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John Branca stopped collecting his clients’ RIAA gold and platinum record awards decades ago. Those he has that are not in storage or at his office — approximately 20 — are displayed, along with other music memorabilia, in four rooms of his Italian villa-style home in affluent Beverly Park, a gated community in the Los Angeles hills. The records are etched with some of the most recognizable names and album titles in pop and rock history: the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Santana’s Supernatural, The Best of The Doors and others from Elton John, Nirvana, Backstreet Boys, Usher, Alanis Morissette, Enrique Iglesias and Michael Jackson.
A partner and the head of the music department at L.A. entertainment law firm Ziffren Brittenham, Branca has represented 30 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees over his 47 years as an entertainment lawyer. But he’s most closely associated with Jackson, especially since the pop legend’s untimely death at the age of 50 on June 25, 2009, brought on by a heart-stopping mixture of sedatives and the anesthetic propofol.
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Branca, who had represented Jackson on and off since 1980, had rejoined the pop star’s team just eight days earlier, six years after Jackson had terminated Branca’s services in a letter that offered no explanation for his decision. On July 1, he was appointed co-executor of his estate with former record executive John McClain, based on a 2002 will that Branca produced for the court. Jackson left everything to his children (Prince, Paris and Bigi); his mother, Katherine Jackson; and charity, but his estate was almost $500 million in debt.
Now 73, Branca was just 29 and working for then-prominent entertainment attorney David Braun when Jackson — who was seeking independence both from his family (including his notorious manager father, Joe Jackson) and as an artist — hired the young attorney. The two grew close: Jackson was best man at Branca’s first wedding, which Little Richard officiated, and until their parting, Branca was instrumental in helping Jackson become an artist who, at his apogee, was the Taylor Swift of his time. But Branca sees it differently. “I prefer to say she’s the Michael Jackson of this time,” he says with a wry smile, sitting in the so-called “tennis house” next to his personal court. “If there was a Mount Rushmore of pop artists,” he adds, “you’d have Elvis, The Beatles and Michael.”
Fifteen years after Jackson’s death, Branca remains an effective steward of his estate. In addition to adding approximately $3 billion in net revenue to its coffers through publishing acquisitions and negotiating better terms for Jackson’s catalog including ownership of his master recordings, among others, he has maintained the late artist’s cultural relevance through a number of theatrical productions, documentaries and, next year, a biopic — all of which have kept Jackson’s brand from being defined by T-shirts and coffee mugs while maintaining focus on his art instead of the allegations of sexual abuse that surfaced late in his life and followed him after death.
Branca also remains a fierce defender of Jackson’s crown as the King of Pop. He professes immense admiration for Swift’s accomplishments, including her blockbuster 2023 concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, but he refutes media reports from earlier this year asserting that its box-office yields had surpassed those of the posthumous 2009 Jackson documentary, This Is It, saying inflation wasn’t taken into account. According to Box Office Mojo, The Eras Tour grossed $261.7 million and This Is It grossed $268 million — or, in 2024 dollars, roughly $267 million for the former and $390 million for the latter.
Then there’s the May New York Times story that compared Swift to Jackson, The Beatles and other artists, pointing out that the 10 solo albums Jackson released between 1972 and 2001 have been RIAA-certified platinum 72 times, with Thriller accounting for 34 of them (making it one of the most successful albums of all time). Swift currently has 50 certified platinum albums — although the Times article reported that her sales indicate the number will be closer to 90 once her “Taylor’s Version” releases are counted. But Branca says Jackson’s certifications do not account for his popularity overseas. “Two-thirds of Michael’s sales are outside the United States,” he notes — sales that the RIAA does not count when issuing gold and platinum albums. That international appeal has carried over to the streaming era: Jackson’s combined U.S. streams for 2020 through 2022 made up 28% of his combined global streams, according to Luminate. He also points out that multiple streams of a single song can count as an album, which was not the case when physical sales were the only measurement of a record’s success.
Branca is a walking, talking compendium of numbers and reasons that Jackson belongs on that pop Rushmore, and preaches that gospel to his 29,200 followers on TikTok, where he has posted 70 videos — the majority of them about Jackson, among others about Branca’s own memorabilia and business philosophies.
But regarding the estate’s business dealings and litigation, he is a tomb.
When questions veer into that territory, his response is usually a version of “This isn’t going to be another story about the Jackson estate, is it?” He has a point. In addition to the RIAA awards on his wall, over his career Branca has represented Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Neil Diamond, The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s Northern Songs publishing catalog, the Elvis Presley estate, The Rolling Stones, Earth, Wind & Fire and Motown founder Berry Gordy.
The son of an actress-dancer who appeared in a number of Elvis’ films and an athletic commissioner for New York State, Branca grew up in the New York suburb of Mount Vernon and moved to Los Angeles at age 11. In his teens, he played guitar and keyboards in two rock bands, The Other Half and The Pasternak Progress. “I signed a record deal at 16, but I was forced to go to college by my mother,” he says.
Christopher Patey
Today, Branca still projects a Beverly Hills version of that youthful rock’n’roll aesthetic. His car collection includes two Rolls-Royces (a white 2023 Cullinan and a blue 2016 Dawn). He sold the Ferrari 458 Spider that he once told Billboard he would hang “from the ceiling in my living room if I could” — and he has turned heads at Grammy parties with a beautiful woman in tow. (Married three times, Branca is currently single.)
