Music Business Worldwide
Music Business Worldwide (MBW) is the leading information and jobs service for the global music industry. It publishes two podcasts: The weekly series, Talking Trends – which dives behind the biggest headlines in the music industry – as well as The MBW Podcast, which sees us interview some of the leading figures in the global business.
Episodes
91 episodes
Larry Mestel, CEO, Primary Wave: Bob Marley, Whitney Houston, and Spending $800 million
Is Larry Mestel about to raise a billion dollars? Don't bet against it.Mestel's Primary Wave has already raised over $800m in the past four years via two IP funds: a $300m fund in 2016, backed by Black Rock, and a further $500m-plus fun...
Poo Bear, Songwriter: Justin Bieber, Black Lives Matter, and Being Hit By A Tornado
Jason Boyd aka Poo Bear is one of the most successful songwriters working in the modern US pop music industry.During a storied and Grammy-winning career, he's written and/or produced tracks for the likes of Pink, User, Lupe Fiasco, Chri...
Mattias Tengblad, CEO, Corite: Raising $1 million direct from fans
Mattias Tengblad is co-founder and CEO of Stockholm-based Corite, which believes it can revolutionize the way artists generate money from their recorded music.Corite is, at first glance, a simple digital distributor, in the same core sp...
Dooney Battle, CEO, Tha Lights Global: Lil Pump, Dominic Fike and Turning Down $5 million
Dooney Battle is CEO & Founder of Tha Lights Global – a record label, publisher and artist management company whose clients include Dominic Fike and Lil Pump.Lil Pump previously signed to Warner Records in an $8m deal but now, two a...
Merck Mercuriadis, CEO, Hipgnosis: Spending $1 billion on Songs
Merck Mercuriadis is Founder & CEO of UK-based Hipgnosis Songs Fund, which has acquired songs – or pieces of songs – that have fuelled hits like Rihanna's Umbrella, Al Green's Let's Stay Together, Ed Sheeran's Shape Of You, Beyoncé's Single...
Steve Stoute, CEO, UnitedMasters: 'That's not the record business, man – that's the lottery business!'
Steve Stoute is the founder and CEO of UnitedMasters – the US-based music distribution and services platform that in 2017 raised $70 million from backers including Google/Alphabet and 20th Century Fox.UnitedMasters has signed brand part...
Milana Rabkin Lewis, CEO, Stem: 'Our ambitions are bigger than just being a distributor.'
Stem is one of the most talked-about companies in music distribution. The Los Angeles-based company was founded by Milana Rabkin Lewis (pictured) in 2015, and has raised over $12m to date, reportedly from figures including Scooter ...
David Israelite, CEO, NMPA: Spotify vs. Songwriters
David Israelite is President and CEO of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA).The NMPA is up in arms over the fact that Spotify and Amazon - in addition to Google and Pandora – are objecting to a ruling offering songwriters a ...
Kerry Trainor, CEO, SoundCloud: 'We're in a much clearer place now.'
An exclusive interview with SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainor on the MBW Podcast. Trainor, who took charge of SoundCloud in August 2017, discusses a range of topics with MBW, including SoundCloud's power for emerging artists, the company's financial...
Justin Tranter, Songwriter: 'I'm just going to be honest...'
An interview with Justin Tranter, one of the most in-demand pop songwriters in the world today. Tranter has written hits for the likes of Selena Gomez, Fifth Harmony, Justin Bieber, Gwen Stefani and Britney Spears.
Mike Caren, CEO, APG: 'I hate the word rules.'
An interview with Mike Caren, the founder of APG.Mike Caren started his career in A&R 21 years ago, aged 17, at Atlantic subsidiary Big Beat Records. Since then, he has signed or co-signed over 20 artists that have achieved gold or ...
Justin Kalifowitz, CEO, Downtown: 'The amount of uncleared music online is insane.'
From John Lennon to Ray Davies, Randy Newman, Hans Zimmer and One Direction, New York-born Downtown Music Publishing represents some of the most valuable and beloved songwriting copyrights in existence. Justin Kalifowitz is the New York firm's ...
Alan McGee, Founder, Creation Records: 'I really hate music biz events.'
Creation Records/Management founder Alan McGee discusses his new label, as well as Creation, Oasis, Primal Scream and working with the major labels.
Chris Wright, Founder, Chrysalis: 'Do I regret selling it? Yes.'
Chrysalis co-founder Chris Wright discusses his career, the major labels and how it feels to sell a music biz legend.
