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Beatles Fans: Ringo Starr Releases “Give More Love” on 77th Birthday, Title Track from New Album

Roger Friedman
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Beatles Fans: Ringo Starr Releases “Give More Love” on 77th Birthday, Title Track from New Album

One of the great things about Sirius XM’s Beatles channel is that they are deep dives into Ringo Starr’s solo career. We’re not just hearing “It Don’t Come Easy” and “Photograph,” but lots of terrific tracks from Ringo’s many solo albums.

On the occasion of his 77th birthday on Friday, Ringo released “Give More Love,” the title track from a new forthcoming album full of guest stars from Joe Walsh and Peter Frampton to Paul McCartney. The album comes in September. Meantime, the song is very catchy. Peace and love, Ringo! Happy Birthday!

“Spider-Man: Homecoming” Swoops in for $50Mil Friday, Heads to $120 Mil Weekend

Roger Friedman
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“Spider-Man: Homecoming” Swoops in for $50Mil Friday, Heads to $120 Mil Weekend

Sony Pictures can breathe easy. “Spider-Man: Homecoming” is their biggest opening since the original “Spider Man” movie with Tobey Maguire in 2002.

Tom Holland, Michael Keaton and crew swept in last night for a $50 million opening night (including $15 million from Thursday previews). They’re on track for a $120 million weekend.

Sony’s biggest opening ever was the 3rd “Spider Man” movie in 2007 with $136 million.

The studio also has a solid hit right now with “Baby Driver.”

Former Sony chief Amy Pascal gets the last laugh because she produced “Homecoming” after being forced out of her job.

Kesha’s New Single “Praying” Is Number 2, Scores 6 Mil Views in 1 Day: “God, please just let me die. Being alive hurts too much”

Roger Friedman
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Kesha’s New Single “Praying” Is Number 2, Scores 6 Mil Views in 1 Day: “God, please just let me die. Being alive hurts too much”

Kesha’s new single “Praying” comes finally after her public dispute with producer Dr. Luke, whom she claims raped her and held back her career. Dr. Luke denies all allegations and has countersued. He’s also lost his gig at Sony Music. Other pop stars who’ve taken Kesha’s side include Lady Gaga, Adele and Taylor Swift.

“Praying” is number 2 on iTunes and has scored over 6 million YouTube views since it was released last night.

Ben Stiller to Co Produce Netflix Comedy About Teen Bro Accidentally Cuts Off His (Ahem)

Roger Friedman
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Ben Stiller to Co Produce Netflix Comedy About Teen Bro Accidentally Cuts Off His (Ahem)

Amazon is going one way with films– classy, upscale, Oscar level.

Netflix seems interested in going another way. They have a long term deal with Adam Sandler. Now this: Ben Stiller will co-produce a comedy called “Eggplant Emoji” about a bunch of teen guys who go on a camping trip. Hilarity ensues when one of them accidentally cuts off his penis.

I mean, it’s too funny! You have to be there!

Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider wrote the screenplay, Jake Szymanski directs. Stiller co-produces with Nicky Weinstock, Kyle Newacheck, Anders Holm, Adam DeVine, Blake Anderson, and Ross Dinerstein.

By the way, the kid who loses his member is of course described as chubby, “a soft chocolate chip cookie.” In other words, he’s the fat kid– a teen Jonah Hill or Josh Gad, or the late Flounder from “Animal House.” He’s not the Ryan Reynolds guy. He never is.

 

Broadway: “Hello, Dolly!” Without Bette Midler Crashes at Box Office, Falls Below $1 Mil for Week

Roger Friedman
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Broadway: “Hello, Dolly!” Without Bette Midler Crashes at Box Office, Falls Below $1 Mil for Week

Well, now we know what Bette Midler’s contribution to “Hello, Dolly!” is financially. Last week, with Midler gone and the great Donna Murphy replacing her, box office receipts for the Tony winning revival dropped bigly.

The show was down $1.7 million from the prior week, and fell to $936K. There was a potential to sell $1.5 million worth of tickets. Seating capacity was down by 25 percent. Ouch!

Producer Scott Rudin must have factored in Midler’s leaves of absence, but this has to sting. The formerly Divine Miss M doesn’t return until July 9th. She has more breaks coming at the end of the summer and in the fall.

Tickets for “Hello, Dolly!” averaged $106.31 during Murphy’s run–waaaay down from $499-$799 Rudin gets when Midler’s on stage.

The irony is that Murphy is probably excellent. (I wouldn’t know. There haven’t been press tickets for this column. Or many others.)

