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Hit singles by Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and SZA helped lift the U.K. streaming market to a record high last year with more than 179 billion music tracks streamed across the 12 months, up 12.8% on 2022’s total, and nearly double the volume of audio streams registered five years ago, according to year-end figures from labels trade body BPI.
Female artists fueled the growth in streaming consumption, spending an unprecedented 31 weeks at No. 1 on the United Kingdom’s official singles chart – the highest total since the charts launched in 1952.
Leading the pack is Cyrus’s “Flowers,” which spent 10 weeks atop the U.K. charts and was the year’s biggest song with 198 million streams.
In total, seven of the ten most popular songs in the U.K. in 2023 were by female acts with SZA, Swift, Cameroonian American singer Libianca and U.K. artists PinkPantheress, RAYE and Ellie Goulding (in collaboration with Calvin Harris) joining Cyrus in the annual best-sellers list. BPI reports it is the highest number of female artists in the year-end top 10 in more than 70 years.
The rest of the top 10 was made up of tracks by British rappers Dave and Central Cee, Nigerian singer Rema and Harry Styles.
Across the year, almost half (48.5%) of the songs that entered the top 10 of the U.K.’s weekly official singles chart were by female acts, either solo or in collaboration with other artists.
Jo Twist
Courtesy Photo
Reflecting on a record-breaking year for female artists, BPI chief executive Jo Twist said the achievements of stars like Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and RAYE should be celebrated, but cautioned against complacency in the industry “to ensure that this becomes the norm.”
BPI reports that streaming now makes up more than 88% of all music sales in the U.K., compared to 64% five years ago, with physical formats accounting for 9.4% of today’s market.
The trade body says that more than 2,500 tracks generated over 10 million audio and video streams in 2023, compared to around 1,100 songs reaching the same total in 2018.
Overall, music consumption rose for a ninth consecutive year with the equivalent of 182.8 million albums streamed or purchased in 2023 across digital and physical formats, up 10% on the previous 12 months.
Vinyl album sales rose for the 16th consecutive year, growing at their fastest rate this decade (up almost 12%) to 6.1 million units and marking the highest level of vinyl purchases in the country since 1990, when Phil Collins, Elton John and Madonna were among the year’s best-selling 12-inch releases.
In 2023, that accolade was won by Swift, who holds three places in the year’s top-selling vinyl album charts, including the No. 1 spot with 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Other entries in the top 10 included records by The Rolling Stones, Lana Del Rey, Fleetwood Mac, Blur, Lewis Capaldi and Olivia Rodrigo.
CD sales dropped 6.9% year-on-year to 10.8 million units, while cassette sales stayed broadly level with recent years at 136,000 units. Digital album sales dropped 4.6% to 3.5 million units with best-sellers including Trustfall by Pink and But Here We Are by Foo Fighters.
Despite the dominance of streaming, BPI reports that physical format sales made up more than half of all chart-eligible sales for the vast majority (86%) of albums that debuted at the top of the U.K. charts last year.
Across digital and physical formats combined, The Weeknd’s The Highlights was the year’s most popular album in the U.K., followed by Swift’s Midnights and her 1989 (Taylor’s Version) set. Elton John’s Diamonds, which was first released in 2017, ranked at No. 4 thanks to the singer’s farewell tour and high-profile Glastonbury headline performance in the summer.
Harry Styles’ Harry’s House secured fifth place in the overall year-end albums tally, while Barbie: The Album was the year’s top compilation.
BPI’s preliminary year-end report, published Wednesday (Jan. 3), doesn’t include financial sales data. Instead, it uses Official Charts Company data to measure U.K. music consumption in terms of volume.
The London-based organization will publish its full year-end report, including recorded music revenues, later this year. Another British trade body, the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), is due to report on annual music retail spending later this month.
The U.K. is the world’s third biggest recorded music market behind the U.S. and Japan with sales of just under $1.7 billion in trade value, according to IFPI’s 2023 Global Music Report.
U.K. OFFICIAL ARTIST ALBUMS CHART 2023
1. The Weeknd – The Highlights
2. Taylor Swift – Midnights
3. Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version)
4. Elton John – Diamonds
5. Harry Styles – Harry’s House
6. Fleetwood Mac – 50 Years – Don’t Stop
7. Eminem – Curtain Call – The Hits
8. SZA – SOS
9. Arctic Monkeys – AM
10. ABBA – Gold – Greatest Hits
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U.K. TOP TEN OFFICIAL SINGLES CHART 2023
1. Miley Cyrus – Flowers
2. Dave & Central Cee – Sprinter
3. RAYE ft 070 Shake – Escapism
4. Taylor Swift – Anti-Hero
5. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – Miracle
6. Rema – Calm Down
7. SZA – Kill Bill
8. PinkPantheress – Boy’s A Liar
9. Harry Styles – As It Was
10. Libianca – People
A bail hearing was postponed Tuesday in Las Vegas for a former Los Angeles-area gang leader charged with orchestrating the killing of hip-hop music legend Tupac Shakur in 1996, giving defense attorneys time to respond to prosecutors’ allegations that witnesses in the case may be at risk.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis’ court-appointed attorneys sought the delay to respond to prosecutors’ allegations, filed last week, that jail telephone recordings and a list of names provided to Davis’ family members show that Davis poses a threat to the public if he is released.
