Record Labels
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Influence Media has launched a new frontline label, called SLANG, with Will Smith among its initial signings, the company announced today (July 24).
The company, which has been backed by the Warner Music Group and BlackRock, is launching the new label with its partner and founding advisor Rene McLean at the helm. SLANG, in partnership with TRIBL Records, released Smith’s latest single, the Gospel track “You Can Make It” feat. Fridayy and Sunday Service, on June 28, which has racked up 1.13 million on-demand streams in the U.S. so far, according to Luminate.
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Joining Smith on the SLANG roster are producers Camper (Big Sean, Mary J. Blige) and 30 Roc (Cardi B, Roddy Ricch), as well as the Underachievers, Leaf, Truththebull, Isaia Huron and more.
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“I’m proud to lead SLANG’s efforts to partner with quality artists and invest in their growth, regardless of genre or where they are in their respective careers,” McLean said in a statement. “In a quickly-changing music industry, SLANG artists will be surrounded by a team of like-minded strategists who will stop at nothing to further their trajectory and help them meet their goals. Our commitment to culture comes first, and we consider our SLANG roster family.”
Influence Media launched in 2017-2018, initially using bridge financing from Morgan Stanley to acquire assets from artists and producers Jeff Bhasker, Shane McAnally and Ben Rector, before selling those rights to Tempo Music in 2019. Two years after that, it launched its Fund I with $100 million in backing to acquire some copyrights from songwriter Ali Tamposi (Kelly Clarkson, Camila Cabello) and singer/songwriter Julia Michaels (“Issues,” Justin Bieber).
The backing from WMG and BlackRock, announced in February 2022, was intended for purchasing new assets and as an investment in Influence’s platform; at the time, Influence was said to have deployed some $300 million of the $750 million it had raised overall on songwriting catalogs from Tainy, the Stereotypes, Jessie Reyez and Skyler Stonestreet. Since then, it also acquired parts of the publishing catalogs of Future and Harry Styles songwriter Tyler Johnson, and partnered with Enrique Iglesias for a rights management deal and acquired Blake Shelton’s master recordings.
McLean, a 2023 Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Power Player, led several of those acquisitions; he has served as a manager for the likes of Cam’ron, LMFAO and Kelis over the years, and had a hand in the careers of artists such as Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Pharrell and Timbaland, according to a press release.
At the midway point of 2024, the recorded music business is in fine form. Streaming is growing, physical purchases remain strong and download purchases are so few that any declines are barely noticeable amidst streaming’s success.
Billboard has already reported the major takeaways from Luminate’s midyear report — you can read a main article here and a follow-up article with more observations here — but a document filled with so much data, augmented by market research, merits another story. Below you can find five additional insights from the report (which you can download a copy of here).
Putting Digital Into Perspective
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Digital’s share of the market rose slightly to 95.3% of equivalent album units (EAUs), up from 95.2% at midyear 2023, 92.3% at midyear 2022 and 91.2% at midyear 2021. If that seems higher than some other figures you’ve spotted at Billboard, don’t worry. Because Luminate tracks only sales and purchases, comparing its data to other available data is like comparing apples and oranges. Public companies that report recorded music revenues have a lower digital share than Luminate’s consumption-based numbers. At Universal Music Group, digital’s global share was 69.8% in 2023, while at Warner Music Group it was 67.0%. Those companies’ digital shares are lower than what’s found in the Luminate report for a couple reasons. First, both companies get more than 10% of their recorded music revenue from physical sales globally (16% for UMG, 11% for WMG). Second, music companies group record labels with merchandise, various licensing revenues and expanded rights revenues — things not tracked by Luminate
Luminate’s digital share is also higher than the RIAA’s widely observed industry numbers, which had digital at 86.4% of recorded music revenue in the U.S. in 2023. But the RIAA tracks a few things that Luminate doesn’t. That includes SoundExchange collections (encompassing satellite radio and cable music services such as Music Choice and Stingray), which last year accounted for 5.8% of total revenue; and synchronization royalties, which accounted for 2.4%.
Long Live the Album
Not many years ago, the album was declared dead and some people predicted single-track releases would become standard. Sure, the album has been forever unbundled, and artists tend to release individual tracks ahead of an album’s release. Yet the format continues to thrive. At the midway point of 2022, four albums had more than 1 million equivalent album units. Last year, five albums had surpassed that threshold by June 30. And this year, seven albums topped 1 million EAUs.
As Billboard’s Dan Rys noted earlier this week, this year’s top album, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, did especially well, boasting 2.6 times as many EAUs as the No. 2 album, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time. To be fair, though, One Thing at a Time has had incredibly longevity: It was the No. 1 album in the first half of 2023, and its 3.31 million EAUs in that period were only 29% less than TTPD’s 4.67 million units in the first half of 2024.
Notably, sales are a major part of the consumption pie for some of the top albums. In the case of TTPD, more than half (53%) of total EAUs came from purchases. Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, the No. 4 album, got 23.3% of EAUs from purchases.
