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Lil Uzi Vert is facing a lawsuit that claims they owe a music touring company more than $500,000 in unpaid bills, including for procuring more than two dozen adult dancers that the rapper demanded appear on stage at last year’s Rolling Loud festival in Miami.
In a complaint filed Thursday (June 13) in Georgia federal court, attorneys for M99 Studios say the company successfully worked with Lil Uzi Vert (Symere Bysil Woods) for years, often serving as a “fixer for all things” and keeping tours running despite “unrealistic” requests.
But M99 claims that the rapper and their company (Uzivert LLC) have failed to pay their bills for four concerts last year, including Rolling Loud in Miami and Roots Picnic in Lil Uzi’s native Philadelphia. “Despite its numerous requests for payment of the outstanding invoices, at no point have Uzivert and/or Artist compensated M99 for the services it provided,” the complaint reads.
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The costs incurred by M99 covered “unrealistic production requests just hours before the scheduled performances,” the company’s lawyers claim. That included finding “a bounce house, wooded crosses, and mannequins” for one show, and hiring 30 adult dancers to appear at Rolling Loud.
“M99 managed to fulfill this request, along with countless other last-minute demands all at significant time, effort and expense,” the company says.
For years, the lawsuit claims that Lil Uzi Vert “relied heavily on M99” for all “creative ideas, production, and staffing for all tours, shows and performances.” The lawsuit says the rapper would often fall behind on billing, and that M99 would often have to cover up for their financial shortcomings.
“While Artist’s account would work from time-to-time, his credit card would frequently be declined while on tour, making it impossible for M99 to ensure the safety and well-being of the crew without covering the expenses itself,” the company wrote.
M99 says it finally cut ties after an Australian tour, saying the company “decided not to bill for the Australian services in hopes of parting ways amicably.” But the earlier debts over the four American concerts were never paid, the lawsuit claims, despite repeated promises from the rapper’s longtime manager, Amina Diop.
“M99 respectfully requests that this Honorable Court enter judgment in its favor and against Uzivert and/or Artist in an amount to be determined at trial, but no less than $533,499,” the company’s lawyers wrote.
A rep for Lil Uzi Vert did not immediately return a request for comment from Billboard.
In February 2021, Spotify announced its high-quality audio offering, called HiFi, and released a promotional video featuring Billie Eilish and her brother/producer, Finneas, waxing about the benefits of listening to recordings in their natural state rather than the compressed files that became standard in the digital era. “The streaming war is going Hi-Fi,” Billboard proclaimed a few months later.
But it was a false start. Spotify’s HiFi didn’t materialize, and the company officially announced its delay in January 2022. There were rumblings about HiFi in June 2023, but the rumors amounted to nothing. Instead, Spotify pushed ahead with building an all-in-one audio platform by building its podcast business and launching an audiobook offering.
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Now, HiFi appears to be back on track. This month, news broke that Spotify will finally launch a high-definition audio tier later this year. Still called HiFi, Spotify will offer the tier for an extra $5 per month for individual plans ($16.99 compared to $11.99, which bakes in an expected $1 increase from the current $10.99), according to a Bloomberg report. The HiFi tier for family plans is reported to be $19.99, $3 more than the current $16.99.
Waiting three years could come with some advantages. First, there’s a large addressable market that wants high-quality audio. A 2023 MusicWatch survey found that 85 million Americans aged 13 and over agreed that obtaining the highest sound quality is important and that they would be willing to pay more to get it, according to MusicWatch’s Russ Crupnick. That’s a big uptick from 2020 when a previous MusicWatch survey found that it found that 69.2 million people aged 13 to 65 were open to paying more for studio-quality sound. Most of that change represents greater interest in high-quality audio, as population growth has been “only about 1% per year,” says Crupnick.
“Once people realize that audio quality is available and they hear it, it is hard to go back,” says Qobuz managing director Dan Mackta. “The challenge is just getting people to actually hear it.”
There are two types of premium audio streaming: 16-bit, known as “lossless” or “CD-quality,” and 24-bit, which is commonly referred to as “high-resolution.” Both Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited offer CD-quality and higher definition tiers that go up to 24-bit/192 kHz. Qobuz streams 24-bit audio up to 192 kHz. Spotify streams up to 256 kbps for subscribers — far below CD quality of 1,411 kbps— and 128 kbps for ad-supported users.
Early high-definition entrants like Qobuz, Tidal, Amazon Music Unlimited and Apple Music have done much of the dirty work educating consumers about audio quality. Amazon Music, which debuted high-definition audio in 2019, saw strong demand and engagement, Amazon Music vp Steve Boom told Billboard in 2021. Apple Music rolled out lossless audio and Spatial Audio in June 2021. More than 90% of Apple Music listeners have engaged with Spatial Audio, the company said in January, adding that plays of music available in the format have more than tripled in the previous two years.
The streaming market has matured over the last three years. Spotify currently has 59 million more subscribers than it did at the end of 2021, giving it a larger base from which to upsell a premium audio tier. Consumers have also warmed to the notion of paying more for a music subscription. Spotify’s first large-scale price increase in July 2023 was followed by an additional increase in May in the United Kingdom and Australia, and the United States will follow later this year — all without a material amount of subscriber churn, company executives have said.
