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The White Stripes have filed a copyright lawsuit against Donald Trump for using “Seven Nation Army” in a social media post, making good on threats to sue the Republican presidential candidate.
In a complaint filed Monday in Manhattan federal court, Jack White and Meg White accused Trump and his campaign of “flagrant misappropriation” of one of the “most well-known and influential musical works of all time.”
The lawsuit accuses Trump not only of infringing the band’s rights to the song, but also of violating federal trademark law by falsely suggesting the duo support his bid for another presidential term.
“The new association with Defendant Trump that Defendants have foisted upon Plaintiffs through the Infringing Trump Videos is even more offensive to Plaintiffs because Plaintiffs vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by Defendant Trump when he was President and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks,” attorneys for the White Stripes wrote.
In a social media post announcing the lawsuit, White included a screenshot of the complaint with a one-line caption: “This machine sues fascists.”
The filing of the case came less than two weeks after White blasted Trump over the apparent use of his song. In the disputed clip, posted by the former president’s deputy director of communications, Trump ascends the stairs of a plane as the iconic bass riff of “Seven Nation Army” plays.
“Oh….Don’t even think about using my music you fascists,” White began. “Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others.)”
Numerous artists have spoken out about in recent weeks about Trump’s use of their music. Beyoncé, Celine Dion, the Foo Fighters, ABBA and Sinead O’Connor‘s estate have all spoken out against the former president’s use of their songs.
Most of the complaints have come as public statements or cease-and-desist letters, but others have taken legal action before the White Stripes. In August, the estate of Isaac Hayes sued in federal court, accusing the campaign of using his “Hold On, I’m Coming” at rallies and in video recordings of those events. Last week, the Hayes estate won an injunction barring the use of the song while the case plays out.
The use of copyrighted music at campaign rallies is a sometimes murky issue, with candidates often claiming that they secured a blanket license from ASCAP or BMI to perform the track. But the use of a song in a video is more straightforward; if a candidate hasn’t secured a sync license directly from the artist or their label, it is copyright infringement to use it.
In their lawsuit on Monday, the White Stripes said that Trump knew or should have known that he needed a license to play their song in his video — citing the fact that he has been “on the receiving end of numerous copyright claims by musical artists whose work he used without permission.”
The band also cited its previous opposition to his use of their music. Back in 2016, the White Stripes “publicly denounced” Trump for using their songs, saying that they were “disgusted by that association.”
A representative for the Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
Scalpers hoping to earn a big payout flipping Chappell Roan tickets likely just watched their profits vanish after the singer announced she was shutting down resellers charging outrageous markups for her Oct. 1 show in Franklin, Tenn.
The news was greeted with praise by fans who have watched the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer’s star rise to new heights this summer — as well as by questions from ticket buyers wondering how the singer was able to call a mulligan on tickets she’d already sold to ensure actual fans get to attend her show instead.
The answer isn’t totally clear — Roan’s reps did not respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment — but there’s enough information already available about the Franklin show to tell part of the story. It’s also worth noting that Roan isn’t the first artist to deal with scalpers trying to mark up fan-friendly $30 lawn tickets to as high as $900; in years past, major artists like Ed Sheeran and Eric Church, among others, have utilized the same strategy. And while not a perfect system, it’s still an impactful way to ensure that more fans have access to affordable tickets.
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In many ways, for a breakthrough artist like Roan, there are worse problems to have. Over the last year, thanks to the success of her 2023 album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, her work as a supporting act on Olivia Rodrigo‘s Guts World Tour and her breakout performances this summer at Lollapalooza and Coachella, Roan, as some say in music business parlance, is the blowing the f— up. Now, as with any big star, scalpers are taking advantage.
In one less extensive example of this, tickets for Roan’s Oct. 2 show at Walmart Amphitheatre near Rogers, Ark., were originally priced between $30 and $80 when they went on sale in June. Now, they’re selling for $300 to $1,200 on StubHub and other secondary sites — though in that case, only a couple dozen tickets, out of 11,000 total capacity, appear to be listed on StubHub.
