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A criminal case against Morgan Wallen for allegedly throwing a chair off the roof of a six-story Nashville bar is moving forward after an initial court hearing Friday (May 3).
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Wallen’s attorney Worrick Robinson appeared on behalf of the star before a Nashville judge, who set a new court date for Aug. 15. The hearing did not involve entering a plea, and Wallen had waived his right to appear in person, but Robinson said the star himself would be at the next hearing.
“This is obviously very complicated case and it’s not going to resolve itself without subpoenas and witnesses,” Robinson told the media after the hearing. “The state will subpoena witnesses and we’ll work on the case on our end. Morgan will be here on Aug. 15, and several things can happen in the case. We might have a hearing, we might settle the case or the case might continue. Those are the options.”
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Wallen, who is in the midst of three sold-out headlining shows at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on his One Night at a Time Tour this weekend, was arrested in Nashville on April 7 in connection to the chair-throwing incident. Two Metro Nashville Police Department officers were reportedly standing on the street below Chief’s on Broadway, owned by country singer Eric Church, when the chair landed approximately three feet from the officers. Police then reportedly spoke with staff and witnesses and viewed security footage to confirm Wallen’s alleged actions.
After the arrest, the country star was charged with three felony counts of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.
“I’m not proud of my behavior, and I accept responsibility,” Wallen said in a statement on April 19. “I have the utmost respect for the officers working every day to keep us all safe. Regarding my tour, there will be no change.”
Speaking with the media after Friday’s hearing, Robinson confirmed that there is surveillance footage of the incident, which he has viewed. He also addressed the issue of the police report noting that Wallen was seen “laughing” after the incident. “As each of you know, you can’t always believe everything you read, and I haven’t seen anything to suggest that at all, so I don’t have any proof that that is correct.”
Asked by media if they have a preference to settle the case, Robinson said, “These cases are always complicated and you just never know what’s going to happen. As an attorney, all you can do is be prepared and that’s what the district attorney’s office will do also. Everybody will prepare as if there’s going to be a hearing, but I think everybody generally wins if you can resolve it in a manner that everybody can live with.”
Robinson also responded to media who asked if Wallen was denying throwing the chair, saying, “I think he has said he takes responsibility for what he’s done … We’re not required to enter a plea of any type. But you’ve read his words and I think you understand them clearly.”
Friday night (May 3), Wallen continues with his second of three sold-out shows at Nissan Stadium as part of his One Night at a Time tour.
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A diss-track battle between two of the world’s biggest hip-hop stars has led to cryptic allegations that Drake directed his heavyweight record label to yank a hit featuring Kendrick Lamar from the airwaves. But would such a move be possible?
Probably not, say legal experts who study broadcast rights and the music business. “As a general law, broadcast stations have a lot of discretion over what they put on the air — almost unlimited discretion,” says Charles Naftalin, a Washington, D.C., attorney for Holland & Knight who specializes in telecommunications law. “A station is virtually free to pick and choose what it wants.”
Lamar’s new song “euphoria,” which he released April 30, alleges Drake and Republic had attempted to “try cease and desist on the ‘Like That’ record” — a reference to the recent Future–Metro Boomin hit containing a Lamar verse that attacks last year’s Drake-J. Cole track “First Person Shooter,” and helped spark the recent back-and-forth between the two rappers. Then a screenshot of an alleged email appeared on social media purporting to be from a Republic business-affairs executive declaring “we are not granting radio rights” for “Like That.” (Reps for Republic and Universal Music Group, the label’s parent company, did not respond to requests for comment, and the screenshot could not be verified.)
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Hypothetically, if Lamar’s lyrical allegation were true, and the Republic exec’s email were legitimate, how could a label, even the home of Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen, The Weeknd and Post Malone, which has the industry’s largest market share, pull off such a move? One conceivable explanation stems from the fact that “Like That” is an unusual business collaboration — it’s a joint release from competing major labels, Universal-owned Republic and Sony-owned Epic. The former is Metro Boomin’s label; the latter is Future’s label. (Adding confusion to the affair: Lamar records for Interscope, also owned by UMG, so he is, in a very broad sense, Drake’s labelmate.)
Because Republic had a hand in releasing “Like That,” it is conceivable — though extremely unlikely — that the company could demand that radio stations stop playing its own song. “I don’t readily see a legal reason to request takedown from radio solely based on certain lyrics being in the song,” says Matt Buser, an attorney who represents top artists and music companies. “However, there could be a justified legal reason for takedown based on the promotional grant of rights and understanding between the two collaborating labels.”
Like Buser, Larry Kenswil, a retired top business and legal affairs executive for UMG, has no idea what is in the contractual agreement between Republic and Epic for “Like That.” (A rep for Sony, Epic’s parent company, also did not respond to a request for comment.) But he’s certain that Republic has no right to demand a radio takedown. If Lamar’s “euphoria” lyric about a cease-and-desist is true, Kenswil says, “The artist [Drake] complained to the label [Republic] and the label felt like they had to do something to satisfy the artist. But, of course, we probably don’t have the full story.”
He adds: “That happens all the time. Artists tell their lawyers: ‘Send a cease-and-desist.’ The lawyer says, ‘Uh, I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong.’ ‘Send a cease-and-desist or I’ll fire you.’ And they send the cease-and-desist — and don’t follow up.’” Evidence on behalf of Kenswil’s theory: “Like That” not only came out, but radio played the track, it debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and remained there for three weeks. And as of this writing, “Like That” is No. 21 on the all-genre Radio Songs chart.
