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BMG is reshuffling its deck in North America as the independent music powerhouse “doubles down” on its commitment to the world’s biggest music market.
Leading the changes is Jon Loba, who rises from BMG Nashville president to become president Frontline Recordings, North America. Moving forward, Loba is responsible for BMG’s entire North American frontline records business across Nashville, Los Angeles, New York and Canada.
The realignment continues with new duties for Thomas Scherer, until now running publishing and recordings activities in Los Angeles and New York. Scherer is named as head of global recorded catalog, while retaining responsibility for publishing, North America.
Now, Loba, Scherer and CFO Joe Gillen form BMG’s North American leadership triumvirate.
“We are making good on our promise to double down on our U.S. operation with a distinctive new approach,” comments BMG CEO Thomas Coesfeld, that is, an integrated frontline operation “spanning the whole of North America plus a global catalog business steered from Los Angeles.”
BMG, he continues, “is stepping up. This is an integral part of our new strategy to deliver for artists and songwriters and go for growth.”
Loba, who joined BMG in 2017, when the company acquired Nashville-based BBR Music Group, is rewarded for delivering BMG its first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town,” and achieving success with Jelly Roll.
Loba, explains Coesfeld, is “the ideal person to take responsibility for our L.A.-based recordings business” as the group evolves in the streaming era.
A company stalwart, Scherer joined BMG in 2008, moving to L.A. as executive vp of global writer services in 2014, and enjoying several promotions thereafter.
“He is the ideal person to lead our new streaming-first global catalog operation based in Los Angeles, while also retaining oversight of our important U.S. music publishing business, the backbone of BMG’s U.S. operation,” Coesfeld says of Scherer. “With Thomas at the helm of our Global Catalog Recorded organization, BMG will step up its investments in catalog.”
The changes, announced today (Jan. 25), come six months after Coesfeld was appointed as CEO, succeeding the retiring CEO Hartwig Masuch.
Coesfeld’s “energetic and strategic approach to the business has been very inspirational for all of us, because that’s the way our Nashville team runs,” comments Loba in a statement. “I’m looking so forward to working even closer with our staff throughout North America and as important, helping bring the visions of our amazing artists to life.”
Following his promotion to the top job in July, Coesfeld wasted no time in reshaping the company to maximize growth and capture opportunities. Among the changes announced to staff last November, a new global catalog team based in Los Angeles; a “recalibration” of its presence in continental Europe in line with the new local-global emphasis, which will involve focusing on “functional centers of excellence within Europe,” as well as aggregation of budgets and expertise; a further acceleration of its investments in tech and its myBMG system for artists; and the clarification of roles and structures that the company says will make it “more accountable to its artist and songwriter clients.”
The changes didn’t end there. BMG ended its distribution agreement with the Warner Music Group’s ADA and brought its digital distribution in-house, while striking a deal with the Universal Music Group for its physical distribution; formed direct deals with Spotify and Apple Music; and “a number of existing positions” were made redundant – with some 40 staffers let go, Billboard reported.
“We are changing the way we do things,” Coesfeld said in a statement at the time. “We will combine creative intuition with data-driven insights to deliver the best service for our clients and customers.”
BMG is getting out of the live music business. The German music company agreed to sell its stakes in two live music companies, Undercover and Karo, to the minority shareholders, the company announced Friday (Dec. 22). The move comes less than a month after the company said it would focus on its core recorded music […]
BBR Music Group senior vp of promotion Carson James and senior director of A&R Chris Poole have exited the company as part of a global restructuring at BMG, which eliminated their positions, Billboard has confirmed. Country Aircheck first reported the news of their exits.
Earlier on Thursday (Nov. 30), BMG revealed a new structure for its global staff, which BMG CEO Thomas Coesfeld stated is part of “a strategy for future growth” and “local where necessary, global where possible.” The restructure moves BMG’s catalog, sales and marketing teams in its recorded division into global roles, joining the already global purview of its investments, technology, rights and royalties functions. In local markets, artist relations and marketing campaign managers will have access to these global teams for analytics, content creation and media planning/buying, the company’s announcement noted.
