State Champ Radio Publishing
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BMG has acquired the catalog of Peter Frampton, the company announced today (Dec. 7). The deal includes his publishing, songwriter, artist and session work revenue streams, as well as his neighboring rights, for the entirety of his career, including massive hits like “Baby I Love Your Way” and “Show Me the Way,” as well as his work with Humble Pie. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In a statement, Frampton said he was “pleased to join the BMG family. As an artist-first company, I trust BMG will care for my legacy and that my songs are in good hands.”
It’s the latest acquisition deal for BMG, which has also picked up the rights to catalogs of Harry Nilsson, Jean-Michel Jarre, John Lee Hooker and John Legend (in partnership with KKR) in the past year. This deal extends as far back to works by Frampton’s first band, The Herd, and includes his latest album, 2019’s All Blues.
“From his incredible early rise of success to Humble Pie, his countless collaborations to achieving global stardom as a solo artist, Peter Frampton is one of the most inspirational and tireless musicians of his time,” BMG’s president repertoire & marketing for New York and Los Angeles Thomas Scherer said in a statement. “We are proud a legendary artist of his caliber entrusts BMG as the custodians of his most treasured works. A revered musical catalog of this magnitude, paid tribute to by countless artists, will continue to live on for generations.”
In the latest example of a stellar synch bringing in a surprise windfall, The Cramps‘ 1981 psychobilly classic “Goo Goo Muck” has become a breakout hit over the past couple of weeks.
Since Netflix’s new Addams Family spinoff Wednesday debuted on Nov. 23, including the series’ titular heroine performing dance sequence set to “Goo Goo Muck”, the track has taken off on streaming services.
In the week following the show’s release, from Nov. 25 to Dec. 1, The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck” was streamed on-demand over 2 million times in the U.S. — a more than 8,650% increase from the average 47 weeks before this year. That adds up to $11,089.85 in a single week for the Capitol Records master recording and $2,492.33 in publishing, according to Billboard estimates.
Those numbers dwarf the rest of the song’s 2022 activity — until the Wednesday dance sequence came out, “Goo Goo Muck” this year had generated a total of $130.21 per week for the master and $32.28 for the publisher. Thanks to the Wednesday synch, The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck” earned in total almost 78% more money in a single week than it had for the entire year.
“It’s a really amazing, fun little bonanza,” Jim Shaw, a member of the late country legend Buck Owens‘ Buckaroos, who happens to own the publishing, told Billboard last week.
Early streaming activity suggests “Goo Goo Muck,” a cover of a 1962 single by Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads, could potentially follow Kate Bush‘s renaissance when her minor 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill” landed in Stranger Things and turned into a smash. “Goo Goo Muck” had 2,500 daily on-demand streams as of Nov. 22; by Dec. 1, the track jumped to more than 209,000 daily streams, according to Luminate.
The streaming boost for “Goo Goo Muck” is a bonus on top of the upfront synch fee — the amount of which is unknown — that would have been paid on both the master recording and the publishing for the song.
Capitol reps did not respond to an interview request, but Shaw, who runs the Buck Owens Foundation, said he scored the publishing rights after the original publisher, Dave Bell, felt guilty about owing his friend Shaw “a couple thousand dollars” and offered the song instead. (Bell, who died in 2013, owned a recording studio, label and publishing company in his hometown of Bakersfield, Calif., and put out Cook’s original version of “Goo Goo Muck.”)
“It hasn’t really done much until recently,” Shaw says. “That’s what every songwriter, and publisher, hopes will happen. Anything they put on YouTube, they hope something goes viral.” If “Goo Goo Muck” goes full Kate Bush? “Well,” Shaw says. “[It] wouldn’t break my heart.”
Mexican singer-songwriter Danna Paola has signed an exclusive go-forward and full catalog publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music Mexico, Billboard has learned.
“I’ve been waiting for a music partner like this for a while now and couldn’t be happier,” the “XT4S1S” singer said in a statement. “As a songwriter, I’m glad to be part of a company that supports and respects their artists’ creativity, and I’m pretty sure we’re going to create magic together!”
Since releasing her album K.O. in 2021 — which peaked at No. 9 on Billboard‘s Latin Pop Albums chart (dated Jan. 30, 2021) — the 27-year-old artist has released a handful of singles including her latest “XT4S1S,” a euphoric and liberating track. Her 2020 project, SIE7E+, also entered the charts. It peaked at No. 16 on that same tally.
