State Champ Radio record contracts
When licensing negotiations between TikTok and the Universal Music Group collapsed at the end of January, many official recordings from UMG artists vanished from the platform. UMG chief digital officer/executive vp Michael Nash told financial analysts in February that the company had been “providing notices to effectuate the muting of millions of videos every day for the last two weeks.” Yet a number of songs connected to UMG — or its publishing wing, Universal Music Publishing Group — remain available on TikTok anyway.
Some are user uploads, which might theoretically be harder to find and take down or mute. Others are official tracks, including recent releases from prominent stars and fast-moving viral hits. And much of Taylor Swift’s catalog returned to TikTok on Thursday (April 11), raising the question of how other artists may be able to find workarounds while the licensing dispute continues.
Trending on Billboard
One possible reason that some songs are staying on TikTok: Several artist lawyers tell Billboard they are devising contractual carve-outs to allow their clients to keep their music on the platform. Others note that even though they haven’t added these clauses to recording agreements yet, it has become a topic of conversation with their clients.
“Some labels are allowing some of their artists to exclude newly created music from the grant of rights until the label has a deal in place” with TikTok, says David Fritz, founding partner at Boyarski Fritz. “Because the issue is so new, we are developing on the fly to meet the needs of talent — songwriters and artists — that want their music on TikTok. This is an issue, and workaround, that came about solely as a result of UMG taking down its catalog from TikTok.”
Reps for UMG and TikTok declined to comment.
Some artists have invested years of their life building a following on TikTok. (Predecessor Musical.ly was acquired by Bytedance in 2017 and then relaunched in the United States as TikTok the year after.) For more than two months now, they’ve been unable to share official recordings with those fans on the platform — the same fans who may have earned them their major-label deal in the first place.
“Some artists are concerned about this,” says Josh Binder, founding partner at Rothenberg Mohr & Binder. “They don’t want to be uncompetitive, unable to use TikTok to muster up an audience.”
“TikTok is mostly used as a new-music discovery tool — discover a clip on TikTok, listen to it on a DSP,” Fritz adds. “So those who are trying to get their music discovered are the most concerned” about being unable to promote new songs on the app.
In 2022, MIDiA Research found that TikTok was the second-biggest driver of music discovery for Gen Z, after YouTube. In recent months, TikTok popularity has helped little-known acts like Dasha, Good Neighbours and the Red Clay Strays explode at streaming services — leading to major-label deals — and contributed to breakout hits for Djo, Flo Milli and Benson Boone, among others.
UMG pushed back against the idea that TikTok has a lock on discovery during its most recent earnings call. Chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge told financial analysts that TikTok was “not a material part of the multidisciplinary jigsaw where we promote and market our music globally.” And UMG CFO/executive vp Boyd Muir said that UMG would “focus on accelerating [its] partnerships” with other social media platforms, including Meta, Snap and YouTube, to provide alternative promotional avenues for its artists.
But the job of an artist lawyer — a good one, at least — is to help their client get what they want. Labels typically aim to control as many rights as they can for as long as they can. In the modern music business, artists have more ability to push back; because they can generate momentum on their own, without a record company’s help, more aspects of a record deal are negotiable. “You can cherry-pick what you want to be in your contract to some degree,” Scott Booker, the longtime manager of The Flaming Lips, recently told Billboard.
As with any negotiation, artists’ ability to get their preferred terms comes down to their leverage — for stars especially, there are few rules that can’t be bent — and the skill of the lawyers involved. “If you successfully reserve the right to license to TikTok directly in your contract with UMG, you would be able to do so directly or via a third-party service,” says Leon Morabia, a partner at Mark Music & Media Law. “It would be a difficult point to win in a deal, but it is contractually feasible.”
Josh Love, partner at Reed Smith, says he has been able to get “a carve-out” in the past that allowed an artist “to do a direct license with a DSP” — a digital service provider like TikTok or another social media or streaming service — “if the label or distributor is ever not licensed with that DSP and [the artist] wants to remain on the platform.” This is meant to act as interim coverage for an artist; if the label or distributor were to form a new licensing agreement, that would likely supersede that deal made between the artist and the DSP in the meantime.
