base talk Is UMG's hold over the music industry suspect?

[Solaria]

UMG (Universal Music Group) is the company that owns Republic Records and Interscope Records. Home to Taylor, The Weeknd, Ariana, Billie, Olivia a.k.a. some of the most succesful artists of our lifetime and of the new generation.

 

Now it might just be a case of good scouting and A&R doing their work. But I have three points I find a bit suspect:

 

1. https://www.universalmusic.com/universal-music-group-and-spotify-expand-strategic-relationship/
 

Quote

SANTA MONICA and STOCKHOLM, March 28, 2024 –Universal Music Group (UMG), the world-leader in music-based entertainment and Spotify, the world's most popular audio streaming subscription service today announced an expansion of their strategic relationship that will further amplify music discovery and social interaction and enhance fan experiences across the platform for UMG's family of artists and songwriters.

 

Under the agreement, Spotify will make available a series of new promotional and social features that will help artists drive interaction and generate excitement around new releases. To start, UMG artists will have the ability to share teasers of upcoming music on Spotify to increase fan engagement and pre-save activity before a new release.

This quote basically says (or atleast heavily implies) that Spotify would maximize their efforts to push artists under the UMG label. Meaning stuff like TTH, autoplay, etc which are fair promotional tools, will be utilized more for artists signed to UMG labels. Artists signed under Sony Music or Warner Music might benefit much less from this.

 

2. Take a look at the current top 10 in the United States for both albums and singles:

 

LW	TW	ARTIST | TITLE | LABEL	TOTAL | CHANGE
15	1	SZA | SOS TDE/RCA (SME)	170,707	293%
4	2	MICHAEL BUBLE | CHRISTMAS REPRISE (WMG)	97,275	43%
5	3	BING CROSBY | ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS UME (UMG)	95,403	46%
10	4	NAT KING COLE | CHRISTMAS SONG CAPITOL (UMG)	82,533	52%
3	5	TAYLOR SWIFT | THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT REPUBLIC (UMG)	76,411	-11%
9	6	MARIAH CAREY | MERRY CHRISTMAS COLUMBIA (SME)	75,867	35%
2	7	KENDRICK LAMAR | GNX PGLANG/INTERSCOPE (UMG)	75,385	-24%
7	8	WICKED | SOUNDTRACK VERVE/REPUBLIC (UMG)	68,005	5%
16	9	PHIL SPECTOR | A CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR YOU LEGACY (SME)	68,003	58%
17	10	FRANK SINATRA | ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS CAPITOL (UMG)	60,177	49%
12	11	VINCE GUARALDI TRIO | CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS CONCORD (UMG)	59,458	25%
6	12	SABRINA CARPENTER | SHORT N' SWEET ISLAND (UMG)	56,535	-13%
18	13	BRENDA LEE | ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE MCA NASHVILLE (UMG)	53,465	36%
23	14	ANDY WILLIAMS | CHRISTMAS ALBUM COLUMBIA (SME)	52,216	47%
1	15	STRAY KIDS | HOP JYP/VIRGIN/IMPERIAL/REPUBLIC (UMG)	51,294	-

 

Notice anything? UMG's marketshare is at 53 %. Even if you ignore the Christmas albums their hold is still significant. The list are FILLED with their artists.

 

3. The case of Island Records: this was a flop label a few years before. Yes, they had signed succesful artists like The Weeknd and Drake to their UK subsidiary, but their U.S. department didn't have any succesful artists signed. Now Sabrina, Chappell and this Lola Young girl are all signed under Island Records and are having hit records left and right. Mind you, this was AFTER UMG signed their licensing deal with Spotify. 
 

 

What do y'all think? Do we need to rebel? Is the music industry in danger? 

[Popboi.]

They have the biggest artists signed, of course their shares are higher than other labels  they invest WAY more than Sony on artists and record deals, and are much more consistent than Warner.

Edited Thursday at 07:43 PM by Popboi.

