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On nights when there are no live acts playing Sphere Las Vegas, the venue’s Exosphere (its one-of-a-kind outer LED screen) reads, “U2 are not here.” However, five nights a week inside the immersive venue, U2 can be seen performing the best of their U2:UV residency that ran from September 2023 to March 2024 through concert film V-U2. Captured via the Sphere’s proprietary Big Sky camera system, the concert film is just as good as, if not better than, the Irish band’s actual show.
Directed by U2’s The Edge and his wife Morleigh Steinberg, V-U2 brings a slew of firsts to the almost one-year-old venue and its content creation capabilities. The film – captured over three nights of the band’s sold-out residency at Sphere – is part of a growing slate of programming for Sphere Experiences, which run when there is no live residency or special event at the Las Vegas venue. Sphere Experiences also include the Darren Aronofsky film Postcard from Earth.
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“V-U2 was born out of a conversation with the band, ‘How do we memorialize this moment’” of U2’s historic Sphere residency, says Sphere Studios’ senior vp of capture Andrew Shulkind, who served as the film’s director of photography. “For 100 years of movie making, we’ve been telling stories through a rectangular lens. This is a different kind of storytelling. There’s no way to tell this story in a traditional way. You could cut it up, have wide-angle lenses, or have a choppy concert film, but nothing could recreate the Sphere experience.”
Nothing except maybe the technology that makes the live sphere experience possible.
“Coincidentally, we’ve been building cameras to capture other content [outside] the venue,” Shulkind says. “If we can tell the story of what it’s like to be in a sulfur volcano for Postcard or flying over Mont Blanc, why not tell the story of being inside Sphere [during a concert] with our very own technology?”
When Shulkind was first commissioned to work at the Sphere in 2018, the company faced a dilemma of creating images sharp enough for their screens when off-the-shelf-cameras would not suffice. After pursuing different avenues, the Sphere team created the Big Sky camera in 2021. “The camera, lens and all its components are entirely internal technology on which we have 10 patents,” says Shulkind. “Nobody else needs that crazy level of resolution. Coincidentally, the game-changing technology has pushed the business forward.”
The Big Sky technology debuted in Aronofsky’s Postcard from Earth, capturing the images and video required for the Sphere’s 16K x 16K immersive display plane from edge to edge. It also features the largest single sensor in commercial use—a 316-megapixel, 3” x 3” HDR image sensor capable of a 40X resolution increase over 4K cameras. Big Sky can capture content up to 120 frames per second in the 18K square format and higher speed frame rates at lower resolutions.
V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film
Rich Fury/Sphere Entertainment
Using the same technology, producer Alan Maloney, U2, Sphere Studios and the venue, the teams collaborated to shoot over three nights of the 40-date residency (two in February and one in March) to create V-U2, the first film shot entirely on Big Sky cameras.
Working for more than two months on the edit of V-U2 at the Sphere Studios Big Dome in Burbank, Calif. – with a quarter-sized version of the screen and haptic seats and sound featured in the venue – Steinberg (who is an accomplished director and choreographer that choreographed many of Bono’s moves for the Zoo TV Tour in the 1990s) and The Edge wanted to make sure the final product wasn’t just a concert film or a documentary, but a faithful recreation of the live with the most precise view of U2 possible, down to the details on their shoelaces.
“Seeing the band like that—whether you’re high up or in the lower seats. That’s amazing for fans,” Steinberg says.
However, from the director’s perspective, the medium posed significant challenges. “You can’t easily see your edits. You’re either looking through an Oculus [headset] or at a very low-resolution image on a monitor. You quickly learn what you might not be seeing and make compensations for that,” Steinberg says.
One of the most complex production pieces was transforming the 100-minute U2:UV into the 82-minute V-U2. This called for interweaving the setlist of U2:UV with some of the classic covers performed throughout the residency, such as Elvis Presley‘s “Love Me Tender,” Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
The directors wanted to reflect the arc of the live show into the concert film and “also considered that this will be viewed by a broader audience, not just U2 fans,” Steinberg says. “People are coming to see what the Sphere can do. The first three songs of the film are a perfect example of that. However, we do ask the audience to sit through two songs where there are no [background] visuals [just a shot of the band]. Even if you aren’t a U2 fan, there’s much to enjoy and experience.”
Steinberg says the film captures the best moments of the residency in new depth and sharpness, with a fresh perspective. The rendition of “‘The Fly’ is a brilliant piece in the film … the space morphs and gives the illusion of the room becoming square. It is a true use of the word ‘awesome,’” she says. “There are shots from the stage, looking out at the audience, which is a new perspective you don’t normally have.”
The track “One” features a camera angle on Bono that Shulkind characterizes as the biggest close-up ever filmed. “The ability to show Bono in this very intimate moment during this intimate song that everybody knows was so powerful,” he says. “It blew everyone away.”
V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film
Rich Fury/Sphere Entertainment
“We had to shrink it down a little bit. It was even bigger,” Steinberg says of the stunning image that showcases Bono in grand detail. “The camera then slowly pulls back, revealing the band. The moment extends into an infinite view of the room, with everyone in the audience holding up their lights.”
The sound of the audience from the original live events also played a critical role in developing the concert film. Captured on crowd mics placed through the venue during the live shows in February and March, the audience can be heard during the film – between and over songs – responding to the band’s performance. “So much of that rawness and bits of unexpected magic parallel the imaging side,” says Shulkind. “You hear the show’s little imperfections and human aspects.”
