Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away, Jay Chou ranked first in global album sales, and the average daily views of YouTube Shorts exceeded 50 billion
Organizer | Yang Huyi Editor | Fan Zhihui
03.27-04.02
Weekly Quick Facts
big company
>> The 1st Inspur Music Awards officially launched
>> Apple Music Classic officially launched
>> Jay Chou won the IFPI global album sales champion
>> Fender announced the fifth Fender NextTM list
>> BMI wins live performance rate dispute, boosts songwriter earnings by 138%
>> Tencent Music joins hands with Billboard to launch the first original music contest
>> Warner Music will lay off 4% of its staff
>> Billboard Live officially launched in China
>> QQ Music, Netease Cloud Music and Rolling Stone Records reached an in-depth strategic cooperation
data control
>> YouTube Shorts has more than 50 billion views per day
>> BMG 2022 spends 500 million euros to acquire music library
> > PPL paid $21.5 million in international neighboring rights fees in the first quarter
capital market
>> Kakao becomes the largest shareholder of SM
>> Turntable LIVE secures $7 million in funding to develop social music platform
>> Believe acquires UK songwriting rights company Sentric
> > Songtradr acquires B2B music company 7digital
Artist News
>> Yang Kun signed a contract with Haole Wuhuang
>> UK Producer Midge Ure Sells Lyric Rights to MusicBird
>> A7X cooperates with Ticketmaster to launch NFT gating function
>> Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer Bob Burns sells recording rights to Primary Wave
>> Joe Hisaishi signed an exclusive agreement with DG Records
>> Despacito creator Erika Ender sells library rights to Hipgnosis
>> Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away at the age of 71
live entertainment
>>Bai Jugang “Daydream·Running to You” Tour Official Announcement
>> Liu Ruoying’s “Flying Day” Tour Concert Hangzhou Station Official Announcement
>> Jacky Cheung 2023 World Tour Concert Official Announcement
song of the week
big company
>> The 1st Inspur Music Awards officially launched
On March 27, Tencent Music Chart, a subsidiary of Tencent Music Entertainment Group, announced that it will hold the first “Inspur Music Awards” in June, and will simultaneously start the selection of 2022 Chinese music works.
The “Inspur Music Awards” is composed of hundreds of outstanding Chinese music creators. The “Inspur Jury Committee” passed professional selection and finally produced 35 awards to reward outstanding Chinese music works in 2022. The “Inspur Music Awards” aims to crown outstanding Chinese-language creations with quality as the judging standard, and create an annual grand event in the Chinese-language music scene.
The judges of this award are all experienced practitioners from various fields in the music industry, including well-known producers Li Quan, Chang Shilei, Mars Radio, three Golden Melody Award winner Qin Sifeng, gold medal songwriters Li Haiying, Shi Rencheng, Zhou Yaohui, and Outstanding singer-songwriters Tang Hanxiao, Guo Yifan, Chen Hongyu, etc.
>> Apple Music Classic officially launched
· On March 28, Apple Music Classical was officially launched.
Apple Music subscribers will be able to download and use the new app for free as part of their existing subscription service.
According to the Apple Music Classical page on the App Store, the app is now available worldwide, excluding China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and Turkey, while available features and content may vary by country.
Apple Music Classical features the world‘s largest selection of classical music, the best search and browse capabilities, and the highest quality sound experience from Spatial Audio, along with thousands of exclusive recordings, providing access to more than 5 million tracks. Users can search for specific works by composer, work, conductor or even catalog number.
>> Jay Chou won the IFPI global album sales champion
· On March 28, IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) announced the 2022 “Global Top Ten Album Sales List”.
Jay Chou ranked first in the world with the album “The Greatest Work” (actually, traditional album sales, physical sales + paid download sales), and the first Chinese album ever entered the top ten. It is worth noting that 8 of the top 10 seats are occupied by Korean artists.
Here are the full rankings:
1. Jay Chou “The Greatest Work”
2.BTS《Proof》
3.Taylor Swift《Midnights》
4. Stray Kids《MAXIDENT》
5. Seventeen《Face the Sun’》
6. ENHYPEN《MANIFESTO: DAY 1》
7. BLACKPINK《BORN PINK》
8. Stray Kids《ODDINARY》
9. Seventeen《sector 17》
10. TXT《Minisode 2: Thursday’s Child》
>> Fender announced the 5th Fender NextTM list
· On March 28, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) announced today the list of finalists for the 5th Fender NextTM program.
In the Chinese-speaking region, this year’s Fender NextTM and Netease Musicians, the leading domestic original musician platform, jointly select outstanding new musicians in the Chinese-speaking region. In the end, Sunset Speed Band and Wen Zhaojie were selected into the 2023 Fender NextTM program as representatives of the Chinese music scene.