On Saturday night (April 27), Vancouver witnessed Diljit Dosanjh make history. The artist kicked off his Dil-Luminati tour with a sold-out stadium show at BC Place to a crowd of 54,000 people — making it the largest ever Punjabi music concert outside of India.
The show leaned into its historic accomplishment, with an ominous voice preceding Diljit Dosanjh’s entry, “Remember, firsts are always special and what you witness here will never be repeated.”
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In over two decades in the music and film industry, Dosanjh has solidified himself as a global star. Last year, he was the first Indian-born Punjabi singer to perform at Coachella and has recently made strides for international music amassing hundreds of millions of streams on collaborative tracks with Sia, Saweetie and Camilo respectively. More recently, Dosanjh is fresh off the critical acclaim of his performance of the titular Amar Singh Chamkila, a Bollywood biopic about the life and death of the controversial Punjabi singer who was killed at the height of his fame in 1988.
With anticipation palpable in the air, Dosanjh delivered a high-powered 27-song set with charisma and an undeniable star-power that easily captivated the record-breaking audience. It was an unabashed celebration of Punjabi music and culture.
The artist has a deep connection to Vancouver. Several of his popular Punjabi films that accelerated his career like Jatt and Juliet and Honsla Rakh were filmed across Greater Vancouver, making this moment that much more special for fans who have been longtime supporters far before his recent international successes.
“Now, Punjabis have made it to stadiums,” Dosanjh said. “The next generation won’t be able to say that this has never happened before. Now for generations to come, our kids can dream even bigger.”
During his performance of “Vibe,” the singer scooped up a young fan from the crowd who was dressed in signature Diljit Dosanjh attire, inviting him to dance with him. As the boy, understandably intimidated by the size of the crowd in front him, got more comfortable, he broke into dance himself. It was his hopes for the next generation coming to life right in front of him — a child who can now literally see himself on stage performing for a stadium of fans.
Dosanjh’s tour continues with arena dates in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Los Angeles and more, and another stadium date at Toronto’s Rogers Centre on July 13. – Jeevan Sangha
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Rising Canadian Stars Chani Nattan and Owen Riegling Make International Moves
Punjabi powerhouse lyricist Chani Nattan is the next signing to Warner Music Canada and Warner Music India’s joint venture, 91 North Records. Nattan will join fellow Punjabi-Canadian artists Karan Aujla, Jonita Gandhi and AR Paisley on the label, which was created to support South Asian artists.
Born and raised in Surrey, B.C., Nattan has already broken through to Punjabi music audiences around the world. In 2021, Nattan teamed up with Inderpal Moga and released “Daku” — a heady Punjabi hip-hop track that has garnered 247 million views on YouTube, and became one of the most streamed songs on Spotify India. With Sukha and Punjabi singer Gurlez Akhtar, Nattan’s “8 Asle” sparked a viral TikTok dance trend and charted on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100.
Nattan marks the signing with the release of his new song “Facetime,” alongside frequent collaborator Inderpal Moga and iconic Punjabi singer Miss Pooja.
Nattan uses a traditional Punjabi duet style, typically consisting of a playful back and forth between a quarreling couple. “Facetime” blends those old-school Punjabi vibes with the hip-hop elements that he is so heavily influenced by, Nattan tells Billboard Canada.
“The beats are different but the heart and soul of it maintains the sound of Punjab and its concepts,” he says. “It’s about honouring our roots while embracing the evolution of our music.”
Meanwhile, Canadian-based management and production company Workshop Music Group has announced a new partnership with talent representation company The Familie to co-manage rising young country singer-songwriter Owen Riegling. The Familie’s client roster includes Machine Gun Kelly and Avril Lavigne and it recently launched a country music division.
Now boasting over 50M global streams for his songs, Riegling won the 2022 Emerging Artists Showcase at the CanCountry mega-fest Boots & Hearts, then signed his record deal with Universal Music Canada. Last year he was selected for Apple Music’s UpNext Program and is now part of Spotify’s Hot Country Artists To Watch and Amazon Canada’s Breakthrough Artists to Watch 2024. – Jeevan Sanha & Kerry Doole
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Toronto Chinese Restaurant Gets a Boost from Kendrick Lamar’s Namedrop
Toronto caught a few strays in Kendrick Lamar’s “Euphoria,” the first of two diss tracks aimed at hometown star Drake. While listing all the things he hates about Drizzy, Kendrick takes a moment to slip into an exaggerated Toronto accent complete with local slang and a surprising reference to a popular late-night Chinatown restaurant: “I be at New Ho King eatin’ fried rice with a dip sauce and a blammy, crodie,” he raps.
CityNews spoke to New Ho King owner Johnny Lu for a TV segment. Playing him the track, they get his live reaction to the nametrack: “I see, Kendrick’s a good guy. Oh my God!” he says.
CityNews also caught up with residents who are fans of Kendrick who made trips just to give the fried rice dish a try. “I came all the way from Markham just to see this fried rice,” one says. “Kendrick Lamar, man. You gotta pay respect to K. Dot, man. Ever since he dropped the diss track I was like, ‘I gotta visit this place.’”
