Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic On a bright, chilly afternoon on the banks of the Thames, more than 100 senior music executives file into a small studio with a simple but formidable challenge: to take four of today\u2019s most promising British acts and make them global superstars.There are no cameras and no fans or other journalists present as Lola Young, the chaotically confessional singer behind breakout hit \u201cMessy\u201d, and the blue-collar rocker Sam Fender take the stage.\u00a0Slinky soul singer Olivia Dean and art-rock band The Last Dinner Party join the gathering convened by Universal Music Group boss Lucian Grainge of the label\u2019s global chiefs, summoned to take a new wave of acts from the UK back to their regions to break and build.Talking as the artists anxiously await their turns, Grainge gives a rallying cry to \u201copen up the UK in what I believe is the next great cycle\u201d and references artists from the Beatles to Duran Duran, Amy Winehouse to Ed Sheeran. \u201cThe UK has been the microcosm of so many trends, so many influences,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd this is where we are: the beginning of the next cycle.\u201dBut behind the handshakes and head nods in the room, there are concerns \u2014 expressed mostly privately and quietly \u2014 about the recent lack of new British talent achieving breakthrough success in the large US market in particular.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s been quiet for a few years,\u201d Grainge acknowledges. \u201cWe\u2019re not quite sure why.\u201dPopular artists such as Charli XCX, whose Brat album was a cultural wrecking ball last summer, Little Simz and Dua Lipa are far from new kids on the block. Even more established artists such as Adele, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and Harry Styles continue to capture some of the biggest sales, raising questions about not just who will be at the vanguard of the next British wave, but whether it is even possible in today\u2019s global streaming market. In the digital age, all streams are equal, and the advantages that the UK once enjoyed in terms of language, industry and heritage have been eroded by algorithms that simply promote the most popular, giving countries with larger populations a new edge. In 2024, artists from Mexico, Brazil and India made the largest global streaming gains, according to Luminate, the data provider, while artists from the UK were among those that saw the largest decline.Music body the IFPI showed only a single British artist in the global top 20 songs last year: Oxfordshire-born, TikTok-popular star Artemas. For the first time in more than 20 years, there were no British performers among the top 10 best selling albums or singles; two years ago, UK artists took seven of the 20 spots in the singles and albums lists.The UK is still the second-largest exporter of recorded music after the US. But the rate of growth in the value of music exports more than halved last year, with UK stars vying for listeners against intensifying global competition not just from the US, but also from South Korea, Latin America and Africa. The BPI says UK artists now cumulatively account for less than a tenth of global audio streams, down from 17 per cent as recently as 2015.Simon Robson, president of recorded music EMEA for Warner Music Group, says that \u201cthe UK has punched above our weight for many years\u201d, but adds that \u201cmusic is becoming truly global, with K-pop, Afrobeats. Large population countries around the world are having more of an influence.\u201dAt the Universal showcase, Young is the nearest to a breakout star \u2014 and she recognises how hard it is to make the next step to the global stage.\u00a0\u201cAt one point in my career I did not think this was going to happen,\u201d she says, talking backstage. \u201cThings click and it feels like the right time. That\u2019s amazing. I want things now to go even further.\u201d\u00a0Young has appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in the US, and her song \u201cMessy\u201d \u2014 boosted by a TikTok dance craze \u2014 is in the top 10 in close to a dozen countries. It has amassed 600mn streams globally.\u00a0She observes that in the US it is easier for her to stand out. \u201cIn America, I have a point of difference. I am funnier. Less polished. I am not going to rock up with shiny skin and a dress that fits perfectly. I am not putting it on\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009I mean, I look like I rolled out of bed.\u201dOne executive expresses the hope that Young could become as popular as Adele, her fellow Brit School alumnus with whom she shares a powerful voice, a south London heritage and a love of the F-word.