Music Industry Moves: Hit-Boy and James Fauntleroy Named Kingship Co-Executive Producers and Songwriters

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large The rebirth of the Golden Globes has found its showrunner. Jesse Collins, who just won an Emmy earlier this month as the producer behind “The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent,” has signed on to executive produce and showrun the 2023 Golden Globes as it returns to NBC in January. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, NBC and telecast producer Dick Clark Prods. announced on Tuesday that Collins would be at the helm as the Globes airs its 80th edition on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023, at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. ET. The Globes will continue to take place at its longtime home inside the Beverly Hilton ballroom.

Kanye West brought some surprises to London Fashion Week.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Orlando Wharton has been named executive vice president of Capitol Music Group and president of Priority Records. The announcement was made by CMG chair & CEO Michelle Jubelirer, to whom Wharton will report.  According to the announcement, in his new position, Wharton will sign and guide artists across CMG’s portfolio of labels, and will relaunch the legendary Priority Records label as a dedicated home for new, developing and established hip hop artists.  Wharton will assume his positions at CMG early next year, and will be based at the company’s offices in New York. The announcement closely follows the company’s hiring of Doja Cat co-manager Gordan Dillard as EVP of A&R and artist development.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Days after top YouTube exec Robert Kyncl was named as the next CEO of Warner Music Group, the company revealed in an SEC filing that he will earn approximately $15 million in his first year on the job, depending on performance targets. When Kyncl’s name was first mentioned as a potential successor to outgoing CEO Stephen Cooper, who leaves after 11 years in the role, many wondered whether the job would be sufficiently appealing for the executive who led Netflix from DVDs to streaming and has been YouTube’s business chief for much of his 12 years at the company. However, the SEC filing makes clear that the job is financially appealing: He will receive a base salary of $2 million, a target performance-based bonus of $3 million and an annual grant of performance share units with an aggregate, pre-tax value of $10 million.

statement Wednesday night. The official Apple Music Twitter account also confirmed the deal in a tweet that simply said “See you in February.”The first Super Bowl Halftime Show sponsored by Apple Music will be Super Bowl LVII (57 for those of you who didn’t travel here from ancient Rome), scheduled Feb.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Since the dawn of radio, the United States has been and remains the only major country in the world where terrestrial radio pays no royalties to performers or recorded-music copyright owners of the songs it plays — a situation that is largely due to the powerful radio lobby’s influence in Congress. While the more than 8,300 AM and FM stations across the country pay royalties to songwriters and publishers, they have never paid performers or copyright holders, although streaming services and satellite radio do. On Thursday morning, Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced the bipartisan American Music Fairness Act, which aims to rectify that situation by “ensur[ing] artists and music creators receive fair compensation for the use of their songs on AM/FM radio. This legislation will bring corporate radio broadcasters up-to-speed with all other music streaming platforms, which already pay artists for their music.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor After a fast courtship, outgoing YouTube head of business Robert Kyncl has been named CEO of Warner Music Group and will replace Steve Cooper when he steps down next year.  According to the announcement, Kyncl and Cooper will serve as co-CEOs for the month of January 2023. As of February 1, 2023, Kyncl will become sole CEO of WMG and assume Cooper’s board seat on WMG’s Board of Directors. Kyncl brings strong music-industry experience to the job: YouTube is both the world’s largest video-streaming platform and the largest music-streaming platform, and he played a huge role in its negotiations with labels and publishers and generally received high marks (remarkably, considering the often-contentious relations between the two sides). He’s also pioneering force in the streaming business: Before he was chief business officer of YouTube, he led Netflix from DVDs to digital.

