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Writing and playing a song once required some level of musical training, and recording was a technically complex process involving expensive equipment. Today, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, a growing number of companies allow anyone in the world to skip this process and create a new song with a click of a button.
This is an exciting prospect in Silicon Valley. “It’s really easy to get investment in that sort of thing right now,” Lifescore co-founder and CTO Tom Gruber says dryly, “because everyone thinks that genAI is going to change the whole world and there will be no human creators left.” (Lifescore offers “AI-powered music generation in service of artists and rights holders.”)
Recently, however, some executives in the AI music space have been asking: How much do average users actually want to generate their own songs?
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“For whatever reason, you’re just not seeing an extreme level of adoption of these products yet among the everyday consumer,” notes one founder of an AI music company who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Where’s the 80 to 100 million users on this stuff?”
“My hunch is no text-to-music platform will have decent retention figures yet,” says Ed Newton-Rex, who founded the AI music generation company Jukedeck and then worked at Stability AI. “It’s a moment of magic when you first try a generative music platform that works well. Then most people don’t really have a use for it.” So far, the most popular use for song generation tools appears to be making meme songs.
While there are hundreds of companies working on genAI music technology, the two that have generated the most headlines this year are Suno and Udio. The former recently announced that 10 million users have tested it in eight months, while the latter told Bloomberg that 600,000 people tried its song generation product in the first two weeks. Neither company said how many of those testers became regular users. Compare this with ChatGPT, which was estimated to gain 100 million weekly users within two months. (Though there’s chatter that growth is leveling off there, too.)
It’s early for many of these AI song generation companies, of course. That said, executives who work at the intersection of music and artificial intelligence keep wondering: How can tools that spit out new tracks on command help users?
“You can end up with a really cool tech that doesn’t really solve a real problem,” Gruber notes. “If I want something that sounds like a folk song and has a clever lyric, I’ve already got all I can eat on Spotify, right? There’s no scarcity there.”
Part of the reason for ChatGPT’s explosion, according to Antony Demekhin, co-founder of Tuney, is that it “clearly solves a bunch of problems — it can edit text for you, help you code.” (Tuney develops “ethical music AI for creative media.”) Even so, a recent multi-country survey from the Reuters Institute noted that for ChatGPT, “frequent use is rare… Many of those who say they have used generative AI have only used it once or twice.”
Within the subset of survey respondents who said they have used generative AI for “creating media,” “making audio” was the ninth most popular task, with 3% of people engaging in it. The Reuters Institute’s survey indicates that generative AI tools are more commonly used for email writing, creative writing, and coding.
“How many ‘non-musicians’ actually wanted to create music before?” asks Michael “MJ” Jacob, founder of Lemonaide, a company developing “creative AI for musicians” (around 10,000 users). “I don’t think it’s true to say ‘everyone,’ as tempting as it may be.”
Another factor that could be holding back AI audio creation, according to Diaa El All, founder and CEO of Soundful, is the number of competing companies and the difficulty of judging the quality of their output. (Soundful, which bills itself as “the leading AI Music Studio for creators,” has a user-count “in the seven figures,” El All says.) Mike Caren, founder of the label and publishing company Artist Partner Group, believes that many people will try an AI song generator “that’s not that good, have a bad experience, and not come back for six months or a year.”
The uncertain regulatory climate almost certainly inhibits the spread of AI song-making tools as well. For now, in the U.S., there are open questions about the copyrightability of AI generated tracks, potentially limiting their commercial value.
In addition, these programs need to be trained on large musical data-sets to generate credible tracks. While many prominent tech companies believe they should be allowed to undertake this process at will, labels and publishers argue that they need licensing agreements.
In other sectors, AI companies have already been sued for training on news articles and images without permission. Until the rules around training are clarified, through court cases or regulation, “corporate brands don’t want any of the risk” that comes with opening themselves up to potential litigation, explains Chris Walch, CEO and co-founder of Lifescore.
