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Universal Music Group is poised to open its first Capitol Studios outside of Hollywood, plus live performance spaces, music education academies and a new record label, as part of a collaboration with DGMC in the burgeoning music hub of the United Arab Emirates. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts […]
Believe founder and CEO Denis Ladegaillerie has formed a consortium with investment funds EQT and TCV as part of a wider effort to acquire full ownership of the French music company and take it private. The triad announced their intentions on Monday (Feb. 12), and the Believe board of directors unanimously voted to welcome the proposal to review.
All told, the bid values Believe’s entire share capital at 1.523 billion euros (USD $1.64 billion) based on 101,547 million shares outstanding.
Before they can take Believe private, Ladegaillerie, EQT and TCV first must acquire shares owned by historical shareholders TCV Luxco BD S.à r.l., XAnge and Ventech, which combined amount to 59.46% of the share capital. After this already agreed-upon transaction, Ladegaillerie would then contribute a portion of his company shares, representing an additional 11.7%, to the bidding conglomerate, as well as sell his remaining portion of 1.29%. An additional 3% has been obtained from other shareholders, bringing this group’s share of the company to roughly 75%.
Once these acquisitions are approved by regulators, the conglomerate would then make a tender offer for all Believe outstanding shares at an offer price of 15 euros per share, representing a 21% premium over the last closing price before the proposed buyout was announced (12.4 euros on Feb. 9). If legal conditions are met at the end of the offer, the company will then request the implementation of a squeeze-out procedure.
Completion of the acquisitions of the blocks of shares is expected to take place during the second quarter of 2024, and the filing of the subsequent tender offer would be sent to the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), which regulates the stock market in France, soon after.
The French digital music company, which owns TuneCore, began trading on the Paris Euronext exchange in June 2021.
Believe’s board has appointed an independent expert, Ledouble, to draw up an opinion on the offer, and assigned three board members to assist with that effort and work up their own recommendations for shareholders and employees.
In prepared comments, Ladegaillerie said Believe has “systematically outperformed its objectives, delivering its IPO plan two years ahead of schedule” but “the strength of its operational performance has not been reflected in the share price evolution.”
He added, “Believe has a significant opportunity ahead to consolidate the independent music market and create the first global major independent, at the service of artists at all stages of their career. In achieving this ambition, I am glad to continue benefiting from the active support of TCV who has accompanied Believe since 2014 and to be partnering with Europe-based EQT who has a great track record in supporting high growth companies.”
Believe has appointed Citigroup Global Markets Europe AG and Gide Loyrette Nouel as financial and legal advisers to assist the company and the three-member committee in their evaluation of the offer.
Pay attention future pop stars: Usher’s strategy for harnessing the Super Bowl’s massive audience into sellout headliner concerts is a master class in how to parlay a career milestone into a legacy solidifying tour.
The R&B icon has been able to capture the pre-game buzz around his performance at the Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime show with a carefully coordinated presale campaign for his fall Past Present Future tour. Once hardcore fans grabbed their tickets (most went on sale Feb. 9), Usher’s team started expanding the dates based on demand to make sure there will still be plenty of tickets available for the general public on the Monday (Feb. 12) after the game.
So far, there have been 360,000 tickets sold in presale for the Past Present Future tour, according to Live Nation Global Touring chairman Arthur Fogel, and dates have expended from 24 to 44 across the U.S. since the initial presale launched on Thursday (Feb 8). Billboard estimates that when the remaining tickets will go on sale Monday after the Super Bowl, the Past Present Future tour with be Usher’s highest grossing tour ever.
“The success of tour began several years ago when Usher launched his residency in Vegas, which re-established his greatness,” Fogel says. “Now he is building off that success with his current tour and the presales prove there is unprecedented demand to see him perform live.”
Ever since Usher was announced as the Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show headliner, his touring team — manager Ron Lafitte, agent and WME partner John Marx and Live Nation promoters Colin Lewis and Fogel — have been building an arena touring strategy that fully capitalizes on the big game’s huge audience. Last year’s win by the Kansas City Chiefs over the Philadelphia Eagles in Glendale, Ariz., was watched by more than 115 million viewers in the U.S., making it not only the most watched Super Bowl in history, but also the most popular TV program of all time in America.
