Billboard’s 2026 Power 100 list has been revealed, including 2026’s executive of the year.
The concert industry is still growing. The streaming business continues to boom. But as investors pour billions into artificial intelligence, rights holders are seizing a historic opportunity to drive the value of music to new heights.
The ranking of this year’s top 40 reflects the force these leaders are showing as they forge strategic partnerships with new technology juggernauts to revolutionize the way fans interact with the artists and songs they love. With great power, of course, comes great responsibility — and the stakes are high. Here’s to the success of this year’s honorees as they work to safeguard creators’ rights and shepherd music into a fruitful new era.Over the course of the past decade, Grainge has become not only the chief executive of Universal Music Group but something of an unofficial leader of the industry as a whole — particularly when it comes to dealing with the challenges of new business models. More than any other music executive, he has shaped the modern streaming business — first by encouraging and helping to define competition and more recently by pushing services to improve payouts to rights holders with an “artist-centric” royalty model. And this year he also did more than any other executive to steer the music business into the era of artificial intelligence. For years, Universal has taken the lead on defining AI as both a challenge and an opportunity . The challenge came first: In October 2023, Universal and other music publishers sued the AI company Anthropic for infringing copyrighted song lyrics , and in June 2024, Universal and the two other major labels sued the AI music services Udio and Suno for allegedly using their recordings to train models without a license. A year later, it was reported that the labels were negotiating. But the industrywide turning point between litigation and licensing was Universal’s October deal with Udio. Universal’s agreement with Udio allows the company to train its AI model on some of the recordings and compositions that Universal controls, plus use the voices and performance styles of performers who opt in. Music created by users with these tools will stay inside a “walled garden,” inconvenient to upload to streaming services, where it would compete with music from Universal’s artists. The Udio agreement is the biggest of many. Universal has also signed deals with Stability AI, Splice and — early in 2026 — the AI-focused microchip giant NVIDIA. The idea, as Grainge explained in his New Year’s internal memo, is that Universal can’t afford to ignore an important new technology, nor accept deals from AI companies that don’t sufficiently value the rights it controls or protect creators from AI competition. Just as in streaming, Grainge wants Universal to play an active role in shaping the structure of deals and encouraging competition, rather than simply licensing any company that meets certain terms. “We must lean in,” Grainge said in the memo, “and take the reins in determining our future.” That means guiding the conversation around AI, both within the music business and outside it, including helping to start the Human Artistry Campaign and lobbying in the United Kingdom to discourage the government from watering down copyright law there. “We have punched way above our weight on the global stage to ensure that the interests of artists and music companies are front and center in technology, dealmaking and public policy,” Grainge said in his memo. “And we will continue to do so.” Another one of Universal’s strategic priorities is adjusting the economics of streaming to prevent known artists from losing out as a flood of music — made by both humans and with the help of AI — dilutes streaming royalty pools. Grainge helped shape the “artist-centric” idea that pushed services to address the issue in different ways, and the company is following up with the concept “Streaming 2.0.” The idea is to build on the artist-centric model and disqualify “AI slop” while increasing average revenue per user in a way that helps not only Universal but, inevitably, other labels and rights holders. Universal signed a new deal with Amazon in late 2024, Spotify in early 2025 and YouTube this past fall. Next up: a deal that could improve streaming services themselves in the form of that January 2026 agreement with NVIDIA that aims “to elevate discovery, engagement and consumption beyond current constructs of search and personalization,” according to the announcement. Any deal with NVIDIA is a win, since it will give the AI sector’s leading company an incentive to license training content rather than proceed with the usual Silicon Valley strategy of asking forgiveness instead of permission. There could be more here, though. “We’re entering an era where a music catalog can be explored like an intelligent universe — conversational, contextual and genuinely interactive,” NVIDIA vp/GM of Media Richard Kerris said in the deal announcement. It’s the kind of technology strategy that’s full of promise, and Grainge and Universal intend to help turn it into a big business for the future. —Robert Levine“With the amount of music coming into the marketplace under streaming, never mind when AI kicks in, you have to expand your horizons more than just thinking, ‘I need the No. 1 record on the charts,’ ” says Stringer, whose company closed 65 label, publishing and distribution deals worth more than $2.5 billion in 2025. Even with The Orchard-distributed Bad Bunny ranking as Spotify’s most streamed artist in the world for 2025, Columbia/Sony Latin’s Rosalía setting a single-day Spotify record for a Spanish-speaking female and the Oasis reunion becoming one of the year’s top tours, Sony Music remains in growth mode. “You need volume, and preferably volume with really cool stuff that is actually going to be commercially viable,” Stringer says, as the company expands its footprint in Latin America, Asia and Eastern European territories. “Who would have thought that K-pop would do what it did, or that reggaetón would do what it did, or regional Mexican? You’ve got to stay on your toes. I want to understand what the next one is.” Last year was Sony’s ninth straight year of revenue growth, at an average of 14.7% annually over the past four years, ahead of a market rate of 11.3%, and MiDIA Research declared Sony Music the fastest-growing major in the first half of this decade. Stringer also says the company looks for new ways to expand support of its creators through artist- and songwriter-forward initiatives. “I’ve had other people who might be competitors say to me, ‘Why did you do that?’ My view is that you eventually pay if you don’t do the right thing.” —Geoff MayfieldRapino marked two decades leading the concert giant in 2025, a year in which Live Nation promoted record-breaking stadium tours by Coldplay, Beyoncé, Oasis, and Kendrick Lamar and SZA; welcomed an estimated 160 million fans; grew revenue to $18.9 billion for the first nine months of the year ; and dominated the Billboard Boxscore year-end Top Tours chart with nine entries in the top 10. Live Nation also added 3,000 new roles and 18,000 seasonal hires “and continues to focus on developing the next generation of leaders who’ll shape the future of this industry,” Rapino says, adding that the company expanded its Taking Care of Our Own employee benefits plan with stronger crisis and mental health support, new sabbaticals and more resources for part-time club staff in 2025. The company’s record-breaking momentum outpaced, for the moment, ongoing legal challenges from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission — the latter filed in September 2025 that alleged Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, essentially allow ticket brokers to buy and sell tickets in a way that deceives consumers. Rapino prefers to focus on developments intended to improve its servicing of live-music fans. In October, the company announced the appointment of tech innovator and former Square executive Saumil Mehta as Ticketmaster’s global president. Mehta’s “mandate is straightforward,” Rapino says. “Use AI to transform the Ticketmaster experience. He’s pushing hard on AI that makes the fan journey more intuitive and gives artists and venues smarter tools to run their tours and shows.” Mehta’s arrival came shortly before the U.K. government banned the selling of tickets above face value, a move that Rapino says “we fully support” and that “Ticketmaster already does” across the pond., “Short answer, yes. We believe artists should control how their tickets are sold and resold — that’s