Spotify will have to convince its subscribers that high-quality audio is worth a premium, however. Amazon Music Unlimited originally charged a premium for high-definition audio but later made it a standard feature for the lower-priced, standard subscriber plan. Likewise, Apple Music offers lossless audio and Spatial Audio at no extra cost. To counter its competitors’ pricing strategies, Spotify could make HiFi a bundle of premium features. In 2022, Spotify reportedly surveyed consumers about their willingness to pay for a premium tier that offers high-definition audio, additional playlist and library features, limited-ad Spotify playlists, and other add-ons.
But Spotify HiFi could also encourage its competitors to follow suit by further raising prices. Mackta says Qobuz intends to raise prices at some point in the future. In fact, Qobuz lowered prices in 2019 — a standard plan is currently $12.99 per month — in response to larger services like Apple Music and Amazon Music making high-definition audio a standard feature. “In general,” he says, “music is too cheap.”
Barclays has suspended its sponsorship of Live Nation’s U.K. festivals following protests from artists over the bank’s links to defense companies supplying arms to Israel as well as fossil fuel firms.
Country singer CMAT, folk group Lankum and rock bands Pest Control, Zulu, Scowl, Speed and Ithaca are among the acts who have either pulled out of or threatened to boycott Live Nation-promoted summer events, including July’s Latitude festival and the three-day Download festival, which starts Friday (June 14) in Donington Park, Leicestershire.
In a statement on Friday, a spokesperson for Live Nation U.K. said, “Following discussion with artists, we have agreed with Barclays that they will step back from sponsorship of our festivals.”
Confirming the news, a spokesperson for Barclays told Billboard that the London-headquartered bank “was asked and has agreed to suspend participation in the remaining Live Nation festivals in 2024.”
“Barclays customers who hold tickets to these festivals are not affected and their tickets remain valid,” the spokesperson continued. “The protestors’ agenda is to have Barclays debank defence companies which is a sector we remain committed to as an essential part of keeping this country and our allies safe.”
Referencing recent outbreaks of vandalism at a number of U.K. Barclays bank branches, where protestors threw paint and smashed windows, the spokesperson said the “only thing that this small group of activists will achieve is to weaken essential support for cultural events enjoyed by millions. It is time that leaders across politics, business, academia and the arts stand united against this.”
Barclays is one of the biggest sponsors of music festivals in the United Kingdom and signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Live Nation last year. Over the past two decades, the company says it has invested £112 million ($142 million) in supporting British music and the country’s arts sector.
Pressure from pro-Palestinian groups on music festivals and arts organizations to cut ties with sponsors with perceived links to Israel has been building since the start of the conflict in Gaza. Last month, more than 150 artists withdrew from Brighton’s Great Escape Festival over the independent event’s ties to Barclays.
Defending its position, Barclays has previously stated that it provides “vital financial services to U.S., U.K. and European public companies that supply defence products to NATO and its allies” but does not directly invest in these companies.
The news that the international bank, which has also drawn heavy criticism from environmental campaigners for bankrolling fossil fuel firms, was pulling out of sponsoring Live Nation’s U.K. festivals was welcomed by campaign group Bands Boycott Barclays.
“As musicians, we were horrified that our music festivals were partnered with Barclays, who are complicit in the genocide in Gaza through investment, loans and underwriting of arms companies supplying the Israeli military,” posted the campaign group on Instagram.
“Hundreds of artists have taken action this summer to make it clear that this is morally reprehensible, and we are glad we have been heard,” the group added.
Posting on X, Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello, who is due to play Download this weekend, said that “the fact that the festival has listened to its musicians and cut ties with Barclays Bank is a testament to the power of artists taking collective action for human rights.”
“I’ve been pushing hard for this behind the scenes,” added Morello, “and I salute all the artists like Zulu, Scowl and Speed who have taken a stand to help make this historic withdrawal happen.”
A Latin music executive accused of doing business with a concert promoter linked to Mexican drug cartels is now asking a federal judge to dismiss the charges, arguing that the indictment is unfairly vague and the sign of an eventual “sucker punch” by prosecutors.
Angel Del Villar, the CEO of Los Angeles-based Del Records, was charged in 2022 with violating a federal law that bars U.S. residents from doing business with known drug traffickers. Prosecutors say he repeatedly arranged concerts with a Guadalajara-based promoter who has ties to Mexican cartels.
But in a motion filed Thursday, Del Villar’s attorneys say the indictment failed to clearly state what aspects of that federal law he allegedly violated, leaving him unable to properly prepare a defense.
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“The purpose of an indictment is to protect individuals from government ambush,” writes Del Villar’s attorney. “A person whose liberty is at stake is entitled to know with certainty what offenses they are alleged to have committed [and] against what theories they must be prepared to contend.”
“The indictment here thwarts those goals,” Del Villar’s lawyers say. “Neither Del Villar nor his codefendants, upon reading it, can be sure from which direction the government’s attack will come — a sure setup for a sucker punch.”
Del Villar is represented by Drew Findling, a well-known criminal defense attorney for music industry figures. The Atlanta lawyer with has previously represented Gucci Mane, YFN Lucci and members of Migos in criminal cases; last year, he successfully defended Cardi B over a microphone-throwing incident in Las Vegas.