Despite the huge viewership, the last five artists to play the Super Bowl halftime show have not announced headlining tours after their performance. And those who did, like Justin Timberlake in 2018 and Beyonce in 2017, didn’t have any tickets on sale so quickly after the event.
Usher wasn’t going to let the momentum go to waste, though. Days after his Super Bowl Halftime performance was locked in, Marx began plotting out an arena tour. His charge from Usher was to try and replicate the intimacy of his Las Vegas residency shows, first in 2021 at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace and then at the 2022-2023 My Way Las Vegas residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM.
“He wanted to play more multi-night runs in bigger cities,” Marx told Billboard, noting that Usher enjoyed the excitement multi-night engagements generated.
In total, Usher is playing 44 shows in 17 markets (locations for three of dates have not yet been announced). The Past Present Future tour will officially launch in Washington, D.C. (Aug. 20) and includes a four-night stop at Brooklyn’s Barclay Center (Sept. 6-10), four nights at the yet-to-be-opened Inuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif. (Sept. 17-24), three nights in Miami at the Kaseya Center (Oct. 11-14), three nights at State Farm Arena in Atlanta (Oct. 17-20), and three nights at the United Center in Chicago (Oct 28-31).
“Sales are beyond anyone’s wildest dreams right now,” Marx says, noting that even more U.S. dates could be added and that a U.K. and European tour will be announced in the future. “Quite honestly, we’re just getting started,” he adds. “Everything I’ve seen and heard has made it clear to me that people everywhere really want to be at these shows.”
At the end of BMW’s new Super Bowl ad, actor Christopher Walken sits down to dine at a restaurant and finds Usher at the next table. They (and a waiter) wind up saying “yeah!” to each other a few times, and for this, publishers for each of the six songwriters on Usher’s 2004 smash “Yeah!” get to split a huge sync payment — even though not another word or any melody from the song is performed during the one-minute spot.
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“We, of course, smiled, and said, ‘You bet, we’ll license this to you guys,’” says Brian Monaco, president/global chief marketing officer for Sony Music Publishing (SMP), which represents James Phillips, one of six writers on “Yeah!” “It was a full fee, like they were using the entire song.” Pamela Lillig, vp of sync licensing for BMG, which represents co-writers J. Que, LaMarquis Jefferson and Sean Garrett, adds that BMW wouldn’t have had to pay the fee if random actors were saying “yeah” in an ad, but “because Usher’s in it, they felt they probably should.”
“Yeah!” — as well as Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band’s 1970 soul classic “Express Yourself,” which plays throughout the BMW spot — is one of many big, easily recognizable tracks used in Super Bowl advertisements this year. Dove soap licensed “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” (from the Annie soundtrack); Budweiser brought back its Clydesdales for a spot containing The Band‘s “The Weight”; Volkswagen celebrated its 75-year history in the United States set to Neil Diamond‘s “I Am . . . I Said”; and a Popeyes ad includes “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and DJ Snake and Lil Jon‘s “Turn Down for What.”
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“The majority of songs used for us this year are catalog songs,” says Tom Eaton, senior vp of music for advertising for Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), which represents the Band and Diamond catalogs. “They create an immediate impact.” Adds Patrick Joest, head of sync for Hipgnosis, which owns stakes in Heart‘s “Barracuda,” used in a Hyundai commercial, and “Turn Down for What”: “What you’re seeing this year is people are going for the sure shots.”
Super Bowl ads are one of the most lucrative showcases for publishers’ nearly $1.5 billion-per-year synch business each year. According to synch sources, 2024 fees have ranged anywhere from $150,000 to more than $1 million. Last fall, when Hollywood writers and actors were still striking and placing songs for TV and film was paused for the foreseeable future, the beginning of the Super Bowl song-licensing season came as a welcome relief. “It was looking a little shaky,” says Scott Cresto, executive vp of synchronization and marketing for publisher Reservoir, which has a stake in Coi Leray and David Guetta‘s “Make My Day,” used in an E-Trade spot for this year’s game. “In the last quarter, all of our top 20 synchs were ads. It definitely helped our numbers.”
UMPG (whose catalog includes The O’Jays‘ “Love Train,” used in a Coors Light spot, and Perry Como‘s “Round and Round,” for Lindt Chocolate) has 18 synchs during this year’s Super Bowl. Sony landed 14 and Warner Chappell Music had 12 (including “Express Yourself”), while BMG had five, Kobalt four, Reservoir three and Hipgnosis two. (Billboard tallies in-game, national ads that appear during the CBS broadcast.)
