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Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, most of the country’s musical acts have taken sides, either supporting or condemning the war – but not Picnic.
The aging Russian rock band notably refrained from making any statements about the invasion of Ukraine. Many of their fellow musicians faced touring bans or exile for voicing their opposition, while others performed on the frontlines in solidarity with the Kremlin or in occupied Ukrainian territories.
Now, 46 years after its formation, Picnic has grabbed more global attention than ever for tragic reasons: Its planned concert at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow became the site of a mass shooting last Friday (March 22), with at least 137 lives lost in the terrorist attack. ISIS-K, an offshoot of the terrorist group ISIS, claimed responsibility for the March 22 attack.
Since then, some Russian media outlets have claimed that the band supported Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, suggesting this was one of the reasons that terrorist gunmen targeted the show.
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The band did not comment on these reports. In fact, the band’s current frontman, Edmund Shklyarsky, who joined in 1981 as a guitarist and soon became Picnic’s main songwriter, has remained steadfastly apolitical since the terrorist attack. In his only public comments in the wake of the tragedy, he released a video address expressing “condolences to everyone who, involuntarily and naturally, found themselves involved in this terrible tragedy, utterly senseless. It is clear that there are no words that can resurrect or console people. But, of course, we offer our condolences to all relatives.”
Picnic will brave the stage again on Wednesday (March 27) at St. Petersburg’s Oktyabrsky concert hall. The concert will be dedicated to the victims of the Crocus City Hall attack, with the band announcing on social media that proceeds will be donated to the families of those who lost their lives or were injured in the attack.
The band’s manager, Yuri Chernyshevsky, wouldn’t comment on Picnic’s views on the war with Ukraine, and told Billboard that “you would need to ask the terrorists why they targeted Picnic’s show or why they targeted Crocus City Hall. I hope law enforcement will determine that.”
In the early 1980s, Picnic became part of the Leningrad Rock Club, an organization, allegedly controlled by the KGB, that facilitated underground and semi-underground rock bands to perform at a time when rock music in the Soviet Union faced scrutiny, if not outright bans. Later, Picnic’s songs drew criticism from Communist authorities for lyrics referencing illegal drug use.
In the latter half of the 1980s, Picnic, like other bands, benefited from the perestroika and glasnost reforms in the Soviet Union, which allowed formerly underground rock bands to officially tour and record. However, unlike some prominent bands of the period, Picnic largely avoided social and political issues, focusing more on esoteric and mystical themes in their lyrics.
Currently, the band includes the 68-year-old Shklyarsky, his son Stas on keyboards, bassist Marat Korchemny and drummer Leonid Kirnos. The band’s fan base is diverse, ranging from older listeners who have followed Picnic since the 1980s to younger fans introduced to the band through social media.
At the time of the March 22 attack, musicians from Picnic and a 65-piece orchestra set to accompany the rock band were in their respective dressing rooms and were promptly evacuated. However, Ekaterina Kushner, a member of Picnic’s administrative staff manning the merchandise table, died in the attack.
Another concert by Picnic and the symphonic orchestra was scheduled at the same venue on March 23. Almost all tickets for both performances at the 6,200-seat Crocus City Hall had been sold.
BMG reported record high revenues of 905 million euros ($998 million) in 2023 as catalog acquisitions and growth in its publishing division from hit songs and albums by Bebe Rexha, the Rolling Stones and Lewis Capaldi contributed to 5.7% in organic revenue growth.
Operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) adjusted — BMG’s preferred metric for profit — was flat at 194 million euros ($214 million, based on the foreign exchange rate as of Dec. 31, 2023) compared to last year’s 195 million euros ($208 million, based on the year-end foreign exchange rate), as the German-owned music company incorporates a slew of changes introduced by new chief executive Thomas Coesfeld. Coesfeld said his strategy is improving revenue and operating EBITDA going forward, two metrics the company said have risen by roughly a third from 2021 to 2023.