James joined BBR in 2009, having previously spent nine years with Curb Records in a similar role. Prior to his work at Curb, James programmed country station WLWI in Montgomery, Ala.
Poole joined BBR in 2018 and previously worked at CTM/Writer’s Ink, where he served in artist development. Poole initially launched his career working in artist management at Paravel Management, which he co-founded in 2013.
James noted to Billboard in a statement, “I’m honored to have had such an amazing run.”
BMG’s restructuring announcement also outlined a new, Los Angeles-based global catalog team, as well as a “recalibration” of its presence in continental Europe as part of its local-global emphasis, which will focus on “functional centers of excellence within Europe.” This is in addition to the aggregation of budgets and expertise, the further acceleration of its investments in tech and the myBMG system for artists and the clarification of roles/structures, which the company says will make it “more accountable to its artist and songwriter clients.”
“Fifteen years after the emergence of streaming, music is going through another tectonic change,” Coesfeld said in a statement. “It is vital we now reengineer our business to make the most of that opportunity. BMG has challenged the conventions of the music industry ever since we began, bringing music publishing and recordings under one roof with a distinctive service-orientated and transparent approach. Now new ways of creating and consuming music and looming changes in streaming economics are challenging us to do even better for our clients.”
BBR Music Group’s artist clients include reigning CMA Awards entertainer of the year Lainey Wilson and new artist of the year winner Jelly Roll, as well as “Try That in a Small Town” hitmaker Jason Aldean, Dustin Lynch, Elvie Shane, Parmalee, Blanco Brown and Brooke Eden.
Indie music conglomerate BMG announced a “new structure” for its staff across the globe today (Nov. 30), one which new CEO Thomas Coesfeld says is part of “a strategy for future growth.”
The plan, which BMG executives communicated to staff today, is part of a strategy that Coesfeld calls “local where necessary, global where possible,” and will move BMG’s catalog, sales and marketing teams in its recorded music division into global roles, joining its investments, technology, rights and royalties functions, which already have a global purview. In local markets, artist relations and marketing campaign managers will be able to tap into those global teams for analytics, content creation and media planning and buying, the company said.
“We are changing the way we do things,” Coesfeld said in a statement. “We will combine creative intuition with data-driven insights to deliver the best service for our clients and customers.”
Additional changes outlined by the company include a new global catalog team based in Los Angeles; a “recalibration” of its presence in continental Europe in line with the new local-global emphasis, which will involve focusing on “functional centers of excellence within Europe,” as well as aggregation of budgets and expertise; a further acceleration of its investments in tech and its myBMG system for artists; and the clarification of roles and structures that the company says will make it “more accountable to its artist and songwriter clients.”
“Fifteen years after the emergence of streaming, music is going through another tectonic change,” Coesfeld said in a statement. “It is vital we now reengineer our business to make the most of that opportunity. BMG has challenged the conventions of the music industry ever since we began, bringing music publishing and recordings under one roof with a distinctive service-orientated and transparent approach. Now new ways of creating and consuming music and looming changes in streaming economics are challenging us to do even better for our clients.”
The new structure is the latest move that Coesfeld has made since taking over from longtime CEO Hartwig Masuch in July. The biggest change involved ending its distribution agreement with the Warner Music Group’s ADA and bringing its digital distribution in-house, while striking a deal with the Universal Music Group for its physical distribution. Then, last month, BMG laid off around 40 employees, which involved discontinuing its international marketing department for recordings, its television, film and theatrical departments and the shuttering of its Modern Recordings label, and saw executives like executive vp of global repertoire Fred Casimir and senior vp of global repertoire Jason Hradil leave the company.
The news means that “a number of existing positions will end,” the company tells Billboard, while Los Angeles will now become the primary hub for catalog. The company says that the approach aligns recordings with its existing strategy in its publishing division.
“This is a strategy for future growth,” Coesfeld added. “But in a business in which change is a constant, we ourselves need to change to grow further. Standing still is not an option if we want to deliver for our artist and songwriter clients.”
