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Musicians and songwriters don’t tend to agree on much, but many of them want former president Donald Trump to stop playing their music at his political rallies and campaign events. Whether they can is a quadrennial quandary. The legal answer is yes, at least for songwriters: The big two U.S. performing rights organizations (PROs), ASCAP and BMI, require political campaigns to buy special licenses, from which rightsholders can pull specific works. (The other two, SESAC and GMR, do not issue campaign licenses but can make songs available.) But campaigns don’t always honor those requests.
The use of pop music in campaigns goes back at least a century: Franklin D. Roosevelt used “Happy Days Are Here Again” in his 1932 campaign, and Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis, also a singer, used “You Are My Sunshine,” to which he owned the copyright but did not write. Over the last decade, though, as politics has become more polarizing and pop culture has taken over life in the U.S., this has gone from a subject of occasional interest to one that gets considerable mainstream attention.
In most cases, the unauthorized use of music at a campaign event follows a sort of script: A candidate uses a song and musicians or writers have their lawyers send a cease and desist letter, partly because some campaigns will respect it but often because it’s just a good way to communicate their disapproval in public. How much do I dislike Trump? Enough to have my lawyer write a letter! Some musicians have these letters written, even though a public performance license for an event is only required for a composition, not a recording. Approval is only needed from musicians if the use of music implies an endorsement or involves video, which requires a separate synch license from a song’s publisher.
Now a few recent cases are making this issue more complicated. In mid-August, the estate of Isaac Hayes filed a lawsuit against Trump and his campaign for regularly using “Hold On, I’m Coming” as “outro” music at campaign events. (The estate is suing for copyright infringement, as well as under the Lanham Act, which would cover an implied endorsement, and there will be an emergency hearing in the case on Sept. 3.) Beyoncé has warned the Trump campaign about its use of her song “Freedom,” which has become a theme song for vice president Kamala Harris. And the Foo Fighters objected to the Trump campaign’s use of their song “My Hero” as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the stage to endorse Trump. (They have not sued.)
It seems like an accident of legal history that those three examples fall under the same law as playing a song during an hourlong wait for a candidate to take the stage. In the latter case, no involvement or endorsement is implied — the songs are just used as background music. These cases are different, though. The Hayes estate’s lawsuit claims Trump has used “Hold On, I’m Comin’” 134 times, often as “outro” music, which arguably makes it something of a theme. Beyoncé’s “Freedom” has become identified with the Harris campaign, which uses it with permission. And the Trump campaign used the Foo Fighters song to soundtrack a particular moment, knowing that it would spread widely on video, even though the campaign didn’t have a license for that.
These songs haven’t just been played in public — they have arguably been drafted into service for a cause the writers don’t agree with. “Hold On, I’m Comin’” has been played at Trump events both often and purposefully. Beyoncé should have the right to be identified with the candidate she wants to win. And the Foo Fighters song shows up in news coverage and online video, with the implication that Kennedy is some kind of hero for endorsing Trump.
Although we think of the use of music as a copyright issue involving a public performance, there’s more going on in all three of these cases. The current license system seems to work fine for the way campaigns use music at events in the background. But it would be nice if campaigns could agree with rightsholders, or even with one another, to get permission if a song is used in a way that will identify it with the candidate — and especially if it’s used for a moment that will be widely shared on video. This doesn’t necessarily follow legal logic, but it seems like common sense: If a campaign deliberately selects a song like “My Hero” to soundtrack a moment that is essentially designed to spread on video, doesn’t it make sense to get a video license? Who are we kidding?
Until the situation changes, creators will just keep objecting to the unauthorized use of their work — and they are starting to do so in more creative ways. The Foo Fighters have said they will donate the royalties from Trump’s use of “My Hero” to the Harris campaign. While the Hayes estate’s lawsuit goes forward, it might point out that although “Hold On, I’m Comin’” is played regularly at rallies — it was even rewritten as “Hold On! Edwin’s Coming” for the campaign of Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards — the song gets its name from what co-writer David Porter said to Hayes from the Stax Studios bathroom. If Trump isn’t using the restroom, perhaps another song might work better.
Politicians who use songs with permission also have some bragging rights. Tim Walz can say that Neil Young allowed him to use “Rockin’ in the Free Word” at the Democratic National Convention — an odd choice given the song’s sarcastic lyrics, but still great cred from a music icon. Harris can say the real “Freedom” is hers — and Beyoncé’s support with it. And we can all wait to see who Taylor Swift will endorse.
The U.S. recorded music market grew a little bigger in the first half of 2024 — but not by much. The retail value of total industry revenue reached $8.65 billion, according to RIAA figures released Thursday (Aug. 29), thanks mainly to a modest gain in streaming revenue and a jump in vinyl sales.
While the period’s revenue is a record for the first half of a year, it marked just a 3.9% gain from the prior year’s period. The U.S. market has returned to a more workmanlike trajectory, putting high-single digit and double-digit gains in the rear-view mirror. By contrast, revenue was up 8.8% and 9.0% in the first half of 2022 and 2023, respectively. In the first half of 2021, as paid and ad-supported streaming benefitted from pandemic-era lockdowns that drove consumers to their devices, revenue rocketed 27.0%.
Vinyl EP and LP sales totaled 24.3 million units, up 10.7%, and were valued at $739.9 million, up 17%. Other physical formats gained, too, but the distance between them and vinyl grew larger. CD sales improved just 0.3% to $236.7 million. The other category—encompassing cassettes, CD singles, vinyl singles, DVD audio and SACD—improved 66.6% to $13.2 million.
