Public Enemy’s Chuck D Sells Catalog to Reach Music Publishing

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Two decades ago, as the turn-of-the-century NYC indie-rock scene burst out of its East Village and Williamsburg incubators, few probably expected that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs would end up having the most wide-ranging career of the bunch. After all, a trio consisting of a wiz-kid guitarist, powerhouse drummer and a fireball lead singer might have made for explosive shows and a scrappy, deceptively diverse debut EP, but with no shade intended to the Strokes, Interpol, LCD Soundsystem, TV on the Radio and all the others, the multiple musical directions the band would go did not seem to be in the cards. The Yeahs had the first hit single of the pack (2003’s “Maps”) and varied their approach with each successive album, peaking with 2009’s unexpectedly electronic-heavy “It’s Blitz.” That album represented the end of that particular thread: The group released one more, rockier album “Mosquito” in 2013 (which, significantly, fulfilled their major-label contract) and then basically went on hiatus. In the years since, singer Karen O released a stellar collaboration with Danger Mouse, “Lux Prima” and co-composed the score for the animated film “Where Is Anne Frank?,” guitarist Nick Zinner also scored films and worked with Phoebe Bridgers and Songhoy Blues, and drummer Brian Chase started his own label. Such hiatuses are often permanent, but the group reunited for a tour in 2017, and five years and a pandemic later, there’s finally a reunion album — and it continues the group’s evolution with a powerful, more seasoned take on their earlier sounds.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor As has been well documented, the 2018, Scooter Braun-led acquisition of Big Machine Music Group — and the rights to Taylor Swift’s first six albums — caused some controversy. Swift — who had attempted, unsuccessfully, to acquire the rights herself — was outraged, launching not only a global dialog about artists owning the rights to their work, but sticking it to the new owners by beginning a campaign to re-record all of those albums and encouraging her fans to stream the new “Taylor’s Versions” instead of the earlier ones; two such albums have been released to great success. She had few kind words for Braun in the process. Braun bore the substantial wrath of the Swifties for a year or two before selling off the catalog (for a tidy profit) and said he had attempted to speak with the singer about the issue multiple times after the sale was finally revealed, to little avail. He has since sold his own company to the South Korean entertainment powerhouse HYBE, and continues to run it and manage the careers of Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and others.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Phil Collins and his Genesis bandmates Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford have agreed to sell their publishing copyrights and “a mix of recorded music-income streams” to Concord Music Group, the company confirmed to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Sources told the publication the deal was for upward of $300 million. The deal includes the solo material of all three, most notably Collins’ multiplatinum solo albums and Rutherford’s band Mike & the Mechanics, which achieved chart success in the 1980s. The catalogs of Peter Gabriel and other former members of Genesis were not included in the deal. A rep for Concord tells Variety an official announcement will be made Friday morning.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor With lead vocals by Springsteen, “Only The Strong Survive” features songs from the catalogs of Motown and Stax Records, the songwriting duo of Gamble and Huff and more. This album, Springsteen’s 21st studio outing, will also feature guest vocals by soul great Sam Moore, as well as contributions from the E Street Horns, string arrangements by Rob Mathes, and backing vocals by Soozie Tyrell, Lisa Lowell, Michelle Moore, Curtis King Jr., Dennis Collins and Fonzi Thornton. Bruce Springsteen commented: “I wanted to make an album where I just sang. And what better music to work with than the great American songbook of the Sixties and Seventies? I’ve taken my inspiration from Levi Stubbs, David Ruffin, Jimmy Ruffin, the Iceman Jerry Butler, Diana Ross, Dobie Gray, and Scott Walker, among many others. I’ve tried to do justice to them all—and to the fabulous writers of this glorious music. My goal is for the modern audience to experience its beauty and joy, just as I have since I first heard it. I hope you love listening to it as much as I loved making it.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor A teenager and a woman are in custody in the murder of rapper PnB Rock, who was shot fatally on Sept. 12 in Los Angeles, police confirmed to Variety on Wednesday. Police are also searching for the teenager’s father in connection with the murder, whom they say is armed and dangerous. A minor was arrested on suspicion of murder, and Shauntel Trone, 38, was arrested on suspicion of accessory to murder, LAPD Capt. Kelly Muniz told the Los Angeles Times. The minor’s father, Freddie Lee Trone, 40, is still at large. The LAPD has released his photograph and requested public assistance in locating him. Rock, 30 (real name: Rakim Allen) was murdered at Roscoe’s House of Chicken & Waffles in South Los Angeles, where he had been dining with his girlfriend. A gunman demanded jewelry and other valuables from him before getting into a struggle with PnB and opening fire, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the Times. Moore added that the shooting occurred soon after the rapper was tagged online as being at the restaurant, and police are investigating whether the post led to the attack, although an earlier report in TMZ says that the attackers had been sitting in the restaurant’s parking lot at the time of the post. That report also says that Trone and his son burned the getaway car in an effort to destroy evidence.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Columbia Records has entered into a joint venture with former Capitol Records chairman-CEO Jeff Vaughn to launch Signal Records, the company announced Wednesday. The Los Angeles-based imprint will operate as a new label with Columbia Records of Sony Music Entertainment and begin operations immediately, with an artist roster to be announced in the coming weeks. As founder and CEO, Vaughn will lead the company’s creative direction and business development while utilizing Columbia’s marketing, promotion, and label services. Ron Perry, Chairman & CEO of Columbia Records, said, “I’ve admired Jeff’s work from afar for a while. He has incredible musical instincts, an infectious work ethic, and great passion. I’m looking forward to working together on this new chapter.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The family of Avicii, the late, multi-platinum-selling Swedish DJ, has sold 75% of his master recordings and publishing to Pophouse Entertainment, the Stockholm-based company co-founded by ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus, which is behind that group’s multi-million-dollar “Voyage” show in London and other enterprises. The family and estate will maintain ownership of the remaining 25%. Terms of the deal, which is estimated to be for nine figures, were not disclosed. According to the announcement, a joint venture has been created between the family and estate of Avicii (real name: Tim Bergling) and Pophouse “to safeguard Avicii’s indelible legacy through future global endeavours,” such as the interactive tribute museum in Stockholm, “Avicii Experience,” that Pophouse and the Bergling family together opened in February.

