Michele Anthony

Executive vp, Universal Music Group

“For some years, choosing an achievement to highlight can be fairly straightforward, but that’s certainly not the case for 2021,” says Anthony, who notes that UMG surpassed its own benchmark from 2020 by holding the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 “for nearly three-quarters of the year,” with hit albums from Taylor Swift, Drake, Olivia Rodrigo and Morgan Wallen leading the albums chart for 38 weeks total. UMG achieved “unprecedented commercial and creative success, in just about every area of our business,” she adds, citing catalog division Universal Music Enterprises scoring top 10 albums with reissues from The Beatles and George Harrison, and PolyGram’s film projects on Frank Sinatra and The Velvet Underground.