Recognition, celebration, and validation of contribution in composition was the theme on Friday, Jul. 22, 2022, at the University of Cape Town (UCT) when the District-Six-born Dr Trevor Jones accepted a Doctor of Music, honoris causa.

Marc Marot, responsible for over 100m album sales at Island records, was in SA for 16 days for the 2022 Music Exchange conference in Cape Town and Johannesburg

Marc’s publishing signings include, amongst many others, Massive Attack, De La Soul, Julia Fordham, and Shakespeare’s Sister (Marcy Levy).

Amongst the Artists signed and developed by his team while at Island Records were:
     • Pulp
     • PJ Harvey
     • The Stereo MCs
     • P.M. Dawn
     • The Cranberries
     • Elbow
     • Chaka Demus and Pliers
     • NWA
     • The Orb
     • Ice Cube
     • Talvin Singh
     • Tricky
     • Nine Inch Nails

Albums of the year – Moreira Chonguica – Sounds of Peace and Steve Louw Thunder and Rain. 

Band of the year in SA – Temple Boys out of Cape Town, “Saggies” was the big song.

Global act – Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican rapper and singer. His musical style is defined as Latin trap and reggaeton.

His second tour of 2022 doubled the gross of his last record-breaking trek: The World’s Hottest Tour grossed $232.5 million and sold 944,000 tickets from just 21 shows in the US.

Then you have Harry Styles at #2 and Taylor Swift at #3, as far as international acts are concerned.

What was the most significant benefit that music streaming has brought to live music?

It’s made music discovery borderless. Maybe for the first time in pop music history, it doesn’t matter which language you’re singing in. Five years ago, the idea of Bad Bunny selling stadiums in the USA was crazy. 

R. Kelly gets 30 years of jail time.

Things went from bad to worse for R. Kelly in 2022. After being convicted last year in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges, the disgraced R&B singer was sentenced to 30 years in prison on those charges in June.

FUN FACTS

Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” blasted back onto the Hot 100 at No. 8 (Jun. 11) and reached a No. 3 high in July, powered by its synch in the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. Having charted initially, rising to #30, in 1985, the song wrapped the longest run to the Hot 100’s top five in terms of time from a debut on the ranking in the Top Five – 36 years, nine months and two weeks.

Exactly one decade ago, on Dec. 21, 2012, Psy’s “Gangnam Style” made history as the first music video to reach 1 billion YouTube views.

 As a result, YouTube’s Billion Views Club was born. A way to celebrate official videos that have achieved peak virality, the club is now home to over 300 music videos, including many of the most iconic hits from the past 10 years — from Adele’s “Hello” to Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito”, featuring Daddy Yankee.

Consequently, for major-label artists, one billion video streams on an official music video would generate about $2.6 million globally. That’s, of course, before the label takes their cut of royalties, which varies widely based on each artist’s deal, and before the artist considers what, if anything, they owe to their featured artists or producers on the track.

All the best for the New Year.