UMG’s historic IPO, the biggest in music-biz history, owes at lest some of its stratospheric numbers to Jody Gerson’s UMPG. Following last year’s gigantic Bob Dylan acquisition, Team Uni—including A&R co-heads David Gray and Walter Jones and freshly promoted Lillia Parsa and Taylor Testa—made a brace of strong signings. Among these: Lionel Richie, Holly Humberstone, Clairo, Louis Bell (with catalog purchase), Tommy Brown, Cirkut, Julia Michaels and more.

UMPG earned Publisher of the Year honors at ASCAP Rhythm & Soul, BMI Latin Awards, SESAC Pop, the Music Week Awards and The Music Network Awards. The pubbery’s Troy Tomlinson-led Nashville office also collected 17 BMI Awards, the most in its history.

Naturally, the pubco’s writers have their fingerprints on several of the year’s biggest songs, notably Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” The Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears” and The Kid LAROI’s “Stay” f/Justin Bieber, the latter co-written by Blake Slatkin and Omar Fedi.

Taylor Swift’s extraordinary year included multiple chart-topping moments for material both new and revived (including the longest #1 song in history, the 10-minute streaming marvel “All Too Well), while Adele scored the top-selling album of 2021 as well as the year’s biggest chart debut. Legends Elton John and ABBA also issued new music—and made impressive noise on the charts.

True to UMG form the pubco extended its global profile, opening up new offices in Shanghai and Israel. The team is savoring a world of possibilities for ’22.