Business
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Influence Media has acquired the publisher’s share of a big chunk of the song catalog of Harry Styles collaborator Tyler Johnson. While terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, the acquired catalog includes all songs Johnson co-wrote on Styles’ first two solo albums, as well as tunes recorded by Meghan Trainor, Sam Smith, Maren Morris, Keith Urban, Diplo, Miley Cyrus and John Legend.
According to the ASCAP/BMI SoundView song platform, Johnson is credited with writing or co-writing 197 songs. The 67 songs included in the catalog acquisition cover those he wrote from 2012 through 2020, according to the announcement.
“Influence Media is committed to partnering with the secret weapons behind some of music’s modern classics, and Tyler Johnson is at the top of that list for his work with Harry Styles alone, along with fellow superstars like Sam Smith, Meghan Trainor and Miley Cyrus,” Influence Media partner and founding advisor Rene McLean said in a statement. “We are so proud to represent Tyler’s works and look forward to introducing them to even wider audiences.”
Influence Media, which is partnered with Black Rock and Warner Music Group, previously acquired the master recording catalog of Blake Shelton for his records issued between 2001 and 2019 as well as Future’s song publishing catalog, among other music investments.
“It has been a pleasure working with the trusted team at Influence Media on my song catalog,” Johnson, a Grammy winner and five-time Grammy nominee, said in a statement. “These songs are very important to me and I feel our deal reflects the value of this catalog that I have built over the last 10 years.”
According to Influence Media, it formed the collaboration with Johnson “as part of its investment strategy built on ‘modern evergreens,’ songs and artists with a strong potential for long-term impact on pop culture.”
“Rene and I have been doing business with various clients for a while now, he’s a straight shooter,” said Johnson’s manager Nathaniel Cochrane in a statement about the deal. “It was a pleasure to get this deal over the line together and I look forward to building with Influence.”
Johnson was represented in the deal by Francois Mobasser, Audrey Benoualid and Andrew Paster at Myman Greenspan Fox Rosenberg Mobasser Younger & Light. Influence Media Partners was represented by Lisa Alter, Katie Baron and Jaclyn Felber at Alter, Kendrick & Baron.
The Disney Music Group (DMG) and Andscape are partnering on a new record label, Good Company Records. Oscar- and Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer D’Mile, talent manager Natalie Prospere and Grammy-winning mixing/audio engineer John Kercy are the founders of the new global venture.
In addition to signing and developing artists, Good Company will collaborate with other Andscape divisions on various projects. First up will be the Andscape documentary Shyne. The forthcoming film will chronicle Shyne’s life and journey from rap artist on Sean Combs’ Bad Boy label to becoming a member of the Belize House of Representatives.
Announcing the partnership with Good Company today (Feb. 14), Disney Music Group president Ken Bunt stated, “It’s special and unique to have a shared vision for the future of music, and the opportunity to visually tell new stories with Andscape. We can’t wait to collaborate with D’Mile, Natalie, John and the Andscape team to deliver on this goal.”
Added DMG head of creative Mio Vukovic, “We could not be more excited about working with the talented team behind Good Company and our partnership with Andscape. It allows us the dream of creating a home to cultivate and nurture Black artists through storytelling.” Disney Music Group houses Walt Disney Records, Hollywood Records, Disney Music Publishing and Disney Concerts.
Andscape is the 2022 rebrand and expansion of ESPN’s former media platform The Undefeated. Dedicated to exploring all facets of Black identity, Andscape encompasses several divisions including editorial, book publishing, film/television and music publishing.
“D’Mile, Natalie and John are special individuals – each true to Andscape’s vision: deep and dimensional multi-hyphenate storytellers,” said Andscape vice president/editor-in-chief Raina Kelley in the announcement release. “We’re thrilled to welcome them to the Andscape family. This incredible partnership vaults forward Andscape’s evolution as a content creator across The Walt Disney Company.”
Prior to creating Good Company, D’Mile became the first songwriter in Grammy history to win back-to-back song of the year Grammys: for H.E.R.’s “I Can’t Breathe” in 2021 and Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” in 2022. Also in 2021, he won the Academy Award for best original song for co-writing and producing “Fight for You,” performed by H.E.R., from the film Judas and the Black Messiah. A producer of the year nominee at the 65th Grammy Awards on Feb. 5, D’Mile has also worked with Rihanna, Bruno Mars, Mary J. Blige and Janet Jackson, among others.