\u00a0The other three acts have also had success beyond the UK, and are working towards the next stage. In February, Sam Fender\u2019s album People Watching had the biggest UK opening week for a British solo act since Harry Styles\u2019 Harry\u2019s House in 2022, outselling the rest of the UK top 10 combined on its way to number one. Executives are banking on his brand of Springsteen-style rock playing well in the US. And it is not just Universal pinning its hopes on British artists. UK rap has not made as much impact abroad as some expected, but executives hope that the recent success of Central Cee \u2014 whose debut album Can\u2019t Rush Greatness rose high in the US charts \u2014 will continue to build. Chrystal, PinkPantheress and Raye have also shown promise.Sony\u2019s money is on Luton-born singer-songwriter Myles Smith, who has attracted more than 1.8bn streams to date, largely with his hit \u201cStargazing\u201d.Stacey Tang and Glyn Aikins, co-presidents of RCA UK, Smith\u2019s Sony label, have little doubt that he is cutting through.\u201cHe\u2019s got a really broad audience\u201d, says Tang. \u201cBefore he was number one [on the UK Radio Airplay Chart], he was number one in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. America is a huge territory for anybody. But there\u2019s also other places that we look at to build an audience, to impact global streaming.\u201dIn some respects, worldwide success has never been easier to achieve, with streaming offering access to the ears of billions. But these platforms are bombarded by thousands of tracks uploaded every hour; according to Luminate, more than 120,000 tracks are posted every day.Streamers and social media are now the gatekeepers for the world\u2019s music, but snaring prominence is harder than getting playlisted on BBC\u2019s Radio 1. One senior music executive says: \u201cThe algorithm doesn\u2019t favour UK artists [and] obviously old media does not have anything like the influence it once did. There\u2019s been a seismic shift.\u201dLabels have needed to adapt strategies to help break artists globally, with some executives pointing to the need for \u201ctrade routes\u201d to sell to other regions. Robson describes \u201ctrigger cities\u201d such as Mexico City, Manila and Jakarta, which are passionate about music and \u201calso happen to have a very large population. These fans can generate so many more streams, which then starts to impact the algorithm.\u201dTang agrees, pointing as an example to the importance of Italy, where a high number of free Spotify accounts means a large listening audience that can influence global charts.Like many of the artists, Smith has a large following on social media, and has benefited from an innovative tie-up with online game Fortnite. But, for Tang, it is important that social media success is the result of the music, rather than the other way round.\u00a0With breaking music harder than ever, what makes executives most confident about the new wave of young British artists is their work rate.\u201cEven though everyone else sees the success as overnight or very quick, there is an artist who has been working their ass off to be in the position that they\u2019re in,\u201d says Young, who has been signed to UMG\u2019s Island Records for six years.The Last Dinner Party are heading to Brazil next. Olivia Dean has just come back from a long tour in Asia. Fender is in Europe this week.\u00a0Smith has been touring since January 2024 and has sold 115,000 tickets, Tang says. \u201cYou have to have great songs, you have to have an artist who\u2019s really, really driven, and you have to have a team that\u2019s able to activate globally.\u201dRobson adds that every artist who has the chance to make it big globally also has a \u201cmoment\u201d when the label needs to start heavily investing. Having already struck gold with Charli XCX and Dua Lipa, Warner is now hopeful of building up the global reach of newer artists such as PinkPantheress, Jordan Adetunji and Fred Again.For Universal, that moment has come for the four artists on stage in London, with several then going on to play at the Brit Awards the following evening. The atmosphere in the 02 Arena is more confident than in recent years, according to music industry executives, who said that the combination of Smith, Young, Fender, Jade and The Last Dinner Party was strong enough to allow US star Sabrina Carpenter to open rather than close the show.Grainge \u2014 who cut his teeth as a talent scout in the late 1970s and \u201980s \u2014 did not pull his punches when he told his executives what he wanted next. \u201cAll of you who know me know I do like a big hit,\u201d he told the crowd. \u201cAnd we heard several of them this afternoon from a completely different array of artists.\u201dFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic On a bright, chilly afternoon on the banks of the Thames, more than 100 senior music executives file into a small studio with a simple but formidable challenge: to take four of today\u2019s most promising British acts and make them global superstars.There are no<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-239935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239937,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239935\/revisions\/239937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}