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Grammy Award-winning DJ and producer Tiësto joined forces with multiplatinum singer-songwriter Tate McRae and Dubai’s new ultra-luxury resort Atlantis The Royal to create their new single “10:35.” The song is accompanied by a music video highlighting the new high-end destination, and will appear on Tiësto’s upcoming album Drive, due out Feb. 24 via Atlantic Records.
“I’m very excited to be partnering with this iconic new property,” said Tiësto. “Tate and I wanted to create a song that captured the energy of an experience at Atlantis The Royal, and I’m proud to say the feeling of 10:35 and this property are both infectious! So excited for the world to finally hear it.”
“I’m happy to announce I’m doing a partnership with the Atlantis The Royal property in Dubai with Tiësto,” added McRae. “It’s always exciting to branch out and work with different brands and artists,” added McRae. “The music video is unlike anything I’ve seen before, and the hotel is just unreal.”
Encapsulating the essence of Atlantis The Royal, “10:35” is inspired by Dubai’s newest addition to its skyline. When first introduced to the resort’s architectural plans — the resort was designed by NYC’s Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates — Tiësto honed in on the duality of the daytime experience of luxury versus the nighttime’s focus on entertainment. This juxtaposition fueled the idea for the time where day turns to night and the experience that comes with that shift — hence, “10:35.”
McRae, who spent time growing up in the Middle East, proved a perfect partner for the track.
Slated to open in early 2023, Atlantis The Royal is 43 stories at its highest point and boasts nearly 800 rooms, dozens of pools, multiple celebrity chef-led restaurants and a skybridge connecting the two main sections of the resort.
Atlantis The Royal Dubai
Courtesy Photo
“We are beyond excited that Tiësto, a music icon, and Tate McRae, one of today’s hottest stars, have joined forces to create this incredible track to celebrate Atlantis The Royal,” said Tim Kelly, managing director of Atlantis Dubai. “’10:35′ completely captures the vibe and energy of the hotel and expresses the unmatched daytime and night-time experience we have to offer. Shooting the music video at the resort is a show stopping way for us to tease our guests and demonstrate the unrivaled luxury Atlantis The Royal promises ahead of the Grand Reveal in January. This is it.”
“The whole team at Atlantis The Royal have been a pleasure to work with throughout this campaign and Atlantic Records couldn’t be more grateful for their partnership,” added Jonathan Feldman, svp of brand partnerships and sports marketing at Atlantic Records. “Tiësto and Tate McRae created such an incredible song that aligns perfectly with the property. From start to finish the stars have aligned on this and we’re thrilled for the launch of “10:35′.”
Check out the music video for “10:35” below.
Global music copyright generated $39.6 billion in 2021, up 18% from the previous year, according to the latest report by Will Page, industry analyst and former chief economist for Spotify. “The post-pandemic fallout has seen consumer subscriptions and ad-funded streaming continue to soar,” he wrote, “whereas business-to-business licensing by CMOs [collective management organizations] has only partially recovered.”
Streaming accounted for 55% of global copyright revenue, up from 52% in 2020. The industry’s shift to streaming has been dramatic: jJust five years ago, in 2017, streaming accounted for just 30% of global music copyright revenues.
Page brings together four sources of industry data for his analysis: IFPI’s annual Global Music Report, CISAC’s annual Global Collections Report, Music & Copyright’s analysis of music publishing and MIDiA Research’s estimate of royalty-free music licensing services such as Epidemic Sounds — a new addition to his study this year. He removes double counting in the reports, such as some mechanical royalties that are counted as revenue by both record labels and publishers.
Record labels’ revenue grew to $25.8 billion in 2021 from $21.3 billion in 2020 and $19.8 billion in 2019. In terms of market share, record labels improved their percentage of global revenue to 65.2% in 2021 from 63.4% in 2020 and 60.6% in 2019 — a sign of healthy consumer spending on subscription services such as Spotify and Apple Music.
On the flip side, publishers’ share of global revenue dropped to 34.1% in 2021, from 35.7% the year before. Still, as Page points out, this is more equitable than other points in history. In 2001, when labels’ revenues were peaking at the height of the CD sales boom, publishers received just 23% of revenues. In 2014, however, when label revenues had deteriorated, publishers were growing modestly and CMOs reported “record-breaking collections” up to 45% of global revenues. Record labels grew faster than publishers over the next seven years, however.
Record labels’ share of revenue increased due to “the recovery in consumer spend on music,” according to Page, “which traditionally favors labels over publishers.” The trend was amplified by the pandemic’s impact on business licensing – such as performance rights blanket licenses for retail, radio and concert venues – that favors publishers over labels.
Had the pandemic not occurred, performing rights income would have likely grown at 6% a year and would “arguably” be $1 billion greater today – a possible $9.4 billion rather than the actual $8.4 billion. On the other hand, wrote Page, “had the pandemic not happened, streaming may never have accelerated the way it did.”