But that exterior flash conceals “an incredible strategist,” says David Lande, a Ziffren Brittenham partner who also represents music clients. As such, Branca declines to discuss pressing questions regarding the estate, including Katherine Jackson’s appeal of a judge’s 2023 ruling that let the estate move forward with its then-confidential $625 million sale of 50% of Jackson’s assets to Sony Music. (California’s Second Appellate District Court in Los Angeles has since issued a tentative ruling that sides with the estate.)
He also deflects queries about the role that co-executor McClain plays in estate administration. A former executive at A&M Records and Interscope, and a key figure in Janet Jackson’s success, McClain has A&R’d all posthumous releases of Jackson’s music, but he has otherwise been virtually invisible since Jackson’s will was probated, in part due to health issues. Branca only says: “For all his genius, John shuns the spotlight.”
The Sony assets sale is off-limits as well — but according to three sources familiar with the deal, the estate retained Jackson’s public image and likeness rights, which means that Sony does not get a cut of projects such as the various productions of MJ: The Musical and the biopic that is slated to open in April 2025. (Actor Miles Teller will portray Branca.)
Those sources also tell Billboard that the estate retains control and management of how the assets Sony acquired can be used moving forward. Branca says only that the sale will not change the business strategy that Jackson mandated when he was alive: “Everything has to be authentic and true to the artist.”
The deal values Jackson’s assets at $1.25 billion — the highest of any artist in history, including the recent $1 billion to $1.2 billion valuation assigned to Queen’s coveted assets (which Sony is reported to be buying). Unlike the Jackson deal, sources say the Queen sale includes name, image and likeness rights.
The $3 billion that the estate has earned includes its take from box-office receipts from several Jackson-themed theatrical productions, which Branca says have grossed close to $2 billion, among them two Cirque du Soleil shows; The Immortal World Tour, which ran from 2011 to 2014 and grossed $360 million, according to Billboard Boxscore; and Michael Jackson: One, which has been playing at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas since 2013. On Broadway, MJ: The Musical has grossed over $202.5 million and attracted almost 1.4 million theatergoers since opening in February 2022, according to The Broadway League. The jukebox musical opened on London’s West End in March; will debut in Hamburg, Germany, in November; has toured North America since August 2023; and Branca says a fifth production will debut at the Sydney Opera House next February and tour the world. The U.S. touring version, he adds, “outgrosses the Broadway show.”
The recent success of the musical and anticipation of the biopic, Michael, which stars Jermaine Jackson’s son Jaafar Jackson in the title role, have deflected the spotlight from the disturbing allegations revealed in the 2019 HBO docuseries Leaving Neverland, in which two men accused Jackson of sexually abusing them as children. (The case is currently in arbitration; Branca declines to comment on the film or the estate’s lawsuit against HBO over it.)
Branca does allude to the documentary when discussing his perspective on the use of artificial intelligence in the music industry. “AI is a tool if it’s used properly, and from what I’ve seen, it will never replace the emotional attachment that a fan has to the real artist,” he says. But he also contends, “It’s important to have a regulatory environment where artists can control their [intellectual property] and their brand.” And that control, he asserts, should extend beyond their lives.
“Libel laws only extend to a living artist. Once they pass away, anybody can say anything, and in my opinion, that’s reckless and not fair,” he says. “There should be legislation that protects an artist’s reputation and brand for a period after their death — whether it’s 10 years or 20 years. You can still say things that are truthful, but you can’t make stuff up.”
It’s an idea that would have a profound effect on journalism and media, and Branca has taken steps to make it reality. “We’ve talked to the legislature in Vermont, which is very progressive, about a pilot program for protection of the deceased,” he says. “It’s been put in front of certain legislators who are interested in it, but it’s embryonic at this point.”
Over the course of his career, Branca says he’s proudest of “fighting for artists’ rights,” a mission that extends far beyond his work for the Jackson estate. “I got the Bee Gees the ownership of their recordings from [Australian music impresario Robert] Stigwood. I got Don Henley back the ownership of his Eagles songs,” he says. For The Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels tour, “I negotiated the touring structure in which there was a single national tour promoter who guaranteed not only ticket sales, merchandising and all other rights in one bundle” — a then-game-changing deal that is now standard practice for major artists — “and brought them and their catalog to Richard Branson to establish Virgin Records.” He extracted Carlos Santana from his Island Records contract and reunited him with Clive Davis, which resulted in the smash success of Supernatural and, for John Fogerty, obtained artist royalties for the first time on his Creedence Clearwater Revival recordings.
Branca attributes this conviction to growing up in the late ’60s “during the anti-Vietnam, anti-establishment era.” That said, righteousness runs in his family. His uncle, Ralph Branca, was a three-time MLB All-Star who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the ’40s and ’50s. To sports fans, he is the pitcher who gave up the “Shot Heard Round the World” — New York Giant Bobby Thomson’s walk-off home run that won the National League pennant for his team in 1951. But Ralph also ranks as a hero in the history of civil rights as the white team member who befriended MLB’s first Black player, Jackie Robinson.