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Physical sales increased its percentage of total revenue to 11.4% from 10.5% in the prior-year period and 10.2% in the first half of 2022. Vinyl has doubled its share of the market in five years, reaching 8.5% of total U.S. revenue — up from 4.2% in the first half of 2020.
Streaming still dominates industry revenue and provided the single-biggest dollar gain of all the categories. Total streaming revenue grew 3.8% to $7.3 billion and accounted for 84.1% of total revenue, equal to the year-ago period. Paid subscription revenue hit $5.23 billion, up 5.1%, leading all streaming categories by a wide margin. The average number of subscribers reached 99 million, up just 2.6%, suggesting record labels benefitted from price increases by Spotify and other services.
Other streaming segments had a smaller impact or lost ground over the past year. Limited-tier paid subscription revenue dropped 4.1% to $503 million. (Limited-tier services have limited catalogs, interactivity restrictions or other factors that differ from premium subscription plans.) Ad-supported, on-demand revenue rose 2.5% to $899 million. SoundExchange distributions were $517 million, up 3.9%. Other ad-supported streaming—statutory streaming services not distributed by SoundExchange—fell 2.7% to $159.1 million.
Download sales, once the cornerstone of the U.S. market, declined in share for the 14th straight year and amounted to just 2% of industry revenue. Total download sales fell 15.8% to $189.7 million. Track and digital album sales fell 16.1% and 18.5%, respectively. Ringtones and ringbacks dropped 51.1% to $2.9 million. The other digital category, which includes kiosks and music video downloads, grew 22.0% to $17.1 million.
Synchronization royalties dropped 9.8% to $200.9 million, a sharp contrast to sizable gains of 25.3% and 29.9% in the first half of 2022 and 2023, respectively.
In a statement, RIAA chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier highlighted revenue reaching a record $8.7 million and the evolving music ecosystem. “Spanning multiple licensing avenues from fitness apps to short-form video, artists and labels are embracing innovation with responsible partners so more Americans can engage with their favorite music however, whenever and wherever they choose,” he said. “This sustained growth fuels innovation and reflects music’s incredible value, laying the foundation for a healthy creative ecosystem where artists’ and songwriters’ visions can flourish over generations.”
At least half a dozen independent music distributors are fundraising or exploring selling their businesses as investors and major music companies, including Warner Music Group, vie for a piece of the business sector serving DIY artists.
Stem, the indie distribution darling that started as a fintech platform offering royalty splits, is in the early stages of a fundraising round that will be its largest to date, while Larry Jackson’s gamma. concluded its second round of fundraising. Downtown’s board of directors is exploring a sale and has held talks with Believe after an earlier dialogue with WMG fizzled. (Sources say WMG continues to eye acquisition targets.) ONErpm aims to put together around $40 million next year for its own mergers and acquisitions (M&A) fund, and indie streamer/distributor SoundCloud is expected to move into the final stages of either a sale or fundraising round later in 2024 to replace some of its existing shareholders.
Already this year, Believe founder and CEO Denis Ladegaillerie bought 95% of the outstanding shares of the French music company with roughly $1.7 billion in backing from investors that include TCV and Swedish private equity firm EQT in order to take the company private. And the Chicago-based firm Flexpoint Ford bought a stake in Create Music Group for $165 million. Last year, Exceleration Music bought indie distributor Redeye for an undisclosed sum, and gamma. launched with a $1 billion war chest.
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Indie executives say there are numerous factors pushing them to seek funding; among them are the growing influence of artificial intelligence in music-making and next-gen creators’ evolving feelings about independence. Some would rather take a big check from a major if it comes with guaranteed autonomy — which means indie distributors must achieve scale to survive.
Meanwhile, these indies’ collective share of the market is growing, prompting major music companies to make acquisitions and investments as a defensive play. And backers outside the music industry, such as private equity funds and institutional investors, see opportunity in betting on these companies that purport to have the pole position serving the music-makers of tomorrow. Non-major labels and self-releasing artists’ share of the global recorded-music market was 36.7% in 2023, up from 28.6% in 2015, according to MIDiA Research.
“The amount of money being thrown around right now is more than I’ve ever seen,” Stem co-founder and CEO Milana Rabkin Lewis says. “If you’re not out there fundraising right now, you’re not doing your job.”
Another reason to invest: Indie distribution companies are handling an increasing share of the songs that do best on streaming services. In the first half of 2024 in the United States, such companies were responsible for 13.6% of tracks played between 100 million and 500 million times and 22.1% of those played between 50 million and 100 million, according to Luminate.
That said, the indie digital distribution sector remains highly fragmented, and executives say they expect significant consolidation as the roughly 25-year-old segment of the music industry matures.
“You’ll see a lot of DIY distributors sell over the next six months,” says Greg Hirschhorn, CEO of Too Lost, an indie distributor that Hirschhorn says distributes music for over 300,000 artists and labels. “It’s a good time to run an indie distributor.”
Earlier this year, French securities regulators forced WMG to disclose it was considering making a $1.8 billion bid for Paris-based Believe. Warner CEO Robert Kyncl has said the company backed out before making a formal offer because of the brief amount of time it had to undertake due diligence for the deal, among other reasons.
The consortium of investors led by Ladegaillerie ultimately succeeded in taking Believe effectively private this summer, leaving WMG and others that bid on the company, like BMG, hunting elsewhere for acquisitions. Sources say WMG’s decision not to submit an offer for Believe may lead to more deals in this space.