AI music leaders also believe their song generation technologies still suffer from a bad reputation. “I think the tech-lash and the stigma is really unexpected and very powerful,” the company founder says.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently discussed this on the The All-in Podcast: “Let’s say we paid 10,000 musicians to create a bunch of music just to make a great training set where the music model could learn everything about song structure and what makes a good catchy beat,” he said. “I was kind of posing that as a thought experiment to musicians, and they’re like, ‘Well, I can’t object to that on any principled basis at that point. And yet, there’s still something I don’t like about it.’” (So far, OpenAI has steered clear of the music industry.)
While the average civilian’s interest in AI song generation remains unproven, plenty of producers and aspiring artists, who are already making music on a daily basis, would like to test products that spark ideas or streamline their workflow. That’s still a large user-base — “the global total addressable market for digital music producers alone is about 66 million,” according to Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava, “and that continues to grow at a pretty rapid pace” — though it’s not the entire world’s population.
“We were all talking about how artists are screwed, because that’s a dramatic story,” Demekin says. “To me, what’s more likely is these tools just get integrated into the existing ecosystem, and people start using it as a source for material like a Splice,” which provides artists and producers sample packs full of musical building blocks.
Caren believes the AI music tools will be taken up first by musicians, next by creators looking for sound in their videos, then by fans and “music aficionados” who want to express their appreciation for their favorite artists by making something.
“The question of how far it penetrates to people who are not significant music fans?” he asks. “I don’t know.”
As the summer kicks off, the music business is shifting into the 2024 festival season, which has already seen its fair share of surprises. From Coachella only selling 80% of its available inventory, to Lovers & Friends getting canceled over severe weather and the steady growth of genre-specific or niche festivals like Chicago’s Sueños, the market is moving and fans’ tastes are shifting, with promoters, agents, managers and artists all looking to find the right formula to build out the best ecosystem.
At the forefront of all festival booking is CAA’s co-head of North American music Darryl Eaton, who books acts like blink-182, The Weeknd and RBD and helps develop festival booking strategy for major stars and emerging acts. He’s had extensive experience both booking his acts and watching the festival scene in the U.S. grow over the years, as players like Lollapalooza, Coachella and Bonnaroo move from scrappy upstarts to staples of the scene and the market begins to diversify with genre-specific lineups and new, previously-untested locations.
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Eaton sat down with Billboard to discuss how the 2024 festival season is faring, the appeal of nice festivals and where festivals fit into artist’s careers. “Things go in cycles,” Eaton says. “Look at Lollapalooza and Governors Ball this year — they had their fastest selling years in a decade. The formula is not black and white.”
How do you feel about the overall state of the festival business right now?
It’s really good. It’s been strong and growing over the last several years. There are new festivals coming up every year. One that goes up and doesn’t do well, or gets cancelled, or business is off, gets the biggest headlines. But for every one that’s not doing well it seems to be two or three that are coming online that are doing well. Overall, I see it as a growth sector.
We’re in a state where it is hard to create a new Bonnaroo, Coachella, Lollapalooza — a big, established [festival] — and those legacy brands are great and dominant. But what I’m seeing is a lot of growth in these smaller, niche festivals that are either very genre-specific or in new locations. They are popping up all over the place.
Why are these newer niche festivals doing so well?
Hard to say. For instance, there’s Jeffrey Shuman, who curates a couple of these very specific festivals that he puts out. He’s got hard rock festival Sick New World, Lovers and Friends that recently launched, When We Were Young which is a retro punk vibe, Besame Mucho which is Latin-driven. Goldenvoice just put up a new festival called No Values, which is punk rock. All those festivals have done really well.
They are very targeted: targeted music, targeted demo. They do a good job of creating a lineup that is undeniable. Festivals are driven by the talent. You can have as much vibe out there as possible, but it’s really about who you book that drives sales.
We saw slower-than-usual Coachella sales this year. Do you think that has anything to do with their lineup or the repetition in lineups for these legacy festivals?
From a touring standpoint, the business is very cyclical. The right artists dropping the record at the right time is what enables you to get Beyoncé to be your headliner at Coachella. Sometimes the planets don’t align for some of these festivals, that the time period is off for key artists. And sometimes things come together and there’s a lot of available headliners where there is too much to choose from.
If Coachella was off this year, I don’t think it is indicative of the festival or the talent. Things go in cycles. Look at Lollapalooza and Governors Ball this year — they had their fastest selling years in a decade. The formula is not black and white.