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.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Pharoah Sanders, an American jazz saxophonist whose career sprawled across six decades, has died at the age of 81. His death was confirmed to Variety by a representative for his label, Luaka Bop. “We are devastated to share that Pharoah Sanders has passed away,” the label’s statement reads. “He died peacefully surrounded by loving family and friends in Los Angeles earlier this morning. Always and forever the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace.” His soulful playing and leading role in the style often described as spiritual jazz placed him at the edge of the genre’s innovation for many years, initially in bands with such explorers as Sun Ra (who dubbed him “Pharoah”) and John Coltrane and later by leading his own ensembles.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor There’s been no shortage of neo-R&B albums over the past few years, but so many of them are led by breathy female singers who feel like they’re singing in your ear — very few have had full-voiced singers at the forefront. And although Muni Long isn’t a belter and does put on the bedroom voice on a couple of tracks, her first full-length album is a blast of vintage ‘90s R&B that isn’t trying to be cute: It’s filled with frank lyrics about of love and sex from an artist who’s been around for more than a minute. Working under the name of Priscilla Renea, Muni has long been a songwriter whose soul and pop smarts helped forge hits such as Ariana Grande’s “Imagine,” Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It,” Rihanna’s “California King Bed,” along with tracks for Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson, Madonna, Mary J. Blige, Miranda Lambert, Selena Gomez and more.She released strong albums under that name too — 2009’s “Jukebox” and 2018’s “Coloured” — but neither of those records had the sparkle, innovation and warmth that her songwriting catalog contained. A change of name, an independently-released EP featuring the haunting, quirky hit “Hrs and Hrs,” and suddenly, Muni Long is a new artist with a remarkably seasoned and strong debut album.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Compton-based house-music producer-singer Channel Tres has inked a deal that sees him joining RCA Records in partnership with L.A. indie Godmode. The partnership kicks off tonight with the release of the new single “No Limit,” with his debut full-length album “Real Cultural Shit” arriving later this fall. The album will also feature his singles from earlier this year, “Acid in my Blood,” “Ganzfeld Experiment” and “Just Can’t Get Enough.” Channel Tres, who has toured with Robyn, Vince Staples, Disclosure and Toro y Moi and performed at Coachella and New York’s Gov Ball, calls his style of dance music “Compton house”; it meshes the rhythms of Chicago house and Detroit techno with the bite of West Coast rap.

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.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Influence Media Partners has acquired Grammy-winning Future’s publishing catalog from 2004 to 2020, the company announced. The prolific rapper’s work from those years spans 612 titles, including titles with frequent collaborator Drake (“Life Is Good,” “Jumpman”), Kendrick Lamar (“King’s Dead”), Rihanna (“Selfish”), and the Weeknd (“Low Life”) and his own solo hits like “Mask Off.” A source close to the situation tells Variety the deal was in the “high eight figures.” Rene McLean, Influence Media partner and founding advisor, said, “Future is a cultural icon. He continues to be a blueprint for impact and success in the music industry and has reinvented music in ways that no one has ever expected. It is rare to find someone who moves music and culture at the same speed with his distinct vocal and melodic style. His prolific career and continued popularity more than 15 years into the game is a testament to his undeniable influence on the contemporary music and culture landscape. We’re honored to be partnered with him.”

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.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Though she’s just 22, Noah Cyrus has seen some stuff. As Miley’s younger sister, her music and acting careers launched early — at 16 and 2 (!), respectively — and she released several pop-leaning singles and EPs during her teens, opened an arena tour for Katy Perry in 2017 and was even nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy in 2021. On the less positive side, there was substance abuse, a bad relationship and lockdown isolation — but she overcame all of it, and that battle informs nearly every song on “The Hardest Part,” her long-percolating debut album, which sees her truly finding her voice in a way that her previous recordings only hinted at. Surprisingly or no, the Nashville native did it by returning home, musically speaking. Although her main collaborators here are Northern Irish producer Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys, the 1975) and Australian songwriter PJ Harding (Chromeo, Ruel), the sound is country-leaning, heavy on harmonies, organic instrumentation and Music Row-friendly melodies; its big, stacked harmonies recall everything from the Chicks to Boygenius.

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.