Downtown has been a beneficiary of that fallout. Its chief investor, the family of late New Zealand beer baron Douglas Myers, has been mulling an exit for months. The company’s board has held exploratory talks with WMG and Believe, among others, according to sources.
Downtown declined to comment about any deal talks, but executive chairman Justin Kalifowitz says the current spate of deals is a natural next step resulting from the significant amount of investment dollars that flowed into music-related businesses between 2018 and 2022.
“A lot of cool ideas were born out of that. Some of them have grown up to be real companies, achieving scale but not profitability,” Kalifowitz says. “There is an efficiency that these businesses in the services sector are providing that is frankly not available at the majors.”
A significant portion of outside investment that flowed into music in recent years went to acquire song catalogs, which indie executives point out provide more stable, though lower, returns than active companies. Private equity funds controlled by banks like Goldman Sachs are warming to music companies, one executive says. “You could buy an asset and forecast it 20 years into the future. But in a music world, that’s really hard,” the executive says. “They realize that music acts like an annuity.”
ONErpm CEO Emmanuel Zunz says the indie distribution space is facing an inflection point in its maturation driven by more than investment and deal-making. Moments like this put pressure on companies that may have loads of debt or aren’t profitable to prove their business makes sense. Zunz estimates the company he founded roughly 15 years ago now ranks third, behind Believe and Downtown, among the largest full-service independent music companies. ONErpm, which has no debt and operates off its own earnings, is planning to put together a $40 million M&A fund next year to buy smaller companies around the world.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how it plays out over the next two to three years,” Zunz says. “Some folks are going to crash and burn. There’s going to be consolidation. But the ones that stay are going to have a compelling offer that provides a lot of value for artists.”
Additional reporting by Elias Leight.
BMG CEO Thomas Coesfeld says taking his company’s digital distribution in-house and operational changes — two initiatives launched during his first year at the helm — are paying off.
The Berlin-based music company reported on Wednesday (Aug. 28) that it generated 459 million euros ($491.7 million) in revenue in the first half of 2024, marking an 11.1% increase from the year-ago period thanks to strong growth in digital income streams. Digital revenue, which contributed nearly 70% of BMG’s overall revenue for the period, rose 20.3% in the first half 2024 compared to 2023, as BMG exited a contract with Warner Music Group (WMG) and moved oversight of its digital distribution business in-house.
“This move is paying off,” Coesfeld tells Billboard of taking control of BMG’s 80-billion stream digital business. BMG now has greater insight into its streaming data, which enables it to provide “better marketing insights, more timely campaigning and iterations of that campaign [and] better tools around fandom” to its artists, who include Jelly Roll, Kylie Minogue and Mustard, Coesfeld says. Also, BMG saves money not paying fees to WMG’s ADA.
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“One or two years ago we had this plan, we said this is what will happen,” Coesfeld adds. “And [these earnings] show it works.”
BMG’s first-half organic revenues grew by 12.5% while operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) — a closely watched measure of growth — rose by 35.5% to 122 million euros ($130.7 million). EBITDA margin was 26.5%, up from 21.7% in the first six months of 2023. BMG’s catalogs again underpinned that margin figure, as the company acquired 10 catalogs during the first half of the year. Details of those deals were not disclosed.
The close of the first six months of 2024 coincided with the end of Coesfeld’s first year as CEO. After taking the reins of BMG from longtime CEO Hartwig Masuch on July 1, 2023, Coesfeld has set a tone that communicates BMG is open to change, even if it means taking advantage of artificial intelligence and collaboration with historic rivals.
“We figured only if we anticipate trends a little earlier do we have a chance to win in this very competitive market,” Coesfeld says. “We are looking at a fundamentally attractive market that is growing. It is driven by tech and if we adopt it and don’t fight it there is huge opportunity for BMG and artists.”
One example of this approach is BMG’s partnership with a generative AI lab at Munich’s Technical University, through which they have successfully launched a pilot program that uses gen-AI to market BMG’s deep catalog. Students at the lab generated short videos that have proven to be more cost efficient and effective at getting the audience to engage with the music.
Last fall, BMG also began a structural reorganization that included letting go of around 40 employees. It was a “tough period… but a business necessity” and part of a broader strategy meant to help the company respond quickly to industry trends, Coesfeld says.
“The operational changes, which we enacted — digital distribution, better able to monetize our repertoire and catalogs and our reorg, which is complete, is making us way more agile and faster in delivering our service and making decisions,” he adds. “We are much more agile on a day-to-day.”
While biking across Iowa this summer, Mark Michaels enjoyed a rare moment of reflection. “You’re riding about 80 miles a day among cornfields, and it gives you a lot of time to think,” the United Record Pressing chairman/CEO says. “I spent a lot of time while I was peddling thinking about United,” he adds of the oldest and largest American-owned, U.S.-based vinyl pressing plant in the world, which will celebrate its 75th anniversary this fall.
Michaels is speaking from his Nashville office, where he’s surrounded by signed records from Buddy Guy, Jack White and more of his icons, all expressing their thanks to him and his manufacturing team. (In 2014, White made history by recording, pressing and releasing a 7-inch of his single “Lazaretto” in under four hours, thanks to URP.) “It’s easy to forget those moments of euphoria and gratitude because you’re so focused on ‘How many records of this did we ship?’ or ‘What’s going on with that press?’ ” Michaels says. “But you don’t want too much life to pass by where you don’t stop and reflect.”