“Ralph embraced Jackie,” says Della Britton, president/CEO of the Jackie Robinson Foundation. On opening day of the 1947 season, when Robinson made his MLB debut, Ralph lined up next to him when other players refused. “John’s father [John R. Branca; the son is John G.] said to Ralph, ‘Are you crazy?’ ” Britton explains. “At the time, Jackie was receiving death threats, and Ralph’s brother was worried that someone would take a shot at him, and if they missed, hit Ralph.” Ralph’s reply? Britton says: “ ‘I would have died a hero.’ ”
In the tennis house, where his uncle’s Dodgers uniform hangs framed on the wall, Branca wipes away tears as he talks about his uncle and his father, who was a high school pitcher. “He threw two no-hitters and was the New York State player of the year, but he got drafted in World War II,” he says. “I read Ralph’s autobiography, and he said that the [MLB] clubs overlooked my father because he was 5 foot 10 or 11 inches and he didn’t throw 95 [mph] like Ralph. But he said, ‘Today, Johnny would be looked at like Greg Maddux: control, control, control.’ ”
Like his late uncle, Branca serves on the board of the Jackie Robinson Foundation. Dylan, the youngest of his three children, is a pitcher on New York University’s baseball team, and Branca funded an indoor practice facility in downtown Manhattan so that the players did not have to take the ferry to Staten Island. He also funded the Branca Family Field at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Jackie Robinson Stadium. (Branca got his law degree at UCLA and is a donor and board member of various schools there.)
His most recent philanthropic effort is tied to music. In June, he announced a $5 million gift to establish the John Branca Institute of Music at his undergraduate alma mater, L.A.’s Occidental College. His contribution will support the expansion of the college’s music program — one of Billboard’s top music business schools for the past several years.
The gift came with Branca’s caveat that the institute must “focus on contemporary music. I said, ‘Go back as far as you need to go back, but you must include the rock era — you know, Muddy Waters and Elvis through to what’s going on today,’ ” he says. “They’re going to do a class on the creation of a song and how it’s marketed. They’re going to come at it from a more liberal arts perspective, so somebody majoring in economics or philosophy can benefit and get a real knowledge of the music business. They may teach a class on Taylor Swift. They may teach a class on Michael Jackson, which would be pretty cool.”
And while he may not want to be known solely for his work with Jackson, Branca isn’t looking to put the man in the rearview mirror. Asked if he would have considered selling 100% of the estate’s assets to Sony, he shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I feel it’s important to pass Michael’s legacy on to his kids. So owning his name and likeness; always having 50% of the catalog and management control; the personal property: the warehouses, his Rolls-Royces, his chess set — everything goes to the kids. That’s how it should be.”
Additional reporting by Ed Christman.
This story will appear in the July 20, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Attorneys for Live Nation want the judge presiding over the company’s historic antitrust case to dismiss the Department of Justice’s allegations that the concert promoter uses illegal tying arrangements to operate its amphitheaters, arguing it has no obligation to allow rival promoters to use the venues it owns or manages.
Live Nation’s co-lead trial counsel Alfred C. Pfeiffer of Latham Watkins argued in a July 17 letter to Judge Arun Subramanian that this practice, described as a “refusal to deal,” is common in the concert business and protected by Supreme Court precedent.
“As a general matter, the Sherman Act does not restrict the long recognized right of a [defendant] engaged in an entirely private business, freely to exercise his own independent discretion as to parties with whom he will deal,” Pfeiffer writes, quoting a 2004 ruling in a case brought by Verizon.
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Accordingly, Live Nation has no obligation “to extend a helping hand to new entrants” or help its rivals “survive or expand,” Pfeiffer notes, adding, “the unimpeachable freedom to refuse to deal with rivals (in all but the rarest circumstances, which are not even arguably present in this case) rests on bedrock antitrust principles.”
In the government’s 128-page complaint against Live Nation, attorneys with the DOJ’s antitrust division allege that Live Nation illegally “conditions artists’ access” to the 56 outdoor amphitheaters the company controls by forcing artists to chose “Live Nation as the promoter for concerts at its venues.”
Pfeiffer’s letter was born out of a June 27 pre-trial hearing in which Judge Subramanian invited Live Nation’s attorneys to file a letter to the court identifying issues that Live Nation had with the DOJ complaint “as opposed to advancing those arguments after” an amended complaint is filed,” Pfeiffer wrote. “Your Honor advised that doing so would provide Defendants ‘a good argument that those claims should be dismissed with prejudice’” if the government cannot overcome Live Nation’s arguments on a motion to dismiss.
Live Nation lawyers also want the antitrust claims filed by 30 states’ attorneys general alongside the DOJ dismissed, including 22 separate claims under their own state laws.
“These claims are threadbare and conclusory” Pfeiffer writes, noting that many of the state AGs merely repeat the DOJ’s allegations without specifically alleging “the elements of each state-law claim” or citing “what conduct allegedly violates the state laws in question.”
Pfeiffer also criticized the states for failing to detail their damage claims and argued that many of the state objections were barred by different state’s statute of limitations.
The DOJ has until Sept. 18 to respond to Live Nation’s letter.
Independent and DIY artists using DistroKid can now build a presence on TikTok, faster.
From today, July 18, artists can access a new platform integration that should cut the time it takes to create an official TikTok Artist Account, and upload music and content.
DistroKid members can now create their official TikTok Artist Accounts directly from the DistroKid dashboard, which unlocks “a suite of artist-specific features” like a Music Tab, New Releases, By Artist, Behind the Song, Fan Spotlight, Ticketing and more.
