll, runner-up of the first season of Australian Idol in 2003, is the face and voice of an Australia-wide project with KFC, announced Wednesday (March 1).
First up, Noll and punk outfit DZ Deathrays have cut the collaborative track “Fried Night Footy,” which will soundtrack KFC advertising throughout the National Rugby League (NRL) and Australia Football League (AFL) seasons, kicking off Friday, March 3.
Then comes the food.
KFC is dishing up the exclusive “Shannon Dinner Roll,” which combines hot & crispy boneless chicken with chilli relish, cheese, lettuce and “supercharged sauce” on a dinner roll, and will be available at a number of NRL and AFL games throughout the season.
Freebies will be handed out during the NRL expansion franchise Dolphins’ first home game, March 11 at Kayo Stadium in Redcliffe, north of Brisbane.
“I’m super happy to be working with KFC and DZ Deathrays on this anthem,” says Noll in a statement. “It’s a definite earworm and you’re gonna catch yourself singing it in the shower, the car and maybe even in your sleep. Plus, working with KFC to create the Shannon Roll, talk about a dream come true.”
Though an unusual pairing with Noll and DZ Deathrays occupying different spaces on the music spectrum, both acts command sizeable fanbases in Australia. Since coming to prominence with his run in Australian Idol, Noll has bagged two ARIA No. 1 albums and three chart-topping singles. The title track from his 2005 No. 1 album Lift won an APRA Music Award for most performed Australian work.
Meanwhile, DZ Deathrays own a brace of ARIA Awards in the best hard rock/heavy metal album category for 2012’s Bloodstreams, and 2014’s Black Rat.
Adds Sally Spriggs, chief marketing officer for KFC Australia: ”The anthem alongside the bespoke footy snack, the Shannon Dinner Roll, sets us up for an exciting season of footy ahead.”
“Fried Night Footy” will also be available to stream on KFC Australia’s Spotify page.
It’s not the first time KFC has teamed-up with Australian music talent for a tasty campaign. In 2022, the restaurant chain tapped ARIA Award-winning EDM duo Peking Duk for the “Peking Cluk Burger” and a one-off live event in Sydney, Feastival.
What’s TikTok without music? That’s the central question at the heart of debates between major rights holders and the Bytedance-owned social media platform negotiating rates for their content, and a group of Australian users have been pulled into the middle to try to find out.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that that TikTok is running tests in Australia that limits the amount of licensed music some users can encounter on the platform. The test impacts fewer than half of Australia-based accounts, and it doesn’t affect everyone in the same way, according to a person familiar with the situation. The test puts people into multiple cohorts and provides them with different libraries of sounds to use in video creation. So, not everybody in the test will have the same catalog to choose from. Likewise, users in the test cohorts have different encounters with audio. Some people in test cohorts will encounter muted music on other users’ videos. This allows TikTok to compare and measure the different ways people interact with the app.
The results may inform TikTok’s licensing strategy, but evidence that some Australians are unhappy members of the test cohort can be seen on Twitter. “Tiktok really ruining its own app with all this ‘sound removed’ garbage,” one Australian user tweeted last week. Another echoed the sentiment: “wtf is up with tiktok removing like half the sounds??? like i swear ive seen SO many tiktoks where the sound has been removed.”
The risk of upsetting users and creators isn’t lost on TikTok. “We appreciate it’s disappointing if a certain track is unavailable or if a sound is muted on a previous video,” the company said in a statement. “This change will not be in place for long and not all music is affected.” The test will run from a month to a month and a half, according to a source familiar with the situation, meaning it should conclude by mid-March.
Why would TikTok degrade its user experience even in a relatively small market like Australia? A source familiar with the company’s thinking said TikTok is using the experiment to study what is trending, how users are accessing the platform through different entry points and how they are enjoying it. It is not a negotiating tactic, the person said. Nonetheless, the company is gathering the data during a year when most, if not all, of TikTok’s agreements with music rights owners come up for renewal. The source said it is predictable that TikTok would gather this information ahead of high-stakes negotiations, like those ongoing with major labels and other stakeholders.