The reference may have had a darker meaning than just fried rice, with some fans believing it was a sly reference to Drake’s 2009 armed robbery. Toronto rapper Sizzlac, who was rumoured to be part of the robbery, once filmed a music video at New Ho King, which may be how the restaurant hit Kendrick’s radar. But New Ho King is reaping the rewards. Since the track dropped, New Ho King has been showered with five-star reviews on Google and Yelp. – Richard Trapunski
Last Week In Canada: Cowboy Junkies Write to U.S. Senators
These days, a new Beyoncé album is generally a cause for celebration — fans pore over album covers, track listings, song lyrics and rollout plans, searching for hidden gems and rare treasures. For Cowboy Carter, her latest album released in March, one of those gems came in the form of Shaboozey, the rising country singer who had made some minor waves in his career to date and was featured on two tracks on the album, “Spaghetti” with Linda Martell” and “Sweet / Honey / Buckiin.’”
If those guest spots introduced Shaboozey to the mainstream of pop culture, it was what came next that has truly brought him to the forefront. Two weeks after the release of Cowboy Carter, the Virginia-born singer released “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” through American Dogwood/EMPIRE, a flip of J-Kwon’s 2004 song “Tipsy” that is a fun-loving, infectious romp of a song, and has quickly captured hearts, minds — and a very captive audience. This week, the song makes a historic jump on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, bounding from No. 6 to No. 1 — and replacing Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” on top of the list, marking the first time ever that two Black artists have led the chart in back to back weeks since the chart became an all-encompassing genre ranking in 1958.
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The song, which will herald the artist’s next album, Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, due out May 31, has been on such an upswing that even in the week that Taylor Swift flooded the Hot 100 with her new 31-song Tortured Poets Department album, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” was one of just two songs on the entire Hot 100 to actually rise, as it moved from No. 36 to No. 27, with a possible jump into the top five on the cards for next week, as the Swift fervor ebbs. And all that momentum helps his Range Media co-manager Jared Cotter earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Cotter talks about how the Beyoncé look helped boost Shaboozey’s latest hit, the value of being in the right place at the right time (and being prepared for the moment when it comes) and the history-making hit that brought them here. “He will be a superstar that continues to push boundaries and make great music for years to come,” Cotter says. “This is just the beginning.”
This week, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” reached No. 1 on Hot Country Songs, his first chart-topper. What key decision did you make to help make that happen?
A key decision was making sure we were prepared for the Beyoncé moment. We didn’t even have it locked in 100% but I wanted the team to be prepared if it happened, so we moved our original release date for the song up by three weeks. That way we were able to take advantage of truly an extremely unique opportunity with lots of heat and algorithmic love. The Beyoncé Bounce is real!
The song replace’s Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” at No. 1, the first time in history that two Black artists led the chart back to back. What is the significance of that for you and Shaboozey?
As Black men, we are aware and in awe of the history that we’ve made. Country is a genre that historically has been very closed, and something like this typically could never happen. It’s a positive sign that times are changing and that country listeners just want great music, no matter who it comes from. Thank you to Beyoncé and her team for knocking down that door.
Shaboozey has been buzzing for a while, but he exploded into the mainstream with two features on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album. How did that come about, and how were you guys able to use that momentum to help push “A Bar Song”?
Beyoncé’ was already familiar with Boozey because her team — including her Mom, Tina Knowles — showed us a lot of love on Shaboozey’s “Let It Burn.” But primarily the Beyoncé features came about because her A&R, Ricky Lawson, happened to be at our Range Showcase Night at Winston House in Venice, Calif. Shaboozey is an incredible live performer and that night was special. It’s a testament to taking advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you because you never know who is watching.
On this week’s Hot 100, amid a flood of new Taylor Swift songs, “A Bar Song” was one of only two songs on the entire chart to actually move up, going from No. 36 to No. 27. How was the song able to do that?
It’s the perfect song. It has a tried and true interpolation in J-Kwon’s “Tipsy,” so the familiarity is there and everything about the verses and chorus is a hook. Plus, it’s fun. After also having success with Paul Russell’s hit “Lil Boo Thang” this year I truly believe that people just want to have fun again.
Shaboozey first partnered with EMPIRE in 2021, and is having this huge moment three years later. Why did the EMPIRE partnership make sense over a traditional Nashville-type deal, and how have you built his career in that period of time to lay the foundation for this type of moment now?
EMPIRE has been an incredible partner. What Ghazi, Nima [Etminan] and Tina [Davis] have built is nothing short of amazing — I don’t think they get enough credit for what they’ve done and continue to do in multiple genres. They’ve been huge supporters of Shaboozey, and have shown immense patience as he figured out his sound. Now that the timing is right, they’re throwing everything at this project with staff and resources. Their belief in him is palpable from everyone on their team. As a manager I couldn’t be happier to be in business with all of EMPIRE, including Sak Pase, Peter Kadin and Harrison Golding.
With the likes of Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan and Bailey Zimmerman, among others, country music music has had a big mainstream boost in the past year-plus. At the same time, Range has been signing more country acts of late and investing in the genre. Did you see this uptick in country music coming, and how do capitalize on the mainstream popularity of the genre moving forward?
Yes. Range is at the forefront of this country revolution and I’m happy to add my energy. It’s been extremely valuable to lean on country music veterans at Range like Matt Graham, Jack Minihan and Shawn McSpadden as I navigate a new genre as a manager. Our staff in the newly-opened Nashville office is second to none, and we’ll continue to capitalize on the uptick with passion, expertise, and boots on the ground.