why we built the Face Value Exchange, which any artist can use.” But, he adds, “One platform can’t solve this on its own. To truly crack down on bad actors and make the experience better for fans, we need clear rules and real government enforcement.”Spotify’s biggest news of 2025 wasn’t about AI, licensing agreements or a “superfan” tier that has yet to see the light of day. Rather, it was co-founder and CEO Ek’s decision to step down at the end of 2025 to become a still-involved executive chairman. Ek was replaced by co-CEOs Norström and Söderström, who previously were co-presidents in charge of business and product/technology, respectively. The official announcement downplayed the drama, pointing out that Norström and Söderström have led Spotify’s day-to-day operations and strategic development since 2023. But a co-founder handing over the reins to co-CEOs marked an important inflection point for the world’s biggest music subscription platform. Wall Street certainly took note: Spotify’s share price fell more than 14% in the six weeks following the announcement. Norström and Söderström took leadership of a company with both naysayers and supporters. Critics have long argued that Spotify’s app interface is too cluttered, the listening experience is too determined by algorithms and the royalties are too low, to name just a few frequent complaints. But by many key measures, Spotify is successfully navigating the complexities of format expansion — podcasts and audiobooks bolster Spotify’s core music offering — and a never-ending need to roll out new features. As of Sept. 30, 2025, Spotify had 713 million total monthly users, up 11% year over year, and 281 million subscribers, up 12%. Even though Spotify stopped being a pure music service years ago, its forays into podcasts and audiobooks have made it a more potent partner for record labels and music publishers. Offering more value to listeners has allowed the company to raise prices that went unchanged for more than a decade. In 2025, Spotify rolled out such features as lossless audio, long-form concert videos and a new editorial series, The Drop Weekly. Those and numerous other improvements helped third-quarter operating income grow 28% to 582 million euros and gross profit improve to 31.6% from 31.1% a year earlier. U.S. prices are expected to rise again in 2026, and the long-awaited “superfan” tier would add to those figures. That’s a long way of saying that Spotify’s financial model continues to fortify itself for the future. —Glenn PeoplesAfter issuing an internal memo in July indicating he was cutting $300 million in costs — including $170 million in staff cuts — to “future-proof” the label group, Kyncl says, “We’ve decided to put more money behind the music and refine how we operate and deliver with much greater impact. We’ve been hotter than ever with both Atlantic and Warner Records,” he says. “I can talk about sombr, Maria , Alex Warren and Ravyn Lenae all breaking through in big ways, and also Cardi B and Twenty One Pilots all delivering No. 1 albums.” Alternative artist sombr’s debut album reached the top 10 in the United States and at least eight other countries. Social media breakthrough Warren had his breakout single, “Ordinary,” spend 10 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. Argentine singer Becerra’s single with Rei and XROSS, “Mi Amor,” reached the top 10 in her own country. And R&B singer Lenae’s “Love Me Not” single reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Ed Sheeran’s Play reached the top five on the Billboard 200 stateside and in seven other countries. Cardi B’sbecame her second No. 1 album, while alternative duo Twenty One Pilots debuted at No. 1 for the second time in its career with Breach. “We’ve grown our market share, especially in the United States, for our recorded-music market group, up 0.6%, according to Luminate,” Kyncl says. “And we did all of this while recalibrating the company for the future, cutting costs and expanding profitability. I’m really proud of what the team has accomplished.” —G.M.After spending the past 12 years launching five companies designed to better serve artists and their fans, The Azoff Company spent 2025 focused on growing those businesses: Full Stop Management, which is run by Jeffrey; indie label Giant Music; heritage artist catalog and brand management company Iconic Artists Group; and performing rights organization Global Music Rights. The fifth company, Oak View Group, took a hit when the U.S. Department of Justice indicted co-founder and CEO Tim Leiweke on bid-rigging charges in July, but a reprieve came in December when President Trump pardoned the executive. For the Azoffs, however, good news far outweighed the bad in 2025. Full Stop artists the Eagles played 26 shows at Sphere in Las Vegas and have booked 12 more dates this year. No Doubt will reunite for 18 shows at the state-of-the-art venue beginning in May.’s No. 17 top artist of 2025, Tate McRae, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 2025 albumand grossed $75.8 million on tour . John Mayer played the Grateful Dead’s 60th-anniversary concerts in Golden Gate Park in August, Cardi B was’s No. 67 top artist of 2025, and Camila Cabello and Victoria Monét joined the Full Stop roster. Iconic’s wins included an investment in Frank Sinatra Enterprises — a big get since the Chairman of the Board’s popularity surpasses that of many contemporary artists. His music has racked up more than 1 billion on-demand U.S. streams every year since 2021. And over at Giant, slizzy rapper Cash Cobain continues to build. His current single, “Hoes Be Mad,” generated approximately 26 million streams, and his song catalog, including that track, has racked up over 220 million, according to Luminate, which,The label is also banking on, among others, Utah teen rockers Riff Wood, Australian pop artist Ruel and British jazz prodigy and singer-songwriter Hohnen Ford. “I don’t think you can point to anyone who has from an entrepreneurial base started a business in the last 12 years that has this kind of depth and breadth and reach,” Azoff Company co-president Elizabeth Collins says of its founder.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s decision to move the Oscars from a broadcast network to YouTube in 2029 isn’t directly related to Lyor Cohen. But listen to Cohen and you’ll understand why Hollywood’s biggest night, which attracts tens of millions of viewers globally, is leaving network TV for the world’s biggest, most important streaming platform. It’s the same reason football fans get NFL Sunday Ticket through YouTube TV rather than through a patchwork of U.S. cable TV providers: The world watches on YouTube. “Meeting the fans where they are is the key ingredient to our global success,” says Cohen, who will celebrate his 10th year as YouTube’s global head of music in 2026. “Whether it’s watching the premiere of your favorite artist’s new music video, experiencing the magic of Coachella on your TV or getting hyped for a podcast episode on Shorts, YouTube is the only place where every format lives under one roof.” Americans are especially fond of YouTube — and not just on smartphones. For most of 2025, the platform has been the top Nielsen-rated media distributor by TV viewership, besting The Walt Disney Company , Netflix, NBCUniversal, Paramount and Fox. YouTube commanded approximately 13% of TV viewing time for much of 2025, approximately five percentage points ahead of No. 2 Netflix and more than double the top traditional TV brand. While much of YouTube’s viewership comes from ad-supported viewing, Cohen is intent on growing the number of customers who pay to view ad-free. “Our north star is moving casual listeners into forever fans,” he says. As of March 2025, YouTube Premium — the ad-free version of YouTube — and YouTube Music had a combined 125 million subscribers. In the music space, only Spotify and Tencent Music Entertainment have more subscribers than YouTube. The proof of a platform’s success is ultimately in the royalties it pays to creators and rights holders. Going after subscribers has helped YouTube double the amount paid to the music industry in just over three years. “Our twin engines of ads and subscriptions — which were responsible for over $8 billion being paid to the music industry between July 2024 and June 2025 — are providing the recipe for long-term artist and songwriter success on a global scale,” Cohen says. —G.P.In 2025, Sony Music Publishing continued its dominance as the largest publisher in the music business by market share. In the third quarter of the year, for example, it came in as the No. 1 publisher on the Top Radio Airplay, Hot 100 Songs and Country Airplay charts in’s No. 25 top artist of 2025, BigXthaPlug; British singer-songwriter Myles Smith; Addison Rae; producer-engineer-songwriter Mike Dean; and producer-songwriter Julian Bunetta, and the renewal or sweetening of deals with such SMP stars as Ed Sheeran, Travis Scott, Miley Cyrus and Shakira. Platt also positioned Sony ahead of the competition through the strategic acquisition of Hipgnosis Songs Group. Global expansion remains a top priority for Platt, and in 2025, he helped launch a new Sony publishing office in Thailand and international writing camps in Paris, Madrid, London and Accra, Ghana. Domestically, Platt established a new songwriter hub and office in Los Angeles and returned its Nashville administrative office to Music Row alongside its creative offices. And in September, he received the Otis & Zelma Redding Award of Respect at the fourth annual King of Soul Festival in Macon, Ga., which honors the legacy of the late soul icon. —Kristin RobinsonOn a sunny morning in October, Universal Music Publishing Group chairman/CEO Jody Gerson gathered her lieutenants around a table in her Santa Monica, Calif., office, Zooming in her overseas executives on a big screen, and proudly introduced what she described as evidence to inform the ongoing industry discussion on “whether AI will replace human artistry.” “I’m going to show you why it will not,” Gerson said, clad in a black leather jacket and her signature rose-tinted aviator glasses, cueing the dazzlingly original video for the operatic track “Berghain” that had just been released by Rosalía, whom Gerson signed in 2019 and has worked with closely ever since. “The reaction that this video’s getting just gives me hope that real artists will prevail.” Throughout the rest of the meeting, as each team member gave their updates, Gerson interjected frequently to offer support, asking if there was “anything else we could do to help” a certain songwriter and acknowledging one leader for working through his entire vacation to ensure that a critical deal struck the right “balance of what’s good for songwriters and what’s good for the company on a global basis.” “I want to commend you for fighting the fight and making sure songwriters are paid fairly. We should all be comforted knowing we have this dream team fighting for value,” Gerson gushed. It’s been a decade since Gerson took the helm of the publishing business at the world’s biggest record company. Since then, she’s reigned not just as the most powerful woman in the music industry but as one of the most influential executives in entertainment, approximately tripling her company’s publishing revenue and championing songwriters and the value of music at every opportunity — and waking up before dawn each morning to feed her three dogs and practice Pilates before arriving at the office “excited, hoping that I’m going to hear something that I love and that I can contribute in some way to someone’s life. I still have the responsibility of that.”Moot and Marshall turned heads in music publishing last year when Warner Chappell Music finished at No. 2 behind Sony on both of’s Publishers Quarterly Top Radio Airplay and Hot 100 Songs rankings in the second and third quarters with more than 20% of the market in both brackets. WCM also reigned as the No. 1 country music publisher for the entire year, part of the legacy of its Nashville president Ben Vaughn, who died unexpectedly in January 2025 at the age of 49. “Our teams across the globe came together with extraordinary focus and creativity,” Moot says, adding that prioritizing global reach over the last few years has paid off, securing “market-leading positions in such territories as Germany, Hong Kong and Spain.” New stars that joined the roster last year include Rosé, Diplo, Dre Harris and Cyril, and longtime WCM artist Kacey Musgraves re-upped with the publisher. “The caliber of artists joining — and staying with — Warner Chappell speaks volumes about the trust and belief they place in our teams,” Moot says. Synch licensing has also been a source of growth for Moot and Marshall this year. “We remain deeply committed to breathing new life into our unparalleled catalog,” Marshall says. This includes key wins like securing Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” for Nike’s Super Bowl ad. For all publishers, new challenges lay on the horizon as generative AI technology gains ground, but Moot says Warner Music Group’s “thoughtful partnerships” with AI companies such as Suno and Udio in late 2025 ensure that its writers are “protected and positioned to benefit as this technology grows.” —K.R.“We had such an incredible year,” Marciano says, “that I’m actually nervous to list because I’m afraid I may leave someone out.” The “tip of the iceberg,” as the veteran promoter puts it, includes opening The Pinnacle, a state-of-the-art venue in Nashville; breaking ground on new venues in Portland, Ore., and Austin; and record-breaking years for festivals BST Hyde Park, Stagecoach and Country to Country. In 2025, AEG also remained a steadfast partner to major artists, including Morgan Wallen, whose curated Alabama festival Sand in My Boots debuted in May; Zach Bryan, who set a record for the largest ticketed concert audience in U.S. history when he played the first show at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor; and Andrea Bocelli, who inked a five-year partnership with the promoter in May. All told, AEG Presents rode this success to another No. 2 placement onBut AEG’s horizons keep expanding. For one, Cárdenas Marketing Network, with which AEG partnered in 2024, ranked at No. 6 on the 2025 Top Promoters chart, indicating AEG’s growing clout in both Latin music and global markets. “Our international business is a key focus for us right now,” says Marciano, who also cites recent deals with the German promoter MCT Agentur and the French festival We Love Green and the Norwegian office AEG opened in 2025. Elsewhere in the world, Ed Sheeran played seven sold-out shows in India last year. Meanwhile, Marciano says, “We work really hard to superserve both the artists and the audience.” The company’s ticketing platform, AXS, has introduced technologies to improve ticket accessibility for fans such as Fair AXS, which streamlined ticketing for Chappell Roan’s in-demand fall tour. In 2028, AXS and CTS Eventim will provide ticketing services for the Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games. In this unpredictable business, Marciano stresses adaptability. “Nobody has a crystal ball, and things can change in an instant,” he says. “Being ready to take advantage of opportunities that come your way is what counts.”—Eric Renner BrownLast year marked 10 years of Apple Music, and Schusser says, “We’re incredibly proud of the journey we’ve taken. We built a truly global product,” that, he adds, “does not and will never have a free tier,” and yet has “the lowest churn rate in the industry.” Schusser says it’s also a point of pride that “whenever we ship truly innovative things, our competitors are trying to copy us within three months.” He cites the 2025 debut of Automix as an example; it’s a feature that enables users to create seamless, DJ-like transitions between songs. DJ With Spotify soon followed. He also applauds Apple Music’s artist relations team — helmed by Zane Lowe — which provides artists opportunities to share their stories through its digital radio programming. “We are worried that at the end of the day, streaming is just a jukebox in the sky,” Schusser explains. “We’re in the music business at Apple because we love music. That’s why we created these spaces and these moments for artists to express themselves and connect with their fans. It’s so important to do it because streaming, by and large, doesn’t let them do that.” —K.R.It’s hard to argue that another label has bigger stars than REPUBLIC Collective, where the Lipman brothers have been in charge since founding it in 1995. Their first major hit was Chumbawamba’s No. 6 Billboard Hot 100 single, “Tubthumping,” in 1997, which made Republic so valuable the Lipmans sold it to Universal Music Group three years later for an undisclosed amount. Since then, they’ve taken over record deals for the world’s biggest hit-makers, including Taylor Swift , Drake and Morgan Wallen . Those artists, along with Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, helped power the collection of labels — which includes Island, Mercury and Def Jam — to an industry-leading 16.84% current market share in 2025. “We saw the REPUBLIC Collective compete at the highest level and sail into uncharted waters,” Monte says.Janick