Business
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The estate of Ronnie Spector, best known as the lead singer of iconic girl group The Ronettes, has enlisted Artist Legacy Group (ALG) to be its exclusive representative. Under the deal, ALG will provide comprehensive management services for the estate, including oversight of Spector’s personality rights and administration of her official digital and social media assets. ALG CEO Ashley Austin will also spearhead branded media, licensing and anniversary projects. A film adaptation of Spector’s memoir, Be My Baby, is currently in development at A24. Spector’s husband, Jonathan Greenfield, serves as managing director of the estate.
Lil Yachty launched Concrete Rekordz, a new record label joint venture with Quality Control Music/HYBE. The announcement was accompanied by “Family Business,” a new track and music video from Concrete Boys — a group composed of Lil Yachty, Karrahbooo and Camo! — that will make its home on the label. The group is slated to release its first compilation album, It’s Us Volume 1, on Friday (April 5).
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Dubai-based streaming platform OSN+ and music streaming service Anghami announced the completion of OSN+’s purchase of a majority stake in Anghami after receiving all necessary regulatory approvals. First announced in November, the merger puts OSN+ parent company OSN Group’s majority stake in Anghami at a valuation of $3.69 per share. According to a press release, the deal creates a company that boasts more than 120 million registered users, around 2.5 million paid subscribers and nearly $100 million in revenue at closing while bringing together OSN+’s library of 18,000 hours of video content with Anghami’s catalog of more than 100 million songs and podcasts. The combined entity will be led by Elie Habib, co-founder/CEO of Anghami, as CEO. Joe Kawkabani will remain CEO of OSN Group.
Virgin Music Group has partnered with 3AM Entertainment, a new label founded by British-Indian artist Jay Sean, producer/executive Jeremy Skaller and Jared Cotter, manager/vp of music at Range Media Partners. 3AM will focus on artists from the South Asian diaspora of all different genres. The first release under the deal is “Heartless,” a new single from Jay Sean featuring Ikky that’s slated for release on Friday (April 5); it will be followed by an album. Skaller and Cotter will serve as co-presidents at the new label, with Cotter continuing in his role at Range. Elsewhere, Sean’s longtime manager, Thara Natalie, will be chief operations manager; Madison Bickel will serve as GM; and Mahima Sharma will serve as an A&R out of New Delhi, India. Additionally, Sean’s co-manager, Aayushman Sinha, and his team at management company Represent will consult on A&R and strategy out of Mumbai, India.
Soundmouse by Orfium was selected as the official music reporting partner for broadcasters in South Korea by the South Korean Broadcast Music Identifying System (BROMIS), a consortium led by major broadcasters including KBS, MBC, SBS and four collecting societies. Under the three-year agreement, Soundmouse by Orfium’s music cue sheet reporting and audio recognition fingerprinting technology will be used by 36 broadcasters to track music usage across 175 TV channels and radio stations in Korea. Soundmouse by Orfium’s reports will be used to inform royalty distributions to songwriter, artist, producer and rights holder members of South Korean collecting societies. The deal was supported by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korean Copyright Commission.
Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP) acquired two music festivals: Rocklahoma and Born & Raised, both of which are held at Rockin Red Dirt Ranch in Pryor, Okla. DWP will continue working with Pryor Creek Music Festivals, the original creator of both festivals, while several remaining stakeholders will remain involved in both events in 2024 and beyond. This year’s Rocklahoma is slated to run from Aug. 30-Sept. 1 with headliners Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed and Slipknot. Born & Raised will take place Sept. 13-15 with Turnpike Troubadours, Whiskey Myers, Gary Allan and more.
BMG has acquired Dr. Alban‘s recorded interests in his catalog, including ’90s Eurodance hits “It’s My Life” and “Sing Hallelujah!” The company already owned the label share of the recordings. The catalog of the Nigerian-born Swedish artist and producer, born Alban Nwapa, also includes tracks such as “Hello Afrika” and “No Coke.”
Numero Group announced a partnership with New York indie rock label Tiger Style Records. Under the deal, Tiger Style’s catalog of 40 albums and a dozen EPs have been absorbed into the Numero Group ecosystem, including works by The American Analog Set, The Appleseed Cast, The Mercury Program, Tristeza, Her Space Holiday, The Album Leaf, Rye Coalition and Ida. Formed in 1998, Tiger Style, once owned by online music retailer Insound, went on hiatus more than 20 years ago. Much of the label’s discography is now available digitally via Numero Group, with several physical LP reissues and box sets slated for next year.