What’s next for Shaboozey?
More great music and great shows coming to a city near you. He will be a superstar that continues to push boundaries and make great music for years to come. This is just the beginning.
Last Week’s Executive: Sabrina Carpenter’s Manager Janelle Lopez Genzink
Australia’s music community has reached a “crisis” point, as myriad factors contribute to the closure of grassroots venues and popular festivals, and a generation of homegrown artists are essentially overlooked and locked out of the sales charts.
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Artist managers are proposing a solution.
Announced Friday (May 3), the Association of Artist Managers (AAM) unveils “Michael’s Rule,” a policy that would ensure at least one local artist would be among the support acts on every international tour of these parts.
The campaign bears the name of Michael McMartin, the late, great artist manager who guided the career of Hoodoo Gurus for more than 40 years, and is broken down into three main tenets: every international artist must include an Australian artist among their opening acts; the Australian artist must appear on the same stage at the international artist using reasonable sound and lighting; and the Australian artist must be announced at the same time as the tour so that they benefit from all the marketing and promotion.
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The Rule came from a discussion amongst senior members of the artist management fraternity in the lead-in to the 2024 AAM Awards in Sydney, and is born out of the frustration at the limited options for the discoverability of artists in Australia.
These challenges have been recognized by governments across Australia in recent years, notes Maggie Collins, executive director of the AAM, the trade body that represents more than 300 artist managers.
“Promoters received significant public funding during the pandemic and they understandably continue to receive public support for some of their major events,” she explains in a statement. “We think it is only reasonable that, in return, they should ‘do their bit’ to help give Australian artists a leg up by the simple means of including at least one local act on every international tour.”
Collins used the platform of the 2024 AAM Awards to present “Michael’s Rule.”
“If there’s one overarching issue that managers have been flagging time and time again, it is this: we need more Australians loving more Australian music. We have a major discoverability problem and if we don’t solve this issue, which is both economical and cultural,” she explained to a full house at Sydney’s Crowbar.
Had “Michael’s Rule” existed for major international tours, such as Taylor Swift’s seven-date The Eras Tour, which visited Sydney and Melbourne in 2023, “how many more fans could we have introduced to a local artist and started creating our own megastar of the future.”
The support act rule had once been a widely accepted industry code after lobbying by artist managers in the early 2000s. With the launch of “Michael’s Rule,” a voluntary code, senior artist managers call for its reintroduction “at this time of crisis for Australian music,” reads a statement from AAM.
If promoters are not willing to agree, the trade body insists it make formal representations for federal government to step in and make it a condition of issuing visas that international artists touring Australia must comply.Labels body ARIA welcomes “Michael’s Rule.” “Doing whatever we can to get our local artists in front of new audiences is the most important issue facing our local industry,” says ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd in a separate media release, “and as such the Michael’s Rule is a fantastic initiative, which we are confident can be implemented in a way that doesn’t impact the viability of international touring.”ARIA’s latest year-end charts spelled out the problem. Just four Australian albums cracked the top 100 last year, led by INXS hits collection The Very Best (at No. 58), and only three Australian-made singles impacted the top 100, none of which were released in 2023. The best-placed Australian track was The Kid Laroi’s 2021 collaboration with Justin Bieber, “Stay.”Other initiatives, including “looking to broaden venues like sports stadiums to multi-use facilities in NSW is a really important step to increase the availability of entertainment for everyone outside of sport,” adds Herd, “and continue to increase opportunities to see local artists alongside global icons.”The unveiling of the industry code closely follows the announcement that Brisbane’s The Zoo, one of the country’s longest-operating grassroots music venues, would close its doors due to crushing financial pressures, and a string of music festivals, including Splendour in the Grass, would skip this year – or close for good.
Drake’s track with an AI 2Pac verse didn’t last long. A day after the Tupac Shakur estate threatened to sue Drake for using an AI imitation of the later rapper’s voice on “Taylor Made Freestyle,” he took down the recording. In using 2Pac’s voice, though, Drake opened yet another important debate about generative AI that reveals just how risky the business is — and how rightsholders may have more power to shape it than they realize.
So let’s get legal! In the cease-and-desist letter he sent on behalf of the Shakur estate, lawyer Howard King referenced both Shakur’s personality rights, which encompasses publicity rights, or what some states refer to as likeness rights, plus the copyrights to the rapper’s recordings and songs. Most coverage of this focused on the former issue, since personality rights are relatively straightforward — Shakur’s estate controls the rights to the rapper’s distinctive style. The second gets complicated, since the recording copyrights — and potentially the song copyrights — have less to do with Drake’s use of 2Pac-style vocals than how he was able to create them in the first place.
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To create such a convincing imitation of 2Pac, an AI model would almost certainly have to ingest — and, in the course of doing so, copy — a significant number of Shakur’s recordings. So King, in his letter, demanded from Drake “a detailed explanation for how the sound-alike was created and the persons or company that created it, including all recordings and other data ‘scraped’ or used.” Any answer Drake gave would have taken the issue into legal terra incognita — an AI’s ingestion of recordings and songs would implicate copyright, although it’s not clear if this could be done without a license under fair use. The stakes would be high, though. As opposed to a California right of publicity violation, which would be relatively easy to prove and incur limited damages, copyright infringement is federal and comes with statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work infringed. That means a company that ingests 20 works to create one would be liable a maximum of $3 million.