About the deal, Carlos Ruíz, Warner Chappell Music Mexico managing director, added: “Danna is an artist in every sense of the word. Her talent, professionalism, and dedication are the basis of her solid career and why she has become an icon of her generation — not only in Mexico but in many parts of the world. She provokes a unique connection with her fans through her music, and we are delighted that she has entrusted us to accompany her in all the successes that are to come.”
With more than 10 million listeners on Spotify and collabs with artists such as Sebastián Yatra, David Bisbal, Mau y Ricky, among others, Paola — who also starred in Netflix’s popular series Élite — is currently on the XT4S1S Tour in Mexico.
Over the years, Jim Shaw had loaned his friend Dave Bell, a longtime producer, publisher and label owner in Bakersfield, California, a couple of thousand dollars for various ventures — bits and pieces at a time. “He was one of the guys who kept rolling the dice,” Shaw recalls. “He’d make a million, then lose a million. Very interesting guy.”
By 2002, Bell was starting to feel guilty about how much money he owed to Shaw, a veteran member of Buck Owens‘ Buckaroos who now runs the late country legend’s foundation. Bell proposed a unique deal: In lieu of cash, he gave Shaw publishing rights to the rockabilly song “The Goo Goo Muck,” co-written and recorded by local country singer Ronnie Cook and his band, the Gaylads, in 1962. “At the time, it was like magic beans,” Shaw says. “[Bell] had a lot of gospel songs. He’d become very religious, and that song didn’t fit into what he wanted to do.”
Shaw knew, of course, that The Cramps had released a classic new-wave psychobilly-punk version of “Goo Goo Muck” in 1981, but since then the band’s popularity had faded and he never expected it to amount to much of anything. In fall 2021, though, the producers for Netflix’s Wednesday series called to license the Cramps’ version for a synch. When the Addams Family revival came out Nov. 23, the series saw record-breaking viewership and the track took off, much like Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill” last spring in Stranger Things, shooting from 2,500 streams the day before the premiere to 134,000 five days later. “It’s a really amazing, fun little bonanza,” says Shaw, 76. “I wasn’t familiar with the show, but I was happy to make the deal, and caught by surprise on all this.”
Bell, who died in 2013, was a U.S. Navy veteran who evolved from directing a church choir to recording artists, including local symphonies and a pre-stardom Merle Haggard, for his Bakersfield-area studio and his Audan Records label. He also owned a couple of publishing companies, including Damosi, named after his wife and daughters. Not much is known about Cook, who wrote “Goo Goo Muck” with Ed James. “I really thought it was a fun little song — the Duane Eddy guitar and that sound,” Shaw says. “I don’t know what this leads to. I was thinking of Pulp Fiction. Remember some of the really cool songs that got dusted off?”
Shaw, who is on the board of directors for the Buck Owens Foundation and has written songs of his own for Garth Brooks and Tom Jones, among others, recalls the late Bell as a character who was both religious and “had a potty-mouth.” Says Shaw, with a laugh: “He said, ‘The problem in this world is that people don’t pay attention to the fucking Ten Commandments.’”
Although Bell had done “very well in his life” as a label and studio owner and song publisher, Shaw says, he hit a rough period in the early 2000s and his friend started loaning him $100 or $200 at a time. “It kind of accumulated, and he was telling me how badly he felt about it. He says, ‘I want you to have this song.’ I said, ‘OK, sure,’” Shaw recalls. “It’s really cool. That’s what every songwriter and publisher hopes will happen. It’s what everybody dreams.”
Over the last six weeks, Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd., the trailblazing acquirer of music publishing and recording rights, has been buying up a different kind of asset. Over seven transactions since Oct. 18, the company has been repurchasing its own stock, 250,000 shares at a time, to help support its slumping share price. So far, it has spent 1.5 million pounds ($1.8 million) to buy back 1.75 million of its shares. And while that accounts for just 0.14% of the roughly 1.21 billion issued shares, it underscores a crucial conundrum for the publicly traded company.
While, like much of the music business, Hipgnosis’ business has been steadily growing thanks mostly to booming music streaming revenues, its shares have lost 34% of their value year-to-date through Nov. 29. That decline is about six times worse than the 5.7% drop suffered by the FTSE 350 Media Index, representing 10 media companies on the London Stock Exchange. It’s more than triple the New York Stock Exchange composite index’s 10.1% deficit.
