Looking at the year-to-date singles charts for 2024, the term “boys’ club” comes to mind, with all the Zachs and Bensons and Teddys and Shaboozeys and Postys and Morgans.
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But the past summer was a very different story at Universal Music Publishing, whose female writers and artists carried the season: Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” and “Please, Please Please,” Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” and “Lunch,” Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” SZA’s “Saturn,” Ariana Grande’s “We Can’t Be Friends” and “That Boy Is Mine,” Ice Spice’s “Phat Butt,” Lorde’s feature on Charli XCX’s “Girl, So Confusing” remix, Megan Thee Stallion’s Mamushi” and critical favorites like Clairo, Gracie Abrams and even the most female adjacent writer-producer in the game, Jack Antonoff. Along with hits from Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Feid and writers on Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help,” Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song” and Hozier’s “Too Sweet,” it’s helped UMPG to top the second quarter of 2024 in Billboard’s Publisher’s Quarterly.
“I do think we’ve had a female-driven summer, there’s a lot going on societally,” says UMPG executive VP and co-head of U.S. A&R Jennifer Knoepfle (pronounced “K’nopefull,” rhyming with “hopeful”), who joined the company in 2022 after working with UMPG chairman-CEO Jody Gerson for nearly half of her 13 years at Sony, and brought Antonoff with her. “Nobody really knows what’s going on [in society and the world], but also there’s this beautiful freedom in the business right now that’s allowing people to just be who they want to be, and that empowerment is spreading. I think that might be one reason why we’re seeing so many female artists explode at the same time. It’s like the door is open to new ideas, new artists, to new stars — who’s going to do it? [The above artists] are all powerful, but in different ways. Like Billie’s on her third album, she’s discovering and exploring who she is, and she’s airing it publicly. People are deeply interested and invested in that.”
Some of that spirit also found an embodiment in Charli XCX’s Lorde-featuring remix of “Girl, So Confusing,” where they basically hashed out some shared misperceptions and misconceptions in real time — which is nothing new on social media and reality TV, but relatively uncommon on a remix.
“I signed Lorde earlier this year and that was our first release with her, which is obviously incredibly exciting,” says Knoepfle, who has also signed or works closely with Gracie Abrams, Clairo, Lucy Dacus, Maggie Rogers, Danny L. Harle, Dan Wilson and others. “That remix sort of kicked off ‘Brat Summer’ in earnest: It might have been the first time you saw two women airing their concerns and questions and doubts together in a song — I think it was quite revolutionary and a very real exploration of what was going on in their minds, and how they interpreted a situation. As a woman, I’ve been in that position with my friends over the years, and I think women do have a wonderful ability to have those conversations, sharing the thoughts instead of holding them in, like ‘I have your side of story, I’m going to tell you my side, let’s clear the air and set the record straight,’ and it’s kind of happening for all of us to see. I think that’s why people really related to it — especially, maybe, from Ella, because we hadn’t necessarily seen her be vulnerable like that.
“Hopefully we’ll see more of that — like, ‘Let’s work it out on the remix.’”
An equally empowered but very different perspective comes from Sabrina Carpenter, whose album is filled with the kind of sassy, sexy and strong perspectives from her “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” that are also at times vulnerable and insecure — her “Short n’ Sweet” album is a definitive coming-of-age statement for the 25-year-old former Disney star.
“We signed her around a year ago, but she and I have known each other since I first started this job” a decade ago, David Gray, also UMPG executive VP and co-head of U.S. A&R, who is Carpenter’s A&R rep at the company (and also signed Julia Michaels, Shawn Mendes, Nick and Joe Jonas, Demi Lovato and Stephen Sanchez, and was himself signed to UMPG as an artist with the 1990s band Idle Wilds). “I went to see some people at Disney and they played me some of her stuff, ‘There’s this young artist, she’s just starting to get some shows,’ and I thought, ‘Wow, I think there’s a lot more there than maybe you guys do.’ And so we put her with a bunch of our writers, in her really early days, because we thought she had so much potential and so much talent there. This was almost 10 years ago.
“She was always brilliant, but she’s gotten better and better, and it’s all come through on her new album [‘Short n’ Sweet,’ which topped the Billboard albums chart this week]: her singing voice and her writing voice, whether it’s sad or humorous. She’s really, really smart, and I think that sense of humor kind of flows through her intelligence.”
