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Demi Lovato is seeking new management after splitting with manager Scooter Braun last month, sources tell Billboard.
Lovato signed with Braun and his SB Projects firm in 2019. She was previously managed by Phil McIntyre of PhilyMack.
One source close to the situation says it was time for Lovato to go in a new direction, even though she was thankful for her time with SB Projects. She does not yet have new management, though conversations are taking place.
Reps for Lovato and Braun declined to comment.
Lovato has released two albums since signing with Braun: 2021’s Dancing with the Devil… the Art of Starting Over, which hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and last years’ pop-punk Holy Fvck, which scored a No. 7 on the chart. Since the start of her career in 2008, Lovato has charted 36 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, four of which went top 10. All eight of her studio albums debuted within the top 10 of the Billboard 200, with 2009’s Here We Go Again entering at No. 1.
On Sept. 18, Lovato will release Demi Lovato Revamped, which includes reworked rock versions of her biggest hits including “Heart Attack,” “Sorry Not Sorry” featuring Slash, “Cool For the Summer” and more.
Upon signing to SB Projects, Lovato shared on Instagram: “Dreams came true today for me…Couldn’t be happier, inspired and excited to begin this next chapter with you Scooter!!! Thank you for believing in me and for being apart of this new journey.” (All of Lovato’s pre-2022 posts have since been wiped).
Scooter shared on his Instagram at the time: “She is a special person and a special talent. I’m… we.. are honored. Welcome to the family Demi.”
SB Project’s artist roster currently includes longtime clients Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, among others. Following a report Friday that Bieber was looking to leave SB, reps for both parties told Billboard that such “rumors” were “not true.”
J Balvin, who also signed with Braun in 2019, left in May and is now managed by Roc Nation.
Additional reporting by Dan Rys.
Tape Room Music has entered a strategic partnership with Red Light Ventures and Firebird Music, which purchased more than 350 songs from various Tape Room Publishing catalogs as part of the transaction. The catalog sale includes “Body Like a Back Road” (recorded by Sam Hunt), “Do I Make You Wanna” (Billy Currington), “Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset” […]
Producer extraordinaire and Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff has signed an exclusive, global publishing agreement with Universal Music Publishing Group. The move follows his weekend wedding and reunites him with UMPG executive vp Jennifer Knoepfle, his longtime publishing A&R during the songwriter’s lengthy — and fruitful — stay at Sony Music Publishing.
“Jack is honestly one of one,” noted Knoepfle. “To continue being his publisher is an honor we don’t take for granted. He’s even more creative and prolific than when I first met him over a decade ago – and that’s saying a lot! I look forward to this next chapter for him with UMPG by his side.”
That hard-working ethos has gotten Antonoff far over the years, having collaborated extensively with Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Sia, Florence + The Machine, Tegan and Sara, St. Vincent, The Chicks, Carly Rae Jepsen, Pink, Olivia Rodrigo, FKA Twigs, Spoon, Zayn, Cam, Clairo, The 1975, Kevin Abstract and Sara Bareilles, among many others.
Then there’s Taylor Swift, whom Antonoff calls “the first person who recognized me as a producer.” They first collaborated in 2013 on “Sweeter Than Fiction” from the film One Chance, and have since gone on to produce Billboard 200-topping records 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017), Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (2021), Red (Taylor’s Version) (2021), Midnights (2022) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (2023).
Antonoff has been rewarded with eight Grammy Awards, including back-to-back producer of the year nods in 2022-2023.
As a performing artist, Antonoff rose to prominence in the early 2010s as the guitarist and multi-instrumentalist in Fun., who scored hits with “We Are Young,” “Carry On” and the title cut off the band’s second album, Some Nights. He later formed Bleachers, whose hits include “I Wanna Get Better” and “Don’t Take the Money,” among others.
Universal Music Group announced on Monday (Aug. 21) a partnership with YouTube to create a set of principles and best practices around the use of artificial intelligence within the music community, as well as a Music AI Incubator bringing together several UMG artists and producers to help study the effect of the technology, including Anitta, Juanes, Yo Gotti, Louis Bell, ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, Ryan Tedder and the estate of Frank Sinatra, among others.
