From JT to Gaga, This Q4 Is Brimming With Star Power, but Is There a Blockbuster in the Field?
As the music business enters Q4, a clash of the titans is shaping up among three hot label groups, each of them holding a pair of potential trump cards.
The competition began in earnest on Tuesday with the release of
Drake’s latest, which some retail watchers expect to the biggest album of the fall; midweek retail reports suggest that it will sell around
700k in its first week for
Monte Lipman’s new-release-marketshare leader
Republic, on
Slim and Baby’s
Young Money/Cash Money. Republic follows that blockbuster next Tuesday (9/30), with exploding newcomer
Lorde, through
Jason Flom’s
Lava, whose first-week estimates are rising daily; many now believe the total could land just south of 200k.
Peter Edge’s
RCA, the #2 label, counters on 9/30 with the second
Justin Timberlake LP of 2013, with a 500k+ bow anticipated, followed a week later by the label debut of
Miley Cyrus (with first-week estimates now in the mid-200s). In her radical transformation, the former teen star has become a pop-culture phenomenon and a force of nature as well as a singles machine—last week alone, her two tracks collectively moved nearly
580k. But few others in the business had the belief in Cyrus’ potential that Edge and
Tom Corson did at the time they signed her. Now, of course, what initially appeared to be a risky deal looks like a stroke of genius on the part of the ruling duo.
The third superpower,
Jimmy Iovine’s
IGA, the TEA leader year-to-date, will make a late charge with
Eminem on 11/5 (early projection: 700k) and
Lady Gaga on 11/11 (400-500k). The most anticipated indie release will be from
Merge’s
Arcade Fire (10/29), which some believe could go as high as 200k.
The
Clear Channel brain trust—
Bob Pittman,
John Sykes and
Tom Poleman—did exactly what they set out to do with the third edition of the
iHeartRadio Music Festival, cementing the
iHeart brand and setting the stage for its further expansion via a country fest, TV show and music player. It was Pittman, by the way, who made the streaming-rate deal with
Warner Music’s
Rob Wiesenthal, which could save CC tens of millions in the long haul. Insiders say neither
UMG nor
Sony Music is expected to follow suit in the near term.
Pandora’s legal victory over
ASCAP last week, in which a judge ruled that the org must comply with the blanket streaming rate negotiated in its five-year deal with the Internet-radio operator, barring a successful appeal, could ultimately have a dramatic impact on ASCAP,
BMI and
SESAC, in that the publishers could opt to bypass them altogether. As one publisher noted, putting the situation in perspective, not even Lady Gaga could pay the rent off of her streaming revenues now, but that could change significantly down the line. As for Pandora, this win could turn out to be less significant than the appearance of the 800-pound gorilla that is
iTunes Radio in terms of its own survival.
Just 10 months after
Steve Barnett was chosen by UMG chieftain
Lucian Grainge to take the reins of the former
EMI Recorded Music operation in the U.S., the renamed
Capitol Music Group is heating up. Last week, for the first time in recent memory, the
Capitol label has snagged the top two positions on the Mediabase Pop charts, with
Katy Perry’s “Roar” at #1 and
Capital Cities’ “Safe and Sound” at #2.
CMG has also benefited from the A&R expertise of its affiliate, the
Ted Cockle-led
Virgin U.K., which is responsible for
Emeli Sandé (whose debut album is nearing 400k in TEA stateside) and
Bastille (whose first album bowed at #11 behind 34k two weeks ago), with
Naughty Boy (whose “La La La” already a massive worldwide hit) on deck. CMG has been steadily gobbling marketshare and is now approaching
5.9% in TEA, bolstered by the Cadillac of catalogs, including
The Beatles,
Beach Boys,
Rolling Stones and
Sinatra.
Ivan Gavin,
Barry Weiss’ longtime consigliore, left his post as COO of
Republic & Island Def Jam last Friday (9/20) in what some insiders are calling an elective early retirement. The polarizing Gavin worked with Weiss during
Jive/Zomba’s glory years in the ’90s and at RCA during the last decade before following him to UMG in November 2011.
The ratings for the first two weeks of
The X Factor have been steadily slipping in what most observers believe is the make-or-break season for the U.S. edition of the
Simon Cowell-created musical competition—and this before the other networks’ prime-time hits begin airing new episodes. Could the show be circling the drain?
Names in the rumor mill:
John LoFrumento,
Big Jon Platt,
Atlantic,
Allen Grubman,
Sharon Osbourne and
Randy Phillips.