Industrial-focused private equity firm Allied Industrial Partners made an investment in Celebrity Coaches, a Nashville-based provider of transportation and logistics for the live entertainment sector. Celebrity Coaches will continue to be led by its founder, Jeff Michael, who will retain an ownership stake along with other members of the company’s management team including Josh Trivett.
ASM Global signed a multi-year booking agreement with Nevada tavern and slot route operator Golden Entertainment for exclusive booking rights to the company’s Laughlin Event Center and The Edge Pavilion — two music venues located at the Edgewater Casino Resort.
Music data company Musixmatch partnered with Runway in a deal that will bring the latter’s AI-powered media generation technology to the more than 1 million artists and musicians in the Musixmatch community, which will have access to Gen-2 and other Runway models to create synchronized lyrics and videos.
WavMaker, a music licensing platform that offers a music catalog for video creators featuring songs that have been cleared for commercial use, launched with $5 million in seed funding. The company was founded by CEO Matt Arcaini, director of label services Mark Stuart and director of marketing Caleb Grimm. The funding round was led by Vicky Patel, a principal in the Nashville-based record label Wavy Records and co-founder/principal at Monarch Media. The funds will be used to expand the platform’s capabilities, hire staff and increase customer outreach.
Business-to-business music and streaming platform Tuned Global partnered with international travel media network Spafax, which provides content technology and media assets for airlines to power cleared music playlists in in-flight entertainment systems. Spafax clients include Emirates, Qatar Airways, IAG, Lufthansa Group and Air Canada. Through the deal, Tuned Global will provide music-as-a-service a content management tool for Spafax curators to generate playlists. Spafax will also benefit from Tuned Global’s integration with music rights management and reporting company Crunch Digital, which verifies musical works available for use under Spafax and airlines’ existing music licenses with record labels and publishers.
It’s all about the artist, music executives say (and say and say). If you really look at the industry over time, though, it’s really all about the formats — the health of the business may have more to do with how people listen to music than what they actually listen to. For the last decade, that has been on-demand streaming, and the music business has boomed — from total revenue of $6.7 billion in 2014 to $17.1 billion last year, according to the late-March RIAA report. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the industry is worth almost double what it was at the beginning of the streaming boom. Internationally, the story is broadly similar — the business was worth $13 billion in 2014 and $28.6 billion last year, according to IFPI statistics.
In the U.S., at least, growth is slowing — revenue rose from $15.9 billion to $17.1 billion last year, and it hasn’t grown much in the last two years, accounting for inflation. The reason is simple: There are only so many streaming subscriptions to sell, and the U.S. now has a 12-month average of 96.8 million on-demand subscriptions in a country of 127 million households. It’s hard to know when we’ll reach Peak Subscription — 105 million in a year? 110 million in two? — but slower growth in the number of subscribers seems inevitable. This is one reason record companies are cutting back. It’s the end of hypergrowth for creators and rightsholders — at least in some places.
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Those places also include most of Europe, where the recorded music business grew 8.9%, according to the IFPI’s 2024 Global Music Report, compared with 7.4% in the U.S. and Canada. In the developing world, where the music business is much smaller, the figures tell a very different story: Asia was up 14.9%, with much of that growth coming from China, which was up 25.9%; Latin America grew for the 14th consecutive year, by 19.4%; and revenue from sub-Saharan Africa rose 24.7%. These increases are taking place in smaller businesses, but they mean that there’s plenty of room for growth — it’s just moving south and east.
We’ve all heard the simple and optimistic version of what comes next: Just wait until everyone in China, India and Brazil subscribes to a streaming service! (I hope they subscribe to Billboard Pro while they’re at it.) But this assumes a world where the global middle class continues to grow, trade and prosperity continue to expand, and developing economies stay relatively stable. Alas, as the small print says, past performance is not indicative of future results. Over the past two years, Russia has gone from a developing market into a geopolitical adversary, and tensions between the U.S. and China are heating up. (Whatever you think of globalization, it will be far worse in reverse.) If the U.S. forces a sale of TikTok, could China retaliate by imposing limits on American music? Could inflation in Latin America hurt consumer purchasing power in a way that stifles a streaming business that still depends more on advertising? Whatever happens is beyond the control of the music business. The potential is incredible — it’s just not reliable.
The truth is that there’s still plenty of opportunity in developed markets, including plenty of room to raise streaming subscription prices, but creators and rightsholders don’t have to just sit around and wait for that. Other opportunities are emerging, and growth could be fueled by licensing music for AI training, as well as for social media, video games, and the next iteration of the technology formerly known as the Metaverse.