“Many of these changes are having an immediate impact,” Coesfeld said in a letter to staff viewed by Billboard. “In the first two months of 2024 we have already seen a strong double-digit increase in revenue and an increase in EBITDA versus prior year.”
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Since Coesfeld took the helm in mid-2023, BMG announced a plan to take over digital sales of its artists’ music, a new physical distribution deal with UMG and increased investments in technology for a new client-facing mobile app, improved data analytics and speedier processing of royalties.
Catalog acquisitions have been a key component of Coesfeld’s contributions since he became BMG’s chief financial officer in 2021. Backed by the deep pockets of its parent company, the European media conglomerate Bertelsmann, BMG continued its steady pace of buying in 2023 with 30 catalog acquisitions, including those by The Hollies, Jet, Dope Lemon, Martin Solveig and Paul Simon’s music interests in Simon & Garfunkel’s recordings.
Major hits for the publishing division in 2023 included “I’m Good (Blue),” co-written by Bebe Rexha, and “Boy’s A Liar Pt. 2,” by BMG songwriter Mura Masa and performed by Pink Pantheress and Ice Spice, and the release of Hackney Diamonds by the Rolling Stones and Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent by Capaldi.
Country music was a big driver for BMG’s label business in 2023 thanks to Jason Aldean‘s “Try That In A Small Town,” which hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart during the first week of August, and three country chart-topping hits from Jelly Roll, including “Save Me,” recorded with Lainey Wilson, another of BMG’s country stars.
Here are some of BMG’s 2023 highlights:
Operating EBITDA adjusted remained stable at 194 million euros ($214 million) from the previous year of 195 million euros ($208 million).
From 2021 to 2023, revenue has risen by more than 36% and operating EBITDA adjusted has risen by more than 34%.
EBITDA margin was 21.4 percent compared to the previous year of 22.5%.
BMG made 30 catalog acquisitions in 2023.
Believe‘s board of directors on Monday (Mar. 25) asked Warner Music Group (WMG) to submit a formal bid for the French music company after stating that French financial regulators found an offer by a group that includes Believe CEO Denis Ladegaillerie violated certain securities rules. WMG said earlier this month that it approached Believe in […]
Calls mounted in Russia on Monday to harshly punish those behind the concert hall attack that killed more than 130 people as authorities combed the burned-out ruins of the entertainment complex and an Orthodox priest blessed the site.
Four men, charged with carrying out a terrorist attack, appeared in court Sunday night and showed signs of being severely beaten. Civil liberties groups cited this as sign that Russia’s poor record on human rights under President Vladimir Putin was bound to worsen.
Russia’s Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said the investigation is still ongoing but vowed that “the perpetrators will be punished, they do not deserve mercy.”
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Former President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, urged authorities to “kill them all.”
The attack Friday night on Crocus City Hall on the western outskirts of Moscow left 137 people dead and over 180 injured, proving to be the deadliest in Russia in years. A total of 97 people remained hospitalized, officials said.
As they mowed down concertgoers with gunfire, the attackers set fire to the vast concert hall, and the resulting blaze caused the roof to collapse.
The search operation will continue until at least Tuesday afternoon, officials said. A Russian Orthodox priest conducted a service at the site Monday, blessing a makeshift memorial with incense.
An affiliate of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, and U.S. intelligence backed up their claims. French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking on a trip to French Guiana, said France has intelligence pointing to “an IS entity” as responsible for the Moscow attack.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to assign blame, urging reporters Monday to wait for the results of the investigation in Russia. He also refused to comment on reports that the U.S. warned authorities in Moscow on March 7 about a possible terrorist attack, saying any such intelligence is confidential.
The four suspects were identified in the Russian media as Tajik nationals. At least two of the suspects admitted culpability, court officials said, although their conditions raised questions about whether their statements were coerced.
The men were identified as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32; Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, 30; Shamsidin Fariduni, 25; and Mukhammadsobir Faizov, 19. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Russia’s Federal Security Service said seven other suspects have been detained. Three of them appeared in court Monday, with no signs of injuries, and they were placed in pre-trial detention on terrorism charges. The fate of others remained unclear.
Russian media had reported the four were tortured during interrogation. Mirzoyev, Rachabalizoda and Fariduni showed signs of heavy bruising, including swollen faces. Mirzoyev had a plastic bag still hanging over his neck; Rachabalizoda had a heavily bandaged ear. Russian media reported Saturday that one suspect had his ear cut off during interrogation. The Associated Press couldn’t verify the report or videos purporting to show this.
Faizov, wearing a hospital gown, appeared in court in a wheelchair, accompanied by medical personnel, and sat with his eyes closed throughout. He appeared to have multiple cuts.
Peskov refused to comment on the suspects’ treatment.
Medvedev, Russia’s president in 2008-12, had especially harsh comments about them.
“They have been caught. Kudos to all who were chasing them. Should they be killed? They should. And it will happen,” he wrote on his Telegram page. “But it is more important to kill everyone involved. Everyone. Those who paid, those who sympathized, those who helped. Kill them all.”
Margarita Simonyan, head of the state-funded television channel RT, shared photos of the four men’s bruised and swollen faces on X, formerly Twitter.
She said that even the death penalty — currently banned in Russia — would be “too easy” a punishment.
Instead, she said they should face “lifelong hard labor somewhere underground, living there too, without the opportunity to ever see light, on bread and water, with a ban on conversations and with a not very humane escort.”
Russian human rights advocates condemned the violence against the men.
Team Against Torture, a prominent group that advocates against police brutality, said in a statement that the culprits must face stern punishment, but “savagery should not be the answer to savagery.”
It said the value of any testimony obtained by torture was “critically low,” and “if the government allows for torture of terrorism suspects, it may allow unlawful violence toward other citizens, too.”
Net Freedoms, another Russian group that focuses on freedom of speech cases, said Medvedev’s remarks, as well as Putin’s recent call on security services to “punish traitors without a statute of limitation no matter where they are,” made against the backdrop of “demonstrative torture of the detained … effectively authorize extrajudicial killings and give instructions to security forces on how to treat enemies.”
“We’re seeing the possible beginning of the new Great Terror,” Net Freedoms said, referring to mass repressions by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The group foresees more police brutality against suspects in terrorist-related cases and a spike in violent crimes against migrants.
Abuse of suspects by law enforcement and security services isn’t new, said Sergei Davidis of the Memorial human rights group.
“We know about torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war, we know about mass torture of those charged with terrorism, high treason and other crimes, especially those investigated by the Federal Security Service. Here, it was for the first time made public,” Davidis said.
Parading beaten suspects could reflect a desire by authorities to show a muscular response to try to defuse any criticism of their inability to prevent the attack, he said.
It was a major embarrassment for Putin and came less than a week after he cemented his grip on Russia for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since Soviet times.
Many on Russian social media questioned how authorities and their vast security apparatus that actively surveils, pressures and prosecutes critics failed to prevent the attack despite the U.S. warning.
Citing the treatment of the suspects, Davidis told AP that “we can suppose it was deliberately made public in order to show the severity of response of the state.”
“People are not satisfied with this situation when such a huge number of law enforcement officers didn’t manage to prevent such an attack, and they demonstrate the severe reaction in order to stop these accusations against them,” he said.
The fact that the security forces did not conceal their methods was “a bad sign,” he said.
IS, which fought Russian forces that intervened in the Syrian civil war, has long targeted the country. In a statement posted by the group’s Aamaq news agency, the IS Afghanistan affiliate said it carried out an attack in Krasnogorsk, the suburb of Moscow where the concert hall is located.
In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people aboard, most of them Russian vacationers returning from Egypt.
