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One Liners: Tom DeLonge, Beggars Group, HMV, more

By and | Published on Tuesday 7 January 2020

Tom Delonge

DEALS

Having had a couple of weeks off for mince pies, the Hipgnosis Songs Fund is back in acquisition mode. Its first deal of the year is for the catalogue of former Blink 182 guitarist Tom DeLonge. “It is an honor”, says DeLonge. “It’s an honour”, adds Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis, correcting DeLonge’s spelling. Sorry Tom, the u is a deal breaker.

Beggars Group, Domino Records and Saddle Creek have all switched their physical distribution in the US over to Redeye. Martin Mills, the boss of Beggars, who previously allied with Warner’s ADA on physical distribution Stateside, said that, “although he was sorry to leave ADA … now that physical is such a small and decreasing part of the majors’ business, for indies, to whom physical, and especially vinyl, is so much more important, to partner with the majors for distribution has become arguably anachronistic”.

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LABELS & PUBLISHERS

Warner Music has announced the opening of Warner Music Turkey, in partnership with local company Doğan Music. “We believe this relationship will have a sustainable impact on Turkey’s music industry and will be a big step in achieving a greater worldwide presence for Turkish artists”, says Doğan CEO Samsun Demir.

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APPOINTMENTS

Just before Christmas, cross-sector trade group UK Music announced Andy Edwards as its new Director Of Research And Analysis. “His years of experience across the industry and his previous involvement in UK Music, including on our Research Working Group, make him a welcome and invaluable addition to the excellent team at UK Music”, says outgoing CEO Michael Dugher.

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ENTERTAINMENT RETAIL

Nearly a year of from its rescue by Sunrise Records, HMV has announced that about ten of its stores will close at the end of the month, pending efforts to negotiate down rents with landlords. In most cases talks with landlords are ongoing, though the retailer says in some cases “extortionate” business rates have made existing sites unviable. Previous HMV owner Hilco also used to regularly reshuffle its store portfolio to keep the total rent bill down and also blamed business rates for making high street trading particularly challenging.

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RELEASES

Back in October Justin Bieber promised to rush release his new album in time for Christmas if an Instagram post got 20 million likes. The post was then quietly deleted and no new album emerged. But he has now put out a new single called ‘Yummy’.

Michael Stipe has released new solo single ‘Drive To The Ocean’. Revenues from the track will be donated to climate change charity Pathway To Paris.

Kvellertak are back with new single ‘Crack Of Doom’, featuring Mastodon’s Troy Sanders. The band will release new album ‘Splid’ – their first with new vocalist Ivar Nikolaisen – on 14 Feb.

Novelist has released new track ‘Active’, the first of 52 he intends to release over the course of this year.

Field Music have shared new single, ‘Do You Read Me?’ – borne out of a project with the Imperial War Museum, the title references the first time a human voice was transmitted via radio from an aeroplane to the ground in 1917.

Check out our weekly Spotify playlist of new music featured in the CMU Daily – updated every Friday.



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