URP was founded as Bullet Plastics in Nashville in 1949, becoming Southern Plastics in the ’50s before landing on United Record Pressing in 1971. By the ’60s, a deal was signed for the plant to handle singles pressings for Motown, and in 1963, the first Beatles 7-inch, “Please Please Me”/“From Me to You,” was pressed, with a typo that spelled the band’s name as The Beattles.
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In 2007, a year before Record Store Day officially launched and just before the format was beginning its first-wave resurgence, Michaels bought the company — and helped sustain it through a particularly rough patch. As he recalls, half of URP’s output at the time was 12-inch singles created as promo records for DJs. “That was a lot of what we did, and shortly after I bought the company, the labels stopped doing that,” he says. “The DJs all got [music production software] Seratos, and the labels figured out that was a better business model. So all of a sudden, the health of the company was in serious jeopardy … We were doing everything to keep the lights on.”
By the summer of 2009, a career-changing order came in: a 50th-anniversary pressing of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (a favorite of Michaels) — the plant’s biggest order to date. Michaels himself oversaw quality control, checking a record at random every 30 minutes. “I remember one night, it was two in the morning and I’m in my office listening to these records, and I thought, ‘This is crazy, but goddamn, I’m lucky.’ And it just gave me this boost of energy. The next month, we got another order of that size.” Since, URP has manufactured vinyl for every major artist, from Adele to Taylor Swift.
In the early 2020s, URP faced another challenging period: the coronavirus pandemic. “Demand for vinyl exploded” during lockdown, Michaels says, but the orders put an unprecedented pressure on pressing plants to keep up. He says that was the catalyst for URP to expand, resulting in an $11 million project that built new infrastructure and supporting equipment and added 26 new presses. “The challenge is you can’t do that overnight,” he says. And now, not only can URP meet demand, but “the plant runs better than ever.”
He and his team of approximately 130 employees — all of whom have been sporting anniversary T-shirts that detail the plant’s various logos over the years — are now ready to toast such a feat and storied history, with Michaels saying the energy “is palpable” at the plant these days. A forthcoming celebration will bring together partners, customers, vendors and “people who support the format … There’s a renewed sense of pride and interest in what we do.”
Already, Michaels is focused on how to maintain it for the next 75 years, doubling down on the honor he has in keeping the process — and workforce — in Music City. “Seventy-five-plus years of history gives you a lot of gas in your tank in terms of pride,” he says. “You don’t make the first Beatles record in America, you don’t make all these Motown records, you don’t accumulate all this history and know-how and not have something special. And I never want to lose that.”
This story appears in the Aug. 24, 2024 issue of Billboard.
The merger between entertainment giant Paramount and media company Skydance is set to go ahead after Edgar Bronfman Jr. withdrew a competing offer.
Bronfman, executive chairman of streaming service Fubo, told Paramount’s special committee of directors Monday night that he would not proceed with his bid.
“While there may have been differences, we believe that everyone involved in the sale process is united in the belief that Paramount’s best days are ahead,” he said.
Bronfman, the former chairman and CEO of Warner Music, had intitially offered $4.3 billion for Shari Redstone’s National Amusements, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, according to multiple media reports. He then upped that bid to $6 billion.
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Paramount agreed last month to a merger deal with Skydance that will inject desperately needed cash into a legacy studio that has struggled to adapt to a shifting entertainment landscape.
Since then, during what’s known as a “go shop” period, a special committee of Paramount’s board had reached out to more than 50 third parties to determine whether they were interested in making offers. The go shop period was extended for Bronfman, but has now closed.
Shari Redstone’s National Amusements has owned more than three-quarters of Paramount’s Class A voting shares through the estate of her late father, Sumner Redstone. She had battled to maintain control of the company that owns CBS, which is behind blockbuster films such as “Top Gun” and “The Godfather.”
The deal signals the rise of a new power player, Skydance founder David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, who founded the software company Oracle.
Skydance, based in Santa Monica, California, has helped produce some major Paramount hits in recent years, including Tom Cruise films like “Top Gun: Maverick” and installments of the “Mission Impossible” series.
The proposed combined company of Paramount and Skydance is valued at around $28 billion. The deal is expected to close in September 2025, pending regulatory approval.
Paramount, founded in 1914 as a distributor, is one of Hollywood’s oldest studios and has had a hand in releasing numerous films — from “Sunset Boulevard” and “The Godfather,” to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Titanic.”
After more than a decade out of circulation, SPIN is returning to print as a quarterly magazine, the media brand announced Tuesday (Aug. 27) — the same day its first new issue featuring cover star Lainey Wilson hits newsstands. The revived magazine will again be run by SPIN founder and editor-in-chief Bob Guccione Jr., who […]
The Schulhof surname first became associated with the music business when former Sony America vice chairman Mickey Schulhof led the negotiations to acquire CBS Records in the late 1980s. But his son David staked out his own territory in 2006, when, backed by Trilantic Capital Partners, he used institutional money to buy music publishing assets from songwriters as a co-founder of Evergreen Copyrights — an early player in the song catalog gold rush that would extend into the 2020s. Schulhof and his partners later sold Evergreen to BMG for $80 million in 2010. Now, after spending about a dozen years as a publishing and business development executive for various film studios — as well as a two-year stint as a managing director of G2 Investment Group, a spinoff focusing on media assets for private equity firm Guggenheim Partners — the 53-year-old Georgetown University graduate is touting music industry stocks to retail investors through his latest undertaking, MUSQ Global Music Industry ETF.
