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It’s been more than two years since news of multi-million dollar NFT (non-fungible token) sales first hit the music headlines. In 2021, Grimes made $6 million overnight with a collection of audiovisual NFTs, 3LAU raised $11.6 million in a record-breaking auction and Steve Aoki claimed to have made more money from NFTs than 10 years of record label advances.
For a moment, it looked like NFTs were a new way to value music, unlocking seemingly enormous sums of money for artists. Now, in the cold light of a crypto bear market where NFT trading has fallen 85% from previous highs, those sales figures were unsustainable in hindsight. Instead, rather than trying to sell NFTs at extortionate prices, artists are experimenting with a starkly different tactic to engage their fan bases: giving them away for free.
At the grassroots level, independent artists are giving out free NFTs to capture their earliest fans and kickstart a community. At the superstar level, artists like The Chainsmokers are using free NFTs to reward their fanbases. Far beyond speculation, platforms in the space have pivoted to focus on non-financial use cases such as integrating free NFTs into Spotify pre-save campaigns, incentivizing email capture, Web3 fan clubs, token-gated exclusive content, community building, rewards and commemorative tokens.
Chainsmokers Alex Pall and Drew Taggart were among the first to tap into the new trend. The duo watched the NFT explosion play out while recording their fourth album, So Far So Good, but instead of following the million-dollar playbook, they gave away 5,000 NFTs tied to their album for free. The NFTs also grant fans a 0.0002% share of streaming royalties in the album. The duo doesn’t even take a cut of the NFT’s secondary sales, which go straight to the album’s songwriters.
“Alex and Drew literally made no money from these NFTs,” says Adam Alpert, the duo’s manager. “In fact they lose money because they’re giving a royalty away.”
So why didn’t the Chainsmokers follow the NFT hype and cash in? “That didn’t really appeal to us,” says Alpert. “We didn’t believe it was the right use of the tech at this time.” Rather than financial speculation, the Chainsmokers saw NFTs as a way to deepen their relationship with fans. “Having a happy superfan as a result of this is worth more money than selling an NFT.”
The Chainsmokers have built their entire NFT campaign around free giveaways and exclusive fan experiences. NFT holders get access to a “gated” Discord server where Pall and Taggart interact with fans directly, answer questions and play music. Instead of paid meet and greets, the duo invites token holders to meet backstage at shows. “It really felt like [the fans] were a part of something that no one else was,” says Alpert. “That’s the power of NFTs.”
What started out as free NFTs now change hands for an average of $55 each. The tokens have naturally increased in value as the duo has added new perks for their fans, such as a recent free “airdrop” of the lo-fi version of the album. Perhaps Web3’s killer use case, then, is not the hyper-financialization of music, but a “sincere, modern version of the fan club,” as Alpert puts it.
NFT platforms are also pivoting to explore these free use cases. Decent.xyz started out as a Web3 music platform to sell NFTs backed by streaming royalties but now offers a range of non-financial Web3 tools for artists. “Our team has always been in pursuit of less speculative use cases,” says Charlie Durbin, founder of Decent.xyz. “They force people to consider what NFTs are good for beyond patronage and trading.”
Durbin sees free NFTs as a new layer in the artist’s funnel allowing them to convert fans on social media into stickier “collectors.” Emails and phone numbers are difficult to collect, he says, but “free NFTs promise to tilt those odds.”
Another platform called Showtime.xyz allows artists to give fans a free NFT in exchange for pre-saving their track on Spotify. Meanwhile, POAP is an app through which artists can give fans a free NFT as a reward for showing up to digital and IRL events.
Last year, independent pop artist Annika Rose gave out almost 500 POAPs to her fans every time she interacted with them, acting as proof that they supported her at the start of her career. “She needed to grow [her community] one member at a time,” says Hannah Hyman, Web3 project manager at NVAK Collective, the Web3 record label that represents Rose. “By offering a free POAP to people Annika engaged with, she could timestamp when she connected with them, introduce them to her artistry, and begin to develop a relationship with them without having to sell anything.”
