July 5, 2016 Page 1 of 14
inside
‘Disappointing’:
Publishing
Industry
Expresses
Confusion,
Concern Over
Sweeping Dept. of
Justice Decision
Apple in Talks to
Acquire Jay Z’s
Tidal: Report
Spotify Claims
Apple Is Keeping
an Update Out of
Its App Store
Lawyer Who Sued
Led Zeppelin
Suspended From
Practicing Law
With ‘Vinyl’
Scratched and
‘Roadies’ a Wreck,
Why Can’t TV
Have a Great Rock
Drama
AVAILABLE
FREE
TO CURRENT
BILLBOARD
SUBSCRIBERS
billboard.com/ipad
Lollapalooza Colombia Canceled
After Lead Headliner Drops Out,
Organizers Say
By Mitchell Peters
The inaugural Lollapalooza Colombia has been
canceled after organizers lost one of the festival’s
headliners and weren’t able to find a replacement,
according to a statement on the event’s website.
“Organizers of Lollapalooza Colombia want to
express their deep thanks to all fans who supported
the fest from day one, as well as sponsors and
supporters,” reads the statement, which was posted
in Spanish on Friday (July 1).
Lollapalooza Colombia was scheduled for Sept.
17 and 18 in Bogota’s Simón Bolívar Park, with
performances from Disclosure, Lana Del Rey, Wiz
Khalifa and many others.
Ticket holders will receive a full refund.
Following the cancelation, Colombia’s RCN Radio
reported that Rihanna was the supposed headliner
who dropped out, and that organizers didn’t have
time to find a replacement with equal star power,
the New York Daily News reports. The singer was
reportedly invited to play the fest, but wasn’t
available for the dates.
Read Lollapalooza Colombia’s full translated
statement below:
After its lead artist canceled just hours before the
festival was slated to announce the lineup, and faced
with difficulties in finding the right replacement, the
organizers of the festival have been forced to cancel the
inaugural Lollapalooza Colombia. The fest was set for
Sept. 17 and 18 in Parque Simon Bolivar in Bogota.
Everyone who purchased tickets will receive full
reimbursement, including the service cost.
Organizers of Lollapalooza Colombia want to express
their deep thanks to all fans who supported the fest from
day one, as well as sponsors and supporters. We hope we
can come back in the future and make this first edition
of the festival a reality.
Access the best
in music.
A DIGITAL VERSION OF EVERY ISSUE, FEATURING:
COVER STORIES . SPECIAL REPORTS . REVIEWS . INTERVIEWS
EVENT COVERAGE & MORE
Page 2 of 14
[In Brief]
‘Disappointing’:
Publishing
Industry Expresses
Confusion,
Concern Over
Sweeping Dept. of
Justice Decision
By Ed Christman
For over two years, music publishers and
songwriters have petitioned the Dept. of
Justice for changes to the 75-year-old rules
they were governed by, requesting amendments in order to stave off dwindling royalty rates caused, in their view, by antiquated
U.S. government regulations. Last week, in
a decision one executive said would result
in a “a clusterf---k of epic proportions,” the
DoJ announced that it would instead impose further rules on music publishers and
songwriters -- all who now fear a further
recession for their royalties.
In addition to refusing to amend the
consent decree to allow partial withdrawals
for music publishers from ASCAP and
Apple in Talks to
Acquire Jay Z’s
Tidal: Report
BMI’s blanket licenses, the DoJ ruled
that the consent decree requires those
performance rights organizations (PROs)
to engage in what’s known as “100
percent licensing” for songs with multiple
songwriters -- meaning a music licensee
only needs a license from just one of the
songwriters to utilize a song, instead of
each of them. That’s in contrast to the
traditional fractional licensing -- which
has up to now been the backbone of the
music publishing industry -- whereby rights
holders can only approve usage of their
portion of a work.
One possibly litigious result of the ruling
could involve a songwriter going to court
for all of the royalties for a song they cowrote, potentially insisting that they should
be disbursing those royalties to their cowriters, not whoever licensed the work.
Another case involves songs built brickby-brick, especially sample-based music
-- those works could potentially fall outside
of the blanket licenses. Yet another: Works
where there is an agreement between
the songwriters that certain co-writers
will not be allowed to license that work,
forcing PROs to determine whether those
agreements are in place and exclude the
exempted co-writers from any blanket
license.
Read the rest on Billboard.com.
By Natalie Jarvey
Apple is holding early talks about acquiring Jay Z’s music streaming service, Tidal,
according to the Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper, citing unnamed sources,
characterized the talks as “ongoing”
and said they might not lead to a deal.
The news comes after reports that Tidal
has been shopping for potential buyers,
including holding talks last year with
Napster, the company formally called
Rhapsody.
The sale of Tidal, which Jay Z launched
last year with support from artists
including Kanye West, Rihanna and
Madonna, would bring about consolidation
in an increasingly competitive music
streaming space.
Spotify remains the largest service
with 30 million subscribers. Apple joined
the fray in 2015 with Apple Music and
already boasts 15 million members. Tidal,
meanwhile, has more than doubled its
subscriber base in the last six months, from
1 million to just over 3 million, according to
DECISIVE INTELLIGENCE.
DELIVERED
DIGITALLY.
DECISIVE
INTELLIGENCE.
CLICK HERE
FOR FREE
DELIVERY
CLICK HERE
FOR FREE
DELIVERY
DELIVERED DIGITALLY.
DIGITAL NEWSLETTERS
DIGITAL
NEWSLETTERS
Digital
and Mobile Touring
Record Labels Retail Global
•
•
•
•
•
Publishing • TV/Film • Branding • Latin • Morning Fix
Digital and Mobile • Touring • Record Labels • Retail • Global •
Publishing • TV/Film • Branding • Latin • Morning Fix
Page 3 of 14
[In Brief]
CEO Jeff Toig, largely on the strength of its
artist exclusives with the likes of West and
Beyonce.
But the service has also seen a wave of
staff departures with Toig, formerly of
SoundCloud, stepping in as its third chief
executive. Still, sources tell Billboard that
Jay Z, who bought the fledging service from
Sweden-based Aspiro in January 2015, is
committed to Tidal. Another insider says
that the Apple-Tidal talks are simply not
true.
Spotify Claims
Apple Is Keeping
an Update Out of
Its App Store
By Colin Stutz
Spotify claims Apple is being uncompetitive by blocking a new version of its iPhone
app from the App Store.
In a letter sent to Apple’s top lawyer
and passed to some congressional staff
in Washington, D.C., Spotify claims the
company is “causing grave harm to Spotify
and its customers” in the process, Recode
reports.
Beyond Spotify’s competition with Apple’s
own subscription streaming service, Apple
Music, at the root of the issue are Apple’s App
Store policies it launched in 2011 that prohibit
participating iOS apps to use payment
systems other than its own iTunes system
within an app. Since Apple Music launched
a year ago, Spotify has publicly argued that
this subscription policy punishes third-party
streaming services, such as its own, with a 30
percent monthly fee on apps that use its billing
system, effectively giving its own native service
a leg up.
Spotify had passed Apple’s fee on to its
customers by charging $13 a month through
the App Store instead of the standard $10
it charges otherwise, while using a 99 cent
promotional rate to further drive users
to subscribe through its own website. But,
most recently, Apple reportedly threatened
to remove the Spotify app from its store
altogether if the company continues to
advertise that campaign. Spotify complied,
but also turned off its App Store billing option.
Now matters have come to a head with an
updated version of Spotify’s app that has been
blocked from the iOS App Store. Spotify’s
letter, which was sent by Spotify general
counsel Horacio Gutierrez to Apple general
counsel Bruce Sewell on Sunday, suggests this
will be used to challenge Apple’s “business
model rules” for subscription services in its
App Store.