V-U2 is set to play regularly as Sphere Experiences continue to be created. While it is not yet determined whether every band in residency at Sphere will get their own film, the content has been collected at Phish and Dead & Company shows and will be captured during the Eagles’ current run.
“We will continue to capture every band that comes through,” says MSG Entertainment’s executive vp of live Josephine Vaccarello. “Everyone who comes into our venue is learning how to play with the tools we have in the toolbox differently. We’re continually trying to figure out how we innovate and how we continue to grow, and this was one of the ways.”
“Every Sphere show is a unique moment in time,” Shulkind says. “We’re still figuring out what that looks like for other shows. It’s an endless journey of discovery because we’re learning how this new medium works.”
Andrew Batey is best known to the music industry as the founder of streaming fraud prevention company Beatdapp. But for the last six years, Batey has been simultaneously building up a venture capital firm called Side Door Ventures. “I always wanted to just be viewed as a founder, but Beatdapp is probably my last company,” says Batey, a serial entrepreneur, who has also built companies in the restaurant and digital marketing industries. “I started thinking about where I want to transition to eventually, and I believe it’s investing.”
For the last 15 years, Batey says he’s mentored hundreds of companies at different accelerators, which is where he got the itch to start stepping into the investor role. After years of angel investing to check his aptitude, he realized, “I feel like I’m really good at picking the right companies.”
Side Door quietly launched in 2018 and comprises 14 different smaller funds covering a wide array of disciplines — space travel, blockchain, manufacturing and more. Investors are also interested in music and entertainment, too, though Batey says it needs to be something he believes he can grow “by 100x” and “there are not that many” entertainment startups that fit that bill. To date, he’s made investments in companies like SpaceX, Pipe, Plaid, Varda and EtherFi, as well as music-related startups like JKBX and the now-defunct superfans app Renaissance, which he felt particularly passionate about.
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In total, Batey says Side Door has averaged 61% gross internal rate of return across all funds since its launch and has over 100 companies in its portfolio.
Now that Beatdapp has established itself as an industry leader with partnerships with Universal Music Group, the Mechanical Licensing Collective, Beatport, SoundExchange and more, Batey is ready to talk about Side Door Ventures for the first time.
Why are you making your press debut, six years into Side Door Ventures?
To talk about it too early seemed like a giant, “Look at me! Look at me!” And that’s not really what a founder needs — a founder needs help. I’ve always just felt comfortable being the neck that moves the head, but I’ve lost my ability to be stealthily leading this, the more checks we’ve written.
In the beginning, a lot of startups just thought I was a founder. As soon as we had that founder-to-founder rapport, the person would just start sharing all these things that he wouldn’t have shared with an investor. But none of them were deal breakers. I found the transparency actually really great. There was a strength in meeting a founder at their level, without them knowing you’re the investor.
I named the fund Side Door Ventures because they never saw it coming when I would meet with the founder. They just thought I was mentoring them, and then I would suddenly be like, “I’d like to write a half million dollar check.”
It really favored us well because I wasn’t convincing them why they needed our money. I gave them advice and mentorship first, and then told them I wanted to write the check and that’s the exact thing they want. Many want someone that’s going to be helpful, and not someone just writing a check. In really tight funding rounds where people get pushed out, we often got into them early on when we should never have been.
But the cat’s out of the bag, and I’m ready to just own it.
What makes Side Door Ventures different from others in the field?
Fundamentally, the way we’ve been billed as a fund is entirely different than everyone else. We intentionally started with small funds that are $10 million to $30 million each. We have 14 funds overall.
When I started the fund, I had a big family that offered to give me $100 million to get started, and they wanted to know what my strategy would be. I always felt that big funds are really hard to return. So my strategy was, Why don’t we make a bunch of smaller funds of higher return multiples that traditionally perform better?
When I started talking to fund managers, though, they thought it was crazy. They’re like, “Institutions won’t bankroll that — a pension fund wants to have a check size of at least $10 million.” If you’re building a fund to please people covering their ass, you’re not building a fund for optimal returns. And if I was building a fund for optimizing returns, and if this was my money, I would go the opposite way and make a bunch of small funds. So my customer investor is totally different than most. My customers are high net worth individuals and families who care more about the returns, and less about whether I check a box.
For every small fund we have a slightly different iteration. We have one with the state of Michigan which is just focusing on manufacturing, advanced materials and mobility — things that the state of Michigan has talent resources for. We have a web3 fund which focuses on blockchain. We have a seed fund which is focused on seed investing. We have a European fund focused on European college students, specifically. I don’t know any other funds doing it like this.
Most Billboard readers know you as the founder of Beatdapp. Given that background, do you have interest in investing in companies that are complementary to what Beatdapp does?
Because of Beatdapp, I have views on where the industry could still use a lot of help, and I probably have some unique data insights about where there’s juice to squeeze. But I view Side Door and Beatdapp as entirely separate. We don’t have any of the same investors, so I don’t take money in one entity and then bring it to the other. It’s a fully firewall situation where we have different investors, different teams, different everything.
If there is anything that I’m too privy to because of my work outside of Side Door — let’s say that I have a relationship with founders of a company — I generally sit out of the investment committee and let the rest of the committee decide so that there’s no bias going into the decision making.
