It’s official: Facebook launches music videos (in the US)
As predicted, Facebook is officially launching music videos, courtesy of licensing deals with all three major labels plus indie licensing agency Merlin, as well as BMG, Kobalt, and other labels, publishers and collecting societies.
It’s not a global launch. For now, it’s in the US, as well as in India and Thailand, where the new feature has been in testing already. Facebook has no news (yes, we asked) to share on expanding to other markets at this point.
“Starting this weekend, you’ll be able to discover, watch, and share music videos from today’s top artists to up-and-coming bands and classics across various music genres on Facebook,” announced a blog post by VP of music business development and partnerships Tamara Hrivnak and VP of entertainment Vijaye Raji.
From today, there will be a dedicated section for music videos on Facebook Watch, the social network’s video hub, with options to browse by genre, artist and mood, as well as curated playlists.
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Source: Music ally
A&R and Recordings Manager – Anjunabeats – London
Anjunabeats A&R & Recordings Manager (Involved Productions) London, Bermondsey UK Salary dependent on experience With a rich 20 year history, Anjunabeats remains one of the world’s best-loved independent dance labels. We’re looking to grow our music team with a new A&R hire as we continue to redefine and evolve the sound of electronic music. Working […]
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Source: Music ally
BoxVR fitness game to get a major overhaul as FitXR
FitXR is the UK-based startup that’s had a hit with virtual reality fitness game BoxVR. Earlier this month, the company raised $7.5m of Series A funding, and now it’s announcing a major overhaul of its main product.
Renamed FitXR, the app will start with more than four hours of boxing workouts, each with their own musical soundtrack, and audio prompts from its roster of trainers. Later in the year, the company says it will add “different styles of workout” to take the game beyond boxing – the phrasing being used is “virtual fitness studio”.
As we noted at the time of the funding round, music is a crucial part of BoxVR (and now FitXR) with the punches, dodges and blocks in its workouts synchronised to soundtracks including rock, hip-hop, pop and drum’n’bass.
Thus far, that music is mainly being sourced from production libraries, but with FitXR already selling extra workouts as downloadable content (DLC) packs, there’s potential – as has been explored by VR game Beat Saber – for licensed artist packs too.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify CEO talks Covid-19, artist incomes and podcasting (interview)
Spotify announced its latest financial results yesterday, with growth in listeners and subscribers at the top end of its forecasts, despite the Covid-19 pandemic. CEO Daniel Ek talked to Music Ally after the financials were announced, starting with his view on the growth.
“It’s very encouraging. Already last earnings call we were seeing a lot of the numbers stabilising and it was looking very promising, so it’s nice to see that stability and to see more and more regions get back to normal again, with a continuing trend from Q1,” said Ek.
One of the lines that jumped out of Spotify’s Q2 earnings announcement was “Gone are the days of Top 40, it’s now the Top 43,000” – referring to the fact that the streaming service’s ‘top tier’ of artists – those accounting for the top 10% of its streams – now number more than 43,000, compared to 30,000 a year ago.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify Q2 2020 financial results reveal Covid-19 impact
The early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic’s global spread didn’t hamper Spotify’s growth in the first quarter of this year. But how about Q2, the first full quarter (near enough) of lockdowns, furloughs and financial uncertainties across much of the world?
Today we have our answer, with Spotify’s latest quarterly financial results.
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Source: Music ally
Shodement app aims to help independent artists build fanbases
UK firm Shodement has been building its ‘talent network’ since 2012, working on music projects and developing artists – the latter including investment, signing brand deals, booking live shows, managing releases and building fanbases.
It also has a creative agency division working with big brands of all stripes, and runs events and festivals. Now it’s also in the apps game, spurred by the current coronavirus pandemic.
“When Covid-19 hit, we saw an increased demand for our services, whilst most of our artists remained unaffected, generating thousands per month in revenue. This led us to build our own AI driven app that could make our resources accessible to artists worldwide,” said MD Jay Lamusica.
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Source: Music ally
Music recording app Audiobridge launches equity crowdfunder
Audiobridge is one of the startups trying to do clever things in the cloud with the music recording process. Its iOS app enables musicians to work remotely on multi-track projects, recording and uploading tracks from their smartphones to sync them across the devices of their collaborators.
The company is also raising money through an equity crowdfunding campaign, hoping to raise between $50k and $250k. The minimum investment is $100, although richer investors who chip in at least $50k will get better terms.
The campaign follows Audiobridge’s initial funding round of $500k in September 2018, as it released the initial version of its app. Currently, the app is free, but it plans to add paid features in the coming months.
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Source: Music ally
Taylor Swift Folklore made $1.2m in three days… from one Chinese DSP
Taylor Swift’s new album ‘Folklore’ may have been a surprise release, but its popularity is entirely unsurprising. According to Republic Records, the album sold more than 1.3m copies in its first 24 hours, and was streamed 80.6m times on Spotify and 35.5m times on Apple Music.
Critical acclaim has been flooding in for the album, while the D2C strategy is already into its next phase: a phone stand, hair ties and bandana are the latest items up for grabs on her store.
Global sales are good, but we think there’s an even more interesting story in how ‘Folklore’ is being sold in China, on streaming service NetEase Cloud Music.
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Source: Music ally
Wiley’s antisemitic tweets spark 48-hour Twitter walkout
British artist Wiley had something of a meltdown on social media on Friday and Saturday, posting a series of antisemitic tweets and Instagram videos over a period of several hours.
Eventually his account on Twitter was temporarily suspended and many of the tweets removed, although a number of his posts are still live on Instagram at the time of writing.
Wiley has also been dropped by his long-term manager John Woolf of A-List Management, and also by his label’s distributor ADA.
“While Wiley controls and releases his music through his own label, he has a digital distribution agreement with ADA and we are terminating that agreement,” said the latter in a statement.
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Source: Music ally
Snoop Dogg / DMX Verzuz battle broke viewing records
Fresh from striking an exclusive deal with Apple Music, the Verzuz battles series garnered its highest viewing figures yet from its latest episode.
That’s the one where Snoop Dogg and DMX went head to head in a ‘battle of the dogs’ last Wednesday (22 July). Verzuz posted the stats itself, noting that the battle had more than 525,000 concurrent (simultaneous) viewers on Instagram at its peak, and more than two million viewers overall.
The broadcast generated 1.75bn impressions; sparked 168% more tweets than the previous record battle; and was a pretty big hit on Apple Music too.
On that platform, it had more than 600,000 concurrent viewers at its peak, and more than 1.4 million overall. According to Verzuz, that’s broken the “all-time Apple Music livestream record” – not bad for your first post-deal broadcast with the new partner.
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Source: Music ally
Influencers firm TalentX gets into the record label business
Will Josh Richards be the next new music star to emerge on TikTok? TalentX certainly hopes so. It’s the digital talent management company behind influencer collective Sway LA, of which Richards is a member, and he’s the first signing to the company’s new label TalentX Records.
It’s a partnership with Warner Records, which it claims is a first, and follows partnerships with Sony/ATV and management firm Ozone Entertainment, along with the appointment of a full-time head of music, Gavin Rudolph.
Keen followers of the TikToker penis-disparaging diss-tracks scene will already have a sense of Richards’ artistic merits: his ‘Still Softish’ song from earlier in 2020 has done 27.7m YouTube views and 11.7m Spotify streams.
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Source: Music ally
Former Echo Nest / Spotify exec invests in startup MyPart
MyPart is the Israeli startup that’s been working on technology for deep analysis of music, for A&R and other purposes. Part of the Abbey Road Red incubator, we profiled the startup earlier this year, and reported on its pitch at the NY:LON Connect conference in January.
Anyway, you know another company that famously built tech for deep analysis of music? The Echo Nest, which was ultimately acquired by Spotify to power its personalisation wizardry.
Now there’s a link across the startup generations, with The Echo Nest’s co-founder and chief scientific officer Tristan Jehan – later director of research at Spotify – joining MyPart’s advisory board and investing in the company.
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Source: Music ally
Beats marketplace BeatStars expands into distribution
BeatStars is the online music marketplace that famously sold Lil Nas X the $30 trap beat that he’d use for ‘Old Town Road’.
By June 2019, the company had paid out more than $50m to its community of producers supplying beats for sale, and that had grown to $70m by April 2020, when BeatStars signed a deal with Sony/ATV for the latter to provide its community with publishing and administration services.
Now there’s a new figure for payouts – $85m – and the announcement of a move into traditional distribution.
BeatStars Distribution will offer services for its 2m+ musicians to put their music on more than 30 download stores and streaming services, according to MBW, charging a flat monthly fee of $1.99 with musicians keeping 100% of their royalties.
The company says it signed up more than 4,000 artists for the new tool in its first week after launching.
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Source: Music ally
India’s new livestreaming tariff plans are already changing
We reported earlier this month on plans by Indian collecting society IPRS to start charging licensing fees for music livestreams – and initial criticism that the plans could leave artists out of pocket.
Now the plans are changing. Medianama reported that the introduction of the new tariffs appears to have been delayed until September, amid more protests from Indian musicians.
Then journalist (and Music Ally contributor) Amit Gurbaxani talked to IPRS for Firstpost about its plans. What’s happening now is that the collecting society is “working towards fixing revised licence fee rates” in response to the criticism, with CEO Rakesh Nigam promising that they will be “not a burden on anyone but that the IPRS members’ interests are protected”.
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Source: Music ally
Tencent Music reveals figures for indie artists initiative
‘Tencent Musician’ is Tencent Music’s program for independent artists in China, offering them distribution and promotion across its three streaming services. To celebrate the initiative’s third birthday, Tencent Music (TME) has published some figures.
“The program has generated 590 million yuan in revenue for original music content creators since its inception,” it announced. That’s around $84.3m. The initiative has seen artists release 850k tracks on TME’s services, generating more than 400bn streams.
The company also said that the first ‘One Hundred Million Yuan Incentive Project’ run by Tencent Musician helped more than 40% of its artists double their incomes, adding that since the Covid-19 pandemic began, it has organised 50 livestreamed concerts with artists that have reached an audience of nearly eight million people.
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Source: Music ally
TV Girl shine spotlight on Spotify fake music problem
‘Fake music’ on streaming services is an ongoing challenge for labels and artist teams to tackle.
That’s the case whether the music is really by a star but uploaded without their permission under a different artist name, or the flipside of that: music by an unknown artist uploaded in a way that makes it appear to be by an establish act – including appearing on their profile and in personalised recommendations for their fans.
The latest example is outlined by Input, with a rogue track on Spotify that appeared to be by the band TV Girls, but wasn’t. “They hadn’t greenlit a new single, and the cover art, a hi-res stock photo of two hands clasping, was a far cry from their usual two-tone, film-grain aesthetic… Instead of the hypnotic bedroom pop the band built its following on, this was generic, sanitised EDM,” it explained.