The longtime manager of D’Mile and fellow Good Company co-founder Kercy, Prospere has also managed Grammy-winning artist Lucky Daye and songwriter/producer DJ Camper. She is also the creator of the Friends Only collective, focusing on forward-thinking business development and artist partnerships throughout the Caribbean and Black diaspora. Kercy’s resumé includes collaborations with Daye, Lil Wayne, Disclosure, Diddy, Ty Dolla $ign, Normani and more.
In a joint statement, D’Mile, Prospere and Kercy said, “We are so excited to partner with Disney/Andscape on Good Company. Disney is a place where we believe all of our creative ideas can come to life, and we are looking forward to where this partnership takes us!”
Two men who were allegedly shot outside a pre-Super Bowl party that followed a Justin Bieber concert last year have filed a wide-ranging lawsuit Bieber and Kodak Black, among a host of other defendants.
Plaintiffs Mark Schaefer and Adam Rahman are alleging negligence, battery, assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress in claims brought by lawyer Gloria Allred over injuries they say they suffered during the Feb. 11, 2022, incident, which occurred outside Los Angeles restaurant The Nice Guy where the party was being held. Filed Thursday (Feb. 9) and obtained by Billboard, the suit claims that the defendants “negligently breached the duties owed to Plaintiffs” by “failing to provide adequate security; failing to warn Plaintiffs of the danger; increasing the likelihood of violence; and/or instigating, escalating, and exacerbating the impact of the violence.”
Kodak Black is solely named on a total of three counts — assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress — with the plaintiffs singling out his conduct as a “substantial factor” in causing them harm.
The complaint goes on to claim that both plaintiffs suffered “physical pain, mental suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, disfigurement, physical impairment, inconvenience, grief, anxiety, humiliation, and severe emotional distress,” along with financial harm including medical expenses and lost earnings. Schaefer and Rahman are asking for general, special and punitive/exemplary damages in amounts to be determined at trial.
Reps for Kodak Black and Bieber did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On the night of the party, which was held on Feb. 11, 2022, the LAPD reported that four men, reportedly including Kodak Black, were shot outside The Nice Guy. Videos posted to TMZ and social media showed Black posing for photos with a group of people outside the restaurant when a fight broke out. Black was among several people involved in the scuffle when shots rang out, sending everyone at the scene running for cover.
The party followed Bieber’s private concert at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, Calif., which was held as part of “Homecoming Weekend” — a series of events held in advance of that year’s Super Bowl. Guests at the bash also reportedly included Jeff Bezos, Hamilton actor Anthony Ramos, NFL Hall-of-Famer Tony Gonzalez, Drake, Khloe Kardashian, Tobey Maguire and Bieber’s wife Hailey Bieber.
A federal appeals court on Monday (Feb. 13) rejected an antitrust lawsuit accusing Ticketmaster and Live Nation of exploiting its “impregnable market power” to foist inflated prices on hundreds of thousands of fans, ruling that concertgoers forfeited their right to sue when they bought their tickets.
In a 24-page ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld an earlier ruling that dismissed the proposed class action, saying that when the fans purchased their tickets, they had agreed to settle any disputes with Ticketmaster via private arbitration rather than in open court.
On appeal, attorneys for the plaintiffs had challenged the validity of that agreement, arguing it had not been presented clearly enough to customers. But in Monday’s decision, the appeals court was unswayed.
“At three independent stages — when creating an account, signing into an account, and completing a purchase — Ticketmaster and Live Nation webpage users are presented with a confirmation button above which text informs the user that, by clicking on this button, ‘you agree to our Terms of Use,’” Judge Danny J. Boggs wrote for a panel of three judges. “A reasonable user would have seen the notice and been able to locate the terms via hyperlink.”
The ruling came as Live Nation and Ticketmaster are facing heightened scrutiny over their market power in the wake of a disastrous November rollout of tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
The incident, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes, has prompted calls from lawmakers in Washington D.C. to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which merged to create their current structure in 2010. It has also spawned investigations from attorneys general around the country and at least two antitrust class actions. The DOJ is also reportedly investigating Live Nation for antitrust violations, though the probe predated the Swift tour debacle.
The case decided on Monday was filed back in 2020 but raised similar accusations to critics who have spoken out in the wake of the Swift incident. Aiming to represent “hundreds of thousands if not millions” of customers, the proposed class action alleged that Live Nation’s dominance allowed it to increase prices for consumers and perform other “predatory acts” — calling it a “monster” that “must be stopped.”
