Music

Kobalt Music Removes More Than 700,000 Songs From Facebook and Instagram

Published

8 months ago

July 24, 2022

Kobalt, one of the world’s largest music publishers, has removed its entire 700,000-song catalog from Facebook and Instagram in the United States, a rep for the company confirms to Variety.

The company’s U.S. licensing contract with Meta, parent of the two social-media giants, has expired and the two parties have failed to reach a new deal. Kobalt administers songs by such artists as Paul McCartney, the Weeknd, Foo Fighters, Childish Gambino, Billie Eilish cowriter Finneas, the Chicks, Dierks Bentley, Beck and many others. The news was first reported by Music Business Worldwide.

According to an email sent by Kobalt to songwriters, “Over the course of several months, we’ve worked diligently and in good faith to come to an agreement covering a new license for Kobalt’s repertoire. Unfortunately, fundamental differences remained that we were not able to resolve in your best interests, and as a result Kobalt’s repertoire is in the process of being removed from Meta’s services, including Facebook and Instagram, in the United States. We’ve always stood for songwriters first, and we’re proud to continue to do so. We remain fully committed to reaching an agreement with Meta.” The accuracy of the email was confirmed by a rep for the company.

The move has strong ramifications, as Kobalt is one of the world’s top 5 publishers and often has a larger quarterly share of global hits than some of the three majors. The company estimates that it has a share of more than 40% of the top 100 tracks and albums in an average week in both the U.S. and the U.K.

As noted by MBW, the move comes just a few days after another prominent music rights-holder — Sweden’s Epidemic Sound — filed a $142 million lawsuit against Meta in the U.S., claiming that “the unauthorized use” of its works across Facebook and Instagram “is rampant.”

While these situations are customarily resolved relatively amicably in a matter of weeks or months, with both sides continuing to operate under previous terms until new ones are agreed upon, it is rare for two such massive companies to reach this point in such a major music market, let alone the world’s largest. According to its latest “Music in the Air” report, Goldman Sachs estimates that Facebook contributed 29% of all “emerging platform” advertising revenues paid to the recorded-music industry in 2021.

Read the full article here

Paramount+. Thousands of episodes, live TV & exclusive originals–all in one place. Try it free!

Music

Adele Adds 34 Dates to Las Vegas Residency, Sets June Return

Published

5 hours ago

March 27, 2023

Bobby Borisov

What happens in Vegas is staying in Vegas. Adele has announced that she has extended her Caesars Palace residency, with performances planned through November.

The singer made the announcement Saturday evening during what was originally set to be the final performance of the series. The residency will face a hiatus for three months, returning in the summer on the date of June 16. From there, nearly five months of dates will follow, with a final performance slated for Nov. 4. Registration is currently open for ticket sales.

“Playing to 4,000 people for 34 nights is not enough. I know that, so I am coming back,” Adele told the Caesars Palace audience on Saturday.

The singer also announced that upcoming performances in June will be filmed, with footage being released to the public later on.

“I’ll be back for a few weeks in June, and I’m going to film it,” the singer continued. “I’m going to release it to make sure that anyone who wants to see the show [can].”

The second round of performances comes as a welcome surprise following the residency’s turbulent journey to Caesars Palace. Originally slated to kick off in January 2021, the series was delayed nine months, amid reports that the singer was dissatisfied with the project’s original staging and complications due to COVID-19. Rumors circulated that the residency would shift venues or even be canceled altogether. But after strong reviews and a series of sold-out performances, the singer is ready to double-down on her residency.

Read the full article here

Paramount+. Thousands of episodes, live TV & exclusive originals–all in one place. Try it free!

Music

BTS’ Jimin Snags U.K. Top 40 Hit With ‘Set Me Free Pt 2’

Published

5 hours ago

March 27, 2023

Bobby Borisov

First J-Hope, now BTS’s Jimin has a U.K. top 40 hit as “Set Me Free Pt 2” (via BigHit Entertainment) blasts to No. 30 on the national chart.

The South Korean singer is now the standard-bearer of BTS’s solo members – on the U.K. chart, at least.

As the K-pop superstars’ seven members explore their respective solo careers, he’s the fifth to snag a U.K. top 100 solo hit. Previously, Jungkook’s “Stay Alive” (No. 89), Jin’s “The Astronaut” (No. 61), and RM’s “Indigo” (No. 45) impacted the Official U.K. Singles Chart, while J-Hope’s “On The Street,” a collaboration with J. Cole, recently hit No. 37, until now the high point for a solo single from a BTS band member.

“Set Me Free Pt 2” is lifted from Jimin solo album FACE, which dropped last Friday (March 24).

