A few months into the year and we're seeing some living, laughing and loving from the music industry.
Australian Music Industry News is non-stop and it’s important to stay up to read. Read the latest here!
Sia, Kid Laroi, Troye, Dom Slam It On Spotify
Sia, The Kid Laroi, Troye Sivan and Dom Dolla were slamming it on the 2023 Spotify Aussie Music Global Impact List, released this week.
It covers the Top 30 tracks which achieved international streams.
Adelaide-born Sia topped the list with “Gimme Love”, the lead track from her forthcoming 10th album Reasonable Woman, out this year.
The Kid LAROI was the king slam-dunker, with five on the list.
The 20 year old bank-shot three in the Top 10 – “I Can’t Go Back To The Way It Was (Intro) at #3, “I GUESS IT’S LOVE?” at #5 and collab with US rapper Lil Tjay “2 Grown” at #9.
With Three
With three spots each were pop cutie Troye Sivan (the highest being “One Of Your Girls” at #6) and Dom Dolla (with “Saving Up” peaking at #16).
Also in the Top 10 were Tame Impala, emerging Melbourne rapper Lithe, Australian-New Zealand electronic music duo Shouse, and singer-songwriter Clinton Kane.
Read all the latest product & music industry news here.
Australian Live Music Technology Goes Worldwide
More Aussie techoes catering for the live music sector are making wider moves internationally.
MyVenue
The four-year old MyVenue will expand its stadium and arena (POS) software into more venues in in the US, Canada, UK and Australia through 2024. It’s already in 78 venues.
Features include a mobile ordering app, online portal for corporate box orders, self-service kiosk, real-time dashboards and full inventory control.
Generating $7.3 million, its US clients include Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, Dallas’ AT&T Stadium, Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, Arizona’s State Farm Stadium, Chicago’s Wrigley Field and MSG Sphere in Las Vegas.
Surreal
Melbourne-based Surreal (formerly known as Muso) entered the US market with a new productivity tool for booking agents, signing with Denver-based Backline Partners, which operates in Colorado, Illinois and California.
Already picked up by nightclubs, bars and pubs in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, the product frees agents of most administrative duties, offering power scheduling and booking, artist management, offer and booking system, automated payments and built in worksheets.
INTIX
Melbourne event ticketing technology business INTIX has introduced real-time marketing to help boost revenue at concerts, festivals and sporting events by keeping punters engaged during an event and up-sell products and services (merchandise, food and drinks, sponsorship packages) on their phone, via push notifications and SMS.
The company has just opened a new office in London. It’s been an international firm since
working on ticketing operations for the Dubai Rugby 7’s in 2021 and partnered with events in the UK, USA, Europe and New Zealand.
Musical Chairs @ APRA AMCOS, SXSW, Sound NSW & More
- APRA AMCOS Director of Publisher Services, Karen Don, was promoted to Head Of Membership. With a background in legal and business affairs, she worked at Universal Music Australia and Universal Music Publishing.
- Simon Cahill, SXSW Sydney’s Head of Marketing and Commercial Partnerships, will now also be taking on extra duties of Head of Commercial for the TEG Group.
- Melbourne booker Ben Thompson, who recently departed 170 Russell after ten years, is to announce news of a new 5,500-cap venue. He continues to book the Northcote Theatre
- Emily Collins became Head of Sound NSW, set up by the State Government to grow NSW contemporary music. She was Managing Director of MusicNSW for eight years.
Meanwhile three new names joined the board: Jane Slingo of the Electronic Music Conference, artist KLP and FBi Radio’s Tanya Ali.
Also on the board are Vyvienne Abla, Tyla Dombroski, Jessica Ducrou (Chair), Annabelle Herd, Matthew Jeffrey, Lucy Joseph, Tim Leha, Dean Ormston and John Watson (Deputy Chair).
