Will The Spotify Price Increase Trickle Down To Artists?

The Spotify price increase recently announced affected 12 markets, including the United States, which many see as the first step to overall increases over time. In most cases the increases were limited to bundled subscription plans, like in the case of the United States (Family Plan), and the United Kingdom (Student, Family, and Duo Plans). […]

Continue reading

Songwriters Aren’t Being Paid Enough From Streaming And This Report Outlines Why

Songwriting was always a way that a musician could make a good or even great living without having to be a performer. The problem is that most of the rules for how songwriters get paid were written back in the days of physical media. In our streaming economy things are tilted more towards the performer […]

Continue reading

Producer Brian Malouf, The 10 Most Expensive Albums, And Music Industry Drowning In Data

My guest on the podcast this week is Brian Malouf who’s a multi-platinum American producer, engineer, and mixer who has worked with Michael Jackson, Queen, Madonna, Pearl Jam, Stevie Wonder and other world-known artists.  Also serving as an executive at several major record labels over the years, his work has amassed a total of 53 gold, platinum, […]

Continue reading

The 5 Steps To YouTube Video Optimization In 2021

Just putting a video up on YouTube is not enough these days. If your video isn’t optimized properly then the YouTube algorithm won’t drive traffic to it, so it doesn’t do you much good at that point regardless of its quality. Luckily, optimizing a video isn’t that difficult, it just takes a little extra time […]

Continue reading

The Popularity of Clubhouse Is Causing The Major Social Networks To Retaliate

Whenever a new hot social network shows up you can count on an automatic knee-jerk reaction from the major social networks to come up with something similar. Clubhouse is the latest platform to start gaining some traction, and as a result, Facebook and Twitter have already released their own versions of the same audio-only idea. […]

Continue reading

Streaming Recommendations, World’s Quietest Room, And Producer Richard “Younglord” Frierson On My Latest Podcast

My guest on the podcast this week is Richard “Younglord” Frierson, who’s a Grammy-nominated hip hop and R&B producer and a founder of Truth Licensing, a major provider of music for films, TV shows and commercials. Rich started producing for Puff Daddy’s Hitmen production team at the tender age of 16. His production credits include Puff Daddy, […]

Continue reading

Will SXSW Change Now That A Big Corporation Is A Part-Owner?

Music conferences come and go over the years, but one that not only keeps going but continues to with gravitas is South By Southwest. SXSW has always been thought of as not only the king of the hill for these types of gatherings, but remains respected for not being strictly a money-grab (although there’s plenty […]

Continue reading

These 3 Facts Will Keep You From Being Duped By Apple Music’s Royalty Letter

You’ve probably read about the royalty letter that Apple Music sent out to its artists last week stating how the service was paying about a penny a stream, almost 3 times what Spotify is paying. If you’re an artist that probably made you want to go protest in front of Spotify headquarters (something that’s actually […]

Continue reading

Meddling CEO Travis Rosenblatt, Latest Social Trends, And Cleaning Microphones On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on the podcast this week is Travis Rosenblatt, who used his experience in A&R for Warner Bros and 300 Entertainment to create Medding, a subscription-based service which offers real time data on global music markets, as well as track capabilities, analytics and communications tools. Meddling is used by record labels, music publishers, artist management, law […]

Continue reading

Spotify’s Car Thing Is Now A Real Thing

Spotify has made overtures about getting into the hardware business before, but now it’s for real with the introduction of its new “Car Thing,” a smart speaker designed specifically for the automobile. The device is now in limited release in the United States for a select number of Spotify subscribers. Car Thing comes with three […]

Continue reading

Facebook Adds New Monetization Options For Short Videos

When it comes to monetizing content, Facebook has always been behind the other popular social services. That doesn’t mean that the company isn’t trying to catch up though. Recently Facebook announced a new range of monetization options focusing on short videos. Is this an effort to eat into TikTok’s recent popularity? Maybe, but money always […]

Continue reading

Guitarist Jennifer Batten, Payola For Streaming, And Supercharged Hard Drives On My Latest Podcast

My guest on the podcast this week is Jennifer Batten, who played lead and rhythm guitar on Michael Jackson’s Bad, Dangerous and HIStory world tours. She’s also appeared on 2 Jeff Beck albums and was a member of his touring band for 3 years. Jennifer continues to give clinics and master classes all over the world, and […]

Continue reading

YouTube Checks Now Warns Of Copyright Problems Before You Post

If you post on YouTube a lot you’ve probably run into a copyright problem before. Maybe you’ve used a piece of a song by someone else, or a piece of video, or even a graphic. Maybe you’ve received a copyright warning over your own music, which is the ultimate insult. The problem is that these […]

Continue reading

3 Reasons Why Spotify Playlist Promoters Might Not Be The Answer

We’ve all seen how just one placement on the right Spotify playlist can take an unknown track and boost its streams into the millions. As a result, there’s now an entire business built around helping artists get placed on playlists. Officially, Spotify says that there’s no way that any of these playlist promoters are influential […]

Continue reading

“Oh, No. I’ve Been Hacked!” And Other Funny Accidents

It all started last Friday evening when I started getting emails saying that my various sites were redirecting to other places on the Web. Most of the redirects were trying to sell something (like the Google Play Store) but none of them were pointed at my blogs, podcast or personal website URL. I tried to […]

Continue reading