Some clauses that are already in record deals could also be expanded by artist attorneys to ensure their clients’ music remains available on TikTok. “Release commitments,” for example, are put in place to “force the label to guarantee that a record will be released within certain months after delivery so that the artist’s record doesn’t get ’shelved,’ with the artist stuck in the deal,” says Gandhar Savur, a music attorney.
These clauses have become increasingly comprehensive, stretching “to cover commitments by the label over more specific aspects of the release — the exact countries in which the album will be distributed, formats that the album will be released in such as vinyl and digital, and even including specific major DSPs by name like Spotify and Apple Music.” After negotiations between UMG and TikTok unraveled, Savur continues, “it would be a natural response that artist attorneys will gradually start to require release commitments to cover all platforms generally so that if a label is not licensed with a particular platform for any reason, the artist can deal with that platform directly.”
Savur believes that artists who are signed to labels that are distributed by UMG, rather than signed directly, probably have more latitude to try to deal with platforms like TikTok on their own. “Although I believe that what Universal is doing overall is a good thing for the industry, Universal-distributed labels might be more sympathetic to their artists’ desire to stay on TikTok because the increased streaming and ticket sales [that] result from any tracks going viral on the platform can be a big win for the artist and label alike,” Savur says.
If the UMG-TikTok deadlock rolls on, Fritz says, “smart lawyers” with leverage will find “a workaround that enables their clients to continue to use the most popular discovery tool while the large-scale license gets worked out.”
The members of BLACKPINK are closing out the year with some bombshell news — Jennie, Jisoo, Rosé and Lisa have split with YG Entertainment for all solo endeavors.
On Friday (Dec. 29), YG issued a statement announcing the decision. “YG recently signed an extension contract for BLACKPINK’s group activities and agreed not to proceed with a separate additional contract for individual activities,” read a translated statement provided to Billboard by representatives for YG Entertainment. “We will do our best to support BLACKPINK’s activities and will cheer for the individual activities of the members with a warm heart.”
Earlier this month (Dec. 6), via a regulatory filing, YG Entertainment confirmed that BLACKPINK had renewed its contract with the company for all group activities. Details regarding the new contracts were not immediately available upon filing.
Just this week (Dec. 24), Jennie shared that she will be launching a new record label and company called OA. A caption of a photoset posted to the official OA Instagram page reads: “OA, which stands for ODD ATELIER, is a space that aims to create new things that attract attention in a different way from what is usual or expected. It is a label founded by artist JENNIE in November 2023.”
To date, all four members of BLACKPINK have begun their respective solo journeys. In 2021, both Rosé and Lisa unleashed their debut solo albums. Rosé’s -R- contained the single “On the Ground,” which debuted at No. 1 on both the Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. US charts — the first song by a Korean solo artist to do so. With her LaLisa album — which housed a pair of Billboard Hot 100 hits in the title track (No. 84) and “Money” (No. 90) — Lisa became the first soloist to win the MTV Video Music Award for best K-pop.
This spring (Mar. 31), Jisoo released Me, her debut single album. The two-track project was led by “Flower,” which reached No. 2 on the Global 200. Although Jennie was the first BLACKPINK member to go solo back in 2018 (her aptly titled “Solo” peaked atop US World Digital Song Sales), she finally made her Hot 100 debut on the chart dated Dec. 30, 2023, with her Idol hit “One of the Girls” alongside The Weeknd & Lily-Rose Depp. In June, Jennie starred in the controversial Weeknd-produced HBO drama The Idol.
BLACKPINK is, to date, the most successful K-pop girl group in U.S. history. In 2023, the group headlined Coachella and wrapped their blockbuster Born Pink World Tour (which helped them take home top K-pop touring artist at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards) in support of their Billboard 200-topping Born Pink album.
Representatives for BLACKPINK did not immediately respond to Billboard’s request for comment.
In April, Grimes encouraged artists to make music using her voice — as replicated by artificial intelligence-powered technology. Even as she embraced a high-tech future, however, she noted that there were some old-fashioned legal limitations. “I don’t own the rights to the vocals from my old albums,” she wrote on X. “If you make remixes, they may get taken down.”