For the last year, music creators and rightsholders have been talking about generative AI as something that’s coming — the deals they’ll negotiate, the terms they’ll set, the business they’ll do — once they negotiate the right deals. But technology companies tend to beg forgiveness rather than ask permission, and it seems some of them have already ingested a considerable amount of music for AI without a license. Think about it: None of the major labels have announced deals for AI companies to ingest their catalogs of recordings, but enough recordings have been ingested to make AI vocal imitations of Drake, 2Pac, Snoop — even Frank Sinatra doing Lil Jon’s “Skeet skeet.” That means that a company or companies could be in big trouble. Or that they have a first-mover advantage over their rivals. Or both.
Part of the reason technology companies forge ahead is that deals that involve new technology get complicated. In this case, how do you value a license you’re not sure you need? If you think that companies need a license to ingest music for the purposes of allowing users to make AI vocal imitations — as seems likely — the price for that license is going to be relatively high, with complicated terms, because rightsholders would presumably want to be compensated on an ongoing basis. (It’s insanely difficult to create a fair one-time license to ingest a catalog of music: first, since copyright law controls copying, the licensor would forfeit any control not specified in the contract; second, it would be hard for a potential buyer to raise the kind of money a seller might want, so the economics of ongoing payments make more sense.) If you think that ingestion would fall under fair use — which is very possible in some edge cases but much less so generally — why would you pay a high fee, much less constrain yourself with complicated terms?
The legal cases that will tip the scales in one direction or the other will proceed at the speed of litigation, which moves slower than culture, much less technology. The first big case will be against Anthropic, which Universal Music, Concord, ABKCO and other music publishers sued in October for training an AI on lyrics to compositions they control. (Universal’s agreement with YouTube on AI principles might make a ruling that this is fair use somewhat less likely, since it shows that major labels are willing to license their music.) There are already other cases in other parts of the media business — The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December, for example — and one of them could set an important precedent.
Until that happens — and maybe after, too — there will be settlements. Very few rightsholders have much of an interest in stopping AI — some could in some cases, but it’s a losing battle. What they really want to do is leverage the power they have to destroy, or at least delay, a nascent business in order to shape it. (“The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it,” in the words of Paul Atreides, Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe, who might be exaggerating but certainly has a point.) That will give them real power — not only to monetize music with AI but to shape the terms of engagement in a way that, let’s face it, is likely to favor big companies with big catalogs. It will be interesting to see what they do with it.
Taylor Swift is returning to the road to complete the final leg of her Eras Tour for fans eager to hear the singer-songwriter perform new tracks like “Fortnight,” “Down Bad” and “Florida!!!” from her new album, The Tortured Poets Department.
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But those fans may be in for some sticker shock. Prices to see Swift at one of her final nine shows in the United States have increased following the release of the album April 19, with the average get-in-the-door price — the lowest price available — hovering around $2,600 per ticket, according to data from TicketIQ. That means it would cost a couple more than $5,000 just to be in the same building as Swift in Miami (Oct 18-20), New Orleans (Oct 25-27) and Indianapolis (Nov. 1-3) this fall.
In Europe, however — where Swift starts a 51-show run on May 9 with a kickoff date at Paris’ La Defense Arena — tickets cost only a fraction of that. Right now, the get-in-the door price to see the opening of the European leg of the Eras Tour is $340 a ticket — 87% cheaper than the average price in the United States.
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That means a fan in Miami could fly to Paris for about $900 a person (according to prices generated on kayak.com), spend two nights at a four-star hotel at $250 a night and purchase a $340 concert ticket for a grand total of $1,740 — which is still $760 less than the cheapest tickets currently available for her Miami shows.
Tickets to see Swift in Stockholm (May 17-19) are even cheaper, at $312 for the cheapest tickets, while tickets for her show in Portugal (May 24-25) start at $336 and in Spain (May 29-30) start at $324. Prices do start to climb in the United Kingdom, with the get-in-the-door price hovering around £540 (about $674 USD) for Swift’s Liverpool shows (June 13-15). Prices to see Swift at Wembley Stadium (June 21-23) hover around £720 ($900).
The reason for the huge difference in price, experts say, is due in part to longstanding consumer skepticism about resale tickets in most of Europe. That’s coupled with a much more aggressive regulatory environment where artists and consumers are empowered to report and remove illegal ticket listings, and where prices are kept low thanks to laws limiting how high tickets can be marked up over face value.
The European approach is significantly different from that of the United States, where ticket resale is not regulated and deceptive marketing practices, including the use of deceptive websites and speculative ticket listings, continue unabated despite widespread outcry from consumers. And federal officials don’t regularly enforce the few ticketing laws that do exist. It took five years after the BOTS Act — banning automated programs that jump the queue and buy up tickets — was passed for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to bring a case against brokers for violating the bill.
Sam Shemtob, managing director for ticket resale advocacy group Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing (FEAT), points to Europe as a model for how governments can be more vigilant about regulating resale markets. In countries like France, Germany and the Netherlands, ticket resellers face limits on how much tickets can be marked up on secondary sites — typically 20% over face value. Other countries like the United Kingdom allow resale but restrict who is allowed to post tickets for resale and give artists and event promoters the right to take some resale ticket listings down.
