Spotify just bounded over it’s last major roadblock to going public with its new licensing agreement with Warner Music, and now it’s final hurdle is convincing the SEC that its direct listing is on the up and up. This means that the company looks to meet its goal of being listed on the New York […]
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Things have a way of coming full circle, when something old becomes new again. Hit songs come back around, old commercials and marketing come back (Coke), audio formats (8-track and cassette tapes), and even products become hot again (witness the MacDonald’s Schezwan sauce thanks to a Rick And Morty episode). Probably the last thing that […]
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Everyone would love for their video to be like Whiz Khalifa’s “See You Again” and go viral with millions of views overnight, but that rarely happens. That said, here’s an excerpt from my just released Social Media Promotion For Musicians Second Edition that provides a number of generally accepted principles for creating a video that […]
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If you’ve read this blog for any length of time then you know that SoundCloud is in some trouble, and even though it just received yet another bailout and changed CEO’s, it’s future is up in the air. No one really knows the direction that the service will take, and that’s the problem. Will it […]
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We all like really great audio gear, but many of us (especially when you’re first starting out) can’t afford it. One saving grace is that there are now many companies that provide kits so you can build the analog gear you need, and one of these is DIY Recording Equipment. This week I have the […]
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There’s a lifespan in the entertainment business where something is small and hip than not many people know about, then it’s discovered by the press as more people flock to it, then it’s homogenized by large corporations wanting to get in on the trend, then it ends up pricing out the very people that started […]
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Artists and bands that are just getting started or playing in a new location always have the same fret: Will anyone show up? Unless you’ve already received some sort of visibility either through your music or social media, the answer is usually that there won’t be as many people as you’d like, and that could […]
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Even though most of us have changed to listening to music via online streams, physical product is never going away. People still buy CDs and vinyl is a very hot commodity, even though the sales number aren’t what they once were. So what does it take to get people to actually buy your product? Nick […]
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We keep hearing about the trickery taking place on both Spotify and Apple Music where artists are trying to game the system by posting album length songs of silence that repeat over and over in order to boost royalties. Thankfully, most streaming services are now on the lookout for these fakes, but there is one […]
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If you ever recorded a cover song for an album or YouTube you know how time consuming getting a publishing license can be. Loudr makes that process easy for indie artists, and went one step further by taking its technology and making it easier for publishers to get paid from streaming services as well. Loudr […]
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There are many more places to upload videos besides YouTube these days, so that means that social media in general holds more power than ever for fan engagement. The real question is, what is the ideal video length to get the most fan engagement? Not surprisingly, it’s different for each platform. Hubspot did a study […]
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We now live in a singles world, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the recent Nielsen Music Half-Year Report. Album consumption has taken a dramatic turn for the worse, as even superstar artists aren’t seeing anything near the numbers of the past. For instance, here’s the top 10 (for the U.S.): 1 Ed […]
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If you haven’t been paying attention, Spotify recently settled a lawsuit over unpaid mechanical royalties to songwriters. The suit maintained that the company didn’t have the license to play some of the music available, while Spotify claimed that it didn’t have the information to adequately disburse the payments. Instead of fighting the lawsuit in court, […]
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It wasn’t that long ago that the recorded music industry was completely in the doldrums, knocked down to less than half its peak business by a failing physical recording business that showed no signs of being replaced by downloads. Everyone predicted the worst as there was absolutely no faith that the fledgling streaming services could […]
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My guest for this week’s podcast is Gary Myerberg-Lauter, who has installed and maintained studios for major facilities and superstar artists. Gary’s worked at the famed A&M Studios during its heyday, set up a major portable recording rig for Bruce Springsteen, helped run LA’s famous Cello Studios then brought it back to life as East […]
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