The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
This story was originally published by Associated Press.
UK indie promoters Communion Presents and FKP Scorpio UK have merged to form Communion ONE.
Communion was launched as a London clubnight series in 2006 by musicians Kevin Jones from Bears Den, Ben Lovett of Mumford and Sons and producer Ian Grimble. FK Scorpio was a UK affiliate of German concert promoter, founded by Folkert Koopmans in 1990.
Together, the two firms have promoted some of the biggest and most exciting artists from around the globe, from the likes of Ed Sheeran, Noah Kahan, Sam Fender, and Lewis Capaldi, to Phoebe Bridgers, Mitski, TEMS, The War and Drugs and Laufey.
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Communion ONE will be led by a board including FK Scorpio UK’s Daniel Ealam, Communion’s Mazin Tappuni and Scott O’Neill. The non-executive leadership team is formed by Communion Music’s managing director Jamie Emsell, Jones and Lovett, FKP Scorpio’s Koopmans and the promoter Carlo Scarampi as a Partner.
Communion ONE’s senior staff will be rounded out by head of operations Carly Rocket, head of marketing Julie Morgan, head of ticketing Olly Goddard, head of production Rich Cheetham, head of finance Mike Werbowy and head of programming Jack Dedman. Sam Laurence’s promotion company imprint Dollop will also be included in the company, along with promoters Eve Thomas and Hayley Moss.
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“Bringing our two brilliant teams together and combining our shared experience, resources and perspectives is the most natural thing in the world,” company officials said in a statement. “In doing so, we believe that Communion ONE is creating an even more compelling proposition for our existing and future clients. We’ve all had amazing success so far, but in many ways, we’re only just getting started.”
Communion ONE will plug into FKP Scorpio’s European touring network, with offices in 11 European countries and one of the largest festival offerings across Europe. FKP Scorpio sold 4 million tickets across Europe in 2023.
Communion ONE will also be producing a new three-night event series at Bristol’s 15,000 capacity Queen Square beginning in 2025, and will continue to book tvg hospitality’s UK portfolio and its London affiliates Lafayette, Omeara, The Social, and their new partnerships with Village Underground and EartH. The company also plans to expand its outdoor portfolio over the coming year.
Communion Presents’ sister companies, Communion Records and Communion Publishing, will continue to operate independently of Communion ONE.
Russia observed a national day of mourning on Sunday (March 24) for the victims killed in an attack at a suburban Moscow concert hall. Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Sunday that 137 bodies had been recovered from the Crocus City Hall, where the mass shooting took place on Friday, The New York Times reports. “The […]
Maurizio Pollini, a Grammy-winning Italian pianist who performed frequently at La Scala opera house in Milan, has died. He was 82.
Pollini died on Saturday (March 23), La Scala said in a statement. The announcement didn’t specify a cause of death, but Pollini had been forced to cancel a concert at the Salzburg Festival in 2022 because of heart problems.
During a six decades-long international career, Pollini’s repertoire expanded beyond the standard classics. He embraced early 20th-century masterpieces by Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern and postwar modernists such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez and Luigi Nono.
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La Scala defined the pianist as “one of the great musicians of our time and a fundamental reference in the artistic life of the theater for over 50 years.”
Pollini was considered a pianist with unique intellectual power, whose unrivaled technique and interpretive drive compelled listeners to think deeply.
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He was born in Milan on Jan. 5, 1942, into a family of artists. His father, Gino Pollini, was a violinist and a leading rationalist architect. His mother, Renata Melotti, sang and played the piano, as did her brother, Fausto Melotti, who was also a pioneer of abstract sculpture.
“I grew up in a house with art and artists,” Pollini said in an interview. “Old works and modern works coexisted together as part of life.”
Pollini began giving concerts before his 10th birthday, performing Chopin’s Etudes at age 14 and then winning the International Chopin Piano Competition at 18, as the youngest foreign pianist among a group of 89 contestants.
