I’m a big proponent of virtual reality, especially when the audio is done well, and many have predicted that the technology will eventually be a boon to concerts. We’re going to see soon enough as virtual reality concerts will actually begin to roll out this summer. NextVR, which has been a leader in VR broadcasting […]
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If you were to listen to a week of nothing but radio, you’d think that all we listen to in the U.S. is pop and country music. If you were to read a week’s worth of the music news, you might think that dance/electronic/EDM was close to the top of the heap in what we […]
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Since 2008, Record Store Day every April has been a huge hit. In fact, many in the music industry feel that it’s been a big reason for vinyl’s resurgence, calling attention to a side of the business that had been essential dead and buried and has now returned to a level of surprising growth. Even […]
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Radiohead has always been groundbreaking when it comes to their online presence (the “pay what you want” campaign for In Rainbows being a prime example), but now it’s entered some new territory by slowly but effectively erasing its entire online presence. Yes, that’s right. It’s pretty hard to find any trace of Radiohead online right […]
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Nielsen’s latest music report is out and, as always, it’s very revealing about what we listen to in the U.S. Perhaps it’s biggest revelation is that, for the first time, old music (known as catalog sales) outsold new music in 2015. Catalog is defined as a music release that’s more than 18 months old. Of […]
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Doing a great cover version of a hit song has been a successful tactic in helping to raise the visibility of an artist or band for some time, but that practice may soon come to an end thanks to new efforts by iTunes, Spotify and other streaming services. More and more, digital streaming services are […]
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It looks like all the naysayers were wrong. Apple reported on its recent earnings call that its Apple Music streaming service was now up to 13 million paid subscribers and still growing. Much of that growth has come recently in fact, as it was reported that 2 million subscribers signed up since February alone. The present growth looks to […]
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Just when you thought music piracy was dead and buried it comes roaring back as alive as ever. The reason? Exclusives by Kanye West, Beyonce and Prince on Tidal. These exclusives have been great for Tidal, as they have helped it to jump more than 100 places on the App Store most downloaded app chart, […]
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Edison Research recently completed a study on smartphone usage and discovered that the listening habits of users isn’t quite what we believed it to be. in fact, the results were pretty surprising. 54% listened to a radio channel 16% listened to music they own 15% listened to Pandora or other radio-like streaming services 7% listen […]
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As those of you who are songwriters or copyright holders know, you make money when people use your songs, especially on television, films or commercials. It’s not easy to get placement though, but it’s getting easier thanks to Songtradr, a marketplace that matches songs and cues to people and brands who are looking for them. […]
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The 3 major labels are furthering their attack on YouTube, the platform they love to hate. With licenses up for renewal soon, the majors are trying their best to gain some leverage in the negotiation, so they have filed a submission to the US Copyright Office claiming that YouTube’s Content ID is ineffective in identifying uploads using […]
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Many artists and bands will post a teaser video of their album before it’s released, or as a brief sampler afterwards. The problem is that there’s several schools of thought on how long the teaser should be. One school has it that shortest is best, since YouTube attention span is around 8 seconds. The second […]
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Facebook Live looks to be a boon to artists and bands everywhere who want to reach their Facebook fans. That said, there are some best practices in using the platform, according to Facebook’s Media Blog. Here’s what they suggest: 1. Alert friends and followers in advance about plans to broadcast live, in order to build up […]
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Here’s an interesting twist in the Kanye West/Tidal story. He’s getting sued by Tidal subscribers who claimed they were duped into paying for the service. It all stems from when the performer released his latest album The Life of Pablo exclusively on Tidal. At the time, West claimed that the album would never appear on […]
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If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know that I’ve been saying all along to watch out for Amazon Prime Music as the next big disrupter in the streaming music space. Why? Prime Music is part of the popular Amazon Prime subscription service that already has a reported 75 million […]
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