Sony Music Publishing ruled the Top Radio Airplay, Hot 100 Songs and Country Airplay publisher rankings for its third consecutive quarter of 2023, and Warner Chappell Music surged to No. 2 on the Hot 100 Songs chart — the first time it has held the position since the Hot 100 ranking began in 2019.
For the period spanning July through September, all of the big three publishers benefited from shares in the Afrobeats radio hit “Calm Down” by Rema and Selena Gomez. Sony also benefited from stakes in “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen, which hit No. 5 on the Top Radio Airplay chart, and Taylor Swift’s surprise hit “Cruel Summer,” which reached No. 3 on the quarter’s Hot 100 Songs ranking, four years after its initial release due to its placement as the opening song of Swift’s The Eras Tour.
Last quarter, Tracy Chapman’s Purple Rabbit Music publishing company broke into the Hot 100 and Top Radio Airplay charts (ranking No. 7 and No. 10, respectively) for the first time, thanks to Luke Combs’ cover of her 1988 song “Fast Car.” This quarter, her market share as a publisher/songwriter grew even higher. Chapman finished the quarter as the top songwriter on all three charts, propelling Purple Rabbit Music to No. 5 on Top Radio Airplay and No. 6 on both Hot 100 Songs and Country Airplay.
But she wasn’t the only self-published songwriter to make the charts this quarter. As the sole writer of “Rich Men North of Richmond,” Oliver Anthony Music’s publishing company, Christopher Anthony Lunsford Pub Designee, placed at No. 8 on Hot 100 Songs with a 1.49% market share, surpassing such top 10 perennials as Downtown and Reservoir. Like Chapman, Anthony is the sole songwriter of his breakthrough song.
This is the first time that two independent songwriters have broken into the Hot 100 Songs chart at the same time.
Warner Chappell rose to No. 2 on the Hot 100 ranking for the first time in 19 quarters. Previously, it often ranked third or fourth. “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen, “Calm Down” by Rema and Selena Gomez, and 49 other Hot 100 Songs hits accounted for its strong showing of 18.18% of the market share. The publisher held steady in third place on the Top Radio Airplay chart with 15.87% of the market share, and ranked second on the Country Airplay chart with a 26.2% share.
Universal Music Publishing Group took second place on Top Radio Airplay — where its song placements increased to 52 from 49 in the second quarter — and third on Hot 100 Songs. Combs’ “Love You Anyway,” No. 3 on Country Airplay; “Cruel Summer”; and “Calm Down” were UMPG’s highest-ranked songs.
Kobalt held fast to No. 4 on both Top Radio Airplay and Hot 100 Songs but slid to No. 5 on Country Airplay behind BMG. The latter publisher’s share in Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor” helped it edge past Kobalt’s 4.59% market share with 4.93%.
BMG and Big Machine Music both climbed in the ranks on the Country Airplay charts this quarter. BMG rose from fifth to fourth ranking, thanks to its share of 12 songs on the chart this quarter, including Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor.” BMM climbed from eighth last quarter (2.57%) to seventh this quarter (2.97%), thanks in part to Luke Bryan’s “But I Got a Beer In My Hand.”
Concord finished 10th on Top Radio Airplay with 1.37%. That percentage might rise in the fourth quarter due to its acquisitions of Round Hill Music and Mojo Music & Media in September. If Concord’s third-quarter market share was combined with those of Round Hill and Pulse, which Concord also owns but lists separately, it would have finished at No. 5 on Top Radio Airplay with 4.96% and at No. 7 on Hot 100 Songs with 3.1%.
Rounding out the top 10, Reservoir fell to No. 8 on Top Radio Airplay with 1.82%, though it improved on its No. 7-ranked second-quarter share of 1.62%. It rounded out the Hot 100 Songs top 10 with 1.17%. Hipgnosis (1.76%) and Downtown (1.44%) finished at No. 9 on Top Radio Airplay and Hot 100 Songs, respectively.
