Breland. Photo: Garrett Rizan

The charisma was palpable at Nashville’s The High Watt on Tuesday night (Oct. 5) for Breland‘s hometown show. The Bad Realm Records / Atlantic Records breakout talent took his “Cross Country Tour” sold out performance to the soon-to-relocate venue.

Warner Music Nashville’s Robyn Ottolini, another charming country breakout, warmed up the crowd for Breland. She entertained the room with her witty “Sincerely, Drunk Me,” driving “Tell You Everything,” and reflective “Trust Issues.” She also showed off her versitility with a spirited cover of “The Best Of Both Worlds” from Hannah Montana, and Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now,” including spitting the incredibly hard Busta Rhymes rap verse.

Ottolini wrapped up her well-rounded set with her breakout viral hit, “F-150.”

Breland. Photo: Sam Aldrich

When it came time for the man of the hour to come on, the loud noise of a train whistle, harmonica, and the sound of a cranking truck reverberated in The High Watt to signal his arrival. Breland got the music started with his viral hit, “My Truck.” The enthralled crowd sang along.

Breland grinned ear to ear nearly all night. We found out later that he got his Invisalign off earlier that day; the young star said that’s why “it’s all smiles from me!” His joy was contagious.

With just a bass player and a drummer, and a backing track, Breland performed several of his many collaborations, including “Miles,” which features Tiera; “Beers On Me” (Dierks Bentley & Hardy); and an un-released taste of a fun new song with Thomas Rhett called “Praise The Lord.”

When it came time to sing his tune with Mickey Guyton, “Cross Country,” Breland told the crowd that the music he makes is “cross country.” He explained, “The music I make is a cross of country, hip-hop, gospel and pop.

“Country music is for everybody,” he added.

In addition to his collaborative projects, Breland performed his rhythmic “Hot Sauce,” his trap jam “Horseride,” his clever “WiFi,” and his velvety version of Deana Carter’s “Strawberry Wine,” which he covered for Spotify.

Keith Urban & Breland. Photo: Garrett Rizan

To top the night off, Breland brought out a special guest from yet another one of his collabs, Keith Urban. “Y’all don’t know how hype I am right now. I’ve been thinking about this all day!” Breland said. The two launched into “Out The Cage,” which appeared on Urban’s The Speed Of Now Part 1 album.

“How bad ass is Breland?” a banjo-picking Urban said. The two then performed their newest collaborative jam “Throw It Back,” with Breland visibly having the time of his life.

Chris Koegen, Halie Hampton Mosley, Evan Kaufmann

Artist management company Why&How has rounded out its executive team, appointing Chris Koegen as VP of Artist Development & Marketing and Halie Hampton Mosley as VP of Roster Operations, while Evan Kaufmann elevates to VP of Creative Direction. All will report to Why&How CEO and Founder Bruce Kalmick.

The newly appointed VPs join executives Eddie Kloesel, Artist Manager and VP of Touring & Sponsorships, and Rachel Cave, Artist Manager and VP of Label Relations. Why&How’s team now includes 26 employees that oversee creative, artist strategy, international and more for artists including Brian Kelley, Chase Rice, Breland, Drake White, Echosmith, Kaleo, Seaforth, Kelleigh Bannen, Tyler Braden, Whiskey Myers, ZZ Ward, A Thousand Horses and more.

“Why&How is built on family values and we are honored to be able to add to our ever-growing family with Chris and Halie,” Kalmick shares. “Their incredible levels of experience will continue to create an executive anchor for the company’s future. Additionally, bringing Evan into an executive position will continue to strengthen our creative and content driven team.”

Pictured: Why&How Staff and Artists Celebrate Together at the Twelve Thirty Club in Nashville last night (Oct. 5) following Breland’s Sold-Out Show at the High Watt. Photo: Mick Bodie

Based in London, Koegen brings over 15 years of global label and artist experience to Why&How, with previous stops at Amazon Music and Big Machine Label Group. He has led nearly 100 exclusive artist content projects, collaborating with superstars such as Taylor Swift, Thomas Rhett, Ellie Goulding, Martin Garrix and more, plus served as executive producer on two feature-length films. Reach Koegen at c.koegen@whyandhow.com.

Hampton Mosley is a Nashville native who began her career in the music industry in radio promotion for Arista Nashville before moving to Maverick Nashville, where she worked in management support roles for artists like Rascal Flatts and Brooks & Dunn while managing Rachel Wammack alongside Clarence Spalding. She most recently served as the Day-to-Day Artist Manager for Diamond-selling duo Florida Georgia Line at Hit Farm Management in partnership with Full Stop Management led by Irving Jeffrey Azoff. Reach Hampton Mosley at halie@whyandhow.com.

