It’s official: The Recording Academy Board of Trustees has appointed Deborah Dugan as the next President/CEO of the Recording Academy, the society of performers, musicians, songwriters, producers, engineers, and all music professionals, and the organization behind the annual Grammy Awards. Variety reported last month that Dugan had been elected by the board. The appointment was
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While gratitude was a theme in all the acceptance speeches at the 2019 Music Biz Awards in Nashville on Tuesday, change was a major element of at least two of them. For Bebe Rexha, winning the Breakthrough Artist Award meant empowerment. The singer — whose smash collaboration with Florida Georgia Line, “Meant to Be,” was
The New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) Commissioner Anne del Castillo and “NY is Music” co-founder Justin Kalifowitz today announced the full slate of programming for the third annual New York Music Month in June. This year’s expanded NYMM features a new radio show/podcast all about NYC’s music scene, nine free concerts in the Bronx and Queens, a conference on music + tech,
If you want to hear three complete days of Woodstock music this August, you’re guaranteed it. No, not out at Watkins Glen with Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus, et al. — that Woodstock still seems very much in flux — but via a completists’ audio box set of nearly every note played at the original 1969 Woodstock
May 8, 2019 7:51AM PT An upcoming Quincy Jones show in London originally billed as an orchestral performance of three Michael Jackson albums has been re-branded as a celebration of ’80s music. When it was announced in February, the June 23 concert at the O2 Arena was marketed as “Quincy Jones Presents ‘Off the Wall,’
Universal Music Group today announced the appointment of Calvin Wong to the newly created position of CEO, Southeast Asia & SVP, Asia, effective immediately. The appointment comes alongside a strategic expansion of operations and infrastructure within Singapore, which will become the main headquarters for UMG activity within the region. Wong joins UMG from Warner Music
May 8, 2019 4:06AM PT Prodigy singer Keith Flint had drunk alcohol and taken drugs sometime before he was found dead at his home outside London on March 4, a coroner’s court has heard. An autopsy revealed that Flint, 49, had cocaine, alcohol and codeine in his system at the time of his death, according
Whatever else it may be, Ariana Grande’s Sweetener World Tour is not a “get to know your superstar” affair. On record, Grande has ably followed Taylor Swift down the trail of openly autobiographical pop… but that’s on record. In concert, she couldn’t be less Swiftian. Audience interaction and between-song commentary are at a minimum. There
Thanks to popular releases by Cardi B, Ed Sheeran, Meek Mill, K-Pop group TWICE and the unstoppable “The Greatest Showman” soundtrack, Warner Music Group is having a strong Q2. For the quarter ending on March 31, the company announced a 13.2% increase in total revenue to $1.09 billion, up from $960 million during the same
May 7, 2019 12:43PM PT Troy Carter and J. Erving’s new music and technology company Q&A has signed a deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing. The partnership will see Sony/ATV administer Q&A’s publishing catalog. The company was launched last month April by Carter, a former executive at Spotify and Erving, an alum of Carter’s Atom Factory
The hills above Beverly Hills are alive with the weighty jangle of big money. Big celebrity money, to be more precise. Tucked into the mountains between Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley and the Platinum Triangle are numerous gated communities, all of them bustling with famous folks. Take the Summit, a mansion-filled enclave located just off
May 7, 2019 9:05AM PT Coldplay front man Chris Martin is quickly becoming a Malibu property mogul, having beefed up his already considerable holdings with the surreptitious, nearly $5.5 million acquisition of an architect-renovated ranch house in the popular, pricey and celeb-saturated Point Dume area. Built in 1960 but recently reimagined in an understated, relaxed
Two of the biggest pop stars in the world, Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber, have joined forces for a collaborative single, “I Don’t Care,” which is set to be released Friday. Little is known about the song, although it appears to be more Sheeran’s handiwork, as the announcement came from his camp and the single
At last week’s Billboard Music Awards, Drake took a moment of his acceptance speech for best male artist to note the importance of camaraderie among rappers. Specifically, he shouted out Schoolboy Q, telling the crowd at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Arena: “Schoolboy Q said something really nice about me the other day. I had to
It’s hard to imagine that Paul Rosenberg nearly became a doctor instead of the CEO of one of the most powerful labels in hip hop. In a conversation moderated by Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Joe Levy on Monday (May 6) at the Music Biz conference in Nashville, Rosenberg revealed that he initially went to college