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Source: Music ally
MUdaL – Digital Transformation in Latin America – event summary
The first edition of MUdaL was a great success – fostering new thinking, initiatives and connections for the region during these difficult times. (Translated from Spanish: Spanish language version) MUdaL managed to bring together, in its first edition, 3,000 registered participants , including artists, bands, booking and management agencies, along with industry professionals across Latin America and beyond […]
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Source: Music ally
Digital Deliveries & Rights Manager – Anjunabeats – London
Digital Deliveries & Rights Manager Anjunabeats and Anjunadeep are two of the world’s leading independent dance labels. Based in Bermondsey, London, Anjuna celebrates 20 years at the forefront of electronic music this year. We’re growing rapidly and need an experienced, meticulous and solutions-oriented individual to bolster our digital supply chain and rights management capabilities. You’ll […]
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Source: Music ally
Report hails Twitch’s ‘skyscraper’ viewing hours in Q2 2020
Another Covid-19 lockdown trend is the sharp growth of viewing hours for livestreaming video services, particularly Twitch. Industry firms StreamElements and Arsenal·gg have published their latest ‘State of the Stream’ report quantifying this growth.
“Twitch’s 2nd quarter chart bars look like skyscrapers compared to Q1’s single floor dwellings,” it claimed, with a chart showing monthly viewing hours for Twitch in Q1 and Q2. “Twitch grew 56% in hours watched in Q2 compared to Q1 of this year surpassing the 5 billion mark.”
There’s also a stat on how the ‘Music and Performing Arts’ category on Twitch is doing. “The 16th most viewed category with a 268% increase in hours watched from January to June 2020 with a peak viewership of 25m hours watched in May,” according to StreamElements.
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Source: Music ally
Twitter in ‘very early’ phase of exploring subscriptions
The key Covid-19 trends for social media seem clear: spikes in users and engagement (because lots more people are at home doomscrolling through their feeds) but big challenges to ad revenues, with brands holding back their budgets.
Twitter’s latest financial results are the latest evidence for both. The company averaged 186 ‘monetisable daily active users’ (mDAUs) in the second quarter of this year, up from 166 million in the first quarter.
However, Twitter’s revenues were down 19% year-on-year to $683m, leading to an operating loss for the company of $124m for the company compared to an operating profit of $76m this time last year.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify answers some questions about playlisting policies
This should be received wisdom by now, but still isn’t: getting on streaming playlists isn’t a marketing strategy. It’s certainly part of a wider plan, but putting your faith entirely in getting a prominent slot on a playlist is a big eggs-in-one-basket mistake.
And besides, in 2020, it’s all the other activity and your story as an artist that’s most likely to lead to playlist recognition.
Enough of our views though: Spotify has been putting some common questions to its playlist team, and publishing the answers on its blog.
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Source: Music ally
MMP app recommends music based on your facial expression
Facial recognition technology is currently a hot potato in all kinds of sectors, music included. So the idea of a music app that monitors the listener’s facial expression to provide recommendations may spook a fair few people.
It’s interesting to see what’s possible though, and a new app called MMP is using machine learning technology to “detect your mood based off your facial expression and pick a perfect song for you”.
Released as a free Android app (with in-app purchases) by developer Carl Duncan, it claims to recognise seven separate moods from facial expressions: happy, sad, neutral, surprised, disgusted, angry and scared. The facial analysis isn’t constant: users press a camera button when they want to be scanned.
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Source: Music ally
Study explores how 90s music is being remembered (or not)
Research news of the day! “Millennials know ‘No Diggity.’ But Gen Z? Maybe half of them, at best.”
This is one of the findings from an interesting study published by The Pudding on how well (or not) hit songs from the 1990s are being remembered.
It’s based on more than 3m datapoints collected via a music quiz to find out which tracks have maintained their status, and which have faded from memory with new generations.
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Source: Music ally
TikTok launches a $200m ‘creator fund’ in the US
TikTok is paying a growing number of music creators through its licensing deals – see this week’s agreements with Believe and the NMPA for the latest on that.
Now the social app is launching a $200m fund in the US for ‘creators’ more generally – as in people creating videos on its platform.
“We’re launching the TikTok Creator Fund to encourage those who dream of using their voices and creativity to spark inspirational careers,” explained its announcement.
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Source: Music ally
Pandora kicks off a new series of concert livestreams
Streaming service Pandora is getting into the livestreaming game with a series of performances branded Pandora Live.
The first one takes place next week (28 July) with country star Kane Brown, with the promise of more “across country, Latin, R&B, pop, and rock” to follow this year.
Besides streaming performances live, Pandora said that there’ll be additional interactivity: “Select attendees will receive access to virtual meet and greets, Q&As with the artist, exclusive merchandise, live chat functionality, and more.”
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Source: Music ally
Bandcamp’s rev-share waiving Friday sales to continue
Bandcamp has held four of its special sales – Fridays where the platform waives its revenue share of all music and merch sales – since March, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.
According to CEO Ethan Diamond, those four days generated more than $20m of sales for artists and labels on Bandcamp – a big chunk of the $75m spent on the platform since March. Diamond revealed the figures alongside an announcement to build on the success so far.
“Because the pandemic is far from over, we’ll continue to hold Bandcamp Fridays on the first Friday of every month until the end of the year,” he wrote. The next day is set for 7 August, then 4 September, 2 October, 6 November and 4 December.
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Source: Music ally
Taylor Swift drops surprise album… with eight deluxe editions
“Surprise,” wrote Taylor Swift in a social post yesterday. “Tonight at midnight I’ll be releasing my entire brand new album of songs I’ve poured all of my whims, dreams, fears, and musings into.”
The album – ‘Folklore’ – was written and recorded in Covid-19 isolation. “Before this year I probably would’ve overthought when to release this music at the ‘perfect’ time, but the times we’re living in keep reminding me that nothing is guaranteed. My gut is telling me that if you make something you love, you should just put it out into the world,” wrote Swift.
Cue predictable excitement for Swifties on social media, but also keen interest from the music industry: this is probably the most high-profile ‘quarantine’ album so far from a major artist, so the release and marketing strategy around it will be watched closely.
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Source: Music ally
TikTok signs licensing deal with US publishing body NMPA
Another day, another licensing deal for TikTok, and this one’s a biggie. It’s signed a global, multi-year agreement with the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) in the US.
That’s big because the NMPA has been rattling its sabre at TikTok for some time over licensing, with publishers angry at the lack of royalties coming their way for music used on the popular social app.
The deal “accounts for TikTok’s past use of musical works and sets up a forward-looking partnership” according to the announcement.
“This new partnership will give NMPA members the ability to opt-in to a licensing framework that allows them to benefit from their works included on TikTok and is effective retroactively as of May 1, 2020.”
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Source: Music ally
Apple-commissioned study defends App Store commission rates
Apple is facing antitrust scrutiny over the way it runs its App Store, including the 30% cut of in-app purchases (which drops to 15% for subscriptions after a year of someone paying) that it takes. But look! Here’s a study that has found “Apple’s App Store commission rate is similar in magnitude to the commission rates charged […]
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Source: Music ally
Actress gets a guess-to-unlock campaign for free track
Ninja Tune-signed artist Actress has launched what we can term a “guess-to-unlock” campaign for new (and free) track ’88’. The British electronic act started it all rolling by tweeting a very simple message on 14th July. “Album on bandcamp in 24hrs,” he wrote. There was some speculation among his fanbase that this was going to be the […]
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Source: Music ally
BTS set a new world record for livestreamed music audience
We’ve already reported on BTS’s successful ‘Bang Bang Con’ livestreamed concert in June. Now it’s been awarded an official Guinness World Record for attracting the ‘most viewers for a music concert live stream’. The official figure is 756,000 fans from more than 100 countries – and what made that even more impressive was that this was a paid livestream, with […]
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Source: Music ally
LyricFind expands into India and Africa with new teams
Lots of music companies see India and Africa as important areas for growth in the coming years, and that applies to companies focusing on lyrics too. LyricFind announced its expansion plans yesterday, with two new remote teams in India and South Africa. The Indian team will be focusing on providing lyrics in Hindi and Marathi, […]
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Source: Music ally
Napster lets subscribers choose charities for subs donation
Napster has launched a new charitable giving programme in the US called Napster4Good. People taking out a new Napster subscription can nominate a charity to receive a portion of their $9.99 a month, for as long as their subscription lasts. What’s more, the entirety of their first month’s subscription will go to that charity. Napster has […]
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Source: Music ally
Roblox head of music tells labels and artists: ‘We’re open for business!’
“Who in the room knows Roblox?” asked WMG’s chief innovation officer for recorded music Scott Cohen at the NY:LON Connect conference in January.
Only a few people put their hands up in response. “It’s a gaming platform for kids, and they not only play games, they create their own games and play those games with their friends,” continued Cohen.
“The average age there is between eight and 18. The music business is like ‘Holy shit, that’s our audience!’. There’s over 100 million monthly active users on this platform, and almost nobody in this room has ever heard of it? This is where the target audience is… This is where the kids are. Roblox.”
Music Ally has been reporting on Roblox for similar reasons: its announcement in February that it now had 115 million players and a $150m new funding round (the official figure has since grown to 120 million); its in-world livestream of the One World: Together At Home Covid-19 relief concert in April; the launch of AI-powered music-making game Splash in Roblox in May; and a recent study finding that “half of all children aged 9-12 in the USA play Roblox every week, logging over 1.5 billion hours a month on the platform”.
Here’s the latest news, particularly interesting in the light of Cohen’s comments: Roblox has a global head of music. In fact, Jon Vlassopulos has been there since August 2019, quietly working on a music strategy for the company.
His name may be familiar: in the late 1990s he was working at BMG on business development, including its investment in Napster and (ultimately canned) work building a music service that would mix filesharing, music cloud-locker storage, radio and recommendations.
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Source: Music ally
Sandbox Issue 257: Filter Tips. Making camera effects connect
Lead: Music-centric filters on social apps are designed to appeal not just to hardcore fans but also to get enough “shareability” to pull in potential new fans. They are also being used by labels themselves to create a form of augmented branding. We look at who is doing them well, if they are worth the investment and […]
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Source: Music ally
Country Profile – Mexico 2020
In a fast-growing region for recorded music income, Mexico has continued to shine, its impressive annual results showing continued growth and impressive numbers.
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Source: Music ally
HBO Max and Peacock are already losing big movies
Imagine if, a few weeks after you started paying for Spotify or Apple Music, some of your favourite artists’ back catalogues disappeared from the service?
There have been pullouts like this in the past (Taylor Swift, most famously) but in 2020, we take it for granted that the catalogues of music streaming services are both comprehensive and stable – stuff doesn’t suddenly vanish.
In the online video world, as has been well documented already, it’s a very different story. Not only are exclusives par for the course, but TV shows and films are regularly taken down from Netflix and its rivals, as the licensing deals that put them there elapse.
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Source: Music ally
Lianne La Havas campaign wants fans to grow virtual flowers
British artist Lianne La Havas has just released her latest, self-titled album, and one of the marketing elements for it wants to encourage fans to get planting… virtually.
The ‘Flowerbed’ website is exactly that: a digital flowerbed where fans can plant a new flower every day. They make those flowers bloom by signing in to Spotify and listening to songs from La Havas’s discography.
There’ll be prizes and raffles as incentives for them to keep coming back and planting / playing, including signed CDs and vinyl copies of the new album, and vouchers for Fleurop, a (real!) flowers delivery service.
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Source: Music ally
Tim McGraw to host an ‘all-live album premiere’ livestream
The longer this lockdown goes on, the more artists are finding different ways to experiment with the format of livestreams – and also to charge for them.
