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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Post Mixer/Source Elements Co-Founder Robert Marshall On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on the podcast today is Robert Marshall, who is a sound designer, mixer and partner of Chicago audio post house SUM1. Robert has spent the last 15 years doing sound design, mixes and ADR for film, television and radio, including several Superbowl spots.  He’s also a founding partner of Source Elements, a company that provides a number […]

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The Average Spotify User Pays Just $5.50 Per Month

For years various music industry insiders have said that the average price for a streaming music subscription should be in the $5 per month range in order to maximize growth. The major record labels have worked hard to keep the price as high as possible however, with the preferred U.S. price at $9.99 per month […]

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YouTube May Come Out On Top As Article 13 Flounders

The music industry had great hopes that it would finally deal a blow to YouTube if Article 13 of the European Union’s new copyright law were to pass. After a massive marketing campaign against it, it looks like YouTube might have won the war, as the controversial bill is taking on water fast. In a […]

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Some Pledge Music Artists Having Trouble Collecting

As if being an artist isn’t hard enough already. Imagine that you go to the trouble of designing and marketing your crowdfunding campaign, and through your hard work it successfully reaches its goal or beyond. Then you find that you can’t get your hands on the funds in order to fulfill your promised product to […]

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Cassettes Are Dead? Nope, Sales Up 23%

It’s funny how music formats long left for dead keep reappearing with new-found sales vigor. That’s the case with the lowly cassette, a format that was often denigrated even when it was hot. Believe it or not, sales last year actually grew by 23%, and not from indie bands selling their wares in clubs. These […]

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Voice-Over Artist Andrew Peters, Spotify Hardware, And Tinnitus Relief On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on the podcast today is Andrew Peters, who started as popular radio personality and eventually transitioned to television as the host of Australian music shows like Rock Arena, Trax, Simulrock, the Live Aid broadcast, and interviewer for the MTV special Australian Made. After 20 years on radio and television he’s become one of the top voice actors in SouthEast Asia, Australia and […]

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Latest Nielsen Music Report Shows How Healthy The Music Industry Really Is

It used to be that you’d have to wait for the music industry reports from the previous year to be released in late February or early March, but our wonderful new digital music world has turned that around. Nielsen Music’s latest annual report is now available, and it helps us gauge the health of the […]

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Tidal Being Investigated For Fake Streams

Last year the Norwegian financial newspaper Dagens Næringsliv posted a story about receiving information that the streaming platform Tidal inflated the play counts for 2 huge albums from 2016, Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo, by as many as several hundred million. The same publication is now reporting that Norway’s Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime division […]

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3 Steps To YouTube Tags

One of the things that many people overlook when they post their videos to YouTube is the tag feature. Often there’s not much thought given to creating them, but you’d be surprised how helpful a few good tags can be, especially when it comes to organic search (YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet). […]

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Latest Billboard #1 Album Sells Just 823 Copies

It’s a known fact that physical sales are in decline, but what does it mean when you can get a #1 album on the Billboard 200 chart by selling only 823 copies? A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie‘s latest project, HOODIE SZN, reached that dubious mark, which should put the importance of the CD or album into the proper […]

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Drummer Denny Seiwell, Copyright Overview, And Vocal Tuning History On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

My guest on the podcast today is Denny Seiwell, who went from being one of the top session drummers in New York City to become a founding member of Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles band Wings, to playing on television and film scores in Los Angeles. Besides McCartney, Denny has worked with artists like Billy Joel, Joe Cocker, James Brown, and Denice Williams, among many others. […]

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SiriusXM Subscribers Increase, But What About Autonomous Cars?

With news that SiriusXM added around 1.3 million new subscribers last year, things are looking up for the satellite broadcast service. Sirius now has a total of 34 million paid subscribers, and there’s hardly a new auto that doesn’t come with it as an option. All this makes the future look pretty rosy for the […]

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