Royalty-free music is a small part of the global music business but growing quickly thanks to the increasing need for easily licensed music on online platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. MIDiA Research put the value of royalty-free music – meaning the license is a one-time purchase without residual royalties – at $250 million in 2021.
LONDON — Paul Pacifico, the outgoing CEO of the U.K.’s Association of Independent Music (AIM), has been hired to head the Saudi Music Commission, which is responsible for developing and championing the burgeoning music sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Pacifico takes up the post in January. He will succeed Mohammed Al Mulhem, who is listed on the Saudi Music Commission website as the incumbent chief executive.
The Saudi Music Commission was established by the Ministry of Culture in 2020 as part of a wider push to grow Saudi Arabia’s economy and status as a high-end global tourist destination.
The commission says its objective is overseeing the development of Saudi’s music market through building world-class infrastructure, providing universal access to music education, empowering music artists and creating job opportunities in the country, which has a population of 35 million.
Specific market data for Saudi Arabia’s music industry isn’t currently available, with IFPI grouping the country within its Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional statistics. According to IFPI’s latest Global Music Report, MENA was the fastest-growing region in 2021, with recorded music trade revenues growing by 35% to $89.5 million.
International artists have, however, often faced strong criticism for performing in Saudi Arabia and helping promote a country widely accused of human rights abuses.
Last year, the Human Rights Foundation and the fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi led calls for Justin Bieber to cancel his headline performance at a concert in the Red Sea city of Jeddah to mark the end of the Formula One season.
Despite public pressure for Bieber to pull out, the concert went ahead on Dec. 5, with R&B singer Jason Derulo also performing at the show. In 2019, Nicki Minaj canceled her appearance at a concert in Jeddah. At the time, Minaj said she was boycotting the show in support of women’s rights, gay rights and freedom of expression.
Only a few years ago, concerts were banned in Saudi Arabia, where ultraconservative norms prevailed, and unmarried men and women were segregated in public spaces. That changed with the appointment of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017, who has introduced sweeping reforms to modernize the country, attract foreign investment and create jobs for youth.
MDLBEAST Soundstorm, the biggest music festival in the region, launched in the capital city of Riyadh in 2019, while its latest edition set to take place Dec. 1-3 with performances by DJ Khaled, Post Malone, Bruno Mars, Wizkid, David Guetta, Marshmello, Tiësto and Carl Cox, among others.
“It is truly remarkable to see the level of support and the pace of change within Saudi Arabia as it builds a strong music sector for all to participate in,” Pacifico said in a statement announcing his appointment. He called the opportunity to help further develop the market a “huge privilege” and said he was looking forward to working with colleagues to “build a vibrant, inclusive and effective music sector.”
It is not known if Pacifico will relocate from the U.K. to Saudi Arabia when he takes up his new post.
In August, Pacifico announced he was stepping down as CEO of AIM after six years at the head of the organization, which represents more than 1,000 independent labels, artists and music companies, including Beggars Group, Domino, Warp and Ninja Tune.
Pacifico’s term as CEO officially ended on Oct. 31, but he is continuing in the role until the end of the year when his successor takes over.
Key achievements from Pacifico’s two-term tenure include last year’s Music Climate Pact, an industrywide initiative to decarbonize the record business backed by all three major labels and dozens of indies.
Pacifico is an associate professor at Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain and is featured in Billboard’s 2022 International Power Players list. He spoke on behalf of the indie sector during last year’s U.K. Parliament probe into music streaming. And during Brexit negotiations and the COVID-19 pandemic, he petitioned the British government for greater support for independent musicians and music companies.
Prior to joining AIM in 2016, Pacifico served as CEO of the UK’s Featured Artist Coalition and founding president of the International Artist Organisation.
The anti-hero of the Nov. 5-dated Billboard charts, Taylor Swift tallies 20 debuts on the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. Every song from the expanded, “3am Edition” version of her new album Midnights launches in the top 40 of the former and the top half of the latter, led by “Anti-Hero” at No. 1 on both rankings.
The 20 songs on the set – which soars in at No. 1 on the U.S.-based Billboard 200 albums chart with the biggest week (by equivalent album units) in seven years – collectively drew 1.16 billion official streams and sold 211,000 downloads worldwide in the week ending Oct. 27, according to Luminate. That’s the biggest global streaming figure for an album this year, passing Bad Bunny’s 1.06 billion clicks in the week ending May 12 upon the arrival of Un Verano Sin Ti.
The 13 titles on the standard edition of Midnights garnered 973 million global streams, accounting for 84% of the set’s overall streaming figure despite equaling 65% of the total track listing. Standard-version tracks averaged 75 million clicks, compared to 26 million for “3am Edition”-only tracks. (The original version of Midnights arrived at midnight ET Oct. 21, followed by the “3am Edition” at, when else, 3 a.m.)