Artificial intelligence has dominated the hype cycle in 2023. But most signed artists who are enthusiastic about testing out this technology will have to move cautiously, wary of the fact that preexisting contracts may assert some level of control over how they can use their voice. “In general, in a major label deal, they’re the exclusive label for name, likeness and voice under the term,” says one veteran manager who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Labels might be mad if artists went around them and did a deal themselves. They might go, ‘Hey, wait a minute, we have the rights to this.’”
On the flip side, labels probably can’t (or won’t) move unilaterally either. “In our agreements, in a handful of territories, we’ve been getting exclusive name, image, likeness and voice rights in connection with recordings for years,” says one major label source. That said, “as a practical matter, we wouldn’t license an artist’s voice for a voice model or for any project without the artists being on board with it. It would be bad business for us.”
For the moment, both sides are inching forward, trying to figure out how to “interpret new technology with arcane laws,” as Arron Saxe, who manages several artists’ estates, puts it. “It’s an odd time because the government hasn’t stepped in and put down real guidelines around AI,” adds Dan Smith, general manager of the dance label Armada Music.
That means guidelines must be drawn via pre-existing contracts, most of which were not written with AI in mind, and often vary from one artist to the next. Take a recent artist deal sent out by one major label and reviewed by Billboard: Under the terms, the label has the “exclusive right to record Artist Performances” with “performance” broadly defined to include “singing, speaking… or such performance itself, as the context requires.” The word “recording” is similarly roomy: “any recording of sound…by any method and on any substance or material, whether now or hereafter known.”
Someone in this deal probably couldn’t easily go rogue and build a voice-cloning model on newly recorded material without permission. Even to participate in YouTube’s recently announced AI voice generation experiment, some artists needed to get permission in form of a “label waiver,” according to Audrey Benoualid, a partner at Myman Greenspan Fox Rosenberg Mobasser Younger & Light. (In an interview about YouTube’s new feature, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google Deepmind, said only that it has “been complicated” to negotiate deals with various music rights holders.) Even after an artist’s deal ends, if their recordings remain with a label, they would have to be careful to only train voice-cloning tech with material that isn’t owned exclusively by their former record company.
It’s not just artists that are interested in AI opportunities, though. Record labels stand to gain from developing licensing deals with AI companies for their entire catalogs, which could in turn bring greater opportunities for artists who want to participate. At the Made on YouTube event in September, Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl said it’s the label’s “job” to make sure that artists who lean into AI “benefit.” At the same time, he added, “It’s also our job together to make sure that artists who don’t want to lean in are protected.”
In terms of protections, major label deals typically come with a list of approval rights: Artists will ask that they get the chance to sign off on any sample of their recordings or the use of one of their tracks in a movie trailer. “We believe that any AI function is just another use of the talents’ intellectual property that would take some approval by the creator,” explains Leron Rogers, a partner at Fox Rothschild.
In many states, artists also have protection under the “right of publicity,” which says that people have control over the way others can exploit their individual identities. “Under that umbrella is where things like the right to your voice, your face, your likeness are protected and can’t be mimicked because it’s unfair competition,” says Lulu Pantin, founder of Loop Legal. “But because those laws are not federal, they’re inconsistent, and every state’s laws are slightly different” — not all states specifically call out voices, for example — “[so] there’s concern that that’s not going to provide robust protection given how ubiquitous AI has become already.” (A lack of federal law also limits the government’s ability to push for enforcement abroad.)
To that end, a bipartisan group of senators recently introduced a draft proposal of the NO FAKES act (“Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe”), which would enshrine a federal right for artists, actors and others to take legal action against anyone who creates unauthorized “digital replicas” of their image, voice, or likeness. “Artists would now gain leverage they didn’t have before,” says Mike Pelczynski, who serves on the advisory board of the company voice-swap.ai.
While the entertainment industry tracks NO FAKES’ progress, Smith from Armada believes “we will probably start to see more artist agreements that are addressing the use of your voice.” Sure enough, Benoualid says that in new label deals for her clients, she now asks for approval over any use of an artist’s name, likeness, or voice in connection with AI technology. “Express written approval should be required prior to a company reproducing vocals, recordings, or compositions for the purpose of training AI platforms,” agrees Matthew Gorman, a lawyer at Cox & Palmer.