No court hearing was held Tuesday. One of Davis’ attorneys, Robert Arroyo, told The Associated Press later that the defense wanted to respond in court in writing. He declined to provide details. Arroyo said last week he did not see evidence that any witness had been named or threatened.
Davis is the only person ever charged with a crime in the drive-by shooting that also wounded rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight, who is now serving 28 years in a California prison for an unrelated fatal shooting in the Los Angeles area in 2015.
Davis has pleaded not guilty and is due for trial in June on a murder charge. He has remained jailed without bail since his arrest Sept. 29 outside his Henderson home. Las Vegas police had served a search warrant there in mid-July.
Davis, originally from Compton, California, is now housed at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas, where detainees’ phone calls are routinely recorded. If convicted at trial, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
In a recording of an October jail call, prosecutors say Davis’ son told the defendant about a “green light” authorization. Their court filing made no reference to Davis instructing anyone to harm someone, or to anyone associated with the case being physically harmed.
“In (Davis’) world, a ‘green light’ is an authorization to kill,” prosecutors Marc DiGiacomo and Binu Palal told Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny in the court document, adding that at least one witness was provided assistance from federal authorities “so he could change his residence.”
Prosecutors also point to Davis’ own words since 2008 — in police interviews, in his 2019 tell-all memoir and in the media — that they say provides strong evidence that he orchestrated the September 1996 shooting.
Davis’ attorneys argue that his descriptions of Shakur’s killing were “done for entertainment purposes and to make money.”
Arroyo and co-counsel Charles Cano have argued their 60-year-old client is in poor health after a battle with cancer that is in remission, poses no danger to the community, and won’t flee to avoid trial. They want Kierny to set bail at not more than $100,000.
Davis maintains that he was given immunity from prosecution in 2008 by FBI agents and Los Angeles police who were investigating the killings of Shakur in Las Vegas and rival rapper Christopher Wallace, known as The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, six months later in Los Angeles.
Davis’ bail hearing is now scheduled for Jan. 9.
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: A full recap of the music law stories that dominated 2023, from #MeToo to artificial intelligence to Ed Sheeran to Young Thug; an appellate setback for Nirvana in the lawsuit over a naked baby on a famous album cover; a lawsuit filed by New York’s attorney general accusing SiriusXM of “trapping” consumers; and much more.
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Year In Review: 2023’s Top Legal Stories
Before we start bringing you all the upcoming music law stories of 2024 — A verdict in the Atlanta RICO trial? More AI lawsuits? A peace treaty between Hall & Oates?!? — let’s take a quick look back at everything that happened in 2023.
Ed Sheeran went to trial over “Let’s Get It On” — and won big. Young Thug went to trial over accusations of gang violence — and there’s no end in sight. A number of men in the music industry were hit with sexual abuse lawsuits, from label executives to star artists to hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. Lizzo got sued, too, by backup dancers who say she was a toxic boss. And the sudden rise of generative artificial intelligence technology like ChatGPT posed thorny legal questions that could take years to sort out.
To get the full story, go read our entire year-end recap — including the 10 biggest music law stories of 2023 and a slew of honorable mentions.
Other top stories this week…
NIRVANA NAKED BABY CASE – A federal appeals court ruled against Nirvana and revived a child pornography lawsuit filed by Spencer Elden, the man (now in his 30s) who appeared as a nude baby on the cover of the band’s 1991 album Nevermind. The ruling, which said child porn “haunts victims” for years, paves the way for litigation over whether the image actually meets the definition of child pornography — something Nirvana vigorously disputes and some legal experts doubt.
NO-CANCEL CULTURE? – SiriusXM was sued by New York’s attorney general over allegations that the satellite radio and streaming service has made it “extremely difficult” for listeners to cancel their subscriptions, including by subjecting them to “a lengthy and burdensome endurance contest” on the phone. “Sirius deliberately wastes its subscribers’ time even though it has the ability to process cancellations with the click of a button.”
GLORIA TREVI ABUSE CASE – The Mexican pop star sued her former manager and music producer Sergio Andrade, claiming he was a “true predator” who subjected her and other women to “sadistic abuse” in the late 1980s and 1990s. The allegations came as a counter-claim to an earlier lawsuit filed in 2022 by two alleged victims who accused both Andrade and Trevi of “grooming” and “exploiting” them as children.