Additional reporting by Ed Christman.
SYDNEY, Australia — Daniel Johns signs a global publishing deal with BMG, a so-called ”landmark” agreement that includes the veteran Australian artist’s Silverchair catalog.
The worldwide deal includes all of Johns’ compositions on his second solo album FutureNever, which led the ARIA Chart in 2022, along with his Silverchair hits including “Straight Lines,” “The Greatest View,” “Ana’s Song,” “Freak,” “Tomorrow” and “many others reverting into the deal in 2025,” according to a joint statement (the rock trio’s catalog of recordings were united under one roof, at Sony Music Australia, in early 2021).
Confirmed Tuesday, Oct. 31, the new agreement expands on the recording deal Johns struck with BMG in 2017, ahead of the release of FutureNever, which became ARIA’s best-selling new Australian album of 2022.
Now, the independent music company represents the Newcastle-based artist for both publishing and records. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
“There is nothing without a heartbeat that I value more than my songwriting catalog,” Johns says. “Bringing my life’s work as a composer to BMG signifies the level of faith I have in this company and their people.”
It was BMG that, in 2021, spearheaded the hit Spotify podcast Who Is Daniel Johns? And in 2022, the music company developed Past, Present and FutureNever, the immersive, award-winning exhibition in Melbourne’s iconic Rialto building. Next year will see the release of the “grunge sci-fi” featurette film What if the Future Never Happened?, starring Rasmus King (6 Festivals, Bosch and Rockit) as a young Johns.
FutureNever hit No. 1 on Australia’s chart in April 2022, then, with its vinyl release, returned to the top, a full 22 weeks later – a record-setting gap between stays at the chart penthouse by a solo Australian artist. The LP won for best independent pop album or EP at the 2023 AIR Awards.
Johns is the most ARIA-awarded artist of all time, with 21 pointy trophies, and his collection includes six APRA Music Awards, three of which are for songwriter of the year — a record-equaling haul. Across his recording career, Johns has sold 10 million albums and enjoyed six ARIA No. 1 albums, including all five Silverchair studio releases.
Formed in 1992 by Newcastle schoolmates Johns (vocals, guitar), Ben Gillies (drums) and Chris Joannou (bass), Silverchair enjoyed global success, starting from the tip-off with their grunge-influenced 1995 debut album Frogstomp and the powerhouse single “Tomorrow.” Frogstomp went to No. 9 on the Billboard 200, and its followup, 1997’s Freak Show, peaked at No. 12.
In 2011, still at the peak of their powers, Silverchair’s members announced they would go their separate ways.
Johns’ is also behind FutureNeverFund, a charitable organization to help raise money to create better futures for people and animals in need. The not-for-profit has now raised and disbursed more than A$100,000 from personal and public donations.
“Daniel is a true multi-talent and musical icon,” says Jodie Feld, BMG senior creative director Australia & New Zealand. “It’s an honor for the whole BMG team to expand our relationship with Daniel and to have the opportunity to work across not just a record, but a podcast, film, exhibition and now his iconic publishing catalog.”
BMG terminated about 40 employees on Thursday (Oct. 27), sources within the company tell Billboard. The layoffs cut effectively the entirety of its film/TV, theatrical, and international marketing department for recordings as well as its Modern Recordings label, according to sources and an internal memo obtained by Billboard. It took place on the day of the New York office’s annual Halloween party, says a source.
The eliminations include company leaders like Fred Casimir (executive vp, global repertoire) and Jason Hradil (senior vp, global repertoire) and affected employees in its Berlin, New York, and Los Angeles offices. A source within the company fears there are more layoffs to come and believes the layoffs may be a result of the company hiring the consulting firm McKinsey & Company in recent months.
After employees were notified they were being laid off, the company hosted a call with the U.S. recorded music team — including those who were let go — according to a source within the company.
“Everyone at BMG says it feels like a venture capital firm now and not a record label,” laments an employee. “Things got dark real fast, and it bums me out watching a lot of amazing people lose their jobs right before the holidays.”