Arthur Rubinstein, president of the jury, reportedly said that the young pianist “already plays better than any of us.”
After his first international recognition, however, Pollini put his career on hold to study, explaining that performing right away would have been for him “a little premature.”
“I wanted to study, get to know the repertoire better, play the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms,” he said.
In the late 1960s, Pollini participated in improvised concerts in factories and programs for students and workers at La Scala, conducted by longtime friend Claudio Abbado.
During his long international career, he also collaborated with other famous conductors, including Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim and Riccardo Chailly.
Pollini performed his first American tour in 1968. From the 1970s to the ‘90s, he made a series of recordings with the Deutsche Grammophon label, becoming a celebrated interpreter of classics like Beethoven, Schumann and Schubert.
His albums won several awards, including a Grammy in 2007 for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) for Chopin: Nocturnes.
He is survived by his wife Marilisa, and his son Daniele, also an acclaimed pianist and conductor.
Russian authorities arrested four men suspected of carrying out the attack on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed at least 133 people, President Vladimir Putin said Saturday (March 23) in an address to the nation. He claimed they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine.
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Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in Friday’s assault on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, and the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility.
Putin did not mention IS in his speech, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for Russia’s war in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year.
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U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the claim by the IS affiliate that it was responsible for the attack, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. U.S. intelligence agencies gathered information in recent weeks that the IS branch was planning an attack in Moscow, and U.S. officials privately shared the intelligence with Russian officials earlier this month, the U.S. official said. The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence information and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Putin said authorities detained a total of 11 people in the attack, which also injured more than 100 concertgoers and left the venue on Moscow’s western rim a smoldering ruin. He called it “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four suspected gunmen as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.
Russian media broadcast videos apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher via a messaging app and paid to take part in the raid.
Russian news reports identified the gunmen as citizens of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia that is predominantly Muslim and borders Afghanistan. Up to 1.5 million Tajiks have worked in Russia and many have Russian citizenship.
Tajikistan’s foreign ministry, which denied initial Russian media reports that mentioned several other Tajiks allegedly involved in the raid, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Saturday’s arrests.
Many Russian hard-liners called for a crackdown on Tajik migrants, but Putin appeared to reject the idea, saying “no force will be able to sow the poisonous seeds of discord, panic or disunity in our multi-ethnic society.”
He declared Sunday a day of mourning and said additional security measures were imposed throughout Russia.
The attack, the deadliest in Russia in years, is a major embarrassment for the Russian leader and happened just days after he cemented his grip on the country for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet times.
Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who have relentlessly suppressed any opposition activities and muzzled independent media, failed to prevent the attack despite the U.S. warnings.
The assault came two weeks after the U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a notice urging Americans to avoid crowded places in view of “imminent” plans by extremists to target large Moscow gatherings, including concerts. Several other Western embassies repeated the warning. Earlier this week, Putin denounced the warning as an attempt to intimidate Russians.
Investigators on Saturday combed through the charred wreckage of the hall for more victims, and authorities said the death toll could still rise. Hundreds of people stood in line in Moscow to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.
Putin’s claim that the attackers tried to flee to Ukraine followed comments by Russian lawmakers who pointed the finger at Ukraine immediately after the attack. But Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied any involvement.
“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” he posted on X. “Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry accused Moscow of using the attack to try to build support for its war efforts.
“We consider such accusations to be a planned provocation by the Kremlin to further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society, create conditions for increased mobilization of Russian citizens to participate in the criminal aggression against our country and discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community,” the ministry said in a statement.
Images shared by Russian state media showed emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall, which could hold more than 6,000 people and hosted many big events, including the 2013 Miss Universe beauty pageant that featured Donald Trump.
On Friday, crowds were at the venue for a concert by the Russian rock band Picnic.