But in Franklin, there were dozens, maybe hundreds, more resale tickets on sale for the show at the 7,500-capacity FirstBank Amphitheater. Located just 20 miles south of Nashville, Franklin is a much bigger music market than Rogers, and the price gouging for tickets apparently prompted someone from her team to work with reps from Ticketmaster to find out who is scalping those tickets and take them away from those responsible.
Catching scalpers on Ticketmaster, especially after a sale has been made, isn’t particularly complicated. While there are laws governing ticket ownership and rights, in most cases ticketing companies treat tickets like revocable licenses, meaning they have the right to disable tickets that a fan purchased and refund them their money if they are caught violating Ticketmaster’s terms of service.
For example, many scalpers will try to buy up as many tickets as possible using multiple credit cards. That’s a violation of Ticketmaster’s “limit per order” policy, which limits the number of tickets that can be purchased per order based on the event and demand for tickets.
Ticketmaster prohibits users from using multiple IP addresses or email addresses when buying tickets, so if someone successfully completed a purchase of a Chappell Roan ticket but was later found to have used multiple email addresses or a VPN to hide their IP addresses, that could be grounds for their tickets to be canceled and refunded. It wouldn’t take long for a couple of Ticketmaster executives to comb through the transactions for a 15,000-capacity show and find purchases tied to bots with no IP addresses, or large purchases from newly-created accounts linked to free email services.
Once those transactions are identified, most are investigated and the purchases canceled. In Roan’s case, the canceled tickets were pooled and sold via lottery to fans who had to register in advance for a shot at buying them. Though it’s unclear how many tickets were canceled and reissued to fans, it’s unlikely that more than a few hundred tickets were involved.
While this practice is popular with fans and punishes amateur scalpers, there is an argument to be made that, in some cases, it enriches professional scalpers who are better at avoiding detection by reducing the number of tickets available on resale sites and in turn driving up the price for those tickets that aren’t taken down.
But the effort isn’t specifically aimed at eliminating all ticket scalping. Instead, it’s about randomly disrupting the predatory practices of scalpers targeting vulnerable shows by rising artists like Roan who don’t want to charge fans hundreds of dollars to see their concerts. And by focusing on high-margin shows where scalpers are set to make big paydays, artists like Roan really can impact the pocketbooks of professional ticket resellers and help keep more of their tickets affordable for fans.
Until Morgan Wallen showed up on country radio, the genre hadn’t spawned a No. 1 hit on Billboard‘s Songs of the Summer chart since John Denver‘s “Annie’s Song” in 1974. But this year, Wallen’s collaboration with Post Malone, “I Had Some Help,” hit No. 1, while Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” took No. 2. That follows last summer, when Wallen’s “Last Night” and Luke Combs‘ cover of Tracy Chapman‘s “Fast Car” topped the chart.
“It feels good to know there’s this much quality coming out of Nashville,” says Steve Stewart, director of country content for broadcast chain Cox Media Group. “There’s a great model that’s already been built and thriving, which is why so many artists from other formats have moved to Nashville.”
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“I Had Some Help” and “A Bar Song” took dramatically different roads to summer dominance. The former involved two megastars, one known for pop and hip-hop, the other a country fixture for years, joining for Post Malone’s long-awaited dip into the genre. The latter seemed to come out of nowhere, from a Nigerian-American singer-songwriter from Virginia who had put out two albums before Beyoncé collaborated with him on “Spaghettii” and “Sweet Honey Buckiin” earlier this year. Black artists have historically struggled to break into country music, but Shaboozey, who records for EMPIRE, a label most known for hip-hop, may have finally cracked the code and positioned himself for longterm commercial success.
“The power of great songs override everything,” says Tim Roberts, vp of programming and format captain for No. 2 broadcast chain Audacy. “Does it open more doors? Why wouldn’t it?” Adds Scott Donato, program director and operations manager at WGTY, a country station in York, Pa.: “He has an opportunity to continue this with multiple singles. I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s got next.”
The advanced chart metrics, in certain ways, suggest “A Bar Song” was even more dominant than the Post Malone-Wallen collaboration. Shaboozey’s smash topped the Hot 100 for eight weeks throughout the summer, while “I Had Some Help” led the list for just six weeks. But not everybody in country radio is convinced “A Bar Song” fits the format, given its interpolation of J-Kwon‘s 2001 hip-hop hit “Tipsy.”