AMERICAN IDOL ASSAULT CLAIMS – Paula Abdul sued former American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe over allegations that he sexually assaulted her, including once during the early seasons of Idol and again in 2014 during the production of So You Think You Can Dance.
Paula Abdul is suing Nigel Lythgoe over claims that the former American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance producer sexually assaulted her while she was filming the competition television shows.
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The singer-dancer claims in the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday (Dec. 29) and obtained by Billboard, that Lythgoe sexually assaulted her on two occasions. The first instance allegedly occurred during one of the early seasons of American Idol and the second took place in 2014 when she was in talks to judge So You Think You Can Dance.
Abdul, 61, alleges in the suit that Lythgoe, 74, first sexually assaulted her in an elevator of a hotel where they were both staying while traveling for one of Idol’s “initial seasons.” It does not state a specific year the alleged incident occurred.
“Lythgoe shoved Abdul against the wall, then grabbed her genitals and breasts, and began shoving his tongue down her throat,” according to court documents. “Abdul attempted to push Lythgoe away from her and let him know his behavior was not acceptable. When the doors to the elevator for her door opened, Abdul ran out of the elevator and to her hotel room. In tears, Abdul quickly called one of her representatives to inform them of the assault, but ultimately decided not to take action for fear that Lythgoe would have her fired from American Idol.”
Abdul’s complaint claims that Lythgoe sexually assaulted Abdul again in 2014 when she was approached for a judging position on So You Think You Can Dance. The alleged incident took place during a dinner at his home where the two were supposed to discuss her professional opportunities, according to the lawsuit.
“Toward the end of the evening, however, Lythgoe forced himself on top of Abdul while she was seated on his couch and attempted to kiss her while proclaiming that the two would make an excellent ‘power couple,’” the complaint states. “Abdul pushed Lythgoe off of her, explaining that she was not interested in his advances, and immediately left Lythgoe’s home.”
The suit also alleges that Abdul witnessed Lythgoe sexually assault one of her assistants while filming So You Think You Can Dance in 2015. Lythgoe allegedly “pressed himself” against the woman and “began to grope her” without consent, court document states.
The “Strait Up” hitmaker’s suit further claims that Lythgoe taunted her on the phone about his alleged assaults and states that he “clearly knew that his assaults of Abdul were not just wrong but that he held the power to keep her silent.”
In addition to Lythgoe, the lawsuit names the shows’ production companies American Idol Productions, Dance Nation Productions, 19 Entertainment and Fremantlemedia North America are also listed as defendants. Abdul is suing the defendants for sexual assault/battery, sexual harassment, gender violence and negligence.
Representatives for Abdul and Lythgoe did not immediately reply to Billboard‘s request for comment at press time.
The Billboard Global Music Index — a diverse collection of 20 publicly traded music companies — finished 2023 up 31.3% as Spotify’s share price alone climbed 138% thanks to cost-cutting and focus on margins. Spotify is the single-largest component of the float-adjusted index and has one of the largest market capitalizations of any music company.
The music index was outperformed by the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite, which gained 43.4% with the help of triple-digit gains from chipmaker Nvidia Corp (+239%) and Meta Platforms (+194%). But the Billboard Global Music Index exceeded some other major indexes: the S&P 500 gained 24.2%, South Korea’s KOSPI composite index grew 18.7% and the FTSE 100 improved 3.8%.
Other than Spotify, a handful of major companies had double-digit gains in 2023 that drove the index’s improvement. Universal Music Group finished the year up 14.7%. Concert promoter Live Nation rode a string of record-setting quarters to a 34.2% gain. HYBE, the increasingly diversified K-pop company, rose 34.6%. SM Entertainment, in which HYBE acquired a minority stake in March, gained 20.1%.
A handful of smaller companies also finished the year with big gains. LiveOne gained 117.4%. Reservoir Media improved 19.4%. Chinese music streamer Cloud Music improved 15.8%.
The biggest loser on the Billboard Global Music Index in 2023 was radio broadcaster iHeartMedia, which fell 56.4%. Abu Dhabi-based music streamer Anghami finished 2023 down 34.8%. After a series of large fluctuations in recent months, Anghami ended the year 69% below its high mark for 2023. Hipgnosis Songs Fund, currently undergoing a strategic review after shareholders voted against continuation in October, finished the year down 16.6%.
Sphere Entertainment Co., which split from MSG Entertainment’s live entertainment business back in April, ended 2023 down 24.4%. Most of that decline came before the company opened its flagship venue, Sphere, in Las Vegas on September 29, however. Since U2 opened the venue to widespread acclaim and earned Sphere global media coverage, the stock dropped only 8.5%.
For the week, the index rose 1.1% to 1,534.07. Fourteen of the index’s 20 stocks posted gains this week, four dropped in price and one was unchanged.