ETFs, or exchange-traded funds, are essentially hybrids of mutual and index funds that enable investors to participate in the performance of publicly traded companies without buying individual stocks. ETFs tend to focus on a specific industry or investment theme. MUSQ (pronounced “music”) is an industry index fund that lets retail investors participate in the music industry’s growth through investments in 40 to 50 mainstream company stocks, including the three major-label groups, the major digital service providers (Spotify, Amazon, Apple and Alphabet), Live Nation, SiriusXM, LiveOne and Sonos. It also includes international music companies HYBE, Alex, CTS, Believe and HIM International Music.
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Schulhof, who designed the parameters of the index — which is a passive investment vehicle — and serves as its sponsor, launched MUSQ on July 7, 2023, with $2 million in seeding from Goldman Sachs. That investment enabled the creation of about 100,000 shares in the ETF. On that first day of trading, it closed at $24.95. Today, the fund has grown to about 900,000 shares and is backed by the stocks of music companies that carry a net asset value of about $22.8 million.
On Aug. 6, MUSQ closed at $22.17 a share, a week after Schulhof talked to Billboard about his reasons for creating the fund, as well as its performance since its launch.
The MUSQ website lists you as CEO of the fund. If you are the creator and the chief executive, why doesn’t your name appear on any of the financial filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission? Jay Garrett Stevens is listed as the CEO in the annual report.
Once I owned the index, I licensed it. There are maybe a half a dozen white-label, turnkey service providers that manage and work with ETF investment trusts. In order to be listed on any of the stock exchanges, the fund has to be a trust. So I identified what I believe to be the best ETF service provider out there, Exchange Traded Concepts. If you go to their website, you’ll see they manage several billion dollars and something like 60 ETFs across all kinds of other thematic funds. Garrett is the CEO of ETC, and he is listed in all those filings like that, as are the names of [ETC’s] portfolio advisers.
Promotional materials that Schulhof handed out during MUSQ’s first day of trading.
Nina Westervelt
In that case, what is your role with the MUSQ fund?
I am the founder, sponsor, owner and CEO. I handle all marketing. I am the face for this fund. I’ve done tons of podcast interviews and things like Fintech.tv. When reporters call, I am the one talking about the results from Luminate’s midyear report, Goldman Sachs’ Music in the Air report or something Billboard may have written about. I’m also out there talking to investors, evangelizing about how the music industry is undermonetized, and cheap when it’s compared to streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
How do your service providers work with MUSQ?
ETC is doing all the back-office work for me. They are the adviser and the trading subadviser. Here’s an analogy: If I buy a publishing catalog and outsource it to Kobalt to handle the collections, accounting and to deal with all the other back-office stuff, it’s basically the same thing. Meanwhile, VettaFi does the rebalancing of the index fund every quarter, aligning it with the eligibility requirements for the companies’ shares in the fund. I give those results to ETC.
Do you have any fiduciary responsibility for the fund?
No. What I do on a daily basis besides marketing is deal with all the compliance. I get everything cleared and [Financial Industry Regulatory Authority-approved]. And I need to get my appearances on podcasts and other media approved by compliance if I want to put them on our website.
What are the eligibility requirements for a company’s shares to be considered for inclusion in the MUSQ index?
Companies eligible for the MUSQ index either have to generate more than 50% of their revenue from music or they have to be a top five player in [music] streaming or content, live music, ticketing, technology or radio. If you look in our fund, we do have Apple, Amazon and Google, and clearly those names don’t generate more than 50% of their revenue from music, but they are among the top five players in the streaming category.
A plaque that the New York Stock Exchange presented to him on July 13, 2023, when he rang the closing bell.
Nina Westervelt
What other requirements or restrictions does MUSQ have?
No single stock can be greater than 5% of the fund’s overall holdings. It used to be 7%, but I lowered it. If a company has a good year and its stock comprises 8% of the index, it would be rebalanced at the end of the quarter. Other rules: No company can have less than a $100 million market capitalization or a daily trading liquidity of less than $500,000 per day. So those rules help give the index a good crosssection of small-cap, midcap and large-capitalization companies with liquidity. And I added a small buffer: If a company drops below $100 million in market cap, then their capitalization weight is cut in half. If the stock price continues to drop in the next quarter, it comes off the index.
Have any mainstream music industry stocks not met the requirements to be included in the index?
You may notice Deezer is not in our index. Even though it has over a $200 million market cap, it does not meet the daily trading liquidity requirement.
Have any companies been removed from the index?
IHeart was once in our fund but the stock is down 70%, so it is no longer in the index. The reverse is true if a small [music-related] company grows and now has a market cap greater than $100 million and it also has the required daily trading level of liquidity. Then it can become eligible. It has to have both ingredients.
When a big company in the index releases its financials, does it have much of an impact on the index’s share price?
Yes. The share price is based on the net asset value, but earnings do have an impact. Spotify right now has an average weight of about 3.4% in our fund, so it’s a top 10 holding. The stock crushed earnings in July, and year to date it’s up almost 70%, so that’s going to have a greater weight this quarter because it delivered stellar results. Other stocks like Believe and Tencent are posting positive returns that will have an impact on the weighting. But no single name can be greater than 5% of the fund. MUSQ pricing has been pretty stable during the past year [ranging from a high of $25.82 on July 31, 2023, to a low of $22.17 on Aug. 5, 2024].
