Music Ally Focus

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. Apple has just announced its new show-level podcast subscriptions. Spotify also plans to announce its own similar offering, having invested heavily in podcasting in the last few years. So what does it mean for musicians and songwriters? Could show-level podcast subscriptions mean musician podcasters start creating their own paywalls with exclusive content – possibly including paywalled music too? Should artists create non-music audio that listeners will play for? Could you even release music as "a podcast" and make more money? Stu 'n' Joe dig in... Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe 👋 Sign up for Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge – an at-a-glance overview of the whirling, weird maelstrom that is the modern music industry: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

We were thrilled to talk to techno legend Richie Hawtin and Endel CEO Oleg Stavitsky – two people at the cutting edge of where Music and AI intersects. Hawtin, the pioneering musician, DJ and technologist partnered with Endel, the Berlin-based platform that creates adaptive, real-time personalised sounds and music using AI on a brand new project, "Deeper Focus", which automatically creates music based on Hawtin's work. We chatted to  Richie and Oleg about their new project, and their thoughts on how music, musicians, and AI can work together - and what it means for the music industry, and for musicians afraid that AI will replace them. Music Ally readers can get an exclusive free month of Endel: https://code.endel.io/?code=musically Sign up for Music Ally's free weekly music industry newsletter, The Knowledge: https://MusicAlly.lnk.to/knowledgeID The Endel X Plastikman "Deeper Focus" collaboration: https://deeper.endel.io   Follow us on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb/ For more knowledge: http://learn.musically.com Music Ally is a Knowledge Company: http://musically.com

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. Indian social media firm ShareChat is behind one of the most successful new TikTok rivals in India: Moj. It now has more than 120 million monthly active users – making it one of the leaders in the scramble to replace TikTok, after that app was banned in India last summer. ShareChat has just raised a $502m funding round, with investors including Snap, Twitter and Tiger Global Management.  Joe 'n' Stu analyse the implications for the music business and the wider context of western tech firms scrambling to invest in these Indian companies. 👋 Sign up for Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge – an at-a-glance overview of the whirling, weird maelstrom that is the modern music industry. NB: As promised in this episode, here's a frankly chaotic video of someone completing Super Mario 64 in 6m30s: https://youtu.be/vCc8qaW0dX8 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. Patreon is now valued at $4bn and their focus on the ‘creator’ economy seems to be working – so does this mean that we can assume that artists will now generate a substantial part of their money from superfans via platforms like Patreon? How do artists persuade fans to support them on these platforms - and will labels be shoved out of the picture or do they still have an important role to play?  Stu and Joe analyse what it means for artists, and what it suggests about the future of artists' income. 👋 Sign up for Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge – an at-a-glance overview of the whirling, weird maelstrom that is the modern music industry. NB: As promised in this episode, here's a video of Joey "Jaws" Chestnut eating 75 hot dogs in 10 mins: youtube.com/watch?v=rE85Rjr5Nyg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. "There are elements of live listening that will eventually exist on Spotify too. You should imagine that functionality being available," Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told Music Ally in February this year, when we asked him whether his company had plans for radio and/or Clubhouse-style live audio. Lo and behold: Spotify just announced its acquisition of startup Betty Labs, the creator of a live audio app called Locker Room. Stu and Joe analyse the streaming giant's move into broadcasting, and what it might mean for content creators... 👋 Sign up for Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge – an at-a-glance overview of the whirling, weird maelstrom that is the modern music industry. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. Global recorded music revenues grew by 7.4% to $21.6bn in 2020, according to industry body the IFPI, which published its annual Global Music Report this week. That’s a deceleration compared to 2019, but with 2020 being the year of Covid-19, labels will see the latest figures as a success. It’s also the sixth consecutive year of growth, and the highest annual total since 2002, when global revenues were $22.1bn. Joe and Stu dig into the data to see where the money came from during a year of lockdown – and wonder where growth may come from next. 👋 Sign up for Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge – an at-a-glance overview of the whirling, weird maelstrom that is the modern music industry. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. Spotify has just launched a new data-heavy website that explains how the company pays out royalties. Spotify isn’t explicitly describing it as a defence of music streaming, but given the recent upsurge in debate about musicians and streaming royalties – not to mention the UK’s parliamentary inquiry focusing on the streaming economy – the timing is no accident.    Joe and Stu discuss what this new tranche of data might show – and try to answer Daniel Ek's rhetorical question: "Artists ask me all the time why they’re not making more money. If the music industry is generating so much, then where the hell is it going?" 👋 Sign up for Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge – an at-a-glance overview of the whirling, weird maelstrom that is the modern music industry. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Sign up for Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge – at-a-glance analysis of the modern music industry. Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive at BPI & BRIT Awards, discusses artists, labels, streaming and equitable remuneration with Music Ally's Joe Sparrow. Throughout the current UK parliamentary inquiry into the economics of music streaming, Music Ally has worked hard to report fairly the full range of views in the debates about how streaming pays off for musicians. We've reported at length on the key sessions at the inquiry, taking in artists, labels, industry bodies and streaming services. And in May 2020, we invited Tom Gray, a key figure in the Broken Record campaign that sparked the inquiry, onto our Music Ally TV Show. We've now extended a similar invitation to Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, Brit Awards and Mercury Prize. Like Gray, he gave evidence during the inquiry, speaking on behalf of the BPI's major and independent label membership. He spoke to us in depth about the biggest issues raised in the inquiry and how streaming should work for artists. You can read Music Ally's deeper coverage on the issue here. Follow us on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb/ For more knowledge: http://learn.musically.com Music Ally is a Knowledge Company http://musically.com

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. We're in a moment of intense hype around non-fungible tokens of all kinds, music included. Grimes sold $5.8m of her NFTs in 20 minutes last week, while Mike Shinoda recently made tens of thousands of dollars from a single NFT, including a new song. Now artist 3lau (aka Justin Blau) has set his own record: $11.6m of NFT sales. Joe and Stu discuss if this is another crypto bubble, and what the actual good uses of NFTs might be for artists. 👋 Sign up for Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge – an at-a-glance overview of the whirling, weird maelstrom that is the modern music industry. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. Streaming service Tidal has a new majority owner: fintech firm Square. That's the mobile payments company founded by Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, which is now paying $297m in stock and cash for the stake. Tidal co-owner Jay-Z will be joining Square's board as part of the transaction. Stu explains to Joe why a fintech company wants to buy in to streaming music, and how it will try and make new opportunities for artists.  👋 Sign up for Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge – an at-a-glance overview of the whirling, weird maelstrom that is the modern music industry. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb