“Training season’s over”

EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF George Garner george.garner@futurenet.com DIGITAL EDITOR Andre Paine andre.paine@futurenet.com FEATURES EDITOR Ben Homewood ben.homewood@futurenet.com CONTENT EDITOR/PRODUCER Miranda Bardsley miranda.bardsley@futurenet.com ART EDITOR Steve Newman steve.newman@futurenet.com CHARTS & DATA Isabelle Nesmon isabelle.nesmon@futurenet.com

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Welcome to

Music Week...

Another Q1 bites the dust

With Q1 now in the rear-view mirror, it’s the perfect time to look back at how the music business is doing in 2024. Having just deep-fried my brain by scrolling back through a list of all the stories Music Week has published online since January 1, words like ‘Turbulent’, ‘Damn’ and ‘Ooooooh’ immediately spring to mind. The TikTok/Universal tussle. Music Venue Trust revealing that live music venues are closing at a rate of two a week. More than 200 artists – including Billie Eilish – signing an open letter urging, perhaps even warning, DSPs, tech firms and more not to “develop or deploy AI music-generation technology, content or tools that undermine or replace human artistry”. Yep, 2024 has been a lot of things, but boring ain’t one of them. But while this year’s headlines are often suitably chaotic, the Official Charts Company’s breakdown of the Top 40 best-selling artist albums of 2024 so far offers a glimpse of stability. Or perhaps inertia, depending on your point of view. Only one album in the OCC’s Q1 Top 10 was actually released in 2024: Eternal Sunshine by Ariana Grande. You have to run your finger down the list to No.15 to find another, in the form of The Last Dinner Party’s No.1 debut Prelude To Ecstasy. Extend the search to the Top 25 and only two more 2024 albums appear: Kanye West & Ty Dolla Sign’s Vultures 1 and Liam Gallagher & John Squire’s self-titled outing. Only eight releases in the Top 40 are from this year. Half of the Top 10 are Greatest Hits. And only one of those – The Weeknd’s The Highlights set – was released within the past five years. This is nothing new, of course. Back in January, Music Week research showed that 15 catalogue-based titles (including both editions of Taylor Swift’s 1989) finished in the year-end Top 20 for 2023, compared to 13 in the prior year. Amid some worries that it was indicative of the charts becoming trapped in the amber of nostalgia, BPI CEO Dr Jo Twist OBE, for one, was not excessively concerned. “More than 150 new albums charted in the Top 10 throughout [2023], so an average of about three a week,” she told Music Week in February. “That included releases by a healthy mix of domestic and international artists, including new talent across multiple genres with debut albums and artists returning with follow-up releases.” This is very much worth bearing in mind, particularly as we know the myriad challenges now involved in engineering a breakthrough in a post-monoculture world. Still, many in the industry will be looking – and hoping – to see more UK acts follow The Last Dinner Party in loosening the vice-like grip of yesteryear with new music. The prospects look good. Next, there is this month’s cover star Dua Lipa’s highly anticipated Radical Optimism arriving in May. Likewise, Music Week recently attended Little Mix star Perrie’s playback at Sony HQ to hear tracks from her debut solo album, which sound suitably massive. And with confirmed releases for Cat Burns, Becky Hill, Rachel Chinouriri, Charli XCX and more, there’s a lot to look forward to. Let’s hope we see more new UK music in the UK charts.

George Garner, Editor-In-Chief

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