Table of contents for No. 1393 in Music Week

For Peter's sake Well, you only went and did it again. Not only did you all sell out the Music Week Awards months in advance, you also made it a night to remember. So before I say anything else, let me deliver one final thank you to everyone that came out: ta very much! And, likewise, huge congratulations to all of the winners – turn to page 24 for our gallery, and head to musicweek.com to read interviews with them – and to everyone who was nominated. The work represented across the board was incredible, and the competition fierce. Our ceremony was, of course, all capped off by Girls Aloud arriving onstage to salute someone they declared as the “ultimate pop mastermind”: their manager and long-term supporter Peter Loraine. Nor…

THE BIG AGREEMENT UMG and TikTok have agreed a new licensing deal, following their three-month dispute. Sir Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO, UMG, said: “This new chapter in our relationship with TikTok focuses on the value of music, the primacy of human artistry and the welfare of the creative community. We look forward to collaborating with the team at TikTok to further the interests of our artists and songwriters and drive innovation in fan engagement while advancing social music monetisation.” THE BIG HONOUR Catherine Marks (pictured with Alan Moulder) was named Producer Of The Year at the Music Producers Guild Awards. Marks was recognised for her work on the Grammy-winning Boygenius album The Record. For the first time, women represented 50% of the nominees, and once again more than 50%…

Junior publicist, Huxley @connick How did you first break into the industry? “I got my bachelor’s degree in fashion PR and communication from London College Of Fashion in 2022 after having wanted to work in that industry for my whole life. I never actually planned to work in the music industry, but I had done a few internships at music PR agencies Satellite 414 and Zeitgeist during my degree, which were fun and something I’d never tried before. Once I graduated, I cast the net far and wide but was focused on entrylevel fashion jobs. Then a friend sent me a job advert for an internship at Huxley that I was intrigued by – their work brings together fashion, music and entertainment in such an interesting way, which I really…

BERWYN Neighbours (Columbia) Berwyn’s new one is a laid-back rap offering that lends itself well to a house party (‘Fuck the neighbours/Turn the music up’) and houses a delectable selection of romantic couplets such as, ‘I love you more than every single sheet of Rizla I’ve licked.’ Contact: Patrick Johnson patrick@gallerypublicity.com TONI SANCHO Free Falling! (Blue Daisy) Heart and soul pours from every second of Toni Sancho’s debut EP Heaven Knows! (out this month via her own Blue Daisy Records), as the British-Trinidadian artist draws on heartache and pain to create super chilled, homespun alternative pop. Contact: Jon Lawrence jon@chalkpressagency.co.uk EZRA COLLECTIVE Ajala (Partisan) Ezra Collective will achieve their latest milestone when they become the first jazz act to headline OVO Wembley Arena in November. They will do so armed…

“I’m at a point where I’m able to hold my head up high and f***ing go for it” BECKY HILL When Becky Hill wants to measure gender equality in dance music, she thinks of touching down at the airport in Ibiza. “You land and all you see are men’s faces on billboards,” says Hill. “That’s when I realise how far we’ve got to go with music. We don’t have a situation in the superclubs like Hï or Amnesia where a woman is doing a headline residency.” It’s something that Hill is determined to remedy. The 30-year-old from Bewdley, Worcestershire, is one of the breakthrough stars of the past decade but as far as Hill is concerned, she is only just getting started. “I won’t stop until I’m stood shoulder to shoulder…

“I’ve been a bit of a black sheep wherever I’ve been, now I’ve created my own place to stand” JON OLLIER As far as risks go, launching a live agency during the sector’s most precarious moment in recent memory was arguably on the foolhardy side. But that suited Jon Ollier just fine. So it was that, having cut his teeth at Helter Skelter Agency and Free Trade Agency, and booking what was once the highest-grossing tour in history via Ed Sheeran’s ÷ run during nearly six years at CAA, Ollier decided the arrival of a global pandemic was the time for him to start his own company, One Fiinix Live, in November 2020. All of which begs the question, why? “The response from companies at the time was that we’d wait…

“I’ve always wanted to represent everybody on my show – at the end of the day, a great pop song is a great pop song” MOLLIE KING Up until just a few months ago, Mollie King had gone her whole life without riding a bike on the road. Yet, in March, she decided to take on what seemed to be an impossible challenge: cycling 500km across the UK to raise money for Comic Relief in memory of her late father, Stephen, who passed away from a brain tumour in 2022. “I didn’t know physically whether I would be able to do it, I was very scared,” she tells Music Week. “It was my first step back into exercise after having my daughter, so I was worried. I kept thinking, ‘Oh, am…

