Record Labels
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Alex Coslov rises to executive vp of marketing strategy at Republic Records and head of marketing at Mercury Records, a dual role and a reward for leading the campaign for Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time and other hits.
Based in Republic’s New York City headquarters, the marketing exec is a past 40 under 40 honoree in Billboard, and he’s had a hand in a growing list of wins. His professional highlights include Wallen’s blockbuster One Thing At A Time, which recently blasted to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with over 501,000 equivalent album units in its debut frame, this year’s best single-week tally; and Glass Animals’ slow-burning Billboard Hot 100 leader “Heat Waves.”
Coslov continues to lead marketing for frontline releases for Wallen, Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, Greta Van Fleet, Florence + The Machine, Noah Kahan, James Blake and Yung Gravy, reads a statement issued today (March 16).
“Alex intimately understands his artists at a core level,” comments Republic co-president Jim Roppo. “He speaks their language and immerses himself in their respective worlds for every single release. This is his superpower. By doing so, he develops innovative campaigns that reflect their identities and, simultaneously, engage audiences from a fresh perspective. It’s an honor to announce his promotion.”
Adds Mercury president Tyler Arnold, “we are thrilled to officially welcome Alex to the Mercury family. He is one of the most innovative and forward-thinking executives in our industry and has already played an integral role in the success of our artists’ careers. We cannot wait to shape this next chapter of Mercury Records together.”
Coslov joined Republic Records in 2017 as vp of marketing strategy, and has served as senior vp of marketing strategy since 2021. That five-year run has yielded four CLIO Awards, the annual award program that celebrates excellence in advertising, design and communication. Prior to that, Coslov chalked up four years with dance music brand Ultra Music, where he led its marketing department. Earlier roles included internships with SESAC, Epic Records and Red Light Management.
Mammoth WVH, the hard rock band led by Wolfgang Van Halen, has signed a global record deal with BMG for its forthcoming second studio album. The band has also signed a publishing deal with BMG.
“The Mammoth team and I are so excited to now be a part of the BMG family,” Van Halen said in a statement. “The entire team have welcomed us with open arms and have been nothing short of wonderful. I couldn’t ask for better partners for the future of Mammoth.”
The BMG release, coming this summer, will follow Mammoth WVH’s 2021 self-titled debut on EX1 Records. That set reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums and Top Rock Albums charts, as well as No. 12 on the Billboard 200. It also included two No. 1s on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart — “Distance” and “Don’t Back Down” — while a third song, “Epiphany,” reached No. 9. The group became the first act to send its first two songs to No. 1 on that chart since The Glorious Sons in 2019.
At the time of the debut album’s release, Van Halen, who played every instrument on the effort, told Billboard, “I’m so proud of this record and have never worked harder on anything in my life. This is only the beginning. Thank you for being a part of this journey with me.”
Van Halen, the son of late rock god Eddie Van Halen, previewed the new album at Los Angeles’ 5150 Studio in Los Angeles March 6-7. The group’s name comes from the original moniker for his father’s band, Van Halen.
Dan Gill, BMG executive vp of recorded music, said in a statement, “It is rare to come across an artist with such exceptional musical abilities and Wolfgang is that shining example. His new album firmly establishes himself at the forefront of the genre and is destined to become the torch bearer for the new generation of Rock artists.”
Emi Horikawa, BMG vp of creative, added, “From our very first listen to Mammoth WVH, we knew this was something truly exceptional. Wolfgang’s songwriting and sense of melody, coupled with his ability to reinvent the elements of Rock’s power and energy, is sheer talent. We are proud to represent his music publishing and now call BMG his label home.”
Morgan Wallen’s new album, One Thing at a Time, didn’t need 36 songs to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated March 18)— but the sprawling tracklist certainly didn’t hurt. The country singer’s third studio album notched 501,000 album equivalent units in its first week of release, according to Luminate, the biggest week of 2023 and one of the largest debuts in recent months.
