Pharrell's single 'Happy' sells over a million copies in the UK

March 1, 2014 16:47

Singer becomes second artist ever after The Beatles to achieve three million-sellers

Pharrell Williams' single 'Happy' has sold over one million copies in the UK.

The singer's latest track marks his third million-seller in eight months following the success of Robin Thicke collaboration 'Blurred Lines' and Daft Punk duet 'Get Lucky' last year. The feat makes Williams the second act in history after The Beatles to be part of the main line-up of an act to achieve more than two million-selling singles in the UK.

Industry magazine Music Week also reports that 'Happy' is on course to return to number one tomorrow (March 2), as it's around 14,000 copies ahead of its nearest rival, Sam Smith's 'Money On My Mind'.

'Happy' also topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart earlier this week, and come a few days before the release of Pharreell's new album 'G I R L', which will be available from Monday (March 3). The album includes collaborations with Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys.

Last week, Pharrell revealed his new collaboration with Daft Punk, entitled 'Gust Of Wind', which you can listen to below. Williams, who previously worked with the French pair on the hugely successful 'Get Lucky' from 'Random Access Memories'. The singer has previously described 'Gust Of Wind' as his "favourite song" on the LP. Click here to read NME's detailed track-by-track of the album.

The tracklist is as follows:
'Marilyn Monroe'
'Brand New' Featuring Justin Timberlake
'Hunter'
'Gush'
'Happy'
'Come Get It Babe' Featuring Miley Cyrus
'Gust Of Wind' Featuring Daft Punk
'Lost Queen'
'Freq'
'I Know Who You Are' Featuring Alicia Keys
'It Girl'

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Tim Westergren Has Dumped More Than $9 Million of Pandora Stock This Year...

Tuesday, October 30, 2012
by  paul

Pandora cofounder Tim Westergren is now dumping roughly $1 million in company shares a month, part of what appears to be a broader divestment schedule that started in January.  That has generated payoffs of roughly $9.23 million in 2012, according to published details and forms from the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).  The sell-offs, specifically tied to pre-IPO shares, were first tipped by music industry attorney Christian Castle on MusicTechPolicy.    

Castle notes that the schedule probably started after a mandatory, post-IPO freeze of 6 months.

"This is almost always a sign of what is probably an insider selling plan (used to be called a 10b5 plan and maybe still is).  These plans are designed to allow insiders like Westergren to cash out their stock positions (especially pre-IPO stock options for which they have exercised) even if they are in possession of material nonpublic information at the time of the sale.  (No buying and selling or 'trading', just selling)." 

In other words, authorized insider trading, according to established rules on the matter.  Generally speaking, officers and executives of a company are prohibited from dumping (or acquiring) their own shares based on specific, actionable information not available to the public, but can freely trade based on generally-available information.  

The series of divestitures are detailed in a series of publicly available, SEC documents like this one.  SEC Form 4 (secform4.com), a site focused on insider trading, also shows the pattern quite clearly using federally-mandated disclosures.

We talked to Tim Westergren, who pointed to a fairly routine practice.  "As is common for folks in my position I've filed to sale a minority of my position over the first couple years of being public (at which point I will have been at Pandora for over 14 years)," Westegren emailed Digital Music News.  "I will still hold the great majority of my position and remain very bullish on the company's future."  

That is subject to debate.  One Wall Street insider noted that executives often hold shares if they truly anticipate an increase, though selling can also be smart diversification.  But Castle sees something far more duplicitous, especially since Westergren's campaign to reform radio royalties comes ahead of a 2015 rate-setting adjustment.  That is considerable lead time, and according Castle, neatly fits a schedule designed to dump roughly $30 million in these shares over a two-year period, based on the pattern established so far.  

That valuation is predicated on some level of stock price stability, which is hardly a given for Pandora.

"That means that as of this month, [Westergren] will have fully liquidated his position in 24 months if he continues selling 85,000 shares a month which seems to be the plan.  So by keeping Wall Street focused on the bright and shiny object of price fixing through the IRFA legislation, is he more or less likely to keep Pandora’s stock price propped up long enough to finish his exit?  And bank roughly $30 million?"

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Any Questions? Taylor Swift Just Sold 1.2 Million First-Week Albums...

Wednesday, October 31, 2012
by  paul

You could still argue that Taylor Swift would have sold even more if she'd licensed Spotify.  But most likely, she would have sold less: according to stats just released by Nielsen Soundscan and tweeted by the singer, Red shifted an unbelievable, record-setting 1.2 million copies during its first week alone.  And, this is in the US only.  

The result puts a recent, Spotify-powered success story by Mumford & Sons into a totally different light.  Leading into the Taylor release, Mumford's Babel set a massive streaming record on Spotify, and still went on to sell a sizable 600,000 first-week units.  The strategy of granting full access obviously worked, but in the end, Babel sold half of what Red sold.  These are different artists with different audiences, with different consumption behaviors. 

And, Red sold an almost unthinkable number of units, especially in such an album-challenged era.  Swift surpassed the previous million-plus first-week seller, Lady Gaga's Born This Way, by roughly 100,000 units, but Gaga received a tremendous boost from a sharply discounted, 99-cent album bonanza on Amazon.  That was a near-freebie for fans, and a subsidized attention-getter for Amazon.  

