Author archives: Bruce Houghton

Tunecore Adds New Distribution Features

Tunecore has added three features to improve how new music from the diy digital distributor is ingested onto Apple Music, Spotify and other music services. The changes should also make Tunecore more compliant with increasingly stringent data requirements from Spotify and Apple Music designed to insure that artists are properly…

Warner Music Group 2018 Revenue Tops $4B, Digital Up 20%

Warner Music Group reported 2018 revenue of $4 billion as part a quarterly and year end financial report on Thursday. It marked a 15 year high for the world’s third largest music group. Digital revenue for the full year grew 20.4% and is now three times physical revenue. WMG Q4…

Facebook Struggles To Explain Why It Gave Spotify, Netflix Access To Private Messages

Facebook ramped efforts to justify sharing private messages with Spotify and Netflix, after backlash from a New York Times investigation that revealed the social network had been sharing private data with select corporate partners for years. At first, both Spotify and Netflix denied the report. But after Facebook detailed its…

Post-Brexit, Foreign Musicians Can’t Play UK Unless They Earn $38,000 A Year

A new official UK government report recommends post-Brexit rules for migrants that could jeopardize the UK music industry. The Government Migration Advisory Committee calls for a minimum salary requirement of £30,000 / $38,000 USD for musicians and other skilled migrants seeking five-year visas. Requiring musicians, songwriters and producers from the…

Making Vinyl Conference Expands To EU

After two successful US conferences, Making Vinyl heads to Europe for the first time. The B2B conference will celebrate vinyl’s rebirth on May 3 at the legendary Hansa Studios here, where David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, U2, R.E.M. others recorded LPs. Produced by the Colonial Purchasing Cooperative,…

Spotify Responds To Facebook Private Data Controversy

Spotify, Amazon, Apple and several dozen other major companies were exempted from Facebook privacy rules and given access to private user data, according to a New York Times report. Spotify was also reportedly given access to 70 million private messages each month. The social network has since largely confirmed the…

Bandsintown Shares 2018 Stats, ‘Big Break’ Artists [INFOGRAPHIC]

Bandsintown is now delivering concert info on the shows of 500,000 registered artists to 45 million users, the company shared in its 2018 wrap. 21 Pilots won the honor of most concert RSVP’s and 15 year old rapper Bhad Bhabie was the platform’s fastest growing new artists. 20 new artists…

How Many In US Listen To Spotify vs Pandora

As streaming music use skyrockets, much is made of the neck and neck race between upstart Spotify and market leader Pandora for listenership. In the United States, however, there’s a clear winner, according to eMarketer. 58.4 million people in the US will use Spotify, making up 20.8% of internet users….

Most Shazamed Songs Of 2018

Clean Bandit and Demi Lovato’s “Solo” was Shazam’s most-Shazamed song of the year in 2018 with over 9-million searches. Nicky Jam and J Balvin’s “X,” Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa’s “One Kiss,” Cardi B. and Ed Sheeran also made the list. The top 10 Most-Shazamed Songs of 2018 1. “Solo”,…