LiveOne shares rose 15.7% to $1.40 after the company announced on Friday (Dec. 29) it added 63,000 new paid memberships in December and surpassed 3.5 million total memberships, an increase of 29% year over year. iHeartMedia shares climbed 14.6% to $2.67. Anghami continued its ping-pong trajectory by finishing the week up 16.9%.
Over the last 10 years, Spanish music consumption has increased an average of 70% globally, and 129% in Latin America. This month, Spotify LATAM managing director Mia Nygren celebrates the company’s 10th anniversary in the region with over 120 million of the 574 million subscribers in the world (as per third quarter figures.)
“I had pretty wild dreams, because I had already seen it with my own eyes from my previous job and from Spotify in Europe, so I knew this was going to work,” says the Swedish streaming giant executive. “But obviously today, being able to say that there are a number of users in the region that represents more than 21% of everything we have globally, which also includes paying users, I couldn’t imagine,” she adds.
This is remarkable considering that 10 years ago, “80% of the music consumption in the region was pirated,” she notes.
And not only the way music is consumed changed, but also the kind of music. According to local data provided by Spotify, in 2013 only 25% of the 100 most listened to songs in Argentina were in Spanish, while today this percentage represents 94%. In Colombia, it went from 36% in 2013 to 87% in 2023. And in Mexico from 49% to 88%.
Nygren — who was born in Stockholm, studied in Belgium and worked in Spain and Brazil before settling in Miami and joining Spotify more than a decade ago — is responsible for the company’s performance in the region in terms of active users and everything that generates revenue. She is also involved in hiring and building local teams, with presence in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Miami. And she supervises the connection and collaboration between the different areas of the company, from music to public relations, marketing, sales, podcasts, and more.
She recently spoke with Billboard Español, who named her Ejecutiva del Mes (Executive of the Month) for December 2023.
What has been the biggest challenge in reaching this 10th anniversary and how did you overcome it?
When we entered the market in the world in general, but in Latin America in particular, the industry was at the edge of the precipice, because there was a lot of piracy — 80% of the music consumption in the region was pirated. So, we came here with the idea of [promoting] a lot of education, of going around all the countries and explaining what Spotify is not only to the user, but rather to the creative community. It was a tremendous job because there was a little bit of, I don’t want to say resistance, but maybe our entire business model wasn’t very well understood. We have the free part, and it was a little scary to say “How are we going to give our content for free? How is it going to be monetized?”, but we already knew that we were very good at converting these users to Premium.
The timing to enter Latin America was good for us, because we had already existed in Europe for more than five, six years, we entered the United States in 2011, and when we arrived here in 2013 the industry knew what we had done, so they were very willing to help us explain this. Furthermore, in Latin America, the adoption of streaming and the understanding of streaming was tremendously fast: When we got here, the 0% of the revenue that was generated for the recorded music industry was nothing. Ten years later, more than 95% of all revenue generated for recorded music comes from streaming.
Now, this came with a very dedicated work and conviction that we had to focus on a very particular segment of users when we entered Latin America. We identified where the centers of gravity were, first in the big cities… Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Bogota, etc. And within these cities we were also very much looking for people who had a slightly more pronounced willingness to pay. So for us it was, “we are going to go first for these users who are going to generate more money more quickly, and then we are going to go down the socioeconomic pyramids a little bit.” That has worked very well for us.
How does user behavior in Latin America differ from other countries?
They consume much more. It’s a cultural trait that cannot be easily exported, because it is within the general Latin American culture. We clearly see that, for example in Mexico, the user consumes 30% more than a global user, and all Latin American countries are at the forefront of hourly consumption on a monthly basis.
Also, when we entered here 10 years ago, more or less 70% of what was consumed on the platform at the beginning was foreign music in English. Ten years later, the tables have turned: 70% is music in Spanish.
Spotify playlists have a direct effect on the number of streams. How is this different from the old days airplay?
Playlists are extremely effective and important. You think of playlists and you think of Spotify, which ultimately is something that we have pushed for and created and we love to see, above all, how the users themselves create playlists in abundance. We have more than 5 billion playlists on the platform today. Compared to airplay, we could not measure it in the same way that we can measure the use of a playlist, so I believe that the data today is a little closer to reality.
With so many releases, how can an artist stand out in such a broad landscape?
It is wonderful to be able to offer the opportunity to any type of artist to connect to the platform and have 574 million users at their disposal. But as you say, how can one stand out there, right? Because in the end there are 100,000 songs, more or less, that enter the platform every day. We are extremely obsessed with providing them with tools [such as Spotify for Artists, or Spotify for Podcasters] so that they can analyze well where their audience is. […] It is very important to understand how users use and listen to your music, and thus create this relationship with your fan base. Obviously the talent has to be there, and there is a lot of talent, I’m not saying there isn’t; but then you have to accompany it with timing, understand very well how your social media work, when to release the songs, etc. It’s tremendous work, actually. Is not easy.