I love music and entertainment. It’s a big part of my background, so I obviously want to invest in things that are in that sector. But the majority of all music companies exit for under $15 million. The reality is that music is not the best venture-backable investment, which means that there are very few companies that meet the sort of the requirements to warrant a venture capital investment from us.
We have a bunch of funds, but they’re all basically investing in things we think could [provide] 100x [returns]. So if you’re a music startup valued at $20 million, how many companies have exited that are over $2 billion? The answer is probably only a handful — like Spotify.
That means one of two things. I either have to catch you way earlier, like in your first round, or you need to be such an outlier that I believe the market will move in your direction. For example, we invested in JKBX. Why? If you think about JKBX as a trading entity and the fact that it’s more of a fintech play than it is a music play, you could see a platform getting traction. Now, will they make it or not? Only time will tell. But they have the profile to potentially be worth billions of dollars if they can build that habit formation and become another asset type.
You have mentioned before that you learned a lot from investing in a superfan company, Renaissance, which ultimately went bust. Monetizing the superfan is such a hot topic in the music business right now. What did that experience teach you about the viability of superfan-related startups?
We see 7,000-8,000 deals a year, and I cannot think of another case where I saw a consumer-facing application that was as sticky with their fans as Renaissance. They had a million downloads — all organic, no marketing. They had 47% day-90 retention, meaning 47% of all users stuck with it after 90 days, which is insanely good. I think the average user launched the app 21 times per day — that’s like Instagram level.
The problem is that I don’t think they knew how to fully monetize it. Artists didn’t want to pay for it, labels didn’t want to pay for it. There wasn’t a big enough venture-backable business there. It was more of a $10 million to $15 million business, but how do you make that a $100 million business? They were struggling to figure out what could be scaled.
If this company who had the viral, organic growth and absolutely crushed it couldn’t figure out how to get those customers to pay, and couldn’t figure out how to get artists to pay, and couldn’t figure out how to get labels to pay, then how are any of these other fan apps going to make money?
The only way I think you can build a successful “superfan” business is by owning the merch pipeline itself — basically, you need to be the one that’s vertically integrated. You need to be integrating and selling the actual goods yourself so that you can build enough margins in there to support the business. If you were just a third party marketplace for all these other goods and services — like posters and tickets and merch — I don’t think there’s enough money there. I don’t believe that’s scalable.
This summer, the major labels filed a lawsuit against two AI music startups, Suno and Udio, and in early September, it was revealed that the use of AI music was instrumental in the scam alleged in the $10 million streaming fraud lawsuit. Do you see this affecting people’s confidence in AI music startups?
It could affect consumer confidence, but I do not think it will dissuade investors. The reality is, investors aren’t afraid of breaking things. Where a lot of people are mad because the status quo is changing, a lot of investors see that as a positive — as they say, “Volatility breeds profitability.”
However, what will succeed here is whoever comes up with a business model where everyone wins and it’s convenient for consumers, and they enjoy the experience. I haven’t seen one that wins yet. I haven’t seen a business model where consumers actually like it.
Look at the Drake–Weeknd guy [anonymous TikTok user Ghostwriter and his song “Heart On My Sleeve,” which used AI to deepfake Drake and the Weeknd]. His song was listened to millions of times, but it also had a pretty equal number of listeners. What that means is people were only listening to it one time or so and then leaving. It was a novelty. It wasn’t something that people saw longterm value in. Until there’s a product that people see longterm value, it’s not going to work.
Did an upstart rival steal Britney Spears and her lucrative fragrance business from Revlon? Or is the cosmetics behemoth just upset that the star took her business elsewhere?
In a new legal filing last week, Give Back Beauty fired back at Revlon’s recent federal lawsuit, which accused the smaller company of working with four ex-Revlon execs to “sabotage” the company’s decades-old fragrance partnership with the Spears.
Revlon’s case called it a “carefully planned and executed” plot to steal the lucrative relationship. But in its response on Friday, Give Back said Revlon was selling that “false narrative” of espionage and corporate raiding simply because it was angry that it had been beaten by a competitor.
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“Revlon asks the court to accept that tale as the only possible explanation for why Ms. Spears decided to reject Revlon in favor of GBB,” the company’s lawyers write. “Revlon’s motion is more accurately an anticompetitive ruse to damage a competitor because Revlon, weakened in the market by its recent bankruptcy, cannot compete fairly with GBB, and seeks to frustrate GBB’s transition of Britney Brands, at the same time, sending a warning about future competition from an international rival that poses a growing threat to Revlon’s market share.”
In 2004, at the peak of her powers, Spears signed a deal with Revlon’s Elizabeth Arden to develop branded fragrances and other cosmetics. When she released “Curious” later that year, it quickly became the top selling perfume of the year and reportedly pulled in more than $100 million in sales. By 2013, “Curious” had reportedly sold more than 500 million bottles and the overall Spears-Arden partnership, featuring many other scents, was earning $30 million a year in sales.
Revlon sued last month, claiming its own staffers had destroyed that business by jumping ship to Give Back and taking the Britney account with them. Accusing them of stealing trade secrets and breaching their contracts, the case even claimed that one exec had “acted as a double-agent” – working with Give Back while ostensibly negotiating with Britney’s team to renew her Revlon deal.
