Table of contents for No. 1406 in Music Week

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who came and sold out the Music Week Awards last month. Once again, you helped it live up to its reputation as the loudest ceremony out there. It was, truly, a boisterous crowd -composed of so many different amazing parts of the UK's music industry – that descended upon the Grosvenor. But amid all the deafening cheers, spilled drinks and one memorable Jamz Supernova-led run through the Gillette theme song, there was also that rarest of rare things: a sustained period of quiet. The great hushing down happened after Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner and Wildlife Entertainment MD Emma Greengrass welcomed Strat winner Ian McAndrew onto the stage to reflect on his storied career, one that has seen him play a decisive role in…

THE BIG MOVE Frontiers Label Group has appointed Tim Bailey as the new head of label – international. Bailey has joined from UK rock label Earache, where he recently helped to steer Those Damn Crows to a No.1 album triumph. Frontiers Label Group has made a raft of big signings including Skunk Anansie, The Hunna and Megadeth. Describing the move as a “no-brainer”, Tim Bailey said: “They've become one of the most trusted mainstays of rock in the last 29 years, but the last two years have seen a huge pivot in the label's trajectory.” THE BIG LABEL Capitol Music Group has unveiled an expanded Nashville operation. Capitol Christian Music Group (CCMG) and country division Capitol Records Nashville will now come under the Capitol Music Group Nashville banner. The company…

Host: Kate Hutchinson (journalist & broadcaster) Contact: kate@katehutchinson.co.uk What initially inspired you to launch Studio Radicals alongside DCS Audio? “It's always the right moment for a podcast that drills into the magic behind music. I'd been kicking ideas around with DCS Audio's Rachael Steven and Krysti Hamilton for a while and we thought, ‘Wouldn't it be cool to get to snoop around amazing composers, engineers, producers and artists’ studios and take a deeper look at how our favourite music gets made?’ We wanted to make an audio series that underlines technical brilliance but that is really for anyone who is interested in how we listen to and experience great sound. Music isn't just songs, there's a whole world built around them and we wanted to delve into that. From my…

@arilennox Happy Birthday sweet legendary Stevie Wonder. (Ari Lennox, artist via Instagram) Tuesday, May 13 @lovelimmy If you got three press releases from me today, you are so blessed! (David Lim, Outside Organisation via X) Monday, May 19 @jasminedotiwala Five years have passed since we lost our dear friend @tymusic [Ben Chijioke]. RIP Ty. (Jasmine Dotiwala OBE, broadcaster via X) Wednesday, May 7 @markdavyd.bsky.social Why are grassroots music venues treated differently to theatres, arts centres, cinemas when it comes to licensing and access for young people? More than that… Why are they treated differently to arenas and stadiums? (Mark Davyd, Music Venue Trust via Bluesky) Monday, May 19 @mylessmithuk I can't even begin to explain how emotional I feel right now. Four months of touring the world finished today. I want…

JUNE 13 AlphaWh**es You Can Come Out Now Editoris Babymetal Metal Forth Capitol Brett Young 2.0 Nashville Harbor Calum Hood Order Chaos Order Capitol Girls Aloud The Girls Aloud Show 2024 Mercury Metallica Load (Remastered) Blackened Nyah Grace Divinely Devoted (Out 11.06.25) Palawan Prod. The Cure Mixes Of A Lost World Polydor JUNE 20 Aitch 4 NQ/The Orchard Benson Boone American Heart Night Street/Warner Haim I Quit Polydor Joshua Redman Words Fall Short Blue Note/UMG Loyle Carner Hopefully! EMI The Wandering Hearts Déjà Vu (We Have All Been Here Before) Chrysalis US Girls Scratch It 4AD University McCartney, It'll Be OK Transgressive JUNE 27 Armin Van Buuren Breathe Out Armada BC Camplight A Sober Conversation Bella Union Bruce Springsteen Tracks II: The Lost Albums Columbia Cam Muncey Cam Muncey &…

