| Sometimes music works best when you don't know what you're doing. |
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Cabaret Voltaire's Stephen Mallinder (left) and Richard H. Kirk in London's Holland Park, June 8, 982.
(David Corio/Redferns/Getty Images)
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“Sometimes music works best when you don't know what you're doing.”
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Into the Black
Like a rising tide, UMG's stock market debut appears to have lifted plenty of music business boats, at least in the short run. UMG shares ended their first day up 36 percent, to 25.10 euros, giving the company a sizzling valuation, as of Tuesday night, of $53 billion. It's too soon, obviously, to say whether that will last. Just a few months ago, UMG was in $40 billion territory, and investors will have plenty of time to have their say. But Tuesday was a good day and there was optimism to go around: Shares of WARNER MUSIC boomed, too, and WMG owner LEN BLAVATNIK's ACCESS INDUSTRIES seemed to take advantage by selling 2.3 million shares to Morgan Stanley. Also seeing market gains on the music industry's fat Tuesday: French label and distributor BELIEVE, publishing rights company RESERVOIR MEDIA and UMG investor BILL ACKMAN's PERSHING SQUARE HOLDINGS.
But is a song worth any more now than it was before? It should be, says MERCK MERCURIADIS, yet another music baron who's made it his mission to convert other people's creations into investment gold. In an open letter published by MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE, Mercuriadis, whose HIPGNOSIS SONGS FUND buys songwriting catalogs (and sometimes other rights) and packages them as investments, says neither artists nor songwriters are getting their fair share of the music industry's booming profits—and makes the case for why songwriters, who are his area of expertise, specifically deserve more. Mercuriadis ta kes shots at the NATIONAL MUSIC PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION, which he says isn't doing enough to improve songwriters' pay, and record companies, which he says are taking too much for themselves. He makes some questionable comparisons ("In almost every other vocation in the world... the equivalent person to the songwriter would be amongst the highest paid"? That's my area of expertise and, um, no), but it's hard to argue with the idea that the streaming economy in particular has left songwriters with the short stick.
"The recorded music side of the business today is getting 4/5ths of the revenue, operating on an 80% gross margin and a 40% net margin," he writes. "Conversely, the publishing side of the business is getting 1/5th of the revenue [and] 1/5th of the margin." I've seen different math elsewhere, but it's always lopsided in favor of the former. Mercuriadis' solution is a songwriting guild that could exercise collective bargaining power, and he's trying to launch one. Whether a businessperson whose model is based on persuading songwriters to give up control of their own catalogs is the best person to organize those songwriters is a question I'll set aside for now, but there's little doubt there's an appetite for *someone* to do the organizing. The question I will ask is this: Is the goal to get recorded music rightsholders, which means labels and artists alike, to give up some of their 80 percent take, or to bargain for a bigger overall take so publishing rightsholders, meaning songwriters, publishers and investors like Mercuriadis, can get paid more without shrinking what artists and labels get? And how would *that* money get divvied up?
Also pushing to put more money into the hands of songwriters and other creators is ABBA's BJORN ULVAEUS, as the public face of the CREDITS DUE campaign, which launched Tuesday. Its goal is to ensure songwriters and musicians are identified in the metadata of all songs, for the dual purpose of expanding credits on digital services and making sure everyone is properly paid. "Frequently," Ulvaeus told the BBC, "streaming services don't know who to pay." On SPOTIFY, APPLE and other subscription services, he said, credits should be not only visible, but clickable: "Even in a symphony orchestra, every member will be clickable." Hear, hear. I'll click on that.
And the aforementioned National Music Publishers Association announced an agreement with the gaming service TWITCH, which has long been a thorn in the sides of both publishers and labels—it doesn't pay either side for the music in its users' livestreams, though it does have agreements with ASCAP and BMI. The new agreement isn't a licensing deal, Billboard's TATIANA CIRISANO reports, but a "productive partnership" pact that includes a financial settlement for past music usage and an agreement to "negotiate an arrangement for handling music use on Twitch going forward." It's "a very positive development in the larger effort to make sure that music is respected in all gaming models," NMPA president/CEO David Israelite said. "I’m hopeful it will be the first of many positive stories to come out from this effort." Another tide for more boats.
Dot Dot Dot
The songwriting partnerships of LIANNE LA HAVAS & MATTHEW "AQUALUNG" HALES and CELESTE & JAMIE HARTMAN were among the big winners at the IVOR NOVELLO AWARDS, where the issue of songwriters' pay got further airtime... The FUGEES are touring to celebrate the 25th anniversary of THE SCORE, starting with a secret show today in New York, which will be streamed as part of GLOBAL CITIZEN LIVE on Saturday... Is KACEY MUSGRAVES' new album, STAR-CROSSED, really a Greek tragedy?... Where is—or isn't—Paradise City?... Is SONGS FROM THE BLACK HOLE the real PINKERTON?... Wherefore art thou, BOARDS OF CANADA?
