Features June 19, 2025

Warner Music’s Dan Rosen Lauds ‘Historic’ ARIA Chart Run

Editorial Director

Dan Rosen

Wins, when they present themselves, are always worth celebrating.

Dan Rosen and his team at Warner Music Australia are enjoying that winning feeling, after the major music company created history on the ARIA Singles Chart.

Led by Alex Warren’s two-times platinum hit “Ordinary” (via Atlantic/Warner), the Warner Music roster accounted for the entire top 5 on the tally published Friday, June 6th, and kept the momentum going with seven of the top 10, including an “Ordinary” No. 1, on the latest chart, published Friday, June 13th, with 10 of the top 20 singles.

Those are the strongest weeks ever for Warner Music’s domestic company, reps say.

Warner Music Australasia, says Rosen, president, records and publishing, for the music giant’s Australasian affiliate, operates with the goal to take its local artists global, and make its global artists local.

Over the past 18 months, WMA has enjoyed international success with NZ band Balu Brigada (with Atlantic Records), which hit No. 1 on Billboard’s US Alternative Airplay Chart with their track “So Cold”; booked headline tours of North America; and opened for Twenty One Pilots on dates around the world.

Australian singer Oliver Cronin (with Warner Records) has seen several songs go viral across the world, including India, the Philippines, and Germany, and recent signing Esha Tewari (with Atlantic Records) kicks off a 17-date North America tour on July 3rd in San Francisco, a run that includes sell-outs in Los Angeles, Toronto, Houston, and in Atlanta, where she’s now playing an upgraded venue.

WMA has been a breakout market for international artists Teddy Swims, Benson Boone, Maisie Peters, and Charli XCX, continues Rosen, who last year added ANZ responsibilities for publishing.

“We are building a creative powerhouse for our region where we can deliver on our mission for local artists and songwriters,” he explains.

The absence of homegrown artists on the national charts, and in the public consciousness, is an ongoing blight. No domestic talent appears on the current ARIA singles survey, while Jimmy Barnes’ No. 1 album DEFIANT (via Mushroom Music) is one of just two Australian made titles to make the cut.

“We can’t pretend it’s not happening,” remarks Rosen, identified in Billboard’s International Power Players List.

TMN caught up with the veteran music executive to discuss WMA’s banner chart performance, the ongoing visibility struggles for domestic talent and more.

Esha Tewari (Photo credit: Simone Taylor)

WMA’s chart run is an historic one.

Dan Rosen: It’s a really phenomenal effort and historic levels of chart share. These things are built up on years of hard work from teamship and teams around the world, in terms of artist development, A&R, and connecting with culture.

We’ve been able to cement that here in Australia. Our mission is to make our global artists local, and local artists global.

It has been amazing to see, in terms of making this next generation of great Warner acts feel part of our local culture and getting them on ground and building them up.

We’ve always known that Aussie and Kiwis are as good as anyone than the world, and the global platforms now give us the opportunity really to showcase that.

And building that next generation of Aussie and Kiwi acts on the global stage has been a big job and a heavy lift, but we’re really starting to see results.

We hope the next generation of great Aussie and Kiwi bands can export to the world.

I’m probably most excited about Kiwi band Balu Brigada, that we had a alt-radio song in the US with “So Cold”. The latest song, “Backseat” already doing incredible business around the world.

CYRIL has been another huge success story. His latest song “There She Goes” is the No. 1 TikTok song here in Australia. He’s rocking out the radio charts and having huge global success.

We’ve always had wonderful export artists and really excited seeing this next generation come through in both that indie rock genre and dance, which we’ve traditionally been very strong in.

It’s very much tough times for Australian artists to be visible and to make an impact on the charts. Of course, we’ve got Jimmy Barnes at No. 1 on the album’s chart. There aren’t any Australian acts in the top 50 singles. It’s tough out there.

Yeah, there’s no doubt. We can’t shy away from that impact on the chart here, but I think these things are cyclical and I’m incredibly optimistic of this next generation of Aussie acts that will impact the charts, both here in overseas.

It’s definitely a moment in time. We can’t pretend it’s not happening, but we need to set ourselves up for what success looks like in the future and to me, that’s very much around the acts that can impact globally.

With breaking an artist, how important is it to have them in the market?

That’s fundamental. Look at Benson Boone and Teddy Swims, we brought both artists out to market really, really early. Benson Boone played a small sold-out show at the Lansdowne. Teddy Swims’ first great, Hot Hits was in New Zealand with “Lose Control”. And New Zealand and Australia are still his top two markets anywhere in the world.

Benson came back and toured and was selling out the big shows. We’ve got Alex Warren coming out in August. We’ve got Sombr coming out in November. We’ve got Teddy coming back to play arenas.

The No. 1 most important thing is to get artists to market. So you see how great they are and Aussie fans can fall in love with them and we can connect them with local culture. That’s really our job here, to work with our partners.

We’ve got incredible partnerships with Atlantic Records and Warner Records, we value those partnerships, we work incredibly hard with them and bring those artists as early as we can and start seeding them into the local culture and building their fan base.

What is the biggest issue facing the music business today?

As an industry we need to ensure we continue to deliver value to our artists and songwriters.

Technology will continue to challenge us, be it the next iteration of streaming services or the rise of AI.

As an industry, we need to harness the benefits of technology and minimise the potential harms to ensure value is returned to our artists, songwriters and rights holders.