Country star Tim McGraw is the latest example. He’s going to be holding a “unique all-live album premiere” event on 22 August, broadcasting from Nashville to tie in with his new album’s release.
“Tim McGraw is inviting all fans to participate in a one-time-only performance to share the stories behind the new songs,” explains the splash site. “Together with his band, McGraw will play some old favorites along with new tracks. Up-close and live, this will be an intimate performance with interaction and connection for everyone watching.”
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Source: Music ally
Virtual re-Ellie-ty: Ellie Goulding makes XR music videos
British artist Ellie Goulding has a pair of new videos out for her new tracks ‘Brightest Blue’ and ‘New Heights’.
They’re the result of a partnership between label Polydor and Vevo for the latter’s ‘Official Live Performance’ series, but what’s notable is their use of ‘XR’ technology, which blends camera footage with computer-generated content in real-time.
For ‘Brightest Blue’ it begins by adding lighting effects (blue, of course) as Goulding sings and then stage dressing is added and it ends with the camera pulling back to reveal the soundstage it was filmed on and the musicians performing live that were previously out of shot. ‘New Heights’ does something similar but focuses on an evolving backdrop instead.
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Source: Music ally
KKBox to launch OurBeat platform for aspiring beatmakers
“KKBOX Group and Bitmark’s Open Letter to Beatmakers” may be slightly over-egging the pudding of what’s basically the launch of a new licensing platform.
The letter, from Taiwan-headquartered digital music firm KKBox’s group chief content officer and rights tech company Bitmark’s CEO, is announcing OurBeat, which in fairness is an interesting thing.
“Anyone who registers their beats with our app can freely sample and remix beats from other OurBeat creators,” they explain. “Those beats are streamed on OurBeat Radio – free of cost for anyone to listen to, free of cost for anyone to contribute to. A constant 24/7 ad-free stream created by you and the OurBeat community.”
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Source: Music ally
Not retiring just yet: Logic signs a seven-figure Twitch deal
On 17 July, artist Logic announced his retirement ahead of the release of (seemingly) his final album ‘No Pressure’ a week later. “It’s been a great decade. Now it’s time to be a great father,” he tweeted.
As it turns out, it’s also time to sign a megabucks exclusive deal with a livestreaming video service. That service is Twitch, which has made Logic the first musician to sign the kind of exclusivity deal that has traditionally been reserved for gaming streamers.
“I’m blessed enough to have millions of fans and followers. So it is a great partnership. I’m going to bring new eyes to their service, they’re going to bring new money to my bank account,” he joked to The Verge, before (not joking) saying the deal is worth seven figures. Logic already has more than 75,000 followers on Twitch ahead of a livestreamed premiere later today (21 July) of the new album.
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Source: Music ally
TikTok star Addison Rae is launching a podcast on Spotify
Joe Rogan, Kim Kardashian West, Michelle Obama… and now Addison Rae. Spotify’s lineup of podcast exclusives continues to swell, with Rae the latest to join its roster.
She’s currently the second most popular star on TikTok with 51.4 million followers – behind only Charli D’Amelio’s 72.6 million – and now she has a deal with Spotify’s Parcast subsidiary for podcast Mama Knows Best.
It’s a collaboration with her mother Sheri Nicole, and will be exclusive to Spotify, with the first episode already available, and more to follow on a weekly basis. Terms of the deal haven’t been made public at this point.
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Source: Music ally
Elon Musk wants to stream music straight to people’s brains
Who needs expensive Bluetooth headphones or fiddly earbuds that get lost somewhere between the sofa and the shops? Not Elon Musk, that’s for sure.
His latest startup, Neuralink, is reportedly working on a brain/computer interface that can stream music straight to your grey matter.
“If you’ve solved hard problems with phones / wearables (sealing, signal processing, inductive charging, power mgmt, etc), please consider working at engineering@neuralink.com,” tweeted Musk this weekend.
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Source: Music ally
Amplify London pilot to fund five grassroots music projects
In February this year we wrote about Amplify London, a new partnership between YouTube Music and UK charity London Music Fund to support grassroots projects for young musicians.
Now the first five projects to benefit have been announced, which will reach up to 200 11-21 year-olds across London in the UK.
The projects include: a music studio for youth club Ambition Aspire Achieve, which works with vulnerable 12-14 year-olds; songwriting programme Voice Against Hate, which promotes respect and tackles hate in schools; six-day summer camp Girls Rock London in 2021 for young women and trans youth to learn instruments and form bands; six-week training programme for young rappers, producers and sound engineers Ruff Sqwad Arts Foundation; and three-week summer songwriting camp Windrush Amplified, for vulnerable 11-16 year-olds.
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Source: Music ally
Facebook signs deal with Indian collecting society IPRS
The Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) has signed a deal with Facebook for use of the repertoire it represents in videos, music stickers and stories on the platform.
The deal also covers similar usage on Instagram, with IPRS saying it “will cover licensing and royalties whenever music represented by the IPRS is used on Facebook and Instagram”.
News of the deal comes shortly after Instagram launched its new ‘Reels’ feature in India. It’s the app’s equivalent of TikTok, enabling people to create 15-second videos with music soundtracks.
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Source: Music ally
Apple Music bags exclusive deal for Instagram Verzuz battles
One of the hits of the Covid-19 lockdown has been the Verzuz battles on Instagram, where high-profile artists go head-to-head for… well, they’re less battles and more mutual love-ins, exchanging their hits in an atmosphere of respect.
Anyway, they’ve been hugely popular on Instagram Live: Jill Scott and Erykah Badu attracted more than 740,000 viewers at the peak of their battle in May. Now Apple Music has swooped in to sign an exclusive deal for the franchise.
From now on, each battle will be simulcast live on Apple Music and Beats 1 as it goes out on the Verzuz Instagram Live channel. Apple Music will also have the battles available on-demand after the initial broadcast.
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Source: Music ally
Music Ally Report :: Q2 2020 Edition
Our main feature explores the evolution of live music, as we look towards a time when concerts are able to resume safely. What have we learned from the livestreaming boom during the Covid-19 lockdown, and what are the prospects for ‘hybrid’ online/offline concerts in the coming months? We’ve also got a feature recapping two thought-provoking […]
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Source: Music ally
Spotify research explores dearth of UK podcast diversity
We reported recently on production company Broccoli Content’s launch of an ‘Equality in Audio’ pact to change the lack of diversity in the podcasting industry.
Spotify was one of the companies signing up – admittedly after a bit of public nudging from Broccoli Content boss Renay Richardson – and now the streaming service has published some research that shows why the pact is needed.
Fewer than 5% of the top 100 podcasts in the UK are hosted by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) women or non-binary people, according to Spotify. Meanwhile, it interviewed 1,000 women in the UK who identify as BAME, and found that 74% think that BAME women are underrepresented in podcasting.
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Source: Music ally
Underoath launch three-part series of livestream concerts
Metalcore band Underoath are the latest artist to do something more involved with livestreaming.
Underoath: Observatory is a series of three concerts, each of which will see the band playing one of their albums in full, from a venue in Florida. Tickets for each show cost $15, while a three-show ticket bundle is $45.
However, each show also has the option of an ‘Elite’ ticket for $45, which adds an exclusive t-shirt, and a ‘Platinum’ ticket for $70, which adds the t-shirt and a vinyl copy of the album being played that night. Finally, there’s a $140 ‘All Access 3 Show Bundle’ which includes the t-shirt and all three vinyl albums.
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Source: Music ally
Renegade TikTok meme is now an official emote in Fortnite
Earlier this year, we published an article about how Atlanta rapper K Camp’s ‘Lottery’ track went viral on TikTok and Instagram last year, kickstarted by teenager Jalaiah Harmon’s video of herself dancing to the track.
The track was renamed ‘Lottery (Renegade)’ early this year to ensure that people searching for its ‘Renegade’ hook found it on streaming services.
This weekend, Harmon’s dance became an official ’emote’ in the game Fortnite. ‘The Renegade’ cost 500 V-Bucks to buy (around $5) and as with Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ emote earlier this year, a clip of the original track was included with the dance.
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Source: Music ally
PRS for Music and Qatar Airways case to be heard in England
UK collecting society PRS for Music is suing airline Qatar Airways for copyright infringement, and the case will be heard in the English courts – an early boost for the society.
“The airline, which operates over 200,000 flights per year, and offers music as an integral part of its in-flight service with up to 4,000 entertainment options, has never remunerated PRS members, songwriters, composers, and music publishers, for the use of their intellectual property,” said PRS for Music in its announcement of the news.
“With no equivalent representative collective management organisation situated in Qatar, Qatar Airways has for decades evaded licensing the performing right in copyrights used in its in-flight services.”
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Source: Music ally
Ultimate Fighting Championship launches music streaming app
We sometimes use ‘fight’ and ‘battle’ metaphors when talking about the music streaming market. Well, you wouldn’t want to get into a scrap with the latest entrant into that market.
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the popular mixed martial arts organisation, and now it’s launched its own music streaming app: UFC Ultimate Sound. It’s the result of a deal with music firm ACX Music, promising UFC-themed mixes and content from its roster of fighters.
“UFC Ultimate Sound is packed with mixes for every type of workout, party or just for fun – all inspired by UFC and fighters on its roster. Fans can follow UFC fighters and get a taste for their music preferences,” as the announcement put it.