When Rose later released a paid NFT, she put all POAP holders on a “presale” list at a discounted price. It sold out immediately, ensuring the NFT went straight to her earliest fans and supporters rather than speculative traders.
Avoiding speculators was also key for The Chainsmokers. “We tried to minimize it the best that we can,” says Alpert. Eighty percent of the tokens were available only to the Chainsmokers VIP list for the first two hours, ensuring that existing fans had priority access.
Of course, none of this means speculation and financialization of NFTs will disappear. “I’m not naysaying it as a revenue stream,” Alpert clarifies. “I think it can be really helpful for developing artists, especially those with a small but loyal fanbase. But I think for big artists, a much more powerful and pragmatic use is creating a community.”
The future of Web3 is likely somewhere in the middle: A healthy combination of non-speculative NFTs to build community combined with financial NFTs to unlock new revenue streams. In hindsight, many are realizing that turning the music industry into a casino was perhaps a misjudgment, but sustainable use cases for blockchain and NFTs could still add value to an artist’s relationship with their fans.
In the Napster era, paid downloads were a music industry savior, generating $1.3 billion at their peak in 2012, according to Luminate. But the format seems like it’s headed toward extinction. Digital track sales have plummeted over the past decade, from 1.3 billion in 2012 to 152 million last year, a decrease of 88.6% — in 2022 alone, they dropped 25.1% from the previous year.
The declining importance of the format is evident in the desktop version of Apple’s once mighty iTunes Store, which now buries such purchases halfway down its Apple Music homepage. At Amazon, searching for MP3s diverts consumers to the Amazon Music streaming platform, where options include streaming as well purchasing digital music, vinyl or CDs.
“It’s a business that has been in steady decline for years,” says a source at a major label, adding that the company doesn’t receive complaints from consumers about the lack of prominently displayed downloads on retail sites. “We’re in a streaming economy now.”
That said, the sale of 152 million tracks translates to revenue exceeding $152 million, and many artists and labels say the format remains both useful and lucrative. If an artist racks up a significant number of digital sales — like Bonnie Raitt, who sold 9,000 downloads of “Just Like That” in the week following her February Grammy award win for song of the year — it can boost chart performance and validate career relevance. (A download sale is weighted more heavily in determining Billboard chart metrics than a single stream.)
And download sales can be valuable in other ways. In January 2021, two years after Avery Anna became TikTok famous as a high school student for singing country songs in a bathtub while self-isolating during the pandemic, her track “Just Cause I Love You” shot up the iTunes chart. “When we see something pop up on that chart, that certainly makes us pay attention,” says Warner Nashville senior vp of commercial partnerships Tim Foisset. Downloads are “an early indicator that there is something there — a certain fan base is going to engage with a certain artist.” Five months later, Warner Nashville announced it had signed the Flagstaff, Ariz., singer-songwriter.
“It’s part of the list of tools we employ to move on the chart,” Foisset adds. “While it isn’t crucial to our day-to-day decision-making or overall revenue, this is something that still can be important when we’re building a story for a song or a developing artist.”
Downloads generally appeal to an older crowd that prefers ownership to the song-renting nature of YouTube or Spotify. But younger K-pop and Taylor Swift fans respond to exclusive deals, like Swift’s 12-hour January sale of limited-edition digital copies of Midnights with exclusive cover art. Christine Barnum, chief revenue officer of distributor CD Baby, calls the format a piece of virtual merchandise that is “a much more approachable version” of a non-fungible token.
So far, though, that hasn’t connected with listeners the way that physical formats have of late. According to the RIAA, cassette sales jumped 28.3% from 2021 to 2022, from 343,000 to 440,000. Vinyl’s growth has been well documented, rising 847% from 2012 to 2022. Year-over-year growth decelerated in 2022 to a modest 4.3%, rising from 41.7 million in 2021 to 43.5 million.
Overall sales of physical product are dwarfed by streaming, which accounted for 84% of the industry’s total 2021 revenue of $12.4 billion. But revenue for physical sales reversed a decline during the pandemic, rising in 2020 for the first time in 16 years from $1.1 billion in 2019 to $1.2 billion in 2020, then continuing to grow to $1.7 billion in 2021.
