Record Labels
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“Toolroom” isn’t some metaphor.
In 2003, the electronic record label was launched by producer Mark Knight and his brother Stuart. The imprint was named for their office space — an actual tool shed in the yard of a house in their native Maidstone, 90 minutes southeast of London. From this humble setting, the pair began releasing house records largely by Mark, who was then also fusing house and techno into a new sound.
20 years later, the genre that Toolroom helped create its name on — tech house — is the most popular sound in commercial dance music. But while Toolroom laid the foundations for this phenomenon, Toolroom isn’t necessarily the genre’s biggest commercial star. The Knight brothers are okay with that.
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“We were always just a little bit too early,” Mark says over Zoom. “We would always do the groundwork for everyone to just come and go, ‘Thanks for getting that off the ground.’ I remember 15 years ago, talking about why I love tech house, and people were just looking at me like, ‘What the f— are you playing me?’”
But that hasn’t stopped Toolroom from becoming not just a respected label outputting relevant records, but a company that’s evolved its offerings, and revenue streams, in each era of its existence
With Mark as creative lead and Stuart heading the business, Toolroom launched in a precarious moment, two years after the advent of the iPod and at a time when physical sales were dwindling. “We could see on the horizon how digital would take over and how it would affect us,” says Stuart.
The early years found Mark traveling to New York and other U.S. dance hubs to play shows, staying on friends’ couches to save money while trying to break his name in the States. The label gained real traction during its initial treks to Miami Music Week, which provided, says Stuart, “the first opportunity we had to be around both industry and customers.”
This customer access expanded significantly in 2004 with the launch of Beatport, the digital download store for DJs. Toolroom was one of the first labels to put its music up for sale on the platform, which was then based in Denver. For the following few years, 70% of Toolroom music bought via Beatport was by customers in the U.S. By 2014, Mark would become Beatport’s best selling artist, behind deadmau5. He now ranks at the platform’s No. 7 all time house artist, with Toolroom ranking as the No. 2 all time house label.
Mark Knight and members of the Toolroom staff
Courtesy of Toolroom Records
“We were a small label in a tool room in a small town outside of London selling our music in the U.S., which has always been the hardest territory for a U.K. label to break in,” says Stuart. “It was an eye-opener that we didn’t have to jump on a tour bus and tour the whole of the U.S. [to gain success.]”
In this same era, circa 2007, Mark was also touring the States, capitalizing on the label’s U.S. growth and proselytizing for his still-then-underground house/techno fusion. Hits in this era included Knight and Funkagenda’s “Man With the Red Face” and Knight’s remix of Florence + The Machine’s “You’ve Got the Love.” Meanwhile, Toolroom was also releasing tracks by greats including Fatboy Slim, Underworld, Armand van Helden and a flurry of rising stars.
Then, a few years later, EDM happened. Like many labels at the time, Toolroom was swept into the phenomenon, despite the fact that they didn’t necessarily care for it. (“It was so big and also unrelatable,” says Mark, “when you see people jumping out of private jets spraying champagne on each other and we’re working nine to five trying to make those records big.”) Still, they shifted releases to fit more into the big room sound that was pulling millions of new fans to the genre while generating billions of dollars for the global dance industry.
“In the midst of that, we were putting out music from Hardwell and people like that,” says Mark, “which wasn’t really what we were about.”
In time, feeling a course correction was necessary, the label launched a 2014 #RESET campaign during which it slimmed down its artist roster, launched a new album series and reconfigured its live events in an effort get back in line with the Knight brothers’ original vision.
“I don’t mean to sound condescending, but it’s really basic music,” Mark says of EDM. “And it’s great because it appeals to a broad audience, but we always knew that if we just stay true to ourselves, when those people have kind of refined their tastes and the drugs have worn off a bit, they’ll realize, ‘I don’t actually like this, because it’s actually crap — but I really like this, because it’s the more sophisticated end of that world.’”
Mark Knight with fans
Courtesy of Toolroom Records
In fact that’s actually happened, with house, techno and tech house becoming the prevailing commercial sounds of U.S. dance music, with the U.S. scene catching up to the sleek, sexy, adult vibe Toolroom has been promoted since its inception.
