IMS Industry Insider

Comment, Opinion and Analysis

ISSUE: 19 Nov 2024

Q3 streaming trends: Why Spotify’s growth in the Global South matters for the music industry. (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)

ISSUE: 12 Nov 2024

Two future paths for the vinyl revival. (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)
With Universal ravenously hungry, is the independent label sector facing an existential crisis? (Quietus - Eamonn Forde)
Why is there so much fraud in music distribution — and how do we solve it? (Billboard)
Independent artists and labels had a 46.7% share of the global recorded music business in 2023 — 11 points higher than their US share. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 05 Nov 2024

Only 20% of artists get 1000 or more monthly streams on Spotify according analysis by Luminate. (Hypebot)
The Artist Business, Part 5 - Cheap money (John Strohm)
MIDiA has launched a report - State of the independent music economy: Fragmentation and consolidation. (Midia summary) /

ISSUE: 29 Oct 2024

Music in podcasts: Engaging superfans with a new album campaign strategy. (Midia - Rutger Rosenborg)
Navigating the future through music and tech. (MusicX)
CISAC reported global royalty collections for creators grew by 7.6% to a new high of €13.1bn in 2023. Digital collections increased by 9.6% to €4.6bn, making up 35% of total collections. This compares to 30% for broadcast and 25% for live and public performance. Royalty collections from TV and radio broadcasters fell by 4%, just +0.7% above their 2019 level, reflecting the decline in viewer numbers and TV advertising income. The Live and Public Performance income stream grew by 22% to reach an all-time high of €3.3bn. (RotD)

ISSUE: 22 Oct 2024

TikTok eats the music industry for breakfast. (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)
Impala reacts to UMG's acquisition of [PIAS] - leaves huge hole in the independent sector, flags regulatory concerns as well as new opportunities. (RotD)

ISSUE: 15 Oct 2024

Beyond the obvious: Building future-focused strategy. (Midia)
Burner accounts, AI slop and a fork in the road moment for music marketing. (NetworkNotes)

ISSUE: 01 Oct 2024

What the music industry can learn from Nike's disastrous 2024. (NetworkNotes) Another case study for brand building versus 'immediate returns' marketing.

ISSUE: 24 Sep 2024

There has to be a better way: How to overcome music industry overload. (MusicX - Justin de Marco)
Who owns Live Nation? (MBW)
Four essential thoughts for surviving the AI transformation in music. (MusicX)
Do albums still matter, and which artists should be releasing them? (Chartmetric)
Will more artists release full songs to social media in 2025? (Midia)

ISSUE: 17 Sep 2024

Could a new remuneration right be the key to AI music licensing? (MusicAlly)
Chartmetric's Trigger Cities - tactics for artists, marketers, and A&Rs. (Chartmetric)
IFPI has released Music in the EU: A Global Opportunity, its first-ever report on recorded music in the European Union. (RotD) Highlights: The EU is a globally important place for music but there is room for further growth; Record label investment has a positive ripple effect across the European music industry and provides a boost to EU GDP contributions; Domestic artists are relatively more successful in Europe however, the EU risks falling behind in what is the most competitive global market ever.

ISSUE: 03 Sep 2024

Understanding creators to harness the monetisation opportunities. (Midia)

ISSUE: 20 Aug 2024

Tencent Music’s ‘Super VIP’ tier costs 5 times as much as a regular subscription. Spotify could learn a lot from it. (MBW)
Music publishing forecasts: strong growth and more to come. (Midia)

ISSUE: 13 Aug 2024

Five signs that the GenAI honeymoon is over, and why that might be a good thing. (Substack - Gary Marcus)
Why does so much of the music industry focus on hitmakers of the past? (Bloomberg)
Is a streaming slowdown really underway? A tale of three major label earnings reports and an especially important sub-sector. (DMN)

ISSUE: 06 Aug 2024

Touring in the EU post Brexit: Key findings and next steps from the MU’s recent survey. (MU)
MIDiA has surveyed more than 300 songwriters to understand their income distribution, evolving needs and challenges, and how the publishing industry can better serve them. (Midia)
Is the music industry slowdown a crisis or a blip? (Bloomberg)
Will Page talks about what he thinks about the biggest problems in the industry today. (Chris Dalla Riva)

ISSUE: 30 Jul 2024

The Top 40 used to bring the UK together. But since the streaming revolution, what we listen to has become increasingly hard to tally. (Guardian)

ISSUE: 23 Jul 2024

The illusion of an idea - a scaled-down music industry. (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)

ISSUE: 16 Jul 2024

Why record labels need to move on from using data to impact the short term, to embed a culture of analysis for the long term. (Medium - Patrick Clifton)
Music isn't getting worse, genre is (Midia) "Genre is not going away, but while it was once the only place music could go, it is now just one part of a much more nuanced and complex picture. And that's a good thing."
The value of UK music sales (combining vinyl, CD and downloads) grew by 7.9% to £163.8m in the first half of 2024, according to figures compiled by ERA, significantly outpacing video sales and videogame sales. (RotD) Vinyl album sales were up 13.5% to £86.3m, CD sales 3.2% up to £57.9m, and streaming volume – the number of streams accessed was up 11%.

ISSUE: 09 Jul 2024

From X to Instagram, the line between social video and podcasts is blurring. (Midia - Rutger Rosenborg)
Who asked for AI? Why its future is more boring than you think. (Midia - Hanna Kahlert)
A survey suggests 20% of independent artists have used AI music tools. (MusicAlly)
Why record labels need to move on from using data to impact the short term, to embed a culture of analysis for the long term. (Medium - Patrick Clifton)

ISSUE: 02 Jul 2024

Will RIAA’s lawsuit against Udio and Suno really be the win we’re hoping for? (MusicTech)
The RIAA’s lawsuit against generative music startups Suno and Udio will be the bloodbath AI needs. (TechCrunch)
Music is not a zero-sum game. (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)
Major record labels sue generative AI developers Suno and Udio. (IllusionOfMore)
TikTok released its What's Next 2024: In Action, an updated report that demonstrates how trends grew and evolved through brand and creator success stories. (TikTok)

ISSUE: 25 Jun 2024

UK Music has unveiled the findings of its 2024 Workforce Diversity Survey, which offers a snapshot of those working behind the scenes in the industry. (RotD) The results show significant improvements in the areas of gender and ethnicity, but also highlight areas where more progress is needed.
The International Artist Organisation (IAO) released part two of Streams and Dreams, a survey to map out the reality for artists in relation to the Digital Single Market directive, which was set out to strengthen artists’ positions in the economy and, among other things, ensure fair remuneration and transparent information. (IAO)
TikTok’s music master plan is coming into focus. (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)

ISSUE: 18 Jun 2024

Inside Britain's music festival crisis. (Sky)
14 issues in music that don't get enough attention. (Chris Dalla Riva)
How do we take the pulse of success for music artists in 2024? (Midia - Keith Jopling)
Mainstream is the new niche. (Midia) "Niche does not inherently mean small, and its potential is huge. The simple, hard truth is that now everything is niche, even mainstream."
We now exist in a federal global music economy and just have not yet learned how best to connect great pop music to an eager audience in that new paradigm. (Medium - Patrick Clifton)
What would happen if Spotify started charging a ‘modest fee’ for its ad-funded tier… or shut it down entirely? (MBW)
Spotify reported “European artists generated almost €1.5bn on Spotify in 2023, an increase of 16% year-on-year – and more than 3x from 2017. In 2023, more than 15,000 European artists generated over €10,000 – with more than 25,000 European artists generating over €5,000.” (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 11 Jun 2024

This is the beginning of a new streaming era. (WheresMusicGoing - Rob Abelow)
What role does geography play in people’s relationship to music? The results make clear the continued importance of 'local' for music enjoyment and discovery. (Spotify)
The state of the attention economy: why don’t fan-first platforms work? (Midia - Hanna Kahlert)
Amuse and MIDiA Research present report on the notion of artist success in the modern music industry. (RotD) “We hope to shed light on what artists themselves consider success metrics today, as well as what type of partners they prefer to build their careers.”

ISSUE: 04 Jun 2024

AI won’t replace music producers anytime soon — but many need to adapt. (MusicTech)

ISSUE: 28 May 2024

Apple is not the only one crushing the old music-making paradigm. (Midia - Kriss Thakrar)
A changing music industry expands to $100 billion in revenues. For whom? (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)
MIDiA Research 2024-2031 global music forecasts - Rise of the Global South. (Midia)
Is the music business too afraid of big, bad AI? (Variety)
What Suno's $125m round means for AI & music. (Substack - Ed Newton-Rex, Fairly Trained)

ISSUE: 21 May 2024

Sony Music Group has sent letters to more than 700 tech companies and music streaming services to warn them not to use its music to train AI without explicit permission. (TechCrunch) It has given recipients of the letter a deadline to respond, noting that it will enforce its copyright to the “fullest extent permitted by applicable law in all jurisdictions.”
Music rightsholders reach their ‘or what?’ moment with AI. (MusicAlly)
Eamonn Forde argues that despite a recent report glowing with enthusiasm for the major record label bottom line, hubris, greed and fan exploitation suggest the music industry is heading for another catastrophic fall. (Quietus)

ISSUE: 14 May 2024

Electronic music, fandom, and the rise of the Global South. (Midia)
In the current oversaturated music market, artists face endless challenges in getting their music heard on platforms like Spotify. (Chartmetric)
UK Music’s Director of Research Andy Edwards on the value of music creators’ economic data. (CMU)

ISSUE: 07 May 2024

Music fandom’s future (and its existential crisis) (Midia)
We need ‘real’ artists for the return to reality. (Midia)
Goldman Sachs published the 2024 edition of its influential Music In The Air report. (GS) The analysts expect to see further progress in price increases by global streaming platforms, the modernisation of outdated royalty payment structures and the deployment of Generative AI, plus a stronger outlook for the live music and music publishing segments.

ISSUE: 30 Apr 2024

IMPF has launched the fourth edition of the Global Market View for Independent Music Publishing. (RotD, report) Among the key findings wer that the independent music publishing sector continued to grow with a rate of 16.8% in value to €2.43bn, and revenues of the sector doubled in the five years up to 2022, from €1.25bn to €2.43bn.
How much is the global electronic music industry worth? 10 Takeaways from 2024 IMS Report. (Billboard)
Nearly half of DJs say gigs are harder to find and pay less post-Covid, per IMS Business report. (MusicTech)
IMS Business report: From the adrenaline-fueled spectacle of massive festivals to the intimate energy of pop-up raves, today's electronic music scene remains an escapist's paradise with global appeal. (EDM)
IMS Ibiza released its tenth annual IMS Business Report 2024, covering the global dance music industry. (RotD, DJMag, MW, RA) A post-pandemic revenue rise of 17% in 2023 over 2022 and a total industry valuation reaching $11.8bn with notable growth particularly across festivals/clubs, recordings, and publishing were noted.

ISSUE: 23 Apr 2024

Independence - what’s up with that BPI press release about 2023 music consumption? (Medium - Patrick Clifton)

ISSUE: 16 Apr 2024

Why fans have always been important, how tech will drive the future and what pitfalls may appear as fandom develops. (Medium - Patrick Clifton)
A new report, From Mix to Mainstage – The Blueprint for Emerging Electronic Artists, presented by Toolroom Academy in partnership with Audience Strategies shows:
- 76% of new artists say their career is not financially sustainable.
- Only 2% of new artists rate the network as ‘strong’.
- 62% of new artists struggle to grow their audience.
Read the report here.

ISSUE: 09 Apr 2024

Ibiza is paradise on earth, yet the terrible case of DJ Alfredo shows it still doesn’t look after its own. (Standard - Fat Tony)
Fan economy: expanded rights are worth $3.5 billion, now what? (Midia - Mark Mulligan)
TikTok's Economic Impact Report 2024 claims the use of TikTok by small businesses drove $600m in revenue for the music and entertainment industry in 2023. (TikTok, report, wider story: TechCrunch)

ISSUE: 02 Apr 2024

How are musicians supposed to survive on $0.00173 per stream? (Guardian - Damon Krukowski)
RIAA Report 2023 takeaways: Is the US too reliant on paid subscriptions? (Billboard)
Recorded music revenue in the US grew 7.7% in 2023 over the prior year, reaching a high-water mark of $17.1bn at retail, according to the RIAA. Within that headline number, $14.4bn — or 84% — was driven by streaming, a figure that was also up 8% over 2022. (Billboard)
How can we save British nightlife from collapse? Look to Germany – and its football. (Guardian - Gilles Peterson)
Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) has revealed that 3,011 businesses have shut in the London and the commuter belt - far more than any other region - since March 2020. Across the UK as a whole 13,793 night time economy businesses have been lost up to December 2023, more than 15% of the total with nightclubs down by more than a third. (Standard)
Misogyny, sexual discrimination and harassment are still everyday problems for female musicians in the UK, according to the first ever UK Musicians' Census, conducted by the Musicians' Union and Help Musicians. (BBC)

ISSUE: 26 Mar 2024

Following Spotify’s Loud & Clear report, analysis of payouts for ’emerging and professional’ artists. (MusicAlly)
Spotify has updated its Loud & Clear website with 2023 data about its music payouts to rightsholders. (MusicAlly) Of the 1,250+ artists who generated $1m+ from Spotify alone – and likely over $4m across all recorded revenue sources – over 1,000 of them didn’t have a single song that reached Spotify’s Global Top 50 all year.
Why are IFPI & MIDiA’s 2023 revenue figures so far apart? The answer lies in ‘expanded rights’. (Billboard) A traditional measure of record labels covers sales, streaming, synch and performances. But today's labels do far more.
The IFPI published its annual Global Music Report. (Billboard) Recorded music revenue grew by 10.2% to $28.6bn in 2023.

ISSUE: 19 Mar 2024

London’s nightlife could be great — but it needs real change. (TheCritic - Sam Bidwell)
female:pressure, an online database and network of women and nonbinary people in the electronic music industry, unveiled its 2024 FACTS report. (RA)
BPI figures show UK recorded music revenue increased 8.1% to £1.43bn in 2023. A record 2,245 artists surpass 10m annual audio streams. (RotD)
Flexible working, problematic late-night public transport and high costs are blamed for a dramatic slump in London’s night-time industries. (Times)
London has been named Best City in Europe, and it's top for culture. There was never any question. (Standard)
The slow death of 24-hour London: how did the city get so sleepy? (Standard)
Midia has launched its Recorded Music Market 2023 report. (Midia) "After a slower 2022, global recorded music revenues grew by 9.8% in 2023 to reach $35.1 billion, compared to 7.1% in 2022, which means that the market is now more than double (124.5%) the size it was in 2015".

ISSUE: 12 Mar 2024

ERA research confirmed the number of independent record shops in the UK hit 461 in 2023, up from 339 in 2014. (RotD)
TikTok highlights the importance of publishing — and lack of songwriter services. (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)

ISSUE: 05 Mar 2024

We’re witnessing the birth of a post-entertainment culture. And it won’t help the arts. (Ted Gioia)
James Blake on TikTok and fairness for artists: “The brainwashing worked and now people think music is free”. (NME)
The music industry’s over-reliance on TikTok shows how lazy it has become. (Guardian)
Analytics firm Viberate surveyed 125 A&Rs and label managers to find out which streaming services they use for talent scouting. (Viberate)
SoundCloud noted early music discovery is most likely found on its platform.
In an age dominated by short-form content, it's becoming increasingly common for today's top music videos to go unseen. Should artists still invest in these art forms, and if so, what can we do to support them? (ChartMetric)

ISSUE: 27 Feb 2024

We’re witnessing the birth of a post-entertainment culture. And it won’t help the arts. (Ted Gioia)
Music marketing startup Your Music Marketing (Y2M) has published a report based on its analysis of more than 25.3bn Spotify streams for ‘several hundred’ artists. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 20 Feb 2024

According to Spotify’s annual report, the joint market share of music on Spotify represented by the three majors, plus Merlin, fell below to 74% on Spotify for the first time in 2023. (MBW) In 2017, the joint market share was 87%.
Amidst acquisition talk, what is SoundCloud’s strategy for the future? (Jimmy Stone)

ISSUE: 13 Feb 2024

Among the many findings in Chartmetric's 2023 Year-in-Music Report, it was noted that very few artists moved from Chartmetric’s 'undiscovered' to 'developing' category and only 19.16% of artists on Spotify have over 1,000 monthly listeners. (Highlights - RotD, Full report - RotD)

ISSUE: 06 Feb 2024

Will Page explores the ‘rockonomics’ of SoundCloud and its artists. (MusicAlly)
Nine ugly truths about copyright... and five predictions about its future. (Ted Gioia)
We’re about to find out how important TikTok is to the music industry. (Bloomberg)
The true power shift underneath the TikTok vs Universal stand off. (Substack - Maarten Walraven)
Women surpass 50% representation milestone on music industry trade boards, the ‘Seat at the Table’ report finds. (RotD) 16% of board members across the organisations are women from a global majority background.

