The music industry’s landscape in early 2025 presents a striking study in contrasts. While Avex Music Group (AMG) rides an unprecedented wave of chart success, the classical music world grapples with a controversy that’s sending shockwaves through concert halls worldwide.
Under the fresh-faced leadership of Brandon Silverstein, AMG has morphed into something of an unstoppable force. Their hip-hop division, in particular, can’t seem to miss — just look at producer Elyas, who recently helped Drake claim the No. 2 spot on the Hot 100 with “What Did I Miss?” Not to be outdone, fellow producer Elkan’s golden touch has worked wonders for both Drake’s “Nokia” and Travis Scott’s much-anticipated “JackBoys 2.”
“The global stage has been incredibly receptive to our artists,” Silverstein noted Wednesday, though that might be putting it mildly.
Perhaps most remarkable is AMG’s success in cracking the notoriously tough U.S. market with their J-pop acts. One Or Eight — yeah, that boy group everyone’s been talking about — just pulled off what seemed impossible even a year ago: becoming the first J-pop group to break into the U.S. Mediabase Top 40. Their fresh take on Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music” has been practically inescapable on TikTok these past few weeks.
Then there’s XG, who just wrapped their mind-blowing Coachella debut. “We were so grateful and honored to be able to perform,” shared group member Maya, though anyone who caught their set would say the festival was lucky to have them.
But across town, in the marble halls of the classical music world, a different sort of drama unfolds. Russian soprano Anna Netrebko’s discrimination case against the Metropolitan Opera has sparked heated debates about art, politics, and where exactly that line should be drawn.
The whole mess started when the Met dropped Netrebko after she wouldn’t denounce Putin following Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Now U.S. District Judge Analisa Nadine Torres has given the green light for the case to move forward — and here’s where it gets interesting. The judge found that replacing Netrebko with non-Russian artists raised at least a “minimal” inference of discrimination.
The plot thickens when you consider the gender angle. Netrebko’s legal team makes a compelling point: male performers with Putin connections (think Evgeny Nikitin, Igor Golovatenko, and Alexey Markov) are still gracing the Met’s stage. The American Guild of Musical Artists seems to agree — they’ve already won an arbitration case resulting in a tidy sum of over $209,000 in compensation.
Met General Manager Peter Gelb’s demand for Netrebko to publicly distance herself from Putin — and her subsequent replacement by Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska — perfectly captures the thorny relationship between art and politics in our hyperconnected age.
These parallel narratives — AMG’s meteoric rise and the Met’s political predicament — paint a fascinating picture of an industry in flux. While one side celebrates breakthrough success in crossing cultural boundaries, the other wrestles with those very divisions. Welcome to the complicated world of music in 2025.
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