Pantin has been keeping an eye on the way other creative fields are handling this fast-evolving tech to see if there are lessons that can be imported into music. “One thing that I’ve been trying to do and I’ve had success in some instances with is asking the rights holders — the publishers, the labels — for consent rights from the individual artists or songwriter before their work is used to train generative AI,” she says. “On the book publishing side, the Authors Guild has put forth language they recommended are included in all publishing agreements, and so I’m drawing from that and extending that to songwriting.”
All these discussions are new, and the long-term impact of AI-driven technology on the creative fields remains unclear. Daouda Leonard, who manages Grimes, is adamant that in the music industry’s near future, “the licensing of voice is going to become a valuable asset.” Other are less sure — “nobody really knows how important this will be,” the major label source says.
Perhaps Grimes put it best on X: “We expect a certain amount of chaos.”
Lawyers often say that bad facts make bad law – meaning that unusual or unlikely details of a case can shape precedent in unpredictable ways. But bad facts can also make for bad contracts, to judge by the contractual restrictions on re-recording that major labels may be adopting in the wake of the success of Taylor Swift‘s “Taylor’s Version” of her albums.
Re-recording restrictions, a common contractual provision that has been part of record deals for decades, are intended as a kind of post-term noncompete. Their understandable economic purpose is to stop an artist from re-recording songs released under a contract that has run its course in order to benefit a subsequent label – and let the subsequent recording compete with the original without a comparable investment. Under that logic, the reasonable duration of a re-recording restriction would be a few years, as was the practice before the “Taylor’s Version” releases came out. It’s harder to justify locking up artists for a protracted period that might be longer than the duration of the original recording agreement.
That duration could be limited, too, by a potential legal challenge. Both the federal government and many states restrict the enforceability of noncompete clauses in employment agreements, particularly when they limit economic freedom. (Examples include California Business and Professions Code Section 16600, and the recently passed New York Senate Bill S3100A, which New York governor Kathy Hochul is expected to sign.) Next year, the Federal Trade Commission will vote on banning noncompete clauses in employment agreements altogether. Labels often say that recording artists aren’t employees, but that wouldn’t necessarily put these kinds of restrictions above the fray – especially if they last longer than seems reasonable.
Few artists re-record anything, and those who do usually only revisit one or a few hits, maybe their biggest album at most, and that’s more likely if there’s a contractual dispute. It’s unprecedented for a significant artist to re-record his or her entire catalog, repackage each album and promote their rerelease – particularly when the original hit releases are still readily available. That requires motivation. Or, in Swift’s case, perhaps, frustration. But in a “Taylor’s Version” world, who wants to be the one who let it happen again?
Chris Castle
Laura Lee Nall Photography
Without getting into the he-said-she-said of the sale of Big Machine, including Swift’s recording catalog, it’s important to note that it was an unusual case. So, it’s worth asking if there’s a lower-risk alternative.
If a label is going to sell a living artist’s entire catalog – or sell a company whose value is dominated by that catalog – the safe thing to do might be to offer the artist a chance to bid on it. Or, failing that, at least consult with the artist to create a comfortable situation, even if that requires additional assurances or an additional payment. If you think it’s only necessary to do the minimum, look at what can happen with an overly legalistic approach. To artists like Swift, these recordings are their life.
Changing the recording agreement template to try to guarantee an outcome may backfire. “Taylor’s Version” simply isn’t a normal situation – it’s one that involved the world’s most popular artist, who is as attached to her catalog as any performer, plus just as business-savvy as most executives. It’s a situation that was almost impossible to anticipate – so making contracts even more one-sided may not help. Instead, a change like this could draw the attention of President Biden’s FTC, which seems to have an abiding interest in noncompete clauses. Especially if a number of competitors just happen to push the same contractual change at the same time.
If labels must have extended re-recording restrictions, couldn’t they add a sweetener, such as offering living artists a right to match the highest bid if their recording catalogs are ever sold individually, or a blocking right over the buyer or something similar? Alternatively, they could also just leave things be.
An overreaching re-recording restriction could also provoke retaliation from artists’ lawyers. They could make leverage points like post-term marketing restrictions and audits more important deal points in order to fight restrictions. That means disfavored buyers might have to wonder how hard it could be to get the approvals they need, or how much they would like continual audits. And in cases where artists are also principal songwriters, buyers could also have trouble clearing song rights, especially for new purposes like AI.
