Tencent reveals more about its IPO, Sony and Warner buy in
Tencent Music confirmed a load more stuff about its impending IPO via a formal filing with the US Securities & Exchange Commission yesterday.

Chinese web giant Tencent confirmed it was spinning off its music business via an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange back in July. Tencent Music operates as a label, music distributor and streaming platform in China. Among its streaming services is market-leading QQ Music.

The company reckons that the share sale should generate about a billion dollars, though that is what's known as a 'place holder' amount, and sources reckon the firm could seek to raise double that amount when the IPO actually occurs. At one point earlier this year there was even talk of ambitions to raise $4 billion. Either way, if the IPO goes according to plan, the company is hoping for a market cap valuation in the region of $30 billion.

The company says that the money it raises will be spent on product expansion, content creation, marketing and possibly a few strategic investments and acquisitions.

The music industry has long seen China as a key emerging market, although it's only in recent years that those expectations have started to become a reality. Tencent, which struck up exclusivity deals with the majors to become key partners of the global music industry, has been a leading player in establishing a market for recorded music in China.

Although QQ Music is in some ways the Chinese equivalent of Spotify - a company with which Tencent has a formal partnership - there are some differences between the Chinese firm and its Western counterparts. Not least the fact that Tencent is both a distributor and an operator in the streaming market. The Chinese services also have much more favourable revenue share arrangements with the labels and publishers.

Talking of labels and publishers, Tencent's SEC filing also reveals that both Sony and Warner have bought themselves some shares in the business.

Both sitting on a pile of cash after divesting some or all of their Spotify stock earlier this year, the two majors together have bought $200 million worth of shares in Tencent Music. Maybe we'll sell our single Spotify share and get in on the Tencent party pre-IPO. Wonder what $178.99 would get us?

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Sony does deal hoping to spawn more Baby Sharks
If you're a parent of young children, work has probably been your refuge from the tyranny of 'Baby Shark' in recent months. Every day, you sit at your desk, take a deep breath and relax into your endless inbox of emails. Free at last! Well, fuck you, the damn thing is here in your place of work now, because Sony's Relentless label has entered into a partnership with its maker, a company called Pinkfrog.

For anyone unaware, 'Baby Shark' is one of those unbelievably bad but incomprehensibly catchy children's songs that course through YouTube like a virus. You cannot escape it. It will get you. And that's how the video currently has over 1.7 billion views. In addition to that, 95,000 people have bought the fucking song as a single in the UK, breaking it into the Top 40, and it's topped the Spotify viral chart the world over.

The good news is that its claw hold on your brain, and your children's brains, may be close to coming to an end. The bad news is, that's because Sony and Pinkfrog reckon they can replicate the phenomenon many times over.

"I'm THRILLED to be in business with Pinkfong", says Relentless MD Shabs Jobanputra "They are hugely talented creators with more than 4000 children's songs and stories in their vast library and 'Baby Shark' is just the beginning. I'm very excited about what we will be able to achieve together".

Pinkfrog USA CEO Bin Jeong adds: "We're very excited to be working with Sony Music's Relentless Records. Shabs and his team's expertise in the global music market and their enthusiasm for our work make them the perfect home for our music. They share our ambition and we look forward to working on hit records worldwide and establishing our entertainment brand as a global player".

Fuck you all. Fuck everything. If this is what the internet has done for us, I don't fucking want it. Do-do do-do-do-do.

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Scouting For Girls' Roy Stride signs to Warner/Chappell
Scouting For Girls frontman Roy Stride has done a deal with Warner/Chappell that will see the company rep all of his annoying pop songs all across this daft planet.

As well as writing songs for Scouting For Girls, Stride has written and produced for other artists such as Luke Friend, Union J, 5 Seconds Of Summer, The Vamps, McBusted and One Direction. So there you go, six other reasons to hate him in one convenient pack.

Mike Smith, MD over at that there Warner/Chappell Music UK, says: "Transitioning from a popstar into a first class songwriter is a skill very few artists achieve, but Roy has made it seem effortless. As a champion of great pop music, I'm delighted that one of the very top British pop songwriters is joining the Chappell family".

Stride himself adds: "I've only ever heard wonderful things about Warner/Chappell when speaking to other writers - and that's not something you always hear artists say about their publisher! It feels like the perfect time to join Chappell and the prospect of getting to work with some of their incredible writers is really exciting".

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Dotblockchain announces Warner Music alliance
Dotblockchain - one of several operations hoping to solve all of the music industry's data woes with the blockchain - has announced a partnership with Warner Music. The firm already has alliances with independent distributors and publishers, and a collecting society, but this is its first tie-up with a major.

The start-up said earlier this week: "In the next months, Warner/Chappell publishing and Warner Music labels will collaborate with us to create a revolutionary way for record labels and publishers to form a collective truth about their media assets on the blockchain. This partnership marks the first step in modernising the way catalogues and song rights are managed in the industry - and future-proofing delivery to the digital supply chain".

The lack of decent publicly accessible music rights data - especially that which links song rights with the recordings they appear in - has become an ever bigger problem for the music industry with the shift to streams. A decent database of this kind would solve a number of issues in the streaming space, and various societies, music rights owners and start-ups are working on possible solutions. Warner Music is also collaborating with another music data start-up called JAAK.

Commenting on Dotblockchain's tie-up with Warner, its founder Benji Rogers said: "The future of rights management will be one in which machines will augment the work of humans and enable the music industry to work at a speed and scale fit for the digital era. Warner has fully embraced this vision and are leading with a data-first and future-facing strategy that will benefit not only those artists and writers that they represent but the music industry as a whole".

