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LONDON — Tom Kiehl has been announced as the new chief executive of UK Music, succeeding Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, who left the British industry trade body last year to work for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Kiehl has held the role of interim chief executive at UK Music since Njoku-Goodwin’s sudden exit in September. He has worked at the London-based umbrella organization, which represents all sectors of the United Kingdom’s music industry, since 2012 – initially working as director of public affairs before being promoted to deputy CEO in 2018.
In a statement announcing Kiehl’s appointment, UK Music said it had received more than 130 applications for the role and had carried out an “extensive recruitment process” to find its new CEO.
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“We are entering a critical new era of change for the music industry when the political landscape is also rapidly changing. At this important time, I’m confident Tom is the right person for the job,” said Tom Watson, UK Music Chair, in a statement.
Watson went on to say that Kiehl “will be a tireless advocate for our members and our sector – using his wide range of talents to drive UK Music to even greater heights.”
Kiehl’s promotion to the head of UK Music comes less than two weeks before the U.K. general election on July 4 when the country goes to the polls to elect a new government.
Last month, Kiehl called on the leaders of all the main British political parties to support the U.K. music industry’s role as a “key national asset” that is facing intense global competition.
To help grow the British music industry, which generated £6.7 billion ($8.2 billion) for the country’s economy in 2022 and supports 210,000 jobs, according to research commissioned by UK Music, the trade group wants policy makers to protect creators’ rights from being exploited by AI developers, as well as secure a cultural touring agreement with the EU to address many of the lasting issues caused by Brexit.
UK Music also wants the next government to introduce a new tax credit to increase U.K.-based music production and establish tighter regulations for secondary ticketing platforms.
Kiehl’s extensive experience of working with politicians and government officials means that he is well placed to try and achieve those aims. Prior to joining UK Music, the widely respected music executive worked in the Houses of Parliament for 11 years as a senior advisor and researcher for the Liberal Democrat party. More recently, Kiehl led a successful campaign to change planning laws to better protect grassroots music venues.
“It’s an immense privilege and great responsibility to take on the role of leading UK Music at such a pivotal moment,” said Kiehl in a statement.
The newly appointed CEO said he would continue to work with the organization’s members to lobby government officials for measures that would support the music industry “ranging from strong copyright protections and more music teachers, to key safeguards around AI and greater support for music freelancers.”
“My vision for UK Music is to build on our mission of bringing our sector together to speak with one voice and secure our place as the key organization that fuels the growth and prominence of the UK’s music industry,” said Kiehl. “We must be relevant, representative, and able to deliver for the sector in order to achieve this.”
Fly Me to the Moon,” “This Land Is Your Land,” “We Shall Overcome,” “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” “Space Oddity” — the list reads like the top titles in a major music company’s catalog.
But it’s actually a list of just a few of the copyrights in the catalog of the quiet independent publishing giant TRO Essex Music Group. Founded in 1949 by Howie Richmond, a former press agent for the day’s biggest stars like Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller and Gene Krupa who went on to become a pioneering music publisher (and co-founder of the Songwriters Hall of Fame), today’s TRO Essex started under the name Cromwell Inc. and quickly grew into a collection of 22 publishing companies under The Richmond Organization (TRO) umbrella. It became a titan of indie publishing, particularly in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, finding success in jazz with Bill Evans and Alec Wilder, folk with Pete Seeger, Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie, and rock with Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Marc Bolan of T. Rex, The Who and Pete Townshend.
At 75, TRO Essex is still going strong, managing its formidable catalog of publishing and recorded-music interests through its international offices in Hamburg, Germany; London; Paris; and elsewhere. After a few decades of taking on more of a catalog management role, TRO Essex is returning to frontline signings, using proceeds from past evergreens to fund new development.
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“For our 75th anniversary, we started to think about ways we could celebrate our past and move into our next chapter,” says Kathryn “Kathy” Ostien, COO of global music operations. “So we restructured and brought in a whole new A&R team. In 2023, we signed 26 new writers to the publishing catalog. We then launched a new record label called Shamus Records at the end of the year to manage their masters.”