In a video call hosted by CEO Thomas Coesfeld, the leader explained that the restructuring was part of the implementation of its new strategy, BMG Next, according to an internal memo shared with Billboard. “The international marketing team was set up five years ago in response to the needs of the company at the time,” he said to senior managers. “Our talented team has done a great job, driving international campaigns for artists including Lenny Kravitz, Kylie Minogue, and Louis Tomlinson, but unfortunately on a business level, expectations from this novel structure were not met and it created duplication of functions with local teams. The clear business decision is to instead give artists a single contact point with their local repertoire teams.”
A BMG spokesperson declined to comment beyond providing the memo.
In the last year, BMG — which represents talent like Jelly Roll, Halsey and Lainey Wilson as well as certain rights to the catalogs of Tina Turner, Peter Frampton, Mötley Crüe, and more — has made a number of significant business changes. In January, its longstanding chief executive Hartwig Masuch announced he would retire and would be succeeded by then-CFO Coesfeld, effective Jan. 1, 2024. On April 18, BMG claimed it would be the first music company to fully integrate its catalog and frontline music operations. On May 17, Masuch announced he would accelerate Coesfeld’s transition to CEO to July 1 instead.
In September, BMG announced it was winding down its agreement with Warner Music Group’s ADA and would be taking over direct management of its 80-billion-stream digital distribution later this year. (Digital revenues contributed 70% of BMG’s overall revenues in 2022.) Last week, BMG also announced it would be partnering with UMG’s commercial services division for the distribution of its physical recorded music. Coesfeld described the deal as the first project of a burgeoning “alliance” between the two music companies.
Thomas Coesfeld says that the next 10 years will be much different for BMG than the last 10.
Navigating the onslaught of generative artificial intelligence (AI), diverging streaming economic models and the slowdown in streaming revenue growth is among the challenges “that are keeping me up at night,” says the new CEO of the world’s fourth-largest music company, who sat down with Billboard for his first U.S. interview since succeeding Hartwig Masuch in July.
At 33, Coesfeld is the fresh young face of one of Europe’s oldest and most powerful media dynasties. His grandfather was Reinhard Mohn, a legendary CEO of BMG’s German parent company, Bertelsmann. Coesfeld’s predecessor also earned a spot in the media conglomerate’s corporate pantheon. Masuch reinvigorated BMG after serving as an adviser for the company’s uncoupling from Sony in 2007, building it into an entity that generated roughly 900 million euros ($947.7 million) annually. It’s now Coesfeld’s job to lead the company beyond the 1 billion euro mark ($1.1 billion) by 2024.
The Berlin-based executive spoke candidly about the challenge he faces being a relative newcomer to the music industry and the acumen he developed while overseeing BMG’s balance sheet since 2021 as the company’s CFO. Coesfeld received a baptism by fire as one of BMG’s chief negotiators for song catalog acquisitions during the market run-up in the early 2020s. From 2021 to 2023, he helped the company land 70 deals, including acquiring the catalogs of rock icons Mötley Crüe and Tina Turner, as well as those of Mick Fleetwood, Paul Simon, The Pointer Sisters, Peter Frampton and The Hollies.
A photo of Coesfeld’s grandfather, former Bertelsmann CEO Mohn, viewing the Manhattan skyline in 1954. Much like him, Coesfeld says he has a “strong fondness” for the United States.
Urban Zintel
Bertelsmann, flush with cash after its failed acquisition bid for Simon & Schuster, has promised to invest between 5 billion and 7 billion euros ($5.3 billion to $7.4 billion) across its companies through 2025 — an infusion that should help Coesfeld outpace BMG’s nearest competitors, Concord and HYBE, which are both on track to close $300 million to $500 million in company acquisitions this year. But competition doesn’t trouble Coesfeld. He is less combative and more collaborative than is typically found in the music industry.
“I’m convinced that the key challenge of the music industry is not fighting each other,” he says. “It’s not about conventional distinctions between segments, like frontline or catalog, or companies, like majors or indies. There are bigger challenges than that. What is needed is a more collaborative approach with business partners to face this more challenging environment.”