Time is valuable. Through the new partnership, reads a statement, DistroKid members can create a TikTok Artist Account in just a few hours.
“TikTok is excited to partner with DistroKid to make it even easier for millions of artists to access powerful and easy-to-use tools to fuel their growth on TikTok, drive increased consumption of their music and grow their fanbases,” comments Jay Bae, global head of music partnership development at TikTok.
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Adds Phil Bauer, president of DistroKid: “It’s now faster than ever for any artist to create their official TikTok Artist Account directly through DistroKid, reducing the process from weeks to just hours.”
Distrokid and TikTok forged a partnership five years ago, in 2019, on an opt-in integration for independent artists, which allows any creator who subscribes to the service to submit their music to TikTok free of charge.
DistroKid members had another route to the ByteDance-owned short-video app through a deal struck that made their music available, pre-cleared, via TikTok’s Commercial Music Library.
Separately, both companies last year struck a deal which made millions of tracks by DistroKid members available on TikTok Music, its premium subscription streaming service for music that’s now in beta in five countries.
AI-focused music production, distribution and education platform LANDR has devised a new way for musicians to capitalize on the incoming AI age with consent and compensation in mind. With its new Fair Trade AI program, any musician who wishes to join can be part of this growing pool of songs that will be used to […]
Soulja Boy is suing social media personalities Tasha K and William The Baddest for defamation after they allegedly made false statements about the rapper having a sexual encounter with a man.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles court, Soulja Boy (DeAndre Cortez Way) cited a May interview on Tasha K’s celebrity gossip podcast in which William allegedly recounted explicit details of a supposed tryst he’d had with the “Crank That” rapper.
Soulja Boy’s lawyers say these statements were false and have brought “embarrassment and disgrace that can cause fans to abandon and withdraw from supporting him.”
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“Plaintiff has suffered actual reputational and professional harm as a result of defendants maliciously targeting plaintiff and seeking to sabotage his careers, redefining his character as a man who is not straight, a fraud and dishonest person in the entertainment industry, as a public figure, which is not true,” the rapper’s lawyers write.
It’s not the first time Tasha K (Latasha Kebe) has been accused of defaming someone on “UnWine With TashaK.” Back in 2022, Cardi B won a nearly $4 million defamation verdict against her over salacious statements about drug use, STDs and prostitution. Tasha has since tried to use Chapter 11 bankruptcy to avoid paying most of that judgment, but a judge rejected that effort last year.
In the new case, Soulja Boy’s attorneys are challenging statements made during a “tell-all interview” on May 16, in which William (William Thomas) recounted an “alleged intimate moment” with the rapper.
According to quotes from the lawsuit, William said: “So I walked over there, I get on my knee, he’s sitting on the edge of his bed. I started giving him oral, it’s a big thang and it grew, you know to the left.” The video itself no longer appears to be available on Tasha’s YouTube channel and could not be reviewed by Billboard.
After the interview went public, Soulja Boy says William has been “harassing and tormenting” him on social media, including an X post featuring a “defaming and embarrassing sexual photoshopped picture” that purports to depict himself with the rapper. William’s post allegedly urged his followers to click through to a page on OnlyFans – a site frequently used to share sexually-explicit imagery.
“Although the publications may be deleted, plaintiff will forever be damaged by the publications never being removed from the web,” the rapper’s lawyers write.
Days after the interview was first published, attorneys for Soulja Boy say they sent a cease and desist letter to Tasha and William demanding that they delete the “false, malicious and are completely outrageous” statements. The letter warned that they had “already engaged in tortious acts that entitle Mr. Way to monetary damages” and that if they did not stop, “your liability for such monetary damages will increase.”
Neither William nor an attorney for Tasha K immediately returned requests for comment on Thursday.
On Saturday Night Live’s May 18 season finale, Sabrina Carpenter appeared in a sketch as Daphne from Scooby-Doo, watching in horror as Jake Gyllenhaal’s Fred tore the face off James Austin Johnson’s villain. (The gag: Apple Face ID — Never Get Ripped Off Again!) The sketch was a prelude to Carpenter’s two theatrical performances as musical guest. First, she sang her then-new single, “Espresso,” which had debuted the month prior before her main-stage Coachella set and had already soared into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and Global 200; then a medley of her first two Pop Airplay top 10 singles, “Feather” (No. 1) and “Nonsense” (No. 10), both released in the preceding year-and-a-half.
Two days later, Justin Eshak and Imran Majid — the co-CEOs of her label, Island Records — gathered their staff at Island’s Manhattan headquarters to rewatch the episode. “She’s just a pro; it was an incredible moment,” Majid says later that afternoon of the 25-year-old singer, who first tasted fame as a Disney Channel actress in her early teens. “For a lot of artists, the idea of translating their performance to television is hard,” Eshak adds. “But because she has so much experience with it, it just felt so much more natural and comfortable for her.”
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At the time, the buzz from Carpenter’s SNL debut, coupled with the instant global success of “Espresso,” felt like a mountaintop. After the initial success of “Nonsense,” which reached No. 56 on the Hot 100 in February, “Feather” hit No. 21 and topped Pop Airplay in April. Then “Espresso” exploded, reaching No. 3 on the Hot 100 in June and spending two weeks at No. 1 on the Global 200.
