And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - And The Update Is... AI Covers, Drake’s New Era & Why Michael Jackson Is STILL Charting in 2026

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

And The Update Is…a weekly beat on the industry . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to And the Update is I am your host Ross Golin. This is the news in the music industry for the week of May 18th, 2026. Let's start with some stories this week. UMG and Spotify signed a licensing deal to allow users to do AI covers of songs. Wow, that's going to piss off a lot of artists, I'm sure, because now they're going to be competing against themselves. Now on the other hand, it will probably trigger royalties for any of the licensed material, both on the publishing and on the record side. Now, most of you aren't 100% universal writers, so other publishing companies will have a say in that.

But this is something that had been discussed for a long time and expect this to be a thing. and hopefully it will create more revenue for artists without causing too much headaches for those who are trying to release new music. Now, if you're looking at charts, you're going to notice a lot of the songs that are on the charts right now are not brand new, so it is hard to crack in. And this may just make it even more crowded.

We don't know yet. Okay, Shamrock Capital closed an $800-plus million content acquisition fund. Shamrock is famously the company that bought and sold Taylor's catalog. They are massive and they are good at what they do, so I'm sure getting $800 million will help. They're also looking at film and television, gaming sports, and other creator economy assets. Fuga and Insomniac Music Group renewed their global distribution partnership.

Fuga has been recently purchased by Universal and so has everyone else. and YG also renewed their distribution deal. That's also, that's a massive partnership. If you know anything about K-pop music, you know that. Primary Wave acquired Hypnosis artwork catalog. Now, uh, recognized there that the artwork itself had not been purchased by Sony. They just purchased the going forward publishing company Hypnosis had for sale. So Primary Wave bought the album covers from Pink Floyd and Queen.

Primary Wave always interested in name, image, and likeness. Taylor Swift and Beyonce recordings added to National Recording Registry. That's cool because the Library Congress selects 25 culturally significant recordings for its 2006 registry class. That included Taylor Swift's 1989, Beyonce's single lady. Apple Music launches a new live stream series, Club Live. It's the new series that will broadcast live events and debut at EDC in Vegas. So if you want to have a rave at home alone, Apple Music is going to be your streaming service.

Pete Townsend partners with Primary Wave. Primary Wave back in the news. Hasn't been there for 35 seconds. And that deal will cover his name image and likeness and their future creative projects. expect to see a hologram of P. Townsend at your favorite festival soon. Some of the artist signings that might be interesting to you, King Princess signed with a new management company. So that's kind of interesting.

MN.EK signed a new publishing deal with Sony Music Publishing, very big British writer. That was not a British accent, but you get the point. All right, time for some charts. Let's go at it. What a surprise here, choose in Texas by LLLN, is number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the 10th week non-concecutively. The Great Divide by Noah Khan is number one on the Billboard 200 chart for the third week in a row. But this one's a shocker.

Billy Jean by Michael Jackson is number one on the Billboard Global 200 chart. I mean, come on. That is, wow, that's 42 years old, 43 years old, and it's charting that high. Iceman by Drake debuted at number one on Spotify's top. album debut global chart. If you weren't watching our Instagram, we did a little thing about Drake dropping his three albums

to fulfill his deal with Universal. I'm sure that both of them made out just fine. BTS is number one on Spotify's top albums Global Chart for the second week in a row. Make Them Cry by Drake debuted at number one on Spotify's top song debut

Global Chart. Ice Man by Drake is also number one in the U.S. So is Make Them Cry. The Great provide and choose in Texas. No news there. They're just all killing it. Anyway, that's the news for this week. Thanks for tuning in.

We had Niall Horn as our guest on Tuesday. What a wonderful gentleman and scholar. And next Tuesday, we've got another new one for you. We are rolling out some bangers, man. So tune in and give us some likes and stuff and communicate with us on the on the Instagram. or the TikTok or the YouTube or the MySpace. And of course, a shout out to Georgia Webbush for these excellent notes that allow us to do this update. All right, thanks so much for checking it out.

See you soon. Bye.