“I stuck with it, and I guess if we hadn’t made those move,s we wouldn’t have the Fishers and Chris Lakes of this world enjoying the success of the groundwork we put in, and look — good luck to them. They’ve embraced what it’s about, and they’ve commercialized and done very well from it.”
Meanwhile Toolroom and its 15-artist roster have stayed largely in the realm of club records and clubs sets, which include upcoming shows in New York, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago and London throughout August. Toolroom has also evolved the business, with its Toolroom Academy launching in 2016 to offer DJ courses, sample packs, software and plug-ins. Prices range from $50 for an online course to $10,000 for a three-month intensive, with the label using the school as a talent pool and often signing particularly good productions. The Academy now has roughly 7,000 students. Mark says Toolroom also now earns more revenue via Peloton than it does from Beatport sales.
“We have evolved from a record label to a record company,” says Stuart. “A record label puts out music; a record company puts out music, but finds everything they can around putting out music to monetize. That’s really exciting, because one week it can be putting out music, the next week it’s, ‘How does that fit into someone doing a spin class, or educating someone how to produce?’”
Two decades in, Toolroom now has a staff of 22 and an actual office space for them to work from. Mark’s weekly Toolroom Radio program draws 16 million weekly listener. In 2018 the label launched its We Are Listening Initiative to identify releases from female producers. 2023 releases from KC Lights, Leftwing & Kody and ESSEL have been streamed millions of times. It’s a lot of accomplishments for a label Mark says has always just been “a little bit ahead of the game.”
“That’s cool in our own way, because we’re pioneering,” he continues. “We can always look back and say we were the first to make these moves. Did we make as much money as some of the other guys? Maybe not. But you know, we’re very happy with where we are in life.”
Zena White, COO of Partisan Records; Beggars Group president Nabil Ayers; Hays Rudolph, general counsel and VP of business and legal affairs at Secretly; and Tony Alexander, president and managing director of Made in Memphis Entertainment (MIME), are among the fresh faces on the American Assn. of Independent Music (A2IM) board.
White, Ayers, Rudolph, Alexander are newly-elected to the board, which oversees the governance of A2IM, represents the not-for-profit organization’s membership at large, and assists in setting the priorities and direction for the organization.
Also announced today (July 25) is A2IM’s executive committee, led by Heather Johnson, director of label operations at FIXT, who is named as chair. Meanwhile, Victor Zaraya, COO of Concord, is appointed as treasurer, and MIME’s Alexander becomes secretary.
“We are so grateful to have such a talented and dedicated group of individuals willing to serve on the 2023/24 board of directors for A2IM,” comments Dr. Richard James Burgess, president and CEO of A2IM. “Their expertise and passion for independent music will play a vital role in shaping the future of our organization and the industry.”
A2IM represents over 600 independent record labels.
Additionally, the trade body welcomes a raft of advisory board members who will lend their expertise and counsel. They include Kristin Epstein (operations director of Screenwave Media), Steve Kline (president/COO of Better Noise Music), Jennifer Newman Sharpe (general counsel and head of business & legal affairs of Exceleration Music), Elliott Peters (senior VP, global business at Empire), Jason Peterson (CEO of Cinq Music/GoDigital Media Group) and Reed Watson (co-owner of Single Lock Records).
“With these new executive committee and advisory board members, we are confident in our ability to advocate for the needs and interests of independent record labels,” adds Burgess. “I am honored to work alongside this exceptional team to support and celebrate the power of independent music.”
Headquartered in New York City, A2IM exists to support and strengthen the independent recorded music sector, and celebrates the scene by organizing the annual A2IM Libera Awards.
A2IM’s current board of directors:
A2IM’s current board of directors:Tony Alexander – MIME (Made In Memphis Entertainment)Nabil Ayers – Beggars GroupMariah Czap – Yep Roc Music GroupDee Diaz – Reach RecordsWilson Fuller – Merge RecordsMary Jurey – Blue ÉlanHeather Johnson – FiXTTony Kiewel – Sub PopHays Rudolph – SecretlyVictor Zaraya – ConcordZena White – Partisan
Advisory board members:Kristin Epstein – Screenwave MediaSteve Kline – Better Noise MusicJennifer Newman Sharpe – Exceleration MusicElliott Peters – EmpireJason Peterson – Cinq Music/GoDigital Media GroupReed Watson – Single Lock Records.