still thinks of himself as an outsider in the music business. “It’s probably more who I am,” says the record executive who formed his breakthrough indie label, Fueled by Ramen, with an $800 savings bond he’d received from family members. But this self-description sounds odd when Janick discusses the stars on his current label, Interscope Capitol, which racked up a 15.83% overall market share through the end of 2025 — greater than all other major labels, including its Universal Music Group in-house rival REPUBLIC., “is still going,” he says. Other Interscope Capitol artists he cites: Kendrick Lamar, whose Super Bowl halftime show performance became the most watched in history — 133.5 million viewers, according to the NFL, Roc Nation and Apple Music — then staged the Grand National Tour, which finished at No. 3 on Billboard Boxscore’s year-end Top Tours chart with $358.7 million. Then there’s Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Doechii, Playboi Carti, KATSEYE, mgk and Gracie Abrams, “who had her breakout year in 2024 extending into 2025,” he says. “When you start a record label with $800, you have no connection to anybody, no resources and you just have to figure it out,” he says. “Now, I get to be here with every relationship and all the resources you could possibly need.” Janick says that he tells his team to “dream of anything and do anything you want,” and two years into UMG’s merger of Interscope and Capitol, the label head has effected plenty of change. Working with Nir Seroussi, the head of Interscope Capitol Miami, Janick and his team have reconfigured the label’s Latin division so that international stars such as Karol G, Xavi and J Balvin can more easily share resources with U.S. stars like Gaga and Eilish. They relaunched Lost Highway Records and re-signed Kacey Musgraves to her original label home and boosted the careers of rocker Yungblud and rising singer-songwriter Sienna Spiro. “We’re focused on looking forward and not paying attention to the noise around us,” he says. “I came into a great company and a great brand, and we were able to evolve it into something for the future.” —S.K.Since Grainge took over as CEO at Atlantic in September 2024, the company has gone through a seismic restructuring — shifting 10K Projects under the AMG umbrella, sunsetting the Elektra Records brand, moving the U.K. team under the U.S. leadership structure and undergoing several rounds of layoffs in order to future-proof the company for technological changes to come. Now, “we’ve got the most incredible, ambitious team — the Dream Team,” he says, noting everything is always a work in progress. But it’s already bearing fruit on the artist side. Last summer, Alex Warren ruled the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 nonconsecutive weeks, while Rosé and Bruno Mars’ “APT.” came in at No. 9 on the year-end Hot 100, landing record and song of the year nominations at the 2026 Grammys in the process. And with Warren and The Marías also landing best new artist nods, “it means that we’re picking the right artists,” Grainge says. “The artists are having incredible success with their A&R teams and their own vision creatively and sonically, and when you put those bits of magic and perspective together, the sky is the limit, right?”’s 2025 R&B Rookie of the Year — landed a slew of top 10 chart peaks with her “Love Me Not,” which climbed to No. 5 on the Hot 100, while Cardi B and Twenty One Pilots each grabbed the top spot on the Billboard 200 with their respective albums in the fall — prompting Grainge to joke that Atlantic might branch out into classical music next. “It’s an incredible time to be in the record business now, both as a label and also as an artist,” he says. “So we’ve just got to continue diversifying, and we’ve got to keep finding our magic, which is predicting what is good — not just for tomorrow, but also what’s going to be big in three years. That’s where our energy is now.”—Dan RysAmazon remains a music merchandising powerhouse, generating more than $2 billion in annual U.S. music revenue from streaming subscriptions and CD/vinyl sales — about 15% of the overall market,estimates, and 25% of the physical sales market — a distinction its digital streaming competition cannot claim. And Boom says last year’s launch of Alexa+, its AI-enhanced virtual assistant, will better serve music fans and their favorite artists. “We launched it with a simple belief: Music discovery should feel more like talking to a friend than searching through songs,” he says. “And honestly, the response has blown away our expectations.” Label executives report that Alexa+ is having a big impact on children’s music, in addition to the influence Amazon in general has on that genre, classical music, jazz and most other popular music categories. Outside of the United States, Boom says Amazon wields the most clout in Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Mexico and India. Boom says that other 2025 highlights include the company’s global livestream —on Amazon Music, Prime Video and Twitch — of the final show of Bad Bunny’s San Juan residency. The limited-edition vinyl version of the superstar’s 2025 Billboard 200 No. 1 album,, sold in conjunction with the livestream, became Amazon’s top-selling vinyl record that week, but, Boom notes, the success of the activation was much more than commercial. “Together with Bad Bunny, Amazon launched initiatives driving meaningful change in Puerto Rico through STEM education programs, agricultural support and economic development — including comPRa Local, a new destination on Amazon.com featuring Puerto Rican products and businesses.” Amazon also launched fan groups on Amazon Music, enabling subscribers with shared musical tastes to connect in their communities. “Fan curation is a huge tool for music discovery,” says Boom, who cites artists such as Lizzo, Justin Bieber and the Deftones and labels’ growing use of Twitch for marketing as additional 2025 wins. Label executives confirm that Twitch is a potent tool for launching new albums, particularly hip-hop releases. “Twitch is the best way to connect authentically with your fans,” Boom says. —Ed ChristmanBay-Schuck and Corson — and everyone else watching the 2025 Grammy Awards — saw the flip that went ’round the world, courtesy of their artist Benson Boone. Sombr, who signed with the label at age 17, scored a top 10 Billboard Hot 100 single and Billboard 200 album, a best new artist Grammy nomination and amusical performance slot. Teddy Swims is up for the best pop vocal album Grammy for’s No. 21 top artist of 2025 and grossed $159.6 million on his Quittin’ Time tour, and Green Day concluded its two-year Saviors tour, which grossed $43.8 million and sold 405,000 tickets. “We’re having a good run lately,” Corson says. After Linkin Park made the inspired move of replacing the late Chester Bennington with Emily Armstrong as co-lead vocalist/guitarist, he says the band had “one of their biggest years ever.” That was reflected in the group’sworld tour, which grossed $150.6 million and was No. 15 on Billboard Boxscore’s year-end Top Tours chart. Warner also re-signed Madonna, who’s working on a 2026 follow-up toCorson says that he and Bay-Schuck also united the Los Angeles-based flagship label with Warner Records Nashville and Warner Records U.K. to “allow us to execute for our artists on a scale and with expertise that far exceeds the services we provided before.” He adds, “Artists and managers should factor that into their decisions about whether they take their artists to us. Few companies have the expertise within the label group to understand how to manage that.” —S.K.reported that a number of music publishers privately bad-mouthed the then-7-year-old Primary Wave and its mantra of “marketing, marketing, marketing” for the music assets it acquired. What a difference a decade makes. Now publishers and other catalog investors are currently emulating Primary Wave’s strategy of investing in artists’ brands as well as their song catalogs and master-recording royalties. Yet, the Mestel-led company — which turns 20 this year — remains distinct from other music-asset buyers. Unlike its competitors, Primary Wave doesn’t use leverage when buying artists’ assets. And with few exceptions, it insists that the rights holders remain partners. Mestel says Primary Wave usually purchases an 80% stake, leaving the creator with 20%. So, in addition to receiving an upfront payday, creators share in any upside delivered through the marketing of their assets. “We have the biggest marketing, branding and content creation platform of any independent company in the world, with over 