“This latest episode raises serious concerns
under both U.S. and EU competition law,”
Gutierrez’s letter states. “It continues a
troubling pattern of behavior by Apple to
exclude and diminish the competitiveness of
Spotify on iOS and as a rival to Apple Music,
particularly when seen against the backdrop
of Apple’s previous anticompetitive conduct
aimed at Spotify … we cannot stand by as
Apple uses the App Store approval process as a
weapon to harm competitors.”
On Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) delivered a speech criticizing
Apple and other mega-corporations’
business practices, saying their
consolidation and concentration of various
business sectors “threatens our markets,
threatens our economy, and threatens our
democracy.”
She continued, “Google, Apple and
Amazon provide platforms that lots of
other companies depend on for survival.
But Google, Apple and Amazon also, in
many cases, compete with those same
small companies, so that the platform can
become a tool to snuff out competition.”
With Spotify’s more than 30 million
paying subscribers -- per a report in March
-- Spotify by no means is a small company,
but is taking this opportunity to its
advantage in the ongoing streaming wars
that show Apple Music has been making
ground. This month, Apple Music reported
15 million subscribers of its own.
Lawyer Who Sued
Led Zeppelin
Suspended From
Practicing Law
By Ashley Cullins
The attorney who flouted courtroom
protocol during the “Stairway to Heaven”
copyright trial has been suspended from
practicing law.
Francis Malofiy’s behavior as an attorney
has been the subject of repeated judicial
scrutiny, and a Thursday ruling means he
won’t be doing any lawyering until the fall.
An appellate panel upheld a previously
recommended suspension of three months
and one day, finding Malofiy violated
“various rules of conduct” during a
copyright infringement lawsuit over Usher’s
“Bad Girl.”
In 2015, a three-judge district court
panel found Malofiy tricked unrepresented
co-defendant William Guice into signing
an affidavit without consulting a lawyer
by hiding that their relationship was
adversarial in nature.
The prior year, Judge Paul Diamond
issued sanctions and ordered Malofiy to
pay $28,000 in court costs.
Malofiy had argued that he didn’t
break the rules and, even if he did, the
punishment was too harsh.
The district court was troubled by the
attorney’s failure to take responsibility for
his actions and his other unprofessional
and uncivil conduct during the course of
the litigation.
On Thursday, the appellate panel agreed
and upheld the suspension.
His reputation as a rule-breaker
preceded him when he took on the recent
Led Zeppelin case. In a story previewing the
trial, Bloomberg painted a vivid portrait of
Malofiy as a “bar-brawling lawyer.”
During the six-day “Stairway” trial,
Malofiy racked up more than a hundred
sustained objections and multiple
admonishments from Judge R. Gary
Page 4 of 14
[In Brief]
Klausner.
After the jury ruled in Led Zeppelin’s
favor, Malifoy said he lost on a technicality
and hinted at an appeal. If Michael
Skidmore, the man who sued on behalf
of late songwriter Randy Wolfe, wants to
appeal soon, Malofiy could be out of a job.
While Malofiy’s suspension is in
Pennsylvania, being admitted pro hac
vice in California is dependent on being
an attorney in good standing in another
jurisdiction. Skidmore still has a lawyer,
though. Glen Kulik served as local cocounsel and could take the reins on the
case.
This article originally appeared in THR.
com.
With ‘Vinyl’
Scratched and
‘Roadies’ a Wreck,
Why Can’t TV
Have a Great Rock
Drama
By Tim Goodman
Denis Leary’s FX comedy, Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll kicked into its second
season on Thursday night, the perfect
antidote to a couple of big-swing, big-miss
dramas trying to get at the heart of rock
‘n’ roll. Everybody who was hoping either
HBO’s Vinyl or Showtime’s Roadies would
be the rock music drama they’d always
wanted (and TV so desperately needs),
could certainly use the laughs.
Given his ability to balance drama and
comedy (see: Rescue Me), Leary could
probably, in retrospect, deliver on the
promise that’s out there in the endless
material. Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll already
has dramatic elements, which sprang to
life as the first season developed and found
itself, becoming in the process a show that
sends up aging rock stars and mocks music
industry pretensions across musical genres,
but one that also has a heart.
But Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll really
wasn’t built to carry that load. Its main
goal is to make you laugh. That the series
is helping boost morale in the wake of
Vinyl imploding and being canceled (after
first being renewed) and the first three
episodes of Roadies being disappointingly
underwhelming, speaks mostly to the
failure of Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and
the endless people who tried to make Vinyl
work at HBO, and Cameron Crowe, who
hasn’t shown any evidence in the first three
hours of having come up with a premise
that works or characters that are either
accurate or worth spending a season with
on Roadies.
And honestly, that’s kind of depressing.
Why is it that television can’t come up
with a good rock ‘n’ roll drama? I’m not
talking Empire, which is another thing
entirely (from the music to the soapy roots
of it).
I would take a good drama about the
music industry and its struggles of the
streaming age immediately. You know,
it’s only the one thing that upended
everybody’s lives and changed the
machinery that had been in place since the
first record was pressed. No big deal.
To parrot the Hollywood cliché, I love it
already. I’d buy that idea in the room.
Same goes for a really intense look at a
record label – whether that’s in the modern
era or, like Vinyl, in 1973. Hell, I’d go for a
story about a DJ. I’d watch a coming of age
drama about a band of suburban kids who
bash it out in their garage one summer and
then get a little better by the week, and
eventually decide to make a go of it on the
road that lays ahead of them.
In short, there are endless music ideas
and I’d watch pretty much all of them.
Until I wouldn’t.
I mean, I gave up on Empire when
it lost its freshness somewhere in all
those bubbles. I tried — no really, I did —
with Vinyl. I loved it with caveats at the
beginning, then cringed when it made all
the wrong decisions (mostly, the caveats
I warned about), then wrote about how
difficult (but perhaps not impossible) it
would be for HBO to fix the problems of
season one. The renewal gave that hope, but
then HBO, under new management and
probably wisely, pulled the plug.
There was so much potential lost in
Vinyl. It’s utterly heartbreaking. Setting
the series in 1973 meant it was right at the
nexus of endless story possibilities — giants
like The Rolling Stones, David Bowie
and Led Zeppelin were still at the heights
of their creativity and there were the
burgeoning disco, punk, glam rock and hip
hop movements. If Vinyl did anything right
— and 10 episodes proved it didn’t do much
right — creating a series about a record
label and a passionate A&R guy (played by
Bobby Cannavale) in that time frame was
genius.
And then it blew it. The short version of
what Vinyl needed to do was “stick to the
music.” It didn’t. The show was a mess
for endless reasons, but loving music was
not one of them. I have no idea whose
fault Vinyl’s failure really is. It had more
executive producers and people taking
credit for the idea than there are tragic
YouTube covers of popular songs. But
not sticking to the music, not committing
to the passion at the heart of the original
idea — Cannavale’s character having an
epiphany at a New York Dolls concert that
he’d strayed from the indescribable pulseand-fist-pumping energy of rock and roll
in favor of merely running a business —was
the primary culprit in the show’s undoing.
Cannavale was excellent in Vinyl,
mostly when his character focused on the
music, not the cocaine and, oh god help
us, the murder in the pilot. He captured
what it was like to be a true believer, to
have a great ear and a love for all music.
Everything else in the show was either
stupid, boring, unbelievable, excessive or
unnecessary. One man’s love of music and
resuscitating his record label could have
been a really intriguing, passionate series.
But we’ll never know.