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For recent Super Bowls, according to Rich Robinson, Warner Chappell’s executive vp of global synchronization and media, multiple ads used original “sound-design” instrumentals, as opposed to traditional song synchs that generate robust licensing fees for publishers. This year, the pendulum has swung back to the familiar. “It feels like a return,” Robinson says. “Almost every one we’ve licensed is a version of a really well-known hit.”
Still, a minority of Super Bowl LVIII ads showcase newer songs and stars: Ice Spice‘s “Deli” (UMPG) soundtracks an ad for Starry soda and Maizie’s 2021 track “Dumb Dumb” (BMG and SMP) is in an Uber Eats spot. And prolific songwriter Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic received a request this past Monday (Feb. 5) from a T-Mobile contact and wrote a new song, “Try,” in an hour, then submitted it as a voice memo. The ad will broadcast during the Super Bowl. “He works fast,” says Sony’s Monaco.
“There’s a mad rush sometimes. It’s super last-minute,” adds Lisa Bergami, vp of creative sync for Kobalt, whose Super Bowl placements include Flo Rida‘s “Good Feeling,” used in a Veozah menopause medication spot. “Some [advertisers] have gone a million rounds and ended up going with the song they wanted at the beginning. There isn’t much of a rhyme or reason.”
Sony Music Publishing‘s administration division in Nashville will relocate to Nashville’s Music Row area, having signed a lease to move into the 17th + Grand building (located at 1001 17th Ave.) from its current location in downtown Nashville at 424 Church Street, a source has confirmed to Billboard. The move is slated to take place […]
The Sphere venue in Las Vegas isn’t turning a profit, but it’s doing enough to encourage investors to buy into its owner, Sphere Entertainment Co.
Shares of Sphere Entertainment gained 13.8% to $40.29 this week after the company’s quarterly earnings report released Monday (Feb. 5) showed that the state-of-the-art venue — currently capturing eyeballs ahead of the Super Bowl in Las Vegas on Sunday — took in revenue of $167.8 million and had an adjusted gain of $14 million (adjusted to certain items including $117 million of non-cash impairment related to the company’s failed bid to open a Sphere in London).
Sphere Entertainment was the top-performing music stock in a week when music stocks soared to new heights, with the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index gaining 3% to land at a record 1,636.43. While the numbers of winners and losers were even at 10 stocks apiece, most of the index’s most valuable companies posted gains this week. Tencent Music Entertainment rose 6.7% to $9.67, Live Nation improved 1.5% to $89.53 and Universal Music Group gained 1.2% to 27.41 euros ($29.55).
Spotify, another of the index’s largest companies, gained 8.2% to $240.77 after its earnings results on Tuesday (Feb. 6) showed its subscriber number grew to 236 million, up 10 million in the quarter, and that revenue grew 16% to 3.67 billion euros ($4.05 billion). The share price reached its highest mark since December 2021 as investors discovered a renewed faith in Spotify following its decision to cut 17% of its workforce in December. Spotify has always had a good product. Now, there is a growing feeling it can be a good business, too.
“The market is now seeing the potential of this business,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a Wednesday (Feb. 7) note to investors, “as record [monthly active user] net adds and subscribers come alongside price increases and an aggressive turn towards cost efficiency.” Stronger revenue growth and the potential for better margins led Morgan Stanley to raise its Spotify price target from $250 to $270.
Major indexes gained this week, too, and one reached a major threshold: The S&P 500 closed above 5,000 for the first time on Friday as it rose 1.4% to 5,026.61, while the Nasdaq composite improved 2.3% to 15,990.66, its highest level since 2021, thanks to big gains from chip maker Nvidia and e-commerce giant Amazon. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 declined 0.6% to 7,572.58. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index rose 0.2% to 2,620.32. China’s Shangai Composite Index jumped 5% to 2,865.90.
It was a busy week for corporate earnings reports. CTS Eventim shares rose 5.5% to 66.90 euros ($72.12) following the company’s fourth-quarter results Wednesday. The German concert promoter’s 2023 revenue reached 2.4 billion euros, up 22.5%, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization improved 31.9% to 501.4 million euros.
