Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

Music streaming services have continued to add U.S. subscribers this year, according to MIDiA Research, growing by 11 million paying users from January to September, to 117.9 million. But in a potentially troubling sign for the recorded music business, the number of total streams has remained the same.

Jay-Z Returns To Spotify Music

Rap icon Jay-Z brought his music discography back to the world’s largest streaming platform Spotify, leaving Tidal subscribers scratching their heads. The service he bought for $56 million in 2014 has struggled to gain any real market share against major players like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

Streaming Music Has Sold More Than CDs

I have not heard a soul in this world that say they dislike +Spotify. Even artist can +Get Your Music On Spotify now and days. The music industry is changing, with music streaming earning more money than the sale of CDs for the first time ever in 2014. According to the RIAA, music streaming earned a total of $1.87 billion in 2014, while CDs generated $1.85 billion, with the entire industry earning $6.97 billion overall, which was slightly down from their numbers in 2013.

Though these numbers are close, it’s clear that streaming is on the upswing while CDs are becoming a thing of the past, especially with Spotify records already getting shattered by Kendrick Lamar and Drake just three months into the year. Now all music streaming services needs is for Taylor Swift to get on board, and it’s a wrap.

(Click Here) To Go To Spotify.com

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Jay Z Talks Tidal, Jimmy Iovine, And Rewriting The Music Rulebook

Jay Z doesn’t give many interviews. In conversation, he often pauses mid-sentence, considers, rewinds, slices and reshapes his answer, choosing a more appropriate word or analogy that draws a finer point before revealing it to the interviewer. What’s commonly assumed is a mistrust of the press may just be that unlike his work in the studio or onstage, Jay Z doesn’t ultimately control the final result of an interview, and therefore treads more carefully while giving one.

Investors Put $2.4 Billion Into Music

In the 57 investment deals totaling over $2.4 billion tracked by Billboard, nearly 9 in 10 dollars invested went to a traditional music company, an EDM concert promoter or a company that streams music. Most of the investments were made in small, digital startups. Some are trying to improve how people discover concerts. A handful of them are changing how people create music.

A similar company hoping to disrupt the recorded music market is Beats Music, a subscription service that launched Jan. 21. An offshoot of Beats Electronics, the maker of the popular Beats By Dr. Dre headphones, Beats Music raised $60 million from Access Industries, the owner of Warner Music Group. (A year earlier, Access placed $130 million in Deezer, a competitor of Spotify and Beats Music.)

Warner Music Group’s acquisition of Parlophone Label Group was the biggest single investment in music in 2013. The $765 million deal, representing nearly a third of the year’s music investments, gave Warner not only Parlophone and Chrysalis but EMI’s operations in a handful of European countries. Also in this category was the acquisition of Nettwerk Music Group for $10.3 million in April.

Investors in streaming music were attracted to scale, potential and momentum rather than profitability. Services that provide on-demand streaming either audio or video raised $406.5 million. The largest deal was a $250 million investment in Spotify, an unprofitable company that’s a category leader and has 24 million active users — not all of them paying customers — across 55 countries.

SFX Entertainment accounted for the next-largest bucket, concert promotion, worth $480 million. The EDM-focused company’s initial public stock offering in October raised $260 million. It also acquired three EDM promoters: ID&T for $130 million, i-Motion for $21 million and Totem OneLove Group for $69.1 million.

In spite of a reputation for difficult business models and costly licensing fees, services that use licensed music attracted $838.8 million, or 49% of all investments. Four deals landed by Internet radio companies raised $443.3 million. Following Pandora’s $393.3-million secondary stock offering were smaller venture capital rounds by TuneIn ($25 million), DeliRadio ($9.4 million) and Songza ($4.7 million). There is a catch: TuneIn is merely an aggregator of Internet radio streams and doesn’t itself pay any royalties.

Investors backed numerous companies that help consumers find music they like. The smallest investment was $100,000 in Bop.fm, an online tool that aggregates songs from various digital music services. Two other startups that offer aggregation tools, Songdrop and MFiveLabs, received funding. Investors also backed numerous companies that help people discovery music or concerts. Most such deals were small, but music identification app Shazam received a $40-million investment from the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim.

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Apple Buys Musicmetric

Apple has acquired a London music startup. The tech giant has bought the company behind music analytics service Musicmetric, Musically reports. 

Musicmetric owner Semetric changed its registered address to 100 New Bridge Street in London, home of Apple Europe Ltd. On the same day, it also filed documents to detail the appointment of a new director. He’s called Gene Daniel Levoff and up until now has been based at Apple’s global HQ.