ISSUE: 30 Jan 2024

Music news has lost its appeal a.k.a shifting reader appetites, and the media's struggle to adapt. (First Floor - Shawn Reynaldo)
If the music business keeps growing, why the layoffs? (Billboard)
The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry. (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)
Music Venue Trust launched its 2023 Annual Report. (BBC) It highlighted 38% of UK grassroots music venues posted a financial loss – with the whole sector recording 0.5% profit margin on £501m turnover despite increased ticket demand, and that 16% of spaces permanently closed to live music in last 12 months.

ISSUE: 23 Jan 2024

Why is music journalism collapsing? (Ted Gioia)
Pitchfork’s absorption into GQ is a travesty for music media – and musicians (Guardian)
Pitchfork news is devastating for music criticism. Here's why reviews matter. (RA)
TuneCore has released a report, showcasing the increased exposure and growth self-releasing artists have experienced as a result of its Accelerator program. (RotD)
Fraud in music streaming on legit platforms. (IllusionOfMore - David Newhoff)

ISSUE: 16 Jan 2024

Analysis of Luminate's Year-End Music Report. (MusicAlly)
Luminate’s 2023 Year-End Music Report shows there were 7.1trillion streams across audio and video services last year, up 33.7% on 2022, with 4.1tn of that number from on-demand audio song streams, up 22.3% year-on-year. (RotD) 436k tracks were streamed more than 1m times globally, up from 373k. 152m tracks were streamed less than 1,000 times, a notable figure given Spotify will no longer pay royalties to tracks that have attracted fewer than 1,000 plays on its platform in the prior 12 months. Tracks released in the last five years made up 48.3% of US audio streaming when analysing the top 500k tracks.

ISSUE: 09 Jan 2024

According to BPI analysis based on Official Charts data, vinyl LP sales in the UK increased by 11.7% in the first 51 weeks of 2023 to 5.9 million units, their highest annual level since 1990. (RotD)
Where are we going and where have we been? Music in 2023 & beyond. (Chris Dalla Riva)
Can SoundCloud really fetch a $1bn+ sale price? (DMN)
Why independent Spotify curators still matter. (Chartmetric)
Spotify's editorial playlists are losing influence amid AI expansion. (Bloomberg)
The truth about major label deals in the age of TikTok and Spotify. (Magnetic - TheFatRat)

ISSUE: 19 Dec 2023

Let 1,000 AI startups bloom: Why the time to disrupt the music industry is now. (Hypebot)
Here’s exactly how Spotify’s new 1,000 annual streams royalty policy works. (MBW)
Report: State of the music creator economy – The consumer era (Midia)

ISSUE: 12 Dec 2023

2023 year-end live business analysis: The great return becomes historic golden age. (Pollstar)
British record labels are in a crisis. They can’t “break” emerging artists and this is creating a problem that will impact every part of the music industry in the years to come. (Patrick Clifton)
IFPI released Engaging with Music 2023, its global report examining how people around the world engage with and feel about music. (RotD) Among the findings, the time, on average, that people spend listening to music each week was up from 20.1 hours to 20.7.

ISSUE: 05 Dec 2023

Why vinyl is up 8,400% over 17 years of consecutive growth. (Rob Abelow)

ISSUE: 28 Nov 2023

A census from the Musicians’ Union and Help Musicians of nearly 6,000 professional musicians in the UK has found that 30% report having poor mental wellbeing, with another 11% feeling neither positive nor negative about it. (Guardian)
Spotify overlooked a few details in its much-ballyhooed ‘royalty modernising’ plan — including the illegal parts. What else is about to blow? (DMN)
TikTok published its Music Impact Report, setting out to consider the impact that TikTok and its users have on the music industry in terms of music discovery, consumption, and contribution to industry revenues. (RotD)
Ahead of Engaging with Music 2023, IFPI's global report examining how fans around the world engage with, and feel about, music, it has shared the findings on attitudes to AI. (RotD) Among the findings, 79% of the 43,000 responses felt human creativity remained essential to the creation of music. In the UK, 81% agreed that AI should not be used to clone or impersonate artists without authorisation.

ISSUE: 21 Nov 2023

Whatever happened to NFTs? (BBC) Trading volume has fallen 89% from the beginning of 2022 to now.
The $100m+ in-game opportunity behind music producers. (Midia - Kriss Thakrar)
Reader feedback 'Why is everyone mad at Spotify?'. (Chris Dalla Riva)
Spotify changed how they pay artists. Many people were up in arms. I think their anger is misguided. (Chris Dalla Riva)

ISSUE: 14 Nov 2023

Spotify is implementing a royalty-payment threshold of 1,000 streams per year. So what’s the problem with that? ‘Not much’. (DMN)
1,000 streams or bust. Spotify's latest plan to devalue music. (Damon Krukowski)
How does Spotify’s new royalties model affect songwriters? (Billboard)

ISSUE: 07 Nov 2023

Is the music industry losing money to sped-up remixes? (Billboard)
Identity and culture have killed genre in a scenes-driven industry. (Midia - Kriss Thakrar)
Why artist subscriptions are the perfect partner to two-tier licensing. (Midia)
How Spotify’s new model could accelerate a forking of music. (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)
Omdia analysts predict subscriptions are set to make up more than 62% of all global recorded music revenue by 2027, up from 58% per cent in 2022. North America will account for 43.2% of global recorded music buying in 2027. (FT)

ISSUE: 31 Oct 2023

12 predictions on the future of song investing. (TedGioio)
50 years of music industry revenues by format, adjusted for inflation, using data from the RIAA. (VisualCapitalist)
Spotify’s price hike didn’t hurt subscriptions, and three other things we learned on its latest earnings call. (MBW)
Music Ally’s Sandbox Summit:
D2C and music (MusicAlly)
Building fan communities around artists (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 24 Oct 2023

The science of a smash hit: Insights from Spotify’s billions club playlist. (LVBet)
A UTA report, 'Standing Room Only: Live Music’s Epic Resurgence' paints a rosy picture for the return of live music in the US. (DMN)
Negotiations between YouTube and record labels could be a key moment in the spread of AI technology. (Bloomberg)
Spotify is eating the entire music business. (NYMag) "It’s approaching problems the way every late-stage internet platform does, at least before it discovers its limits: by presuming total victory and control over the industry it’s been working to enclose."

ISSUE: 17 Oct 2023

Streaming is missing cultural moments, and superstars know it. (Midia - Kriss Thakrar)
Bandcamp Anxiety (FirstFloor)
Bandcamp in Songtradr’s hands now: My worries and warnings. (Medium - Jack Diserens)

ISSUE: 03 Oct 2023

Deezer’s artist-centric model should be universal with a small ‘u’. (MusicAlly)
How data science is changing the music industry. (Medium)

ISSUE: 26 Sep 2023

Who wins and who loses under a user centric streaming model? (Medium - Austin Staubus)
The myth of fan power. (ExiledFan) "Fans can sustain careers if they start from the right place and if the fandom infrastructure is strong enough, but they can’t add exposure. They can’t do the work of the still-important middlemen."
Shaping markets and network value. (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)

ISSUE: 19 Sep 2023

Why Saudi Arabia will invest more in music. (Trapital)
How AI will continue to affect dance music (MusicAlly)
Cannibalisation is inevitable for YouTube as the attention economy bites. (Midia - Ben Woods)
More debate needed - IMPALA responds to Deezer and UMG’s proposal on streaming and points to own plan to boost diversity and improve revenues for all artists. (RotD)
Universal and Deezer’s ‘artist-centric’ model isn’t shocking. It emulates tech’s most successful titans. (MBW - Tim Ingham)

ISSUE: 12 Sep 2023

What the $7bn acquisition of CAA means for the live industry. (Pollstar)
How to make artist centric artist centric. (Midia - Mark Mulligan)
UK Music survey finds 82% of music creators say their earnings have plunged since UK left EU. (RotD)
UK Musicians’ Census provides unparalleled insight into of the careers of the UK’s music creators. (Guardian) It revealed that the average annual income from music work is £20,700 – but nearly half earn under £14,000. The Census was created by the Musicians’ Union and Help Musicians.

ISSUE: 29 Aug 2023

Up close and personal: when the algorithm goes too far. (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)
The payment model debate isn’t over. (PennyFractions) "Numerous groups continue to fight and poke at this question, but it’s becoming clearer what the terrain of a post-pro rata world may look like, and it’s not looking much better than where we stand today."

ISSUE: 22 Aug 2023

Where next for Vinyl? (Medium - Patrick Clifton) "A more concerted effort to sustain the value chain and it’s infrastructure will be required in the future if we’re hope for sustainable growth of the format over the next few years."
Community, scene, meme & lasting cultural impact. (MusicX)
Is AI the future of music or threat to human creativity? (Ivors - Kevin Sargent)
AI will amplify human imagination and enrich musical creativity in extraordinary new ways — and we'll need to strike the balance. (YouTube - Sir Lucian Grainge, UMG)

ISSUE: 15 Aug 2023

AI is the new digital ad industry… but the stakes are far greater. (Midia)
Nightclub industry struggles with over 100 independent nightclubs lost in last 12 months. (NTIA)
The three majors – across recorded music, publishing, and other income streams – jointly generated $13bn in the first six months of 2023, up from $12bn in the same period in 2022. (MBW)

ISSUE: 08 Aug 2023

Music streaming services are on the cusp of major structural change. (GoldmanSachs)
Super fans may not be super enough. (Midia)

ISSUE: 01 Aug 2023

What will Spotify’s price rise mean for its recording artists and songwriters? (Guardian)
Spotify price rise reaction – and possible consequences. (MusicAlly)
With revenues growing to $11.3bn in 2022, electronic music’s impact on live events has never been greater. (IQ)
Music streaming services switching to a user-centric payment model would have a “significant” impact on the payments artists receive, with one in five artists doubling their earnings, while four in 10 could see significant drops, according to the results of a new study. (MBW)
Amid continued discussions about user-centric streaming payouts – and the growing prevalence of artificial intelligence – a new deep-dive study is exploring the complex potential effects of a pivot away from the pro-rata model. (DMN)
Spotify says ‘Super Listeners’ — the ‘die-hard, listen-on-repeat, buy-up-all-your-merch’ fans — make up 2% of monthly listeners but 18% of streams. (Spotify)

ISSUE: 25 Jul 2023

Big data has helped the music industry sell us only what we already like – but the results are less alive and less surprising. (Guardian)
Making sense of global music forecasts (Midia)
How live music will change in the next decade (Midia)

ISSUE: 18 Jul 2023

Will ByteDance build the first cultural graph for music recommendations? (Midia)
How building communities in the modern music business economy provides new opportunities – and challenges – around monetisation. (MusicAlly)
AI isn’t the music industry’s biggest problem: Here’s how to stop streaming fraud right now. (Variety)
Will Page on streaming pricing, music’s revenue ‘pie’ – and why the global record industry is more local than ever. (MBW)
Luminate released its 2023 midyear music report, providing a data-driven look at the state of the global music industry. (RotD) Among its findings were that global on-demand streams (audio+video combined) were up 30.8% from midyear 2022 to 3.3trillion; audio streams were up 22.9% and outside of the US and Canada, on-demand audio and video streaming in Asia were up 107%, South Africa (83%) and Latin America (70%). The report also highlighted that 112,000 new music tracks were being added to streaming services each day.

ISSUE: 11 Jul 2023

Understanding the power of retention in the subscription economy. (Midia - Tim Mulligan)
Threads: Will it be good for music? (DiS - Sean Adams)

ISSUE: 04 Jul 2023

Who tomorrow's music business is being built for. (Midia)
AI can actually help protect creativity and copyrights. (Variety)
The music industry’s tipping point is Right Here, Right Now. (Midia)
1,500 music producers surveyed about how they use AI in music production. (BPB)
Goldman Sachs updates its music industry revenue forecasts, with slightly reduced figures. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 20 Jun 2023

Twelve brutal truths about AI music. (Ted Gioia)

ISSUE: 13 Jun 2023

Does the music industry still want NFTs? (David Turner)
The world's leading artist management companies 2023. (Rostr) The top 100 are based on how popular their rosters are on Spotify. Full Stop Management top the list, with 723m monthly listeners across their roster. Red Light and Roc Nation follow, with Three Six Zero at 7 with 306m and YMU Group at 18 with 124m.
How rising DJ fees are reshaping the dance music economy. (RA)

ISSUE: 06 Jun 2023

Speculate or communicate - dreaming big on music NFTs. (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)

ISSUE: 30 May 2023

Why your Spotify subscription is about to get more expensive (Bloomberg)
AI is an opportunity for creative industries, says Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe. (FT)
AI will unlock creation rather than consumption. (Midia)
The state of music, with Will Page (Trapital, taken from a podcast)

ISSUE: 23 May 2023

Social content platforms are set to compete with everything in entertainment. (Midia)
The Beat: Music as experience, the looming AI battle and time. (Decential)
Indie labels question if record companies' share of streaming royalties is 'undervalued' vs music publishers' slice of the pie. (MBW)
Dispelling the utopian dream: the complex reality of music royalties. (MusicAlly)
Why your Spotify subscription is about to get more expensive. (Bloomberg) After almost a decade of strong growth, the music industry is slowing down.

ISSUE: 16 May 2023

The global dance music industry grew by 34% in 2022. (Midia)

ISSUE: 09 May 2023

Ad-supported music streaming is broken (MBW)
AI vs. the Music Industry: With the internet full of fake Drakes and Eminems, who gets paid? (Variety)
Where are music tech’s billion-dollar exits. (Trapital)

ISSUE: 02 May 2023

Why AI generation might be just what music needs. (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)
What happens when music is no longer static? (Music X)

ISSUE: 25 Apr 2023

IMPF, representing independent music publishers internationally, has launched the third edition of its Independent Music Publishing Global Market View. (RotD)
Assistive vs. Generative AI: What’s the difference and what are the copyright implications? (DMN)
Spotify gives 49 different names to the same song. Composers and recording artists are all different too, but the music is identical—what's going on? (Ted Gioia)
We soon won’t tell the difference between AI and human music – so can pop survive? (Guardian)
AI Drake just set an impossible legal trap for Google. (Verge)
Artists and labels have legal tools to fight fakes created by artificial intelligence, but massive questions about AI-generated music loom unanswered. (Billboard)
AI will transform music; the question is how? (Midia)

ISSUE: 18 Apr 2023

The business behind Coachella. (Trapital)
Music streaming’s looming generational blind spot. (Midia)
The music industry obsesses over artist performance statistics – where are label performance statistics? (Midia)
Analysts are starting to believe that AI may be an existential threat for the major labels. Is that overly pessimistic? (MBW)
Fan lifetime value and the calculation method. Explanation, Calculator (Where's Music Going - Rob Abelow)
Analysis of 6,000+ playlists to understand the relative power of major and indie catalogues in Spotify recommendations across the most popular music genres. (Chartmetric)

ISSUE: 11 Apr 2023

The developing “crisis” of music streaming. (David Turner)
The BPI has published a new report The New Music Democracy: How More Artists Are Succeeding From Streaming. (RotD) The UK market hit a record 159.3bn audio streams in 2022, 86.1% of recorded music consumption, compared with 36.4% in 2016. Among the global audio stream highlights for last year, music by more than 400 UK artists generated at least 100m streams, while over 200 each surpassed 200m streams; More than 1,000 UK artists accumulated at least 20m streams – around 15% more than in 2021; More than 100 UK artists’ stream counts topped half a billion, and over 40 UK artists achieved more than 1bn streams.