Catalog Didn’t Kill Current Music
Catalog’s share of total EAUs was 72.8% — exactly equal to the prior-year period. This ends a run of increasing catalog market share that led to much — and some might say unnecessary — handwringing over the popularity of current music being released by record labels. By comparison, catalog’s share was 72.4% at midyear 2022 and 69.4% at midyear 2021. (Luminate classifies catalog music as being more than 18 months old.) Not all catalog music could be considered “old,” of course. Swift’s 2019 album Lover, which was No. 10 overall and No. 5 in album sales at the midyear mark this year, falls into the catalog category. So does her 2020 album Folklore, which ranked No. 8 in album sales. SZA’s SOS, released in December 2022, reached catalog status in June even though it was the No. 5 album on the midyear 2024 chart with 1.06 million EAUs. These are examples of “shallow” catalog that have achieved a degree of longevity, not “deep” catalog such as reissues and golden oldies.
Latin Music Has a Chart Disadvantage
Latin music streaming is 32% ad-supported, far below the 19.6% average for all genres and less than half the 12.9% of country music. That matters for both chart position and industry revenues, as premium streams produce greater per-stream royalties than ad-supported streams. In addition, premium streams are weighted more heavily when determining chart position. To compare albums and tracks that are consumed in a variety of formats — physical albums, downloads and streams — Luminate converts streams into EAUs, and ad-supported streams convert to EAUs at a lower rate than premium streams do. It makes sense: Ad-supported streams produce lower per-stream royalties than premium streams. Given Latin music’s relatively high percentage of ad-supported streams, that’s bad news for the genre, whose streams convert to EAUs at about 1,500 streams per EAU — much higher than country and pop, which have the lowest genre conversion rate at about 1,360 streams per EAU. Latin’s high proportion of ad-supported streaming also matters because it tends to under-index in terms of sales: No other genre has lower digital track sales, digital album sales and physical album sales as a percentage of EAUs.
Big Populations, Small Revenue
Developing markets have huge populations but relatively little revenue. India, which has a population of 1.4 billion and 659 million smartphone users, has the lowest proportion of premium streams in the 49 countries tracked by Luminate: Just 9.7% of all on-demand audio and video streams in the country are premium streams, which means 92.3% of all streams come from ad-supported streaming. With a population of 275 million, Indonesia is the fourth most-populated country worldwide, but in terms of music streaming, the country has the second-lowest proportion of premium streams at 15.5%. Globally, the average premium share is 57.5% and is highest in European countries, including Norway (93.5%), Iceland (92.9%), Sweden (89.6%), Netherlands (87.6%) and Denmark (87.1%).
Warner Records has had plenty to celebrate already this year. At the midyear mark of 2024, the label finished an impressive third in current market share at 6.30%. That’s a big jump from the same point last year when it ranked fifth, at 5.62%, and represents the label’s best mark at the midway point in years. That was at least partly due to a string of successful singles in the first half of this year from artists as diverse as Benson Boone, Teddy Swims, Zach Bryan, Dua Lipa, Bebe Rexha and David Guetta, each of whom has made a huge mark on the charts in the first six months.
But this week brought even better news with the release of Luminate’s 2024 Midyear Report. Warner Records had the top three most-streamed songs of the first half of the year in Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” Bryan’s “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves and Swims’ “Lose Control,” respectively. That marks the first time any label has had the top three songs at the midyear mark since 2015, the year that streaming officially tipped the industry back into profitability. This week, the label also held down the top three spots on Billboard’s Dance/Mixshow Airplay chart with Lipa’s “Illusion,” Rexha’s “Chase It” and Guetta and OneRepublic’s “I Don’t Wanna Wait,” representing the first time Warner has ever achieved that feat and the first time any label has done it since 2018.
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Both are impressive milestones, representing a creative, radio, streaming and commercial achievement for the label across several formats and genres — and that’s even before the release of Bryan’s latest album, The Great American Bar Scene, which topped the charts at five different formats this week and racked up 137,000 equivalent album units in its first full week of availability. All that helps make Warner Records’ executive vp of promotion and commerce Mike Chester Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Chester talks about those midyear achievements, his work across both radio promotion and overall commerce at the label and how things have changed since he arrived in 2018. “Artists have been tirelessly refining their sound, approach and craft, a dedication now reflected in our success,” he says. “They deserve immense credit for navigating this demanding process and emerging triumphantly, as does the best-in-class team here at Warner Records.”
This week, Luminate’s 2024 midyear report revealed that Warner Records had all of the three most-streamed songs of the year so far, in Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” Zach Bryan’s “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control,” the first time in at least a decade that one label has held the top three slots. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
Global artist development. In today’s interconnected marketplace, it’s crucial to respect each territory outside the U.S. When nurtured properly, these regions can provide a massive platform for launching artists. Take Benson Boone and Teddy Swims, for example. They’ve spent as much time abroad over the past two years as they have in the U.S. This strategic international presence has been instrumental in driving a global audience, leveraging the power of algorithms and trends to expand their reach. Zach Bryan stands out by doing things his way, with integrity and purpose. His ability to connect authentically with his fans is unparalleled.
In addition to your guys’ success at pop, country and rock, Warner has the top three songs on the Dance/Mixshow Airplay chart with Dua Lipa’s “Illusion,” Bebe Rexha’s “Chase It” and David Guetta and One Republic’s “I Don’t Wanna Wait,” a first for Warner and the first time a label has achieved that since 2018. How were you guys able to hit that mark, and how does the dance/mixshow world differ from other formats?