“Defendants’ anticompetitive scheme has been wildly successful and today threatens to put nearly all ticketing services for major concert venues (primary and secondary) in the United States under Ticketmaster’s monopolistic thumb,” the accusers wrote in their April 2020 complaint.
But the case was quickly tossed out. A federal judge ruled in 2021 that Live Nation and Ticketmaster users had clearly assented to a form of so-called clickwrap agreement — a common online tool that presents users with terms of service before proceeding — that required them to resolve any such claims against Live Nation via a private arbitration process.
Monday’s ruling upheld that decision for Live Nation. The appeals court said the company’s agreement was not the kind of “pure clickwrap” that offers users the clearest presentation of terms of service, but the court said it also was not “browsewrap” — a less effective form of user agreement where terms are “hidden in links located at the bottom of webpages.” Whatever the format, the appeals court said Live Nation’s version “did enough” to pass legal muster.
“Appellees’ notice is conspicuously displayed directly above or below the action button at each of three independent stages that a user must complete before purchasing tickets,” Judge Boggs wrote for the court. “Crucially, the ‘Terms of Use’ hyperlink is conspicuously distinguished from the surrounding text in bright blue font, making its presence readily apparent.”
The ruling will effectively end the current case, but a second similar lawsuit against Live Nation (filed by the same team of attorneys from the law firm Quinn Emmanuel) based on slightly tweaked allegations is still pending in a lower federal court.
Both a representative for Live Nation and an attorney for the plaintiffs did not immediately return a request for comment on the Ninth Circuit’s ruling.
Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) has sold its Spanish-language network Mega TV to Voz Media for $64 million, the company announced Monday (Feb. 13). The sale, which includes associated real estate, preserves the Hispanic ownership of Mega TV, which targets Spanish-speaking Latinos in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
The purchase must still be approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Founded in 1983, SBS is a Spanish-language media company that owns and operates radio stations in the Tropical, Regional Mexican, Spanish Adult Contemporary, Top 40 and Urbano formats. It also operates AIRE Radio Networks, a national radio platform that boasts more than 290 affiliated stations reaching 95% of the U.S. Hispanic audience, according to the company. SBS went public in 1999.
Miami-based Mega TV — a staple in Hispanic television that boasts over-the-air, cable and satellite distribution in Puerto Rico and multiple affiliates throughout the mainland U.S. — airs around three dozen original programs, including Bayly, Dante Night Show, Mega Noticiero, La Corte del Pueblo, Latin Angels and Mega Kids.
“I am very proud of the nearly two decades of award-winning programming, community dedication and industry accomplishments achieved by Mega TV, a network operation that succeeded in forging its own unique position among Hispanic viewers in the U.S. and Puerto Rico,” said SBS chairman/CEO Raúl Alarcón in a statement.
Alarcón continued: “I am especially pleased to leave this unique asset in the hands of a dedicated Hispanic owner, Orlando Salazar, the founder of Voz Media, who will continue the expansion of Mega TV and honor its unwavering commitment to faithfully serve our nation’s burgeoning Latino population. Minority ownership of the media, and the opportunities it affords to our nation’s fastest-growing constituency, is a critical component in guaranteeing a stable, profitable and promising future for America.”
Voz Media was founded in 2022 by CEO Orlando Salazar in Dallas, with headquarters in Las Colinas, Tex. The company, which provides “alternative news and content for Latinos,” is planning a slate of original series and films “that reflect the core Hispanic values of hard work, faith and commitment to family” for its streaming platform targeted at the U.S. Spanish-speaking market and Latin America, according to a press release. The company also has offices in Miami and Madrid.
“It is an honor for Voz Media to be selected to continue the work and tradition started by Raúl Alarcón and Mega TV in the Spanish language television media market,” added Salazar. “We take seriously the challenge of moving Mega TV forward in both reach and content, as we continue to serve Spanish speakers across the United States.”
SBS president/COO Albert Rodriguez added, “We couldn’t be more proud of the fact that the legacy of Mega TV will continue under the leadership of another Hispanic-owned media company. Orlando and the Voz Media team have our unqualified support and we look forward to working with them throughout this transition and beyond.”
Jangwon Lee‘s life in music began in typical Korean fashion. “All the kids in my generation grew up with the piano at some point in their lives,” Lee says over the phone from Seoul. His love of the instrument continued beyond childhood with a piano duo, The Serendipity, but has taken a back seat to serial entrepreneurism.
