AUSTRALIA (CelebrityAccess) – The Mushroom Group, Australia’s largest independent label, and Virgin Music Label and Artist Services (VMLAS) have entered into a global partnership.
VMLAS will support and distribute Mushroom artists’ releases outside of Australia and New Zealand. Under the terms of the deal, Virgin will provide global promotion, marketing, and audience label services to Mushroom’s existing US and UK infrastructure. In addition, selected Mushroom artists’ releases will be issued through Universal Music Group’s (UMG) major label network, when agreed by both parties.
The Mushroom label remains 100% independently owned and its established Australia/New Zealand operations will remain unchanged as a result of the partnership. Mushroom will continue to digitally distribute in Australia/New Zealand and continues its long-standing physical distribution partnership with Universal Music Australia.
Since its launch in January 2021, VMLAS has opened divisions in the US, Japan, UK, Germany and across Central Europe, France, Australia & New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Western Balkans, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, and Portugal with further markets to launch in the coming months.
The Mushroom Group was founded by the late Australian music icon Michael Gudinski, as the baton has now been passed to his son Matt.
Mushroom’s Matt Gudinski said via a media release: “Mushroom has been a market leader for decades in Australia and today we take another huge step in building Mushroom into a truly global brand. Our A&R staff is world-class and we, together with Virgin/UMG, are going to break artists from any part of the globe to every part of the globe. Lucian, David, and the Virgin team are better placed than any other music company to help us deliver on our ambition and we are ecstatic to form this partnership.”