This signed copy of Dr. Dre’s The Chronic is a souvenir from Schulhof’s first music industry internship with Jimmy Iovine at Interscope. Dre’s inscription: “Join the Chronic Patrol and take the hit of the bomb shit! Stay up.”
Nina Westervelt
What happens when the stocks in the index aren’t doing well?
MUSQ is a highly diversified, uncorrelated fund. So when the markets are tanking, MUSQ is not tanking. Also, we’re not a meme play in any way. This is really designed to capture the growth and accurately track the global music industry. We view this as a long-term growth investment for investors.
Does MUSQ consist entirely of equity investments, or do you buy fixed-income instruments from these companies too?
They are all equities.
You say your fund is diversified by music industry sector, geography and genre.
The index has labels and music publishers that supply content, it has companies in the concert business, it has technology stocks, and those companies are diversified by genre. Also, the index is diversified across many countries. Today, it looks like 49% is U.S., 21% is Korean, 11% is Japan. If you go to the index page on our website, it will give you a breakdown. Internationally, we’ve got some exciting companies: Tencent in China, CTS Eventim in Germany, Hipgnosis in the U.K., Believe in France. And then we’ve got 10 or 11 K-pop stocks like Genie Music Corp and Cocoa, [and] the two biggest streaming companies in South Korea, HYBE and YG Entertainment. We have companies like Cloud Music and Avex in Japan and Amuse, one of the biggest content companies in Taiwan.
Does having international companies make the index more attractive to investors?
All the international companies in this fund trade in local currencies. You would have to open up local accounts to trade them, and that costs fees. MUSQ creates a very liquid, convenient and portable way for investors to have access to all these exciting companies.
Guitar that Bruce Springsteen autographed for Schulhof when they met after a show on the 1996 Ghost of Tom Joad tour.
Nina Westervelt
How did you do on Hipgnosis?
Hipgnosis was 2.3% weight in our fund and because Blackstone is taking it private, it is up 42%, so we made money on it.
Your fund has grown from $2 million in assets to over $20 million in assets. What’s the next goal?
To reach $25 million. A lot of financial firms have that as a minimum before they offer it to their customer. Beyond that, it’s $50 million. If the MUSQ fund gets to that point, it would have hundreds of thousands of financial advisers offering it as an investment option.
Two assignments in three decades. Mexican businessman Alejandro Soberón Kuri, CEO of Mexican promoter OCESA, asked architect Pepe Moyao to build a venue on a simple soccer field on the east side of Mexico City to host a show for British legend Paul McCartney in 1993, which later became the iconic Foro Sol. Thirty years later, Moyao was tasked with the remodeling of the same venue for its transformation into the new Estadio GNP Seguros.
“Wouldn’t you like to see a permanent building here? Why don’t you do it? If it’s done, I’ll pay for it!” Moyao recalls Soberón saying when he invited him to create the original project.
Interestingly, it was not the ex Beatle who finally inaugurated the stadium in 1993 but Madonna, who at that time was touring with The Girlie Show to promote her album Erotica. Four years later, in 1997, it was named Foro Sol and its opening under that name was officiated with a concert by rock icon David Bowie. Since then, a myriad of international stars have performed at this place.
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But Moyao, who at that time was in his 30s and a decade earlier had won a youth architecture competition organized by UNESCO, not only built the most important music forum in Mexico, but also a place to hosts events beyond concerts.
“From the beginning, I thought it could fit a baseball stadium, which could also accommodate a racing track, so I thought of creating a multifunctional building, where the stage changes, is removed, moves,” explains the architect. “For six years, this place has been considered the best F1 circuit in the world.”
This year, after a six-month renovation, the renowned Estadio GNP Seguros opened its doors with three mega-concerts by American pop star Bruno Mars, held last August 8th, 10th, and 11th, with an attendance of 65,000 people each night, according to OCESA.
After this, a series of international stars including Metallica, Paul McCartney, The Killers, Eric Clapton, Twenty One Pilots, and Iron Maiden, as well as Latin stars like Feid and Natanael Cano, will perform at the stadium in the coming weeks and months. (For a list of concerts scheduled this year in Mexico, click here).
Below, five things you should know about Estadio GNP Seguros, told to Billboard Español by its creator, architect Pepe Moyao.
1. A Multifunctional Venue
Since its inception, when it was called Foro Sol, the place was designed as a multifunctional building that could adapt to the needs of the event, whether it be a mega rock concert or as the F1 home in Mexico.
“It is a multifunctional building where the stage changes, is removed, moves. It has been recognized six times as the best F1 circuit globally, and it is the only circuit where 30,000 people can watch the award ceremony up front, not done in the pits as in other countries,” Moyao says. “After the F1 ends, you can change it and produce a concert, it has that multi-functionality. It is a unique place in the world, a stadium designed exclusively for entertainment.”
2. Rainwater Reuse
With a capacity of up to 65,000 attendees, the stadium offers new benefits to provide greater comfort and services to fans, including a new 13,800 square meters (148,500 square feet) roof for sun protection and rainwater storage for subsequent reuse.
“The place had an expansion of more than 33,000 square meters of additional construction. From the top of the stands, we have a roof of over 13,000 square meters that will harvest rainwater, and what is captured will go to a cistern that will feed the bathrooms, be used for washing and watering planters, so we can reuse the water,” explains the architect.
3. Greater Comfort for the Viewer
The remodeled venue includes more comfortable seating for the audience, as well as new and improved spaces for the general audience and corporates.