ISSUE: 04 Apr 2023

An open letter: We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. (FutureofLife)
How I learned to stop worrying and love the algorithm (and you can too) (MBW)

ISSUE: 28 Mar 2023

Gamma, Downtown, Utopia, and the rise of the ‘inside-out majors’. (MBW - Hunter Giles, Infinite Catalog)
In traditionally Pop-hungry and social media-savvy Asian markets, EDM music festivals in Asia are introducing new sounds to local audiences and influencing global genre trends. (Chartmetric)
On the power dynamics of decentralisation in music. (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)
The music industry is a slowly sinking ship beset by complexity. (Water&Music)
The IFPI Global Music Report 2023 showed the global recorded music market grew by 9% to $26.2bn in 2022, driven by growth in paid subscription streaming. (RotD)
New research from the BPI reveals that streaming success is spread across many more artists compared to the CD era. (RotD) Based on Official Charts data, the findings show that the 10 leading streaming artists made up just 4.9% of the audio streaming market in the UK last year. This compares to the top 10 artists in 2007, when CD was the leading format, making up 10.9% of that year's artist album sales. More than 2,000 artists each generated at least 10 million audio streams of their music in the UK in 2022, while more than 200 surpassed 100 million UK streams.

ISSUE: 21 Mar 2023

Streaming should pay more, but how? a.k.a. Spotify and the rest obviously have other priorities, and it's far from clear that consumers have any appetite for price hikes. (FirstFloor)
"We are sleep-walking our way into a financial and cultural disaster for the thousands of small European music companies and their artists who account for 80% of all new releases in Europe today.” (RotD - Helen Smith, IMPALA) The biggest impact will be on those that rely most heavily on performance and broadcast income to make a living and run their businesses, European music performers and micro, small and medium sized record labels.
Following a spectacular year of growth in 2021, global recorded music revenue growth slowed significantly in 2022 due to the combined impact of global economic headwinds and growth slowdown in mature streaming markets. (Midia)

ISSUE: 14 Mar 2023

Streaming is becoming more like radio — what now? (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)
The way AI isn’t used will have a bigger impact on music than how it is used. (Midia - Kriss Thakrar)
2023 in review: Deezer, Pandora, SiriusXM, and Tidal. (PennyFractions - David Turner)
The BPI reported UK recorded music revenue rose by 4.7% year-on-year to reach £1.32bn for the full-year 2022 – a rise of 36% over the past five years. (RotD)
Streaming brought record growth to the music business — TikTok and AI need to get it right. (Variety)

ISSUE: 07 Mar 2023

The future of music curation: Two divergent paths. (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)
Creative AI’s next big discussion: art, plagiarism, and copyright. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 28 Feb 2023

Are we close to the legalisation of therapeutic psychedelics? (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 21 Feb 2023

Resident Advisor, DJ Mag and Mixmag have all revamped their editorial, pledging to tell a more diverse array of stories. But has that pledge trickled down to their news coverage? (Shawn Reynaldo)
Is 2023 the year that original compositions and AI-generated music will go head-to-head? (MW)

ISSUE: 14 Feb 2023

Everyone hurts – the problem with 'fixing' streaming. (Midia - Mark Mulligan)
Is the music biz ready for a world of conversational search AIs? (MusicAlly)
Misogyny in music: ‘The imposter syndrome is created by the systems’. (MusicAlly)
How DO streaming algorithms change the way we listen to music? (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 07 Feb 2023

Could AI generate music’s Instagram moment? (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)

ISSUE: 31 Jan 2023

What do we mean by ‘artist-centric’ music streaming models? (MusicAlly)
Marrying art and science: the challenges and opportunities of curation for the music industry today (MusicAlly - Alex Kisch, Vevo)

ISSUE: 24 Jan 2023

Chartmetric released its half-year Music Industry Trends and Predictions report, featuring new categories Breakthrough 100 and Viral 25. (Chartmetric)

ISSUE: 17 Jan 2023

Ten controversial predictions for the music business in 2023. (Medium)
Has the streaming slowdown arrived? (Midia)
Fan-focused strategy still the best catalyst for success. (MusicAlly)
Will music streaming finally hit maturity in 2023? (MusicAlly - Phil Bird, Vistex)
Global on-demand music streams (for audio as well as video) hiked by 25.6% to crack 5.3 trillion during 2022, as stateside on-demand streams grew by 12.2% to surpass 1.3 trillion. (DMN) In the US, CD album sales fell 11.6%, single-track downloads declined down 25.1% and digital album sales dropped 22.8%.
ERA figures show the value of the UK home entertainment market soared to £11.1bn in 2022, an all-time record for music, video and games sales, up 39% up on the last pre-pandemic year of 2019. The main driver of growth continues to be streaming and digital formats. (RotD) Within music, subscription streaming revenues grew 5% to £1,661.1m, physical sales fell by 3.8% to £280.4m, vinyl album sales grew 11% to £150.5m, while CD album sales fell 17.4% to £124m.

ISSUE: 10 Jan 2023

What artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT can do for independent music. (Midia)
The unexpected labyrinth of music marketing ROI. (Water & Music)
Music industry revenues in review – what 2022 tells us about 2023. (Midia)
5 numbers that will come to define the music business in 2023. (MBW)
The proposed change to UK copyright legislation could that have a serious impact on UK Music creators and businesses' rights and royalties. (UKMusic - CEO, Jamie Njoku-Goodwin)
BPI 2022 figures: British artists accounted for all the Top 10 of the end-of-year Official Singles Chart of 2022, and were also behind 58% of the year-end Top 100.
Music consumption increased for the eighth consecutive year in 2022, with annual audio streaming figures approaching 160bn for the first time.
The total number of streams increased by 8.3% in 2022, compared to 21.5% in 2020.
The Top 10 albums of the year were dominated by old releases and greatest hits compilations, with only Styles’ Harry’s House and Taylor Swift’s Midnights released in 2022.
CDs sales fell 19.3% over the last 12 months. Digital download album sales further declined, down 18.9% year-on-year. (RotD)

ISSUE: 20 Dec 2022

Tracklib has compiled an exclusive look into the impact of sampling in 2022, presented as their annual State of Sampling report. Sampling is becoming more popular, as 1 out of every 5 hits on the Billboard Top 100 are sample-based. (RotD)
Music industry revenues in review – what 2022 tells us about 2023. (Midia)
The top 10 TikTok tracks were streamed far less in 2022 than they were in 2020, fueling worries that app usage isn't "translating" as well to consumption. (Billboard)
TikTok cannot afford the music industry. (PennyFractions) "Ultimately industry reporting will be how we find out the kind of deals that get signed between TikTok and major music firms, but I’d caution that the pandemic bubble may have already burst for the music’s future revenue engine."
TikTok launches its What's Next 2023 Trend Report. (TikTok)

ISSUE: 13 Dec 2022

17 key music industry acquisition stories from 2022. (MusicAlly)
Music subscriber market shares 2022 (Midia)

ISSUE: 06 Dec 2022

Recent hits by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha, Jack Harlow, Yung Gravy, and Latto have given pop music a retro flair by sampling older music. But what's the effect on the source tracks? (Chartmetric)
Is the music industry’s love affair with TikTok ‘dead’? (Billboard)

ISSUE: 29 Nov 2022

10 years ago, Warner Music’s top 5 superstars generated 15% of its revenue. Today, that number is down to just 5%. (MBW)
Will the recession change Big Tech’s view on entertainment? (Midia - Mark Mulligan)

ISSUE: 22 Nov 2022

IFPI released Engaging with Music 2022, a global report on how people around the world enjoy and engage with music. (RotD) Highlights include: Average weekly time listening to music grows to 20.1 hours; 46% of respondents use subscription audio streaming services; 73% of respondents saying that they listen to radio primarily for music; 30% used unauthorised or unlicensed methods to listen to or download music.
The BPI highlighted UK focused stats. (RotD)
As EDM genres like Dance Pop and Progressive House go mainstream, darker, more experimental DJs find their numbers on the rise. (Chartmetric)
The climate cost of live music. (MusicX - Beatriz Negreiros)
A study by Help Musicians reveals that half of the 525 UK artists surveyed are “extremely” or “very” concerned they’ll be forced to leave the industry. (Guardian) The research shows that 60% of musicians say they are earning less than they were a year ago, while eight in 10 have reported earning less than before the pandemic. In response to the findings, the charity has pledged to invest £8m into services that will support musicians this year, including 24/7 mental health support, mentoring, funding for touring and debt management services.
Recession looms over the music industry (part 2) (David Turner)
Industry bodies AIM, LIVE, NTIA, and Music Venue Trust reacted to the UK Government's Autumn statement. (RotD)

ISSUE: 15 Nov 2022

A new Synchtank report exposes the disjointed processes behind sync clearance. (RotD)
Figures by CGA research agency suggest that by 2030 there will be no clubs in Britain, with a rate of one nightclub closing every two days currently. The past nine months have seen 123 clubs shut down as the night-time economy struggle with soaring inflation and consumers tightening their belts. The NTIA said the closures could lead to a revival of illegal parties and rave culture. (Times)

ISSUE: 08 Nov 2022

Streaming remuneration: An answer to global cultural dominance by European/US Streaming Services. (MTS)
Report: How streaming has impacted the value of music. (Musonomics)
Global value of music copyright jumps 18% to a record high of $39.6bn in 2021: could it have been even higher? (Will Page)
Why Amazon Music is primed for success. (Midia)

ISSUE: 01 Nov 2022

The 2022 Global Collections Report published by CISAC showed global royalty collections for creators of all repertoires returned to growth in 2021, rising 5.8% to €9.6bn but remaining well below pre-pandemic levels. Despite a 27.9% rise in digital royalties helped by the growth of subscription streaming, total worldwide collections in 2021 were still 5.3% lower than in 2019. (RotD)

ISSUE: 25 Oct 2022

How digital piracy shaped modern music. (David Turner)
The music industry needs a new format (Mark Mulligan)
As music streaming revenue plateaus, what are the next top three revenue streams for labels, publishers, and artists that will grow? And will anything ever surpass streaming revenue? (Bloomberg)

ISSUE: 18 Oct 2022

TikTok Music could change the game. (Midia)

ISSUE: 11 Oct 2022

The recorded music market is regaining its former hourglass shape — this time with platforms like Spotify at the centre. (Wired)

ISSUE: 04 Oct 2022

20 predictions for the music business in 10 years. (Ted Gioia)
Could the cost of living crisis crush new music? (Face)
Major record labels have little incentive to address streaming manipulation. (Medium - Austin Staubus)
Sexual harassment, racism and bullying are rife across the music sector on a “devastating scale”, according to a survey of professional musicians. (Guardian)
Analysis of TikTok’s weekly charts in the first half of 2022 reveals that, among tracks that charted in the TikTok Top 200 and then went on to reach over a million Spotify streams, 63.8% achieved this solely through organic posting by the artist and other TikTok users. Artist-generated content (AGC) drove 35.5% of these breakout hits, whereas influencer marketing and paid ads were responsible for driving traction in only 9.1% and 2.5% of cases respectively. (RotD)

ISSUE: 27 Sep 2022

Has streaming made it harder to discover new music? (Guardian)
The UK music industry remains almost a third smaller than before the pandemic as rampant inflation, soaring costs and Brexit red tape threaten to derail its fragile recovery, a UK Music report warns. (Guardian - Mark Sweney)
Is it too late to make the music industry sustainable? (RollingStone - James Blount)

ISSUE: 20 Sep 2022

C.R.E.A.T.E. - An entertainment manifesto. (Midia) The next chapter of the business of entertainment will require a completely new approach.
The "fifth wheel": Just how financially secure is music publishing? (Synchtank - Eamonn Forde) How financially secure can the publishing world allow itself to feel in the streaming age?
Is it too late to make the music industry sustainable? (RollingStone)
It is vital that the economics of the music industry change to challenge exploitative power, support independent artists and benefit society. Tom Gray, founder of the #BrokenRecord campaign, explains what can be done. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 06 Sep 2022

Is “community marketing” an alternative to influencer marketing? (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 30 Aug 2022

Can Soundful, a human aided AI music platform, fulfil the demand for music within the creator community? (Attack)
The dynamics of exploration on Spotify. (Spotify)

ISSUE: 23 Aug 2022

Re-creating the creator economy. (Midia)
Music is not a level playing field — it is a field of all levels. (Midia)
How can artists succeed in the electronic music industry today? To help make sense of a rapidly shifting landscape, a variety of experts weigh in on the recipe for fame in the age of the algorithm. (RA)
BPI CEO Geoff Taylor talks about the current state of the music streaming economy. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 16 Aug 2022

As Soundcloud makes its first layoffs since 2017, what’s the driving force behind the decision? (Attack)
Germany recorded music revenues up 5.5% in first half of 2022. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 09 Aug 2022

Gender and dance music: D-LISH talks about female DJ experiences. [video] (BBC)
“Ridiculous double standards”: Why Jaguar is fighting against the dance music 'boys' club' (Mixmag)
Why dance music is out of step with female and non-binary DJs. (Guardian - Jaguar)
A report by the Jaguar Foundation has found that less than 1% of dance music played on UK radio is made by a female solo artist or all-female band. The report also highlighted women are also under-represented on the charts, accounting for just 5% of dance hits. (BBC)

ISSUE: 02 Aug 2022

Inside the multi-billion dollar battle royale over music-streaming royalties. (Variety)

ISSUE: 26 Jul 2022

Music analytics platform Viberate has published an extensive analysis of the 2022 season, covering 500 festivals and the more than 9,000 performing artists on their lineups. (909) Electronic artists (39%) comprising the majority of all festival bookings.

ISSUE: 19 Jul 2022

Meeting in the musical metaverse: Expectations vs. reality (Water&Music)
So… how much did TikTok actually pay the music industry from its $4bn in revenues last year? (MBW)
Music forecasts: the new era of growth. (Midia)
The new numbers on music consumption are very ugly. (Ted Gioia) And it's not just the dominance of old songs—the whole creative culture is losing its ability to innovate. But why?
How do we make our music economy richer? Treat music like sports. (Forbes - Shain Shapiro, Founder/Chairman - Sound Diplomacy & ED - Center for Music Ecosystems)
Luminate published its Midyear Music Report, which showed global on-demand song streams topped 1.6 trillion, up 24.7% from H1 2021. On-demand video song streams were up 28.1% to 901.5bn. (Variety) In the US, digital album sales were down 19.6% and digital single sales were down 21.4%. CD sales fell to 16.9m units, down 10.7%, while vinyl sales were up 1% to 19.4m units.

ISSUE: 12 Jul 2022

What would 'Exit to Community' look like for artists? (MusicX - Bas Grasmayer)

ISSUE: 05 Jul 2022

Music Publishing in the Age of The Songwriter report – Part 2: Future-proofing publishing services. (Synchtank)
What's happening with brand partnerships? (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)
What Four Tet’s Domino settlement means for the industry. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 28 Jun 2022

A detailed summary of the Domino Records versus Four Tet dispute. (CMU) Domino has since said in a statement "Neither the Courts, nor the settlement terms, have made any determination as to how streaming should be categorised or streaming income split". (Billboard)
Spotify Advertising released Culture Next, its annual global trend report, covering cultural trends among Gen Zs worldwide to help better inform listeners, creators, and advertisers on the future of the digital audio landscape and culture at large. (RotD)
Music’s future is here: It’s called streaming (Part 2) (PennyFractions)

ISSUE: 21 Jun 2022

Goldman Sachs has upped its revenue forecast for the entire music industry. (MusicAlly) 2022 jumps from $81.6bn to $87.6bn; 2023 from $90.7bn to $94.9bn; and 2030 from $139.7bn to $153bn.