Where do festivals fit into artist development these days?
It depends on the artist. Getting in front of a lot of eyeballs at one time is a big part of the draw, both on the way up and when you’re established. Look at blink-182, who is headlining Lollapalooza. Last year, they sold out two nights in Chicago at the United Center and made way more money than you could make playing Lolla as a headliner. But they wanted to be in front of 100,000 people and find new fans and keep regenerating their audience. That’s why some artists will take a bit of a pay cut to play in front of an audience that could be four to five times their draw.
On the way up, for developing artists it’s about getting in front of people and being around other artists. Having that sense of community in the artist sense is important to a lot of these are artists that play [festivals]. The majority of the reason is to get those eyeballs and, if you’re good, win them over. [When clips of festival performances go viral], it can be like a giant online infomercial for you as a band.
Is it more lucrative for big artists to be playing festivals over headlining arena tours? Or have increasing ticket prices made it more valuable to stick to their solo tours?
Post-pandemic demand has been really strong and ticket prices have creeped up. For a lot of artists, it used to be you’d get an offer for a festival and, because it was a one-off and not necessarily part of your tour routing, you would demand fees that were much greater than what you might get if you played the market for a solo tour date. But at the higher end, if you’ve got the demand and you can sell tickets, you can generally make as much if not more doing your own show. So, it’s about strategic desires to get new fans. Artists always aspire to play these festivals because it’s a small group that gets invited to play and it’s a badge of honor.
It is getting more expensive and more difficult for smaller acts to do their own headlining tours. Do festivals make more sense for them?
You can’t develop a career only playing festivals. There are some artists who do it. They’re the perennial festival artists that have no hard ticket sales, but for the most part, in order to develop a career and have long-term solid fan bases, you need to be out there earning it — being on the road, selling hard tickets, developing fans.
Are there any niche festivals that have impressed you lately?
Some of the ones I mentioned before, like When We Were Young. They did a great job of making an undeniable lineup that captured the imagination of everybody who ever listened to that music for a period of time. They had to be at that show. When they started the one in Las Vegas three years ago, they blew out 65,000 tickets and then added a second show and immediately blew out another 65,000 tickets and then added a third show. Anything that captures that kind of audience with that kind of velocity is impressive.
Because these lineups are so specific, it seems there can only be so many artists that will fit the bill. Do you think they will be able to sustain that enthusiasm from festivalgoers?
I don’t know. Thankfully, that’s not my job. [Laughs] That would cause me great stress. But it remains to be seen. I’ve heard rumors about what they are coming up with for this year, but that’s the struggle for the niche festivals. Maybe they do burn out of their lineups over time, but I am sure these festival organizers are already thinking of what might be the next idea, the next niche, the next festival. Someone like Goldenvoice, who does Coachella, they’re always trying to do other festivals and other ideas. You’d think if you had Coachella and Stagecoach, you’d be like, “Yes, we’re good,” but it always seems like they’re hungry to come up with new ideas. There’s a particular addiction for all these festival curators to do more and come up with new and fresher ideas.
MNRK Music Group president/CEO Chris Taylor is resigning from his post effective June 28, the company announced Monday (June 3). Taylor, who will be succeeded by COO Sean Stevenson, is taking the company’s artist management division with him.
Based in New York, Stevenson will begin leading MNRK on July 1. He was promoted to COO in July 2022 after previously serving as executive vp/GM.
“We wish Chris the best in his future endeavors,” said Stevenson in a statement. “He’s been a great leader and partner over the years, and I look forward to continuing the growth of MNRK with the whole team.”
MNRK’s artist management roster currently includes Powfu, Lights, The Afghan Whigs, Diana Gordon Arkells, Delilah Montagu, Daniel Lanois, Alice Ivy, Robert Finley, The Wild Feathers and Great Good Fine Ok, among other acts.
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Taylor joined MNRK, at the time called Entertainment One (eOne), in 2016 to run the music division. As part of the eOne team, he was involved in overall strategy and the company’s sale to Hasbro in 2020 for $4 billion. In 2021, Hasbro sold the music division to Blackstone for a reported $385 million and eOne Music was renamed MNRK Music Group.
Taylor has been named to Billboard‘s Indie Power Players list multiple times.