This includes betting on albums arriving this year by newcomers of all genres, including alt-pop talent Sam Louis, indie pop artist Casii Stephan and jazz producer Matt Stevens.
The company is also rolling out the latest album installment in its series Evergreens Reimagined, under Shamus, enlisting its new talent to cover older hits. “It’s an exciting time,” Ostien says. “We are building fast on top of our already incredible base, but we are ready for the future, too.”
Kathryn Ostien
Sabrina Asch Photography
You look after such a rich back catalog, which you administer in-house. What is your strongest income stream?
I feel like it changes every five years, mostly because of the technology that we’ve seen. Obviously, it used to be CDs, tapes, LPs. Mechanicals were everything. Performance has always been strong, too. Overall, I think mechanicals have always remained very steady. Our most iconic catalogs continue to do well with mechanicals as well as synchronization.
When I first came to TRO Essex [in 2000], the synch market wasn’t much of anything. We were outsourcing it. Now it’s a huge amount of what we are doing — talking to the studios in Los Angeles, New York. Any type of synch is important for us — commercials, films, TV shows. The Hollywood strikes did not help last year.
Has synchronization risen now that the strikes are over?
We have definitely seen some nice pickup in the past few months.
Do certain genres in your catalog fare better for synch than others? I’ve heard rock is particularly of interest for synch.
I don’t know that I see it that way. There was a period in the early 2000s where rock was really, really desirable for commercials. Every ad agency wanted a Pete Townshend song. It ebbs and flows and all comes from the studios — sometimes they want hard rock, sometimes they want a standard. It depends. During COVID, we did really well with synch, ironically because we have a lot of wartime peace songs, hopeful songs. Everybody wanted that. It did well with commercials and productions during that time.
Your catalog includes some of America’s most essential protest anthems, and the last five years or so have seen the rise of several social movements. Do you look after those songs with particular care?
We do have a lot of protest songs. It’s interesting, especially with the political climate that we’ve had in the past several years. One of the things we take a lot of pride in is protecting those songs and making sure that they’re being used in the way that they were originally written — you always want to stay true to that. You want to keep songs like “This Land Is Your Land” within the time and [context] it was important. We also represent “We Shall Overcome,” which is very iconic. That song in particular is curated the most heavily because it’s so special to [the Civil Rights] movement.
How has the popularity of sampling, interpolating and more influenced your catalog in the last few decades?
Sampling really started taking off with hip-hop and rap in the late ’90s, and then it really took off in the mid-2000s. It has been great for our back catalog, though, to have new copyrights established on top of songs. A great example is how Joe Cocker’s “Woman to Woman” became 2Pac’s “California Love.” We work with a lot of hip-hop and rap managers to use some of these iconic songs and bring them to life.
The catalog market has been red hot for the last five or so years. Does TRO Essex ever try to acquire more catalogs?
We don’t do acquisitions — we’ve never needed to. We want to grow our company by following our own history, which was always based on discovering new, incredible songs that don’t have a home and seeing what we can do with them.
Was there a period where you completely stopped signing frontline acts? Or was it just a slowdown up until the founding of Shamus Records?
I don’t know if I would say it fully stopped, but [it slowed in] the ’80s to ’90s. This is a large catalog to manage independently. We’re trying now to restart that signing process.
Is there a particular identity you’re trying to build with the Shamus signees?
It’s still so new, and our team here is still so new. Mostly, we’re just trying to do what [founder] Howie [Richmond] did — find songs and acts that we like and see what we can do with them. I don’t know if we really have a brand in mind with our roster, but we were thinking that we wanted to bring some newer sounds to the catalog.
What is one of the most important things you can offer to an act looking to sign to Shamus Records/TRO Essex?
It’s an interesting time right now because metadata is everything. We feel that metadata management takes away from the creativity that writers and artists might have if they didn’t have to sit there and go through all these different portals to try to get their money. That’s something we excel at.
Having accurate and complete metadata — like the names of all the songwriters, the performing rights organizations and publishers they use — is important to keep track of as a publishing administrator. Do you think it is more important than ever to manage metadata closely to ensure you and your talent are paid?