“I don’t think you can argue that Shaboozey song is the biggest song of the summer, in any genre,” says Nate Deaton, general manager of KRTY.com, an online country station in Los Gatos, Calif. “It’s everything a song should be — except country. This whole concept of country evolving into a melting pot, for lack of a better word, of genres, is an interesting phenomenon. I don’t know if it lasts.”
Country radio has never been a format known for diversity or risk. But as radio ratings decline in general during the streaming era, the genre is one of the few retaining reliable listeners and hit-making clout.
“Country absolutely can keep it going,” says Randy Chase, executive vp of programming for Summit Media, a radio chain in Birmingham, Ala., that owns several country stations. “This is all about being aggressive. Country [radio] needs to move faster — I’ve said that for years. The big difference between country and Top 40, adult contemporary and rhythmic is the amount of music the industry is pumping out. It is still a firehose of music, while in the other formats, the faucet is just trickling.”
Sony Music Entertainment Korea signed a deal to distribute the roster of K-pop label Attrakt, including its most successful act, FIFTY FIFTY. Sony Korea will also oversee global marketing campaigns and business development initiatives for the company, while Arista Records will handle U.S.-based marketing and distribution. FIFTY FIFTY has a new album slated for release at the end of September.
Apple Music partnered with Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel in a deal that will give the latter company’s customers access to Apple Music later this year by bundling it with Bharti Airtel’s Wynk Music platform, greatly expanding the streamer’s footprint in the world’s most populous country. Access to Apple TV+ is also included in the agreement for Bharti Airtel’s Xstream customers.
Flo Rida and his JettSet1 Enterprises struck a partnership with High Point Gamer, Dash Media Partners and executive producer Damon Jones that’s aimed at building out the gaming lifestyle segment for underserved communities globally, including by increasing educational and career opportunities to those communities in the gaming and tech sectors. Under the deal, the partners also plan to tour High Point’s Madden God tournament series and other console games via a festival-style model. “Together, we’re building career pipelines that will empower the next generation of leaders in gaming and entertainment,” said High Point Gamer co-founder Derek Watford in a statement, adding that the Madden God 4 tournament will be held at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. at the end of the year.
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Seat Unique, an online platform that connects fans with hospitality packages and premium tickets for live events, raised 14.5 million pounds ($19.04 million) as part of an extended Series A funding round led by Nickleby Capital. The funds will be used to further develop the Seat Unique platform, expand its reach into new sectors and more.
Myst Music, a label dedicated to showcasing South Asian music to a global audience, announced a global distribution and label services deal with The Orchard. Under the agreement, Myst artists will have access to The Orchard’s full suite of artist and label services. Sri Lankan musician, actress and model Jacqueline Fernandez will be the first artist to release music under the deal later this month.
Three Norwegian indie labels — PropellerRecordings, IndieRecordings and 777 Music — merged to form the new label group Sounds Like Gold. Headquartered in Oslo, Norway, the label group will be partnered with Virgin Music Group worldwide. The company is being managed by the founders of Propeller Recordings, Indie Recordings and 777 Music to provide distribution, marketing, administration and creative support to executives working with artists including boy pablo, Highasakite, Gåte and Jan Eggum. The management team includes Kristine Bjørnstad and Tim Dunham, the founders of 777 and former heads of Virgin Music Group’s Nordic operation. Additionally, Sounds Like Gold has assumed operations of the historic record label Grappa and its affiliates, with Grappa founder Helge Westbye serving as the label group’s chairman of the board.
Independent distributor IDOL signed a global partnership with Berlin-based indie label City Slang. Under the deal, IDOL will handle digital distribution, digital marketing and audience development for City Slang’s frontline and catalog releases globally. IDOL will service Caribou’s upcoming album Honey, due out Oct. 4, along with music from Eferklang, Faux Real, Jessica Pratt, Lambrini Girls, Los Bitchos, SPRINTS, Calexico, Tindersticks and Lambchop.