MNRK’s artist roster includes High on Fire, Underoath, Ace Frehley, Kash Doll, Fox Lake and Pop Evil; it also distributes the Dualtone Music Group and Last Gang imprints. On the publishing side, it boasts deals with such songwriters as Lauren Faith, Destiny Rogers and 9am. According to a press release, the company’s publishing catalog includes 54,000 music tracks.
Shares of Spotify rose as high as $317.00, up 6.8% from the previous day’s closing price, after the company announced Monday (June 3) that it will raise subscription prices in the United States. The stock closed on Monday at $310.80, up 4.7%, bringing its year-to-date gain to 65.4%. Price increases have done wonders for Spotify’s […]
What a difference a year makes. After a difficult post-pandemic opening in late 2022, UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y., has found its footing in its sophomore year, nearly doubling its year-over-year gross on Billboard’s 2024 mid-year rankings and finding its stride in the busy New York Metro market.
At the mid-year point in 2023, UBS Arena had posted $22 million in gross concert receipts from 39 shows. This year, the venue has posted $42 million in gross receipts from 56 shows.
That success comes from building off 2023 sellouts that included two nights of Bruce Springsteen, two nights of SUGA and shows from Blink-182, Peso Pluma, Aerosmith and Billy Joel. In 2024, UBS has already seen sellouts from Stevie Nicks, Elevation Worship, Machel Montano, ENHYPEN, Aventura (two nights), Drake (two nights) and Zach Bryan (two nights).
Delayed by pandemic-related construction issues, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority missing a key date to connect the venue to the Long Island Rail Road, UBS Arena struggled with attendance early on.
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USB Arena
UBS Arena/Dennis DaSilva
“There was really no playbook on how to open an arena in the most competitive major market in the world during a pandemic,” says Mark Shulman, senior vp of programming at the Oak View Group-managed arena, which was built in partnership with the New York Islanders.
“You can take everything that we know about how to launch a venue and you throw it all out because so many of those strategies just weren’t feasible at the time,” Shulman adds of the 745,000-square-foot, 17,200-seat hockey and entertainment arena designed by Populos and constructed by Aecom Hunt. “But what was undeniable is that UBS Arena is a world-class, stunningly beautiful and acoustically superior venue. And we had a highly experienced team that we assembled. We had the right people for the challenge.”
The first order of business was tapping into the diversity of Nassau County and the nearby borough of Queens, “which are some of the most diverse areas in America,” says Shulman. “They have residents coming from 120 countries. They speak 130 languages. We spend a lot time developing inclusive programming that reflects that diversity and we’ve had great success with not only rock, pop and country, but also Caribbean, soca, K-pop, C-pop and artists from India.”
UBS Arena’s large 430-acre campus at Belmont Park is a rare asset in the New York market “that’s become a fantastic activation space for artists and their fans,” Shulman says. During the Zach Bryan shows, held on March 30 and 31, the country star’s father, Dwayne, “hosted events outside for fans and actually discovered a local artist who ended up performing on the show the next night,” Shulman adds.
Another example of this came on May 3, when UBS hosted K-pop group ENHYPEN and put on “a full day of activities where the fans could meet up, play games, create art and dance to their favorite music,” Shulman says. “We love seeing artists and fans take advantage of all that UBS Arena and the campus have to offer.”
The hard work involved in establishing the venue is set to culminate with two massive upcoming events. The first is the MTV Video Music Awards, which will be held at UBS Aarena on Sept. 10, marking the show’s return to New York.
“The team at MTV is designing a completely new show and really going to utilize every space in the building and the park outside,” says Shulman, including the full arena bowl, all seven of the venue’s club spaces and the venue’s two outdoor terraces.
UBS Arena will also host the 2026 NHL All-Star Game, as announced by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman during the NFL Winter Classic on Jan. 1.
USB Arena
UBS Arena/Dennis DaSilva
A big selling point for UBS Arena, Shulman adds, are the different experiences that can be hosted within the building, including the American Express Lounge speakeasy and the Heineken Terrace, which hosts large parties and group dinners. The arena even features sensory spaces designed by Northwell Health for guests of any age who may have sensory processing sensitivities. Open for all arena events, each room features custom hand-painted murals, special sensory equipment including a Vecta machine, infinity tunnels, heat sensitivity play panels and gel floor tiles along with a customizable sound system and bean bag chairs.