While studying business administration at Seoul National University, Lee co-founded Campusdal, a food delivery app. Then, after two years in the Korean air force, he founded Mapiacompany, a technology firm that operates three online platforms for independent musicians to sell digital sheet music. The experience set the stage for Lee’s remaking of Korea’s music intellectual property (IP) business.
“It gave me the legal knowledge that was necessary to start my new business — the publishing, the copyright laws, how to monetize, how to distribute the royalties,” Lee says.
Now, Lee is the CEO of two-year-old Beyond Music, a music investment firm with 26,000 copyrights and about $250 million under management. In 2021, Beyond Music created Asia’s first song fund with support from institutional investors including KB Securities, Base Investment and Maven Growth Partners. Last year, it added funding from the electronics and entertainment company Dreamus.
In 2022, Lee doubled down on Korean content by launching an exchange-traded fund focused on Korean entertainment companies, the KPOP and Korean Entertainment ETF. Prominent Korean music companies HYBE, SM Entertainment and JYP Entertainment are in its portfolio, but it also includes Studio Dragon, a TV studio; Naver, owner of messaging app Line; and Kakao, owner of Korea’s largest music subscription service, Melon.
In the West, investment money has been flowing heavily into music IP for more than a decade, especially in the last five years. It seems like the practice took root in Korea much later. Why do you think that is?
In 2017-18, when Hipgnosis started, there were very few precedents for Korean capital markets. You’ve got to understand the market, the nomenclature, the industry network. You have to know the nooks and crannies of the IP business. And also, you need to have a financial grasp, the understanding of capital markets, how to raise capital, how to structure the company, how to build, how to do tax-efficient modeling, IRR [internal rate of return] predictions, quantitative valuations. This is very much a quantitative business, whereas the understanding of the IP business is a relatively qualitative business. So, these are polar opposites in terms of business characteristics. In the past, I don’t think in Korea there was a team that really embodied these polar opposites.
We have people from PwC, KPMG, KKR and Morgan Stanley on our team. We have producers and someone who used to be a top-level executive of the largest music value chain company in Korea. I think that was why we were first to scale, to be able to build and raise funds from the very conservative institutional capital of Korean or Asian private equity and limited partner network.
Streaming is driving growth in global recorded music and publishing revenue, and that growth has helped attract new investors and more investment in general. Is streaming also the main factor behind increased investor interest in music IP in Korea?
Yes. I think it’s twofold. No. 1: streaming in the domestic market. Korea ranked [at] No. 6 in terms of market size for music globally. Japan is No. 2. Add Japan and Korea together, it almost equals the European Union. So it is a big market on its own, and local growth here is definitely driving part of it. Another part is Korean content’s market share in the global music industry. In the past, Korean music rights’ primary source of revenue was domestic usage, and therefore domestic growth was the only tailwind. But now we see the market share of Korean music growing exponentially year over year in other parts of Asia and moreover in Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa regions, Europe, North America. Not just BTS and BLACKPINK, but more midtier artists. You become fans of Korean music through those more hallmark artists, but you end up trickling down to other more long-tail or indie artists as well. And all the markets have been benefiting.
You have a large catalog. Do some of your less popular songs have commercial potential outside of Korea?
We have a mix of more global, more well-received catalogs and older, Korean-focused catalogs. The former obviously is a direct beneficiary of such a market growth trend. The latter, to a lesser degree, is also benefiting. It’s surprising that songs on Spotify that are not as famous as BTS at all are getting relative hype from other parts of Asia, and we see it for some of our older catalog as well. I don’t know how they were discovered, but on YouTube playlists, on YouTube comments, we see Spanish, we see French, we see it with Southeast Asian languages for songs we own that are 10 to 15 years old.
Multiples and valuations have risen a lot over the last few years. What’s the Korean market like right now? Is it as heated as other markets?
It is more heated than before, but to my knowledge, the blended multiple acquisition average used to be between 20 and 30 times. Now with the higher interest rate, multiples are still within the high teens, like 17, 18, 19, or at least like 15. But in Korea, or at least for us, our acquisition multiple, the blended average, is still below 10. So, we have been able to acquire very good assets. We think they are not lesser than their U.S. or U.K. counterparts at all. So, from a quantitative viewpoint, these don’t necessarily have to be valued at such a discrepancy. But I think it’s a newer market here, and therefore there’s less competition.
Is it safe to assume that you’ll encounter more competition in the coming years?
I’m hoping not. But from a reasonable standpoint, I do see that may be unavoidable. But it’s a good thing for us, because it will also help with our existing catalog valuing up.