Yet Taylor's camp decided against such a ploy: in fact, Swift's label, Big Machine Records, expressly restricted Red from appearing on Amazon MP3 (and Google Play, for that matter).  The reason was simple: Big Machine wanted to prevent that sort of price-chopping from happening, a development that would have devalued the full-priced integrity for exclusive partners like iTunes, Target, and even Papa John's Pizza.

Which means, in the end, Red sold 1.2 million the old-fashioned way: at full price, and through a highly-controlled list of retail partners.  And the last album to reach that first-week tally was The Eminem Show, released in 2002 - before Spotify, before Amazon MP3, and even before the iTunes Music Store.

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Les Paul guitars, items fetch $5 million at auction

By Andrea Burzynski

NEW YORK | Sun Jun 10, 2012 6:04pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A rare guitar designed and owned by renowned guitarist Les Paul sold for $180,000 as part of a two-day auction of his instruments and personal effects that raised nearly $5 million, Julien's Auctions said on Sunday.

The guitar, a rare 1982 Gibson Les Paul prototype recording model, was among several of the iconic guitarist's instruments that sold in Los Angeles over the weekend.

Other models included a 1951 Fender Nocaster that brought in a whopping $216,000 and a 1940s Epiphone Zephyr, known as "Klunker #3," which fetched $144,000. Research notes, a sign for the Les Paul Iridium Club, and a custom license plate were among other items being sold.

Paul and his wife Mary Ford enjoyed a string of hits in the 1940s and 1950s that included "Mockin' Bird Hill" and the influential "How High the Moon." He was best known in the music community as an inventor of guitars and a pioneer of recording techniques. He died in 2009 at age 94 from complications of pneumonia.

Sometimes called the father of the electric guitar, Paul produced one of the first solid body versions and commissioned the first 8-track tape recorder, revolutionizing the way music was produced and distributed.

The auction's proceeds benefited the Les Paul Foundation, which the guitarist founded to support music education, engineering, innovation and medical research.

(Reporting By Andrea Burzynski; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Stacey Joyce)

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DJ wins $1 million in lawsuit over "My Humps" song (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – Cleveland disc jockey and early rap artist Orrin Lynn Tolliver, Jr. has just been awarded nearly $1.2 million by a New York jury. The award comes after a former friend and collaborator allowed without permission his 1983 song, "I Need A Freak," to be sampled by the Black Eyed Peas for the group's hit song, "My Humps."

In the early 80s, Tolliver formed a concept band called Sexual Harassment and recorded "I Need A Freak" at his friend and collaborator James McCants' studio at Heat Records.

McCants registered the song with BMI, credited Tolliver as the songwriter, and agreed to pay him 75% of royalties.

In 2000, the song was included on the compilation, "In Da Beginning...There Was Rap," from Priority Records, which caused Tolliver to send McCants a cease-and-desist letter. His former friend and collaborator denied issuing a license.

However, in the proceeding years, the song was sampled for use by other artists, including by the Black Eyed Peas on "My Humps."

Tolliver sued McCants for copyright infringement.

During the preliminary stages of the case, McCants offered shifting excuses about what had happened. He first denied issuing a license. He then claimed he had co-authored the composition and owned it under the work-for-hire doctrine. He then attempted to obtain a musicologist expert's report that "My Humps" didn't sample Tolliver's work. Finally, he claimed that he owned the composition by virtue of a copyright assignment.

The judge didn't appreciate these inconsistent statements and ruled for Tolliver on summary judgment.

The case went to a jury to determine the damages. On Tuesday, the jury rendered a verdict. McCants owed Tolliver $816,877.28 in profits and $368,704.31 in actual damages for copyright infringement.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

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DJ wins $1 million in lawsuit over "My Humps" song

By Eriq Gardner

Fri Jun 24, 2011 7:42pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Cleveland disc jockey and early rap artist Orrin Lynn Tolliver, Jr. has just been awarded nearly $1.2 million by a New York jury. The award comes after a former friend and collaborator allowed without permission his 1983 song, "I Need A Freak," to be sampled by the Black Eyed Peas for the group's hit song, "My Humps."

In the early 80s, Tolliver formed a concept band called Sexual Harassment and recorded "I Need A Freak" at his friend and collaborator James McCants' studio at Heat Records.

McCants registered the song with BMI, credited Tolliver as the songwriter, and agreed to pay him 75% of royalties.

In 2000, the song was included on the compilation, "In Da Beginning...There Was Rap," from Priority Records, which caused Tolliver to send McCants a cease-and-desist letter. His former friend and collaborator denied issuing a license.

However, in the proceeding years, the song was sampled for use by other artists, including by the Black Eyed Peas on "My Humps."

Tolliver sued McCants for copyright infringement.

During the preliminary stages of the case, McCants offered shifting excuses about what had happened. He first denied issuing a license. He then claimed he had co-authored the composition and owned it under the work-for-hire doctrine. He then attempted to obtain a musicologist expert's report that "My Humps" didn't sample Tolliver's work. Finally, he claimed that he owned the composition by virtue of a copyright assignment.

The judge didn't appreciate these inconsistent statements and ruled for Tolliver on summary judgment.

The case went to a jury to determine the damages. On Tuesday, the jury rendered a verdict. McCants owed Tolliver $816,877.28 in profits and $368,704.31 in actual damages for copyright infringement.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

View the original article here