Adopting European-style regulations in the United States by restricting ticket markups to 20% above face value would transform the concert business overnight and likely drive prices down dramatically on the secondary market. Markup caps would also likely make programs like Ticketmaster’s platinum ticket pricing (which charges high markups for a small percentage of tickets to offset the resale market) obsolete and significantly reduce the number of ticket brokers and bad actors using bots to disrupt ticket sales and illegally buy up tickets.
A federal cap on ticket markups would also significantly disrupt the secondary ticketing market and push many brokers out of business, which might create unintended consequences for sports teams that are much more willing to sell season tickets to brokers and depend on resellers for distribution. It’s also unclear if Americans would even accept a regulatory framework capping how much tickets could be marked up. Lawmakers in New York, Utah, Colorado, Connecticut and Virginia have all passed laws in the last decade making it illegal to restrict how and where ticket brokers resell tickets. While U.S. consumers often complain about the excesses of ticket resale and like the idea of using technology to keep tickets out of the hands of scalpers, they also dislike the restrictions that come with non-transferable tickets and tend to loudly oppose policies that create inconveniences.
Shemtob notes that Europe’s ticketing rules aren’t just about protecting price, but are also designed to empower citizens to take action.
On Jan. 1, 2025, Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) will go into effect, creating a uniform set of guidelines for online ticket resale requiring resellers to disclose their names and contact details to potential ticket buyers. The DSA also mandates that resale platforms track takedowns of public ticket listings (to help provide a record of the deceptive activity taking place) and ban deceptive marketing practices.
While many of the DSA’s reforms mirror U.S. efforts to clean up ticketing, Shemtob says a provision in the DSA bill that makes it simple to flag, report and take down ticket listings that violate the rules is a game-changer for consumer advocates. The law creates “a clear process for removing illegal ticket listings as and when they appear,” he said in a statement provided to Billboard, putting in place “the groundwork for a fairer, more transparent ticket-buying experience for consumers.”
Besides keeping prices in Europe low, the legislation has also led to a surprising boom in tourism from U.S. fans traveling to the continent to pursue cheaper Eras Tour tickets: A spokesperson for StubHub told Billboard that 68% of ticket purchases for Swift’s 51-show run in Europe have come from U.S. buyers.
Helped by paid music subscriptions and a strong performance from its music publishing division, Universal Music Group generated revenue of 2.59 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in the first quarter of 2024, a 5.8% increase (7.9% at constant currency) over the prior-year quarter, the company announced Thursday (May 2).
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Notably, UMG’s margins improved from a year earlier. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) improved 13.2% to 591 million euros ($640 million). As a percent of revenue, adjusted EBITDA margin was 22.8%, up 1.5 percentage points from 21.3% from the first quarter of 2023.
CFO Boyd Muir attributed the margin improvement to revenue growth and a change in product mix — namely, less physical sales — but during Thursday’s earnings call he cautioned “not to read too much into any one quarter” and urged investors to look at trends over longer periods.
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The quarterly earnings release arrived a day after UMG announced a new licensing deal with TikTok. Analysts probed for insights into the economics of the agreement and possible impacts to UMG’s financial statements. Executives declined to provide details about the deal but insisted it provides fair value relative to other short-form video platforms.
Michael Nash, UMG’s executive vp/chief digital officer, said the new TikTok deal is “a substantial improvement” from the previous one and the revenue “does markedly improve for our last deal.” Some of the deal’s value is difficult to quantify, however. Nash added the new agreement contains “aspects of economic value” — such as ad credits, data and marketing programs — that won’t show up in future financial statements.
Each of the company’s divisions — recorded music, music publishing and merchandise — showed improvements in the first quarter. “This broad-based growth continues to underpin our confidence about the longer-term health of our business,” said Muir.
Subscription services were a main driving force in UMG’s quarter. Recorded-music subscription revenue grew 10.7% to 1.12 billion euros ($1.2 billion) and accounted for 43.3% of total company revenue, up from 41.4% in the fourth quarter of 2023. Recent price increases by Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music weren’t the only — or the primary — factor. “Subscriber growth is the biggest driver of the year-over-year growth rates we see at UMG,” said Muir.
Total streaming revenue grew at a slower rate, however, gaining 8.9% to 343 million euros ($371 million). Speaking about ad-supported streaming, Muir said he is “encouraged” by improvements but “cautious” about growth “until we see a consistent broad-based improvement across all partners and across all geographies and probably over a more consistent, longer-term timeframe.”
Total recorded-music revenues grew just 3.4% to 1.99 billion euros ($2.15 billion). Top sellers in the quarter came from Taylor Swift, Noah Kahan, Morgan Wallen, Ariana Grande and Olivia Rodrigo. Physical revenue in the recorded-music segment dropped 18.5% to 255 million euros ($276 million). (Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Society, which sold 859,000 vinyl copies in its first week of release, will impact UMG’s second quarter results.) Muir explained the decrease in physical sales stemmed from particular strong physical sales in Japan in the prior-year quarter. Licensing and other revenue fell 1.8% to 222 million euros ($240 million).