Some labels may be less concerned with expanding this restriction than they are with winning a competitive negotiation to sign a new artist. And if a competing label agrees to a shorter restriction, it could be an easy compromise that would cost little or nothing.
There’s always a temptation to add restrictions to contracts, but in this case, the exercise could backfire. Labels might be advised to be careful what they wish for.
Chris Castle is an Austin-based lawyer. He represents artists, publishers, songwriters and startups on commercial and public policy matters.
While Taylor Swift has been racking up billions of streams with updated “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings of her original hits over the past couple years, making cultural moments out of old material and simultaneously driving down the value of those original recordings that were sold away from her, record companies have been working to prohibit this sort of thing from happening again.
The major labels, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, have recently overhauled contracts for new signees, according to top music attorneys, some demanding artists wait an unprecedented 10, 15 or even 30 years to re-record releases after departing their record companies. “The first time I saw it, I tried to get rid of it entirely,” says Josh Karp, a veteran attorney, who has viewed the new restrictions in UMG contracts. “I was just like, ‘What is this? This is strange. Why would we agree to further restrictions than we’ve agreed to in the past with the same label?’”
For decades, standard major-label recording contracts stated artists had to wait for the latter of two periods to expire before they could put out re-recorded versions, Swift-style: It could have been five to seven years from the release date of the original, or two years after the contract expired. Today, attorneys are receiving label contracts that expand that period to 10 or 15 years or more — and the attorneys are pushing back. “It becomes one of a multitude of items you’re fighting,” Karp says.
“I recently did a deal with a very big indie that had a 30-year re-record restriction in it. Which obviously is much longer than I’m used to seeing,” adds Gandhar Savur, attorney for Cigarettes After Sex, Built to Spill and Jeff Rosenstock. “I think the majors are also trying to expand their re-record restrictions but in a more measured way — they are generally not yet able to get away with making such extreme changes.”
Until June 2019, when Swift announced she would re-record her first six albums, the concept of drawing fans to new versions of old songs was a music-business niche. Frank Sinatra rerecorded a number of his biggest hits in the ’60s, but in recent years, new Def Leppard and Squeeze versions had minimal commercial success. But after venture capitalist and longtime Justin Bieber manager Scooter Braun purchased Swift’s original label, Big Machine Music Group, she failed to re-obtain her original master recordings. The business transaction was personal to Swift — she has accused Braun of “incessant, manipulative bullying” — and she encouraged her huge fanbase and sympathetic radio programmers to exclusively play new Taylor’s Versions of Fearless, Red and others.
Suddenly, the concept of re-recording masters has evolved from archaic fine print buried in record deals to a widely scrutinized cause celebre. “Obviously, this is a big headline topic — the Taylor Swift thing,” Savur says. “Labels, of course, are going to want to do whatever they can to address that and to prevent it. But there’s only so much they can do. Artist representatives are going to push back against that, and a certain standard is ingrained in our industry that is not easy to move away from.”
Adds Dina LaPolt, a music attorney with a long history of grappling with labels over contracts: “Now, because of all this Taylor Swift sh–, we have an even new negotiation. It’s awful. We’re seeing a lot of ‘perpetuity’ sh–. When we were negotiating deals with lawyers, before we would get the proposal,, we’d get the phone call from the head of business affairs. We literally would say, ‘If you send that to me, it will be on f—ing Twitter in 10 minutes.’ It never showed up.”
Swift has her own reasons — in addition to dominating the charts and racking up millions of dollars in streaming revenue — for emphasizing her re-recordings. Smaller artists have more modest goals. Alt-rock band Switchfoot recently put out an “Our Version” of its 2003 album The Beautiful Letdown, as frontman Jon Foreman said recently, “for everyone who’s supported us the last 23 years, for everyone who’s sung along with these songs.” After superstar pop-and-R&B trio TLC negotiated a separation agreement from its label, Sony Music, in the early 2000s, Bill Diggins, the band’s manager, negotiated a re-recording clause allowing the group to use hits such as “Waterfalls” and “No Scrubs” for TV and movie synchs. “Anytime you negotiate with a label, it’s a difficult proposition,” he said.
Reps for Universal, Warner and Sony did not respond to requests for comment, but some music attorneys are sympathetic to labels’ concerns about re-recordings. Although “the contracts have gotten reasonably artist-friendly over time,” longtime music attorney Don Passman said recently, “they don’t want you to duplicate your recordings — like ever — and then they will limit the other types of recordings you can do.”
