HITS ' HIGH 5: HISTORY LESSON

While the world was watching a U.S. presidency go off the rails and rednecks learned their first Latin phrase (that would be quid pro quo) this year, we were busy watching the music business stream along.

IB Bad pushed rewind on the efforts of the big three, reporting on Sir Lucian Grainge’s dominant Universal Music Group, Rob Stringer’s second full year atop the Sony Music empire and the changes at Warner Music.

Here are the year’s Top 50 Albums and Top 50 Songs.

The Recording Academy Diversity & Inclusion Task Force issued recommendations for the Recording Academy that include a restructure of its Board of Trustees and potential changes in the Grammy Award voting process. They also had thoughts about how the music industry could do better. And of you’re trying to remember how this all got started, reach back two years to this issue of HITS.

Harvey Mason Jr. is part of the new power at the Grammys, an effective partner for chief Deborah Dugan as they plan a soup-to-nuts realignment of the Recording Academy. We called his office and he answered his phone.

Merck Mercuriadis used his latest bankroll to bring the catalogs of Jack Antonoff and Jeff Bhasker into his Hipgnosis Songs. The company deliver a report on how things have gone this year.