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Believe turned in strong double-digit revenue growth in the first half of 2024, helped by its 2023 acquisition of Sentric Music Group but hobbled slightly by weak ad-supported streaming revenues. Revenue grew 14.1% to 474.1 million euros ($512.7) and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, deprecation and amortization (EBITDA) improved 29.3% to 31.3 million euros ($33.8 million), the company announced Thursday (Aug. 1).
“Despite persistent market headwinds in some of our key territories, Believe continued to generate solid profitable growth during the semester,” CEO Denis Ladegaillerie said in a statement. “We pursued our strategic roadmap to build the best artist development company in the music industry, while finalizing the restructuring of our capital structure providing us with greater financial flexibility and partners who can accelerate our profitable growth story.”
The Paris-based company lowered its expectations for full-year revenue, however. Because Believe will lose the year-over-year growth benefits of streaming price increases and is “cautious” about ad-supported streaming, the company lowered its guidance for organic revenue growth to 12% from 18%. That said, it increased its guidance for full-year adjusted EBITDA margin to greater than 6.5% from the previous 6.5% figure.
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Thursday’s earnings release was Believe’s first since a consortium including Ladegaillerie acquired nearly all of the company’s shares through a tender offer that ended June 21. The consortium, which includes funds managed by TCV and EQT X, now owns 96.02% of share capital and 94.87% of voting rights. Believe continues to have a small number of minority shareholders and its stock still trades on the Euronext Paris exchange, but due to the small float, the company will release only mid-year and full-year earnings results and no longer release quarterly results.
First-half revenue grew 17.9% to 78.4 million euros ($84.8 million) in France, Believe’s home and largest market, where it claimed to have 40% of the top local singles and 30% of the top local albums during the period. Revenue dropped 1.2% to 53.5 million euros ($57.9 million) in Germany, its second-largest market. In Europe excluding France and Germany, revenue jumped 24.7% to 121.9 million euros ($131.8 million).
The Americas grew 21.8% to 73.9 million euros ($79.9 million), helped in the second quarter by the reallocation of most of Sentric Music Group’s revenues to the U.S. Believe acquired Sentric, a Liverpool-based music publishing company, in 2023 from Utopia Music. Asia/Oceana/Africa grew just 3.7% to 116.3 million euros ($125.8 million); while revenue was “slightly up” in India, it fell in some Southeast Asian markets that are heavily based on ad-supported streaming.
Believe’s Premium Solutions division, which includes its publishing, label and artist services businesses, grew revenue 13.5% to 440.9 million euros ($476.8 million) in the first half of the year. Most of that improvement came from organic growth, while Sentric accounted for 2.3 percentage points of growth. Revenue at the Automated Solutions segment, which includes digital distributor TuneCore, increased 23.4% to 33.2 million euros ($35.9 million).
The upcoming elections in the United States in November will be profoundly important, with consequences for the economy, foreign policy, technology and perhaps even democracy itself. From a music industry perspective, though, there just isn’t all that much at stake. After two decades of change, the industry has found a new business model in the U.S., in the form of paid subscription streaming, and there’s only so much a new president could do to either improve that or screw it up. Most of the industry’s policy priorities involve either legislation (which any president would almost certainly sign) or in-the-weeds rulemaking procedures.
You certainly don’t get this sense from artists and executives, most of whom support Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president — and generally tend to vote Democrat. This probably comes from their personal politics — Harris doesn’t have an extensive track record on intellectual property policy or other issues important to the music business, although she was seen shopping for vinyl and appears to have excellent taste. (Make America analog again!) For all the disdain they get from media executives, Republican presidents have often been better for it, since they tend to reduce taxes, regulation and barriers to mergers. Same goes for legislators. Most music industry executives might not care for the politics of Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), but she’s certainly helped their business.
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Which candidate would be better for any specific business isn’t entirely clear because, at a time when the world is growing more complicated, U.S. politicians seem to offer fewer specifics on complicated issues. Both Harris and former president Donald Trump seem to be running more on who they are than on what they plan to do. (Based on Trump’s comments at the National Association of Black Journalists event in Chicago on July 31, he seems to want to run on who Harris is, which says far more about who he is, and not in a good way.) Some of this seems inevitable — Trump likes to change his mind and Harris only entered the race after President Joe Biden dropped out of it on July 21. It might just reflect an increasingly tribalized electorate.