But Carpenter’s momentum has only picked up since. In late June, “Please Please Please” debuted at No. 2 on the Global 200, simultaneously giving her the top two songs in the world. (She maintained that feat the following week, when “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” flipped spots atop the chart.) It also bowed at No. 2 on the Hot 100, making her the first soloist — and second act overall, joining The Beatles — to have her first two top three Hot 100 hits concurrently reach that territory with no other billed acts. The next week, it hit No. 1 on the Hot 100, Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts.
It was the kind of setup that executives dream of: one song building on the next to keep scaling new heights. “We always felt ‘Please Please Please’ had this level of sophistication that really sets her up in a different lens; there’s a bit of Dolly Parton in that song,” Majid says. “But it feels like everything we hoped and dreamed the one-two punch would be.” Or, as Island vp of A&R Jackie Winkler puts it, “ ‘Nonsense’ walked so ‘Feather’ could jog, then ‘Espresso’ ran so that ‘Please Please Please’ could start a stampede.”
Imran Majid, Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Eshak attend Universal Music Group’s 2024 After Party presented by Coke Studios and Merz Aesthetics’ #SmartTox on Feb. 4, 2024 in Los Angeles.
Jordan Strauss
That stampede has set the stage perfectly for the Aug. 23 release of Carpenter’s album Short N’ Sweet and the launch of her North American arena tour in the fall, which sold out in every market within two weeks of its late-June announcement. But already, her success has been one of the biggest artist stories of the year so far, and a big feather in the caps of Eshak, 44, and Majid, 42, who took over the esteemed 65-year-old Island in January 2022 after jointly running the A&R department at Columbia Records for three years.
Carpenter is just one example of how the duo has revitalized Island. In mid-June, following her massive performance at New York’s Governors Ball festival, Chappell Roan’s September 2023 album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 in its 12th week on the chart — just the second time this decade that an album broke into the region for the second time after that long of a climb. And in the first week of July, Roan’s single “Good Luck, Babe!” — which became her first Hot 100 hit when it debuted on the chart in April and is not on Midwest Princess — hit No. 10 on the Hot 100 after its own 13-week climb.
Call it the summer of Island. While the likes of Carpenter, Roan, The Killers, Brittany Howard and Remi Wolf are dominating festival stages, their songs are setting new personal high-water marks on the charts. The buzz started building earlier this year: Howard’s first album for Island, What Now, arrived in February to critical praise; that same month, the biopic Bob Marley: One Love, about Island’s most famous artist and featuring James Norton as label founder Chris Blackwell, grossed over $179 million, according to Box Office Mojo. (Island was not involved in the making of the film but did release an album “inspired by” the movie alongside Tuff Gong Records, which featured artists like Kacey Musgraves, Wizkid and Leon Bridges covering Marley classics.) The Last Dinner Party, originally signed by Island U.K.’s Louis Bloom, released its debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, and was named “Britain’s hottest new band” by The New York Times Magazine in March; in April, Hulu released a well-received documentary on Bon Jovi — which has spent its entire 40-year career as part of Island — before the band’s latest album, Forever, debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 in June; and alt-pop powerhouse Wolf released her heralded sophomore album, Big Ideas, on July 12. The year ahead also promises new music from Carpenter and Roan, while Shawn Mendes, one of the label’s few reliable hit-makers over the past decade, is in the studio.
“Nowadays, everything’s about culture, and company culture, and the philosophy of how you’re doing things, and Island is definitely a label that’s wired differently,” says Nick Bobetsky, who manages Roan. “They’re not the ambulance chasers, they’re not the TikTok-moment chasers. They’re really committed to supporting their artists in a way that’s really true to those artists, and that is rare in today’s climate.”
Brittany Howard (left) and Justin Eshak at Brooklyn’s Electric Garden Studios in 2023.
Courtesy of Island Records
For Eshak and Majid, it’s validation of the culture that they’ve sought to build since taking over the Universal Music Group (UMG) subsidiary in 2022 — and a testament to the work they’ve done overhauling a label that had slipped down the pecking order as the marketplace evolved in recent years. While the Island Records they inherited — home to Marley, U2, Traffic, Grace Jones and Cat Stevens, among others through the years — may have been rich in history, its more recent track record had been spotty at best, disjointed at worst. Island finished 2021 with a current market share of 0.67%, a number that had fallen steadily over the previous five years, from 1.5% in 2018, according to Luminate.
“We weren’t walking in here inheriting hits. We had to rebuild a roster, which sounds easy but takes time, and no one really knew what the label proposition was,” Majid says. “So we had to go out there and project what that is at a very competitive time.”
But Island’s small roster and small staff allowed it to focus on developing talents like Carpenter and Roan — and to provide that raison d’être that the label had seemingly been missing. That has often meant leveraging the live side of each artist’s career to help catapult new records: The popularity of Carpenter’s “Nonsense,” for instance, was built through the fan response to the city-specific outros she added to each of her opening performances on Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, while “Espresso” and “Please” were launched in tandem with her Coachella and Governors Ball performances. “It’s really difficult to break through as an artist anymore unless you have a holistic artist proposition,” Eshak explains.