ISSUE: 14 Jun 2022

Music’s future is here: It’s called streaming. (David Turner) "A revenue stream that can both serve consumers with easy to access music but also provide to large tech firms as a way to avoid constant litigation over the usage of copyrighted materials is a much, much stronger economic force than digital downloads."
Goldman Sachs has upped its revenue forecast for the entire music industry. (MusicAlly) 2022 jumps from $81.6bn to $87.6bn; 2023 from $90.7bn to $94.9bn; and 2030 from $139.7bn to $153bn.

ISSUE: 07 Jun 2022

Burning out and fading away: the exhausting job of marketing new music. (Midia - Keith Jopling)

ISSUE: 31 May 2022

The record label addiction to virality is about the attention recession, too. (Midia - Tatiana Cirisano)

ISSUE: 24 May 2022

Aslice: Can an altruistic DJ payment program work? (Attack)

ISSUE: 10 May 2022

Patreon survey offers more data on the creator economy. (MusicAlly)
Finally, Black women are finding their voice against abuse in the music industry. (Guardian - Michelle Kambasha)
Report: Women in Music 2022 - A sobering picture emerges of little change in the challenges that women face in the industry since the inaugural study in 2021. (Midia)
The pressure to constantly project success in dance music. (Shawn Reynaldo)
Streaming is not the future of the music economy. (MusicX - Bas Grasmayer)
Music industry earnings 2021: Riding the wave. (Midia) "The economic headwinds during the remainder of 2022 will be challenging for sure, but the performance in 2020 and 2021 point to a robustness that will help it weather the storm in a way that other consumer-centric industries may not enjoy."

ISSUE: 03 May 2022

Is the Spotify editorial playlist landscape fair to emerging artists? (MusicTomorrow)
How artists and their labels balance art and commerce over the long-term. (MusicAlly - Keith Jopling)

ISSUE: 26 Apr 2022

Forget peak Netflix, this is the attention recession. (Midia - Mark Mulligan)

ISSUE: 19 Apr 2022

A look at how much TikTok pays out via its Creator Fund. (DMN)
BPI analysis shows the collective share of music consumption in the UK attributable to independent labels rose to stand at 26.9% in 2021, up from 25.9% in 2020 and 22.1% in 2017. Indie label share of artist album sales has risen from 30.4% in 2019 to 34.2% in 2021, while 39.5% of vinyl LP purchases, up from 33.9% in 2019, are from the sector. (RotD)

ISSUE: 12 Apr 2022

Fake artists are what happens when fandom dies. (Mark Mulligan)
The fake artists problem is much worse than you realise. (Ted Gioia)
The future of music consumption is (re)creation. (Midia - Kriss Thakrar)
Data·ai'ss latest ‘State of Media & Entertainment on Mobile’ report estimated consumer spending on music and audio apps in 2021 grew by 29% year-on-year to $1.95bn. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 05 Apr 2022

The market for music-related NFTs must protect artists and fans. (Variety - RIAA Chairman Mitch Glazier)
Musicians turn to NFTs in hunt for fresh profits. (FT - Anna Nicolaou) “We’ve been in playlist land for the past decade. I think that blockchain tokens are going to be fundamental to our world in 10 years, and anyone that says that’s not true is not looking back on history.”

ISSUE: 29 Mar 2022

From protocols to people: A study of music NFT platforms’ onboarding strategies. (Water&Music)
153 tools top majors & indies use to promote music. (Amber Horsburgh)
Did independents really do three times worse than the majors in 2021? (Midia - Mark Mulligan)
The global recorded music market grew by 18.5% in 2021, driven by growth in paid subscription streaming. Figures released in IFPI’s Global Music Report show total revenues for 2021 were US$25.9bn. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 22 Mar 2022

What crypto enthusiasts get wrong about entertainment. (Bloomberg) Artists can now make a project without a studio or record label. It doesn’t mean they want to.
Global recorded music revenues are estimated to have grown by 24.7%, to $28.8bn in 2021, according to Midia.
DSPs will lead music’s mainstream Web3 adoption, but fan-powered music communities will share the wealth. (MBW)

ISSUE: 08 Mar 2022

UK ERA Yearbook:
Music streaming services increased revenue by 10.9% to £1.33bn from 2020 to 2021, according to ERA data. (RotD) Streaming video on-demand saw a rise of 28.2%.
Sales of physical formats amounted to £1.05bn in 2021, down 18.5% on 2020, to comprise just 11% of the overall entertainment market, but in unit terms that still represented more than 50m discs sold. (RotD) CD revenue was £150.1m, while vinyl albums hit £135.6m and vinyl singles £3.3m.
ERA's annual yearbook can be downloaded here.
As the worlds of music and finance converge, there are a number of lessons the music industry stands to learn from finance, including how to invest in music. (Chartmetric)
What Bandcamp’s acquisition by Epic Games means for music fans and artists. (Pitchfork)
Epic Games, Bandcamp, and fandom for the ‘me’ generation. (Midia)
What happened to progress in dance music. (Attack)

ISSUE: 01 Mar 2022

Metaverse, schmetaverse: the guiding principles music should focus on. (MusicX - Bas Grasmayer)

ISSUE: 22 Feb 2022

The externalities of NFTs will upend the world of creative expression. They’ll have to be reckoned with even by those not interested in the technology, through a three pronged approach. (MusicX - Bas Grasmayer)
Why we need to think about music ecosystems to grow the industry and sector. (MusicAlly - Shain Shapiro, Founder & Executive Director of Center for Music Ecosystems)
Black dance music without Black people: a data analysis (TechnoMaterialism)
DJ Mixes in the world of streaming music (and video) (MusicDataPro - Part 1, Part 2)

ISSUE: 15 Feb 2022

NFT scams are everywhere. Here’s how to avoid them. (RollingStone)
Contrasting modes of behaviour in crypto. (MusicX - Maarten Walraven)
The 3 major music companies jointly generated over $20bn last year (that’s over $2m per hour). (MBW)
A complete guide to Spotify recommendation algorithms. (Music-Tomorrow)

ISSUE: 08 Feb 2022

Why I don't believe in music royalty NFTs, yet. (MusicX - Bas Grasmayer)
The world’s breakthrough artists and tracks on music streaming platforms and social media. Chartmetric's report on H2 2021.

ISSUE: 25 Jan 2022

Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021. (Midia) "YouTube Music has transformed its fortunes, growing by more than 50% in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021. YouTube Music was the only Western DSP to increase global market share during this the period". Worldwide streaming subscriptions grew by 26.4% in the second quarter of 2021, to stand at 521.3m.
All the growth in the music business now comes from old songs—how did we get here, and is there a way back? (TedGiola)
Will Web3 music be on the metaverse guest list? (Cadence)
Music research and analytics platform Viberate published its annual 'State of Music' address. (RotD) Trends identified for 2022 include multilingual music going more mainstream, personalisation at the forefront, TikTok acting as a career launchpad, short videos gaining power, and further blending of genres.

ISSUE: 18 Jan 2022

What if 2022 isn’t the year of music NFTs. (Dan Fowler)
The next evolution of direct-to-fan will be fan-to-fan. (Midia)
Onboarding: the key to long-term sustainable communities. (MusicX - Bas Grasmayer)
1001Tracklists' A State of Dance Music 2021 report suggest demand for live sets and tech-house is greater than ever. Report here. (EDM)

ISSUE: 11 Jan 2022

2021 Reflections: The hidden cost of pandemic-era nightlife. (RA)

ISSUE: 21 Dec 2021

The International Music Publishers Forum (IMPF) has launched its second Independent Publishing Market View, which dissects the value of the independent music publishing industry, as well as the sector’s influence on the modern music ecosystem and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. (RotD)
Year on TikTok 2021 Music Report. (TikTok)

ISSUE: 14 Dec 2021

MDLBeast Festival is 'Culture-Washing' Saudi Arabia's authoritarian regime. (RA)
Music market shares: independent labels and artists are even bigger than you thought. (Midia)

ISSUE: 07 Dec 2021

Can Unesco save Berlin’s seedy techno dens? (Telegraph - Ed Power)
Berlin's techno clubs are richly deserving of world heritage status. (Times)
Is the music industry’s future on the blockchain? (Verge)
You don’t need to own your favourite artist’s catalogue. (David Turner)
Streaming services to see 150m cancellations next year as churn heats up, Deloitte predicts. (HR)

ISSUE: 30 Nov 2021

The attention economy after the lockdown boom. (Midia)

ISSUE: 23 Nov 2021

Livestreams: why they are here to stay (MusicAlly - Claire Mas, Driift)
A solution to YouTube’s 'Value Gap'. (David Turner)
Music streaming services payouts: How much do they pay artists in 2021? (AmplifyYou)
“It’s like having a focus group for each track”: how a sea-change in A&R and music discovery is levelling the playing field for artists. (MusicAlly - Andreea Gleeson, CEO of TuneCore)
What NFTs promise music creators — and what they actually do. (Yash Bagal)
Reality check: NFTs are still niche, but they do have mainstream potential. (Midia)

ISSUE: 16 Nov 2021

Tribes are the future of fandom (and that may or may not be a good thing). (Midia)
Right now, musicians are selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for millions of dollars. But are they really a profitable investment? (Currency)
Is there a magic formula to TikTok song success? Here’s what AI analysis shows. (MusicAlly)
A report from Utopia and Midia titled 'Growth from Transparency: Reframing the Value of Music through Creator Rights' looks at the value of music as the creator economy grows and identifies non-music activity in the digital world including social posts, live Q&As, and virtual meet and greets, as part of an ecosystem that could lead to a $61.7bn music industry by 2028. (Utopia)

ISSUE: 09 Nov 2021

There is no "creator economy". (PennyFractions - David Turner)
The creator economy is growing much faster than music streaming. (Cherie Hu)

ISSUE: 02 Nov 2021

A barrier to being seen: Ageism and sexism intersect on the dance floor. (RA)
Songwriters vs. giant tech streaming services: What you need to know. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 26 Oct 2021

Electronic music is getting old. (Shawn Reynaldo) What does futurism mean in the context of a genre that just turned 40?
How much are artists really making on Twitch? (Cherie Hu)

ISSUE: 19 Oct 2021

Black Lives in Music released the results of a survey - Being Black in the UK Music Industry Pt.1, with findings including that 73% of Black music professionals had experienced direct/indirect racism in the music industry, and 80% had experienced racial microaggressions. (RotD, Guardian)

ISSUE: 12 Oct 2021

An overabundance of music NFT platforms -- and scams (Water&Music)
Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist tends to benefit independent label and women artists the most, according to a new study. (Variety) The research also noted "streams for music by women account for about a quarter of total streams, a share that is low compared to the number of women listening, among musicians and in the population as a whole”.

ISSUE: 05 Oct 2021

Just how difficult is it to make a sustainable living from streaming? (Cherie Hu)

ISSUE: 28 Sep 2021

UMG’s buoyant stock debut is a new chapter for the music business. (Mark Mulligan)
Intellectual Property Office research investigated the issues impacting upon the ability of creators to earn money since the development of music streaming. (MusicAlly) “Our main objective is to provide evidence that might contribute to a more informed debate about matters of public concern concerning music creators’ earnings,” the authors wrote. “The top 1% of artists account for 78-80% of streams, and the top 10 per cent for 98 per cent”, were among the findings. (Gov)

ISSUE: 21 Sep 2021

The oncoming fandom crisis. (Mark Mulligan)

ISSUE: 07 Sep 2021

Will Spotify stay independent — and should it? (Billboard)

ISSUE: 31 Aug 2021

Are NFTs the new Napster? This time the music industry isn’t taking chances. (Forbes)

ISSUE: 24 Aug 2021

'We're seeing the change to a consumption model': How streaming has transformed the albums chart. (MW)

ISSUE: 17 Aug 2021

Why Spotify’s creator strategy needs to pay more attention to fans. (Midia)
Can Spotify break out of its lane? (Midia)
Can Covid-era music festivals ever be safe? (Guardian)

ISSUE: 10 Aug 2021

Why a Covid data strategy for live music doesn’t exist (yet). (Cherie Hu)

ISSUE: 03 Aug 2021

Hypercompetition. How platforms destroy markets. (Paul Saunders) "If you are a supplier, platforms are effectively casinos. In music you often see service providers advertising ‘keep 100% of your copyright’. It’s not valuable; it has become a lottery ticket".
Spotify and music listening ten years from now. (Midia)

ISSUE: 27 Jul 2021

Chartmetric launched its semi-annual report on music industry trends. The main theme in this edition is gender equity.
75% of TikTok visitors say they discover artists there, while 63% say it’s a source for music they’ve not heard before and 72% indicate they associate certain songs with TikTok. (TikTok)

ISSUE: 20 Jul 2021

Global music subscriber market shares Q1 2021. (Midia)

ISSUE: 13 Jul 2021

In the UK The Association of Independent Music (AIM) has published the first research into an alternative streaming proposal which has been modeled on the whole UK market. (RotD)
The state of dance music, according to Spotify editors. (Spotify)

ISSUE: 06 Jul 2021

TikTok royalties: How are they calculated? (Horus)
Record labels cannot stop winning in 2021. (David Turner)
A better deal for musicians and songwriters from streaming. (MusicAlly - Naomi Pohl, Deputy Secretary of the MU)
Female DJ representation is on the rise - But there's a long way to go. (EDM)
Music NFTs were huge in the first half of the year – but the market appears to be drying up. (DMN)

ISSUE: 29 Jun 2021

Streaming, media, and indies have changed the game for the three biggest major record labels. Here’s a full breakdown on where each company is heading. (Trapital)
How Bandcamp could really fix the music business. (Midia)
Live streaming won’t go away when live music returns. This inquiry into Twitch helps us understand how they may co-exist. (Will Page)
International Music Summit has released the full findings of its annual IMS Business Report 2021. (RotD, Billboard, report) Report highlights included a 54% decrease in value of the electronic music sector down to $3.4bn following almost ten years of steady growth, and that 76% of all music NFTs, worth $50.2m, were issued by electronic artists in the last year.