One Thing at a Time undoubtedly benefited from its stats-padding length, but it still would have dominated the Billboard 200 had Wallen and his label, Big Loud Records, opted for an average length. With the bottom 18 tracks accounting for 36% of the album’s total on-demand streams, if One Thing were a single-CD, 18-track release, Billboard estimates it would have moved about 360,000 units last week — putting it well ahead of the No. 2 album, SOS by SZA. The 10 most popular tracks amounted to 41.8% of the album’s streams, with the track “Last Night” alone accounting for nearly 9% of the 36 tracks’ aggregated streams.
In fact, an 18-track One Thing at a Time would have bested most recent No. 1 albums in their debut weeks, including Lil Baby’s It’s Only Me (216,000 units), SOS (318,000 units), Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains (185,000 units) and Tomorrow X Together’s The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION (161,000 units). (That’s assuming One Thing at a Time would have sold the same number of CDs and digital albums with half as many songs.) Only two recent albums, Her Loss by Drake and 21 Savage (404,000 units) and Taylor Swift’s Midnights (1.58 million units), had better debut weeks than the hypothetical, 18-track One Thing at a Time.
One Thing at a Time is part of a curious paradox in current recorded music, as the widespread adoption of streaming services has caused artists to release single tracks more often while releasing increasingly lengthier albums, too. While the album is waning in popularity, it remains a vital artistic statement and commercial event.
The trend of longer albums runs counter to the experimentations of the early days of digital music. When Napster arrived in the late ’90s, many people believed file-sharing marked the death of the album format. In the ’00s, as consumers increasingly purchased individual tracks at online stores like Apple’s iTunes, labels experimented with the new paradigm. In 2005, Warner Music Group and Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman launched a digital-only label, Cordless Music, that released music exclusively in “clusters” of three or more songs instead of albums or singles. In 2010, country star Blake Shelton released two six-song EPs — called “six paks” — rather than a single 10- or 12-track album.
Today, streaming dominates music consumption and impacts how artists and labels package music. Album sales are lower than ever, but album lengths have never been longer. Because fans can stream an unlimited amount of music for a fixed price, artists can add songs knowing that a longer album equals more streams. And because streams tend to account for far more of an album’s chart position than downloads and purchases, artists have an incentive to keep people listening.
The result has been “track creep,” a consistently rising number of songs on popular albums. In 2022, the top 10 albums on the year-end Billboard 200 chart averaged 19.1 tracks and 69.9 minutes. The top album, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, has 23 tracks and runs 81 minutes. Un Verano Sin Ti is a product of the streaming age: Physical album sales account for just 1.1% of its album equivalent unit sales compared to 97.5% for streaming. Track creep is made easier considering that many albums, such as SOS and Drake’s 21-track Certified Lover Boy, don’t have physical versions.
Changes in how albums are counted for the Billboard 200 can probably help explain some of the track creep: In 2014, the year Billboard began incorporating streams into the Billboard 200 chart, the top 10 albums averaged 13.2 tracks and 51.9 minutes, meaning album lengths have increased by about six tracks and 18 minutes in the last eight years. (Here, Billboard counts only studio albums and excludes soundtracks and Broadway cast recordings, which are filled with score and instrumental tracks.)
In 1992, when CD sales began to dominate recorded music revenues, the top 10 albums averaged 11.9 tracks and 51.1 minutes. Garth Brooks had two of the four 10-track albums in the top 10 — Ropin’ the Wind and No Fences — and the longest, Totally Krossed Out by hip-hop duo Kriss Kross, had just 15 tracks. Albums — particularly in the country genre — often topped out at ten tracks, a limit set by record labels for paying mechanical royalties to music publishers.
In 1977, when the vinyl LP ruled the industry, the top 10 albums averaged 10.3 tracks and 45.1 minutes, and half of them had fewer than 10 tracks. The longest, Stevie Wonder’s double album, Songs in the Key of Life, had fewer tracks — 17 — than half of 2022’s top 10 albums. The top album of 1977, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, ran only 39 minutes — a full half-hour shorter than the average length of 2022’s top 10 albums. (In the 1977 top 10, Billboard included the soundtrack to A Star Is Born, which had only 11 tracks. That’s compared to 32 tracks for the Frozen soundtrack, the top album of 2014.)
