Taeko Saito joins SONGS

There has been much movement in the music publishing world over the last few weeks, including the move for Taeko Saito from working at producer management operation AAM, into the A&R department at SONGS Music Publishing.  Also new to SONGS is Josh Feingold, who comes to the boutique pubco from SESAC’s Los Angeles office… Meanwhile, after unloading much of the creative staff absorbed in the takeover of Chrysalis, who truth be told were more than exemplary in their talent-spotting, development and artist relations skills, BMG Rights Management has added Jon Sidel on the west coast and Kate Hyman out east to their creative department. And of course Bertlesmann announced a change at the top, with Thomas Rabe succeeding as the new CEO… In related news, former Bug Music CEO John Rudolph left the company following BMG’s recent purchase of the publishing outfit, while elsewhere, former Chrysalis North American president Kenny MacPherson and A&R VP Jamie Cerreta are rumored to be eyeing the void left in the independent music pubco sector after all the recent acquisitions – be on the lookout for more moves from the veteran publishers… Last week came the announcement that Evan Lamberg is to take the helm at Universal Music Publishing Group in North America. Insiders share that Lamberg was gunning hard for the position, though he probably wasn’t the first choice, as it was no secret that the top Universal brass took their time after numerous meetings with other suitors… And on the digital side, J Scavo ankles his global marketing position at the seemingly more stable Disney Music Group for the revolving door position that is digital at Warner Bros. Records. The digital executive bailed for the rival label, a hop-skip and a jump across the river in Burbank, after barely 18 months working for the Mouse. It was Scavo, previously the GM at MySpace Records and a vocal champion for non-traditional label models, who with his decision to suddenly resign to work at Disney, provided the spark for News Corp. to initiate moves to lay off the label’s staff and shutter it as an ongoing operation. Robbie Snow has been named the new Head of Global Marketing for Disney’s music operations under Hollywood Records… And Brett Greenberg has joined Crush Management as VP of radio promotions.

Jobs set to unveil iCloud

Apple has announced that Steve Jobs will participate in the company’s WWDC developers conference next week, and that his presentation will indeed include iCloud, Apple’s new cloud service offering. While music will only be a part of the new iCloud features, in music and tech circles the streaming-music component has been receiving a lot of attention recently with the reports of Apple securing licensing deals with three of the four major labels, leaving agreements with Universal Music and major music publishers as the final pieces to the puzzle.  While unlikely, it’s possible that music could be left out of the presentation, or abbreviated, if the remaining deals aren’t reached in time, but a bigger question on industry minds is how much of a ‘game changer’ an iTunes cloud component will be. While exciting to those watching the space over the last few years, the reality is that at least initially, the offering may be less exciting when actually unveiled. The so-called ’scan and match’ component is a fait-accompli at this point, but will the ability to access one’s music from the cloud be limited to music purchased from the iTunes store, and how will users be able to include past purchases if that’s the case? Given that Google was reportedly offering the labels as much as $100 million to get licenses in place for their music service, and still came to an impasse over piracy, it’s not hard to imagine that Apple’s new service will come with some sizable limitations. This again will leave those taking a wider view of the changing industry landscape to soon be reiterating the slow process of evolving, and that along the way there will be benchmarks, but not any one watershed moment…  Amazon, who released their new Cloud Drive service without label deals in place, gave a two-day digital offering last week of Lady Gaga’s new release for $0.99, which helped boost consumer recognition for the music service as well as make Born This Way the first million-plus selling debut in quite some time.  While a variety of aspects to (and results of) the promotion have been debated, what might get the most attention is the artist’s own admission that she believes 99-cents is a worthy price and value for a digital album…. Elsewhere, Disney Music chairman Bob Cavallo has announced that he will retire in January of next year, with Ken Bunt tapped to takeover the reins upon Cavallo’s departure… And Coachella Festival founder Paul Tollett expounded upon the decision by Goldenvoice to offer back-to-back festival weekends in 2012, in an interview with Billboard, saying, “We feel that there will be even more that want to go, so we’re trying to create more room for them. The options would be to sell more tickets on one weekend or have two weekends, and [the latter] is the option we went with.” Event producers are attempting to offer identical lineups for both weekends.

In a post last week we mentioned the departure of J Scavo from his role as GM at MySpace Records after being tapped for a digital marketing position at Hollywood Records.  In a seemingly unrelated turn of events, the following day word began to leak that bigger changes were afoot at the label and that a significant portion of the MSR staff was being let go. From there rumors and speculation as to the label’s future and potential demise began to fly, ranging from a slow “wind-down,” to being restructured as primarily an A&R source for its major label partner Interscope Records.

Many reports cited MSR’s likely transition into its originally intended function as an A&R source, though it’s unclear how that might work with the reduction including staff from that very department. Additionally, some are wondering what the future holds for the A&R and artist development-focused program MySpace Friends & Family, which now includes over 100 artists.  While it’s true the initial hiring priority at the label was in artist & repertoire, which is not unusual, a fully-functioning label was then assembled around that.

And what about the artists signed to the label?  Reports last week all similarly stated that MSR acts appear to be out of harm’s way despite all the big changes.  But with the presumed transformation, how can that be?  Surely some of the MSR roster could be folded into Interscope, however it seems unlikely that would be the case for all of their artists, particularly those without any sales history or those unfitting to that major label’s very selective artist mold.

Will MySpace’s principle focus be put into the struggling MySpace Music platform while MySpace Records becomes just a logo on the back of future releases?   That and many other questions still remain, though undoubtedly more answers will be revealed over the coming months. Stay tuned…

Chiddy Bangin on BBC Radio 1

It was one-year ago today that we published our ‘welcome back & happy new year‘ piece for 2009, so a post-holiday roundup and a look at the early action in 2010 on this date only seems fitting.

Taking up the digital marketing reins at Hollywood Records is J Scavo, who exits his GM position at MySpace Records where he was integral in promotions like Toyota Rock the Space and Wendy’s Fresh Faces, as well as the signing of artists such as Christina Milian and Meiko among others… It appears things are heating up stateside for Philly’s Chiddy Bang with the Crush-managed artist being signed by EMI in the UK and their track “The Opposite of Adults” getting spun regularly on Radio 1.  Another early contender for one of the new year’s first bidding-derby acts is TMills, as we hear major-label heads are lining up to showcase the tattooed auto-crooner… Distorted electro-duo Sleigh Bells appear to be closing a deal with indie shop Mom & Pop, while Austin’s Ume is being courted by multiple big-indies on opposite coasts. Stay tuned…

In other updates, the next New Music Seminar will take place in Los Angeles on February 2nd, and will feature Spotify founder Daniel Ek as keynote speaker and numerous panelists including Ian Rogers, Alex Patsavas, Jason Bentley and Kevin Lyman to name a few… And in case you missed this holiday reading, checkout And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records, the new inside account of the influential and infamous record label was penned by label co-founder Larry Harris.