RECORDS HITTING THE QUAN: UPDATE

UPDATE: Although the signing derby went into extra innings, Barry Weiss' new RECORDS label is now the label of record for @iHeartMemphis and his red-hot "Hit the Quan."

This is how trendy music breaks in 2015: social media. Proof positive is the song "Hit The Quan," from @iHeartMemphis, a party promoter from Memphis who created it based on a dance craze initiated by rapper Rich Homie Quan, which RECORDS (the recordings venture of SONGS Music Publishing) nabbed after a big, protracted bidding war.

The track went viral as the #HitTheQuan dance challenge grew over the summer, with many famous artists participating along with the public and everyone uploading their routines to Vine and Instagram. From June to September, the song had reached 25,575,602 plays on Soundcloud (before being pulled down) and almost 20 mil on YouTube, fueling the aforementioned high-rolling derby.

In other record news, Columbia has upstreamed the Chainsmokers' "Roses" featuring ROZES, which was started at RAL by Tom Carrabba and Bob Weil.