One Thing at a Time might not need 36 tracks to top the Billboard 200, but having more songs means the album gets more streams and generates greater royalties. The least-popular 18 songs amassed 170.3 million on-demand streams in the album’s debut week. If those 18 tracks were released as a separate album — similar to the way Guns N’ Roses released Use Your Illusion volumes 1 and 2 simultaneously in 1991 — it would have been the No. 2 album of the week. Additional tracks provide diminishing returns but can contribute meaningfully to a successful record. Wallen’s previous album, the 32-track Dangerous: The Double Album, has received about 22% of its total track consumption — streams plus downloads — from its less-popular half. For a label that invests heavily in marketing and promoting an album, track creep can improve the return on each release.
Something the One Thing album has that single tracks and EPs lack is the oomph surrounding their marketing and promotion. In the wake of Napster, people may have underestimated the album’s ability to be an event unto itself. Single tracks get the attention of both fans and streaming services’ algorithms, but neither has the promotional impact of releasing a full album. As long as a label is driving awareness to a new release, why not give fans a few more songs?
Plus, artists don’t release albums as frequently as they used to. In the late ‘70s, artists often put out an album every year. Today, an artist will take two or three years — and often longer — between albums. Putting out longer albums could help labels make up for these widening gaps, with the caveat that only superstar releases tend to merit the kind of sprawling length seen in the form of recent releases by Wallen, Drake and others.
This kind of full-court press also serves to prolong — and boost — the success of individual tracks that would fade more quickly without an album attached. Eight of the 36 tracks on One Thing at a Time were released prior to the album’s street date and putting up strong numbers on their own. Still, their streams increased 89% the week of the album’s release. Four of the 8 tracks ended up in the Billboard Hot 100. In its sixth week on the Hot 100, Wallen’s single “Last Night” shot from No. 5 to No. 1 after a 53.5% jump in streams. Three other previously released tracks — “One Thing at a Time,” “You Proof” and “Thought You Should Know” — broke into the top 10 of the Hot 100.
Miranda Lambert is leaving her longtime label home at Sony Music Nashville, the singer-songwriter revealed in a social media post.
“Since I was 19 years old, Sony has been my home in Nashville. Over the last 20 years together we have released albums that allowed me to share my story with the world, and we’ve reached heights I’d never even dreamed were possible,” Lambert said. “I’m so thankful for our time together and everything they made possible for me, yet I wouldn’t be true to myself if I wasn’t constantly looking for the next challenge and a new way to stretch my creativity. With that in mind, I’ve decided to say goodbye to my Sony family. I can’t wait to see what the next adventure holds.”
A representative for Sony Music Nashville had not responded to Billboard‘s request for comment by press time. Lambert’s manager, Marion Kraft, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lambert’s statement caught Sony executives off guard, according to sources.
During her time with Sony, since the release of her debut major label album Kerosene in 2005, Lambert has taken seven albums to the top of Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and seven songs to No. 1 on Country Airplay as a solo artist or collaboration. The reigning ACM Awards entertainer of the year (and a coveted ACM Triple Crown winner) has won 37 ACM trophies, the most of any artist.
Lambert has also won Grammys in the country album of the year category for her projects Wildcard and Platinum, while her song “The House That Built Me” won a Grammy for female country vocal performance.
Annual revenues for French music company Believe grew 31.8% to 760.8 million euros ($723.5 million) in 2022 as the company capitalized on investments and expansion in Europe, India and China. Digital sales accounted for 92% of Believe’s revenue while non-digital sources represented just 8%.
The company’s premium solutions segment grew 31.6% to 712.6 million euros ($677.7 million). Automated solutions, which includes the TuneCore distribution platform, improved 34.5% to 48.2 million euros ($45.8 million). TuneCore’s launch of an “unlimited pricing” plan in 2022, which allows artists to distribute an unlimited amount of music for a fixed annual fee, was “extremely successful and translated into an acceleration of growth,” CEO Denis Ladegaillerie said during Wednesday’s earnings call.
“We ended 2022 strongly delivering above our IPO commitments both operationally and financially for the second year in a row,” Ladegaillerie said in a statement. “In 2022, as we have done each year since 2005, we did what we said we would do … or better. We grew our market share; we improved profitability; we generated significant cash flow from our operations.” Free cash flow was 52 million euros ($49.5 million), an improvement from negative 30.7 million euros in 2021.
