Earlier this year, singer-songwriter-producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds — known for writing massive hits for Toni Braxton, TLC, and Boyz II Men — received a call from P. Diddy. Diddy’s job was to convince Edmonds to face off against Teddy Riley on an Instagram-based rap battle. And he didn’t mince words. …
Read More »Apple Music Has a 24-Hour Video Channel Now (Someone Call MTV)
Music streaming killed the video star — and then brought it back to life? Apple is offering a new riff on The Buggles’ infamous proclamation:Early on Monday morning, the Cupertino brain trust announced Apple Music TV, a new station within Apple Music that provides users with a 24-hour ongoing livestream …
Read More »Winter Is Coming. Concert Venues Are Terrified
Todd Mayo says it was like finding buried treasure when he started The Caverns. Mayo was spelunking, excavating a cave on a plot of land he’d purchased — when he realized that the scenic space in Pelham, Tennessee could be an impressive outdoor music venue. Since its founding in 2018, …
Read More »Pandora's Ex-CEO Tim Westergren Wants to (Finally) Make Artists Money
Livestreaming platforms are a dime a dozen these days, with many of them offering fans glittery features like virtual-reality visuals, gamified interfaces, and geofenced “local” shows. But Tim Westergren thinks of all that as only half the puzzle. “Livestreaming doesn’t really matter if you can’t get people to see it,” …
Read More »Influencers Are Plugging More Songs. Now Their Engagement Is Suffering
Back in 2018, it was possible to break a single via an Instagram meme. It happened with Rich the Kid’s “New Freezer:” Omid Noori, co-founder of the digital marketing and management company ATG, stumbled on a meme featuring several kids whipsawing their heads to the track; he then paid a …
Read More »Noah Cyrus Made Her New Music Video in a PlayStation Game
Noah Cyrus‘s platinum single “July” just got a new music video nearly a year after the song’s release — and it was shot completely through the video game Dreams, a Sony PlayStation exclusive. Cyrus’s video-game experience is the latest in Sony’s “A Sony Collaboration Series,” which pointedly highlights Sony’s cross-company …
Read More »The Brilliant Marketing of Taylor Swift's Mysterious Bonus Track
Try to think of another time when a star released an album with a physical-only bonus track — but that physical product was only made available online, through one website, with a weeks-long shipping delay. Therein lies the marketing genius of Taylor Swift‘sFolklore, which dropped on Friday, sans one rare …
Read More »Major League Baseball Will Blast Pre-Recorded Noise Into Crowdless Games
A typical American summer with hot dogs, soft drinks, and a jam-packed baseball stadium won’t exist in 2020. But the games themselves are still scheduled to take place — just within empty stadiums, with music and pre-recorded noise pumped in — marking the first time Major League Baseball has ever …
Read More »What Kind of Year Will It Be for the Record Business? The Forecasts Are Getting Worse, Not Better
Recorded music has been in a state of limbothroughout quarantine: Though live events like concerts and other in-person money-makers have shut down, songs and albums have been buoyed by streaming — so things are difficult, but not terminal. On April 20th, Olivier Nusse, the CEO of Universal Music France, gave …
Read More »Could Music Companies Help Black Artists By Adjusting Old Record Deals?
“If the music industry wants to support black lives, labels and platforms can start with amending contracts, distributing royalties, diversifying boardrooms, and retroactively paying back all the black artists, and their families, they have built their empires on.” This statement, from professor and author Josh Kun, caught fire in influential …
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