Sony Music Group’s commitment to corporate giving is at the heart of our philanthropic programs and activities across the globe – from the programs led by our businesses to the partnerships we forge with artists, songwriters, and other creators.
We’ve taken action and provided funding to support communities that need it most, inside and outside the music industry. Now, the Sony Music Group Global Social Justice Fund is on track to connect with nearly 400 community partners around the world. Together with these groups, we aim to help advance bipartisan solutions in the areas of civic engagement, criminal justice reform, and education. You can see our full list of partners here.
And that list is about to grow—because today, we’re excited to share the news that we’ve started outreach to organizations for the fourth round of funding from the Sony Music Group Global Social Justice Fund. Our global task force leaders and their teams are hard at work determining the next pool of community partners to receive support.
We are eager to work in collaboration with more nonpartisan groups whose efforts align with our three giving pillars. Whether we’re supporting new community organizations or recommitting to existing nonprofits, our goal is the same: to empower our employees to make change happen—locally and abroad.
You’ll hear more from us about the new round of funding in the coming months.
In the meantime, we’re excited to separately kick off this year’s Season of Giving campaign, which begins next week on Giving Tuesday.
Thank you for all that you do to serve our communities in need around the world.
Related: Latest Round of Funding from Sony Music UK Social Justice Fund Focuses On Mental Health and Racism Seven New Beneficiaries Announced for Sony Music UK’s Social Justice Fund A Conversation With Towalame Austin, Sony Music Group’s Executive Vice President of Philanthropy and Social Impact
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Artist’s Perennial Masterpiece Earns RIAA Diamond Award and
Returns to Billboard Hot 100 while Securing #1 Spot on
Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs
“Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues” Premiering Globally Today on Apple TV+
New York, NY – December 3, 2021 – Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” continues to make pop music history this year as the artist’s perennial yuletide standard (cowritten and coproduced by Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff in 1994) keeps breaking new records while lighting up the 2021 holiday season.
This December, “All I Want for Christmas is You” became the first and only holiday single to take home the RIAA’s coveted Diamond Award (in recognition of ten million sales and streaming units in the United States).
Listen to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” here.
“The continued love for my song never ceases to amaze me and fill my heart with a multitude of emotions,” said Mariah. “It blows my mind that ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ has endured different eras of the music industry. The RIAA DIAMOND award?! Wowww! I’m so fortunate to have the greatest fans on Earth, my Lambily, who continue to support my legacy. I love you.”
“Mariah is the Queen of Christmas,” said President of the Commercial Music Group at Sony Music Entertainment, Richard Story. “Her Sony Music family congratulates her on breaking yet another record, and continuing to make history as the first and only artist to achieve this incredible milestone.”
“Mariah Carey is one of the top Gold & Platinum awarded artists of all time, and ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ becoming the only holiday song to achieve Diamond is a remarkable milestone forever etched in music history. Congratulations and happy holidays to Mariah and her amazing Sony team,” said Mitch Glazier, Chairman and CEO, RIAA.
Carey also spotlights the global fan-favorite “All I Want for Christmas is You” in the Apple TV+ smash-hit, Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special, with a show-stopping performance of the record-breaking song, along with her twins, son Moroccan and daughter Monroe. On the heels of this exciting news, Carey debuts her all-new holiday extravaganza Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues, premiering globally today and available now on Apple TV+.
On Tuesday, December 7, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) will make two Mariah Carey films, Live at the Tokyo Dome and First Vision, available for digital purchase and rental for the first time in the United States. Showcasing more than 80 minutes of music, including a stunning live version of “All I Want for Christmas is You,” Mariah Carey: Live at the Tokyo Dome captures the artist’s historic first concert in Japan, lensed during her 1996 Daydream World Tour. Mariah Carey: First Vision gives viewers an inside look at Mariah on the cusp of her meteoric rise to superstardom; this 1991 film contains early music videos, behind-the-scenes footage, an interview and songs from her very first live performance at New York’s intimate Tatou Club in 1990. Currently available in the US only, four additional Mariah Carey films–Fantasy: Mariah Carey at Madison Square Garden, Here is Mariah Carey, Mariah Carey Around the World and Mariah Carey: MTV Unplugged +3–will be released worldwide via SPE on December 7.
Billboard recently named Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” as the #1 record on their Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs list. The song first cracked the Top 10 of the Hot 100 in December 2017 and, in December 2019, 25 years after its original release, became the second holiday single ever to hit #1 on the Hot 100, breaking the record for longest span from release date to #1. “All I Want for Christmas is You” hit #1 again in 2020, giving it a five week total in the top slot, a new milestone for a holiday recording.
Recorded in August 1994 at The Hit Factory in New York, “All I Want for Christmas is You” was originally released in October 1994 as the first single from Mariah’s Merry Christmas album, a showcase for Mariah’s interpretations of familiar holiday songs alongside the new material she’d composed with co-writer Walter Walter Afanasieff. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” went on to become one of the best-selling singles (of any genre) of all time and the best-selling holiday ringtone in the United States for several years running.