[Solaria]

Just now, Popboi. said:

They have the biggest artists signed, of course their shares are higher than other labels

I don't doubt that but it's a bit concerning that most of the artists that get heavy push on Spotify are all signed to UMG labels. They want to bury my girl Dua. And Ava. And Beb- well I don't care about her but you get my point.

[Popboi.]

Just now, Solaria said:

I don't doubt that but it's a bit concerning that most of the artists that get heavy push on Spotify are all signed to UMG labels. They want to bury my girl Dua. And Ava. And Beb- well I don't care about her but you get my point.

Dua getting buried has more to do with her team being a hot mess for 3 years now 

[Solaria]

3 minutes ago, Popboi. said:

Dua getting buried has more to do with her team being a hot mess for 3 years now 

No it's because UMG is evil and wants a monopoly over the music industry. It explains so much. The FBI should be on this.

[unclefloprry]

Yep, it's obvious. 
 

But I think Columbia is even worse, almost all the radio and streaming records suspiciously belong to that label.

 

and they taste their streaming farms every first day of the month 

[lillavend3r]

13 minutes ago, Solaria said:

No it's because UMG is evil and wants a monopoly over the music industry. It explains so much. The FBI should be on this.

She's the girl with a permanent TTH residency yet she's buried? 

[Minto]

shawn mendes and demi lovato were signed to island before sabrina and chapell and outside of that their roster is like 90% legacy acts/indie singers.

 

 

[magazine]

[igninton]

38 minutes ago, Popboi. said:

They have the biggest artists signed, of course their shares are higher than other labels  they invest WAY more than Sony on artists and record deals, and are much more consistent than Warner.

/thread

[Into The Void]

Yeah WMG and SME deserve better deals

[unclefloprry]

21 minutes ago, lillavend3r said:

She's the girl with a permanent TTH residency yet she's buried? 

That's Taylor or Ariana (UMG), both with more entries and more time on that playlist, sorry 

[Raphy23]

How do Sony and Warner compare in size to UMG? Is umg really that much of a monopoly? 

[Alex]

I mean sure but when you think about it, Atlantic records (Warner) is somehow even more sinister and shady (and this is only from certain people who actually can afford to speak out against them), and Sony has had numerous infamous cases of career sabotage so... it's not like one is any better than the other atp just different evils. If anything, UMG is just proving they have a better way of maintaining careers 

[Illuminati]

23 minutes ago, Minto said:

shawn mendes and demi lovato were signed to island before sabrina and chapell and outside of that their roster is like 90% legacy acts/indie singers.

 

 

Chappell is under Island? They're gonna fumble her so hard

 

[sugarysunflower]

UMGs board and voting power is controlled by three billionaires; like 60%+ comes from: 

 

• Ma Huateng of Tencent (Concerto Partners)

• Vincent Bollore of Vivendi / Bollore 

• Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital

 

You think these guys don't coerce with Daniel Ek and Martin Lorenzton in private? Who likewise have like 73% voting power at Spotify. Of course they're gonna cut them a deal, it's a win-win for everyone. The American market, the Chinese market, the French market, the Dutch market, the Swedish market and for themselves. 

 

Sony Music is just controlled by institutional investors and part of a conglomerate with other entertainment and technology assets. I'm sure they're happy with their signed artists tbh - Sony always has a good reputation for most of their leading labels, except RCA. And Japanese companies are less likely to take risks nowadays. 

 

WMG is controlled by Len Blavatnik, and WMG has always been the smallest of the three anyways. How do we not know that WMG concentrates it's efforts elsewhere like Pandora, Apple Music, Tidal etc.? 

[sugarysunflower]

6 minutes ago, Raphy23 said:

How do Sony and Warner compare in size to UMG? Is umg really that much of a monopoly? 

Not yet, there's Warner Music Group ($16 billion) and Sony Music Entertainment (a % of $130 billion in Sony; I'd guess 20% of their portfolio so like $26 billion) which have big market shares too ($44bn for UMG). But in oligopolies there's always The Big 3 or The Big 5. Which is the case. 

 

But that's not to say that there's also Disney, Believe SA, Bertlesmann, HYBE and lots of independents.