140 employees in our core company, not including the staff for our other companies outside the U.S. and joint ventures,” he says. At the 2025 Music Biz conference in May, Mestel said Primary Wave had increased the Whitney Houston estate’s returns “fivefold” through such initiatives as the biopic, licensing deals for a perfume line and even a Houston-branded slot machine. And last year, the company launched the Bob Marley Hope Road immersive live experience at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas and the Prince Purple Rain Broadway stage adaptation of the late superstar’s 1984 album/film in Minneapolis. Mestel says that last year, Primary Wave also “invested close to $700 million in 45 catalogs, including The Notorious B.I.G., The Cars, Patti LaBelle and many others we haven’t announced,” as well as taking stakes in the catalogs of artists in emerging markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia and the Middle East. He adds that at the end of the year, Primary Wave still had about $1.5 billion in potential deals in its pipeline. At the conference, Mestel also noted that the company had acquired $5 billion in assets since its inception. Those investments are made according to the following strategy: “The songs have to be iconic or the artist has to be legendary, or the financial deal has to be so good that you can’t turn it down,” he said. “The overriding premise is the asset has to be undercommercialized. We have to be able to grow the value.” Another key to Primary Wave’s success, according to Mestel: only taking on licensing opportunities that the artist approves. That way, he said, Primary Wave can become the company “where other artists give you a reference.” —E.C.The artist management company — which represents approximately 400 acts — ended 2025 with seven of them on Billboard Boxscore’s year-end Top Tours chart, collectively grossing $379 million.’s No. 4 top artist of 2025, Sabrina Carpenter, for whom RLM has partnered with Janelle Lopez Genzink and Volara Management, ranked at No. 34 with $77.4 million in concert receipts. She joined road regulars Phish ; Chris Stapleton ; Dave Matthews Band ; Mumford & Sons, managed in partnership with Split Second’s Izzy Zivkovic ; Luke Bryan ; and country music phenomenon Lainey Wilson, who is managed by Mandelyn Monchick . But those are just the acts who made the top 100. Capshaw says that, all told, RLM artists consistently gross more than $500 million a year. With the largest country roster in artist management — and the most acts on Boxscore’s Top Tours chart — Capshaw says the genre continues to be a pillar of the company’s success. He’s particularly proud of Riley Green’s and Tucker Wetmore’s achievements over the past year. The former, managed by Daniel Miller and Zach Sutton, scored his fourth Country Airplay No. 1 with “Don’t Mind If I Do” , and Wetmore, who is managed by Autumn Ledgin, reached No. 2 on the chart with both “3,2,1” and “Wind Up Missin’ You.” Wetmore will embark on a headline tour in 2026. Capshaw also points to Wilson’s continued success, citing her sustained achievements across touring, radio and awards. Capshaw adds that RLM’s “established and developing electronic acts are having a real growth period.” GRiZ, who is managed in collaboration with Keith LeWinter, returned from a hiatus to headline the Seven Stars festival in Arrington, Va. Subtronics, managed by Eric Silver, also played the festival and sold out a weeklong residence at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, which Capshaw says amounted to 30,000 tickets sold.in February, and Capshaw says he’s excited about signing Lauren Daigle, as well as “what 2026 will bring for The Strokes,” who are already booked for Coachella in April. It was also a big year for philanthropy. Capshaw and the RLM team raised $25 million to add to the initial $5 million that he, Dave Matthews and his band donated toward the continued renovation and/or replacement of all public housing in Charlottesville, Va., as well as the construction of additional affordable housing on underutilized land. The project, which began in 2019, has already resulted in 63 new and 105 renovated units, with another 113 new homes under construction, and in total will generate over $200 million worth of affordable housing. —F.D.BMG wrapped 2025 with several high-profile deals in its pocket. The company’s purchase of Jason Aldean’s music catalog, reported to be valued at about $250 million, marked its largest single catalog acquisition to date — now part of a rights catalog of more than 1,000 songs by 23 artists and songwriters. According to Coesfeld, since the launch of parent company Bertelsmann’s “Boost” investment strategy, which began in 2021, “BMG has invested $1.5 billion in music rights,” and its multiyear U.S. licensing agreement with Spotify granted BMG songwriters “greater transparency” in the streaming market. Meanwhile, a direct licensing agreement with TikTok “enhanced data visibility and deeper songwriter recognition across the U.S., Canada and Brazil.” The label group also accelerated its AI and technology initiatives, deepening partnerships with Google Cloud, OpenAI, ElevenLabs and Runway to drive automation, data intelligence and creative enablement. And its transition to a fully direct-to-digital supply chain has improved efficiency, attribution and reporting across the business. —Cathy Applefeld OlsonFor Perry, Addison Rae’s evolution from TikTok viral megastar in 2019 to a singer with a critically beloved 2025 album,, reflects the changing record industry. “We were in a process where TikTok made things go faster for a small period of time,” he says. “Now we’re back to how things have always been.” Columbia — the label of home of both legends like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand as well as superstars like Beyoncé, Adele and Harry Styles — scored the largest current market share of a Sony label in 2025, 4.51%, thanks in part to Tyler, The Creator’s fourth No. 1 Billboard 200 album,; Blackpink star Jennie’s global smash “like Jennie,” which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Global 200 and No. 3 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart; and Rosalía’scharts. “The number of diverse artists that have stepped forward this year is very exciting for us,” Perry says. —S.K.’s year-end Top Artists chart and was, for the fourth time, Spotify’s most streamed artist of 2025 thanks in part to his landmark album. It was one of multiple records set by the star in 2025. He also became the artist with the most Billboard Latin Music Award wins in history; the only Latin artist to be nominated for album, song and record of the year at the Grammys; and, coming up, the first artist to perform solely in Spanish as the headliner of the Super Bowl LX halftime show. But for longtime manager Assad, who is also the founder and CEO of Rimas Entertainment, the biggest achievement of all was “without a doubt, the rollout of D,” which yielded six No. 1 Latin Airplay singles, and Bad Bunny’s 31-date residency in San Juan. “We did that with so much love and passion. We were on a mission for our island,” Assad says. “It’s something I will remember forever. It’s one of my top professional achievements ever.” Beyond Bad Bunny, Assad scored wins with management clients Karol G and Grupo Frontera, both handled by Rimas’ Habibi division, which also represents Sebastián Yatra, Mora and Eladio Carrión. Rimas also acquired a “significant” stake in indie Dale Play Records, home to Bizarrap, Rels B and Duki; while the company’s concert promotion division, Rimas Nation, produced tours by Young Miko and Eladio Carrión, as well as Bad Bunny’s current global tour with Live Nation. Looking to the year ahead, Assad says, “My business prediction for 2026 is the same thing I said for 2025: It’s going to be quality over quantity. In 2025 we were right about that, and we will be right again.” —Leila CoboIn 2025, Roc Nation Distribution upped its game in the sector by making its new dashboard available to the public, which Perez says quadrupled the number of active accounts and increased the division’s odds of releasing the next hip-hop hit. Perez says that as of December, 70% of the tracks Roc Nation distributes weekly are hip-hop, “which we’re really proud of.” ’s Independent and Vinyl Albums charts and earned five 2026 Grammy nods, including album of the year. “We had to work in unique ways with smaller budgets, but with a lot of input,” she says of Clipse’s much-lauded album rollout. “It’s choosing where we want to be, how we want to be heard, how we want to promote and then the independent label