At this point in the modern-day industry,
UMG’s marketshare dominance under
Sir Lucian Grainge is a fact of life. Two months into the year, Uni labels hold onto three of the top four slots while the parent company approaches 39% in audio streams, the most telling metric these days.
John Janick’s
Interscope Geffen A&M has come out of the gate at full gallop, seizing the #2 slot behind
Atlantic, as
Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper’s
A Star Is Born ST continues its extended run, while “Shallow” is the top-selling song YTD with another 340k, just missing the Top 10 with 796k in total activity.
Monte Lipman’s
Republic, at #3, is breaking new ground with the ascendant
Ariana Grande, who tops both the albums and songs charts YTD. Lipman has three of the Top 5 streaming songs and four of the Top 10—two apiece from Ari and
Post Malone, who also has the #6 album.
Steve Barnett’s
Capitol Music Group maintains its #4 position while hitting 8% in streaming share and nearing that milestone in total activity.
Halsey, meanwhile, scores the #3 song, with
QC/Motown/Capitol’s
Lil Baby & Gunna at #9.
While
Columbia has the highest percentage at
Rob Stringer’s
Sony Music, the hottest label is
Sylvia Rhone’s
Epic, which has increased its marketshare this year, thanks primarily to
Future,
21 Savage and
Travis Scott, who have the #4, 5 and 10 albums, respectively. The biggest album at
Peter Edge’s
RCA is #9
Backstreet Boys.
At
Max Lousada’s
WMG, Chairman/CEO
Aaron Bay-Schuck nears his first six months running the revitalized
Warner Bros. Records alongside Chairman/COO
Tom Corson.
In Nashville,
Randy Goodman’s Sony maintains a slight lead over
Mike Dungan’s UMG.
While the sample size isn’t yet big enough to draw any macro conclusions, what these early stats show is that 2018’s highest-scoring labels are generating even greater momentum so far in 2019. In particular, watch out for Interscope, which is riding
Joie Manda’s hot hand, is doing a volume business in the streaming sector and has several jumbo jets taxiing for takeoff, including Gaga,
J. Cole,
Juice WRLD and
Billie Eilish.