Yes, exactly. We had to bring in new staff just to handle the metadata management. This is true for all publishers. It has been an incredible thing, what happened with [the Music Modernization Act] and the creation of the [Mechanical Licensing Collective]. The MLC has built this portal that so easily allows you to go match and claim royalties for your songs. It has really made it so much easier. There was nothing there before. It has made it much more universal and cleaner.
Doing administration in-house with the caliber of the catalog TRO Essex holds must be a lot of work. How do you keep up with it as an independent player?
It is one of the hard things about remaining independent because as the revenue increases, the administration costs increase as well, if you’re doing it correctly.
I’m sure anyone would be interested in buying or administering this catalog for TRO Essex. Why was it important to make sure that you are always independent, always doing your own administration despite the challenges that come with it?
I’m not the right one to speak about why we never sold, but the motivation was just never there for us. We’re proud of what we do. We’re strong. We’re financially very healthy. We don’t think anybody else knows these copyrights as well as us, and we’re good at what we do.
There are several emerging revenue streams in music, particularly in social media licensing. TikTok has made headlines this year for its strained negotiations with Universal Music Group. Are these sources of income good moneymakers for your catalog?
I haven’t seen that [TikTok payments] make a huge [boost] to us financially, but every way you can get a catalog out there is important, especially with a vintage catalog. It’s a new way to introduce it. We just need to be paid appropriately. We follow the guidance of the [National Music Publishers’ Association].
Another emerging area of the music business is artificial intelligence, which could provide risks and benefits to catalog holders. Some are even using AI to market catalogs. Do you have any estates interested in leaning into AI for this purpose?
There’s so much more to understand about AI. At this point, I don’t believe it affects us as greatly as it would probably some of the current recording artists, mostly because of the copying of the voices and likenesses. For us, our copyrights are much more secure bedrocks. It’ll be interesting to see how AI develops and what that true impact is on copyright. We haven’t had anyone really concerned from an estate or writer perspective. As I said earlier, though, every five years it seems there’s a sea change. We’re watching it.
Given that you have such a strong back catalog, it would be easy to say, “That’s it.” You’re just going to keep doing the administration and not push forward into signing new acts. Frontline is so risky. Why was it important to continue to sign new talent?
It’s a lot of work managing a catalog like this, and it presents different, evolving challenges around the world, so for a long time that’s what we did. However, looking at the 75th anniversary, we decided we wanted to breathe new life into it. We wanted to create these new covers, explore a new sound and see what we could do to reinvigorate it. While we were at it, we just thought, “OK, let’s see what else we can sign.” It’s an exciting time to celebrate this incredible history of the past 75 years and then look at the next 75 years with so much hope and excitement.
This story originally appeared in the June 22, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Giant Music, the record label launched under The Azoff Company banner in 2022, has signed Australian singer/songwriter Ruel, the company tells Billboard. This marks the first signing for Nate Albert, who joined Giant Music as president in January. The label will release “Kiss Me,” Ruel’s cover of the hit song by Sixpence None the Richer, on Thursday (June 27).
“Ruel is truly a singular talent, and we are thrilled to be part of his next chapter,” said Albert in a statement.
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Best known for songs like “Painkiller,” “Dazed & Confused” and “GROWING UP IS ___”, Ruel released his debut album, 4TH WALL, last year. In August, he’s slated to play Lollapalooza for the first time.
Also this week…
Hip-hop producer, singer and songwriter Lithe signed with WME for global representation. The Melbourne-bred artist began putting out music in 2018 and has released several EPs since. His single “Fall Back,” released in March, currently boasts more than 97 million streams on Spotify. He’s managed by Benjamin James of Mutual Friends.
Boston-bred alt-rock band Vundabar signed to Loma Vista Recordings. The label released the group’s new garage-rock song, “I Got Cracked,” on Tuesday (June 25). Composed of Brandon Hagen, Drew McDonald and Zack Abramo, Vundabar is best known for its RIAA platinum-certified track “Alien Blues,” which boasts more than 540 million streams on Spotify alone. “Vundabar has already accomplished so much as a totally independent band, and we are thrilled to welcome them to Loma Vista for this exciting next stage of their career,” said Loma Vista A&R Susan Busch in a statement. The band is managed by Ally Ehasz and Zack Zarrillo at Alternate Side and booked by Greg Horbal and Carly Goldberg at Wasserman.