listening. It’s really a partnership with the artist, and that’s what we were able to achieve.” Following up Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show — the most watched in its history, according to the NFL — may seem like mission impossible, but Roc Nation’s choice of Bad Bunny for this year’s extravaganza was “an easy call,” Perez says. “The numbers speak for themselves. He’s the top Latin artist of the century, and we always take into consideration what the cultural fit is.” Though its proposed deal for a casino in New York’s Times Square fell through, Roc Nation secured various partnerships in 2025, including one with the E1 Series electric boat race championship and Roc Nation Sports International. “Creating a cross-pollination with the opportunity of sports, music and lifestyle within E1 was exciting for us,” Perez says. “We love the idea of the electric race boat, and it’s global!” —Kyle DenisComing into 2025, EMPIRE — the music company that Ghazi initially founded as a digital distributor in his San Francisco apartment in 2010 — had all the momentum in the world. Its latest breakout artist, Shaboozey, had just come off a year where he tied the then-record for most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his mammoth hit “A Bar Song ,” which led to five Grammy nominations, including best new artist and song of the year. The company had a thriving global recording and label business, one particularly strong in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and in the hip-hop world, and had added a publishing division that was signing big-name producers and building catalogs. And, in December, he won approval for EMPIRE’s $23 million purchase of the iconic One Montgomery building in downtown San Francisco, a 100,000-square-foot former bank that had stood empty for years and had become a symbol of the city’s downtrodden central district, which he plans to revamp in a multimillion renovation into EMPIRE’s new global headquarters. So, how did Ghazi follow up the biggest year in EMPIRE’s history? By taking a step back — sort of. “This was a big infrastructure year for us,” he says of 2025, noting that the company “put more bodies in more places,” hiring regional heads in the Nordics, Korea, Brazil and South Africa, and expanding its teams in the United Kingdom and Mexico and doing joint ventures and buying labels in India, Thailand and Cambodia. He also launched Supply Chain, his new software-as-a-service company that will offer white-label distribution to labels, signing his first deal with MixedByAli’s EngineEars in November, and could fill a significant gap in the marketplace if Universal’s planned purchased of Downtown goes through. EMPIRE got into the live-events business, hosting a 15th-anniversary concert for 20,000 people in San Francisco and throwing over 20 events for its dance music division, dirtybird. And there’s plenty more to come — even as Shaboozey’s momentum has barely abated and the company is doing as many recording and publishing deals as ever. “This was the year that I set all that in motion, because from the record side, we were doing so well that it was cool for me to divert my attention somewhere else and double down on infrastructure,” he says. “That means that next year, we can level up again.” —D.R.The label home of Elvis Presley, Britney Spears, Foo Fighters and Childish Gambino has pumped out a number of new stars in recent years. The biggest is arguably SZA, whose “continuing dominance,” Edge says, resulted in her Grammy-nominated 2024 Kendrick Lamar collaboration, “Luther,” hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March, just before the duo’s world tour, and staying in the top spot for 13 consecutive weeks. Others success stories include Tate McRae, who hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with her album So Close to What in March; British rock band Sleep Token, whose’s Rookie of the Month honor in March. “In a world obsessed with virality, we really believe artist development is the foundation of who we are and will continue to be our strength,” says Edge, who started running RCA in 2011 after years as an A&R man. “I’ve long said that the artists who play with shifting genres would define the time. That is what we are witnessing now in music.” —Gail Mitchellestimates, and three big reasons for its success are its distribution of international superstars Bad Bunny, Blackpink and Oasis. “Their global success reflects the diversity of our roster and is proof that music from anywhere can resonate with audiences everywhere,” Navin says. He points out that Bad Bunny was Spotify’s No. 1 global artist and sold out 31 shows during his San Juan residency, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the island’s economy and sharing its culture and history with the world. “Bad Bunny is a once-in-a-generation artist, and our partners at Rimas are true visionaries,” he says. In the United States alone, Bad Bunny racked up 5.8 million album consumption units in 2025, including 8.3 billion streams, and Oasis and Blackpink combined achieved 758,000 album consumption units, including 975 million streams. Beyond revenue, those three acts helped boost The Orchard’s already considerable U.S. market share. Through the end of 2025, the indie distributor’s overall market share is 7.93% year to date, up from 7.17% for the corresponding period of 2024. Current market share rose from 7.30% to 8.44% for the same measurement periods, while catalog share increased from 7.13% to 7.78%. Theis says new additions to The Orchard’s roster in 2025 include Alta Music, the label launched last year by former Spotify global head of music Jeremy Erlich, and Encore Recordings, the label started by veteran record executive Joie Manda in 2022. “We also recently launched new relationships with Gorillaz, Grupo Frontera and Andrew Lloyd Webber through our client The Other Songs,” she says, adding that among the artists The Orchard will be working “to elevate global success to new heights this year” is RAYE, who performed at Glastonbury, the Grammy Awards, the Academy Awards, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and the NFL’s first London halftime show in 2025 — and, Theis adds, is gearing up for a world tour. As The Orchard’s global footprint expands, Navin says he particularly enjoys unlocking new markets and new opportunities for labels. “We have the best global team in the business,” he says. “Our commitment to connecting artists with their fans is stronger than ever.” —E.C.“We have increased our investment in culturally impactful music, theater and film every year at Concord,” Valentine says. “And we intend to continue — with plans to work with more artists, for new partnerships and for expansion into new territories.” On the frontline side, “We acquired Stem Distribution, which provides artists with new options to work with Concord in a way that best suits their needs,” he says, adding that the acquisition of Broadway Licensing Global further cements Concord Theatrical as one of the world’s top theatrical rights holders, while film/TV division Concord Originals’ purchase of RKO secured derivative rights to 5,000-plus titles including classicsIn July, Concord announced one of the biggest business deals of 2025. The company raised nearly $1.8 billion through an asset-backed security, issuing a series of new five-year, seven-year and 10-year senior notes secured by its catalog of more than 1.3 million music copyrights, which includes songs by The Beatles, Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Daddy Yankee, Ed Sheeran, Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and The Rolling Stones. The son of a music teacher, Valentine says “the number of intermediaries companies must deal with will continue to make it hard for us as an industry to enter into agreements that can unlock value for artists and songwriters.” He cites the Mechanical Licensing Collective as an example of moving toward a “more rational mechanism” for customers to cohesively access rights. —C.A.O.’s Power 100 Executives of the Year honors after revitalizing the storied label founded by Chris Blackwell and minting two major breakthrough stars, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. In 2024, both were nominated in all of the Big Four Grammy categories — record, song and album of the year and best new artist — an unprecedented achievement for a single label. Then the label did it again, following up its blockbuster 2024 with another one-two punch of best new artist nominees in 2025 — this time, Olivia Dean and Lola Young — as well as a second straight album of the year nomination for Carpenter