Robert Greene just might be your favorite rapper’s favorite writer, but if you saw him on the street, you’d never guess that the best-selling author would have had any impact on hip-hop. A tall, soft-spoken 53-year-old, Greene looks like kind of guy you’d guess was teaching a college course, not teaching rappers, Wall Street types, and Hollywood executives about the ways of the world. But in 1998, when he published his best selling book, The 48 Laws of Power, he became the unlikeliest of hip-hop heroes.

Greene went on to write several successful books including another huge hit, The Art of Seduction. But in the hip-hop world, he remains best known for 48 Laws which has been quoted by everyone from Jay-Z to Busta Rhymes. His book was so well received in the hip-hop community he wrote a book with 50 Cent, The 50th Law. Last November, he published his fifth book, Mastery. The book explores the idea of becoming a master in any particular field, and was inspired by time Greene spent with 50. Greene swung by the Complex offices to discuss the idea of mastering the art of rapping, why Jay-Z is still making hits and 50 isn’t, and why the 10,000 hour rule can only go so far in rap music.

Interview by Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)

When did you first become aware of the rap world’s interest in your work?
I think it was about 2001. There was an interview in Playboy with Jay-Z and he was quoting a couple of [the laws of power]. Then I started hearing anecdotal information from people; word was getting around. I’d hear about it in lyrics and things from Kanye, Nas, and a few others. It trickled in. It was never a conscious strategy on my part, but in retrospect it makes a lot of sense why the book resonated with so many people in the business.

Over the years I’ve met quite a few big rappers. Then it exploded with 50 Cent, and I did a book with him. It’s always a strange meeting of two worlds, it’s very exciting. The book was really popular among the Wall Street crowd too, but I’m much more excited about the hip-hop crowd than I am about the Wall Street crowd.

Because it’s art as opposed to business?

 I’ve always loved black culture; I don’t know any other way to put it. Since I was a kid I loved music and early jazz, Sly and the Family Stone. I’m older—I’m in my early 50s—so you’ll have to excuse me. That was always very exciting to me to connect to the culture on that level. It was something that I never intended, but I’m very happy about it.

What was it like meeting 50?

50 is a great person. I was a little intimidated when I met him for the first time in 2006. I didn’t know what to expect. It ended up we got along really well. That’s why we decided to do a book together, The 50th Law of Power

How did he end up influencing your new book?

When I came up with the idea I was still working with him on The 50th Law. A lot of it came from [50’s book] From Pieces to Weight, which is a great book. The idea of knowing something so well that you’ve got a feel for it, what I call, “from the inside out.” He talks a lot about how he reached a point where he has an intuitive feel for what he’s doing. That’s what I wanted to write about in this book. He inspired it, and he embodies a lot of the things I’m talking about.

It’s irritating because people don’t realize [how hard it is] to be as successful as he is in hip-hop. How many people can you say have been around for 10 or 20 years who still mean something? I know he’s not the same as he was 10 years ago, but he still has quite a presence. It’s not very common.

He’s got a larger picture of the world. He’s doesn’t want to just create a couple of hits and live off the money. He’s seeing something much wider than that and he’s very disciplined. It’s not just music that he’s mastered but business as well. So he in some ways was the paradigm for what ended up turning to be the book Mastery.

A lot of people don’t understand that he’s an incredibly disciplined person. I lived with him for about four or five months. We went to a party in [Las] Vegas at Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s mothers’ house out in the middle of the desert. I was the only white guy in four Escalades that were heading out to the desert. It was a pretty wild party, there was a lot of pot and everyone was dancing. Here was 50 Cent sitting in the corner on a sofa, watching a sporting event. He’s not a party person at all. He’s very serious. How many people know about that? What a great role model he would be if more people knew that.

He never drinks. No drugs. He likes to feel like he’s in control of situations because of dealing drugs and seeing what happens [to people on drugs]. He hates the feeling of not being in control. That includes his own body and his own thoughts, which is another theme in the book.

Speaking of, what is the exact premise of Mastery?
You’ve probably heard of the 10,000 hour rule [the theory that success comes when you practice a specific task for 10,000 hours]. The Malcolm Gladwell thing comes from a very famous study of people in chess and music. It’s very real. What happens if you stick at something long enough, and study it for so long, you have a different kind of intelligence. It’s not an intellectual thing. It’s almost like an animal intelligence. I call it our form of instinct, almost how a lion knows exactly where its prey is.