“Our traditional strength is classical music, but we have diverse catalogue in every genre” MARCUS WISE, WISE MUSIC GROUP When it comes to evaluating the health of the indie publishing sector, the Independent Music Publishers International Forum (IMPF) report is the perfect place to start. Published in April, the fourth edition of the trade body’s annual survey carried the headline figure that the sector’s value grew by 16.8% in value year-on-year to €2.43 billion in 2022, the most recent year for which full data is available. The report also found that, despite a slight drop in market share from 27.1% to 26.7%, the sector as a whole is larger than the biggest major music publishing company, Sony Music Publishing. What’s more, revenues in indie publishing doubled in the five years up…

01 EPIC POETRY TAYLOR SWIFT The Tortured Poets Department (EMI) SALES: 270,091 Taylor Swift’s chart impact is going to be hard to beat in 2024. Based on a single week’s sale, The Tortured Poets Department was by far the biggest seller last month. In fact, Swift’s 12th chart-topping LP is already the No.1 album for the year to date. The opening week sales of 270,091 – more than the rest of the Top 75 albums combined – included 109,392 CDs, 66,388 vinyl LPs, 4,457 cassettes, 10,948 digital downloads and 78,907 sales-equivalent streams. The Tortured Poets Department had the biggest weekly sale since Ed Sheeran’s ÷ in March 2017 and the best opening of the 2020s, with Swift surpassing her own week one sales for Midnights. TTPD also set a 21st century…

UK rock titans are one of only five bands, including The Beatles and Pink Floyd, to have more than one diamond-certified studio album in the US. Here, frontman Joe Elliott reflects on early bad reviews, making tapes for David Bowie and working with Taylor Swift… We went through a lot of stinging reviews in our early days… “Who hasn’t? The one that sticks out the most was when we opened for The Human League at a free festival in Sheffield. [The critic] said we were ‘bludgeon riffola’. I remember [former Def Leppard guitarist] Pete Willis saying that sounded like Italian canned food. It became an in-joke. So when we did the The Def Leppard EP in 1979, we named our label Bludgeon Riffola. We’ve always tried to find a silver…

TEAM The Libertines All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade Chart Position: No.1 Label: EMI Management: Jai Stanley/Janine Stanley (Strap Originals), David Bianchi/Sheena Welch/Rebecca Dixon/Emily Thorpe-Jones (Various Artists) Co-presidents: Rebecca Allen/ Jo Charrington (EMI) MDs: Clive Cawley/Lucy Dann (EMI) Marketing: Alex Henderson (EMI) A&R Admin: Steve Skelton (EMI) Digital Marketing: Seb Wheeler/ Emily Cooper (EMI) Socials: Darren Parker/Chad Beasley (Shake That Social) Content: Sophie Smith-Roberts/ Barnaby Fairley (EMI) Creative: Roma Martyniuk Radio: Michael Pickard/ Mark Rankin (EMI) Press: Tony Linkin Podcast/TV: Flossie Easthope (EMI) International: Brendan Walsh (UMG) Live Agent: Matt Bates (Primary Talent), James Whitting (Wasserman)…

Milly Toomey still remembers the moment everything changed. She was 14 and standing in line to see her new favourite band. “My friend had sent me a link to a song by Tegan And Sara and it had blown my mind,” she says, smiling. “It was the first time I’d seen queer women singing about being queer.” So, when they were performing in London, she asked her dad to drop her off. “I was meeting other queer teenagers in the queue and I overheard some say they were starting a band,” she explains. “I remember thinking, ‘I could do that!’ Then I saw the show and something clicked. I’ve always loved telling stories, which is what they were doing onstage, and the idea of being openly queer was just such…

Allison Hagendorf, host, The Allison Hagendorf Show RETURN TO DUST – RETURN TO DUST Return To Dust are the new young band you need to know. Sonically, they have the nostalgic feel of bands like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden, but with the fresh energy of the likes of Royal Blood and Turnstile. The LA-based band have two dynamic frontmen, Matty Joseph and Graham Stanush, who have been best mates since middle school. They are joined by 18-year-old shredding guitarist Sebastian Gonzales and hard-hitting drummer London Hudson, who also happens to be Slash’s son. Their self-titled debut was produced by Jim Kaufman (Helmet, Danny Worsnop) and is out this month. For me, this band are the real deal and are as authentic as it gets. Not only are they killer…