And this points up the problem of what happens when Midler finally calls it quits– by the end of the year. Rudin is already facing that problem with his other show, “A Doll’s House, Pt. 2.” The stars– Laurie Metcalf and Chris Cooper– already exiting in the next two weeks. (Tony season’s over, gotta get back to film and TV.) Metcalf is being replaced by Broadway star Julie White, but receipts are going to drop like a rock. When Midler finally leaves, we may be singing “Goodbye, Dolly!”

Paul McCartney: Now We Know Why Sony Music Publishing Settled So Fast– They’ve Lost Bruce Springsteen (in the UK)

Roger Friedman
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Paul McCartney: Now We Know Why Sony Music Publishing Settled So Fast– They’ve Lost Bruce Springsteen (in the UK)

UPDATED To say the least, last week’s announcement that Sony-ATV Music Publishing and Paul McCartney had settled over Paul’s portion of the rights to the Beatles songs in the US came as a huge surprise. In January, Paul had sued Sony saying he was taking back his copyrights as their terms lapsed. Sony balked, saying it was still looking at the situation. Sony had no intention of settling quickly, and was making Paul stew a bit in legal channels.

All of a sudden, last week, Sony caved. The announcement came from McCartney’s lawyer. Although their settlement is confidential, it’s likely similar to the one made by the John Lennon estate. Paul gets his rights back — the ones lost to Michael Jackson in 1985– on 251 Lennon & McCartney songs. In exchange, Sony -ATV gets to administer the rights and collect a fee.

But why settle so out of the blue? It turns out Sony-ATV has lost the rights to Bruce Springsteen’s music publishing in the UK. That huge and profitable catalog is going to Universal Music Publishing. Everything from “Because the Night” to “Fire” to “Born to Run” is in that package. So is “Blinded by the Light” and “Glory Days.” The very short, catchy Springsteen songs are worth a bloody fortune to publishers. (Springsteen’s publishing in the US was with Downtown Music publishing. That goes to Universal as well.)

Springsteen’s recording contract stays with Sony-Columbia Records. McCartney recently returned his whole recording catalog to Capitol/Universal. (Paul’s solo songs are not part of his new deal. He owns the publishing to things like “Band on the Run” and “Maybe I’m Amazed.” John’s solo songs like “Imagine” are also run by a different company, Downtown Music.)

Publishing royalties are where the money is in the music business. That’s why Michael Jackson held the Beatles catalog so close to the vest for years, borrowing hundreds of millions against it. McCartney was taught well by his late father in law, Lee Eastman, a genius who knew the value of a copyright. Lee and his son John were the ones who guided Paul to buy big catalogs of other people– like Buddy Holly– when his own songs slipped away.

Universal Publishing no doubt paid top dollar for Springsteen. Sony was likely unable to match that money while holding on to Paul. In a sense, everyone won.

 

 

Amazon Scores Opening Night and Centerpiece Selections at NY Film Festival– Todd Haynes, Richard Linklater Films

Roger Friedman
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Amazon Scores Opening Night and Centerpiece Selections at NY Film Festival– Todd Haynes, Richard Linklater Films

Amazon has scored the centerpiece selection of the New York Film Festival– Todd Haynes’ “Wonderstruck,” which was a hit in Cannes.

Roy Price, Ted Hope, and Bob Berney can now add this to their opening night film at the New York Film Festival– Richard Linklkater’s “Last Flag Flying.”

I’m not sure if they can get closing night, too. But why not?

Amazon is serious about film making and film makers. They are now going to dominate one of the most important film festivals in the world.

Wait! They could get closing night with Woody Allen’s “Wonder Wheel.” Alexa can get that for them, I guess!

TV: Gabrielle Anwar Joins ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” Now She Needs a Literary Agent

Roger Friedman
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TV: Gabrielle Anwar Joins ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” Now She Needs a Literary Agent

Congrats to Gabrielle Anwar. She’s joining the cast of ABC’s “Once Upon a Time.” Will she be good or evil? On “Burn Notice,” she was very good, then stayed on in Miami, got married and has been writing a novel.

So attention Hollywood literary agents. I’ve read Gabrielle’s “Timepiece” and it’s a winner. Set in England, it’s kind of a sweeping romantic mystery– and it takes place in contemporary times. Women are going to gobble up the story of Amelia Beart, who goes on a very intriguing investigation of her family history.

Gabrielle calls it “a lyrical exploration into a variation of the Oedipus complex, the attraction between a child and their opposite gender parent. Due to her absentee father, our heroine discovers the psychological & physiological effect of patriarchal rejection, and then the resulting desire to pursue unrequited love as an adult.”