Normally, buying back shares lifts a company’s stock by both providing demand (which supports the stock price) and reducing the number of shares outstanding (which increases the per-share equity value). But since Hipgnosis began repurchasing its shares on Oct. 18, its share price has fallen 3.5% while the stock market has solidly improved: Over that time, the FTSE 350 Media index rose 6.8% and the New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 9.5%.
The share repurchases to date have been too few to move the needle. At the Sept. 21 annual general meeting, Hipgnosis’ shareholders approved a repurchase program that can buy up to 14.99% of its issued share capital through Dec. 8. So far, less than 1% of that allowable number has been bought back. And with less than 10 days left until the deadline, Hipgnosis is unlikely to make a much more meaningful dent. As of March 31, the date of Hipgnosis’ latest financial statement, the company had only $30 million in cash and about $100 million of borrowing capacity under its $700 million revolving credit facility. To buy back that full 14.99% stake at the current price and exchange rate would cost the company another $180 million.
But buying enough shares to directly impact the price isn’t necessarily the goal. The repurchase program can still act as a signal to investors that the company believes its stock is undervalued and is taking measures to address the matter. If all goes well, the decision to return cash to shareholders will end up boosting investor confidence in the music fund. That could ultimately help its share price, which is currently trading at a 46.7% discount to the company’s operative net asset value per ordinary share, according to the company’s July 13 mid-year earnings results. (Operative NAV is the fair market value of the catalog with amortization added back.) Even after considering its $570 million of debt (as of March 31), Hipgnosis shares are still trading 27.7% below the catalog’s value.
On paper, Hipgnosis should be a safe bet for investors: It buys dependable, recession-proof music intellectual property that churns out predictable royalties that are uncorrelated with the marketplace. The face of the company, founder Merck Mercuriadis, reshaped music investing by bucking the tradition of using debt to fund catalog acquisitions and launching the first publicly traded, equity-backed royalty fund that focused solely on music assets. Mercuriadis runs an investment advisory, Hipgnosis Songs Management, that collects a fee for managing the publicly traded company’s catalog. Mercuriadis declined to comment for this article.
From 2018 to 2021, Hipgnosis raised almost 1.3 billion pounds ($1.55 billion) through eight offerings on the London Stock Exchange, spending the money, and some debt, on established, proven songs — music publishing, recorded music catalogs and creator royalty streams — by the likes of Neil Young, Journey and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Mercuriadis and his team recommend catalogs for Hipgnosis Songs Fund to purchase and try to generate more revenue from its portfolio. Hipgnosis Songs Fund itself is a lean organization – it has a board of directors and a team of outside accountants, attorneys and other specialists – that collects royalties, pay dividends and operates with minimal overhead. Investors shouldn’t expect the triple-digit returns of a fast-growing tech company, but they shouldn’t face much downside risk, either. Decades-old popular music in a growing industry is a stable investment.
Hipgnosis’ pitch became particularly attractive as low interest rates encouraged investors to pour money into alternative assets like music as central banks cut rates to encourage borrowing to help combat a recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But central banks have hiked interest rates in 2022 to ward off rising inflation, and Hipgnosis and companies like it have seen their share prices fall sharply. An Oct. 27 report by Trust Intelligence posits that Hipgnosis, along with other alternative asset funds, “has seen a significant share price de-rating as investors worry about the potential for valuations to fall in a rising interest rate environment.” Shares of alternative asset managers Blackstone Group – an investor in Hipgnosis Songs Management – and Franklin Resources are down 31.8% and 21.5%, respectively, this year despite the companies’ earnings beating expectations last quarter. Other music companies are having a tough year, too. Shares of Round Hill Royalty Fund Ltd., another music-backed investment trust that trades on the London Stock Exchange, are down 24.9% year to date.
The underlying business underpinning the Hipgnosis catalog and others like it, however, seems as healthy as ever. Global publishing and label revenues climbed 18% to $39.6 billion in 2021 on the strength of streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube. In the U.S., music publishers will enjoy a slightly larger share of subscription revenue from 2023 to 2027. Music subscription prices are rising, too – Apple Music hiked its monthly fees in October and Spotify appears ready to follow in 2023. Social media and short-form video apps such as TikTok are increasingly valuable revenue streams for both publishers and labels. Hipgnosis’s pro-forma revenue – which compares catalogs on a like-for-like basis and ignores recent acquisitions – in the second half of 2021 rose 11.6% from the first half, which was impacted by COVID-19 restrictions that hurt physical sales and performance royalties. In its latest fiscal year ended March 31, catalog additions helped gross revenue grow 24.7% to $200.4 million.
