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Jim Peterik — a songwriter and band member of The Ides of March, ’80s pop-rock band Survivor and southern rock group .38 Special — has sold a majority stake in his full publishing catalog to Primary Wave. According to sources close to the deal, the acquisition is purported to be in the ballpark of $20 million. It includes Peterik’s stake in the perennial rock anthem “Eye of the Tiger,” which became Survivor’s greatest hit after its placement in Rocky III‘s montage training scene.
Along with “Eye of the Tiger,” Peterik’s new partnership with Primary Wave will include other Survivor co-writes like “Burning Heart,” “High On You” and “I Can’t Hold Back.” It also includes .38 Special’s platinum-selling hits “Hold On Loosely” and “Caught Up In You” as well as “Vehicle” by The Ides of March.
Primary Wave will help Peterik with marketing as well as overall publishing services, including digital strategy, branding, licensing and sync opportunities. This is the latest in a string of recent high dollar acquisitions by Primary Wave, including its purchase of the catalogs and/or rights of Toto’s Jeff Porcaro, Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross, Carole King writer Gerry Goffin, Chris Isaak and more.
“I’m thrilled to be with a company who is as passionate about music as I am. Primary Wave’s roster speaks for itself,” says Peterik. He goes on, “It seems that many of my musical heroes feel the same way! I’m looking forward to great days ahead creating new music and finding new homes for the many songs in my catalogue!”
“We met Jim almost four years ago where he invited us back to his home studio after a lovely lunch,” said Jeff Straughn, chief brand officer at Primary Wave Music. “It was love at first sight and we knew then that it would only be a matter of time to have Jim join the Primary Wave family. We are ecstatic to be working with such a legend.”
Peterik began his multi-faceted music career in 1964 as a member of The Ides of March, which was recently inducted into the Illinois Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and which continues today as a touring act. His involvement in The Ides of March has been the through-line in his career as a musician, during which he also served as a member of ’80s pop-rock band Survivor and southern rock group .38 Special. Peterik also found great success as a songwriter, penning cuts for Lynyrd Skynyrd as well as the theme for the animated film Heavy Metal with Sammy Hagar.
At the turn of the century, Peterik was involved in creating “World Stage,” an ongoing project bringing him and his old collaborators together again for recording and touring purposes. The all-star group’s album Winds of Change was released via Frontiers Records in April 2019.
Over the course of his career, Peterik has also written books, including his 2014 autobiography Through the Eye of the Tiger and Songwriting for Dummies.
Disgruntled concertgoers filed a class action Tuesday on behalf of thousands of people who attended the Elements Music and Arts Festival in September, a troubled EDM festival that has drawn comparisons to the infamous Fyre Festival.
Held on Labor Day weekend, the Elements festival drew thousands of fans to rural Pennsylvania with a lineup that featured EDM stalwarts like Diplo, CloZee and Griz. But in the days after, fans flooded social media with complaints of muddy conditions, shoddy staffing, little water and 10-hour waits to enter.
In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court that echoed those complaints, three Elements attendees accused the event’s organizers of gross negligence, deceptive business practices and other wrongdoing over an “understaffed, disorganized, and unsanitary festival.”
“Elements Festival was a completely disorganized mess, and did not offer the experience Defendants had advertised, which became apparent immediately upon the attendees’ arrival,” attorneys for the concertgoers wrote.
In a statement issued after the event, the festival’s planners have apologized for the problems and largely attributed them to Hurricane Ida, which brought extreme rainfall to the area in the days before the event and forced last-minute changes. They admitted they “should have communicated these challenges earlier and better” and promised “to do better” at the 2022 event.
But Tuesday’s lawsuit said the problems went far beyond a simple weather snafu. In addition to failures to plan around the weather, the lawsuit cited key failures around COVID-19 safety protocols, as well as a failure to provide enough water to fans who were not allowed to bring much of their own.
“Defendants had essentially ignored Hurricane Ida’s arrival in the area, did not provide adequate staffing for the musical festival, did not properly screen attendees for COVID-19, had insufficient food and water supplies, [and] the lodging was not as advertised,” attorneys for the fans wrote. “All of this combined with the lack of basic amenities for attendees created an uncomfortable and dangerous situation.”