Coming on the heels of Vinyl’s failure
might have hurt Roadies, because people
who wanted a great rock music drama
(me included) thought that Crowe, his
legendary career and his best movies about
music, would be our savior.
Page 5 of 14
[In Brief]
Oy.
Roadies kicked off with a damning
Metacritic rating of 47 (compare that to
71 for Vinyl, then weep), as critics (like
me) dismissed it as tired, misguided,
unrealistic, unfunny and painful to watch.
Actual roadies didn’t like it. As I said in
my review at the time, “if Cameron Crowe
can’t make a good TV series about rock and
roll, can anybody?”
I still think that’s a good question, but
maybe pinning hopes on Crowe and not
someone either less starry-eyed about the
mystical power of music or at least more
into the actual dramatic machinations at
hand, is the bigger issue. Someone needs
to step up. In an industry that loves to copy
everything, you’d think more (and perhaps
better) ideas would already be out there,
but apparently not.
But this is fertile ground and I refuse to
believe that some talented writer out there
won’t nail it (hopefully sooner rather than
later). I love the backstory to Mad Men and
how Matthew Weiner’s passion brought to
life a very clear, remarkably well-executed
story with multiple characters, nuance, a
broad understanding of the topic and how
it fit in not only with the times but America
at large.
That’s the kind of focus and interest
in minutia and unfailing control over the
direction that it will take to make the first
great rock ‘n’ roll drama. But it’s not just
Weiner. Look at what David Simon did
with The Wire and Vince Gilligan did with
Breaking Bad. Or what Jenji Kohan is doing
with Orange Is the New Black or what Joe
Weisberg and Joel Fields are doing with
The Americans. I want someone to have that
level of passion and focus on this topic and
to see their rock and roll storyline really
nail it.
And yes, I know that Crowe did that with
Almost Famous but a television series is an
entirely different beast. On the plus side,
it’s a beast that will devour all the stories
you can feed it, so if someone has a strong
idea and the vision necessary to see the
untold amount of directions that story can
go in, television will take all you can give it.
And critics, clearly this one, will embrace
you for the effort.
This article was originally published by The
Hollywood Reporter.
Warren Grant, Son
Of Led Zeppelin
Manager Peter
Grant, Talks
Documentary,
Tribute Bands
And ‘Stairway to
Heaven’ Case
By Jem Aswad
Legendary Led Zeppelin manager Peter
Grant cast a large shadow in every sense of
the term. Both physically and psychologically intimidating, he was notorious for his
tough business tactics -- a fairly mild example appears in this segment from the 1976
Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains the
Same -- but the artists would be the first
to say it was always done in their service,
and he was a pioneer in advancing artists’
rights in every aspect of the business.
Grant came up in the rough-and-tumble
British music business of the 1960s,
cutting his teeth with legendary manager
Don Arden -- the late and estranged
father of Sharon Osbourne -- who was
infamous for his menacing business
tactics. At the behest of manager Simon
Napier-Bell, Grant began managing The
Yardbirds -- featuring Jimmy Page -- in
1966, overhauled the group’s finances and
focused on touring America. While The
Yardbirds splintered in mid-1968 -- Page
reformed the group with new members
and performed as the New Yardbirds for
a few weeks before renaming themselves
Led Zeppelin -- Page and Grant used what
they’d learned in those years to make
Zeppelin the world’s biggest rock band.
Grant died of a heart attack in 1995
at the age of 60, but his son Warren,
49, has made his father’s legacy part of
his own career by managing the British
tribute band Hats Off to Led Zeppelin for
four years, working on a documentary
about his father’s life, and collaborating
with longtime Atlantic executive Jerry
Greenberg on various projects. Billboard
caught up with Grant, the father of two
grown girls, over the phone from England
just a few days after the “Stairway to
Heaven” case wrapped late last month.
Billboard: I understand you and former
Atlantic Records exec Jerry Greenberg
are working on a documentary about
your dad?
Warren Grant: Yeah, we want to do a
documentary that tells the story of what he
was like as a father as well as a manager.
The reason I want to do it with Jerry is I
get offers all the time from various film
companies, but I think generally they are
really looking to use dad’s story as a means
to make a film about Zeppelin. Jerry was
very good friends and work colleagues with
my dad and I have lots of memories of him
from back when -- we used to go out on
these fishing boats in Florida and various
other places -- and he and I [reconnected] a
few years ago when I was [in L.A.] visiting
my daughter, who was doing some work for
Freeman Entertainment with the managers
from Motorhead. With Jerry being so close
to him he seems the perfect choice to help
me produce this.
Are there directors or anything lined
up?
No, we just really talked about it last
week. Jerry has to complete his own doc
about his career in the music business, then
we will get things moving.
What else are you working on apart
from managing Hats Off to Zeppelin?
Jerry’s looking at starting a new label,
and what I’m trying to do at the moment is
look at some new, young British bands and
get them across to the States, because at
the moment I think there’s a lack of young
[talent], all the oldies are still going strong
on my end, slowly disappearing one by
one. We really want to get some new blood
going, and I’m going to be looking at some
bands, and we hope to sign them to the
Page 6 of 14
[In Brief]
new label.
I know the early Zeppelin tours were
crazy -- they played something like 130
shows in 1969 alone -- so that must’ve
kept your dad out of the house quite a bit.
He was away a lot, but once I got a bit
older, in the early and mid ‘70’s, any time
a school holiday or something came up, we
would normally go out and see some of the
shows. I can remember him going on the
Starship [Zeppelin’s famous leased private
jet] and all that stuff. And fishing off the
balcony [at the Edgewater Hotel, the scene
of alleged groupie debauchery] in Seattle.
One of my fondest memories was, once the
show started, we always used to sit with
dad on the side of the stage with dad, on a
monitor kind of thing, and I’d sit down next
to him and we’d watch the show together.
And I can remember being in the limos with
all the escorts and stuff, and that was just
really exciting for me as a kid, f---ing great.
Do you have any special memories of
John Bonham?
Yeah, a really nice thing. On the [1980]
European tour, just before he died -- I don’t
know if you know Jason, John’s son. Jason
used to do a lot of dirtbike riding when he
was a teenager, and one day I wanted to
have a go. John used to take Jason to a lot
of motocross meetings when he could, and
I don’t remember the exact conversation
but I sat down with John and he said, “Well
make sure that when you get there you
do this and this,” and he gave me a lot of
encouragement. I’ll never forget it -- that
weekend was my first race meeting and
John had given me all this advice.
Did your older sister Helen come along
on the tours too?
Helen decided to go to [boarding]
school, so I don’t think she came out quite
as often as I did, I don’t quite remember.
I remember being with Jason a lot when
we were kids, we’ve been friends since we
were toddlers.
Was there any sense for you like this
was a normal childhood, or did you
know this was special?
I get asked this a lot. I knew stuff was
different, but I didn’t feel special. You
know, by the time you’re 3 or 4 you start
to have a sense of what’s going on in
the world, and it was just normal for
me.
When you were on tour with the
band, I assume the debauchery was
kept away from the kids?
Yeah, I think they were very careful
to make sure we were distanced from
that. You would see some drinking,
and I guess people were smoking, but
that was all whatever. We didn’t really
see any naked women or lines [of
drugs] or anything. Dad always made
sure that that was kept to a different
room or part of the plane or whatever.
I have to ask what happened during
that infamous incident at the Oakland
Coliseum, where a member of promoter Bill
Graham’s staff allegedly slapped you and then
was beaten by Zeppelin security?
I was 11 years old so my memory is a
bit sketchy, but I asked this guy for a Led
Zeppelin sign that he was holding -- I
think to put up on the outside doors of the
group’s cabins back stage. He pushed me
over, I told my Dad and the rest is history.
Is there any chance it was an accident?