Apple told Musically that it “buys smaller technology companies from time to time,” adding that it doesn’t “generally discuss our purpose or plan”. Semetric also declined to comment.

It’s speculated that Apple’s latest purchase could pave the way for the company to expand its music services. Apple wants to better tune its music arms: iTunes will likely be overhauled. But it’s Beats Music that stands to benefit most. Apple is going to relaunch the platform this year and there’s talk it could come pre-installed on iPhones and iPads.

Musicmetric launched in 2008 and allows music industry clients to track social and sales analytics through a dashboard, Musically writes — it also offers data streaming. In Jan. 2013 it received $4.8 million in funding.

Musicmetric says it’s about “turning big data into big opportunities”, and continues: “Whether you’re planning your first album launch or a global tour, on the lookout for new talent or after some killer intelligence to help pick your next brand ambassador, the Musicmetric dashboard will quickly and simply tell you all you need to know.”

How Apple chooses to use and develop Musicmetric remains to be seen, but one certainty is the implications the acquisition has for other streaming companies such as Spotify and Next Big Sound.

Here’s what Musically says:

Spotify has a partnership with Musicmetric to pipe in streaming data for labels to access via the latter’s dashboard.

Just as rival streaming services ended their partnerships with music/tech firm The Echo Nest firm when Spotify bought it last year, so Spotify is unlikely to be too keen on providing a firehose of its data to an Apple subsidiary.

Universal Music Group Shuts Down Apple Music Exclusives

(The Wrap-Up Magazine) Apple’s iTunes, Lucian Grainge, CEO of Universal Music Group and widely regarded as the most powerful executive in the music industry, has reportedly ordered the company’s labels to stop the practice of making “exclusive” distribution deals with streaming services.

According to Bob Lefsetz, author of an influential music industry newsletter, Grainge sent out a company-wide email on Monday. UMG, which boasted seven of 2015’s 10 best-selling albums and 38.5% of the year’s recorded-music sales, will be the first major label to ban the practice, which many feel has begun to diminish rather than enhance the way music is distributed and consumed.

The directive will affect dozens of bands under the UMG umbrella, including all five of this year’s album of the year Grammy nominees: Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, the Weeknd, Chris Stapleton and Alabama Shakes.

The practice of artists offering exclusives to competing streaming and download services, including Apple and Tidal, has been gaining traction this year. Both Beyoncé and Rihanna launched their recent albums through Tidal, the streaming service part-owned by Beyoncé’s husband, Jay Z.

Inside The Mind Of The Underground King of Hip Hop (Part 1)

The underground music scene is wide open right now as the music industry is evolving into it's next phase. Every since the days of Myspace.com and Google+, ways for unsigned artist has changed dramatically.

The Wrap-Up Magazine.com conducted a interview with one of the biggest underground pr's Gansta Marcus of Lima, Ohio to hear his thoughts on how emerging artist are changing the entertainment  industry.

US Senate Passes New Music Act

The Senate has passed legislation that aims to strengthen music copyright and improve royalty rates for artists in the streaming era. The upper chamber voted unanimously in favor of the bill, titled the Music Modernization Act.

Among the proposed changes, the legislation codifies producers and engineers as copyright holders, meaning both would receive digital royalties when songs are played on streaming services. Currently, producers are not included in copyright law and must negotiate their own payment deals.

For hip-hop producers, especially, the current setup often results in a flat-rate purchase fee, leaving the producer without any claim to future streaming revenue. When producers do negotiate royalty deals, they're typically taking a cut from the performer's own royalties.

The Music Modernization Act also creates a new music licensing organization, run by publishers and songwriters, that will identify a song's copyright holders and manage royalty payouts. That work is currently handled by digital platforms themselves, who have frequently been sued over unpaid royalties. The bill also extends copyright protections for pre-1972 recordings.

Stream Your Music In Kuack Media Group

Learn about distributing your music to Kuack Media Group - the new streaming service offered to mobile providers in the Caribbeans. By adding your music to Kuack, you can get your music heard on millions of mobile devices across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Kuack powers the streaming services set up by some of the biggest mobile carriers and other big brands in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Digicel, Kolbi Costa Rica, Viva Bolivia, and Virgin Mobile Colombia, Peru and Dominican Republic.

They offer Premium and “Top Chart” subscription tiers, both with access to unlimited streaming, playlists, conditional downloads, and social networks. They also offer curated content with an emphasis on featuring independent and local artists.

(CLICK HERE) TO JOIN AND SUBMIT YOUR MUSIC

#NowPlaying Sean-Toure’- Garveyite @SeanToure

On Juneteenth 2020 Baltimore Music Producer/Emcee Sean-Toure’s new song "Garveyite" made its debut on all music streaming platforms. The energetic song laced with incredible music production and powerful lyrics promotes Black pride, self-love, and unity.