With its stock trading at a large discount to the value of its catalog, though, the company is unable to raise additional equity to expand its catalog. It certainly had plans to do so: In January 2021, Hipgnosis shareholders voted 98.6% in favor of a plan to sell 1.5 billion new shares. At the planned price of $1.68 per share, those additional shares would have raised $2.52 billion. Since then, however, Hipgnosis has sold only 199.6 million shares at an average of 1.21 pounds per share ($1.46), for a total of 241.4 million pounds ($330 million). Money has continued to pour into other funds for music acquisitions: Primary Wave took a $1.7 billion investment from Brookfield Asset Management in October; Influence Media Partners teamed up with Warner Music Group and BlackRock Alternative Investors in July; and last year, KKR partnered with BMG and Apollo Global Management backed upstart HarbourView Equity Partners to the tune of $1 billion.
The share repurchase program could have tangible results: the repurchase of 1% of shares would add 0.5% to the net asset value per share, reduce the dividend payment and “be accretive to annual income by $57,000,” according to JP Morgan Cazenove analysts. Investors could also look elsewhere to gain some confidence. In September, Hipgnosis reiterated its target annual dividend of 5.25 pence (6.34 cents) per share and announced an interim dividend of 1.3125 pence ($1.59) per share. It has also made moves to save money. In July, it reached a deal with French collection society Sacem for reduced administration expenses and collection fees. In October it procured a new revolving credit facility with a lower cost of debt and completed interest rate swaps that provide a hedge against rising rates.
More dramatic steps are available to raise cash, too. JP Morgan Cazenove analysts suggested in an Oct. 24 report that the company could sell “non-core assets” such as the Kobalt fund — 42 catalogs of more than 33,000 songs — it bought in Nov. 2020 for $323 million. The analysts also suggest Hipgnosis could sell part of its catalog to Blackstone, which took an ownership stake in Mercuriadis’ song management operation in Oct. 2021 and provided $1 billion for catalog acquisitions. That would allow Hipgnosis to reduce its debt and free up capital to repurchase shares or invest in new catalogs. Or Hipgnosis Songs Management could seek funding from Blackstone to acquire the entire Hipgnosis Songs Fund portfolio. Another option not mentioned in the report is to sell Big Deal Music, the independent music publisher that Hipgnosis Songs Fund acquired in 2020 and rebranded as Hipgnosis Songs Group, and focus solely on managing its catalog instead of signing and developing songwriters.
Following years of headline-grabbing moves, this has been a relatively quiet one for the publicly traded Hipgnsosis Songs Fund — there have been no acquisitions and no capital raised through stock offerings in 2022. In contrast, the other side of the business, Hipgnosis Songs Management, purchased the catalogs of Kenny Chesney, Justin Timberlake and Leonard Cohen through its venture with Blackstone, Hipgnosis Songs Capital ICAV. In addition, in August Hipgnosis Songs Management raised $222 million from a securitization backed by the royalties of 950 songs from Timberlake, Cohen and others.
Glimpses of what comes next, and how else Mercuriadis plans to address the stock price, could come soon. Dec. 8, the final day of the share repurchase program, is also the day Hipgnosis will release mid-year financial results and host a Capital Markets Day.
Music business lawyers, songwriters, and other professionals gathered at the University of Georgia in Athens for the Artist Rights’ Symposium on Nov. 15. Hosted by senior lecturer, songwriter and member of band Cracker, Dr. David Lowery, the day-long conference discussed ways for the music industry to better champion songwriters, to address the problem of metadata inaccuracies, and to explain the differences in rate setting across different countries.
The series of panels was bisected by a lunch and fireside chat with Hipgnosis CEO and founder Merck Mercuriadis, moderated by attorney Chris Castle, who explained why he feels the industry is in the “age of the songwriter.” “There has been a massive paradigm shift,” he said. “Forty years ago, the power was in the artist brand,” but now, most songs that top the Billboard charts are written by a larger number of songwriters than ever, meaning the demand has never been higher for good hitmakers. “But songwriters have to have a place at the negotiating table now,” he said, citing that in the United States, rates for mechanicals are set by the government’s Copyright Royalty Board, barring “free market” negotiations. “Let’s face it, [the government controlling rates] is insulting to songwriters.”