Not from where I was standing.
I assume whatever happened after that
took place out of your sight?
Correct.
I’ve seen videos of your dad and he
could be quite intimidating. Was he like
that as a dad as well?
Dad was a big softie, let me tell you that.
He knew when to push people’s buttons
at what point in time, or what needed to
be done to get the job done. His numberone thing was to protect that band, and
he would use whatever means he needed
to make sure that his band had what they
needed to be brilliant at what they do.
He would deal with him [tour manager]
Richard Cole and all the other people on
board, and people like Ahmet [Ertegun]
and Jerry Greenberg from Atlantic Records
would deal with all the other stuff. So he
had his little team of people that would
make sure that the business side of things
was kept away from the band as much as
possible and that’s how dad explained his
work to me.
He loved the band, and he was really
good friends with all of them. They were
always great [to be around] -- even with a
lot of kids running around, and that can be
quite annoying when you’re 30, but I could
always speak with them, and we would
often stay with them up in the mountains,
or the Swiss Alps, and then we just all chill
and relaxed, and it was a great time.
Are you still in touch with any members
of the band?
Actually I saw Jimmy just a few days
ago, because we were both staying in the
same place in L.A., he was in town for the
court case. We had a quick chat. The last
time I think I saw all of them was at the
Celebration Day [concert film] premiere a
few years back, and then before that was
the 2007 reunion. But we don’t socialize
and hang out in the park or anything.
Speaking of which, what’s your opinion
of the way that the Stairway ruling went?
I thought it was only gonna be one
ruling, and that was the one that was the
outcome. They brought up all those things
about how that chord sequence had been
used even centuries ago -- anyone could
look at that and you could say anything,
you could say it was a blues track. I think
to drag it out like that was -- I think they
could’ve gotten better publicity out of it- I’d
ever even heard of the other guy [the late
Spirit guitarist Randy Wolfe, who did not
pursue legal action against Zeppelin during
his lifetime, but the managers of his estate
did], to tell you the truth.
What did you learn from him as a
manager?
Dad was a real people person, you
couldn’t tell whether he was talking to
the head of a department or a manager
or promoter or just the person that was
coming in during the patron, or the
chauffeur...he would look after everybody
the same. I remember a time, when he was
having a swimming pool built, and one of
the workers had cut his arm really badly,
and instead of waiting for the ambulance
dad out him in his Rolls Royce and took
him to the E.R. room to get it sorted out.
That’s the kind of thing I try and do. At
the end of a show, I always make sure
and speak to all the sound guys, the floor
managers, and say goodbye to everyone,
because it’s all part of the show.
Page 7 of 14
[In Brief]
BMG Acquires
Legendary
Australian Indie
Alberts
By Lars Brandle
BMG has landed one of its most significant
acquisitions to date in buying J Albert &
Son Pty Ltd, the great Australian independent recording and publishing company
which launched the careers of AC/DC and
the Easybeats and many others.
Through the new deal, the 131-year-old
Alberts will form part of BMG Australia,
the Sydney-based operation of BMG
which launched just three months ago
with former Universal Publishing A&R
executive Heath Johns at the helm.
Financial terms of the pact were not
disclosed.
“This is an incredible opportunity to
create a new leader in Australian music,
combining Alberts’ strengths with BMG’s
21st century approach to the music
business,” notes BMG CEO Hartwig
Masuch in a statement. “As of today,
Australian artists and songwriters wishing
to tap into the world market have a genuine
alternative to the established majors.
BMG is very serious about the Australian
market and this deal is an indication of our
commitment.”
Alberts’ roots date back to 1885, when
Swiss watchmaker and musician Jacques
Albert opened what was then a watch and
clock repair shop. The company expanded
quickly to sell musical instruments and
sheet music and, later, became active in
music publishing, recording, recording
studios, and artist management.
Today, its HQ in central Sydney is a
castle of Aussie rock royalty. The family
business has published songs and released
records from some of the leading figures
in Australian music, from Easybeats
and their songwriters Harry Vanda,
George Young and Stevie Wright, to AC/
DC, John Paul Young, Rose Tattoo and
contemporary artists Megan Washington,
Josh Pyke, Urthboy, the Cat Empire and
San Cisco, among many others.
The Alberts family retains its rights in
the AC/DC and Vanda and Young catalogs,
though BMG will administer the works on
Alberts’ behalf.
Alberts› outgoing CEO David Albert
admits the decision to sell was a difficult
one to make. «It’s positive for the business
and for the future,» he tells Billboard. «But
the other emotion is, all the family feels
there’s a sense of sadness that it’s the end
of a 131-year era. What makes it a bit easier
from the family’s perspective is we made it
together. But there couldn’t be more mixed
emotions.»
Johns, who will run the newly-enlarged
company in his role as BMG Australia
managing director, says the acquisition
represents a “big vote of confidence
in Australian talent and a recognition
of Australia’s status as the biggest
international exporter of recording talent
after the U.S. and U.K.» He adds, «One
of the core focuses on this deal is the huge
amount of belief in the contemporary
writer and artist roster of Alberts. We’ll be
welcoming them with open arms.»
It›s too early to talk job losses, Albert
and Johns explain. One thing is certain:
Albert will be stepping away from the
business. Johns, however, notes there will
be «significant opportunity» within BMG
for a number of Alberts staffers.»There›s
been a concerted effort to delay a number
of key hires knowing there was a strong
possibility this deal would materialize,» he
explains.
Since late 2008, Masuch has built
Bertelsmann Rights Management into
one of the largest music companies in the
world (BMG has recently claimed to be the
world’s fourth biggest music publisher).
The company began with about 150
master recordings held back from the sale
of Bertelsmann’s share of the Sony BMG
merger to Sony. BMG currently represents
more than 2 million songs and recordings,
including the catalogs of Chrysalis, Bug,
Virgin, Mute, Sanctuary, Primary Wave and
Talpa Music. Masuch has boasted in recent
years a mission to put «BMG on the map
for recorded music in the same way it is for
music publishing.»
Though its still in its infancy, BMG’s
Australian affiliate has signed up such
Australian artists as Peking Duk,
Wolfmother, LDRU, The Living End’s
Chris Cheney and Wave Racer. “We have
a small and healthy roster, but it’s not a
fully-formed roster,” Johns tells Billboard.
“There’s plenty of room to accommodate
the entire contemporary Alberts roster.”
Albert reflects on the closing of an
important chapter in Australian music.
“This was not about going around and
finding someone willing to pay the highest
amount, we never contemplated putting
the business on the open market,” he says.
“BMG had been looking to get into this
market and we have been contemplating
the macro environment and the changes
happening in our industry. It has nothing
to do with the current performance of the
business, but it was looking to the future
and it was BMG coming into this market.
The timing was perfect.”
Swedish Police
Report 27 Cases of
Sexual Assault at
Music Festival
By Associated Press
Swedish police say they have received
reports of 27 cases of sexual assault against
girls or young women at a music festival in
southern Sweden over the weekend.
Karlstad police officer Eva Hogfeldt
says they are searching for seven male
perpetrators in the alleged attacks on
Friday (July 1) and Saturday at a concert in
the central city, but didn’t give any details
about the suspects.
Hogfeldt said the attacks included
alleged groping and other sexual
misconduct. No incidents of rape were
reported. No one has been detained or
arrested.
Page 8 of 14
[In Brief]
as an emcee at all of the events, and help
Talib Kweli Joins
facilitate a teach-in associated with each of
the concerts.
