Record Labels
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Big Machine Label Group (BMLG) has launched a synch licensing division dubbed Big SYNQ and tapped Maria Alonte to lead it as senior vp of synchronization, the company tells Billboard. The new division will oversee all aspects of synch licensing and placement for Big Machine Label Group and its publishing division Big Machine Music, as […]
As the third quarter of 2024 comes to a close, a familiar label is atop the current market share standings: Republic, which for the second straight quarter maintains a market share north of 15%, a remarkable achievement.
But while the story of Republic’s second quarter was the dominance of Taylor Swift — whose Tortured Poets Department remains far and away the biggest album of the year so far, more than doubling the second-placed title and still going strong — the story of its third quarter is the huge surge of Island Records, which is included under Republic’s market share alongside Mercury Records, Big Loud Records, Cash Money and indie distributor Imperial.
Buoyed by the breakout successes of Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, Island posted a 3.81% current share (defined as released within the past 18 months) for the three months between June 27 and Sept. 26. If Island were broken out on its own, that would have been good for seventh among all labels for that period, which boosted its nine-month current market share to 2.15% — about 3.5 times higher than its current market share was through the first nine months of 2023, while that 3.81% mark for the third quarter was 6.5 times higher than for the corresponding three-month period in 2023. (With Carpenter’s Short N Sweet and Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess at Nos. 1 and 2 on the Billboard 200 in this first week of the fourth quarter, that momentum is likely to continue.)
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That helped Republic post a 15.21% current market share through the first nine months of the year, itself a huge jump from its industry-leading 12.28% through three quarters of last year. But it wasn’t just Island: Republic itself is still floating on its TTPD high, while Post Malone’s F1-Trillion helped Big Loud and Mercury contribute to Republic’s share, too. And while Republic has receded slightly from the 15.72% it posted at midyear — when it outstripped the entire Warner Music Group — any label putting up a number higher than 15% is enjoying a massive year.
On the other coast, Universal Music Group’s other juggernaut, Interscope Geffen A&M, also saw a huge surge in the third quarter, which boosted its nine-month current share into double digits, as it posted a 10.13% share — up from 9.51% at the midyear mark and the 8.55% it held through the same period last year. The enduring success of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” — which will get a Super Bowl-sized bump early next year, too — and Billie Eilish’s still-hot Hit Me Hard And Soft album helped Interscope become the only other label to reach higher than 10%. (Interscope’s share also includes Verve Label Group.)
The success of both Republic and Interscope — the two labels around which UMG reorganized earlier this year — helped parent company Universal improve more than two percentage points in current share over the same period last year, jumping from 34.61% through nine months in 2023 to 36.65% this year. That gain has come at the expense of the other two majors, which slipped a bit year over year: Sony Music Group dipped from 27.50% through the first nine months of 2023 to 25.89% through the first three quarters of 2024; while Warner Music Group dropped from 17.46% last year to 16.25% this year for the same period, though the latter recovered enough from its 15.68% mark at midyear to climb back above Republic Records.
Year over year, the indie sector by distribution ownership also grew, up to a 21.21% current share through the first nine month of this year, as opposed to 20.43% during the same period last year, a significant uptick; the biggest song of the year so far, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” was released by indie EMPIRE. (EMPIRE does not report its market share to Luminate, so its individual share cannot be broken out.) By label ownership, the indie sector remains the biggest segment of the business, racking up a 37.09% current share of the market, though that has come down somewhat from the 39.49% it had through the same period in 2023.
Beyond Republic and Interscope, there is more good news from Warner Records (which includes catalog label Rhino and parts of Warner Nashville), as it stays on the hot streak it has been on for the entirety of 2024. Its 6.54% nine-month mark keeps it in third place once again, a full percentage point above fourth-placed Atlantic (which includes 300 Elektra Entertainment), which posted a 5.51% current mark, better than its first two quarters but still down significantly from its 7.39% mark at the three-quarter period of 2023. (Remarkably, despite coming out of the gate so hot this year, Warner Records hasn’t cooled down: its 6.98% third quarter was its best three-month period of the year.)
