Beatchain CEO Ben Mendoza, Apple Buys Label Services Company, And Hit Songs Keys And Tempos On My Latest Podcast

My guest on the podcast today is Ben Mendoza, who created UK-based Beatchain along with co-founder and musician Steve Jones to accelerate artist growth by using data science and automation.  Ben has spent almost 25 years using software to improve decision making and automate time-consuming processes with leading expense management company MDSL, which Beatchain now brings to the music […]

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Universal Music Had More Than $7 Billion In Revenue Last Year

Who says that the major record labels are dying? Far from it, if the latest revenue figures from Universal Music Group (UMG) is any indication. The company brought in more than $7.1 billion last year, and much of its growth was attributed to streaming music income. Profits come from having hits and Universal certainly had […]

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EU Copyright Directive Text Is Approved And Goes Towards Final Vote

The European Union’s Article 13 Copyright Directive which holds platforms like YouTube accountable for the infringement of user uploaded content is finally moving towards a final vote after some revision of text that now seems to appease all voting parties. YouTube has been lobbying heavily for the text to not contain user generated content (UGC) […]

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The Mystery Of The 25 Year Old Rock Song Hitting The Top Of The Japanese Charts

Last week there was a lot of press around why a 25 year old Dinosaur Jr. song called “Over Your Shoulder” appeared out of the blue at #18 on the Japanese Billboard charts. As far as anyone could tell, there was no reason for this song to appear on any chart since it wasn’t part […]

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AEG And SMG Merge To Become The World’s Largest Venue Company

LiveNation has been almost an overwhelming force in the concert business over the last decade, with smaller competitors like AEG and SMG nipping at its heals. Those days may be over however, as AEG and SMG owner private equity firm Onex have agreed to merge. The new company, dubbed ASM Global, will now control over […]

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Songwriters Get A Raise, High Sample Rate Overview, And Engineer Paul Edwards On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on the podcast today is Paul Edwards who’s a Montreal-based engineer who has worked on projects by Smashing Pumpkins, Flaming Lips, Ben Harper, Arctic Monkeys, Interpol, Bloc Party, Seal and many more.  For 3 years Paul was also the lead audio engineer for the online mastering service LANDR. In the interview we talked about getting into mastering, some insights into […]

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The Marshmello Concert On Fortnite May Show The Next Realm For Artists

For a music artist, playing in front of thousands represents at the very least, a minor success. While superstars regularly play to tens of thousands and festivals can top that by a factor of 10, how does appearing before millions sound? No, I’m not referring to the Super Bowl halftime show but the recent in-game […]

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Amuse To Use Machine Learning To Determine Royalty Advances

Getting an advance on your royalties is always a wild guess about what you’re worth. The label or publisher wants to keep it low, and the artist/songwriter wants it as high as possible in case it’s the last money he or she ever sees. The future of royalty advances may lie with artificial intelligence and […]

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5 Artists Sue Sony And Universal Music For Copyright Infringement

Record labels have always done whatever they could to keep as much money as possible and limit what they paid to artists. Back in the day of the music entrepreneur/label owner this was expected, but as the music business is fairly corporate now, you’d think those days would be over. Not so, according to 5 […]

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Why A Trademark Can Be Important To Your Music Brand

If you’ve established your logo or a unique look to your music brand, it can be quite beneficial to have it trademarked. The reason is that not only can it provide an additional income stream at some point, but it can also provide some protection as well. Here’s an excerpt from the 2nd edition of […]

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Producer Bill Reynolds, Spotify Hacked, And Apple’s New Processors On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on my latest podcast episode is Bill Reynolds, who’s a Grammy-nominated producer, engineer, mixer, songwriter and former bass player with Band of Horses. Bill’s credits include the Avett Brothers, Band of Horses, Truth and Salvage Co, Tim Chaisson, Lissie, among others, and his songs have appeared on TV shows like House, Justified and Army Wives. He currently works out of his […]

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Streaming Music Revenue Is Up, But The Per Song Rates May Have Fallen

How steaming music royalties are derived is such a complex subject that even few within the industry know how it works completely, so it’s easy to get a skewed viewpoint based on limited information that we’re sometimes fed. That said, most data is relevant in some way as long as it’s put into context. One […]

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There’s At Least One Music Genre That Still Favors CDs – Classical

Sales for CDs keep on falling, but predictions of the format’s total demise are still premature as it continues to hang around. While download sales have fallen off the cliff, the CD sales decline has been a lot more gradual. In fact, there’s still at least one music genre where followers still prefer the round […]

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Why Musicians And Artists Have To Think More B2B Instead of B2C

You might be wondering about the title and that’s because it contains some popular business-speak, so let me translate – B2B means “business to business” and B2C means “business to consumer.” This really relates to artists and bands, but also to musicians in general because we’re usually thinking more about our fans and audiences than […]

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It Looks Like SoundCloud Is Getting Healthier

Artists and bands everywhere have been worried for a while about whether SoundCloud would change drastically in order to survive, thanks to the ever growing losses that the company was experiencing. The platform is the main window to the outside world for many indie act’s music, and for many the thought of finding a new […]

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