In announcing the new incubator and the three principles — which boil down to embracing the new technological possibilities while protecting creators and establishing content and safety policies — UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge penned an op-ed for YouTube’s blog, in which he acknowledged both the possibilities and the potential dangers of AI.
“Given this tension, our challenge and opportunity as an industry is to establish effective tools, incentives and rewards – as well as rules of the road – that enable us to limit AI’s potential downside while promoting its promising upside,” Grainge writes. “If we strike the right balance, I believe AI will amplify human imagination and enrich musical creativity in extraordinary new ways.”
In reference to the collaboration with YouTube, Grainge points to the video streamer’s development of its ContentID system, which helps screen user-generated content uploaded to the service for copyrighted works, and helps get creators (and copyright owners, such as UMG) paid for their use on the platform. That type of collaboration between DSP and music companies is foundational to the work YouTube and UMG are beginning with respect to AI, Grainge says.
“The truth is, great entertainment doesn’t just reach audiences on its own,” he writes. “It also requires the global infrastructure, new business models, scaled distribution, innovative partnerships and effective safeguards that enable talented artists to create with freedom and receive fair compensation. … Today, our partnership is building on that foundation with a shared commitment to lead responsibly, as outlined in YouTube’s AI principles, where Artificial Intelligence is built to empower human creativity, and not the other way around. AI will never replace human creativity because it will always lack the essential spark that drives the most talented artists to do their best work, which is intention. From Mozart to The Beatles to Taylor Swift, genius is never random.”
Read his full op-ed here.
PULSE Records has formed a joint venture through Brent Faiyaz’s newly established creative agency ISO Supremacy, with Virginia artist Tommy Richman as the first signee, it was announced Monday (Aug. 21). Richman currently serves as the opener for Faiyaz’s F-ck the World, It’s a Wasteland Tour and has caught traction with his songs “BUNKER / PREROLL” and […]
YouTube announced a new initiative with artists and producers from Universal Music Group on Monday (August 21): An “AI Music Incubator” that will include input from Anitta, Juanes, Ryan Tedder, Björn Ulvaeus from Abba, Rodney Jerkins, d4vd, Max Richter, and the estate of Frank Sinatra, among others.
“This group will explore, experiment and offer feedback on the AI-related musical tools and products they are researching,” Universal CEO Lucian Grainge wrote in a blog post. “Once these tools are launched, the hope is that more artists who want to participate will benefit from and enjoy this creative suite.”
Grainge added that “our challenge and opportunity as an industry is to establish effective tools, incentives and rewards — as well as rules of the road — that enable us to limit AI’s potential downside while promoting its promising upside.”
In a statement, Ulvaeus said that “while some may find my decision controversial, I’ve joined this group with an open mind and purely out of curiosity about how an AI model works and what it could be capable of in a creative process. I believe that the more I understand, the better equipped I’ll be to advocate for and to help protect the rights of my fellow human creators.”
Juanes noted in a statement of his own that “artists must play a central role in helping to shape the future of this technology” so “that it is used respectfully and ethically in ways that amplify human musical expression for generations to come.”
This sentiment was echoed by Richter: “Unless artists are part of this process, there is no way to ensure that our interests will be taken into account,” the composer said in a statement. “We have to be in this conversation, or our voices won’t be heard.”
Neal Mohan, YouTube’s CEO, also published the company’s “AI music principles” on Monday. The company promised to “embrace” AI “responsibly together with our music partners” and noted that any AI initiatives “must include appropriate protections and unlock opportunities for music partners who decide to participate.”
YouTube’s “AI music principles” as posted:
AI is here, and we will embrace it responsibly together with our music partners.
AI is ushering in a new age of creative expression, but it must include appropriate protections and unlock opportunities for music partners who decide to participate.
We’ve built an industry-leading trust and safety organization and content policies. We will scale those to meet the challenges of AI.
Jim Guerinot, former general manager of A&M Records, who later managed Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Social Distortion and other bands, worked for A&M co-founder Jerry Moss, who died Wednesday (Aug. 16) at 88, and its president, the late Gil Friesen, for years in the 1980s and 1990s. The retired music executive saluted his former boss in a phone interview.