The label built its strategy for Roan, too, on her live aesthetic; Eshak and Majid tell the story of seeing her perform for the first time at New York’s Bowery Ballroom and how the energy of the crowd struck them more than any of the metrics they had seen on socials or streaming. “The enthusiasm that existed in the crowd was just insane,” Eshak continues. “I remember thinking, ‘How do we tell the story about what happened in Bowery Ballroom to the rest of the world? Because if we can do that, then she’s going to break.’ ”
Imran Majid, Chappell Roan and Justin Eshak attend Universal Music Group’s 2024 After Party presented by Coke Studios and Merz Aesthetics’ #SmartTox on Feb. 4, 2024 in Los Angeles.
Jordan Strauss
The small-but-mighty ethos is a cue Eshak and Majid took from Blackwell, whom they visited at his Goldeneye resort on Jamaica’s north coast shortly after starting at Island. “When we took this job, we had such a reverence for Island and its history,” Eshak says. “Hearing Chris Blackwell talk about artists that historically worked on Island, they would weave their way through culture. The artists that are having success now are fan-driven, have unique artist propositions, and you just [have to] support them in the right way. This label has always stood for creativity and for artistry and for things that may not seem obvious but weave their way through culture.”
In some ways, no label is as beholden to, or in the thrall of, its founder as Island. Since being spun back off as a stand-alone label from the combined Island Def Jam in 2014, successive heads of the company have invoked Blackwell, who left in the late 1990s, when articulating their philosophies. “I wanted to go back to the idea of Chris Blackwell-era Island: an artist-driven label that was a major, but in an intimate manner,” then-president David Massey told Billboard in 2016 about his approach. In 2019, his successor, Darcus Beese, told Billboard, “How I run my business is literally how I think Chris would run his business.”
Eshak and Majid are similar, often invoking the spirits of Blackwell and the label itself — though with their own spin. “It’s not a throwback company by any means; it’s very progressive and market-focused,” Majid says. “But it’s also about curation. If we’re going to have success in this market and with a new generation of artists, you want artists that feel like they love being a part of the company, and you want people that want to work here. And that was kind of what Chris built at Island Records.”
“I’m so happy that Justin and Imran have continued to honor the heart and culture of the label,” Blackwell, 87, tells Billboard. “Looking back, I remember the rush of excitement when I discovered an act, signed them and saw their massive success. Well done, guys.”
Imran Majid, Chris Blackwell and Justin Eshak (from left) at Pebble Bar in Manhattan in 2022.
Kevin Condon
Eshak’s and Majid’s careers have often run parallel over the past 18 years. Both started at Universal Republic under Monte and Avery Lipman in the mid-2000s, when the company had just 23 employees and a small roster; Eshak then spent time at Mick Management before the two reunited in 2013 in Columbia’s A&R department, where they rose to co-heads of A&R. While they seem a study in contrasts — Majid, a New Jersey native, is more outgoing and gregarious; Eshak, from Houston, is more reserved and measured — they’re united by a shared passion and sense of purpose for their artists and their staff, the business and the music, as well as an awareness of their own complementary strengths.
Through their industry arcs, Eshak and Majid have seen the business from Republic’s then-scrappy-upstart vantage point, as well as through the legacy lens of Columbia, one of the oldest and most decorated labels in history. The current iteration of Island, with its immense, venerated catalog and relatively small staff, is something of a combination of the two. “The team at Island is our extended family,” says Janelle Lopez Genzink, Carpenter’s manager. “Every member of the team’s laser focus on delivering in each of their areas has helped us experience these monumental wins.”
But the progress toward this point has not been linear. The duo first needed to overhaul Island, even amid a broader restructuring by UMG. The first two years of Eshak and Majid’s tenure didn’t include much improvement in market share as they reshaped the roster, while UMG shifted Island into Republic Recording Company in early 2024, alongside Republic Records, Def Jam and Mercury, providing resources through its Corps team, with the Island chiefs now reporting to Monte Lipman. Yet despite the reshuffle — and maybe partially because of it and the groundwork laid in those early years — Island has more than doubled its current market share, from 0.62% at the end of 2023 to 1.3% through the end of June.
“Both Imran and Justin are top graduates of ‘Republic University’ from back in the day and have always exemplified the passion, drive and ambition to become leaders in this business,” Republic Recording Company founder and chairman Monte Lipman tells Billboard. “Avery and I couldn’t be more proud of their success in creating such an amazing culture for both artists and executives at Island Records.”
Island’s artists appreciate that culture, too. Carpenter calls Eshak and Majid “collaborative and supportive partners” who “encourage an open dialogue, which is important to me.” “It’s very rare that the higher-ups trust the artist fully,” Roan adds. “It proves Justin and Imran’s method that trusting in the artist results in success and longevity — even outside of music.” And Jon Bon Jovi, whom Majid calls “our Bruce Springsteen,” says the two “truly care about their artists and are supportive and passionate in achieving a shared vision.”
“Certain things are always true: great artists, great artistry, great songs, artists with clear vision,” Eshak says. “But on the business side, it’s almost the opposite, where we’re in a business of constant change. You have to be willing to reinvent yourself and reteach yourself things all the time in this business. And I think, ultimately, the labels that are successful have that approach: They understand culture, they understand what actually moves the needle in the marketplace, and they’re constantly evolving.”
