SoundCloud is seeking a buyer, and that could make it much more difficult for indie music artists across all genres to have their music heard. The streaming music service is reportedly seeking a sale in the $1 billion range in a deal that could alter that part of the music landscape for a long time. According to […]
Continue readingHere’s the music industry news roundup from the last week. There’s much more diverse news than previous weeks, but streaming continues to dominate the conversation. Taylor Swift is the highest earning celebrity. The thing is, she didn’t get that way from selling music. She learned early that it’s the brand that sells. Elizabeth Warren has it in […]
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Here’s a very interesting video from The Economist that looks at the new dynamics of the record business and whether an artist really needs a record label these days. It’s a veiled advert for Kobalt, but frankly, that company is way ahead of the game when it comes to not only collecting artist royalties, but […]
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We all love vinyl and if you’re an artist you’d like to release your next album on it. The problem is the long 6 month+ wait times at the pressing plants and the big orders that you have to place just to get in line. Qrates.com offers vinyl orders for as few as 100 copies, […]
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YouTube is capable of making people stars, and while that happens to exceptional content creators, most of them are not music artists. One of the reasons that artists don’t fall into the YouTube star category is that their general mindset is still set in the past. Here are the 4 places were artists go wrong on YouTube, […]
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After a year run up, the streaming service Deezer has finally launched in the United States. Spotify’s major competitor in Europe is now in the world’s largest market, but the question is, does it have enough to differentiate itself from the rest of the current streaming contenders in the space? The Paris-based service launched in […]
Continue readingHere’s some interesting music business news from the last week. There’s a lot going on in the streaming world, but as usual, that’s not all. Warner Music had it’s best quarter in a long time. Streaming agrees with this major label, and it’s up around 14% over the same time last year. Guest what? It’s […]
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Who says Apple’s music executives aren’t smart? In what may end up being a brilliant strategic move, the company discretely made a proposal to the governing Copyright Royalty Board to increase the song publishing royalty rate to 9.1 cents per 100 interactive streams, a significant increase over what is currently paid, according to the NY […]
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On this week’s Inner Circle Podcast #118 I’m happy to feature Bobby Summerfield, my compadre from the AudioNowcast, as my guest. Bobby’s worked with a variety of great artists ranging from Michael Jackson to Carole King to world music superstar Johnny Clegg to the legendary Harry Belafonte. He’s also a composer with his own music […]
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In another blow to the mom and pop music store, Warner Music has cut off more than 100 accounts that do less than $10,000 in business per year with the company, according to a post on Pitchfork. That means that in order to have a direct account with Warners to get the best pricing, a […]
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Artists, bands and record labels have issued an all-out assault on YouTube this year over a variety of issues that mostly stem from what they consider to be low royalty payouts. The problem is, while it’s likely that many of the presumptions leading to the attacks have a basis in reality, their conclusions may be […]
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Here’s some interesting music business news from the last week. As always, it’s surprising how some old topics keep on coming back to life, and the new topics that we never expected pop up. Streaming music has surpassed YouTube music views. They said it would never happen, but streaming music is now more popular that […]
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I’m very pleased to have engineer/gear manufacturer Steven Slate on Episode #117 of my Inner Circle Podcast. Steven will discuss his journey from musician to engineer to manufacturing some of the coolest and most forward-thinking audio gear available today. You’ll also hear all about what goes into to making a product like the Virtual Mic or the […]
Continue readingIf you’re a music fan or musician on the move, you probably want to know what the music scene is like in the various cities across the U.S. ValuePenguin set out to determine the best cities in the country for music fans by compiling 15 different data points (most of which aren’t specified) into 3 […]
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The music business was once all about the single song, transitioned to the album, and looks to be transitioning back again, as album sales sink lower and lower. While the writing may be on the wall that the concept of an album may be as outmoded as a buggy whip, artists, bands and record labels […]
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