STATE OF THE STATE: BMLG
Who else but Scott Borchetta could’ve conceived of the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, which drew north of 110k spectators for its kickoff event? Of course, the rumbling of engines is a regular sound wherever he goes. Ever the drivers of new developments in the music space, Borchetta and his inner circle—BMLG CMO Mike Rittberg, BMLG Records President & CEO Jimmy Harnen, Sandi Borchetta, Valory President George Briner and Big Machine Records GM Clay Hunnicutt—had a tiger in their tank thanks to Carly Pearce, who was named CMA Female Vocalist of the Year and ACM Female Artist of the Year in recognition of her breakthrough album, 29: Written in Stone.
Pearce’s “Never Wanted to Be That Girl” was one of several big #1s for the HYBE America-owned label group, along with Thomas Rhett’s “Slow Down Summer” and Aaron Lewis’ “Am I the Only One.” Valory/Big Machine’s Rhett, for his part, released a new album, Where We Started, and earned a Best Country Song Grammy nomination for his “Country Again.”
BMLG has also seen drops from Midland (who, true to company form, also rolled out their own tequila, Insólito), Lady A, Jackson Dean, Riley Green, Justin Moore, Conner Smith, Eli Young, Calista Clark and the legendary Sheryl Crow, the latter’s crafted especially for the acclaimed Showtime documentary Sheryl.
Artist signings include Florida Georgia Line co-founder Brian Kelley, Conner Smith, Tiera Kennedy, Mackenzie Carpenter, Shane Profit, rockers The Struts and Starcrawler, Violet Saturn and Kristian Bush. BMLG also cemented a partnership with Blac Noize! to sign and develop acts in hip-hop and R&B worldwide.
Publishing division Big Machine Music marked its 10-year anniversary; the Mike Molinar-led division has had 45 #1 hits during that span.
Rick Myers came aboard as SVP Finance, Ryan Dokke was tapped as VP Promotion & Marketing and Erin D.D. Burr ascended to VP of Communications. Their announcements were especially poignant in the original Korean. We kid!
Oh, and lest we forget, please enjoy Big Machine Distillery’s Platinum-Filtered Premium Vodka responsibly; don’t drink and drive your race car at the same time. Thank you.
