Trading Places

Swimming against a tide of publishing companies and investment funds snapping up every songwriting catalog that a few hundred million dollars can buy, DOWNTOWN MUSIC has decided to divest, selling its own catalog of 145,000 copyrights. Including its BEYONCÉ songs, its STEVIE WONDER tunes, even a certain LADY GAGA and BRADLEY COOPER song. Downtown is literally far from the "SHALLOW" now. The buyer is CONCORD MUSIC GROUP, which has been on a copyright shopping spree in recent years. The price was estimated at somewhere in the $300 million to $400 million range. The reason, says Downtown, is to focus on, and grow, its publishing administration and label service businesses—without owning the underlying IP. Downtown CEO JUSTIN KALIFOWITZ said the company sees "a clear opportunity in the market for a truly neutral provider to meet the changing needs of creators and their partners." Neutral as in no conflict of interest over ownership or over who's profiting from any given service. The company's recent acquisitions haven't been catalogs, but companies like label services provider DASHGO—which will be merged with the old Downtown Music Publishing to create the new DOWNTOWN MUSIC SERVICES—as well as CDBABY and ADREV. The company told reporters Monday it expects to generate an impressive $600 million this year from creator services. Which presumably will *not* be reinvested in the next classic catalog that hits the market.

Stop the Presses

Music journalism twitter was aflame Monday trying to sort out the particulars of a frustratingly incomplete ST. VINCENT story. Or, rather, a frustratingly incomplete story about a St. Vincent story. A British writer, EMMA MADDEN, posted a transcript of a 30-minute Q&A on her personal blog under the headline "St. Vincent Told Me to Kill This Interview" (it's since been taken down but it isn't hard to find an archived copy if you search for it). It's an interesting, neither great nor terrible, mildly awkward, and very mildly combative, interview about St. Vincent's upcoming album, DADDY'S HOME. Madden says St. Vincent's PR company called her editor, said the artist was "terrified" of the piece running and demanded it be pulled. Which it apparently was, though Madden declined to name either the publication or the editor. There's nothing terrifying in the transcript Madden posted. There are some good St. Vincent quotes. This led to an outpouring of tweets about St. Vincent's, let's say, quirky interview habits and her frustration with the practice in general (though if you ask me, this interview with the Guardian's LAURA SNAPES from a month ago, which delves into some deep personal background, is a great, engaging read), along with justifiable anger at both the artist and her team for having the gall to tell a publication what it can and can't publish. There was also some anger at the publication for giving in, and, I thought, a surprising amount of pushback at Madden herself, for her interview skills and for her own chutzpah in posting the interview on her own. It's frustrating knowing only one of the three (at least) sides of a story, which makes me hesitant to say too much more, except that, barring extreme circumstances, artists shouldn't be making such demands of publications and publications shouldn't be agreeing to them. If a piece is unfair or uninteresting or un-anything, a publication is entirely within its rights to kill it or revise it or do whatever needs to be done—not because a piece doesn't serve the artist's needs, but because it doesn't serve the publication's needs. Writers should be thoughtful, honest and fair. If artists really, really don’t want to do interviews in the first place, they probably shouldn't do them. Otherwise, they should leave writers alone to write and share the stories that need to be told, and even, sometimes, the stories that don't really need to.

Etc Etc Etc

SPOTIFY raises prices... And launches in-app integration within FACEBOOK... Billboard's International Power Players... "Ok so I lost again," writes DIANE WARREN, who came up short for a Best Original Song Oscar for a 12th time Sunday night. But, she adds: "U know what was the hugest win?? Feeling more love and support than I have ever felt in my life." Hugs!

Rest in Peace

British songwriter BARRY MASON, whose hits with composer Les Reed included "DELILAH" and "LOVE GROWS (WHERE MY ROSEMARY GOES)"... Austin blues guitarist DENNY FREEMAN.