In today's CMU Daily: Vinyl and CD sales continue to grow in the UK, new stats from ERA have confirmed. Non-subscription service revenues in music are up 7.9% so far this year, with music scoring faster growth in this domain than both video and gaming

One Liners: Disney x AudioShake AI, EventTok, Warner’s 300 promotions, Birdsong Bravado, Republic’s double A&R honchos, Deezer jumps on AI playlisting bandwagon, Spotify fires ads staffers, Eilish reads bedtime stories, plus releases, gigs, tours + more

Also today: StubHub IPO is pushed back to the autumn as US anti-touting campaigners ramp up their calls for more regulation; Adult entertainment giant manages to get a web-blocking order out of a US court

Plus: Joalin is CMU Approved

⚡️ Invest in your professional growth with CMU’s new series of on-demand CMU Masterclasses.

This week we’re offering a massive early bird discount. Use the code SUMMER2024 to buy individual sessions at a 50% discount or buy the bundle of all ten sessions for just £189 with the code SUMMERBUNDLE.

👉 Click through to see the full programme and secure your discounted places now.

Want to book for your team? Email [email protected]

CD and vinyl sales continue to grow in the UK, ERA stats confirm

Revenue from UK music sales other than subscription streaming grew by 7.9% in the first half of 2024, outpacing equivalent revenues in both the video and gaming sectors, according to the latest stats from the trade body for entertainment retailers and digital entertainment platforms, ERA.

The total value of non-streaming music sales in the UK, including vinyl, CDs and downloads, reached £163.8 million. Of that headline figure, vinyl sales accounted for £86.3 million, while CD sales brought in £57.9 million. That represents a year-on-year increase of 13.5% for vinyl and 3.2% for CDs, confirming the recent trend of physical music sales stabilising and growing.

Both Record Store Day and Taylor Swift helped boost physical sales in the first half of the year, with Swift scoring the biggest selling album and biggest selling physical single release of the year so far, with ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ and ‘Fortnight’ respectively.

Commenting on the stats, ERA CEO Kim Bayley says, “This is a striking result for music, driven most notably by Taylor Swift and Record Store Day. It was clear back in April the impact they have had on the vinyl sector, but they seem to have lifted the market as a whole too”.

Sentric Music // Revenue Optimisation Manager (London/Liverpool)

Sentric Music // Copyright Manager (Liverpool/London)

Horizon is CMU's new weekly newsletter - published each Friday - that brings you a hand-picked selection of early-stage career opportunities from across the music industry.

Whether you're looking for your first job in music or you're ready to take a step up, Horizon is here to help you find your dream job faster.

👉 Click through to see the current selection.

ONE LINERS

Deals, Appointments, Digital and Legal round-up including: Spotify fires again; Yung Thug judge dismissed; UK AI bill in King’s speech; Bauer’s classical Magic + more

DEALS

Disney Music Group and AudioShake have announced a collaboration to apply stem separation and lyric transcription technologies to Disney’s music catalogue.

Eventbrite and TikTok have a partnership to enable direct ticket purchases through TikTok videos, aiming to boost event discovery.

APPOINTMENTS

Warner Music’s 300 Entertainment has promoted Az Cohen to Vice President, A&R & Research, Janelle Gibbs to Vice President, Publicity, and Tashana Ventura to Vice President, Marketing.

Universal Music merch outfit Bravado has appointed Mallary Birdsong as Senior Director Of Brand Management.

Universal Music’s Republic Records has appointed Miles Beard and David Wolter as co-heads of A&R, reporting to President and Chief Creative Officer Wendy Goldstein.

Shira Perlmutter, the Register Of Copyrights and Director of the US Copyright Office, has announced that Malcolm ‘Hawk’ Hawkins has been appointed Deputy Director Of Operations.

LEGAL

Judge Ural Glanville has been removed from the high-profile racketeering and gang case against rapper Young Thug and others in Atlanta.

The UK’s new Labour government is expected to introduce an artificial intelligence bill this week, fulfilling a manifesto pledge to create binding rules for advanced AI development.

DIGITAL

Deezer has launched a beta test of a new AI-powered feature, Playlist with AI, which it is rolling out to 5% of its paying subscribers globally.

Spotify is cutting 40 jobs globally as it restructures its ad sales division, merging account and campaign management roles, with the cuts affecting 2.7% of the ad sales team.