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David Bowie's 2000 Glastonbury headline set to be released
David Bowie's Glastonbury headline set from the year 2000 is to be released on DVD, CD, vinyl and digital formats next month. It will be the first time the full performance has been available in this way, just 37 minutes of it having been broadcast previously as part of the BBC's coverage of the festival.

As well as the 21 song greatest hits set, all physical formats of the release will include a copy of Bowie's diary as he prepared for the show, originally written as a feature for Time Out.

Among the insights contained within it is the following: "As of 1990 I got through the rest of the 20th century without having to do a big hits show. Yes, yes, I know I did four or five hits on the later shows but I held out pretty well I thought ... Big, well known songs will litter the field at Glastonbury this year. Well, with a couple of quirks of course".

Glastonbury's Emily Eavis says: "I often get asked what the best set I've seen here at Glastonbury is, and Bowie's 2000 performance is always one which I think of first. It was spellbinding; he had an absolutely enormous crowd transfixed".

"I think Bowie had a very deep relationship with Worthy Farm", she goes on, "and he told some wonderful stories about his first time at the festival in 1971, when he stayed at the farmhouse and performed at 6am as the sun was rising. And he just played the perfect headline set. It really was a very special and emotional show".

The film and album will be released on 30 Nov. Here's the only previously released track from the performance, 'Heroes'.

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St Vincent announces stripped back re-recording of Masseduction album
When St Vincent released a stripped down version of her song 'Slow Disco', re-titled 'Slow Slow Disco', last month, it seemed like the logical thing to do after the 'Fast Slow Disco' rework that came out earlier this year. But it turns out there's more where that came from. She is releasing a whole album of quieter reworks of songs from her 'Masseduction' album.

Titled 'Masseducation' - a common misreading of the original album's name - the new album features alternative versions of all the songs on 'Masseduction', featuring just St Vincent and pianist Thomas Bartlett, who also joined her on a recent series of acoustic live shows.

"We neither rehearsed nor spoke about how to approach any song, but rather, played two to three live takes, picked the best one, and trusted in the feeling of the moment", she says. "So here it is - two dear friends playing songs together with the kind of secret understanding one can only get through endless nights in New York City".

The new record is set for release on 12 Oct. Here's a new version of 'Saviour'.

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Oasis, Sharon Van Etten, The Great Escape, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• It was the 23rd anniversary of the release of Oasis's second album, '(What's The Story) Morning Glory' yesterday. As is tradition for this particular milestone, the band have released a new lyric video.

•  Thom Yorke has released another track form his 'Suspiria' soundtrack, which will be out on 26 Oct. Here's 'Has Ended'.

• Sharon Van Etten has announced that she will release new album 'Remind Me Tomorrow' on 18 Jan. She's also released new single 'Comeback Kid'.

• The Breeders have released the new Richard Ayoade-directed video for 'Spacewoman'.

• Marie Davidson has released another new track from her upcoming album, 'Working Woman'. Here's 'The Psychologist'. The album is out on Friday, and she will perform at Electrowerkz in London the night before.

• Art Brut have released the video for single 'Hospital!' Their new album, 'Wham! Bang! Pow! Let's Rock Out!', is out on 23 Nov.

• Skepta will play two shows at London's Printworks venue in December. Taking place on 12-13 Dec, tickets for the shows will go on sale tomorrow.

• The Great Escape has announced that its First Fifty event - with performances from the first wave of acts announced for next year's festival - will take place in venues around East London on 27-29 Nov. Details here. It has also been announced that next year the TGE Convention will be moving into the Jury's Inn hotel on the sea front in Brighton, which will also be the official hotel of the event.

• Check out our weekly Spotify playlist of new music featured in the CMU Daily - updated every Friday.

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Kanye West held SNL cast "hostage", says Kenan Thompson
'Saturday Night Live' cast member Kenan Thompson has spoken about Kanye West's impromptu pro-Trump speech at the end of last weekend's show. He said that it was like the rapper was holding the other cast members, who were invited to join him on stage, "hostage".

West appeared on the show as the musical guest, in theory to promote his new album 'Yandhi', although that wasn't released on Saturday, as had been promised. More on that in a moment. At the end of the programme, West invited the cast back up on stage following his final performance, and then went into a rant that carried on after the show had finished airing.

Interviewed on 'Late Night With Seth Meyers', Thompson said that he had not actually been on stage himself, rather he watched "the circus unfold" from backstage.

"We're all entitled to our opinion", he said of West's controversial speech. "I don't know if that's the moment, necessarily, to hold people hostage like that, but hey..."

Of his castmates, who largely stood silent while West ranted in front of them, he added: "I felt so bad for those guys because it's hard to stand there and not be able to debate somebody who goes so far against your personal opinion and just stand there and take it".

Now, let's talk about that album. West twice announced that it would be released on Saturday 29 Sep. He even predicted that it would come in at number two in the US album chart, below Lil Wayne's 'Tha Carter V'. But come the big day, nothing was forthcoming.

Now, according to West's wife Kim Kardashian, the release has been delayed until November as a post-Thanksgiving treat. "Nov 23", she tweeted. "Black Friday. 'Yandhi'. TRUST ME, it is worth the wait".

So, you'll be able to listen to it while you punch an old woman trying to get that cheap TV you want on Black Friday.

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