As defendants, the lawsuit named companies Elements Production LLC, BangOn!NYC, and Tested Contained Retreats LLC, as well as individual co-founders Brett Herman and Timothy Monkiewicz. A representative for festival’s organizers told Billboard they had not yet been served with the lawsuit, but that “thousands of people enjoyed the festival, and we are looking forward to 2022.”
Notably, the case was filed by the California-based law firm Geragos & Geragos, which represented fans in a similar case against the organizers of Fyre Festival – the spectacularly failed 2017 event in the Bahamas that captured headlines, spawned multiple documentaries, and led to a six-year prison sentence for its founder.
The Fyre Festival lawsuit resulted in a roughly $2 million settlement split among hundreds of fans, though the total was likely lower than it might have been, since Fyre Festival’s corporate entity declared bankruptcy in the wake of the disastrous failure.
The new lawsuit was filed as a class action, meaning it could eventually represent any Elements attendee who suffered harm at the festival. Attorneys for the fans did not include a specific number of potential plaintiffs, but noted that “thousands of people” had purchased tickets.
Pete Davidson has finally joined Instagram — but it’s not what you think. On Monday, the Saturday Night Live star took over Calvin Klein’s Instagram to unveil his new campaign with Machine Gun Kelly.
The social media surprise began with Davidson posting a casual selfie to the brand’s feed. “I got Instagram,” he captioned the post, which featured him throwing up a peace sign in a simple, white Calvin Klein T-shirt, his face mostly obscured by his camera’s flash.
The post by the famously social media averse star quickly went viral, amassing more than 400,000 likes. For his part, Kelly took to the comments section to hint that he’d somehow be involved, writing, “Are you gonna post us in our undies[?]”
Hours later, the pair surprised fans by taking over Calvin Klein’s Instagram Live for an impromptu modeling session, and as more screenshots trickled out across social media, it’s clear the buddies’ hang session only got wilder and wilder. In one shot, Davidson and Kelly sit side by side on a couch with their pants around their ankles; in another hilarious moment, the rocker stands up in his skivvies to gleefully pour a bowl of popcorn into the SNL vet’s mouth.
A NSFW conversation also ensued, with the duo discussing whether they were, ahem, “growers or show-ers.” ““Nice stuff, by the way. I get it now. Good for you. Good for you, dog,” Davidson complimented Kelly, leading the latter to joke, “I would’ve put an extra two socks in there and blew the world’s mind.”
Once the livestream wrapped, Davidson posted a follow-up snap to Calvin Klein’s Instagram of himself and Kelly staring questioningly into the camera. “Did we nail it or did we nail it,” Davidson wrote, while MGK commented by asking, “should we remake zoolander[?]”
Check out more from Kelly and Davidson’s underwear campaign below.
Ahhhhhhh 🥵🥵 how is this so damn hot yet hilarious at the Same time I can’t cope! 🥰🤣 @machinegunkelly #petedavidson #calvinklein pic.twitter.com/Z3SdzenQIk
— Keelan (@Keelan15447307) December 7, 2021
Machine Gun Kelly and Pete Davidson supremacy pic.twitter.com/u9xfyYRHbg
— Alyssa XX (@LPhybridtheory) December 7, 2021
The greatest Calvin Klein ad ever created right here@machinegunkelly pic.twitter.com/yEEi7MZtbV
— Kate🎄 (@ticketstocolson) December 7, 2021
For the past two years, lockdowns and travel bans have resulted in it being almost impossible to visit other countries. As the world resets and the global COVID-19 pandemic recedes, tourism is tentatively returning to some regions, but if you’re not yet ready to hop on a plane to South Korea, that’s all right, because with the K-VIBE FESTA, South Korea can come to you, virtually.
A multi-element experience that is built on the increasingly popular idea of a metaverse, the Korea Tourism Organization’s K-VIBE FESTA campaign is themed around the idea of “Come Play With Korea” and features a variety of different experiences for people to engage with in digital realms.
The overall theme of the K-VIBE FESTA is for international fans to explore and enjoy all that South Korean pop culture and traditional culture have to offer, through all the “hip,” “cool” and “inspirational” facets of local culture and entertainment.
Virtual reality and extended reality (XR) experiences enable “tourists” to do a variety of different things, through a different set of platforms.
The K-travelog, for instance, launched on Nov. 16, and enables people to travel around the country, with a special focus on the popular heritage destination Gyeongju, via a 3-D avatar using the Zepeto platform, dubbed the K-VIBE FESTA x ZEPETO collab.