Says Shulman, “Our goal is to create a space that is comfortable for everyone and meets the entire needs of the community.”
When Tom Becci joined Concord in the newly-created role of CEO of Concord Label Group last August, he arrived with a background split between the record labels — first as a label executive in New York, then later in Nashville, ultimately as COO of Universal Music Nashville — and management, where he had spent the prior seven years at Red Light under Coran Capshaw. That gave him a view into both sides of the artist equation. “I have an understanding of what an artist needs from their standpoint, and an understanding of what a label can deliver for that artist,” Becci tells Billboard, in his first interview since taking the top job across Concord’s global recorded-music operation. “And putting them together, I think, really is what I bring to the table for the label group.”
Becci’s role in the past nine months has been one of learning and shaping, as the collection of labels and artists under his purview have reached new heights. Concord’s frontline portfolio includes Rounder Records, Concord Jazz, Fantasy Records, Fearless Records and the Kidz Bop franchise, as well as joint ventures in Loma Vista with Tom Whalley; Easy Eye Sound with Dan Auerbach; and PULSE Records with PULSE Music Group; while its catalog holdings include legendary labels like Stax, Fania, Prestige and Telarc, among others.
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It’s a lineup that already had plenty going for it: during his tenure, Killer Mike swept the rap category at the Grammys in February with his Loma Vista release Michael; Fantasy’s Allison Russell won the Grammy for best American roots performance for “Eve Was Black”; HBO announced a documentary on Stax Records called Stax: Soulsville U.S.A., which premiered in May; and Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby,” released via PULSE/ISO Supremacy, exploded out of the gate to reach No. 2 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Global 200, to name a few successes.
Amid that run, Becci began to restructure parts of the label group, naming Stephanie Hudacek as the new president of Rounder Records; promoting Joe Dent and Jill Weindorf into executive vp roles overseeing operations and marketing, respectively, across the whole group; and bringing in Brad Clark to oversee a combined data analysis and streaming team, hoping to provide key, real-time insights for each of the artist campaigns that the teams are running. He’s also introduced what he calls a “portfolio approach” to catalog and frontline marketing, with each lifting the other — even if Concord doesn’t own one of their frontline artist’s catalogs, or if it owns the catalog but doesn’t have the artist signed to a frontline, as with Creed and its viral Super Bowl commercial for Paramount Plus.
Now, as Becci continues to shape Concord into a global player for all types of artists, he’s constantly looking for ways to set the company apart in an increasingly-crowded ecosystem.
“Concord sits somewhere between the major labels and the other independents and distributors,” he says. “We deliver for our artists — there’s one center of the picture and the artist belongs in it. That’s a philosophy that I want everyone to believe and feel and have the passion for. And we provide the resources to really make a difference in the musical landscape.”
Billboard: When you first started at Concord, what did you come in wanting to do?
Tom Becci: When Concord hired me, we wanted to really focus even more on the frontline business that is in place. We have a boutique label approach, but a really large infrastructure that supports each label, so there’s a unique contact point with the artist and their vision and what they want to do. And now we’re continuing to build out the team to deliver for those artists and their vision. Concord has this global footprint with direct presences in all the major markets in the world. So what I want to do is develop a frontline business with that boutique approach that delivers for artists globally.
How have you begun to restructure the company, and each label individually, to achieve that?
One of the first positions I hired, which we just recently announced, was Stephanie Hudacek, who comes from a phenomenal background of being an entrepreneur but also worked as a sound engineer and in management, so she brings that approach — not unlike mine — into Rounder Records and its presence in Nashville. Jill Weindorf, who is a 17-year veteran at Concord, promoting her into this executive vp of marketing role to really solidify these global marketing efforts to deliver for each label. Joe Dent, one of the best operators I’ve been around, promoting him and giving him responsibility over all the operations of Concord and delivering the information and resources that we all need to do our jobs. Recently, Brad Clark, who I’ve known for many years, we brought him in to oversee data analysis and streaming; they were run separately, but in today’s marketplace, having them under one leadership is really important, using what we do in data analysis and what we do in the frontline streaming world. And having them in lockstep in terms of release planning and strategy was really critical to me.