Founded by Del Villar in 2008, Del Records has grown into a top record company for Regional Mexican music. The label is home to música mexicana supergroup Eslabon Armado, whose global hit, “Ella Baila Sola” with Peso Pluma, became one of the biggest songs of 2023, as well as Lenin Ramirez and other chart-topping artists.
But in June 2022, Del Villar, 41, and chief financial officer Luca Scalisi, 56, and Del Records itself were all charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. Passed in 1999, the law allows the U.S. to impose targeted sanctions on foreign individuals involved in the illegal drug trade and ban U.S. residents from doing business with them.
In Del Villar’s case, prosecutors claim that he repeatedly worked with Jesus Perez Alvear, a Mexican concert promoter who runs a company called Gallistica Diamente (Ticket Premier). The U.S. Treasury Department added Perez to the sanctions list in 2018, claiming he and Gallistica had helped cartels “exploit the Mexican music industry to launder drug proceeds and glorify their criminal activities.”
Prosecutors claim Del Villar and Scalisi used Perez to arrange four Mexican concerts for an undisclosed Del Records artist, then accepted nearly $200,000 in payments from him, all while clearly aware that Perez had been sanctioned. Charging documents cite a never-sent Del Records press release acknowledging that status, as well as private messages in which Scalisi noted that Perez was “under homeland security watch” and Del Villar was directly told that Perez was “a sanctioned US person.”
Two and a half years later – after the case was pushed back numerous times – both Del Villar and Scalisi are now pushing to dismiss the charges.
In his filing on Thursday, Del Villar’s attorneys argue that the indictment is not clear about which aspect of the Kingpin Act he was accused of violating. Is it a provision banning transactions related to a significant drug trafficker, or another one prohibiting transactions that seek to evade the law itself? Findling says prosecutors “do not specify.”
“It would be one thing had the indictment plainly set out the precise elements of [those separate provisions],” Del Villar’s attorney writes. “It would even be acceptable had the indictment set out facts that would make clear which provision was at issue. But it does neither.”
A response from prosecutors is due next month. If the case is not dismissed, a trial is tentatively scheduled for October.
Cash Money Records founders/CEOs and hip-hop icons Bryan “Birdman” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams will be the 2024 honorees at YouTube Music’s second Leaders and Legends gala. The invitation-only event will take place in Los Angeles on June 27. Developing a roster that included pioneering hitmakers such as Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Mannie Fresh […]
It’s time for another spin around the Executive Turntable, Billboard’s comprehensive(ish) compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across music. Don’t forget to dig into this year’s Indie Power Players list. We also have a weekly interview series spotlighting a single executive and a regularly updated gallery honoring many of the industry figures we’ve lost throughout the year.
Sphere Entertainment has turned to Hollywood studio veteran Carolyn Blackwood as its new head of Sphere Studios, which develops and produces the “multi-sensory entertainment experiences” for concerts, corporate events and more at the next-generation spherical wonder. At Sphere, Blackwood will lead a team of creative, production and other various wizards responsible for those immersive experiences, plus work closely with MSG Ventures on developing the production technologies needed to create them. Blackwood has more than 25 years of studio experience, and was most recently chief operating officer at Warner Bros. Pictures. Prior to WB, she spent 20-plus years at New Line Cinema, where she rose to president and chief content officer. Between those two studios, she was integrally involved with some of the biggest films of the last quarter-century, including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Barbie and The Conjuring franchise.
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“Throughout my career, I have focused on creative and business innovation in the entertainment industry, as well as the pursuit of production excellence, and this is a tremendous opportunity to be part of the cutting-edge work at Sphere,” said Blackwood. Sphere’s newly elevated president and COO Jennifer Koester added that she believe’s Blackwood’s “expertise bringing high-profile entertainment projects to life will be an asset as we continue to build on, and grow, the Studios’ capabilities.”
The creative team at Sphere also includes chief creative officer Ned McNeilage, who joined earlier this year. Since opening last year with a successful run of U2 shows, the Las Vegas megavenue has been in a jam-y mood with a four concert mini-residency by Phish and an in-progress 24-date residency by Dead & Company. An eight-date run by Eagles is scheduled for the fall.
Meanwhile…
Universal Music India and South Asia promoted Viral Jani to chief revenue officer. Jani joined UMGISA in 2023 as head of digital, strategy & transformation, having previously held senior positions at Times Network, GroupM and Twitter, among others. The promotion follows the May elevation of Sanujeet Bhujabal from evp of content to managing director of the Mumbai-based label division. “[The promotions of Bhujabal and Jani] reflects the company’s commitment to growth and development of one of Universal Music Group’s most important emerging markets,” noted Adam Granite, CEO, Universal Music Group AMEA. “Together they will work closely, alongside Chairman & CEO Devraj Sanyal and myself, to deliver our mission of creating the best music-based entertainment company in the region.”