Josh Binder, an attorney who represents SZA, Gunna, Doechii, Marshmello and others, says the Taylor Swift scenario is rare, and most artists never have to exercise their re-recording rights. “It doesn’t offend me so much. Rarely does it come into play where the re-record treatment is even used,” he says. “[The labels’] position is, ‘Hey, if we’re going to spend a bunch of money creating this brand with you, then you should not try and create records to compete with us.’ We try and fight it. We try and make it as short as possible. But I don’t find it to be the most compelling issue to fight.”
Once artists get past the weeds of re-recording restrictions, Binder says, the bigger issue is controlling their master recordings — that was Swift’s primary concern in putting out her new versions, after Braun purchased her catalog from Big Machine. Artists and their attorneys have recently moved towards licensing deals — retaining ownership of their masters and signing with labels to distribute music for a limited period — rather than traditional recording contracts where the label owns everything.
But Ben McLane, an attorney who has worked with dozens of artists, from Donovan and DMX to new label signees such as the Toxhards and We the Commas, says traditional deals remain more common than licensing deals, so battles over new re-recording restrictions still come up.
“I always ask for less. Some labels, at a negotiating point, might be fine with it. It always depends on what your leverage is,” he says. “If you’re an unknown artist, and you really need the deal, the label doesn’t have a lot of motivation to give in on things like that. They’re strict.”
Karol G’s just-announced signing with Interscope Records had been rumored for months in Miami music circles, as far back as the release of her record-making album Mañana Será Bonito last February.
So when Interscope finally announced the signing on Monday, after what sources describe as a “lengthy” and complex negotiation, it wasn’t entirely surprising. However, new information indicates this is no ordinary record deal.
According to a source with knowledge of the negotiations, Karol G, whose real name is Carolina Giraldo Navarro, will actually be releasing music under her own imprint, Bichota Records, and will be distributed by Interscope and worked by the label. Moving forward, she will own her masters as well.
“It is one of the most ambitious deals signed by a Latin artist in recent memory,” says the source, who also said the deal is “valued at almost $100 million.”
The arrangement marks a departure from Karol G’s previous recording deal with Universal Music Latino, and seems to be more aligned with her manager Noah Assad‘s independent mentality. Assad’s other superstar client, Bad Bunny, records under indie Rimas and is distributed by The Orchard.
Karol G’s move from Latin label to mainstream label is still fairly uncommon, even at a time when Latin music’s success is growing to unprecedented levels both globally and in the United States. It follows news from April that Brazilian star Anitta signed with Republic Records, but also work with Universal Music Latin Entertainment. While stars who are signed to major labels have historically released their music jointly between Latin and mainstream labels, according to language — Shakira long released her English albums on Epic and her Spanish language albums on via Sony Music Latin, for example, and Enrique Iglesias released both on Interscope and Universal Music Latin — Karol G’s recordings will fall entirely under Interscope’s purview, with the label promoting and marketing her to both English and Spanish-language markets.
Even though Interscope doesn’t have a Latin division per se, it has a Miami office run by Latin music veteran executive Nir Seroussi and it works Interscope’s Latin projects, which also include Kali Uchis and Cuco.
Karol G’s signing to Interscope — much as with Anitta’s Republic signing — signals the Latin superstar’s intent to break into a mainstream U.S. audience and expand her brand globally even more than she has already. And although she has recorded in English in the past (in the track “Don’t Be Shy” with Tiësto) there are no immediate plans to release English language music right now, sources say.
“I’m continuously amazed at the support my fans give me, which motivates me to deliver the best of me, and I’m certain that this partnership with Interscope and their incredible team will help us continue building and making history,” said Karol G in a statement announcing the deal. “I’m thrilled to see what’s to come.”
Boundary-pushing pop artist Grimes has left Columbia Records, according to a source from the label. The singer’s longtime manager, Daouda Leonard, confirmed the news.
The Canadian musician signed with Columbia in March 2021, marking her first major label deal after releasing five albums on independent labels prior. Geidi Primes and Halfaxa both arrived in 2010 on Canadian indie Arbutus Records, while her last three albums — Visions (2012), Art Angels (2015) and Miss Anthropocene (2020) — were released on 4AD.