The music industry’s biggest issues have remained bipartisan, though, and they seem to occupy a rare demilitarized zone between parties in which politicians who don’t normally agree on much come together. The quintessential example is copyright, which often unites Republicans who favor property rights and Democrats who want to support the arts. The most complicated and important part of the 2018 Music Modernization Act was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), who may not agree on much else. (In 2018, they shared their “Summertime Heat” playlist with Billboard.) This year, the NO FAKES Act brought together Blackburn and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), among others.
The industry’s traditional opponent on strong copyright is Silicon Valley platforms, which had a lot of power under former president Barack Obama. (Months ago, I saw Obama talk about the dangers of online misinformation without mentioning that he did little to regulate the platforms it’s on.) Biden, who has been a strong supporter of copyright, has been more skeptical of Big Tech. Now venture capitalists and technology companies, who tend to vote Democrat but favor libertarian politics, are courting both parties. Reid Hoffman and a group of 100 venture capitalists have announced their support for Harris, while Trump’s choice for Vice President, J. D. Vance, sometimes seems to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of arch-libertarian Peter Thiel. The next president will inevitably be asked to deregulate artificial intelligence at the expense of the rightsholders who own the works it will be trained on — the only question is who it will be. Investors will also push to legitimize cryptocurrency — or at least reduce the legal barriers to pretending that it’s an investment instead of a high-end pyramid scheme.
The other big issue these days is antitrust law, which the Biden-appointed Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan is trying to strengthen. The immediate issue is the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, but more aggressive antitrust enforcement would also make it harder for the major labels to buy catalogs and companies. Although constraining the majors could make it easier for smaller companies to compete, it could also reduce the number of potential buyers they might attract. And although Republicans have traditionally wanted to weaken antitrust law, some populists now see it as a tool to reduce the power of platforms like Google.
The next president’s ability to help or hurt the music business may come down to putting copyright provisions in trade treaties, which doesn’t really resonate with the public. AI initiatives could matter, too. More AI legislation will almost certainly follow the NO FAKES Act, but that debate mostly sets different businesses against one another. (The NMPA recently asked the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to adjust copyright law, but that’s not going to happen so soon.) It’s harder than ever to pass federal legislation, and the president can only do so much to help.
The music business will also try to get wins on smaller issues — whether it’s legal to train an AI on copyrighted content and how much involvement of AI makes a work ineligible for copyright. These are the kind of subjects that require position papers rather than strong rhetoric. But we may not see those until 2025.
Last week, HYBE — the Korean label and music company behind BTS, among others — announced that Jason Jaesung Lee would become its new CEO, replacing Jiwon Park, as part of what it dubbed its “HYBE 2.0” strategy. Today (Aug. 1), the company unveiled more specifics as to what that will start to look like.
HYBE says the strategy kicked off at the top of the year, and will see the company lean into its superfandom platform, Weverse, around the world, while also partnering with other companies globally “to adapt to the fast-evolving market landscape,” the company said in a press release.
The priorities the company laid out will reorganize the company — which had previously been structured as Label, Solution and Platform — into a broader Music, Platform and “Tech-driven future growth initiatives” framework. As part of that, the company laid out four new initiatives and several executive-level appointments with new leaders atop its reformed division.
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The first is the formation of HYBE Music Group APAC, which will encompass the company’s labels in Korea and Japan, which will focus on doubling down on the company’s strengths and strategies in that region and exporting them around the globe. The current president of BIGHIT Music, Young Jae Shin, who has helped oversee the success of BTS and Tomorrow X Together, will now take on the role of president of HYBE APAC and lead the Korean and Japanese labels’ global growth.