Over the past four years, the Fender NextTM program has unearthed many talented musicians, including Jun Xiao, Sam Fender, Omar Apollo, Wet Leg, Blu DeTiger, Phoebe Bridgers, Ed Maverick, MAY-A, Japanese Breakfast, Anly, Madison Cunningham, Black Pumas, and more.
>> BMI wins live performance rate dispute, boosts songwriter earnings by 138%
· On March 29, US music rights management company BMI won a court dispute over rates with live event organizers Live Nation, AEG and the North American Concert Organizers Association (NACPA).
After winning the lawsuit, songwriters’ income from the field of live performances will increase by 138%, reaching 0.5% of revenue per event.
Live Nation downplayed the impact of the ruling on concert organizers, saying it would cost performers about $15 million a year, shared among thousands of artists.
BMI described the New York District Court’s ruling as ending “decades of below-market rates for songwriters, composers and rights dealers in the live concert industry.” The new rates will apply to an expanded revenue base, including tickets sold directly to the secondary market, service fees charged by sponsors and revenue from boxes and VIP packages.
>> Tencent Music joins hands with Billboard to launch the first original music contest
· On March 29, Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) announced that it will jointly launch the first original music competition “THE ONE” through its QQ Music and the internationally renowned music content platform Billboard.
The conference will invite powerful singer-songwriter Yuan Yawei, well-known Australian singer-songwriter Lenka, well-known American singer-songwriter Greyson Chance and many other global high-quality singer-songwriters to serve as original conveners; Zhang Yuan, Lu Hu, and Ma Siwei will also be invited , Jiao Maiqi, Chen Zhuoxuan and other well-known domestic singers and songwriters as “special invited singers” will work together to select original and innovative stars.
It is reported that the “THE ONE” original music competition will open a two-month collection of works from now on. It will open up “lyricist unit, new force unit and label” for three different groups of songwriters, emerging musicians and high-quality labels. The three major competition units of “Unit” provide a stage for fair competition and communication for different types of contestants with a differentiated selection mechanism, and they will be opened in stages.
Among them, the song lyrics unit will be opened first on March 29; the new force unit will be launched on April 13; the label unit will be opened last on April 27, and original music works will be collected from high-quality labels from all over the world. More independent labels that pay attention to the quality of music creation and stick to multiple music styles have come under the spotlight of the world.
The competition will eventually select and form the “THE ONE” concept music compilation, which will be announced globally through TME Music Cloud.
>> Warner Music will lay off 4% of its staff
On March 29, according to an internal notice from Warner Music’s new CEO Robert Kyncl, the company plans to lay off about 4% of its global workforce, and about 270 people will be laid off.
According to Warner’s 2022 annual report, as of September 30, 2022, its total number of employees worldwide is approximately 6,200.
The layoffs will be the first major strategic move by Kyncl, who joined Warner Music in January after stepping down as YouTube’s chief commercial officer.
The company said in a new SEC filing that it expects the move “to generate pretax cost savings of approximately $22 million in fiscal 2023” and then “annualized $50 million in fiscal 2024 at an annualized run rate.”
However, Warner Music said that this move is not to cut costs to improve Warner Music’s profits, but to consider the specific needs, skills and priorities of each label, department and region to adapt to the development of the business.
>> BMI wins live performance rate dispute, boosts songwriter earnings by 138%
· On March 30, Billboard Live officially announced its launch in China, with its first store at the Old Wharf on the South Bund in Shanghai.
As a brand of Billboard Billboard, different from Billboard’s online list attributes, Billboard Live pays attention to the exploration and presentation of offline music.
Not limited to the concept of conventional “Live house”, but focusing on digging out high-quality musicians in China, and constantly enriching the music performance scene. In the future, in this Shanghai-style building on the Bund in Shanghai, Billboard Live will carry out different series of themed performances.
The “Road to billboard” RTB plan for young musicians debuted today. The first phase of RTB plans to reach a cooperation with Sina Weibo and exclusively launch through the Weibo channel.
In the future, the Billboard Live billboard music scene will be expanded to other cities in China in stages, allowing more different types of music to collide and exchange here.
>> QQ Music, Netease Cloud Music and Rolling Stone Records reached an in-depth strategic cooperation
· On March 30, NetEase Cloud Music announced that it had reached a contract renewal agreement with Rolling Stone Records, and the two parties started in-depth strategic cooperation.