For us, once we’ve had so much experience in something it’s almost like the power of an animal because we know something without having to think. There are people like that—50 exemplifies it, Steve Jobs exemplifies it. They see things that we don’t see, they see trends.

I wanted to be able to describe it in great detail so it’s not a big mystical thing. It’s not about, “Some people are born geniuses.” I wanted to show you the step-by-step process that leads to this very powerful form of thinking. It transcends all fields; it can be boxing, sports, music, science, writing, whatever. It’s about the brain, it’s not about what field you’re in.

You mention how 50 is not what he once was 10 years ago. He still mastered the the skill of being a rapper, he put his 10,000 hours in. How come he doesn’t make the same records that he used to make?

That early music came from a very real place. I’m talking about his first album after he got shot, when he had his mixtape campaign. There was a lot of anger and grit, that’s not fake. There’s a lot of fake gangsters out there, he’s not fake. That came in the music; it was very visceral.

He’s not in that place anymore. He lives a comfortable life surrounded by all sorts of people. He’s not close to where he grew up. So the music doesn’t reflect that. It’s good in its own way but it’s not the same.

He’s [still] extremely talented. I would sit there in the car with him when we were going somewhere and he would play me his latest mixtape, which is something he had put together a few hours ago. It sounded fantastic. Some of the stuff you never get to hear because then they would go in and produce it and produce it. I don’t know if you’d put him on the improvisational level of Jay-Z, but he’s definitely got a talent for music.

He transcends music because he’s a business person. To me, that’s where he’s a master. That’s where he’s put in his 10,000 hours, beginning from dealing drugs on the streets to learning everything when he was at Columbia during his first record deal.

What other rappers do you think embody mastery?
Well Jay-Z would be the other titan. As I said, how many people come and go? They’re almost like comets. If they last five years that’s pretty amazing. Jay-Z has incredible sense. He’s more fluid than 50. He’s not as much a hardcore businessman as 50, but I don’t know, I haven’t met him personally. But he certainly embodies many of the things inMastery.

I remember I was flying home to Los Angeles one day. I was talking to the woman next to me and the flight attendant tried to tell me I was sitting next to somebody that I should know. I didn’t recognize her but it ended up being Beyonce’s sister, Solange Knowles.

When I found out and I got very excited and we were talking. She was telling me that Jay was this insane workaholic. I was finishing up The 50th Law so I was like, “Wow. Jay will drink and stuff, but he’s got many of the same character traits as 50.”

One thing about Jay as a rapper—both creatively and commercially—he’s been great for the last 15-20 years. Which 50 hasn’t been able to do. Why is that? They’re both masters.
I think he’s more naturally gifted. He didn’t depend as much as 50 did on his personal story. Jay-Z has a great story, he came from a pretty rough background. But 50’s early success was so much fueled on the story and where he came from. With Jay-Z, I feel he has a more natural gift for language and for music itself. 50 really had to study and work at it much harder.

That seems contrary to the 10,000 hours theory though. Isn’t it the idea that people are not naturally gifted, so they work 10,000 hours to get to being gifted?
Yeah, but music is maybe a little different in that sense. For every Jay-Z that comes along, who’s insanely gifted when it comes to rhyming and all the other things, how many of them last very long? There are other people like Jay-Z that have come up.

I think early on Busta Rhymes had a lot of incredible talent. But he’s not disciplined. He’s too wild and out there. Maybe Kanye’s a little bit like that. In fact, we had a screenplay together because Busta was going to do a film version of The 48 Laws of Power. He had a whole scenario. I can’t exactly remember what it was, but it took place in the South. Some young kid who uses the 48 laws to raise himself up. It was pretty good. But he didn’t follow through on it.

A lot of people who have that natural gift, they don’t stick it out so they don’t last. Jay-Z has the talent and he put in the 10,000 hours. That’s the point; he loves music. He’s like a Mozart. He’s put in all of that time. For 50, I think it was more of a slog, it wasn’t as natural to him. He’s got talent, but I don’t think he’s got the feel for it.

And when it comes to business, that’s what he gets more excited about in some ways. I’m not sure because I don’t know Jay-Z’s personal habits, but I agree with you, that he’s still able to do the kinds of hits that 50 isn’t able to do anymore.

What would you say about someone like Eminem? He has the natural talent, put in the 10,000 hours, and still makes hit records but he’s not the same rapper he once was.