What would you say has been the greatest achievement for Spotify in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking market globally?
There is always a personal achievement and a professional achievement, but in my case the two things are very much intertwined. Being here after 10 years still with so much enthusiasm, and seeing such an important and bright future for this part of the world, I think it is the most important thing that can be conveyed today. The truth is that we feel tremendously privileged to represent the region, to see that there is a very great possibility of growth, and to see that artists are reaching places that could never have been imagined. Everything that is content in Spanish and Portuguese has been positioned in a way that could not be imagined, and of course, being part of that historic movement is a tremendously gratifying achievement.
The company has managed very well to be this global platform with the beauty that this entails, the responsibility that this entails, but it also allows us to be tremendously hyperlocal, and I believe that this is part of the success in some way. In Argentina we can be Argentine, but we can also take advantage and see what we can do for the Argentine user or for the Argentine talent so that they have the possibility of traveling further afield. So, I think we have that balance between global and local pretty well figured out.
What’s next for Spotify LATAM?
A lot of things are coming. We spend all day thinking about how we can improve the experience for the user and how we can improve it for the creator, and I believe that the most important thing that is going to come has a lot to do with the product. We are going to be investing a lot in these improvements, we are going to see possibilities of expression that could never be imagined. I know that we are talking about topics that are perhaps a little more complex to understand such as artificial intelligence, etc., but we also see that there are tremendous opportunities to make personalized recommendations. For example, we have something called AI DJ available in the U.S. and in a couple other countries that is also going to be developed in Latin America, where we can improve this recommendation engine, because recommendations is one of the features that our users appreciate the most.
12/29/2023
The year saw K-pop companies making mega moves on a global scale, while the catalog market remained hot.
12/29/2023
Each week we’ll be sharing the most important news from the north with Canada’s top music industry stories, supplied by our colleagues at Billboard Canada.
For more Canadian music coverage visit ca.billboard.com.
Longtime Host and DJ George Stroumboulopoulos Appointed to the Order of Canada
Governor General Mary Simon named 78 new appointments to the Order of Canada on Thursday to recognize “people across all sectors of society who have made extraordinary and sustained contributions to our nation.” This year’s honourees include journalists, politicians, doctors and more, plus prominent figures from music and arts.
One name that stands out is George Stroumboulopoulos. Strombo, as he’s often known, has been one of the most recognizable people in music media for more than two decades.
Stroumboulopoulos has long been a household name in Canada, with some brief crossover moments in the U.S., including a short-lived talk show on CNN and an ABC reality competition show called The One: Making a Music Star.
He first rose to prominence as a VJ on TV music station MuchMusic in the early 2000s and has since hosted a variety of shows on CBC, Rogers and Apple Music. He even dabbled in sports as the host of Hockey Night In Canada from 2014-2016. After Apple Music picked up his House of Strombo concert series in 2017, he became a host and curator on Apple Music Hits when it launched in 2020 as part of Apple Music Radio and has become a tastemaker on the platform. His Up Next Canada series has recently included rising musicians like Punjabi-Canadian producer Ikky and country singer-songwriter Owen Riegling.
“With very rare exceptions, I have been 100% myself the whole way,” he recently told Canadian Press. READ MORE
— Richard Trapunski
The Biggest Homegrown Hits On the Year-End Billboard Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 tallies the biggest songs in Canada each week (whether or not they’re by Canadian artists). This year, the top 10 spots on the year-end Canadian Hot 100 are all dominated by international acts — with Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers”, Rema and Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down” and Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” claiming honours as the biggest songs of the year — but Canadians made a strong showing on the rest of the top 100.
The year-end chart takes into account chart performance throughout the year, with longevity sometimes counting for more than high placement and measuring charts dated Nov, 19, 2022, to Oct 21, 2023 — which explains why a big song like Tate McRae’s December chart-topper “greedy” got left off.
But Canadian artists still showed up in prominent spots on the Year-End Chart, even beyond the usual high spots for Drake and The Weeknd.
At No. 23 is Ottawa singer Talk’s soulful ballad “Runaway To Mars,” which was released in 2021 but went viral on TikTok this year, shooting it up the charts. It hit No. 1 on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart in January 2023.
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Preston Pablo from Timmins, Ontario, linked up with Quebec production duo Banx + Ranx on melancholy dance-pop track “Flowers Need Rain,” which landed at No. 26.
At No. 29, Quebec pop sensation Charlotte Cardin’s “Confetti” was a major Canadian success this year. The song has spent 34 weeks on the Canadian Hot 100, peaking at No. 10. A hit in both Canada and across Europe, the catchy pop tune is in English but also exists in a bilingual English/French version.