ISSUE: 22 Jun 2021

Can streaming pay? Musicians are pinning fresh hopes on Twitch. (NYTimes)
Why esports and music collaborations will drive growth across both industries. (MusicAlly - Phil Hübner, Challengermode) /

ISSUE: 11 Jun 2021

Components' Andrew Thompson explores the relationship between an artist's Spotify followers and their Spotify monthly listeners to determine how instructive Spotify follower ratio can be for monitoring artist growth and fan engagement. (Chartmetric)
Experts panel: making stand-out artist brands in a hyper-competitive world. (MusicAlly)
The five E’s of fan engagement in music marketing. (MusicAlly - Sandra Croft and Henriette Heimdal, CD Baby)

ISSUE: 04 Jun 2021

DJs - Don't avoid playing 2020 pandemic era tracks in upcoming sets. (Magnetic)
Blockchain will underpin fanbases and the way artists build careers, teams, and engage with industry infrastructure. (MusicX - Bas Grasmayer) Can you put a fanbase on the blockchain?
How can memberships and tips economies work for musicians? (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 28 May 2021

Hi-Res audio: It’s all about a maturing market (Midia)

ISSUE: 14 May 2021

The BPI has published the latest in its series of Insight Session reports: 10 x 10: Ten Trends for the Next Ten Years, which follows the Insight Session on the subject held last month. (RotD)
Why Twitter is better positioned for tipping musicians than streaming services like Spotify and SoundCloud. (MusicX - Bas Grasmayer)
Growth drivers – what comes after streaming. (Midia - Mark Mulligan)
Experts Panel: how should music streaming services evolve? (MusicAlly)
Streaming services pulled the business back from the brink. But artists say they can’t make a living. And their complaints are getting louder. (NYTimes)

ISSUE: 07 May 2021

Live streaming won’t go away when live music returns. This inquiry into Twitch helps us understand how they may co-exist. (Will Page)

ISSUE: 23 Apr 2021

Report: Rebalancing the Song Economy. (Midia) The way forward must consider the music business in the round and be sensitive to the competing needs of all its constituents.
The music industry’s centre of gravity is shifting. (Midia)
Music NFT market update (Cherie Hu)
Is it time for a DJ Union? (Attack)

ISSUE: 16 Apr 2021

Perspectives from the scene: Yuko Ichikawa of Tokyo's Contact Club (RA)
Europe’s vastly different roads to live music recovery. (IO - Chris Carey, TicketSwop)

ISSUE: 09 Apr 2021

Rethinking touring post-pandemic: touring DJs Juliet Fox, Kyle Geiger, Sebastian Mullaert, Unders, and Marbs reflect. (DJTechTools)

ISSUE: 01 Apr 2021

A recent rally for Live Nation is good for investors, but it may spell troubling news for independent venues and the fans who love them. (Pitchfork - Marc Hogan)

ISSUE: 26 Mar 2021

UK nightclubs need financial help – and respect for their cultural importance. (Guardian)
Undercover cops is not the answer: nightclubs need to do more to protect women. (Mixmag)
IMPALA has published a ten-point plan to reform streaming. (RotD, Legrand)
Artists have a 0.2% chance of generating $50k a year on Spotify. (MBW)

ISSUE: 19 Mar 2021

Global revenue for recorded music grew 7% to $23.1bn in 2020, according to a new study released by Midia Research. The growth rate was significantly below the 11% increases seen in both 2018 and 2019. Streaming revenues reached $14.2bn, up 19.6% from 2019. Independent labels and artists direct both strongly overperformed in the market, collectively growing at 27% and thus increasing their combined streaming market share to 31.5%. The artists direct sector grew by 34.1% to $1.2bn and in the process increased market share by more than a whole point, up to 5.1%. (Variety)
Are user-centric royalties a gamechanger or just a really big ‘meh'? (TMN - Arlo Enemark - Noisehive)
Putting police in nightclubs is the worst response imaginable. (Clash)
Perspectives from the scene: Liam Alexander and Benny Rausa of Melbourne's Colour club. (RA)

ISSUE: 12 Mar 2021

Tidal: Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey want to fix the music business. Can they? (Bloomberg)

ISSUE: 05 Mar 2021

Life after clubs. (DT)
Daft Punk breakup leaves millions on the table, but royalties are still rolling in. (Billboard)
According to the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA)'s annual report, revenues for the US recorded music industry grew by 9.2 per cent last year to $12.2 billion. (Magnetic)
Music retail spending in the UK in 2020 was £1,552m, up 6.8% year-on-year, according to the ERA yearbook. (RotD) The value for physical was down 14.6%, while digital rose 12.8%. Sales of vinyl LPs enjoyed their 12th successive year of growth to reach £110.1m, up 13.3%.
A whitepaper dedicated to livestreaming and the virtual live experience aimed to grasp the essence of current trends and look behind the scenes to understand the key dynamics that will shape the sector’s future. (Midem)
Slowly but surely, the major labels' dominance of Spotify is declining. (MBW)

ISSUE: 26 Feb 2021

The Covid bounce and the coming attention recession. (Midia)

ISSUE: 12 Feb 2021

New artists, does it pay to be streaming first? (Midia - Keith Jopling)
As streaming dominates the music world, is radio’s signal fading? (Variety)
A RIAA report found the music industry created $170bn in value annually to US GDP, supported 2.47m jobs across a wide range of professions, and accounted for $9.08bn in export sales. Revenues in the music industry were found to have a 1.5x multiplier on the broader economy, and there were 236,269 music related businesses across the country. (RIAA)

ISSUE: 05 Feb 2021

Ditto's Opulous is built on the Algorand blockchain: Bringing decentralised finance to the music industry. (Algorand - Lee Parsons, CEO Opulous & Ditto)
Sony Music just spend $430m on indie label AWAL? The major hasn’t just bought a choosy DIY distributor: It’s bought a very clever Sorting Hat, able to algorithmically determine the potential of individual artists around the world." (RollingStone)

ISSUE: 29 Jan 2021

How streaming bots are wrecking independent musicians’ careers. (Hypebot)
Why record labels love social media. (Penny Fractions)
Most of Native Instruments’ shares have sold. What could it mean for Traktor? (DJTechTools)
A&R is at a crossroads, and as 2021 rolls on, the sector will be forced to grow up. Travis Rosenblatt explores the mistakes A&R execs and labels make, and the changes which could see the industry evolve. (TMN)
If you want to start a music brand, don’t wait until the pandemic is over. (Bas Grasmayer)
Chartmetric looks at trends from H2 2020, and predicts stars for 2021.
A study suggests cultural and creative industries could hold the key to rebuilding Europe's battered economy after the pandemic. (RotD) The report recommends 'finance, empower, leverage' for the creative sector.
A study published by European Authors Society GESAC showed overall revenue in Europe's creative sector dropped 31% in 2020 from a high of €643bn in 2019 to €444bn last year. (Billboard) Music revenue in Europe slumped 76%. Europe's music industry expects sales of CDs and vinyl records to be down 35% in 2020, offset by only an 8% increase in digital revenue.

ISSUE: 22 Jan 2021

Music has developed an attention dependency. (Midia)
Are music charts a relic of the past? (Forbes)
We don’t just need a review of music streaming: We need a review of the entire music ecosystem. (Forbes - Shain Shapiro, Founder/Group CEO - Sound Diplomacy)
Major labels gave evidence to the UK’s music streaming economics inquiry… so what did we learn? (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 15 Jan 2021

Music's non-static future as seen through music making app Endlesss. (Bas Grasmayer)
Music's TV opportunity: connected TVs and advertising revenues. (MusicX)
A report suggests Twitch saw its viewing hours grow by 83%, from 9bn hours in 2019 to 17bn in 2020. (MusicAlly)
Streaming and the embarrassment of Covid riches. (MTP)
According to the MRC report, global recorded-music on-demand streaming finished 2020 up 22.6% on 2019. This growth was led by territories including Japan, Australia, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain, Brazil and Germany.
In the US, on-demand audio consumption showed a 17% increase — to a record 872.6m streams. Total audio consumption was up 11.6% to 756.8m album equivalent units. Sales of albums plus tracks, or track-equivalent albums, were down by 11.9%. (RotD)

ISSUE: 08 Jan 2021

Musicians earn less than 1 cent per stream — here’s what needs to change. (NextWeb)
Music made 2020 better, but we failed to make 2020 better for musicians. (TechCrunch) In a year where music was our lifeline, why didn't we return the favour?
Thunder only happens when it’s raining: How social media and UGC could decide the future of the music industry. (Synchtank)
The rise of the fan-centric streaming service. (Bas Grasmayer)
What to watch out for in 2021: scarcity models, return to live, and sustainability. (Bas Grasmayer)
Music research and analytics platform Viberate created a report on the year at online store Beatport. (RotD)

ISSUE: 18 Dec 2020

Want your music to go viral on TikTok? What you need to know. (Musiio - Ysabel Wong)
State of Play: Games are tools for creativity in music, not just profit. (DJMag)
Twitch is the music industry’s new enemy. The platform hasn’t fully licensed the music on its platform. (IO - Lars Brandle)
The “waterfall” strategy: A new way to monetise paid concert livestreams. (Water&Music - Maarten Walraven-Freeling and Cherie Hu)
TikTok's year end music report shows over 70 new acts have landed major-label record deals in the past year after blowing up on the platform. More than 170 songs surpassed 1bn views as TikTok Sounds. (TikTok)

ISSUE: 11 Dec 2020

Midday sets, garden raves and stationary clubbers: DJing has become a lonely and surreal career. Next year, will DJs have anywhere to play? (Telegraph - Tina Edwards)
Sydney and Melbourne nightclubs are finally open (with a few Covidsafe caveats) – and for LGBTQI people, an essential space has returned. (Guardian)
Algorithmic effects on the diversity of consumption on Spotify. (Spotify)
Don’t split the streams — seven reasons to focus music marketing on specific streaming and retail platforms. (MusicDataPro)
Streaming, the music press and the lingering effects of poptimism aka why are independent music journalists still propping up the mainstream? (Shawn Reynaldo)
Why the cynicism around streaming royalty rates misses the big picture. (IO)
Post-pandemic music ecosystems: How they could be better in 2021. (Shain Shapiro)

ISSUE: 04 Dec 2020

Perspectives from the scene: Salman Jaberi of Rave Scout (RA)
Twitch harms everyone by refusing to license music. (Billboard - David Israelite, NMPA)
Spotify: The trends that shaped streaming in 2020. (Spotify)
With the streaming inquiry, the UK government has an unprecedented opportunity to set a global standard for building a vibrant and viable future for music creators, but it is an opportunity that needs seizing now. (Midia)

ISSUE: 27 Nov 2020

Mixcloud founder Nico Perez: here’s what DJs need to know about music copyright. (DJTechTools)
Who gatekeeps the gatekeepers? Julia Toppin & Joe Muggs in conversation. (Quietus)
State of play in the UK - an overview of how the majors have responded to the challenges this year. (Hits)

ISSUE: 20 Nov 2020

Perspectives: Niks Delanancy, Cofounder of Black Bandcamp. (RA)
2020 has been a disaster for most of the electronic music scene. But there’s one area where it might be okay to feel optimism - releasing records and releasing music. (Shawn Reynaldo)
What Q3’s music industry numbers tell us about the future of royalties. (SynchTank)
How is the record industry surviving the coronavirus? (David Turner)
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has published the second round of results from its Coronavirus Impact Business Survey. Among the results, 45% of businesses which classified themselves as “music festivals and events” said they would be unviable within three months. (DCMS)
The music sector supports two million jobs and contributes €81.9bn annually to the economy across the 27 EU Member States and the UK (EU28), according to The Economic Impact of Music in Europe, an in-depth study by Oxford Economics that was commissioned by IFPI. (RotD)
UK Music published its annual Music by Numbers report, highlighting the industry’s contribution to the wider UK economy, spanning music sales and licensing to stadium tours, gigs in grassroots venues and merchandise, is likely to plummet to about £3bn this year. (Guardian) The report highlights the £5.8bn contribution music made to the UK economy last year, an increase of 11% from 2018. Export revenue was £2.9bn, up 9% from 2018.

ISSUE: 13 Nov 2020

Will the vaccine, along with rapid testing and temperature checks, be enough to save a beleaguered nightlife industry? (Vice)
Could Spotify’s new Discovery Mode be considered payola? (Pitchfork)
Analysis of DJ Mag and its annual Top 100 DJs poll. (Shawn Reynaldo)
Cherie Hu takes a look at the rise of in-game concerts, and the new role of the gamer as online performer. (DJMag)

ISSUE: 06 Nov 2020

How can the music industry diversify its income streams? (MusicAlly)
Discovery Mode: Understanding how Spotify thinks. (Midia) "The net impact of this new strategic direction will be beneficial for investors first and rightsholders/creators second".

ISSUE: 30 Oct 2020

Worldwide royalty collections for creators of music, audiovisual works, visual arts, drama and literature are likely to decline this year by up to 35% - or €3.5 billion in lost income – according to the latest annual Global Collections Report published by CISAC. (CISAC)
Everyone hates "Plague Raves"... except when their favourite DJs are playing. (FirstFloor)
How does Spotify's algorithm work? (UnsignedGuide)
How YouTube can be a music industry growth driver. (Midia)

ISSUE: 23 Oct 2020

Live music Industry Venues & Entertainment (LIVE), an umbrella organisation representing the UK’s live music business has compiled a report suggesting 170,000 jobs will be lost in the live music industry this year if government support is withdrawn. It also reports live music industry revenues will fall 81% in 2020 compared to 2019, that 80% of employees are still reliant on the furlough scheme which ends this month and a talent drain will impact any successful industry relaunch. (RotD)

ISSUE: 16 Oct 2020

The US government has abandoned the music industry (Magnetic)
Is it possible to party safely at dance events during the coronavirus pandemic? (Billboard)
Goldie, SHERELLE, Fatboy Slim, Jyoty, HAAi and The Blessed Madonna share their thoughts on the UK government's disregard of nightlife. (Mixmag)
The government's response to COVID-19 could kill live music as we know it. (DJMag)

ISSUE: 09 Oct 2020

Research suggests the global music streaming market grew 13% year-on-year to Q2 2020, but saw a decline of 2% quarter-on-quarter in Q2, assumed to be the drop in advertising. (MusicAlly, DMN)

ISSUE: 02 Oct 2020

So, how can artists and songwriters can get paid? (Midia)
Could the DJ livestreaming renaissance be over? (DJTechTools)
This counterproductive curfew is a joke’: why it could be too late for Britain’s nightlife. (Telegraph)
Live DMA, the European non-governmental network working to support and to promote the conditions of the live music sector, has issued a report highlighting how European music venues expect 76% less audience and 64% less income in 2020. (LiveDMA)

ISSUE: 25 Sep 2020

Would you pay to go virtual clubbing? (FirstFloor)
Covid-19 has hit dance culture hard – but the party can go on. (Guardian)

ISSUE: 18 Sep 2020

Why the struggle of small venues will affect the entire music industry. (Mark Mulligan)
The word 'rave' has lost all meaning. (DJMag)
Perspectives from the Scene: Robert Johnson (RA)

ISSUE: 11 Sep 2020

The record industry’s Facebook plan. (David Turner)
Data shows 90% of streams go to the Top 1% of artists. (RollingStone)
Erick Morillo’s death exposed ugly truths about DJs, power and fame. (beatportal)
Perspectives from the scene: Sebastian Voigt, booker at Else in Berlin. (RA)
DJs: you need to say no to gigs if they’re not safe. (DJTechTools)
For many touring DJs, returning to normal seems less likely than ever. (beatportal)
Plague raves: is clubbing in a pandemic ever ethical? (DJMag)

ISSUE: 04 Sep 2020

The pros and cons of YouTube Music. (Adam Bowie)
Online piracy more sophisticated and insidious than ever. (David Newhoff)
How music professionals use data to market new releases. (Water&Music - Julie Knibbe)

ISSUE: 28 Aug 2020

Artist-facing music business software is far behind Silicon Valley. (Cherie Hu)
A mask in a nightclub? The idea is pure lunacy. (Telegraph - Katie Glass)
Spotify is an audio company (if it wants). (David Turner)
Spotify and Apple Music disagree on the future of radio. Who's right? (Cherie Hu)
What AWAL’s $100k artists mean for the streaming economy. (Mark Mulligan)
What is the future of techno tourism? (DJMag)
"We need people we can trust in government": Beirut club scene reacts to tragic explosion. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 21 Aug 2020

An update on user-centric streaming. (David Turner)
Unconscious racial bias in the electronic music scene. (Attack)
Can Europe save summer shows? Here's how concert promoters are trying. (Billboard)
The gig-less economy: what could a post-pandemic dance music scene look like? (DJMag)

ISSUE: 14 Aug 2020

Perspectives from the scene: Amanda Mussi (RA)
Streaming’s remuneration model cannot be ‘fixed’. (Midia)
Streaming can't be fixed. (FirstFloor)

ISSUE: 07 Aug 2020

Ideas on the future of playlists (Germano Stein)
Covid-19 hit major labels much harder than it did Spotify. (Midia)
We are at a turning point for social music. (Midia)
A number of artists and music industry voices are slamming Spotify CEO Daniel Ek over controversial comments that “there are more and more artists that are able to live off streaming income in itself”. (DMN)

ISSUE: 31 Jul 2020

What each country pays for Spotify Premium and how it affects what artists get paid. (Cashnet)
Who benefits from a pivot to live streaming? (David Turner)
What do virtual festivals pay artists? Tomorrowland tests a new model. (Billboard)
It’s time to respect the jungle MC. (beatportal)
A DJ set on Europe's Longest Escalator is dance music's weirdest moment yet. (Mixmag)
DJs changing their problematic artist names isn’t a fix for industry racism. (Dazed)
Rich DJs have been seen playing shows across the United States this past weekend. Why are they and promoters willing to jeopardize their fan's safety for a quick buck? (Magnetic)
Perspectives from the scene: Larissa Correia of Liminal Booking agency. (RA)
Missed Opportunities: A view of the industry. (RA)

ISSUE: 24 Jul 2020

Livestreams: With no return date for shows in sight, fans and artists are adapting to a new way of experiencing music together. Whether it’ll keep everyone satisfied — and paid — is still unclear. (NYTimes)
Tencent is ready to own the record industry. (David Turner)
DJ Flight on EQ50 mentorship: “We hope it inspires a new generation of womxn in drum ‘n’ bass” (Mixmag)
DJ Mag: "After reflecting on how we can tackle the issues within the electronic music industry as a publication, we deliver our pledge to you, presenting significant changes within the company in order to better represent the scene — from the way we do business, to who we work with, and give coverage to."