“Revlon and Elizabeth Arden were completely unaware that Revlon’s own team was actively sabotaging one of their most valuable licensing relationships,” the company’s lawyers claimed at the time.
Though the case centers on the Spears account, she is not named as a defendant nor accused of any wrongdoing; at the time, a Revlon spokesman said the company wished her “all the best.”A spokesperson for Britney did not return a request for comment on the dispute.
Earlier this month, Revlon asked for an immediate injunction that would sharply restrict Give Back and the ex-employees while the case plays out. It claimed the defendants were “continuing to misuse Revlon’s trade secrets” and that “this wrongful conduct must stop.”
With Friday’s filing, Give Back responded to that motion — arguing there was no need for any kind of restraining order over Revlon’s “baseless” accusations and that the rival can’t show it will suffer the kind of “irreparable” harm required for such a drastic order.
“The court should not countenance plaintiffs’ thinly-veiled attempt to prevent GBB from safeguarding Ms. Spears’ valuable fragrance brand,” the company’s lawyers write. “Revlon’s Motion should be denied in its entirety.”
In making that argument, Give Back sharply denied many of the lawsuit’s allegations. On the “double agent” claim, it said the ex-employee had been “unaware that GBB was negotiating a deal with Britney Brands and had no involvement in negotiating the agreement.” It also denied that the staffers had stolen any proprietary information or that Give Back had used any such data.
The real purpose of Revlon’s request for the injunction? Attorneys for the defendants says it’s “entirely vindictive” – aimed at “thwarting Ms. Spears’ decision to hire GBB” and “keeping the option for the public to buy Britney Spears-branded fragrances off of the market so long as Revlon is not the distributor.”
A spokesperson for Revlon did not immediately return a request for comment.
In addition to Give Back itself, the lawsuit names the four employees — Vanessa Kidd, Dominick Romeo, Reid Mulvihill and Ashley Fass. They are all represented by the same legal team that filed Friday’s motion.
The video for Machine Gun Kelly and Jelly Roll‘s collaboration, “Lonely Road,” (No. 18, Hot Country Songs) casts MGK as a finance-strapped, blue-collar worker who commits an armed bank robbery, gets run down in a police chase and ends up seeing his newborn daughter for the first time from behind a wall of glass in prison.
The criminal storyline plays out over a melody long associated with a comforting, nostalgic John Denver hit, “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” with which “Lonely Road” is interpolated.
Matching an edgy, violent plot line with the legacy of a goody-two-shoes pop-and-country environmentalist imprints a scruffy wrinkle atop Denver’s safe reputation while bringing some revenue into his estate’s coffers.
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“It’s just this way to reinvigorate a song and remind people, ‘Oh, right, I love that song, “Country Roads,”‘ while they’re also having this great time at an MGK show,” 7S Management artist manager Amy Abrams noted on Sept. 18 while moderating the panel “Curating a Legacy — What Young Artists Can Learn From Estate Management” during the Americana Fest in Nashville. The reimagination of “Country Roads” provides Denver’s catalog “a way into a new audience, to associate yourself with another artist that may complement the image or the legacy that you’re working to create.”
Setting up a career for long-term health is, not surprisingly, similar to setting up personal finances for retirement. To do so successfully requires focusing on the future, protecting assets from opportunistic sharks, reflecting personal values in decision-making, saving documents and taking informed risks when it makes sense.
It also helps to develop a sense of self-worth. In personal finance, that means seeing oneself as someone who deserves to have a nest egg. In building a music career, that means self-identifying as a creator whose work has lasting value. That attitude might be difficult to develop during artists’ early years when bank accounts are slim and the desire to advance is powerful.
But Bob Dylan Center director Steve Jenkins noted that Dylan‘s latter-career reputation is, in part, an outgrowth of the importance he assigned to his copyrights and to his brand from his earliest years in the spotlight.
“He avoided some of the potholes that a lot of younger artists find themselves having to get into,” Jenkins said. “I think it’s about valuing your own work — as tempting as it might be, and at times, as necessary as it might be, to just bring some cash in initially — but taking a long view and thinking of yourself as that sort of artist.”
Perhaps most important is to start early, building the legacy consistently from the start rather than scrambling to make up lost ground on the back end. The panel focused on artists, though some of its points can be applied to other careers.
Key advice included:
• Think long term “If you are looking just ahead to tomorrow,” Abrams said, “and you are not looking way, way, way down the line, you are going to miss something.”
• Align with causes that speak to your audience “We often think about being careful to not turn off fans with this work; I think you can also turn on fans,” 7S Management director of philanthropy Kari Nott said. “When you speak up for folks who are screaming for help, who need your microphone to draw attention to the issue that they’re affected by, they’ll remember that for the rest of their lives.”
• Read contracts “You could just sign away your intellectual property for the rest of your life,” Abrams noted. “That’s a repercussion your grandkids are going to be dealing with when it doesn’t revert to your heirs.”
• Be willing to self-promote Abrams also observed, “There’s something to be said for telling everyone that you have a legacy. It’s up to you to communicate this information to the world and to throw your own party.”
• Celebrate important anniversaries The Denver estate is currently observing 50 years since he released the Back Home Again album. But, Jenkins said, be “judicious” in what anniversaries get promoted and make the marketing proportional to the milestone.