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Sony Entertainment announced that the network’s music unlimited service that is available in 18 countries world wide, has expanded its service to Mexico.

The service launched in 2010,offering on-demand access to a plethora of over 18 million licensed tracks across several devices.  These devices include Sony’s PlayStation platforms, iPhone’s, Android smartphones, PC’s, and more.

Michael Aragon said a statement.“We know music fans in Mexico have been waiting for our subscription service for some time, so we’re thrilled to bring them the Music Unlimited service.”

The Music Unlimited Service features an offline playback feature and listeners get the luxury no advertisements. If you’re like me and HATE advertisements while getting your jam on this is for you. Customers have the option to listen to music from their libraries, personal playlists, or pre-programmed channels without having to sync or sign into multiple accounts.

The service isn’t too expensive got for $4.49 for Sony’s Through the Access subscription and $8.99 for premium subscription. [AlLindstrom]

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Facebook on Thursday unveiled a new design that gives music its own dedicated newsfeed tab, one that appears to give bands and music marketers more real estate on the social network to broadcast their messages to fans.

In making the changes to its newsfeed algorithm, Facebook took a page from a relatively ancient medium — newspapers. For decades, daily papers have divided their articles by sections — sports, business, local news, arts, entertainment and so on. Similarly, Facebook’s new feeds will feature categories that its users engage with most frequently, such as music, games, photos and “following,” which pulls together posts and updates from pages that the user has “Liked.”

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, during a news conference in California to announce the new look, called it “the best personalized newspaper” available.

The move reflects Facebook’s latest attempt to organize the flood of posts that course through its network, separating wheat from chaff and serving up updates that people are most likely to find valuable.

In a nod to the importance of music, Facebook carved out a feed just for bands, artists and music services. (The company last year released a dedicated feed for games, another critical category for Facebook.)

“Music is something that really resonates with all of us,” said Chris Struhar, Facebook’s technical lead for the redesign project. “So we’re really excited to get this feed out in front of people.”

The new design also gives videos and photos more real estate on the page. “Almost 59% of content on news feeds is photos and visual content,” said Zuckerberg, who also noted that Facebook’s 1 billion users are also engaging more with posts from publications, businesses, artists and world leaders — not just the personal friends in their network. “How we’re all sharing is changing. This new design, we think, reflects this evolving face of newsfeeds.”

The overhaul reflects Facebook’s latest effort to balance its users’ need for interesting, personalized updates with the need for companies to connect with customers.

Last year, the Silicon Valley social network changed its newsfeed algorithm to push down posts from pages that had negative feedback from users, while elevating posts that experienced higher-than-average engagement, such as sharing or commenting. The goal, Facebook said, was to make its newsfeed more relevant and less “spammy” to its users. The changes, however, prompted outcry from businesses and brands that use Facebook and saw a decline in their reach — highlighting Facebook’s difficulty in having to create an optimal experience for its users while also giving companies a valuable venue to do marketing.

This redesign, which creates a new tab for companies and brands under “Following” and for bands and musicians under “Music,” gives marketers a bigger canvas. At the same time, users can also personalize their feeds to include only the topics they care about. Feeds from personal friends can also be separated from other posts.

“People will get more choice and control over what they’re seeing,” Struhar said.

Not everyone using Facebook will see the changes right away. The company said it will be “slowly and carefully” rolling out the new design over the next few weeks and months — first on browsers and later on mobile devices. Intrepid early adopters can sign up with Facebook to be among the first.

Props to Billboard Biz

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Regardless if you’re a musician or music consumer, your music life is about to change. Slowly but surely digital music distribution has been evolving from downloads to streaming, but that transition has been really picking up speed over the last 12 months. With Spotify leading the way thanks to reams of publicity, more and more consumers are finding that the joy of renting music beats owning it by a long shot.

While it’s been long rumored that Apple has their own streaming service up their sleeve, several developments reveal the change that is about to come.

First is the fact that Jimmy Iovine’s Daisy project (named after the first computer generated song) just received a $60 million injection from the likes of Warner Music Group’s owner Len Blavatnik, Fort Worth billionaire Lee Bass and Australian financier James Packer. This is a serious investment by some deep pockets that know what they’re doing and don’t like to lose. Then comes word that Apple’s Tim Cook recently took a meeting with Iovine to be briefed on the project. Does that mean a collaboration? We don’t know, but at the very least, Apple has a good working relationship with Iovine, since he was one of the first to sign Universal Music onto iTunes back in 2001. Together they’d be a powerhouse, a true 1200 pound gorilla. Chances are that Apple will chose to go it alone and just stay at 800 pounds though. It doesn’t need a partner, but if there’s something there worth buying, they have lots of money.