Mercuriadis said he’s a supporter of the recent Phonorecords IV settlement, which set the U.S. mechanical streaming rates for 2023-2027, and was formed by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the Digital Media Rights (DiMA) and Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) banding together earlier this fall for “one main reason:” he believes it will provide the industry with stability for the next five year period. This would contrast the current five-year period (2018-2022), Phonorecords III, in which publishers, rights holders and songwriters have not had a clear idea of what rate they would be paid due to a lengthy appeals process that has tied up royalties.
He detailed an ambitious hope for the future, to “get out of the CRB in the next five years and into the free market.” Mercuriadis’ vision, he said, was inspired by the screenwriters guild — The Writers Guild of America — which has been able to secure fair compensation for those who create the scripts the industry is reliant on through advocation, unionization and bargaining with its titans of industry. Mercuriadis has certainly espoused his vision for a coalition of songwriters in the past and stood by that vision during his chat at the symposium, but he did not reveal many new details of his plans to build it.
“I have tremendous faith,” he said of it happening, despite the challenges and legal roadblocks he faces to achieve this scenario, adding that artists could be a major potential ally to songwriters getting what he thinks of as fair opportunities. As a leader in the catalog acquisition business, Hipgnosis has financial interests that overlap with songwriters regarding compensation rates.
Some panelists who flew in from Europe and South America for the event broadened the discussion beyond the U.S. borders. Crispin Hunt, the former chair of the U.K.’s Ivors Academy, explained how whatever rates are set in the U.S. often act as a benchmark for other countries during their respective negotiations with the same services. Also during the panel, Hunt added that he felt this was “an incredibly critical moment for songwriters,” as traditional offline broadcast income continues to fall and is replaced more with each coming year by digital.
Samantha Schilling of Songtradr brought her perspective from working in Brazil and with a mostly Latin American music business. She pointed out the differing standards that separate her business with that of the U.S. and how the two regions might learn from each other. For example, she said, while commonplace in the U.S., some Latin American countries prohibit work for hire agreements for songs written for TV/film. She said this helps songwriters maintain ownership and secure royalties on the backend. “That was put in place to protect songwriters,” Schilling noted. “Netflix tried to change it… but we were able to fight for songwriters to get that backend income.” In the U.S., some streaming video on demand (SVOD) companies are rumored to be asking songwriters to give up their backend royalties, a crucial component of income for those working at the intersection of music and visual media.
The day ended off with a discussion of the importance of metadata — which is often incomplete or incorrect, causing misallocation of songwriters’ royalties — and registering properly with the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) to collect due compensation. Led by Abby North (North Music Group), Erin McAnally (Artists Rights Alliance), Helienne Lindvall (European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, Ivors Academy) and Melanie Santa Rosa (Word Collections, The MLC), the conversation harkened back to Hunt’s earlier point about the growing importance of digital income streams, which according to CISAC’s 2021 annual report, comprises of $3.62 billion to the worldwide music business, and how the industry can clean up its rocky start to collecting from these sources.
For the second consecutive quarter, Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group split the top honors in the publisher’s rankings. Sony topped the Top Radio Airplay category with a more than seven percentage point lead over No. 2 UMPG, while the reverse occurred in the Hot 100 Ranking: UMPG squeaked to a No. 1 finish, surpassing Sony by close to one percentage point.
This is each publisher’s second quarter in a row atop those categories.
Harry Styles‘ “As It Was” was the No. 1 song on the Hot 100 for the second quarter in a row and held steady as the No. 2 song on Top Radio Airplay for the same period. Lizzo‘s “About Damn Time” finished first on Top Radio Airplay and No. 2 on Hot 100 Songs, and was the top song for each of the big three publishers in all but one category. Third-quarter top 10 publishers with a stake in “As It Was” are UMPG and Pulse, while UMPG, Sony and Warner Chappell Music each have a share in “About Damn Time.”
Kate Bush‘s Stranger Things-fueled resurgence continued as her Sony-published “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” finished No. 3 on Hot 100 Songs, No. 7 on Top Radio Airplay, and because she is the track’s sole songwriter, established her as the top Hot 100 songwriter of the quarter.
Styles and his main co-writer Kid Harpoon (born Thomas Edward Percy Hull) took top songwriter honors in the Radio Airplay category for authoring “As It Was” and their credits as two of the three songwriters of another Top 10 Radio Airplay hit, “Late Night Talking.”
