In the fall of 2019, BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch came to his team with
a mission in mind: He wanted to make an aggressive move into the
Americana recording market. By this spring, the company unveiled its
second-ever BMG-launched label, Renew Records. Masuch tapped BMG’s
resident roots expert, executive vp David Hirshland, a two-decade publishing veteran, to take the
lead. Hirshland worked closely with the estates of Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie and Muddy Wa-
ters during his 17 years at Los Angeles-based independent music publisher Bug Music (he came
on as vp business and legal affairs, later becoming president); when BMG acquired Bug Music in
2011, Hirshland came with it. He says that Bug’s roster — which in addition to legacy acts includes
contemporary artists like Wilco — accounted for “pretty much 75% of what people consider Ameri-
cana.” So when Masuch started talking about growing BMG’s presence in the genre, Hirshland
said, “We could hardly be more involved on the publishing side. The only way we could be more
involved is to start a label.” Masuch replied: “Good idea, you do it.” —HILARY HUGHESHIRSHLAND: COURTESY OF BMG. TWEEDY: EBET ROBERTS/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES. GAGA,TIMBERLAKE, LIPA: KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES. DOJA CAT: ANDREW LIPOVSKY/NBC/NBCU PHOTO BANK/GETTY IMAGES. SZA: BRIAN ACH/GETTY IMAGES. THUNDERCAT: TASIA WELLS/GETTY IMAGES. HAMMACK: RICK DIAMOND/GETTY IMAGES.LABEL
LOOK
RENEW RECORDS
TRENDDISCO’S NEW RULE
OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS, TOP 40
radio has been dominated by down-
tempo hits from artists like Post Malone,
Halsey and Billie Eilish. Which is why Erik
Bradley, music brand manager at WBBM and
WBMX Chicago, clearly recalls the first time
he heard Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now,” about
a month before its November 2019 release.
“I instantly thought it was going to be one of
the biggest songs of the year,” he says. By
February, more high-profile disco-infused
tracks arrived with Lady Gaga’s comeback,
“Stupid Love,” and the Justin Timberlake-
SZA collaboration “The Other Side,” off the
Trolls World Tour soundtrack. Now, not only
are all three songs in the top 20 of Billboard’s
Mainstream Top 40 chart, but they’re also
bringing energy back to top 40.
“It seems like it all came at once,” says
R Dub, director of programming at XHTZ
and XHRM San Diego. He says Lipa in partic-
ular has the ability to keep this trend going:
“She’s the consummate entertainer — and
the door was wide open for a new superstar
to emerge.” Bradley agrees, saying that Lipa
has been crafting this energetic throwback
vibe for some time, pointing to “Be the One”
and her U.S. breakthrough, “New Rules.”
Both R Dub and Bradley cite a handful of
other artists who have recently tapped into
retro production, like Doja Cat’s “Say So,”
The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” and BENEE’s
“Supalonely.” While R Dub believes this slew
of disco-pop tracks is “absolutely a trend,”
he says, “the question is, how big will it grow
and how long will it last? It will be interesting
to see if artists like Cardi B and Drake find
their way over to a disco-sounding track.”
And while R Dub isn’t sure if there has
been a true disco phase since the disco
era itself, he says songs like soulDecision’s
“Faded” in 2000 and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”
in 2013 “attempted to stoke the fire, but with
little success of actually igniting an inferno.”
Now, it seems like Lipa may be the one to
do just that; “Don’t Start Now” is at No. 3 on
the Billboard Hot 100 and at the Radio Songs
summit. As Bradley says, it “became this jug-
gernaut that can’t be stopped.”
—LYNDSEY HAVENSClockwise
from left:
Lipa, Lady
Gaga, Doja
Cat, SZA and
Timberlake.Last November, BMG
launched its first label
— Berlin-based Mod-
ern Recordings, which
focuses on new classical
jazz — since the company
restarted in 2008. Now, Re-
new joins BMG’s roster of
U.S.-based labels including
Rise Records and Broken
Bow Records. Hirshland
tapped longtime clients
for Renew’s first releases:
a pressing of Wilcovered,
a Wilco tribute album out
on Record Store Day (post-
poned to June 20 due to
the coronavirus), and a 1968
Johnny Cash set recorded
by Grateful Dead sound
man Owsley Stanley.BACKGROUND
Hirshland — who is L.A.-
based and has one Renew
colleague in New York — is
planning on no more than
six to eight projects for
this calendar year, partly
because he’s still splitting
his time between Renew
and his “day job” at BMG.
“Obviously, if there are [re-
cords] we cannot live with-
out, we will go after them,”
he says of Renew’s tight
focus on special Americana
projects. Considering that
BMG closed 2019 with a
6.09% share on Billboard’s
Top Radio Airplay
chart, it’s a pace
Renew can afford
to maintain.KEY STATS
Hirshland is also excited
about an Americana collec-
tion of “train” songs featuring
Carla Olson, Dave Alvin and
I See Hawks in L.A.’s Rob
Waller. “The fact that vinyl
sales are increasing plays
right into what I’m trying to
do,” he says. But he is quick
to add: “I don’t want to limit
us,” which is why Renew is
also prioritizing emerging
acts in the genre, like singer-
songwriter Matt Lorenz who
performs as The Suitcase
Junket. “People are going
to want to stream his music,”
says Hirshland. “We’re
ready to service a shrinking
CD and expanding digital
market as well.”ARTISTS
For now, Hirshland can’t
wait to deliver that 1968
gem from the Man in
Black. “It’s a key moment
in his career,” he says of
Cash’s live album, which
Renew will release in 2021.
“He had just come out of a
deep, dark place. He mar-
ried June [Carter] a month
before, so here he was,
playing for 700 hippies in
San Francisco and just hav-
ing a blast doing it. Gordon
Lightfoot’s in the audience;
he previews a few Bob
Dylan songs that
Dylan hadn’t re-
leased yet. It’s
a remarkable
recording.”WHAT’S NEXT
Wilco’s
34 BILLBOARD • MARCH 28, 2020 Jeff TweedyHirshland7sound_renew_discopop_thundercat_hammack_lo [P]_27816483.indd 34 3/24/20 7:35 PM