The second is a doubling-down on what the company calls its “multi-home, multi-genre” strategy in the U.S., Japan and Latin America. That will mean a new label service launched under HYBE America — which is led by Scooter Braun — that will bring in a management element to its current label operations, in a bid to “bring the K-pop methodology to the American pop scene.” As part of that, HYBE America says it signed a new U.S.-based group, KATSEYE, through its continued partnership with Geffen Records. The company also said that its HYBE Latin America division — whose CEO Jonghyun “JH” Kah recently spoke to Billboard about their plans — will ramp up beginning in 2025, while HYBE Japan will continue to roll out new artists as well under newly-appointed chairman Youngmin Kim, who until now had served as general manager of SM Entertainment.
The third is the launch of a subscription membership tier for superfan platform Weverse, which will go live in the fourth quarter of 2024 and be available to all artists who use the platform. That will include ad-free videos, digital membership cards and a private Weverse DM feature, while the main Weverse platform will begin incorporating ads. Weverse president Joon Choi spoke to Billboard two weeks ago (July 19) about the platform’s plans moving forward, as well as the onboarding of Ariana Grande onto the platform, joining many of the Korean artists already in the HYBE stable. (Grande, who cut ties with Braun and HYBE last year, resumed working with them in June.)
Finally, HYBE is planning to “merge content with technology,” which it says will “ensure mid to long-term growth” for the company. That is where HYBE’s investments in gaming, AI, audio and voice technology and integrated online/offline experiences will live moving forward.
“HYBE 2.0 focuses on fostering our future growth businesses centered on music, platform and technology,” newly-announced CEO Lee said in a statement. “HYBE will continue to excel in the music industry, solidify its position as the leading player in the superfan business, and secure long-term growth drivers through tech-driven future growth initiatives.”
Earlier this month, an alarming stat sent a shudder through the U.K. music industry. When the Official Singles Charts announced the biggest songs of the year so far in the country, only four of the top 20 were by British artists: Artemas (“I Like The Way You Kiss Me”), Cassö (“Prada” featuring Raye and D-Block Europe), Sophie Ellis-Bextor (“Murder On The Dance Floor”) and Natasha Bedingfield (“Unwritten”), the latter two enjoying a boost from film syncs in Saltburn and Anyone But You, respectively.
It was a chilling omen nonetheless. Where are the breakout stars from the U.K., and how will they get onto the international stage?
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2024 has proved a particularly tough one for U.K. artists: no single from a British artist has hit No. 1 on the charts. The last was by Wham! for the seasonal hit “Last Christmas;” before that, it was the Beatles with the AI-assisted single “Now and Then.” In 2022, the top 10 songs in the U.K. were all made by homegrown artists like Ed Sheeran, Sam Fender and Kate Bush. Now, questions are being asked about the success of U.K. artists on a global scale — particularly pop — and why the landscape is not particularly rosy.
The U.K. appears to be in an era of importing music. Alongside stalwarts like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, new names like Noah Kahan, Benson Boone, Teddy Swims, Tate McRae and Shaboozey have flourished in a way that local talent has not. Annabella Coldrick, CEO of the Music Managers Forum, says that strong performances on the U.K. Charts can be key milestones for acts as they head to international markets. “If we’re not even dominating the charts in our own market,” Coldrick says, “then who follows?”
So how can the U.K.’s emerging artists keep pace? Competing with the resources and spending that the major labels can unlock in the U.S .market is an uphill battle, but music journalist Alim Kheraj suggests it runs deeper than that: “The U.K. [industry] has been so focused on hip-hop and singer-songwriters for a while now, so perhaps that’s why there’s been fewer pop stars transferring to the global stage.” There’s been international success for Artemas and Myles Smith, whose single “Stargazing” blazed onto the Hot 100 earlier this year, and other British artists like dance act Fred Again… and rapper Central Cee, but few in the more traditional pop sphere.
Coldrick says that we could see a change in the majors’ involvement with supporting new talent. “Maybe there’s a world in which the catalog labels become entirely separate from investment in new music,” she says. “That might be a good thing as it’s a different kind of investment business.” Following the announcement that resources at several labels at Universal Music would be merged, there are fears that non-priority artists will fall even further down the chain given their return on investment compared to catalog hits.