Warner Music Group (WMG) shares briefly rallied following its earnings results on Thursday — with the stock up 5.1% to $38.05 — but it finished the day down 2.5% and the week down 2.6% to $35.71. Morgan Stanley analysts remained “overweight” on WMG and kept the price target at $42. Guggenheim analysts reiterated their “buy” rating and maintained their $46 price target.
MSG Entertainment shares rose 9% to $36.81 after the company’s fiscal second-quarter earnings results were released Wednesday. The New York-based live entertainment company raised revenue guidance for its full fiscal year by 10% to a range of $930 million to $950 million. Executive chairman/CEO James Dolan attributed the strong quarter to “record results” from the Christmas Spectacular production, the long-running show featuring the Radio City Rockettes.
LiveOne shares fell 2.1% after PodcastOne reported a 22% increase in revenue in the first nine months of its fiscal year on Thursday (Feb. 8). (LiveOne spun off PodcastOne in 2023 and retained a 73% stake.) PodcastOne ranked No. 10 in Podtrac’s top publisher’s rankings and achieved a U.S. audience of 5.3 million, but its net loss increased from $3 million to $13.7 million.
What’s the best way to become a superstar? First, become a successful mainstream artist.
That’s one of the key takeaways from the inaugural annual report from music data company Chartmetric.
Of the roughly 710,000 new artists added to Chartmetric’s platform in 2023 that placed into one of six career stages — ranging from “undiscovered” to “legendary,” only a small fraction of a percent finished the year amongst the top 35,000 artists. Instead, most new artists — 87.6% of them — fell into the “undiscovered” category, while 12.3% of them reached “developing,” one category above.
The upper echelons were incredibly difficult for new artists to reach. Just 0.05% of new artists — about 355 — finished in the mid-level category or higher — meaning they ranked in the top 35,000 on the platform. Chartmetric created its proprietary Career Stages categories by taking into account artists’ performance across streaming services, social media platforms and radio airplay.
But wait, the numbers are even more imposing! There were actually 1.3 million new artists added to Chartmetric in 2023, but only 710,000 of them were actually assigned a career stage. Chartmetric told Billboard it does not assign every artist a career stage to limit duplicates, remove non-artist profiles and filter out artists with limited data.
Chartmetric’s statistics throw cold water on the notion that social media and do-it-yourself distribution can help any artist reach the levels of success previously attainable only to artists on record labels. Those rare instances grab headlines and feed the narrative that technology has eroded traditional gatekeepers’ powers and democratized access to audiences. And while it’s true that artists such as Armani White and Jxdn rode TikTok fame to major-label record deals, those success stories are outliers. Anonymity, or something close to it, is the norm.
Economic mobility is far from impossible, though. Because Chartmetric tracks so many artists, even incredibly low odds of success can result in a meaningful number of artists moving up the ranks. The 355 new artists that broke into or surpassed the mid-tier level is a big enough number of breakthrough new artists to feed a system of record labels and artist-services companies that must constantly seek out young candidates to become future stars.
Still, the challenging math underpinning success in music makes sense. Getting heard is difficult when audiences live under a constant deluge of listening options. A massive amount of music is released every day — more than 110,000 on average every day in 2023, according to Luminate. Chartmetric added 17.2 million new tracks to its database in 2023 — 7.7 million were released last year — and has 103.9 million tracks in its system.
To evaluate career stage development, Chartmetric took a sample of artists who had reached a career stage on June 11. The vast majority of artists fell into the undiscovered category. In fact, undiscovered artists made up all but 150,000 of the roughly 1.5 million artists who had been given any career stage category on June 11.
Rather than take huge jumps in career stages, most artists who break out to superstar status come from the mainstream, not from the mid-level or developing categories. More than half — 54.2% — of mid-level artists (No. 12,000 to No. 35,000) rose to the mainstream category (No. 1,500 to No. 12,000), the strongest relationship between any two career stages, says Chartmetric.
Put another way, getting to the upper echelon usually means you’ve already had considerable success. This is likely to result of “a steady, consistent rise to the top,” Chartmetric opines, rather than overnight fame.
This path to success makes sense given the advantageous starting point of most major label artists. Rare is the artist plucked from obscurity and developed into a chart-topping success from scratch. In most cases, artists build a career independently and prove themselves — whether through a TikTok hit or ticket sales — before signing with a record label. The bidding war comes after, not before, an artist finds an audience. Undiscovered artists are far riskier propositions for record labels than mid-tier artists.
