#awal

Labyrinthine releases in exactly one week 🗝️🤍

When he’s not taking on the likes of the Demogorgon and Juno Temple at his other job, Joe Keery makes what AllMusic calls “wry and hooky anthems, blending vintage-inspired synthwave and power-pop influences” under the name Djo.

He’s put out three solo albums, the most recent of which, The Crux, dropped a month ago to raves, which brought the multihyphenate back to his current hometown to kick off a three-night run — and to close out his tour — at Brooklyn Steel on Monday.

(Djo plays Brooklyn Steel again tonight.) (Djo plays Brooklyn Steel again tomorrow.) (Djo plays All Things Go at Forest Hills Stadium on 9/26.)

Photos courtesy of Michelle Paradis | @michelleparadis_

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There are two kinds of rights at stake here: the rights to the master recordings of an artist’s work, and songwriting rights, known as publishing. One senior music publishing executive says their part of the business was ahead of the curve, explaining that publishing deals tend to work on exclusive licensing terms or retention periods. “Publishers pivoted from a rights-ownership business to the servicing of rights,” they say. Those retention periods are getting shorter, they add, down from about 25 years three decades ago to between 12 and 15 years today.

Message says he steers acts away from ownership-based contracts. “We have a default position that we won’t advise our artists to do life-of-copyright deals,” he says. “It’s not that we wouldn’t do them, but our strong advice would always be to come up with a licence arrangement of some description.”

This is the ideological underpinning of BMG and AWAL (Artists Without a Label), which is now under the ownership of Sony Music Entertainment. “The philosophy is flipping the relationship,” says Alistair Norbury, president of repertoire and marketing at BMG UK. “There had to be a fairer and more transparent way to work with the creative community.”

Acts on BMG’s roster – notably Kylie Minogue, Suede, Sigur Rós and Louis Tomlinson – are on licensing or assignment deals, so ownership of the recordings eventually reverts to them. “They want to be with a record label where they have creative control and ownership coming back to them at some point,” says Norbury.

AWAL sings from a similar hymn sheet. “AWAL emerged to help what we now call ‘independent artists’ to remain independent,” says Paul Hitchman, the company’s global COO. “Independent in the sense of owning their rights and retaining control over their career, but without having to compromise in terms of the expertise and support they can tap into, without having to compromise on the global reach and success that they can achieve.”

Norbury believes that, with more choices for acts, music companies have to repeatedly prove their worth and think about mutual gains rather than offering one-sided deals that are land grabs for all the rights. He says, “You want something successful in a long-term partnership rather than owning something that failed.”

In light of all this, the majors increasingly have to offer more flexible deal terms. They are also heavily investing in other artist and label services companies to gain a share of the boom in DIY and independent acts. Sony owns Awal and the Orchard. UMG has both Virgin Music Label & Artist Services and Ingrooves. Warner Music Group has Ada.

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[Ed.: Louis Tomlinson’s licensing deal is with BMG. His publishing is through LT Publishing administered by Kobalt Music Group. This article implies that all rights for masters and publishing belong to Louis, and are licensed for a contracted period to BMG.]

Track of the day // Little Simz - Gorilla