We have dedicated significant effort to emphasizing the dance genre, as evidenced by the launch of Major Recordings and our ongoing commitment to dance music at Warner Records. Foremost, we are fortunate to have exceptional music from artists such as Dua Lipa, Bebe Rexha and David Guetta, who are able to move culture every day. I would like to extend special recognition to Josh Reich [senior vp of Top 40 & dance promotion] whose strategic vision and passion for the genre have been instrumental in our success.
Warner is having a hugely successful commercial year so far, posting a 6.30% midyear current market share, the label’s best mark in years. What do you attribute that to?
There is no doubt that this achievement is a testament to [Warner co-chairman/COO] Tom Corson and [Warner co-chairman/CEO] Aaron Bay-Schuck‘s incredible leadership. Artists have been tirelessly refining their sound, approach and craft, a dedication now reflected in our success. Keys factors have been patience, consistency and providing our artists with the necessary space for proper development. They deserve immense credit for navigating this demanding process and emerging triumphantly, as does the best-in-class team here at Warner Records.
You joined Warner in 2018 as head of promotion, and took on the broader role of head of promotion and commerce in 2021. How have you seen the commercial landscape evolve over that time and how have you positioned your team to be able to capitalize on that?
Interestingly, 2018 was also the year TikTok made its debut in the United States, revolutionizing our world from day one. Since then, the landscape of artist development has seen remarkable shifts, with audience fragmentation, genre evolution and the growing influence of niche subcultures becoming the norm. Beyond the digital realm, the physical product space has also transformed, offering fans more meaningful and collectible items that create a deeper connection to our artists and their music. As streaming growth evolves, we continue to think deeply about how to monetize our music in many different ways.
BMG and Cirque du Soleil have formed a partnership to handle the live entertainment company’s musical catalog, as well as explore a number of music-oriented initiatives.
The agreement calls for BMG to be the label home for Cirque’s catalog of original scores and soundtracks, administer its music publishing and jointly create new music.
The first release under the pact is the country-themed Songblazers, out today. Songblazers is Cirque’s newest production, presented in conjunction with Universal Music Group Nashville, about two characters who go on a journey to find their own path to country music stardom. The soundtrack was produced by Grammy-winning producer Daniel Tashian.
The partnership will be led by Cirque du Soleil’s new music division, Cirque du Soleil Studio, which is tasked with expanding the brand’s fan base.
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“The power of music has long been a force uniting cultures and peoples in Cirque du Soleil productions around the world. As music plays an integral part in our productions, we’re proud to finally dive into the music industry and explore this new avenue,” said Anne Belliveau, chief customer experience officer for Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group. “Over the last few years, BMG has brought a fresh vision to the music business, and we look forward to partnering with BMG on a variety of music-related opportunities.”
Marian Wolf, senior vp of music publishing, North America, for BMG added, “Cirque du Soleil is one of the most innovative and creative entertainment companies in the world. We are thrilled to be the new publishing and recorded music home for Cirque du Soleil and to collaborate on upcoming new releases. This will provide unparalleled opportunities for BMG’s diverse roster of artists, songwriters, and catalogs. Together we aim to celebrate and elevate global culture by showcasing diverse music releases and transforming the way global audiences discover new music.”
Cirque’s catalog includes more than 30 titles including the recordings to such popular Cirque du Soleil productions as Ka, O, Alegria, Mystere, La Nouba, Dralion, Saltimbanco, Zumanity and Quidam. (The deal does not include Love, the Cirque production based on the Beatles catalog; that title remains on Apple/Capitol. Separately, BMG has publishing and recording relationships with Beatles drummer Ringo Starr and the late George Harrison).
Cirque’s catalog has earned more than 250 million career streams in the U.S .and more than 500,000 album equivalents sold in the US alone, according to the company.
A coalition of some of the world’s biggest independent labels, including Beggars Group, Partisan Records, Sub Pop and Because Music, have joined forces to launch a “first-of-its-kind” think tank to promote better understanding of the global music business among governments and policymakers — and advocate on the industry’s behalf.
The Organization for Recorded Culture and Arts, or ORCA for short, will develop and promote research, data, and “qualitative and quantitative evidence that underscore the significant economic, social, and cultural value of music,” said the newly-formed organization.
Founder members also include the U.K.’s Domino Recording Company; Germany-based City Slang and !K7 Music; Spain’s Everlasting Records; and U.S.-headquartered Exceleration Music, Secretly Group and Hopeless Records. Other participants are London-based Ninja Tune, Stockholm’s Playground Music and Canada’s Secret City Records.
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Artists that have either been discovered by or are currently signed to the 14 founder labels include Adele, Nirvana, The National, Pavement, Christine and the Queens, Fontaines D.C., Arctic Monkeys, Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers.
“This is a concept long in the making, arising from a realization of shared values above and beyond our existing collective independent activities,” said Martin Mills, founder and chairman of Beggars Group, in a statement. “Music is an undervalued asset in the daily round, and we seek to translate the motivations underlying its production into an appreciation that art and commerce can live as one.”
In line with the organization’s launch, ORCA has published its inaugural research report, “Setting the Stage: How Music Works.” The free-to-access study is intended to provide government policymakers, finance institutions and cultural development agencies with an in-depth understanding of how the record industry operates and the economic and cultural benefits it generates.