Rising country singer-songwriter Bayker Blankenship (“Maxed Out”) signed with Lone Star/Santa Anna Records. According to a press release, “Maxed Out” boasts more than 26,000 creates and more than 6 million views on TikTok. In a statement, Alamo Records/Santa Anna Records CEO Todd Moscowitz said the song “is quickly establishing itself as a very reactive hit.”
Drew Baldridge signed with UTA for representation in all areas. The country singer-songwriter’s single “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” currently sits at No. 15 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart, a feat he reached without the backing of a major label or a management team. Baldridge is signed with Sony Music Publishing. His team also consists of business manager Becky Harris (Huskin-Harris Business Management) and attorney Jeff Biederman (Greenberg Traurig, LLP). – Jessica Nicholson
Grammy-nominated artist, songwriter and producer Gallant (“Weight in Gold,” “Cave Me In”) signed with Mom+Pop Music. The first release under the deal is Gallant’s new single, “Coldstar.” Gallant has collaborated with artists including Dua Lipa, Zhu, Brandy, Noah Cyrus and Sufjan Stevens and appeared at festivals including Coachella, Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits.
10K Projects signed virtual artist angelbaby via Web3 agency Hume and and will re-release the track “Life Is Good” featuring Jagwar Twin. “This agreement is a major milestone for Hume as we continue our mission to become Pixar for music,” said the Hume team in a statement. “We’ve been looking for a partner that can push our artists further into culture and we’re excited to work towards that goal with 10K on ‘Life Is Good.’”
Big Loud Records signed singer-songwriter Kashus Culpepper. The Alabama native began performing during a deployment with the U.S. Navy in Rota, Spain. On Friday (June 21), the label released his single “After Me?”. Culpepper is repped by CAA for booking and managed by Jay Harren. – Jessica Nicholson
Dexter and the Moonrocks, “a formerly country/western band” that now makes “Western Space Grunge music,” according to a press release, signed to Severance Records, an imprint of Big Loud Rock. The label will release the band’s latest EP — aptly titled Western Space Grunge — on July 19. “Bleach,” the first song from the EP, was released on June 12. The band is managed by Chris Schoemann at Lion’s Claw Entertainment and booked by Mike Krug at WME.
Country singer-songwriter Ashland Craft signed with independent record label Leo33. Craft has supported artists including Cody Johnson, Ashley McBryde, Zac Brown Band, Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen on tour. She recently wrapped her Damascus Acoustic Tour with Elvie Shane and performed at CMA Fest. She’s next slated to play festivals including Summerfest, Watershed Music Festival and Field & Stream Festival.
Chicago-based private equity firm Flexpoint Ford said on Tuesday that it invested $165 million in Create Music Group in a funding round that a source said values Create as worth $1 billion. Create plans to use the money to scale operations, expand services and fund acquisitions, said CEO & founder Jonathan Strauss. “Flexpoint’s investment will […]
The consortium acquiring French music company Believe increased its holdings to 94.99% of share equity at the conclusion of the tender offer, the company announced Monday (June 25). That marks a nearly 10% increase from the 85.04% of shares the consortium held a week earlier.
Led by CEO Denis Ladegaillerie, who founded Believe in 2005 to take advantage of the rapidly evolving digital music business, the consortium purchased 19.6 million shares at 15.00 euros ($16.10) per share during the offer, which ran from June 3 to June 21. Combined with blocks of shares previously acquired from investors, the consortium now holds 95.6 million of the 100.7 million shares outstanding. The free float — shares owned by minority investors — is 5.01%. The consortium, which also includes major shareholders EQT and TCV, commands 106.5 million of 113 million — 94.29% — of Believe’s voting rights.
While the consortium does not plan on executing a mandatory squeeze-out for shares not tendered by minority shareholders, because the free float — shares not held by insiders that can be publicly traded — has fallen under 15%, Believe will be de-listed from some stock indexes.