Around the music industry, there are different interpretations for TikTok’s actions. One explanation is that TikTok is doing what tech companies do all the time: run tests, collect data and analyze the results. That narrative fits with what’s known. Australia, an important yet small and isolated English-speaking market, is a popular place for tech companies — Spotify, Facebook, Google, Tinder and others — to test new products. Much like these other companies, TikTok is an engineering-led company with engineers who want to take data-driven approaches to making decisions on how much time and resources should be invested in projects, building systems and, yes, even licensing rights. Sometimes, as history has shown with most of those other companies, too, a different mindset puts them at odds with creative industries.
“I don’t think they truly understand music at these tech companies,” says a record label executive. “It just doesn’t resonate with them.”
Negotiating tool?
TikTok, of course, has numerous people from the music world on staff: Ole Obermann, global head of music, and Tracy Gardner, head of licensing and partnerships, are former Warner Music Group executives. Jordan Lowy, head of music publishing licensing and partnerships, previously worked at Universal Music Group and Disney Music Group, and dozens if not hundreds of other music industry alums work at TikTok in editorial and artist partnerships. But the company looks and acts like a social media company, not a music company.
A less benign view of the test is that TikTok is looking for a rationale to argue music is not important to the platform – or not as important as labels believe. Annabelle Herd, the CEO of ARIA, the trade body for the Australian record industry, said TikTok “seeks to rationalize cutting artists’ compensation” and “downplay the significance of music on its platform.” Another industry executive believes the test is meant to lower expectations going into discussions with rights holders. “They’re looking to anchor their negotiating position near zero,” says a music industry source.
TikTok has spent years playing up music’s importance to creators, users and artists. “Music is at the heart of the TikTok experience,” Obermann stated in the opening words of the TikTok 2021 Music Report. That year, around 430 songs surpassed 1 billion views, up 200% from the previous year, and over 175 songs that trended that year charted on the Hot 100. In the company’s 2022 year-end report, Obermann reiterated TikTok’s value to artists, saying the platform “continues to unlock real-world opportunities for artists and labels, helping talent to secure record deals, brand collaborations, chart success, or be re-discovered decades later.”
And while the platform has certainly evolved beyond lip-syncing videos – book reviews and finance advice abound, for example – much of the recent news coming out of the company still involves music: StemDrop, an interactive, collaborative songwriting platform led by Max Martin, Syco Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Samsung; a Calvin Harris virtual reality concert; and welcomes to The Rolling Stones and Dolly Parton for joining the platform.
Anecdotally, exactly how important records labels’ music is to TikTok is debatable. Its top three trending songs of 2022 were independent releases, and the No. 1 song, “Sunroof” by Nicky Youre & Dazy, was originally released independently through SoundOn, TikTok’s music distribution business that’s been known to add promotion to music uploaded through its service. In all, only five of the top 10 of 2022 were signed to major labels. Major label music is arguably more important to on-demand streaming platforms and radio stations. By contrast, all the top 10 tracks of Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 and Radio Songs charts were released through major labels.
But major label music is everywhere on TikTok. Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” was the No. 4 trending song of 2022. Pharrell Williams’ “Just a Cloud Away” was No. 5. Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was No. 10. And TikTok’s ability to give unknown artists a large audience increases its need to license music from labels. “Sunroof” was so successful that Youre signed with Colombia Records and reached No. 4 on the Hot 100.
What’s past is prologue
TikTok has ample motivation to reduce what it pays music rights holders. Licensing costs eat up more than 70% of a music subscription service’s revenue with little left over after paying operating expenses. Social networks, on the other hand, generate huge sums of free cash flow. Facebook, for example, had an operating margin of 25% in 2022 and 40% in 2021.
