MBW Reacts is a sequence of analytical commentaries from Music Enterprise Worldwide written in response to main latest leisure occasions or information tales. Solely MBW+ subscribers have limitless entry to those articles. The under article initially appeared throughout the newest MBW+ Month-to-month Assessment electronic mail, issued solely to MBW+ subscribers.
“Nice minds focus on concepts; common minds focus on occasions; small minds focus on folks.”
This slice of knowledge, usually attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, is one in every of my all-time favourite quotes.
It’s pithy, it’s highly effective, it’s right. It’s a credo to reside by, and I dare say it runs via the veins of MBW.
Now for a magic trick!
Witness my unimaginable shrinking thoughts in 3-2-1…
Okay: let’s discuss Elliot Grainge. Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We…
… is only one basic file from the Nineties that’s older than Grainge Jr., who’s but to show 31. He’s additionally youthful than Doggystyle and Increase! Shake The Room.
Grainge’s youth is clearly no impediment to the religion put in him by Robert Kyncl and WMG’s board, who introduced the opposite week that he’ll turn out to be CEO of Atlantic Music Group in October.
A 30-year-old boss of AMG dramatically reduces the classic of US main label heads. Grainge is half the age of a few of his opponents.
There’s been infinite chatter amongst bizniks about Grainge’s sudden ascent throughout the WMG hierarchy, however, summoning the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt, I battle to seek out a lot of it significant.
- Sure, there’s a nepo-baby dialogue available. Then once more, Grainge has bona fides: on the time WMG invested in Grainge’s 10K Tasks in September 2023, his impartial label had racked up over 30 platinum-certified hits – from artists like XXXTentacion, Ice Spice, Iann Dior, and Trippie Redd. 10K has since delivered successes at WMG like Artemas (present Spotify month-to-month listeners: 33.2 million) and Forrest Frank (5.9m);
- Sure, there’s additionally a dialogue available concerning the mixed market energy of Grainges Jr. and Sr. Then once more, Atlantic Music Group has a home market share in the US of round 7-8% (of all music); throughout your complete globe, AMG’s market share shall be considerably smaller. (A reminder for US-fixated readers: India is heading in the right direction to overhaul the United States because the world’s largest music streaming market by quantity within the subsequent 12 months);
- Sure, as Robert Kyncl lately said, outgoing Atlantic CEO/Chairman Julie Greenwald leaves “large sneakers to fill”, and Warner was duty-bound to ransack the business’s easiest to succeed her. However exactly which different potential candidates have (a) registered as many multi-genre impartial successes these previous few years as Grainge and (b) would even be open to a label CEO job at WMG? (That ‘multi-genre successes’ bit is essential: execs who’ve thrived in a US frontline panorama dominated by hip-hop over the previous decade now see that style’s market share shrinking as nation and Latin music ascend. In accordance with Luminate, ‘hip-hop/R&B’ claimed a 25.8% share of on-demand audio US streams in H1 2024; again in H1 2018, that determine was as excessive as 37.5%.)
So what does curiosity me about Grainge?
How he goes about tackling a big query: What’s the main goal of a US frontline main label in 2024?
I’m not being facetious. Inventory solutions to that query down the years have usually included: ‘To have huge hits, dummy’ and ‘To interrupt international megastars, dummy’.
Nevertheless it’s simply not that straightforward anymore… dummy.
For one factor, the definition of a ‘hit’ retains on getting muddier, exacerbated by labels’ ceaseless obsession with short-term markers of success (aka: weekly charts).
Meals for thought: Luke Combs is a celebrity. He sells out stadiums, is one in every of Sony Music‘s largest international money-makers, and even has his personal British tribute act (actual identify Liam).
The RIAA simply introduced that two of Combs’ songs (When It Rains It Pours and Hurricane) have surpassed Diamond standing within the US.
But neither of those tracks ever obtained increased than No.30 on the Billboard Sizzling 100.
So are they ‘hits’ or not?
In the meantime, an rising variety of new artists are apparently having ‘hits’. Spotify introduced final month that 79 acts charted in its World Prime 50 chart for the primary time in H1 2024 – greater than the equal interval in 2023 (63), 2022 (65), 2021 (54), and 2020 (41).
Bloomberg suggests these numbers inform us that ‘new pop stars are breaking out for the primary time in years’.
However additionally they would possibly inform us that, pushed by streaming, TikTok, and all that jazz, shopper consideration is flitting between extra new artists than ever earlier than – ravenous rising acts of the sustained public consideration they should turn out to be actually remembered.
Streaming’s disaggregation of listening plus the rise of ‘glocalization’ (native music gaining reputation all over the world) are leaving the winner-takes-all megastar an endangered species.
Because of all of this, may we see the technique of majors like Atlantic Music Group now tip additional in the direction of breaking a better frequency of ephemeral streaming stars – and additional away from ‘pulling each lever’ to start enduring cultural tremendousstars?
That consequence may be a statistical inevitability. In 2022 Warner Music Group confirmed that its 5 largest celebrity acts contributed simply 5% of its recorded music revenues. A decade prior, that quantity was at 15%.
The truth that Meta simply axed premium music movies from Fb – implying that big-budget promos for celebrity artists are a nugatory relic of your uncle’s music biz – solely provides to this narrative.
The chance of the ‘extra stars, fewer superstars’ technique at main labels, in fact, is that it presents enterprising independents (see: EMPIRE, Pulse/Harmony, Massive Loud, Imagine, Beggars Group and so on.) a greater likelihood of competing.
That is one thing Elliot Grainge and 10K Tasks know very effectively.
In an interview final yr, Grainge mentioned that 10K Tasks may run rings round its bigger competitors as a result of, to him, main labels have been “a conveyor belt with 100 different priorities” and “mediocre-at-best product administration departments”.
Now, as Atlantic Music Group CEO, Grainge will function that conveyor belt and run these departments.
One wonders whether or not, on the prime of his record of priorities, he’s decided to develop and break abiding international megastars – or if he sees such an aspiration as yesterday’s recreation.Music Enterprise Worldwide