Island’s latest evolution is still developing, with several more emerging artists in the pipeline, Grammy hopes on the horizon and a new partnership with Virgin Music to sign regional Mexican star Carín León — the label’s first true foray into Latin music, which was announced in late June. But for the moment, Majid says, there’s a chance to simply take a breath, look around and appreciate how far they’ve come. “It’s two-and-a-half years of going seven days a week to just catch a break,” he says. “To have a moment like this that we don’t take for granted and we’re very sober about — it’s very fulfilling.”
This story will appear in the July 20, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Like a lot of independent record shops, Nashville-based Grimey’s New & Preloved Music and Books sometimes offers giveaways for customers, with prizes such as tickets to local shows and vinyl pressings. But given its location in the creative hub of East Nashville, Grimey’s co-owner Doyle Davis says those giveaways have led to some unusual moments.
“We’ll take a picture of the winner and tag them on social media when they pick up their prize,” Davis tells Billboard. “One time, we posted a photo of a guy showing off his prize — and [rock icon and former Led Zeppelin lead singer] Robert Plant was walking up the aisle right behind him. When we posted that [photo], all the comments were like, ‘Robert Plant photo-bombed your guy.’”
Grimey’s has been a hotspot and refuge for music lovers — celebrity or not — for 25 years. The East Nashville store is Grimey’s third location: it was launched in 1999 in Nashville’s Berry Hill area, before moving to 8th Ave. S. and finally to its current location at 1060 East Trinity Lane in 2018.
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“John Prine used to shop here regularly, especially at our old location. We were right down the street from [meat-and-three restaurant] Arnold’s, where he would get his meatloaf every week,” Davis recalls, also noting artists such as Kacey Musgraves and Emmylou Harris stopping by Grimey’s over the years.
Grimey’s is housed in a former Pentecostal church that offers a homey vibe, with stained glass windows; arched, wooden ceilings; a performance stage (Davis remodeled the area into a space for more intimate musical performances); and two floors filled with vinyl, CDs, books and more. The 4,000-square-foot space continues to be an essential component of Nashville’s music community, with Davis estimating that roughly 70% of the store’s sales come from vinyl, with the other 30% coming from books, CDs, DVDs, etc.
Based in the heart of East Nashville’s creative community, the store counts Americana as its best-selling music genre, with the store’s best-selling artists being Jason Isbell, Musgraves and Sturgill Simpson.
“We recently did a signing with Kacey and her [2024] Deeper Well album and it was the only signing she was doing for the whole album release cycle,” Davis says. “We had over a thousand people and she signed for four hours. That was the most records of a single new title that I’ve sold in one week. Jason Isbell was my previous record at 850.”
Grimey’s
Courtesy Photo
Davis co-owns Grimey’s with the store’s namesake and founder Mike Grimes, who launched the store in a small Berry Hill-area home. In 2002, Davis, who had been an executive at another Nashville record shop, The Great Escape, joined Grimes as a co-owner. At the time, Davis suggested that they focus on selling new vinyl.
“Nashville had great record stores. The Great Escape was a great record store, but it was all used [records],” Davis says. “If people wanted new records, they either mail ordered them or you bought them at Tower Records. Tower had a pretty lame selection, in my opinion, at the time, and it took them forever to restock something if they sold out of it. Being a real record store guy my whole life, I just thought, ‘There’s a niche we can fill here. We’ll carry all the cool indie music the chain stores don’t carry.’ We really centered on new vinyl, and this was when Steve Jobs had just opened the iTunes store, Napster was on the wane, and they were finding new ways of legally selling digital music — everything was gravitating to no physical media.”
In 2004, Grimey’s relocated to the 8th Ave. S. location, where it quickly became an indie music hub. The live music venue The Basement (founded by Grimes) was located downstairs, while the building at the time also served as office space for Thirty Tigers and indie radio station WXNA. As Grimey’s expanded on 8th Avenue, they leased the building next door and opened the bookstore Grimey’s Too.
At the same time, Grimey’s began supporting artists through in-store performances that allowed bands to promote their new records. In 2008, rock band Metallica recorded the album Live at Grimey’s at The Basement before their performance at Bonnaroo Music Festival.
“We carried it for 10 years until it went out of print,” Davis recalls, also noting that Nashville resident and Americana luminary Isbell once played a show in the back parking lot of Grimey’s, with more than 1,000 people in attendance.
“[Jason] did an in-store performance with us for every solo album he ever released until the pandemic hit, and he wasn’t able to do that one,” Davis recalls. “We had The Black Keys early on when they were still playing clubs. Years ago, the band fun. did an in-store, and then Black Pumas did an in-store performance, and six months later they were huge and on the Grammys. I had always hoped we would get Wilco to play here, and they finally did in November 2019, right before the pandemic.”
After the landlord did not offer Grimey’s a long-term lease on the 8th Ave. location and noted the building would be put up for sale, Grimes and Davis knew they needed to scout a new site for Grimey’s, which led to its current location.
“My real estate agent showed me a photo of the building and it was the right size, it was beautiful, and it was affordable,” Davis recalls, noting that he did have some concerns at the time about relocating to East Nashville, where the area was already home to at least two other record shops, The Groove and Vinyl Tap.
“What I hoped might happen seems to be what happened: that the customers coming over to East Nashville to visit our store would also visit the other stores,” Davis says, noting that in the ‘90s, he visited London’s Berwick Street, which was known as “Record Road” for its large number of record shops. “Each store had its specialty and if you’re an omnivorous music fan, you would hit all the shops. I know from talking to folks that on Record Store Day, for example, lots of people will hit Grimey’s, Vinyl Tap and The Groove, because we’re all in the same neighborhood.”