With Taylor Swift’s re-recorded version of Speak Now topping the Billboard 200 albums chart and achieving the biggest week of 2023, the singer has pitted her new versions against the original versions she released through Big Machine Label Group in 2010. That could be seen as another blow for Shamrock Capital, which purchased Swift’s Big Machine catalog in 2020. But if Swift thought her re-recordings would erode the performance of the Big Machine originals, she was wrong — for the most part. The original versions owned by Shamrock did well through 2022 and haven’t shown much clear evidence of attrition until 2023, according to Billboard’s analysis of Luminate sales and streaming data in the United States.
Through 2022, Swift’s Big Machine catalog has performed roughly in line with industry trends. Take Swift’s 2008 album Fearless, for example: It generated on-demand audio streams of 230.5 million in 2019 and 345.3 million in 2022 — an increase of 49.8% over three years. Had the album’s streams grown in line with the industry’s annual growth in on-demand audio streams — 48.3% from 2019 to 2022 —Fearless would have had 341.9 million on-demand audio streams. That’s only a 1% variation.
The original version of Swift’s 2012 album Red did even better than Fearless, generating 283.5 million on-demand audio streams in 2019 and 484.7 million on-demand audio streams in 2022, about 19% greater than what would be expected. Had the album’s streams grown in line with the industry’s annual growth in on-demand audio streams — 17.3% in 2020, 12.7% in 2021 and 12.2% in 2022 — Red would have had 420.6 million on-demand audio streams.
At the same time, Swift’s re-recordings have done phenomenally well. Since the beginning of 2021, the three Taylor’s Version albums have accounted for 3.88 billion on-demand audio streams to the original versions’ 2.86 billion on-demand audio streams. The actual numbers are even more skewed in the Taylor’s Versions’ favor since the re-recordings of Speak Now were released on July 7 of this year and have a brief streaming history. Since 2021, Red (Taylor’s Version) has generated 2.6 times more on-demand audio streams than the original version, while Fearless (Taylor’s Version) has about 1.9 times as many on-demand audio streams.
All the work Swift did to promote her re-recordings, as well as the success of her Republic Records albums and her current U.S. tour, may have also helped sales of the original Big Machine catalog. The original version of Red has sold more albums — 26,000 — through week 28 of 2023 than in all of 2022 and is already close to surpassing sales numbers for calendar years 2019, 2020 and 2021. Speak Now has also surpassed last year’s album sales and is on track to beat annual sales from 2019 to 2021.
Of course, Shamrock does not enjoy the spoils of the three albums of re-recordings. Through week 28 of this year, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) have sold 2.23 million units in the United States. But these couldn’t be considered sales that were lost to Shamrock. Whether or not Swift re-recorded the three albums, Shamrock would benefit only from the sales of the original versions. And so far, it doesn’t appear the Taylor’s Version albums are crowding those out.
Streaming is a different story, though. There is some evidence that the Taylor’s Version reissues have led to a decline in streams for the original Big Machine albums. In the 18 weeks before the release of Red (Taylor’s Version) on Nov. 11, 2021, the original version averaged 9.7 million on-demand audio streams per week. In the 18 weeks after Red (Taylor’s Version) was released, the original version’s weekly on-demand audio streams declined 41% to 5.7 million.
And despite putting up decent streaming numbers through 2022, the original versions of Fearless and Red have underperformed expectations in 2023. The overall market’s on-demand audio streams grew 13.5% in the first 28 weeks of 2023. Had Fearless matched the market’s growth, the album would have generated about 296 million streams through week 28. Instead, the original version of Fearless had roughly 162 million streams — more than 45% below expectations. Red performed better but was also off the market’s pace. Through week 28, the original version of Red had 181.6 million on-demand audio streams — about 14% below expectations.
While the original versions have held up fairly well in purchases and, until this year, on-demand audio streams, the biggest loss is probably the lack of synch opportunities. Swift’s re-recordings have been used in a Match.com ad in 2020 (“Love Story [Taylor’s Version]”), the movie Spirit Untamed in 2021 (“Wildest Dreams [Taylor’s Version]”) and the movie DC League of Super-Pets in 2022 (“Bad Blood [Taylor’s Version], the only song from the album 1989 that has so far been re-recorded).