You mentioned your focus on frontline. Several of your frontline labels have had significant success lately. What do each of them bring to your portfolio, and what sets them apart?
Loma Vista, a joint venture with Tom Whalley and run by his son Ryan Whalley — bringing Killer Mike to the table and sweeping the rap categories at the Grammys is, for Concord, a huge moment in that genre, where we never had the opportunity to do those things. Ryan talked to me when I first started in September about his goals to really deliver nominations, and maybe one win, and I supported him in that vision with resources, and the results were unbelievable.
On the other side of the table, there’s Tommy Richman at PULSE — it’s the No. 1 global song. It just landed at No. 3 on the U.K. charts, which is a first ever for a Concord song. So that’s a specific vision in terms of the R&B/hip-hop music sensibilities to Concord, which builds on what Loma’s done with Killer Mike. So it’s become more of a core competency of what Concord does, and I’m proud to say we’re delivering for both those artists.
What Andy Serrao’s done at Fearless and developing that as a brand for those types of artists like Pierce the Veil, the Pretty Reckless, Wage War and on and on — there’s nowhere like it in the business, and we’re able to deliver for him as well with services. Rounder, it’s a 54-year-old legacy label in the folk/Americana/bluegrass arena, and I think there’s more for that label to do now. I think Stephanie is going to curate a roster that rivals any label in Nashville, and any in the business.
We have Easy Eye, our venture with Dan Auerbach, and we have this band Hermanos Gutierrez, which is an amazing talent; I just saw them at the Ryman last week and that was an incredible show, in terms of what they can deliver on that front. At Fantasy Records, we’ve taken an incredible A&R legend in Mark Williams and another legend in the marketing arena, Margi Cheske, and put them together as a formidable frontline duo that can deliver on both new and developing artists, and bands like Offspring and Seether and Nathaniel Rateliff and take Allison Russell to the next level. They were swimming in the same pond, and I think together they’re going to own the pond.
Where do you want to see Concord lean into, genre-wise? Further into R&B/hip-hop, or deeper into Nashville, or somewhere else?
Well, both. I think leaning into singer/songwriter and country-adjacent or alt-country, folk, Americana — genres are much more fluid today than they were when they were based on radio playlists. There’s much more fluidity now. But I do think Rounder has the ability, being based here in Nashville, to really make a statement in the singer/songwriter, alt-country, Americana genres. PULSE is already making an impact in pop contemporary music. Loma is a very eclectic label — we have the Ghost theatrical movie coming out, which is growing by the moment, and you put it with Killer Mike and Denzel Curry, that’s a highly-curated and really special roster. And I believe that what we can do with Fantasy and Concord is be not about a specific genre, but about being where you can find and develop phenomenal talent and bring it to the world.
In recent months, several label groups and companies have combined their frontline and catalog operations to streamline them better. What’s your approach to marketing your catalog and boosting sales and streams there?
This is a process that’s evolved since I’ve gotten here with the catalog, and it’s really about taking a portfolio approach, not unlike from the financial world where you have marketing experts and teams responsible for delivering for a group of artists, whether it’s a reissue, whether it’s on Spotify. But they’re in tune with each artist within their portfolio. Even if it’s a band that’s not on a Concord frontline label, but they’re going out on tour, that [our teams are] reaching out to the manager and saying, “Hey, we’ve got your catalog, let’s do things together, what are your plans for the tour?” So it’s more of a portfolio approach than managing the catalog top-down. Each pod is responsible for 25, 30 artists in that portfolio.
When we have a frontline artist and we also have their catalog, we put them together, and the frontline team, with the catalog expertise, manages the catalog so the artist knows that we’re in lockstep. Catalog and frontline can help boost each other; they go together in terms of marketing. When you have the catalog, you have the ability to warm the plate for the new meal, and that’s what I’ve seen be really successful, especially in the streaming world. And then we have an artist like Creed, where the Texas Rangers adopted “Higher” as their World Series song and it translated into a phenomenal sync in a Super Bowl commercial, then there’s a reissue of Human Clay in the summer, and the streaming growth is exponential — that’s the power of what we can do in marketing a catalog in combination with the artist. We don’t have their new record, but we’re working with them on their new release by energizing the catalog, and vice versa.