In fifth and sixth are a pair of Sony Music labels that move up a spot in the rankings year over year, though both dropped in market share over the same period last year: Columbia Records, which includes some RED labels in its share, posted a 4.41% current mark, a slight uptick from its midyear 4.35% but down from last year’s 4.93% nine-month mark, when it was sixth; and RCA, at 4.30%, a dip from the 4.64% it had nine months into 2023, though it is up from seventh to sixth for this quarter. Capitol Music Group, in seventh place so far this year, posted a 4.04% current share; through nine months of 2023, it was in fourth place, at 6.01%.
Epic Records, with several high-flying hip-hop releases this year from Future, boosts its share from 2.39% three quarters through 2023 to 2.79% through the first three quarters of this year, rising to eighth place; while Sony Nashville (2.10%, down from 2.50%) and Sony Music Latin (2.05%, up from 1.96%), round out the top 10 labels by current share.
Overall market share — which combines all a label’s releases in the marketplace, rather than just those of the past 18 months — rearranges the board slightly, though Republic (10.49%) and Interscope (9.98%) still lead the way, both with slightly improved totals from last year’s period. Atlantic’s vast catalog means that it leapfrogs Warner Records into third, with a 7.66% overall share (down from 8.31% last year), while Warner’s 6.86% — up from 6.63% in 2023 — sees it move from fifth place last year into fourth this year. Capitol and Columbia come in fifth and sixth, though in a virtual tie at 5.87%; Capitol edged out Columbia by three thousandths of a percentage point, essentially a rounding error. RCA (5.03%), Epic (2.75%), Sony Nashville (2.07%) and Universal Music Nashville (1.84%) round out the top 10.
Among the label groups, overall market share remained largely static year over year: UMG and Sony each inched up, to 38.47% and 27.25% respectively year over year, while Warner dipped slightly to 18.42% and the indies, at 15.85%, remained flat. The catalog side is largely the same story: UMG dipped two tenths of a percent year over year, while Sony gained half a point and WMG and the indies were down slightly. Among the individual labels, Interscope took the top catalog slot, jumping above Republic to take a 9.93% share of the market, with Republic’s 8.87% edging out Atlantic’s 8.39%.
As the Warner Music Group continues to reshuffle its executive ranks, the company has made two new announcements today (Oct. 7).
First, Eric Wong, who has been chief marketing officer at the major label since 2020, will shift into the newly-created role of global head of A&R, recorded music, and assume the presidency of East West Records, which was originally launched in 1955 as part of Atlantic Records.
As part of that transition, WMG’s executive vp of global marketing Jessica Keeley-Carter has been promoted to step into the role of chief marketing officer, recorded music. Keeley-Carter has been at WMG since 2019, when she joined as senior vp of global marketing, before being promoted to executive vp in 2022. Both Wong and Keeley-Carter will report to WMG CEO Robert Kyncl.
“Eric’s newly-created role leans into his long-standing relationships within the artistic community and his deep understanding of how music travels around the world,” Kyncl said in a statement announcing the news. “Jess is an expert marketer and an inventive leader, who will help us orchestrate best-in-class ways of cutting through the noise in an increasingly complex and cluttered world.”
These moves are part of the broader restructuring of WMG that Kyncl announced in August, which was in pursuit of what Kyncl said at the time was a “flatter structure” for the company. As part of those moves, WMG CEO of recorded music Max Lousada exited the company, and Elliot Grainge was named as the new CEO of Atlantic Music Group, while Kyncl himself took on direct oversight of the heads of global catalog, marketing, distribution company ADA and fan and merch division WMX. As part of the fallout of the moves, longtime Atlantic leader Julie Greenwald, 300 Elektra Entertainment chairman/CEO Kevin Liles and a host of senior Atlantic and Elektra executives also departed the company, among other moves.
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“I’m excited to build even closer relationships with our artists and put greater firepower behind our worldwide network to connect the dots, unlock new value and magnify opportunities for emerging talent,” Wong said in a statement. “I’d like to congratulate Jess on her promotion, and thank Robert for his trust in me to take on this new position.”
Wong, who years ago had served as a senior vp of marketing at Atlantic, returned to Warner in the global CMO role in 2020, after a decade at Universal Music Group that saw him rise to the role of COO of Island Records. With East West as well as his global A&R role, Wong will be tasked with “identifying local talents with global potential and accelerating their pathway to global success,” according to a press release. Keeley-Carter, prior to joining Warner, had worked at Meta overseeing commercial labor partnerships for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and prior to that had also worked at UMG, where she spent eight years.
