Warner Music Chief Max Lousada on the Company’s Stellar 2021 and Being Variety’s Executive of the Year

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorOlivia Rodrigo, BTS, Bad Bunny, Doja Cat, Pooh Shiesty were among the artists topping the major streaming services’ year-end charts, according to a list distributed Thursday by the Digital Media Association, of which Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify and YouTube are members.DIMA noted that streaming continued to rise in 2021, and that major hip-hop and reggaeton artists garnered many of the top spots in the year-end lists, “benefitting from streaming

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBrandi Carlile, Billie Joe Armstrong, Saweetie, Anitta, 24kGoldn, Kitty Ca$h and recent Variety cover star Jack Harlow will join Miley Cyrys and “Saturday Night Live” star Pete Davidson’s New York’s Even special, airing live from Miami on Friday, Dec. 31 from 10:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBrandi Carlile, Graham Nash, Herbie Hancock, James Taylor, Leon Bridges, Pentatonix, Black Pumas, Jon Batiste, Maggie Rogers and Mickey Guyton will honor Joni Mitchell as performers at the MusiCares Person of the Year concert taking placed on Saturday, Jan.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs expected, Warner Music Group has acquired 300 Entertainment, home to Megan Thee Stallion – who won Best New Artist at this year’s Grammy Awards — Young Thug and his label Young Stoner Life, Gunna, Fetty Wap, Highly Suspect, the newly signed “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul” Mary J.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorClaudia Butzky has been promoted to executive vice president of brand partnerships & sync for Warner Records. In her expanded role, Butzky will continue to lead the label’s brand partnership team while also overseeing the strategy for creative music placement and campaigns across film, television, gaming, sports and related platforms.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIn what may be the biggest single-artist music-catalog deal to date, a report in Billboard claims that Bruce Springsteen has sold his entire recorded-music and publishing catalog to Sony Music for around $500 million, topping Bob Dylan’s sale of his publishing to Universal for nearly $400 million.Reps for Springsteen and Sony Music either declined or did not respond to requests for comment, but multiple industry sources tell Variety that “the deal is done.”News of

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorOlivia Rodrigo and Morgan Wallen topped the RIAA’s 2021 gold and platinum awards, the organization announced on Wednesday, with both artists’ latest albums attaining double-platinum status and Rodrigo’s blockbuster “Drivers License” single being certified four-times platinum.A total of 16 albums and 98 singles released this year achieved gold or platinum status; highlights appear below.RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier said: “With another year of Gold & Platinum

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorMidem, for decades the primary international conference for the music industry, will not be returning in 2022 and the brand will be taken over by the city of Cannes, France, owner RX France announced on Wednesday.“Due to the lasting pandemic and following a review of its activity, RX France [formerly Reed Midem] has decided to no longer organize the Midem events,” the announcement reads in part.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorMotown Records has named Courtney Lowery as executive vice president of media strategy and lifestyle. In this new role, Lowery will oversee media strategy and execution for the label and its roster of artists, and also play an integral role in a wide range of the label’s cultural and lifestyle initiatives.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears” was the most-played video, both globally and in the U.S., on the major video network Vevo, the company announced Monday as part of its annual year-end look back on music video viewership.“Save Your Tears” topped the list with 615 million views globally, and 102.9M views in the U.S.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorRepublic Records has promoted Lucas Romeo to senior VP of promotion, effective immediately, EVP Gary Spangler announced on Monday.Based in New York, Romeo will oversee promotion efforts across multiple formats, guiding the promotion team and breaking artists in today’s new landscape. Romeo joined Republic in 2014 as regional promotion manager in Nashville, before returning to New York to serve as VP of Top 40.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAhead of the reveal of the 2021 Time magazine prestigious Person of the Year honor, happening Monday, December 13, the publication on Thursday has revealed that Olivia Rodrigo is its 2021 Entertainer of the Year and Simone Biles the 2021 Athlete of the Year.Rodrigo was featured on the cover of Variety’s Young Hollywood issue over the summer and was named Songwriter of the Year at our Hitmakers event on Saturday, where she gave a moving acceptance speech and was

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorRepublic Records has named Dave Rocco to the newly created role of chief creative officer, label founders Monte Lipman and Avery Lipman announced on Wedesday. According to the announcement, Rocco “will bring his creative vision, innovative thinking and strategic expertise to Republic and its world-class roster of artists.”“In many ways, Dave is an artist trapped in an executive’s body,” said Monte Lipman.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorUTA has signed musician and former Poison frontman Bret Michaels in all areas.“Bret Michaels is a true multi-hyphenate. From music and branding, to sports and reality tv he brings 1000% to all his business endeavors and we are honored to welcome him to our roster,” said David Zedeck, partner and co-head of global music.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorDrake has withdrawn his two Grammy nominations, a rep for the Recording Academy has confirmed to Variety.Sources tell Variety that the decision was made by Drake and his management, although his motivation was unclear at the time of this article’s publication.He was nominated for Best Rap Album for his “Certified Lover Boy” album and Best Rap Performance for his song “Way 2 Sexy” (featuring Future and Young Thug).

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIn this week’s installment of Strictly Business, Variety’s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment, TaP Music’s Ed Millet and Wendy Ong go deep about the rewards and challenges of managing such prominent and pioneering artists as Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa, Ellie Goulding, Caroline Polacheck, Noah Cyrus and many more.The conversation starts with Millet discussing founding the company in 2010 with his

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSpotify has unveiled its annual 2021 Wrapped campaign — where users can see the music they listened to the most all year — and with that comes the top artists, albums, songs, playlists and podcasts on the world’s largest streaming service, with more than 381 million total users.The full charts are below, but first, some stats:Globally speaking, with more than 9.1 billion streams this year, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny is Spotify’s most-streamed artist of 2021,

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorApple Music has unveiled its biggest songs of the year with its annual Top 100 charts, which not only include the most-streamed songs — topped by BTS’ smash “Dynamite” but it has also shared its “Top 100 2021: Fitness” chart—spotlighting the most-played workout music across Apple Music and Fitness+— its top 100 most-Shazamed songs and its top 100 most-read Lyrics.Following “Dynamite” in the top 5 are Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” (which had the most-read

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAmong the many musicians paying tribute to the top designer Virgil Abloh, who died on Sunday at the age of just 41 after a battle with cancer, Frank Ocean took to Instagram to make a rare statement about his friend, who founded the Off-White line and was Louis Vuitton Menswear’s artistic director.“In 2018 I believe it was I called V and asked him how it was possible to play hundreds of shows a year and do numerous fashion collections a year and be a father and a

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorDua Lipa’s “Levitating” was the most-played song and Ariana Grande the most-played artist on iHeartRadio’s stations in 2021, according to lists released Monday morning. iHeart, which is the world’s largest radio network, calculated that “Levitating” reached an audience of nearly 1.2 billion in the U.S.