As a group, BTS has scored nine top 40s, including four U.K. top 10 singles: “Dynamite,” “Butter” and Coldplay collaboration “My Universe” all going to No. 3, and “Life Goes On” hitting No. 10.

On the U.K. albums chart, J-Hope, Jin, Suga, RM, Jimin, V and Jungkook have together landed eight top 40s, including two Official U.K. Albums Chart leaders, with 2019’s Map of the Soul – Persona and 2020’s Map of the Soul – 7.

“Set Me Free Pt 2” is the among the highest debuts on the current chart, published last Friday (March 24). Honors go to Taylor Swift, whose Lover era song “All of the Girls You Loved Before” bows at No. 11. At the top of the survey, Miley Cyrus rides a 10-week streak with “Flowers”.

ARMY will no doubt keenly watch for the debut chart position of Jimin’s FACE. All will be revealed when the national singles and albums charts are published this Friday, March 31.

Read the full article here

Paramount+. Thousands of episodes, live TV & exclusive originals–all in one place. Try it free!

Music

Lana Del Rey’s Albums, Ranked

Published

17 hours ago

March 26, 2023

Bobby Borisov

“Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” Lana Del Rey’s just-released eighth studio album, is a captivating addition to one of music’s most iconic discographies. And, like the seven records that came before it, it’s a beautiful, occasionally confounding mystery that promises to unfurl slowly over the next couple of years.

So, how do you decipher a body of work as multi-layered and mercurial as Del Rey’s — let alone rank it? The short answer is: with great difficulty and a boulder-sized grain of salt.

With a catalog as consistently great as Del Rey’s, it’s not so much about picking the best album. Rather, the goal is measuring ambition, impact on pop culture and influence on peers. As such, the freshly minted “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” is at a distinct disadvantage. Time will tell if it spawns a whole generation of clones a la 2012’s “Born to Die” or feels as integral to the musical landscape as 2019’s “Norman Fucking Rockwell.” (For a separate Variety review of the new album, click here.)

In the meantime, here’s a best attempt at ranking Del Rey’s studio albums, excluding pre-fame releases such as the semi-official “Lana Del Ray aka Lizzy Grant” and extended plays like 2012’s “Paradise.”

[Editor’s note: An earlier version of this list had an incorrect ranking for the albums.]

Lust for Life (Highlight: ‘Heroin’)

Image Credit: Interscope Records

In theory, putting Lana Del Rey in the studio with the who’s who of producers sounds like a brilliant idea. And, to a certain extent, it was. The songs she cooked up with Max Martin, Benny Blanco, Boi-1da, and Metro Boomin are occasionally very good (“Love”), but “Lust for Life” remains the only Del Rey album that doesn’t feel like a fully realized vision. Her A-List collaborators take things in one direction, while the songs she recorded with regular cohorts (Emile Haynie and Rick Nowels) go in another. The latter, at least for me, is vastly more appealing. “Cherry,” “Heroin” and “White Mustang” feel quintessentially Del Rey, while a song like “Summer Bummer” does not. All in all, the good still outweighs the not-great by quite some margin. And her collaboration with Stevie Nicks, “Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems,” shines bright as a torch-passing milestone.
Chemtrails Over the Country Club (Highlight: ‘White Dress’)

Image Credit: Interscope Records

If Lizzy Grant had been slowly shedding the glamorous trappings of her alter-ego since “Born to Die,” she finally achieved her mission on “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.” Stripped-back and minimal, the first of two 2021 albums finds Del Rey dabbling in folk and Americana as she spins tales of love and heartbreak over a plucked guitar, wonky organ and rattling piano keys on gems like “Let Me Love You like a Woman” and “Tulsa Jesus Freak.” As lovely as it is, “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” occasionally feels a little too light – free of the lyrical heft and often dizzying experimentation of previous albums. That being said, few records are as perfectly suited for long road trips with nothing on the horizon but miles of highway.
Blue Banisters (Highlight: ‘Dealer’)

Image Credit: Interscope Records

“Blue Banisters” arrived at a difficult time for Del Rey. The groundswell of goodwill that accompanied “Norman Fucking Rockwell” evaporated during the “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” era with the singer-songwriter being criticized for everything from her brand of feminism to her choice of face masks. Tired of responding via social media, Del Rey reclaimed her narrative on an album that doubles as a sort of autobiography — touching on relationships, family and art. There are songs mired in COVID-era imagery (she memorably sings about quarantine, zooms and lockdown weight gain on “Black Bathing Suit”), a handful of resurrected demos recorded with an old boyfriend (“If You Lie Down With Me” and “Nectar of the Gods”), an ode to Los Angeles (“Arcadia”) and a song co-written with her sister and father (“Sweet Carolina”). As I wrote in my review, Del Rey “has always been an expert world-builder, but never has one of them felt as lived-in and true.”
Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (Highlight: ‘Kintsugi’)