Believe also revealed that it invested in French pop label Structure, which it called “a new French pop label partnering with two successful producers, behind the recent success of several multi-platinum French pop artists.” It additionally noted an investment in Madizin Music, “a German well-known brand managed by two renowned producers, composers, and entrepreneurs,” as well as an exclusive partnership with Panorama Music, a new Indian label founded by a Bollywood film producer.
Digital revenues improved 34.7% organically as Believe served an additional 200,000 artists, to 1.3 million, either directly or through record labels. In France, Believe was the second-largest music company in digital local repertoire in 2022. Believe was the third-largest recorded music company in Germany “on local repertoire in the streaming market,” and the market’s second-largest company in hip-hop. The company pointed to the chart success of TuneCore artist Theo Junior and Milky Chance, who amassed 1.2 billion streams in 2022 on the strength of the track “Stolen Dance.”
In Asia, Believe has invested in India and Southeast Asia and now has about 80 people spread throughout five offices in China. “The level of activity remained sustained throughout the year as the digital monetization increased in Greater China, which led to the signings in Premium Solutions of more than 300 labels and above 250 artists directly,” the company said.
Looking forward to 2023, Believe expects to post organic revenue growth of 18%, improve its adjusted EBITDA margin to between 5% and 7% and again be cash flow positive. “In 2023, we will continue our profitable growth strategy: invest in our teams to grow market share, innovate in audience development products for our artists and labels, and further drive operational efficiencies through technology and scale to increase profitability,” said Ladegaillerie.
Universal Music Group has acquired the British indie classical label Hyperion Records, the company announced Wednesday (March 15).
The 43-year-old label — which is home to artists like Marc-André Hamelin, Angela Hewitt and Stephen Osborne and represents a catalog of 2,5000 recordings, some of which date back to the 12th century — will operate as a standalone label within Universal Music U.K. alongside Decca Classics. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Hyperion will now join Decca Classics and Deutsche Grammophon in UMG’s classical portfolio, while Simon Perry — who has overseen the label for more than 20 years, after taking over from his father, Hyperion founder Ted Perry — will remain as managing director.
“I’m thrilled to bring Hyperion to Universal Music Group, a company that shares Hyperion’s commitment to bringing the most distinctive and brilliant musicians to as wide a public as possible,” Perry said in a statement. “By being part of UMG, while keeping our artists and staff together, we can continue to build on my father’s legacy and that of everyone who’s been part of the Hyperion family over the past 43 years. My debt to all of them is huge and I look forward to leading this incredible label into an exciting new chapter.”
Hyperion is next set to release Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia Antartica and Symphony No.9 with BBC Symphony Orchestra, a series it says is dedicated to the Masses and Magnificats of Cristóbal de Morales, as well as recordings from the London Haydn Quartet and Stephen Layton and the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, among others. In a statement, UMG president/CEO of global classics and jazz Dickon Stainer called Hyperion “a jewel of a label,” adding that “we are committed to continuing the magnificent work done by the Perry family and to preserving and building on the special place Hyperion occupies in the hearts of artists and music fans alike.”
The acquisition comes amid a veritable wave of news spilling from the world of classical music lately. In November, Deutsche Grammophon launched a new standalone streaming service, Stage+, catering to its own catalog and that of Decca Classics. And earlier this month, Apple Music announced its own standalone streaming app, Apple Music Classical, which will roll out later this month and stems from its August 2021 acquisition of Primephonic.
“We are enormously proud that Hyperion has joined Universal’s family of classical labels to sit alongside Decca Classics in London,” Decca Label Group co-presidents Tom Lewis and Laura Monks said in a statement. “Simon and his father have created a very important recorded classical catalogue that serves a dedicated global audience. And the label continues to work with artists who are the best of the best. We are determined to celebrate the label’s legacy and continue its extraordinary story.”
Nigerian Afropop singer Adekunle Gold has officially signed with Def Jam Recordings, the company tells Billboard.