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Also on Monday, Believe announced the appointment of Andrew Fisher, a new director representing EQT, after venture capital firm Ventech sold its shares to the consortium and lost a director. Fisher’s ratification will go to a vote in the 2024 annual general meeting. The board additionally appointed two observers: Michael Kalfayan, general partner at TCV, and Nicolas Brugère, partner at EQT.
The consortium announced a takeover bid for Believe in February at 15.00 euros ($16.10), which represented a 21% premium over the prior closing price. According to an offer document, the consortium wants to take over the company “so that it can better execute on its value-creation plan and accelerate the scale-up of an independent player supporting artists and label clients” and “further grow and consolidate its position as a leader in the French and European markets.”
After the Believe board of directors backed the takeover bid on April 19, the consortium purchased a large block of shares from venture capital firms XAnge and Ventech. Before the acquisitions, TCV was the biggest shareholder with 41.1% of share capital, while Ladegaillerie owned 12.5%, private equity firm Ventech owned 12.0%, XAnge owned 6.3% and roughly 3.8% of shares were held by a strategic holding fund and in treasury shares. Free float was 24.4%.
Warner Music Group briefly looked at acquiring Believe in March and estimated a bid of “at least” 17 euros ($18.24) per share, which would have valued the company at 1.65 billion euros ($1.8 billion). But the pursuit was short-lived; Warner dropped out of the running in April.
Any music lover knows that a great song transcends borders and languages. Now, that unifying power is being leveraged as a diplomatic tool.
On Monday (June 24), YouTube announced a partnership with the U.S. State Department as part of the Global Music Diplomacy Initiative, a program launched last September by U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken that aims to use music to promote peace and diplomacy around the world.
The project centers around a group of genre-spanning artists who will act as musical ambassadors. Chuck D, Herbie Hancock, Jelly Roll, Armani White, Breland, Denyce Graves, Grace Bowers, Justin Tranter, Kane Brown, Lainey Wilson and Teddy Swims are all participating, with additional artists to be announced.
The Global Music Diplomacy Initiative is an extension of the PEACE through Music Diplomacy Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden last year and directed the State Department to facilitate public-private partnerships that would support music-related diplomacy.
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YouTube was selected as a partner given its global reach and influence on music culture worldwide. The partnership will include micro-grants to support people who use music to create positive change in their communities; YouTube will also assist the State Department in its work using music as a tool for learning English. Additionally, they will team up to engage audiences and aspiring artists in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France and India and “utilize major international gatherings to inspire action around the unifying power of music,” according to a blog post written by YouTube global head of music Lyor Cohen and YouTube vp of public policy Leslie Miller.
In a joint statement, Cohen and Miller wrote, “Music is a unifying force — it transcends language, cultural and national differences. It helps us understand and appreciate each other in ways almost nothing else can. During the height of the Cold War, the United States launched the Jazz Ambassadors program to send artists like Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughn overseas to bridge cultural gaps and cultivate goodwill across the globe. The Jazz Ambassadors program left a lasting legacy, demonstrating the power of music as a diplomatic tool for fostering cultural understanding.”
“We’re excited to be a part of the next chapter in music diplomacy, helping to amplify the voices of artists and strengthen our community bonds across borders,” the statement continued. “Music reminds us more of what we can have in common than what separates us. That is the message we intend to echo around the world as we embark on this partnership, using the power of music to inspire peace for all.”
CAA’s global touring division has made its first major hire since announcing new leadership earlier this month, bringing veteran music agent Cheryl Paglierani and her A-list clients Post Malone, rapper 21 Savage, Flo Milli, Jessie Murp and Dominic Fike to the agency. Paglierani joins CAA from UTA, where she served as a partner. She previously […]
A filmmaker is suing Warner Music over the 2021 Tom Petty documentary Somewhere You Feel Free, calling the movie a “brazen exploitation” that used nearly an hour of his copyrighted film footage without permission.
In a lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles federal court, Martyn Atkins says he never gave the Somewhere producers consent to use hours of footage he filmed of the music legend during the 1990s but that the movie nonetheless contained “a shocking 45 minutes” of his materials.