- After 15 years as Artistic Director and CEO of Tasmania’s The Unconformity festival, Travis Tiddy has decided the time is right to step down after his contract ends in June.
- Fierce advocate for musicians right Kirsty Rivers, former Head of Music at Creative Australia and Senior Manager For Contemporary Music at Creative Victoria, joined Jake Challenor’s communications agency Sound Story, using her government, business and music industry contacts for its clients in her new role as Director of Industry Relations.
- After 14 years as booker and promoter of the Thornbury Theatre in Melbourne, Neil Wedd has left the building, planning new adventures.
- Melbourne Fringe announced Marline Zaibak in the newly-created role of Executive Director and Deputy CEO.
She was Acting Co-CEO and Casting Manager at Malthouse Theatre, Director of Public Programming at Intersection For The Arts in San Francisco and a producer of Family and Youth programs at Art Centre Melbourne.
- Danny Hannaford, who was based locally for a time to head up Twickets Australia, is Ticketmaster UK’s new Senior Director of Client Product Solutions.
Bob Marley Smokes Out The Top
The Bob Marley biopic One Love debuted at #1 in Australia, grossing $2,040,714 on its opening weekend.
At the same time, Australia-integrated agency Hello Social’s tactic of getting Gold Coast music producer FISHER to remix “Jamming” proved a masterstroke.
It initially generated 5 million plays and quickly headed to #2 on the Beatport Top 100.
The Fish meantime has his Ibiza and Las Vegas residencies, headliners in Cardiff, London, New York and San Francisco, curating Malta’s TRIIP for the second time in June and staging his Out 2 Lunch festival on the Gold Coast in May.
The latter sold out its 30,000 tickets within hours, and set to inject $5 million into the local economy. It coincides with a World Surf League event being held at nearby Snapper Rocks.
One Love also debuted at top spot in the US movie charts, making $28.7 million on the first weekend, or $110.9 million globally and right up there with Mean Girls ($100.5 million) and The Beekeeper ($123.1 million).
With a budget of $70 million to make back, it’s not quite a box office smash but nevertheless financially comfortable.
Did Someone Say… Eat Less?
Australians might be seeing less and less of expensive stars as Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg, Christina Aguilera and Latto spruiking Menulog.
Its parent company Just Eat Takeaway.com slashed $250 million from its global marketing budget as worldwide orders dropped by 9 per cent and revenues by 7 per cent to €4.93 billion or AU$8.22 billion.
Double Signing For Reliqa
Sydney prog metal act Reliqa landed two new recording deals, with Greyscale Records and Nuclear Blast Records, dropping new single “Terminal”, their first new music since the I Don’t Know What I Am EP from 2022.
LIFELINES
Ill: Bernie Lynch of the Eurogliders was diagnosed with throat cancer forcing the band to reschedule their April/ May shows.
In Court: Queensland singer Daniel James Stoneman was refused bail in Brisbane Arrest Court on charges of raping or sexually assaulting two women he met on dating apps.
Died: songwriter, movie producer and director Frank Howson, 71, after a battle with cancer. His songs were covered by LRB, Pseudo Echo, Kate Ceberano, Venetta Fields and John Paul Young.
Died: award-winning Brisbane radio 4ZZZ program host and Music Director Chris Cobcroft, after a battle with cancer.
Died: John Fowler, co-founder of the legendary Sunbury festivals of the early ‘70s, aged 91.
Died: South Australian brass musician Dominic Meehan, 31, in a single-vehicle road fatality just months after beating leukaemia.
Community TV Gets Extended Life
Legislation passed last month stops community TV from going dark on June 30.
Now C31 Melbourne and Geelong and C44 Adelaide can broadcast “for the foreseeable future” until the radiofrequency spectrum they use is needed.
Anita Monk, producer of Wrokdown told us, “While we still have free-to-air TV, community TV must be there.
“It is the last bastion for music programs like Wrokdown to be able to promote Australian independent musicians to tens of thousands of people each week.”
