Home Blog
Having started as General Manager of Universal Sweden at the age 27, Joakim Johansson attained the position of Managing Director at 33, replacing Per Sundin in 2019. Since then, the label has maintained its position as Sweden's largest record...
Andreas Carlsson rose to fame as one of the most successful songwriters of the late 90s and early 2000s as a part of Sweden's Cheiron crew. Led by Denniz Pop and later Max Martin, they penned hits for Britney...
From running major labels to combating The Pirate Bay and supporting the rise of Spotify, Per Sundin is one of the most known music executives in Sweden. After leading both Sony and Universal Sweden for 20 years, he moved...
With over 25 years of experience in the production music space, Patrick Appelgren has spent the last two decades leading the Nordic region of Universal Production Music and more recently as Senior Vice President for Europe, Middle East and...
Claes Uggla is an A&R and label manager based in Stockholm, with an extensive history of working with Swedish rap artists during the late 90s and 2000s, from Petter and Timbuktu to Promoe, Maskinen and Afasi & Filthy. During...
Deborah Newman is a former record label executive who spent 20+ years at CBS Records, Columbia Records and Sony Music from the early 70s to early 90s. She played a pivotal role in building out their music and long-form...
With a background in sales and a longstanding career with both major labels and production music, George Macias has seen many sides of the music business and currently serves as co-CEO of MatchTune, a company that develops AI-powered audio...
APM Music is one of the world's leading providers of music for visual media, and Adam Taylor has been running the company for over twenty years. Given my recent talks with Epidemic Sound and Artlist, it made sense for...
Rock Paper Scissors is a PR firm set up by Dmitri Vietze in the late 90s to secure press coverage for international music artists and labels. As of the last decade, that focus has shifted exclusively to music tech...
Having already interviewed Epidemic Sound, I decided that Artlist would be a good follow-up since the Israeli music tech company has risen the ranks of royalty-free music providers in recent years. In contrast to much of their competition, however,...
In the last few years, Tracklib has emerged as one of the premier music tech companies in Stockholm alongside the likes of Spotify and Soundcloud. Described as a record store for sampling, they offer up thousands of records in multi-track form...
In the world of large-scale indoor music events, Bernd Breiter has carved out a singular place for himself. From producing record-breaking DJ shows in Germany to creating some of the most exceptional club events in history, his BigCityBeats umbrella...
With a catalog of over 35,000 tracks in their audio library, Epidemic Sound has become one of the more prominent successes stories in the Swedish music scene. They've seen significant growth in the last decade and currently sit at...
Dimitris Lilis is the founder of Athens-based indie label, Just Gazing Records. I found out about him from Thanasis Christodoulou, an artist for whom he’d produced an album in 2016. Dimitris was supposedly well-connected and knowledgeable about the Greek music industry,...
I learnt about Armand Thomassian through my interviews with Rodolphe Plisson and Pierre-Michel Levallois, both of whom had worked with him at Universal Production Music France. But it seemed Armand had a storied career even prior to joining the label, having founded a popular...
Peter Murray is a Scottish manager, label head and businessman who’s been working in the French music industry since the 80s. He launched the careers of bands like Les Négresses Vertes and Zebda, managed recording studios like Studio Du Manoir, and even helped acquire...
During my interview with Rodolphe Plisson, the name "Pierre-Michel Levallois" came up. I learnt that he’d been the General Manager of Universal Production Music from 2007-2016, and of Koka Media from 2003-2007, but prior to that he co-founded Disques Solid, a French Touch label responsible for...
Rodolphe Plisson is an engineer and producer from Paris who first built his reputation at studios like Mega and Guillaume Tell, where he worked on albums for the likes of Sting. Then came his stint in the publishing world as the Head of Production at Universal Production...
Freddy Lamotte is the creator of Flam Music, the first management company in France for engineers and producers. I heard about him through my interview with Pascal Garnon for Speakhertz and decided to reach out via phone. After becoming acquainted, Freddy was kind...
Janko Nilovic was the foremost library musician in Paris during the 60s and 70s. His music was featured in numerous media and survived well into the 21st century thanks to being sampled by producers like The Beatnuts and No I.D. As someone with...