“Atkins did not provide consent, did not otherwise license any of the footage, and was not compensated in any manner for the Film’s unauthorized, brazen exploitation of the works Atkins created and owns,” his attorneys wrote in a June 18 complaint.
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Released in March 2021, Somewhere You Feel Free promised viewers “never-before-seen footage” of Petty as he worked on his 1994 album Wildflowers. Much of the footage was filmed by Atkins, who served as art director for the album and says he often documented the proceedings with a 16mm camera. Later, Atkins says he and the music legend watched the footage and discussed eventually using it to create such a documentary.
But after Petty’s tragic death in 2017, the project didn’t come together until 2020, when Atkins says he was invited to a meeting with Petty’s daughter and other reps from his estate. After they promised him the job of directing the upcoming documentary, Atkins says, he provided them with a detailed breakdown of where he had stored the original footage at Warner Music’s storage facility.
But after that first encounter, he says he was “never asked to another meeting.”
“Atkins had been conned into believing he would produce and direct the film so that Atkins would reveal the location of his footage to defendants,” his lawyers write. “He was then cut out completely — in every imaginable respect. He was not even told as a courtesy that his works would be misappropriated and featured, let alone asked his consent.”
When he saw the movie, Atkins says he says he was shocked at what he saw: Roughly half of the movie’s 90-minute runtime was composed of his footage, including some of the “most compelling and iconic shots of Petty” in the movie. “Atkins simply could not believe it.”
A likely defense argument from Warner Music is that Atkins produced the footage as a so-called work-for-hire — a legal term meaning he created it at the request of someone else. If true, that would mean that even though Atkins filmed the footage, the rights to it were retained by Petty or the label. After all, he was the art director on Petty’s album and stored the film in Warner’s facilities.
But in his lawsuit, Atkins specifically aimed to preempt that argument: “The footage Atkins shot … was not subject to a work-for-hire or other such agreement. Atkins did not license the footage to Petty, Warner Records, any Warner Records affiliate, or anybody else. He was not acting as an employee of Petty or Warner Records, or any other party [and] here is no agreement in existence relating to any of the film footage.”
Beyond simply using the footage, the lawsuit claims that Somewhere‘s producers have “repeatedly misrepresented” that the footage was “magically and unexpectedly discovered” before the documentary was shot. “The film’s producers have systematically implemented this false narrative to manipulate the viewing public and bolster the marketing of the film,” the complaint reads.
In technical terms, the lawsuit names Warner Music unit WMG Productions LLC, as well as the film’s production company, Girl On LSD LLC. The lawsuit includes counts of direct and secondary copyright infringement and a claim that the defendants effectively stole his property.
Read the entire lawsuit here:
The board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Monday (June 24) that CEO Bill Kramer will continue in his role through July 2028. Kramer’s contract, up for renewal in 2025, was approved one year early due to what the Academy calls “his exceptional leadership and significant contributions.” “Bill […]
Last July, more than 70 country songwriters and producers filtered into Sony Music Publishing’s Nashville office to hear a presentation from Beatstars, the popular website that allows artists to buy or lease full instrumentals for their own use. Seth Mosley, whose recent co-writes include songs recorded by Tim McGraw and Gabby Barrett, was in attendance that day, and he was compelled by the company’s pitch. He started posting beats on the platform regularly in December, hoping it could provide him with a new income stream — and another source of exposure.
But this way of working is unusual in country music. Beatstars was initially popularized by rappers and singers in R&B and pop, genres where it’s common for vocalists to use a fully-formed track as a jumping-off point. Music-making in Nashville is often more traditional, with ace session musicians recording in revered studios — a world away from the fast-moving online beat economy.
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With time, though, Beatstars’ success stories have become more varied, spreading to realms that were once ruled by bands playing instruments. ThxSoMch and Wisp found post-punk and neo-shoegaze instrumentals, respectively, on the platform, added their own vocals, and scored breakout moments and major-label deals. And country could be the next frontier.
Beatstars is noticing heightened interest in the genre as it surges in the U.S., says Greg Mateo, the platform’s president of music and publishing. In Mosley’s six months on Beatstars, he’s learned that “anything that’s got a Morgan Wallen spin to it is in high demand.”
