Spotify Allows Mixing of Music and Podcasts In Playlists  — Apple Exec Says ‘Bad Idea’

Earlier today (September 30th), Spotify announced a new feature that will let people combine music and podcasts within their playlists, much like the company’s “Your Daily Drive.” While “Your Daily Drive” uses the company’s personalization engine to ma…

Audiomack Is Quietly Discovering Artists Before TikTok, Spotify, and SoundCloud

“We’ve created an app where young music fans go every day,” said Dave Ponte, CMO and Co-Founder at Audiomack. Spotify is great at blowing up superstars like Drake and Ed Sheeran. But where are other artists getting incubated and developed? That’s the s…

Spotify for Artists Gets an Overhaul ⁠— Now Shows Real-time Listening Stats

Spotify has released a redesigned Spotify for Artists app with real-time listening stats. The new app displays the total number of people who are listening to the artists’ tracks worldwide. Those stats will continue to update for the first week the app…

Turtle Beach Bundles 3-Month Tidal Subscriptions With a Headset Purchase

Turtle Beach has announced a partnership with Tidal to include three months free with its headsets. The gaming headphone manufacturer capitalized largely on the rise of the battle royale genre on mobile. Headset sales in 2018 nearly tripled, and now Tu…

Amazon Music Introduces Lossless, High-Definition Streaming — Spotify Says It’s Not What People Want

Amazon Music HD launched today, undercutting several other high-definition streaming services. A new HD streaming plan has been rumored to be in the works for a few months now. The new plan will cost $14.99 a month for the HD tier, or $12.99/monthly fo…

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) Requests $66.25 Million In Funding — Just to Get Started

So, how much does it cost to get a mechanical licensing collection agency off the ground? That would be $37.25 million before the agency opens its doors, and another $29 million to get through the first year.  All in, the as-yet-unformed Mechanical Lic…

Amazon Music Is Releasing a Notorious B.I.G. Documentary on the 25th Anniversary of ‘Ready to Die’

  Amazon Music is hoping to duplicate the success that it had with its Beastie Boys mini-documentary Still Ill by releasing a mini-documentary about famed rapper Notorious B.I.G. The film is called The Birth of Biggie: 25 Years of Ready To Die and it c…

Spotify’s Chief Accounting Officer Abruptly Resigns — Spotify Says It’s “Not the Result of Any Disagreement Over Accounting Principles or Practices”

Since its IPO, Spotify has lost quite a few top executives. And the hemorrhaging is continuing: late yesterday, Spotify announced within an SEC filing that its chief accounting officer (CAO) Luca Baratta would be leaving his position on September 16th….

Esthero Interrupts Her Own Track to Protest Spotify Royalties

Esthero is protesting Spotify’s low royalty rates paid to artists — by interrupting one of her own tracks on Spotify. Around a minute and a half into her song ⁠— “Gimme Some Time” ⁠— the music stops. Esthero begins speaking and explains to fans that th…

Spotify Increases User Surveillance to Crackdown Against Family Plan Abuse

Spotify’s Family Plan members are now subject to random location verifications. The change was included deep in Spotify’s terms of service update in August.  Now, everyone who signs up for a family plan must show proof they share the same address — and…