When “All I Want for Christmas is You” hit #1 on the Hot 100 in 2019, it was Mariah’s 19th claim on the top spot, a record for a solo recording artist; when her holiday single hit #1 the following year, Mariah became the first artist to have a Hot 100 # 1 in four separate decades (the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s and the 2020s).
Having charted every holiday season since its original release, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”–which The New Yorker called “one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon”–has become an essential seasonal standard that continues to bring the spirit of Christmas to the hearts of music lovers the world over.
“All I Want for Christmas is You” is Carey’s biggest international success, topping the charts in twenty-six countries including Australia, Canada, France and Germany. In 2020, the holiday classic topped the charts in the United Kingdom for the first time, spending a record 69 weeks in the UK Top 40 before reaching #1. “All I Want for Christmas is You” is the all-time best-selling Christmas single by a female artist and one of the top-selling physical singles in music history. It’s the first holiday ringtone to be certified double platinum by the RIAA.
For More Information Contact:
Sony Music / Legacy Recordings
Gabby Gibb – Gabby.Gibb@sonymusic.com
Mariah Carey Chris Chambers – chris@thechambergroup.com Edwin Tettah – edwin.tetteh@thechambergroup.com
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Sony Music Group is excited to introduce our Full Scale Fellowship Program.
This three-year fellowship aims to cultivate and foster a pipeline of aspiring multicultural recent law grads, and provide participants with a fully-immersive experience in all aspects of the Sony Music Group business.
“Through this fellowship program, our ambition is to address and ameliorate the multicultural talent gap often seen in the Business and Legal Affairs industry while continuing to deliver on Sony Music Group’s commitment to providing educational opportunities and resources for the next generation of music professionals. We’re grateful to Covington & Burling for partnering with us to mentor and train our fellows throughout this program,” said Julie Swidler, Executive Vice President, Business Affairs & General Counsel, Sony Music Entertainment.
Participants of the program will rotate through different SMG business divisions every six months, exposing them to a wide breadth of learning opportunities, projects and teammates. Those business divisions include: Global BLA, Global Digital Business, the labels (RCA, Epic, Columbia), The Orchard, CMG/Legacy and Sony Music Publishing.
Fellows will be empowered to grow as individuals, build meaningful relationships and access opportunities that will help shape their careers while gaining insight into entertainment and corporate law in the music business through hands-on work and real time guidance from our lawyers.
Read more about the program details here: sonymusic.link/fullscale
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Expands 40-plus Year Partnership Between Springsteen and Sony Music
Agreement Covers Entirety of Springsteen’s Legendary Recorded Music and Songwriting
NEW YORK – December 16, 2021 – Sony Music Group today announced it has acquired Bruce Springsteen’s entire recorded music and songwriting catalogs through separate agreements.
The two agreements cover the recorded music and music publishing rights to all of Springsteen’s songs, including “Born to Run,” “Born In The USA” “Dancing in the Dark” “Glory Days,” “The River,” “Hungry Heart,” “Brilliant Disguise” and “I’m On Fire,” among many others. Sony Music Publishing partnered with Eldridge on the songwriting catalog purchase.
Springsteen’s recording career with Columbia Records spans nearly 50 years and continues to this day, beginning with his signing in 1972 and his 1973 debut album ‘Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ.’ Last year, he released ‘Letter to You,’ his 20th studio album on Columbia.
Said Springsteen: “I am one artist who can truly say that when I signed with Columbia Records in 1972, I came to the right place. During the last 50 years, the men and women of Sony Music have treated me with the greatest respect as an artist and as a person. I’m thrilled that my legacy will continue to be cared for by the Company and people I know and trust.”
A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Bruce Springsteen has garnered 20 Grammys, won an Oscar and a Tony, been named MusiCares Person of the Year, received a Kennedy Center Honor and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is the author of the 2016 best-selling memoir “Born to Run” (Simon & Schuster) and creator of ‘Springsteen on Broadway,’ which debuted in 2017 with a historic 236-show run at Jujamcyn’s Walter Kerr Theatre. Springsteen’s most recent studio album, 2020’s ‘Letter to You,’ marked his first time recording live with the E Street Band in decades and debuted at #1 in eleven countries. His most recent tour with the E Street Band in 2016 was named that year’s top global tour by both Billboard and Pollstar. In 2021, Springsteen collaborated with President Barack Obama on the book and podcast Renegades: Born In The USA, reopened New York theaters with a reprisal of ‘Springsteen On Broadway’ and shared his never-released “The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts” film, distributed by Sony Music Entertainment’s Premium Content Division.
Photo Credit: Danny Clinch
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Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park was the place to be for the 11th Annual ONE Musicfest where thousands upon thousands attended. During the two day festival, attendees went from stage to stage enjoying live music from a diverse lineup of artists.
It was amazing to see my friend Yusuf Muhammad put together the Rock the Bells stage where “Curren$y, Too Short, Big KRIT’ and others performed.
ONE Musicfest had something for fans of all genres. Saturday’s performances included: H.E.R, Ty Dolla $ign, Young Dolph, Ari Lennox , Lucky Daye, Too Short, Curren$y and Childish Major.
Sunday’s lineup was nothing less than historic with performances by the legendary Isley Brothers, Lil Wayne, Kirk Franklin, The LOX and Big Boi to name just a few.