You guys also have the HBO documentary on Stax. What are you doing around that with the Stax catalog?
We’re looking at different elements of the catalog and how we can tie it into the attention brought to the Stax catalog by the documentary, and I think it’s a story that everyone is going to really love. It just gives us the ability to reignite some of these artists and re-familiarize people with these artists that they love, or they will love.
How do you guys differentiate yourselves from the majors, or even large distributors, when approaching a deal?
We take a very boutique approach. Each label has their A&R staff and their core marketing staff, and it’s small, it’s intimate, they can ask the artist, “Where do you want to go?” And then I’ve created a team in the middle that can deliver on that question, with Jill Weindorf leading the marketing efforts, Brad Clark leading the streaming and data efforts, Karen Kloack on the sync side. And we have a global reach. If you’re signed to Concord, you have a global company. You have people in the U.K. that all know and work your record. In the major world, they have different labels in different territories that your record works through. Our labels have a global footprint for each artist.
How are label deals changing — and is it getting more competitive?
Label deals have evolved dramatically from when I started to now. Data analysis identifies artists much earlier. So someone sitting in Nebraska can be identified as a burgeoning artist because of the data and what is happening on their socials and streams. So in that sense, it’s become very competitive, yes, because once it hits the data metrics everybody knows about it. So you have to approach it from, “Why are we special compared to the other record labels?” And what positions us differently is that small label approach and personalization to the artist, and then the global resource and passionate footprint that we can bring to a team, which I believe is unmatched.
You mentioned Tommy Richman. What lessons can you take from a song that just exploded out of the gate like that?
We saw a spark that weekend. Over the weekend I was firing off emails to our team, like, “We need to mobilize.” It was released on the Friday, and I was in Berlin with our head of the European team, and all we did Monday was talk about what we could do in the different marketplaces. We had data to tell us it was starting in English-speaking territories and moving outward to Germany, France and the Nordics. We were able to move very, very fast — we’re nimble, we’re quick and we’re reactive — and I think that’s the lesson we’ve all learned across the team: when you have something, you mobilize, you focus, you put your energies into taking a spark and turning it into a bonfire — and a No. 1 global hit.
How difficult is it to break new artists these days?
It’s always been difficult, because it’s always about finding talent that’s special, that has something to say that people want to hear. What is challenging today is just grabbing attention, because there are so many ways to get people’s attention — a television set, a game, things like that. But I also think there are more ways to do it than there ever were. We used to have a funnel called terrestrial radio; now we have terrestrial radio, satellite radio, social media platforms, YouTube. There are more ways to present music. But you have to still grab attention. You saw it with Tommy Richman — he grabbed attention, and people want to be part of that. It’s not harder or easier, it’s just different now.
What challenges do you see in the future?
Finding, signing and developing talent is a challenge. It’s been a challenge since I started in the music business in New York City, and it’s a challenge today. AI presents a challenge; the legislation passed in Tennessee, the ELVIS Act, is a way of protecting the creator and original works and require a license to use someone’s creative works, and I’m an advocate for the artist, the songwriter, the creator. If we’re just really diligent, AI is going to be a part of our world, but it’ll be a good and licensed part of it.
I’m really looking forward to this Tommy Richman record, which we’re trying to nail down the release of. There’s a Lindsey Stirling record, an Offspring project, a Seether record, a Nathaniel Rateliff record, looking forward to this Ghost soundtrack, the Killer Mike project, taking Hermanos Gutierrez to the next level. I love working with artists and being a part of them realizing their vision and their dreams.
WMT Digital has acquired Aloompa, a leading mobile app provider for live event experiences.
Drew Burchfield, who co-founded Aloompa in 2008, will board WMT Digital as a vp, with his entire team also joining the company. WMT focuses on technology solutions for fan engagement, storytelling, data applications and revenue platforms.
“We started in 2012 as a tech consultancy and evolved into a tech integrator model, and then eventually a digital platform and a tech provider,” says Andres Focil, founder/CEO of WMT Digital. “The goal of the business was to think about ways that we can unlock storytelling through technology. Today platforms are going more modular, flexible and scalable and really shifting from traditional content into much more dynamic storytelling content and we spend a lot of time thinking about like finding product market fit and creating specific use cases for organizations that fit their particular market.”