You’ve been in the CEO seat for just over 100 days. What is the five-year plan for BMG?
My predecessor was an entrepreneur who brought Bertelsmann back into the music space. He achieved a thing you don’t see that often, particularly in media. We are a very established company on a solid foundation. Now comes a new chapter. The next iteration of BMG will focus on better engaging with our artists, songwriters and business partners. I’m truly convinced we can only be effective if we are not focusing too much on ourselves — not building too much resources internally — but instead focusing on the value creation and service delivery for the artists and songwriters. Naturally, we will continue on our investment strategy.
What does BMG taking digital distribution in-house mean for the company’s future?
First, it allows us to significantly upgrade our services for artists. We get better in our marketing ability to advocate for the songs, campaign management, things like that. Second, we get better and direct access to the data feeds from the platforms. Artists care about that. The third point is it’s massively enhancing our service portfolio. This enables us to offer a bigger variety of deals for artists to allow them to choose what kind of service level they want. And then obviously, every intermediary takes fees. So this allows us to have a more sustainable business model, become more competitive and offer more competitive terms to our artists. And artists get the monies faster.
Another photo of Mohn.
Urban Zintel
How does integrating the frontline business and catalog help you achieve these goals?
What’s key on the recording side is marketing. What is new and increasingly important is understanding the [streaming] channels. You need expertise for each [digital service provider]. Spotify is really different from Apple. We’ve had a direct relationship with YouTube for the last eight months, and the results are phenomenal — not just from a topline perspective, which is the ultimate measure, but also in having access to data, providing improved service on marketing, trending and velocity to artists. If you look through the lens of marketing, frontline and catalog become more integrated because the skill that makes the difference is marketing and understanding the channel. Consumption is way more fragmented. Fans make their own choices. Music taste is the decisive factor.
What do you expect streaming growth to look like in the coming years?
Two trends are relevant: One is that the massive market growth for the future of streaming in Western markets will happen through price increases. The second is the majority of the volume growth will happen in the developing markets. The good news is that the market is still fundamentally growing — not at the same speed as in the past 10 years — but we still have a fundamentally attractive market.
We need to own distribution to fully understand the trends early on and to react faster, to market in more tailored ways. With lower growth, we need to be more precise in how we invest marketing dollars.
How would you describe your leadership style?
There is a German saying: “You always see each other twice in life.” The idea of this saying is you always have opportunities — from a power-play perspective, you’re in a better situation — but the more sustainable approach is to still treat everyone as partners. We are in it for the long run. This is, for me, a paradigm for how to act on a daily basis. I’m very grateful for the partnership we had [with ADA]. We tripled our revenue. We’ve learned a lot, and it was clear from the get-go that at some point in time we would leave. [Warner Music Group CEO] Robert [Kyncl] and I had very frank conversations about it.
The statuette, which was a gift from Coesfeld’s aunt, “represents ambition,” he says.
Urban Zintel
What opportunities do you see in the catalog market?
We have a well-oiled machine. We know how to assess catalog, pitch and discuss with artists and songwriters. Hartwig built a reputation. Artists and songwriters trust us. That’s a big opportunity from a positioning standpoint. Paired with a very committed parent company, which is willing to fund the further growth of this company, we see massive growth, and I remain very optimistic about the market fundamentals. There are a lot of things going on which may cause challenges — streaming economics, generative AI — but I see those as massive opportunities for the industry overall.
How have your previous executive roles at Bertelsmann shaped you, and how will they shape BMG?
This is my first CEO role. Now, I can’t blame the CEO any longer! I’m a firm believer from my own experience that the way you treat people, the way you interact in all types of relationships, is critically important to firm longevity and business success. If you take that and apply it to BMG, it’s even more important because our clients are a diverse set of characters. That’s why they have fans. They are not normal. They are not average. They are different. They are beyond that. Treating people with respect is critically important, and that sets Bertelsmann apart from other companies.