Ultimately, however, Swift’s re-recordings may be more responsible for her consumption boom than the original Big Machine versions. Swift’s annual on-demand audio streams more than doubled between 2019 and 2022 — from 3.12 billion to 7.85 billion. If she continues her current pace, her on-demand audio streams will increase more than 74% in 2023. The re-recordings have added to the deafening buzz around her Republic Records albums. The Big Machine originals are merely along for the ride.
Shamrock did not respond to Billboard’s request for comment on this story.
In April, Myke Towers landed his third top 10 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart with his fourth studio album, La Vida Es Una, which debuted at No. 9 on the tally. It was Towers’ third straight top 10, an impressive showing despite the fact that it landed below his previous album, 2021’s Lyke Myke, which had debuted at No. 3. The 23-track set also boasted a lighter, more island sound, a departure for the Puerto Rican reggaetón star — a versatile artist who can definitely sing, but who is best known for party reggaetón tracks and hard-hitting lyrics on his trap fare.
La Vida Es Una included collaborations with reggaetón giants like Ozuna, J Balvin and Daddy Yankee, who is featured on the first focus track, “Ulala,” which hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart. But the set’s biggest success has come not via a collaboration, but with a solo track — “Lala,” a lilting, romantic reggaetón whose chorus plays over a vocal loop of “Lala, lala, lala,” turning it into an irresistible invitation to dance.
So irresistible, in fact, that this week, a full four months after the album’s release, “Lala” surged from No. 13 to crown Billboard’s Global Excl. U.S. chart (dated July 22), becoming Towers’ first leader on the list.
The song’s rise has been remarkable in its swiftness. “Lala” entered the charts for the first time when it debuted at No. 25 on Latin Rhythm Airplay less than two weeks ago. Last week, it debuted at No. 50 on Hot Latin Songs, at No. 26 on the Billboard Global 200 and at No. 13 on the Billboard Global Ex-U.S. chart. Then, in a single week, it shot to No. 1 on the latter.
How did this happen? “Music discovery has no time frame, and once a track gets into the online conversation it’s our job to jump in and maximize that buzz to turn it into a hit,” says Alejandro Duque, president of Warner Music Latin America, who has oversight of the label’s U.S. Latin and Latin American operations. Duque, who took over the job two years ago after 19 years with Universal, is, at 40, the youngest head of a Latin multinational music company. He’s also been firmly embedded in the digital landscape, an area he’s worked in since the early 2000s when Latin music began its digital transition. That intimate knowledge has allowed him to deeply mine data to bolster hits.
“Everyone has the same data,” he told Billboard last year. “You have to know how to interpret it. Having experience in data tendencies and how consumers behave lets you apply that to marketing and release strategies.”
Duque’s successes interpreting data include Anitta’s “Envolver” and, most recently, Yng Lvcas’ “La Bebe Remix” featuring Peso Pluma, which topped the Latin and Latin Rhythm Airplay charts and has spent 20 weeks on the Global 200 chart, peaking at No. 2. In Towers’ case, the success is particularly sweet because the artist had three previous top 10s on the Global Ex-U.S. chart, all collaborations. To get to the No. 1 spot solo is a feather on Duque’s cap, in tandem with Towers’ joint management team, with Orlando Cepeda and Brandon Silverstein sharing duties through their separate offices. And it earns Duque the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Duque spoke to Billboard about how this “Lala” of a love song became a global success in a single week.
La Vida es Una came out in March. Why is “Lala” rising to the top four months later?
In mid-June, a micro-influencer posted a CapCut filter with “Lala’s” audio, which kicked things off. That post was organically picked up by a couple of major influencers, which led to even more users making their own creations with it — right now, we’re seeing thousands of creations daily. This was an enormous music discovery opportunity. People weren’t just listening to the snippet on social media, they started searching for the track on streaming platforms and fully engaging with it.
When did you realize “Lala” was a hit in the making?
We see tracks going viral on social media on almost a daily basis, but not all of them lead to an effect on streaming. The way we see it is that TikTok and other social media platforms help generate awareness and buzz around the songs — and it’s all about creating the curiosity that will get people wanting to explore more and listen to the music or watch the music video. Once people are exposed to the song, it becomes about whether they will like it, share it and keep engaging with it. Once we saw “Lala” started translating very quickly from TikTok creations to YouTube views and audio streaming, we knew people were connecting to the song itself and not just the trend.