The 155-page report was researched by the nonprofit Center for Music Ecosystems, which is working alongside ORCA, and features case studies of several indie-label artist success stories, including Guadalupe Plata (Everlasting Records), Patrick Watson (Secret City) and Christine and the Queens (Because), as well as an analysis of distribution practices, artist development and income revenues in the indie sector.
“We’re proud of the artists we choose to invest in and the people we choose to work with. We’re also aware of how little actual data there is out there that illustrates how this industry actually works or our contribution to it. We’re incredibly excited to get that ball rolling with this first report,” Tony Kiewel, president of Sub Pop Records, tells Billboard.
ORCA says future reports will focus on collecting primary data to demonstrate the benefits of independent record labels to the wider global music economy, looking at the positive impact the industry has on job creation, social equality, sustainability and culture. Members will meet at least once a month, with the next report due out later this year.
“Whilst we are in competition with the other ORCA founders, we are similar in what drives us to find and develop new talent and there’s a shared incentive to making sure that the benefits of our work are understood beyond just the industry itself,” says Zena White, chief operating officer at Partisan Records and chair of The Worldwide Independent Network (WIN).
White says that one of ORCA’s primary goals will be to measure the economic and social impact of labels’ investments in artist development, which she says has “been sorely lacking” in the global independent sector.
The think tank also aims to address some commonly held misunderstandings about how the record label business model works, explains White, whose label roster includes IDLES, Cigarettes After Sex, Ezra Collective and PJ Harvey.
“Labels at their best underwrite living advances, recording and marketing costs that the artists’ entire ecosystem will benefit from. Of course, there are bad actors, but many are essential to ensuring that music gets made and that it’s heard,” she says.
“We have a fantastic network of global trade associations for independent music… [but] they badly need empirical data that backs up their conversations with governments and players at a local level,” White adds. “ORCA is supplementary to that network and hopes to be able to help.”
“The music business is an incredibly complicated and messy industry,” says Kiewel. “We’re often the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to new technologies. If there are policy conversations happening that affect the livelihoods of independent recording artists and the labels that support them then we think it’s important that they have a seat at that table. I believe that there are many people and policy makers who would be interested in what we have to say, and we want to make sure that those representing our community have tools to help convey their perspectives.”
On Saturday Night Live’s May 18 season finale, Sabrina Carpenter appeared in a sketch as Daphne from Scooby-Doo, watching in horror as Jake Gyllenhaal’s Fred tore the face off James Austin Johnson’s villain. (The gag: Apple Face ID — Never Get Ripped Off Again!) The sketch was a prelude to Carpenter’s two theatrical performances as musical guest. First, she sang her then-new single, “Espresso,” which had debuted the month prior before her main-stage Coachella set and had already soared into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and Global 200; then a medley of her first two Pop Airplay top 10 singles, “Feather” (No. 1) and “Nonsense” (No. 10), both released in the preceding year-and-a-half.
Two days later, Justin Eshak and Imran Majid — the co-CEOs of her label, Island Records — gathered their staff at Island’s Manhattan headquarters to rewatch the episode. “She’s just a pro; it was an incredible moment,” Majid says later that afternoon of the 25-year-old singer, who first tasted fame as a Disney Channel actress in her early teens. “For a lot of artists, the idea of translating their performance to television is hard,” Eshak adds. “But because she has so much experience with it, it just felt so much more natural and comfortable for her.”
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At the time, the buzz from Carpenter’s SNL debut, coupled with the instant global success of “Espresso,” felt like a mountaintop. After the initial success of “Nonsense,” which reached No. 56 on the Hot 100 in February, “Feather” hit No. 21 and topped Pop Airplay in April. Then “Espresso” exploded, reaching No. 3 on the Hot 100 in June and spending two weeks at No. 1 on the Global 200.
But Carpenter’s momentum has only picked up since. In late June, “Please Please Please” debuted at No. 2 on the Global 200, simultaneously giving her the top two songs in the world. (She maintained that feat the following week, when “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” flipped spots atop the chart.) It also bowed at No. 2 on the Hot 100, making her the first soloist — and second act overall, joining The Beatles — to have her first two top three Hot 100 hits concurrently reach that territory with no other billed acts. The next week, it hit No. 1 on the Hot 100, Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts.
It was the kind of setup that executives dream of: one song building on the next to keep scaling new heights. “We always felt ‘Please Please Please’ had this level of sophistication that really sets her up in a different lens; there’s a bit of Dolly Parton in that song,” Majid says. “But it feels like everything we hoped and dreamed the one-two punch would be.” Or, as Island vp of A&R Jackie Winkler puts it, “ ‘Nonsense’ walked so ‘Feather’ could jog, then ‘Espresso’ ran so that ‘Please Please Please’ could start a stampede.”
Imran Majid, Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Eshak attend Universal Music Group’s 2024 After Party presented by Coke Studios and Merz Aesthetics’ #SmartTox on Feb. 4, 2024 in Los Angeles.
Jordan Strauss
That stampede has set the stage perfectly for the Aug. 23 release of Carpenter’s album Short N’ Sweet and the launch of her North American arena tour in the fall, which sold out in every market within two weeks of its late-June announcement. But already, her success has been one of the biggest artist stories of the year so far, and a big feather in the caps of Eshak, 44, and Majid, 42, who took over the esteemed 65-year-old Island in January 2022 after jointly running the A&R department at Columbia Records for three years.