Fans can’t hang downloads on their walls, though, and the format continues to slide. “Not very important,” says Ben Swanson, COO of top independent Secretly Group. “We still track it and sell it, but we don’t use that data meaningfully in budget discussions or anything like that.”
While Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” has topped Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart for the past five weeks, Jonathan Daniel, manager at Crush Music, says the revenue is not very significant for a pop star on her level. The download success, though, is useful to show that an older audience has come around to the former teen star’s work. “It’s a relative gauge of a slightly older listener — more of a [adult top 40] or adult contemporary format than, say, a pop or alternative-format listener,” says Daniel, who also represents Sia, Green Day, Lorde and Fall Out Boy.
Amazon and Apple representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment. Several online retailers, however, still emphasize downloads. Beatport’s customer base relies on them for its DJ sets — its download sales have increased by 5% to 10% every year since 2017, according to CEO Robb McDaniels. “We’re probably one of the only places in the world where download sales are increasing,” he says. “I think the labels are happy to see that.”
Barnum adds that downloads remain crucially important for indie artists who make far less than Cyrus’ level of revenue. “It’s a great tool — ‘I bought your download’ as opposed to ‘I played something on Spotify,’ ” she says. “Point zero-zerozero-something cents versus a dollar.”
Belmont University has appointed Brittany Schaffer, Spotify’s head of artist and label partnerships in Nashville, as the new dean of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, effective May 1.
“My career has focused on being a champion for people and ideas and innovations that have brought the music and broader entertainment industry together. At the same time, I have always been passionate about Nashville and its potential to be the creative center of the music business and a big player in the entertainment space at large,” Schaffer tells Billboard. “It’s an opportunity to align all the passions I have and all the work that I’ve done since starting my career into one place. It’s really exciting to be able to think about the legacy that the Curb College can leave on its students and how that influences the future of the music and entertainment space.”
Schaffer is the first female dean of the Nashville-based Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business since it launched in 2003; she fills the role held for seven years by Belmont alumnus and longtime music industry executive Doug Howard, who retired last fall.
Dr. Sarita Stewart, associate professor of creative & entertainment industries, served as the interim dean for this academic year. Stewart will take on a new role as senior associate dean for Curb College, working alongside Schaffer on programming and curriculum.
Schaffer will report to the provost/executive vice president of Academic Excellence and will be responsible for the College’s academic programs and student enrichment initiatives. She will serve approximately 100 faculty and staff and more than 2,700 students in Curb College programs.Belmont’s music business program will celebrate its 50th anniversary during the 2023-24 academic year.
“I think it is a moment to celebrate the incredible work Belmont has done to get to this point,” Schaffer says of the milestone. “It is a program that is already recognized as one of the top entertainment and music business programs in the country and we need to celebrate that.”
She continues, “At the same time, I think the music industry and entertainment space are at a really exciting point of innovation. The landscape is changing faster than it probably ever has—the technology and business models that exist when students enter may look different by the time they graduate. It’s an exciting challenge to take on to think about how we prepare students to have a strong foundation in the fundamentals of the business, creativity and storytelling so they are prepared to navigate the changes that come that we can’t even anticipate. Also, right now, everyone wants to talk about Gen Z and those are our students. How do we create an environment where we are learning as much from our students as they are learning from us?”
Schaffer co-leads Spotify’s Nashville music team including overseeing the development and execution of Spotify’s global strategy to expand the country, Christian/Gospel and Americana genres. During Schaffer’s tenure, country music listening on Spotify grew by double digits annually, according to the streamer. She joined Spotify in January 2018, after serving as senior counsel for Nashville-based Loeb & Loeb, LLP.
Schaffer, who has been named to Billboard’s Country Power Players list for the past four years, is a magna cum laude graduate of both Vanderbilt University and Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Country Music Association and Country Radio Broadcasters, as well as the St. Jude Country Cares Advisory Board. Schaffer is a Class of 2022 Leadership Music graduate.
Belmont president Dr. Greg Jones said via a statement, “Belmont’s Curb College has long been recognized for developing artists and executives who bring innovative leadership and creative storytelling to their roles throughout the entertainment industry. We are delighted Brittany Schaffer has accepted the role of dean, and I am confident that she will elevate our programs even further, deepening our connections within music, motion pictures and media while establishing new partnerships in Nashville, across the U.S. and around the globe.”