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Source: Music ally
Google joins Facebook with stake in JioSaavn’s parent telco
Reliance Jio Platforms is the parent company of Jio, the largest telco in India and the owners of the JioSaavn music streaming service. The company has been on a spree of funding announcements in recent months – raising more than $20.2bn from various technology companies and investors. We reported on Facebook taking a $5.7bn stake in April, […]
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Source: Music ally
Twitter hack by bitcoin scam compromised verified accounts
Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian West, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Wiz Khalifa and Apple’s official Twitter account all had a message for followers last night: to send them bitcoin, and because they were feeling generous, they’d send back double. Sit down and grab the smelling salts for this revelation: their accounts had been […]
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Source: Music ally
Two more livestreaming startups: Gramrphone and LiveFrom
And still the new livestreaming startups keep coming: we have two more to tell you about today. Gramrphone was one of the six winners in the #NextStageChallenge hackathon earlier this year – Music Ally was a partner in that event. Its service helps artists to stream live from their digital audio workstation (DAW) via Gramrphone’s software, creating their […]
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Source: Music ally
Amazon IVS could help music companies build their own Twitch
Amazon already owns one of the key livestreaming video platforms, in Twitch. Now its Amazon Web Services division is launching something that could help brands (perhaps including labels) to create their own-brand versions of Twitch. It’s called Amazon Interactive Video Services (IVS) and is described as “a managed live streaming solution that is quick and easy to […]
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Source: Music ally
Will Smith has joined the lo-fi hip-hop YouTube bandwagon
In the Q1 2020 edition of our Music Ally Report (which you can read here if you missed it) we looked at ‘the hi-power growth of lo-fi hip-hop playlists’ on YouTube and Spotify alike. Round-the-clock streams of chilled-out hip hop have attracted millions of subscribers to YouTube channels run by curators like ChilledCow and Chillhop Music, […]
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Source: Music ally
Liteboxer launches, already hailed as the ‘Peloton of boxing’
Liteboxer is the latest fitness startup that’s making music a key part of its service. It launched yesterday, with both TechCrunch and Engadget running with the ‘Peloton of boxing’ shorthand to describe the company’s offering. That means a combination of hardware and software: a free-standing machine with lights to guide your punches, which connects to a smartphone or tablet app […]
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Source: Music ally
Hipgnosis buys catalogue of songwriter and producer RedOne
Another day, another catalogue acquisition for deep-pocketed investment firm Hipgnosis Songs Fund. This time it belongs to Grammy-winning songwriter and producer RedOne, whose credits include collaborations with Lady Gaga (‘Poker Face’, ‘Bad Romance’ and ‘Just Dance’ included); Nicki Minaj, Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez. Hipgnosis has acquired 100% of RedOne’s songs and recorded music interests: […]
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Source: Music ally
Amazon Music gets its own program for emerging artists
Amazon Music is the latest streaming service to launch a programme to push emerging artists. It is called Breakthrough and echoes the initiatives of Spotify (Radar), Apple Music (Up Next), Deezer (Next) and other rivals. The initial crop of acts is drawn from the US, UK and Germany – Arlo Parks, Jay1, Kiana Ledé, Gabby Barrett, Provinz […]
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Source: Music ally
Apple News updates show how Apple and Spotify’s audio strategies differ
Spotify’s ‘audio-first’ strategy – as originally outlined here – is about one audio app to rule them all, currently focused on music and podcasts, with an eye to other kinds of content in the future. All delivered through the same app. Apple’s strategy is markedly different: its audio is split between three different apps. Music in Apple […]
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Source: Music ally
Live concerts are opening up again in Japan and Germany
It’s important that the industry (us included) starts to move away from talking about the ‘live concerts shutdown’ as a global trend, now that a growing number of countries are tentatively opening up their live industries again. In Japan, for example, the government has further relaxed its restrictions on mass gatherings. Having previously capped indoor events […]
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Source: Music ally
Watch for YouTube impact of Facebook’s music videos move
Let us take you back on a short tour of Facebook music-video speculation. Start in 2012 when reports claimed Vevo – then the key aggregator of music videos – was in talks to ditch YouTube in favour of a partnership with Facebook. Then move to 2015, when video was one of the topics in the social network’s tentative talks […]
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Source: Music ally
IAB report quantifies Covid-19 hit to US podcast ad revenues
Advertising industry body the IAB has published its latest figures on the podcast ads market in the US. “With an expected growth rate of 14.7%, US podcast advertising revenues are nearing the $1bn mark,” it claimed.
Are they really, though? The report doesn’t actually give a figure for its 2020 revenue prediction, but it does for 2019: $708.1m. 14.7% growth on that would mean $812.2m of podcast advertising revenues in 2020. It’s certainly nearer to $1bn than last year, but ‘near’ seems a bit of a stretch.
The report does explain how the IAB has revised its original forecasts for the year though: it expected 29.6% growth for the US podcast ads market this year (which would have taken it to $917.7m) before the Covid-19 pandemic hoved into view, causing many ad campaigns to be put on hold.
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Source: Music ally
Feature·fm adds conversion data from Anghami, Qobuz and more
We’ve reported on Linkfire’s various partnerships to get conversion (or ‘attribution’) data from streaming services, so that music marketers can tell not just that fans tapped or clicked on smart links, but whether they streamed, followed etc afterwards.
But this isn’t an idea confined to one smart-links company. Feature·fm has just announced the addition of its own conversion and attribution features, starting with artists’ own merchandise stores, as well as from data partners Rough Trade, Anghami and Qobuz.
“The advanced attribution data we provide means you will be able to see conversion data for sales, streams and revenue after a fan clicks through to a store from one of your links,” promised the company, which is making the feature available to its Pro Artist, Pro Marketer and Enterprise customers.
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Source: Music ally
Pitbull signs LiveXLive deal for paid livestreams and vodcast
Pitbull is the latest artist looking to do more with livestreaming and video content, and he’s found a partner to help.
He’s working with US firm LiveXLive in a “multi-year revenue-share content partnership” that will see Pitbull play a series of pay-per-view livestream concerts, while also launching a video podcast (or ‘vodcast’). The latter will be distributed through PodcastOne, the podcasting network that LiveXLive recently bought.
The first livestreamed concert will be on 12 September, as part of a run of four weekly events for which tickets will cost $9.99 a pop from LiveXLive’s site and apps. Tickets won’t be the only revenues either.
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Source: Music ally
Twitch set for multi-week run of Amazon Music Sessions
Slowly but surely, the crossover between Amazon Music and its parent company’s Twitch subsidiary is growing.
Amazon Music’s channel on the livestreaming platform has been ramping up during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the streaming service has also been throwing some promotional weight behind artists’ own streams on Twitch.
Now it’s launching a series of ‘Amazon Music Sessions’ of its own, which it describes as a “multi-week run of performances, Q&As, discography discussions and community interaction” from artists.
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Source: Music ally
FanTracks and Bulldog DM are the latest livestream startups
To adapt the old cliché about buses: you wait ages for a music livestream startup to arrive, then two come at once! Except actually, the two are arriving just after what feels like another couple of dozen. Can FanTracks and Bulldog DM stand out from the crowd?
FanTracks is launching with a prominent artist at least: rock band Bush, who’ll be livestreaming a concert on its platform this Saturday (18 July). They’ll play a 70-minute set from a studio, with fans able to choose different camera angles, tweak a four-channel audio mixer and access ‘AR experiences’.
FanTracks also says its platform will be capable of hosting pre-show channels, merch deals, virtual signings and post-show Q&As.
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Source: Music ally
SoundCloud moves into instant audio mastering services
SoundCloud’s evolution from a streaming service to a suite of distribution and related tools for artists continues. The company now has a ‘Mastering on SoundCloud’ service, powered by Dolby.
“As the last step of your upload flow, you can make any track release-ready in minutes for one low cost per master,” promises SoundCloud. “Pick from a custom suite of mastering styles that sculpt your song’s tonal balance and dynamic range while preserving its original intent.”
The new tool costs $4.99 per track, although artists subscribing to SoundCloud’s Pro Unlimited tier will get three masters a month for free, and a discounted price of $3.99 for extra tracks.
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Source: Music ally
Indian TikTok rival Roposo is adding 500k new users an hour
TikTok remains banned in India, and some of the rival short-form video services there are enjoying their moment in the sun as a result. One of them, Roposo, has given some startling figures to Bloomberg on its growth in the wake of the ban.
“It’s peaking at 500,000 new users an hour and expects to have 100 million by month’s end. That’s almost double the 55 million it had before the ban,” explained the report, which also quotes Naveen Tewari, CEO of Roposo’s parent company InMobi: “It was a rocket ship instant for the country’s app startups.”
The story is also a good refresher on Roposo’s recent history. Originally founded by three graduates from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, it grew to 42 million users before being acquired by Glance, the maker of a popular app showing news and content on people’s smartphone lock-screens.
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Source: Music ally
PRS for Music warns of royalties hit to come from Covid-19
British collecting society PRS for Music has offered another warning that the Covid-19 pandemic will be delivering its biggest hit to songwriter royalties later this year.
PRS has just paid out its July 2020 distribution, £132.4m, which was up by 3% year-on-year. However, CEO Andrea Martin warned the society’s members that there are tough times ahead.
“As this distribution covers revenue collected mostly prior to Covid-19, we are only just starting to see the impact of the pandemic on royalty payments in July’s distribution. This will mean a further reduction in the royalties usually seen from Live, Public Performance, Commercial Radio, and International from October 2020 onwards,” she said in a statement.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify Russia launch is part of eastern Europe expansion
Last week’s reports of an imminent Spotify launch in Russia were correct, but it’s part of a wider expansion in eastern Europe for the streaming service.
Yesterday, it launched in 13 new countries in the region: Russia plus Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
The launches came with 200 new playlists focusing on artists from the region, with five of the countries getting Spotify’s free and premium tiers, and the other eight getting those plus its family, student and couple subscriptions.
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Source: Music ally
Live Nation to double Black US leadership representation by 2025
The latest music company making promises about how it plans to make its senior management more diverse is Live Nation.
“We commit to increasing diversity at every level of our company. This will start at the very top with our Board of Directors, where we plan to nominate more Black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) and women candidates as we strive towards having at least 30% of our directors be diverse by 2025,” explained CEO Michael Rapino in an open letter to staff.
“In the United States, we plan to have doubled our Black leadership representation, and to have increased our overall racially/ethnically diverse leadership representation to 30% by 2025. We’ll be investing at least $10 million globally over the next two years as we expand and launch new programs focused on developing, promoting and hiring Black and underrepresented talent as we work to bring our overall employee population to parity across race and gender in every country.”
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Source: Music ally
Jason DeRulo makes ‘far more’ than $75k per TikTok post
Apparently rumours on Twitter have suggested that music artist Jason DeRulo earns around $75k for every TikTok video that he posts. Complex went to the horse’s mouth to establish whether it’s true, asking DeRulo about it in an interview.
“I think it’s tacky to say what I do make from them, but it’s far more than that!” said DeRulo. “But I’m not gonna say what it is.”
DeRulo has 28.3 million followers on TikTok, and his last 10 posts have averaged 8.1m views apiece. DeRulo also talked about TikTok’s growth, after his use of it was compared (by the interviewer) to DJ Khaled’s breakthrough on Snapchat in late 2015.
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Source: Music ally
‘Before the MP3 the music industry thought it sold music…’
“The MP3 file has become the URL,” said Spotify boss Daniel Ek 10 years ago, in 2010. Yet the MP3 lives on: it’s actually celebrating its silver (25th) anniversary today, with the file extension name .mp3 having been minted on 14 July 1995 by the Fraunhofer Society.
Within five years, the MP3 would be turning the record business on its head through its use by filesharing platforms like Napster, and (eventually) by legal music download stores.
This morning, British songwriters body The Ivors Academy and the Musicians’ Union are using the anniversary to remind the industry of their ‘Keep Music Alive’ campaign to reform the streaming ecosystem for artists.
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Source: Music ally
Music Tectonics launches community app for the music biz
You might know Music Tectonics for its music industry podcast, or for its conferences in the US. Created by PR company Rock Paper Scissors, it’s now pulling its content and community together in a mobile app.
Released for Android and for iPhone yesterday, it’s aimed at anyone working in / interested in the intersection of music and technology.
It offers a community forum, a curated news feed, and exclusive videos from Music Tectonics events, as well as livestreams. There’ll be some launch content this week, including interviews with journalist Cherie Hu and CD Baby boss Tracy Maddux, and a livestream from Music Tectonics / Rock Paper Scissors chief Dmitri Vietze.
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Source: Music ally
Canada music consumption up 5.7% this year despite Covid-19
Nielsen Music / MRC Data has published its mid-year report on the Canadian music market, revealing that despite the Covid-19 pandemic, total audio consumption rose by 5.7% in Canada in the first half of 2020.
That’s based on the research firm’s formula blending album and track sales with on-demand audio streams. Breaking that down, Canadians streamed 42.2bn on-demand audio tracks in the first half of this year, up by 16.7% year-on-year.
That was enough to outweigh a sharp decline in total album sales (down 38.4% to 3.1m units for digital and physical combined) and a 26.6% drop in digital track sales.
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Source: Music ally
How has the DNA of a music hit changed since the year 2000?