On April 1, QQ Music and Rolling Stone Records reached an in-depth strategic cooperation.
data control
>> YouTube Shorts has more than 50 billion views per day
· On March 30, Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s global music director, disclosed a new set of statistics through a blog post that reflect the performance of music on the platform.
According to YouTube, as of December 2022, Shorts’ average daily views will exceed 50 billion, and the number of channels uploading content to the Shorts platform every day will increase by more than 80%.
In January 2023, the combined views of the top 1,000 songs on Shorts exceeded 280 billion. Short videos created by fans have increased an artist’s average viewer count by more than 80%.
At the same time, musicians who are active on Shorts (here refers to weekly musicians) have an average of more than 50% of new channel users directly from their Shorts. It can be found that Shorts has become a window to guide the audience to understand musicians in depth.
Alongside the new analytics, YouTube also announced that starting this month, its Analytics for Artists total influence metric will include short videos uploaded by fans (in addition to official artist-uploaded content and long-form fan-uploaded videos).
YouTube is also creating a new “Songs” section in analytics to help musicians understand how fans listen to or create with their music in videos.
>> BMG 2022 spends 400 million US dollars to acquire music library
· On March 30, BMG released its annual financial report, and its revenue in 2022 will reach 866 million euros (about 911 million US dollars), a year-on-year increase of 30.6%.
BMG’s EBITDA in 2022 will increase by more than EUR 50 million (+35.4%) year-on-year to EUR 195 million (USD 205 million). The EBITDA margin was 22.5%, an increase of nearly a percentage point from the 21.7% annualized margin in 2021.
The strong growth in annual revenue and EBITDA is inseparable from the expansion of investment in recorded music and copyright. In 2022, the investment reached a record 509 million euros, which was used to acquire music libraries and signed artists.
Among them, BMG spent 380 million euros (about 400 million U.S. dollars) to purchase the music library, compared with 281 million euros in the previous year. In 2022, BMG spent 188 million euros on the purchase of music libraries in the United States, 113 million euros in the UK, 27 million euros in Germany, and 52 million euros in various other countries.
In addition to the acquisition of the music library, BMG’s organic revenue (ie, non-acquisition-driven) growth in 2022 will be 22.8% year-on-year.
In 2022, more than half (53.9%) of BMG’s annual revenue will come from the United States. A further 8% were produced in Germany, while 12.2% were produced in the UK.
>>PPL paid USD 21.5 million for international neighboring rights in the first quarter
· On March 31, PPL paid musicians $21.5 million in international neighboring rights fees during the first quarter, equivalent to nearly $240,000 per day.
The money will be distributed to more than 26,000 performers and rights holders in the UK and around the world.
As the first of four payments made annually by PPL, royalties paid by PPL provide an important source of income for musicians and labels as part of their overall revenue mix.
According to the “Global Music Report” recently released by IFPI, the global neighboring rights market revenue will grow to US$2.5 billion in 2022, an increase of 8.6% year-on-year, accounting for 9.4% of the global recorded music market.
capital market
>>Kakao becomes the largest shareholder of SM
· On March 27, according to the K-POP industry and the financial investment industry, Kakao’s public acquisition of SM shares exceeded the target amount of 35%.
Therefore, Kakao will surpass the existing largest shareholder HYBE and become the largest shareholder of SM. Through this public acquisition, Kakao and Kakao Entertainment hold 20.78% and 19.13% of SM’s shares respectively, for a total of 39.91%.
Previously, HYBE, which competed to secure the management rights of SM, gave up securing the management rights and decided to sell all the shares of SM Entertainment through Kakao’s public tender. HYBE sold about 6.97% of the 15.8%. Comtus, which holds a 4.17% stake in SM, has also decided to sell its entire stake through this public offer.
>>Turntable LIVE raises $7 million to develop social music platform
· March 28, music technology startup Turntable LIVE has received more than $ 7 million in seed round financing, plans to use the funds to launch its new social music platform.
The new social platform will be announced later this year, and the company also said it is currently working with partners in the music industry to obtain a “fully legal license” for the new product.
Turntable LIVE will be transformed and upgraded in the future, including voice chat, global licensing, and mobile software development. It will feature games, allowing music lovers and artists to play music together on a virtual platform.
The seed round was led by Founders Fund and f7 Ventures, led by a former Facebook executive.
>>Believe acquires the British songwriting copyright company Sentric and enters the songwriting copyright industry
· On March 30, Believe acquired the British songwriting rights company Sentric.
Believe’s acquisition of Sentric is the first step in Believe’s launch of a global integrated songwriting rights management business.
The deal values Sentric at 47 million euros ($51 million), and the new business line will be led by the existing Sentric leadership team, Believe said.