Kendrick Lamar, Megan Thee Stallion and Willow have been announced as musical guests for the new season of Saturday Night Live (SNL).The 48th season of the NBC’s sketch show begins on October 1, with Lamar kicking off the series premiere that’s hosted by actor Miles Teller.Willow is booked for the following week (October 8) when actor Brendan Gleeson hosts. Then, on October 15, Megan Thee Stallion will be on duty as both host and musical guest.The new season of SNL features cast members Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor When YouTube chief business officer Robert Kyncl announced late last month that he’ll be leaving the company after 12 years in the job, many observers quickly moved him to the front of the line to replace outgoing Warner Music CEO Steve Cooper, who’d announced just two months earlier that he’ll be stepping down after 11 years in the job. After all, Kyncl knows the music industry  — YouTube is both the world’s largest video-streaming platform and the largest music-streaming platform, and he played a huge role in its negotiations with labels and publishers and generally received high marks (remarkably, considering the often-contentious relations between the two sides). He’s also pioneering force in the streaming business: Before he was chief business officer of YouTube, he led Netflix from DVDs to digital, a transition that was much more complex and fraught with potential failure than he and the company made it seem.

New Music Friday! It's every audiophile's favorite day of the week, and some of our favorite artists from all different genres have blessed us with new tunes.K-pop superstars BLACKPINK followed up their historic VMAs performance with their highly anticipated second studio album,  Marcus Mumford shared his debut solo album,, Kelsea Ballerini released a new track for her ride-or-dies, titled «IF YOU GO DOWN (I'M GOIN' DOWN TOO),»and Jack Harlow joined EST Gee on his new single, «Backstage Passes.»Plus, new music from Rina Sawayama, Charlie Puth, Becky G, Bazzi, Noah Kahan, THE DRIVER ERA and more!Also this week, stars like Hailee Steinfeld, Rachel Lindsay, Mike Johnson, JoJo, Angus Cloud and more turned out to the Pair of Thieves event at the Kendrick Lamar concert at L.A.'s Crypto.Com Arena.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Considering their short lifespan and relatively slim discography, the Velvet Underground may be the most thoroughly excavated and documented rock band of their era: Nearly every studio and concert recording, acetate and demo has been scrutinized, digitized and optimized for the many awesome boxed sets that have been released since the world caught up with the group’s brilliance in the 1980s, a dozen-odd years after they split up. The foundation of that brilliance, of course, is Lou Reed’s songwriting, which combines a novelist’s gritty realism with equally confrontational rock music, but also includes soft, vulnerable songs like “Pale Blue Eyes” and “I’ll Be Your Mirror” — songs that are all the more poignant because you can sense, somehow, that the sensitive soul who wrote them isalso kind of an asshole.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The first thing to know before seeing “Moonage Daydream,” Brett Morgen’s dazzling, exhaustive and exhausting memoir of David Bowie’s life and career, is that it assumes the viewer already knows a lot about the subject — his relevance, his influence, the brilliance of so much of his music, and the basics of his personal history. Like another recent historical film about an oft-trodden subject — Todd Haynes’ “The Velvet Underground” — it eschews the standard, chronological, done-to-death “Behind the Music”-style template that has become a predictable default for music documentaries and finds a dramatically different way to tell the story. In the case of “Moonage Daydream” — the significance of the second word of the title in this impressionistic film cannot be overemphasized — that different way is to let the man himself do all of the talking: Literally the only voiceovers heard in this 135-minute-long film are from Bowie (presenting real or conveniently fictionalized accounts of his life and work) and various interviewers. While that makes for an unusually free-form approach to structuring a documentary (and was enormously challenging for Morgen, who worked on the film for over four years and suffered a heart attack while doing it), in many ways it’s freeing: Instead of a rigid timeline or forced, overarching theme dictating the narrative, Bowie’s words do.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor While the title of the “world’s greenest music festival” may be impossible to determine with total accuracy, Norway’s long-running Øya is as close as it gets. The festival — which has featured Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Robyn, Lana Del Rey, the Cure and hundreds of Norwegian acts since it launched in 1999 — has been named an “Outstanding” honoree by the international non-profit A Greener Festival nine out of the last 10 years the awards were held, and is certified as an “Environmental Lighthouse” by the Norwegian foundation of the same name. In 2010, it even received an honorary award from Norway’s minister of agriculture for its work in promoting organic food. 