Are there any specific countries that led the charge?
The micro-influencer that helped kick off the CapCut trend is from Chile, which was one of the key countries that led the initial growth. Spain has been a key country for the song since its release, and it was also one of the first countries to see the growth alongside the trend. After that, we started seeing numbers come up in Colombia, Peru, Mexico and then the U.S. We’re now seeing the track expand to other parts of Europe and gaining new chart positions in countries like Italy and Switzerland. We strategically use data to understand the growth trajectory and which countries we should impact next, as each song has its own trajectory and requires a customized strategy.
What exactly do you do?
Music discovery has no time frame, and once a track gets into the online conversation it’s our job to jump in and maximize that buzz to turn it into a hit. It’s a very similar strategy we used with Yng Lvcas and Peso Pluma’s “La Bebe Remix,” where we identified which countries were connecting with the song first — through consumption data, but also social listening and engagement — and kept expanding our targets until the track hit No. 2 globally.
Did you have a global strategy with the song?
Yes. We always approach key releases with a regional and global strategy, and we rely on data to adjust as we go. Our strategy here started before La Vida Es Una’s release, with teaser and album launch campaigns across countries where Myke has a strong audience, especially the U.S., Latin America and Spain. After release day, we’re constantly monitoring how fans are engaging with the music on different platforms. That’s why we were able to identify what started out as a small trend so quickly and were able to jump into action and maximize the growth as much as possible.
“Lala” is not simply reggaeton; it has a swaying island vibe, too. What does this signal in the evolution of urban Latin music?
For a while, reggaeton was the Latin genre dominating the global charts. This year, we’re seeing different types of Latin songs connecting with a global audience — from songs like “Lala,” which has a more island sound, to “La Bebe Remix,” which is a Mexican reggaeton track reaching No. 2 on Spotify’s Global Chart and the Billboard Global 200. The Argentinian urban movement is also making an impact. We have a massive record with “Los Del Espacio,” a song from Lit Killah with seven other key Argentine artists including Maria Becerra and Tiago PZK. The track reached No. 17 on the Billboard Global 200. People have talked about the explosion in Latin music for years, and rightfully so, but today we are really seeing an unprecedented diversity in the hits coming from across the region.
What comes next for Myke Towers?
We’re very excited, there’s a lot of surprises coming up. From big general market collaborations to a few Latin ones, we continue to focus on building his reach and audience and growing his fan base every day.
SIZE matters for Astralwerks.
Today (July 20), the venerable dance label has announced a partnership with Steve Angello‘s SIZE Records. Under the terms of this deal, all future SIZE Records releases will be distributed by Astralwerks, with the agreement also encompassing SIZE’s back catalog.
Launched in 2003 by the Swedish House Mafia member, the SIZE catalog encompasses music by Angello, Laidback Luke, Eric Prydz, Afrojack, Don Diablo, AN21, Junior Sanchez and many other electronic stars and underground greats.
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The deal is also being punctuated by new music, with Angello releasing “What You Need” — a collaboration with masked duo Wh0 — tomorrow (July 21) via SIZE Records/Astralwerks and Wh0 Plays. The track marks the 250th release of the SIZE Records catalog.
“While I’m excited to honor the legacy of SIZE Records by re-launching the catalog, I’m every bit as thrilled by what the future holds,” Angello tells Billboard. “Teaming with Wh0 to make ‘What You Need’ the inaugural new release on the imprint feels like the perfect way to set the tone for everything we have planned. It’s a new era, new team, new SIZE, new collaborations, new music and lots of it! My gratitude to Astralwerks for taking this journey with us at SIZE!”
The deal marks a return for Angello and Astralwerks, with the label releasing Swedish House Mafia’s compilation albums, 2010’s Until One and 2012’s Until Now, which contained the trio’s all-time hits “One (Your Name)” and “Don’t You Worry Child.”
“SIZE Records is a powerhouse label and home to some of my all-time favorite records,” adds Astralwerks President Toby Andrews. “Being able to work with them as they kick off their 20th anniversary celebrations whilst Astralwerks is celebrating its 30th year feels like the perfect match. In addition to that, the whole team is excited to bring more of Steve’s music to the world and work with him and all his team to elevate the future vision and catalog of the label.”
Steve Angello continues to be managed by Wassim Sal Slaiby and Dina Sahim at SALXCO.