At the same time, Believe said that the integration of Sentric will further strengthen TuneCore’s copyright business for DIY musicians and expand it into new areas.
A year ago, fintech company Utopia Music acquired Sentric. Sentric is a songwriting rights company based in Liverpool, UK, with offices in Europe and the US.
>>Songtradr acquires B2B music company 7digital
On March 31, Songtradr has completed the previously announced £19.4 million ($23.4 million) acquisition of B2B music company 7digital, after the company has secured all necessary regulatory approvals.
The transaction strengthens Songtradr’s position as a major leader in B2B music, making the company the only one-stop music solution for digital platforms and brands worldwide.
7digital provides more than 80 million licensed tracks and provides API services to provide music for applications such as fitness, social, radio, games and background music.
Acquisitions made by Songtradr in recent months include AI metadata and music search company Musicube last June.
Artist News
>>Yang Kun signed a contract with Haole Wuhuang
· On March 27, Yang Kun signed with the music company Haole Wuhuang after 15 years. ” and other works.
In April 2002, Yang Kun released his first personal music album “It Doesn’t Matter”, which included 10 songs including the title song of the same name “It Doesn’t Matter” and the Latin-style “Rio de Janeiro”. The 20th China Song Chart “champion.
On January 17, 2003, won the “Most Popular Newcomer of the Year” at the “10th China Song Ranking Awards Ceremony”; on March 12, 2004, won the “Oriental Music Billboard” Best Male Singer Award of the Year.
Yang Kun has many representative works: “It Doesn’t Matter”, “That Day”, “Empty City”, “Wrangler” and so on.
>>Songtradr acquires B2B music company 7digital
·On March 28, MusicBird, a music copyright investment company, acquired the copyright of English and Scottish songwriter, singer and producer Midge Ure.
According to MusicBird, it has acquired Midge Ure’s personal career and the composition share, master recording and neighboring rights of more than 300 songs in cooperation with artists such as Ultravox and Visage.
A little over a month ago, MusicBird signed a major financing deal with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), securing a loan of up to $100 million to bolster its cash reserves for music rights deals.
Midge Ure teamed up with another musician, Bob Geldof, to create a Christmas charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, which was jointly sung by many well-known artists, including David Bowie and George Michael.
>>A7X cooperates with Ticketmaster to launch NFT gating function
· On March 28, Ticketmaster announced that it has cooperated with the heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold (A7X) to launch the NFT gating function.
This feature can provide NFT holders with optional fan rewards, such as advance ticket purchase, customized seat selection and customized travel packages.
In total, about 1,000 tickets were purchased by users between the two performances featuring NFT gating, according to the band’s lead singer, Matt Sanders. During its purchase process, Ticketmaster will prompt users to connect a wallet in order to verify ownership of one of the eligible NFTs. The subsequent purchase process is the same as usual, except that there will be no queue of 1,000 people, and there will be no scalpers and robots competing for a small number of tickets.
On the same day, Avenged Sevenfold announced the first North American stop of its “Life is But a Dream” tour, and another 13 performances will be held in Chicago, Montreal, Minneapolis and other places. For all 13 shows, specific areas of each venue will be reserved for club members.
>>A7X cooperates with Ticketmaster to launch NFT gating function
· On March 28, Primary Wave Music acquired the recording rights of Bob Burns.
Bob Burns was the original drummer and founding member of the well-known southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.
The acquisition amounted to several million dollars. The deal includes all recording rights to the band’s debut album, Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd’, as well as their second album, Second Helping.
The first album released in 1973 sold more than 2 million copies in the United States alone, and the second album entered the Billboard Top 20 for the first time. These two albums gave birth to the band’s most famous songs, such as “Free Bird” and “Gimme Three Steps”.
>> Joe Hisaishi signed an exclusive agreement with DG Records
· On March 30, DG Records announced the signing of an exclusive agreement with the famous composer Joe Hisaishi.
The agreement covers the entire oeuvre of Hisaishi as composer, conductor and pianist, and DG Records will release his rich and varied music recordings and videos.
His first DG album is a symphonic work he composed based on the soundtracks of the classic cartoons “Spirited Away”, “Princess Mononoke” and “My Neighbor Totoro”. The album, aptly titled A Symphonic Celebration, showcases his remarkable dedication to the art of animated film.
>> Joe Hisaishi signed an exclusive agreement with DG Records
· On March 30, Panamanian singer-songwriter Erika Ender, who wrote “Despacito,” sold her songwriting rights to Hipgnosis Song Management.
Hipgnosis said it acquired the songwriting rights (including its performance share) to all of Ender’s songs published through Sony Music Publishing from 2007 to 2019.