Belmont Provost Dr. David Gregory added, “Brittany will bring extraordinary passion, faith and experience to her new role as dean of Curb College. Her legal background and familiarity advocating for artists, writers, producers and more within the industry provide a unique perspective on the holistic education our students need to be successful in a variety of entertainment fields. Plus, though her time with Spotify, she has been on the leading edge of where these content rich fields are heading and is well prepared to ensure Curb College stays at the forefront of modern storytelling.”
Belmont alumni have risen to the highest ranks in Nashville’s music industry and include Universal Music Group Nashville president Cindy Mabe (class of 1995), Sony Music Publishing Nashville CEO Rusty Gaston (class of 1998) and Warner Chappell Music Nashville president and CEO Ben Vaughn (class of 2000).
Ad.Ventures, the collective of over 120 independent venues and festivals across the U.S., has announced a new program with Web3 credentialing platform Dentity, bringing the company’s identity verification tech to the events industry. Throughout the week, Ad.ventures and Dentity will unveil new features of the platform at SXSW and showcase new opportunities for fans, venues and artists.
Ad.Ventures was formed by organizers of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), who launched the “Save our Stages” advocacy movement in 2020 in response to the pandemic shutdown, successfully securing a $16.2 billion relief program to benefit independent venues, artists and professionals. In an announcement, it said it “remains dedicated to preserving the ecosystem of independent venues, promoters, and festivals throughout the United States. This includes providing them access to the best partners and providers so they can continue scaling, enhancing, and improving their operations and offerings.”
Dentity enables consumers to securely store the most sensitive elements of their identities and public personas — from government IDs and memberships to digital event credentials — securely in one Web3 digital wallet.
“Our growing network of independent venues handles a volume of more than $100 million in ticket sales each year and services more than 10 million customers across thousands of events,” said Ian Fine, vp of partnerships for Ad.Ventures. “Dentity’s Web3 credentialing platform provides venue operators with new technology to improve how they produce their events, whether through the lens of consumer data privacy or by implementing sophisticated, sponsored digital loyalty passes, VIP experiences on-site, exclusive offerings, and content. Our goal is to redefine what a ticket provides before, during, and after an event.”
Jeffrey Schwartz, founder and chief executive of Dentity says the company’s unveiling at SXSW is the “first of many we plan to make which impact the event experience and redefine access management. Thousands of ticket holders have already downloaded their Web3 credentials alongside their Apple and Google wallet passes and are experiencing the benefits of Dentity’s platform in Austin today.”
Ad.Ventures is hosting the 11th Annual Music Tech Mashup showcase powered by Dentity today (March 13) at the Empire Control Room & Garage in Austin, as well as an official SXSW panel called “The Power of Connection With Emerging Technologies.” Dentity collaborated with Ad.Ventures to power a number of other SXSW events as well, including BrooklynVegan: Lost Weekend, FloodFest, Brooklyn Bowl Family Reunion and Stereogum, among others.
To enhance the fan experience during and after SXSW, credential holders will be provided with unique offerings on-site and will get access to exclusive discounts and experiences at locally owned and culturally diverse businesses throughout Austin.
Korean alt-rock artist LØREN has signed with 88rising, the company tells Billboard. The label will release his debut EP, Put Up a Fight, on March 24 in partnership with THEBLACKLABEL.
LØREN gained traction in 2021 with the release of three singles: “All My Friends Are Turning Blue,” “NEED (ooo-eee)” and “EMPTY TRASH.” He has also written several songs for K-pop superstars BLACKPINK and starred in one of their music videos. His social profile is also robust, with over 1.2 million followers on Instagram, and he has graced the covers of magazines including Vogue Hong Kong, DAZED Korea and i-D. He currently models for Saint Laurent.
Put Up a Fight is described as “a pop-punk-meets-indie-rock inspired project” that features “grungy” vocals by LØREN sung in both Korean and English (pre-save here). It’s preceded by the single “Folks.”