Midia Research’s latest blog post digs in to how the structure of music hits has changed over the past 20 years, albeit with a limited dataset: the Billboard top 10 in July 2000 and July 2020. It offers four main conclusions.
First, songs are shorter overall: a 16% decrease from an average length of four minutes and 22 seconds in 2000 to three minutes and 42 seconds now.
Second, hip-hop accounts for 60% of the top 10 in the 2020 chart, while the 2000 rankings were split evenly between pop, rock and R’n’B.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify launches top and trending podcasts charts in 26 countries
More than 15 million people follow Spotify’s ‘Global Top 50’ music chart, making it an important discovery channel on the service. Now it’s looking to do the same thing for podcasts, albeit locally.
This afternoon, Spotify is launching podcast charts in 26 countries, including the US and UK. The format mirrors its music rankings: the podcast equivalents of the ‘Top 50’ and ‘Viral 50’ charts will be ‘Top Podcasts’ and ‘Trending Podcasts’.
In seven countries, there will be sub-charts devoted to individual podcast genres – true crime and so on – in that country. At launch, the charts will be available within Spotify’s iOS and Android apps, within the podcasts section of the search/browse screen.
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Source: Music ally
Zoë Keating and David Lowery talk streaming, fans and music artists
Besides being musicians, Zoë Keating and David Lowery have been two of the most prominent voices for artists’ rights in the streaming era.
Solo artist Keating has regularly published her streaming income data to further transparency around payouts for artists. She was an early adopter of Bandcamp, went public with her concerns about YouTube’s artist contracts in early 2015, and was one of the first artists to talk about the potential of blockchain technology for music.
Lowery combines his music career (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven) with teaching at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, running artist-rights blog The Trichordist – which publishes its own annual table of average per-stream rates – and also filed a class action lawsuit against Spotify on behalf of independent songwriters in late 2015. The lawsuit was settled in 2017.
Earlier this month, Music Ally brought Keating and Lowery together (via Zoom) for a conversation about streaming and artists. Specifically, in the light of recent public discussions about how the model pays off for musicians – #BrokenRecord in the UK for example – how they think streaming could and should improve.
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Source: Music ally
What can the global music industry learn from K-Pop and South Korea?
K-pop is the genre that ate the world whole. Acts like BTS, Blackpink, Twice and TVXQ are not just some of the biggest acts within the genre – they are some of the biggest acts in the world. There is a lot that other artists can learn from how K-pop markets itself, how its acts […]
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Source: Music ally
Tools: MUSIXMATCH. The world’s largest catalog of song lyrics and translations.
Musixmatch provides licensed lyric features to the likes of Google, Apple Music, Amazon and Instagram, having deals in place with over 10,000 publishers globally. It also has direct relationships with over 1m artists who are verified on the platform through their labels, their publishers or even directly. Hot on the heels of the announcement that […]
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Source: Music ally
Report analyses every single YouTube ‘trending’ video of 2019
More than 70k videos appeared in YouTube’s ‘trending’ section last year. That’s the tab that spotlights videos that YouTube’s algorithm thinks are currently taking off, and it can drive significant traffic to them.
So how does it work? Data scientist Ammar Alyousfi has been doing the hard work, analysing the data from those 70k videos to identify interesting patterns.
Among the findings: some videos appeared on the trending list when they only had around 50,000 views; most trending videos have titles between 36 and 64 characters long and descriptions between 500 and 1,500 characters long; on average videos take around one and a half days to appear on the trending tab for the first time; the average number of tags used is 21; and the most common objects in thumbnails for trending videos is a person.
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Source: Music ally
Mike Singer single promoted with stream-to-unlock campaign
Warner Music Central Europe has created a stream-to-unlock initiative to push ‘100Tausend’ (‘100 Thousand’), the new single from German artist Mike Singer which is released on 17 July.
Users going to a page on his website pick their streaming service of choice and then they have to play ‘Paranoid’ (the first single from the new album) as well as pre-save or pre-add ‘100Tausend’.
As more fans do this, it will trigger an incremental reveal of the lyrics and when the campaign reaches 100% of its target, a snippet of ‘100Tausend’ can be heard before its full release at the end of the week.
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Source: Music ally
The Streets set for August pay-per-view livestream concert
The Streets are the latest artist to explore ticketed livestreams, with plans for a pay-per-view concert on 6 August filmed at the Earth venue in London.
It’s part of the band’s series of drive-in concerts across the UK, planned to replace the string of festival dates which were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The livestream tickets will cost £10 in a presale and then £15 when they go on general sale, with additional album and merch bundles, and the option to donate to charity Show Racism the Red Card.
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Source: Music ally
Apple Music launches At Home With Sessions with Arlo Parks
Spotify Singles has been combining artists’ re-recordings of their own songs with covers of other musicians’ tracks for some time.
Now Apple Music is getting in on the idea with its new ‘At Home With Sessions’. Emerging British artist Arlo Parks is the first to feature, reworking three of her own tracks.
As the name makes clear, this is starting as a Covid-19-era series, with artists producing the recordings from their homes.
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Source: Music ally
Rave Family Block Fest Minecraft festival postponed again
We reported on Friday about the bumpy start for Rave Family Block Fest, the dance music festival being held within the game Minecraft.
People who’d paid for tickets to attend were finding it difficult to access the event, and when they did get in, they realised that the music itself had to be streamed separately from MixCloud. Later that day, the event’s organisers decided to postpone it for a second time, to sort out the problems.
“It’s not fair to anyone involved to deliver a subpar experience and knowing what we’ve actually built versus what we were able to deliver is heartbreaking. People who attended paid for an experience that they deserve,” said the announcement.
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Source: Music ally
Facebook SDK, not Juice Wrld album, crashed Spotify
Music Ally is long enough in the tooth to remember the days when big music stars really could cause traffic spikes that might crash big digital services.
That’s rarely the case nowadays, which is why we were extremely sceptical on Friday when we saw the headline ‘Juice Wrld’s fans crash Spotify as posthumous third album drops’. There’s no doubt that there was anticipation around the release of ‘Legends Never Die’, but surely not Spotify-crashing levels of anticipation.
Sure enough, the truth was more prosaic. Spotify’s iPhone app was crashing on Friday: listeners tapping on its icon saw it begin to launch before quitting out.
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Source: Music ally
MLC says it will launch its user portal ‘later this quarter’
The US’s new Mechanical Licensing Collective body (MLC) has provided an update on its plans to launch a portal for independent songwriters to register their works.
At the NY:LON Connect conference in January, MLC chair Alisa Coleman said the aim was to have the portal live early in the second quarter of 2020. Then the global Covid-19 pandemic happened, so it’s no surprise that the plans have been pushed back.
“The MLC intends to begin rolling out the first version of its user portal later this quarter,” explains a press release now. “This version will enable users to set-up their accounts and then search, view and edit The MLC’s data for existing musical works and register new musical works.”
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Source: Music ally
Bandcamp generated $20m of sales for artists in last month
The Financial Times is the latest publication with an approving profile of Bandcamp. It’s part of a wave of admiration for the platform after its recent Covid-19 and Juneteenth / Black Lives Matter rev-share waiving sales, as well as the wider issue of artists’ income from streaming.
There’s a new figure too. “Over a 30-day period to July 10, artists sold more than $20m worth of products,” reported the FT.
Note, that period did *not* include Bandcamp’s three Covid-19 sales days (on 20 March, 1 May and 5 June) although it did include the Juneteenth sale on 19 June.
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Source: Music ally
There are now one billion mobile games downloads every week
The mobile games industry is one of the sectors benefitting from the Covid-19 pandemic, at least in terms of people’s engagement with its products.
According to analytics firm App Annie, there were an average of 1bn mobile game downloads a week during the second quarter of this year, up by 20% year-on-year.
“Quarantined consumers also set new quarterly records for consumer spend in mobile games, with over $19 billion spent on purchases through the app stores in Q2 2020 — the largest quarter ever,” it explained, adding that by the end of this year, mobile games will be generating more than three times the revenues of console games.
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Source: Music ally
Penguin Random House reveals its ‘accelerated inclusion plan’
As the guests on the recent #TheShowMustBePaused edition of the Music Ally TV Show made clear, music companies promising to address a lack of diversity in their businesses is good, but the proof will be in what they actually do to make that happen.
With that in mind, see what book-publishing giant Penguin Random House UK is doing: it announced an “accelerated inclusion plan” yesterday, with some clear targets.
Those include making sure that new hires and acquisitions (the latter meaning book deals – the publishing industry’s equivalent of labels’ signings) must be at a minimum ‘reflective of the UK’s different ethnicities’ by 2023; that the company will publish ethnicity pay gap reports; will hold mandatory exclusivity training for all staff; and will review the advances it pays to authors and its marketing spend to ensure there aren’t disparities based on ethnicity.
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Source: Music ally
Sony Corporation invests $250m in Fortnite maker Epic Games
Sony Music’s parent company is investing $250m in Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite.
Sony Corporation announced the deal yesterday, and said it “allows Sony and Epic to aim to broaden their collaboration across Sony’s leading portfolio of entertainment assets and technology, and Epic’s social entertainment platform and digital ecosystem”.
That could spell more opportunities for Sony Music artists, following Travis Scott’s recent Fortnite event. Bear in mind, though, that the partnership will surely be centred on the PlayStation side of Sony’s business.
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Source: Music ally
Ashnikko’s new track has a Beats by Dre and TikTok partnership
Artist Ashnikko’s breakthrough last year was fuelled by TikTok, when her track ‘Stupid’ went viral. Now, for her new track ‘Daisy’ she is prioritising the platform – this time with Apple’s music hardware brand Beats by Dre on board as a marketing partner.
That means a music video with prominent placement for the new PowerbeatsPro headphones, themed around their four colours.
TikTok comes in with a four-week #BeatsDaisyChallenge that starts on Saturday (11 July). In fact, it’s four challenges, one each week based on the four colours, with Ashnikko and Beats to choose the best entries to feature in the final version of the ‘Daisy’ music video.
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Source: Music ally
‘Contextual intelligence’ startup NumberEight raises $2.3m
We’ve written about UK-based startup NumberEight a few times in the past: for example its Midemlab contest pitch in 2018, and its first funding round later that year.
The company has been working on “contextual intelligence” technology, using various sensors on smartphones to understand what their owners are doing, and then (after anonymising them) to help digital services serve those people accordingly.
“For music-streaming services, this technology could be used, for example, to understand whether someone is at the gym or travelling on a bus, and adapt accordingly – from music recommendations to targeted advertising,” is how we described it in 2018.
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Source: Music ally
BoxVR developer FitXR raises $7.5m of Series A funding
If Music Ally’s news has packed a little more… punch recently, it might be because our editor’s lockdown-fitness activity is jabbing, hooking and upper-cutting thin air in virtual reality game BoxVR.
Now the game’s developer, British startup FitXR, has raised $7.5m of Series A funding – specifically $6.3m from VC firms and a $1.2m innovation loan from Innovate UK.
The company says it plans to expand its operations in Europe and North America and launch “several exciting new products and services for people to keep fit in virtual reality” with the funding.
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Source: Music ally
Recording Academy stresses diversity of its new members
US industry body the Recording Academy has faced a lot of criticism about the diversity of its membership in recent years. It’s hoping to win some praise for its 2020 intake though.