There are a myriad of issues that touring U.K. musicians face in 2024. Production costs and visa fees have risen substantially and the after-effects of Brexit have meant that touring EU countries is less profitable. “We’ve got very little government investment and a hostile environment for touring,” Coldrick says. “Artists and managers will do anything to make things work as they’re innovative problem solvers, but that’s a huge burden for them.”
Coldrick also notes that the U.K. is lagging behind other markets’ approach to exporting music. She celebrates the success of regional music scenes, particularly in Latin American countries and Asia, but says that lack of a “joined-up” export program is holding back U.K. artists. Those schemes can help provide funds to cover tour and visa costs and provide practical advice.
In 2022, a report by UK Music said that the value of exporting British talent — led by Harry Styles and Glass Animals — generated £4 billion to the economy. The Music Export Growth Scheme, Coldrick notes, is relatively slight compared to initiatives by Australia and the Netherlands. “We’ve been putting barriers up,” she says. “We’ve rested on our laurels a little bit and always relied on our great heritage and history.”
Kheraj suggests that there needs to be a recalibration of what we consider a “breakout artist.”’” He notes that the forthcoming new album from breakout act Sabrina Carpenter will be her sixth and follows success in the Disney stable, as well as a recent support slot on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Similarly, buzzy new act Chappell Roan first signed with Atlantic in 2015 and released music consistently until her 2023 debut album. Charli XCX’s first megahits — “Boom Clap” and Iggy Azalea team-up “Fancy” — were released in 2014; a decade later, she’s a key endorsement for Kamala Harris in the upcoming U.S. presidential election and in the midst of a Brat Summer.
“Someone like Olivia Rodrigo was a star and had a hit right out the gate, but that is so rare these days for an artist to launch with that level of commercial success,” Kheraj says. “We should be looking at people who’ve been doing it for a while longer as it does take time.”
There is no shortage of talent. Earlier this month Griff, who first released music on Warner Music in 2019, shared her debut LP Vertigo and had the best-selling opening week for a debut album by a British female since Raye’s 2021 debut; in October she will support Carpenter on a run of U.S. tour dates. Kheraj points to the early success of Jade Thirlwall’s debut solo single “Angel of My Dreams” on the U.K. Singles Charts as a bright spot. “She gets all the cultural touch points, is a fan of that world and has already operated on a global stage,” he says of the Little Mix member. “I think we could see her cross over to ‘Main Pop Girl.’”
Other names have made solid starts in their careers domestically and overseas: Holly Humberstone, Olivia Dean, Maisie Peters, Cat Burns and FLO to name a few. With malleable genres disrupting the pure “pop” tag, indie artists like Rachel Chinouriri, Wet Leg and The Last Dinner Party could all scale up rapidly on the international stage.
Perhaps 2024 will act as something of a recalibration for success in the pop world and beyond. There’s no denying that the U.K. has the right talent to succeed, it’s now a question of how to make the world hear it.
Eric Gardner, chairman and CEO of Panacea Entertainment, died from complications of pneumonia on July 19 at his home in Camarillo, Calif. Gardner, whose career as a talent manager and producer of television shows and Las Vegas residencies spanned more than 50 years, was 74 years-old.
Gardner, who managed dozens of acts over the years, was inducted into the Personal Managers Hall of Fame at their 2017 ceremony in Las Vegas. He was still managing Todd Rundgren and Paul Shaffer at the time of his death.
Gardner’s career began in 1970 when, as a graduate student earning his Master of Fine Arts in playwriting at Columbia University, he started coordinating tours for such rock bands as Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead and, later, KISS. His company, Panacea Entertainment Corp., was the industry’s first rock and roll tour coordination company. By 1973, it was coordinating tours in 23 countries.
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In 1974, Panacea’s emphasis shifted to talent management. Over the years, Gardner represented such diverse musical artists as Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones, Kenney Jones of The Who/ Faces/Small Faces, Rundgren, Donny Osmond, Rick Wright of Pink Floyd, The Stray Cats, Jefferson Starship, Sex Pistols, John Lydon, Steven Van Zandt and Max Weinberg (both of the E Street Band), Hot Tuna, Blue Öyster Cult, Grace Jones and Bettye LaVette.
