Universal Music Canada CEO Jeffrey Remedios has been appointed president of Universal Music Group’s New York-based Republic Collective.Katherine Holland/Supplied
While giving a personal tour of Universal Music Canada’s newish headquarters in Toronto’s bustling Liberty Village, Jeffrey Remedios talks about the “ephemerality” of music today.
“We need to ground things,” he says, “in a sense of place.”
We are in that place – 45,000 square feet of offices, a multipurpose event space and a state-of-the-art recording studio. Since it opened in 2022, Katy Perry surprised her fans here by showing up for an album listening session, and Dave Grohl has sipped caffeine in the ground-floor coffee shop.
Shawn Mendes recently shot a video in the sound-proofed space downstairs, the Who remixed a record using Dolby Atmos technology upstairs and the label’s young roster of domestic talent presumably signed on dotted lines here.
One decade ago, Remedios left the influential Arts & Crafts indie label he co-founded to take over at Universal Music Canada (UMC), the country’s largest label. It was his idea to build a “creative campus” to foster community and give artists a reason to come into the office.
Remedios built it, the artists came, but now he’s leaving.
After leading the Canadian office of Universal Music Group (UMG) and transforming it into a holistically minded juggernaut, the industry maestro has been promoted to president and CEO of UMG’s New York-based Republic Collective (which includes Island Records, Def Jam Recordings, Mercury Records and Republic Records).
Julie Adam has been promoted to UMC president and chief executive officer to succeed Remedios, who will split time between Toronto and New York. The 49-year-old executive will keep his side gig as chair of the Toronto International Film Festival, and he will raise his two children here his with gallery-owning wife, Lucia Graca Remedios.
“We’re not moving any time soon,” he says. “Toronto is home.”
We spoke 10 years ago when you first moved from Arts & Crafts to Universal. A lot has changed in the music business since then.
Well, in 2015, two-thirds of the revenue that Universal Music Canada collected on behalf of its artists came from digital downloads in the iTunes Store. Today, it’s 2 per cent, but we’re somewhere between three and five times larger than we were 10 years ago.
Because of streaming. How has that changed what you do?
What was entirely transactional, buying an album for $9.99 or a song for $0.99, has evolved into fighting for a bit of the music listener’s time in this attention economy. It’s now about getting folks to not immediately swipe away from what they’re grabbing, and turning that little flicker of attention into some degree of awareness, and shepherding and hosting that awareness.
You were brought to Universal to change the ethos. A lot of people I used to know at Universal aren’t around any longer.
I would say 75 per cent of the people here started after I did, though we’re not that bigger in terms of people. And the artist roster is almost entirely new.
‘I think it’s a fallacy to say an artist no longer needs a record company. What I would say is that every artist needs a team,’ Remedios says.Katherine Holland/Supplied
There was a time when what happened in Canada musically, stayed in Canada. That feels like Stone Age thinking today.
We represent Universal Music for Canada, but with a lens to the whole world. A lot of what Universal Music Canada used to do was distribute Canadian rights to Canada. As you convert into a global music market, we’re taking artists from here, developing them, supporting them, helping their growth and taking them out to the world. It’s been a totally new approach, and a totally new roster.
The music business is more democratized now. What the label’s job today?
It’s still to connect artist with fans. There was a time when you needed a record company or a partner with access to all these small pipelines to record, manufacture and distribute albums, and in order to get heard and exposed, typically through radio. We’ve seen that totally evolve, all to the benefit of music fans – we all carry around the world’s music collection in our pockets. And it’s all to the benefit of artists, as well.
More opportunities for them to make less money, some might say.
I think being an artist and pursuing an artist’s life is difficult and can be a tortured path. You’re choosing to put your heart and soul and creativity out in the world to be judged. The barriers to do that are near zero. If you want to put stuff out, you put stuff out.
Do we even need labels any more?
I think it’s a fallacy to say an artist no longer needs a record company. What I would say is that every artist needs a team. You can make your own decisions as to what that teams looks like. But there’s a reason why the biggest artists in the world choose not to build their own team, and would rather partner with someone who understands them.
How has the relationship between artist and label changed?
Gone are the days where you can make a record and hand it to someone else to be the sole carrier of your hopes and dreams. You need to have agency as an artist-entrepreneur, and you have to be a student of the game.
Any examples of that kind of mindset on your roster now?
There are many. Sofia Camara is really starting to understand her own sound. I think she’s going to be a real star. We’re also working with a young artist named Rohin. He just turned 19, and we’ve been working with him since he was 15. He did all the work in deciding what path to go down and how to approach it. He’s beginning to roll out music now and it’s unbelievably compelling. We’re also exited about country singer-songwriter Josh Ross.
Five Juno nominations is something to be exited about.
Josh and I spoke early on. He said, “Look me in the eye and tell me I won’t get stuck in Canada if I sign with you.” I said, “Josh, you have my word.” Since then, we touch base regularly. He says, “You always kept your word about that.” He continues to hit new heights, and we couldn’t be prouder.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