Interscope Geffen A&M has elevated four of its top-level executives into new roles, the company announced Thursday (July 20). The promotions include Michelle An, who has been named president of creative strategy; Gary Kelly, who is now general manager of Interscope and executive vp/chief revenue officer for IGA; and Sam Riback and Nicole Wyskoarko, who […]
Producer duo Play-N-Skillz has inked a label deal with Pitbull‘s Mr. 305 Records, the company tells Billboard. The Dallas-born siblings, Juan “Play” and Oscar “Skillz” Salinas, join a roster that includes Omar Courtz, IAMCHINO and Montana Tucker, among others. “Joining Mr. 305 Records is a perfect match for us,” said Play-N-Skillz in a statement. “We […]
Universal Music Group announced a new partnership with Pocket.watch, a kids-content studio with a roster of 45 creators that boasts over 750 million subscribers, on Thursday (July 20).
As part of the deal, songs on Pocket.watch’s many YouTube videos — plus tracks from the company’s original series on Hulu and Roku — will be brought to streaming platforms. And several creators will release their own original songs in the months to come.
In a statement, Albie Hecht, chief content officer for Pocket.watch, said “music is a huge part of kids’ lives, and this mutually beneficial partnership provides a path for our expansive library of kids and family songs to reach beyond their appearance within YouTube videos. We’re proud to partner with Universal Music Group as they further expand their investment in the kids music space.”
“We continue to see growth in this exciting category and look forward to working with pocket.watch’s team and their family of creators,” added Andrew Kronfeld, Universal’s evp of international and label and artist ventures.
Pocket.watch was started in March 2017 by Chris M. Williams, Hecht (a former president of film and TV entertainment for Nickelodeon), and Jon Moonves. “We set out very intentionally to change the conversations around the creative economy and create a whole new digital-first category of franchises,” Williams told Variety last year.
The company’s hits include Ryan’s World (35.2 million YouTube subscribers) and Love, Diana (8.95 million); in 2021, the roster generated more than 4 billion hours of views. Pocket.watch also has a robust consumer products line — Colgate Ryan’s World Pocket Watch Extra Soft Spin toothbrush, for example, and Love, Diana dolls — linked to its various franchises. Earlier this year, Pocket.watch debuted 12 original series on Hulu.
The first batch of music to hit streaming will encompass songs from Ryan’s Mystery Playdate, Love, Diana, Onyx Monster Mysteries, Toys and Colors: Kaleidoscope City, and more.
Long before Taylor Swift decided to re-record all her original songs, including the “Taylor’s Version” of 2010’s Speak Now which was released last week, Frank Sinatra did the same thing. So did Chuck Berry. And Elmo Shropshire. And many of the classic pop and rock stars who have licensed new versions of their best-known songs to movies, TV shows and commercials to keep all the royalty money over the years.
Artists re-record old hits for several different reasons: Movie and TV productions can pay them rather than their original record labels when licensing songs; they can update the tracks to sound more modern, with newer technology; they can revisit older recordings that were never properly available digitally due to contract disputes, as JoJo did; or, as with Swift, they’re having a dispute with the original label and prefer to put master recordings solely under their own control. “Our thinking was, if we do these now, they’ll be around as long as the originals, and whenever the opportunity arises, we can say, ‘Look, we’ll give you this,’ and we can undercut what whoever owns our masters are asking for,” Squeeze‘s Glenn Tilbrook told Billboard in 2019, nine years after the band put out its re-recorded greatest-hits album Spot the Difference.
Yet no one has earned as much attention — or revenue — for re-recording their songs as Swift. At first, Swift’s announcement that she would put out new versions of all her old hits seemed idiosyncratic, a retaliatory move against Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande manager Scooter Braun, who bought her six-album catalog as part of his 2019 acquisition of indie label Big Machine. But she quickly rolled out new versions of 2008’s Fearless and 2012’s Red with faithful re-recordings, fresh remixes and “from the vault” material and turned the exercise into lucrative hits: Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) have racked up 1.49 billion and 2.83 billion streams, respectively, according to Luminate, and combined sales of nearly 1.7 million units. Swift is now at the forefront of a wave of artists that have or plan to release their own re-recordings, including TLC, Wheatus, Paris Hilton and, possibly soon, Ashanti. “It’s a chance to make money, actually, for the end musicians,” says David Amels, a producer, engineer and session musician who helped Shangri-Las singer Mary Weiss re-record some of the band’s classic hits as a 2007 solo album.
