Blog: Music - Page 13

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

WMG is moving beyond superstars – and that is a good thing

Mark Mulligan

16 Sep 2022

Fandom fragmented fandom Streaming

Warner Music Group’s ( WMG’s) Steve Cooper recently stated that the major is no longer financially dependent on superstars – which is, of course, quite a different thing from not being culturally dependent on them, but we’ll get to that.

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The future of marketing and A&R is all about scenes

Tatiana Cirisano

15 Sep 2022

music industry Music streaming fragmented fandom

Today’s era of hyper-fragmentation raises all sorts of questions for the music industry, in particular marketing and A&R departments. In a landscape where it is harder than ever to have a mainstream impact, how do you drive culture? How do you break artists and build superstars? What will peak...

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Games-video crossovers are coming of age

Samuel Griffin

8 Sep 2022

games video Entertainment Music discovery

Video and games crossover content is becoming mainstream. The Emmy winning Arcane, a live action remake of The Last of Us, indicated that games-inspired video is trailblazing at the core of entertainment fandom.

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Help shape the future of streaming services — calling all artists, podcasters, and executives

Tatiana Cirisano

1 Sep 2022

Music creators Creator economy creator tools

Music streaming is among the most hotly-debated topics in the music industry, with artists and executives alike sharing their opinions on what is working, what is not working, and the potential solutions for change.

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Apple connects the dots

Tatiana Cirisano

31 Aug 2022

music business Music streaming Apple Music

We are entering the era of the end-to-end music company. Companies are increasingly striving to capture more parts of the value chain by building end-to-end ecosystems that serve creators at all levels along every step, from music creation to distribution to marketing and beyond.

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What happens when content supersedes the creator?

Tatiana Cirisano

25 Aug 2022

Social media creator tools Creator economy

It is becoming increasingly clear that the future of the user interface looks like a TikTok feed. Companies from Meta to Spotify and Amazon have tested TikTok-like feeds that are focused on discovery, and even though Meta ended up rolling back some of its TikTok-inspired changes, its implementation ...

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Music is not a level playing field — it is a field of all levels

Tatiana Cirisano

18 Aug 2022

Music streaming Music fandom fragmented fandom

We have heard it (and said it) many times before: the music industry has never been as competitive as it is today. But the challenge is not just that today’s landscape is ultra-competitive, it is also that new artists chasing success are competing against artists who came up before the landscape b...

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Re-creating the creator economy

Mark Mulligan

18 Aug 2022

Creator economy Creators creator economics

Everyone is a creator! Or so goes the dismissive put down of many a traditional media executive when talking about the creator economy. But regardless of what your perspective on the creator economy might be, there is no denying its meteoric rise.

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From 8-bit to fantasy: Proms’ focus on gaming underscores its cultural relevance

Samuel Griffin

10 Aug 2022

Proms Gaming Fandom

After the humble beginnings of the first melodic loops from NAMCO’s Rally X , the cultural symphony of music, video, and games has since matured toHildur Guðnadóttir and Sam Slater’s recent score for Battlefield 2042 .

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What happens when every platform has different top artists? Hint: it may be a good thing

Tatiana Cirisano

10 Aug 2022

fragmented fandom Consumer behaviour music marketing

Fragmentation is on full display in Chartmetric’s H1 2022 trends report , which lists the top 10 “breakthrough artists” between January and June for each of eight different platforms. It is immediately obvious that each list is completely different.

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Beyoncé raises the question: what does commercial success mean in 2022?

Tatiana Cirisano

4 Aug 2022

monetizing fandom fragmented fandom Consumer behaviour

It is hard to believe that six years have elapsed between Beyoncé’s last solo album, Lemonade , and her newest, Renaissance . So much has changed in those six years about how listeners consume music, how fandoms organise, and what is competing for our attention.

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TikTok Music: Here is what it would mean for you

Kriss Thakrar

2 Aug 2022

TikTok Music streaming creator tools

TikTok has filed a US trademark for TikTok Music , building speculation on whether the platform is gearing up to launch a streaming service. It already has the tools at its disposal with Resso, its streaming service for emerging markets.

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With Meta’s revenue share program, can rights holders and platforms finally agree?

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Jul 2022

Streaming Music user-generated content Content Creators

Over the last week, Meta made headlines three times in relation to music on its platforms (Instagram and Facebook). First, royalty-free music provider Epidemic Sound sued Meta for allegedly allowing users to incorporate its music without the proper licenses.

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Beatport’s LabelRadar acquisition is the latest sign of the platforms era

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jul 2022

Beatport Record labels music industry

This week, online music marketplace Beatport acquired LabelRadar, a service that streamlines the demo submission process for artists and labels. Following previous strategic acquisitions, the deal represents another step in Beatport’s path towards becoming a creative hub for creators and labels al...

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MIDiA music forecasts: the new era of growth

Mark Mulligan

14 Jul 2022

music forecasts music revenues music industry

MIDiA has just published its latest music forecasts, available to clients in full here . Here are some of the highlights. 2021 was a huge year for the recorded music business with retail values up 23% to reach $51.

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Spotify is courting gen Z, but is it enough?

Tatiana Cirisano

13 Jul 2022

Music streaming Spotify Fandom

Spotify just made its first games acquisition by snapping up Heardle , a popular online game where players compete to guess a song by its opening notes. Heardle will remain a standalone website for now, although Spotify says it plans to integrate Heardle “more fully” into its app.

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Changing streaming’s royalty model will unlock a new music economy

Kriss Thakrar

12 Jul 2022

Music streaming Streaming Royalties SoundCloud

It has been an excellent year for the music industry as it enters a new era of growth . While streaming has been at the heart of this growth, there is an underlying tension between platforms and the artists that they depend on.

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How (and why) Billie Eilish won Glastonbury

Mark Mulligan

6 Jul 2022

live music fragmented fandom BBC

Glastonbury returned to great fanfare after the pandemic-enforced break, which meant it was the first one since 2019. The music world has changed a lot since then, with streaming getting bigger than ever and TikTok now established as a cornerstone of the music business.

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A counterculture music industry is emerging — welcome to the platform era

Tatiana Cirisano

5 Jul 2022

music industry Major labels Record labels

What do TikTok’s distribution tool , Universal Music Group’s samples marketplace , and Snoop Dogg’s virtual marijuana have in common? On the surface, not much. But beneath, these news headlines are just three more recent reflections of what MIDiA has identified as a new iteration of the music ...

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Music streaming is failing to foster cultural moments – but it does not have to

Hanna Kahlert

29 Jun 2022

Streaming heat waves glastonbury

Listening to music is, and has always been, an intrinsically emotional experience. Music does not appeal to rational dialogue or scientific evidence; it directly evokes the feelings beneath. It can be sought after by the listener to evoke an expected response – to be uplifted, calmed, or comforted.

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