While standard Midnights songs scored nearly three times the global streams as their deluxe counterparts, the opposite was true in the sales market. The seven extra songs sold a combined 138,000 downloads worldwide, while the 13 standard songs amassed 73,000 (as many consumers likely purchased the set’s original version as a whole and upgraded to buying the seven bonus cuts à la carte, activity also reflected on the U.S.-based Digital Song Sales chart).
Meanwhile, Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy,” the No. 1 song on both global charts the previous four weeks, falls to No. 6 on the Global 200, acting as the only interruption to Midnights’ near-total takeover atop the tally, as the 13 standard-edition tracks are Nos. 1-5 and 7-14. The seven additional songs rank at Nos. 21-22, 24, 30-31, 35 and 37, giving Swift half the chart’s top 40 songs.
Swift has accumulated 94 entries on the Global 200, leading all acts, over Lil Baby (69), Drake (61), Lil Durk (55) and Bad Bunny (52), since the survey started in September 2020. She also owns the record on Global Excl. U.S. with 75 entries, besting Bad Bunny and Drake at 52 apiece.
Sony Music has set up a joint venture with label ONEWAY. Records focused on English-language repertoire from Israel.
ONEWAY. Records, which was founded by music executives and brothers Josh and Sam Fluxgold, who formerly managed Dennis Lloyd, the Israeli indie-pop artist known for his 2016 single “Nevermind” (released by Warner Italy).
The new venture will work to discover and develop new artists from Israel with “international appeal,” Sony says in a press release.
The Fluxgolds discovered Lloyd and helped guide his international success, which has featured Gold and Platinum records across several markets and sold-out world tours in the U.S., Europe and Australia. “Nevermind” peaked at No. 86 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2018 and reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart.
“Josh and Sam have a proven track record for breaking Israeli talent abroad,” said Daniel Lieberberg, president of Sony Music Entertainment Continental Europe and Africa, in a statement.
The Fluxgolds will remain in Toronto, Canada, where they run ONEWAY., a Sony Music spokesperson confirms.
“During our time working in the Israeli market, we recognized the substantial talent that is being overlooked and underrepresented in the region,” the Fluxgold brothers said in a joint statement. “Together with our partners at Sony Music, we look forward to showcasing the unique Israeli sound and artists that the world has been missing.”
Sony will continue to lead its Israel business from its Continental Europe and Africa Head Office in Berlin, a spokesperson says, in contrast to its two main rivals, which have set up operations there over the past three years. Universal Music Group opened an office in Tel Aviv in 2020, becoming the first major label to set up standalone operations in the country; it is led by Yoram Mokady, a lawyer and entertainment executive. Universal Music Publishing Group followed suit in 2021, hiring Itamar Shafrir as general manager of the new outpost.
Warner Music Group said in May that it was launching Warner Music Israel and would open an office in Tel Aviv. Running the new imprint is Mariah Mochiach, general manager of Warner Music Israel, a veteran A&R and artist manager who worked for more than 10 years at Lev Group Media, which has acted as an Israeli distributor for Warner Music.
While still a relatively small market, Israel is a growing territory that ranked 27th in global music collections in 2021, with 35.6 million euros ($35.2 million), up 5.5% from 2020, according to international collections body CISAC. Pop artists like Noa Kirel, who is signed to Warner Music imprint Atlantic Records, are big at home but have struggled to cross over, though that could change for Kirel, who is slated to represent Israel at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool, U.K. (Israel has won the contest four times since 1978.)
Last year, UMG and Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment said they would award an international recording deal to the winner of the upcoming season of The X Factor Israel, something previously unheard of in the Israeli music market. Cowell was set to be a judge on the fourth season of the show but pulled out in May of 2021, Variety reported.
Members of Duran Duran teased a 2023 tour, saying they would return to the U.S. and Europe, and lead singer Simon Le Bon revealed his favorite U.S. venue of all time.
In an onstage chat at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre on Thursday (Oct. 27), before premiering their docu-concert film, A Hollywood High, the British new wave legends — Le Bon, keyboard player Nick Rhodes, bassist John Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor — confirmed they will be back on the road next year.
“We are going to be touring again next year,” John Taylor said. “Nothing is confirmed yet, but we will be coming back to the Los Angeles area. We are going to be in Europe, we are going to be in the U.K.”
Roger Taylor added that the band will hit “all the cities that we didn’t do in the U.S.”
Duran Duran has kept up a busy touring schedule in 2022, playing 35 dates including Midsummer at Skansen near Stockholm and Sommerstemning Lillestrøm near Olso and headliner performances at Tuscany’s famed La Prima Estate Festival near Lido di Camaiore and a special one-night engagement at Caledonian Stadium in Inverness, Scotland.
The band spent August touring U.S. arenas, including a stop at Madison Square Garden in New York on Aug. 25, and an epic three-night run at the Hollywood Bowl for the release of their fifteenth studio album, Future Past.