Released in January 2017, “Despacito” was the first Spanish-language song to top the Billboard singles chart. To date, the song has accumulated 1.53 billion plays on Spotify and a staggering 8.1 billion plays on YouTube. The song was co-written by Erika Ender and Daddy Yankee.
>> Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away at the age of 71
· On April 2, news came out that musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, known as the “Sakamoto of the world“, died in a hospital in Tokyo on March 28 at the age of 71.
According to an interview with the Japanese media Sponichi, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s agency “Cab” in Japan also confirmed the news.
In the 80’s, Ryuichi Sakamoto achieved worldwide success with the trio “Yellow Magic Orchestra” (YMO). He is also known for his film music, and in 1988 he became the first Japanese to win an Academy Award for Best Original Score in the United States for the film The Last Emperor.
In June 2020, he was diagnosed with rectal cancer that had metastasized to both lungs. Although he continued to battle cancer in his later years, he devoted himself fully to making music.
live entertainment
>> Official announcement of Bai Jugang’s “Daydream·Running to You” tour
· On March 27, Bai Jugang’s “Daydream · Running to You” 2023 national tour was officially announced, starting in six cities, including Shanghai, Chengdu, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Changsha, and Beijing.
>> Liu Ruoying’s “Flying Day” Tour Concert Hangzhou Station Official Announcement
On March 27th, Liu Ruoying’s “Flying Day” tour concert in Hangzhou was officially announced, and the concert will be held at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium on April 5th.
>>Jacky Cheung 2023 World Tour Concert Official Announcement
On March 30, Jacky Cheung 2023 World Tour Concert – Jacky Cheung Jacky Cheung 60+ Concert Tour official announcement. The first is June 9 at the Cotai Arena, The Venetian Macao.
song of the week
· On March 20th, NMIXX released the album “expérgo”, which contains 6 songs in total and was released by JYP Entertainment.
·On March 27, Dou Jingtong’s first Mandarin album “Spring Outing”, the first teaser single “Mondy”, was released on KC DIGITAL with lyrics and music composed by Dou Jingtong.
·On March 27th, IVE released the official first album “Kitsch”, written by 이스란, composed by Ryan Jhun, and released by Starship.
· On March 27, YOASOBI released the single “セブンティーン (Seventeen)”, composed by Ayase and released by YOASOBI studio.
·On March 28, NINEONE and 99 God collaborated to release the single “A&A”, which was composed by NINEONE and 99 God and released by Sony Music.
·On March 28, New Pants released a new EP “Sad Punk”, which contains a total of 4 songs, and the release is accelerated.
·On March 28, Chinese rap brand SFNT’s first Cypher single “SFNT Cypher” was launched. Tizzy T, CHOCKEY Yousan, Crazy C, and HEAT J co-created and performed it, and SFNT released it.
· On March 30, Fu Jing released the single “Exchanging Gifts”, Ge Dawei wrote the lyrics, Wei Ruxuan composed the music, and Wisdom Dog released it.
· On March 30th, Zhao Pinlin released his solo single “Imperfect Proposition” after two years. Zhou Mengyi wrote the lyrics, Xixing composed the music, and released it on Tencent Music.
· On March 30th, Wu Yuheng released his first personal creation EP “Daydreams”, which contains 3 songs and was released by Sony Music.
· On March 31, Qing Lian released a new song “Tonight”. Qing Lian wrote the lyrics and composed the music, and Bai Mi Fan released it.
· On March 31, Yu Wenwen released his fourth album “It’s Me”, which contains a total of 9 songs and was released by Warner Music.
· On March 31, the original soundtrack of the TV series “It’s Just Love” was launched. The soundtrack of the original soundtrack was produced by Chen Xueran, and the 6 OSTs were sung by Rainie Yang, Liu Yuning, Guo Jing and others, and released by Youth Flowers.
· On March 31, JISOO released his first solo album “ME”, which contains 2 new songs and was released by YG Entertainment.
·On March 31st, aespa’s first OST “Hold On Tight” was launched, with lyrics written by Aaron Hibel, combined with the classic accompaniment of the classic game Tetris, and released by Warner Bros. PLG.
·On March 31, Charlie Puth and Dan + Shay jointly released a new single “That’s Not How This Works (feat. Dan + Shay)”, written and composed by Charlie Puth, and released by Warner Music.
· On March 31, Anson Seabra released the single “Kryptonite”, Anson Seabra wrote lyrics, Jackson Foote composed music, and Seabra Songs released it.
· On April 1st, Sha Yiting EL released a new song “syt=see you tomorrow”, written by Sha Yiting EL and released on W8VES.
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