“Previously, people sitting in the stands had to go down about 9 and a half meters to get to the bathrooms. Today, you go down 3 meters,” Moyao points out. “Let’s say that everything is focused on people’s greater comfort.”
4. Cutting Edge Technology
More than 280 state-of-the-art screens were installed in the venue to improve the visualization of the shows and provide more timely information to attendees. This is in addition to internal and peripheral stadium lighting for greater visibility and security.
“All installations, both electrical and hydraulic, are cutting edge, none of the old was preserved. There are LED lamps and low electricity consumption equipment,” said the architect.
5. 177 Days Construction & More Numbers
Although the renovation project of Estadio GNP Seguros lasted about two years, the remodeling took 177 actual days. Additionally, Moyao highlights over 710,000 man-hours went into this; the work of about 1,000 people; 15 companies working simultaneously. During that time, 24,436 shell-type seats were installed.
Clive Davis was feeling proud.
In early April, the chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment addressed a gathering of more than 500 members of the New York University community and music industry who had gathered in Brooklyn to celebrate the 20th anniversary of NYU’s Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music, the school that the legendary music executive had endowed.
“It’s really incredible to see how far the program has come and how successful the students have been,” Davis told the crowd in a video message (noting he had a schedule conflict with a friend’s wedding). “There are students winning Grammy Awards in major categories, actually dominating the Billboard charts and occupying major positions at record labels, agencies and management companies.
“It’s great to see how my original concept for a new and original music program has become such a successful reality,” Davis added.
“What is my fond hope for the future? I hope students continue to find success and really emerge as the leaders in the 21st-century music business.”
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As if to highlight Davis’ assertion, earlier that same day in April, one of the most successful alums of the school, Maggie Rogers, announced her first arena tour, in support of her album Don’t Forget Me, which peaked at No. 6 on Billboard’s Americana/Folk Albums chart.
Among those gathered for this celebration of the institute, which is part of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, were Allyson Green, dean of the Tisch School, who said: “For the past 20 years, the Clive Davis Institute has fostered some of the industry’s most exciting new musical artists and creative business minds. Our outstanding faculty, leaders and staff cultivate an exciting learning environment that allows for both the freedom to experiment and the tools to navigate the competitive music world.”
D-Nice DJ’d the institute’s 20th anniversary party in April 2024.
NYU Photo Bureau
Successful alumni have included not only Rogers (whose career was memorably jump-started by a viral video of Pharrell Williams’ awestruck reaction to her recording of “Alaska” during an institute master class in 2016), but also Grammy-nominated producer Dan Knobler; Noah Yoo and Sedona Schat, aka Elektra Records act Cafuné; production duo Take a Daytrip’s Denzel Baptiste and David Biral, who earned album and record of the year Grammy nods for their work on Lil Nas X’s album Montero and single “Montero (Call Me by Your Name),” respectively; singer-songwriter Nija Charles, who shared the album of the year nomination for her contributions to Beyoncé’s Renaissance; and Grammy-winning producer Andrew Watt.
The institute accommodates about 250 students who work toward a bachelor of fine arts in recorded music. Its Brooklyn campus, which the program moved into in 2020, offers a seamless flow of spaces designed to inspire creativity and collaboration. Facilities include Oscilloscope Laboratories, the Beastie Boys’ studio formerly located in Manhattan that member Adam Yauch’s widow, Dechen Wangdu, gifted to the school.
The school also hosts its share of guest speakers and performers — Davis, Williams, Alicia Keys, Benny Blanco, Chris Blackwell, Jay-Z, Mark Ronson, Paul Simon, Rihanna and Stevie Wonder among them.
Nick Sansano, chair of the Clive Davis Institute, recently sat down with Billboard to describe the school’s program, which, like the music industry itself, is constantly evolving and rooted in a bit of rebellion.
How involved is Clive Davis in the institute?
What he did was lay out the design and the idea of this holistic curriculum where someone would not just learn about an instrument or be a studio rat or only study music business or legal affairs. His idea was to take everything out of their silos so you have this program that is about music, about music production, about music business — but really what it’s about is leadership, entrepreneurship, thinking holistically, about the future of the industry.
I don’t think he imagined how successful the whole thing would be and how much he would get out of it. He definitely feels that authentic pride, and once in a while he’ll even call with ideas out of the blue. He’s so checked in, and that has been a game-changer for us.
Oscilloscope Laboratories, the Beastie Boys’ studio formerly located in Manhattan, was donated and reconstructed within the institute’s Brooklyn building, including details like takeout menus the group kept on hand.
Carine Puyo
How has the curriculum expanded over two decades?
We’ve always had this ethos around here to push change through and ask questions later, because it could take forever to change curriculum at a university and by the time you do it, you need to go to the next one. It was hard to navigate in the beginning. But the university understood ultimately that we needed to move at our own pace. And we proved ourselves competent. The more we handled our own affairs, the more room they gave us.
The curriculum is always changing as new topics come up and others become irrelevant. New this fall are Reggaetón Revolution, the history of reggaetón, and Creating a Narrative in Audio, a podcasting class from the editorial and journalistic side.
We’re now at a point where we’re very realistic, very pragmatic about what we teach. We have to go beyond the topic at hand and look at it on a really macro level. In the beginning we were trying to set modalities in stone, but we emphasize objectives now more so than specific methodologies because how we get there today will not be how we get there tomorrow.
Much of that evolution, I imagine, is driven by your faculty.