Indie hip-hop label Backwoodz Studioz signed a global distribution deal with Rhymesayers Entertainment that will bring Backwoodz’s catalog to retailers for the first time, including releases by Armand Hammer, billy woods, Kenny Segal, Blockhead, ELUCID, Cavalier, ShrapKnel, Moor Mother, AKAI SOLO, Fatboi Sharif and Fielded. The first release under the deal will be a reissue of artist and Backwoodz founder billy woods and Kenny Segal’s 2019 album Hiding Places on Sept. 27th. “For much of the last ten years, our physical distribution network has been an a la carte affair, working with a variety of different entities on a case-by-case basis,” said woods in a statement, adding, “This distribution partnership should benefit our artists by bringing all our titles under one umbrella, thus simplifying and streamlining our operations, while simultaneously increasing our reach and marketing abilities.”
Licensing platform Soundstripe partnered with DAACI to launch its new AI song editing feature. The tool “analyzes a song and instantly identifies its short, self-contained sections,” allowing editors to rearrange, loop, add or delete those sections in-browser to produce different variations and mixes of a track, according to a press release. They can then download them to insert into their projects. Soundstripe also saves the Content ID of the original track, “keeping producers within the parameters of the original license while editing the track,” the release adds.
iHeartMedia and TelevisaUnivision struck strategic media partnerships with Airtasker, a global marketplace for local services including home repairs, pet care and event planning. iHeart will contribute $5 million in audio advertising media in exchange for a four-year, $5 million convertible note with a 5.0% coupon rate. Univision will invest $4.75 million in terrestrial and digital broadcast services for 17.2% equity in Airtasker.
Turntable Labs secured $8.2 million in seed funding ahead of the public launch of its new social music platform Hangout, which allows music fans, coworkers and more “to gather, DJ together and interact in a playful virtual setting,” according to a press release. The round, which will be used to expand Hangout’s engineering infrastructure team, was led by Founders Fund, Elizabeth Street Ventures, 468 Capital and f7 Ventures, with contributions from angel investor Michael Giumarin, CEO of WordOut. Created by Turntable.fm co-founder Joseph Perla, Hangout boasts virtual DJ booths that allow users to privately spin selected tracks for themselves and their friends while also offering “public themed rooms based on their tastes and interests.” The platform, which is slated for a full public launch later this year, also offers custom digital avatars and chat options.
Canada’s ACTRA Recording Artists’ Collecting Society (ACTRA RACS) partnered with no-code metadata platform Noctil to streamline the ingestion and processing of artist and sound recording metadata. The move is designed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of ACTRA RACS’ operations. Noctil uses AI and machine learning technologies to improve matching and identification, leading to faster and more accurate royalty distributions to artists and performers.
Christian Hayes, a singer-songwriter from Rome, Ga., has signed with Capitol Records. Hayes is one of Capitol’s first signings since the label realigned in February under Tom March as chairman/CEO of Capitol Music Group and Lillia Parsa and Arjun Pulijal as co-presidents.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Christian to the Capitol Records family. As a singer, songwriter and performer, he demonstrates remarkable depth,” said March in a statement. “Christian is gifted at channeling raw, genuine emotion into music that resonates with listeners and transcends genres.”
“It all still feels surreal — music has always been a part of my life and to be able to sign with such a longstanding powerhouse of a label like Capitol is more than I could’ve ever dreamt. The team at Capitol has a point to prove and so do I,” said Hayes.
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Hayes’ debut EP, Last I Love You, will come out Sept. 20. The EP’s title track, shortened to “LILY,” has been streamed more than 1.2 million times on Spotify, with more than 2 million total global streams, according to the company.
Hayes began writing poems and songs when he was seven after his grandfather, a former poet laureate for the state of Georgia, gave him a journal. He then picked up a guitar when he was eight. He was active in leading worship music at his church before enrolling in the U.S. Navy Reserve and later attending the University of Alabama beginning in 2018. He subsequently moved to Nashville and has penned more than 900 songs.
Inspired by the music of the Eagles, James Taylor and The Chicks, the singer-songwriter self-released “Leaving,” which landed on Apple Music playlists as well as Spotify’s New Music Friday Country playlist.
Hayes has already inked deals with WME for booking and Universal Music Publishing Group for publishing. “After hearing ‘LILY,’ we were huge fans of Christian’s songwriting,” said Cyndi Forman, senior VP of A&R at UMPG Nashville. “Christian’s approach to songwriting is unique, yet fits right in at a time when genres are blending.”
Hayes is managed by Wild Rose Projects’ Helena Capps.
