And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - And The Update Is...Pop Stars, Lawsuits & Billion-Dollar Moves

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

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

I am your host, Ross Golan, and this is the news for the music industry for the week of May 11th, 2026. I am still writing 2025 on all my checks, which is not true because I use Zelle like everybody else. Anyway, here's some Billboard news. Choosing Texas is still number one. Ninth week. Holy crap. It's been non-consecutive. But I mean, come on. nine weeks. That's just wild. The Great Divide by Noah Khan is number one for the second week in a row, maybe even third. I don't know. It's just still number one. And beating the beat by Justin Bieber and Nikki Minaj is number one on the Global 200 chart for the 15th year. That is insane for all three of those. I guess you can't really call it news when it's old. We'll call it olds. All right. Spotify,

Global Brown by Chris Brown is number one on Spotify's top albums debut global chart. BTS is back in number one on Spotify's top albums, global chart there. And Beating the Beat, still number one on Spotify's top songs, global chart for the third week. Again, not a lot of new news. I guess Chris Brown going number one on the Spotify's top album's debut global chart is news of some sort. Rock music by Charlie X-CX. They abused at number one in the United States for top songs. Charlie X-E-X, former guests on, and the writer is.

We like Charlie, not to mention that I wrote Same Old Love with her, and she's a lovely human and very, very smart. Okay, let's get to some cool stories in the business. Here's some news. Let's do it, ready? Here we go. Warner Music Group and Paramount Pictures Partners, on artist biopics.

It's a multi-year agreement to develop feature films based on WMG artists and songwriters in collaboration with their estates. So maybe I'm an and the songwriter? I don't know. I mean, Paramount, call me. The Ross Bowling Biopic, who's not watching that?

Hybe launches a new girl group, label ABD. I've always putting out the boy groups and the girl groups that we all grew up loving here, but they're thinking worldwide. Pretty impressive. They're run right now if you look at worldwide charts. Cobalt forms a global partnership with loyalty above all music. LAA's roster has generated billions of streams and social attraction, making a strategic move in artist's development. What's that? Red Hot Chili Pepper sell their catalog to Warner Music Group

for $300 million. I wanted that one. It wasn't on my desk and I don't have $300 million, but someday I will still not have $300 million. Do a leap of files. A $15 million lawsuit against Samsung. If you haven't seen that story, they were using her likeness on TV packaging.

That would be, that feels like a slam dunk on do his behalf of maybe they'll settle, but that'll be a nice payday for them using her face. Warner Music launches Atlantic Records Finland. That is probably not news to anybody outside of Finland. Beeport launches track ID. It's a new program that will identify music even if the audio has been manipulated. That would be good across all DSPs as well. CD Baby launches, stages, selects program for emerging artists.

That program will provide expanding marketing distribution and release support to, you know, a select group of independent musicians. Many of you use CD Baby. So you can go check that out there. They are not a sponsor of this. That's just kind of interesting news. Not a lot of news this week on signings. That is, uh, that's, that's fine.

Okay, so thank you again for listening. Uh, we re-released. the Jack Antonoff interview this week. That was a super fun combo. Love Jack. Always have. Excited for you guys to hear the interview this next Tuesday. We have a runway of bangers that are about to get launched.

So stay tuned. And we will see you Tuesday. Oh, and always got to thank Georgia Webbush. Sick notes. Always. All right. Have a good week. Bye.