Other hits by Canadian artists in the top 100 include Tiësto’s Tate McRae-featuring “10:35,” “If Anything’s Left” by Ottawa pop singer Jamie Fine, “Next To You” by Canadian-born production duo Loud Luxury, “Whitney” by up-and-coming Montreal singer Rêve and more. READ MORE
— Rosie Long Decter
Music Regulation and AI high on Music Association Agendas for 2024
Billboard Canada asked a number of national music industry association leaders to provide their own unique perspective on 2023 and the year ahead.
“The passing of C-11 (the Online Streaming Act) in 2023 represents both an accomplishment and a challenge,” says Andrew Cash, president of the Canadian Independent Music Association. “Bringing some of the largest, most powerful corporations in the history of capitalism under regulation in Canada is an important step. It has also kick-started a long overdue and much-needed conversation about Canadian content policy in the age of the internet. Even that sentence sounds dated!“2024 should answer some big questions with regards to C-11– the most pressing being: which platforms will be included in regulations currently being considered before the CRTC, how much will these platforms be required to contribute to the Canadian music sector, and where this contribution will go?”
According to Amy Jeninga, president of the Canadian Country Music Association, 2023 has been a big year for Canadian country music.
“The genre continued to outpace industry growth in countries around the world, claiming a bigger piece of the cultural pie than in recent years, including here at home, where Canada saw a 32% growth in on-demand audio and video streams in Q3, outpacing the overall industry growth of 18%,” she says. “We continue to celebrate a growing community and fanbase set to engage and continue propelling the genre forward in 2024.”
For Patrick Rogers, CEO of Music Canada, artificial intelligence is high on the agenda for 2024.
“This past year saw rapid advancements in artificial intelligence that can unlock an exciting new era for creativity and content — but which also pose a serious threat to the creative industries and artists if not regulated,” he says. “It’s never been more critical that our copyright and legal frameworks remain strong in the face of bad actors who want to exploit artists’ work, voice and image without their consent, credit or compensation…We’re excited to work with the government and our creative industry peers in 2024 to help set policies that encourage the ethical development of this exciting new marketplace.”
Heads of the Canadian Independent Music Association, Canadian Live Music Association, SOCAN and Music Publishers Canada, meanwhile, highlight modernized rights management, arts funding and increased promotion of Canadian artists in both recorded music and on the live stage. READ MORE
— David Farrell
Mexican pop star Gloria Trevi has filed a lawsuit against her former manager and music producer Sergio Andrade, claiming he was a “true predator” who subjected Trevi and other girls to “total control and sadistic abuse” in the late 1980s and 1990s.
The filing also serves as a counter-lawsuit to the complaint filed Dec. 30, 2022, by two Jane Does who sued Trevi and Andrade for “grooming” and “exploiting” them when they were between the ages of 13 and 15 in the early 1990s.
Now, Trevi — who has for many years categorically denied such claims — alleges in the lawsuit, filed Dec. 27 in Los Angeles, that she is also one of Andrade’s victims. According to Trevi’s suit, Andrade took advantage of his position as a successful music executive often called “Mr. Midas” for being able to recognize and promote young, female artists promising them to turn them into stars.
“That position allowed him to draw many young girls into his sphere of influence, who gathered around him in the hopes that he would guide, mentor, and launch their careers in entertainment, as he had previously done for others,” the lawsuit reads. “But once these young girls and women had been drawn into his sphere by dreams of stardom, he subjected them to total control and sadistic abuse – mental, financial, physical, and sexual. Ms. Trevi was one of those young women.”
According to Trevi’s lawsuit, the “Todos Me Miran” singer met Andrade as a child just as she was gaining recognition in Mexico as a singer, and soon he took over her career. “But Andrade also recognized Ms. Trevi as an isolated and vulnerable girl who was easy prey to his manipulation, control, and abuse,” Trevi’s lawsuit claims. “He took full advantage, subjecting the rising child superstar that he had taken on to grotesque abuse calculated to break her spirit.”
The filing includes graphic allegations, such as Trevi being “brutally beaten” by Andrade, at times to the point of unconsciousness, that she was sexually assaulted by him and raped repeatedly. The abuse inflicted by Andrade “eventually drove Ms. Trevi to attempt suicide,” the suit states.
Trevi, who is being represented by Johnny Depp’s former attorney Camille M. Vásquez, explained in a statement to Billboard that she chose to take legal action to fight for justice. “No one should have to go through what I experienced and I am determined to hold the perpetrators accountable for their actions,” she expressed.
Vásquez added, “Our client, Gloria Trevi, has shown great strength and courage in stepping forward and filing this counterclaim. We are fully prepared to present our case and seek justice on her behalf.”
Trevi’s legal woes resurface more than 20 years after Trevi, Andrade and backup singer María Raquenel Portillo, also known as Mary Boquitas, were arrested in January 2000 in Rio de Janeiro for allegedly luring young girls into a cult-like pornographic ring. Former vocalist Karina Yapor, who filed criminal charges against the so-called “Trevi-Andrade clan,” alleged that backup recruits wanting to join the band were forced to have sexual relations with Andrade.