Warner Chappell Music promoted A&R exec Jessi Vaughn Stevenson to vp, A&R and digital. Stevenson will continue reporting to Ben Vaughn, president/CEO WCM Nashville, as she strategizes opportunities for songwriters. During her career, Stevenson has worked with songwriters including Jessi Alexander, Rhett Akins, Parker McCollum, Hailey Whitters, Morgan Wallen and Randy Montana. “Jessi has always shown commitment to songwriters, helping them with their craft and careers,” said Vaughn. “She is always thinking of new ways to support songwriters and is a wonderful team player. We’re happy to announce her promotion.” –Jessica Nicholson
APM Music elevated creative executive Adam Weitz from senior director to vp of TV and film sync. Weitz has spent the bulk of his 16-year sync licensing career — roughly 11-and-a-half years — at APM, a production music joint venture between Universal Music Publishing Group and Sony Music Publishing. During that time he and his TV/Film team has banked large-scale licensing deals with Hollywood studios, streaming platforms and others, and locked in placements with hundreds of films and shows, including recent wins in Oppenheimer, Succession, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Ted Lasso and more. He also spearheads APM’s sample clearance business, which has collaborated with Drake, Beck, The Black Keys and others. Weitz reports to chief revenue officer Chad Elbert and president Adam Taylor, who remarked, “His deep industry connections and unique blend of creative and licensing expertise have established him as one of the very best in the industry.” Prior to joining APM in 2013, the Los Angeles-based exec spent nearly five years in leadership at sync licensing house Visions from the Roof. Under the pseudonym Phofo, Weitz composed music for several animated shows including Sushi Pack, Care Bears and Club Penguin, and he co-produced the first studio LP by MC Paul Barman. Reach him at aweitz@apmmusic.com.
BOARD SHORTS: Furnace Record Pressing founder and former CEO Eric Astor was elected to the Vinyl Record Manufacturing Association‘s board of directors. VRMA works to advance the record manufacturing sector — in which Astor has been deeply invested since FRP’s 1996 founding. He recently transitioned to an advisor role at the Metallica-backed Virginia plant, with Ali Miller taking over as CEO in March … OpenAI (ChatGPT) appointed Paul M. Nakasone, the former head of the National Security Agency (NSA), to its board of directors.
BMG appointed Alexandra Behrens as senior vp of global people excellence, a most excellent way of saying she’ll oversee HR services and operations across the company. Behrens is sliding over from Bertelsmann sister company Gruner + Jahr (G+J), where she led the people management & services team during a 15-year run at the print publishing giant. “Alexandra’s leadership will be instrumental in driving our global HR initiatives and fostering a culture of excellence across all of our locations,” said BMG CHRO Nikola Holle-Spiegel, to whom she’ll report. BMG recently announced a fine-tuning of its frontline recordings business under Jon Loba.
Digital Media Association (DiMA) promoted Sally Rose Larson to senior vp of government and external affairs. Prior to joining DiMA in 2019 as the audio streaming trade group’s vp of government relations, the Georgia native served as legislative director and later deputy chief of staff to Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), and was chief copyright advisor to House Judiciary Committee GOPers.
Reed Smith welcomed Jackson Abbeduto as counsel in its global entertainment and media industry group. Based in the lauded law firm‘s Century City, Calif. office, Abbeduto arrives following a year as counsel at Granderson Des Rochers. Prior to that, he spent nearly a decade at Universal Music Publishing Group and three years at YouTube as an executive. “Music is very important to our overall practice strategy, and considering our partner Gregor Pryor is the leading digital music lawyer in Europe, Jackson will have all the resources necessary to help us be on the forefront of advising clients in the US on all cutting-edge digital issues,” said Stephen Sessa, the co-chair of Reed Smith’s global entertainment and media industry group.
RADIO, RADIO: Cumulus Media promoted Kriston Aitken to chief human resources officer, taking over for a retiring Todd McCarty, who held the role for nine years. The HR veteran joined Cumulus in 2016 and was elevated to vp of Human Resources two years ago … Jose George and Olivia Morley joined advertising consulting firm Madison and Wall as senior analysts, according to Radio Ink … Samantha Melbourneweaver is joining NPR as managing editor/digital audience growth & engagement. She was previously the assistant managing editor of audience at the Los Angeles Times.
CAA promoted 15 employees, including Shayna Ehrlich to music marketing executive in the agency’s music touring department. She joined the firm in March 2019 as a music and comedy tour marketing assistant and later shed the laughs part of her workload. Prior to joining CAA, the NYC-based Ehrlich was in media strategy at iHeartMedia. THR has more details on the moves.
Hollywood-based publicist and former TV programmer Kiki Ayers launched My Best Kid Life, a new “daily guide on how parents and kids can live their best life” that will focus on wellness, nutrition, co-parenting and more, plus feature exclusive interviews with celebs discussing parenthood. Unique to MBKL is that all images used for the company are in the style of comic book, cartoon or anime. Pryor to this new venture, Ayers ran her PR firm Ayers Publicity and worked as an entertainment reporter. Earlier in her career, Ayers was a music programming manager at REVOLT and was in production at both MTV2 and The Jerry Springer Show.
ICYMI:
Richard Burgess
A2IM president and CEO Richard James Burgess telegraphed his exit from the indie label trade group … UTA hired ex-Ingrooves chief Bob Roback as COO … Downtown named Molly Neuman as president of its CD Baby arm … Jennifer Koester was promoted to president and COO of Sphere Entertainment … UnitedMasters hired Def Jam vet LaTrice Burnette as evp and head of music … and COLTURE‘s Ty Baisden was named executive of the year in Billboard‘s Indie Power Players list.
