Vol 66 - You're re-reading my newsletters, acting obsessed

Happy Friday,

Downtown goes Universal, Mr. Worldwide goes for a world record & Hannah Montana + Hilary Duff comebacks are underway.

Have thoughts on this week’s news? Just hit reply.

New Music Friday

What you need to know about today’s new releases

🎶 New albums and EPs from Megan Moroney, Baby Keem, Hilary Duff, spilltab, WILLOW, Mumford & Sons, U2, YUNGBLUD, Sports, alexsucks, Choker…

♪ Notable singles from Lana Del Rey, Twenty One Pilots, Yebba, Ty Dolla $ign & Leon Thomas, Jorja Smith, Jessie Ware, Chloe Qisha, Cannons, Tiffany Day, Snail Mail…

Each week, we go through Spotify’s New Music Friday playlists to highlight releases you should know about…

#1 - Megan Moroney releases her 3rd studio album including new track ‘Medicine,’ produced by Kristian Bush.

#2 - Lana Del Rey drops her first track of the year ‘White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter,’ which features a music video where she puts her head in an oven and a cameo from her husband.

#4 - Baby Keem, Kendrick Lamar & Momo Boyd are ‘Good Flirts’ off Keem’s sophomore project Ca$ino, which drops today.

#7 - WILLOW has returned with her latest album petal rock black, which includes track ‘ear to the cocoon,’ one of this week’s NMF picks.

#8 - Thundercat lets Mac Miller shine on posthumous collab ‘She Knows Too Much’

#12 - Mumford & Sons and Gracie Abrams team up on ‘Badlands’ on Mumford’s new album Prizefighter. Other collabs on the album include Hozier, Chris Stapleton, Gigi Perez and more.

⭐ #54 - Choker releases his first project in 8 years, Heaven Ain’t Sold with ‘Good’ landing a spot on NMF.

#98 - Tiffany Day wants to ‘START OVER’ on her newest track (via broke? 👀)

⭐ = our pick of the week. Usually an under the radar artist to keep an eye on.

The Schedule

Notable upcoming releases

BLACKPINK, Bruno Mars, Gorillaz, The Head And The Heart, Andrew Bird, Carpenter Brut, Inner Wave, Iron & Wine, Paul McCartney, Ritt Momney, Rob Zombie, Tinlicker, Rob Zombie, Morrissey, Maria BC, Crooked Fingers, Voxtrot all have new projects expected to come out next week.

Labi Siffre, Foo Fighters, YUNGBLUD, Charley Crockett, Yaya Bey, Grace Ives, Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds, Lykke Li, Ryan Bingham, Irreversible Entanglements, Shinedown, A Place To Bury Strangers, Rodney Atkins, Visible Cloaks, Rachel Lime, Hrishikesh Hirway, Ana Roxanne, Stuck, Laura Misch, Dusty Black, Whipped Cream, Jay Buchanan all announced new albums this week.

ICYMI

Industry news that mattered this week

The free and virtual Measure of Music Conference starts today - make sure you sign up now!

Manchester Orchestra drummer Tim Very passed away at 42. Casey Wasserman plans to sell the talent agency following intense scrutiny over his appearance in the Epstein files. UMG and Virgin Music Group completed their acquisition of Downtown Music. Anna’s Archive released a new round of torrents from its Spotify scrape, this time including actual music files. Google launched its “most advanced” AI music generator yet. Attorneys General from California and Connecticut signaled that they are willing to try Live Nation on antitrust charges even if the DOJ decides to settle its lawsuit. Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show led to a 245% spike in travel searches for Puerto Rico. Miley Cyrus will reprise her role as Hannah Montana for a 20th Anniversary special on Disney+. A fan sued Donny Osmond after suffering a “traumatic retinal injury” at his Vegas residency. TikTok unveiled a Charli xcx hub for the new “Wuthering Heights” soundtrack. Taylor Swift introduced ‘Blade Angels: Three American showgirls on ice’ in a new video. Gene Simmons doesn’t want Hip-Hop artists in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Ray J performed with bleeding eyes amidst his recent health struggles; he was later accused of using fake blood.