The track about empowerment and resilience centers on the recent protests, uprisings, and gentrification taking place in America. The powerful lyrics, elaborately produced soulful-beat, and awesomely catchy hook make this song one of the best Hip Hop singles of 2020.

Best Digital Media Apps To Have Your Music On

The Wrap-Up Magazine.com has been looking for the hottest digital media websites online for artist to promote their music. Digital media are any media that are encoded in a machine-readable format.

Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified and preserved on computers and androids. Take a look at some of these websites below to submit your content to today. Find Out How!

Best Buy Shut Down Music Department

As of July 1st, Best Buy officially ceased sales of physical CDs at all stores nationwide. The electronics retail giant will no longer offer compact discs due to a major decrease in sales. According to ABC, sales decreased by 18.5% in 2017, which is a perfect example of the growing power of streaming services such as Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, among others, at work.

While CDs have begun to become a thing of the past throughout the last several years, vinyl copies of songs and albums will still remain on Best Buy shelves for at least a couple more years, as they continue to quench the nostalgia of music lovers. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), vinyl sales were up 3% in 2016. The RIAA has also reported that in 2016, streaming alone generated more revenue in the United States music business than all other formats combined for the first time ever. Target is expected to be the second retail giant to begin selling fewer amounts of CDs in upcoming months.

Growing Your #Spotify Presence With #Streambeet

This means that musicians need to be sure to enhance their presence on Spotify, and that’s what Streambeet is here to help you with. Their organic Spotify promotion services seek to get you organic Spotify plays, Spotify followers, grow your Spotify monthly listeners and overall organic Spotify promotion. They also help get you featured on genre-specific Spotify playlists, allowing listeners to discover your tracks amidst other similar tracks from your musical niche.

Streambeet is a cost-effective service which help artists grow their Spotify plays and Spotify followers in exchange for a very reasonable fee. They have pricing structures that differ depending on the size of promotion you desire. Their service will continue promoting you until your numbers are reached or will continually run until you acquire the amount of Spotify plays, Spotify followers or Spotify monthly listeners you paid for.

The music industry is continually changing, with CDs taking over from tapes, iTunes taking over from CDs, and now Spotify taking over from iTunes. Streaming platforms such as Spotify allow users to stream your tracks without technically owning a copy of them, making the music-listening experience more affordable, easy, and enjoyable for everyone.

Kobalt Collects $75M In Artist Royalties

Kobalt, the European startup that has built technology and a platform to collect music royalties by tracking when even a sample of a song is played across multiple platforms, has raised another $75 million in funding.

Apple Sued Over Unpaid Royalties

The main sale and attraction of streaming services is that they pride themselves in how much they pay for artist royalties. However, Apple has recently received a new lawsuit over unpaid royalties for independent artists. The lawsuit contradicts the value that they promise to artists.

Why American Independent Internet Radio May Go Extinct

The new performance royalty rates that internet radio will pay artists and record labels were released on December 16 and many small and mid-sized internet-only broadcasters are now fearing.... While there was a modest increase on the fee paid for each song played, the bigger concern is what’s missing.

Get Ready For Deezer

The Wrap-Up Magazine has been releasing the hottest digital services that are currently running and up and coming. In this post, we give a shout out to +Deezer, a company on the rise for digital releases. Deezer is the No. 1 site for listening to music on demand. Discover more than 35 million tracks, create your own playlists, and share your favorite tracks with friends and family.

Deezer is a web-based music streaming service. It allows users to listen to music content from record labels including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group and Catapult. With Deezer, music is FREE on your mobile, tablet and computer. Millions of tracks are waiting. Your favorite artists too. Listen without limits.

(CLICK HERE) To Sign-Up For Deezer.com

What Is The Streaming War All About?

 

Media companies have launched direct-to-consumer video services to compete with Netflix. All of them have been following category leader Netflix with global expansion and investing billions of dollars in content.

Drake Breaks All Apple Music Services

Drake’s Scorpion is skyrocketing on the music charts and shattering Apple Music records, including becoming the number one album on the Apple Music charts in 92 different countries almost instantaneously and becoming the fastest-growing album ever on the service.

Drake's Leaving Young Money For Apple

Drizzy’s fifth studio album garnered more than 170 million streams on Apple Music. 10 of the most-streamed songs on the service came from Scorpion, which not only broke Drake’s own record, it was the most streams in a 24 hour period on any streaming service ever.

Drake Tops Elvis

More Life previously held the record with 89.9 million streams in a day. What’s your favorite song on Scorpion?