The band is slated to perform a Halloween show on Monday at the Wynn Las Vegas’ Encore Theatre but would not reveal their costumes — though they did rule out dressing as Santa Claus (Rhodes), an M&M (John Taylor) or a jelly fish (Le Bon). Rhodes said his recent trip to a costume store left him “quite cross” because it was dominated with Christmas wear. “All the fabulous creatures were gone,” Rhodes said.
Responding to an audience member question, Rhodes said the band may also release their next album, Reportage, in 2023. “It needs a little work, but it’s possible,” he said.
On Thursday, Duran Duran celebrated Le Bon’s birthday (which is also his father’s) with the movie premiere audience — which sang happy birthday to him before the 75-minute film screened in Dolby Vision-Atomos. The film delves into the band’s early history and connection with Los Angeles to set up a performance earlier this year on the rooftop of the Aster, a private members club in Hollywood. While the group performs at sunset a drone captures sweeping shots in the background of the Hollywood sign and the Capitol Building, which at one point during the show was lit up in the yellow and light blue of Ukraine’s flag in a show of support for the nation’s effort to repel an invading Russia.
The band confirmed that in its four-decade history it had never performed a show on a rooftop, but that it made more sense during pandemic. “We kind of had to be talked into it,” John Taylor said, noting that the band initially planned to perform on a flatbed truck driving along Sunset Boulevard to promote their three-date Los Angeles swing. But that “started getting problematic,” Taylor said. “There was a point where there was a slope. And we were like, ‘How are we going to keep the drums on this?’”
Duran Duran said that the rooftop gig wasn’t intended initially to be turned into a film. “We document a lot of what we do, and it generally just goes into the archive and nobody every sees it,” John Taylor said. The show “was essentially a showcase to launch the American tour. And the fact that we didn’t know we were making a movie, you get an authenticity that you wouldn’t get if we knew we were making a film.”
Roger Taylor said that co-director Gavin Elder “kind of snuck up on us with this film. He didn’t’ really tell us he was making a movie … and [as a result] it’s very real.”
The film hits theaters in the U.S. and around the world on Nov. 3.
While the rooftop was a new special memory for the band, when asked by an audience member what was their favorite U.S. venue of all time, Le Bon enthusiastically endorsed Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre. “You go there, and you look at it and it looks like some ancient alien, space-faring race had just dumped this spaceship there a million years ago,” he said, “and we turned it into a music venue.”
Additional Reporting by Dave Brooks
KYIV, UKRAINE — “Respect my borders,” the large entry stamp reads, pressed in bold black block letters down my forearm.
Here, a massive courtyard is flanked on one side by a crumbly brick building well over a hundred years old and on the other side by the yellowing building’s new, stainless-steel addition. Techno is pulsating through the open door of the building — the leading techno club in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The space officially has no name. Located at the edge of Kyiv inside a former brewery, the club’s logo and de facto identifying mark is a mathematical sign, ∄, used in high-level calculus to indicate the value for a formula that does not exist. It also reflects the club’s interest in self-promotion — nonexistent. For pronunciation and reference, Kyiv’s techno community knows ∄ as “K41,” a moniker that combines the venue’s street name and building number.
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And in keeping with the ∄ symbol’s meaning, team members at the club don’t want to insert themselves into the club’s bigger story — they prefer to remain anonymous and peripheral to their venue and community. “Instead,” several from this group explain to Billboard, “we are all just members of the ∄ team.”
Though initially intended to remind guests that despite the world of possibility inside the club, personal boundaries are to be observed and respected, my entry stamp’s commandment has taken new meaning since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. It is a reminder that Ukraine is in an existential fight for its existence.
The ongoing invasion ended ∄’s latest season, called Dance.Delivery, just two days before its scheduled opening weekend in this past February. But on Oct. 15, after nearly eight months of war, ∄ reopened its doors to Kyiv for the first time and revived the canceled season, in a defiant display of Ukrainian resiliency during the war.
At the Oct. 15 event, hundreds of club goers clad mostly in black revel on the dance floor. For many, their first time clubbing in nearly eight months provides an outlet for joy and the release that comes from dancing together. “The crowd today is different,” one of ∄’s team members says. A palpable lightness filled the space. “Less naked bodies,” she quips. “Maybe because it’s the first event, maybe it’s because of the music today; it’s calmer.”
Much of the building’s original texture is preserved. Dancefloors and soundsystems are woven into the brewery’s architecturally complex interior, which has been fashioned into nine separate dance spaces that can altogether host upwards of 15,000 attendees. Original 1870s-era logo mosaics are juxtaposed against glittering glass-and-tile DJ booths and pits that once housed enormous copper brewing vats are transformed into vast, pool-like seating areas.
The front lines of the war are hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian capital. And while the city is slowly removing the concrete-and-sandbag checkpoints and steel vehicle obstacles it had scrambled into place during the early days of the Russian invasion, the decision to reopen ∄ and revive its aborted season did not come easy.