small print

Updates on companies, acquisitions, takeovers and more

• UMG partners with direct-to-fan platform EVEN

• SeatGeek announces Spotify integration

• Artist First and AWAL announce strategic partnership

• Hook raises $10M series A to scale fan creation tools

• MusicBird acquires catalog of R&B duo Majid Jordan

• Openstage makes ticketing tool used by megastars available to all artists

• Culture Wave integrates Polarizer Management

• Gigantic Tickets signs primary ticketing deal with Crosstown Concerts

• YouTube Music introduces AI playlist creation tool for premium users

• Independent Franchise Partners takes $1.2BN+ stake in UMG

• Blaze James launches Arduous Records with Virgin Music

• PRS For Music will not factor UK grassroots levy into licensing calculations

• Deezer unveils ‘Flow Tuner,’ promises users greater control over the algorithm

• Sony Group launches new tech to track copyrighted material in AI-generated music

• Apple Music launches full-length streams and listening parties within TikTok

Group Chat

The section that’ll probably get us in trouble one of these days

life is a flat circle

billboard finally tackling spotify’s per stream rates instead of doing glam shoots with its playlist editors

are we ready for this convo yet??

Is the music industry boring right now?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes (38%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ No (23%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Are you freaking kidding me 🍿 (31%)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I actually don't work in the music biz, I just love this group chat section (8%)

The Live World

Tour, festival and other live news

🎸 Biggest tours announced this week: J. Cole, RÜFÜS DU SOL, The Kid Laroi, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, James Blake

In perhaps the most important news in the live world this week, Pitbull will be attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people wearing bald caps at his BST Hyde Park set this July. The attempt follows the long-standing trend of attendees wearing a bald cap, black suit, and sunglasses to his shows.

Backstreet Boys announced 6 more dates of their Sphere residency this summer with the band landing back in the immersive venue starting mid-July.

As if a Best Album GRAMMY and headlining Super Bowl LX wasn't enough, Bad Bunny will now headline Spotify's first Asia edition of its Billions Club Live series in Tokyo. Benito has had 28 songs cross the billion mark and last year he landed No. 1 Global Top Artist on Spotify (for the fourth time). This will be the star's first time performing in Asia.

🎟️ Festival Headlines:

• Meltdown Festival has found its new curator in Harry Styles, who will headline this year's event, which will be the 75th anniversary of its venue Southbank Centre. Harry explained his goal "is to share the music and art that I love, and to celebrate the rich history of the venue"

• Down under, FISHER revealed his curated lineup for OUT 2 LUNCH, with performances from Gorgon City & more. Debuting in 2024, this year's festival has expanded across four Australian cities, kicking off in Melbourne this May

• Dallas' Breakaway Music Festival announced its stacked lineup with FISHER, Disclosure, Eli Brown, SOFI TUKKER & more confirmed for this April

• Garth Brooks, Don Toliver, Post Malone, Jelly Roll & more will headline Summerfest 2026

• Bourbon & Beyond returns to Kentucky with headlining performances from Foo Fighters, Mumford & Sons, and Chris Stapleton

• Train's 9th edition of Sail Across the Sun will leave the harbor next February, traveling from Miami to Jamaica across 5 days. Jet, KT Tunstall, and Lisa Loeb will perform amongst others

Fresh Ink

Interesting artist signings

After amassing over 4B streams, electronic duo Loud Luxury announced they have expanded their management team to include Moe Shalizi and Scott Marcus of The Shalizi Group. They’ll join Northside Artist Management, led by Talal Farisi, Adrian Simon & Jackson Partrich who has been with the group since 2015.