“I’ve been following Adekunle Gold since I first heard his record ‘Sade’ in 2016. Over the years, everything in AG’s world has elevated — his songwriting has refined, the scope of his artistry has widened, his vocals have strengthened, his approach to fashion is more distinct, and his showmanship and performance ability have grown exponentially,” says Def Jam CEO/chairman Tunji Balogun in a statement to Billboard. “He’s stepped into stardom on his own terms and is completely comfortable being his true self.”
Balogun added, “When I started at Def Jam, I knew I wanted to bring the label into the Afrobeats space tastefully, with the right artists and partnership. Adekunle felt like the perfect fit – he’d already done so much work on his own to build a base, but I knew that we could scale his audience to an even bigger level if we combined our energies and worked together.”
Gold (real name Adekunle Almoruf Kosoko) describes his signing as a “full circle moment” after Balogun tried signing him years ago, prior to the executive’s 2022 arrival at Def Jam. The “5 Star” singer said that because he and Balogun share Nigerian roots, “he understands it, so signing to Tunji makes sense. He’s like my studio buddy that just comes everywhere I go. The day he doesn’t have time to be there, I know he must’ve been like stupidly busy. He’s great.”
When it comes to signing with Def Jam, Gold continued, “The track record is there. The history is there. They break artists, and they have niche, unique artists like me, so I think it’s the right move for me. All of the things that I’ve done for myself already, they know already and that’s why they’re on board.”
Balogun was in Lagos, Nigeria, says Gold, when he and fellow Nigerian singer Zinoleesky were writing and recording “Party Dey no Stop,” Gold’s new single featuring Zinoleesky that marks his Def Jam debut. “When we started to make the music, it was so easy for me to go in and just attack the song. I wrote my verse, I wrote the chorus, and it was a rap. I knew from then that this song was a jam,” Gold says of the track.
“Party Dey no Stop” arrives ahead of Gold’s fifth studio album due in June. In support of the project, he’ll embark on a four-month world tour that’s set to kick off in North America in September and run through the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America and the Caribbean through next year.
Gold first rose to fame in 2015 with the single “Sade,” a highlife love song that samples instrumentals from One Direction‘s 2013 hit “Story of My Life.” “Sade” went on to win best alternative song at the 2015 edition of The Headies, a Nigerian music awards show. Gold eventually signed his first record label deal with Olamide‘s YBNL Nation and released his debut studio album, Gold, in 2017. It peaked at No. 7 on Billboard‘s World Albums chart.
After Gold’s YBNL Nation contract expired, “I didn’t quite know what to do,” he says. “I was signed for two years, fresh off the industry. I was just thinking, ‘What am I going to do from here?’ [And] I’m like, ‘You know what? I got this. Let me just start my own thing.’”
The Afrobeats star then started his own label, Afro Urban Records — “one of the best decisions I’ve made,” he says — and put out two albums: 2018’s About 30 and 2022’s Catch Me If You Can. He released his 2020 album, Afro Pop, Vol. 1, under EMI.
In a previous Billboard interview, Gold explained why he switched labels and the benefits of working with distributor Platoon, which helped with the rollout for his last album, Catch Me If You Can, featuring Davido, Lucky Daye, Fatoumata Diawara, Fousheé, Ty Dolla $ign and Stefflon Don. “When I was fully Afro Urban Records and no distribution label, me and my manager [Elizabeth Sobowale] had to do a lot of work. Platoon has the best hands in everything from PR to marketing,” he said at the time. “All I had to do was work on the music and they’re ready to take the rest upon themselves.”
After his groundbreaking success with Wizkid and Tems during his tenure as executive vp of A&R at RCA, Balogun has been playing a monumental role in bolstering Def Jam’s roster with more talent from the African diaspora. In September 2022, the label signed an exclusive worldwide joint venture with Native Records to develop African artists.
“I think AG is a truly global artist, and a rightful ambassador for Nigerian music and the emerging Afrobeats scene,” Balogun says. “He has the talent, virtuosity, focus, work ethic and temperament required to be a worldwide superstar. I’m excited to work with him and the Def Jam team to bring more fans into his world.”
“Hear it from me,” Gold says. “Afrobeats is taking over the world.”