Paramore + Doyle & Grimey
Courtesy Photo
While streaming rules the modern-day music marketplace, vinyl has seen steady growth over the past nearly two decades, something Davis attributes to the popular Record Store Day that started in 2007. Grimey’s focuses on buying from original source distributors but also uses one-stop distributors, with Davis estimating the shop has approximately 12,600 new vinyl records and 3,000 used records.
“By 2010 or 2011, we were seeing 30% and 35% increases year over year — and that’s broadly, not just in my store,” he says. “Vinyl was back, but it wasn’t mainstream at the time.” Since the pandemic began, Davis says vinyl has “reached a whole new tipping point,” nodding to pop artists such as Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo moving large numbers of vinyl units.
“We’re selling tons of Taylor records and Olivia. For a while, we couldn’t keep enough Harry Styles records in stock,” Davis says. “That’s new to me. We’ve got high school kids coming into the store. We’ve always had some percentage of college students, the early adopter kids. Vinyl was seen as a hipster thing for quite a while, but I don’t see anybody looking at it that way. If anything, it’s seen as a pop trend.”
While Davis does acknowledge commerce challenges in pricing and direct-to-consumer sales, he sees indie record shops as an enduring part of the music ecosystem.
“If you can only afford one record a month, just due to prices, then even the used ones are not cheap,” Davis says. “You’ve always had the dollar bins, but records that were straight to the dollar bin previously are sometimes $5 records. I also see the direct-to-consumer initiatives, but we’ve faced that pretty much most of the way. And there’s an experience in a record store you can’t get online — it’s a physical space, with like-minded people; I love watching my employees interact with customers. If you’re really into this culture, there’s nothing like an independent record store, as far as experience goes.
“Vinyl never went away and it’s here to stay. I do believe that,” Davis says of the future of the format. “We’ve seen steady growth now for well over a decade, and it’s already moved into a new generation. Now you have kids [buying vinyl] whose parents did not grow up with vinyl — their parents were CD and digital natives. Vinyl is a way to slow down. You get the lyrics, the inserts, the art — the artist’s whole vision.”
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Eddie Rosenblatt, the longtime president of Geffen Records from its inception in 1980 through its peak years, died Tuesday (July 16) at a hospital in Santa Barbara. He was 89.
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His son Michael confirmed the cause of death was pneumonia.
Rosenblatt played a pivotal role in the rise of Geffen Records, steering the label through its formative years and establishing it as a powerhouse in the music industry. Under his leadership, Geffen Records became synonymous with the success of major artists like Guns N’ Roses, Nirvana, and Don Henley.
Born in Queens, New York, in 1934, Rosenblatt’s journey into the music industry began after a stint in the Army and completing Macy’s management training program.
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He moved to Cleveland to work at Cosnat Distributing in the early 1960s, marking his entry into the music business. In 1962, he joined Main Line Distribution, forming relationships with industry giants such as Gil Friesen, Jerry Moss, and Jac Holzman, paving the way for his career at A&M Records and later Warner Bros.
Rosenblatt’s expertise in sales and marketing at Warner Bros., where he worked closely with artists like Joni Mitchell, caught the attention of David Geffen.
Geffen, who managed Mitchell, appointed Rosenblatt as president of Geffen Records when the label was founded in 1980. The label’s initial roster included high-profile signings like John Lennon, Elton John, and Donna Summer, although it was John Lennon’s album, Double Fantasy, released just before his tragic death, that marked its first major success.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Rosenblatt oversaw a roster that included hard rock and alternative acts such as Whitesnake, Weezer, Peter Gabriel, Sonic Youth, and Nirvana.
The label’s success was furthered by the creation of DGC Records, which became a major player in the alternative rock scene with artists like Beck and Hole.
Geffen Records was sold to MCA in 1990 for $550 million, and despite David Geffen’s departure in 1995 to launch DreamWorks SKG, Rosenblatt continued to lead the label successfully.
He was known for his ability to cultivate talent, both among artists and executives. Many of the industry’s top A&R executives and future label presidents, including Gary Gersh, Tom Zutaut, and Wendy Goldstein, got their start under his mentorship.
Mo Ostin, Rosenblatt’s former boss at Warner, once said, “If you think of David as the vision behind Geffen Records, then Eddie is the heart. That label is not just profitable, it’s got hipness and heat, and Eddie is the glue that has held it together all these years.”
In a 1994 Billboard interview, Rosenblatt spoke about Geffen’s success in the alternative rock scene, saying, “We, up to this point, are a rock’n’roll record company. We are not in the urban business. We are not in the country business. We’re not in the classical music business. We are in the rock’n’roll business. We’re just taking advantage of some excellent signings that our A&R department was fortunate enough to get, and some excellent records that those artists have made.”
Rosenblatt retired from the music business following the merger of PolyGram and Universal Music Group. He spent his retirement in Montecito, Calif., where he was an avid tennis player and philanthropist.
Rosenblatt is survived by his four children, Michael, Steven, Peter, and Gretchen, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. His wife of 68 years, Bobbi, died in 2023.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Sansum Clinic, a nonprofit outpatient healthcare organization, at sansumclinic.org/donate-now.