• Save memorabilia Dylan’s lyrics, finished or not, can sometimes be used to create merchandise or enhance exhibits. Photos, tour posters, backstage passes, set lists — as those items accumulate, they become a collection that has value in the long run.
• Share the thoughts and circumstances that inform your music “When you’re speaking to your team, the more you’re able to provide the context for your story as it relates to your work — you know, all the surrounding influences and whatnot — that leads to being able to champion you,” Concord vp of sync licensing and clearance Brandon Schott said.
• Identify icons worth emulating “Try and emulate the way that they move through the world,” Nott suggested. “Someone that I’ve always been struck by is Willie Nelson and how he starts every single Farm Aid concert by introducing himself and immediately passing the mic to the farmers.”
• Collaborate with others “I always describe sync as Brian Wilson — it’s taking two completely different instruments, laying them on top of each other, playing [them similarly] and they become a third instrument,” Schott said. “Taking visual artists and record artists, and putting them together can amplify both sides of that collaboration.”
• Look for other methods of exposure Advertising, in particular, can call attention to a copyright, though it can, Jenkins lamented, be “crass.” Ads that feel “more narrative-based,” said Schott, rather than blatant sales pitches, can remind the audience of a song and generate revenue without undermining its reputation.
• Leave a road map for heirs Artists who don’t specify their beneficiaries or leave instructions about how they want their legacy handled risk having their memories polluted or trivialized after they’re gone.
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Less than a week after he was indicted on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing yet another civil sexual abuse case, this time claiming that he and another man “viciously raped” a woman at his New York City studio in 2001.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, attorneys for Thalia Graves say that Combs and his head of security, Joseph Sherman, isolated her, drugged her and sexually assaulted her at his studio. The lawsuit says the rapper also filmed the attack and later showed it to others.
“For decades, she remained silent and did not report the crime out of fear that defendants would use their power to ruin her life, as they had repeatedly, explicitly threatened to do,” writes Graves’ lawyers, who include well-known attorney Gloria Allred. “To this day, plaintiff suffers from severe depression, anxiety, and panic attacks, and still lives in fear of defendants.”
The case is the latest of at least nine similar civil suits filed against Combs over the past year, each of which accuses him of sexual abuse and other wrongdoing. And it comes just a week after he was arrested and indicted by federal prosecutors on sweeping accusations of sex trafficking and racketeering – charges that, if proven, could see him sent to prison for life.
In the new case, Graves claims she was 25 years old at the time of the attack. She says she was dating one of Combs’ employees, and that he exploited the relationship to “lure” her into meeting him and Sherman alone at the studio.
Once alone, Graves alleges they gave her a drink that was “likely laced with a drug that eventually caused her briefly to lose consciousness.” She says she later “awoke to find herself bound and restrained,” at which time the pair “proceeded to brutally sexually abuse” her. Her attorneys say that “both men were undeterred by plaintiff’s cries for help throughout the attack.”
A representative for Combs did not immediately return a request for comment. Sherman could not immediately be located for comment.
Following the attack, Graves says she “never recovered,” suffering suicidal thoughts and other severe emotional damage. And she says any progress in healing was “dramatically reversed” when she learned last year that Combs had filmed the alleged attack and had “shown the video to multiple men.”
“Plaintiff could not believe that Defendants would record themselves committing such a gruesome crime and then proceed proudly and widely to disseminate the recording of it,” her attorneys write. “This action seeks redress for defendants’ brutalizing, misogynistic, and violent attacks.”
McHale’s Bar & Grill, a pub in midtown Manhattan, bills itself as “the best Irish bar in NYC.” It opens bright and early, at 10 a.m. on weekdays; it also happens to be right around the corner from Warner Music Group’s New York office. And on Thursday (Sept. 19), it was crammed full of Atlantic Music Group employees gathering to honor colleagues who had been laid off earlier that day. Several staffers clambered onto chairs to deliver spontaneous speeches about their time at the storied label.
McHale’s “is the only thing open during the day in that area,” says one employee who survived the cuts. At the impromptu gathering, “Lots of people who have been at Atlantic for 10- or 20-plus years said they loved being able to work with everyone. People were feeling supported since a lot of staff had been let go” — around 150 layoffs in total, according to WMG’s SEC filing.
Multiple sources stress that these departures, as well as the new regime being put in place by incoming Atlantic Music Group CEO Elliot Grainge, represent a seismic shift for Atlantic — a generational changing of the guard. A number of high-profile executives will be leaving the company, including Atlantic Music Group CEO Julie Greenwald, who co-led Atlantic for nearly 20 years; WMG’s CEO of recorded music Max Lousada, who had been at WMG for decades; 300 Elektra Entertainment chairman/CEO Kevin Liles; Atlantic general manager Paul Sinclair; and Atlantic co-president of Black music Michael Kyser, along with several department heads at both Atlantic and Elektra Records.
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In the wake of the cuts, sources say the Elektra side of 300 Elektra Entertainment is down to fewer than 20 people; Warner announced that 3EE president Gregg Nadel will move to become co-chair of Warner Music Nashville, but did not mention a replacement. (Lousada and Liles will also not be replaced.) Atlantic made further cuts to its radio team, which now has fewer than 10 employees, having already been hit in previous waves of layoffs. The label slashed the publicity department to just a handful of people.
