As the culmination to another eventful and decorated Indie Week, Secretly extends its collective congratulations to the artists and affiliated companies who together took home four wins at last night's A2IM Libera Awards. All four of the Secretly Group record labels were represented with achievements in major categories, including Best Pop Record for MUNA's self-titled LP (Saddest Factory Records), Best American Roots Record for Angel Olsen's Big Time (Jagjaguwar), Best Outlier Record for NNAMDÏ's Please Have a Seat (Secretly Canadian), and Best Short Form Video for Toro y Moi's Mahal TikTok Series (Dead Oceans). In addition to being nominated for the influential, industry-wide Independent Champion award, Secretly Distribution is thrilled for its partners at Captured Tracks, who earned Label of The Year (6-14 Employees).
Secretly is also proud of its nine executives named to Billboard's 2023 list of Indie Power Players, recognizing the ingenious and imperative work that each team member has contributed to the growing success of the broader independent music industry over the past year. From Secretly Group, Ben Swanson (Co-Founder/COO), Chris Swanson (Co-Founder/President of A&R), Nick Blandford (Managing Director, Americas), Phil Waldorf (Co-Founder/Chief Marketing Officer), Jon Coombs (VP of A&R), Kraegan Graves (VP of Operations, Americas) and Hannah Carlen (Senior Director of Marketing and Communications) were all honored.
"Secretly Group continues to add staff, and thus services, to support our roster of artists," Phil Waldorf told Billboard. "Instead of scaling up our release schedule, we are focusing energy into scaling the resources put into each campaign. From a robust activations team, to expanding our data and analytics department to adding staff to our international offices and growing our creative department, we are able to execute campaigns at the highest level, whether that means a new album from Yeah Yeah Yeahs or the breakthrough album from Wednesday. Secretly Group's success ranges across a myriad of musical spaces, supporting the careers of everyone from Wesley Joseph to MUNA or Phoebe Bridgers to Lonnie Holley."
Darius Van Arman (CEO) and Chris Welz (COO) represented Secretly Distribution for the Indie Power Players, in a year that marks the company's 25th Anniversary. "As we celebrate our 25th anniversary we will cross $90 million in annual sales while streaming over one billion times per month," says Chris Welz. "We're extremely proud to welcome labels Chrysalis and Moshi Moshi and to be extending partnerships with Captured Tracks, Run For Cover, and Rhymesayers."
In recent weeks, Secretly Distribution has announced a new partnership with Academy Award-nominated, Grammy-nominated and Emmy-winning composer Nicholas Britell(Moonlight, Succession), as well as Bobby Darin Estate's newly-relaunched Direction Records, and more that continues to differentiate the company from the proliferation of major-owned and scale-oriented distribution platforms and services. To support its growing roster, physical retail account base, and the demand for physical product, Secretly Distribution has also announced the forthcoming opening of a new 90,000 square-foot warehouse facility in the company headquarters of Bloomington, IN.
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