Music City will soon be home to Napster, the company that will continue the legacy of the file-sharing program that shook up the music business around the turn of the century.
A spokesman for the firm told us that Nashville is not currently home to a Napster office. However, newly appointed CEO and Brentwood resident Jon Vlassopulos is already surveying real estate options in the city. Napster has not yet begun hiring in the city outside of Vlassopulos, despite having job openings posted.
“My mother is from Kentucky and I have been coming to the Nashville area since I was a boy to visit relatives,” Vlassopulos said in a statement. I was able to relocate my family from California during the pandemic. In terms of culture and the economy, Nashville is the most fascinating city in the United States right now, in my opinion. It was an easy choice to relocate Napster’s headquarters to Nashville given the city’s welcoming attitude towards business and its emphasis on the music industry. The opportunity to work with Nashville’s new mayor, the city itself, Launch Tennessee, local VC firms, music industry peers, and other Nashville-based companies is exciting.
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Napster Bets on Web3 to Disrupt the Music Industry
Material from Napster claims that the company was “acquired in April 2022 by some of the biggest investors in Web3” and that it plans to “incorporate Web3 functionality into the core service,” creating a subscription streaming service comparable to Spotify or Apple Music.
The press release There are Napster offices in London, Seattle, and Sao Paulo. Since going dark in the early 2000s due to a slew of copyright litigation, the label has gone through a number of incarnations, including a 2008 purchase by Best Buy and a merger with streaming service Rhapsody.
According to Monique Villa, a chief investment officer of Launch Tennessee, “Bringing Napster to Nashville reinforces Tennessee’s role as a formidable player in the innovation economy nationally.” It is Launch Tennessee’s mission to help businesses establish roots in the state and network with other businesses across the state in order to foster long-term economic success.
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Napster CEO Brad Semmens said that the company chose Nashville because of its “vibrant music scene,” “talented workforce,” and “low cost of living.”
Napster plans to relocate about 100 employees to Nashville.