In 2005, TLC negotiated a separation agreement from its longtime label, Sony Music, and re-recorded its ’90s R&B hits “Creep,” “Waterfalls” and “No Scrubs.” They first came out in the 2013 VH1 biopic CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story — without the band’s late third member, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes. The two-woman band has recently spiked in popularity, according to its longtime manager, Bill Diggins, playing a well-received set last year at the Glastonbury festival, and it plans to “start building distribution infrastructures for the new re-records.” But it wasn’t until January 2023 that singers Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas released the re-recorded versions on streaming services, without promotion or fanfare.
Although the group followed Swift’s lead in parenthetically subtitling each re-recording “(TLC Version),” Diggins says the move to re-record wasn’t inspired by Swift. “We have the utmost respect for Taylor Swift,” he says. “However, we did the re-records long before Taylor released hers and the ‘TLC Version’ was not referencing a homage to Taylor.” Still, Diggins acknowledges TLC lacks Swift’s music-business clout and massive fan army — after Red (Taylor’s Version) came out in November 2021, iHeartRadio announced its radio stations would switch to playing the new versions of her hits, but the top broadcasting company has made no such promise to TLC. “It’s not as simple as calling Spotify or Apple or iHeart and saying, ‘Play our re-records.’ You have to have enormous power to do that — which Taylor Swift certainly does,” Diggins says. “The minute you do that, the record label that owns the copyright is going to put pressure on the streaming service to play their version, because they want to collect the royalties.”
Sony owns the rights to Lopes’ voice, according to Diggins, so TLC did not have the option of splicing in original recordings of the late star. But he argues the new versions are stronger vocally because Watkins and Thomas have spent the last three decades not smoking, not drinking, leading healthy lifestyles and providing “a little bit more of new authenticity.” Still, while the new versions employed the same engineers and studios as the originals, the three tracks have been streamed a combined 218,000 times, compared to nearly 1.6 billion total for the ’90s classics — including 114 million streams for the original songs since the new versions came out in January. In the last seven months, the original versions of those three TLC hits have generated $675,725, while the re-recordings have added up to just $1,394, according to Billboard estimates.
A year ago, Ashanti told Billboard she obtained the rights to re-record her early albums from Universal Music Group and was working on a new version of her 2002 self-titled debut. (Her reps did not respond to a request for an update.) “Certain people don’t want to see you move forward and progress in life so they try to create roadblocks,” she said at the time. “I love what Taylor Swift did. Anything worth something will be a bit of a battle.”
In June, three years after pop star Kim Petras covered Paris Hilton’s 2006 hit “Stars Are Blind” on a livestream, the duo collaborated for a re-recording, with original producer and co-writer Fernando Garibay at Hilton’s studio, calling it “Paris’ Version” a la Swift. They did it for “fun, musically and creatively,” says Alex Frankel, Hilton’s music manager, adding that, from a business point of view, “It kind of aligned with my thinking.” (As with TLC, Hilton’s “Paris’ Version” subtitle was not a homage to Swift, at least overtly: “I don’t think it was a conscious choice, just felt natural, but of course probably an unconscious nod to the always iconic TS,” Frankel says.)
Hilton was “stuck with one of those contracts” with Warner Music, according to Frankel, who wouldn’t say whether Warner imposed a no-re-recording clause in her original contract: “Trying to recoup on that is nearly impossible on those deals, and the term is infinite. No one wronged her, she wasn’t doing it to spite anyone, it was more, ‘Why not revisit the song or create equity on the master side of the recording?’” The new version of “Stars Are Blind” has been streamed 699,000 times, compared to 28.3 million total for the original; since the new version’s release, the original has been streamed 726,000 times, according to Luminate. Billboard estimates the original master recording of Hilton’s track has generated nearly $4,000 for the Hilton Hotels heiress since the new version came out, while the Petras collaboration has landed roughly $5,300.