ISSUE: 17 Jul 2020

How the DNA of a hit has changed over 20 years. (Midia)
Do musicians want a tip jar? (David Turner)
How music professionals use data to pitch artists. (Julie Knibbe)
Problems with cash flow, lack of government support, renegotiating contracts and sponsorship for 2021 were among topics discussed in the latest IQ Focus session.
Festivals around the world are set to collectively lose almost $17bn due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new report. (IQ)
Midyear analysis of the US market shows 361m album audio consumption units, up 9.4% on H1 2019. Albums sales fell 18.1% to 45.5m. Within that, CD sales fell 30.2%, while digital album downloads declined 14.3%. Market share by distributor ownership put Universal Music Group on 38.16%, Sony Music on 25.63% and Warner Music Group on 19.80%. (Billboard)
How Covid-19 has affected the global dance music industry and 15 other key points from the 2020 IMS Business Report. (Billboard, RotD) Among the points were: Pre Covid-19, the electronic music industry rebounded in 2019, reversing recent falls to grow by 2% to $7.3bn; Dance/Electronic clubs and festivals could lose roughly 75% of their income in 2020, equivalent to roughly $3.3bn; DJ and artist income could fall from $1.1bn in 2019 to $0.4bn in 2020 as a result of Covid-19, a drop of 61%; The value of the Electronic Music industry could fall by over $4bn (56%) in 2020 as a result of Covid-19.
Funds with portfolios of a diverse range of songs are seeing a boost during the pandemic lockdown. (Bloomberg) “There’s no question that our pipeline, which was already pretty massive, has grown during the course of the pandemic,” says Hipgnosis Songs CEO Merck Mercuriadis. “A lot of artists are going to not be able to tour for the next couple of years.”

ISSUE: 10 Jul 2020

How video games and VR could change festivals forever. (beatportal)
How major music companies are depending on debt and credit to weather the pandemic. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 03 Jul 2020

Spotify in the midst of a big revaluation. (Forbes)
The rise of the virtual livestreaming 'tour', plus how today's podcast deals look a lot like yesterday's music deals. (Cherie Hu)
Are you sure you want to be an electronic music journalist? (Shawn Reynaldo)
Think politics and dance music don’t mix? Think again (beatportal)

ISSUE: 26 Jun 2020

ROSTR's second annual report on the World's Leading Artist Management Companies analysed data from over 3,000 management companies. Journalist Cherie Hu reports on the findings.
Music subscriber market shares Q1 2020. (Midia) The report claims there were 400m music subscribers globally, up from 341m at the end of 2019. By service, Spotify led with 32%, followed by Apple Music on 18% and Amazon Music on 14%.
Twitch’s streaming boom is jolting the music industry. (Bloomberg)
George Goodrich of Playlist Push shares tips he’s learned of successful Spotify playlist campaigns. (DMN)
Will the pandemic spark a return to local line-ups? (RA)
Where are the women in Drum & Bass? (beatportal)

ISSUE: 19 Jun 2020

What’s really going on at Twitch has to do with the coronavirus pandemic, the music industry’s history of cracking down on infringing online platforms as they grow to a certain scale and a discussion brewing in Congress about amending copyright law. (Billboard)
Creative industry revenues are forecast to drop by £74bn in 2020 - a 30% fall, while job losses are predicted to hit more than 400,000 by the end of the year. (Times)
When will Ibiza open? DJs, promoters and club owners share their predictions for 2020. (Mixmag)
Clubbing under quarantine: Can raving go digital? (Attack)
Music streaming needs a new future. (Mark Mulligan)
The rapid rise of paid membership models for music. (Cherie Hu)

ISSUE: 05 Jun 2020

The global music industry will decline in 2020. (Midia)
What is the future of virtual concerts on Fortnite and other online games? (MusicAlly)
Recovery economics: Bounce forward not back. (Midia)

ISSUE: 29 May 2020

The music industry’s next five growth drivers. (Midia)
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek talks about about how he expects Apple to further open up its platform a year after Spotify filed an antitrust complaint with the EU. He also speaks about the company's Covid-19 efforts to help musicians and the $18bn opportunity in advertising sales. (Bloomberg)
A Festicket survey of 110,000 festivalgoers from countries including the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands found that 82% of fans would feel confident attending a festival within one to six months post lockdown. (Pollstar)
The global entertainment sector is set to "lose $160 billion of growth" as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic over the next five years, research suggests. (Billboard)
Could the pandemic burst Ibiza's bubble? (RA)

ISSUE: 22 May 2020

Meet the under 30s running some of the most exciting festivals around. (Mixmag)
How countries plan to restart nightclubs and music festivals (RA)
"The situation is existential": How the pandemic is affecting music royalties. (Synchtank)
Target audiences are useless if they're not extreme. (Amber Horsburgh)
The future of live: "The first step is for live streaming to have a product refit that delivers a genuine value exchange for fans if it is to ever get out of its free/charity/tip cul-de-sac and become a genuine income stream of scale.". (Mark Mulligan)
A Goldman Sachs report predicts that after a slowdown in growth to 3% this year, the recorded music market will bounce back with 26% growth in 2021 and 18% in 2022, with the live music industry “nearly returning to its pre-Covid-19 level by 2022”. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 15 May 2020

The livestreaming sector grew a full 45% between March and April; year over year, the industry is up by 99%. (Verge)
The power of smaller playlists. Why big is not always best. (MusicAlly)
What are user-centric music streaming payouts? (MusicAlly)
Following bars and nightclubs in South Korea reopening, a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases meant they closed again, highlighting the problems venues face. (FirstFloor)

ISSUE: 08 May 2020

What is the value of exposure when exposure is all there is? (Midia)
Smells like scene spirit: Why smells should be used to document club culture. (Mixmag)
Don't give up the day job?: A generation of DJs are working 9 to 5 without compromising their music dreams. (Mixmag)
10 ways coronavirus will change the club scene. Nightlife leaders offer predictions (Billboard)
5 ways dance music should radically change after coronavirus (beatportal)
Spotify should pay musicians more? Let’s talk more about how. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 01 May 2020

What makes a great DJ is still the same as it ever was. (Magnetic)
UTA IQ, UTA's data and analytics group, has compiled a study titled Media and Entertainment in the Time of Coronavirus. (RotD) The study shows that less than half of fans who miss going to concerts say they will return to even an intimate or small concert within a month of eased restrictions.
Boosting growth in Europe through music and culture: a roadmap to sync with the EU Recovery Plan. (IMPALA)
Streaming saved the record business, not artists. (David Turner)
Spotify’s new “tip jar” won’t save the industry – but it asks us to consider music’s value. (NewStatesman)
Spotify’s Daniel Ek talks churn, fan funding and why Covid-19 ‘might be a much better time to release music’. (MusicAlly)
Will the coronavirus dim Ibiza's music scene? (Billboard)
Mixcloud's new live streaming platform is a gamechanger for DJs – here's why (DJ Mag)

ISSUE: 24 Apr 2020

Copyright claims are ruining Livestreams for everyone. (Paper)
Mixcloud Live: A legal way to Livestream? (First Floor)
DJ sets are going online - But is anyone getting paid? (Pitchfork)
Why the recorded music landscape might look different by year’s end. (Forbes)
Scott Cohen: Covid-19 could be live industry’s ‘Napster moment’. (MusicAlly)
The year without concerts. (David Turner)

ISSUE: 17 Apr 2020

Electronic music leads industry with heartfelt pandemic response. (DMNW)
The Secret DJ: "Rejection is a fact of life for any DJ" (Mixmag)
People are paying real money to get into virtual zoom nightclubs. Can a novelty for the bored-at-home last after the coronavirus pandemic? (Bloomberg)

ISSUE: 10 Apr 2020

The triumphant return of drum and bass to the US (DMNW)
Why are superstar DJs so keen to reconnect with the underground? (Mixmag)
Amidst coronavirus chaos, bright spots appear for UK nightlife. (beatportal)
2019 Under the microscope: Who was on top in electronic music? (IQ)
The legal underbelly of livestreaming concerts. (Cherie Hu)
Coronaraving: The business implications behind all those livestreamed DJ Sets. (Billboard)
During the coronavirus crisis, musicians are taking to social media to broadcast gigs from home. But is anyone earning any money from them, and is this sustainable? (NewStatesman)
Factors including weak consumer confidence, competition from streaming entertainment and a worldwide recession could stifle the live sector's return to normal. (IQ)

ISSUE: 03 Apr 2020

Believe has released a ‘Creative Marketing Playbook’ for its clients, offering advice to artists for social media best practices, streaming and playlisting strategy, and more.
How COVID-19 is reshaping entertainment demand. (Midia)
How social distancing has shifted Spotify streaming. (Spotify)
How does electronic music respond to climate change? Enter the world of eco-aesthetics. (Electronic Beats)
Perspectives from the scene: Carin Abdulá of OUTER Agency (RA)
Perspectives from the scene: Promoters (RA)
The Secret DJ on how to deal with coronavirus and lockdown. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 27 Mar 2020

The definitive guide to Spotify royalties. (Jeff Price)
UK musicians have already lost an estimated £13.9m in earnings because of coronavirus, according to a Musicians’ Union survey. (Guardian)
BPI CEO Geoff Taylor on why the music biz must rally round together. (MW)
Virtual concerts show how the global pandemic is changing live music. (DMNW)
Can the vinyl and CD business survive Coronavirus? (Billboard)
How the huge US coronavirus relief package helps artists, roadies and other out-of-work music professionals. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 20 Mar 2020

Cherie Hu has provided a list of tools that artists and speakers can use to host virtual shows, panels and meetups, plus more. (Google)
UK record label trade income rose by 7.3% in 2019, according the latest report by BPI (RotD)
Coronavirus is giving livestreaming the chance to prove itself. (RollingStone)
Pandemic: Force majeure contracts and insurance in the music business. (MTP)
Now is the time for solidarity in electronic music. (beatportal)
Coronavirus: How to help the electronic music community. (RA)
How coronavirus will affect the entertainment industries. (Midia)

ISSUE: 13 Mar 2020

Female festival bookings up, but long way from gender balance (beatportal)
Belfast's dance music scene is one of the most vibrant on the planet. (Mixmag)
How much of UK dance music history is real? (DJ Mag)
Coronavirus and the future of music. What innovations can provide some reprieve from lost live revenues? (Bas Grasmayer)
How coronavirus is impacting electronic music. (beatportal)

ISSUE: 06 Mar 2020

The record industry can't fit in a smart speaker. (David Turner)
What will DJing look like in ten years? (Attack)
The total global value of the music copyright business reached $30.1bn in 2018, a 9.3% increase year-on-year from 2017, according to a report from Will Page. (MusicAlly) The figure includes recorded music and publishing – including performance rights, mechanical royalties and sync licensing.

ISSUE: 28 Feb 2020

How to measure an album campaign's success. What metrics should you care about? (Amber Horsburgh)
The troubling new partnership between Resident Advisor and Spotify. (First Floor)
What is password sharing costing streaming and the music business at large? (Billboard)
Is vinyl production really under threat? (DJ Mag)
Why DJs and producers are leaving nightclubs behind. (Mixmag)
UK club music is evolving - but how? (DJ Mag)

ISSUE: 21 Feb 2020

Streaming won’t kill DJing, but it might just create DJ ghosts. (Attack)
Where is the social side of music streaming? (David Turner)

ISSUE: 14 Feb 2020

The Secret DJ on what makes a good DJ great (Mixmag)
Two simple questions for Spotify in 2020. (David Turner)
Streaming rescued record labels. But has it abandoned artists? (Jasmine Garsd)
How booking agents use (and don't use) data. (Cherie Hu)

ISSUE: 07 Feb 2020

How DJ activism can actually make a difference in real life. (Mixmag)
Should electronic music producers ever work for free? (DJ Mag)
Spotify Q4 2019: First signs of the new Spotify. (Midia) "Another strong quarter and a good year for Spotify. Look a bit deeper, however, and there are the first signs of the new company that Spotify is building".

ISSUE: 31 Jan 2020

The Secret DJ's run in with the world of high fashion. (Mixmag)
Can our vinyl obsession ever be environmentally friendly? (DJ Mag)

ISSUE: 24 Jan 2020

Amazon Music: From dark horse to thoroughbred. (Midia)
How music collaborations evolved in the digital era: a decade in review. (Chartmetric)
Three Insomniac events that have a massive influence on the EDM scene and why. (EDMTunes)
Can Asia's music festivals bring eco-conscious partying to techno tourists? (Billboard)
The free online mix is a staple of electronic music culture. (Mixmag)
The Secret DJ: "Dance music is better than ever" (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 17 Jan 2020

Are journalists listening to electronic music wrong? (First Floor)
Physical media - Will it be abandoned for streaming? (Audiophile)
Festivals that support their local scenes ensure that the global scene thrives. (Mixmag)
How Spotify streams turn into royalties. (Songtrust)
Where the music business is going in 2020. (Rolling Stone)
DJing & the data wars: How cloud DJing will transform the industry forever. (DJ Mag)

ISSUE: 10 Jan 2020

Too soon?: In defence of brostep (Mixmag)
How Instagram is changing the design of clubs and festivals. (Mixmag)
How TikTok and Resso became more of the same. (David Turner)

ISSUE: 20 Dec 2019

Why is the virtual reality market bigger in the UK than anywhere else in Europe, the Middle East or Africa? (Mishcon)
Queer the dancefloor: How electronic music evolved by re-embracing its radical roots. (Mixmag)
2019 legal round-up – and what it means for the music industry in 2020. (Synchtank)

ISSUE: 13 Dec 2019

Managing Expectations: the future of music management is now. (Medium - Annabella Coldrick, MMF)
Spotify Wrapped 2019 sparks new discussion about artist income. (MusicAlly)
Work camera flash: How Instagram has changed DJ culture. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 29 Nov 2019

Culture shock: Dissecting a decade of upheaval in Ibiza. (Mixmag)
Why is 2019 so nostalgic for 80s rave? (Guardian)
Bust to boom: How drugs won the war on drugs. (Mixmag)
We need to talk more about legal issues around training musical AIs. (MusicAlly)
Three supply-side indicators that signal the new music industry has arrived. (Midia)

ISSUE: 22 Nov 2019

Unhealthy scene: How sky-high DJ fees are crippling dance music. (Mixmag)
Why the music industry needs Bytedance to disrupt it. (Midia)
‘Artists have to learn to bend the rules:’ How fan monetisation could overtake streaming. analyst Mark Mulligan addresses the Music Tectonics Conference in Los Angeles. (TMN)

ISSUE: 15 Nov 2019

Why the hell aren't you dancing? (Mixmag)
The worlds of computer gaming and electronic music are merging like never before, with virtual raves, AI-generated musicians and concerts inside massive multiplayers like Fortnite becoming commonplace. What this could mean for the future of clubbing and dance music. (DJ Mag - Cherie Hu)
Spotify is profitable. How did that happen? (RollingStone)