“We had an artist who was getting to release an album and had a capable manger. I put the whole plan together. When I ran the numbers, I saw that we were going to lose money. I said, ‘I’m not going to get hung,’ so I went to Jerry: ‘Here’s the plan, the manager has signed off.’ He goes, ‘Well, good, what’s your concern?’ I go, ‘Well, we’re going to lose money because the artist will not sell records to make that happen.’ I said, ‘Can I ask you a question? Why would we put this record out?’ He goes, ‘Well, that’s easy. Because it’s an A&M artist.’ It was very much like, ‘The ‘M’ is me, pal. If I want to, I do it.’
And that’s how he slept at night and that’s how he and [Herb Alpert, label co-founder] slept at night.
From time to time when I arrived at work at A&M, I’d pass the main guys’ doors: Herb might be painting, and would invite you in to see what he’s up to to; Gil Friesen, the label president, inevitably would push a book on me and expect a report within days; and Moss wanted to play a few hands of gin. Generally speaking, if you and I play gin, I’m going to beat you. I have friends who played in the World Series of Poker and I win at least half the time. I not only never beat [Moss] at gin, I never even won one hand. It was depressing.
This guy had a vision for the business that was beyond what normal people would see. He walked into a room and saw things we didn’t see. He walked into situations and businesses and saw things we didn’t see.
He knew everybody, for starters. Like, literally, everybody.
Where somebody might see an artist, he would see a network of what that artist represented, and relationships and history. It was just much, much deeper. What he saw wasn’t what I saw. He read people differently. He read people very, very well. He knew people who were going to be honorable and who would not be.”
Two men who claim Michael Jackson sexually abused them as children can pursue their lawsuits against companies that were owned by the late singer, a California appeals court ruled Friday (Aug. 18).
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Wade Robson and James Safechuck filed their cases a decade ago, claiming that Jackson’s companies (MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc.) had a legal duty to protect them from the singer’s alleged abuse.
But Jackson’s companies argued — and a lower court agreed — that they had no such obligation to Robson and Safechuck since Jackson was the sole owner of the companies and they thus lacked the power to control him.
On Friday, the California Court of Appeal for Second District overturned that decision — ruling that the corporate structure did not automatically shield the companies from liability.
“We conclude a corporation that facilitates the sexual abuse of children by one of its employees is not excused from an affirmative duty to protect those children merely because it is solely owned by the perpetrator of the abuse,” the court wrote.
“The corporations say these are ‘idiosyncratic circumstances,’ and perhaps they are. There is certainly no comparable case law to recite,” the court wrote. “But it would be perverse to find no duty based on the corporate defendant having only one shareholder.”
In a statement, Jonathan Steinsapir, lead counsel for MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc., said he and his clients were “disappointed” by the decision.
“We remain fully confident that Michael is innocent of these allegations, which are contrary to all credible evidence and independent corroboration, and which were only first made years after Michael’s death by men motivated solely by money,” Steinsapir said. “We trust that the truth will ultimately prevail with Michael’s vindication yet again. Michael Jackson himself said, ‘Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons.’
Vince Finaldi, an attorney for Robson and Safechuck, said he and his clients were “pleased but not surprised” that the court had chosen to overturn “incorrect rulings in these cases, which were against California law and would have set a dangerous precedent that endangered children throughout state and country. We eagerly look forward to a trial on the merits.”
Robson’s and Safechuck’s allegations were detailed in the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland. Safechuck claims that Jackson abused him “hundreds of times in various locations”; Robson says Jackson began molesting him in 1990, when he was seven, and continued to do so until he was 14.
Robson sued in May 2013, at the age of 30, and Safechuck followed suit a year later when he was 36. The pair argued that Jackson’s companies were negligent in failing to stop the alleged abuse, calling them “conspirators, collaborators, facilitators and alter egos” that were “specifically designed to locate, attract, lure and seduce child sexual abuse victims.”