Some of the most exciting opportunities might come from a traditional business model: Selling stuff. Yes, I know, it’s all so unbearably dreary compared to the “Free” future we were told to expect. But consider that, adjusted for inflation, the U.S. recorded music market is still only two-thirds the size of its 1999 peak. Back then — how old does that sound? — much of that revenue came from serious fans who bought a couple of albums a month instead of a couple of albums a year, mostly for more than the cost of a monthly streaming subscription today. Such dedication explains the fantastic growth in the vinyl market, which rose from $243.8 million in 2014 to $1.4 billion last year — almost a sixth the size of the music business of a decade ago in 2023 dollars. (I am proud to say that I have done my part.)
Sure, vinyl growth is slowing, too — the format isn’t for everyone and I am running out of shelf space myself, but consumers have demonstrated a willingness to spend more on their favorite artists, which is why music executives are so excited about superfans, which could be the most exciting opportunity available. The last decade of the music business was about making a hundred dollars a year from millions of people. The next 10 years will be about making millions — OK, probably thousands, but you get the idea — from hundreds of people. That won’t be easy, though. The music industry has always been, pardon the pun, a volume business. Making money from superfans requires finding that, figuring out what they want to buy, and marketing that, presumably online, better than live promoters or dedicated startups.
This could also solve one of the biggest problems with the recorded music business: it’s not making stars fast enough, and the new ones it has don’t shine for so many people. But what is a big problem in the hit-driven streaming business doesn’t matter so much when it comes to monetizing superfans — older acts still do big business, and there are riches in niches. From a financial perspective, K-pop is essentially a high-margin merchandise business focused on an audience that’s dedicated but not quite mainstream. And if labels are going to keep growing in the U.S. and Europe, at least some of their business might look a lot like that.
An attorney who filed one of the several sexual abuse lawsuits against Sean “Diddy” Combs is now facing potential discipline himself after a federal judge in another case sharply criticized him for filing suits designed to “garner media attention” and “embarrass defendants.”
In an order issued Wednesday (April 3) in a separate lawsuit, Judge Denise Cote referred Tyrone Blackburn to the grievance committee for New York’s federal court district – an entity that decides whether attorneys have violated court rules. She cited his conduct in five different lawsuits, saying Blackburn’s filings in those cases had featured “glaring deficiencies.”
“A reasonable inference from Blackburn’s pattern of behavior is that he improperly files cases in federal court to garner media attention, embarrass defendants with salacious allegations, and pressure defendants to settle quickly,” Judge Cote wrote. “Indeed, his submissions to this court have been rife with disturbing allegations against the defendants and defense counsel.”
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The order, which came in a legal malpractice lawsuit Blackburn filed last year, referred him to the grievance committee for the Southern District of New York for “such action as it deems appropriate.”
Judge Cote’s ruling is notable because Blackburn is currently serving as lead counsel to Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, a producer who filed a sweeping abuse lawsuit against Combs in February. The lawsuit is one of several such cases filed against Combs, in addition to a federal criminal investigation that led to raids of his homes last month. Combs has strongly denied all allegations of wrongdoing.
In an email to Billboard on Thursday, Blackburn said: “Not sure how this is at all relevant to Rodney Jones’ case, or any other case I have. This will not have any impact on my ability to proceed in Mr. Jones’ case. Although Judge Cote’s decision was a referral to the SDNY’s grievance committee, and not a sanction, I plan on appealing the decision.”
In his lawsuit last month, Jones accused Combs of repeated sexual assault and harassment while Jones was working as a producer on the rapper’s 2023 The Love Album. But he also went further, claiming that Diddy and others had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the federal RICO statute best known for criminal cases against the Mafia. As part of those claims, he named several other prominent people as members of that alleged illegal conspiracy, including Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge and former Motown CEO Ethiopia Habtemariam.
Blackburn has already faced scrutiny over those accusations filed on Jones’ behalf. In her response to the lawsuit, Combs’ attorney, Shawn Holley, took the unusual step of calling out her opposing counsel by name, saying that Blackburn had “ignored” evidence of Combs’ innocence before filing the case.
“Our attempts to share this proof with Mr. Jones’ attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, have been ignored, as Mr. Blackburn refuses to return our calls,” Holley said at the time. “We will address these outlandish allegations in court and take all appropriate action against those who make them.”