Videos posted online showed gunmen in the venue shooting civilians at point-blank range. Russian news reports cited authorities and witnesses as saying the attackers threw explosive devices that started the fire, which eventually consumed the building and caused its roof to collapse.
Dave Primov, who survived the attack, told the AP that the gunmen were “shooting directly into the crowd” in the front rows. He described the chaos in the hall as concertgoers raced to escape: “People began to panic, started to run and collided with each other. Some fell down and others trampled on them.”
After he and others crawled out of the hall into nearby utility rooms, he said he heard pops from small explosives and smelled burning as the attackers set the building ablaze. By the time they got out of the massive building 25 minutes later, it was engulfed in flames.
“Had it been just a little longer, we could simply get stuck there in the fire,” Primov said.
Messages of outrage, shock and support for the victims and their families have streamed in from around the world.
On Friday, the U.N. Security Council condemned the attack and underlined the need for the perpetrators to be held accountable. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the terrorist attack “in the strongest possible terms,” his spokesman said.
IS, which lost much of its ground after Russia’s military action in Syria, has long targeted Russia. In a statement posted by the group’s Aamaq news agency, IS’s Afghanistan affiliate said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.
On Saturday, the group issued a new statement on Aamaq saying the attack was carried out by four men who used automatic rifles, a pistol, knives and firebombs. It said the assailants fired at the crowd and used knives to kill some concertgoers, casting the raid as part of IS’s ongoing war with countries that it says are fighting Islam.
In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers returning from Egypt.
The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
The group’s Afghanistan affiliate is known variously as ISIS-K or IS-K, taking its name from Khorasan Province, a region that covered much of Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia in the Middle Ages.
The affiliate has thousands of fighters who have repeatedly carried out attacks in Afghanistan since the country was seized in 2021 by the Taliban, a group with which they are at bitter odds.
ISIS-K was behind the August 2021 suicide bombing at Kabul airport that left 13 American troops and about 170 Afghans dead during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal. They also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Kerman, Iran, in January that killed 95 people at a memorial procession.
On March 7, just hours before the U.S. Embassy warned about imminent attacks, Russia’s top security agency said it had thwarted an attack on a synagogue in Moscow by an IS cell and killed several of its members in the Kaluga region near the Russian capital. A few days before that, Russian authorities said six alleged IS members were killed in a shootout in Ingushetia, in Russia’s Caucasus region.
Nine sites that were selling fraudulent streams have been taken offline, according to IFPI and Music Canada.
IFPI, the worldwide recording industry association, and Music Canada, a trade group that represents major Canadian labels, filed a legal complaint with the Canadian Competition Bureau against the sites, accusing them of selling false plays and streams to manipulate streaming service data. The nine connected sites, the most popular of which used the domain name MRINSTA.com, have since gone offline (though you can still see them via the Wayback Machine).
“Streaming manipulation has no place in music,” stated Lauri Rechardt, the IFPI’s chief legal officer. “Perpetrators and enablers of streaming manipulation cannot be allowed to continue to divert revenue away from the artists who create the music.”
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As streaming has grown in popularity, so have efforts to game services’ royalty models. Vancouver-based fraud detection software company Beatdapp estimates that as many as 10% of music streams are fake. Fake streams are often generated through streaming farms, which use bots to automatically stream particular songs and boost their stats.
Canada recorded 145.3 billion streams in 2023. – Rosie Long Decter
Warner Music Canada’s Head of A&R Leaves to Start New Management Company, SWING
It was only January of this year that Victoria, B.C. pop-funk artist Diamond Cafe announced his signing to Warner Music Canada. Now, George Kalivas, the man who signed him, is breaking off on his own to manage him — and building a whole new company around the singer.
SWING is launching as a Toronto-based management company with Diamond Cafe as its first artist, though Kalivas says the eventual plan is to “evolve into a full-service record label in no time.”
Kalivas started in marketing at Warner Canada seven years ago, handling domestic artists signed to the label and international releases signed to subsidiaries like Atlantic and 300. But he had “one foot in A&R,” he says, which became official two years ago when Kristen Burke became label president.
