And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - And The Update Is...Fake Streams, Billion-Dollar Deals & Ed Sheeran's Biggest Career Move Yet

Episode Date: July 10, 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 Golan. This is the music industry news for the week of July the 6th, 20206. Okay, so we got some news. You know, and it's not a crazy week, but a few, you know, songwriter Sue Hybe. Claim BTS's Swim copied their demo. I'm pretty sure because I know the writers behind it that that's not true. Good luck, kids. You're going to lose that one.

Primary Wave music acquires, you know, Cobalt, as you know, and that is officially complete. The deal unites two major independent music companies, while Cobalt continues to operate as a standalone company. You can start looking at Primary Wave, what Larry's doing over there. You can look at them as a major, major player. That is not much of an independent company anymore,

because they're huge. Scooter Braun steps down. from Hibes Board. Scooter Braun has exited Hib's board of directors, but will continue as an advisor for the company. He made them a lot of money. He's made a lot of people a lot of money. Spotify removes 500,000 streams from Malcolm Todd's earrings.

We talked about this last week, but again, the fraudulent streams were intended to raise the song's position after bets on the prediction market, Calci were placed on the song to reach number one. That's right, because you can buy shitty streams and make you. your numbers go up, but most of these DSPs are trying to make sure that doesn't happen, so they don't pay out royalties to people who didn't deserve it. Of course, we all know that this is exposing what we see as a modern version of payola. If you don't know what Paola is, Wikipedia is what labels used to do with radio stations

to make sure that their songs were played. CVC Capital Partners acquires a majority stake in Distro Kit, While its leadership team remains, that's another conversation for another time. I'll let you guys do on that. Jermaine Duprisu's Sony Music Entertainment Over Alleged Unpaid Royalties. Jermaine, come on our podcast. Let's talk about it. You're a legend.

$18 million lawsuit alleges that Sony under reported royalties from releases by Usher, Mariah Carey, Chris Cross, and others. Suna appoints former Atlantic Records exec, Grace James, as vice president and head of artist marketing and editorial and former YouTube head of major label business development. Christian Brown is head of music business development. Oh my God, it's like Suno has money. I wonder what they would do if they actually paid the creators for training on our work. Okay, let's get to some other stuff. Here's his signing. Ed Shearn will sign with Interscope, after over 15 years at Warner Music Group, this is a huge story.

That's right, Ed Shear and Will sign with Interscope, more to come over there. Geese and the lead singer Cameron Winter signed with Tyler Richmond for management. That's a big band. Zara Larson signs with RCA Records. That was probably pretty big after the last couple years. and Snow Patrol signs with BMG for records. That band is amazing. Okay, on to charts.

Hmm, huh, what's this song? Choose in Texas by Ella Langley's number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. For the 12th week, non-consecutive, that's a lot of weeks. Those guys are making some solid bank on that song. Good job to Luke Dick. If you want to listen to that interview,

go to our Patreon. That's probably the best story we've ever had on the podcast. No joke. It's incredible. He was raised by strippers. Golden Hour, Part 5, by A tease, debuts in number one on Billboard 200 chart. And, hate that I made you love me by Ariana Grande is number one

on the Billboard Global 200 chart for the second week. Non-consecutive. Congrats to our friends over there as well. Global Spotify is Confessions 2 by Madonna. Debuting at number one on Spotify's top albums debut global chart. Congrats to Watt and to Circuit. If you want to listen to those interviews, well, that you can get everywhere. Billy Jean by Michael Jackson is number one on Spotify's Top Songs Global Chart.

I like to say that because that's ridiculous. On the USA chart, we got a newcomer-ish. Ken Carson with Experiment debuts at number one on Spotify's top albums. debut USA chart. That's impressive. It's always impressive to see new names. Well, that's the news for the week. It wasn't a crazy week, but it was still a week nevertheless. Okay, now make sure you go and check out. I'm laughing because my wife just came in and freaked this shit out of me while I was doing this. So I'm going to keep at least this part in because she told me I can't keep it in the part where she really freaked the shit out of me. Anyway, okay, well, go ahead and check out our interview with

Brittany Howard. What a legend from Alabama Shays. crazy stories with Prince and awesome just awesome stories anyway we've got another new interview coming out on Tuesday so much stuff happening we have our our hang next week on July 14th if you are a Patreon member you can come and hang with us on Zoom we are gonna give out UA gear like Apollo stuff you know mics all kinds of things come and join our Patreon go listen to our old interviews you know we're doing a whole thing over there and thank you georgia webbush for great notes as always bye