There is some economic mobility for less successful careers — but not much. About 12% of developing artists were able to rise to mid-level status (No. 12,000 to No. 35,000). Far fewer jumped all the way to the upper echelons: Just 0.25% of developing artists jumped mid-level status and reached mainstream (No. 1,500 to No. 12,000) or superstar (top 1,500).
Just as economic mobility characterizes the “American dream,” the idea that a person can strive to achieve a better life, the great hope of the modern music business is that artists can make a living on streaming royalties. Whether the system is fair is under debate. Spotify, Deezer and SoundCloud have changed their royalty calculations to favor professional and developing artists over undeveloped artists and non-music content. In the European Union, lawmakers are pressing music streaming services to improve payouts to artists.
Chartmetric’s report doesn’t dispel any notions that the odds are stacked against new artists hoping to break into the mainstream. Success is possible, but it’s rare.
When Apple launched its new $3,500 Vision Pro virtual reality headset this past week, the implication was clear: The future, whether people like it or not, is no longer knocking on the door but inside the living room. (If you can afford one, that is.) The immersive, three-dimensional experience that the headsets — and those from other companies, like Meta — offer is a test of where technology can go, and how humanity may interact through technology moving forward.
But while early reviews focused on the Vision Pro’s relative clunkiness, the quality of the graphics and how it all functions, the possibilities of VR technology are fascinating when applied to music — particularly the idea of 3D, immersive concert experiences. While those types of experiences have been around conceptually for a few years, now — with the company AmazeVR being one of the launch apps on Vision Pro (and also available on the Meta headset) — they are in people’s homes.
AmazeVR was founded in 2015 by Korean company Kakao and first made waves in 2021 after partnering with Roc Nation to produce a virtual reality Megan Thee Stallion concert tour, which was shown in AMC theaters in a dozen cities around the country. It also partnered with K-pop company SM Entertainment for a similar 3D concert experience with the group aespa. But for the past two and a half years, AmazeVR has been working on its app to launch with the Vision Pro headset — and later this month, on Feb. 28, it will unveil a new immersive concert experience with the band Avenged Sevenfold that will, according to AmazeVR creative director Lance Drake, be “our most dynamic and trippy, incredible show to date.” The new launch helps Drake earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Drake has been a music video director for over a decade, having worked with the likes of Miike Snow, Steve Angello and Muse. He also directed Muse’s IMAX concert film Simulation Theory, which came out in 2020 amid the pandemic and which led to what he called a bit of an existential crisis as a director, leading him to virtual reality.
“The reason why I decided to do VR was, the Muse videos that I did were adapted by Microsoft into VR games, and they took those adaptations on tour as a VIP experience, and I got to see the fans of our videos actually interact with the music videos I had made, the worlds we had built and the storylines, and I was like, ‘Wait a second, there’s something here,’” Drake says. “So when this opportunity with Amaze happened everything aligned: It’s music-driven, it’s artist-driven, and what we do is like a hybrid between a live concert, a music video and a game.”
Here, Drake discusses AmazeVR’s work in virtual reality and spatial video, the music tie-ins that are beginning to make the technology viable for artists, and the possibilities that exist moving forward. “I think just having spent a decade in music videos and feeling like 2D has hit the ceiling of what people expect, and how it’s kind of just this promotional tool, I see what we’re doing now — and spatial and VR content in general — as a new medium for musicians and visual creatives to go beyond the two dimensional,” he says. “Once you’re seeing content in 3D and it’s in your room and it’s a part of your life in a physical manifestation, it becomes way more meaningful and there’s more value to that.”
This week, Apple released its new Vision Pro VR headset, and AmazeVR Concerts launched as one of the headset’s music-centric apps. What can you do with the Amaze app?
We’re a day one launch on the Vision Pro, having been working in spatial for the past two and a half years. We create VR concerts — we’re shooting the biggest musicians in the world on stereo video and putting them in fully-immersible CG environments and giving users and fans the closest performance they will ever get. The artists are photo-real, performing to you in the most insane CG-driven world imaginable. There’s interactive moments. And over the past two and a half years we’ve been building the VR concert, which is typically four songs from an artist and an interlude in the middle, and it plays out a bit like a standard concert, but it’s 3D, the user is fully in the world with the artist, and it’s the closest performance you’ll ever get in your life. When they’re performing, they’re looking at you and they’re speaking to you.
