For the most part, the 83rd annual Golden Globes lived up to its reputation as “Hollywood’s Party of the Year.” Such A-listers as George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Timothée Chalamet filled the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel for the annual event that, in the show’s words, celebrates excellence in film, television and podcasting.

But a good party host makes sure that everyone invited has a good time. The Globes’ decision to not air the presentation of the award for best original score came across as a sign of disrespect for film music. The Globes had a packed show and needed to trim a few minutes to bring the show in on time. They solved their time problem at the expense of the film scoring community.

The best original score category has a long and venerable history at the Globes. It was first presented in 1948 to legendary composer Max Steiner for Life With Father. The top winners in the history of the category, with four wins each, are Maurice Jarre, Dimitri Tiomkin and John Williams – film scoring legends all.

For the record, this year’s winner, Ludwig Göransson for Sinners, was able to give an acceptance speech at the Beverly Hilton. But the TV audience saw none of it. Coming back from a commercial, Göransson was simply announced as the winner in a brief and perfunctory manner.

Göransson also won in this category two years ago for Oppenheimer. He’s the first composer to win twice inside of three years at the Globes since Justin Hurwitz won in 2017 for La La Land and again in 2019 for First Man. That fun (and impressive) factoid could have been mentioned on the show, but wasn’t.

The producers didn’t intend to disrespect film scoring. The decision was made due to “broadcast time constraints.”

A spokesperson for the Golden Globes said in a statement: “We place tremendous value on this craft and the artists who practice it; their work is essential to the creative excellence we honor at the Golden Globes. We greatly appreciate the composers whose work elevates every project we honor and are grateful for the creativity, skill, and impact this community brings to our industry.”

The show sought to ensure that the winner would have the same “in-room experience” as all other winners, being announced live in the room and given the opportunity to deliver an acceptance speech. A clip of Göransson’s acceptance speech was distributed across all of the Golden Globes’ owned platforms (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and Threads) and appears on the Golden Globes website.

In his speech, Göransson thanked the film’s writer/director, Ryan Coogler; his partner and the film’s executive music producer Serena Göransson; lyricist Raphael Saadiq, with whom he cowrote the film’s Globe-nominated (and Oscar-shortlisted) song “I Lied to You”; and cast members Miles Caton, Wunmi Mosaku and Michael B. Jordan, among others.

The other nominees in the category, who weren’t mentioned on the telecast at all, were Alexandre Desplat for Frankenstein, Jonny Greenwood for One Battle After Another, Kanding Ray for Sirāt, Max Richter for Hamnet and Hans Zimmer for F1.

On the red carpet, Zimmer (a three-time winner in the category) blasted the show’s decision not to televise the category.

“I think it’s a shame not to honor those people — my friends — who work so hard to become a voice,” Zimmer told Variety’s Angelique Jackson. “As a person who has been making films forever, everybody who works on a film works their utmost, doesn’t get any sleep, there are no weekends. … I think the work should always be acknowledged… This year is a fantastic year for composers — don’t ignore them, you don’t have a movie without them.”

The show’s timing problems are real. The show has added three new categories in recent years. Two years ago, it added best performance in stand-up comedy on television and cinematic and box office achievement. This year, it added best podcast.

As it happens, Ricky Gervais, this year’s winner of the stand-up comedy award, was a no-show, so that presentation didn’t have much of a pay-off. The award for cinematic and box office achievement went to Sinners, so Göransson was able to take the stage on the telecast (as a key member of the creative team of Ryan Coogler’s film), though only music nerds would have been able to ID him.

The award for best original song was presented on air, and the show was brimming with excerpts from old and new pop hits, played at loud volume, to accompany each winner’s march to the stage. So, music was a big part of the event. But the show should have found a few minutes to present the award for best original score with the respect it deserved – even if that would have meant cutting some host shtick or presenter patter.  

Göransson was also the winner in the best original score category at the Critics Choice Awards on Jan. 4 – and the category wasn’t televised on-air at that show either. So this is not simply a Golden Globes issue. But at the Critics Choice Awards, best original score was one of about 18 categories not presented on the telecast. At the Globes, it was the only category treated this way, so it felt like more of a snub.

Both shows need to remember that music is vital to the success of a film and shouldn’t be the first cut you make when you need to save a few minutes.

The Golden Globes are produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Eldridge Industries and Billboard parent company Penske Media.

Lizzo has quickly settled a copyright lawsuit over her song “I’m Going Til October,” an unreleased track she teased on social media to poke fun at Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad controversy.

Filed in federal court last fall, the case against Lizzo claimed that her provocative song (also known as “Good Jeans” in reference to the Sweeney debacle) had stolen material from an earlier track called “Win or Lose (We Tried).” But less than three months later, the battle is already over.

In court filings obtained by Billboard, the two sides told a judge Friday that a “settlement in principle to resolve all claims at issue in the action has been reached.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and neither side immediately commented on the settlement or shared specifics.