UNITED KINGDOM Skye Newman Family Matters Video Creations: 65,000 In a huge breakthrough, South London singer-songwriter Skye Newman's first two singles – Hairdresser and Family Matters – have landed in the UK Official Top 20. Family Matters, Newman's latest release, is a meditation on familial relationships and personal strength, with the TikTok community playing a monumental role in its rise. Tens of thousands of creations have seen fans embracing the track for confessionals and emotionally honest videos. Breaking into the UK Top 10, the song also underlines how TikTok can act as a launchpad for visibility, bolstering the connection between artists and their listeners. Kira Ashwin, music partnerships manager at TikTok UK, notes the rarity of Newman's rise in such a short span of time. “For a debut artist to…

Your essential primer for the month ahead British breakthrough artists are making a global streaming impact this year – but they face intense competition from US stars and international acts. Lola Young continues to fly the flag around the world with Messy, while Myles Smith, Central Cee and Charli XCX are building on global success they achieved in 2024. Based on Music Week analysis of Spotify's Global Charts, UK artists are establishing a Top 100 presence with current single releases. But it is proving challenging to break into the Top 20. Concerns were raised after UK talent was absent from the Spotify Wrapped Top 10 results for 2024. US superstars continue to dominate the DSP's rankings this year. As Music Week went to press, Lola Young was the only UK…

RELEASE: Levels LABEL: Partisan Records MANAGEMENT: Raj Chaudhuri & Rich Austen Smith, Giant Artist Management WHAT THE TEAM SAYS: Jeff Bell, global VP & head of UK, Partisan Records: “Léa has a vision for every part of her art and it's a joy to work with her to bring the world she has created to life. Since moving to London, she has quickly, and deservedly, become one of the community's go-to collaborators, and now her debut presents her as the indelible songwriter, producer and performer that she is in her own right.”…

“I don't give a f**k about becoming a millionaire, but you need to survive” Jehnny Beth It's been five years since your last solo album, why is now the right time for a new Jehnny Beth record? “To make a record, it has to itch so hard that there's nothing you can do but do it. We've been touring a lot; we played massive stadiums with Depeche Mode in Europe, and Queens Of The Stone Age in America. We also did some hardcore metal festivals where Korn or Tool would be headlining. I was on stage, and suddenly I had a vision of what this record was going to be. I knew I wanted it to start with a scream, which it does. The times are really absurd; it's an insane…

LINKA MOJA The indie rock singer-songwriter from Lake Tahoe muses on her love for raw lyricism, creating a label with her dad and how a break-up led to a life-changing surprise encounter with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder… You wrote your new single Psycho years ago, before becoming ‘Linka Moja’ the artist – what made you release it now? “With my career, it's been hard to get the funds to record and the confidence to drop something – I've been trying to find my voice and be true to my artistry. I wrote Psycho in college, before I had anyone else's expectations on me, so it feels very representative of who I am; I wasn't even thinking about ‘Linka Moja'. Feeling confident in this industry is hard and I get imposter…

Daniel Jang hasn't been co-CEO of South Korea's SM Entertainment very long, joining the K-pop talent machine in 2022 as CFO and climbing to the top position by March 2023, quicker than the time it takes the company to create and unveil a new act. Now running the show alongside co-CEO Dmitry YJ Tak, who was promoted from COO in March last year, Jang has worked primarily as an accountant, spending over a decade at PWC, before serving at wellness and fitness company Bodyfriend and cosmetics brand Skinfood. But, as he sits down to celebrate SM Entertainment's 30th anniversary with Music Week, you would think he'd been with them for his entire career – thorough, informed, passionate, he knows every area of the business. As the smartly dressed exec sits…

On a hot summer's day in Berlin last year, WizTheMC joined DJ/producer collective Bees & Honey in the studio to try out some ideas. Little did he know the session would result in his viral smash and UK No.3 hit Show Me Love, which has amassed nearly 200 million Spotify streams to date. Here, he muses on his journey, from financial struggles in LA to performing the track's remix with Tyla at Coachella… When I resonate with a good melody, it's like the song is already written. From that moment on, it's my job to be intuitive, like there's already a story to be told. That's what it felt like with Show Me Love. The song came about in summer 2024 when I was in Berlin. I'd spent three months…

