HITS HIGH FIVE: A NUCLEAR REACTION

Before we go shopping for SPF 400 suntan lotion to take on our planned summer vacation in Guam, here’s a look at the top stories of the week in our HITS High Five.

Sam Smith, Niall Horan, Halsey and Beck were among the artists who wheeled out new music and videos at the Capitol Congress held in and around the Tower. They were foolish enough to admit the HITS staff armed with a camera.

The industry mourned the loss of Glen Campbell, the brilliant guitarist, groundbreaking hitmaker and the face of Alzheimer’s disease in his last years. The songwriter behind many of his classics, Jimmy Webb, weighed in as did one of our own. His music raced to the top of iTunes and Amazon charts and landed his final album in the Top 5 in the U.K.

What happens in the summer? People go to concerts and Live Nation makes a lot of money.

Headline writers are in a quandary over how many ways there are to write “digital drives success” at the major labels. We didn’t come up with a new one to detail Warner Music Group seeing digital represent 58% of the $770m the recorded music unit brought in in Q3.

In May, Apple became the first company to top an $800b market cap. Today it is $815.4b and predictions are coming in that’s headed toward $1 trillion by year’s end.