Music Ally Focus

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

Music business news, analysed in brief by Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow. This week, Spotify held a huge event announcing a raft of announcements, including new functionality and what they presented as positive examples of artists generating money from the platform. Stuart Dredge, who authored Music Ally's live coverage of the event, and then spoke to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek after it, explains to Joe what he thinks these announcement mean, and where Spotify is going 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. This week, the long-awaited appearance of Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music at the UK Parliamentary Inquiry into streaming economics took place, and Stu – who has reported on all the sessions and is now known as "the inquiry whisperer" – explains to Joe about the strong signals on where the committee is heading in terms of its likely recommendations, and some interesting signs of willingness on the part of the DSPs to engage with them. 👋 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. Audio startup Clubhouse is having a moment – and while attitudes towards it are evenly split between "evangelism" and "disdain", it's a concept that has connected with millions of people. moreover, what does an app that unites people to chat about stuff mean for a platform like Spotify – which is very firmly ‘audio first’ now, including spoken word content alongside music. Stu and Joe chat about the possible repercussions of the emergence of Clubhouse. 👋 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

Deezer's User Centric Payment System trial - what's the latest?  In 2019, Deezer announced it was going to trial the User-Centric Payment System - a very different way to pay rightsholders based on streaming users' listening behaviour, and hailed by some as a fairer method. UCPS is a controversial topic: $11.4 billion in revenue was generated by music streaming last year, and deciding how that money is shared is complicated.   On our Music Ally TV Show, Alexander Holland, Deezer’s Chief Content and Strategy Officer, will share the latest news on Deezer's research and UCPS trial. Joining him is Lottaliina Pokkinen, Head of Legal Affairs for the Finnish Musicians Union, who created a comprehensive study on what UCPS would mean for artists and labels.  They join Patrick Ross, Music Ally's SVP of Digital Strategy. It's hosted by Music Ally writer Joe Sparrow. Sign up for the next TV show: https://musically.lnk.to/TVShowSignup 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