Rolling Stone will begin publishing its own music charts beginning next Monday, in a challenge to the longtime leader in the field, Billboard magazine. The new “Rolling Stone Charts” will encompass the top 100 singles and the top 200 albums in the U.S.. the singles chart will be updated daily instead of weekly. The lists
Alexandra Mandelkorn went through 15 sketches before settling on Janelle Monae’s final Met Gala look. Mandelkorn is the mastermind stylist behind Monae’s red carpet reign and is responsible for her style from PYNK-era to present. When it comes to Monae’s look for the first Monday of May event, Mandelkorn turned to Picasso and Dali for
UPDATED: In a telling letter sent Monday afternoon to Woodstock 50’s former investors, the Japanese firm Dentsu Aegis, Woodstock 50 founder Michael Lang has asked that the company “honor the law and your obligations, stop interfering with our efforts to put on this wonderful event and return the $17 million you improperly took.” The letter
The season finale of “American Idol,” scheduled for May 19 on ABC, is fast approaching, which means another star-studded performance show to usher in a new winner. Among those already announced to appear is “Idol” season 8 runner-up and Queen frontman Adam Lambert. For much of its 17-year life as a television phenomenon, “Idol” made
The keynote interview with Beats 1 anchor Zane Lowe at the Music Biz conference in Nashville on Sunday had a counterintuitive format: He was interviewed by someone a lot more famous than he is, Paramore frontperson Hayley Williams. Despite her star power, the singer largely played it straight as an interviewer and allowed Lowe to
May 6, 2019 2:16PM PT Longtime Nashville power managers Rob Beckham and Bill Simmons have combined forces to create a new firm they’re calling “the AMG,” which stands for the Artist Management Group. The first clients announced as following Simmons to the new company are Brad Paisley, who has worked with both of them as
Although an interested buyer continues to circle the troubled direct-to-fan music marketplace PledgeMusic, the company is in pre-administration — the U.K. equivalent of pre-bankruptcy — sources close to the situation confirms to Variety. While the source notes that the company is not yet in administration, it is likely if a buyer does not emerge by
If there’s one takeaway for the hundreds of ASCAP Expo attendees who sat for a Saturday afternoon panel featuring Ariana Grande’s “songwriting dream team” of Tommy Brown, Victoria Monet and Social House, it’s that the craft of making hits takes time, tenacity and sacrifice. In the case of Social House member Mikey Foster, he recently
Except for a small sliver of humanity, “Other Music” — a film about a late, legendary, left-of-center New York record store and the community around it — is not a date-night movie. In fact, the documentary, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, is almost a meta version of its subject, in that it’s proudly
Following the June 14 release of her “Madame X” album, Madonna, Live Nation and Maverick have announced a series of “rare and intimate performances” to take place exclusively in theaters. The “Madame X” tour will kick off September 12th at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House in New York and will feature multiple nights of shows in each city
The “Free Britney!” cause can now claim a celebrity adherent. Miley Cyrus yelled out the slogan in Memphis while performing her decade-old hit “Party in the U.S.A.,” during the section that originally had Cyrus repeating the refrain, “And a Britney song was on…” It wasn’t immediately clear whether Cyrus was taking up the hashtag in
Bruce Springsteen hasn’t made too many public predictions about whether he’d ever record or tour with the E Street Band again. Sunday night, he answered a firm yes to both those questions. Although Springsteen gave no indication about when these things might come to fruition — since he does have a solo album, “Western Stars,”
May 5, 2019 5:18PM PT In a characteristically motormouthed Instagram post today celebrating her 31st birthday, Adele spoke of the challenges she’s faced in the past year — one that saw her splitting with husband Simon Konecki — spoke of the importance of self-love, looked ahead to the forthcoming year being spent “all on myself,”
The Humane Society of the United States honored Kesha with the Voice for the Animals Award, and philanthropist Wallis Annenberg with the Lifetime Achievement Award at its Los Angeles benefit gala on Saturday. Animal rights activists, including Diane Warren, Priscilla Presley, and Leona Lewis, gathered at the Paramount Studios backlot to celebrate the non-profit’s progress
May 5, 2019 8:51AM PT Following the release of “For the Throne (Music Inspired by the HBO Series Game of Thrones),” on Sunday morning Columbia Records and HBO released the official music video for the album’s lead single “Power Is Power” by SZA, The Weeknd and Travis Scott. The visual was directed by Anthony Mandler