ISSUE: 08 Nov 2019

Bill Brewster: Why I sold my 13,000-strong record collection (Mixmag)
It's deeper than cornrows. It's Culture. Ash Lauryn reflects on a week dominated by discussions around race and privilege in dance music. (RA)
Pushing back: Women are dismantling the hardcore boys' club (Mixmag)
How technology has the power to disrupt the music industry. (Verdict)
How a failed economic theory still rules the digital music marketplace - a takedown of the 'long tail'. (5mag)
Now that labels can pay to promote music on Spotify, smaller artists may struggle to compete. (Newsweek)
The changing economics of electronic music: Part 2 (RA)

ISSUE: 01 Nov 2019

How can the dance music community help shape a better world? (RA)
Men who want to boost equality in dance music should get on with it. (Mixmag)
We need to discuss race in electronic music, and we need a new way to communicate. (CDM)
Does your data mean anything? Maybe notsomuch. (David Turner)

ISSUE: 25 Oct 2019

The Secret DJ: The best parties are when the crowd and DJ are unified. (Mixmag)
What the hell is Business Techno? (Mixmag)
Spotify saved the music industry. Now what? (Fortune)

ISSUE: 18 Oct 2019

Universal's executive VP for content strategy and operations Barak Moffitt explains how it is evolving into a 'music-based media company'. (Advertising Age)
Rethinking music and fitness/wellness partnerships, with artists at the centre. (Cherie Hu)
The internet keeps changing the way we consume, promote, and monetize music. Will the music industry ever be able to adapt fast enough? (Complex)

ISSUE: 11 Oct 2019

Sustainable sesh: How clubs and festivals are boosting the green agenda. (Mixmag)
Why updating to MacOS Catalina is a mistake for DJs (for now) (Magnetic)
5 ways DJs can minimize their impact on the environment. (Magnetic)
Can our vinyl obsession ever be environmentally friendly? (DJ Mag)
Spotify's powerful recommendation algorithm boils down to two concepts: exploit and explore. (Medium)

ISSUE: 04 Oct 2019

The Secret DJ: The artists who keep it real are usually the ones around for the long run. (Mixmag)
Five trends changing music marketing. (Midia)

ISSUE: 27 Sep 2019

Poland's club community is tackling homophonic violence and right-wing bigotry. (Mixmag)
How local DJ workshops are smashing down gender barriers in club culture. (RB)
What does an artist-centric future for music-tech look like? (Cherie Hu)
IFPI released the ‘Music Listening 2019’ report, which examines the ways in which music consumers aged 16–64 engage with recorded music across 21 countries. (RotD) Ten takeaways from MusicAlly.

ISSUE: 20 Sep 2019

Average music listening time is down. How much does that matter? (Billboard)
New school vs. old school ravers: Can’t we all just get along? (DMNW)
How producers can get paid through streaming services. (DJ Mag)
A lack of data, information, and will has left electronic music producers lagging way behind their commercial counterparts. DJ Mag outlines how that happened, how it can be fixed, and what happens next.

ISSUE: 13 Sep 2019

Spotify and Amazon are battling the Copyright Royalty Board over streaming royalty rates. But if Apple had its way, things could have been very different. (RollingStone)
How can humans and artificial intelligence collaborate to manage the explosion of music data? (Synchtank)
Amber Horsburgh has published a spreadsheet of the biggest YouTube promo channels you can pitch music to. (Google)
A space to be yourself: The rise of safe space parties. (DJ)
Do psychedelics have the power to heal us? (DJ)
Mental health is dance music's most urgent issue. (DJ)

ISSUE: 06 Sep 2019

A creative person’s guide to feeling healthy. (The Creative Independent - Franziska Eichler)
Is facial recognition technology coming to a club near you? (DJ Mag)
Gaming could present a lucrative source of revenue for artists, but it’s likely to only be the richest that benefit from it. (Dazed)
Electronic money: Dance music and the protracted pursuit of payment. (Synchtank)

ISSUE: 30 Aug 2019

Music and livestreaming: The major myths and realities of success. (Cherie Hu)
The Secret DJ: Resist the urge to become a copycat DJ. (Mixmag)
Why day parties are taking over dance music. (Mixmag)
It’s not about police vs ravers, it’s about coexistence. (Ibizan)
The changing economics of electronic music. (RA)

ISSUE: 23 Aug 2019

Why music isn’t a top-two category on Patreon (yet) (Cherie Hu)
The spirit of rave is back in music, film, art and even political protest. Could it be not just a re-enactment of the past, but a roadmap for the future? (NewStatesman)
How women in EDM are fighting sexism with success. (MTV)

ISSUE: 09 Aug 2019

A user-centric streaming model could save the music industry. (TMN)
Playing other people’s music: Why I also DJ. (Spotify)
The real life of an underground DJ. (DJ Mag)
How AI is changing the way we consume music. (iDJ)
Algorithm is a dancer: How artificial intelligence is reshaping electronic music. (DJ Mag)
The major labels are close to generating $1m from streaming every hour - but global growth is actually slowing down. (MBW)

ISSUE: 02 Aug 2019

Wakana reunion: Not for everyone, and all the better for it. (Mixmag)
The enduring appeal of trance. (DJ Mag)
An oral history: A-Trak's journey with turntables. (Mixmag)
Has the wellness movement killed clubbing as we know it? (Dazed)

ISSUE: 26 Jul 2019

The disco sit: Sitting down at a rave is a thing of joy. (Mixmag)
Dance music needs to be more inclusive for disabled artists, DJs and clubbers. (Mixmag)
Drum & bass is finally addressing its diversity problem. (DJ Mag)

ISSUE: 19 Jul 2019

“Dance Like Nobody’s Paying?” Spotify isn’t. (MTP)
Lag: I played in Berghain for the first time. Sharing my impressions with you! (Lag via Reddit)
Has techno become too douchey? (Magnetic)
How to prepare for life after the music stops. (Mixmag)
How streaming is about to reshape DJ culture as we know it. (Pitchfork)

ISSUE: 12 Jul 2019

What can dance music do about the climate crisis? (RA)
"Techno purism can suck it": The return of Gabber. (Mixmag)
Raving is for everyone: The problem with ageism in dance music. (DJ Mag)
Spotify gives up on distribution, no big surprise. (David Turner)
Is it time to rethink the music industry’s 24/7 relationship with social media? (Rhian Jones)
How social media is changing music. (Attack)
The artist marketing playbook needs rewriting. (Midia)

ISSUE: 05 Jul 2019

Was 2019 the most environmentally friendly Glastonbury ever? (Mixmag)
How to recognize a social introvert and make them feel welcome. (Mixmag)
How diverse and inclusive is the music industry right now? (SynchTank)

ISSUE: 28 Jun 2019

How to overcome creative blocks. (Mixmag)
The Secret DJ: Being a promoter allows DJs to stand up for what they believe in. (Mixmag)
The broken parts of music streaming, How do we fix these fake streams? ...and more. (David Turner)

ISSUE: 21 Jun 2019

Can festivals and raves coexist with politics? (DMNW)
As downloads keep sliding, streaming is coming to the DJ booth. (Billboard)
This is a question every manager will need to answer with their artists: Should they sign to a major, stay indie, or do something in between? (IO)

ISSUE: 07 Jun 2019

Cheap Thrills: How to have an affordable Ibiza holiday in 2019. (Mixmag)
"They scare me to death": The Secret DJ on everyone you will meet at a music conference. (Mixmag)
New perspective: How Cxema parties are changing the face of the Ukrainian electronic scene. (Mixmag)
The essence of club culture is at the heart of Human Traffic - and that's why it's still relevant today. (Mixmag)
Politics are an integral part of dance music, here's why. (DJ Mag)

ISSUE: 31 May 2019

How can labels and musicians avoid the ‘dry streams paradox’ in 2019? (MusicAlly)
Metadata is the biggest little problem plaguing the music industry. (Verge)
Drum'n'bass has a gender problem. Who's going to fix it? (Mixmag)
Prawn coke tale: Why Britain's 'drug problem' is mainstream media scaremongering. (Mixmag)
Clubs have a huge single-use plastics problem that must be fixed. (DJ Mag)

ISSUE: 24 May 2019

A new party paradigm: how to throw an eco-rave. (Dazed)
Is EDC worth it for a house and techno diehard? (Mixmag)
How to balance yourself as an artist vs. a person. (Mixmag)
What will music be like in 20 years? (BBC - Sumit Paul-Choudhury)
Record labels invested $5.8bn in A&R and marketing worldwide in 2017, a new report released by IFPI found. The figure includes a total A&R investment of $4.1bn and $1.7bn in marketing costs, equating to 33.8% of global recorded music revenues. (Billboard)
Niche is the new mainstream. (Midia)

ISSUE: 17 May 2019

Spotify and the death of discovery. (Spectator) The service’s algorithms have shaped a generation of listeners who are defined by attention deficit disorder and a fear of complexity and difficulty.
Amazon, the future owner of the music industry. (David Turner)
TikTok is the new music kingmaker, and labels want to get paid. (Bloomberg)
Music marketing in 2019: content, playlists… and Twitter skeletons. (MusicAlly)
Playlist malfeasance will create a streaming crisis. (Midia)
Community Spirit: How DIY culture is transforming Leeds' music scene. (Mixmag)
Mental Health Awareness Week: How to stay strong in the face of negative comments. (Mixmag)
Mental Health Awareness Week: What to do when you're feeling overwhelmed by loneliness. (Mixmag)
Mental Health Awareness Week: How to handle FOMO, the fear of missing out. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 10 May 2019

Do other genres belong at Anjunabeats shows? (DMNW)
Article 13’s potential impact on the music industry. Audio with Helen Smith (Impala), Crispin Hunt (Ivors Academy, Songwriter) and Chris Castle. (FoW)
Musicians are adapting the way they make music as a result of how they get paid through streaming platforms. (Quartz)
Music sync: A market ripe for change. (Midia)
Payola 2.0: The native ad model for streaming music? (MBW)
Playlist stuffing and SEO. Gaming the system. (Kieron Donoghue)

ISSUE: 03 May 2019

Free styling: What do Amazon & YouTube Music's free music services mean for the music business? (MW)
Music streaming services are gaslighting us. (Medium - Darren Hemmings) "By giving us everything of everything, we overload and take nothing of anything, overwhelmed in the face of it all".
Four industry executives at the FastForward conference on streaming playlists and future solutions. (IO)
Is dance music doing enough for charitable causes? (DJ Mag)
The Secret DJ: The DJ should be one part of the party, not the focus. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 03 May 2019

Don't kill live music: New South Wales is rallying against its puritanical government. (Mixmag)
Manchester cooperative Partisan is ushering in a new era of socially conscious clubbing. (Mixmag)
Is Apple Music the best streaming service for artists? (David Turner)
13 marketing tactics used for targeting light casual listeners. (Amber Horsburgh)
Spotify’s Austin Daboh says playlists need more diversity. (MusicAlly)
KFC’s Ultra stunt was a nightmarish stroke of genius (DMNW)
The KFC Fiasco: A dissection of the worst DJ set of all time. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 26 Apr 2019

'Pay-to-play' is not ok: Stop the dodgy promoter tactic exploiting young DJs. (Mixmag)
Are podcasts killing music or just wasting our time? (WashingtonPost)

ISSUE: 19 Apr 2019

Top 100 Clubs 2019: Analysing this year's key trends. (DJ Mag)
Spotify, the decline of playlists and the rise of podcasts. (Mark Mulligan)
The music + media micropayment map. (Cherie Hu)
Amazon’s ad supported strategy goes way beyond music. (Midia)
"Only about the music": Southeast Asia's underground is in a golden era. (Mixmag)
F**k the algorithm: Can artists forge a career without the help of social media? (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 12 Apr 2019

The Secret DJ: If you're serious about being a DJ, nothing will stop you. (Mixmag)
Colonel Sin: KFC's Ultra DJ performance was a dystopian nightmare, and a warning for brands everywhere. (Billboard)
Why we need a conscious music tech revolution. (Hypebot)
Have songwriters turned the tide against big tech? (Variety)
Well-being in music requires action, not lip service. (Darren Hemmings)
Will Page, Chief Economist at Spotify, reports the global value of music copyright increased by $2bn to reach $28bn in 2017; a growth of 7.6%. (MBW)

ISSUE: 29 Mar 2019

Everything you need to know about the deal between Endel and Warner Music. (Cherie Hu)
Content creators may have won the battle but lost the war with EU Copyright Directive passage. (Forbes)
Dealing with the ‘dry streams’ paradox in the playlists era. (MusicAlly)
How YouTube’s 1bn+ club is changing the face of global music culture. (Midia)
Never mind nostalgia - We're living in a golden age of intergenerational partying. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 22 Mar 2019

Preparing for the post album music industry. (Midia)
What the streaming rows tell us about the music biz right now. (MW)
"Silly Music": Anti-establishment artists are reclaiming Dance Music's funny side. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 15 Mar 2019

Back from the dead: Paris's club scene has a new beating heart. (Mixmag)
Never too much?: The secret DJ on how to avoid burnout. (Mixmag)
Are big-name, marathon sets pushing new DJs off line-ups? (Mixmag)
Here’s how Spotify can fix its songwriter woes (Hint: it’s all about pricing) (Mark Mulligan)
2018 global label market share: Stream engine. (Midia)

ISSUE: 08 Mar 2019

We need to end controller snobbery. (DJ Mag)
The music industry's revenue continues to grow, but beneath the surface are warning signs. (Forbes)
What's next for playlist innovation. (Midia - Keith Jopling)
China’s music scene is booming, but labels risk getting left behind. (Bloomberg)

ISSUE: 01 Mar 2019

The race for the music streaming market can only have one winner. (Medium)
Why musicians are starting their own podcasts - and why the podcast industry should pay attention. (Bello)
Economic recovery has reignited Sofia's party scene. (Mixmag)
Happy hardcore will never die: an ode to the Bonkers series. (DJ Mag)
After the confirmed death of Louella Fletcher-Michie at Bestival from 2-CP, what is 2-CP, what does it do and where does it come from? (Mixmag)
Hey promoters! Throw parties, not club nights. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 22 Feb 2019

If data is now more valuable than oil, and OPEC broke the oil giants, is tech’s OPEC moment upon us? (Encyclomedia)
Five music startup trends you should follow in 2019. (Cherie Hu)

ISSUE: 15 Feb 2019

Who is DJ Bigos? Meet the ID hunter liberating tracklists across the internet. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 08 Feb 2019

Club culture in general is becoming more inclusive, but continues to fall short when it comes to welcoming older clubbers and DJs – especially those who are women. (Vice)
Are wealth and privilege damaging British dance music, and if so, what should we do about it? (DJ Mag)
The Secret DJ: How to maintain a relationship while on tour. (Mixmag)
Marshmello's Fornite concert: Breaking down the social impact. (Billboard)
Why Spotify is betting big on podcasting. (Techcrunch)

ISSUE: 01 Feb 2019

Strawberry Fields is at the forefront of Australia's thriving 'Bush Doof' scene. (Mixmag)
All woman collectives have instigated real, positive change in the music world, but they aren't a magic bullet. (Mixmag)
Should musicians be podcasters? (GetRevue - David Turner)
Article 13, YouTube and what's really going on in Brussels. (Billboard)
Why is SiriusXM buying Pandora in a $3.5bn deal -- and what's it going to do with a music streaming platform? (MBW)
Seven startups Spotify should (try to) buy to better serve artists. (MBW)
Beatport CEO: Streaming feels like "the dawn of a new DJ experience". (DJMag)
2018 'streaming price bible', based as ever on data from “a mid-sized indie label with an approximately 250+ album catalogue”, has been released. (Trichordist)

ISSUE: 25 Jan 2019

The Fyre Festival films are a gloriously awful gulp of Schadenfreude. (Mixmag)
Effect of a 'No-Deal' Brexit on IP in the UK. (Latham)
Report: The State of Mobile 2019. (AppAnnie)
Ad-supported strategies are playing a growing role in the digital economy. (Midia)
YouTube Past & Present: Can 2019 be the start of a better YouTube? (SideA&B)
How the music industry grew to love the subscription. (Penny Fractions)
Can timeless music exist in the streaming era? (Medium)
The economics of streaming is making songs shorter. (QZ)
Spotify may reinforce many music industry power imbalances, but a few artists are using it to upend others. (Slate)

ISSUE: 18 Jan 2019

Music and lifestyle companies are jockeying for each other's audiences. Who will win? (CherieHu)
How music streaming won over millennials. (Forbes - Neil Howe)
Just who would buy Universal Music? (Midia)
The average streaming subscriber around the world is paying over $20 less per year than four years ago. And labels fear this situation is about to get worse. (RollingStone)
Spotify will not kill the radio star any time soon, according to research from Deloitte that highlights the enduring appeal of DJs over “cold and sterile” playlists. The report suggests that many listeners will continue to prefer the human touch of live radio with about 90% of British adults currently listening to live radio at least once a week. (Times)
Is Spotify’s model wiping out music’s middle class? (TheRinger)

ISSUE: 21 Dec 2018

Future predictions from analysts and journalists on the music industry trends to watch in 2019. (Synchblog)
Simon Robson, president of Warner Music Asia thinks ‘China can be a top-three market in the future’. (MusicAlly)
Diversity in techno: How to make promoters, DJs more inclusive. (Magnetic)
What does "rave" mean in 2018? (Fact)
What has the music industry actually learned from the Avicii tragedy? (Mixmag)
Why will Spotify’s stock price tank? (MusicTechSolutions)
How Spotify Pre-Save is leading a change in digital music marketing. (MusicThinkTank)
YouTube says it can’t always figure out who to pay for a song. Should that shape EU copyright legislation - and the rates it pays to all rightsholders? (Billboard)
Global recorded music revenues are forecast to top $18.9bn in 2018, an increase of 8.2% on 2017, with independent and DIY artists revenue at $643 million, up 35% from 2017. (Midia) Streaming revenue will be up to $9.6bn, a 29% rise, but the absolute amount of new revenue generated was, as with the recorded music total, the same as 2017 $2.2 billion.