Carpenter is just one example of how the duo has revitalized Island. In mid-June, following her massive performance at New York’s Governors Ball festival, Chappell Roan’s September 2023 album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 in its 12th week on the chart — just the second time this decade that an album broke into the region for the second time after that long of a climb. And in the first week of July, Roan’s single “Good Luck, Babe!” — which became her first Hot 100 hit when it debuted on the chart in April and is not on Midwest Princess — hit No. 10 on the Hot 100 after its own 13-week climb.
Call it the summer of Island. While the likes of Carpenter, Roan, The Killers, Brittany Howard and Remi Wolf are dominating festival stages, their songs are setting new personal high-water marks on the charts. The buzz started building earlier this year: Howard’s first album for Island, What Now, arrived in February to critical praise; that same month, the biopic Bob Marley: One Love, about Island’s most famous artist and featuring James Norton as label founder Chris Blackwell, grossed over $179 million, according to Box Office Mojo. (Island was not involved in the making of the film but did release an album “inspired by” the movie alongside Tuff Gong Records, which featured artists like Kacey Musgraves, Wizkid and Leon Bridges covering Marley classics.) The Last Dinner Party, originally signed by Island U.K.’s Louis Bloom, released its debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, and was named “Britain’s hottest new band” by The New York Times Magazine in March; in April, Hulu released a well-received documentary on Bon Jovi — which has spent its entire 40-year career as part of Island — before the band’s latest album, Forever, debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 in June; and alt-pop powerhouse Wolf released her heralded sophomore album, Big Ideas, on July 12. The year ahead also promises new music from Carpenter and Roan, while Shawn Mendes, one of the label’s few reliable hit-makers over the past decade, is in the studio.
“Nowadays, everything’s about culture, and company culture, and the philosophy of how you’re doing things, and Island is definitely a label that’s wired differently,” says Nick Bobetsky, who manages Roan. “They’re not the ambulance chasers, they’re not the TikTok-moment chasers. They’re really committed to supporting their artists in a way that’s really true to those artists, and that is rare in today’s climate.”
Brittany Howard (left) and Justin Eshak at Brooklyn’s Electric Garden Studios in 2023.
Courtesy of Island Records
For Eshak and Majid, it’s validation of the culture that they’ve sought to build since taking over the Universal Music Group (UMG) subsidiary in 2022 — and a testament to the work they’ve done overhauling a label that had slipped down the pecking order as the marketplace evolved in recent years. While the Island Records they inherited — home to Marley, U2, Traffic, Grace Jones and Cat Stevens, among others through the years — may have been rich in history, its more recent track record had been spotty at best, disjointed at worst. Island finished 2021 with a current market share of 0.67%, a number that had fallen steadily over the previous five years, from 1.5% in 2018, according to Luminate.
“We weren’t walking in here inheriting hits. We had to rebuild a roster, which sounds easy but takes time, and no one really knew what the label proposition was,” Majid says. “So we had to go out there and project what that is at a very competitive time.”
But Island’s small roster and small staff allowed it to focus on developing talents like Carpenter and Roan — and to provide that raison d’être that the label had seemingly been missing. That has often meant leveraging the live side of each artist’s career to help catapult new records: The popularity of Carpenter’s “Nonsense,” for instance, was built through the fan response to the city-specific outros she added to each of her opening performances on Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, while “Espresso” and “Please” were launched in tandem with her Coachella and Governors Ball performances. “It’s really difficult to break through as an artist anymore unless you have a holistic artist proposition,” Eshak explains.
The label built its strategy for Roan, too, on her live aesthetic; Eshak and Majid tell the story of seeing her perform for the first time at New York’s Bowery Ballroom and how the energy of the crowd struck them more than any of the metrics they had seen on socials or streaming. “The enthusiasm that existed in the crowd was just insane,” Eshak continues. “I remember thinking, ‘How do we tell the story about what happened in Bowery Ballroom to the rest of the world? Because if we can do that, then she’s going to break.’ ”
Imran Majid, Chappell Roan and Justin Eshak attend Universal Music Group’s 2024 After Party presented by Coke Studios and Merz Aesthetics’ #SmartTox on Feb. 4, 2024 in Los Angeles.
Jordan Strauss
The small-but-mighty ethos is a cue Eshak and Majid took from Blackwell, whom they visited at his Goldeneye resort on Jamaica’s north coast shortly after starting at Island. “When we took this job, we had such a reverence for Island and its history,” Eshak says. “Hearing Chris Blackwell talk about artists that historically worked on Island, they would weave their way through culture. The artists that are having success now are fan-driven, have unique artist propositions, and you just [have to] support them in the right way. This label has always stood for creativity and for artistry and for things that may not seem obvious but weave their way through culture.”
In some ways, no label is as beholden to, or in the thrall of, its founder as Island. Since being spun back off as a stand-alone label from the combined Island Def Jam in 2014, successive heads of the company have invoked Blackwell, who left in the late 1990s, when articulating their philosophies. “I wanted to go back to the idea of Chris Blackwell-era Island: an artist-driven label that was a major, but in an intimate manner,” then-president David Massey told Billboard in 2016 about his approach. In 2019, his successor, Darcus Beese, told Billboard, “How I run my business is literally how I think Chris would run his business.”