Last week, attorneys for UMG took similar aim at Blackburn. Arguing that Grainge had “utterly nothing to do” with the allegations against Diddy, the label’s lawyers said the claims were so “offensively false” that they would seek to punish Blackburn himself for filing them.
“A license to practice law is a privilege,” wrote Donald Zakarin, a longtime music industry litigator who represents UMG and Grainge. “Mr. Blackburn, plaintiff’s lawyer, has misused that license to self-promote, gratuitously, falsely and recklessly accusing the UMG defendants of criminal behavior.”
UMG’s filing last week said the company would seek legal sanctions against Blackburn under federal Rule 11, which requires lawyers to make a “reasonable inquiry” into allegations they file in court. That’s the same rule that Judge Cote cited Wednesday in her ruling against Blackburn, saying “his actions in this and prior cases indicate a repeated failure to meet his Rule 11 obligations.”
In arriving at that conclusion, the judge cited multiple instances in which Blackburn allegedly filed cases in the wrong court without properly investigating whether it was the right jurisdiction, as well as an incident in which he called a defense attorney “a disgusting racist” amid a dispute over picking a mediator. The judge also cited an allegation from an opposing lawyer that Blackburn had specifically filed a case in federal court, rather than state court, “because doing so would make the press more likely to pick up on it.”
“Significant resources have been spent by judges of the court and defendants named in actions he has filed to address glaring deficiencies in his filings,” Judge Cote wrote in her ruling on Wednesday. “A referral to this court’s Grievance Committee is warranted.”
It’s unclear how long such a case will take before the grievance committee renders a decision, or what kind of disciplinary measures the body might hand down.
Madonna is firing back at a class action lawsuit filed by New York City fans who are angry that her concerts started later than scheduled, arguing that needing to “get up early to go to work” the next day is not the kind of legal “injury” someone can sue over.
In a motion filed Wednesday, the Material Girl’s lawyers urged a federal judge to dismiss the case, in which ticket buyers Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden accused her of breaking the law by starting three December shows in Brooklyn more than two hours later than the scheduled.
That lawsuit made headlines because the plaintiffs justified their claims in part by arguing that they “had to get up early to go to work” the next day. But in their response, Madonna’s lawyers said that’s hardly the kind of legal “injury” that can result in a lawsuit.
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“Plaintiffs speculate that ticketholders who left the venue after 1 a.m. might have had trouble getting a ride home or might have needed to wake up early the next day for work,” wrote Madonna’s lawyers. “That is not a cognizable injury.”
Far from suffering harm, Madonna’s lawyers say Hadden “raved” about the show in question on social media, posting that the concert was “incredible, as always!” on his Facebook page. “In other words, the concert met or exceeded his expectations.”
An attorney for the defendants did not immediately return a request for comment.
Fellows and Hadden filed their case in January, claiming Madonna and concert giant Live Nation breached contracts with buyers and violated state laws covering false advertising and unfair business practices by starting the shows late. The case, a proposed class action, aims to represent thousands of others who allegedly faced a similar experience.
At issue are three concerts at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, stops on Madonna’s Celebration Tour, that had originally been scheduled for July but were shifted to December due to the singer’s illness. Fellows and Hadden said they expected their show to start on time, and “would not have paid for their tickets had they known that the concerts would start after 10:30 p.m.”
“Defendants failed to provide any notice to the ticketholders that the concerts would start much later than the start time printed on the ticket and as advertised,” attorneys for the two men wrote.
But in Wednesday’s response, attorneys representing both Madonna and Live Nation said that anyone buying a concert ticket is well aware that the show likely won’t start at the exact time printed on the ticket.
“Nowhere did Defendants advertise that Madonna would take the stage at 8.30 p.m., and no reasonable concertgoer—and certainly no Madonna fan—would expect the headline act at a major arena concert to take the stage at the ticketed event time,” the star’s lawyers wrote. “Rather, a reasonable concertgoer would understand that the venue’s doors will open at or before the ticketed time, one or more opening acts may perform while attendees arrive and make their way to their seats and before the headline act takes the stage, and the headline act will take the stage later in the evening.”
Rather than suffering harm, they say Fellows and Hadden “got just what they paid for: a full-length, high-quality show by the Queen of Pop.”
“Plaintiffs do not allege Madonna’s performance was subpar, that her performance was worth less than what they paid, or that they left the concert before watching her entire performance,” her lawyers wrote. “Indeed, plaintiffs do not plead any injury that they themselves suffered by spending the night at an ‘incredible’ concert.”