How long have you been working on this?
I’ve been working with AmazeVR for two and a half years. We started with the HottieVerse with Megan Thee Stallion, which was our launch. We partnered with AMC and we took her show on the road to movie theaters, and fans could get a taste of the future and buy tickets. We played 12 different cities, it sold out at most locations, and then from there we grew. We’ve done five shows since, and we’ve been working on the technology, bringing the budget down. The Megan Thee Stallion project was about a year-long life cycle from creation to premiering, and since then we’ve done shows in two-month life cycles.
What was your experience like working on the Megan project, and what did you learn from it?
I think the big learning lesson was that the market was just not at the point it is right now. We’re at a real precipice with the Vision Pro launch. At the time Megan came out, which was two years ago, we had to come to the fans, we had to create a space in which fans could go to a movie theater, and oftentimes — and this was the blessing of that show — for a lot of people, their first time trying VR was with our experience, because they were fans of Megan and they had this unique chance to do something different within VR. But now we’re at a point where Meta headset sales have been growing exponentially since, and now Apple has entered the ring, and since then we’ve been hyper-focused on launching our own app, so we have our own app on Meta and now on Vision Pro. So we’re now kind of ahead of the game because we’ve been shooting spatial content and building these worlds for what people want to see in VR for over two years.
You guys also have a partnership with K-pop company SM Entertainment, right?
The founders of our company are Korean, they’re engineering geniuses, and they’ve been working in VR for nearly a decade. So we have deep ties in the K-pop industry and have a partnership with SM. And the first show we launched with was aespa; similarly, we did a theatrical run in South Korea, which did really well, and our second show [with] Kai just happened through SM [and will be out in South Korea Feb. 14]. And we’re going to continue to expand and grow in the K-pop market, especially in the theatrical market because fans are very hungry and eager there for this kind of content.
You also have a new project with Avenged Sevenfold coming out later this month. What can you tell me about that?
Avenged Sevenfold is definitely our most dynamic and trippy, incredible show to date. What sets it apart is that we were able to shoot all five members of the band truly live performing. We took their entire touring team, their back line, and they were on the stage with us and we did a full recording of them performing live on a sound stage, which to my knowledge has not been done in spatial, 3D video. We’re really excited because it’s really putting the musicianship at the forefront. Brian [Synster Gates] and Zackey [Vengeance] playing guitar, you’re seeing every note they play, you’re seeing the vocal performance, and it’s what makes spatial video so special — it gives the user permission to look wherever they want. So you can really focus on the drum fills, you can really see that particular guitar solo, and it’s really bringing that performance element and the musicianship back to the forefront with this show.
What are some of the complications that still need to be worked out with music and this technology?
It’s more just getting the word out and getting people on board. The artists that we’ve worked with — from T-Pain, who is heavily involved in Twitch and the digital world; Zara Larsson, who had a huge Roblox show; and Avenged Sevenfold, who are very involved in crypto and NFTs and Web3 — it’s taken these kinds of artists to invest in us and understand and want to be at the frontier of this. But now that we’ve entered a world where Apple is in the game, I think it’s going to be a lot easier for artists to understand what we’re trying to make, and also we’ve had to do a version of every genre of music to then show to artists for them to see how it applies to them. It was hard for us to take a Megan Thee Stallion show to rock acts and say, “We want to do this for you.” It’s really taken us to fulfill every genre and what that VR concert would look like. But now we’ve done pop, K-pop, hip-hop and now rock; I think it’s going to be a lot easier for bigger artists to see how this applies to them.
Where do you see it going from here?
What’s most exciting with the Apple launch is that it’s not only a viewer, it’s a creative tool. There’s cameras built into it, it’s gonna be a lot easier to be social with this headset, and for users to create this content. I really see this as a new medium, a new genre. For years, especially in the music space, music videos have been a dying art; they’re becoming less and less popular, and a lot more visual focus has been on TikTok. I see this as a new ceiling for creativity and a new bar for fans to invest in and get closer to their favorite artists.
A man accused of stalking Taylor Swift outside her Manhattan apartment has been declared mentally unfit for trial, prosecutors say, meaning his criminal charges will be dismissed and he will be transferred to a mental health facility.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said Friday it had confirmed the results of a psychiatric examination that found David Crowe “unfit to stand trial” on misdemeanor charges of stalking, harassment and contempt. Crowe was arrested three times last month outside Swift’s TriBeCa building.