Tom MorelloDenver (Summit Music Hall)
Organized Tour
San Diego (Venue Pending)
Seattle (Showbox SoDo)
Protesting Trans25 People Taken to
Portland (Director Park)
Pacific Partnership
Hospitals During
By Billboard Staff
U.K.’s Digital
Kenny Chesney
Rapper and activist Talib Kweli will join the
Seattle stop of Rock Against the TPP, an
Economy Bill
Concert
upcoming protest tour looking to halt the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal
By Associated Press
Introduced,
that organizers -- including
-- call the “biggest corporate power grab in
Officials say more than two dozen people
Would Allow
history.”
were taken to hospitals and several others
The free tour kicks off at Denver’s
were arrested in and around the Kenny
Retransmission
Summit Music Hall on July 23 with a
Chesney concert in Pittsburgh.
lineup that includes Morello, Anti-Flag,
Public safety spokeswoman Sonya Toler
Fees
Lost actress Evangeline Lilly will act
Hogfeldt said Monday that the victims
of the alleged assaults at the free festival
were aged 12 to 20. She declined to give
more details pending the outcome of an
investigation.
Rock Against the TPP Dates:
July 23:
July 30:
Aug. 19:
Aug. 20:
Tom Morello
said 57 emergency medical transports were
requested by 9 p.m. Saturday (July 2) and
25 people were taken to hospitals, mainly
for intoxication or intoxication-related
injuries.
Police reported a handful of arrests
on charges including trespassing, ticket
robbery, simple assault and public
intoxication. Several dozen people were
also cited for underage drinking. Toler
said one officer injured his thumb while
breaking up a fight.
A 2013 concert by the country artist
in the city drew national headlines after
73 people were arrested and patrons left
behind more than 30 tons of trash.
Downtown Boys, Taina Asili and others.
The protest continues a week later (July
30) in San Diego with performances by Las
Cafeteras, Bonfire Madigan and others. On
Aug. 19, Kweli will headline at the Showbox
SoDo in Seattle alongside Asili and Bell’s
Roar, and a day later the tour moves to
Portland’s Director Park with a headliner
to be named soon. A fifth stop, planned for
Sept. 24, is being ironed out.
The project is a partnership between
Internet freedom nonprofit Fight for the
Future and Firebrand Records, a label
founded by Morello and Ryan Harvey.
The tour’s official site describes the TPP
as an “anti-democratic deal between 12
countries that was negotiated in complete
secrecy by government officials and
hundreds of corporate lobbyists.” It cites
alleged threats to the environment, goodpaying jobs, Internet freedom and general
freedom of expression.
“Working people everywhere have had
enough,” said Morello in a statement.
“The TPP is nothing short of a corporate
takeover of our democracy. That’s why
people are rising up to stop it. Corporate
lobbyists want to sneak the TPP through
Congress quietly; that means it’s time for
us to get loud.”
By George Szalai
The U.K. government on Tuesday unveiled
its Digital Economy Bill, which includes a
part that could pave the way to U.S.-style
retransmission consent fees and which
wants to make the U.K. “the most digital
nation in the world.”
The new bill also includes measures
designed to strengthen protections for
citizens. Among others, it will “protect
children from online pornography by
requiring age verification for access to
all pornographic sites and applications”
and “increase the sentencing options for
people who infringe [on] copyright laws
online, bringing sentences into line with
the current penalties available for ‘physical
infringement’.”
Section 73 of Britain’s current Copyright
Designs and Patents Act of 1988 means
that pay TV operators can retransmit
public service broadcast channels without
any payment, but the proposed bill would
repeal that, a move that TV giant ITV,
led by CEO Adam Crozier, has long
advocated.
“We have consistently called for major
pay-TV platforms to pay U.K. public
Page 9 of 14
[In Brief]
service broadcasters (PSBs) fairly for the
‘transmission’ of their channels ending
what is effectively a multi-million pound
subsidy -- and this is clearly a welcome first
step in that direction,” an ITV spokesman
said. “This is simply about ITV, and other
PSBs, being paid fairly for their investment
in original U.K. content so that we can
continue to invest in the programs viewers
love.”
Sky, in which Rupert Murdoch’s 21st
Century Fox owns a 39 percent stake, and
other pay TV firms have said that the U.S.
and U.K. markets are different and that
regulation in Britain would need to change
for retrans payments. They have said
proponents of retrans fees want to enjoy
the benefits of their PSB status and also
make pay TV firms and their subscribers
pay to receive free-to-view PSB channels.
The Digital Economy Bill will now begin
its progress through the U.K. parliament.
It will have its first debate at the second
reading stage and is expected to complete
its passage through the House of Commons
and move to the House of Lords in the fall.
Royal assent, which is needed to make the
bill into law, is expected in the spring of
2017.
“We want the U.K. to be a place where
technology ceaselessly transforms the
economy, society and government,” said
U.K. digital economy minister Ed Vaizey.
“The U.K. has always been at the forefront
of technological change, and the measures
in the Digital Economy Bill provide the
necessary framework to make sure we
remain world leaders.”
This article was originally published by The
Hollywood Reporter.
How Jacob Collier
is Blowing Minds
With Help From
YouTube & Quincy
Jones
By Andy Gensler
Jacob Collier is a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist wunderkind from London whose
break out performance last week at Los
Angeles’ cavernous YouTube Space left a
profusion of dropped jaws strewn about the
tech company’s venue, production facility
and offices.
The 21-year-old’s one-man show
defied both natural and long-established
music laws, as he conjured any sound his
imagination fancied on a variety of livesampled percussion, keyboard and stringed
instruments which were looped sonically
and visually. This was topped by he
multiplied vocals across a four-and-a-half
octave range from bass to mezzo soprano
creating a thick wall of layered rhythmic
and melodic sound and images that
swirled together to form an electrifying
symphonic stew of breathless jazz, funk,
pop, electronic, a cappella and more.
“I’ve been waiting for a young one like
him for a long time man, he’s an absolute
genius,” his beaming manager said after
the show, which was also something of
preview of Collier’s new album, In My
Room, which was released Friday (July 1)
on Membran Music. His manager should
know, because he is a towering music icon
himself who knows a thing or two about
brilliant musicians. Indeed Quincy Jones
has worked with a slew of luminaries over
the course of a stunning 70-year career
including Duke Ellington, Count Basie,
Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra,
Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin,
Michael Jackson and many, many other
stone cold legends. “I’ve never heard
anybody like that before,” Jones says, “his
talent is just frightening.”
There is something terrifying about a
baby-faced Brit who can single-handedly
swerve between interpolations of Stevie
Wonder, George Gershwin and the Beach
Boys while live beatboxing, re-creating a
14-part a cappella group and channeling
the improvisational chops of a multitude
of jazz greats. “Herbie Hancock says he’s
an incredible pianist, Nathan East says
he’s a fantastic bassist and Quincy says
he’s a amazing singer who can it high
notes like Michael Jackson but also has an
incredible deep bass,” says Adam Fell, VP
of Quincy Jones Global Network who first
heard Collier two-and-a-half years ago via
YouTube.
“He he did a cover of Stevie Wonder’s
classic ‘Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing’ on
YouTube and literally seven or eight people
emailed the link to Quincy and me,” Fell
recalls. “Quincy absolutely lost his mind,
he didn’t believe it. He was just like, ‘Holy
cow! This kid is just next level.’ So we
emailed him cold through his website.”
Collier has connected to legions via
YouTube with his homespun videos
initially created on his sister’s iPad. His
total video views on his YouTube page
is more than 7 million views, including
“Don’t You Worry,” which now has 1.5
million views and his take on Gershwin’s
“Fascinating Rhythm” which is up to
800,000. Indeed the video platform,
which in recent years has been pilloried by
major artists and a wide-swath of the music
industry for what has been termed its
“value gap” in what is said to inadequately
compensate artists, is indispensable to upand-coming artists like Collier.