Ahead of the EP release, LØREN is set to perform his first-ever U.S. shows at SXSW on March 15 as part of the all-Asian music festival Tiger Den (performing alongside Balming Tiger) and 88rising’s Head in the Clouds New York on May 21.
“I’ve been looking forward to Put Up a Fight‘s release for a while now, and I’m thrilled to join forces with 88rising through the process,” said LØREN in a statement. “I’m a huge fan of their work, and I’m very happy to take part in their vision. It feels surreal to have SXSW, album release, and HITC New York ahead of me. To say I’m excited would be an understatement—I absolutely cannot wait for what’s to come.”
88rising’s roster also includes Jackson Wang, Warren Hue, BIBI, Joji and NIKI.
SEOUL — K-pop juggernaut HYBE has withdrawn its bid to control rival agency SM Entertainment and has instead decided to collaborate with SM as well as rival bidder Kakao, marking a sudden détente. Announced early Sunday, the resolution paves the way for K-pop agencies to not only bury the hatchet but also continue their push to monetize fandom with idol-related online content.
“Proceeding with a higher tender offer [to beat Kakao’s bid] may have in turn caused a negative impact on our shareholders and we also judged it may have further overheated the market,” HYBE said in a statement. The agency of boy band BTS had secured about 15% of SM, a former market leader, mostly by acquiring shares from SM founder Lee Soo-man, who was recently pushed out from the agency. A previous tender offer to increase HYBE’s stake in SM didn’t move the needle and a counteroffer by Kakao remains outstanding until March 26.
On Monday, the market reacted by dragging SM stock down more than 23% to 113,000 Korean won, making Kakao’s current offer at 150,000 won more attractive. A HYBE representative said Monday it has not decided whether to sell the SM shares. He added that it was studying possible avenues for collaboration with SM and/or Kakao but declined to comment further. HYBE and Kakao shares have jumped 3.21% and 4.65%, respectively.
SM, which has played a key role in K-pop’s popularity and overseas expansion, has resisted HYBE’s acquisition, slamming it as “anticompetitive.” The two agencies in recent years have dominated the charts, together accounting for nearly half of all albums sold in 2022, according to Korean chart company Circle Chart. But despite its success, shareholders have been calling for changes to the Lee-controlled single-pipeline structure, as rival agencies grew larger by delegating creative direction to mostly autonomous teams. Lee was also being paid millions of dollars a year in producer fees, though he held no managerial position there, an arrangement that shareholders have scrutinized in recent years.
In a drive for reform, SM’s management in February said it would issue new shares to be sold to Kakao as part of a wide-ranging partnership. Lee, then-the biggest shareholder, protested but management overrode him. Lee then offloaded most of his shares to HYBE, which in turn tried to up its stake with a tender offer. Lee successfully challenged the Kakao deal in court, prompting the latter to issue a higher counteroffer.
“Kakao vows to guarantee operational independence at SM, respecting its strongest asset and impetus, the employees, artists and fans,” said Kakao chief investment officer Bae Jae-hyun in a statement on Sunday. Bae added that Kakao and SM would “create new synergies, based on SM Entertainment’s global IP and production system as well as Kakao’s IT expertise and IP value-chain business capacity.”
HYBE, SM and other rivals have in recent years pushed proprietary platforms like Weverse and Beyond Live to foster online fan communities for all fan activities, free or for-pay. Kakao’s platform and search-engine rival Naver in 2017 also inked a deal with YG Entertainment, home to girl group Blackpink, to push YG artists’ content.
SM did not return calls for comment.
Warner Records is stepping further onto the dancefloor.
On Monday (March 13), the label announced the launch of its first-ever flagship dance label, Major Recordings. The label is led by executive Sam Mobarek, a longtime figure in the global dance music scene.
The label’s first signing, in partnership with Parlophone’s FFRR, is PARISI. The duo’s recent work includes behind-the-scenes production with Fred again.. and Swedish House Mafia and an official collaboration with Buy Now, the project from Swedish House Mafia’s Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso. PARISI’s signing to Major Recording marks the launch of their artist project. (“They’re the producer’s producers,” says Mobarek.)