Outside of Swift, perhaps the most successful contemporary re-recording is Wheatus’ “Teenage Dirtbag,” which began as what singer Brendan Brown calls a “forensic and tedious-as-hell” project to perfectly recreate the band’s 1999 alt-rock debut, Wheatus, after, he alleges, original label Sony Music lost the ADAT masters. (A Sony rep declined to comment.) The band employed old photos to determine what gear it used 20 years earlier and puzzled over a “blip blip blip” sound in two verses that turned out to be a push-button phone tone filtered through a keyboard. “This was a CSI episode recreating some shit that happened 20 years ago that we don’t really remember,” Brown says.
After Wheatus finished the project in April 2020, and reissued the three-song EP as Teenage Dirtbag 2020 / Mope, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a TikTok-Instagram viral resurgence — “Teenage Dirtbag” became the soundtrack for celebrities reminiscing with photos of themselves in the old days. As a result, although the new version didn’t come close to the 236.6 million streams of the 1999 original, it has been streamed a respectable 4.5 million times. Meanwhile, since the new version came out, the master recording has generated a decent amount of revenue for Brown — about $24,400, according to Billboard estimates, though the original — thanks to the TikTok boost — racked up nearly $664,000 during the same period.
“We never said, ‘Listen to this, not to that.’ We just told people what we’d done and why we’d done it,” Brown says. “There was no public relations, there was no publicist. The press came to us and the conversation kind of bloomed.”
Swift is “partly responsible” for that conversation, Brown says. “There are a lot more questions about creative regulation and laws and ownership that used to be very under the hood and are now being discussed out in the open. If you have a talk show, and you’re on YouTube, it’s like, ‘I have to learn about intellectual-property law now?’ This is what we’re doing.”
Additional reporting by Ed Christman.
Driven by K-pop groups such as Seventeen, Stray Kids and Tomorrow X Together, sales of the top 400 physical albums in South Korea totaled 55 million through June — a 57% increase from the prior-year period, according to Circle Chart, the company that manages music charts in the country.
Seventeen had 21 titles in the top 400 albums and accounted for 16.2% of the tally’s sales, totaling 8.9 million units. Meanwhile, HYBE, the company behind Seventeen, was responsible for 40.4% of sales in the top 400.
Physical album sales in the United States don’t come close to those numbers. In a country of about 52 million people — less than one-sixth of the United States’ 332 million people — South Koreans bought an average of 1.06 albums per person in the first half of the year (counting only the top 400). That’s 23 times the United States’ per-capita album purchase rate of roughly 0.05 units (also counting only the top 400, according to Luminate).
Comparing South Korea’s first-half physical album sales numbers to those of the United States demonstrates just how big of a gap exists between the two countries in terms of consumption habits. In the United States, superfans and direct-to-consumer sales helped boost physical album sales 13.3% to 41.1 million in the first half of the year — a big improvement from 4.7% decline in the year-ago period. But that figure pales in comparison to South Korea, a country with less than one-sixth the population. Sales of the top 400 physical albums in the United States totaled 15.4 million units over the same period — 72% fewer than in South Korea.
Taylor Swift’s rabid fanbase is the closest thing the United States has to the fandom seen in South Korea for K-pop groups such as BTS. Swifties, as they’re known, helped created intense demand for the pop titan’s Eras Tour, which overloaded Ticketmaster’s website in the United States and turned her concerts into civic events recognized by local politicians. Her album releases have become events unto themselves as fans snap up multiple versions of vinyl LP and CDs.
But Swift’s U.S. physical album sales in the first half of 2023 can’t compare to sales for the top artists in South Korea. In the United States, Swift dominated physical album sales in the first half of the year with a 7.4% share of the top 400 — more than twice the number of the runner-up artist, K-pop group Stray Kids. Through June 30, she totaled 1.15 million physical album sales across her catalog. Those numbers sound impressive until you consider them against the 8.9 million overall sales for Seventeen in South Korea.
In terms of physical sales for single albums, Swift also finished atop the heap in the United States. Her 2022 album, Midnights, sold 430,000 units through June 30. (Swift’s new album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), was not included in the top 400 of the first half of 2023 because it was released in July). But the top-selling album in South Korea was Seventeen’s 10th Mini Album ‘FML,’ which sold 5.5 million units over the same period. In fact, a whopping 13 albums surpassed the 1-million-unit threshold in South Korea through mid-year. It’s worth noting that even if Midnights had doubled its physical sales number in the United States through mid-year, it wouldn’t have reached the top 10 on South Korea’s chart.