Eshak and Majid are similar, often invoking the spirits of Blackwell and the label itself — though with their own spin. “It’s not a throwback company by any means; it’s very progressive and market-focused,” Majid says. “But it’s also about curation. If we’re going to have success in this market and with a new generation of artists, you want artists that feel like they love being a part of the company, and you want people that want to work here. And that was kind of what Chris built at Island Records.”
“I’m so happy that Justin and Imran have continued to honor the heart and culture of the label,” Blackwell, 87, tells Billboard. “Looking back, I remember the rush of excitement when I discovered an act, signed them and saw their massive success. Well done, guys.”
Imran Majid, Chris Blackwell and Justin Eshak (from left) at Pebble Bar in Manhattan in 2022.
Kevin Condon
Eshak’s and Majid’s careers have often run parallel over the past 18 years. Both started at Universal Republic under Monte and Avery Lipman in the mid-2000s, when the company had just 23 employees and a small roster; Eshak then spent time at Mick Management before the two reunited in 2013 in Columbia’s A&R department, where they rose to co-heads of A&R. While they seem a study in contrasts — Majid, a New Jersey native, is more outgoing and gregarious; Eshak, from Houston, is more reserved and measured — they’re united by a shared passion and sense of purpose for their artists and their staff, the business and the music, as well as an awareness of their own complementary strengths.
Through their industry arcs, Eshak and Majid have seen the business from Republic’s then-scrappy-upstart vantage point, as well as through the legacy lens of Columbia, one of the oldest and most decorated labels in history. The current iteration of Island, with its immense, venerated catalog and relatively small staff, is something of a combination of the two. “The team at Island is our extended family,” says Janelle Lopez Genzink, Carpenter’s manager. “Every member of the team’s laser focus on delivering in each of their areas has helped us experience these monumental wins.”
But the progress toward this point has not been linear. The duo first needed to overhaul Island, even amid a broader restructuring by UMG. The first two years of Eshak and Majid’s tenure didn’t include much improvement in market share as they reshaped the roster, while UMG shifted Island into Republic Recording Company in early 2024, alongside Republic Records, Def Jam and Mercury, providing resources through its Corps team, with the Island chiefs now reporting to Monte Lipman. Yet despite the reshuffle — and maybe partially because of it and the groundwork laid in those early years — Island has more than doubled its current market share, from 0.62% at the end of 2023 to 1.3% through the end of June.
“Both Imran and Justin are top graduates of ‘Republic University’ from back in the day and have always exemplified the passion, drive and ambition to become leaders in this business,” Republic Recording Company founder and chairman Monte Lipman tells Billboard. “Avery and I couldn’t be more proud of their success in creating such an amazing culture for both artists and executives at Island Records.”
Island’s artists appreciate that culture, too. Carpenter calls Eshak and Majid “collaborative and supportive partners” who “encourage an open dialogue, which is important to me.” “It’s very rare that the higher-ups trust the artist fully,” Roan adds. “It proves Justin and Imran’s method that trusting in the artist results in success and longevity — even outside of music.” And Jon Bon Jovi, whom Majid calls “our Bruce Springsteen,” says the two “truly care about their artists and are supportive and passionate in achieving a shared vision.”
“Certain things are always true: great artists, great artistry, great songs, artists with clear vision,” Eshak says. “But on the business side, it’s almost the opposite, where we’re in a business of constant change. You have to be willing to reinvent yourself and reteach yourself things all the time in this business. And I think, ultimately, the labels that are successful have that approach: They understand culture, they understand what actually moves the needle in the marketplace, and they’re constantly evolving.”
Island’s latest evolution is still developing, with several more emerging artists in the pipeline, Grammy hopes on the horizon and a new partnership with Virgin Music to sign regional Mexican star Carín León — the label’s first true foray into Latin music, which was announced in late June. But for the moment, Majid says, there’s a chance to simply take a breath, look around and appreciate how far they’ve come. “It’s two-and-a-half years of going seven days a week to just catch a break,” he says. “To have a moment like this that we don’t take for granted and we’re very sober about — it’s very fulfilling.”
This story will appear in the July 20, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Colombian hitmaker Nanpa Básico has signed a record deal with 5020 Records, the company tells Billboard. The 31-year-old singer-songwriter from Medellín, Colombia (born Francisco David Rosero Serna) has made a name for himself thanks to his socially conscious, raw lyrics and a signature style that blends hip-hop with reggae and regional influences. His latest album, […]
In several different ways, the modern era of the U.S. recorded music business can date its origins to the year 2015. That was the year that Apple Music and TIDAL debuted in the United States; the year that streaming finally matured, taking up the baton as the dominant revenue stream among all formats in the country; and the year that, after more than a decade of decline, the business finally began to see its first shoots of growth, kicking off an upward trend that has still, 10 years later, not abated.
This week, Luminate released its annual midyear report on the U.S. business, providing a relatively convenient bookend to the first 10 years of what can reasonably be referred to as the official streaming era. The midyear charts threw up a few surprises (the enduring success of Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” led to it becoming the most-streamed song of 2024 so far) and some more obvious conclusions (Taylor Swift, of course, dominated the album charts with The Tortured Poets Department).