“With the collective WMG team collaborating even more closely in our new structure, we’ll be set up to take our artists and labels to new heights,” Keeley-Carter said in a statement. “I’m grateful to Robert for this opportunity, I’d like to thank Eric for his guidance and partnership over the years, and I’m looking forward to continuing our work together.”
Despite the music business nearing a decade of consistent annual growth, thousands of people have exited music companies in the last two years in the biggest wave of layoffs the industry has seen since the early 2000s. Spotify, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and BMG, to name just the biggest examples, have undergone organizational changes that restructured the companies and will collectively save them billions of dollars annually.
But the wave of layoffs of the ‘20s are vastly different than the cuts music companies made two decades earlier. The most obvious difference between then and now is the direction the industry was headed in the early ‘00s. From 1999, the year Napster introduced the world to peer-to-peer file-sharing, to 2003, the year Apple debuted the iTunes Music Store, U.S. recorded music revenues fell 18.5% from $14.6 billion to $11.9 billion, according to the RIAA. That’s a stark difference to the health of today’s business. In the last four years, the U.S. market has increased an astounding 54%.
The post-Napster years were “a matter of survival,” says Matt Pincus, co-founder/former CEO of music publisher SONGS, who at the time worked in EMI Music’s corporate development division. “That was a one-time elevator drop in the economics of the business caused by a technological innovation that fundamentally disrupted the way that people used our product.”
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The sudden arrival of both file-sharing applications and widespread internet access caused CD sales to plummet, creating a vicious cycle of layoffs, consolidation and more layoffs. Take EMI, which laid off 1,800 of its 8,000 staffers in 2002. Still reeling five years later, EMI was acquired by private equity firm Terra Firma in 2007. Terra Firma’s restructuring of EMI resulted in another 2,000 layoffs in 2008. As industry revenues continued to decline, Terra Firma was unable to keep up with its obligations to lenders. Citigroup ended up taking EMI and selling its parts to Universal Music Group and a Sony Corp.-led consortium, resulting in even more layoffs.
Continuously falling revenues created a need to cut expenses through consolidation. When labels acquired competitors or merged companies to help stop the financial bleeding, the elimination of redundant jobs created the desired cost savings. BMG laid off hundreds of staffers in 2003 when it acquired Zomba Music Group, for example, and another 50 people when it integrated J Records and RCA. The same year, UMG laid off 75 MCA employees as part of the label’s merger with Geffen Records.
Retail was being purged, too. In 2003 alone, at least 600 chain stores and 300 K-Mart stores — accounting for 5% of the prior year’s album sales — closed their doors, and Best Buy sold the 1,100-store Musicland chain to a leveraged buyout firm. Retail’s problems sent shockwaves through already struggling record labels. When Tower Records went out of business in 2006, Universal Music Group Distribution (UMGD) had to immediately lay off a dozen people, says Jim Urie, former president/CEO of UMGD.
It seemed like the job cuts would never end. When Universal Music Group cut 1,350 jobs — 11% of its workforce — in 2003, CEO Doug Morris was open to cutting more if necessary. “It depends on how fast the [digital] market gains traction and how fast the CD market continues to erode,” Morris told Billboard at the time. “If [one] doesn’t gain traction and the other erodes faster, we’ll keep trimming, because you have to run a company that way.”
Two decades later, the music industry is in a vastly better position. Many companies with solid revenue growth were still forced to reduce their staff, though, after over-hiring during the pandemic as digital platforms exploded in popularity. “People got drunk during COVID,” says one former major label executive. Digital businesses “started to have this burst,” he adds, “and we kind of caught a hangover across the business.”
Public companies — in music but also technology leaders such as Meta and Google — facing investor expectations opted to thin down. UMG, which went from an average of 8,800 full-time employees in 2020 to just under 10,000 in 2023, began laying off staff in March as part of a restructuring that will save an estimated $270 million annually. Likewise, Spotify ballooned from about 5,600 in 2020 to 8,360 in 2022 before laying off about 25% of its workforce in 2023.
Aside from the need to reduce bloat, recent layoffs reflect the normal course of business that sees companies constantly expanding, shrinking and re-tooling, says Pincus. “The music business goes through consolidation cycles where it becomes more fragmented, and then it consolidates, and then becomes more fragmented, and then it consolidates. We happen to be in a consolidation cycle at the moment. That’s the normal cyclical behavior of the industry. What was going on in the Napster time was not cyclical.”