Music publishing revenue jumped 16.7% to 496 million euros ($537 million) thanks to digital revenue’s 22.9% increase to 284 million euros ($307 million). Performance revenue’s 26.7% increase to 114 million euros ($123 million) more than compensated for synch revenue’s decline of 10.1% to 62 million euros ($67 million)
Merchandising revenue grew 6.5% (7.5% at constant currency) to 114 million euros ($123 million). Touring merchandise sales increased while direct-to-consumer sales and retail sales declined.
The company remains on track to realize 75 million euros ($80 million) in cost savings in 2024, said Muir. In February, the company announced a plan to save $270 million annually through organization redesign and layoffs. As part of the redesign, UMG created label operations on the coasts under the leadership of two top executives. On the East Coast, Republic Corps is led by Republic Records co-founder Monte Lipman. On the West Coast, Interscope Capital Labels Group is helmed by John Janick, previously the chairman/CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M.
Independent talent agency 33 & West has hired veteran music agent Christianne Weiss to support the agency’s expansion. As part of her multiyear deal with 33 & West, Weiss is bringing the multiplatinum Grammy-nominated artist Starship to the company’s artist roster, with more to be announced in the coming weeks. Explore Explore See latest videos, […]
Guy Moot, CEO and co-chair of Warner Chappell Music, recently celebrated his five-year anniversary with the major publisher with a renewed five-year term. It’s easy to see why he’s staying on. Since taking the helm in 2019, Moot, along with co-chair and COO Carianne Marshall, managed to turn the company’s slow and steady long-term business, which originated all the way back in 1811 as Chappell & Co., into a modernized, fierce competitor with a honed A&R strategy. He focused on signing artist/songwriters with “cultural relevance” like RAYE, Mitski, Frank Ocean, Laufey, Zach Bryan, Teddy Swims and Benson Boone, recruiting the growing “mid tier” of artists, and buying catalogs, like his personal favorite David Bowie, that WCM can actively boost.
Moot’s wins have been more than just cultural — they are backed up by chart data. For the last three quarters, including this latest one, WCM — which regularly ranked third on Billboard’s Publishers Quarterly for Hot 100 songs — surpassed Universal Music Publishing Group to land in second place. It’s also No. 2 for the last two quarters amid Pop Airplay and No. 1 in market share on Country Airplay.
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But on a sunny April morning in his Downtown Los Angeles office, Moot tells Billboard that, despite WCM’s obvious wins, he is uninterested in sizing the company’s value by what its major competition is doing. “I don’t want to be just like them,” he says with a shrug. “I want to be doing our own thing.”
Warner Chappell’s thing is about leaning into the shifting music business head-on, echoing Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl‘s theme of 2024 as “the year of the next 10.” That includes the company’s new partnership with Bandlab and its artist service platform ReverbNation, through which WCM will provide administration to anyone who needs it and a full-service JV tier to develop Bandlab’s most promising writers. The company has also been working on a program to release collections of songwriter demos to the general public. With these and other initiatives, it hopes will help it stand out from an increasingly-crowded publishing field.
“This business is like no other business,” Moot says. “The competition is great, but almost no one actually sees it through and actually delivers something that’s worked. Last year, I said to all our team that we’ve got to double down and really deliver, and now, it seems like we’ve really gotten some momentum.”
Billboard: Robert Kyncl has been CEO at Warner Music Group for a little over a year now, and has put a strong emphasis on improving the technology at the company. Has that changed anything within Warner Chappell in terms of the way that you are looking at modernizing and keeping up with the speed of change?
Guy Moot: Definitely. I think a lot of the things that don’t add up in the music industry make him question, “Why, and how?” He’s tasked us to challenge the third parties for more transparency and speed of payment. We’re certainly investing a lot in tech. It’s not all delivered yet, but we know we need to fast-track for the next three to five years. We’ve always had issues in publishing with rights flows, transparency, PROs, but I also think the next big forefront will be how we get paid for UGC. That’s the real challenge. With those really sketchy sped-up versions, cover versions of our songs, there’s a lot of progress we’re making internally to match and track those and we’re seeing really great results. We want to get to a world where we can always find when somebody sped up one of our songs and there’s no master attached.
How can you track a song when it’s been manipulated like that?
Various matching tools, and it’s improving. I still think there’s a lot slipping through the net. When we make our digital agreements now, it’s still about setting terms that get songwriters paid more, but secondly, it’s also about getting levels of service and more data and info from the companies. I’m making a bold prediction here, and it’s a personal thing that I haven’t seen yet, but I’m hopeful AI will be helpful in the future of publishing administration. I’ve got a lot of hope that we will be able to completely map out a song’s DNA and then follow its uses through a whole ecosystem.
You’ve mentioned that you’d like to quicken the rate in which your writers get paid, but is that always possible? Some songs are released without complete publishing splits.
I think you’re as good as the information going in, and it’s not perfect. The MLC has actually been the nearest to having a comprehensive database, for America at least. And from our point of view, it seems to be working quite well. But it would be great if we had one authoritative database for the songwriting industry and we don’t.
What are you most proud of from your first five years on the job?
Carianne and I have been together five years, and we’ve seen a lot of progress at the company. When we got here, I had a couple observations. One, Chapell didn’t really have a strategy, in our point of view. It was a solid company. It was working great catalogs, and the other thing that I personally noticed from my A&R background is that we didn’t have many artists. We had a lot of songwriters for other artists at the time. I thought it was really important that we build a roster of both songwriters who do great work for others and artists who really mean something to fans and have some cultural relevance in a broad spectrum of genres. We started that process with Frank Ocean, but what’s exciting now is that we’re gaining artists not just across genres but across the world, and it feels like a new generation of artists.