More than 2,300 new people have been invited to join, and while the big names include John Legend, Ozuna and Yolanda Adams, it’s the demographics of the whole group that the organisation is keen to shout about.
“The 2020 class of invitees is 48 percent female, 21 percent African American African descent, eight percent Hispanic, and three percent Asian American and Pacific Islander,” explained its announcement. “The representation of this class also spans ages, genre and region.”
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Source: Music ally
UnitedMasters Select gives artists 100% of their royalties
Music distributor UnitedMasters has launched a new tier for the artists who use its service. it’s called UnitedMasters Select, and it’ll cost them $5 a month – but will enable artists to keep 100% of the royalties for their music.
The alternative is a free tier where the royalty split between artists and UnitedMasters is 90/10. The company is promising that Select artists will also see their releases go live on the major streaming platforms in 10 days or less, while also getting access to its growing stable of partnerships with brands.
Talking of which, a new partnership was also announced yesterday, with broadcaster ESPN. It’ll be picking music from artists on the ‘Select’ tier to use within its sports shows and promo content.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify’s Discover Weekly has driven 2.3bn hours of listening
Spotify’s algorithm tried to make us stream R3HAB and we said… yes, yes, yes!
The streaming service is celebrating the fifth birthday of its algo-personalised ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist by revealing that Moroccan-Dutch DJ R3HAB is the ‘most discovered’ artist from the playlist in the most countries – 16 – since its launch in 2015.
There’s also a big number: Spotify listeners streamed more than 2.3bn hours from their ‘Discover Weekly’ playlists between July 2015 and June 2020.
As an artist, R3HAB predates the playlist by some time, since he’s been releasing tracks since 2008. However, his two studio albums came out in 2017 and 2018, so ‘Discover Weekly’ has clearly played a role in his rise.
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Source: Music ally
Court grants motion to dismiss Wixen / Pandora complaint
In June 2019, Wixen Music Publishing sued streaming service Pandora, alleging ‘unauthorized commercial exploitation’ of lyrics from songs in its catalogue. The case focused on Pandora’s feature showing lyrics from partners including LyricFind, which was mentioned in the lawsuit.
How’s the case going? Well, there’s been a development this week. The latest filing reveals that Pandora moved to dismiss the case in January, but before that could be ruled on, Pandora and Wixen entered settlement talks.
Now the court’s patience appears to have run out with those.
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Source: Music ally
175m music fans are tracking artists in WMG’s Songkick app
Warner Music Group bought the Songkick app and website in July 2017, and has continued to run it since as a way for people to find out when artists they like are playing concerts near them. WMG is also continuing to invest in Songkick: today, for example, it announced the appointment of a VP of technology […]
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Source: Music ally
Report: Amazon Music subscriptions grew by 104% in last year
Research firm Counterpoint Research has published its latest estimates for the size of the music streaming market globally. It claims that by the end of March there were 394m music subscriptions globally, representing year-on-year growth of 35%.
Counterpoint also offered its estimates for some of the biggest players, suggesting that Spotify accounted for 33% of subscriptions and 30% of subscription revenues at the end of Q1 2020, followed by Apple Music (21% of subscriptions and 25% of revenue).
Amazon is the big grower though: Counterpoint claimed that its subscriptions more than doubled (104%) year-on-year, while its share of revenues was 12%, ahead of fourth-ranked YouTube Music (9%) and fifth-placed Pandora (5%).
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Source: Music ally
Report: half of US 9-12 year-olds play Roblox every week
People in the music business (us included) bang on about Fortnite a lot, but we think Roblox is another gaming platform that should be less under the radar for our industry.
A new report by children’s media research firm Dubit offers some stats that might help. “Half of all children aged 9-12 in the USA play Roblox every week, logging over 1.5 billion hours a month on the platform,” it explained.
Roblox isn’t a game: it’s a platform full of games created by users – YouTube is its equivalent in the video world. There are more than 115 million of those users every month.
“Games can quickly grow to over 600k concurrent players, and the most popular have over 1 billion plays,” added the report. The top game on Roblox earns more than $10m a year, while the top 100 games average $420k of annual revenues.
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Source: Music ally
Mrs. Green Apple celebrated fifth birthday in Animal Crossing
If you’re a regular reader of Music Ally, you may have spotted that we have some Animal Crossing fans on the team.
We’ve seen a couple of music marketing campaigns make use of the latest version of the game, Nintendo Switch title Animal Crossing: New Horizons – pop artist Alice Chater turning her music video outfits into in-game clothing for fans to wear, for example.
Now Billboard has news of how Japanese group Mrs. Green Apple celebrated their fifth anniversary by creating an Animal Crossing island themed around their career so far.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify’s new site creates personalised workout playlists
Spotify’s latest campaign to create personalised playlists for listeners is called Soundtrack Your Workout, aimed at people who are exercising.
On the new website, they choose a workout length (from 15 minutes to two hours); choose to include only music, only podcasts, or a mix of the two; explain what exercise they’re doing (yoga, running, biking, cardio, dance, weightlifting, walking/meditation or barre/pilates); and say if they’re exercising alone or with others (partners, friends, kids, erm, pets).
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Source: Music ally
Liam Payne set to launch ticketed livestreams on Veeps
Veeps! Another new livestreaming startup for artists? Actually, no, this one’s been around since 2017, and was founded by Benji and Joel Madden from rock band Good Charlotte.
It’s a platform for ticketed livestreams, and the latest artist to sign up is a biggie: former One Direction star Liam Payne. He’s going to be launching a series of ticketed livestreams on Veeps, starting on 17 July, with fans able to pay what they want (well, above a minimum spend of $10) to watch a fully-produced, full-band show broadcast from a music venue.
And, as with other platforms, there’s the promise of interactivity during the set: “Using a series of special effects and features, Liam will be uniquely equipped to interact with his audience during the show,” explained the announcement.
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Source: Music ally
Livestreaming startup Yoop to open more ‘eSpace’ venues
We wrote about startup Yoop in May, as the latest entrant to 2020’s livestreaming-platform scramble. Its concept was an ‘eSpace’ virtual venue, which artists would be able to play ticketed live performances in.
Now Yoop is expanding its activities: it’s creating eSpace venues in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville and the UK, to complement its existing space in Montreal.
These are physical venues configured for Yoop’s livestreams: the idea being that artists can come in and quickly get a performance up and running that looks and sounds great to people watching online.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify snags $20m podcast advertising deal with Omnicom
Podcasts have sent Spotify’s valuation soaring in recent weeks, but they’re also starting to generate income for the company.
Yesterday, it announced a ‘strategic podcast advertising partnership’ with advertising giant Omnicom Media Group, which sees the latter committing a $20m spend for the remainder of 2020.
Note, this is a drop in the ocean of Omnicom’s $35bn annual spend – 0.06% to be specific – but it’s a start as Spotify looks to grow advertising revenues for its non-music content.
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Source: Music ally
Audiomack partners with ACRCloud on content-filtering system
In November 2018, YouTube said it had spent $100m developing its Content ID system for detecting copyrighted music in uploads and giving rightsholders options to remove, leave or monetise those videos.
That level of investment is beyond many music startups, but there are partnerships to be done. The latest example is with US streaming service Audiomack, which is working with ACRCloud’s copyright protection technology.
The tech uses audio fingerprinting to scan all newly uploaded music to Audiomack, with the press release claiming that it currently gets “thousands” of user-generated uploads to its platform every day.
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Source: Music ally
Spotify sees more labels and distributors crediting songwriters
Spotify’s head of songwriter and publishing relations Jules Parker says that the streaming service’s addition of songwriter credits had a knock-on effect for labels and distributors.
“Since we began publicly displaying song credits on Spotify in 2018, we’ve seen a 60% increase in how often labels and distributors credit songwriters on their new releases, allowing artists and fans to dig deeper and recognise the work behind the scenes,” said Parker, in an interview for Spotify’s own blog.
The interview was supporting an expansion of Spotify’s ‘songwriter pages’ feature, which launched in beta this February. The company tells Music Ally that it will launch “hundreds” more profile pages for songwriters in the coming weeks, with ‘Written By’ playlists gathering recordings of their songs.
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Source: Music ally
TikTok was world’s most downloaded non-gaming app in June
Analytics firm Sensor Tower has published its latest rankings for mobile apps, reporting that TikTok was the most downloaded non-gaming app globally in June 2020, ahead of Zoom and Facebook.
The company claims that TikTok was downloaded more than 87m times across Apple and Google’s app stores, up 52.7% year-on-year. However, its top two markets – India (accounting for 18.8% of TikTok’s downloads in June) and the US (8.7%) – are the ones where it’s currently facing big challenges, as we reported yesterday.
Sensor Tower also estimates that TikTok was the top grossing non-game app globally in June, ahead of YouTube and Tinder, with more than $90.7m of user spending. 89% of this revenue came from its Chinese version Douyin – and it’s only user spending, not advertising revenues.
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Source: Music ally
Sandbox Issue 256: PRIMAL STREAM 📱🎧 Making lockdown concerts work
Lead: Livestreams have moved to try and fill the massive hole left by the total cancellation of tours and festivals around the world. As more acts do them, however, it becomes incrementally harder to stand out and draw in big enough audiences to make them worthwhile. We speak to those building a whole new gig economy here […]
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Source: Music ally
After India ban, TikTok could face further sanctions in US
TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have been hit by a ban in India as part of a wider crackdown on apps of Chinese origin.
But there may be trouble brewing for the companies in the US, too, due both to the political jockeying around hardball trade negotiations between the US and China, and specific regulatory issues with TikTok in the US.
Speaking to Fox News this week, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked if the US might ban TikTok and other social media apps from China.
“We are taking this very seriously. We are certainly looking at it,” he said. “We have worked on this very issue for a long time.”
Pompeo went on to bracket the issue with previous measures taken against Chinese technology companies Huawei and ZTE: “With respect to Chinese apps on peoples’ cellphones, the United States will get this one right too.”
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Source: Music ally
International Indie Music Season conference set for China
Happy International Indie Music Season! Well, it’s not quite started yet: the three-month project (IIMS for short) starts on 17 July with a three-day conference and performances series, which has been designed as “a platform for the global music industry and China to meet”.
Music Ally China is an official partner of the event: our CEO Paul Brindley will be speaking, while journalist Jay Kogami will be chairing a panel on behalf of Music Ally Japan, which also features adviser Takuya Yamazaki.
Hi-res audio firm MQA is also a strategic partner for IIMS, with CEO Mike Jbara hosting a panel on tech and lifestyle trends driving music innovation.
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Source: Music ally
China now has 904m internet users – 75m more than last year
A report published by the research division of the South China Morning Post puts some new figures on the growth of internet access in China – a key driver for the streaming music market there.
The report claims that there are now 904 million internet users in China – 63% of the population – with 75 million having been added in the last year.
Of the total, 897 million people are using the mobile internet, and 765 million are using mobile payments – the latter figure is 185 million more than last year.
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Source: Music ally
MelodyVR and Live Nation set for Brixton Academy livestreams
We reported last week on VR music startup MelodyVR’s financial performance in 2019 – £195k of revenues but a net loss of nearly £15m.
The company is continuing to explore new partnerships to grow its business, though, with the latest being a deal with Live Nation in the UK.