He also represented Late Night with David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer; writer/producer Jim Steinman; actors David Hasselhoff, Richard Belzer and Richard Chamberlain; and psychologist, author and activist Timothy Leary, among others.
In 1981, Gardner relocated Panacea from New York to Los Angeles to expand into film and television. His first foray in 1982 was signing Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson, whom he helped develop from a local Los Angeles television personality into an international film and television phenomenon. Over the next 26 years, he produced her many film and television projects.
Gardner’s IMDB page includes 40 credits as a producer or executive producer, including multiple projects with Elvira, Hasselhoff, Belzer, Rundgren (both solo and with his band Utopia), Shaffer and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones.
Gardner both produced and directed a 1976 TV special, Blue Öyster Cult: Live 1976. That was the year the band landed its biggest hit, “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” which reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
He executive produced Digital Dreams, a 1983 TV movie which documented Wyman’s life. Two years later, he executive produced Willie and the Poor Boys, a film about the “supergroup” of the same name. The band consisted of Wyman and Charlie Watts, also of the Rolling Stones, plus Andy Fairweather Low, Mickey Gee and Geraint Watkins. Their eponymous album reached No. 96 on the Billboard 200 in 1985.
Gardner executive produced Heavy Metal Heaven, a 1990 miniseries in which Elvira introduced six programs celebrating the genre.
He executive produced The Filth and the Fury, a 2000 documentary about the career of the notorious punk rock band, Sex Pistols. The film was directed by Julien Temple, who had also directed The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, the classic 1980 documentary about the band. The Filth and the Fury provided an opportunity for the surviving members of the group to tell their side of the story. Also in 2000, Gardner executive produced Rotten TV, a short-lived VH-1 series hosted by Lydon of Sex Pistols fame.
He executive produced Bitter Jester, a 2003 show which was billed as the first documentary to offer a glimpse into the process behind the comedy we watch in clubs, on television and at the movies. The film included interviews with Richard Pryor and Belzer, among others.
In 2006, he executive produced Running With Arnold, a documentary on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successful gubernatorial campaign in California that year. The doc was narrated by Alec Baldwin.
In 2019, he executive produced Paul Shaffer Plus One, an eight-episode TV series in which Shaffer and his guests discussed inspirations and influences and notable songs.
Despite having a hand in numerous music projects, Gardner’s longest-running TV project was Shahs of Sunset, a Bravo reality series which followed a group of affluent young Persian-American friends who juggle their flamboyant L.A. lifestyles with family demands. More than 125 episodes were produced from 2012-2021.
Gardner was also behind several successful Las Vegas residencies. In 2009, he launched and produced Donny & Marie featuring Donny and Marie Osmond at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in association with Caesar’s Entertainment. He co-produced with Planet Hollywood, also in Las Vegas, the “Ringo Starr and His All-Star Band” residency shows. Once again with Caesar’s Entertainment, he produced “Paul Shaffer and the Shaff-Shifters” residency shows.
Gardner was active right up until his death. Projects in the works at the time of his death included a Blues Brothers primetime animated TV series in partnership with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s widow Judy Belushi (who died two weeks before Gardner, on July 5 at age 73); adapting the hit 1980 Blues Brothers movie as a Broadway musical; “Sharknado the Musical” in Las Vegas in partnership with Caesar’s Entertainment/Greg Young/The Asylum; a Hellraiser primetime TV series with former New World Entertainment chairman Larry Kuppin; and a feature film about Timothy Leary life’s story with HBO.
Gardner is survived by his wife, Janis, who is the co-owner of Panacea Entertainment, and three grown daughters, Cameron, Madeleine and Nathalie.
In a multi-partner deal, Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group and LL Cool J’s Rock The Bells have formed an alliance with producer and Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA. The goal: to expand and further solidify the music, brand, philosophy and lifestyle of the legendary and influential hip-hop collective.
“As we evolve from ‘Legendary Status’ to ‘Iconic Status,’ it’s only fitting and serendipitous that we join the team at Iconic Artists Group and Rock The Bells,” RZA (real name: Robert Fitzgerald Diggs) said in a statement announcing the alliance. “This partnership will help us continue to expound and expand the Wu-Tang Clan’s legacy.”