The launch of Major Recordings expand on Warner’s recent marquee successes in the dance realm, with label trio RÜFÜS DU SOL winning the best dance/electronic recording Grammy in 2022, producer Illenium earning a Grammy nomination that same year and David Guetta and Bebe Rexha‘s “I’m Good (Blue)” becoming a major 2022 hit, with the song reaching No. 4 on the Hot 100, where it’s currently in its 27th week.
With Major Recordings, Mobarek will take this momentum and focus it on the ground level of the dance music scene by discovering, signing and developing talent that reflects the breadth, depth, diversity and roots of the sonically sprawling genre.
“I don’t want to sign a bunch of things just because they’re going to give us streams,” she says. “I want to create something focused on community and good music.” Mobarek plans to achieve this goal by creating an artist-friendly label with personality and emotion, one that’s strongly tied to the underground, which has a strong network of artists and fans, and that’s not simply driven by bottom lines.
“Term-wise,” Mobarek says, “that means being fair and exploring how to be inventive about how we do our deals. We want everyone to make money, but because it’s dance music we’re not just gunning for hits; we’re gunning for cultural importance.” Additional signings will be announced in the coming months, with these to include both full artist signings and one-off singles, in order to create flexibility. Music signed to the label will represent the wide spectrum of dance music — a genre that offers a subgenre to fit every conceivable emotion or time of day.
“It will definitely be all over the place in that someone can come to us and be like, ‘What am I in the mood to do? Am I in the mood to sleep? Am I in the mood to rage? There’s [going to be] something here for all of those moods,” says Mobarek.
The label’s focus on authenticity aligns well for Mobarek, who’s been in dance music for nearly two decades. Her previous experience includes Ultra Music — where she led the marketing department and helped propel artists like Calvin Harris and Steve Aoki during the height of the EDM boom — the digital download store Beatport and her own marketing agency, Mob Creative, where clients included house music legend MK.
This on-the-ground experience, combined with Mobarek’s genuine love for the genre, have given her a deep understanding of sounds, trends and how to break artists and tracks not just across radio and streaming, but into the furthest corners of clubland.
“It’s not just about hiring a DJ servicing company and pushing music out via them,” Mobarek says of her strategy. “It’s about using the relationships I have with artists directly, timing things correctly, knowing who would care about [new music], knowing the difference between what Diplo’s Revolution and BPM would play [on Sirius] and which DJs are playing what.” In addition to signing acts and music, she’ll also work with Warner Music Group’s director of global strategy for electronic music, Anton Partridge, to identify dance acts signed to Warner in other territories and break them in the States.
“There’s a whole roster of Warner acts that I’ve been able to be like, ‘I know what to do with them here,” she says.
Such a nuanced understanding of the scene was key in making Mobarek the right fit for this new role. “With Major Recordings, we’re doubling down [on our strong presence in the dance music community], putting renewed energy and dedicated focus on supporting even more acts from around the world,” the label’s co-chairman & COO Tom Corson and co-chairman & CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck say in a joint statement. “Sam will be the driving force behind our success, helping us ensure that this music and these artists make a true global and cultural impact.”
“I can feel it in my stomach; we’re on the cusp of something,” Mobarek says of the energy behind dance music in the U.S. at the moment. “There are all these signs that point to it coming like [David Guetta and Bebe Rexha’s success and Skrillex, Four Tet and Fred again..’s sold out Madison Square Garden show].”
“I’m not going to try and predict what it looks like,” she continues, “but I’m going make sure people see it.”
A year ago, Country Radio Seminar (CRS) gave broadcasters a wakeup call.
With the 2023 edition of the conference, it should become clearer if the industry is facing a new day head on or if it simply hit the Snooze button.
Panelists in 2022 lamented a four-year decline in listenership, a drop that overlaps with a system in which singles often take over 40 weeks — sometimes as much as 60 weeks — to run their course. By contrast, labels are increasingly gearing their marketing plans to streaming platforms that expose wider arrays of music and target individuals’ playlists with greater specificity. On the final day last year, Country’s Radio Coach owner/CEO John Shomby gave a TED Talk-style presentation that chided broadcasters for a nagging sameness and called for a committee of radio and music business executives to figure out a reboot.