What do you do to create additional value for the IP you purchase? Do you actively manage, market and promote the catalog — what Hipgnosis calls “song management”?
Whatever Hipgnosis is doing, we’re doing it essentially, whether it be synch, remixes, copyright, better revenue collection techniques. We put our methodologies into two main categories: active management and passive management. We define passive as collecting what was already ours but was somehow being lost due to Content ID not being perfectly managed by YouTube itself. So we employ additional music-pattern recognition — tech companies around the world — to do better collection for our existing catalog, which I know Hipgnosis is also doing. We try to find and mix a better lineup of distribution companies — intermediary publishers, etc. — to maximize our revenue while minimizing the middleman fee. For active, we’re doing remakes. We’ve already done a dozen remakes of our songs. I think two are now in the top 100 charts for Korean music. These are songs that were published 16 years ago, so after acquisition, we made remakes of the songs with new, up-and-rising artists in Korea. By remaking the songs, we hold the new assets as well as our existing assets. We’ve also worked with media channels in Korea to do music-related shows.
You recently purchased your first major U.S. acquisition: the catalog of producer-songwriter Greg Wells. To do this, you set up a U.S. subsidiary. Do you plan on creating subsidiaries in other countries to pursue acquisitions elsewhere?
Yes, for sure. The U.S. was a symbolic move for us. Our targets, however, lie toward lower-multiple opportunities. So, basically, Asia. We might set up subsidiaries. We might get direct acquisition from our Korean entity. But positioning ourselves as a more Asia-focused, Asia-Pacific music aggregator is our next step.
What might surprise people about the Korean music market?
The market size. For starters, it’s larger than most European countries — larger than Canada, Mexico or most Latin American countries, or even countries with more population like Indonesia. I think it’s bigger than Italy. Korea is really an advanced country. I can say that with more certainty now than I would have been able to seven or eight years ago.
How much of South Korea’s music market depends on the ability of K-pop to keep growing as much as it has in recent years?
That is a topic of interest for Korean media and Korean industry specialists as well — whether this is a one-hit wonder, a short-lived irregularity or a trend. People have been internally questioning, or doubting, the longevity of the trend. This issue has been raised for five, six years. Every year, there’s someone who says, “OK, you know, this cannot sustain. Maybe this is the peak. The next year, it might be difficult.” But the last five or six years have seen more growth every year, surpassing everyone’s expectation. This does have a kind of faith component, and I do have faith. I’m biased. But I think my bias stands with multiple consecutive years of a proven record. There’s no other country, outside of the U.S., that spends and reinvests as much money for better-quality music production as Korea. I’m very, very optimistic that this is not a one-time thing, but is a trend that will stick around at least for the next 10 years.
Drake’s lawyers are firing back at efforts to force the superstar to sit for a deposition over the murder of XXXtentacion, claiming he has no connection at all to the crime and that defense attorneys are merely trying to “add more layers of celebrity and notoriety” to the case.
Just days after a Florida judge ordered Drake to appear for such a deposition by Feb. 24, the rapper’s lawyers argued in a new motion filed on Sunday that there is no evidence suggesting that he was in any way connected to XXXTentacion’s 2018 shooting death.
“It is both unreasonable and oppressive to subpoena an out of state party who has not been mentioned in any reports, any investigation, or referenced to have any involvement in this matter,” Drake’s attorney Bradford M. Cohen wrote in the response filing. “To mandate that he appear for deposition for something that he very clearly has no relevant knowledge of is unreasonable.”
Prosecutors have never claimed that Drake (real name Aubrey Graham) was involved in the death of XXXTentacion (real name Jahseh Onfroy). Instead, they charged four Florida men — Dedrick Williams, Trayvon Newsome, Michael Boatwright and Robert Allen – who they allege killed XXX during a robbery that escalated into deadly violence.
But defense attorney Mauricio Padilla, who represents Williams in the case, listed Drake on a star-studded witness list in December. And at opening arguments last week, Padilla suggested that the police had not sufficiently investigated a possible connection to Drake, who allegedly had an existing feud with XXX before his death. Such speculation has been fueled by a 2018 social media post – later deleted – in which XXX said: “If anyone tries to kill me it was @champagnepapi,” referring to Drake by his Instagram name.
Planning to make those arguments at trial, Padilla attempted to force Drake to sit for a Jan. 27 deposition, but he’s claimed in court filings that the star didn’t show up for the hearing. So last week, the judge overseeing the case ordered Drake to either appear for a deposition via Zoom on Feb. 24, or risk being held in contempt of court.