Last Week’s Turntable: TikTok Lawyers Up
Twitch signed music licensing deals with all three major labels — Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment — as well as “a large number” of indie labels represented by Merlin, according to a blog post. The deals specifically cover DJs who live-stream on the platform; other uses of music are not covered.
Under the deals, starting this summer, DJs will need to opt into a new agreement that will apply to all streaming on their Twitch channels. Thereafter, a portion of DJs’ earnings on the platform will be paid to music companies, with the majority of those earnings subject to a 50-50 split between DJs and Twitch. To help DJs adjust to the change, Twitch says it will offer a one-year subsidy to help cover the difference in revenue that will be paid out to music companies, with the amount of the subsidy gradually reducing over time.
“It’s crucial that DJs understand the status quo on Twitch was not sustainable, and any viable future for the community required we find a solution,” the blog post reads. “We’ve worked with music partners over the past few years to develop this program. Without it, those who stream DJ content on Twitch without the necessary rights do so at the risk of receiving DMCA notifications and copyright penalties which could restrict their ability to stream on Twitch.”
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According to Twitch, the number of DJs streaming on the platform has “more than quadrupled” since early 2020.
Tencent and its subsidiary Tencent Music Entertainment acquired a 10% stake in Thailand-based entertainment platform GMM Music for $70 million, valuing the company at $700 million. The stake will be paid for with a combination of cash and a minority stake in the Tencent-owned music streaming app JOOX Thailand. According to a press release, the deal “will strengthen GMM Music’s spin-off plan” and allow it “to expand its business, achieve sustainable growth, acquire world-class expertise, and invest in future music innovations to keep pace with the rapid evolution of the global music industry.” In a statement, GMM Music CEO Phawit Chitrakorn said the deal will help the company “drive the New Music Economy in Thailand towards sustainable growth” while allowing it to expand its business in additional markets, including China.
Neon Gold Records, the independent label known for launching the careers of artists including Tove Lo, Charli XCX and MARINA, signed a global distribution agreement with Virgin Music Group. Recent releases from Neon Gold include Good Neighbours’ debut single “Home” (now receiving global support from Capitol and Polydor) and Mt. Joy’s “Highway Queen”; other acts on the roster include The Knocks and Juliana Madrid. The label also revealed its newest signing: alt-pop band Phantogram, whose new single, “All a Mystery,” was released May 31. Neon Gold previously had joint ventures with Columbia (2010-2013) and Atlantic (2014-2024).
Bandcamp partnered with EMPIRE in a deal that will allow the independent record label to expand retail opportunities for its artists, who include Shaboozey, Key Glock, Conway the Machine, Dinner Party, Olamide, Asake and Black Sherif. With the deal, EMPIRE artists will now have the ability to connect with Bandcamp’s community of more than 47 million fans, to whom they can directly sell digital releases, vinyl and exclusive merchandise through the Bandcamp platform.
L.A.-based record label D36, which centers on aspiring musicians from South Asia and its diaspora, formed a joint venture with Sony Music Entertainment. Through the joint venture, acts of South Asian heritage will better be able to connect with audiences in both South Asia and international markets, including the United States. D36 is run by CEO Abhi Kanakadandila and GM/co-founder Abdullah Ahmad.
The U.K.-based Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) partnered with KUVO Powered by DJ Monitor to help foster the adoption of KUVO’s music identification technology in U.K. venues — all in hopes of ensuring proper royalty payouts for creators of the music DJs play. According to a press release, NTIA will work to make KUVO’s technology “standard practice across the U.K. club and DJ events industry…with a focus on building towards a more transparent and fair music royalty ecosystem within the UK.” There is no cost for venues to participate in the initiative and there will be no effect on the license fees venues pay for music. It also “respects DJ setlist privacy — no details of which DJ played which tracks are captured by the technology and no playlists are publicised,” the release adds.
Downtown Artist & Label Services officially partnered with AI-powered marketing operating system SymphonyOS to offer SymphonyOS marketing tools to Downtown artists at a reduced price. The deal was struck after Downtown ran multiple successful SymphonyOS-driven campaigns with artists including Hunter Hayes, mehro and Ryan Nealon. SymphonyOS offers AI-powered campaign creation, aggregated analytics, a website builder tool and features including Forever Saves, which allows fans to “subscribe” to an artist’s future releases.
1336 Records, a new label venture from System of a Down’s Shavo Odadjian, launched in partnership with Sumerian Music Group. The first release under the deal is “Paradise,” the debut single from Seven Hours After Violet — Odadjian’s new band also featuring Taylor Barber (Left To Suffer), Morgoth (Winds of Plague), Alejandro Aranda (Scarypoolparty) and Josh Johnson.
SURF Music — a platform that allows songwriters, producers and other creators to connect, collaborate, package, pitch and sell their original unreleased music to Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese labels and A&R professionals — has welcomed Universal Music Japan, Sony Japan, Avex and Fujipacific to the platform as official users. By joining SURF Music, the labels will have the ability to explore SURF’s marketplace of unreleased demos using AI-supported search tools.
VNYLab, a new music platform designed to bring independent artists closer to their fans, acquired Patron Empowerment, the developer of the similar Rhythmic Rebellion platform. The multi-million-dollar deal will accelerate the growth of VNYLab, which is set to officially debut this summer. VNYLab was founded by Jon Zeit, Wes Mason and Nikki Fernandez. Patron Empowerment founder/CEO Greg Allen has joined VNYLab as a partner.