Services that once butted heads with music rights holders decided it was wiser to build partnerships that enriched both sides. Like TikTok, YouTube began as an ad-supported platform built on user-generated content and characterized by minuscule royalties. Over time, YouTube attracted better advertisers, built a strong on-demand premium service and became a major source of revenue for labels and publishers. In the 12-month period ended June 30, 2022, YouTube paid music rights holders $6 billion through YouTube advertisements and fees from the YouTube Music subscription service.
Now, YouTube has “a phenomenal partnership” with rights owners after it “decided that music is important to us forever,” Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s former chief business officer, said during WMG’s Feb. 9 earnings call. It invested in music “holistically” by building a copyright management platform, Copyright ID, launching the YouTube Music subscription service and taking on TikTok with its short-form video platform, YouTube Shorts.
TikTok appears to share YouTube’s ambitions to offer a multitude of services that segment the market into ad-supported and paying customers. Parent company Bytedance already has an on-demand music service, Resso, operating in Brazil, Indonesia and India, and a separate on-demand service, Qishui Yinyue, in China. But in major markets like the U.S., TikTok users that want to listen to an entire track and explore an artist’s catalog end up going – in large numbers – to on-demand services like Spotify and Apple Music. Pairing its short-form video platform with an on-demand service would give TikTok a “significant opportunity” to leverage data and manage customers across multiple platforms, says one of the music industry sources. “Why would they not want to capture that demand themselves?”
“TikTok needs to do that [also],” Kyncl said during Warner’s earnings call. “It’s the right decision for them to evaluate.”
Additional reporting by Liz Dilts Marshall
BRISBANE, Australia — Three-piece Australian pop outfit Blusher is the latest signing to Atlantic Records, Billboard can exclusively reveal.
Hailing from Melbourne and formed in 2021, Blusher made all the right noises with their debut, the independently-released “Softly Spoken.”
The 2022 tune, a slice of euphoric pop, got support from national youth network Triple J and its Unearthed sister station, and it’s edging towards one million plays on Spotify, where it landed on several playlists, including New Pop Picks and Fresh Finds.
Carrie West, Atlantic senior director of A&R, admits she was “blown away” when she caught the band live. “Blusher embodies the next generation of empowered female artists – a self-contained force of nature who write and produce all of their music,” she comments, lauding their “riveting” stagecraft.
“I look forward to standing alongside them as we continue to channel that irresistible creativity and energy into great records for a global audience.”
Atlantic Records chairman & CEO Craig Kallman welcomes the group into the “Atlantic family.”
They’re among “those rare artists that you know from day one are destined for the world stage, and we’re proud to give this amazing trio the platform to amplify their unique voices and bring their personal visions to life on a global scale,” Kallman notes in a statement.
“From their voracious appetite for creation to their fastidious work ethic, they’re everything we look for in an Atlantic artist.”
Blusher’s career is guided by Powerhouse Management’s Jamie-Rose Fowler (George Alice, Japanese Wallpaper, INXS, ex-YUNGBLUD) and Charlotte Ried (Polish Club, Gretta Ray, Matt Corby, ex-Vera Blue).
The new Atlantic signing is comprised of Miranda Ward, Lauren Coutts and Jade Ingvarson-Favretto, all solo artists before forming the act during the pandemic.
They produce and write together, share vocals on many of their songs and swap instruments during live outings, which have included showcases at the Bigsound conference in Brisbane.
“We’re happy to partner with (Warner Music Australasian president) Dan Rosen and the entire Warner Australia crew to give Blusher the launching pad for what we have no doubt will be a long and successful career,” adds Atlantic’s Kallman.
To celebrate their introduction to major label-world, the trio today (Feb. 24) releases “Dead End,” just their second single — and first with Atlantic.
It’s a crystal-clear pop experience with a chewy bassline and dreamy melodies.
Stream “Dead End” and watch the official music video below.