Kaufmann, an award-winning filmmaker and creative director, is based in Austin, Texas, and has worked alongside Kalmick for much of his career. He has extensive knowledge in both the music and film industries and has directed content for major musicians, creative agencies, record labels and independent studios, with his work featured in the likes of Rolling Stone, FastCompany and on MTV, as well as art/film blogs including Short of the Week, BooooooomTV, and FilmShortage. Reach Kaufmann at evan@whyandhow.com.

Pandora’s music analytics service Next Big Sound will be shutting down on Nov. 1, 2021. The service will be transitioning over to Pandora’s Artist Marketing Platform (AMP).

Next Big Sound was acquired by Pandora in 2015, but has been tracking music data across hundreds of thousands of artists and billions of streams for 12 years.

“This is just the final step of a multi-year transition, and our team is excited to focus on improving and expanding the awesome marketing tools and data-driven insights available in Pandora’s Artist Marketing Platform,” the Next Big Sound team shared in a blog post. “Pandora’s AMP tools have been the primary focus of our development and growth for two years already, and we’re really excited about the opportunities we can create for artists and creators across the industry on the AMP platform.”

Next Big Sound’s Pandora Charts will be getting a facelift and will have some tweaks fixed, among them Pandora’s Top Thumb Hundred will join the Top Spins and Trendsetters charts as regular emails and Pandora Playlists. The company will also continue to contribute Pandora streaming data to its partners at Billboard, MRC Data, ChartMetric, and more.

Pandora’s Programming Notification Emails will be transitioning over to AMP with Next Big Sound. However, the company’s social data will not come with them.

“We’ve decided to focus our team’s efforts on giving artists valuable, actionable insights to help them grow and monetize their fan bases on Pandora,” the team explained. “This means that it’s also time to say goodbye to the Pandora Predictions chart. Our Next Big Sound Predictions were always intended to be a look across streaming and social media to identify artists on the rise, so with these social data sources going away we’re going to retire the Predictions chart as well.”

There are many alternatives available for social media tracking that provide more context across more sources, such as Chartmetric.com and others.

“We’re really excited to move forward with a more focused, consistent experience for all of our users,” the team adds. “Thanks for joining us for more than a decade of watching the music industry evolve and grow. We’ll see you over in AMP!”

The Mechanical Licensing Collective, in collaboration with the Save The Music Foundation, is presenting Junior Music Rights Week from Oct. 11-15. The initiative is aimed at helping young music creators between 13-18 years old and their parents or guardians learn more about the business side of the music industry and the mechanical licensing process.

Developed by Dae Bogan, The MLC’s Head of Third-Party Partnerships, Junior Music Rights Week is designed to address the recent surge of young, aspiring artists taking advantage of economical tools to produce new music on their own and utilizing user generated content platforms to release that music to the world.

“Thousands of songs are being uploaded every month to traditional digital music services and other online platforms created by promising teenage artists, and virtually all of the music these songwriters are releasing has the potential to earn royalties when it becomes available on digital music services,” says Bogan. “As a result, it is important to provide these teen music creators with a basic understanding of music copyright law early in their careers so they are prepared to move forward as knowledgeable and empowered professional music creators in the future.”

The initiative will feature two webinars, hosted by The MLC, and a virtual pop-quiz for participants on the music business and mechanical licensing, as well as the release of a series of FAQs and an animated explainer video about The MLC.

Kicking off with a Music, Rights and Money for Teen Artists webinar on Monday, Oct. 11 at 5 p.m. CT, Bogan will cover the basics of music copyrights, digital music royalties and the use of music for the internet, social media, film and TV and answer questions from participants. Teens in Music Roundtable, will take place on Thursday, Oct. 14 at 5 p.m. CT. Serona Elton, The MLC’s Head of Educational Partnerships and a long-time university professor, will host a live conversation with a handful of up-and-coming teenage music creators, each of whom will talk about their musical journey to-date, share their experiences with creating and releasing new music, discuss some of the challenges young creators face and much more.

“Collaborations such as this play a key role in helping The MLC fulfill its mission. We are thrilled to be working with the Save The Music Foundation to educate and empower a new generation of creators,” adds Kris Ahrend, CEO of The MLC.

“Our teachers have been expressing an interest in learning more about copyright law as more and more students are creating their own songs and music,” comments Chiho Okuizumi Feindler, Chief Program Officer of Save The Music Foundation. “Junior Music Rights Week will offer our students the tools they need to be successful as take their first steps as songwriters and we’d like to thank Dae Bogan and his team at The MLC for creating this great opportunity for our community of students, teachers and beyond.”