Southern rock & blues artist Marcus King has signed with new management at Electric Feel with Ashton Chryssicas and Austin Rosen jumping aboard his team. The 29-year-old dropped his latest album, Darling Blue, last fall and begins his Waltz Across Texas tour this coming May.

2024 GRAMMY Best New Artist Victoria Monét joined Caroline Yim, Sam Kirby Yoh, Scott Mantell & Matt Reinberg’s UTA touring roster for North America this past week. The R&B artist will continue to be repped by WME for the rest of the world and is slated to join Bruno Mars in the summer on The Romantic Tour across Europe.

Blu DeTiger has teamed up with Brandon Goodman and Danny Rukasin of BEST FRIENDS. for management. The 2026 Future of Bass award winner dropped her debut album All I Ever Want Is Everything in 2024 via Capitol (she’s now independent) and has opened for artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, Charlie Puth, Bleachers & more.

Rising R&B artist Isaia Huron has signed with RCA Records in partnership with SLANG who released his previous projects. He released his first single via the new agreement last week, ‘W.T.A.’, which acts as a preview for his upcoming album, Mr. Lovebomb, coming later this year.

Belgian indie rock group The Haunted Youth locked in a record deal with Play It Again Sam. The band, led by Joachim Liebens, released their first single ‘deathwish’ on the label last week and also signed on with WME’s Andy Duggan, Joe Friel, Justin Edwards & Tor Breon for touring in the US & EU.

+115 signings on ROSTR this week

On The Move

New hires, exec moves and other people news

Vivian Wang Donohue joins The ROSTR Group as Chief Growth Officer from Apple, where she led growth across Apple Music and Apple Services.

HYBE AMERICA's Nashville division rebranded as Blue Highway Records, appointing Jake Basden as CEO.

Virgin Music Group has completed its acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings, naming Downtown CEO Pieter van Rijin as COO of VMG.

TEG Live appointed Brad Turcotte as Senior VP of Country, operating out of the company's Nashville office.

Patron Saints of Music appointed Allie Moskovits as Head of Sync & Business Development. Moskovits joins from BMG, where she led the TV & Film production music department.

Various Artists Management made a wave of senior appointments at its London HQ, naming Rebecca Dixon Global Head of Marketing & Strategy, Keyleigh Ramchand-Bentley General Manager UK, Kelley Fox Sr. International A&R, and promoting George Shepherd to Associate Director.

Boutique management company Culture Wave announced the integration of Polarizer Management, adding Ryan Cunningham and Mike Bingham, promoted Rachel Hacken to Artist Manager, and brought on several new hires across touring, day-to-day, and digital marketing.

Secretly Distribution named longtime COO Chris Welz as Partner after two decades with the company, where he's helped build its global physical operations and digital services into a business now exceeding tens of billions of streams.

• AXS named Henrik Berndtson as Head of Nordics, based in Stockholm.

• Oli Welch has been appointed Head of A&R at dance music label Ministry of Sound.

• Cobra Agency hired Christina Austin (formerly UTA) and Stephen Moss (founder of Echelon Artists) as agents in the UK, as the Austria-based rock and metal booking agency expands its international footprint.

• Country Music Hall of Fame promoted Maggie Banker to Sr. Director of Marketing, Denise Alvis to Director of HR, Nancy Cason to Assoc. Director of Guest Experience, and Meredith Rife to Assoc. Director of Social Media.

• Milestone Collective promoted Nick Weakley to Social Media Manager.

Dope Jobs

Interesting jobs in music

• Director of Business Strategy at HYBE America in Santa Monica

• Sr. Director, Business & Legal Affairs, North America & LATAM at BMG in LA

• Sr. Sales Executive, Performing Arts at Opendate (Anywhere)

• Sr. A&R at Because Music in Paris

• Senior Manager, Finance (Record Label & Distribution) at Roc Nation in NY

↗ Find these and 300+ open roles at Jobs by ROSTR

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