His first signing was Crash Adams, a Canadian pop duo known for viral TikTok trends. After the joint launch of 91 North Records by Warner Canada and Warner India, Kalivas helped sign the label’s second artist, AR Paisley. A long-simmering Canadian rapper, Paisley hit the top 10 of the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 this year with “Drippy,” a posthumous collaboration with the late Punjabi-Canadian superstar Sidhu Moose Wala.
But it was Diamond Cafe who made him realize the time was right to strike off on his own, Kalivas says. “I haven’t seen a triple threat artist like him — writer, performer and producer — in 15 years,” he says. “He’s next level.”
As publishing and song catalogues become a major money-maker in the music industry, artists like Diamond Cafe who can work both in front of and behind the scenes are getting scouted heavily. For SWING, it’s enough to structure a whole new company around. – Richard Trapunski
Texas Songwriter Livingston Debuts on the Canadian Hot 100 With ‘Shadow’
Texas singer-songwriter Livingston is making a splash on the Canadian charts this week.
The 21-year-old has landed on the Canadian Hot 100 for the first time, with his single “Shadow” debuting at No. 100. The ominous tarck, which finds Livingston warning about the dangers we pose to ourselves, shows off his belt and falsetto over keyboard stabs and jittery percussion. “Shadow” is also performing well on the iTunes charts and has gathered over a million YouTube views since its Mar. 7 release.
Livingston’s new album, A Hometown Odyssey, also found a spot on the Canadian Albums chart this week, debuting at No. 92. Livingston first gained popularity as a teenager on TikTok during the pandemic and signed shortly thereafter with Elektra records. His website states that he “reclaimed his independence” from his major label deal a year ago; Hometown Odyssey is independently released.
Independence seems to suit Livingston well. Though he isn’t charting on the U.S. Hot 100 or Billboard 200 yet, sometimes rising American artists — like Benson Boone — perform better in Canada before gaining steam in the United States. – Rosie Long Decter
Annalisa arrives at the appointment in high boots and a black tracksuit with the hood pulled over her head. She enters the headquarters of her record company, Warner Music Italy, trying not to be recognized by anyone. She comes out in a D&G sporty tracksuit and heeled boots, with perfectly combed red hair and impeccable makeup. She has a bit of fever but one couldn’t tell.
This is Annalisa. Confident, professional, a perfectionist. In Italy she achieved exceptional results: 36 platinum records, in 2023 she stayed ten consecutive weeks in the top 10 of the singles chart and was the only female solo artist in the annual top 10. At Sanremo 2024 she finished third with her song “Sincerely,” which followed a particularly successful period of her career that began in September 2022 with the single “Bellissima.” This period was characterized by a more electronic sound, accompanied by freer and sexier image and lyrics.
After the Global Force Award she received at Billboard Women in Music 2024, honored by Billboard Italy, it’s time to fully understand Annalisa (born in 1985 in Carcare, Liguria), going back to her beginnings. She has a degree in physics, but did she ever think about a career in that field? “Never. I’ve always wanted to pursue a career in music, ever since I was a little child,” she says. “I grew up in a small town and my parents are two very rigorous people, both teachers. They pushed me to look for a plan B. They always supported me, but with realism.”
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Is physics close to music somehow?
I liked it a lot, although I could have chosen to study something more related to music. But I needed an alternative. There are connections with music, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have liked it so much: first of all, the fact that it leads you to analyse what’s in front of you. I do it a lot, starting from myself and my sensations. This is how my creative process was born. I always asked myself a lot of questions.
When did you realize you had an innate sense for music?
Since I was two or three years old, because I always sang and was always the first to throw myself into all the school plays. I think it’s also genetic. My mom teaches English but also plays music and sings beautifully. Among her relatives there are many musicians, but no one has ever made it a profession.