In Top Radio Airplay, Sony improved its industry leading market share by more than five percentage points over its 25.62% second-quarter showing, even though its song count fell slightly from 64 to 63 tracks. Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” was Sony’s top song on both the Hot 100 and Radio Airplay charts.
No. 2 UMPG’s Radio Airplay market share also grew more than 1.5 percentage points quarter-to-quarter and raising its song placements from 54 to 56. While “About Damn Time” was also UMPG’s top track on the Top Radio Airplay chart, Styles’ “As It Was” was its No. 1 track in the Hot 100.
UMPG held on to its No. 1 Hot 100 Songs ranking for a second quarter, even though its market share was down half a percentage point from its second-quarter 31.25% market, and its song count fell from 67 to 60.
As it did with its Radio Airplay showing, Sony increased its market share by slightly more than five percentage points over its 24.69% second-quarter market share. Its song count also rose from 62 to 64.
Warner Chappell, Kobalt and BMG, respectively ranked No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 on both the Top Radio Airplay and the Hot 100 publisher rankings — an order that has remained for seven consecutive quarters in the Hot 100 rankings and two in a row for Top Radio Airplay.
In Radio Airplay, Warner Chappell’s market share dropped slightly more than two percentage points from last quarter, and its song count from 54 to 48. But the publisher improved its Hot 100 market share by more than one point over the second quarter’s 14.66%, despite its song count dropping from 53 to 49. Warner Chappell’s top song on both charts was “About Damn Time.” Warner Chappell Nashville also gave up its status as the No. 1 country music publisher for 22 consecutive quarters. It slipped to No. 2 behind Sony.
Kobalt held on to No. 4 in both rankings, despite losing market share. For Top Radio Airplay it fell from 14.945% to 13.21% quarter to quarter. For the Hot 100, it dropped more than three percentage points from 11.97% to 8.60%. Likewise, its song count is down for the Hot 100 chart from 53 to 49 while holding steady at 43 for the Top Radio Airplay chart. Jack Harlow’s “First Class,” which was No. 4, was its top Airplay song while Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit” at No. 5 is its top Hot 100 song.
BMG also saw market share declines in both rankings, falling to 3.12% from 4.48% in the second quarter for the Top Radio Airplay chart; and to 2.17% from 3.58% for the Hot 100 chart. Its top song on both charts was Harlow’s “First Class,” which was the No. 7 song on the Hot 100.
In the second half of the rankings, Hipgnosis and Pulse Music Group held steady in the No. 6 and No. 7 spots, respectively, for the fourth straight quarter on the Top Radio Airplay rankings, and traded places in the Hot 100 from the second quarter. Both also lost market share from the prior quarter.
While Hipgnosis managed to hold onto its sixth place ranking in the Top Radio Airplay chart, its market share fell to 1.77% from 2.65% in the second quarter. In the Hot 100, it fell to 2.01% from 2.76% in second quarter, which led to the publisher falling from No. 6 to No. 7. Glass Animals’ “Heatwave” was its top song in both charts and finished No. 12 on both.
Pulse Music also dropped market share, falling to a 2.07% share in the Hot 100 from 2.76% in the second quarter but still went up one spot in the rankings to No. 6.; while over in the Top Radio Airplay rankings its tally fell to 1.6% from 2% in the second quarter. Its top song was Styles’ “As It Was.”
On the Radio Airplay chart, three publishers came close to tying: Pulse’s 1.607% was closely followed by No. 8 Concord with 1.597% and No. 9 Downtown at 1.593%. Round Hill Music rounded out the rankings with 1.05%. For the Hot 100, the same three publishers held down the last three spots albeit in different positions with Round Hill at No. 8 Concord at No. 9 and Downtown at No. 10.
The Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL) will award composer Nicholas Britell with the Ambassador Award at its East Coast holiday celebration at the Cutting Room in New York on Dec. 6. One week later, on Dec. 13, the SCL will award composer Danny Elfman with the Lifetime Achievement Award at its West Coast holiday celebration at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
Both events will include live performances. The bicoastal holiday celebrations are held annually to celebrate members’ achievements and honor outstanding composers and songwriters.
Past SCL Ambassadors include Dave Grusin, Burt Bacharach, David Shire, Johnny Mandel, Earl Hagen, James Newton Howard, Leiber and Stoller, Alan Silvestri, Randy Newman, Thomas Newman, Terence Blanchard, Diane Warren and Hal David.
Past SCL Lifetime Achievement honorees include Quincy Jones, Bill Conti, Lalo Schifrin, Philip Glass, Alan Menken and Ginny Mancini.
