Radio Edit | 5.26.23

This week we have UMG’s designs on monetizing your sleep and a charitable coffee collaboration for Young The Giant. Other stories include the streaming saturation and a newly-established songwriter’s streaming rate.

Top Stories

UMG Wants To Make Money In Your Sleep

Looking to harness the power of AI in a way that helps their artists, UMG has announced a partnership with Endel- an AI-driven platform that transforms songs from Universal’s catalog into passive listening soundscapes. Using stems from preexisting songs, Endel’s technology is able to create sleep versions of those licensed compositions with the push of a button.

The partnership seeks to enable Universal to further capture market share by targeting the functional listening market- music that is created for and consumed when performing a passive activity like sleeping or studying. In an attention economy, labels have historically viewed functional music as competition, so Endel’s technology provides a solution to participate in this space while increasing revenue for rights holders.

As popularity in functional listening has grown in recent years, this market is estimated to be in the ballpark of 15 billion streams per month across all platforms. Billboard

Caffeinating For a Cause

Alternative rock band Young The Giant has teamed up with Verve Coffee Roasters on a new blend to complement their upcoming tour and latest album, American Bollywood. Aiming to help support music education in schools, all proceeds from the partnership will be donated to the Derek Venlet Scholarship fund. Venlet, who sadly passed away following a hard-fought cancer battle, was a jazz and marching band teacher at Irvine High School, where three of the Young The Giant Members attended.

What Else Is Going On

Signings

Lizzy McAlpine links up with Godmode for management

LA indie-electronic duo The Hellp has signed with Atlantic Records, via their new imprint Anemoia

Ninja Tune imprint Counter Records has signed Poolside

Country group LANCO has signed with Riser House Records

Streaming / Radio

Rate of back-to-back radio spins of female country artists at just 0.5%, study finds

Data shows an average of 120,000 tracks are being added to streaming services per day. That’s a pace of 43 million new tracks this year.

HYBE has signed a distribution deal with Tencent Music, expanding their reach in the Chinese market

As part of a Q4 profitability target, SoundCloud has laid off 8% of its staff

Publishing

Following a five-year proceeding, the Copyright Royalty Board has issued songwriter streaming rates for the period of 2018-2022

Other

CD Baby axes physical distribution business

Snapchat has teamed up with Republic Records to introduce virtual ‘Band Tees’ collection, allowing fans to wear digital merch from their favorite artists

BandLab Technologies has raised $25mm at a $425mm valuation

Audio Empire and Z2 team up on ‘Neon Empire,’ a graphic novel and podcast about fictional “hick hop” star

Appointments / Departures

Appointments

Streaming platform Veeps brings on Eileen Mercolino as first CMO

Rostrum Records appoints Edith Bo as Head of A&R

Donna Vergier named VP, International Marketing at Chrysalis Records/Blue Raincoat Music

Nathan Barley Phillips and Shawn Keith elevates to Heads of A&R (Europe and North America, respectively) at Nuclear Blast

Jen Hubbard has been brought on for newly-created Sync A&R Director role at Concord Music Publishing

UMG Nashville has tapped Chelsea Blythe as EVP, A&R

Departures

Instagram’s Director of Music Partnerships Perry Bashkoff included in Meta this week’s layoffs

Nick Jarjour has left his role as Global Head of Song Management at Hipgnosis

WMG’s President of Global E-Commerce, Ernst Trapp, has vacated his position

Featured Release

Water From Your Eyes / Everyone’s Crushed (A) / Matador

Spotify | Apple Music | Amazon Music

Featured Job Posting

YMU
Day to Day Manager, US Music
Los Angeles
Apply Here

Get In Touch

Contact | Subscribe