You said that all your songs, even the happy ones, are born from doubts and questions. Can you give us an example? It’s definitely not the case of “Sincerely,” because those lyrics aren’t particularly cheerful.
No… [laughs] That’s a song full of shadows but dressed up to seem shiny – a bit like me. An example is “Mon Amour,” because it was born from many questions: why can’t we be as free as we want, in love and in the rest our lives? Why should people judge the others if this freedom doesn’t even concern them? I believe that the goal of music, especially pop, is to instill doubts and convey messages with simplicity and lightness.
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Has that happened to you or is it something you feel like doing for what you see around you?
It’s more about seeing what happens to others, although each of us has felt limited and judged for something at some point.
Has the theme of freedom always been fundamental for you, or has it acquired more importance in the last period, from “Mon Amour” onwards?
I’ve always held it dear, but it emerged more from that song onwards. With the work in the studio in recent years I have learned to bring it out at its fullest.
Is it the cause you feel like fighting for the most?
Yes, I prefer to talk about a broad topic like freedom because everything comes from there – even wars and oppression. From the freedom to experience sexuality as one wants, one arrives at the freedom to live in a country without being oppressed.
It is known that you are never satisfied with the results you obtain. What would you have done differently in this last period?
I always think I could have handled situations better and I could have done more on stage, in general. I think I could have rested an hour more, so I would have been more effective, like for interviews. At the Sanremo Festival, for example, things are always exaggerated. Those are tiring days. Almost a month has passed and I’m still trying to recover, but I already have to focus on my future plans.
Annalisa
Nicholas Foals/Billboard Italy
Do you already have ideas for the tour?
Of course. I will soon start the rehearsals with the dancers. Then I’ll return to the recording studio as soon as possible. I always take note of my ideas because I want to be ready.
Do you want to involve some new producers or songwriters?
No, I have a team I have always worked with, namely Paolo Antonacci and Davide Simonetta. With them I created some magic, it is a rare and precious gift. The main point of the songs is that they have to be true. Sometimes, if there isn’t a relationship as strong as ours, they are not. They can be beautiful but perhaps won’t last over time.
What songs from the past are light and deep at the same time?
Nada’s “Amore Disperato”: light but eternal. Loretta Goggi’s “Maledetta Primavera”: we all sing it when we hear it. All Raffaella Carrà’s songs, which always have a message. This is the history of Italian music.
How much do the places where you live – Milan, Genoa and Carcare – influence you?
Milan is the city of music: it is essential to be there. Even though many people today say it can be dangerous, I like living in a buzzy neighborhood where things happen. Genoa is also a city of lights and shadows, even more than Milan. It has incredible places of tradition and history, but also unsafe alleys. And then there is the sea. For me it is a poetic place, of great inspiration. Most of my musical ideas are born there. I must also mention Savona. It is a seaside city, smaller, but it lacks nothing. It’s not rough like Genoa, it’s simpler. There I had my first musical experiences, I participated in the first music contests with my band. And then there is my hometown, Carcare.
You were the only female solo artist included in the top 10 of the most successful singles in 2023 in Italy. The female presence is always small and is a symptom of a much broader problem within the music industry: that of violence, which is not only physical but it is also psychological, economic, of exclusion and abuse. Has this ever happened to you?
I have never suffered harassment of any kind, fortunately. What I can denounce is the immense effort to gain credibility. There continue to be preconceptions about what is considered suitable for a woman or for a man. However, with a bit of pride I can say that I have seen some things change since I started.
Is there more awareness?
I believe that the effort that I and my generation made is useful to the next one – the effort to make others accept the fact that I write songs myself or that I judge things from a technical point of view. Little by little these prejudices will be overcome.
Are there any younger artists you particularly like?
Madame. I appreciate her credibility and the technical aspects of his work. I hope she passes the baton to those who will come after her.
Annalisa
Nicholas Foals/Billboard Italy