“It’s great man,” says Jones about
YouTube. “I’m not sure Jacob and I would
have found each other without it. You
can’t imagine how many times I’ve shown
Jacob’s YouTube videos to guests who
come through my home.” Collier is a part
of the video platform’s Music Foundry
Program which supports up and coming
artists with tools and workshops to create
videos, maximize exposure and perform
live showcases.
“YouTube is how his fans know him,”
says Fell who explains how Collier has
monetized his video presence on the
Page 10 of 14
[In Brief]
crowd-funding site Patreon to the tune
of nearly $22,000 per video. Here the
musician offers pledge packages ranging
from $2.00 (“Free mp3 downloads of
every single the day before it drops and
downloads of all YouTube videos, past and
future”) to $10,000 (“I come to your house
and play a private concert for you and your
family and friends on a mutually approved
date subject to location,” among other
goodies).
Fell and Jones manage a stable of
primarily young and preternaturally gifted
musicians including Eli Teplin a 24-year
singer-songwriter, Andreas Varady, an 18year old Slovak Hungarian jazz guitarist
and 14 year old pianist Emily Bear. When
asked if managing these so-called geniuses
is difficult, Jones explains that he’s been
down this path many times before. “After
Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Basie and
Duke -- give me a break, I’ve worked with
them all. I worked with Billie Holiday when
I was 14 years old,” he says. “We give them
all an environment where they can grow.”
After an initial Skype call with Collier
and his mother (Susan Collier is an
accomplished violinist and teacher at the
Royal Academy of music where Collier
studied—he’s been playing music since
he was two-years old.), Fell and Jones
invited the young musician to come to the
Montreux Jazz Festival where Jones is an
artist ambassador. “He hung out with us
every day for four or five days,” recalls Fell.
“Every night there was a jazz jam session
and for the first time we got to actually see
him perform with just piano and vocals.
I’ll never forget he played a cover Stevie
Wonder’s “Lately.” Quincy and I were
screaming we were so blown away by him.”
Fell and Jones have since assembled
a team around Collier that includes
Michael Peha on day-to-day management,
Membran Records (which put out albums
by Gregory Porter and Anderson .Paak)
whose CEO Manlio Celotti signed him;
agents James Wright and Noah Simon at
UTA (everywhere except France); lawyer
James Harmon (with help from Don
Passman in the U.S.); Groov Marketing’s
Mark Rini and Josh Ellman for radio; and
Carleen Donovan for U.S. press and Joe
Baxter covering Europe.
For his fantastical live show Collier
replicated his bedroom, which is featured
on the cover of In My Room, where he is
surrounded by an array of instruments.
Live that includes a full trap set, a grand
piano, synthesizer, upright bass, a
harmonium, all manners of percussion,
and a floor full of effect pedals and triggers.
Augmenting the live experience is a vocal
harmonizer that enables Collier to create
an immense wall of vocal sounds courtesy
of MIT’s Ben Bloomberg, whom Fell calls
a “gift from heaven.” Bloomberg also
collaborated with Artists and Engineers’
Louis Mustill, Jose Ortega and Will Young
on a visual sampler using 3D technology
which can isolate Collier’s skeleton to
capture and loop images of him playing
instruments and project them on a screen
behind him. Collier’s animated likeness is
in similar vein to the characters in Richard
Linketter’s Waking Life and more than a
little surreal.
Since April, Collier has released a new
single and video a month leading up to
today’s album launch, which coincided
with a release of video for the song
“Hajanga.” Fell believes that track and
others on In My Room has the potential
to cross-over beyond jazz (his album has
already topped 22 international iTunes
Jazz charts). Starting today Collier is
taking his fantastical show on the road
through Europe, playing primarily jazz
festivals, including North Sea, Umbria and
Marseille, and making a stop in Monterey
before a fall U.S. tour of major cities.
After his well-received showcase at the
YouTube Space, Collier was beaming.
Herbie Hancock was in the audience as
was Jones and there was a line of fans with
their minds freshly blown eagerly awaiting
the chance to meet and/or take selfless
with the music prodigy. “Tonight was the
most special I’ve ever felt,” Collier said.
“There was so many people I loved here
and I’ve been waiting to play this music
live,” he says. “After tonight, I can’t wait to
take this show on tour.”
Publishing Briefs:
Atlas Music
Acquires Al
Jackson Trust,
Low Country
Sound Teams
with Nashville
Songwriters
By Ed Christman
Billboard’s Ed Christman rounds-up all the
big news in the music publishing world.
Atlas Music Publishing has acquired
the music interests of the Al Jackson, Jr.
Family Trust, which includes his publishing
rights and recorded music revenue streams
for such songs as “Let’s Stay Together”
and “Green Onions.” Terms of the deal
were not disclosed.
“Al Jackson, Jr. was a legendary
drummer, but he also wrote some
legendary songs,” Atlas Music Founder/
CEO Rich Stumpf said in a statement. “For
Atlas, this acquisition cements us in the top
tier of 60’s/70’s soul music. We couldn’t
be happier to be in a position to ensure
that this music remains timeless, and we
appreciate that the family has entrusted us
with this mission.”
Jackson was one of the musicians that
used to swing between the Stax and Hi
recording studios and consequently
appeared on many legendary songs that
came out on both labels. He received
songwriting co-credits on many of the hits
of Booker T and the MG’s, of which is was
a member; on some Otis Redding records,
and four of Green’s biggest hits, according
to the announcement.
“At Atlas, our goal is to only work with
the best,” Stumpf said in a statement.
“Whether that’s active writers or song
catalogs, it is our mission to focus on
quality and not quantity. This principle is
Page 11 of 14
[In Brief]
what allows us to remain a high service
organization, which all of our clients
benefit from.”
In another move, Atlas announced
that Paige Parsons has joined the
publishing company as VP of creative
services. Parsons, who will be based in the
company’s Los Angeles office and report to
chief creative officer Jennifer Blakeman,
will be tasked with managing writer
relations for the publishing firm’s current
roster, as well as identifying, acquiring, and
developing new and established talent.
“Paige is the #1 draft pick of publishing
creatives,” Blakeman said in a statement.
“Her reputation as an excellent publisher
and songwriter-advocate with over a
decade of experience is a great benefit for
the Atlas team and songwriters.”
Previously, Parsons held the post of
senior director of A&R for Kobalt Music
Publishing, where she managed the
company’s worldwide roster, and was
responsible for signing David Hodges,
Eman Kiriakou, Nolan Lambroza, Adam
Messinger, Courtney Harrell, Sherrod
‘A-Rod’ Lambert and Tash Phillips,
according to the announcement. Other
jobs in the past included working for
Arthouse Entertainment and EMI Music
Publishing.
Low Country Sound, the joint venture
between Warner/Chappell Music
Nashville and producer Dave Cobb,
have signed publishing agreements with
songwriters Adam Hood, Charlie Pate and
Aaron Raitiere.
Cobb who recently became the steward
from for Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A,
says the songwriters will primarily work at
that studio.
“I’m very excited about Low Country
Sound’s partnership with Warner/Chappell
— we have a perfect alignment for honest
songwriting,” Cobb said in a statement.
“I think I’m lucky to have signed three of
my favorite songwriters: Aaron Ratierre,
Charlie Pate and Adam Hood. They
appreciate country music and where it’s
going, and they’re also a good bunch of
folks to hang around with.”
Pate is a former recording artist on
Universal Records, while Hood has had
his songs recorded by the likes of Little
Big Town and Lee Ann Womack among
others; and Raitiere has collaborated with
Miranda Lambert.