MAY 24 Aquaserge La Fin De L’économie Crammed Discs Diiv Frog In Boiling Water Fantasy (Concord) Ed Cosens Somewhere Between Dark And Light Townsend/ Absolute Isobel Campbell Bow To Love Cooking Vinyl Lenny Kravitz Blue Electric Light BMG Machinedrum 3For82 Ninja Tune Mammal The Penny Drop Mammal Meekz Tru Meeks Music & Lifestyle Paul Weller 66 Solid Bond/ Universal Tom Ball Curtain Call Westway/ Absolute Twenty One Pilots Clancy Fueled By Ramen MAY 31 Bat For Lashes The Dream Of Delphi Mercury KX, (Universal) Becky Hill Believe Me Now? Astralwerk Ben Platt Honeymind Interscope Bernard Butler Good Grief 355 Black Sabbath Headless Cross/ Cross Purposes/Forbidden/Tyr (2024 Remasters) BMG Crowded House Gravity Stairs BMG Dana Gillespie First Love Fretsore Jim Keller Daylight Continental Song City Lowlives Freaking Out Spinefarm Maya Hawke…

Management: Alex Martin (AM Management) Label: Polydor/Eko Chairman: David Joseph President: Ben Mortimer MD: Jodie Cammidge & Stephen Hallowes A&R: Richard O’Donovan Marketing: Jamie Ahye Digital Marketing: Oliver Hunter Publisher: David Ventura (Sony Music Publishing) Agent: Emma Banks & Ben Coles (CAA) Print & Online Press: Phoebe Sinclair (Appetite Publicity) Radio: Laurence Pinkus & Gavin Hughes TV: Claire Stacey & Naomi Gillies Streaming: Paddy McLean & Ajani Caro Sales: Ray Primett, Sally Dickson, Jack Hardman & Will Wells International: Thom Wrafter & Georgia Dixon (Universal Music Group)…

“Songwriters sit at the core of music and a healthy industry is one in which everyone’s contribution is recognised” LYOR COHEN Why are songwriters vital to the industry? “The song is everything. What is more powerful than a song? Songwriters sit at the core of music, and a healthy industry is one in which every person is recognised and supported for their contribution. There’s no doubt the song is the nerve centre and the core of our industry.” And from a YouTube perspective, what is driving your work with the songwriting community? “It’s critical for us to have deep and immersive partnerships with all parts of the music industry. We probably have built a stronger muscle on the recording side out of the gate and now it’s critical that we work…

TYLA WATER Having shot to fame last year with her viral hit Water, Johannesburg-born star Tyla made history by winning the first Best African Music Performance award at the Grammys. The UK No.4 platinum track has since racked up over 500 million streams on Spotify. Here, London-based producer Sammy SoSo reveals how sessions across the globe brought it to life, and how 100 missed calls let him know that it was blowing up… I knew Water was a hit from the moment we made it. Before Tyla and I met, my team had been chasing hers for some time. I’d listened to her back in 2021 and immediately thought, ‘Yeah, this girl’s got something,’ and I’d wanted to work with her ever since. At that point in my career, I’d…

UNITED KINGDOM Bakar & Summer Walker Hell N Back Video Creations: 1,900,000 In 2019, indie/alternative artist Bakar released his second EP, Will You Be My Yellow?, which featured the single Hell N Back. The song, which sees Bakar reminiscing about treasured moments, entered the Top 20 in the UK charts, becoming his most popular single at the time. On his latest project, Halo, the singer gives a subtle nod to fans that discovered him in 2020 with a special version of Hell N Back. The new cut sees R&B icon Summer Walker singing, ‘I was over love, thought I had enough, then I found you,’ which has sparked one trend where creators have been sharing pictures of their loved ones, and another where users jokingly lament their relationship status. This…

“We’re finding a lot of money for rights owners, broadcasters and collection societies by using AI tech” ROB WELLS, ORFIUM How does Orfium cope with the sheer scale of data for music rights management? “It’s definitely a challenge. You get delivered vast reports from the big UGC platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook, with petabytes of information. Even on a monthly basis, there are millions and millions of lines of information that need to be processed, so it needs heavyweight tech. Once you commit to delivering a solution for the rights owner, the broadcast sector or a [collection] society, then you have to stay on the bleeding edge and reinvest.” Is AI tech helping that data processing? “It’s interesting that the industry is very focused on generative AI. Very little has…