By the way, Gabrielle will be commuting to Hollywood from Miami. A couple of years ago she married Shareef Malnik, owner of the famous Forge restaurant. A multi-talent, she’s having the best of all worlds!

Fashion: Fired Vogue Editor Speaks Candidly About Her (Anna) Wintour) of Discontent

Roger Friedman
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Fashion: Fired Vogue Editor Speaks Candidly About Her (Anna) Wintour) of Discontent

Conde Nast editorial director and Vogue impresario Anna Wintour didn’t fire Lucinda Chambers herself from British Vogue after 36 years of employment as an editor. But Wintour did nothing to stop new Vogue UK editor Edward Enninful from cleaning house and sacking Chambers without notice.

Now Chambers is getting the last laugh. Her interview with an obscure fashion blog called Vestoj.com has nearly broken the internet today. Chambers has laid it on the line. She writes: “A month and a half ago I was fired from Vogue. It took them three minutes to do it. No one in the building knew it was going to happen. The management and the editor I’ve worked with for twenty-five years had no idea. Nor did HR. Even the chairman told me he didn’t know it was going to happen. No one knew, except the man who did it – the new editor.”

Chambers blames Enninful, who suddenly replaced her long time boss Alexandra Shulman, last April. She very carefully doesn’t mention Wintour, who’s in charge of everything with the word Vogue on it. But Chambers and Wintour are the same approximately and go back the same amount of time at Conde Nast. Wintour wields an unseen hand in all proceedings.

Chambers admits she stopped reading Vogue a long time ago. “Maybe I was too close to it after working there for so long, but I never felt I led a Vogue-y kind of life. The clothes are just irrelevant for most people – so ridiculously expensive. What magazines want today is the latest, the exclusive. It’s a shame that magazines have lost the authority they once had. They’ve stopped being useful. In fashion we are always trying to make people buy something they don’t need. We don’t need any more bags, shirts or shoes. So we cajole, bully or encourage people into continue buying. I know glossy magazines are meant to be aspirational, but why not be both useful and aspirational? That’s the kind of fashion magazine I’d like to see.”

Well, she’ll see it somewhere else. Vogue has never been known for its loyalty to the people who made it great, if it was ever great. It’s nice to see someone speak up, though.

She concludes: “Most people who leave Vogue end up feeling that they’re lesser than, and the fact is that you’re never bigger than the company you work for. But I have a new idea now, and if it comes off maybe I won’t be feeling so vulnerable after all. We’ll have to wait and see.”

PS Let’s not forget the great Grace Coddington. She came off as a hero in the documentary “The September Issue” in which we got see how Wintour treated her. Coddington, a long time vet, was gone soon after.

Pop Music: 50% of Sales First Half of 2017 Were “Deep Catalog”– Beatles, Elvis, Prince, Michael Jackson, Johnny Cash at Top

Roger Friedman
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Pop Music: 50% of Sales First Half of 2017 Were “Deep Catalog”– Beatles, Elvis, Prince, Michael Jackson, Johnny Cash at Top

Sales figures are out for the record biz first half of 2017. Streaming is booming, and so is vinyl. CD sales are way down and so are downloads. Drake led the pack along with Ed Sheeran. This is all stuff we knew and wrote about as it was happening.

But here’s a statistic from Buzz Angle that’s hidden: 50% or more of all recorded sales were from the “deep catalog.” That’s old music. That’s half of everything. The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Prince, Johnny Cash and Pink Floyd finished among the top 25 artists in album sales from January 1st to July 1st.

How crazy is that? The Beatles sold 324,000 albums– mostly their “Sgt, Pepper” box set priced at $117.99. They were 8th on the list. They beat Adele, Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, twentyone pilots, and Zac Brown Band among others.

According to Buzz Angle (a newer service similar to SoundScan), 51.2% of album sales were deep catalog, 49,5% of song sales were from that category as well as 46.7% audio streams. Even more interesting: 59.3% of all video streams were from deep catalog.

People are listening to oldies more than new music. This is certainly reflected in recent radio ratings, in which oldies stations were handily beating Top 40.

What’s going on? Oldies are comfort food, especially in uncertain times. Even classic rock is soothing. Plus, it’s just better. The music is better. It’s not as disposable as current offerings. It means something. I always said, starting around 1990, there was going to be a problem with a generation of sampling in hip hop. A couple of generations are now missing original music from their repertoire. In the end, no one is humming rap songs. But “Motown” songs– they’re forever.

The funniest part of the mid year report: a lot of people bought the “Guardians of the Galaxy” soundtracks on cassette tape. Cassette tape? What are they playing them on? Maybe Sony will bring back the original Walkman!

 

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