On Oct. 10, just days before the planned reopening, early morning blasts shook the Ukrainian capital awake as Russian rockets and missiles struck civilian targets in Kyiv and other cities throughout Ukraine. The attack in Kyiv killed at least eight people and wounded scores of others. ∄’s team wrestled with their desire to revive techno in Kyiv. Could they kick off the canceled Dance.Delivery season? Should they go forward with the event?
All of Ukraine is currently under martial law, a response to the Russian invasion that provides the legal framework necessary for curtailing movement during the war. Military-age males are not allowed to leave the country and large gatherings like sporting events are forbidden.
Kyiv’s ∄ club
Kateryna Smirnova
After deciding to move ahead, ∄’s team members opted to cap the first installment of Dance.Delivery at a few hundred attendees, opening just one of the venue’s spaces to keep the event intimate and out of concern for guest safety amidst potential Russian shelling. And rather than throwing a typical night event, the space opened in the afternoon and closed its doors before 10 p.m. in order not to run afoul of Kyiv’s city-wide nighttime curfew restrictions.
Practical hurdles had to be overcome as well. During the early days of the Russian invasion, ∄’s team members took advantage of the former brewery’s thick concrete and brick architecture, transforming the building into an ersatz bomb shelter and temporary housing for the displaced. Sound equipment and DJ booths were moved to make space for bunkbeds and cots.
One of ∄’s sound engineers voiced his worry that sound equipment might not work because of humidity exposure during its nearly eight months of storage. “If the electricity cuts out because of a blackout or any other reason,” he says, hinting at the slight but genuine possibility of an explosion somewhere in the city, “we have backup generators. We’ll be fine.”
The first installment of Dance.Delivery was thus undoubtedly far from typical — but it was a defiant and resounding success. As afternoon turned to evening, dancers gradually fill up ∄, with a mishmash of fresh, youthful faces mixed in with ∄’s veteran crowd all moving to sets by Ukrainian artists Cantrust and Human Margareeta. Three flavors of dress prevailed: blacks and whites, leathers and fishnets, and not much at all.
A Small But Growing Scene
Ukraine’s techno scene is smaller than scenes in other European cities, but it’s burgeoning — and no less fervent. Though relatively new, ∄ offers a space for the kind of easy abandon enjoyed by techno communities in Berlin or London. At the former brewery in Kyiv, clubbers and dancers enjoy the freedom to experience music, dance and community, restricted only by the boundaries other visitors make for themselves, boundaries that are scrupulously respected.
For Vlad Shast, an exuberant 40-something drag queen and one of the club’s wide ensemble of standout regulars, ∄ is a profoundly meaningful space — and not just because of the music. “Before K41 opened, I never felt like I had a place where I belonged,” Shast explains between stints on the dancefloor. Shast has been fixture at ∄ since the space opened in 2019 and is closely involved with ∄’s ХІТЬ, a word that translates to “lust,” and the name of a regular queer party series the club held before the Russian invasion.
“I can show my inner creator and be fully accepted by people around me. I can be truly myself, truly me,” he says of ∄’, twirling the edge of a translucent gossamer dress he made in February before the Russian invasion, specifically for the first installment of ∄’s Dance.Delivery season. “After the beginning of the war, I didn’t have time to realize how much [the club] meant to me,” Shast adds, brushing strands of an ornate, homemade headdress made of woven black zip ties away from his face.
But, he acknowledges, at first, after the rocket attacks, he couldn’t imagine going back to ∄. “I felt like I would be dancing on people’s graves,” he says.
After deep conversations with ∄’s organizers and friends, Shast concluded that reopening is a question of prioritization. Following the rocket attacks in the capital, “we were so focused on the dead,” Shast says. And while this is entirely understandable for a community so directly faced with the challenges of war, “we should be focused on the living,” he says.
The decision to reopen is one that Shast appreciates. It was only during the middle of the party, “when I had a moment by myself, that I fully felt what the Russians took away from me,” Shast says. The invasion, he continues, took away the “ability to share my art, my ability to connect with my people, my ability to connect with my community.”
For him, this night on ∄’s dancefloor was a celebration of life, not a commemoration of death.
A Tie to Berghain and German Ravers
The space has a deep connection to Germany. ∄’s founders tapped the same group that designed the world capital of techno — Berlin’s Berghain — for their space. In 2020 and 2021, Berliners took weekend trips to Kyiv en mass to escape Germany’s strict Covid lockdowns and Berlin’s shuttered techno clubs.
Cognizant of both the techno scene’s particular proclivities as well as the increasingly international audience that ∄ pulls into its orbit — international acts including LSDXOXO, Ben UFO, and DJ Stingray have all played there — the club passes out fliers to partygoers in Ukrainian and English that explain how various drugs can interact if taken together, how to prevent overdosing and hangovers, and how to navigate sexual consent while partying. Other cards carefully explain what to do if stopped by police, citizens’ rights, and how police in Ukraine are allowed to interact with people on the street.
Several of ∄’s team members sought refuge in Berlin during the early days of the Russian invasion. And though grateful for the initial support Germany offered Ukrainians fleeing war, many Ukrainians who came to Germany had what they call a profoundly frustrating, even maddening experience during their stay.