As Country Radio Broadcasters revs up CRS again March 13-15, that chat continues to echo in the agenda at the Omni Nashville Hotel. Shomby’s CRS Music Committee — which generated 60-70 respondents in its first hour, according to CRB executive director R.J. Curtis — has been segmented into four overlapping subcommittees that will likely make their first reports in an upcoming CRS360 webinar. Meanwhile, the CRS presentations include several topics that address the issues that have brought the format to a crossroads — “Radio & Records: Redefining the Relationship,” “Just Effing Do It: The Rewards of Taking Risks” and “Fred Jacobs’ Fred Talk: The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be.”
“CRS should be a reality-check moment,” Curtis says. “I don’t believe our purpose is to just shake each other’s hands and high-five and congratulate each other on another great year because not every year is great. We’re facing a lot of different challenges, and I think it’s important for us to own them and figure out how to solve them.”
Country music has a long history with radio. March 2022 marked 100 years since Fiddlin’ John Carson became the first hillbilly act to perform on-air, on WSB Atlanta, and Jan. 4 represented a century since country was introduced on the medium west of the Mississippi River, via The Radio Barn Dance on WBAP Dallas-Fort Worth. Still, the genre never had a full-time station until KDAV Lubbock, Texas, debuted in 1953.
Radio ultimately became the primary method of exposing the genre’s new music. It went largely unchallenged in that position until streaming took hold this century. The new medium operates differently — pressing a Skip button allows a streaming listener to skirt individual titles while still listening to the playlist, whereas skipping a song on the radio requires changing stations. To preserve listenership in this era, programmers generally relied on safe measures that had worked previously, cutting the size of playlists and/or hanging on to proven titles for longer periods of time. Those solutions tend to pay off in the short run, but over the long haul, they can discourage extended listening among the most passionate music fans.
“They’re just afraid of making a mistake,” says Shomby of programmers’ dilemma. “It’s like a football team that just hands the ball off to one guy and he runs up the middle, and then you hope that somebody opens up a hole. There’s no [taking chances] — there’s no throwing any long passes, you’re not doing any double reverses or anything like that. You just run left. And that’s kind of the way I feel like our industry is at this point.”
Actionable Insights Group head of research Billy Ray McKim was among the attendees who signed up for the CRS Music Committee last year after Shomby’s presentation.
“Plenty of people talked about it for days and weeks, and I continue to hear people refer back to it,” McKim says. “He managed to tie a bow on it.”
McKim is now overseeing the subcommittee studying the life cycle of songs, generally aiming to speed the march of singles through national radio charts and energize the format. The issue is complex.
“There was this idea that we would spend a year and find a finite solution and move on,” says McKim. “What’s become even more clear through this process is there isn’t a simple solution. So I think that this committee will continue to live and evolve.”
Changing aspects of the industry will get center stage through much of CRS. Digital streaming, for example, has a full day of convention programming. CRS also offers a panel on “expansive inclusion” and an examination of evolving demographics in “Okay Boomer! A Conversation With Gen Z.”
CRS will continue to offer some familiar elements. Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney will be the focus of keynote artist Q&As, the annual research panel presents insights from a 700-song auditorium test, and the closing New Faces of Country Music dinner will feature Jackson Dean, Priscilla Block, Jelly Roll, Nate Smith and Frank Ray.
That latter event will include recognition of a new wrinkle in the convention. The last of CRS’ founders, Charlie Monk, died Dec. 19, and this will be the first year he is not at the seminar in some form or fashion. New Faces is expected to honor his influence, which is particularly fitting this year. Monk’s ability to process the past and anticipate the future should provide some inspiration for the industry as it moves forward: the “Mayor of Music Row” counted classic singer Frank Sinatra as his favorite artist, but often said his favorite single was whatever was No. 1 that particular week.
“He didn’t get stuck in one particular era, and that’s very evident by the amount of people much, much younger than him that called him a mentor and a friend,” Curtis says. “He sought out younger leaders in our format. He benefited from their knowledge and their way of doing business, and I think it was really impressive.”