Superstar Pride’s breakout hit “Painting Pictures” has been one of music’s early success stories so far in 2023, as the song — part of the Mississippi MC’s 5 LBs of Pressure EP that was originally released last October — stormed onto the Hot 100, debuting at No. 99 in the week ending Feb. 25, before leaping to No. 35 the following week and No. 25 last week, reaching No. 7 on the Streaming Songs chart.
The song’s viral success — fueled in part by TikTok — caused a stir, with multiple labels coming in with offers to sign the rising rapper, who had originally uploaded the EP through independent distributor and services company UnitedMasters, launched five years ago by industry entrepreneur and Translation founder/CEO Steve Stoute.
But then, just as the song was beginning to reach new heights and seemingly poised to soar into the upper echelon of the charts, its momentum was briefly halted: The song’s production — which samples the Faith Evans song “Soon As I Get Home,” released in 1995 by Bad Boy/Arista Records — was flagged by Sony Music Publishing for not being properly cleared, the song was removed from Spotify for two days and some versions were also taken down from YouTube, though it remained available on Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music. The issue in part contributed to a 29% drop in U.S. streams over the prior week, from 14 million to 10 million, and “Painting Pictures” came in at No. 62 on the Hot 100 this week. (While the drop in placement on the Hot 100 is partially due to the streaming hiccup, the strong performance of Morgan Wallen’s new album One Thing At a Time saw its songs flood the Hot 100, meaning a placement jump would have been difficult regardless.)
That sample issue has now been cleared up, Stoute told Billboard this weekend. According to Stoute, Bad Boy chief Sean “Diddy” Combs, who also co-wrote and co-produced “Soon As I Get Home,” met Superstar Pride and “loved him,” and subsequently cleared the Faith Evans sample, paving the way for the song’s return to Spotify. Additionally, Stoute confirmed that Superstar Pride has decided to stick with UnitedMasters and remain independent for now, despite strong interest from major labels to sign him.
Now, Stoute and his UnitedMasters team are focused on re-starting the song’s momentum, with a video to be shot this week and a radio campaign that is now underway. In the past week, sales increased a modest 15% and radio airplay jumped significantly, up 270% week over week to 3.1 million in audience, according to Luminate.
“This video, more playlisting support, radio, that’s the next step to making a top 10 record,” Stoute told Billboard in a conversation last week. “It’s a phenomenal song that has been growing like wildfire. This seismic growth, I haven’t seen anything like this since Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road,’ or something like that. It’s been pretty crazy when you look at the steep, hockey stick growth curve. But I give credit to the platform for being able to allow artists like Superstar Pride the opportunity to put music out, be able to track his performance and have the confidence that he’s distributing music and it’s in good hands.”
Superstar Pride originally uploaded the song on his own through UnitedMasters, before the company started to track its growth and reached out to offer support with playlisting and the TikTok campaign that eventually pushed it onto the Billboard charts. But Stoute sees the song’s success as stemming from its inherent quality — and as further evidence as to how the industry is changing.
“I think the artist should always own their music, because the biggest lift in all of this is the work that they did, which is making the song,” Stoute says. “There’s nothing a record company or anyone can do to make a non-hit a hit. And if the artist has a hit, in today’s music business, it’s less about what a record company can do and more about, how can you support the artist and what they want to do? It’s not like we have this magic silver-bullet idea that the artist doesn’t understand. What are your marketing ideas? What do you believe in? We’ll give you money and support to help accentuate what you believe in. And that’s why [artists] also get a lion’s share of the revenue — because it’s you. With the old record business, they didn’t respect that. The old record business was, ‘You make the song, and we’ll take it from here.’”
Since Stoute launched UnitedMasters in 2018, the music business at large has seen a shift as more services-oriented companies have come into the industry, and some established players shifted their business models toward a more distribution-and-services offering, giving artists more choices to chart their paths than the traditional record label model, while even the majors have increased their distribution offerings to reflect the reality of the marketplace. UnitedMasters, through Stoute’s sister company Translation, has marketed itself as an option with more brand services offerings to artists than its competitors; Translation represents clients such as the NFL, NBA, AT&T and State Farm, among others. But its path towards success also lies within the broader shifts in the industry.