Universal Music Publishing Group
announced that Arwen Curson had joined
its Australia and New Zealand operation
as VP of creative. Carson, who will report
to Universal Music Publishing of Australia
and Asia Pacific Region president Andrew
Jenkins, will be based out of the UMP
Sydney office and responsible for both
the company’s A&R and Film/TV Synch
teams.
Carson previously had been director of
operations, Australia and New Zealand
for Crowdmix, the London-based, musicfocused social media platform; and before
that was an artist manager.
“With a huge talent and 360-degree
perspective and insight into the music
business, Arwen is the perfect person to
help us implement our future creative
strategy at Universal Music Publishing
Australia,” Jenkins said in a statement.
“She brings a fresh approach to our creative
activities, a unique vision, driving ambition
and great personal skills, all of which will
be of tremendous benefit to our artists and
writers.”
Complex Media
Acquisition By
Verizon/Hearst
Greenlit in Europe
By Billboard Staff
The European Commission has approved
the acquisition of Complex Media by Verizon Hearst Media Partners, the joint-venture launched earlier this year by the communications and media giants. The review
found that the proposed purchase raised no
competition concerns, given the minimal
overlaps between the companies’ activities
in the European Economic Area.
According to the Commission’s case
file on the merger, Complex will produce
digital content that it will license to
Verizon on a worldwide exclusive basis for
three years for use on its own platforms
-- like AOL, which Verizon acquired in
2015 -- or by sub-licensing third parties.
Verizon anticipates Complex will expand
its licensing activities outside the U.S., the
form notes.
“This joint venture is designed to
take the best practices of the qualitative
art of our industry [and join them to] a
future-looking, quantitative, analytical
approach,” Complex co-founder Marc
Ecko told Billboard in April following news
of the acquisition. “Which Verizon can
offer in ways that, if we were to remain
independent, we couldn’t by ourselves.
These are the dimensions that inform
our strategy and that made this a very
attractive offer for us. Mostly, we’re going
to do what we do best, focus on our voice,
keep pushing forward with our brand and
hopefully making really fucking awesome
stuff.”
Danny Davis,
Veteran Music
Executive, Dies at
87
By Mike Barnes
Danny Davis, a promotion executive at
Motown, Phil Spector’s Philles Records and
Neil Bogart’s Casablanca Records during
his career, died June 22 in Palm Desert,
Calif. He was 87.
Davis started out working for singer
Eddie Fisher, a fellow Philadelphian, then
joined Decca Records in New York as
director of promotion. A few years later,
he moved to California and served as vp,
promotion under Spector and Lester Sill at
Philles.
Davis shifted to Motown as a senior vp,
where he oversaw promotion of recorded
music and personal appearances for Stevie
Page 12 of 14
[In Brief]
Wonder, Diana Ross, Frankie Valli and the
Four Seasons, Smokey Robinson and many
others. He then helped boost the careers
of Donna Summer, the Village People and
Kiss at Casablanca.
Davis also served as vp, promotion with
Columbia’s Screen Gems Music.
Davis attended Temple University and
early on worked as a comic in the Catskill
Mountains in upstate New York.
Survivors include his wife, Marie,
son Danny and his wife, Jill, and two
grandchildren. A memorial service is
planned for July 16 in Palm Desert.
This article originally appeared on The
Hollywood Reporter.
Thirty Tigers
Executive Bob
Goldstone Dead
at 67
By Marc Schneider
Thirty Tigers executive Bob Goldstone
died over the holiday weekend following
a bicycling accident in Tennessee. Goldstone, who was vp of sales at the Nashville-based marketing, distribution and
management firm, suffered severe injuries
while riding near his Pegram, Tenn. home
on Sunday, July 3. He was 67.
Goldstone began working at Thirty
Tigers in 2003, a year after the company’s
formation. He was also an owner. In
a message posted to the Thirty Tigers
website, Goldstone was described as an
“integral part of the business and the
spirit” of the company, whose “passion for
music was only surpassed by his love for
his family and friends.”
“He was intensely proud of his part in
creating an environment where his loving
nature and strong commitment to being of
service to their clients was paramount,” the
company added in a statement provided to
Billboard. “It was second nature to him.”
Prior to landing at Thirty Tigers,
Goldstone worked as a regional community
relations director at Tower Records.
Earlier, he was vp of sales and marketing at
Capricorn Records, where he helped break
major rock acts including Widespread
Panic, 311 and Cake. His lengthy music
career, which began in a record store in
1972, also included tenures at Lieberman
Enterprises, IRS Records, Mercury
Nashville and Eminent Records, where
he achieved a career high by working with
Emmylou Harris.
Goldstone is survived by his wife Tami
and step-daughter Emma. Services are
pending.
Drake’s ‘Views’ No.
1 For Ninth Week
on Billboard 200
Chart
By Keith Caulfield
For a ninth week in a row, Drake’s Views
holds at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Views pulls ahead of Eminem’s The
Marshall Mathers LP (with eight weeks at
No. 1) to solely claim the third-most weeks
at No. 1 by a hip-hop album. Ahead of Views
are Vanilla Ice’s To the Extreme (16 weeks at
No. 1 in 1990 and 1991) and MC Hammer’s
Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em (21 weeks in
1990).
Views earned 111,000 equivalent album
units in the week ending June 30, according
to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 25,000
were in traditional album sales. The bulk
of Views units were driven by streaming
equivalent album units (67,000), owed
to the album’s popularity on streaming
services.
Views debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard
200 and has yet to leave the top slot.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most
popular albums of the week in the U.S.
based on multi-metric consumption, which
includes traditional album sales, track
equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming
equivalent albums (SEA). The new July
16-dated chart (where Views is No. 1 for
a ninth week) will be posted in full to
Billboard’s websites on Wednesday, July
6. (One day later than usual, owed to the
Independence Day holiday in the U.S. on
Monday, July 4.)
Views also has spent the most weeks atop
the chart for an album by a man in over 10
years. The last album by a man to spend
at least nine weeks at No. 1 was Usher’s
Confessions, which racked up a total of nine
nonconsecutive frames at in the penthouse
in 2004.
Views has the longest consecutive rule
atop the chart since Adele’s 21 spent 10
weeks in a row at No. 1 between the Jan. 14
and March 17, 2012-dated charts.
Impressively, in the last 10 years, the
only albums to spend at least nine weeks
at No. 1 are Views, two albums by Adele (25,
with 10 weeks, and 21 with 24), two albums
by Taylor Swift (Fearless and 1989, each with
11) and the Frozen soundtrack (13).
Further, the last time an album by a man
tallied nine consecutive weeks at No. 1 was
way back in 1992, when Billy Ray Cyrus’
Some Gave All accumulated 17 weeks at No.
1 -- all in a row.
At No. 2 on the new Billboard 200 is
Beyonce’s Lemonade, which rises one slot
with 48,000 units (down 3 percent). Since
the album debuted at No. 1 -- 10 weeks ago
-- it has never left the top four position of
the chart.
The Avett Brothers earn their highest
charting album ever, as True Sadness debuts
at No. 3 with 46,000 units (43,000 in
traditional album sales). That beats the No.
4 debut and peak of The Carpenter, which
launched at No. 4 with a 98,000 sales
start. The act’s last album, Magpie and the
Dandelion, bowed at No. 5 with 58,000
copies sold in its first week.
Twenty One Pilots’ Blurryface climbs 8-4
-- its highest rank since it was last at No. 4
on the Feb. 13-dated chart -- with 38,000
units (up 5 percent). The album tallied a 14
percent increase in traditional album sales
(to 15,000) and a 3 percent uptick in SEA.