Emily Quillin Digital marketing & social media manager, ERA UK & Record Store Day UK @equillinit.bsky.social You joined ERA off the back of studying English and drama at Royal Holloway. How did you get your first break in the industry and what inspired you to join the trade body? “Music has always been fundamental in my life. I graduated during the pandemic and dived into some random jobs trying to ‘find’ myself until I heard HMV was returning to my town. The next thing, I'm senior sales assistant and designated TikTok-maker. I have a lot of memories of HMV in the early noughties – thanks to my dad – so I channelled that nostalgia into it. Then we accidentally went viral; ‘that HMV-TikTok person’ was my street name for a…

Léa Sen still recalls singing to herself in the mirror at four years old. “I would pretend I was onstage, I just loved it,” she smiles, as we settle into a conversation about her musical beginnings growing up in Paris. “I'd found this lyric game on the Barbie website and I remember thinking singing just felt so good. That's where it all started!” From that moment on, music was a constant. Her musician father had a studio next to her bedroom and her brothers’ [Florian and Hugo] love for jazz began to inspire Sen herself. “I shared a room with Hugo for the first 10 or so years of my life,” she reminisces. “We didn't have space or money for a piano, so when he was 13 or so, he…

YUNGBLUD Zombie (Island/Locomotion) Yungblud has said that with his new album Idols, out this month, he wanted to create a “project with no limitations”, which is a statement typical of Dom Harrison's bold approach to just about everything he does. One thing you may not have been expecting, though, is a song that recalls the likes of Athlete and Snow Patrol in their most widescreen moments. That is precisely what he serves up on Zombie but, this being Yungblud, it comes with a twist of grunge and his inimitable vocal presence, urgently delivering lines like, ‘Would you even want me?/Looking like a zombie‘. It's impactful stuff, and the record – the first part of a double album campaign – finds Yungblud questioning the idea of hero worship, something he will…

World tours, MOBO Awards and chart-topping albums might satisfy most artists – but YolanDa Brown OBE is not most artists. An acclaimed saxophonist, broadcaster, author, educator, entrepreneur and Music Week‘s 2022 Women In Music Awards Music Champion, Brown is an all-round powerhouse. Known for blending jazz, soul and reggae in her music, she has shared stages with The Temptations, Jools Holland's Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, Billy Ocean, and collaborated with Snarky Puppy's Bill Laurance and Stereophonics’ Kelly Jones, to name a few. But her creative influence extends beyond the concert hall; she composes for series such as Sesame Street and stars in her own BAFTA-nominated CBeebies show, YolanDa's Band Jam. Offstage, Brown is also a leading advocate for music education. Previously the chair of Youth Music, she is a trustee…

Aespa: “We're so grateful for all the love we've received from fans around the world. We'll keep working hard to return that love and show people the many different sides of us. We're always grateful for the support of the artists who came through SM before us, it gives us so much strength as we move forward. We'll work hard to do the same for those who come after us.” Riize: “We're really excited to be performing on stage in London for the first time at SMTown Live. It means a lot to finally see our UK fans in person, and we're especially thrilled that we'll have the chance to perform songs from our first full-length album, Odyssey, which came out last month. We hope to make it an unforgettable…

You can't pay bills with hope. We've all said that a lot in the last year – venues, fans, promoters and artists all clinging to the idea that things really are going to change. That the live music industry will finally recognise the value of the stages it's built on, that we might be able to turn survival into sustainability. That hope has kept a lot of doors open in the last 12 months. But it won't keep them open forever. The next phase of Music Venue Properties (MVP) is here. It's called Own Our Venues, and it's not a campaign or a concept or a press release. It's a serious, structured, communityled takeover of the buildings that house the UK's most vital live music spaces. It's already working. In…