Author archives: Bruce Houghton

CD Baby Expands Artist Marketing With Addition Of Red Light’s Geoff Halliday

CD Baby has hired Los Angeles based music marketer Geoff Halliday to lead release marketing for its international team focused on providing artist and label services to its distribution roster. CD Baby is home to almost 750,000 artists and more than 9 million tracks. Artists using the platform have earned…

MLC Submits $37.25M Bill To Administer Music Modernization Act To Be Paid By Spotify, Apple

The newly appointed Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) has submitted its proposal to the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) outlining the structure of the collective and the funding required to carry out the statutory demands of the Music Modernization Act. The proposed start-up assessment is $37.25 million, with an annual assessment starting…

Haviah Mighty Wins Polaris Music Prize 2019

Haviah Mighty has won the Polaris Music Prize 2019 for her album "13th Floor." The Prize, which was presented in Toronto by CBC Music, goes to the best Canadian album of the year based on artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation. It was determined by…

Amazon Music HD Launches, Spotify Says ‘Users Don’t Care’

[UPDATED] Amazon Music is rolling out an HD music services at an attractive price point aimed at bringing high-quality lossless streaming to the masses. Amazon Music HD will launch in US, UK, Germany, and Japan this week, beating Spotify and Apple Music to HD streaming. Priced at $14.99 per month…

5 Big Takeaways From Americanafest 2019

Americanafest 2019 is a wrap. Thousands of musicians, music industry professionals and fans descended on Nashville for a four-day conference, an awards show filled with great music and short speeches alongside more than 500 official and countless unofficial showcases. The Americana Music Association (AMA) defines Americana music as "contemporary music…

Dissecting A Spotify Playlist Promotion Pitch Letter

Spotify playlist promotion offers.. we get them all the time. You probably do too. In this episode of the Music Biz Weekly podcast, co-hosts Michael Brandvold and Jay Gilbert read an actual Spotify playlist promotion proposal, dissect it and point out…

Warner Records Partners With Masked Gorilla’s Roger Gengo For New Hip Hop Label

Warner Records has formed a joint venture with Masked Records, the new label formed by hip-hop entrepreneur Roger Gengo, founder of the influential Masked Gorilla website and UNMASKED concert series. Gengo, who is credited with founding and incubating “Soundcloud Rap,” established Masked Gorilla when he was just 17 years old….

Singer Sam Smith Shares New Preferred Gender Pronouns

Singer and songwriter Sam Smith, who came out as nonbinary earlier this year, announced that they are officially changing their preferred gender pronouns to they/them. "Today is a good day so here goes. I’ve decided I am changing my pronouns to THEY/THEM,” Smith said in a post on social media….

Teenage Hacker Arrested For Selling Unreleased Music

A 19-year-old UK hacker has been arrested in on charges of stealing unreleased songs from major international music artists and selling them for cryptocurrency, according to AP. The teen, who reportedly accessed musicians websites and cloud-based accounts illegally, was arrested Thursday in Ipswich, England. His name is being withheld due…