The most popular attraction for music lovers is undoubtedly the XR K-Vibe Concert, which will be held on Dec. 8, and viewable via YouTube. A 90-minute concert, it’ll feature a variety of K-pop and other South Korean artists performing their hits for audiences around the world.
BoA, Key of SHINee, Aespa, Brave Girls, Mommy Son and Wonstein are all set to perform, while special guests include Lachica, a dance team that rose to popularity during this year’s hit series Street Woman Fighter, and Anupam Tripathi, who rose to fame through his role as Ali in Squid Game.
Music has taken a special focus of the KTO’s attempt to show the world Korea digitally when tourists can’t visit, and the K-Vibe Concert follows the “Feel the Rhythm of Korea” travel series shared by the Imagine Your Korea account on YouTube over the past two years.
Featuring the likes of alt pansori-pop group Leenalchi showcasing Seoul, and hip-hop artists roaming through Daegu, folk music and traditional heritages are shown off while blending with the most modern of pop culture sensibilities. The Feel the Rhythm of Korea films lean into a trend popularized by many K-pop acts, including BTS, VIXX and Stray Kids, as they incorporate Korean cultural heritage into their music and performances.
All of these different events are connected through the KTO’s attempt at building a metaverse, or integrated digital spaces, all related through the K-VIBE FESTA’s themes.
“The metaverse is a new ecosystem that can break down national borders and make everyone’s dreams and experiences come true,” says Choongsub Oh, the director of the brand marketing team at the KTO. “Through this metaverse campaign, we will be able to provide people around the world with opportunities to be immersed in new Korea travel experiences and dreams of visiting Korea. It also gives an opportunity for the nation to show leadership in the metaverse market.”
–By Tamar Herman
Anuel AA collects his fourth straight, and total, No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart as Las Leyendas Nunca Mueren debuts at No. 1 on the Dec. 11-dated survey.
Anuel’s third studio album is a follow up to Los Dioses, with Ozuna, also a No. 1 debut (Feb. 6-dated list) and his second leader of 2021.
Las Leyendas Nunca Mueren starts with 22,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 2, according to MRC Data. Most of that sum (20,500) was driven by streaming activity, representing 30.2 million on-demand streams of the set’s 16 tracks, while a little over 1,000 units arrive from traditional album sales. The rest comprises track equivalent album units. (One unit equals one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams for a song on the album.)
Las Leyendas is Anuel’s fourth leader in as many appearances on the all-Latin genre tally. His first chart success arrived in July 2018 when album debut Real Hasta La Muerte bowed at No. 1 and held at the summit for two consecutive weeks (a 135-week run). Emmanuel, which remains at No. 20 on the current ranking, concurrently opened at No. 1 less than a year later (June 13, 2020-dated chart).
Las Leyendas, released via his own label Real Hasta La Muerte, congregates a group of producers including Chris Jeday, Gaby Music, Tainy, Nelly “El Arma Secreta,” and Ovy on The Drums. It likewise earns Anuel his fourth No. 1 on Latin Rhythm Albums among six entries. The set concurrently gifts Anuel his fourth entry on the all-genre Billboard 200, starting at No. 30.
Nine Leyendas cuts debut on the all-metric (airplay, digital sales, streaming data) Hot Latin Songs chart. However, the set was preceded by two songs: “Dictadura” (No. 12 debut and peak, Nov. 13) and “Leyenda” (No. 21 debut and peak, Nov. 27). In total, Anuel places 12 titles on the current survey (including “Ley Seca,” with Jhay Cortez), the most since his pair-up with Ozuna on Los Dioses placed 13 simultaneous tracks (Feb. 6-dated tally).
Here’s a recap of all Anuel’s titles on Hot Latin Songs (11 belonging to Leyendas):
No. 12, “Súbelo” (Greatest Gainer/ Airplay)
No. 16, “Ley Seca,” with Jhay Cortez
No. 24, “North Carolina” (debut)
No. 25, “McGregor” (debut)
No. 26, “Dictadura”
No. 31, “Real Hasta La Muerte” (debut)
No. 33, “Llorando En Un Ferrari” (debut)
No. 36, “Leyenda” (Greatest Gainer/ Sales & Streaming)
No. 39, “1942” (debut)
No. 41, “Rick Flair” (debut)
No. 44, “Pin” (debut)
No. 48, “Esa Cruz” (debut)
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