In addition, Atlantic and Elektra eliminated their touring teams, which help artists with promotion and production on the road. The creative departments of Atlantic and 300 — the staffers who help furnish artists with the content they need in a visual, social media-driven age — suffered losses as well. And the label cut some A&R executives.
All these vanished jobs are the latest sign that the definition of a major label is transforming rapidly. “The old advantages that a big label had in the past, radio and press and TV, those just aren’t as powerful as they were,” says Jonathan Daniel, a veteran artist manager. The industry is trying to “remodel what a major label is, because the old way is unsustainable at this point.”
That retooling process has led to a number of layoffs at both WMG and Universal Music Group over the last 18 months. (Cuts at Sony Music have been more moderate, sources have said, at least so far.) Executives in traditional departments, like radio and press, have been especially vulnerable. And companies have tried to reduce overlapping roles at frontline labels in favor of a shared central system of services.
Grainge, 30, has expressed disdain for the more sprawling, old-fashioned major label model in the past. In 2016, he founded the label 10K Projects, which has billed itself almost as an anti-major: Small and fleet-footed instead of large and lumbering, with a heavy focus on modern tools (digital marketing) at the expense of more old-fashioned ones (radio). He has had success with this approach, helping boost the early careers of artists like Ice Spice, XXXTentacion and Trippie Redd.
Several Atlantic staffers started to worry about the possibility of additional staff cuts in August, as soon as WMG unexpectedly announced that Grainge would replace Greenwald starting October 1. In the past, major leadership changes at labels have often been accompanied by layoffs. Roughly 20 years ago, for example, not long after Lyor Cohen took over as chairman/CEO of WMG, the company let go of around 1,000 employees.
That said, the record business was shrinking then, rather than growing. And WMG had already made three rounds of cuts in the past 19 months before last week’s layoffs.
Some executives believe that Atlantic Music Group, which has struggled to produce new breakout artists in the last two years, was still too big and too inefficient, even after the previous reductions in staff. It’s nearly impossible to turn a massive ship quickly, and speed is crucial in what WMG CEO Robert Kyncl recently called a “fast-paced, fiercely competitive industry.”
The company’s realignment is intended to strengthen the core Atlantic Music Group structure while also making it more flexible, so it can throw its full weight behind artists at Atlantic, 300 or Elektra at any given time, sources say. “Elliot is confident in the team he’s put in place and they’re all focused on moving the needle,” a source inside WMG tells Billboard. The mission, this person continues, is focusing on “artists, artist development, great music. With all the anxiety about changes, there is excitement about the future, too.”
But others wonder if deep cuts will ultimately affect a label’s ability to deliver on behalf of its artists. “They’re smart people; obviously there’s some sort of plan” with the restructure and the layoffs, says Motti Shulman, who exited his role as senior vp of rhythm promotion at 300 Elektra Entertainment in 2023. “But if you keep cutting the fat, at some point you dig into the muscle. I think they’ve gone beyond the fat.”
Earlier this month, WMG employees say Grainge spent time in the company’s Los Angeles and New York offices along with Zach Friedman and Tony Talamo, who are set to become chief operating officer and general manager of Atlantic Music Group, respectively. Several Atlantic staffers believed that the incoming leadership was evaluating their work and weighing who might be cut.
When layoffs began in New York last Thursday, a number of employees were told they were being let go in individual meetings with Greenwald — who had, in many cases, played an instrumental role in hiring them, sometimes decades ago. Some staffers started to call the artists they had collaborated with to notify them that they had been laid off. Others updated their LinkedIn profiles: #OpenToWork.
Historically, when labels cut a lot of employees — as Universal Music group did in 1999, and WMG did in 2004 — they often trim artist rosters as well. Specific employees often champion specific artists in the building; if those cheerleaders are gone, the label may in turn sever ties with the acts they cheered for. On top of that, remaining staff might be spread too thin to aid as many acts as it did previously. Many managers are still waiting to hear if their artists will be affected in the shakeup.
Todd Rubenstein, a veteran music lawyer, has been watching the steady drumbeat of layoffs across the major labels since the start of 2023. “I find it all sad,” he says. “Not just from the human level of people losing their jobs, but everyone was already complaining before about what labels were not doing for their artists. What happens now that a hundred people got let go?”
On Monday (Sept. 23), Atlantic started trying to answer that question. The company announced a “new era” and a series of promotions. “We are committed to a single principle,” Grainge said in a statement. “Maximum impact for original artists.”
Alliance Entertainment recovered from a post-pandemic slowdown through higher demand for direct-to-consumer (D2C) fulfillment, cost savings and continued demand for vinyl LPs and CDs.
For the fiscal year ended June 30, the Plantation, Fla.-based distributor had net revenue of $1.1 billion, it announced Sept. 19, down slightly from $1.16 billion in the prior fiscal year. But by emphasizing cost efficiencies and high-margin products, Alliance increased gross profit 24% to $128.9 million and gross profit margin by 270 basis points to 11.7%. As a result, net income jumped by $40 million to $4.6 million from a net loss of $35.4 million a year earlier.
“Our strategic shift toward higher-value offerings is proving successful, and we expect to benefit from new hardware releases in the coming year,” Alliance CEO Jeff Walker said in a statement. “Similarly, in consumer products, we improved margins and pricing, demonstrating the effectiveness of our inventory rationalization efforts.”
