It used to be that if you wanted to be in the music business on the business side of things, the only way to learn about it was by somehow getting a job in the industry and working your way up. That’s still true to some extent, but it’s now easier than ever to get […]
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My guest this week is Grammy-winning producer/engineer J.J. Blair, who has a wide variety of credits that go from Johnny Cash to Rod Stewart to Weezer to the Black Eyed Peas, and many more. J.J. is an avid microphone collector and we spoke at length about his collection, his studio, and his techniques, as […]
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Live streaming music and video was once hailed as the next big thing online, and perhaps it still will be, but so far major interest hasn’t materialized as predicted. There are a number of companies still in the game, but a shakeout has begun as the latest round of company acquisitions has shown. Most recently, […]
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In what may be the wave of the future, a company offering stock in rapper Eminem’s music royalties will soon hit the stock market. The new company owned by Royalty Exchange (a company that brokers royalties) called Royalty Flow filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise between $11 million and $50 million via a […]
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Social networks are now part of the fabric of our lives. Regardless of your age and where you live in the world, chances are that you’ve recently participated in a social network in some way. If we just look at the major social networks, we find that they have an enormous number of users. Facebook now […]
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It’s been a long time coming, but hip-hop is now the undeniable leader when it comes to music consumption. For the first time since Nielsen started tracking the music industry in 1991, R&B/hip-hop officially dominates all other genres, according to Billboard. Hip-hop now claims 25.1 percent of total music consumption, while the #2 genre, rock, can […]
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Frank Wells started his career in the music business as head of technical services at the famed Masterfonics studio complex in Nashville, but then made a left turn when he become editor first of Audio Media Magazine, and then later Pro Sound News. I talked to Frank about some of the things that go on […]
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There are still many artists and musicians that believe that streaming music is the devil, even worse than piracy. The idea is that since the payout for each stream is so small, an artist is just not capable of generating any serious income online. Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” might change your mind about that, […]
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Chances are that you haven’t utilized the paid subscription feature on your YouTube channel or even considered it. The chances are also pretty high that you don’t pay to subscribe to another YouTube channel either. That’s one of the reasons why the service is now killing that feature – it’s no use having if people […]
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SocialTimes recently ran a post about the 8 social media mistakes that you can make, but the post was aimed strictly at traditional marketers. I’ve reposted them here with a music twist that specifically looks at artists and bands. Here we go. Mistake #1. Having no social media strategy. Randomly posting without a reason is only a […]
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Recently the recording world was shocked to hear that Berklee College of Music acquired one of New York City’s most glorious studios – Avatar (formerly known as Powerstation). There are still a lot of questions as to what’s going to happen with the facility, but on this podcast we get the answers right from the […]
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At around 65 million, Spotify has more monthly paying customers than any of its competitors by far. One of the reasons is that it was one of the first in the streaming music space, and another is that it has a fairly simple user interface. But the biggest reason by far is the fact that […]
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In an effort to make sharing music on Spotify easier, the platform has launched its own version of Apple’s Messages that lets users listen to previews of suggested songs directly in the app. The new iMessage app allows you to search the music streaming service’s entire library for a specific song, then send it to a […]
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Social media holds quite of number of advantages over traditional media when it comes to promotion. It’s the hub around which the online wheel that we live in today turns, and the following (inspired by marketing guru Simon Mainwaring) provides some of the reasons why. 1. Cost: Beyond your time and production costs, social media promotion is anywhere from […]
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YouTube has constantly been at odds with the recorded music industry for its meager payouts, and now it’s found a way to even cut the payout on some of its biggest content creators in areas other than music as well. The video service recently started using artificial intelligence tools to flag offensive videos on the platform […]
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