In addition to Wu-Tang Clan’s extensive catalog — which includes the multi-platinum albums Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Wu-Tang Forever and The W — the business alliance will encompass film, television, merchandise and brand partnerships such as a recently teased collaboration with Nike. Iconic Artists Group and Rock The Bells are also working with RZA to unify Wu-Tang Clan’s global communities through one unique online portal.
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Susan Genco, co-president of The Azoff Company, said in a release, “Wu-Tang Clan’s influence on hip-hop — and the way the world views hip-hop — is undeniable. The partnership with RZA and Iconic is committed to ensuring that the importance of WTC’s music and their message is celebrated now and for generations to come.”
“The Wu-Tang Clan’s brand and music have been cornerstones of hip-hop culture,” LL Cool J said. “Our partnership with Iconic Artists Group will enable us to leverage Rock The Bells’ multi-faceted platform — encompassing radio, e-commerce, licensing, content and live events — to unite and engage fans with this iconic brand. Together, we’ll guarantee that the Wu-Tang Clan’s legacy and timeless hip-hop remain powerful forces for generations to come.”
Prior to its formal announcement, the partnership has yielded several earlier Wu-Tang Clan legacy-expansion projects. The first “Wu-Tang x MLB Night” was held at San Francisco’s Oracle Park when the New York Yankees played against the Giants on June 1. Wu-Tang Clan Day was declared last year (Nov. 9) by New York City Mayor Eric Adams to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of the group’s pioneering debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). To further mark the occasion, the Empire State Building was lit up in the group’s colors: black and yellow.
RZA also hosts #WuWednesdays on LL Cool J’s SiriusXM channel 43. Launched last November, the weekly show presents new and classic tracks from Wu-Tang Clan’s members as well as exclusive DJ mixes and interviews.
Last December, the group announced its first Las Vegas residency, “Wu-Tang Clan: The Saga Continues …” After four sold-out shows in February and March of this year, the group will return to The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas for two more shows this fall: Sept. 27 and 28. Click here for ticket information.
“The Wu-Tang Clan is much more than a music group; they’re a cultural phenomenon,” stated Jimmy Edwards, president of Iconic. “We can’t wait to bring our unique strengths together to create something truly unparalleled.”
Blackstone has officially completed its $1.6-billion acquisition of Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), bringing an end to the six-year-old, London-listed investment trust that amassed a catalog of 65,000 copyrights including songs by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Journey, Shakira and Neil Young.
Following a shareholder vote on July 8 and a court approval on Friday (July 26), the acquisition scheme was delivered to the Guernsey Register on Monday (July 29), according to a regulatory filing. As a result, all HSF shares are now owned by Blackstone and trading was suspended on Monday. HSF shares are expected to be removed from the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning (July 30).
With the acquisition effective, Robert Naylor, Cindy Rampersaud, Francis Keeling, Christopher Mills and Simon Holden resigned from the HSF board. Ben Katovsky, CEO of Hipgnosis Song Management (HSM), and Dan Pounder, HSM’s CFO, were appointed to the board.
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The deal allows Blackstone to consolidate its interests under the Hipgnosis umbrella. In 2021, Blackstone launched a $1 billion partnership with HSM to acquire and co-manage music catalogs. Under the deal, Blackstone took a stake in HSM, the investment advisor to HSF, and formed Hipgnosis Songs Capital (HSC). HSC acquired rights to the music of some notable stars, including Justin Timberlake and Kenny Chesney in 2022 and Justin Bieber in 2023.
Led by former artist manager Merck Mecuriadis, HSF went public on July 11, 2018, and raised 200 million pounds ($260 million) to begin canvassing the music business in search of high-profile catalogs. Through subsequent offerings in 2019, 2020 and 2021, HSF brought its total capital raised to nearly 1.3 billion pounds ($1.67 billion). In March 2020, HSF became a constituent of the FTSE 250, an index that holds the 101st to 350th largest companies on the London Stock Exchange.