In Sunday’s filing, Drake’s lawyers pushed to set that order aside. They said the subpoena was not properly served on the superstar, meaning he had been under no procedural obligation to show up. And even if it had been, they argued that he has no connection to the case that requires a deposition in the first place: “No evidence has been provided to substantiate the assertion that the Non-Party in any way contributed to, had knowledge of, or participated in the alleged incident.”
Instead, Drake’s lawyers pointed to the fact that prosecutors plan to show jurors video evidence of the defendants committing the crime. And they cited that headline-grabbing December witness list — which also listed Quavo, Offset, Tekashi 6ix9ine, Joe Budden and even the late Migos rapper Takeoff after he had already been killed – as evidence that defense attorneys were merely trying to pull unrelated big names into the case.
“It would appear, based on the names mentioned on the witness list filed by defendant’s counsel, that the intent to subpoena [Drake] is less for the purpose of discovering relevant evidence and testimony, but instead add more layers of celebrity and notoriety to a tragic and unfortunate event,” the star’s lawyers wrote.
Padilla, the defense attorney who is seeking to depose Drake, did not immediately return a request for comment Monday on Drake’s response filing.
ValueAct Capital Management, a hedge fund with a history of being an activist investor, now holds a stake in Spotify. Mason Morfit, the San Francisco-based company’s chief executive officer and chief investment officer, revealed the firm’s ownership in Spotify shares at an event at Columbia University on Friday (Feb. 10), according to reports.
Spotify shares rose 3.6% to $125.16 on Friday following the news.
ValueAct, which did not reveal the timing of the investment, enters the picture as Spotify appears determined to improve its margins and reign in costs. Two weeks ago, Spotify announced a reorganization and layoff of 6% of its staff. Chief content officer Dawn Ostroff, who used lucrative licensing and original content deals to build Spotify’s podcast business, departed the company. The New York-based executive’s duties were absorbed by chief business officer Alex Norström out of Spotify’s Swedish headquarters. In the fourth quarter, Spotify showed a willingness to pare costs by laying off staff in its original podcasts and some of its live programming.
“During the boom, it applied these powers to new markets like podcasts, audiobooks and live chat rooms,” ValueAct’s Morfit said according to The Financial Times. “Its operating expenses and funding for content exploded. It is now sorting out what was built to last and what was built for the bubble.”
ValueAct owns shares in dozens of companies including Twenty-First Century Fox, Nintendo, The New York Times Company, Microsoft and Adobe Systems.
Exactly what this means for Spotify’s decision-making isn’t immediately clear. Like Meta, Alphabet and some other prominent tech companies, Spotify has a dual-class share system that grants its founders with enough voting power to control corporate governance. In a single-class structure, shareholders’ voting power is proportional to the number of shares they own. In a dual-class system, ordinary shares have far less voting power than a second type of shares.
Spotify’s co-founders own only 38% of outstanding common shares but own 100% of the company’s “beneficiary certificates,” each of which has 10 times the voting power of an ordinary share but no economic rights. The arrangement gives CEO Daniel Ek and co-founder Martin Lorentzon 74.3% of voting power, according to Spotify’s 2022 annual report, and ensures the duo can choose the board of directors despite owning a minority of the company’s economic interest.
As of Dec. 31, 2022, Ek has 16.5% of outstanding common shares and 31.7% of total voting power while Lorentzon owns 11.1% of ordinary shares and 42.6% of total voting power. The next-largest shareholder, Baille Gifford & Co, owns 14.5% of ordinary shares and 5.1% of voting power. Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings owns 8.6% of ordinary shares, but Ek exercises those shares’ voting rights.
Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange” has resided at No. 1 on Hot Country Songs for six weeks, joining Johnny Cash’s version of “Orange Blossom Special” as the only top 10 country songs to employ the citrus color in their titles.
Meanwhile, Dustin Lynch rides at No. 49 in his third week on Country Airplay with “Stars Like Confetti,” a song that, if it reaches the top 10, would become the first in that tier to reference a blast of party paper in its name.
The country genre has long used wordplay to tell its stories and hook its listeners, but increasingly, the wordplay is less about twisting meanings and more about applying words that one doesn’t normally expect to hear in a three-minute song. Sometimes it’s a reference as silly as the restaurant shoutouts — Applebee’s, Frosty and Oreo shake — in Walker Hayes’ “Fancy Like” or as weighty as the term “patriarchy,” which appeared in Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version).” Both songs topped Hot Country Songs in the last two years.