In 2020, a trial court dismissed those claims, ruling that Jackson had “absolute legal control over the entities and everyone employed by them,” meaning those companies and their staffers had “no ability to control Jackson regarding his alleged sexual abuse of plaintiff.”
But in Friday’s decision reversing that ruling, the appeals court said Jackson’s companies were not as powerless as they had been made out to be.
“Any director, employee or other agent of defendants who knew of or suspected abuse could have done something to protect plaintiffs’ welfare: issued warnings, gone to police, confronted Jackson,” the court wrote. “Yes, the likely consequence of protecting plaintiffs would have been termination of employment or removal from the board of directors. But a director or employee’s risk of removal or termination if they acted to protect plaintiffs does not mean they could not act.”
Friday’s ruling revived Robson’s and Safechuck’s lawsuits, but it does not mean they have won the cases. The disputes will now return to a lower court for more litigation and an eventual trial, where the pair will need to prove their allegations against MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc.
Read the entire opinion here:
Tencent Music Entertainment topped all music stocks this week after second-quarter earnings on Tuesday helped the company’s share price gain 7.2% to $6.53. The Chinese music streaming company, traded on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, reported second quarter revenue of $1.01 billion (up 5.5% year over year) and net profit of $179 million (up 51.6%).
Investors tend to react positively when companies report strong subscriber numbers and TME had good news about the surging Chinese market. TME finished the quarter with 99.4 million subscribers, up 20% from the prior-year period, and for the first time its music services (QQ Music, Kuguo Music and Kuwo Music) generated more revenue than its social entertainment services (WeSing). Users’ willingness to pay for copyrighted music, whether to listen to songs or enjoy premium features, “marks a significant step along TME’s growth trajectory,” said CEO Cussion Pang during Tuesday’s earnings call.
Tencent Music Entertainment was the only music stock with a double-digit gain and one of only two stocks to finish the week in positive territory. With Round Hill Music Royalty Fund unchanged, the remaining 18 stocks in the 21-stock Billboard Global Music Index lost ground this week. The index fell 3% to 1,299.04, the fourth straight week the index declined, and has lost 10.2% of its value since peaking at 1,447.32 for the week ended July 21.
Streaming companies (Spotify, TME, Cloud Music, Anghami, Deezer) dropped by an average of 1%. Live music companies (Live Nation, MSG Entertainment, Sphere Entertainment Co., CTS Eventim) had an average decline of 3.1%. Record labels, publishers and distributors (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, HYBE, SM, Believe, Round Hill, Hipgnosis Songs Fund) fell an average 4.6%. Radio and satellite broadcasters (SiriusXM, iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media) dropped by an average of 5.1%.
Music stocks’ decline reflected the losses seen by stocks around the world this week. Higher bond yields have helped dampen interest in equities and investors are increasingly looking for safer places to put cash. In the United States, the S&P 500 declined 2.1% and the Nasdaq composite fell 2.6%. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 dropped 3.5%. South Korean’s KOSPI composite index fell 3.3%, the biggest one-week point and percentage decline since Sept. 2022, due to falling operating profits, concerns about the Chinese economy and high interest rates.
K-pop stocks were among this week’s biggest losers. Shares of YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment, neither of which are in the index, fell 12.1% and 13.3%, respectively. HYBE shares dropped 7.3% and SM Entertainment fell 6.7%. All four K-pop companies’ share prices have made large gains this year, however. Even after this week’s declines, SM, YG and JYP have gained between 63% and 66% while HYBE shares are up 36.3%.
Artists have long complained that streaming pays poverty wages — fractions of a cent per stream — and increases the difficulty of sustaining a recording career through a slow trickle of royalties. Some conservative-leaning artists are proving to be an exception to the rule with fans who still buy downloads at a time when streaming dominates music consumption.
Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” became a surprise hit — and could reach No. 1 on the Hot 100 — thanks to a confluence of two factors: As we’ve seen with several other songs recently, when a song gets caught up in — or leans into — the American culture wars, conservatives often buy downloads. “Rich Men North of Richmond” was an instant success: From Aug. 10 — the day with the first sales and audio streaming activity — to Aug. 15, daily U.S. streams went from zero to nearly 700,000 in just two days, according to Luminate, while daily U.S. downloads went from zero to more than 20,000 in each of the next four days. To put that in context, in a typical week the top track on the Hot 100 might sell 15,000 downloads.
