Magazine

Republic Label Group Rides a Mighty Current

January 12, 2026

When Monte and Avery Lipman are feted as industry icons at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy bash, the festivities—and Clive’s honorifics—will serve as a victory lap.

The greater Republic Label Group (please don’t call it a “collective”) enjoyed stratospheric success in 2025, as reflected by its colossal 16.8 current market share in our year-end tally, tops among labels; they’re at #2 overall with 12.4.

Taylor Swift’s supernova The Life of a Showgirl ruled the YTD album chart with a mind-boggling 5.5m in U.S. activity, followed by Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem (Big Loud/Mercury) with 5m+, and the surprise sensation that is Visva’s KPop Demon Hunters ST was the #4 title with nearly 2.8m. In fact, the Lipman empire is represented by no fewer than seven releases in the Top 10, thanks to Island’s Sabrina Carpenter, prior Morgan set One Thing at a Time, Drake and The Weeknd.

Two albums apiece by Taylor and Morgan, incidentally, represent about 36% of Republic’s current market share, not to mention a staggering 13.3 million U.S. units in 2025—and, in Taylor’s case, much more activity worldwide.

As the holiday snow melted off the chart, the final read of 2025 found Republic-affiliated titles owning the top 5: Taylor, Morgan, Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving (Island), KPDH and Sabrina.

This hit parade is astounding, but such league-leading stats have long been the norm for the brothers, whose alacrity in doing all the right deals and pulling all the requisite levers is a matter of record.

The company’s extended umbrella includes Mercury (Noah Kahan, Post Malone), the deal with Seth England’s Big Loud for Morgan, Savan Kotecha’s Visva, JYP/Imperial (TWICE, the chart-topping Stray Kids), Tunji Balogun-led Def Jam (which furnished Justin Bieber’s Grammy magnet SWAG), Mike Harris-topped Nashville unit MCA (Chris Stapleton, Carrie Underwood) and—most notably in the present context—Island. Imran Majid and Justin Eshak’s label is a modern marvel, having cultivated massive successes with Carpenter, Chappell Roan and, most recently, Dean, who has two streaming giants in “Man I Need” (#2 U.S. and Top 5 global on the Spot) and “It’s So Easy (To Fall in Love)” (Top 10 global and U.S.). It has also scored gigundo hits with Lola Young and Gigi Perez.

It’s worth noting that the current share slices of Island (2.7) and Big Loud (2.6) were larger than those of some major labels for the year. MCA, meanwhile, adds 1-2 points to Republic’s total.

After this killer year, the extended Republic crew awaits a big Grammy night. Island’s Dean and Young are both in the running for Best New Artist, Carpenter is up for Album, Record and Song, Bieber is a contender for AOTY, Roan (last year’s BNA winner) vies for ROTY and KPDH’s anthem “Golden” is nominated for SOTY.

The Lipman brothers’ inner circle, of course, includes the redoubtable Jim Roppo, a sensei of marketing, and his fellow co-president, Wendy Goldstein, one of the era’s true artist whisperers; and promo superstar Gary Spangler, whose crew wrapped up 2025 with their fifth straight Pop #1—the longest streak for a label in modern radio history. The team has been together for an unusually long time in this volatile business—Spanky has been there since 2006; Goldstein came aboard as an A&R consultant in 2009 and Roppo joined in 2012.

Their hit parade is astounding, but such league-leading stats have long been the norm for the Brothers Lipman, whose alacrity in doing all the right deals and pulling all the requisite levers is a matter of record.

The brothers, famously, began hatching the plans to build their machine at the dining-room table of their tiny East Village apartment in the ’90s. As an MCA-distribbed subsidiary, they got early traction with alternative acts Bloodhound Gang and Chumbawamba before UMG fully acquired the label. In the ensuing years, Republic was part of various experimental compounds like Universal Republic and Universal Motown Republic Group before being rechristened under its original name in 2012. Partnerships with the likes of Cash Money, Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine, The Weeknd’s XO and Drake’s OVO yielded huge hits in myriad genres, while diva supreme Ariana Grande moved from strength to strength and Swift’s signing a distro deal directly with Republic opened the floodgates. Lipman Land has been on a steadily upward trajectory ever since.

It’s also noteworthy that this steadfastly entrepreneurial company, which began at the peak of CD sales and radio, is more prosperous than ever in the age of streaming. House Lipman has evolved constantly without straying from the fundamentals that have shaped it since its scrappy beginnings: Find the hits and make them massive.