Rihanna’s Anti ascends 7-5 with 37,000
units (down 1 percent) while the original
Broadway cast recording of Hamilton dips
Page 13 of 14
[In Brief]
4-6 with 36,000 units (down 26 percent).
As Hamilton spends its third week in the
top 10, it becomes the first cast recording
to spend at least three weeks in the top
10 since 1969. That year, the original
Broadway cast recording of Hair wrapped
a 28-week run in the top 10 (including 13
weeks at No. 1) on Oct. 18, 1969. In the last
50 years, only three cast albums have even
reached the top 10: Hair, Hamilton and
The Book of Mormon. The latter spent two
weeks in the top 10.
As expected, Adele’s 25 jumps back into
the top 10 (rising 12-7) following its debut
on streaming services (on June 24). The
album earned 33,000 units for the week
(up 16 percent), with streaming equivalent
units comprising 10,000 of that figure (a
gain of 82 percent). Until this week, 25’s
streaming units were drawn from plays of
the album’s three singles (“Hello,” “When
We Were Young” and “Send My Love
[To Your New Lover]”) which had been
the album’s only songs available on ondemand streaming services.
This is 25’s highest rank on the chart
since the April 16-dated list, when it was
No. 5.
The various artists compilation Epic
AF jumps 16-8 with 28,000 units (up
26 percent) -- supported only by track
equivalent album units and streaming
equivalent album units. (The album itself is
not available for sale.) The set rises thanks
to the popularity of its tracks like Kent
Jones’ “Don’t Mind” and DJ Khaled’s “I
Got the Keys” and “For Free.” Presently,
the only album those songs are available
on is the Epic AF release. Jones’ single is
from his 2015 mixtape Tours (which is not
commercially available), while the two
DJ Khaled cuts are selections from his
upcoming album Major Key, which is due
for release on July 29.
Rounding out the top 10 on is Red Hot
Chili Peppers’ The Getaway, which slides
2-9 (28,000 units; down 76 percent) and
Meghan Trainor’s Thank You, maintaining
at No. 10 (27,000 units; down 22 percent).
Billboard 200
Chart Moves:
‘Hamilton’ Hits
Half-Million in U.S.
Album Sales
By Keith Caulfield
On the most recent Billboard 200 albums
chart (dated July 9) Drake’s Views remained
atop the list for an eighth consecutive
week, earning 124,000 equivalent album
units in the week ending June 23. Red Hot
Chili Peppers’ The Getaway bowed in the
No. 2 position with 118,000 units, while
YG’s Still Brazy and Mumford & Sons’ Johannesburg EP also debuted in the top 10.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the
week’s most popular albums based on
their overall consumption. That overall unit
figure combines pure album sales, track
equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming
equivalent albums (SEA).
Let’s take a closer look at some of the
action on the chart:
— Original Broadway Cast Recording,
Hamilton – No. 4 – The recent 11-time Tony
Award winner slips one position to No. 4,
but crosses the half-million sales mark in
the U.S. The set sold another 32,000 copies
in the week ending June 23, bringing its
cumulative total to 522,000. Hamilton is
the No. 12 largest-selling cast recording
in the U.S. since Nielsen Music began
tracking sales in 1991. (Only 12 cast albums
have sold a half-million copies in the U.S.
since 1991.) Hamilton is also the biggest
selling cast album released in more than
10 years. The last cast recording released
with greater sales is the original Broadway
cast recording of Jersey Boys, which bowed
on Nov. 1, 2005 and has sold 1.4 million to
date.
— Case/Lang/Veirs, Case/Lang /Veirs –
No. 33 — The trio of Neko Case, k.d. lang and
Laura Veirs arrives with their appropriately
titled collaborative set, Case/Lang /Veirs.
With the bow, lang notches her seventh top
40-charting album, Case grabs her third,
and Veirs achieves her first.
— Fetty Wap, Fetty Wap – No. 46 — Fetty
Wap’s self-titled album has become
the seventh album to see its tracks earn
more than one billion audio on-demand
streams in the U.S., according to Nielsen
Music. The set crossed the billion mark
in the week ending June 23, as its stream
total now stands at 1.001 billion. The
stream count for the album includes those
registered by a song before its parent
album was released – like the smash hits
“Trap Queen,” “679” and “My Way,”
which all came out before the album was
released on Sept. 25, 2015. The other six
albums to see their tracks earn more than
a billion streams are: Drake’s Views (1.547
billion), Justin Bieber’s Purpose (1.451),
The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness
(1.369), Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s
Too Late (1.109), Drake’s Nothing Was the
Same (1.042) and Ed Sheeran’s X (1.026).
— Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
Greatest Hits – No. 56 — The rock band’s
best-of collection zooms from No. 191 to
No. 56 — the set’s highest rank since June
29, 2013 (when it was No. 53). The album
earned 10,000 units for the week (up 134
percent), with 8,000 of that in traditional
album sales (up 245 percent) — encouraged
by sale pricing and promotion at digital
retailers. That’s the largest sales week for
the album since the week ending June 16,
2013 (slightly more than 8,000 sold) — the
same week it reached No. 53 on the June 29,
2013-dated chart. (Billboard’s charts are
dated ahead of the actual tracking weeks
they cover.)
— The Tragically Hip, Man Machine Poem
– No. 179 — The rock band’s new album
begins with 4,000 units earned, with
nearly all of that in traditional album sales.
It’s the group’s eighth charting album,
which also bows at No. 22 on the Top Rock
Albums chart.
Page 14 of 14
[In Brief]
Drake’s ‘One
Dance’ Becomes
Longest-Running
U.K. No. 1 Single in
22 Years
By Paul Sexton
Drake’s “One Dance” (Cash Money/Republic/Universal), featuring Wizkid & Kyla,
has started a 12th week atop the U.K. singles chart to become the longest-running
No. 1 song there for 22 years. On the album
chart, Adele’s performance at Glastonbury
last weekend fueled her return to the summit with 25 (XL Recordings).
The last single to spend as many as 12
weeks at No. 1 in the market was Wet Wet
Wet’s 1994 mega-hit “Love Is All Around,”
which went on to a 15-week reign. Drake
now has two songs in the U.K. top three:
with “This Girl” (3 Beat) by Kungs Vs.
Cookin’ On 3 Burners holding at No. 2, the
Canadian rapper’s “Too Good,” featuring
Rihanna, moved 5-3 on the new Official
Chart Company survey.
Rihanna’s other current chart guest
appearance, on “This Is What You Came
For” (Columbia/Sony) by Calvin Harris,
held at No. 4 as Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t
Stop The Feeling” (RCA/Sony) fell 3-5.
Adele’s “Send My Love (To Your New
Lover)” climbed nine places to No. 6 to
become her eighth top ten single in her
home country. 25 enjoyed a 231 percent
week-on-week unit surge to climb 14-1
and log its 13th aggregate week at the top,
and first since late March. Adele’s entire
studio catalog got a sales injection from her
Glastonbury headliner, with 21 moving 6710 and 19 climbing 175-12.
The festival’s closing night headliners
Coldplay improved 5-2 with A Head Full Of
Dreams (Parlophone/Warner Music) on a
28 percent weekly sales increase; ELO, who
played the celebrated Sunday afternoon
slot, moved 7-3 with the All Over The World
compilation (Epic/Sony Music).
Rick Astley’s former No. 1 album 50
(BMG) fell 3-4, while Beyonce’s Lemonade
(Columbia/Sony Music) climbed 10-5. As
one XL artist replaced another at the top,
Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool fell 1-9.
The highest new entry of the week was
Earth (Reprise/Warner Music) by Neil
Young & Promise Of Real. Throwback –
Summer Jamz (Ministry Of Sound/Sony
Music CG) moved into a third week atop
the compilations chart.