But it also revealed several milestones and achievements that have not happened in the past 10 years of the Luminate (and, prior to it, MRC Data and Nielsen) reports. So with the caveat that it’s still just the midway mark, and release dates and other factors weigh more heavily in smaller sample sizes, here are five stats that demonstrate that the first half of 2024 has been the most unusual year of the past decade.
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The Sheer Scale of Taylor’s Dominance
Swift’s Tortured Poets Department easily outstripped every other album at the midyear mark, having spent 12 of the 26 weeks of the year so far atop the Billboard 200. But at the midyear mark, its dominance could also be referred to as historic compared to the past 10 years. At 4.66 million equivalent album units, TTPD has outstripped the No. 2 album, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At a Time, by more than double — and nearly triple — the latter’s 1.776 million, with a total that’s 2.62 times higher than Wallen’s album (which, to be fair, was released in March 2023).
That’s the first time in the past decade that the No. 1 album’s first-half total doubled, much less more than doubled, the No. 2 album. The differential between the two, 2.884 million units, is over 1.5 million more than the disparity between any other top two albums over the time period, with 2023 being the only other year the disparity topped 1 million units. (Last year, Wallen’s One Thing At a Time came in at 3.312 million units, 1.33 million more than SZA’s SOS.) The closest race of the past 10 years? That’d be in 2017 when Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. edged out Ed Sheeran’s divide by just 23,000 units at the midway mark.
The No. 1 Song Didn’t Reach No. 1 on the Hot 100
Boone’s “Beautiful Things” was an early breakout story this year, as the singer seemed to explode out of nowhere with the biggest hit of his career so far. The song got off to a flying start, debuting at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January — and then spent all but two weeks in the top 10 of the chart, landing at No. 1 for the most-streamed song of the year so far on Luminate’s mid-year tally.
The only quirk? “Beautiful Things” peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100, never quite reaching No. 1. Given that, it may seem odd that it finished No. 1 in streams at the midyear point, though that can be explained by its sustained dominance in the top 10 and its early-year debut, which gave it the full six months to rack up all those streams. What is odd, however, is that it’s the only song in the past decade that landed at No. 1 at the midyear mark and also never reached the top of the Hot 100. In fact, every other year since 2015, the top song halfway through the year had spent at least five weeks in the top slot — ranging from the Encanto cast’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” in 2022 (five weeks) to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk!” in 2015, which hit 14 weeks. (Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” No. 1 at the halfway mark in 2019, ultimately spent 19 weeks at No. 1, though it was only halfway through that run at the midyear point.)
Midyear No. 1 Songs by On-Demand Streams (Weeks at No. 1)2023: Miley Cyrus, “Flowers” (8 weeks)2022: Encanto Cast, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” (5 weeks)2021: Olivia Rodrigo, “Drivers License” (8 weeks)2020: Roddy Ricch, “The Box” (11 weeks)2019: Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” (19 weeks)2018: Drake, “God’s Plan” (11 weeks)2017: Ed Sheeran, “Shape Of You” (12 weeks)2016: Rihanna feat. Drake, “Work” (9 weeks)2015: Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars, “Uptown Funk!” (14 weeks)
Warner Records Lands Top 3 Songs
About those top-streamed songs? Boone’s was No. 1, followed by Zach Bryan feat. Kacey Musgraves with “I Remember Everything” and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” at Nos. 2 and 3. All of those songs were released by Warner Records, giving the label a trifecta. No other label has had the top three songs at the midyear mark in the past decade, giving Warner sole possession of the feat in this era.
A few labels have come close, however: in 2022, Atlantic Records had the top song (“We Don’t Talk About Bruno”), the No. 4 song (Kodak Black’s “Super Gremlin”) and had one of its stars, Jack Harlow, on the No. 2 song (Lil Nas X and Harlow’s “Industry Baby”, which was released on X’s label Columbia). In 2018, Republic Records had three of the top four, with one of its artists, Drake, on the No. 3 song: Blocboy JB feat. Drake, “Look Alive.” However, “Look Alive” came out on Drake’s label OVO Sound, which was distributed by Warner at the time. In 2016, Def Jam had Nos. 2 and 3 (Desiigner’s “Panda” and Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” respectively) and a distribution deal with Roc Nation, which put out the No. 1 song, Rihanna’s “Work” featuring Drake — though Def Jam didn’t technically release it.
Republic Records Lands Top 3 Albums
Not to be outdone, the top of the midyear albums chart also threw up a trifecta for a label: Republic Records, which released Swift and Wallen’s albums (the latter in partnership with Big Loud), as well as the No. 3 album, Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (in partnership with Mercury). Somewhat surprisingly, given Republic’s recent dominance in the market share standings as well as the overall dominance of Wallen and Swift in recent years, this is the first time Republic has taken the top three slots at the midyear mark — and, over the past decade, the only time any label has held down the top three at this point in the year.
The only time another label came close was, unsurprisingly, Republic. In 2023, the label had four of the top five albums of the year at the midway mark, but it was thwarted from claiming the top three by SZA’s SOS, which was released by Top Dawg/RCA.