Then comes word that Google has been quietly making deals with all the major labels for their own YouTube-based subscription streaming service to be launched later in the year.

If all this were happening a couple of years ago we would’ve looked to only one of these prospective services to be left standing at some point, with the others falling by the wayside. But this is a different time, with the streaming business far more mature thanks to the likes of Spotify, Pandora, Rdio, Slacker, et al. It’s now probably possible that all of these new services survive if they’re at least half-way decent in their user operation and offerings.

This is definitely going to be a big win for consumers, with nearly an unlimited selection of songs available for a relatively small monthly fee (not sure what the price point will end up being, but $9.95 keeps being mentioned). Consumers are quickly seeing the advantages of renting their music.

It will be a different story for artists and songwriters however. By now everyone knows how little the royalty can be from a stream, with stories abounding about income lost by the writer and artist. Although a full transition to streaming will be a godsend for the labels, with steady monthly income actually bolstering their bottom line, you can bet that not much of that will trickle down to the artists – at least at first.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but within a matter of time, you’ll see the entirety of the management and law categories of the music business devise a better way to get paid, and eventually force the labels to fall in line. And when that happens, it will trickle down to the DIYers who insist on doing it their way. To what degree this all takes place, we’ll have to wait and see.

While we’re currently in the era of Music 3.0, we’re about to see the next stage of the music business. Welcome to Music 3.5!

Via Music Think Thank & AlLindstrom

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When starting out as a Concert Promoter, you start at the smallest size venue.  Once you own promoting that venueand all the acts that come in, it’s time to expand to larger venues.  However, bands can go supernova at any second and explode onto the scene.  At that time, they may jump big time to playing larger arenas than you are accustomed to promoting.  Dan Steinberg was nominated for the Bill Graham Promoter of the Year Award and has carved out a nice niche for himself up in Washington.  Dan cut his teeth promoting in Denver first before he decided to movemarkets, and he has some wise tips on how to retain the loyalty of bands that are expanding their audience while staying ahead of their reach! [RenmanMB]

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Imran Majid has had a very impressive rise in the Music Business world, and he is now busy running the A&R Department at Columbia Records as the Vice President. It took a lot of sacrifice and prioritizing for him to get there though. It was hardly an easy road. There is no set path to becoming an executive in A&R, as Imran well knows. Along his path to success, Imran was able to identify key traits that helped him to get to where he is today. In this segment, Imran breaks down the necessary traits for someone to possess in order to have a successful career in A&R.

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The music industry has lost billions of dollars in revenue over the last decade. Nielsen says the industry can use generated at least a half billion in incremental revenue by allowing fans to better connect with artists.

Nielsen’s study was unveiled Tuesday at a SXSW panel titled “The Buyer and the Beats: The Music Fan and How to Reach Them.” A survey of 4,000 music consumers, which included PledgeMusic users and SXSW attendees, examined the degree to which different types of consumers want to connect with artists through exclusive music merchandise.

The bottom line: Nielsen found there could be potential incremental revenue of $450 million to $2.6 billion if artists, managers and labels offered a better set of products and experiences to fans.

“Fans want more,” said Barara Zack, Chief Analytics Officer at Nielsen Entertainment Measurement. “There is an unmet need there. There is a desire to engage at a different level than what they have.”

The idea behind this study is familiar to many people. A site like Kickstarter allows artists to raise money from fans for a project. Artists offer a variety of goods and experiences that segment customers by willingness to pay. Instead of getting $15 from an serious fan, an artist could get $300 for a CD, a T-shirt and a 30-minute conversation on Skype, for example.

This study’s conclusion isn’t limited to crowdfunding and superfans. Nielsen found that fans of varying degrees are willing to pay for content if given the opportunity. Over half (53%) of Aficionados (the most active music buyers) said they would be willing to pay to get exclusive content while a favorite band is recording a new album. Less active buyers were predictably less likely to show an interest in spending for exclusive content, but even the group Nielsen calls Ambivalent Consumers (22% of the population, spend on average $73 a year) said they would buy exclusive content if given the opportunity.

Nielsen estimates the industry’s incremental revenue potential from selling exclusive content is $564 million, as an individual buys content from only one band. That number jumps to $2.6 billion of incremental revenue if the individual buys exclusive content from all other favorite bands as well.