Oak View Group is set to take over hospitality at four OCESA venues in Mexico City, it was announced Monday (Sept. 9).
OCESA, one of the leading live entertainment companies in Mexico, said that Oak View Group’s OVG Hospitality has been selected to “redefine the culinary and hospitality experiences” at Estadio GNP Seguros, Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Centro Citibanamex and Palacio de los Deportes.
The partnership will see OVG Hospitality upgrade experiences at concerts, sporting events and business gatherings by introducing premium services, innovative technologies and a broader range of menu options.
“By merging OCESA’s unmatched expertise in hosting world-class events with OVG Hospitality’s leadership in premium hospitality, we are poised to elevate the fan experience across Mexico, starting with these iconic venues,” said Chris Granger, president of OVG Hospitality’s parent company OVG360, in a statement. “This partnership marks a pivotal expansion of Oak View Group’s presence into Latin America, and we’re particularly excited and humbled to partner with OCESA. As hard-working operators ourselves, we appreciate their entrepreneurial spirit, their bold thinking, and their commitment to music fans across the country.”
As the exclusive food and beverage provider, OVG Hospitality will integrate its industry-leading services across OCESA’s various venues, partnering with local, regional and national vendors to craft menu items that reflect Mexico’s rich culinary heritage. Plans include enhancing the premium experience in suites and clubs, introducing new menu selections and market concepts throughout the year, and integrating technology to streamline ordering and payment processes to reduce wait times.
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While the initial roll out will include nly the four Mexico City venues, the partnership is expected to expand to additional venues starting in January. Additionally, OVG Hospitality will help OCESA introduce new premium spaces and corporate hospitality options at select locations.
OCESA is renowned for promoting over 3,000 events annually, drawing nearly six million attendees across Mexico. Its portfolio of venues includes the recently remodeled 65,000-seat Estadio GNP Seguros; the expansive Centro Citibanamex, a convention center with two million square feet of meeting and exhibition space; and a diverse collection of multi-use venues, theaters, arenas, festival grounds and stadiums.
BLACKPINK member Jennie has signed to Columbia Records as a solo artist in partnership with her record label and entertainment company ODDATELIER, it was announced Sunday (Sept. 8). The singer is slated to release a new solo single in October. The news follows last December’s revelation that all BLACKPINK members had split with their label, […]
Music stocks were off sharply this week as global markets were roiled by worries about the health of the U.S. economy and Friday’s disappointing jobs report.
K-pop stocks suffered big declines this week as a major Korean stock market index had its biggest one-day decline ever. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index fell 8.8% on Monday as investors were gripped with fear about a U.S. recession. The market improved the following day, but the KOSPI ended the week down 4.9% to 2,544.81.
South Korean music companies were unfortunate casualties during the week of upheaval. The four main K-pop companies fell an average of 10.8% and their average year-to-date loss increased to 40.9%. HYBE fell 10.2% to 165,000 won ($123.25), bringing its year-to-date loss to 29.1%. YG Entertainment slipped 9.8% to 30,800 won ($23.01). SM Entertainment fell 10.4% to 56,300 won ($42.05). JYP Entertainment fared the worst, dipping 13.0% to 44,450 ($33.20) and bringing its year-to-date loss to 56.1%.
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The Billboard Global Music Index fell 4.8% to 1,744.64, reducing the year-to-date gain to 13.7% and marking the index’s worst week since it fell 5.1% in the week ended Feb. 24, 2023. The broader stock market had a miserable week. In the United States, the Nasdaq composite fell 5.8% and the S&P 500 slipped 4.2%. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 lost 2.3%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 2.7%.
Just three of the BGMI’s 20 stocks finished the week in positive territory, and two of the three winners are among the index’s smallest contributors. The top stock, Believe, which gained 3.7% to 15.06 euros ($16.69), has a float of less than 4% after a consortium led by CEO Denis Ladegaillerie acquired nearly the entire share capital.
The second-best performer, Anghami, has the smallest market capitalization of all index companies at $23 million. The Abu Dhabi-based music streamer gained 2.3% to $0.90 after announcing Thursday (Sept. 5) that its video streaming subscriptions increased 18% since the majority investment by OSN Group, owner of MENA-based video-on-demand streaming platform OSN+, in April.