And in my CFO role, I had the privilege of being responsible for a catalog acquisition strategy. That helped me a lot in getting to know so many artists over the last two to three years. That introduced me quite well to this industry. Not having been around for decades in the music business was a challenge and, at times, still is.
A keyring that Coesfeld bought in New York when he was 12 and has carried with him since.
Urban Zintel
What is BMG’s view of the ongoing experiments with artist-centric and user-centric streaming payment models?
We are not the market maker there, which is important to understand our views. Overall, I welcome that we are having this discussion as an industry. What is on the table is a great step in the right direction. We are about to establish mechanisms to fight fraud, money laundering, things like that. Even more importantly, in light of gen AI, it is so easy to create music and to have artificial consumption of music.
How do you see this as a tool to address your concerns around generative AI?
If you don’t have mechanisms that make a distinction between human artistry and white noise, then something is wrong about the system. The streaming economics were designed 12 years ago. They are just not the appropriate models any longer. One thing I’d love to see more pronounced is trust in consumer choices — so a distinction between the superfan who is listening to just one artist and the more infrequent listener who is also paying $11 a month but listening to 50 streams a month.
What are the pitfalls and opportunities of generative AI?
I do see a fundamental threat to the ‘copyright-ability’ of human creativity. If regulators do not hold up, we will have a big issue. What keeps me optimistic is that fans don’t just care about the musical expression. It’s about the personality, the artist — especially for superfans.
BMG said on Thursday (Oct. 18) that it will use Universal Music Group’s (UMG) commercial services division for the distribution of its physical recorded music, in what BMG CEO Thomas Coesfeld described as the first project of a burgeoning “alliance.” Last month, BMG announced it was winding down its agreement with Warner Music Group’s ADA […]
BMG has acquired the recorded music catalog of French DJ and artist Martin Solveig in what the company calls its biggest such deal in France to date. The sale includes the rights to around 130 tracks, including hits like “Intoxicated” and “+1,” and Solveig’s studio albums from 2002’s Sur la Terre to 2011’s Smash.
Solveig’s work joins a BMG France roster that includes Jean-Michel Jarre (recordings and publishing), Yuksek (recordings and publishing) and Thylacine (publishing). The previous largest recorded music acquisition by BMG in France was more than a decade ago when it purchased Francis Dreyfus Music (Dreyfus), the label which owned Jarre’s first albums.
BMG declined to offer financial details of the Solveig sale, which was brokered by Maximilien Jazani of Catalogue Associates.
Solveig has topped the Dance Club Songs chart twice in his career, first with 2011’s Dragonette-assisted “Hello” and then a year later with “The Night Out.” He’s also placed five tracks on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, including “All Day and Night,” “Hey Now” and “Juliet & Romeo.” His biggest mainstream hit, “Hello,” topped out at No. 46 on the Hot 100.
The success of “Hello” led to Solveig’s work on Madonna’s MDNA album — he co-wrote and co-produced three songs, including “Give Me All Your Luvin’” and “Turn Up the Radio.”
“Martin Solveig has created some of the most potent and successful electronic music of the past decade with a career which straddles the end of the download era and the emergence of streaming,” said Maximilian Kolb, BMG’s evp of repertoire & marketing across continental Europe. “We see significant potential to bring his music to a wider streaming audience.”
Solveig added, “In the process of selecting a partner to host and preserve my recordings, it was imperative for me to associate myself with a company that understands the intrinsic value of this music and is just as passionate about its future potential as I was in creating it. BMG has demonstrated exceptional motivation, and a genuine desire to perpetuate the exploitation of the tracks that are dear to me.”
News of the deal arrives amid a busy 2023 for BMG. So far this year, the company has struck catalog and/or rights deals with Jet, Paul Simon, The Pointer Sisters and George Harrison. In 2022, BMG acquired rights and royalties for Tina Turner, John Legend, Mötley Crüe, ZZ Top, Peter Frampton, Harry Nilsson, John Lee Hooker, Simple Minds, Primal Scream, and The Hollies, among others.