In 2004, Trevi was acquitted by a judge and found not guilty on charges of rape, kidnapping and corruption of minors. This resulted in Trevi’s immediate release from prison in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Trevi’s new lawsuit comes six days after a judge dismissed Portillo’s defamation claims against the two Jane Does after she was sued alongside Trevi and Andrade.
Read Gloria Trevi’s counterclaim below:
Illinois-based merch company SCP owes more than $4 million to over 300 clients including Mitski and Brent Faiyaz after abruptly shutting down operations last week, according to internal documents obtained by Billboard. And with plans to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy on Friday, it’s unlikely those clients will ever recover all the money they’re owed.
Some of SCP’s other clients included Father John Misty, Chappell Roan, T-Pain, Finneas, Brand New and Carly Rae Jepsen; record labels Loma Vista Recordings and Triple Crown Records; Pharrell Williams‘ Something in the Water music festival; and online content creators such as the Dungeons & Daddies podcast and YouTubers Team Edge.
On Dec. 17, SCP locked its roughly 150 staff members out of their emails before informing them in a mass email sent to their personal email addresses that they were all being laid off and the business was being permanently shut down the week before Christmas, according to the company’s former head of record label services Eric Weinberg.
Clients, meanwhile, largely learned of the closure by word of mouth until SPC leadership sent an official email on Dec. 19 informing them that the company would be shutting down. Clients who did not owe SCP money were told they would receive a secure folder containing their available e-commerce and customer data, as well as artwork files, and that they would be informed when their remaining merchandise in the warehouse was available for pickup — to be arranged at their own cost — in Batavia, Ill., where SPC was based, about 45 miles outside Chicago.
Any act that owed SCP money would be required to pay that back before collecting any of their remaining merchandise. The deadline to do so is end of day Thursday, but a member of SCP leadership says that if clients haven’t already been in contact with the company about payment, it’s now too late to get that process started. According to the internal documents obtained by Billboard, nearly 600 clients had outstanding balances with SCP for a total of $3.4 million owed.
Clients’ webstores run through SCP were also unexpectedly shut down, while they scrambled to figure out how to retrieve their merchandise from the company’s warehouse. Those clients who were owed money for sales handled during the year’s busiest shopping season were left wondering whether they would ever be paid. Clients including Mitski, Milky Chance, TV Girl, Polyphia and Something in the Water are all owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the internal documents, while dozens of others, including Chappell Roan, Ninja Sex Party, Bruno Major, Mutemath, T-Pain, Lizzy McAlpine and record label Tzadik, are owed in the tens of thousands. Their customers have been left in the lurch, too, with an unknown number waiting for merch that may never arrive. According to an email SCP sent to clients obtained by Billboard, none of those customers will receive refunds for unfulfilled orders.
In a Dec. 18 post on LinkedIn, SCP owner Stevie Hopkins said the company planned to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy. “I ask for everyone’s patience as time is of the essence for me and my team to organize and transition to an orderly winddown and put all available resources into fulfilling obligations to all constituencies,” he wrote at the time.
One music manager who represents three SCP artist clients says rumors that the company was in financial trouble began spreading a few weeks ago, but that he “didn’t really take it too seriously” because the business seemed to be “operating as normal.” He only became aware of the company’s dissolution on Dec. 18 after a colleague flagged a LinkedIn post by his point person at SCP indicating that she no longer worked there. He then texted the employee, who informed him that the company’s entire staff had been let go. After receiving the Dec. 19 SCP email to clients, the manager says he reached out to Hopkins regarding an invoice and was informed that the company was planning to file for bankruptcy.
“I just don’t know how something like this would happen,” says the manager, whose three artists are each owed “in the many tens” of thousands of dollars. “Everyone has been on tour the last two years. It’s been so busy, and I think they’ve been killing it.”
While SCP leadership would not comment on the circumstances that led to SCP’s closure, Hopkins addressed the issue briefly in the Dec. 18 LinkedIn post, saying the company had been struggling to stay afloat for nearly a year. According to Weinberg and a member of SCP leadership, the business made staffing cuts in February when dozens of employees were let go. Weinberg says there were additional smaller layoffs that followed over the course of the year, which the member of SCP leadership characterized as “additional terminations, operational changes or resignations,” adding that “a few departments” were “downsized” over the summer, “but very minimal.”
As news of the shutdown spread, SCP clients began posting about the issues on social media, with some claiming they hadn’t been paid for merch sales stretching as far back as April. One artist manager tells Billboard that their act hadn’t been paid for webstore income from October through December and that they’re currently owed $40,000, with $16,000 of that coming from unfulfilled pre-orders for special edition vinyl records that “were both expensive to us and the customer,” he says.