Live Nation fell 5.0% to $92.81 despite two positive analyst opinions this week. BofA Securities initiated coverage of Live Nation this week with a $125 price target and a “buy” rating. Oppenheimer, which dropped its Live Nation price target from $120 to $110 in May, raised it back to $120 on Friday.
Sphere Entertainment Co. dropped 7.1% to $43.27 after Benchmark downgraded Sphere shares to “sell” with a $40 price target, well below the prior day’s $46.60 closing price. Benchmark analyst cited concerns about “scalability, high production costs, and a potentially underwhelming profitability outlook” for the $2.3 billion Las Vegas venue.
The week’s largest decline came from SiriusXM, which fell 17.0% to $2.73. On Wednesday (Sept. 4), SiriusXM and Liberty Media announced the final exchange ratio for the pending merger of SiriusXM’s and Liberty Media’s tracking stock, Liberty SiriusXM Holdings. On Monday (Sept. 9), Liberty Media will redeem each outstanding share of Liberty SiriusXM common stock for 0.8375 shares of the new SiriusXM stock. SiriusXM shareholders will receive 0.1 shares of the new SiriusXM stock, which will trade under the same SIRI ticker as the current SiriusXM stock. Following the merger, former holders of Liberty SiriusXM stock will own roughly 81% of the new shares.
The BGMI’s most valuable component, Spotify, fell 5.9% to $322.75. Another major stock on the index, Universal Music Group (UMG), dropped 3.0% to 22.93 euros ($25.42). UMG will host investors and analysts at its Capital Markets Day on Tuesday (Sept. 10).
If investors and music companies want high streaming growth rates, they should look beyond the suddenly sluggish U.S. market.
Of the few countries that have released midyear recorded music industry figures, the U.S. has the lowest growth rate for streaming — by far. Japan, Brazil, Italy, Germany and Spain each easily bested the 3.8% growth rate mustered by the U.S. in the first half of 2024, though they are far smaller markets.
In Brazil, the ninth-largest market in 2023, streaming revenue improved 21.1% to 1.442 billion BRL ($284 million) in the first half of 2024, according to the country’s trade group, Pro-Música Brasil. Subscription revenue rocketed 28.4% to 995 million BRL ($196 million) while ad-supported streaming rose just 6.6% to 436 million BRL ($86 million).
Streaming accounts for 99% of total revenue in Brazil, a market that was early to adopt streaming platforms. (Pro-Música Brasil did not include synch and performance royalties in the midyear numbers. In 2023, those two segments accounted for 12% of Brazil’s total revenue.) The former internet radio service Rdio — acquired by Pandora in 2015 — launched in Brazil in 2011. Muve Music, acquired by Deezer in 2015, launched a partnership with leading mobile carrier TIM in 2013. Deezer still powers TIM’s music streaming platform and extended that partnership in January.
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Important markets in Asia and Europe also delivered impressive streaming gains in the first half of the year. Spain nearly matched Brazil with 19.1% streaming growth and a 16.6% improvement in total revenue. In Italy, recorded music revenue jumped 15.1% and streaming revenue, which accounts for 80% of the total market, grew 18.1%. (Figures in currency were not provided by Italy’s trade group, FIMI.) The world’s second- and fourth-largest markets, Japan and Germany, had streaming gains of 12.7% and 9.0%, respectively.
In aggregate, the five ex-U.S. markets grew 12.2% compared to the first half of 2023, with the smallest markets having the highest streaming growth rates. Brazil’s market is less than 3% the size of the U.S., while Spain and Italy are 3% and 4% the size of the world’s largest market, respectively. Germany’s market is 15% as big as the U.S. Japan is just a quarter of its size.
What the U.S. lacks in momentum it makes up for in size. Based on total market revenue for 2023, the U.S. was more than twice the size of the five ex-U.S. markets combined — $11.04 billion to $5.47 billion, according to IFPI figures. In fact, the U.S. is so large that a 3.8% streaming gain was worth $404 million — more than the entire Spanish recorded music market ($355 million) and nearly as big as Italy’s ($477 million). To reiterate, that’s not just streaming — we’re talking about those countries’ entire market revenue.
