🌅 Horizon Leaders - Alex Hehir
This week we caught up with Alex Hehir, Managing Director of Wixen Music UK, one of the most respected independent music publishers, known for its artist-first ethos.…
US Supreme Court can’t overturn landmark termination rights ruling, because too many judges have book deals with BMG sister company Penguin Random House
An attempt by the major music publishers and BMG to persuade the US Supreme Court to overturn a landmark songwriter-friendly termination rights ruling has failed, because of BMG’s involvement. Basically, too many Supreme Court judges have published books with BMG sister company Penguin Random House…
🎧 Approved: Rayland Baxter
Son of Bob Dylan’s pedal steel player, Tennessee’s Rayland Baxter makes dusty, unhurried alt-country. New single ‘Up And Down A Mountain’ is glorious - toe-tapping and loose - about the chaos of falling in and out of love. New album ‘True Violet’ is also out this Friday…
The three big debates around music and generative AI
This Friday, CMU’s Chris Cooke will join a panel discussion at Un-Convention on music and AI. Generative AI models that output music pose lots of questions for the music industry, which can make such discussions complex. Here we organise all the questions and issues into three big debates…
As streaming services set out proposals for US songwriter payments post-2027, NMPA labels Amazon “the worst offender”
The US Copyright Royalty Board will next year decide what streaming services should pay songwriters and music publishers in the American market from 2028 to 2032. Most of the services want to keep the current rate, the publishers want an increase, but Amazon is controversially proposing a rate cut…
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CMU Selects - the last week’s standout releases
Our selection of five releases that cut through the noise this week, from The Drums and Genesis Owusu, bed, Shygirk, Fontaines D.C. + Snoh Aalegra…
Polydor President among the senior execs to depart as Universal completes its two year €250 million saving corporate “redesign”
Back in 2024 Universal Music said it would find €250 million in annual savings via a “strategic organisational redesign” that would be complete by the end of 2026. With that deadline looming, yesterday the major announced a series of structural changes with a number of senior execs departing…
🎧 Approved: Radie Peat
Radie Peat of Lankum releases her debut solo album in November, fifteen years in the making. Opening single ‘Hares On The Mountain’ is a beautifully wry and subversive folk song. If The Stranglers had been a folk outfit, this is how they might have done it…
Summer Walker legal drama doubles as she battles to dump management as well as her label
Following the news Universal’s Interscope label is suing Summer Walker after she used California’s seven year rule to exit a record deal early, it’s now come to light that Walker is suing her management firm LVRN in a bid to end her deal with that company too, which she says was onerous and unfair…
🌅 Horizon Leaders - Billy Young
This week we caught up with Billy Young, publicist at 4AD…
UK Copyright Tribunal ruling recognises “increased value of music in cinema” says PRS
A dispute over what royalties cinemas should pay PRS for music contained in the films they screen went before the UK Copyright Tribunal earlier this year. It has ruled in favour of a higher royalty rate which, PRS says, “recognises the increased value of music in the overall cinema experience”…
🎧 Approved: Ex:Re
Elena Tonra’s solo project Ex:Re returns with ‘Sleep’ - demoed alone in a Paris hotel room, acoustic guitar run through a vocoder, late-night and muffled. Second album ‘Save As’ is out 30 Oct. The in-store shows are already sold out…
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