UMG: A Q4 TO DIE FOR

Sir Lucian Grainge’s UMG is enjoying a spectacular Q4, the latest instance of which is J. Cole’s new Dreamville/Roc Nation/Interscope set, now on track for the year’s third-biggest debut.

This follows on the heels of the giant XO/Republic Weeknd set (which surpassed prior monster Drake’s global first-week streams and has now hit 608k SPS), via YMCMB/Republic, and precedes what are expected to be two ginormous soundtracks, Fifty Shades Darker and Sing (also via the ethos). The Fifty Shades sequel ST was kicked off this week by a ZAYN/Taylor Swift single (projected to hit 175-180k). Newly issued Stoney by Post Malone has reached 400k SPS almost entirely on streams and track sales (1.3m of the former, 380m of the latter)

Meanwhile, in addition to the Cole boom, Interscope is enjoying huge singles from Rae Sremmurd (900k+ tracks sold, 300m+ streams), Machine Gun Kelly & Camila Cabello (200k track sales, 31m streams) and Maroon 5 (464k+ tracks, 55m streams).

Shawn Mendes (Island) has also scored bigtime; his Illuminate has earned 183k album sales, 1m+ track sales and 154m steams.

Universal racked up a whopping 55% marketshare on the most recent Song Revenue Chart.

Last year, of course, Adele’s blockbuster XL/Columbia set 25 dwarfed the competition, and the big guns held back. Another big Sony release, from SYCO/Columbia’s One Direction, came in November of 2015. This year, Sony’s biggest quarterly releases are holiday monsters Pentatonix (RCA), the indefatigable Chainsmokers (Disruptor/Columbia) and RCA’s Trolls ST, driven by Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”

Will more major-artist surprises drop by year’s end? We can’t say, but it seems certain that Sir Lucian and company will continue to dominate through year’s end.