“Before the Russian invasion, I thought Europeans were very privileged,” a ∄ team member explains over a beer at ∄’s bar. “Affordable health insurance and a high standard of living” are certainly things to be admired, she says, draining her beer and setting it resolutely on the bar counter. “But now I know that Ukrainians are the ones that are privileged.”
When asked why, she stares me dead in the eye. In this war, “Ukrainians know that pacifism is not an option,” she says, voicing frustration with some European countries commonly heard in Ukraine — and with Germany in particular.
Kyiv’s ∄ club
Kateryna Smirnova
Exasperation is felt particularly acutely towards the clamoring for the laying down of arms and calls for immediate peace — viewpoints many on the ∄ team call increasingly out of step with the reality of battlefields in Ukraine, where civilians are regularly targeted and where evidence of brutal Russian war crimes in recently liberated towns and villages is steadily mounting.
Though some of ∄’s approximately 130 team members are still abroad, many have returned to Ukraine, homeward journeys that brought them back to a country at war. Their reasons for returning are myriad, but the ∄ team member at the bar says that some of their security staff enlisted in the Ukrainian army and are now fighting at the front lines.
∄ is throwing everything it has behind its friends and family fighting at the front. This first Dance.Delivery event ultimately raised 150,855 Ukrainian hryvnia (nearly $4,100) through donations at the door. The money went towards the Hospitallers paramedic group, a Ukrainian organization of volunteer paramedics.
Just two days after the first installment of Dance.Delivery, another series of explosions ripped through downtown Kyiv, striking cultural sites, one of the city’s primary power substations, and other non-military infrastructure. The attack killed at least four people and injured dozens more — a stark reminder that despite the weekend’s semblance of normalcy, conflict elsewhere in the country has not ended.
“Our building survived two world wars,” one of ∄’s team members explains. “I hope it will survive this war too.” Yet, despite the air raid alarms and the explosions, for a single night, both ∄ and Kyiv were alive — and dancing.
AMSTERDAM — While dance music makes up a relatively slim portion of the global music industry — earning a $6 billion valuation in 2021 — the genre felt like the center of the universe last week in the Netherlands.
Or at least the center of Amsterdam’s fairytale Centrum district, with dance/electronic music taking over this canal-lined neighborhood and points beyond for the 26th edition of the Amsterdam Dance Event, or ADE, the world’s largest gathering of the global electronic industry.
Launched in 1996 and returning for its first full-fledged edition since 2019 — with 2020 and 2021 moved online and trimmed down dramatically due to the pandemic — the four-day conference drew an estimated 10,000 agents, managers, label owners, product developers, publicists, execs, data analysts, journalists, veteran and emerging artists, event producers and all other varieties of dance scene professionals from across global markets, with a heavy influx of European and U.S. attendees.
Think of it like the global electronic industry going on a field trip to the Dutch capital together, with one-on-one discussions, panels, product demonstrations, mixers, many stroopwafels and a lot of dancing all on the packed itinerary of the four-day ADE, which spanned Oct. 18-22.
ADE 2022 also featured more than 1,000 club and festival shows, which were geared towards both delegates and the roughly 450,000 fans who took part in the bacchanal.
A Pro portion of the conference — designed for established professionals, with scene newcomers taking part in ADE’s parallel Lab programming — featured more than 130 discussions in 10 meeting spaces located across two stately historic buildings over four days. They addressed a dizzying range of topics, with a few key themes emerging.
One was how a sound fostered by technology is itself keeping up with emerging tech. While other music industry conferences have made Web3 a focal point following the explosion of the sector, ADE programming didn’t linger on the topic, with just a handful of discussions on the metaverse, AI and NFTs. Even without the official spotlight, however, Web3 was a hot topic on the ground, with one representative from an electronic-forward NFT company noting that while non-fungible tokens may not be something every artist is especially passionate about, their company is seeing real evidence of NFT sales allowing for emerging and middle-tier artists to earn a living wage. For them, this revolution in earnings potential adds a very human, and thus widely compelling, dynamic to the sector. (And to a field, they also noted, which could use a diversity influx, given its current domination by “cis, white crypto bros.”)
Others observed that it will take Web3 coalescing into an umbrella company like Google or Apple for the possibilities that the technology presents to be adopted by the wider population. One person involved in signing up attendees of a major U.S. music festival with crypto wallets as part of the event, noted that months later, only a small fraction of the crowd is still using this tool.
Amsterdam Dance Event 2022
Kapa Photgraphy
On a more holistic level, several panel conversations touched on the FOMO-fueled rat race many artists and others in the scene are experiencing as a function of social media. “Perception is the new reality,” noted Jori Lowery of management agency Conflux during a Wednesday afternoon panel discussion, observing that many artists in the scene struggle when comparing their careers with other acts who appear to be busier.