These findings bring up a number of questions. Will fans’ purchase actions match their stated purchase intent? Will fans be willing to support major label artists as well as independent artists? Or will major label artists need to use a model like PledgeMusic that highlights the fan-artist connection greater over the fundraising aspect of the platform?

Zack said most respondents who said they would pay extra for exclusive content had major label artists in mind when they answered the question. High-spending aficionados were more likely to have an independent artist in mind, but the overall split was about 80% major label artist to 20% independent artist, she said. That suggests that direct-to-fan revenue opportunities present an opportunity, if activated correctly, for labels to engage differently with fans for their signed artists.

One popular way to sell products and experiences is through crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter. Artists establish a fundraising goal and work toward that target. But what if dozens or hundreds of artists are simultaneously working toward their fundraising goals? Benji Rogers, CEO of PledgeMusic, a participant in the study, warned that “donor fatigue” could take hold if too many artists are constantly requesting money for their projects. “I think we have to change the conversation. Part of what we did different at PledgeMusic was we didn’t show the financial target. One of the reasons was is I don’t think it’s about the money. They want experience.” [Billboard.biz]

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“If you’re a business now and you’re only on the PC, you’re going to have some serious problems.” That’s how Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek described the biggest challenge facing his company and others in the industry during a one-on-one chat Tuesday with Forbes associate editor Steven Bertoni. On the first day of the music portion of SXSW in Austin, Ek began with some news about Spotify’s growing position as the world’s leading music subscription service— it now claims six million paid subscribers worldwide— before delving into his views on what’s next.

“It’s not just about mobile. The way we look at it, it’s about connective devices,” Ek said. “TVs, cars, refrigerators— there’s huge opportunity for new business, but it’s also scary to navigate that transition.”

Ek differentiated Spotify from larger, corporate entrants into the streaming and subscription space by noting that Spotify is only focused on music and always will be.

“I’m not one of these people that believes the world will be ruled by a few companies like Apple and Google,” he said. “I think if you look at history you’ll see that the services and companies that have survived and thrived have been dedicated to doing one thing really well, whether it’s Netflix for movies or EA for games.”
Ek said Spotify succeeded, despite not being the first to attempt a streaming and subscription model, by coming up with the easiest and most convenient solution while also working out deals with the labels. He noted that because of Napster, the digital music industry was the first in history where the illegal model was better than the legal one.

Despite his current fruitful relationship with record labels, Ek called some parts of the music industry “antiquated” and suggested that they would have to evolve.

“Licensing music territory by territory is not at all how it should work, it seems to me,” he said, citing one example. “If I license a song, that license should be valid all around the world.”

Looking to the future, Ek said that he believes the format of recorded music itself will evolve. He said artists will experiment more in adding interactive layers to their music.

“If you look at the Internet, it’s audio, it’s visual and it’s interactive,” he said. “But if you look at most content today, it’s audio/visual, but it’s not interactive. In the future, I think artists will add more of an interactive component.”

Ek also said that he believes artists and labels might offer as many as 30 different versions of an album, or songs with multiple endings. He acknowledged that some of these changes are difficult to imagine, but pointed to recent history for evidence of how quickly attitudes can change.

“Some things we are laughing about now, but it just takes time,” he said. “10 years ago no one thought people would buy clothes online. People said we were always going to go to the store.”

In the nearer future, Ek predicted that Spotify’s new “follow” feature, which rolled out earlier this year and allows users to get updates from their favorite artists, would become a powerful way for artists to reach fans.

“David Guetta already has 4 million followers on Spotify,” Ek said. “That means that whenever he posts a song, it automatically goes out to four million people who get a notification on their phone that lets them play it instantly. It’s a huge marketing opportunity for artists.”

In response to a question from the audience, Ek addressed criticism that Spotify does not provide reasonable compensation for artists. He said Spotify pays bigger royalties than Internet radio and YouTube, and he used the oft-repeated line of reasoning that streaming pays in perpetuity, as opposed to one-time-only downloads.

“The question artists should ask isn’t ‘How much am I being paid per stream,’ but ‘How many times could my song potentially be played?’” he said. “For major artists like Rihanna who get 1 million downloads for a song, that could mean up to a billion views on YouTube. Imagine if that was happening on a service that paid more like Spotify. It could be a significant form of income, maybe even more than iTunes. So the question is how do we grow the total number of streams.” [Billboard.biz]

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The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought recovery might have begun.