 

There continues to be a big crackdown of UMG's anticompetitive nature though. Like in 2012, when they wanted to purchase EMI the board was forced by the European Commission regulator to sell off other assets, it couldn't do a buyback for years and it was monitored for all its deals for ten years. I think Vincent Bollore, who ironically owns nearly 30% of UMG and indirectly parts of Spotify through UMG, had to do the same thing when he wanted his media conglomerate Vivendi to buyout Lagadere a couple years back. The European regulators 'forced' him to sell Editis to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky of EPH: Czech Media Invest, Royal Mail, Groupe Casino, ThyssenKrupp, West Ham FC. 

[Delirious]

1 hour ago, Solaria said:

I don't doubt that but it's a bit concerning that most of the artists that get heavy push on Spotify are all signed to UMG labels. They want to bury my girl Dua. And Ava. And Beb- well I don't care about her but you get my point.

How is dua buried? She's still the queen of payola. Her 3 singles from RO were #1 on TTH for no reason. And her old songs have the best playlisting out of any artist by far even her flops like "Sweetest Pie" and "Illusion"

 

Can't tell if you're being serious or not but let's hope not

Edited Thursday at 09:05 PM by Delirious

[Raphy23]

31 minutes ago, Alex said:

I mean sure but when you think about it, Atlantic records (Warner) is somehow even more sinister and shady (and this is only from certain people who actually can afford to speak out against them), and Sony has had numerous infamous cases of career sabotage so... it's not like one is any better than the other atp just different evils. If anything, UMG is just proving they have a better way of maintaining careers 

Ugh this scared me, Tate needs to leave RCA asap and sign with Republic Records or something.

4 minutes ago, sugarysunflower said:

Not yet, there's Warner Music Group ($16 billion) and Sony Music Entertainment (a % of $130 billion in Sony; I'd guess 20% of their portfolio so like $26 billion) which have big market shares too ($44bn for UMG). But in oligopolies there's always The Big 3 or The Big 5. Which is the case. 

 

But that's not to say that there's also Disney, Believe SA, Bertlesmann, HYBE and lots of independents.

 

There continues to be a big crackdown of UMG's anticompetitive nature though. Like in 2012, when they wanted to purchase EMI the board was forced by the European Commission regulator to sell off other assets, it couldn't do a buyback for years and it was monitored for all its deals for ten years. I think Vincent Bollore, who ironically owns nearly 30% of UMG and indirectly parts of Spotify through UMG, had to do the same thing when he wanted his media conglomerate Vivendi to buyout Lagadere a couple years back. The European regulators 'forced' him to sell Editis to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky of EPH: Czech Media Invest, Royal Mail, Groupe Casino, ThyssenKrupp, West Ham FC. 

oh wow that is a lot to digest. thanks

[lillavend3r]

1 hour ago, unclefloprry said:

That's Taylor or Ariana (UMG), both with more entries and more time on that playlist, sorry 

All three of them are. Houdini stayed almost a year on that playlist long after it stopped charting everywhere let's not rewrite history

[Letemtalk]

Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Mariah Carey, Frank Sinatra, Brenda Lee all charting.
Yes, very suspicious.

[Mr.X]

Yes. No company, ever, should have monopolies of any sector. It's just ******* wrong

[RideOrDie]

they seem to be doing something right. they really do care and put in the time and money into their artists. lana was with sony all her career until 2023 when she switched to universal, i doubt she would have done that unless she felt like it was a good deal. 

warner is the worst, horrible never ending mismanagement and mistreatment of their artists. 

[Abracadabra]

1 minute ago, RideOrDie said:

they seem to be doing something right. they really do care and put in the time and money into their artists. lana was with sony all her career until 2023 when she switched to universal, i doubt she would have done that unless she felt like it was a good deal. 

warner is the worst, horrible never ending mismanagement and mistreatment of their artists. 

Hasn't Lana been signed to Interscope/Polydor since BTD?

[unclefloprry]

48 minutes ago, lillavend3r said:

All three of them are. Houdini stayed almost a year on that playlist long after it stopped charting everywhere let's not rewrite history

Houdini wasn't there in the album release, be serious