During a Friday afternoon conversation between veteran producer Seth Troxler and journalist Joe Muggs, Troxler observed how the internet has fueled the dance scene’s growth during the last decade, but not always necessarily in a good way. “That switch from the club culture and the localization of culture to these really large events and this kind of FOMO culture, where it’s like, ‘I want to go to a big-ticket event, see everyone, get the picture,’” Troxler said.
“Maybe the party’s not even good,” the DJ continued, “but there’s loads of people there and no dancing, whereas you go to a small party with 100 people and it’s a great vibe, and that’s cool too. It doesn’t have to be this mega thing all the time, even though the mega thing is cool, or it’s accessible, at some point it grows our culture, but also kills our culture.”
A Wednesday afternoon conversation with Ultra Records founder Patrick Moxey — at ADE to speak on the launch of his new label Helix — emphasized that the real necessity for artists to be online, and particularly on TikTok and Instagram, is because both platforms can be powerful tools for fanbase development, even as these platforms present new challenges. One member in the audience observed that while many artists are reluctant to put themselves online, thinking that a heavy digital presence is uncool, it’s necessary for acts to “get over their egos” to gain real traction. The observation drew applause from the crowd.
The audience was quieter during a Thursday afternoon panel on doing business in conflict areas — both in the U.S. and around the world. Panelists discussed if and how artists and brands should work in U.S. states that have banned abortion and in regions with a records of human rights violations like Saudi Arabia. (Members of the team from MDLBEAST, the Riyadh electronic festival launched in 2019, were on the ground at ADE, with many delegates pondering if and how to do business with the fest, with some keen to participate and others remaining more reticent.) While some on the panel and in the audience expressed reasonable ethical qualms about hosting events and sending artists to play in such controversial regions, others argued that it’s unfair to advise on best practices in any area that one hasn’t personally traveled to.
If there was a consensus from this conversation, it was that it’s vital for each sector of the scene to first acknowledge and work on its own issues before engaging in finger-pointing, particularly with respect to the scene’s consistent allegations of sexual misconduct amongst DJs and others involved in nightlife culture and a pervasive lack of diversity. (“It’s still a systemic issue of most agents and managers being white men,” observed one delegate who spoke to Billboard on the condition of anonymity, in regards to why inclusivity isn’t happening more quickly.)
But while ADE demonstrated the scene’s varying challenges, it also highlighted the many people working to solve them. A variety of panels focused on fostering greater diversity in the scene and featured leaders in the dance music space, including Black Artist Database (B.A.D.) co-founder NIKS and BEAUTIFUL label founder SHERELLE, who spoke to how B.A.D., a crowd-sourced list of Black artists, producers and creators, is helping Black artists form community outside of traditional power structures. There was also a full day of ADE Lab programming designed by She.Said.So, an organization that works to connect and empower underrepresented communities in electronic music and beyond.
At a Friday night mixer hosted by Spotify – which ended with a drone show soundtracked by Tiësto — one longstanding ADE attendee noted that in terms of inclusivity, ADE 2022 felt like a legitimate shift. This attendee noted more diversity among attendees and lineups and how delegates also generally seemed more open and interested in chatting. “There’s been a temperate change in the event overall,” they said.
Amsterdam Dance Event 2022
Tom Doms
Meanwhile, a full day’s worth of programming about sustainability initiatives in the scene offered glimmers of hope in the face of climate change. One longstanding attendee noted that in this part of October the canals of Amsterdam used to be frozen over, while last week it was often possible to walk around without a jacket. (A weekend festival by Dutch festival producer DGTL, which has a strong sustainability program, demonstrated that even large-scale events can operate with reusable cups and meat-free food vendors.)
And of course, several conversations turned to Berlin’s iconic techno club Berghain, which has been rumored to be shuttering soon after the closure of both its in-house label and management agency. One source well-connected in the Berlin scene noted that the venue may be converted into residential lofts, and that given the potential revenue of this project, the building’s current owners “are struggling to reject the deal.”
Elsewhere during the week: Tomorrowland premiered its 25-minute after-movie of its 2022 festival at the elegant art deco Royal Theater Tuschinski. (The film’s lessons about the power of community and catharsis in the dance world elicited a few actual tears.) Eric Prydz blew peoples’ minds while performing his much-lauded HOLO shows — a few delegates called the performance the best they’d ever seen. Honey Dijon headlined a buzzy Back to Black showcase with a lineup including Kerri Chandler and TSHA. Claude VonStroke announced that EMPIRE had acquired his previously independent and much-beloved Dirtybird label and Diplo gave a keynote address about his career trajectory, noting that his musical history in Jamaica began when he was booked to play the seafaring Jam Cruise festival and just got off the boat on the island nation because he wasn’t enjoying himself onboard.
Delegates also buzzed about Pioneer DJ’s acquisition of DJ Monitor — the software that tracks what songs artists play during their sets will soon be integrated directly into Pioneer hardware, which many feel will be a big step forward for royalty collection. (ADE is itself sponsored by Dutch collection agency BUMA.)