@maisiehpeters Ok I’ve been MIA in my live laugh love era but I miss u all so who has things to tell me? (Maisie Peters, artist) Wednesday, April 3 @Jason_MVM I have to stop accepting invites to nonsense. I really be everywhere (Jason Edwards, Hypebrid) Tuesday, April 9 @mahalia Being active on social media is tiring TBH. I just wanna be quiet (Mahalia, artist) Wednesday, April 3 @ramicoco I’m not spending any money in the month of may. Please, I don’t have [it] (Rami Teni, Two Tabs Social) Monday, April 29 @DaveBa55 Fucking hell I feel like I have been ill for 18 months please can this stop now (David Bass, Theodore Music) Thursday, April 4 @sarahvsshark I think my dog enjoys a lie-in more than me (Sarah Maynard, Major…

RELEASE: Matriarchy (out now) LABEL: All Points/Believe UK MANAGEMENT: Adam Daly & Stephen Taverner, East City Management WHAT THE TEAM SAYS: Jak Ryan, head of marketing, Believe: “Girli embodies a vital voice in today’s music, inspiring her fans and other artists to embrace authenticity. Over the past four years working together, we’ve witnessed her deep connection with fans grow, fuelling her development and leading to her evolution into becoming the incredible global artist she is today. This year holds particular significance for Girli as she solidifies her position as a global pop artist, and we can’t wait to see her continued success.”…

THIS MONTH'S HOTTEST BRAND NEW ACT FRED ROBERTS From reality TV to his debut EP, this indie-pop rising star is making his fans feel heard… KEY TRACK: Sound Of My Youth LABEL: Universal Germany MANAGEMENT: Dan Mordente & James Sandom, Red Light Management INSTAGRAM: @_fredroberts You broke into the industry when you went on X Factor: The Band in 2019. How do you look back at that experience now? “I don’t want to say I wouldn’t be doing music if I hadn’t done the show, but it gave me a confidence I didn’t have before. I’d been posting covers on Instagram and when they reached out to me, I just thought it’d be fun. But I made so many connections from it and it taught me that I want to…

Meet Davina Merchant, senior A&R manager at Island Records. Having started out as an entertainment journalist, Merchant has since dedicated her work to breaking and championing artists. After moving into a career in music management, Merchant went on to work in label services before joining Downtown Music’s London office as A&R manager in 2018, where she had major signings including Tiana Major9, Mae Muller, Tion Wayne, Hamzaa, Giggs, Jaz Karis and Juls – to name a few. At Island, where she has worked since 2023, Merchant continues to scout for breaking acts. In her current role, she oversees the development of a range of artists including Unknown T, whilst also negotiating contracts and overseeing the production of all albums and singles. Here, Merchant gives her top five career tips on…

Potter Payper is carving his own lane between music and business. The rapper is building his artist career while emulating those who have inspired him, the likes of Jay-Z and Lyor Cohen, who have P built empires from the ground up. The full scope of his ambition is embodied by 36 The Label, the record company and creative consultancy he founded in 2021. Though still in its infancy, the company can already claim a Top 5 mixtape (Payper’s own Thanks For Hating, released in February this year) and critical acclaim for its championing of authentic talent with substance in their music. Its mission statement speaks to Payper’s own vaunted story. “On my musical journey as an artist, I became disconnected from the industry and music business itself,” he begins. “You…

Music Venue Trust’s work is, at its heart, about artists – inspiring and nurturing them, connecting them with audiences, and offering a safe space for experimentation and new music. With that in mind, we spend a huge amount of time in public discussions about buildings because a space where all that activity can take place is essential. However, we spend much less time actually thinking about the bricks and mortar of those places. It was pleasing, therefore, to have the essential link between artists and venues detailed in the recent Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry. Presentations by members of the Featured Artist Coalition and Music Managers Forum, alongside representation for artists in the shape of Lily Fontaine from indie band English Teacher, were highlights of the final oral…

01 LIFE IS SWEET HOZIER Too Sweet (Island) SALES: 240,626 Too Sweet became the first ever No.1 for Hozier in April, rising to the summit following a No.8 debut in March. It was his first Top 10 hit since 2014 debut smash Take Me To Church, which peaked at No.2. Real name Andrew John Hozier-Byrne, the Irish singer also scored his maiden No.1 album with Unreal Unearth last August. Taken from follow-up EP Unheard, Too Sweet saw Hozier become the first Irish solo act to have a No.1 since Ronan Keating, who hit the peak in 2002 with Tomorrow Never Comes. Too Sweet also reached the top spot in America, where Hozier achieved his first No.1 on the Hot 100. 04 HOLD MEDAL BEYONCÉ Texas Hold ’Em (RCA/Parkwood Ent) SALES: 181,945 Last…