Recent layoffs are also about positioning labels “to move forward,” says Urie, “and there are new skill sets involved.” Bob Morelli, former president of RED Distribution, agrees. “As technology has changed, [the business is more about] social media and targeted advertising,” he says. “And now with AI coming in, and it’s harder to get bigger tours, these companies are going to make staffing adjustments.” When Warner Music Group announced in 2023 it would cut 4% of its workforce, new CEO Robert Kyncl described the layoffs as necessary “in order to evolve” and position the company for “long-term success” by hiring for tech initiatives and “new skills for artist and songwriter development.”
Labels have also revamped how they discover new artists. The stereotypical A&R rep that scours clubs looking for the next big thing has been replaced — or at least augmented — by data experts. “Most of the A&R departments are more like a data analytics thing,” says David Macias, president of Thirty Tigers, an early adopter of the distribution and label services model. “They’re scrubbing data to find spikes that they can justify chasing.” The way labels and distributors pitch music to streaming services has also changed, Macias notes, from a people-focused process to one driven by automation. “How people find the music is going to have to do less and less with people with special relationships.”
The Atlantic Music Group restructuring may reside in a different category. “That seems like a house cleaning,” says Urie, “because they blew out a lot of people that are perfectly capable.” That’s a sign of a youth movement happening at the label, says another former executive, rather than a reaction to over-hiring or a natural business cycle. Elliot Grainge, the 30-year-old founder of the label 10K Projects, took the CEO role on Oct. 1. Longtime label leader Julie Greenwald announced her resignation five days after Grainge was named CEO. Atlantic ended up cutting roughly 150 jobs — many of them experienced executives with long tenures at the company.
Regardless of the era or business cycle, music executives — and the CFO making the strategic decisions — must answer the same questions, says Morelli. “What is my company going to look like? Are we going to go after developing artists? Are we going to go after legacy artists? Are we going to do a small amount? Are we going to win with volume? And how do you accommodate getting this message out to potential fans and consumers?”
The thousands of people laid off by music companies in recent years face better prospects than music professionals faced two decades ago. Back then, many executives and artists were still viable but needed the proper infrastructure around them, says Macias, who co-founded Thirty Tigers in 2002 after being laid off from Arista Nashville. Digital startups and the burgeoning digital distribution business gave some people a way to remain in music. But the post-Napster years were followed by another decade of industry contraction as downloads replaced CD sales.
If the majors aren’t hiring in 2024, the growing independent sector could provide a refuge for the recently unemployed. In recent years, investment in independent music companies has exploded as entrepreneurs in streaming, digital distribution and social media loosened the major labels’ grip on the industry. The current No. 1 song in America, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” comes from an independent, EMPIRE.
“It’s going to be independent labels, like it always has been, that figure out the new way to get new records in the hands of an audience that doesn’t know they like it yet,” says Pincus.
The Warner Music Group (WMG) has struck a new multiyear licensing deal with Meta, Billboard has learned. The partnership, which covers both Warner’s recorded music and Warner Chappell publishing operations, will be across all of Meta’s platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Horizon and Threads — and will also include WhatsApp for the first time, Billboard […]
When “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, it became Luke Combs’ 18th chart-topper on the tally. But this one was different from its 17 predecessors for the Sony Music Nashville artist. “Oklahoma” was the lead-off single from Atlantic Records’ Twisters soundtrack and his first hit spawned from a movie. Also, as the song spends its second week atop the chart, it brings Combs’ cumulative weeks spent at No. 1 on Country Airplay to 53, making him only the sixth artist in history to have spent more than a year at the summit.
Every one of those 18 No. 1s has been promoted to country radio by Sony Music Nashville senior vp of promotion Lauren Thomas, who oversees promotion for SMN’s RCA and Columbia imprints. And that feat earns the radio veteran, who joined SMN in 2009, the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
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Here, Thomas explains how Sony Nashville and Atlantic worked together to promote both the song and the movie, how Combs’ previous No. 1, his remake of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” paved the way for a broader audience and how Combs integrated the song into his sold-out summer stadium tour. “Honestly, [‘Oklahoma’] is a Luke Combs song through and through and perfect for the live stage,” Thomas tells Billboard. “Luke did the perfect job of writing something for this massive film and soundtrack and making sure it was original to him as well.”
“Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” is No. 1 for the second straight week on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. What key decisions did you make to help that happen? We are fortunate to have a hit song along with an incredible track record with Luke at country radio. The team’s relationships paired with communication with our partners on our goals — and ultimately their support — drove this one home.
“Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” is from the Twisters soundtrack, which Atlantic released. How did you and Atlantic work together to take “Oklahoma” to country radio, while also promoting the film? Working with Kevin [Weaver, Atlantic Records president, West Coast] and his team from the beginning was exciting. From the beginning, their team wanted to make some noise. With the teases of the trailer directly [to] moviegoers inside the theaters to the massive music video with Luke and all the film footage, we were given the ball to make this Luke’s next No. 1 single and their team trusted us to do so.
The song leans more into rock than Combs’ songs usually do. Did you receive any initial pushback from radio? Luke has a solid track record and his sound covers a wide range. Tempo from a superstar like Luke was embraced fairly quickly and given a real opportunity with immediate airplay from a world premiere across all chains.
Though written specifically for the soundtrack, what about the song do you think appealed to Combs’ existing fan base and did you work it as if it were a standard Combs’ single release or were there different elements that came into play because of the film?
Honestly, it’s a Luke Combs song through and through and perfect for the live stage. If you’ve never seen a Luke show before, it fits perfectly into his set. Whether a ballad or something more hard-hitting, they love Luke and are here for him and I think Luke did the perfect job of writing something for this massive film and soundtrack and making sure it was original to him as well.
How did you tie in with the success of the movie to help promote the song?
It was all Luke. Luke was on his massive sold out stadium tour at the time of the movie so there was an easy tie-in to have Luke talk about the song as well as what it was like to shoot the music video for such a big blockbuster — which, as Luke explained, was a very different process from a standard music video shoot, most notably having debris flying at him during filming. That, and of course the weekend the movie came out Luke invited Glen Powell and some of the cast up on stage for his shotgunning beer moments.
“Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” is Combs’ 18th No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. What has been the strategy when taking him to radio in terms of picking singles and working with him and his manager, Chris Kappy? It is very much collaborative with Kappy, Sophia [Sansone] and our respective teams. Luke definitively knows his audience and speaks into the decisions we make — he leans in and always has with both his fans and our partners. It’s wild to think about the days of driving Luke around in a rental car to radio station shows and visits and now Kappy, Sophia and I get on bi-weekly calls to talk through things like multiple sold-out stadium dates. Wild.
Combs’ songs have now spent a cumulative 53 weeks at No. 1 on Country Airplay, making him only the sixth artist to have registered more than a year. Is there one thing you and your team have consistently done when taking Combs to radio that has resulted in such a huge number? It really is the perfect marriage of compelling music and communication to partners. Luke has done an incredible job of consistently delivering music that moves people in a variety of ways. The enthusiasm from Luke and his team is contagious and the Columbia promotion team carries that energy into the promotion of his music and the execution of our goals.
He took his cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” to No. 1 in 2023 and that song also received some crossover play on pop formats. How did that increase his audience?
The whole collective team — management, marketing, press, promotion, etc. — came together to push this in front of new audiences. It really wasn’t one thing alone. The song and story behind it were everywhere and people who had never heard of Luke Combs now know who he is.
This might be a really silly example, but I have worked every Luke Combs number one. When “Fast Car” came out, it was the first time my dad spoke to me about Luke Combs’ music. He knew who Luke was but this song and story behind why Luke cut it was familiar and clearly spoke to him. In contrast, same story with my little brother. Working with [senior vp of pop promotion] Brady Bedard and the team at Columbia was a dream and opened the door for both Luke and that song to have another moment with audiences at the different formats.
The song also made history for Tracy Chapman and brought us one of the most memorable Grammy performances to date. They both just looked so happy. I will always be honored to have been a small part of that song.
What did you learn from this rollout that you can use with other songs from soundtracks, and do you think the Twisters’ soundtrack success will lead to more country artists having songs on soundtracks?
I think we always have to be open to different ways to promote music and this song helped our team do that. Having an extra bonus of a song being in a film and as the lead from the soundtrack just helps add the exposure of any song no matter the genre.
Country music is about storytelling so I think music supervisors should certainly pay more attention to the genre to help tell the stories of their films and shows. This soundtrack helped bring the genre to the forefront at a time when country music is shining. I can only hope that the music teams at these film companies realize the power a song can have to really amplify their story.