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor There’s a good chance that you’ve never heard the name Richard Gottehrer — but there’s an equally good chance that if you’re even a casual music fan, you know something, or several things, he’s done very well. As a songwriter in the early ‘60s, he co-wrote such hits as “I Want Candy,” “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “Sorrow.” As a producer, he helmed classic albums by Blondie, the Go-Go’s, Richard Hell, Joan Armatrading, the Raveonettes and the Dum Dum Girls among many others. As an artist, he formed a short-lived group called the Strangeloves with songwriting/producing partners Jerry Goldstein and Bob Feldman that nonetheless racked up several hit singles (including the original “I Want Candy”). As an executive, he co-founded Sire Records with Seymour Stein in 1966, and 30 years later, he co-founded the Orchard with Scott Cohen. Now owned by Sony Music, that company is one of the world’s largest distributors of independent music.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Reach Music Publishing has acquired a 50% copyright interest — together with 100% of the writer’s share, including global administration rights — in the song catalog of Public Enemy’s Chuck D, one of the most influential rappers and lyricists in hip-hop history. Further terms of the deal were not disclosed. As a founding member and chief songwriter of Public Enemy, Chuck D co-wrote nearly all of the group’s songs, including such classics as “Fight the Power” (theme song to Spike Lee’s 1989 film “Do the Right Thing”), “Bring the Noise,” “Welcome to the Terrordome,” “Shut ‘Em Down,” and “He Got Game,” all of which are included in the Reach Music acquisition. In total, over 300 songs are included in the deal. 

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor YouTube, the world’s largest streaming platform for music, announced that it has paid more than $6 billion to the music industry in the 12 months between July 2021 and June 2022 — some $2 billion more than it said it paid in the previous 12 months. Like last year, the announcement comes in the form of a blog post from the platform’s head of music, Lyor Cohen. While short on specifics, the post does outline some of the contributing factors. “We want our twin engine of ads and subscriptions to be the #1 contributor of revenue to the industry by 2025,” Cohen wrote. “That’s why YouTube is monetizing all music formats (short & long form video, audio tracks, Live, etc.), on all platforms (desktop, tablet, mobile, and TV), in over 100 countries. And overall watch time of music content on YouTube across desktop, tablet, mobile, and TV continues to grow year over year.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor YouTube’s royalty system has long been criticized by multiple music-industry organizations for opaqueness, a lack of oversight and, many feel, insufficient payments. But a new report in Billboard makes a number of detailed allegations, supported by claims from a number of unnamed sources, who say that YouTube — which is the single largest streaming service for music in the world — has a rights-management system that is “full of errors” and “ripe for abuse,” and claim that Create Music Group, which initially established itself as a royalty-collection service for music companies, frequently collected royalties to which it is not entitled. Create co-founder Jonathan Strauss categorically denied those claims, and said the company’s claims are always guided by its clients’ deals — “CMG does not input or remove shares without authorization.” In a statement to Variety, a rep for Create said: “At Create Music Group we work tirelessly to ensure that our clients, independent artists and labels, receive all of the revenue that they are entitled to. We take that responsibility very seriously. We unequivocally deny, however, the assertion made in the Billboard article by our competitors that we “game the system,” and the data proves this out. More than 90% of the conflicts created by our competitors, over 26,000 in all, have been settled in our favor. We follow both the letter and spirit of the rules YouTube has set up for our industry and are very proud of our track record in this regard.”

Dr. Dre‘s Super Bowl Halftime Show, has said that he wants to take the star-studded performance on tour.Dre headlined the performance at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California back in February, in which he performed alongside Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J.

Muse secure their seventh UK Number 1 album with Will Of The People.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor After a grueling, hard-fought and ultimately victorious legal battle over streaming rates for the years 2018-22, the National Music Publishers’ Association, the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and the Digital Media Association today have announced a settlement with streaming services for certain mechanical streaming rates in the U.S. for the years 2023-2027: 15.35%. The announcement comes as a surprise, as the NMPA has been saying for months that it would push for a 20% rate for the forthcoming period. However, sources tell Variety that concessions were made on both sides, likely in the form of modifications that reach beyond the headline rate, such as the way that “bundles” — such as discounted streaming subscription rates for family and student plans — and per-subscriber minimums are treated.