Of course, the person behind a lot of recent female-powered hits is a man, Jack Antonoff, who essentially followed Knoepfle from Sony to UMPG.
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“I mean, it’s no secret that Jack works incredibly well with female artists,” she says. “But he works well with all artists. The second you meet him, it’s very clear why people love working with him: He is a really creative and open person, and he never puts himself in front of the artist, you know? He’s always like, ‘How can I help you? Are we making music that’s going to be good for you?’ He’s easy and fun to be around, and he’s a real music head — if you’ve got a reference, you know he’s gonna know it. And he’s still growing as a producer and a writer.
“I’ve worked with him for 12 years, and my role has varied through the time we’ve worked together,” she continues. “Sometimes it’s as basic as, ‘Hey, there’s this person who wants to work with you,’ or ‘Let’s talk through this thing that you’re thinking about.’ And then my role is to really be supportive of his choices, the same as with Claire or Gracie or anybody: I might have my thoughts on something, but it’s their career. So it’s really a supporting role, and they know we’re all there for them: If they need something, I’m going to do it, whether it’s in the scope of publishing or not.”
Indeed, what exactly a publisher does can vary widely from artist to artist. “My job is to find work for people and opportunities for their songs in many different forms,” she says. “But to me, the sweet spot is always either believing in someone from the beginning and having them achieve enormous success, or making some connection for them that changes the trajectory of their career. From day-to-day point of view, I think my biggest accomplishment is when I find a music relationship for one of my artists that can last — to me, that is like the Holy Grail, when someone can make a relationship that spans multiple albums or even a lifetime of friendship.”
Gray says, “We’re trying to make a difference in their careers, whether it’s a cowrite or a feature or a great sync or an introduction or a film opportunity and put them in the best situations creatively so they can have the most results. Of course, the other side of the company protects their rights and looks out for their business, but in A&R, if you don’t have a great song, the business side of that song doesn’t matter as much.”
Obviously, UMPG is one of an alarmingly diminishing number of major music companies with a female CEO: Gerson, who is approaching her tenth anniversary at the helm of the company and remains very active in the company’s A&R, working closely with such top writers as Lana Del Rey, Alicia Keys, Kendrick Lamar, Rosalia, Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, SZA, Florence Welch, and many others. She joined after many years in senior roles at EMI and Sony — but it was Universal that offered her the top job. To many, that makes a difference.
“Yes, I think it does,” Knoepfle says. “I’ve worked with Jody in two different companies and in two very different cultures. It’s hard to explain because it’s really subtle, but the culture at Universal is definitely informed by having a woman chairman — and I mean that in the best possible way, in that there’s a lot of conversation around things, which is good and necessary. The general vibe is that everything is a conversation: Where do we see ourselves with this artist? Can we help them? What is our role here? Do we have one, and if we don’t, can we get one? Can we make the music better? She is open our opinions and we discuss them — I think the artists and the staff always feel they have access to her, in a way that I have not always felt was the case in other areas. She’s as tough as they come and she has very high expectations for people, but I think that you can be tough and also be deliberate about what you’re trying to do.
Not least, she adds, “I also think that it has been a little bit of a powerful message for female artists, people come in and say, ‘Oh, you you have a female chairman, a female head of A&R and a lot of female A&Rs and a female head of sync,’ that’s pretty cool. I don’t think about that when I’m hiring, but people do notice it.”
Gray, who started at UMPG shortly before Gerson took the helm, emphasizes the change Gerson brought professionally, after taking the helm from Zach Horowitz, a Stanford Law School graduate who had come up in business affairs and had previously been COO of Universal Music Group.
“It was already a great company — admin, business affairs, finance and collection were all very important and really strong. But the difference was, she’s ultimately an A&R person — her signings are incredible, and she made our A&R department a lot stronger: ‘Why are you signing this? Do you believe in it? Is this a must-have? Do you believe you can add value to this writer’s career?’ For me, especially as an A&R person, that’s hallelujah: Let the creative lead and the rest will follow. I thought that was a huge, a huge step for us, and it’s made all the difference.”
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