“The criminal case is now dismissed by function of law,” a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said in the statement. “He will now be committed to the custody of the Office of Mental Health to receive necessary treatment.”
In a statement, Crowe’s public defender, Katherine LeGeros Bajuk, said: “We are pleased that all parties now agree to the obvious truth that Mr. Crowe is too ill to proceed, and that he requires treatment, not jail. We look forward to ensuring Mr. Crowe is provided with the psychiatric treatment and supportive social services he needs to achieve a successful and stable re-entry into society.”
Though he will not face charges, Crowe will not simply be released. He will committed to a mental health treatment facility, where he will be confined for an undefined time period until deemed fit to be released by doctors. Prosecutors can argue against any potential future release, and often seek civil court protection orders barring defendants like Crowe from contacting victims like Swift after they’re released.
In charging documents, prosecutors alleged that Crowe had been spotted roughly 30 times near Swift’s apartment building since late November, and that on multiple occasions he had stated that he was there to speak to the superstar.
The Seattle native was first arrested on January 20, after police responded to a 911 call regarding a “disorderly person” near Swift’s apartment. Crowe had allegedly “attempted to open a door to a building at the location” and was taken into custody on a previous arrest warrant. After he was released, Crowe was arrested again just two days later in the same area, after witnesses reported an “emotionally disturbed male acting erratically” and police spotted him “harassing multiple complainants.”
Crowe was released from custody again on Jan. 24 after he was arraigned on stalking and harassment charges. Though the judge imposed a strict protection order, Crowe then apparently bee-lined back to the vicinity of Swift’s apartment, where he was arrested for a third time and charged with criminal contempt.
After Crowe’s third arrest, prosecutors warned the judge that he had willfully disobeyed her previous ruling and made clear that he would not abide by future restrictions. Following that hearing, the judge ordered Crowe to remain in custody while he awaited further proceedings.
If he had gone to trial on the original stalking charges — all misdemeanors — Crowe could have faced up to 18 months in prison if convicted. If also convicted on the later charges — two counts of second-degree criminal contempt for breaching his protection order, also misdemeanors — he could have faced an additional two years in prison.
This past Monday (Feb. 5), roughly 300 people across music industry sectors gathered at The Novo theater in downtown Los Angeles for the first -ever North American music industry climate summit. Outside, sheets of rain came down during unusually heavy storms in Southern California, adding a sense of urgency – and purpose – to an event meant to catalyze the music industry into taking meaningful action on the issue.
Organized by the Music Sustainability Alliance (MSA) – a neutral body that functions as a sustainability convener and resource for the entire industry – the Music Sustainability Summit featured eight hours of panels on climate-related topics, from carbon emissions related to fan travel to environmentally responsible food sourcing at events. Attendees were encouraged to (and did) bring their own water bottles and lanyards, with reusable cups on hand and a plant-based lunch served with bamboo plates and cutlery.
The event was a watershed moment for the music industry’s relationship with climate change, marking the first-time leaders of all sectors of the industry came together to discuss the issue and commit to creating systemic change. Enthusiasm around the event – which had to move to a larger venue to accommodate interest and drew a big crowd even in inclement weather – demonstrated that the industry is eager, even desperate, to become more sustainable and use the platform of music to inspire and catalyze a cultural movement for climate action.
Beyond knowledge sharing, the summit succeeded in bringing together stakeholders in the music industry’s fight against climate change, solidifying and expanding this community and shoring up the collective knowledge base. The summit was hosted by Joel Makower, a business sustainability expert and journalist whose depth of knowledge on the subject was matched by a thoughtful, often funny demeanor that brought levity to an often very existential seeming problem.
“The good news we don’t hear enough about is that we already have the solutions to climate change that work and are affordable,” noted one panelist. “How do I know this? Because we’ve scienced the s— out of it.”
(The summit was held under the Chatham House Rule, which advises that anyone who comes to a meeting is free to use information from that meeting, but is not allowed to reveal who made any particular comment. This rule was enacted so that summit attendees could speak freely in order to allow the event to have the highest impact. Billboard was the media sponsor of the Summit and agreed to abide by this Rule.)
