Author archives: Bruce Houghton

Childish Gambino Settles Legal Dispute With Glassnote

Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino filed a lawsuit against his former label Glassnote Records last year, alleging the indie label owed him more than $10,000 in streaming royalties. Now, Glover and Glassnote have settled the dispute. Gambino was on the label between 2011 to 2017, including the Grammy-winning “Awaken, My…

SoundCloud Go+ Adds $4.99 Student Subscriptions

SoundCloud is following the lead of its competitors with $4.99/€4.99 per month Student subscriptions to its G0+ premium ad-free on demand streaming music service. SoundCloud Go+ for Students launches in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada today, and in Germany, France and the Netherlands next week. Students…

Spotify India Passes 1M Users In 1st Week: Stunning Stats About Streaming in World’s Most Populous Country

Spotify announced that it has passed 1 million users in India just a week after launching there. It’s an impressive number until you remember that the country has a population of 1.34 billion, and that assuming that Spotify is following the same pattern as other streamers in India, only about…

Woodstock 50 Said To Face Financial Woes

With Woodstock 50 scheduled to take place in just six months, event organizers have not released an initial lineup. Woodstock 50, intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the iconic Woodstock Music & Arts Festival, is scheduled to take place from 16-18 in Watkins Glen in Upstate New York a…

7digital, Juke End Partnership After $4.5M Settlement

UK-based 7digital has reached a settlement with Media Saturn’s Juke music streaming service to dissolve their partnership. Under the Agreement, 7digital will be released from all outstanding contracts with the Juke for an immediate payment by Juke of €4,000,000. Juke has aslo agreed to write off all interest payments and…

QUICK HITS: AWAL + Apollo • Songtrust • Marcie Allen Van Mol, Bebe Evans • Music Row’s Rising Women On The Row

Kobalt’s AWAL has signed long-term worldwide recordings deal with Omar Apollo. Apollo already has 45 million streams on Spotify and an extensive touring history. Apollo will perfrom at the AWAL House Showcase at SXSW. Said AWAL President, North America, Ron Cerrito of the deal: “Omar has everything we look for…

How Smart Speakers Increase The Artist and Fan Divide

"Alexa (Siri, Google) play __________." With tens of millions of song requests being processed daily, what fills that blank matters. "Play That Funky Music" will net you the Wild Cherry hit. Hear that song once and you know the title. But while "Counting Blue Cars" may have been a big…

Hypebot Crashes The Music Biz Weekly Podcast: Streaming, PledgeMusic, Smart Speakers, More

The big three record labels earning $19 million a day from streaming, the ongoing PledgeMusic tragedy, how smart speakers are changing songwriting and the future of podcasting were all part of a wide ranging discussion between Bruce Houghton of Hypebot and the Skyline Artists Agency and Music Biz Weekly co-hosts…

Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book’ Passes 1.5B Spotify Streams

Three years after the release of ‘Coloring Book,’ Chance the Rapper surpassed 1.5 billion streams on Spotify as of March 1st. ‘Coloring Book’ was released in May of 2016 and became the first streaming-only album to chart the Billboard 200 and win a Grammy, according to Chart Data. I just…