The pair will launch a series of live concerts from the O2 Academy Brixton venue in London, with fans able to buy tickets to watch online – in 360 degrees and/or virtual reality via MelodyVR’s app on smartphones and Oculus VR headsets.
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Source: Music ally
Wiz Khalifa to play Genius Live interactive livestream
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about livestreamed concerts during the Covid-19 lockdown, it’s that fans relish interactivity: at its simplest level seeing an artist read and respond to comments in between songs.
Genius is going further though: it’s launching a new “performance-oriented livestreaming and experiential platform” called Genius Live, with lots of interactivity.
Wiz Khalifa will be first to play a Genius Live concert this Thursday (9 July). It’ll be free to watch, and fans will be able to vote on the setlist, leave tips, chat to one another, and spend money on “special purchases” including getting a shoutout from Khalifa, or even going virtually ‘on stage’ with him.
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Source: Music ally
Recording Academy teams with racial justice org Color of Change
US industry body the Recording Academy has announced a partnership with racial justice organisation Color of Change, including making a $1m donation to it.
The pair will be working together on initiatives including creating a Black music advisory group for the Academy; a membership campaign to sign up more Black voting members; and an industry-wide diversity and inclusion summit.
Color of Change will also be advising the Academy on its plans to launch an industry ‘Inclusion Rider and Toolkit’ later this year.
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Source: Music ally
Covid-19: US music industry ‘missed out on nearly 900m streams’
Research firm Nielsen Music/MRC Data has published the ‘fifth wave’ of its ongoing study of Covid-19’s impact on the music and entertainment industries, based on surveys in the US up to the week of 10-14 June.
Among the findings: audio and video music streams have recovered from their initial decline in the early weeks of the US locking down, and a second dip in early June coinciding with protests across the country.
The net impact of those declines, though: “Given how streaming was trending, we can approximate the industry missed out on nearly 900 million streams,” suggests the report.
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Source: Music ally
UK musician bodies criticise Epidemic Sound / Adobe deal
In June, creative-software company Adobe announced the launch of a library of royalty-free music and audio with partners Epidemic Sound and Jamendo. Now two bodies representing musicians in the UK have attacked one of those deals.
The Ivors Academy and the Musicians’ Union aren’t happy about Epidemic Sound’s business model of paying composers upfront in ‘full buyout deals’ which do not earn them royalties in the future.
“Epidemic Sound CEO Oscar Hoglund claims that musicians will benefit from being discovered on Adobe through Shazam. This exposure narrative forms part of a widespread exploitative model that the music industry has difficulty shaking. Exposure without royalties doesn’t pay the bills,” said the MU’s Naomi Pohl.
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Source: Music ally
UMG strikes distribution deal with Indian label Desi Melodies
Universal Music Group has big ambitions in India, having launched local hip-hop label Mass Appeal India last August; building its VRYL Originals roster of artists; and expanding its leadership team early this year.
Now UMG has announced a distribution deal with Indian label Desi Melodies, which focuses on Punjabi music – at a time when ‘regional’ music is one of the big growth areas in India. The deal is multi-year, exclusive and global.
UMG will distribute all audio recordings from Desi Melodies, including its back catalogue. Note ‘audio’ in that sentence: the Indian label has more than 5.5 million subscribers and 1.6bn views on its YouTube channel, but that appears to be not included in the deal.
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Source: Music ally
YouTube launches new analytics features for music artists
YouTube had analytics that musicians were using long before Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists, Amazon Music for Artists and the rest.
Along with SoundCloud, it was an early tool for artists to see (for example) where their fan hotspots were around the world, and plan tours accordingly. YouTube’s analytics weren’t specifically for musicians though: they were a generalist data tool for all YouTubers and channel owners.
Now YouTube is doubling down on its analytics for musicians with what it’s calling ‘New YouTube Analytics for Artists’, promising that it’ll provide them with “the most comprehensive and complete view of their audience, global reach and performance across YouTube”.
It’s part of the YouTube Studio toolset, but only musicians with their own ‘Official Artist Channel’ will be able to use it.
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Source: Music ally
Next-gen console games may see retail price rise to $69.99
There’s an ongoing debate about why the base cost of a music streaming subscription ($9.99 a month) hasn’t risen since 2008. What’s happening in adjacent entertainment markets?
The Washington Post reports that the recommended retail price (RRP) of major games is set to rise by 10 dollars when Sony and Microsoft release their next-generation consoles later this year.
The RRP is expected to rise from $59.99 – a price that’s been maintained since 2005 – to $69.99, with basketball game NBA 2K21 the first to break cover with the new price.
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Source: Music ally
BTS Army (and Cape Verde) help K-Pop stars break iTunes record
Is there any country in the world where BTS aren’t big? They’re certainly big in Cape Verde: their ‘Black Swan’ track has gone to number one in the country’s iTunes chart.
Why are we writing about this? Well, this was the 103rd country where the track had topped the iTunes rankings, breaking Adele’s record of 102 countries with ‘Hello’.
FYI: Cape Verde is made up of 10 volcanic islands in the central Atlantic Ocean, with a population of just over half a million people.
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Source: Music ally
Harry Styles reads a ‘sleep story’ for meditation app Calm
“Hello. I’m Harry Styles…” Those four words have set off some social-media excitement overnight, spoken by Styles himself in a promo video for meditation app Calm.
He’s going to be reading one of the ‘sleep stories’ that have been so popular in the app, with the idea being that Harry’s voice will send fans off to sleep at night.
Calm followed up by tweeting a photo of Styles recording his story, which will be released tomorrow (8 July), yielding responses ranging from ‘OH MY GOD’ and ‘WHAT THE F**K I THOUGHT THIS WAS A JOKE’ to ‘DUE TO PERSONAL REASONS I HAVE PASSED AWAY’ and ‘I WANT THIS ETCHED INTO MY BRAIN FOREVER HOLY F**K’ (and a few responses without all-caps and/or enthusiastic swearing).
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Source: Music ally
Anti-piracy project The Music Mission reports first findings
In March, anti-piracy firm AudioLock and distributor Label Worx launched a campaign called The Music Mission, to try to shut down paid piracy websites, with backing from dance labels like Defected.
Now the initiative appears to be releasing some findings from its investigations, according to filesharing-focused news site TorrentFreak. Some of those findings are eye-opening.
“One particular pirate store owner conveniently have their own anti-virus software company as well as a music watermarking company. Both good partners to an anti-piracy company,” claimed The Music Mission. No, it’s not naming these companies at this point, for legal reasons.
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Source: Music ally
Youth Music launches £2m Incubator Fund for 18-25 year-olds
British charity Youth Music is launching a £2m ‘Incubator Fund’ that aims to help 18-25 year-olds – particularly those from under-represented groups – get into the music business.
The fund itself is for music companies, offering grants of between £5k and £30k to spend on wages and support for these young people. Youth Music is especially interested in ‘micro’ enterprises and small companies with up to 49 employees.
The fund will be open to companies, not-for-profit organisations and collectives working in the music industries – the charity is using that plural in its application guidance to stress that it’s not just talking about labels and recorded music.
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Source: Music ally
The Rise and Rise of Music Podcasts
Podcasts are firmly part of our media diet – with some turning into huge brands and others happy to cater to the most niche of interests. The podcast economy boom is now so great that not only did Spotify pay $100m to secure the exclusive licensing deal for the enormously popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast, […]
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Source: Music ally
Tech firms want ‘strong copyright safe harbours’ in US/UK deal
With the UK ‘Brexiting’ the European Union, it’ll need a new trade deal with the US. Unsurprisingly, the big American internet companies have views on what that trade deal should require from the UK in terms of copyright and safe harbour rules. And no, sticking to the spirit of the recent European Copyright Directive isn’t […]
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Source: Music ally
Apple Music launches Africa Rising artist discovery initiative
Apple Music really is going big on music from Africa. The service’s latest move is a bi-monthly ‘artist program and companion playlist‘ which it says will focus on emerging talent from across Africa. Every two months, a new artist will be chosen to focus on – Nigerian-born Omah Lay is the first – with plans to “use […]
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Source: Music ally
Musician Maria Schneider files class action YouTube lawsuit
Artist and composer Maria Schneider has criticised YouTube publicly several times in the past. For example this open letter in 2016 calling the service “a resounding disaster” for musicians; and this piece in 2017 about the net neutrality issue which included the claim that “they deny musicians like me access to their Content ID blocking program”. Three years on, […]
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Source: Music ally
ByteDance warns of $6bn lost revenue from India apps ban
There’s a big, startling figure in the latest story about the Indian government’s decision to ban 59 Chinese-origin apps, including TikTok. “An insider at TikTok parent ByteDance is telling Caixin the ban could come with a heavy price tag, costing the company more than $6 billion in lost revenue — a sum greater than all […]
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Source: Music ally
Hipgnosis Songs Fund seeks £200m of new equity financing
Hipgnosis Songs Fund has been snapping up a series of publishing catalogues in big-money acquisitions, and it has no plans to stop – but it needs another injection of funding to fuel its ambition. “With over £1 billion of acquisitions in the pipeline covering some of the most important songs and artists of all time, much […]
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Source: Music ally
Drake’s rap-battle partner Caffeine raises $113m funding round
Microsoft may have closed its Mixer livestreaming service and thrown its lot in with Facebook, but another of Twitch’s live-video rivals has just raised a big funding round. Caffeine is the company, and the round is $113m, with VC firms Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners joining media group Fox Corp in the investment. Bloomberg reported that it values Caffeine […]
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Source: Music ally
British music industry unites for #LetTheMusicPlay campaign
For every social-media hashtag campaign that takes off, many more wither and die without anyone noticing. So hats off to the British music industry for avoiding the latter fate with its #LetTheMusicPlay campaign this week across Twitter, Instagram and other platforms. Artists, industry folk and fans alike were sharing their memories of live music, and the campaign undoubtedly […]
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Source: Music ally
Survey: Covid-19 is sparking music streaming growth in Japan
More Japanese people are willing to engage with music via streaming during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, according to a survey of Japan’s music industry conducted by Music Ally.
Music Ally Japan surveyed labels, managers, producers and other industry figures in the months of April and May, asking them about the impact that Covid-19 has had on the industry in Japan.
Among the questions: whether their artists had seen an impact on their streams since February this year. 10.9% said they’d seen significant growth in streams, and 36.4% had seen modest growth.
Meanwhile, 32.7% said their artists’ streams had been unaffected, and 20% said they’d seen a modest decline.
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Source: Music ally
Deezer claims $1.4bn valuation with TV Azteca partnership in Mexico
Deezer is doubling down on Latin America courtesy of a partnership with Mexican broadcaster TV Azteca that it says values the music streaming service at €1.3bn ($1.4bn).
That’s based on a $40m investment in Deezer by TV Azteca over “a multi-year period”, and would mean that Deezer has not just maintained its ‘unicorn’ status – the term used for companies worth more than $1bn – but has grown in value by 30% since its $185m funding round in August 2018.
The deal isn’t just about investment. TV Azteca will be promoting Deezer across its television networks in Mexico, with more marketing through other subsidiaries of its parent group Grupo Salinas – for example retail chain Grupo Elektra.