Visions hit No. 98 on the Billboard 200 and No. 17 on Billboard‘s Top Alternative Albums chart. Art Angeles landed at No. 36 on the Billboard 200 and topped the Top Alternative Albums chart. And Miss Anthropocene hit No. 32 on the Billboard 200, No. 4 on Top Alternative Albums and No. 1 on the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart.
Grimes has long teased her forthcoming sixth album, BOOK 1, offering many status updates during her time at Columbia. Last fall she even shared on social media that the project was done and may be released in two parts.
“Album is done we’re mixing. My friend and I. perfected the last song in the plastic surgery clinic cuz they wouldn’t let me leave and we were laughing that this was the most Hollywood moment of all time. I have 20 songs so maybe BOOK 1 and BOOK 2? Deciding format/ tracklist,” she wrote on Twitter.
Last month, Grimes offered a sneak peek into the long-awaited album during her performance at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival. During the set, she also unveiled her latest venture, ELF.TECH, an app and web-based operating system, as well as unveiled Grimes Gen 1 Avatars, the first series of her own virtual artificial intelligence avatars.
Over the weekend, Grimes took to Twitter to voice her support of A.I. Posting a screenshot of an article about fake hits by Drake and The Weekend, made using A.I., Grimes wrote: “I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.”
A Houston judge sided with Megan Thee Stallion on Wednesday in an early skirmish in her legal war with record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, refusing to grant the company a quick victory and ordering the case to instead be decided by a jury.
Megan has long been at odds with the label over a record deal she calls “unconscionable,” but the current battle was filed earlier this year over claims that 1501 was unfairly refusing to count her 2021 Something for Thee Hotties as an “album” to keep her locked into the deal for another release.
In September, 1501 asked a judge to quickly decide that dispute himself — arguing Megan’s contract had a clear definition of “album” and that Thee Hotties obviously didn’t meet it. Megan’s lawyers fought back, saying there were key disputes that need to be decided a jury and that the rapper must be “allowed her day in court.”
On Wednesday, Judge Robert Schaffer sided with Megan in that dispute, denying 1501’s motion and allowing the “album” question to proceed to a jury trial. The ruling came no written explanation, simply saying Schaffer was “of the opinion that the motion should be and hereby is denied in its entirety.” A trial date has not yet been set.
A rep for Megan declined to comment on the ruling. Steven Zager, lead attorney for 1501, told Billboard he disagreed with the judge’s decision but stressed that the ruling had not resolved any issues in either side’s favor.
The star rapper (real name Megan Pete) has been fighting with 1501 for more than two years now, claiming the company duped a young artist into signing an “unconscionable” record deal in 2018 that was well-below industry standards. She says that when she signed a new management deal with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation in 2019, she got “real lawyers” who helped her see that the deal was “crazy.”
She filed the current case in February, claiming 1501 had wrongly classified Thee Hotties as something less than an album — a key distinction, since she owes a set number of albums under the record deal. 1501 quickly countersued, arguing that Thee Hotties contained just only 29 minutes of original material and was obviously not an “album.”
The two sides then escalated the case last summer. Megan filed a new complaint seeking more than $1 million in damages over claims that 1501 had “systematically failed” to pay enough royalties. 1501 then fired back with new accusations of its own, claiming it’s actually Megan who owes “millions of dollars.”
With those other issues still pending, 1501 asked the judge in September for so-called summary judgment on the core dispute — meaning a quick ruling about whether Thee Hotties counted as an album. The company argued there was nothing ambiguous about the contract, and that the judge himself could decide the issue without further proceedings.
“There is no amount of discovery that will change the answer to that question,” 1501’s lawyers wrote at the time. “The court can compare the recording to the contractual requirements for an album and determine that ‘Something for Thee Hotties’ is not an album as a matter of law.”
Megan’s lawyers sharply disagreed. In a response this month, they cited supposed disputes over basic facts, like whether or not 1501 gave approval prior to the release of Thee Hotties, and said those disagreements would need to be sorted out by a jury, not a judge.
“Pete should be allowed her day in court to present evidence and testimony to the jury demonstrating that she has done all that was required of her in the delivery and release of her albums,” her lawyers wrote.
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