Ford signed a 10-year naming rights agreement with Notes Live for a new music amphitheater coming to Colorado Springs, Colo. The 8,000-capacity venue, formerly known as The Sunset and now called Ford Amphitheater, is set to open on Aug. 9 with a performance by Ryan Tedder and his band OneRepublic.
Dr. Richard James Burgess will step down as president/CEO of The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) at the beginning of 2026, he announced at the annual general meeting that closed out A2IM Indie Week on Thursday (June 13). Upon his exit, he will have led the organization for 10 years. The A2IM board of […]
Sometime in 2000, Patrick Brown nudged Paul Epstein, then-owner of Twist & Shout in Denver. “Hey,” the record store manager told his boss, “I think Eric Clapton‘s out there shopping.”
“What should I do?” Epstein said.
“How about you say, ‘I’m Paul, I own the store, how can I help you?’”
Epstein helped Clapton search for an obscure Bing Crosby soundtrack from the ’40s, and the two bonded over blues and jazz records. Epstein learned Clapton was waiting for his clothes to dry at the laundromat across the street from Twist & Shout’s then-location. And Brown listened quietly. “It’s not my thing so much,” he recalls. “I said hello and that was it.”
Today, Brown is the owner of this music community capital on the west side of Denver, a soothing gallery of colorful rectangles, from the Madonna and Pete Townshend portraits facing off at the top of a west wall to the rows of books, CDs and LPs that seem to go on forever. Epstein and his wife, Jill, who co-founded the store in 1988, retired in 2022 and sold to Brown, one of two remaining employees who has worked at each of the three locations where Twist has existed over the years. “Patrick is a little less likely to fanboy, even over people he is a fan of,” says Alf Kremer, the store’s longtime bookkeeper. “With him, it wouldn’t be Clapton — it’d be, I don’t know, [Robert] Fripp.”
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Brown landed his first job at Twist in 1992, after he’d spent an earlier summer wandering the aisles, blasting indie rock and avant-garde jazz through his headphones. Epstein put Brown to work tearing up cardboard CD longboxes and slipping their liner-note booklets into plastic sheaths; the idea was to store the actual CDs in the back to avoid in-store theft.
He turned out to be not only a loyal employee but an indispensable one. “Six months, this guy’s on the fast track. Whatever I ask him to do, he does it. And then he just stayed,” Epstein says. “He went from the absolute lowest part-time additional help to doing every single job at the store over the years.” Eventually, Brown rose to general manager.
Patrick Brown
Courtesy of Twist & Shout
Today, the 11,000-square-foot Twist & Shout remains Denver’s signature record store, having weathered the Napster-era downturn that felled chains from Tower Records to Virgin Megastore, then leaned into the unexpected vinyl revival that has kept indie retailers afloat for two decades. Twist’s sales mix, according to Brown, is roughly 60%-70% vinyl, 15%-20% CDs, 10% merch and posters, 5% movies and 3% stereo equipment. “There are not a lot of stores like this,” he says. “Waterloo in Austin, the Amoeba stores, Record Archive in Rochester, Music Millennium in Portland. We’ve all had that old-school-record-store depth of catalog. We do all genres. We’ve invested heavily in physical. There just aren’t stores with the big footprint.”
Brown, a soft-spoken 55-year-old who is just as comfortable talking about seeing experimental-jazz composer Anthony Braxton at a festival as the evolution of music-retail inventory, has a more low-key presence among staff and customers than Epstein did. “I want it to still be what it always has been — a comfortable space for anybody to shop,” he says. “Record stores have a reputation for being snotty and disdainful of your tastes, and we try to avoid that as much as possible. We’re here just to help you find what you’re interested in.”
The store’s historical customer roster includes not only Clapton but Morrissey, who once made an impromptu visit with two beefy bodyguards, whom he positioned on each side of the “M” aisle so he could be unbothered while shopping. “I’m charitable — I think he was buying those as gifts for other people,” Brown recalls. “But he was still buying his own music as gifts.”
When the Epsteins opened Twist, they were “selling obscure music to a small but dedicated clientele from an over-cluttered building on a quiet Denver side street,” as Billboard later reported. They upgraded twice over the years, to new locations throughout the city, finally settling on West Colfax Avenue, what Brown calls “The Cultureplex,” a busy corner that includes iconic but struggling bookstore Tattered Cover and indie-movie haven Sie Film Center. During an interview on a weekday afternoon, packs of East High School students roam the stores. (The Epsteins own the building, and Twist & Shout, along with the adjacent Chipotle and a sushi restaurant, pays rent to them.)
“It feels like, ‘This is our world, here,’ all in this space,” says Mollie O’Brien, a veteran Denver folk and R&B singer. “It’s welcoming.” Like the Epsteins, she adds, Brown continues to purchase physical albums by local artists, even if they don’t record for major labels or big-time distributors. Usually, though, Twist & Shout buys wholesale from all the major labels, plus big indies such as Sub Pop and Secretly Group and one-stop distributor Alliance Entertainment. “I wouldn’t change our mix,” Brown says.