Image Credit: Interscope Records

Ranking a brand-spanking new album above the tried and true offerings listed above feels a little reckless, but, even after a couple of listens, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” feels special. While the record takes a similar scrapbook approach as “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” and “Blue Banisters,” LDR8 takes it to the next level with a 4:36-minute message from her preacher, songs about late relatives, ruminations on life without kids, and the no-holds-barred therapy session that is “A&W.” Sprinkled in between those journal entries are some of the loveliest moments in Del Rey’s discography (“Kintsugi,” the haunting title track and her collaborations with Bleachers and Father John Misty) and some mind-melting experiments (“Peppers” and “Taco Truck x VB”) that evoke the mad-scientist mayhem of “Honeymoon.”
Born to Die (Highlight: ‘Video Games’)

Image Credit: Interscope Records

There’s a tendency, among critics and Del Rey’s own fan base, to dismiss “Born to Die” as being a little too slick and commercial. And yet, more than a decade on, the album keeps selling and the small army of Sad Girl artists it spawned grows ever bigger. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. A couple of tracks (“Off to the Races” and “Diet Mountain Dew,” for example) now feel out of place in Del Rey’s wider discography, but the vast majority of “Born to Die” hasn’t lost its luster, particularly the gloomier moments such as “Video Games,” “Blue Jeans” and the still-startling title track. And then there’s “Summertime Sadness,” which to the chagrin of some LDR gatekeepers, has become a modern-day standard that will live on forever in TikToks. For the record, “Born to Die: The Paradise Edition,” which incorporates the “Paradise” EP, would rank even higher in the countdown.
Norman Fucking Rockwell (Highlight: ‘Venice Bitch’)

Image Credit: Interscope Records

The beginning of Del Rey’s now long-standing collaborative relationship with Jack Antonoff, “Norman Fucking Rockwell” ranks as one of the greatest albums of the 2010s. And this isn’t a case where a producer leads the way. Antonoff, rather, dives into her world of faded psychedelia and sun-dappled West Coast revelry, bringing out the artist’s best impulses — which includes leaning into her influences. On “Norman Fucking Rockwell,” Del Rey pays homage to Laurel Canyon, the near-mythic sanctuary for counterculture artists in the ’60s, directly referencing Joni Mitchell and the Eagles, while paying her respects to the whole movement with an album that feels as unselfconscious and disinterested in trends as the music of her idols. Oh, and the guitar solo in “Venice Bitch” was the single most interesting pop culture moment of 2019.
Honeymoon (Highlight: ‘The Blackest Day’)

Image Credit: Interscope Records

Excuse the pun, but “Honeymoon” is an absolute trip. A sprawling tone poem that leisurely segues from Morricone-like orchestral flourishes to pouty trip-hop, Del Rey’s third album is her most ambitious and eccentric offering to date. The fact that a recitation of T.S. Elliot’s “Burnt Norton” somehow found its way onto an album that includes a bluesy Bowie interpolation (“Terrence Loves You”) and an accordion-driven ode to “The Godfather” (“Salvatore”) is equal parts insane and inspired. A modicum of patience is needed to get the full “Honeymoon” experience; it’s the kind of album that washes over you in its own time, but once you submit to its languid rhythms, the journey is unforgettable.
Ultraviolence (Highlight: ‘Shades of Cool’)

Image Credit: Interscope Records

After the slow-burn success of “Born To Die,” Del Rey was positioned to be the crossover alt-pop queen of the 2010s. But instead of diving deeper into the emo-balladry and hip-hop-laced bops of her debut, she turned to the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach for a down-and-dirty rock album that simmers with dread, discontent and rage. If “Born to Die” was forged from California dreams, “Ultraviolence” was conjured by L.A. nightmares. Songs like the hissing “West Coast” and jazzy “Shades of Cool” rank among her best, while “Pretty When You Cry” and, appropriately enough, “Sad Girl” are seminal emo-anthems. But the project also hinted at the twists and turns to come with a stunning Nina Simone cover, the confronting “Fucked My Way Up to the Top,” and frankly unhinged “Brooklyn Baby.” It might not as be as impactful as her debut or finely calibrated as “Norman Fucking Rockwell,” but for sheer audacity and emotional sway, it’s hard to beat.