“Those are currently being manufactured still, so we have to fulfill when they’re done. So, we lose out on all the earnings, most of which would be covering the expensive cost to make it,” says the manager, who drove a cargo van from New Jersey to the SCP warehouse in Batavia this week to retrieve his artist’s merch.
Weinberg says that over the last several months, payment delays had become increasingly common, and he received “tons” of emails from concerned clients wondering why they hadn’t been paid yet. “So many people were experiencing that,” he says, noting that he and his colleagues were unaware of the company’s financial issues because account management and department heads did not have access “to anything regarding statements or overdue invoices or anything like that.”
SCP leadership declined to comment on the claim that SCP was months behind on payments to clients.
Several clients tell Billboard that they’ve set dates to pick up their merchandise from SCP’s warehouse this week, with some hiring companies like Merchtable, Overcast Merch, Downright Merch and Seen Merch to pick up and move the inventory. Only about seven to 15 employees as well as friends and family of Hopkins and SCP leadership have been on hand to prepare those orders. Staff from the other merch companies have also helped lighten the workload by packing orders in the warehouse and communicating with clients for orders they’ve been hired to pick up, according to the member of SCP leadership. A final deadline has been set for noon CST Friday to pick up merch. According to Weinberg, several employees were brought back following the layoffs to help clients retrieve their inventory after SCP got bank approval to temporarily extend its payroll, but most of them left the job shortly after reporting for work at the SCP warehouse on Dec. 18.
“The entire warehouse staff walked out on them Monday morning,” Weinberg says. “All the people that they asked to come in and help clean things up, came in, checked in, saw the mess and what they wanted them to do and just walked out on them…and made it even more difficult to get things in order for anyone who came by to pick up their stuff if they could.” The member of SCP leadership tells Billboard “there were some people who chose not to return” to work but would not comment on the number of those employees “as I do not know those details.”
In an updated LinkedIn post on Sunday, Hopkins claimed that “at least 50%” of inventory for clients with zero debt to SCP had been moved out of the warehouse up to that point.
Under federal bankruptcy law, in chapter 7 cases a trustee is appointed by the U.S. Trustee’s Office to oversee the debtor’s estate in a bankruptcy proceeding. Once a company files its chapter 7 petition, all its assets — including merchandise that remains in its warehouse — become property of the estate and the trustee appointed to the case assumes control of the company’s estate, including all of its assets. Once that happens, the trustee is responsible for the disposition of any inventory, which is then liquidated on the open market, likely for much lower prices than it would have fetched under normal circumstances. The revenue from those sales is then put into a pool of money to be spread among a company’s various creditors.
SCP creditors may not get more than “cents on the dollar” in terms of what they’re owed, says Brian Lohan, a partner at law firm Arnold & Porter who focuses on bankruptcy and restructuring. In typical chapter 7 cases, he says, “creditors often do not get full recovery. If the labels or artists are able to get their merchandise back prior to the filing, that will help them mitigate losses going forward. But if their merchandise has been sold by SCP prior to the filing and they are owed money on account of that inventory, or any inventory is still in possession of SCP at the time of its filing … they’re going to be standing in line as a general unsecured creditor just like everybody else that is owed money.”
According to the member of SCP leadership, based on what they’ve learned during this process, SCP’s bankruptcy case is more nuanced than most due to the fact that it involves licensed merchandise. Due to those licenses, they say, clients should still have the right to recover their merchandise from the warehouse even after the trustee takes over, provided they pay their outstanding balances. They add that they’ve also learned there’s a possibility the trustee will decide that the effort of dealing with the merchandise isn’t worth the potential money it would bring in, at which point they would abandon the merch back to SCP leadership to return it to the clients. “That is what we believe based on our understanding of what the process will be,” says the member of SCP leadership.
Following the liquidation, secured creditors — lenders who loaned money to SCP under agreements secured by a lien on the company’s assets — must be paid off with the value of their collateral. The bankruptcy trustee must also be paid, further diminishing the available pool of money for SCP’s various unsecured creditors, a category that includes artists and labels but also customers, vendors and laid-off employees.
For unsecured creditors, priority is given to certain claims by employees for unpaid wages, as well as creditors who sold goods to SCP “in the ordinary course of business,” Lohan says — most likely vendors. Those creditors are “entitled to receive a priority unsecured claim for the value of its goods received by the debtor within 20 days of the bankruptcy filing,” he adds.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases “can take anywhere from months to years” to resolve, Lohan notes. “However, even on the short end, distributions to creditors on account of their claims will take several months,” he adds, noting that the process includes resolving “potential litigation against various parties” involved.
While artists and their teams face the slog of retrieving remaining merchandise and — hopefully — some of their sales money owed, they also must figure out what happens to their merch moving forward. That means new opportunities for SCP’s competitors.
“There’s already like five merch companies that have emailed me being like, ‘Do you need new merch solutions?’” says one manager. “Word is out.”