“[The indie path] is much bigger than a cottage industry that is an alternative for people who can’t get a record deal; this is actually a solution that empowers the artist,” Stoute says. “[Superstar Pride’s success] is just another example of an independent artist finding tremendous success without the need to give up his rights, and ownership of his rights, to a record company. And the more successes that are happening like this much more frequently, the more people are seeing that the record companies are nothing more than just banks.”
Warner Music Group’s chief financial officer Eric Levin told staff on Tuesday that after a “transformative decade” for the company, he will retire at the end of the year, according to an internal memo viewed by Billboard.
Levin said he decided to announce his retirement early in the year to allow the company to move forward with a public search for his successor, similar to WMG’s handling of the successor search for former WMG CEO Stephen Cooper, who stepped down Feb. 1.
Levin joined WMG in 2014, overseeing the company’s global financial operations at a time when piracy and streaming were overhauling the fortunes of companies across the music industry.
“He helped WMG return to growth and profitability, making important contributions to its long-term strategy and the funding of its global expansion and major acquisitions,” WMG CEO Robert Kyncl wrote in a staff memo about Levin’s planned retirement. “Eric will be leaving WMG in a much better place than when he joined it.”
Prior to WMG, Levin was based in China as the North Asia CFO and regional controller for Ecolab, a leading maker of disinfectants, and prior to that he was the CFO of the Hong Kong-based English language newspaper the South China Morning Post.
Levin saw WMG through its 2020 initial public offering, which valued the company at around $12.5 billion, and managed through the leadership transition from Cooper to Kyncl. On Tuesday, Levin wrote that he is “ready to pass the baton to a new CFO.”
“It’s going to be a natural progression, at a natural time,” Levin wrote. “Whoever takes this role will be very fortunate. I’m looking forward to helping set them up for another successful decade of growth.”
Last fall, the 25-year-old English singer Raye was on the hunt for her first U.S. hit after several years of U.K. chart success. Initially, the loping hip-hop soul single “Escapism” seemed to bring her no closer. After the first week, streams of the track started to fall, according to Luminate. But in mid-November, its trajectory dramatically reversed, leaping from 185,000 streams one week to 500,000 the next to over 6 million two weeks later. “Escapism” went on to peak at No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100.
What happened? The burgeoning popularity of a homemade sped-up remix of “Escapism” that captivated TikTok users, spurring them to incorporate it into their videos and driving streams of the original. Raye’s label, Human Re Sources, responded by releasing an official uptempo rework of the single that has over 114 million streams on Spotify alone.
“I wish that I could sit here and say, ‘We were in our marketing meeting, we decided that we were going to do a sped-up version of this particular spot in the song, and that’s going to ignite all the rest of it,’ ” says J. Erving, a longtime music manager, founder of the artist services and distribution company Human Re Sources, and executive vp of creative development at Sony Music Entertainment. “The kids are taking control of the songs, and they’re determining what part of the record is sticky and what version of it is sticky.”
Those “sticky” versions — often just sped up or slowed down, or a pair of tracks mashed together — can spark streams. “These remixes can really create careers and reignite careers,” Universal Music Group vp of A&R strategy Nima Nasseri says. “They’re great mechanisms for growth. Every label is putting them out,” often releasing official versions of the remixes that trend on short-form video platforms.
Sped-up remixes also spurred recent chart surges for Miguel’s “Sure Thing” (actually a resurge, as it first charted over a decade ago), The Weeknd’s “Die for You,” Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary,” and Mariah Carey’s “It’s a Wrap,” as well as boosting streams for tracks like Lizzy McAlpine‘s “Ceilings.”
Remixes — extended for club play, shortened and punched up for radio — are nothing new. And listeners taking control has been a hallmark of the shift to digital, starting with YouTube fan covers in the 2000s and progressing in the streaming era to fan response helping labels determine what tracks to focus on for promotion.
The difference today is the extent to which power has shifted to social media users. The process, says Erving, is no longer about label executives and managers deciding “this is our single, insert remix producer here, add rapper here, this is going to be the thing — those days are over.” In fact, according to a major-label A&R executive, “it’s not about the recording anymore. It’s about what you’re offering the user base to say, ‘Hey, you’re an intelligent consumer. Here are the stems [individual audio components] for our songs. Do what you want to it.’”