Just Five Albums in the Top 10 Came Out Within the Past 12 Months
The top 10 albums chart by equivalent units served up plenty of familiar titles this year: Swift, Wallen, Kahan, SZA and Bryan, as well as albums from Beyoncé (Cowboy Carter, No. 4) and Future & Metro Boomin (We Don’t Trust You, No. 6). But incredibly, only five of the top 10 were released within the past 12 months: Swift’s TTPD, Beyoncé’s Carter and Future & Metro’s Trust, all of which came out in 2024. Bryan’s self-titled album, which finished at No. 8, was released last August, while Swift’s No. 9-ranking 1989 (Taylor’s Version), a re-recording of an album that came out in 2014, was released last October. That’s the fewest number of titles in the top 10 of any midyear consumption chart in the past 10 years to have been released within the prior 12 months (dating back to the midyear mark of the year before), with no other year going back to 2015 serving up fewer than six.
In fact, that number has been steadily dropping for a half-decade now: Since 2019, when nine of the top 10 were released within the prior 12 months, there have been nine (2020), seven (2021), seven (2022) and six (2023) in the top 10. (In 2017, all 10 fit the criteria.) The streaming era has done many things for the music business, but one thing it has done more than any other is to expose people’s listening habits rather than buying habits. And the consumption numbers of current (releases within the past 18 months) vs. catalog (releases older than 18 months) have borne out the by-now long-established trend that catalog rules consumption: This year, Luminate calculated that catalog listening accounted for 72.8% of listening share, a figure that remained the same as it was at the midway point in 2023.
But the sheer staying power of some of these top 10 albums is what’s most impressive. Wallen’s One Thing At a Time is over a year old by now; but his 2021 album, Dangerous: The Double Album, is still at No. 7. SZA’s SOS, No. 2 at the midyear mark last year, came in at No. 5. Kahan’s Stick Season originally came out in October 2022. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is a collection of songs that, in their original form, date back a decade. And at No. 10, Swift’s Lover is approaching its fifth anniversary in August.
Will the charts remain so static in the future? Is it a product of the maturation of the streaming age? Or is it just that these albums are simply so dominant that they elbowed out all others? It’s something to keep an eye on.
K-pop label JYP Entertainment is launching a Latin music division that will focused on developing artists for the Spanish language market, the company tells Billboard. The subsidiary’s first project is an audition show called L2K that will “discover, train and launch” the next global Latin girl group — essentially a Latin sequel to JYP’s audition […]
Reggaetón star Daddy Yankee sold some of his master recordings to Cinq Music and a financial partner around 2021, Billboard has learned, laying the groundwork for Cinq to reissue his 2004 breakout album, Barrio Fino, and five other LPs on vinyl later this year.
Cinq did not provide any details of the purchase to Billboard and no other information about the deal was available. The sale of some of Daddy Yankee’s master recordings was confirmed by multiple independent sources but went unreported at the time.
Sources tell Billboard that Daddy Yankee continues to retain ownership of his publishing catalog, which is administered worldwide by Sony Music Publishing. In the U.S., Spirit Music administers some of Daddy Yankee’s songs, including his hit breakout “Gasolina.”
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A major acquisition was hinted at years ago. In 2021, Jason Peterson, chairman/CEO of GoDigital Media Group, the parent company of Cinq Music, told Billboard the company had acquired “one of the largest and culturally significant” Latin music catalogs but did not specify the name of the artist.
Cinq Music and Daddy Yankee have worked together in different ways for many years, and in 2018, Cinq partnered with Janet Jackson for the release of her single “Made For Now,” which featured Daddy Yankee. Since 2017, Cinq Music, with Barry Daffurn as president, has raised $410 million to fund music acquisitions, including $250 million secured in February. Following the latest funding, the company said it had $300 million in assets under management spanning 80,000 recorded music and publishing copyrights.
Cinq Music is no longer silent about its involvement with Daddy Yankee’s catalog. On Monday, the company announced it will mark the 20th anniversary of the Barrio Fino and “Gasolina” with the release of a Bhangra remix of the track by Tesher on July 26. According to the press release, the remix will be featured on the covers of numerous playlists at music streaming platforms as well as Spotify-branded outdoor billboards in Mexico City.
Barrio Fino and two other albums, El Cangri.com (2002) and the compilation Los Homerun-es (2003), will be reissued on vinyl by Cinq Music on August 16. Three more albums are slated for vinyl reissues on Nov. 15: El Cartel: The Big Boss (2007), the Talento de Barrio soundtrack (2008) and Mundial (2010).
“Gasolina” reached No. 32 on the multi-genre Billboard 100 singles chart in 2005 and hit No. 10 on the U.S. Hot Rap Songs chart and No. 11 on the U.S. Rhythmic chart. Billboard cited the song’s “unforgettable hook” and “revolutionary” beat when it ranked it No. 22 on a 2020 list of the Top 50 Latin songs of all time.
Ironically, “Gasolina” never reached No. 1 on the Hot Latin Songs chart, peaking at No. 17. Although the song was a breakthrough for Daddy Yankee and helped popularize reggaetón to a broader marketplace, its chart success was limited because few radio stations played reggaetón at the time.
Barrio Fino was the first reggaetón album to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart (on July 31, 2004) and won a Latin Grammy in 2005 as Best Urban Music album. It would spend 24 weeks at No. 1 on Top Latin albums, and all told, an astounding 358 weeks on the chart. On the multi-genre Billboard 200, Barrio Fino peaked at No. 26 in 2005 and spent 54 weeks on the chart. To date, the album has sold 2.2 million equivalent album units in the U.S., according to Luminate.