“The line was on a key chain,” Swift’s co-writer, Liz Rose, notes of “patriarchy.” “That was very specific.”
Capturing details from the writers’ lives — as both “Fancy Like” and “All Too Well” did — is one of multiple reasons to throw an odd word or phrase into a lyric. Sometimes it happens because it’s dictated by geography: Alan Jackson created a light atmosphere when he rhymed “Chattahoochee,” a river that was previously unknown to large swaths of Americans, with “hoochie koochie”; The Oak Ridge Boys brought a Pennsylvania tributary, the Monongahela, to the national spotlight with their 1988 release “Gonna Take a Lot of River.” And in other instances, the word fulfills a poetic function at the end of a line, as the phrase “happily delusional” does in Old Dominion’s “Memory Lane.”
“We had ‘loving you as usual,’ and you’re just searching for a rhyme,” the band’s Trevor Rosen recalls. “The guy had to throw [“delusional”] out there twice. It’s a weird word. It’s like, ‘I wonder if you could say that?’ And then it was like, ‘Oh, wait, no, that’s actually it.’”
Old Dominion has a history with oddball phrases —“drunk as a skunk eating lunch” appears in “I Was on a Boat That Day,” and it titled a 2015 single “Snapback,” a ball-cap term that wasn’t necessarily known to everyone. But that happens in great part because the band is willing to chase down odd terms, where some other songwriters might balk.
“It depends on the room,” says “Memory Lane” co-writer Jessie Jo Dillon. “People like the Old Dominion guys — I mean, nobody’s scared to do something strange.”
Lynch, on the other hand, experienced an internal debate about “Stars Like Confetti.” He had doubts regarding the song he was about to hear when he first saw the title, and even after the demo hooked him, he still had reservations for a time, fearful that the vocabulary might not suit him.
“I’ve been the one that has questions, if the word ‘confetti’ isn’t masculine enough to do,” Lynch admits. “The circle I have, obviously we scrutinize a lot. We’re very tough on ourselves and try to really pick apart everything we can about a song and make sure we’re looking at all the angles of a song. I kept coming back to, like, ‘Is it cool for a dude that lives to hunt and farm? Do I sing “confetti”?’ I had to do some soul searching and just make sure you’re like, ‘OK, am I going to be cool singing a song the rest of my life if it takes off?’”
Obviously, “Confetti” won out. Others have fared well over the long haul with terminology that seems uncommon in the conservative country world. George Strait calmly considered “transcendental meditation” in his breezy “All My Ex’s Live in Texas,” Faith Hill navigated “centrifugal motion,” “perpetual bliss” and “pivotal moment” in the chorus of “This Kiss,” and Lori McKenna shared a Grammy nomination with Swift this year for “I Bet You Think About Me,” a song that whips out “pedigree,” “upper-crust circles” and “organic shoes” in its narrative.
“We’re so used to listening to things in the background,” McKenna says, noting that unusual vocabulary “really can bring the listener right to ‘Wait, what was that?’ I don’t think it’s meant to be a trick, but I never stop an artist when a word works for them. My job is to stay away from changing their truth.”
Neal McCoy, who sang “no need to psychoanalyze” in the course of the 1994 single “Wink,” was perhaps ahead of his time with the therapist lingo. Chris Young couched the phrase “to hell with the closure” in a key chorus passage in “I’m Comin’ Over,” and Ingrid Andress’ new “Feel Like This” explores “manipulation,” “toxic situations,” “security” and “stability.”
Andress offers those words unapologetically.
“That was sort of intentional,” she says. “I wanted to move the genre forward and to kind of keep up with the rest of society because in most places, I think people in my generation are comfortable talking about the fact that they go to a therapist, but I know that that’s not true for everywhere. I just want to start normalizing that in conversation.”
Although that kind of expression may not feel normal to every act.
“Those are words — like ‘manipulation’ — that only a girl like her can use,” says “Confetti” co-writer Zach Crowell. “I would encourage her to use that stuff. You don’t hear Luke Bryan saying those words. That’s good. It’s honest.”
That’s great confirmation, though Andress doesn’t seem to need it. Something in the orange says she’ll be populating her songs with intelligent phrases as long as she pursues her singer-songwriter role.
“At the end of the day, I’m just writing my story,” she says. “It will come out the way that it feels truest to me. If that’s something that has not been done before in the genre, then I view that as a win. Because I think my goal is to constantly discover new art forms and new ways of saying things. Whether people like it or not, I’m still going to be doing it anyway.”