EMPIRE is not for sale, said company founder/CEO Ghazi at the Trapital Summit on Thursday (Oct. 3) in Hollywood.
While appearing on a panel titled “The Rise of Independent Music” at the inaugural edition of the conference, Trapital founder Dan Runcie played a short game of over/under with Ghazi, asking the EMPIRE head how many calls he’d recently received about selling the label/distributor.
“You run a music company that has done well from a business perspective and many companies that are your peers in this space are being acquired, they are selling, they are raising money,” Runcie said, adding that EMPIRE is an attractive company to acquire at the moment. He then asked Ghazi if he had received over or under four phone calls in the last 12 months poking around to see if he would sell or allow investment.
“I haven’t gotten any phone calls,” Ghazi said sternly to the audience. “Because everybody knows I’m not for sale. Period. I am dead serious. I am living my purpose. There’s no price on that.”
The declaration comes as independent music distributors like Stem, Downtown, ONErpm and Believe have begun fundraising and exploring acquisitions from major music companies and other investors. Earlier this year, Warner Music Group looked into acquiring Believe (talks between the two ultimately fizzled out) and later hired Goldman Sachs banker Michael Ryan-Southern to lead its search to buy a distributor.
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While EMPIRE would be an ideal acquisition target for the majors or private equity, Ghazi said that’s not an option.
“I’m one of the very few people that I don’t give a s— about money. I care about money that I can share with other people within the livelihood that I get to create,” Ghazi said at the one-day conference. “I used to tell people when I started EMPIRE, ‘I want to be the Robin Hood of the music business.’ And I think that I’ve stuck to my principles. People will always poke around and it never gets to me.”
Ghazi explained that he has brushed off any inquiries that have come his way and has tried to keep his eye on the prize. “We’re helping thousands of people. We’ve created micro-economies all across this planet we call Earth and, for me, there’s nothing more special than that,” he added.
The EMPIRE CEO’s declaration comes as client Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” continues its No. 1 streak on the Billboard Hot 100 with 12 weeks at the summit to date.
“Did you ever think that one of the biggest songs you would have would be a country song?” Runcie asked during the conversation.
“I didn’t think it wouldn’t be,” Ghazi responded. The CEO went on to explain that about five years ago, EMPIRE set out to find stars and that in every genre they explored — including hip-hop, country and Afro music — they found someone special. “A lot of it just has to do with having the right taste, your thumb on the pulse and approaching the culture with understanding what they’re trying to do,” he said.
Verve Label Group, the jazz and classical specialists at Universal Music, has promoted Jamie Krents to CEO and president, and Dawn Olejar to chief operating officer, effective immediately. They will now lead the strategy for the entire group, comprised of storied labels like Verve Records, Impulse! Records and Decca Records US, along with international label partners Decca Classics, Deutsche Grammophon and others.
They’ll continue to report to Krents’ predecessor in the top job at VLG, Dickon Stainer, who was recently elevated to chairman and CEO of Universal Music UK and is keeping his title of chairman of Verve. Both Krents and Olejar are based out of the label group’s New York City offices.
Stainer congratulated Krents and Olejar on their promotions, highlighting Krents’ “long-standing reputation and commitment to nurturing and breaking artists globally,” and Olejar’s strategic leadership. He expressed confidence in their ability to lead VLG’s roster of legendary labels into the future.
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Krents started at Verve in 1998 as a temp and worked his way up to become executive vp in 2019 and later president of the group in 2022. He was crucial in finding and acquiring the tapes for the John Coltrane album Both Directions at Once and has been instrumental in expanding Verve’s artist roster beyond jazz, signing talents like Jon Batiste, Kurt Vile, Arooj Aftab, Joy Oladokun, Shabaka Hutchings and Samara Joy.
“For someone who grew up literally treasuring and studying Verve, Impulse! and Decca recordings, this appointment is beyond thrilling,” said Krents. “Getting to work with artists of the caliber that we have on the Verve Label Group roster is such an honor and it’s particularly exciting to get to take on this role alongside Dawn and the rest of the Verve Label Group team.”