Rest in Peace
Experimental, industrial, electro, techno, weird pop pioneer RICHARD H. KIRK, who co-founded the influential UK group Cabaret Voltaire in the 1970s and recorded under dozens of other names over the years including Sweet Exorcist, Sandoz, Electronic Eye and, in his final years, Cabaret Voltaire again. He lived nearly his entirely life in his beloved Sheffield... BRUCE KEIR, co-founder of guitar amp and effects company Blackstar Amplification.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| A risky bet fueled Universal Music's resurgence. Now it's publicly trading |
| by Wendy Lee and Ryan Faughnder |
| On Tuesday, Santa Monica-based UMG successfully launched its publicly traded stock in Europe, signaling to investors just how much streaming has rejuvenated the music business after years of decline. |
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WIRED |
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| What Music Labels Learn When You Pre-Save Music |
| by Tyler Hayes |
| Pre-saving a song before its release can give third parties access to eye-popping amounts of data about your listening habits. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Merck Mercuriadis: ‘None of us should be able to sleep in good conscience at night until the true value of the songwriters’ contributions to this business are recognized.’ |
| by Merck Mercuriadis |
| Merck Mercuriadis responds to criticism of his views regarding the major record companies and publishers. |
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The Washington Post |
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| The Meaning of Yusuf/Cat Stevens |
| by Howard Fishman |
| After a brilliant but turbulent career, he is reemerging on the public stage. How should we feel about him — and his music — now? |
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The Guardian |
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| Richard H Kirk was prolific, hungry, angry and funky to the end |
| by Joe Muggs |
| The Cabaret Voltaire musician exemplified Sheffield’s experimental mindset and transformed British club music. |
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Loud And Quiet |
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| RETRO READ: A Life of Noise: Remembering Richard H. Kirk -- with our 2013 Cabaret Voltaire interview |
| by Daniel Dylan Wray |
| Richard H. Kirk explains what made his group, Cabaret Voltaire, true, unflinching pioneers of electronic music. |
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Billboard |
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| Twitch Reaches Long-Awaited Pact With Music Publishers, But It's Not a Licensing Deal |
| by Tatiana Cirisano |
| Twitch and the NMPA have reached a long-awaited agreement focused on building "productive partnerships" between the livestreaming service and publishing organization. |
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The New York Times |
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| Lil Nas X Reveals Himself on ‘Montero’ |
| by Lindsay Zoladz |
| After a record-breaking single, a tentative EP, a public coming out and another newsworthy smash, the 22-year-old pop sensation offers a fuller view of his inner world. |
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VICE |
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| TikTok and Reels are Turning Some People Against Their Favourite Musicians |
| by Navin Noronha |
| Regardless of how much you love a song, there always comes a breaking point in this age of doomscrolling. |
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The Forward |
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| How two visionary Jewish nightclub owners changed the face of entertainment |
| by Simi Horwitz |
| Mr. Kelly's, which opened on Rush Street in Chicago in the early 1950s, shattered color and gender barriers and attracted a new, socially conscious audience. It's the subject of a new documentary, "Live at Mr. Kelly’s." |
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SaportaReport |
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| From R.E.M. to GPB, a student documents the bittersweet history of college radio powerhouse WRAS |
| by John Ruch |
| WRAS wasn’t just where you, the pimple-faced innocent or Yankee transplant, first heard some local band; it was the first place the world heard them in a time when Album 88 and its national publicity connections could help turn musicians into legends. R.E.M., Outkast and the B-52s are among those who got crucial early airplay on WRAS. |
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WNYC |
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| Michael Stipe on a New Velvet Underground Tribute Album and Other Projects |
| by Alison Stewart and Michael Stipe |
| Michael Stipe discusses "I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute To The Velvet Underground & Nico," as well as a new book of photography and forthcoming R.E.M. album reissue. |
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NPR |
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| What Lorde's 'Te Reo Maori' Songs Mean For The Effort To Revive The Language |
| by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler |
| Lorde has released an EP in te reo Maori, the Native language in her home country of New Zealand. Maori artists say that this is just one branch of a larger movement to revive the language. |
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Decrypt |
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| Audius Review: Testing The Crypto-Powered Music Streaming Service |
| by Esat Dedezade |
| Blockchain-powered music discovery platform Audius has attracted big-name backing-and linked up with TikTok. We find out if it strikes a chord. |
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The FADER |
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| Moor Mother on collaboration, community, and the power of sampling |
| by Jordan Darville and Moor Mother |
| In the latest episode of The FADER Interview podcast, Jordan Darville talks to Moor Mother about her new album "Black Encyclopedia of the Air." |
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Pitchfork |
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| Snail Mail Can’t Help But Confess |
| by Quinn Moreland |
| Indie rocker Lindsey Jordan talks about her obsession with honesty, her stint in rehab, and her cathartic new album, "Valentine." |
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BBC News |
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| Abba's Bjorn Ulvaeus launches campaign to fix £500m music royalty problem |
| by Mark Savage |
| Abba star Bjorn Ulvaeus has launched a campaign to ensure musicians don't miss out on millions of pounds in royalties. |
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Indiewire |
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| Meet Matt Dillon, Slow Filmmaker: Documentary ‘The Great Fellove’ Was Worth the Wait |
| by Anne Thompson |
| It took the actor more than two decades to make "The Grand Fellove," a documentary about Cuban scat singer Francisco Fellove. |
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The Conversation |
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| If you were called by a melody, how would it sound? Communities in Ethiopia and PNG name people with unique individual tunes |
| by Hannah Sarvasy, Azeb Amha and James Slotta |
| 36-year-old Binoora Bhultse lives in Garda village in the Oyda district of southwest Ethiopia. While he could share the name Binoora with other local men, Binoora also has a name that is special to him. It may never have existed before him, and may never name anyone else after he dies. |
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Tidal |
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| Life Force: Esperanza Spalding in Conversation |
| by Larry Blumenfeld |
| With her new compositions and Songwrights Apothecary Lab, the artist explores music’s potential to restore us -- and invites listeners to consider how that process works. |
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| Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech |
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“REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” |
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| Jason Hirschhorn |
| CEO & Chief Curator |
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