As the music industry soared on the back of streaming growth, the publicly traded HSF ran into turmoil. By 2021, a deflated share price hampered HSF’s ability to raise additional capital to acquire more catalogs. Shareholders were frustrated by a series of missteps and voted against continuation in 2023, which prompted HSF’s board to conduct a strategic review that produced evidence of overstated revenue and earnings. Mercuriadis stepped down as CEO of HSM in February and resigned his position as chairman in July. Blackstone emerged as the highest bidder in April, beating out Concord, which had made a $1.4-billion offer earlier that month.
According to 2023 Year-End data from the Recording Industry Association of America, revenues from vinyl records grew 10% to $1.4 billion, and accounted for 71% of physical format revenues last year. 2023 also marked vinyl’s 17th consecutive year of growth.
As vinyl’s vital place in music’s ecosystem continues, Nashville-based United Record Pressing also celebrates 75 years of pressing vinyl for artists including Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, Adele and Stevie Wonder and numerous other artists.
“The sustained growth of the vinyl record market has been going for nearly 20 years at this point in the U.S., but particularly cool is how the medium has evolved into the people’s art object, and a creative opportunity for artists to tailor their records to reinforce aesthetics, inspiration, ideas or cultural touchpoints for more curious fans,” Cam Sarrett, United Record Pressing’s head of sales and marketing, tells Billboard in a statement. “Plus, it impactfully benefits artists big and small at the merch table on tour and bolsters community at independent record stores, a vital culture all its own.”
URP has been a central contributor to vinyl sales since 1949, when the company was formed by John Dunn, Joe Talbot and Ozell Simpkins. The pressing plant was an offshoot of Bullet Records, one of Nashville’s first indie record labels. In 1949, the same year that RCA created the first 45 and seven-inch records became popular in jukeboxes across America, Bullet Records earned a massive hit with Francis Craig’s song “Near You,” which spent 17 weeks atop Billboard’s pop charts. They opened Southern Plastics (which would later become United Record Pressing) to keep up with the demand for the song. By 1962, the company had moved operations to Nashville’s Chestnut Street. The company’s founder Ozell Simpkins also designed the building and URP’s machines.
John Dunn and Ozell Simpkins
Courtesy of United Record Pressing
By the 1960s, Southern Plastics had established a deal to handle singles record pressings for Motown Records. Given that there were few accommodations available to Black artists, producers and executives in the South during that time, the company also created what would become known as the “Motown Suite,” a space to host Black artists, producers and executives when they visited Nashville. Today, that space has been preserved and is used to host special events, such as album release parties.
In the 1970s, Southern Plastics was renamed United Record Pressing. As in-house labels began shuttering their in-house pressing operations, soon URP became the foremost independent record pressing plant in the Southeast. Two decades later, URP acquired Dixie Record Pressing, which allowed the plant to begin pressing 10-and 12-inch records in addition to their 7-inch records. As vinyl began to reemerge and surge in popularity, especially in the mid-2000s, URP began pressing new versions of albums from Johnny Cash, Jimmy Hendrix and Bob Dylan as well as new vinyls from contemporary artists including Adele, Swift, Harry Styles and Kendrick Lamar.
In 2017, URP consolidated operations into a new, larger facility on Allied Drive in Nashville, in order to keep up with demand for the company’s vinyl pressing services. In 2021-2022, the company added nearly 50 presses and added approximately 15,000 square feet to its facilities.
United Record Pressing
Tennessean/USA Today
Today, URP’s more than 120 staff members oversee 64 on-site pressing machines, with the capacity to press over 80,000 records per day.
Beth Proctor, United Record Pressing’s longest-standing employee, has been with the company for approximately four decades.
“I came to United in the ‘80s, and quickly learned there rarely is a dull moment pressing vinyl records. I fell in love with the owners, employees and the family environment,” Proctor told Billboard via a statement. “Then, [with] our customers, a lot of whom have become great friends over the years.”
Here, as URP celebrates 75 years of providing vinyl for consumers, we look at 15 distinct recordings that the company has pressed over the decades, ranging from the 1940s through to the 2020s.