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Music accounted for 42% of Alliance’s consolidated revenues—30% for vinyl records accounted and 12% for CDs. AMPED, Alliance’s independent music distribution business, had net sales of $78 million in fiscal 2024, up from $75 million. AMPED is the exclusive distributor for over 90 record labels and has exclusive relationships with such artists as Usher and ATEEZ.
Video games were the company’s biggest segment, accounting for 31% of consolidated revenue in the fiscal year. DVDs and Blu-Ray products were 19% of revenue. Collectibles and consumer products were 4% of consolidated revenues.
Higher-margin D2C sales accounted for 36% of fiscal year sales, up from 31% in the prior year, and helped improve profitability. “This shift highlights the effectiveness of our approach in meeting evolving consumer preferences, and it is helping to diversify and strengthen our revenue base,” Alliance chairman Bruce Ogilvie said in a statement.
A leading distributor of entertainment products with more than 325,000 SKUs in stock, Alliance counts Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Shopify as clients. The company also has a number of owned brands. The DirectToU divisions consists of ImportCDs, Deep Discount, Collectors Choice Music and Collectors Choice, among others. Mill Creek Entertainment is an independent studio for DVDs, Blu-Rays and digital distribution. NCircle is Alliance’s children’s and family entertainment brand.
The latest earnings improved on a sharp drop in sales and a net loss after sales spiked during during the previous two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From fiscal 2022 to 2023, sales fell from $1.42 billion to $1.16 billion in fiscal 2023 and adjusted EBITDA plummeted from $60 million to a loss of $17.6 million. The company’s debt ballooned to $133.3 in fiscal 2023 from $45.6 million in fiscal 2020. Inventory rose, too, to a peak of $249.4 million in fiscal 2022 from $62.8 million in fiscal 2020. Both debt and inventory came down dramatically in fiscal 2024, to $79.6 million and $97.4 million, respectively.
Shares of Alliance, which trade on the Nasdaq, closed at $2.76 on Monday, up 35.3% since earnings results were released. The company’s shares briefly traded over the counter after a merger with the NYSE-listed Adara Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, fizzled and left the company with a float too small to trade on the NYSE. The company had a small offering on the Nasdaq in June of 2023 and has a float of 3.1 million shares out of 50.9 million shares outstanding.
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Nelly faces a copyright lawsuit over his decades-old album Country Grammar; T.I. and his wife Tiny win a shocking $71 million jury verdict against a toymaker; the Michael Jackson estate takes legal action against a sexual abuse accuser; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: A Legal Blast From The Past
Nearly a quarter century after Nelly’s breakout album, he’s now getting sued over it – and by his childhood friends, no less. The case, filed by members of his early-career St. Lunatics group, claims that Nelly (Cornell Haynes) “manipulated” them into thinking they’d be paid for their work on the 2000 album Country Grammar, but that he ultimately cut them out of the credits and the royalty payments. “Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [he] would assure them as ‘friends’ he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to,” the lawsuit reads. “Unfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.” Copyright lawsuits over years-old songs have become a common sight in the music industry over the past decade, thanks largely to a Supreme Court ruling that said such cases were mostly fair game. But the plaintiffs in the current case – which is styled as an infringement lawsuit but appears to really be more of a dispute over ownership – could still face hurdles over their long delay. To understand why, go read our full story on the lawsuit, with access to the actual lawsuit filed against Nelly.
Other top stories this week…
NOT A TINY VERDICT – T.I. and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris won a stunning $71 million jury verdict in their lawsuit claiming that toymaker MGA stole the design of a line of “O.M.G.” toy dolls from their real-life teen pop group OMG Girlz. Following a three-week trial, a jury found that MGA infringed both the trade dress and the likeness rights of the OMG Girlz — a defunct trio created by Tiny featuring her daughter Zonnique “Star” Pullins. JACKSON ESTATE ACTION – Michael Jackson’s estate filed an arbitration case against a man who it claims has threatened to resurface ugly abuse allegations ahead of the upcoming release of Michael, a biopic about the King of Pop. According to the estate, the accuser signed a never-before-reported settlement in 2020 that saw him paid $3.3 million in return for signing a non-disclosure agreement, but now he’s threatening to breach the deal if he’s not paid another $213 million. DIDDY STAYS IN JAIL – Sean “Diddy” Combs was once again refused bail in his sex abuse case, after a federal judge ruled that the indicted rapper and music executive would pose a flight risk and might intimidate witnesses if released. His lawyers renewed their request to let him await trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges under house arrest at his Miami mansion, but Judge Andrew L. Carter ruled Diddy must instead wait for the trial in a Brooklyn federal prison. REASONABLE DOUBT? Raise your hand if you had “Jay-Z argues with New York City over arcane issues of intellectual property law” on your 2024 bingo card. With a court-ordered auction of Damon Dash’s stake in Roc-A-Fella Records looming, lawyers for the superstar and the city are somehow now wrangling over whether he can use copyright termination to retake control of his debut album Reasonable Doubt. That’s a crucial question for anyone who wants to buy Dash’s stake in Roc-A-Fella – and for a municipal government that’s trying to use the auction to recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid child support. DOLAN CASE TOSSED – A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing Madison Square Garden executive James Dolan of pressuring a masseuse into unwanted sex while his band toured with the Eagles, ruling that his accuser had failed to meet the requirements of a federal sex trafficking law. But the case, which also includes simpler, state-law allegations of sexual battery and aiding and abetting of sexual assault, will likely be refiled in state court. SPICE SETTLEMENT – Ice Spice reached an agreement to end a copyright lawsuit over allegations that her recent hit “In Ha Mood” was copied from an earlier track called “In That Mood” by a Brooklyn rapper named D.Chamberz (Duval Chamberlain). Terms of the apparent settlement were not disclosed in court filings. MANILOW BATTLE – Hipgnosis Songs Fund, one of the most influential players in the catalog acquisition market run-up of recent years, is locked in litigation with Barry Manilow – a two-way, trans-Atlantic legal battle that sheds light on the company’s 2020 deal to buy the singer’s royalty income. Billboard’s Elizabeth Dilts Marshall dove deep into the court filings and breaks it all down here.
