Category Archives for "Music Industry News"
October 19, 2016
Amazon’s Actually Losing Money From It’s New Music Service
The major record labels are adamant about keeping the price of a music streaming subscription at $9.99 per month, regardless of the platform, so it was a great surprise last week when Amazon announced that its new Amazon Music Unlimited service was priced at $7.99 per month for Amazon Prime members. It turns out that the […]
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October 13, 2016
Don’t Be Fooled By Amazon Music Unlimited’s Price
Amazon has finally launched it’s long awaited stand-alone streaming music service and it’s called Amazon Music Unlimited. On the surface it has a number of interesting features that differentiate it from the other major streaming services, but one has to wonder whether potential users will find them compelling enough to subscribe. Perhaps the service’s biggest […]
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October 12, 2016
There’s A New Sound Recording Metadata Standard
Many artists, bands and musicians don’t think much about metadata when creating a song but record labels take it very seriously. It’s a major way to be able to track a song to make sure that all the stakeholders get paid. That said, metadata isn’t standardized and is sometimes filled out incorrectly, defeating its purpose. […]
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October 10, 2016
Spotify’s Paid Over A Billion Dollars To Record Labels This Year
The major record labels seem to have it out for Spotify, but the platform is contributing mightily to their bottom lines. It’s been reported that the company has already paid $1.2 billion dollars in royalties to the music industry this year, and over $5 billion lifetime. The platform is paying out around $133 million per […]
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October 5, 2016
Amoeba Music Can Now Sell Weed Too
In what seems to be a match made in heaven, the Amoeba Music record store based in Berkeley, CA can soon begin selling marijuana as well. An Amoeba employee leaked the announcement on Facebook, according to Fact. It’s been reported that the store intends to put a dispensary where its current Jazz Room is now located to […]
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October 3, 2016
YouTube Misses The Point With Its Lyor Cohen Hire
If you want to start a music label executive ranting and raving, just mention YouTube. It’s currently public enemy #1 to the music industry thanks to its relative intransigence over royalty payouts that execs and artists alike feel are way too low. That’s a good reason why Youtube may think its brand new hire of […]
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September 28, 2016
Is The Music Supervisor Killing Songwriting?
In my experience there are two kinds of songwriters. One writes completely from the heart as an expression of art, while the second does it more as a business, writing whatever the situation calls for. Neither is more noble than the other, they’re just different, and both require a tremendous amount of skill and passion. That said, […]
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September 26, 2016
Apple Music At 17 Million Subscribers After 70 Exclusives
Record labels hate giving exclusives to streaming services, but they appear to be working when it comes to signing up new paid subscribers. During Apple’s latest product rollout, CEO Tim Cook mentioned that Apple Music was now at 17 million subscribers thanks to over 70 exclusives with artist like Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean and Drake. The […]
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September 21, 2016
Yeah, People Still Buy Songs, Especially When They’re 69 Cents
There’s an experiment going on in Apple’s iTunes Store that not many are paying attention to, but it just might prolong the download side of the music business for a few more years. It’s true that streaming is all the rage, with subscription numbers increasing at a steady pace while the download business is falling […]
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September 14, 2016
Will The New Cheap Tier From Pandora And Amazon Be Worth It?
Ever since music streaming began in earnest, there’s been a mantra inside the music industry that’s gone something like this – “Until the paid subscription rate gets to $5 per month, streaming is never going to scale.†That’s only partially been true, as subscriber numbers have grown steadily at the now standard $10 per month, […]
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September 12, 2016
Warner Brothers Reports Its Own Site As Illegal
If you haven’t had a site or channel or video that you owned be contested because someone is claiming you don’t own the content, consider yourself lucky. This practice seems to be growing by the day and it can be a real pain to straighten out. For the most part, this process is automated either by […]
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September 5, 2016
The Most Expensive Vinyl Record Ever
Vinyl record collectors can really go overboard when it comes to a rare record or a rare edition or version. Just like coin collectors, they especially revel in records with a flaw that were quickly pulled off the market since there’s only a limited number ever printed. So what do you think a classic record marked […]
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September 1, 2016
Rap, Rock, Country And EDM Aren’t Considered Real Music In Chicago
When it comes to the issue of “fine arts,” rap, country, rock and DJ-based music are not considered real music in Chicago, and believe it or not, that’s actually a good thing. Small venues that hold 750 or less in Cook County aren’t subject to a 3% admission fee tax because what goes on in […]
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August 31, 2016
Spotify Appears To Be Punishing Artists
Talk about a sore loser, it looks like Spotify is punishing artists who do exclusives with Apple Music. According to an article in Bloomberg, the service is manipulating search results so that those who provided Apple Music with an exclusive on a new release don’t appear in the top ranks of searches after their music […]
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August 29, 2016
The Success Of New Music Fridays Still Up In The Air
For the longest time new music was released by most record labels in the United States on Tuesday, which made a lot of sense. Tuesday is usually a slow news day, so it was (and still is) pretty easy to get the word out without having to wade through the noise, plus it gave record […]
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