Representatives for the MSA tell Billboard that following the summit, the plan is to keep momentum going through the formation of working groups. The MSA — lead by president and co-founder Amy Morrison, director Eleanor Anderson, co-founder and board member Michael Martin and board member Kurt Langer — will function as admin for these groups, helping bring people together, organize meetings and take notes to ensure conversations turn into action.
The MSA will also host monthly webinars to focus on specific issues. The first one next month will include a vote on how the industry can use its platforms to encourage audiences to be climate-minded voters. The summit will become an annual event, scheduled to happen annually on the day after the Grammys. Additionally, the MSA is working on accessible online content including an updated resource guide and other educational materials.
Music Sustainability Alliance staff Kurt Langer, Amy Morrison, Eleanor Anderson, and Michael Martin
Gilbert Flores
A crucial part of the plan is to have employees from competing companies engage with each other in a pre-competitive environment to share information and take steps that will be necessary for all companies to enact to meaningfully address climate change. The summit demonstrated that these precompetitive conversations are possible, with one panel featuring chief sustainability officers from Live Nation, AEG, ASM Global and Oak View Group, who told the audience they were all friendly with each other anyway.
Here are a few of the many things learned at the inaugural event.
The Music Industry Has Oversized Influence On The Issue
While it’s not yet clear just how much carbon emissions the music industry is responsible for, it’s likely that this number is relatively small in comparison to other industries. But the influence the industry has on climate change is massive, with many speakers emphasizing that because music affects culture — and the hearts, minds and motivations of listeners — the effect the industry can have on the issue is tremendous.
“Music makes culture,” one speaker observed, and thus determines “what things in culture become normalized.”
Artists Can Do a Lot, But They Can’t Do It All
There were many conversations about the effect artists can have in terms of educating their audiences on climate change and motivating fans to take action. These conversations observed that authenticity is the key to successful initiatives and that fans find it most inspiring when artists take action with them. Billie Eilish’s sustainability efforts were cited many times throughout the day, including a statistic that 130,000 fan actions resulted from Eilish’s climate change initiatives during her last tour.
These discussions advised, however, that artists cannot take on the burden of responsibility alone, with everyone in the industry responsible for initiating action, while also working with legislators.
Practical Solutions Are Available Now
A presentation on waste management noted that four billion single use cups are thrown away at live events every year. But the music industry is leading the re-use movement in the United States through a company called r.Cup — which provides reusable cups in venues and at festivals and which has eliminated 43 tons of plastic so far. Both AEG and Live Nation have employed successful reusable cup programs at various events.
Emissions: Fan Travel Is The Leading Issue
In terms of energy use, a panel on diesel fuel noted that the quickest way to decarbonize the music industry would be to remove diesel generators from event sites. While this measure is currently cost prohibitive and not yet possible, as most legacy rental companies would need a massive infrastructure upgrade to make it happen, the panel emphasized that it’s likely the technology to make this happen is forthcoming.
This conversation also included the use of HVOs (renewable diesel) that reduces CO2 emissions by 90%, along with talk about the option for currently available batteries to replace diesel generators in ancillary uses like parking lots and site lighting, etc. The hybrid use of batteries and generators was also discussed.
During the panel, it was noted that fan travel contributes to 50-80% of music industry carbon emissions, an acute issue given that many festivals happen in far-flung locations and that even many cities connected to the grid don’t offer public transportation. This conversation illustrated the need for promoters, venues, festival producers, fans, artists and municipalities to work together.
Food Is a Crucial Piece of Puzzle — And Action On It Can Happen Now
With animal agriculture being a major contributor to climate change, deforestation and air and water pollution, a food-focused panel demonstrated that the industry – from massive arena concerts to video shoots to award shows and meetings – can impact this in a positive way through plant-based catering and concessions.
It was suggested that even large venues that get food from large, national distributors could open up one plant-based concession stand to a local business or allow this business to park a food truck outside. Changing menus to include plant-based options is doable now, and a good place to start in terms of action that has the potential to change people’s everyday food choices.
Support And Feed, an organization founded by Eilish and Finneas’ mother Maggie Baird that works to mitigate climate change and increase food security by driving global demand, acceptance, and accessibility of plant-based food, is considered a leader in this space. The food panel also cited that roughly 8.8 million gallons of water were saved thanks to Eilish’s last tour switching to plant-based catering.