Many thanks to Feedspot for naming my Inner Circle Podcast at #2 in their list of Top 10 Audio Podcasts. After 300+ episodes I think we’re getting the hang of this podcast thing! Seriously though, thank you for your support as that’s what keeps me going. I make no money from the podcast so it’s […]
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Songwriters are super cautious these days since plagiarism lawsuits are flying and the winner in court is usually the one you’d least suspect. One of the reasons why it’s so tough to defend a copyright lawsuit is because the court now considers a melody just a sequence of pitches, so Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin […]
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Contests are a great way to boost your audience but it’s not as easy to hold one on you favorite social network as you think. Without the help of a third party contest tool you may be in violation of the service’s terms, which can get you into hot water fast. Luckily there are many […]
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My guest on the podcast this week is the legendary producer John Boylan, who started in the business as a member of the burgeoning folk scene in the Village in New York City that set the tone for the explosion in the music business to unimagined heights. He then went on to become a songwriter in the famed […]
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Warner Music Group announced that it was filling for an IPO last week, and while that in itself wasn’t particularly earth-shattering news, one particular statement in its required S-1 filing was. It indicates a change that may be coming soon to online music distribution services in the form of streaming price increases. “We believe that, […]
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Streaming is having a tremendous influence on the very essence of a song (its form) these days for better or worse. Many pop songs are near or under the 2 minute mark, devoid of intros, bridges and solos, in order to get right to the meat of the tune and keep the listener for at […]
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YouTube has been the most widely used platform for music consumption for at least a decade now, and you’d think that it would be easy for the company to turn all those users into subscribers. It turns out that’s happening slowly but surely as Alphabet chief Sundar Pichai revealed on the company’s latest earnings call that […]
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My guest on the podcast this week is Jay Gilbert, who’s love of taking concert photographs eventually translated into being on the cutting edge of digital sales and marketing as an executive with Universal, Sony and Warner Music Groups. Jay has created and executed unique online marketing plans for a wide variety of artists, including Elton John, KISS, […]
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One of the thing that artists, musicians and even labels constantly struggle with is how an email blast or press release should be formatted for best engagement. There are many different ways to do this, but if you’ve ever received anything from Amazon you know that what they do is particularly effective. It seems that […]
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Artists, record labels, and music trends come and go, but an unseen backbone of the music industry since 1939 has closed – vinyl manufacturer Rainbo Records. Rainbo has been the place to go for indies since there was such a thing. This was not only for artists trying to get their initial break like Husker […]
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There was a huge amount of outrage from the television composer community last month when Discovery Networks announced that it would no longer be paying composers for their back work, and everything going forward would be a buyout. The backlash was more than the channel group, which controls 20 popular cable channels including the Travel […]
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My guest on the podcast this week is Dwight Heckelman who, after a stint at Berklee College of Music, felt that music higher education needed to be held to a higher standard and would be a lot better if it were apprenticeship-based and relationship-driven. He called on his experience as a graduate of Belmont University, at major and […]
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While Spotify is still seen as the 800 pound gorilla of the streaming world, its competitors are quietly catching up. Apple Music, for instance, now has more paying subscribers in the U.S. than Spotify, and Amazon Music recently announced that it passed 55 million paying customers as well. “Amazon Music kicks off 2020 by revealing […]
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If you’re not already aware, both Facebook and Instagram offer the ability for users to add your song lyrics to their Facebook and Instagram Stories. While I’ve never considered that essential for music exposure (especially for an artist that isn’t adept at lyric writing yet), it can help in many cases so the feature shouldn’t […]
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Unlike disruptions of the past that no one (especially the people most likely to be affected) saw coming, anyone who reads the news knows that artificial intelligence is affecting them now and will be even more so in the future. That become all too apparent for 57 humans who are now out on the streets […]
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