Taylor Lindsey has been promoted to Chairman and CEO at Sony Music Nashville, effective January 2025.

Lindsey succeeds Randy Goodman, who, as announced in September, will retire at the end of 2024 after more than 35 years in the music industry.

Lindsey will oversee Sony Music Nashville and Christian music company Provident Entertainment. The executive will be based in Nashville and report to Rob Stringer, Chairman of Sony Music Group.

Ken Robold has also been named President and Chief Operating Officer of Sony Music Nashville, reporting to Lindsey with oversight of the company’s operations including Provident Entertainment.

Universal Music Group‘s Republic has appointed industry veteran Kevin Lipson as its first-ever Chief Revenue Officer, Republic President and Chief Operating Officer Jim Roppo announced Monday (November 18).

In his expanded role, Lipson will oversee revenue strategies across Republic Corps Collective, UMG’s East Coast-based group of labels that includes Republic Records, Mercury Records, Def Jam Recordings, and Island Records.

Lipson’s responsibilities encompass managing a team that handles streaming, e-commerce, data analytics, retail partnerships, gaming initiatives, sports marketing, media planning, and catalog management.

At the beginning of March, Spotify reclassified its Premium Individual, Duo, and Family subscription streaming plans as bundles because those plans now offer access to audiobooks.

The move controversially resulted in Spotify paying a lower mechanical royalty rate to publishers and songwriters in the United States, drawing the ire of the US-based National Music Publishers Association and The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC).

The latter org sued Spotify in the US in May for allegedly underpaying royalties to songwriters and publishers as a result of its Premium ‘bundling’ move.

Today (November 19), we learn that Spotify’s rival, Amazon Music, has become the latest music streaming service to bundle audiobooks with its Premium subscription. 

In a challenge to Spotify’s audiobook service, Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers in the US, UK, and Canada can now listen to one audiobook a month from Amazon-owned audiobook service Audible. The retail and tech giant acquired Audible for $300 millionin 2008.

The NMPA has already responded to the news, and the contrast between the organization’s reaction to Amazon Music’s move and its response to Spotify’s move earlier this year is striking.

Downtown-owned B2B distributor FUGA has entered into a new partnership with Australia-born UNIFIED Music Group, which operates across Melbourne, Sydney, Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, and Toronto.

FUGA said on Thursday (October 10) that the deal will see it provide strategic marketing support, access to its global technology platform, physical distribution, and neighboring rights services to UNIFIED Music Group-owned labels.

The deal includes UNIFIED Recorded Music labels UNFD (Silverstein, Thornhill & ERRA) and Domestic La La (Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, Dear Seattle, Teenage Joans), alongside future releases on Community Music (Ocean Alley, Sarah Saint James, ISHAN).

UNIFIED is already an existing client of Downtown-owned royalty accounting platform Curve, via a partnership that started in January 2022.

Downtown added that the partnership would see UNIFIED gain wider access to its global ecosystem through additional services, including sync and licensing solutions via Downtown Music Publishing and neighboring rights collection through Downtown Neighbouring Rights.

The recent sale of tickets to Oasis’ 2025 reunion tour was “the biggest on-sale in history” with “the most demand in history,” Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino said.

During an appearance at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday (October 9), Rapino also revealed that Ticketmaster – Live Nation’s ticketing division – was hit by “multi billions” of bots during the sale.

He also said that scalpers were selling $6,000 tickets to Oasis shows – even before ticket sales officially opened.