That demand is growing on other music-making platforms as well. Bandlab, a mobile music creation app that now has more than 100 million users, has also seen excitement for country elevate in the U.S., according to CEO Meng Ru Kuok.
On top of that, statistics from Splice, which provides producers with a massive library of samples, indicate that its 8 million-strong user base is incorporating country flavors with greater frequency this year. User searches for “country” have more than doubled compared to 2023. And their interest in samples of instruments associated with the genre has soared, including banjo (searches are up 75%), mandolin (66%), pedal steel (113%) and fiddle (131%).
Producer BachBeats, who sells country instrumentals online, predicts that this enthusiasm on music creation platforms is only going to increase: The recent release of Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s collaboration “I Had Some Help,” which landed one of the biggest streaming debuts in history, “is going to bring a bunch of people from the hip-hop world into country.”
Beyoncé‘s recent references to the genre helped too, according to Xzaviar, another producer who sells country instrumentals. He says downloads of his productions “ticked up” after she released Cowboy Carter in March.
But importantly, the phenomenon appears larger than any single act or album: Xzaviar has quadrupled his income from beat sales on YouTube and Beatstars since August, with instrumentals in the style of Wallen or Zach Bryan performing especially well. It’s notable that, even though country music is most beloved in America, only 65% of Xzaviar’s sales come from the U.S.
Beatstars is trying to capitalize on this interest — and fan the flames. In June, they launched a new playlist to highlight their top country producers. “They’re really focused on country and getting a lot of country creators on the platform,” says Kenley Flynn, vp of creative for Sony Music Publishing Nashville. (The publisher and Beatstars first formed a partnership in 2020.)
Still, the rise of country in the online music-making economy may not be immediately felt in Nashville. Even though pre-programmed tracks aren’t uncommon in contemporary country, this model of working — buying a beat on a website — flies in the face of the industry’s longtime system for songwriting and producing. “The biggest hurdle for us is just it’s so not how the Nashville creative community operates,” Flynn acknowledges. “These writers are used to creating from 11a.m. till 3 p.m. in a room with two or three others,” often people they know.
And when it comes to producers, artists often find one they like and rely on that person to “cut everything,” Mosley says. In pop or hip-hop, every song on an album might be overseen by someone different, and each track could contain elements from a beat-maker that neither the artist nor the producer has met in person. That grab-bag approach remains rare in country music.
Norms are shifting in the genre, though — adaptations that are increasingly necessary since a country hit can now come from anywhere. More coastal record companies are signing country artists directly instead of relying on their Nashville office, for example. And country labels are increasingly taking part in the signing conversations around artists who go viral.
In other genres, the hits that explode on social media platforms are often cobbled together with help from places like Beatstars or Bandlab. It’s not a stretch to imagine the next Priscilla Block or Tucker Wetmore buying a “Morgan Wallen type beat” on YouTube before embarking on a savvy social media campaign that sparks a viral trend. As a “new generation of artists and songwriters comes in [to the music industry] they’re going to use the modern tools,” says Corey McAfee, who serves as director of global copyright for Sony Music Publishing Nashville.
The economics of these music creation platforms also position them to help would-be country stars. “If you’re bartending to make money and work on your music part-time, it can be very expensive to get in a room with a full band,” says David Morris, a Nashville-based rapper and singer who works with BachBeats and other country producers on Beatstars. “You need to be able to explore your sound or write to music, and you can lease some of these beats for less than $100.” (A lease comes with only limited rights, so if a song becomes a hit an artist has to make a new deal with the producer; acts also have the option to buy out beats from the start, though that is slightly more expensive.)
Band members might be able to benefit from offering their work online as well. “It’s not just so-called beat-makers on these platforms,” McAfee notes. “Maybe you’re an amazing guitar player, which we know this city is full of, and you’re making guitar loops” that can be used by vocalists around the world.
For Flynn, the math is simple. “Big songs have come from Beatstars, and there are producers on the platform that are earning tons of money by just selling their beats,” he says. For country artists and producers, “there’s a huge opportunity.”