The case, filed by a group called GRC Trust, was notable because Lizzo never formally released the song in question. Though she teased a snippet on TikTok, the star has not included it on any formal release, including her June mixtape titled My Face Hurts From Smiling.

Posting a song featuring an uncleared sample on social media would still count as copyright infringement, but the stakes are lower, because it’s harder to prove an artist made big profits without actually selling an allegedly infringing song. Such pre-release disputes are more often handled with private negotiations rather than full-blown lawsuits.

When the case was filed, Lizzo’s reps said they were “surprised” that a case was filed over an unreleased track. GRC’s attorneys fired back that they had been “dismayed” to learn she had teased it publicly amid ongoing license negotiations. “It is antiquated to claim that a song is not ‘released’ when it is streamed through TikTok – one of the largest musical platforms in the world – to the public,” they said at the time.

Lizzo’s song was a reference to viral American Eagle ads, which launched in July under the tagline “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.” The ads sparked criticism that they were an allusion to eugenics and white supremacist ideals, which then prompted a right-wing backlash defending them and mocking the critiques.

In her August video on TikTok, Lizzo can be seen washing a Porsche while wearing a denim top. The clip features a snippet from “Going Til October,” in which the star raps: “No kizzy, he ain’t got no business being with me. Fat ass pretty face with the titties. Bitch, I got good jeans like I’m Sydney.”

According to GRC, Lizzo’s track borrowed material from “Win or Lose,” seemingly a reference to a 1995 track of that name recorded by the soul singer Sam Dees. Though the lawsuit did not specify the artist of the allegedly infringed track, GRC has previously brought lawsuits over samples of another Dees song.

Music exec Antonio “L.A.” Reid has reached a settlement with former Arista A&R Drew Dixon to end her sexual harassment and assault lawsuit against him, averting a jury trial that had been set to start on Monday (Jan. 12).

Dixon’s 2023 lawsuit alleged that Reid — who headed up LaFace, Arista, Island Def Jam and Epic over the course of a storied career — sexually harassed her repeatedly and then forcibly kissed and groped her twice in 2001. He has strongly denied the allegations.

A trial had been scheduled to start this week in New York federal court, with stars like John Legend set to testify. But on Monday morning, those proceedings never started — and in a statement later that morning, Dixon’s lawyers announced that a settlement had been reached to avoid the showdown.

“Drew Dixon is an extraordinarily talented music executive, and this resolution will empower her to move forward with her creative pursuits — on her own terms — with her reputation, her voice and her career reaffirmed,” said Kenya Davis, Dixon’s lead attorney at the firm Boies Schiller Flexner. In the same statement, Dixon herself said, “In a world where good news is often hard to find, I hope for survivors that today is a ray of light peeking through the clouds.”

When reached by Billboard, Reid’s attorney, Imran H. Ansari, confirmed the settlement and said, “Mr. Reid has amicably resolved this matter with Ms. Dixon without any admission of liability.” 

Terms of the settlement agreement were not publicly disclosed in court filings, including whether any money would be paid as part of the deal. Both sides declined to offer more details.

For years one of the music industry’s top executives, Reid left Epic in 2017 amid allegations of sexual harassment from a female assistant. In 2023, Dixon added new accusations against him, claiming he had harassed and sexually assaulted her while she worked under him at Arista, and then had essentially scuttled her career after she rebuffed the advances.

In her suit, Dixon detailed an alleged 2001 incident in which Reid sat next to her on a private plane and “digitally penetrated her vulva without her consent.” During a car ride months later, she said Reid “began to grope and kiss” her and then again sexually assaulted her in the same manner.

She also claimed Reid retaliated after she pushed back — including by interfering with her efforts to sign then-little-known artists Legend and Kanye West. After allegedly bringing in West for an audition, she claimed Reid passed on the rapper “and then proceeded to berate Ms. Dixon in front of the whole A&R department about how bad she was at her job and what a waste of his time the audition had been, all while Kanye waited in the lobby.”

Dixon says she left Arista in 2002 because she believed Reid would “continue to stifle her career.” In the years since, she says she has been “essentially blackballed because she has spoken out.”

In court filings, Reid said he “adamantly denies the allegations,” arguing that they were disproven by “repeated admissions Dixon has made in prior writings and interviews exculpating Reid of any physical misconduct.” He also argued that the case should be dismissed under the statute of limitations, but those efforts were denied by the judge.

Ahead of the planned trial, Reid had struggled to field a legal team. He was previously represented by powerhouse entertainment lawyer Shawn Holley, but her firm withdrew from the case after he fell behind on legal bills. He briefly faced the prospect of going to trial without any lawyers at all, but later retained Ansari and other lawyers from the firm Aidala Bertuna & Kamins.

Dixon has also leveled abuse allegations against Russell Simmons, who founded Def Jam Recordings in 1984 and later built a formidable hip-hop empire. She and two other women accused him of rape in a wide-ranging 2017 article by the New York Times, then she did so again as part of a 2020 documentary film that featured interviews with numerous alleged victims. She later also sued him for libel, claiming he had defamed her by suggesting during an interview that she was lying about the incident.