Music Industry Moves: BMG Goes Green, LiveXLive Partners With Former Avicii Manager on Music Competition

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorWhile it was announced during the Grammy Awards on Sunday, the formation of the Recording Academy’s Songwriters and Composers Wing was not done in secret, and the Songwriters of North America, the Black Music Action Coalition, the Music Artists Coalition and the 100 Percenters responded quickly with an open letter to the new organization calling on it to eliminate the Minimum Delivery and Release Commitment (MDRC) requirement in music-publishing deals.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorWhen the 2021 Grammy Award nominations were announced in November, thousands of people were stunned to see that the Weeknd — one of the most commercially and critically successful artists of the past year, whose single “Blinding Lights” just became the first song ever to spend a full year in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 — was not nominated for any awards.The inexplicable and/or suspicious snub, the biggest in Grammy history, could only be explained as the

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLong-running Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer have parted company with their U.S. label, Interscope, as well as Modest Management, a rep for the label confirmed to Variety.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSony Music Publishing has signed Grammy-winning songwriter/ DJ/ producer J. White Did It, known for his collaborations with Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, among others, to a worldwide deal.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBad Bunny, Black Pumas, Cardi B, BTS, Brandi Carlile, DaBaby, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, Mickey Guyton, Haim, Brittany Howard, Miranda Lambert, Lil Baby, Dua Lipa, Chris Martin, John Mayer, Megan Thee Stallion, Maren Morris, Post Malone, Roddy Ricch, Harry Styles, and Taylor Swift will perform at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, March 14, the Recording Academy has announced.Nearly all of the artists are nominees, and several — including Styles, Megan Thee Stallion, Bad

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSteve Greenberg, founder of S-Curve Records, is leaving the company, which he founded two decades ago and sold to BMG in 2015, he confirmed to Variety.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSony Music Publishing has partnered with Silence the Shame to launch “The Soundtrack of Mental Health,” a global multi-year program which will offer songwriters, employees, and the greater music community educational trainings and support around mental health.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe latest music festival to give up on 2021 is Spain’s popular Primavera Sound Barcelona, which called off this year’s installment due to the pandemic. Tickets can be transferred to the 2022 edition, the lineup for which will be revealed on June 2; refunds will be available after that date.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorUniversal Music Publishing has signed rising British singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone, whose debut EP received a rave review in Variety last fall, to an exclusive, global publishing agreement. The 21-year-old singer was voted No.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSwedish singer-songwriter Zara Larsson has signed with Sony Music Publishing, the company announced Monday morning.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLive Nation has taken a timeline provided by the British government as an all-clear for the summer festival season, selling some 170,000 tickets this week to three major U.K.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Black Music Collective (BMC), a newly launched initiative by the Recording Academy, will host its inaugural Grammy Week event in celebration of Black creators’ and professionals’ contributions to the music industry.The event will feature performances by H.E.R., Yolanda Adams, PJ Morton and rapper and producer duo Freddie Gibbs & Alchemist.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Weeknd is one of the great serial collaborators of this era, and he is generous with his praise about the artists he’s worked with, who range from Ariana Grande and Lana Del Rey to Travis Scott and SZA.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBrooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda (real name: Ackquille Jean Pollard) has been released from prison, according to a statement from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. “At approximately 8:30 this morning,  Ackquille Pollard was conditionally released from Clinton Correctional Facility.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSydney’s The Kid LAROI has signed a worldwide deal with Sony Music Publishing. The artist, songwriter, and producer, whose real name is Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard, is currently riding the success of his song “Without You” and 2020 debut mixtape, “Fuck Love.”In his native Australia, The Kid LAROI, who is signed to Columbia Records, is the youngest solo artist to reach No.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe gaming platform Twitch, which has had no shortage of music-copyright issues in recent months, cut off the audio for Metallica’s BlizzCon performance Friday due to legal concerns, replacing it with comically inappropriate instrumental folk music.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIndependent label, distributor and publisher EMPIRE has opened a division in the US to help grow the local scene in West Asia and North Africa and its diaspora. To head up the territory, EMPIRE has hired Suhel Nafar (pictured above) as Vice President of Strategy & Market Development.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs part of its mission to invest $100 million in organizations focused on achieving social justice, the Warner Music Group / Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund has announced its initial six grant recipients: Black Cultural Archives, Black Futures Lab, Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), Howard University, REFORM Alliance and Rhythm & Blues Foundation.The WMG/BFF SJF was established in June 2020 in the wake of the killings of George Floyd,

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorQuavo, one-third of the Atlanta hip-hop trio Migos, will make his feature-film debut alongside Robert DeNiro, John Malkovich and Jack Huston in the forthcoming film “Wash Me in the River,” which is directed by Randall Emmett (“Midnight in the Switchgrass”) and is currently filming in Puerto Rico.According to the announcement, Quavo (real name: Quavious Keyate Marshall) will play the role of Coyote, “a ruthless and heartless drug lord.” The second directorial outing

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBig Hit Entertainment, the South Korean company that brought BTS to the world, and Universal Music Group today announced an expanded strategic partnership that will see the two companies working together to “increase opportunities for artists through innovation and technology, whilst expanding the global reach of K-pop music and culture around the world,” according the announcement.