How Many Songs Affected As Universal Yanks TikTok?
How many songs does TikTok lose after Universal Music pulled its catalogue out?
Universal’s publishing has 4 million songs and its recording division has 3 million.
TikTok told Music Business Worldwide, “In the US and UK, UMG and UMPG combined [comprises] approximately 30% of popular music on the platform, and even less everywhere else”.
But music execs estimated it between 60% and 80% of “relevant repertoire” on TikTok.
Chizzy
Aussie indie acts are already chizzy big-time that their music isn’t now on a service that has 1.5 billion monthly active users and reached 8.5 million Aussies last year.
But what’s angered local songwriters is that many had their songs pulled because they wrote a song with a Universal writer.
Automatically Pulled
MBW also pointed out that a track like Dua Lipa’s current single “Training Season” on Warner and co-written by a Universal-signed writer, is automatically pulled.
Australian country music performer Allan Caswell recently posted on social media that “Really Stupid People” which he co-wrote with Lachlan Bryan, has featured on 10,000 TikTok videos “with millions of views.
“(But) we are yet to receive any real royalties from these international corporate thieves.”
First Timers For APRA Song Of The Year
In a sign of how things are buoyant in the land of songwriters, the short list for the APRA Song Of The Year has seen a host of first timers.
Shortlist includes first-time honourees G Flip, Troye Sivan, Nat Dunn and Tex Perkins and songwriters Romy Vager (RVG), Shannon Busch, Stephen Mowat, Gretta Ray, Chris Collins, Rudy Sandapa, Canberra’s Teen Jesus and The Jean Teasers, and Voyager with their Eurovision contender.
They join Sia, Paul Kelly, Kylie Minogue, Matt Corby and Jen Cloher.
The ceremony returns to ICC Sydney, Gadigal land, on Wednesday May 1. The final five nominees across all 2024 APRA Music Awards categories are revealed on April 4.
Report #1: Live Gigs Vs. Streaming
Listening to music at a concert has a stronger pull on our emotions and imagination than streaming it through a device, according to a University of Zurich study.
“Our study showed that pleasant and unpleasant emotions performed as live music elicited much higher and more consistent activity in the amygdala (the emotional centre in the brain) than recorded music.
“The live performance also stimulated a more active exchange of information in the whole brain, which points to strong emotional processing in the affective and cognitive parts of the brain.”
Report #2: Millennials Fuelling Live Music
Event marketing platform Audience Republic’s 2024 Live Event Industry Report predicted that Millennials (27—42 year olds) will drive the growth of the live sector this year after they had the biggest growth (47%) last year.
Millennials – 27- to 42-year-old adults – are predicted to be the biggest growth demographic in 2024 after proving to be the most significant growth market last year (47%) followed by Gen Z (30%).
With 37% music industry respondents estimating cost of living pulled the live sector down by 37% and up to 60% believe the live market is “saturated”, 71% will spend this year building up their audience especially through Instagram and 65% will use AI in their communication.
Report #3: Music Drives Loyalty In Aussies
Live Nation Entertainment’s latest Fan Insights study Driving Loyalty found 63% of Aussies will switch to a new loyalty program if offered live music perks.
Gen Z are most partial to discounted tickets while VIP experiences press the buttons with Millennials and Gen Xs.
Two in three live music goers are open to signing up for a new loyalty program at a live event.
Aussies are among the biggest sign-ups to such programs – 91% to retail ones, 59% in fast food, 57% for clothes and 55% in travel.
Report #4: Music Gen Z’s Biggest Passion
Secret Sounds Connect research identified music as the greatest passion for Gen Z, with 89% saying it’s shaped who they are, 70% attending a live music event at least once a month and 79% trusting music artists second to friends.
87% want real-life experience over digital, 82% see “being weird” as the new norm, 58% equate absurdity with coolness and 87% would rather be “authentic” than “cool”.