with, making her just the seventh artist in the past 45 years to be nominated for that honor in two consecutive years. “ was like a dream scenario, and everything felt new,” Majid says. This past year, then, was “an incredible test for the staff, who fully delivered.” Adds Eshak: “I feel like the label proposition crystallized for us in a lot of ways. We learned who we were.” This year’s breakthroughs — which helped Island finish the year with a 2.81% current market share —came about differently from those of Carpenter and Roan. Dean and Young were both signed by Island’s U.K. partner, Capitol U.K., but both caught fire the Island way: through steady touring, word of mouth and cultural touchstones like key festival performances and memorable media moments. “So much of what’s happening in music right now is culturally driven, and a lot of it just starts with who we have the good fortune to work with,” Eshak says. “We didn’t sign those artists, but I think they were both attracted to what we were doing at Island.” The label is more than just a handful of acts. Island boasts a deep roster of talent that includes Remi Wolf, Gigi Perez, newly signed Suki Waterhouse, Charlie Crockett, Alabama Shakes, Keshi and Medium Build. “We’re really happy with the direction the company is going in,” Majid says, “and I hope Island represents something that feels very different from everyone else.” —D.R.Big Loud celebrated its 10th anniversary as a label last year at a time when its artists delivered some of their strongest works yet and helped push its year-end current market share to 2.51%.’s top artist of 2025, Morgan Wallen, debuted at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart in May with— and remained at the top through the end of the year. He also placed more songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in the chart year than any other act in any genre. Big Loud’s year wasn’t wall-to-wall Wallen, however. HARDY’s “Favorite Country Song” became his fifth track to crack the top 10 of the Country Airplay chart; and Stephen Wilson Jr. turned in some of the most talked-about performances at the Country Music Association Awards. Big Loud also expanded its reach through partnerships with ERNEST’s DeVille Records and the continued success of Big Loud Texas with Miranda Lambert, Jon Randall, Brendon Anthony and Dylan Gossett’s debut album,HYBE isn’t content to export acts to the United States and elsewhere outside of South Korea. The K-pop juggernaut has employed its “multihome, multigenre” strategy to establish foreign bases of operations and utilize its K-pop-style approach to artist and fandom development. Stateside, HYBE partnered with Geffen Records to launch KATSEYE, which was nominated for a best new artist Grammy. In Latin America, an audition process led to the creation of boy band Santos Bravos. In the world’s two most populous countries, HYBE is establishing HYBE China and HYBE India as regional hubs.Love it or hate it, AI music is here, and no company is more synonymous with its rise than Suno. Helmed by Cambridge, Mass.-based CEO Shulman, Suno made its arrival thunderous in the music business in 2025. Over the last year, a number of songs and recordings created in part, or completely, by generative AI have gone viral on streaming services, shocking some music lovers. Many of those viral moments have been aided by Suno — including The Velvet Sundown, Xania Monet and the song “I Run” by HAVEN. Suno is still in the midst of a copyright infringement lawsuit with two of the three major-label groups — Universal and Sony — because it allegedly used their recordings for training without a license. The company is also being sued by European collection societies GEMA and Koda and facing two suits filed by indie musicians. But Warner opted to settle its part of the major-label lawsuit with the company in late 2025, signaling that there might be a broader reconciliation with the music business ahead. The AI music company has created a formidable moat with the $250 million series C funding round it announced in November that was led by Menlo Ventures, NVIDIA and Hallwood Media — the lattermost the first music company to publicly back Suno. “It means a ton,” Shulman says of Hallwood. “They are not the only ones , but they are the only ones who are public about backing us. It feels like the first domino.” Suno has also expanded its service by adding features to attract seasoned musicians, such as Suno Studio, which the company refers to it as a “generative audio workstation.” “We still have that party trick as your first experience,” Shulman says. “But there’s now something that backs it up. You stay because you realize there’s a lot more there, and you realize you really, really love to make music.” In his announcement about the latest funding round, Shulman said that he’s seeing the “future of music take shape in real time.” So, what does that future look like? “The future of music is interactive music,” Shulman says. “It’s music that you play with, not that you play, and that is how you make it more valuable for people.” —K.R.Verde sees running the major Latin music label, which finished last year with a 2.01% current market share, as “a combination of maintaining market leadership and fostering artistic projects.” Over the past year, he’s managed to successfully walk that tightrope with the help of a roster that includes Shakira, Manuel Turizo, Kappo, Rauw Alejandro, Rosalía and five-time Latin Grammy winners CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso . “It’s a balance I have to achieve. I couldn’t run a single company with a single style or a single kind of musical proposal,” Verde says, noting the company also doubled down on audiovisual content this past year. “I love that Sony is different and that this is the roster we’ve built.” —L.C.At the top of 2025, Slaiby transitioned out of his SALXCO CEO role and passed the reins to Lindsay Unwin, a 15-year veteran of the company, and the artist management firm did not lose a step. Jamaican singer-rapper Shenseea nailed a global crossover smash with her “Shake It to the Max” remix , which spent 27 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart. Metro Boomin delivered a cultural reset withthanks to the college football-approved hit “Take Me Thru Dere” ., and a Hot 100 top 10 hit with the Playboi Carti-assisted “Timeless” . His After Hours Til Dawn Tour was No. 4 on’s year-end Top Tours chart with $336.7 million. Since launching in 2022, it has grossed over $700 million, become the top-earning R&B tour in history. SALXCO also oversaw a particularly buzzy year for Grammy-winning R&B legend Brandy. The Hot 100 chart-topper joined forces with Monica for The Boy Is Mine tour, which drew splashy attendees like Michelle Obama, Beyoncé and Jay-Z and helped promote Brandy’s Lifetime holiday movie,The marquee deal for Moscowitz’s Santa Anna, the distribution/label services company that he founded with Sony Music in 2023, was last year’s distribution/marketing partnership with Drake’s OVO Sound that produced an immediate success: Drake and PartyNextDoor’s No. 1 album,. Also in 2025, Alamo developed artists from established hip-hop superstars Rod Wave and Lil Durk to country singer Bayker Blankenship, singer-rapper Lazer Dim and rapper Pradabagshawty. “Seeing the whole label consistently ranked in the top 10 for current market share alongside the major labels has been incredibly gratifying for the whole staff,” Moscowitz toldMoscowitz, who started his career at hip-hop institutions Def Jam Recordings and Rush Communications, rose to co-president/CEO at Warner Bros. Records, then helped to create 300 Entertainment, the Lyor Cohen-Kevin Liles label that assisted in breaking Young Thug, Migos and Megan Thee Stallion. He founded indie Cold Heat Records, rebranded it as Alamo in 2016, then in 2021 sold a majority stake to Sony, where the label is in the process of breaking Bossman Dlow, blackbear, Smokepurpp and others. “Having successful actually makes development of new acts a lot easier,” he said in September. “It eases the financial pressure and allows you to take more chances, to be riskier and lean into the creative more.”: “Santa Anna has let us get involved with artists that we love very early in the creative process while they are still figuring things out. And it allows us to support them without any of the pressure of the major-label system. It’s essentially an incubator.” For this building a system within a system, Sony Music Group chairman Rob Stringer called Moscowitz a “visionary.” Says Moscowitz: “You have to be more nimble and open to constant disruption than ever before.” —S.K.’s Publishers Quarterly rankings in 2025, usually landing the No. 4 spot on both the Hot 100 Songs and Top Radio Airplay charts. Split Enz founder and Crowded House contributor Tim Finn and DJ-producer Disco Neil signed global publishing deals with Kobalt, which also brokered a worldwide administration deal with indie Mexican publisher K Music Publishing. Additionally, according to the company, it expanded its intellectual property strategy through a partnership with Morgan Stanley, which in 2024 made available $700 million to fund music asset deals. “In 2025, we focused on building a more agile, future-ready publishing organization,” Hubert says. “We also heavily invested in creators, including launching KOSIGN, a service that leverages Kobalt’s best-in-class technology for up-and-coming artists, producers and songwriters,” which, he adds, has already seen success, “and we’re just getting started.” According to Hubert, KOSIGN has received more than 23,000 applications, of which nearly 2,000 fit the company’s criteria and were welcomed into the system, and he says that “several promising songwriters have already been upstreamed to Kobalt proper.”