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TikTok plans to end its subscription streaming service, TikTok Music, the company announced on Tuesday (Sept. 24). TikTok Music, which is currently available in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore and Mexico, will wind down on Nov. 28.
The company will pivot to focus its efforts on the “Add to Music App,” which launched last November and allows users to save a track they discover on TikTok to their preferred streaming service with a few clicks.
“Our Add to Music App feature has already enabled hundreds of millions of track saves to playlists on partner music streaming services,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, said in a statement. “We will be closing TikTok Music at the end of November in order to focus on our goal of furthering TikTok’s role in driving even greater music listening and value on music streaming services, for the benefit of artists, songwriters and the industry.”
To the extent that the “Add to Music App” sends more TikTok users to streaming services to listen to songs they found first via short-form video, the music business views this as a win. The industry believes TikTok doesn’t pay enough when music is consumed on the platform, leading to a headline-grabbing stand-off with Universal Music Group earlier this year. Music rights holders are happier, however, with the rates at Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.
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TikTok launched TikTok Music — Obermann described it as “a new kind of service that combines the power of music discovery on TikTok with a best-in-class streaming service” — in Indonesia and Brazil in July 2023. It expanded to Australia, Singapore, and Mexico in October of that year.
“TikTok Music will make it easy for people to save, download and share their favorite viral tracks from TikTok,” Obermann said in a statement at the time. “We are excited about the opportunities TikTok Music presents for both music fans and artists, and the great potential it has for driving significant value to the music industry.”
The company rolled out the “Add to Music App” soon after, making it available to U.S. and U.K. users in November. The language Obermann used to describe this new feature wasn’t all that different from the way he talked about TikTok Music.
The “Add to Music App” represents “a direct link between discovery on TikTok and consumption on a music streaming service,” Obermann said, “making it easier than ever for music fans to enjoy the full length song on the music streaming service of their choice, thereby generating even greater value for artists and rights holders.”
While TikTok has often seemed like a competitor to streaming services — especially when it comes to cornering the market on music discovery — the “Add to Music App” announcement stressed that they were all happy partners in a listener’s journey.
“We want to create less work to get to the audio you love,” Sten Garmark, Spotify’s global head of consumer experience, said in a statement last year. “That means being everywhere our users are and creating seamless ways to save songs to Spotify to enjoy when and how they choose to listen.”
In February, TikTok expanded access to the Add to Music app, making it available in 163 countries.
Tony Dize has inked a record deal with Rimas Music, and will make his highly-awaited comeback with new music, Billboard can exclusively announce today (Sept. 24). With a trajectory that spans over 20 years, the Puerto Rican artist born Tony Feliciano Rivera gained popularity as “La Melodía de la Calle” (the melody of the streets) thanks to his smooth vocals that backed his signature romantic reggaetón sound.
Rimas — home to Bad Bunny, Arcángel, and Eladio Carrión, to name a few — will not only “revive his classic reggaeton sound but also propel his music into the future, pushing the boundaries of Latin music,” according to a press release.
“This is a very important moment for Rimas and for Tony Dize,” said Junior Carabaño, co-founder of Rimas, in a statement. “Tony’s signing is a testament to our ongoing mission to work with artists who have not only shaped the culture but continue to drive it forward. Over the past year, we’ve been committed to making this partnership a reality, and it’s an honor that Tony has trusted us for this new chapter in his career. Together, we aim to take his timeless sound to new heights and reach even broader audiences worldwide. We can’t wait to make history together.”
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On the Billboard charts, Tony secured nine entries on the Hot Latin Songs chart including “El Doctorado” at No. 8 in 2010. The song also reached No. 1 on Latin Rhythm Airplay for two weeks that same year. In 2014, he peaked at No. 2 on the latter chart with “Prometo Olvidarte.”
He additionally secured his first and only entry on the Billboard 200 chart with his debut album, La Melodía de la Calle, in 2008. He reached No. 1 on Latin Rhythm Albums in 2009 with La Melodía de La Calle (Updated); and in 2015, his set La Melodía de La Calle, 3rd Season, debuted at No. 1 on both Top Latin Albums and Latin Rhythm Albums charts.
Most recently, he was a featured artist on Bad Bunny’s “La Corriente,” part of his Una Verano Sin Ti album. The infectious collab earned Dize his only entry on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2022, and on both Global charts: No. 17 on the Billboard Global 200 and No. 20 on the Global Excl. U.S.
On the heels of the signing, the “Permitame” singer will release his new single “Quisiera,” accompanied by a conceptual video directed by Nuno Gomes.