Like everybody, the Epsteins spent the early part of the pandemic terrified that consumers would stay out of record stores forever — but business quickly picked up as shelter-in-place customers rediscovered their turntables and records; Epstein told the Denver Post that 2021 sales were 25% higher than 2019 sales. The Epsteins, though, realized they were tired of running the business. After the longtime owners of The Record Exchange in Boise, Idaho, sold to three employees and one of their spouses in fall 2021, Epstein made a similar offer to Brown, who took over the store in March 2022.
When the Epsteins called a staff meeting to announce the new owner, Brown told employees, “I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m going to change. And I’m not going to be changing anything. Otherwise, I wouldn’t want this business.” Kremer, who moonlights as a Denver dance-music DJ in a gorilla suit called There’s An Ape for That, says this prediction came true: “The philosophy is the same. The approach to the business is the same.”
In his 36 years at Twist & Shout, Brown has experienced micro and macro changes in the record business. In the ’90s, dance music and rave parties exploded in the Denver area, and the store emphasized vinyl to accommodate DJ demand, which diminished when dance-music performers went digital in the early 2000s. Then came mp3s, file-sharing, Napster, the iTunes Store, YouTube and Spotify, and demand for physical products briefly dipped. Once the LP revival kicked in, Brown says, “We were ready for that.”
Large record retailers are rare in this era of tiny stores devoted to punk or dance or other niches, according to Andrea Paschal, president of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, of which Twist & Shout has been a member since the coalition’s 1995 inception. Since Napster and file-sharing disrupted CD sales, she says, “It’s really tough to build a store with the catalog and inventory that Twist & Shout has when you don’t have the decades of doing that.”
Twist & Shout isn’t invulnerable. Brown acknowledges the vinyl boom could dissipate, and while CD and cassette sales are rising again, they’re unlikely to make up the difference. If something happens to neighbor Tattered Cover, which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, foot traffic could drop at The Cultureplex. And Brown won’t even try to predict record-business trends. He’s a steward of the store, not a visionary. “Nothing drastic,” he says. “Keep it as it is.”
In the mid 1990s, Jason Paige, then a struggling singer trying to break with his rock band, could make a solid living by writing Mountain Dew, Taco Bell and Pepto Bismol earworms for jingle houses that dominated the music-in-advertising industry for decades. But during an interview a few weeks ago, Paige — who ultimately became most famous as the voice of the Pokemon theme song “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” — fires up an artificial-intelligence program. Within minutes, he emails eight studio-quality, terrifyingly catchy punk, hip-hop, EDM and klezmer MP3s centered on the reporter’s name, the word Billboard and the phrase “the jingle industry and how it’s changed so much over the years.”
The point is self-evident. “Yeah,” Paige says, about the industry that once sustained him. “It is dark.”
Trending on Billboard
Today, the jingle business has evolved an assembly line of composers and performers competing to make the next “plop plop fizz fizz” into a more multifaceted relationship between artists and companies, involving brand relationships (like Taylor Swift’s long-standing Target deal); Super Bowl synchs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars; production-house music allowing brands to pick from hundreds of thousands of pre-recorded tracks; and “sonic branding,” in which the Intel bong or Netflix’s tudum are used in a variety of marketing contexts. Performers and songwriters make plenty of revenue on this kind of commercial music, and they’re far more open to doing so than they were in the corporation-skeptical ‘90s. But AI, which allows machines to make all these sounds far more cheaply and quickly for brands than human musicians could ever do, remains a looming threat.
“It definitely has the potential to be disruptive,” says Zeno Harris, a creative and licensing manager for West One Music Group, an LA company that licenses its 85,000-song catalog of original music to brands. “If we could use it as a tool, instead of replacing [musicians], that’s where I see it heading. But money dictates where the industry goes, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
This vision of an AI-dominated future in a crucial revenue-producing business is as disturbing for singers and songwriters as it is for Hollywood screenwriters, radio DJs and voiceover actors. “I just took a life-insurance-brand deal to pay for making my record,” says Grace Bowers, 17, a Nashville blues guitarist. “I’m definitely not the only one who’s doing that. Artists are turning to anyone they can to [make] money, because touring and putting out music isn’t the biggest money-maker. If Arby’s came to me and said, ‘Can you write me a jingle?,’ I’d say, Hell, yeah!’”
End of an Era
From the late 1920s, when a barbershop quartet sang “Have You Tried Wheaties?” on the air for a Minneapolis radio station, through the late ’90s, jingles dominated the music-in-advertising business. Jingle houses like Jam, JSM and Rave competed ferociously to procure contracts with major brands and advertising agencies. In the process, they created lucrative side gigs for rising talents for decades, like Luther Vandross, Patti Austin and Richard Marx, who, as jingle veteran Michael Bolton wrote in his biography, “all shook the jingle-house tree.”
“If you wrote a jingle that was going to be a national campaign, and you sang on it, you could make $50,000, and you could do three of those a year,” recalls John Loeffler, a singer-songwriter who worked on 2,500 jingle campaigns as the head of the Rave Music jingle house, before serving as a BMG executive for years.