“Is anything in its final form now?” one major-label marketing executive asks. “Or are we just putting out clay for fans to mold?”
Part of this change is technological — it has never been simpler to manipulate audio. “These [remixes] are being made easily by fans in real time on their computer or phones,” says RCA Records COO John Fleckenstein.
Many in the music industry believe this remixing activity is also part of a generational shift. “Gen Z in particular has been raised online alongside meme culture,” says Scott Plagenhoef, global head of music programming at Apple Music. “They’re accustomed to content that is repeated but manipulated, and music is no different.”
While it’s common to encounter both sped-up and slowed-down remixes on short-form video platforms, Plagenhoef says “sped-up remixes seem considerably more popular and prevalent than slowed-down ones” at the moment. “Sped-up songs allow for more of a track to be heard within the time constraints of a TikTok video and mirror the pace at which users consume content online,” he adds. Increasing tempo can also “make the songs better — it brings out a different emotion,” according to Josh “Bru” Brubaker, a TikToker (4.5 million followers) and radio personality for Audacy.
Many remixes don’t replace or distract fans from the original track — they draw attention to it. “From a discovery standpoint, we see a large amount of referral traffic make its way back to original tracks from remixes,” says Roneil Rumburg, co-founder/CEO of Audius, a blockchain-based streaming service. For example, the original of Raye’s “Escapism” (304 million streams) is significantly out-streaming its sped-up remix on Spotify.
Since discovery is increasingly difficult to engineer in a time of content overload, the music industry is encouraging fan experimentation with songs and aiding the creation of remixes. “There’s a whole community of TikTok DJs solely making these sounds to try to make them go viral because you get so much exposure,” Brubaker says. Labels and marketers say they sometimes pay these DJs anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $20,000 to remix and post songs.
Labels have also worked to get officially released sped-up remixes visibility on streaming services. UMG started the Spotify account Speed Radio to highlight its sped-up tracks, according to Nasseri; it has more than 9 million monthly listeners. Another account, sped up nightcore, does the same for Warner Music Group releases. (A WMG representative did not respond to requests for comment on this account.) “Anytime we get one of these remixes that has traction, we tag it with ‘Speed Radio,’ and it just amplifies the growth,” says Nasseri. “That’s a very valuable tool for artists to use.”
The streaming services have created playlists for these remixes as well. Spotify’s Sped Up Songs, launched last June, now has over 1 million followers. Apple Music recently unveiled Viral Remixed. “Over the past year, the DSP partners have been really helpful,” Nasseri says. “Casey Compernolle at Apple and Lizzy Szabo at Spotify are people we work with closely who have a great understanding of the remix space.”
Even as these remixes have helped create hits, not every artist wants to participate in this economy. “I completely respect if an artist chooses not to release a sped-up version if it doesn’t suit the song,” says Ian Quay, co-manager of Cults, who have a popular sped-up version of their song “Gilded Lily.”
But much of the stigma around tempo-shifted remixes seems to be fading. “Two years ago, I’d say 5% or 10% of artists were receptive to this,” Nasseri estimates. “Now it’s probably about 70%.” Meng Ru Kuok, CEO of music technology company BandLab, adds, “rights holders understand that this process is inevitable, and it’s one of the best ways to bring new life to tracks.”
While sped-up and slowed-down versions run wild on TikTok, they haven’t penetrated the mainstream — yet. “It still feels more specific to the short-form platforms right now than ‘I heard a great sped-up version at the club last night,’ ” says Fleckenstein.
But this could change. The rock duo Cafuné broke out with “Tek It”; the sped-up version now has more Spotify streams (143 million) than the original (137 million). Fleckenstein points to young RCA act Ari Abdul, who has enjoyed streaming success with the synthwave single “Babydoll.” “Sometimes the sped-up version is actually outperforming the original,” he says.
Will these tempo-shifted remixes eventually reach all the way to radio? “If it’s good enough,” Fleckenstein adds, “you never know.”