Olejar, who has served as executive vp at VLG for the last seven years and added general manager duties two years ago, has played a key role in cementing Decca Records US as the leading label on the Billboard Classical Chart, and in recent years has led high-profile domestic campaigns for Verve artists including Andrea Bocelli, Ludovico Einaudi, Diana Ross, Lang Lang and Chad Lawson, among others. In this new role as COO, Olejar will have the continued responsibility of overseeing the team at Verve Label Group. Prior to joining Verve, she was general manager at RPM Music Productions.
“I’m thrilled to continue working with Jamie and our amazing team to build upon the great work that we’ve been doing at VLG,” Olejar said. “A very big thank you to Dickon for his endless guidance and support. We work with the most talented artists in the world and I’m excited for what’s next.”
Republic has appointed Mary Catherine Kinney as executive vp of artist & label strategy. Based in Nashville, Kinney will support artist and label strategy for the Republic Corp Collective, which includes Republic Records, Island Records, Mercury Records and Def Jam Recordings. Kinney will also lead business strategy for the group’s labels, further reinforcing their Nashville presence.
Prior to her new role at Republic, Kinney was head of artist partnerships at Spotify, having joined the company in 2018. At Spotify, she led the team responsible for artist and manager relationships, as well as genre marketing initiatives. The team’s projects included partnerships with artists including Taylor Swift, Karol G and Zach Bryan, as well as introducing Spotify House at CMA Fest, Spotify’s Billions Club series and Casa Spotify in Puerto Rico.
Prior to her work at Spotify, Kinney’s career included time at Sony Music Nashville and Universal Music Group Nashville.
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Republic Corps president/COO Jim Roppo said in a statement, “Mary Catherine is one of the music industry’s most inspiring leaders. She’s widely respected across the business and in Nashville. Her reputation and work ethic have uniquely positioned her to flourish supporting the labels at REPUBLIC. She’s the perfect executive to seamlessly facilitate our expansion in the market.”
Kinney added, “I’m thrilled to join Republic to build with each label team on their unique mission and work with such a phenomenal roster of artists. For over a decade, I’ve called Nashville home and I’m honored for the opportunity to steward Republic vision within this vibrant, ever-growing creative community. I have deeply admired Monte, Avery and Jim as visionaries and esteemed leaders for many years; I thank them for this extraordinary opportunity.”
Republic has spearheaded some of the biggest releases to dominate the Billboard 200 over the past year, among them Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time (Big Loud/Mercury/Republic), Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (Mercury/Republic), and Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion (Mercury/Republic). Meanwhile, Jelly Roll and BMG recently teamed with Republic to distribute Jelly Roll’s upcoming album, Beautifully Broken, out Oct. 11.
Ten-time Grammy Award nominee Jamey Johnson has signed a label deal with Warner Music Nashville, and is set to release a new song, “Someday When I’m Old,” on Oct. 4 through Warner Music Nashville and his own label Big Gassed Records.
“Someday When I’m Old,” written by Chris Lindsey, Aimee Mayo and Troy Verges, has continued to resonate with Johnson since he first sang the song’s demo in 2004.
“It was the last demo I sang before I started working with BNA Records,” Johnson said. “Aimee called me back then and she wanted to be able to say she hired me to sing my last demo. When I heard the song, I thought, ‘Wow! That is a great song!’”
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The song follows a slate of new music from Johnson in recent months, including “21 Guns,” “Sober,” “What a View” and Trudy.”
In a statement, Johnson named WMN co-chair and co-president Cris Lacy as a key factor in his signing. “The reason I signed with Warner Music Nashville is Cris Lacy. She is one of my longest-term friends I’ve had in the music business. We started our careers around the same time. She has been a friend to me and has only ever tried to help,” Johnson said.
He added, “She cares about me being able to put out music. She cares that I’m able to participate in my own career. Our conversations are unlike any other conversations I have had with any other label person.”
“For 14 years, those of us in the industry, and fans outside of it, have been begging Jamey Johnson to release another solo studio album,” Lacy said. “From day one, we heard the voice of a man driven by conviction, not commerciality. We saw in him our heroes like Johnny, Waylon and Merle. Warner Music Nashville has the great honor of reintroducing this incomparable artist to a worldwide audience…on his terms…proof that great things are worth waiting for!”
Johnson, a Grand Ole Opry member, is also known for his exemplary talent as a songwriter, having won song of the year accolades from both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association in the same year. Johnson earned song of the year from the ACM and CMA for “Give It Away” in 2007 and “In Color” in 2009.