Spotify named Christian Luiga on Thursday (April 4) to be its new chief financial officer to replace Paul Vogel, who stepped down from the CFO role at the end of March. Luiga will be Spotify’s third CFO in five years, and he takes charge of financial planning and analysis amidst changes to how the streaming […]
Florentino Primera, of the iconic Venezuelan brother duo Servando y Florentino, has signed a global publishing and neighboring rights deal with peermusic Publishing and peermusic Neighboring Rights, Billboard has learned.
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The agreement comes on the heels of Primera — who started his career alongside his brother in the 90s kids salsa group Salserín — appearing onstage at the Monumental Simón Bolívar de La Rinconada Stadium with Karol G on March 22. The Colombian star brought out the siblings as surprise guests during her stadium show in Caracas, Venezuela where they performed “De Sol a Sol.” Primera is also working on his upcoming new album.
“Writing songs has become one of the most fulfilling things in my life,” Primera said in a statement. “To be able to do it in company of some of the biggest names in salsa music, with some of the greatest to ever do it, is a dream come true. I’m honored to officially become a part of their family.”
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After branching out from Salserín, the brothers formed the duo that achieved six entries on Hot Latin Songs, including their No. 1 hit “Una Fan Enamorada” in 1998, part of their debut album Los Primera.
After a successful run in the 90s, the duo had a comeback in 2021 with two streaming concerts that marked their return to music. That year, they also released “Los Cachos” with Guaynaa. Meanwhile, Florentino also has songwriting credits in Marc Anthony’s “El Que Te Amaba,” part of his Grammy-winning album Pa’lla Voy.
“We are thrilled to welcome Florentino to the peermusic family and to represent his works as part of the iconic duo Servando y Florentino including the new music that is to come, as well as a performer on part of the peermusic Neighboring Rights family,” said Julio Bagué, vice president Latin division east coast and Puerto Rico at peermusic. “We are so impressed with his trajectory as both a songwriter and performer, and his commitment to the Latin music genre. Everyone at peermusic is beyond honored that he has chosen us to represent him.”
According to a press release, the deal was negotiated by Matthew Limones, founder of Prediction Enterprises, a rights management and business development firm, and and Nicolas Gonzalez, the company’s chief operations officer.
“This is exactly what I envisioned for a star client of ours. To find a home that we know understands his trajectory and can help guide him into the next chapter of his iconic career,” Limones noted. Gonzalez added, “We are so happy for Florentino and his future success at Peer. We know he will continue to make an impact in the genre with a great team.”
Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA) has released a statement detailing its position on TikTok and the proposed changes to the payment models for music streaming, and how this will affect its members. Founded in 2000, the advocacy group has 6000 members, stemming from Europe’s small music businesses.
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With regards to TikTok, the organization says it is aligned with Universal Music Group and its decision to let its license with TikTok lapse due to low compensation and AI concerns. “IMPALA supports UMG’s stance on TikTok in relation to valuing music properly,” say the organization’s chair of streaming group and CEO of Everlasting Records and Popstock Distribuciones, Mark Kitcatt. “The independent community has adopted a similar approach at various points over the years with other services, from MTV to Apple to YouTube. We also reject arguments equating the use of music on TikTok to promotion.”
IMPALA’s stance on TikTok’s lack of policing for AI generated content is also similar to what UMG addressed in its letter to artists and writers when it announced its plan to leave the platform. “services need permission for the use of music, including soundalikes and AI adaptations. The new AI framework in Europe also helps set human-centred guide rails in this regard,” says Helen Smith, executive director of IMPALA.
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IMPALA also notes that it has concerns with how some streaming services — including Spotify, Deezer and Apple — are changing their payments models to artists and labels. “Adjustments can be made [by Deezer, Spotify and Apple] to avoid harm,” says the organization. IMPALA calls for a better seat at the table for smaller music companies. “Any changes in how revenue is allocated [should] be properly assessed by services in terms of the impact they create over the whole market… We also call on streaming services to consult and discuss this with their independent licensing partners before the decision is made.”
Detractors of Deezer and Spotify’s new royalty payment models say that adding a threshold for a minimum number of streams that an artist has to reach before qualifying for payment is unfair to smaller artists and companies that represent them. Also, streaming companies are considering or are already adding in penalties for music companies that facilitate music involved in streaming manipulation and fraud. For distributors that services a large scale of DIY talent in particular, this could have an outsized impact on their businesses,
To get ahead of these problems, some distributors have joined together to form the Music Fights Fraud coalition, including TuneCore, Distrokid, and CD Baby, to come up with best practices for fighting bad actors that sign up for their platforms and to establish a common database to share information on the fraudsters each service catches. IMPALA says it supports Music Fights Fraud and that addressing maniplation is a “priority” for the organization and its members.