John Stamos and Dave Coulier played jingle writers on ABC’s Full House. In this scene from “Jingle Hell,” Mary Kate or Ashley Olsen gives “Uncle Jesse” a high five.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
The jingle era ended, for the most part, by the late 1990s, as TV splintered from four must-see broadcast networks to dozens of cable channels, followed by video streaming networks such as Netflix. (Steve Karmen, the ad-agency vet who wrote “Nationwide … is on your side,” authored what many consider the post-mortem for the era with his 2005 book, Who Killed the Jingle?) “I wish the young artists these days could have the opportunities I had,” Loeffler says. “It’s very different.”
Today, artists are far more likely to have broad branding relationships with corporations such as Target — Swift has appeared in commercials and the retailer has sold exclusive versions of her albums for years, and Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and others have made similar deals — than they are to write catchy ditties for TV and radio. “I personally haven’t heard the word ‘jingle’ in the lifespan of Citizen,” says Theo de Gunzburg, managing partner of Citizen, a five-year-old music house that employs studio artists to create original music for advertisers. “The clients we deal with want to be taken more seriously. The audience is more discerning.”
Citizen employs 10 full-time staff members, including five composers, to create original music for ad campaigns, and, like West One and many other music houses, maintains a library of licensable tracks. The company’s commercial work includes Adidas’ “Runner 321,” which juxtaposes Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth with clips of athletes who have Down’s Syndrome, all set to its own sports percussion tracks. Major music publishers also maintain in-house services for this kind of production music. Warner Chappell Music’s extensive online library includes a hip-hop-style track called “Ready to Fight,” described as “driving trap drums, electric guitar, bold brass, cerebral synths and go-getter male vocals.” WCM represents “specialized songwriters who like to write in short form” and “are also great at writing pop hits,” says Dan Gross, the publisher’s creative sync director, who previously was a music supervisor at top ad agency McCann.
Ba Da Ba Ba Ba
The prevailing catchphrase for music in advertising today is “sonic branding” — designing a brief musical calling card, like the Intel bong, which reflects the feel of a product and can be used in ads, promotions, app tones, TikTok and Instagram videos and even virtual-reality games. “The message of flexibility is really the key thing,” says Simon Kringel, sonic director for Unmute, a Copenhagen agency that has worked with brands such as magazine publisher Aller Media to develop catchy musical snippets that serve as what he calls “watermarks.” “The only chance we have is to make sure every time we interact with our audience, there is something that triggers this brand recall.”
Kringel avoids using the term “jingle” — “that whole approach kind of faded out,” he says — but the most memorable old-school jingles have taken on a classic-rock quality in recent years. McDonald’s 20-year-old “ba da ba ba ba,” “Nationwide … is on your side” and many others are repeated endlessly in TV-streaming commercial breaks. State Farm’s “like a good neighbor … “ remains the emperor of earworms, and the company deploys the Barry Manilow-penned jingle in strategic ways. Around 2020, says State Farm head of marketing Alyson Griffin, the insurance giant conducted a study about its own marketing assets. “They found 80% of people recognized the notes, 95% recognized the slogan — and when they put the two together, there was nearly 100% recognition,” she says. “We recently tripled down on the jingle.”
Similarly, Chili’s recently went retro, hiring Boyz II Men to update its ’90s “baby back ribs” jingle with a new advertisement. “Jingles don’t feel as modern as maybe brands want to be,” says George Felix, chief marketing officer for Chili’s Grill and Bar. “But there’s certainly still runway for jingles if you do it right.”
For now, brands are still spending copiously on advertising music of all kinds — and every once in a while, an actual jingle emerges. Temu, a new e-commerce company owned by a Chinese retail giant, will reportedly spend $3 billion on advertising this year, emphasizing its insanely catchy “ooh, ooh, Temu” jingle that aired during the Super Bowl.
Keeping an Eye on AI
Yet some in the commercial-music industry worry about what Paige’s punk-EDM-hip-hop-klezmer AI-jingle exercise portends. “Do I think the [AI] fears are overblown? No. Am I concerned? Yes,” adds Sally House, CEO of The Hit House, a 19-year-old Los Angeles company that hires composers, engineers, sound designers and performers for music in Progressive, Marvel, HBO and Amazon Prime Video spots. “We’re all waiting for copyright to save us and the government to do something about it.”
But Warner Chappell’s Shaw says his team receives requests for “custom compositions” because brands want to work with the publisher’s stable of A-list songwriters. “AI doesn’t really factor in for us in this instance,” he says.
At Mastercard, which underwent a two-year process to unveil a piece of mellow, new-age-y instrumental music as part of its sonic brand in 2019, AI may be useful for future ad campaigns. But not for creating music. Mastercard employed its own creative people, plus composers, musicologists, sound engineers and even neuroscientists, to work on its distinctive tone. “If I tell the AI engine who is the audience, what am I trying to create, what is the context, and ask it to compose something based on the Mastercard melody, it will do a very fine job,” says Raja Rajamannar, a classically trained musician who is the company’s chief marketing and communications officer. “But if I had to create the Mastercard sonic architecture, I cannot delegate it to AI. The original creation, at this stage, clearly has to come from human beings.”
Paige agrees. Even if AI ultimately takes a cut out of the space — and certainly out of the potential profits for writers — it won’t completely gut the need for real musicians making advertorial music. Classic jingles endure, he says, because they contain humanity and spirit — and because people “know there’s a human being behind the Folger’s theme song.”