Country music’s relationship with radio predates even Monk’s arrival. Programmers’ goal during CRS will be to create some forward movement for a platform that is still regarded as a key means of exposure for even the newest generation of talent.
“I come across a lot of young artists, and they still have that dream to be heard on the radio,” says Shomby. “I mean, it doesn’t get them as excited to have a song playlisted on Spotify as it does to hear their song on their local radio station. So there’s still something there that creates a passion for the format.”
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Lewis Largent, the influential alternative rock radio DJ and MTV VJ that hosted 120 Minutes, died on Feb. 20, a representative confirmed to Billboard.
He passed away after a long illness, Variety first reported.
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Largent grew up in Southern California and launched his career in music at L.A.’s KROQ, with an internship that turned into a full-time role in 1985. Four years later, he was named musical director at the alternative radio station.
In 1992, Largent shifted over to MTV, where he landed as a vp of music programming and became the host of 120 Minutes, bringing artists including David Bowie, Bjork, Trent Reznor, Radiohead and PJ Harvey to television screens everywhere on Sunday nights. He was the face of the show through 1995, though he stayed with the company in his programming role until 1999.
His role as host was next appointed to Matt Pinfield, who upon hearing of Largent’s death tweeted Friday, “I am completely gutted. I loved Lewis very much. I am at a loss for words.”
Following his years with MTV, Largent went to Island Def Jam Records, where as svp of A&R he signed artists such as Sum 41 and Andrew WK. He left IDJ in 2004.
Later in life, he went back to college to study creative writing, earning a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and his Master of Fine Arts in 2015.
Largent is survived by wife Julie Greenwald, Atlantic Music Group chairman and CEO, and their two children.
The Cure is taking serious measures to avoid outrageous ticket prices for their upcoming tour dates. The band, which announced a 30-date run of shows earlier this week, took to social media Friday (March 10) to let fans (and scalpers) know that tickets for their Shows of a Lost World Tour dates will be non-transferable.
“We want the tour to be affordable for all fans, and we have a very wide (and we think very fair) range of pricing at every show,” the message said. “Our ticketing partners have agreed to help us stop scalpers from getting in the way; to help minimise resale and keep prices at face value, tickets for this tour will not be transferable.”
By making the tickets non-transferable, scalpers will be unable to purchase tickets and then resell them for a profit since the original owner will have to be present to enter the venue. For fans who purchase tickets but can’t make it to the event, they will be able to resell the ticket on a face-value ticket exchange.
Three states in the U.S. have outlawed non-transferable tickets, making it illegal for The Cure to uphold the practice for shows in New York, Illinois and Colorado. For those dates, the band encourages fans to only purchase tickets from face-value exchange platforms like Twickets and Cash or Trade.
“Fans should avoid buying tickets that are being resold at inflated prices by scalpers, and the sites that host these scalpers should refrain from reselling tickets for our shows,” the message reads.
The band went on to explain that any tickets listed as of today (March 10) on secondary ticketing sites are not legitimate. Scalpers will post tickets onto secondary ticketing platforms prior to a tour’s on-sale via a practice called speculative ticketing. When a fan pays for the “speculative ticket”, the scalper will acquire a ticket at a lower price once tickets actually go on sale and pocket the difference. The Cure has stated that they will work with Ticketmaster to cancel any tickets obtained via this method.
When the band announced the world tour earlier this week, they established that “there will be no ‘Platinum’ or ‘Dynamically Priced’ tickets on this tour,” which includes stops at Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Moody Center in Austin, Madison Square Garden in New York and State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
Fans looking to secure tickets to The Cure’s 2023 tour should register with Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program. Registration is open through Monday (March 13). After registering, fans will be entered into a lottery system to try to purchase tickets for their preferred date and location.
The Cure’s efforts to combat resale ticketing comes after a season of in-demand tours facing astronomical price increases due to dynamic ticketing and scalpers. Ticketmaster is currently facing government inquiries into its handling of the disastrous Taylor Swift Eras Tour presale, which left many fans outraged when service delays and website crashes (caused in part by bots) prevented many of them from securing tickets.