a theme<\/a> among the major labels in the past couple years. How did you guys go about building out your presence there?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tAny major label in 2025 has to have experts in all genres, country obviously continues to explode. It\u2019s not just one genre, we have to know all of them. With someone like Jessie Murph, she\u2019s not really country, she\u2019s country, she\u2019s pop, she\u2019s trap. She\u2019s a special act. I call her southern Amy Winehouse. The only other artist I can think who does anything anywhere near that is Post Malone. She\u2019s managed to bridge all these things in ways I haven\u2019t really seen before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tDo you think today\u2019s audience cares about genre?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tNo. They know what they like. They like artists, they like going to shows, they don\u2019t care what it\u2019s called. Their playlists are all over the place. Things keep changing and evolving, our job as a label is to be there with them.<\/p>\n
\n\tYou guys got in early with this amorphous country sound with \u201cOld Town Road.\u201d The song had started conversations about if it was country or not. Do you think those discussions would happen today?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tWhat I\u2019ll say is that I definitely believe Montero paved the way for a lot of the things that we see happening today.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat is it about country that has captivated so many people right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tRight now, lyrics are really, really important to the audience. Lyrics and incredible songwriting and storytelling, which comes with country. You look at Megan Moroney, her storytelling is witty, it\u2019s personal, and that drives the fanbase connection with her, the emotional honesty. And it\u2019s nice to have guitars back as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat genre do you think could have this moment that we\u2019re seeing with country these next few years?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tCountry\u2019s not slowing down. And I think alternative and dance is surging now, U.K. rap is moving. That\u2019s what\u2019s happening now, we\u2019ll see more shifts next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat about you personally just as a fan?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tWell, I\u2019m trying to get Radiohead tickets if you know any connections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tYou\u2019re known for having a strong ear. Obviously A&R has grown so research and data-driven, can an A&R simply trust their ears anymore? Pick something they really like even if it has no Spotify listeners?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tHere\u2019s the thing, I think you have to because like I said earlier, it\u2019s taking a longer period of time to really develop artists, you have to love <\/em>it. It\u2019s most likely not going to blow up right away, so you need to be sure of what you\u2019re signing. Having a couple pieces of data isn\u2019t enough anymore. It\u2019s part of it, but it\u2019s not enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tWhen\u2019s the last time you\u2019ve heard something you were so confident in, that it was undeniable regardless of what the data said?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tThe Kid Laroi came in here years ago \u2014 and same with Jessie Murph, that was on passion, there wasn\u2019t much data going on. I don\u2019t think Kid Laroi had any socials really taking off even. Sometimes you see something, you believe in it, and hopefully success can happen several years later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tHow confident are you something will be a hit these days? You hear a demo, it sounds like something that will blow up?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tAll we can do is trust our instincts, put out the best music with the best artists and eventually it will work out. It may not be this record or that record, but we keep doing that over and over again, good things are going to happen.\u00a0It\u2019s a bit of both. We\u2019re confident, we make plans but many times we\u2019ll be pleasantly surprised.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tTyler, the Creator gave you two number ones in the past year dropping his music off the industry standard Midnight Friday release time. Do you think other artists should do the same?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tI think it worked out incredibly well for <\/em>Tyler. That was his call, he killed it both times. We\u2019re excited, it worked out in the best possible way, we\u2019re pleased with both albums.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tWhat keeps you passionate about music when this is what you have to do every single day?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tI still get the same goosebumps and the same feeling when we get a new song from one of our artists that I think is exceptional, it\u2019s the same feeling as 20 years ago. That hasn\u2019t changed one bit, that\u2019s what keeps me going.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThis story appeared in the Oct. 1 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.\u00a0Click here to subscribe<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hollywoodreporter.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the past seven years, Columbia Records chairman and CEO Ron Perry has stewarded one of the most iconic record labels in music history, overseeing a diverse roster that includes legacy legends like AC\/DC, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan along with contemporary superstars like Beyonc\u00e9, Adele, Harry Styles, Tyler, the Creator, Miley Cyrus and Lil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2062434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[362274,21800],"class_list":["post-2062433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-columbia-records","tag-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Columbia-Records-CEO-Ron-Perry-Interview-on-New-Signings-Development.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2062435,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062433\/revisions\/2062435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2062434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}