In the seven-day period ended Aug. 15, “Rich Men North of Richmond” had 11.2 million on-demand audio streams that earned him roughly $40,000, Billboard estimates. But the track amassed an impressive 117,000 track downloads that netted Anthony about $81,000 — or 65% of the royalties earned from U.S. sales and streams. And because the track is distributed by DistroKid, which charges a flat fee for distribution, and owned by Anthony, he pockets the entire amount. Although the YouTube video hosted by radiowv has 21.6 million views, Luminate shows no video streams for the recording and Billboard does not know if Anthony is earning royalties from YouTube.
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Such high download sales make “Rich Men North of Richmond” an outlier in popular music. More often than not, a No. 1 track on the Hot 100 gets most of its revenue from streaming. Download sales have fallen precipitously in recent years and accounted for just 1.1% of U.S. track equivalent albums year to date, according to Luminate. On the most recent Hot 100, for the week of Aug. 19, Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping “Last Night” generated about 80% of its revenue from 20.8 million on-demand audio streams compared to just 5% from 5,000 track downloads. When Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” topped the chart for a week in July, 81% of its revenue came from 31.3 million on-demand audio streams compared to 6% from 9,000 track downloads.
Some people have speculated that the song’s instant success must be the result of astroturfing — the use of fake grass-roots campaigns to gain public awareness. The themes in “Rich Men North of Richmond” — it criticizes both tax-hungry politicians and poor welfare recipients — struck a chord amongst conservatives and almost overnight became a favorite of rightwing politicians, pundits and instigators such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Walsh and Kari Lake. While there’s no clear evidence of such a campaign at the moment, the track’s rise was quick even by the standards of today’s internet viral hits.
What’s clearer, though, is that “Rich Men North of Richmond” has a lot in common with K-pop tracks that soar to the top of the Hot 100 because fans buy downloads with the express purpose of getting the artist a good chart position. When Jimin’s “Like Crazy” topped the Hot 100 for a week in April, 241,000 track downloads accounted for 85% of its revenue. When his BTS bandmate Jung Kook hit No.1 with “Seven” in July, 59% of its revenue came from 138,000 downloads.
Conservative music fans act like K-pop fans when it comes to supporting a song. Track purchases helped Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” reach No. 1 on the Hot 100. In the week of Aug. 5, when the track sat atop the chart, 175,000 downloads accounted for 56% of revenue generated from streams and sales, according to Billboard’s estimate. Two weeks ago, “American Flags,” a patriotic song by rapper Tom MacDonald, sold 18,000 track downloads in the week — second only to “Try That in a Small Town” that week. The following week, the No. 11 most downloaded song was “Go Woke Go Broke” by Jokes on Woke, a country song that attacks recent villains in conservative culture such as Bud Light, CMT, Disney, Ford, Adidas and Barbie.
It’s not necessarily just fans voting with their money, though. The shopping habits of conservative-leaning music fans can help explain why Oliver, Aldean and the others have sold so many downloads. Notably, the country music market — which tends to lean conservative — was slower to adopt streaming (however, it has recently been catching up) and sees a higher-than-average level of purchases. Country music accounted for 35% of the top 100 track downloads in the week ended Aug. 10 — and six of the top 10 — while Christian/gospel accounted for 3%. Both genres have less representation on the Hot 100, which also incorporates streaming and radio spins. Country accounted for just 21% of the tracks on the current Hot 100 chart, while Christian/gospel was absent from the chart.
Whether it’s K-pop or country, songs typically can’t count on download sales alone to provide longevity on the charts. “Try That in a Small Town” sales fell 85% in a week, dropping the track from No. 1 to No. 21 on the Hot 100 in the week dated Aug. 12. Similarly, “Like Crazy” fell from No. 1 to No. 45 the week after its peak. As the culture wars quickly move onto the next issue, the lasting endurance of “Rich Men North of Richmond” depends on how many real fans Anthony has made in this time.