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Uber Eats’ commercial featuring Diddy, Montell Jordan, “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?),” the guy who sings “What Is Love,” an oddly-timed haircut and two pineapples may be the first clue that Super Bowl ads are going lighter in 2023 — a pattern reflected in the music synchs for the big game.
After three years of the pandemic, Jordan’s 1995 smash “This Is How We Do It” and Kelis’ 2003 hit “Milkshake,” both Universal Music Publishing Group synchs used in the Uber Eats spot, represent a shift from apocalyptic and inspirational Super Bowl commercials and soundtracks starring old-timey crooners and string sections to familiar, upbeat hits and plentiful comedy.
“Humor remains the dominant theme this year,” says Tom Eaton, senior vp of music for advertising for UMPG, which represents the Jordan and Kelis tracks and suggested them to the brand’s music supervisors. “There have been a few sentimental commercials, but the vast majority have trended towards humor — and music can be such an important aspect of creating that mood.”
“I haven’t seen that heightened seriousness, which I think is a good thing,” adds Keith D’Arcy, senior vp of sync and creative services for Warner Chappell Music, whose synchs at this year’s Super Bowl include DMX‘s “What’s My Name,” for a Downy spot starring Danny McBride. “The country is in a good place where we’re more inclined to want to laugh and celebrate.”
That means lots of feel-good tracks, many of which were released in the ‘90s – from “What’s My Name” and “This is How We Do It” to a Clueless throwback ad for Rakuten starring Alicia Silverstone and Supergrass‘ 1995 U.K. hit “Alright.” The ’90s trend may have begun last year with Doja Cat‘s cover of Hole‘s “Celebrity Skin” for Taco Bell, says Rob Christensen, executive vp and head of global synch for Kobalt, whose lone synch this year is soul singer Lee Fields’ “Forever” for pet-food brand The Farmer’s Dog. “The ’90s are back,” he says. “That seems to be around pop culture everywhere right now.”
“It’s cyclical,” adds Scott Cresto, executive vp of synchronization and marketing for Reservoir Media, which has three synchs, including a Pringles spot with Meghan Trainor singing Tina Turner‘s “The Best.” “Most folks’ favorite music is from [ages] 13 to 30. They’re down the line in their careers and making the decisions and picking their favorite songs.”
Although not all final synch tallies for nationally televised spots were available at press time — publishing execs say permissions and requests for songs were unusually late this year, including a rush job that came in from an agency this past Monday — Sony Music Publishing (SMP) scored the most with 15, UMPG had seven, Warner Chappell Music had six or seven, BMG landed five, Primary Wave and Reservoir had three apiece and Kobalt had one.
Despite inflation, layoffs, high interest rates and sporadic recession talk, synch rates were stable this year, according to publishers. “It’s in line with past Super Bowl campaigns,” says Marty Silverstone, partner/senior vp creative/head of synch for Primary Wave, whose synchs include Missy Elliott‘s “We Run This” for Google Pixel. Adds Dan Rosenbaum, vp of licensing and advertising, for BMG, whose synchs include Supergrass’ “Alright” and co-writes for Turner’s “The Best” and Elliott’s “We Run This”: “Recognizability is so important in commercial usage. If that song is going to work for them, they’ll pay the price.”
Super Bowl LVII is the first since Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” landed on Stranger Things in May 2022, became a No. 1 hit and unexpectedly dominated the synch business. Do publishers believe the big game, for which 30-second ads cost a reported $7 million, will have a similar impact for their songs? Yes and no.
“That Kate Bush song wasn’t well-known and the show blew it up. On the Super Bowl, they play it a little more safe by using more tried-and-true hits,” says Brian Monaco, president/global chief marketing officer for SMP, which represents Len‘s “Steal My Sunshine” (for a Sam Adams spot), Sarah McLachlan‘s “Angel” (Busch) and Olivia Rodrigo‘s “Good 4 U” (Pepsi). “On a TV show, it’s a little easier, because the fees are lower. If it doesn’t work, you’re on to the next one.”
Despite SMP’s success at landing Super Bowl synchs this year, Monaco’s staff was unable to successfully pitch one key artist: Bruce Springsteen, who sold his music rights to the company for a reported $550 million in 2021. “It just didn’t fit,” he says, while noting that even for a superstar like Springsteen, getting a Super Bowl synch is a coveted career highlight: “Everyone’s hope — every writer, every artist — is the Super Bowl platform. We need more big events like this to get more music played.”