Ultimately, after a long absence of togetherness, ADE 2022 functioned as an industry show and tell, a four-day reunion and the dance scene’s prevailing place to dissect, solve and celebrate the incredible number of issues, sounds and scenes that exist within it.
LONDON — For live music executives, Monday’s (Oct. 24) appointment of Rishi Sunak as Liz Truss’ successor as U.K.’s prime minister brings a sense of urgency as the sector struggles to recover to full health after the devastating impact of the pandemic.
They are calling for Sunak, who served in Boris Johnson’s government as Chancellor of the Exchequer and will become the U.K.’s first British-Asian prime minister, to swiftly cut the sales tax rate charged on U.K. ticket purchases from the current 20% VAT to 5%.
At the height of the pandemic, Sunak lowered VAT rates to 5% to try and help boost advance sales. The tax cut lasted for eight months, before rising to 12.5% last October and then returning to its pre-pandemic level of 20% on April 1.
Live execs say that cutting VAT back to 5% will encourage ticket sales at a time when many people in the U.K. are experiencing a drastic reduction in disposable income due to soaring food and energy prices. Last month, inflation hit a 40-year high of 10.1% in the United Kingdom.
Jon Collins, CEO of U.K. live music industry association LIVE, says he hopes Sunak’s experience in the Treasury office “leaves him well placed to recognize the economic stimulus that would follow” a reduction in VAT on ticket sales. “Safeguarding gigs, festivals and venues while encouraging additional activity will bring benefits to town and city centers across the U.K.,” says Collins.
An immediate priority for the new prime minister — who officially takes up his post on Tuesday, following a meeting with King Charles III — will be restoring confidence in the financial markets, following Truss’ disastrously brief reign.
Last month, the pound fell to a record low against the U.S. dollar in the aftermath of Kwasi Kwarteng’s Sept. 23 mini budget, which spooked investors with its unfunded tax cuts — something Sunak warned about when he unsuccessfully competed in an earlier Conservative Party leadership contest this summer. Truss sacked Kwarteng as Chancellor on Oct. 14, precipitating her downfall. Almost all the tax measures he introduced have since been scrapped.
Sunak, a former hedge fund partner who married the daughter of an Indian billionaire, won the prime minister role after Johnson announced on Sunday he would not be running for the position. On Monday, Sunak’s only other rival, Penny Mordaunt, pulled out of the contest shortly before votes from members of Parliament (MPs) were due to be announced.
The markets calmed Monday with sterling broadly unchanged against the dollar and government borrowing costs falling as the interest rate on bonds dropped to 3.8%. (The rate was 5.17% in late September.)
“There is no doubt we face a profound economic challenge,” Sunak, one of Westminster’s wealthiest politicians, said in a televised address. “We now need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring our party and our country together.”
Michael Kill CEO of The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), which represents more than 1,400 U.K. nightclubs and venues, says he will judge the incoming prime minister on his “actions not words.”
Kill says he hoped Sunak can “can address the current instability, uncertainty and begin a journey to build back consumer confidence for nighttime economy and hospitality businesses.” He echoed live executives’ demands for a cut to VAT and called for an extension on business rates relief (taxes payable on business premises, such as record shops and music venues). “Independent businesses will not survive without it,” Kill says.
Warner Music Middle East has a new general manager, with Ahmed Nureni chosen to replace a departing Moe Hamzeh. Nuhreni arrives from music distribution company Qanawat Music, which WMG acquired earlier this year, and will continue to be based in Dubai — though WMME’s headquarters and staff will remain in Beirut.
Nuhreni, who’ll report to Alfonso Perez-Soto, president of emerging markets at Warner Recorded Music, will continue to run Qanawat in tandem with his duties at Warner. In a statement, he said his “dual role will allow me to harness synergies from both businesses and be thoughtful and strategic in the way we grow Warner Music Middle East’s artist roster,” adding, “There’s so much creative potential in our region and we’re only just beginning to tap into it.”
WMME’s mandate is sprawling, covering a total of 17 markets: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Hamzeh helped launch Warner Music Middle East in 2018; the company now says he is moving on to pursue other projects in music. He had previously been head of content at digital streaming platform m.media and, earlier in his career, worked at Temple Entertainment and Virgin Megastores.
Perez-Soto called Nureni a “brilliant exec who combines an amazing ear for music with a brilliant strategic mind,” adding, “With the support of our amazing team in Beirut, he’ll champion artists from the region and help them connect with a global audience. I’d also like to thank Moe Hamzeh for all his amazing support over the last five years and wish him good luck in his next adventures.”
Simon Robson, president of International at Warner Recorded Music, called the Middle East and North Africa a “priority market for us” as “highlighted by our accelerated activity in MENA in the last 18 months” — in early 2021 WMG invested in the region’s largest indie label, Rotana Music — “but we have further ambitious growth plans, which Ahmed will help us deliver.”