Chair of IMPALA and head of Balkans association RUNDA, Dario Drastata, adds: “IMPALA supports collaborative reform that is sustainable and drives diversity. We seek urgent solutions to address manipulation and revenue dilution. We also need to make sure the proposals are fair to all, and we hope Merlin’s recent agreement with Deezer will contribute to this objective. It’s the only way to create a sustainable ecosystem. We believe for example that there are simple solutions for problems with thresholds that can be plugged in and will continue our constructive discussions with services to explore options. Finding the answers will ensure services are able to further develop opportunities in key markets and genres as well as across multiple languages.”
Helen Smith says, “IMPALA’s work is vital for Europe’s music economy. Independents account for over 80% of the sectors’ new releases and jobs, providing stable and exciting opportunities for artists, fans and music employees across Europe. This was also reconfirmed at IMPALA’s AGM last year, including the elimination of value gaps, and developing the digital market in all territories with great talent, huge audiences and untapped digital potential, such as in Central and Eastern Europe. “
Popular performance series From The Block has locked in a partnership deal with Sparta Distribution, the companies announced today (April 3). Since its 2021 inception, From The Block Performance has gained traction through viral performances from Cardi B, Offset, Chris Brown, Lil Yachty and 4 Batz, along the way accumulating over 200 million views. Sparta […]
Pophouse — the Swedish company that backed ABBA’s Voyage show in London and owns rights to music by Swedish House Mafia, Avicii and Cyndi Lauper — is acquiring KISS’ publishing, recording royalties and trademarks, including both the band’s logo and its iconic makeup design. The deal, announced April 4, will result in a Pophouse-produced KISS hologram show, using some of the same technology as ABBA’s Voyage.
“We have a lot of plans for KISS,” Pophouse CEO Per Sundin tells Billboard. Although Sundin says the company bought out the rights owned by frontmen Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, they will work with the company to develop the show, which is expected to open in 2027 in a U.S. city that Sundin declined to name. “We want to keep to the legacy,” Sundin says. “We want to extend it and amplify it for new generations.”
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The band got interested in a possible deal when manager Doc McGhee saw Voyage “and he loved it and contacted us,” Sundin says. Over the course of the band’s End of the Road World Tour, the two sides met in Milan and Stockholm, thinking about what a hologram show could look like.
“We went to see the ABBA show and it blew our socks off,” Simmons tells Billboard. “And the technology since then has improved by leaps and bounds. We’ve seen sketches of what it will look like and we looked like the X-Men.”
Like dozens of other investors, Pophouse buys rights to songs and in some cases recordings or likenesses. But it tends to take a more active approach than most, with a focus on theatrical or immersive entertainment, rather than simply collecting royalties. In addition to the ABBA show, it runs the ABBA Museum and the Avicii Experience, both in Stockholm.
The idea of a hologram show seems ideal for KISS, whose concerts were always heavy on spectacle. “Everything is theater,” says Simmons. “We wanted bombast theater.”
Over the course of its career, KISS inspired the KISS Army, formed around an act that could have been described as the hottest brand in the land, with deals that included KISS Kondoms and a KISS Kasket. (Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell was buried in one that Simmons donated.) Now, after the End of the Road tour, “the end is actually the beginning,” Simmons says. “If you’re a caterpillar who can’t imagine what the future will look like, you think of the cocoon as the end, and it is the end of the caterpillar, but it can’t imagine sprouting wings and evolving into this beautiful creature that flies up to the heavens.”
Pophouse would not comment on the terms of the deal, which are presumably more complicated than a straightforward purchase of publishing rights. At this point, the band may be better known for its concerts than its songs. But the deal includes those, plus recording royalties. Pophouse also has a good relationship with UMG, which owns the band’s recordings, since Sundin was previously managing director of Universal Music Sweden and president of Universal Music Nordics. The band’s trademarks belonged to Simmons and Stanley, including the makeup designs for their characters: The Demon (Simmons), the Starchild (Stanley), the Spaceman (originally Ace Frehley, more recently Tommy Thayer) and the Catman (originally Peter Criss, more recently Eric Singer).
Jesús López, chairman/CEO of Universal Music Latin America and Iberian Peninsula, has received a special honor from the King and Queen of Spain. On Wednesday (April 3), the music executive received the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts — an award that recognizes individuals and entities who have “excelled” in the field of […]