Francis Craig Band, “Red Rose”/ “Near You”
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has published a report on its music industry. The report is part of the Japanese government’s “Grand Design and Action Plan for a New Form of Capitalism 2024.” In this plan, several strategies for revitalizing the industry are listed, including “strengthening command structures within content creation industries,” […]
Tributes from across the live music industry have been paid to Chris York, one of the United Kingdom’s leading promoters and a director of SJM Concerts, following his death at age 55 following a long illness.
In a statement on Thursday (July 25), SJM Concerts said the company was “deeply saddened” to announce the passing of a man who “helped define the U.K.’s live music scene” over the past three decades.
York’s career in the live music industry began in the late 1980s when he started booking gigs at Warwick University, where he was a student.
After finishing his studies, York worked as a booker at London’s The Venue — putting on early shows by Pulp, Suede and PJ Harvey — before deepening his knowledge of the live business with roles at U.K. live promoters Straight Music and MCP Concerts.
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In 1993, York joined SJM Concerts, where he “formed a solid and unshakeable partnership and friendship” with the company’s founder, Simon Moran, that “would last the rest of his career,” the Manchester-based firm said in a statement.
Artists that York promoted during his three decades at SJM included Oasis, Foo Fighters, Green Day, The Chemical Brothers, Lily Allen, Massive Attack, Smashing Pumpkins, Underworld, Robert Plant, Underworld, Lorde, Morrissey, Lorde, Placebo, Kraftwerk, Swedish House Mafia, Suede and Stereophonics, among many others.
Oasis singer Liam Gallagher, The Doves, The Pogues, Stereophonics and Suede are among the many acts who posted tributes on social media.
“Chris York was a true unsung hero of the music world,” wrote The Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess on X, adding that the British group “are proud” to have called York a friend.
“You might not recognise the name but if you’re a London gig-goer then you’ll have been at one of the thousands of gigs [York] put on through SJM,” stated Suede’s bassist Mat Osman, who called York “a huge friend and supporter” of the group. “He put on Suede shows from the lowliest to the biggest and was a constant presence in our career,” he added.
Posting on X, U.K. indie rock group Shed Seven said it was “heartbroken” to hear of York’s death. The promoter “played a pivotal role in shaping our career from the very beginning, standing by us every step of the way,” said the band, who topped the U.K. albums charts earlier this year. Shed Seven went on to call York “a kind and inspirational man, a true gent, one of the good guys.”
Those sentiments were echoed by U.K. venue operator Academy Music Group, which called York “a force of nature, exceptional promoter, industry pioneer and above all, a genuine music fan and all-round lovely man.”
During his career, York also worked closely with The Who’s Roger Daltrey, live producer Des Murphy and fellow SJM director Rob Ballantine on establishing the annual Teenage Cancer Trust spring concert series at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Since its launch in 2006, the event has raised more than £30 million ($38 million) for charity with everyone from Ed Sheeran to New Order to Paul McCartney taking part.
In 2021, York was awarded the Jo Walker Meador International Award by the Country Music Association for his work on the Country to Country (C2C) Music festival, which SJM launched in 2013 in partnership with AEG Europe. The event has since become Europe’s biggest country music festival, taking place annually at London’s The O2 arena, Glasgow’s OVO Hydro and Belfast’s The SSE Arena.
“When he got involved at the start of C2C Chris really knew f— all about country. But to his credit he knew what he had to do and immersed himself in every aspect of it and soon became a go-to oracle on country, which he always maintained,” Steve Homer, CEO of AEG Presents U.K., tells Billboard. “He has left a big hole in the live music industry and I’m not sure it will ever be filled.”
“Chris was so loved by the business as you can see from the tributes that are flooding in for him from far and wide,” Emma Banks, co-head of global touring at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and a close friend of York, tells Billboard.
“I am going to miss working with him. I am going to miss his wisdom. I am going to miss chatting with him about pretty much everything and having a laugh with him,” Banks adds. “My thoughts are with Alice, his family, friends and the team at SJM.”
Also paying tribute was Live Nation U.K. and Ireland chairman Denis Desmond, who said York was “a fighter to the end. His legacy will live on.”