—E.C.’s top artist of 2025, thanks in large part to the spectacular success of his album I’m the Problem. In addition to having the No. 2 Billboard 200 album of the year — topped only by Taylor Swift’s— Wallen landed 39 songs on the Hot 100 in 2025, more than any other act. Of those, nine reached the top 10, including the chart-topping “What I Want” . The RIAA also declared him as the No. 1 certified country artist in history and third in all genres . Wallen is hardly Neal’s only successful client. Nate Smith, Riley Green, HARDY, Ella Langley, Ole 60, Matthew West and Anne Wilson are booked by The Neal Agency in addition to Wallen, while Sticks Management’s roster includes Gavin Adcock and Wallen. “All of our clients are reaching new heights in touring, music and awards,” Neal says of the past year. “Watching them achieve their dreams, and knowing our team has played a role, is the most rewarding achievement.” This year already looks like a strong one: Green is headed out on his first major arena headlining tour, while Wallen has announced 21 stadium shows with support including HARDY, Brooks & Dunn, Langley and Thomas Rhett. —Melinda NewmanGardner was promoted to TikTok’s top music business gig in February, replacing Ole Obermann, and she wasted no time putting into action a number of changes and new initiatives at the streaming and social media platform. In a year during which parent company ByteDance finally reached a deal in December to create a U.S. joint venture controlled by Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates-based MGX; shut down its music streaming service, TikTok Music; and reduced its workforce, Gardner says it’s “business as usual” for her staff. “Our valued industry partners remain the highest priority,” she says. Under Gardner’s leadership, TikTok is doubling down on providing tools for songwriters and artists to get discovered on the platform, as well as e-commerce opportunities and special live experiences to strengthen fan connections. Over the last year, Gardner’s team has staged a number of concerts and pop-up events for artists’ top fans. One notable example was a TikTok event with Miley Cyrus at Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, which invited a select few fans to hear an intimate performance of her new album,. “We thought that there would be a great opportunity to invite the fans that have the greatest engagement with an artist on TikTok to see the artist in person, even if that does mean going off the platform for a bit.” Gardner says her philosophy is that major in-person moments inspire fans to post even more. “Right now, we’re finding a way to create joyful intimate moments in a way that encourages fans to film and to bring them back onto TikTok.” —K.R.Blavatnik — the son of the founder of Warner Music Group’s largest shareholder, Access Industries — has been quietly flexing his influence behind the scenes since taking a seat on the WMG board in April 2023. And while in 2024 that included having a hand in helping with the executive transition and subsequent restructuring at Atlantic Records, this past year his focus has been “wider and more global,” he says — a purview he has taken on while he finishes up his studies at Harvard Business School. That has included artist-specific initiatives like helping renegotiate Zach Bryan’s deal with Warner Records, worth a reported $360 million — “Zach’s a once-in-a-generation talent,” Blavatnik says — and more sprawling initiatives like honing WMG’s AI strategy and distribution plans, after the company overhauled ADA’s leadership and placed it under the purview of Warner Latin chief Alejandro Duque. “We’ve really recommitted to growing our presence in distribution,” Blavatnik says. “There’s a lot of momentum and a lot of room for us to grow. We’re always keeping our antenna up for bolt-on targets that could either boost our capabilities or open up new markets.” On the AI front, Warner is the only major label to have settled the lawsuits against generative AI music companies Suno and Udio, while also doing deals with MusixMatch, KLAY, Stability AI and others. “At Warner, our guiding principle is getting compensation and safeguards for artists and songwriters, we’re only doing deals with companies that commit to our principles,” he says about the strategy. “The music business, in my view, has always been late to innovate, and I think we have this incredible opportunity here to at least be on time and not fight innovation.”—D.R.At weekend one of Coachella 2024, during her main stage sunset slot, Sabrina Carpenter gave her then-new single, “Espresso,” its live debut — and by the festival’s second weekend, “we knew things had shifted,” recalls her manager, Janelle Lopez Genzink. “It was obviously really exciting,” the Volara Management founder continues, “but it was also slightly nerve-wracking, because we knew we were stepping into a meaningful cultural moment that was going to continue to grow.”, released that August; two subsequent singles from the set, “Please Please Please” and “Taste,” hit Nos. 1 and 2 on the Hot 100, respectively. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Volara was growing, too. By mid-2024, Lopez Genzink signed pop singer MARINA — who says Lopez Genzink “is one of the few who puts human beings first and commerce second” — and hired a new day-to-day manager, Bianca Nour, to join Volara’s tight team, which then consisted of early hires Amy Davidson and Merce Jessor. By the start of 2025, Volara added another act to its roster: HAIM. “They’re my favorite rock band out there,” says Lopez Genzink, who was introduced to the trio through its attorney. “Working with Janelle has been the greatest partnership,” the band’s Alana Haim says. “From the very beginning, her focus was always on supporting our vision and bringing our dreams to life. No idea is too crazy or too big — she makes you feel like anything is possible, and with her, it truly is.”The former digital marketing gurus followed Elliot Grainge from 10K Projects to Atlantic Music Group in the fall of 2024 and finished the year with a 7.75% current market share — up 0.60 percentage points from the previous year. In an interview within October, Talamo said of their arrival at the division formerly run by Julie Greenwald and Craig Kallman: “ we had to go through and see what we felt we could immediately sprinkle our magic dust on, so to speak. Second was the team. We met everybody and talked to them at length. Then we had to decide how we wanted to structure everything — from a marketing standpoint, from an A&R standpoint,” he added. “Really getting under the hood and seeing how we could make it more efficient and more effective in the current music climate.” The two executives say they’re now at cruising altitude. In that same interview, Friedman said, “The entrepreneurial spirit and the indie spirit definitely flow through Atlantic now. We don’t say no a lot here. People are given the reins to build things and be their own boss, which is really powerful. —F.D.
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2026 NFL Top 100 Player Projection, Nos. 50–11: Young QBs Are headed for StardomSeveral All-Pros in the midst of their primes made this portion of our list, while only two rookies earned accolades.
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2026 layoffs: List of companies cutting jobs this yearMore than 100 companies are set to layoff workers in 2026.
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