On the TV side, Deezer is taking over a weekly show called Mugo Live on Mexican TV channel Azteca Uno, which has two million viewers, and renaming it ‘Deezer Live’. Deezer will also acquire social music app Mugo, although it is shutting it down and offering users a free Deezer Premium trial, rather than keeping it running.
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Source: Music ally
Israel’s music expansion opportunities, from wellness to AR
Digital music revenue in Israel will reach $40m in 2020, according to Statista, which also predicts an annual growth rate of 6.6% from 2020 to 2024, with streaming revenue to expand by 15.6% in 2020 to $36m. This result would put Israel – the subject of our latest country profile – roughly on a par […]
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Source: Music ally
The Royalty Network debuts Black Empowerment Thru Music scheme
Music publishing company The Royalty Network has launched an initiative to help emerging Black musicians, producers and songwriters build contacts and careers in the music industry. Called Black Empowerment Thru Music, the scheme will include offering free studio time at the company’s Los Angeles facility; financial support for organisations; grant matching; mentoring; webinars; donating instruments to […]
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Source: Music ally
More than 400 brands are boycotting Facebook ads this month
We wrote last month about the launch of a ‘Stop Hate for Profit‘ campaign encouraging brands to pause their advertising on Facebook and Instagram, in protest at Facebook’s policies around hate speech and groups. The boycott kicked off yesterday (1 July) with Reuters reporting that more than 400 brands are taking part, despite “last-ditch” meetings with Facebook executives who […]
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Source: Music ally
Facebook is shutting down its TikTok-inspired app Lasso
“Can Facebook ‘Lasso’ teenagers with its new music app?” was the question in a Music Ally headline back in November 2018, as the social network launched a new app heavily inspired by TikTok – complete with a big (and licensed) library of music clips. Now we have the answer to our question: no it could not. […]
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Source: Music ally
YouTube lands exclusive on archive Elton John concerts
His mammoth Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour might be on hold for now, but Elton John is making a series of archive shows available exclusively on his official YouTube channel. The series premieres on Friday (3 July) with the stated aim of raising $500k in donations for the Elton John AIDS Foundation Covid-19 Emergency Fund. Each […]
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Source: Music ally
Apple Music’s new ‘INDIY’ playlist focuses on DIY artists
Our first response to Apple Music’s new playlist ‘INDIY‘ is wondering how to pronounce it: is it ‘indie’ or ‘indie-why’ or ‘in-D-I-Y’? Whatever: its focus is on independent artists who, for the most part, are self-producing and self-releasing their music. It’s also mining a particular musical landscape: “the dissolution of borders between indie and R&B” […]
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Source: Music ally
Spotify Premium Duo couples’ subscription expands globally
Spotify started testing its Premium Duo subscription plan in March 2019 in five countries: it was a $12.99-a-month Spotify subscription for couples, complete with a ‘Duo Mix’ playlist blending their tastes. It expanded to 14 more countries in Latin America in September last year, but now it’s going more global, launching in 55 markets. The idea is to tempt […]
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Source: Music ally
Twitch was watched for more than 5bn hours in Q2 2020
Twitch is one of the platforms seeing a big spike in usage during the Covid-19 pandemic. A new report claims that in the second quarter of this year, Amazon’s live video service was watched for 5.07bn hours. That’s up from 3.11bn in the first quarter of this year – a 62.7% quarter-on-quarter increase. The report comes […]
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Source: Music ally
Tools: Smart links roundup
Using smart links is now standard practice for artists of all sizes and, as a result, competition among smart link companies has increased exponentially. Because of this, they are all trying to develop and innovate in ways that make them unique and that help them stand above their competitors. Here we overview the latest updates […]
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Source: Music ally
Country Profile – Israel 2020
Israel offers unique challenges and unique opportunities to the global music business – a relatively small country with a strong tech culture, where music streaming has, perhaps, yet to really catch on
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Source: Music ally
Spotify pulled into debate over ownership of ‘The Nod’ podcast
In the music industry, arguments over creators and ownership tend to focus on master recordings and publishing rights: how musicians can retain them from the start, or get them back later in their careers. Interestingly, there’s a similar debate starting in the podcasting industry.
As The Verge explains, it’s not just about the rights, but also about access to ‘the feed’ – the RSS feed through which a podcast is distributed, with access required to upload new episodes. Many podcasts are very personal to their creators, but if they were employees at a production studio when they came up with them and launched the shows, they belong to the company.
This isn’t illegal or even particularly unusual in the creative industries, but podcast creators are beginning to criticise it, especially for shows that have been cancelled by a studio – and this next bit does feel harsh – with no way for creators to continue them independently.
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Source: Music ally
BandLab debuts a new ‘Albums’ tool for self-releasing artists
BandLab is one of the most popular and longest-established online tools for creating music and collaborating with other musicians, although its parent company has diversified into physical instruments and music media – including buying magazines like NME and Uncut.
Now it’s getting into digital distribution for independent artists, with a tool called ‘BandLab Albums’ and the promise of “no commissions, no joining fees”. Musicians can also create bonus content including demo tracks, songwriting notes and behind-the-scenes videos.
Note, this isn’t (yet) about making albums available on external streaming services and download stores, but rather through BandLab itself – musicians can make them available for free, or create a tip jar for payment with whatever minimum amount they want to set.
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Source: Music ally
Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda created his new album on Twitch
During the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of musicians have been thinking about doing more with live-video platform Twitch. But what should they do? Live performances, DJ sets (even though there are issues here), fan Q&As, playing games… All these have been tried.
Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park has been using Twitch to broadcast his actual creation process: the music and artwork for his new album ‘Dropped Frames, Vol. 1′.
Earlier in the lockdown period, Shinoda began streaming live on Twitch every day at 10am PST, soliciting fans’ input with a system of ‘ShinodaBucks’ that they could spend on making suggestions like musical themes, with Shinoda improvising in real time to create tracks in response.
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Source: Music ally
Who cares about the charts nowadays? Well, 3.2m Brits do…
There’s a notion you’ll see voiced quite often in 2020, which is that ‘people don’t care about the charts any more’ – referring to the official music industry charts, rather than the rankings on streaming services (which are perceived to still carry a certain degree of clout).
The UK’s Official Charts Company is offering a statistical riposte to all this, however: its website broke its quarterly traffic record in Q2 this year, attracting nearly 3.2m unique monthly visitors.
“The engagement figures speak for themselves – music is the beating heart of Britain, and the one and only Official Chart remains one of the greatest snapshots of our lives here, through good times and bad,” was the ebullient statement from CEO Martin Talbot in the OCC’s blog post outlining some of its activities that fuelled the traffic growth.
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Source: Music ally
Weav Music adds voice coaching to adaptive music running app
We’ve been writing about startup Weav Music since 2017, when the company co-founded by Google Maps co-creator Lars Rasmussen signed its first major label deals.
Its first app, Weav Run, was an app for runners with ‘adaptive’ music that changed according to their pace, but not just through speeding it up and time-stretching the tracks. Now Rasmussen and co-founder Elomida Visviki have announced the app’s latest move: the addition of voice coaching, which is also adaptive to the runner’s pace and progress.
There’s a video demo of how it works here.
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Source: Music ally
Delic launches music collaboration / rights management platform
We’ve written about Delic before: it’s a service for musicians and rightsholders to manage, share and collaborate on music, which launched in beta last year, then raised £250k of funding early this year to prepare for launch.
That launch happened yesterday. Musicians can sign up; collaborate with one another and manage those projects, including sharing the files; and also use its tools for making money from their music.
It also has plans to add more features around the management of rights (blockchain ledger registrations included) as well as sync licensing, digital distribution and publishing services.
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Source: Music ally
Downtown Music Holdings to host a ’summer school’ this July
The music industry has been talking and thinking about internships a lot recently: specifically how to use them to make sure a diverse group of people are entering the industry, rather than (for example with unpaid internships) catering to a narrow demographic.
One new challenge, however: internships are tough during a global pandemic when many companies are still working remotely. Downtown Music Holdings is trying to tackle that with something called the Downtown Summer School, which it describes as “a free, week-long virtual continuing education program on all aspects of the music industry and the music business”.
It kicks off on 27 July, with sessions from executives in Downtown’s various divisions (Downtown Music Publishing, Songtrust, CD Baby and Fuga) plus external partners.
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Source: Music ally
Landr’s latest expansion is ‘Pro Network’ digital marketplace
Landr began life as a startup with an AI-powered tool to automate the mastering of recordings, before expanding into distribution and promotion. It also raised a $26m funding round in July 2019 for more expansion.
Part of that growth involves the launch of ‘Landr Pro Network’, which the company describes as a “digital marketplace that enables professionals to market and manage every facet of their businesses remotely”.
That means people working in the music industry can create profiles showing off their skills and experience, so that people can hire them for projects. Landr will also provide tools to manage these collaborations, including contracts, billing and video chat.
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Source: Music ally
MelodyVR’s 2019: £195k of revenues and a £15m net loss
Virtual reality music startup MelodyVR has published its financial results for 2019. The company’s revenues were £195k ($242k) last year, down from £1.2m in 2018.
MelodyVR’s content sales – people paying to watch VR music performances in its catalogue – nearly doubled from £19k to £36.7k, but its revenue from content licensing dropped from just under £1.2m to £158.3k.
With a cost of sales of £1.8m and administrative expenses of £14.2m, MelodyVR reported an operating loss of £15.9m in 2019, and a net loss of just under £15m.
It ended the year with cash reserves of £6.8m, although it has since raised another £10.3m from the sale of shares (it’s a publicly-listed company) to ensure that in accountancy parlance, it’s a ‘going concern’. Whether MelodyVR’s revenues can ramp up fast enough this year to make that still true in 2021 remains to be seen.
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Source: Music ally
Covid-19 tipped to spark €4.5bn loss for French music industry
In June, we reported on a claim by French industry body SNEP that the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic could deliver a €235m blow to recorded music revenues in France this year. But that’s just a fraction of the anticipated losses, it turns out.
Another industry body, TPLM (Tous Pour La Musique) which represents all aspects of the French music industry, has put out a report tracking the anticipated impact overall. “The music industry is expected to lose about 43% of its forecasted revenue, or about €4.5bn,” is its headline claim.
In these calculations, recorded music revenues are expected to come in 20% smaller than expected – a hit of €200m – but it’s the live industry that’s unsurprisingly hardest hit: an 83% drop in forecasted revenues this year, meaning a €2.29bn hit. Collections by society Sacem are predicted to come in at 23% below expectations, a €250m shortfall meanwhile.
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Source: Music ally
Report: global app spending was $50bn in first half of 2020
Could a global pandemic take the shine off the growth in the amount of money people spend on and within mobile apps? It could not.
“Consumers spent a combined total of $50.1 billion worldwide on the App Store and Google Play in the first half of 2020,” claimed app analytics firm Sensor Tower. “This was 23.4 percent more than the $40.6 billion we estimate mobile users spent across both stores during the same period in 2019. Previously, revenue had increased 20 percent between the first half of 2018 and 2019.”
So growth is accelerating, even though it’s now 12 years since the launch of Apple and Google’s app stores. Note, Sensor Tower’s figures are about spending, not overall revenues – they don’t include advertising, nor do they include money spent outside those App Store payment systems (Spotify subscriptions, Uber ride fees, Deliveroo payments etc).
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Source: Music ally