Britell and Elfman have both received multiple Oscar nominations for best original score – and both are vying for nominations again this year. Britell is competing with She Said. Elfman has two strong entries – White Noise and Doctor Stranger in the Multiverse of Madness.
Elfman has won two Emmys – for composing the main title theme for Desperate Housewives (2005) and for musical direction of Danny Elfman’s Music From the Films of Tim Burton (Live from Lincoln Center) (2016). Britell has won one Emmy for composing the main title theme for Succession (2019).
Elfman also won a Grammy for composing the theme from the 1989 film Batman.
The organization will host the 4th Annual SCL Awards show on Feb. 15 in Los Angeles.
Iggy Azalea has sold her master recording and publishing catalog to Domain Capital for an eight-figure sum, a source close to the deal told Billboard. The wide reaching deal includes 100% of Azalea’s share of her existing catalog, including No. 1 hit “Fancy” (featuring Charli XCX), “Black Widow” (featuring Rita Ora), and “Problem” (with Ariana Grande), and it includes “an additional trigger” for Azalea to earn future revenue on master recordings.
The rapper’s discography includes The New Classic, Surviving the Summer (EP), and In My Defense and The End of an Era. Though she has previously released music under deals with Virgin EMI and Island Records, Azalea has since founded her own label. Called Bad Dreams, it was formerly distributed by Empire but is now in the midst of closing a new distribution deal with a different firm, the source says.
The independent rapper owns 100% of her Bad Dreams label, and she will be able to fully own her masters and publishing on all forthcoming music, starting Q1 2023. On the publishing side, she has an administration deal with Sony Music Publishing.
These days, the Australia native is living in Miami and working on her next album and raising her son, Onyx, whom she welcomed in 2020. She plans to release a full project sometime next year.
Azalea’s deal was revealed just weeks after Domain Capital announced that it closed more than $700 million in commitments for a commingle entertainment fund. In their press release about the fund on Nov. 1, Domain Capital added that it had already deployed more than $170 million in film, television and music investments to date.
“We are excited to launch our first diversified private entertainment royalty fund,” said Anthony Tittanegro, executive managing director of Domain Capital Group in the release. “At a time of sustained entertainment industry growth supported by an ever-evolving landscape of distribution channels, we are focused on building a diversified asset-base to generate cash yield and help maintain our investors’ capital.” The firm declined Billboard’s request for comment.
When the slate of Grammy nominees was announced on Tuesday (Nov. 15), Big Machine Music-signed songwriter Laura Veltz was among the inaugural class of nominees in the newly minted songwriter of the year (non-classical) category, nominated alongside Amy Allen, Nija Charles, Tobias Jesso Jr. and The-Dream.
Veltz’s multifarious songwriting talents cinched the nomination following her contributions to a lengthy list of songs in country and pop circles, including songs with Maren Morris (“Background Music,” “Humble Quest”), Demi Lovato (“29,” “Feed”) and Ingrid Andress (“Pain”). Veltz has previously been nominated a Grammy three times, all of them in the best country song category, for her work on Morris’ “The Bones” and “Better Than We Found It,” as well as Dan + Shay’s “Speechless.”
But to be nominated in the inaugural year of an all-genre category dedicated to songwriters is another thing entirely, Veltz says. “I’m still sort of in shock about the whole thing, just because of its historical nature,” she explains. “And I’m friends with a lot of the people who made this category happen, and I know a lot of people work so hard to make sure songwriters are recognized this way — so it’s so much beyond an honor.”
Fittingly, Veltz says she was entering a writing session in Nashville with co-writer Alyssa Vanderheym when she learned of her nomination.
“I started getting so many text messages that just said, ‘Congratulations!’ and it took me a full three minutes to get the tea of what I actually got. Then I just fell to the ground. I was so shocked. [Alyssa] was getting like 50,000 phone calls, just like I was, so our co-writer was like, ‘You guys should just go celebrate.’ So we did, we bailed on the session and celebrated and I went home and hugged my husband and all that stuff. It was so special.”
Below, Veltz talks with Billboard not only about the meaning the nomination holds for her, but how she hopes the songwriter of the year (non-classical) Grammy category serves as a harbinger for the songwriter advocacy being done on Capitol Hill.
What does this nomination mean to you, personally — as it is recognizing an overall body of work from a songwriter, instead of a specific song or songs on a specific album?