The rate of streaming growth underpins much of the money flowing into the music business. Investors and companies are betting the global market can generate nearly double-digit growth through the end of the decade. The latest Goldman Sachs “Music in the Air” report, a standard reference point for gauging the potential of music as an investment, forecasts that global streaming revenue will grow at a 10% compound annual growth rate through 2030. That would turn last year’s $19.3 billion streaming market into $37.8 billion by the end of the decade.
But the enormity of the U.S. market, which accounted for 42% of global streaming revenue in 2023, according to the IFPI, means other markets will need to continue those rapid paces for the global market to maintain that 10% streaming growth rate. The five ex-U.S. markets’ 12.2% growth rate is nearly halved to 6.4% when their $5.47 billion total value is combined with the U.S. market, which is worth $11.04 billion.
Developing markets certainly have the potential to contribute to global growth, but many of the most populous countries — India, Indonesia, the Philippines — are relatively small and based more on advertising than high-value subscriptions. For the math to work, the global market needs a strong U.S.
Few people are having a better week than Sabrina Carpenter. The singer capped one of the most complete ascents to pop stardom in recent memory with the release of her latest album, Short N Sweet — the culmination of an extended campaign in which she was able to build her career brick by brick, single by single, into the upper echelons of pop music and culture — which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 362,000 equivalent album units, the best week of her career and the third-highest debut week of the year so far.
That type of success doesn’t happen by accident: Carpenter’s team worked all sides for this project, which included radio (two songs, “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” are in the top 10 of Billboard‘s Radio Songs Chart), streaming (Short N Sweet also debuted at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Streaming Songs chart, with 233 million official on-demand streams) and sales (with nine vinyl variants, she sold 105,000 vinyl records, the second-largest week of the year and good for No. 1 on Billboard‘s Vinyl Albums chart). Four digital album variants, available for a limited time, moved 45,000 units, while five different CD editions added another 33,000 to the total. And all that activity and wide-ranging success helps Island Records’ senior vp/head of commercial strategy Marshall Nolan earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
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Here, Nolan walks through the strategy that led to Carpenter’s career-best debut. “The plan from the start was that every detail mattered,” Nolan says. “We knew to double down on her strengths, in areas like e-commerce, and once we built a rhythm there, it afforded us the time to nurture elements that still had room for growth.”
This week, Sabrina Carpenter landed her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with Short N Sweet. What key decision(s) did you make to make that happen?
Sabrina’s ability to world-build alongside her incredible team of creatives is unparalleled. We challenged ourselves to take that world and embed it into every e-commerce experience, building a range of carefully-curated collectibles for her superfans.
In many ways, the rollout of this album was very traditional: single built on top of single, radio play and streaming build-up, all leading into the climactic album release. Was that the plan from the start, or did things evolve along the way?
The plan from the start was that every detail mattered. We knew to double down on her strengths, in areas like e-commerce, and once we built a rhythm there, it afforded us the time to nurture elements that still had room for growth.
How did her singles’ success at radio help the digital campaign for the album?
Constant communication with our promo team, who are the best in the business, allowed us to narrate each movement and growth spurt in real-time. We as a team never focused on the successes of an individual single; the intention was always to build Sabrina as an artist and brand first. We welcomed any success that came along with that.
The album had nine vinyl variants, five CD editions and two cassettes available — what was the physical strategy for the album rollout, and what was behind the success of the vinyl in particular?
The variants are first and foremost a reflection of the incredible creative team surrounding Sabrina, who built products that fans immediately embraced as must-have collectible items. From the packaging finishes to the stylized content with which it was promoted, her passion for each variant came through in every detail. Each product paid special tribute to the many layers of Sabrina’s sharply sweet world.
How much does fan demand play into your commerce plan for any album?
This was another important factor in deciding to offer a wide range of album variants. Sabrina crafted a world we’re lucky to be a part of; we ensured that each album offering felt like an extension of it.
What did you learn from rolling out this release that you can take into other projects in the future?
Everything starts with trust — learning to build it, continuing to maintain it and working to strengthen it every step of the way. We never take for granted the role we are fortunate enough to play in maximizing and achieving an artist’s wildest dreams. Sabrina taught us all to allow time for a slow rise, there is so much to learn and look forward to along the way.