MEDIA

Bauer Media has announced that its classical music station Scala Radio will be rebranded as Magic Classical from September.

INDUSTRY

The Country Music Association has announced the third class of its Women’s Leadership Academy, a twelve week professional development programme for sixteen high-potential female leaders in the country music industry.

First Artists Management has launched its second UK Composer Assistant and Mentor Programme aimed at empowering aspiring film and TV composers, particularly from underrepresented groups.

ARTIST NEWS

Billie Eilish is set to read Oliver Jeffers’ ‘This Moose Belongs To Me’ for the BBC’s ‘CBeebies Bedtime Stories’.

RELEASES

JPEG MAFIA has released his new single ‘SIN MIEDO’.

The Beaches have released their new single ‘Takes One To Know One’.

Ganavya has collaborated with Nils Frahm on two new singles ‘draw something beautiful’ and ‘ami pana so’dras’.

GIGS & TOURS

London label Sonic Cathedral celebrates its 20th anniversary with a series of one-off live shows featuring headliners Slowdive and Ride.

Jamie Webster has announced a UK and Ireland headline tour, including the O2 Forum Kentish Town on 27 Nov. Tickets go on general sale at 10am this Friday here.

LØLØ has announced a UK and European headline tour, kicking off at Leeds’ Key Club on 22 Oct. Tickets go on general sale at 10am this Thursday here.

StubHub postpones IPO as secondary ticketing regulation back in the spotlight

Secondary ticketing company StubHub has pushed back a planned Initial Public Offering to the autumn, according to sources. The delay comes as artist and fan-led campaigning against ticket resale gains momentum even in the US

StubHub, which operates the StubHub platform in the US and Viagogo everywhere else, has been working with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs on a planned IPO for two years. The company previously filed paperwork confidentially with the US Securities & Exchange Commission and there was speculation that would be made public at the end of last week.

However, sources told Bloomberg that the IPO has now been pushed back until after Labor Day, 2 Sep, because of “stagnant market conditions”.

The current StubHub business was created by the merger of StubHub US and Viagogo in 2020. As part of that merger, StubHub’s international division, which runs the StubHub ticket resale websites outside North America, was spun off as a separate company.

StubHub bosses are aiming for a valuation at listing of at least $16.5 billion, which seems ambitious, though the company is clearly aiming to capitalise on the boom in live music at the upper end of the market. It will also be hoping that the investment community isn’t too concerned about the ongoing campaigns to ramp up the regulation of ticket touting.

Approved: Joalin

Finnish singer and dancer Joalin’s upbringing in a small town in Mexico immersed her in the lively pulse of Latin rhythms. Herein lie the origins of her unique Scandi-pop with a reggaeton underbelly.

Her slinky new single ‘Without You’ is a bilingual banger that weaves between English and Spanish as effortlessly as it does ethereal falsettos and rapping. Set to a pulsating blend of icy synthy pop and sultry Latin beats, Joalin invites you into her world with a playful lament about missing someone – or is it something?

Speaking on the inspiration behind the track, Joalin reveals, “I like to write songs about specific experiences or things in my life. People only I know from a certain perspective, a route only I’ve walked, etc. ‘Without You’ is one of those songs, but I like mystery so I won't reveal the story behind this piece”.

“All I’ll say”, she adds, “is I wrote it last year on a beautiful summer night in Finland, summer is my favourite time of the year. I know anyone that listens to ‘Without You’ can connect it to some personal experience… like a fill in the blank exercise! It’s all yours. What can’t you live without?”

🎧 Watch the video for ‘Without You’

PornHub owner secures web-blocking injunction in the US Courts, sort of

Aylo, owner of the popular adult entertainment platform, has secured a wide-ranging injunction from the US courts which includes a web-blocking order targeting internet service providers. Which is significant, because web-blocking orders against ISPs, an anti-piracy tactic favored by the music industry, are not generally available in the US.

The ruling from the district court in California states that, “internet search engines, web hosting and internet service providers, domain name registrars, domain name registries and other service or software providers are ordered to block, or use reasonable efforts to attempt to block, access by US users” of a website accused of infringing Aylo’s copyrights.

The Californian court found in Aylo’s favour in February and awarded it $2.1 million in damages. Aylo then returned to court seeking the injunction, arguing that the defendant probably wouldn't pay the damages and therefore additional sanctions were required to stop its copyrights from being infringed.