It is so centralized to my life experience — but it’s weird having my name in the list. I’ve been nominated for Grammys before, but it’s so tough within the wordage that it’s not as recognizable. It’s just absolutely bizarre to know that I moved around a lot as a kid, just thinking about all the high schools I’ve ever been to and all the churches I went to and everyone I’ve ever known. It’s just a weird thing to have my name associated with something like this.
You don’t sign up for that as a songwriter, typically, because we purposefully put ourselves behind the scenes. The fact that my name is associated with a body of work… it really is humbling, because it’s so different.
What does it mean for the songwriter community as a whole to be recognized with their own category at the Grammys?
It’s just such a change for my community, and such a change for the industry at large to have this on the ballot. It’s wild, too, because it’s such a community-driven thing. I’m watching my friends nominated in song categories. The song [of the year] nominations were really all we had for a really long time. Then people like Ross Golan and so many others expanded it to having a larger body of work on an album, that we suddenly are credited in that way [for the album of the year category].
So seeing all these people getting these nominations and now the crown jewel of it — having its own very own category — it’s very humbling and beautiful. Then, when it comes to things in on Capitol Hill and such, the fact that this might begin a new era where the recognition of the beginning of music — which is in fact the writing of a song — the fact that that might be a little bit more seen might lead to it being a little bit more valued.
“Background Music” is one of the songs you are being recognized for, which you wrote with Maren Morris and Jimmy Robbins.
As with me, Maren is continually willing to gut punch a song — and [get into] talking about the passing of time, talking about mortality and what we leave behind, and the truth that in a hundred years our names will be virtually forgotten no matter how dominant we are as creators. Just to write to that directly was so f–king fun. It sounds dark, but it really kinda helped me to live in the moment. And the fact that this was her idea, of “Background Music.”
My favorite lyric in the song is “Not everybody gets to leave a souvenir.” That is just the most true statement, and it makes being a songwriter, or any kind of creator… you just feel so lucky that you get to live a little longer, so to speak, than the average person, through such a gift. I’ve written so many songs with Maren, but I think that was the first time that we collectively made ourselves cry. All three of us were like, “Wow.”
Your work with Demi Lovato, especially on songs like “29,” is also being recognized.
The 13 songs that Demi and I wrote together [for Lovato’s album Holy Fvck] are some of my absolute most proud moments as a creator. Her willingness to say the uncomfortable thing and heal out loud. I am so proud of Holy Fvck. Every single song has a sting and a sweetness of just truth.
And “29” in particular — because the value of what you do as a songwriter, it ebbs and flows. Sometimes you earn a No. 1, sometimes you just reach the right person that needed to hear what you wrote. And this song falls under that feeling of “there are a group of people that needed to hear this song.” Most of them are young women. And just the idea that you can unplug the power of feeling of “Oh, he thinks I’m mature for my age.” I used to say that s–t. I used to feel that s–t, and I used to take it as a compliment. And I feel like we wrote a song that unplugged the power of those words. You are not mature for your age, they’re predators, and you need space to be a kid.
I love TikTok, and watching all of the thousands of women who use “29” as a reality check for their own dating history. Then the idea that those women will have daughters, then those daughters will have daughters. I can’t even wrap my head around the power of that song, by way of butterfly effect. We just decided to address something difficult. We said something difficult, we said it in the most eloquent way, and in a commercial way that it wasn’t in innuendo, it was clear as crystal. I feel like that is such a win as a songwriter.
Is there anything else you want to add about the songwriter of the year nomination?
I truly feel that the value of what a songwriter is could very well go extinct if we don’t put some actual value on what it is to write a song. I feel like it’s something that can just go unnoticed so many jobs that just go unnoticed. Then, when somebody goes on strike, you realize, ‘Oh, we do need those people.’ I feel like music would change entirely if it wasn’t appreciating the poets in the back of the classroom who just want to tell stories. We were meant to tell stories. Many of us are just born to tell stories and to not have the music medium for that — we’ll find our way because we’re resilient and because honestly, nothing in this world could stop us from telling these stories.
But [also], I just feel the gratitude that this category is now in play. I imagine the future, and it’s realizing that things need to change. I’m gonna be fine. I caught the right era. But the next generation of songwriters will literally go away. There’s no way it’s sustainable. Kids that are writing songs that are getting streamed millions of times, but they can’t keep their lights on at home — that’s not okay. I’m just really grateful that this category is in play and I’m really hoping that it traces itself backwards to how songwriters are paid. It needs to be addressed.