We have a very experienced full-time faculty — a lot of us have been here since the beginning or first few years — and a lot of adjuncts, who will come and go based on what we need. When we do a hip-hop course on the Art of the MC, we have Black Thought from The Roots come in. If we have a Lou Reed class, we go to a biographer. [Author-critic] Will Hermes has taught a number of classes for us. We’re always looking at “What are we offering? Where are the holes and who are the experts in the field or on that very specific topic?”
It’s also a great way to find full-time faculty. When people realize the vibe of the place and sincerity of it… Good people are incredibly difficult to find, and we’ll do whatever we can to keep them here.
Professor Bill Stephney (left) and Chuck D at the institute in April 2024.
Kyra Williams
Isn’t that how you became part of the institute?
I’m a music producer, mixer and engineer, and I came in the first year to give a talk about my work with Public Enemy, Sonic Youth and other New York-centric artists. It was a wonderful experience. The students were asking really thought-provoking questions and getting emotional about it. I said to [the institute], “I’ve never taught before, but if you want to take a chance…” The whole thing was a big experiment. I wasn’t the only experimental hire.
How engaged is your alumni network?
One of my priorities was to change the relationship with the alums, and we’ve made a really conscious effort to reach out. I want alumni to feel as if they never left. When we have an event, when we have guest appearances, we invite all the alums — and the reaction to that has been incredibly positive. We now have 20 years of alums. We have people who have some real influence, and our students definitely benefit from that.
What has been the biggest benefit of moving the program to Brooklyn?
Space, and having all our spaces consolidated. When we were in Washington Square and our Mercer Street location [in Manhattan], we had classes all over the city because we kept running out of space. It was all decentralized. And not only was it expensive, but our students were running all over the place.
Our goal was to centralize everything. We have rehearsal spaces, we have edit suites, we have studios, we have piano practice rooms, we have musicianship labs. We have The Garage, a 100-capacity venue, on the first floor, and we have access to a 200-seat auditorium. We are very self-sufficient at this point, and we designed the space the way we wanted to design it. We began five years before moving in. We saw potential and convinced the university to allow us to hire our own acoustic designers and studio builders.
We had a very specific vision. We want you to walk in and feel as though you are part of a professional environment, and that should dictate what you say, how you act and so on. A place you are proud of. The university loves it. We are the showcase; everyone comes here.
Clive Davis (left) and MSNBC’s Ari Melber at the Clive Davis Institute in 2023.
NYU Photo Bureau
Still, a lot of learning also takes place outside this building. What’s the experiential component like?
We require a minimum of two internship credits, but most students are doing way more than that. It runs the gamut from the obvious major labels to some recording studios to smaller publishing companies. We have someone working full time on establishing and looking after these relationships.
We did a partnership with Atlantic this past year, and part of it was — along with some songwriting camps and some A&R sessions and field trips to their offices — a certain amount of priority internship opportunities for our students. We are trying to solidify more of those executive internship programs.
We prefer when a student comes with an idea and then we vet it. We don’t immediately say no to anyone. And we closely monitor [internships]. There are [labor] laws and there are NYU-mandated requirements, and you could run afoul of both. It doesn’t happen very often, but that doesn’t mean we don’t watch.
The institute’s offerings don’t come cheaply. The NYU website says the university’s general cost of attendance — tuition, food and housing — for the 2024-25 academic year is $87,488. How do you justify that cost and ensure a diverse student body?
We don’t just give people the sticker price and then that’s it. The university works with them, Tisch works with them, and then we as a department work with them on a very personal level. Most of our students who apply for financial aid do get substantial aid. And something new that’s just kicking in this fall is an NYU-wide policy that covers full tuition for students whose families make under $100,000 a year, which is a huge help.
Being so aware of the sacrifice many families make to get their kids here — it affects the overall tone of the institute because we realize that’s how much we need to give back. But we also have to deal with student issues we wish we didn’t, like students who can’t sustain. There are a lot of factors that go into it, including just living in New York, and we get involved with things like housing and food. We have supporters and financial donors that help us with professional development. We are able to do showcases; students are able to travel, to get concert tickets, to go to an exhibit. We just took eight students to Milan for a week. The year before, we took them to Norway. In January, we’ll take them to France. We’ll go that extra mile and subsidize.
Ultimately the goal of the department is to be free, through a large endowment, which we know is possible because we’re seeing it happen. We saw it at NYU Medical School, and we’re seeing it at other universities. [NYU Medical School became tuition-free in 2018 after raising the majority of the endowment needed to sustain the program.]
Professor Bobby Wooten and artist-in-residence Corinne Bailey Rae at the institute in February 2024.
Sam Hollenshead
How else does the institute use financial support to bolster the program?
A priority here is equity having to do with women and music. We’re working with the history that, for so long, women were excluded from production and some other business areas. It’s important to rebuild a certain amount of trust that has eroded over the years.
Our classes now are usually more than 50% women. We have a student-run organization called PAM, which stands for Producers Against Misogyny, and our Audio Engineering Society student chapter is run by women. We support these student groups and their events.
We also host a Future Music Moguls program, which is fully funded for high school students. It’s a whole-day affair on a Saturday during the spring semester where we give a mini version of our curriculum. Engaging with high school students is important to us — and a great way to recognize future talent.
How do you view the overall role of the institute in the music business?
Our ultimate goal is, we would like the music industry to change for the better, but we are not going to do that by banging on the walls and asking to get in. We’re going to do that by busting it out from the inside. Meaning, our students will infiltrate the industry — and we’re seeing that change now.
This story appears in the Aug. 24, 2024, issue of Billboard.