Country music, always a strong genre in the recording and concert industry and in consumer products, has been having a moment in pop culture. Collaborations between country musicians and artists from other genres are topping the charts, as are country songs from soloists known for other styles of music. Meanwhile, country singers are increasingly breaking […]
Archive | Music
Music by Candlelight
Celebrities have been active participants in collaborating on signature candles, especially since the pandemic lockdowns in 2020. One sub-sector of this space consists of musicians who have partnered to create candles, often trying to capture the essence of their most recent album or song titles in the form of scent. Here are some examples from […]
K-pop Artists and Their Cartoon Mascots
By Karen Raugust on October 24, 2024 in Celebrity, Character/Entertainment, International, Licensing, Music
Many K-pop acts have created cartoon mascots to promote their group and create merchandise to supplement their ongoing group-wide and individual collaborations in fashion, beauty, and lifestyle categories. While this phenomenon has been ongoing since the early 2010s, it has accelerated in the last couple of years. Typically, the singers in the group help develop […]
Singing the Praises of Fitness
Musicians have been increasingly turning to gyms and fitness companies for commercial partnerships. These initiatives are often mainly promotional in nature, but they tend to have a merchandise component of some sort as well. While musicians have been involved with athleisure collections in the past—think Beyoncé with Adidas or Carrie Underwood with Dick’s, now both […]
A Powerful Pairing of Pop-Culture Genres
Rap and anime are two genres that are dominant in pop culture and have a high profile in the collaborative fashion space. And they are increasingly coming together in streetwear collections that pair rap artists with existing anime properties or that integrate anime-style imagery of the rappers themselves. Most of the musicians involved have spoken […]
Rappers Tee Up Golf Collaborations
In recent years, rappers and their fashion and lifestyle labels have become increasingly involved in licensing and collaboration deals yielding collections of golf-influenced apparel, accessories, and footwear. In fact, in some cases, the artists’ lifestyle brands themselves are golf-related. Some examples from the last 12 months illustrate the accelerating trend: Tyler, the Creator’s Golf Le […]
Full Court Press for K-pop and Sports
The connections between K-pop stars and sports have strengthened over the past few years, most typically taking the form of concerts during matches, promotional partnerships and brand ambassadorships, content agreements, and the like. The growing ties have also led to the emergence of a handful of collaborative merchandise initiatives, some focused on Asia and others […]
A Full Court Press on Entertainment-and-Sports Team-Ups
Collaborations that pair properties from the world of entertainment and sports have been on the rise in the past year, as animated IP, musicians, and preschool characters team with athletes, clubs, and leagues in innovative ways. This is not a new phenomenon; however, a higher-than-average amount of energy has been devoted to this type of […]
Life of Luxury
The marriage of luxury brands and K-pop stars continues, as global luxury labels strive to solidify their strength in the important Asian market, as well as take advantage of the stars’ worldwide popularity. For the most part, the relationships are pure brand ambassadorships, with the singers posting on social media to their vast followings, appearing […]
Beauty Brands Rock Out
Male musicians are the latest group of celebrities getting into the beauty segment in a big way, namely with collections of bold color cosmetics and nail colors to allow consumers to replicate the look of their favorite performer, whether that be glam or Goth: Ozzie Osbourne is the most recent musician to sign up with […]