The great thing about publishing is, you could do anything from an acquisition to a very short-term deal, but wherever you are, you’re really at the beginning of the process. We’ve got some great stories. Benson Boone is a great story for us right now. We’ve been there from the beginning with him attending our writing camps. Another one is when I was in the U.K., when we signed RAYE, she was very young. I think it was 2016. She’s had such a progression. Mitski, Zach Bryan, too.
I always use this term “culturally relevant signings.” I know we have just talked about some difficulties, but publishing’s easy if you sign someone you’re really proud of. Sure, our job is really complex sometimes, but also it feels really simple. What we do is we take the essence of what excites us about music, and we talk [to partners] about it.
So much has changed, even in five years. Music is more global, more artists are opting for independence over major labels, etc. What are you looking for when you are finding new music and new artists/writers?
We don’t just chase hits. I mean, we love hits, and we have a lot of hits, but we’re not just going out and buying every hit, chasing every hit. We often talk about the mid tier. I think in publishing we want people who consistently stream or slowly build. It’s going to be about fan bases and artist development. Those used to be fast-tracked by record companies, but that’s not so much the case now. I think sometimes you have to take a three-to-five-year approach if you’re developing, which many publishers do. Sometimes the economics of big label deals and the pressure that comes with that is too much. Not every artist is built for that.
Country music is everywhere right now, and Warner Chappell has the biggest market share in Nashville, according to Billboard’s Publishers Quarterly. How do you collaborate between the L.A.-based team and Nashville team?
Ben Vaughn runs an incredible team [in Nashville]. Everyone is talking about Nashville. I think you’re going to see more and more crossovers — you can already see it with the Dasha record in the U.K. We also see a lot of the country-adjacent artists, like Zach Bryan. I think it can all live together. I sat with Ryan Press, who runs North America for us, and Ben Vaughn last week here. I’m like, ‘“I don’t want to spend all this time working out what’s Nashville, what’s traditional, what’s country-adjacent. We’re all in it together.” I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What’s the balance between frontline and catalog? Catalog has seemingly become a more and more important part of a publishers’ business.
We look at catalog here with the same excitement as we do frontline, so David Bowie was incredible to buy. We don’t just have one head of catalog, we have a broad church of people from all different departments, like a catalog committee, where we talk about what we can do.
There are so many buyers in the catalog market right now. What do you think is the distinction between Warner Chappell and others as a buyer?
Don’t get me wrong, I have lots of friends who are in funds. We are partners with some of them. But Warner Chappell is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, music publishers. We are not going anywhere. We are not on a timeline or a window to sell. We’re not trying to buy an asset and sell it — we are here for the long term. Anything that we look at, we look at it through the lens of, How can we add value? How can we grow it? We’re not passive. So anything that we buy, we will have a plan for it. This can be anything, including that we know there are geographical areas where we can work it better specifically — like with George Michael’s catalog, we are working with the estate and identified that Latin America and Asia are two places where it’s been done well, but we can do better. Another big difference I noticed when I went to Warner is it’s a pure-play music company.
A source of mine called this the “year of the second sale” — saying that there are a number of funds looking to sell their assets. It’s been less about buying catalogs from artists directly this year and often about buying from other catalog owners. Have you seen that firsthand?
You’re starting to see some consolidation happen. I think some are just hitting that time horizon, some are just doing what funds do. You raise a fund, you have an exit window, a timeline horizon where you would expect to return money to your investors. Some of them may have overpaid. Some of them may just want to get out of the sector. There are a myriad of different reasons [why this is happening], but I think some of them are going to be long-term holders too.
Warner has been working on a special project with the Edith Piaf estate to use AI to clone her voice for use in a biopic about her life. It seems there could be some applications for AI within catalog marketing. Is Warner interested in doing more projects like this?
I think you can look at all of those things [enabled by AI] with the approval and respect of the estate. I think that’s the other thing you get from [selling to a] publisher, is we are music-first. We are going to do what’s right by the music, the songwriter and the artist. AI is interesting because we don’t know what the consumption and demand is yet. I mean, it was funny to see Frank Sinatra sing “Gangster’s Anthem” or something, but I don’t really see the real consumption there.
What is the most pressing issue for publishers as you see it?
I would say that one of the biggest challenges we’re all going to face as songwriters and publishers is how to get more songs out. Particularly as there are fewer huge stars, you’ve got to look at this game internationally. So we have an internal tool called Arrow, which is a searchable repository of our demos, and it’s multilingual, so someone in Hong Kong can look, and we can, too.
What sets WCM apart from the other majors?
There’s a focus on the individual here. Every songwriter is unique, so we meet them where they are in their careers and help them achieve their full potential. The same could be said for how we develop our team. We’ve created a culture where there’s a real, collective commitment to songwriters. Which is only possible because of each individual’s expertise.
This is something we’re quite proud to be building. Our songwriters benefit from being part of it — our global Warner Chappell collective — in terms of reach, collaborators and opportunities. And our teams around the world do, too.
Carianne and I are intentional about approaching everything from a human element. We certainly aren’t trying to be like anyone else. Being distinctive is about what you do and how you deliver on your promises, not what you say.