Traditionally, WMT has worked in the collegiate and professional sports space while Aloompa has a major foothold in the live music and festival space.
“There’s so much cross opportunity between the entertainment space and the sports space and the larger event space,” Focil notes, pointing to one of the company’s clients, Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, as an example.
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“It’s a multi-tenant venue with four different teams that also hosts a lot of events, including concerts,” Focil says. “So when we built out their application, we were thinking about ways that we can store their tickets, if you’re a season ticket holder for a particular team or you are attending a concert, and from there we really started trying to understand how to cross-sell and upsell and then create synergies between the two. We’ve started exploring the market and found that Aloompa is the premium solution in the music space and we started having discussions” that led to an eventual deal.
“I think the thing that’s super exciting here between Andres’ vision and the greater team’s vision is that what is being built is a vertical stack of solutions for an event or for a team that puts data in the center,” Burchfield said. “For events and festivals, the power is in tools that leverage all the touch points of a fan, which is really the ultimate long-term solution. And I would say that approximately 70% of those pieces are now in place with our two companies coming together. And we’re going to be attacking the market in that way.”
Aloompa will operate as a standalone brand, based in Nashville, within the “FanOS” product category of WMT. The combined companies will continue to support existing partners and customers while bringing new offerings to market designed to solve client-related challenges.
Global investment giant Blackstone said on Monday it would pay a penny more to take over Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), the London-listed company that owns Red Hot Chili Peppers’ catalog, because in a revised takeover plan disclosed Monday it is paying less in advisory fees. In a joint announcement, Blackstone and HSF’s board of directors said they approved the offer […]
The Universal Music Group announced the formation of a new division, called the Global Impact Team, that will oversee the music conglomerate’s efforts to promote positive community engagement, environmental sustainability and other related efforts, the company announced today (June 3). The team will be led by Susan Mazo, formerly executive vp of social responsibility, events and special projects, who has been promoted to executive vp/chief impact officer.
Joining the new department will be former music journalist and GreenBiz Group executive Dylan Siegler, who has been named senior vp/head of sustainability at UMG; senior vp and executive director of UMG’s Task Force for Meaningful Change Dr. Menna Demessie, who will be part of the leadership group; Markie Ruzzo, who has been promoted to vp of global impact; and Sharlotte Ritchie, former senior director of communications and head of the U.K. chapter of the Task Force for Meaningful Change, who has been named senior director of global impact and communications. In addition, the social impact marketing agency Inside Projects, founded by Kristin Jones and Arielle Vavasseur which has worked with Netflix, Spotify and the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions, has made UMG its exclusive partner for the music industry.
“The formation of the Global Impact Team reflects our commitment not only to accelerating our work in these critical areas but to do so in a way that leverages the experience and talent of these exceptional individuals to drive positive impact across our company, our industry and in the communities in which we serve,” UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge said in a statement. “With this new structure we are ensuring that these functions are not siloed, but rather positioned to meaningfully influence all aspects of our global strategy.”
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Mazo has been at the forefront of UMG’s efforts in this area since joining the company a decade ago, having co-created the music group’s Amplify Award to honor artists working towards positive change and serving as the founding chair of UMG’s All Together Now Foundation, which works to bring about meaningful change across the globe. In a statement, she said she was honored to lead the new team on behalf of UMG.
“Through our work we’ve demonstrated that sustainability, community engagement and corporate social impact go hand-in-hand with delivering positive results for our employees, artists and shareholders,” Mazo said. “With this next evolution of our team and structure, and with Sir Lucian’s constant encouragement and focus, I’m excited to create and implement a new approach that unites all of the efforts in a way that will amplify UMG’s global impact and brand resonance given our unique position to enact positive change.”
Longtime agent Lee Anderson has been named president of Wasserman Music, the company announced Monday (June 3). Anderson was a founding member of Wasserman Music’s executive team when the agency purchased Paradigm’s music division in 2021. Since playing a pivotal role in establishing Wasserman Music, Anderson has helped develop the company’s business strategy and growth […]