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In what likely will be a trend for the next few years, Sony/ATV is the No. 1­­­­-­ ranked music publisher, based on its market share of the top 100 songs as compiled by Nielsen BDS.

For the fourth quarter, Sony/ATV, which includes administration for EMI Music Publishing, posted a share of 25.8%, which is up slightly from the 25.7% share that the combined entity tallied in the third quarter. On June 29, 2012, a Sony Corp. of America-led consortium completed the acquisition of EMI Music Publishing and assigned the company to Sony/ATV for administration.

In the fourth quarter, Sony/ATV, which also took the No. 1 ranking in the top 100 country songs with a 22.9% share, claimed a stake in 52 of the top 100 tracks, including Rihanna’s “Diamonds” (No. 2), fun.’s “Some Nights” (No. 3) and Ne-Yo’s “Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself)” (No. 5). In the prior quarter, the two combined song portfolios had a piece of 53 songs among the top 100.

For the second consecutive quarter, Kobalt Music Group ranked second, with 16.5% in the fourth quarter, which is down from the 17.5% it posted in the third quarter but up from the 15.6% it had in fourth-quarter 2011. For fourth-quarter 2012, Kobalt placed 25 tracks in the top 100 songs, down from 29 in the third quarter. Kobalt’s shares included Maroon 5’s No. 1 track, “One More Night”; “Diamonds”; and Ke$ha’s “Die Young” (No. 7).

Universal Music Publishing Group continues to be on the rise, this time moving up in the rankings to No. 3, with a 15.9% share, versus the 12.6% it had in the third quarter when it ranked fourth. In fact, that third-quarter tally marked an improvement from the second quarter, when UMPG had an 11.3% share. But it’s down from the 16.3% it had in fourth-quarter 2011, when it was ranked No. 2 behind EMI.

For fourth-quarter 2012, UMPG had a piece of 39 songs among the top 100, up from the 35 it had in the third quarter. Its top songs included “One More Night,” Bruno Mars’ “Locked Out of Heaven” (No. 4) and “Let Me Love You.”

Even though it gained in market share, Warner/Chappell Music fell to No. 4 from No. 3 in the third quarter when it had 13.1%. For fourth-quarter 2012, Warner/Chappell posted 14.2% and placed 32 tracks in the top 100, down from 37. But that’s better than the No. 5 ranking it had in fourth-quarter 2011, when it had 10.4%. W/C’s top songs included “Some Nights,” “Locked Out of Heaven” and Alex Clare’s “Too Close” (No. 6).

BMG Chrysalis ranked fifth, the same as in the third quarter, with its market share falling slightly to 5.3% from 5.5%. BMG had a share in 18 of the top 100 songs, including “Locked Out of Heaven,” Chris Brown’s “Don’t Wake Me Up” (No. 11) and Ellie Goulding’s “Lights” (No. 18). In fourth-quarter 2011, BMG had a 7% share and ranked No. 6.

For the fourth consecutive quarter, Downtown Music Publishing appears in the rankings, this time at No. 6 with 3.9%, up from the 2.7% it had in the third quarter. In finishing sixth, Downtown placed eight songs in the top 100, one more than the prior quarter. Its songs included “Don’t Wake Me Up” and Phillip Phillips’ “Home” (No. 12).
Also on a four-consecutive-quarter streak is Words & Music Copyright Administration, which ranked No. 7 with a 2.2% share based on the five tracks it placed in the quarter’s top songs, which included Carrie Underwood’s “Blown Away” (No. 36).

Big Loud Bucks posted a 1.7% share, good enough to return the publisher to the rankings for the first time since second-quarter 2009. In placing eighth, Big Loud Songs had six tracks among the top 100, including Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” (No. 24) and “Blown Away.”

Razor & Tie’s piece of “Home” places the publisher at No. 9 with a 0.93% share — a drop from the 1% it had the last time it was in the top 10 in fourth-quarter 2011.
Rounding out the rankings, Jerk Awake Music’s share in Demi Lovato’s “Give Your Heart a Break” (No. 43) kept the company in the top 10 for a second consecutive quarter, with 0.89%.

Martin Karl “Max Martin” Sandberg was the top songwriter for the quarter with a share in six songs among the top 100, including “One More Night,” Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” (No. 8) and Katy Perry’s “Wide Awake” (No. 20). [Billboard.biz]

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