ISSUE: 14 Dec 2018

Some in the industry claim that Spotify’s setup unfairly advantages A-list pop stars. Could a new payment system be the answer? (RollingStone)
Playlists aren’t everything. Here are some other critical metrics to track an artist’s success (or lack thereof). (DMN)
In a world of ‘algorithmic culture,’ music critics fight for relevance. (CJR)
How does Platoon fit with Apple’s strategy for emerging artists? (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 07 Dec 2018

Why is dance music slowing down? (DMNW)
DJ exclusivity deals and domineering promoters are suffocating independent nightlife. (Mixmag)
Is it time for a total ban on phones on the dancefloor? (DJ Mag)
What's the actual business case for virtual reality in music? (Forbes)
Independent labels grew global market share to 39.9% in 2017. (Mark Mulligan)
Analysis of Apple and how it plans to grow Apple Music. (FT) “Another option under consideration is for Apple to acquire iHeartRadio’s streaming platform, which would be a relatively cheap way to reach the service’s 120m registered users”. “Music could form part of a bundled offering alongside Apple’s forthcoming video service, expected to launch next year”.
Music streaming is fueling vinyl's resurgence. (Engadget)
Why Spotify will struggle in India. (David Turner)

ISSUE: 30 Nov 2018

Ableton Loop 2018: A glimpse of music’s future amid climate change catastrophe. (Fact)
Is dance music destroying the environment? (DJ Mag)
Door picking in the UK is a lost art that needs to come back. (Mixmag)
Apple's 30% transaction fee for in-app subscriptions might disappear. What would that mean for music streaming? (Billboard) “The deeper implications of the Supreme Court’s decision may be arguably less about empowering Apple’s competitors, and more about endangering Apple itself”.
The future of digital rights in the music business. (Medium - Yash Bagal) Our established legislative framework is holding back the music industry.

ISSUE: 23 Nov 2018

Music & Esports in 2018: A Comprehensive Timeline. (Cherie Hu)
The meta trends that will shape 2019. (Midia)
Should music streaming services do more for albums? (Keith Jopling)
The Secret DJ: "Beware other DJs. Some will say or do anything to get your slot" (Mixmag)
Mobile music streaming in China: A vibrant industry in a challenging market. (MBJ)
Music Modernization Act: The uphill battle towards fair compensation. (MBJ)
YouTube is exploiting its community for its own ends in the controversy over copyright in Europe and hasn’t shied away from misrepresenting the truth. (Trichordist)
BPI responds to the YouTube blog on Article 13 of the Copyright Directive.

ISSUE: 16 Nov 2018

How Brexit will affect the UK music industry, from touring to copyright. (Independent)
I bought 16k SoundCloud plays. (PassivePromotion)
Why artists are using 'Stashimi' chatbots to bond with fans on Facebook Messenger. (Billboard)
What Fortnite and esports could mean for the music industry. (MusicAlly)
Why greater representation really is making dance music a better place. (Mixmag)
Should DJs stand for Palestine? Perspectives on the cultural boycott of Israel. (RA)

ISSUE: 09 Nov 2018

Booze, blood and Berghain: is Beat the first TV show to truly get club culture? (Guardian)
What is the future of dance music media? (StoneyRoads)
The nonsense of Spotify's monthly listeners metric (David Turner)
Can Kobalt disrupt the label game with AWAL? (Billboard)
If the newly passed Music Modernization Act (MMA) delivers more streaming revenue to music publishers and songwriters, who will see their slice of the pie shrink? (Billboard)
YouTube’s latest music subscription service is failing to boost YouTube Premium in the US in any substantial way, according to research. (DMN)
Is the party over for Ibiza? (BBC) Changes to music venues, bar opening hours and caps on accommodation seem to be having an effect - tourist numbers were down 4% for the month of July and 3% in August, compared with last year.

ISSUE: 02 Nov 2018

10 key takeaways from ADE 2018. (Electronic Beats)
These five startups prove being a DJ has never been easier. (NextWeb)
The global live music industry will continue to grow steadily over the next four years, with music streaming and esports also booming, according to the latest PwC Outlook. (IQ)
The Music Modernization Act was a great victory for creators and rights-holders, but it should be just the first step, argues SoundExchange president/CEO Michael Huppe. (Variety)
The other playlists: How behaviour shapes songs (AWAL)
The mythical power of streaming playlists: is it more hype than substance? (MBW)
Is AI-generated music worth anything? (Cherie Hu)
Soundcloud: Always read the contract, always read the fine print. (David Turner)

ISSUE: 26 Oct 2018

How Underground Resistance became the public enemy of techno. (Vulture)
The Secret DJ: "The ritual of preparation helps to rebuild shattered confidence". (Mixmag)
Streaming music is coming to DJ software, but one step at a time. (CDM)
Three of the technologies likely to have the biggest impact over the next few years - Mixed Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain. (IO)
Does YouTube underpay artists $13bn a year? Understanding YouTube’s Article 13 freakout. (Trichordist)
Spotify’s market capitalisation has dropped to just below its value of $26.5bn on the day it appeared on the New York Stock Exchange on April 3, a drop of around $9bn on its peak. (DMN)

ISSUE: 19 Oct 2018

The European Copyright Directive and its potential effects on the structure of the music industry. (FT)
The final frontier: How can dance music exist in a digital space? (Fact)

ISSUE: 12 Oct 2018

Nightlife activism needs real organization and getting involved in local politics. (RA)
Is artificial intelligence a threat to the production music industry or a useful resource? (Broadcast)
Is data changing the way we write music? (M)
A deep dive into what made Fabric mixes so essential. (Pitchfork)
The cultural purge of London’s most debauched clubs. (Dazed)
What will Brexit mean for UK DJs? (DJ Mag)

ISSUE: 05 Oct 2018

Live Nation release a report, The Power of Live report, studying 22,505 attendees from 11 countries. (TMN) The findings revealed that "in today's digital age, live music is more necessary than ever and creates the ultimate human connection".
The Refuge is carving out a niche in Manchester's diverse multifaceted music scene. (Mixmag)
The enduring impact of Store Street in Manchester on UK club culture. (DJ Mag)
Video games introduced electronic music to a generation. (Quartzy)
10 ways Ibiza will change in 2019. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 28 Sep 2018

Spotify is disrupting the music industry. But don't expect it to displace the Big 3 music labels anytime soon - here's why. (BusinessInsider)
There's more behind Spotify's artist direct upload strategy than meets the eye. (Forbes)
What does Spotify's new upload service mean for producers and labels? (DJ Mag)
Why the cassette revival is essential for electronic music. (DJ Mag)
Why Ibiza closing parties are a must for any music fan. (Ibiza Spotlight)
The Secret DJ: "Playing B2B separates the pro from the plastic" (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 21 Sep 2018

Mid-year global streaming figures showed that subscriber figures jumped 38% in the first half of 2018 to 229.5m. (Midia) The research described growth as “strong but sustained, rather than strongly accelerating”. Spotify maintained its lead with 83m subscribers, a 38% global market share. It had the greatest amount of new subscribers, with 11.9% new arrivals, 39% of all new payers. However, Apple Music is slowly closing in, adding two points to 19% of the global market.
The majors are sweating over Spotify’s direct licensing deals, but everyone has forgotten about Tencent. (IO)
Technology is making music better once again. (Ibiza Voice)

ISSUE: 14 Sep 2018

The UK ticketing industry appears to be in a better place, even if some of its key players have been dragged kicking and screaming due to the light shone on it by campaigners, says Jonathan Robinson, MusicTank. (RotD)
Dance music should be wary of posthumous releases. (Mixmag)
How streaming is changing the shape of music itself. (Midia)
Beyond the turntable: How tech is changing DJing. [video] (Electronic Beats)

ISSUE: 07 Sep 2018

Is dance music suffocating under a wave of beige productions or are we just jaded? (DJ Mag)
An ode to the disco nap. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 31 Aug 2018

Meet Binks, the artist whose career was launched by the PRODUCERGIRLS workshop. (Mixmag)
V.I.P Ibiza, Myth or Reality? We Have the Definitive Answer …(The Ibizan)
New Tottenham spot The Cause is highlighting the cultural benefits of clubs through charity fundraising, homegrown talent and a true community atmosphere. Will this challenging of negative clubbing stereotypes turn the tide of venue closures in London... (DJ Mag)
Turning The Tables: Women DJs take on the techno boys' club. (BM)

ISSUE: 24 Aug 2018

Inner city electronic makes Leeds a contender for the UK's club capital. (Mixmag)
Join in the chant: Inside the cult of EBM (RA)
A survey found that almost seven out of 10 worry about the prospect of sexual assault and sexual harassment at music festivals. (Guardian)
Weightless by ambient trio Marconi Union helped to lower anxiety levels by up to 65%, a study reveals. (DJ Mag)
'Not bad for a woman?' The women who refuse to be written out of '90s rave culture. (iNews)

ISSUE: 17 Aug 2018

Spinning DJ gear is back - are motorized Jogwheels what DJs really want? (DJ TechTools)
Magnified: Helping artists shape the future of dance music. (Mixmag)
Warehouse Project founder and Manchester's Night Time Economy Advisor, Sacha Lord discusses the future of city's club scene. (NME)
How Mental Health is becoming an industry conversation. (DMNW)
We went to Georgia to investigate the threat to the country's club scene. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 10 Aug 2018

Five years of îleSoniq: a retrospective review on the festival’s growth. (DA)
How to make your mark in dance music. (M)
What Ganacci's critics tell us about the state of EDM. (DMNW)
11 Shades of Dance Music: How Spotify breaks down melodic bass, afro house and more. (Billboard)
Why Manchester’s restaurant scene chooses DJ culture over Michelin Stars. (Redbull)
Why the cassette revival is essential for electronic music. (DJMag)
Two Feet’s Twitter suicide scare: Mental health experts on how to help those in danger. (Billboard)
Hypocrisy in the music industry: The global wellbeing microscope is massively ironic considering the ruthless realities of the music business. (IbizaVoice)

ISSUE: 03 Aug 2018

Nightlife is vital - why doesn’t Britain value it more? (Guardian)
Has EDM peaked? HARD Summer’s attendance suggests dance festivals are still growing. (Variety)
Manumission creators Mike and Claire on the past and present. (IbizaSpotlight)
How one woman, Meagan DesChenes, is changing the culture – but not the DNA – of HARD. (LAMag)
Meet Meagan DesChenes: the new face of HARD Events. (Forbes)

ISSUE: 27 Jul 2018

The tables have turned: How Ministry of Sound is shaking up the workspace. (CityAM)
Manumission creators Mike and Claire on the past and present. (IbizaSpotlight)
I'm disabled and love clubbing too [audio]. (1Xtra)
Bulging line-ups risk killing the vibe on the dancefloor. (Mixmag)
Six Questions With... Chris Roohan of New State Entertainment. (MusicWeek)
Amy Lamé responds to criticism of London Night Czar role, following restrictive new Hackney nightlife legislation. (NME)
London Night Czar Amy Lamé – what exactly is the point of you? (NME)
Hackney Council's decision is a huge setback for London nightlife. (RA)

ISSUE: 20 Jul 2018

Laidback Luke's manager, Olga Heijns, on wellbeing in the dance music industry. (Forbes)

ISSUE: 13 Jul 2018

How Red Bull became one of the most respected brands in music. (Forbes)
The drugs being used at UK festivals. (BBC)
Ben Turner: “Education is the key. Artists, managers – everybody needs to understand the flow of money”. (BMAT)

ISSUE: 06 Jul 2018

Is the club scene racist? Allegations are rising, so Afua Hirsch visits some of the top Mayfair clubs to investigate. (Guardian2)
Carl Loben talks to Fiona Measham, founder of The Loop harm reduction organisation, about the work that they do and why some pill manufacturers are making their ecstasy so strong.. (DJMag)
Secrets of my success: Lohan Presencer, Ministry of Sound chairman. (Standard)

ISSUE: 29 Jun 2018

For The Record: The vinyl bubble has burst. (IbizaVoice)
Working in the music industry: Public Relations (PR) with Nikki McNeill. (DT)
DJs having assistants picking tracks for them is a dangerous move. (Mixmag)
Streaming is coming to the booth: here’s how it will change DJing forever. (DJMag)
The Loop director Fiona Measham, Broadwick Live’s Jon Drape and Secret Garden Party promoter Freddie Fellowes joined AFEM CEO Mark Lawrence at IMS Ibiza last month to discuss drug testing at festivals and clubs. (IQ)
IMS Ibiza 2018: Keynote address in memory of Avicii by Pete Tong [full video]. (IMS)

ISSUE: 22 Jun 2018

Pills, thrills and backaches: How to relive your Ibiza days. (IrishTimes)
Sam Gribben, founder of Melodics, discusses how his company provides lessons to individuals in finger drumming, keys and electronic drums. (MagneticMag)
Blockchain: Rocket from the Crypto - Could Blockchain revolutionise the music industry? (Mixmag)
Seth Troxler and The Martinez Brothers on diversity in dance music. (Forbes)
A growing network of booking agencies and community groups have made female artists more visible in Berlin, erasing the boy’s club atmosphere of the past. (NYTimes)
We went to Remedy State, a new wellness retreat in Ibiza for the dance music industry. (ElectronicBeats)
SoundCloud ‘redoubles focus’ on creators in First On SoundCloud campaign says CEO. (Drum)

ISSUE: 15 Jun 2018

‘Ear to the youth’: How SoundCloud is pitching media buyers. (DigiDay)
A Guide to Managing Your Night Time Economy, published by Sound Diplomacy, features contributions from industry leaders and 11 key recommendations for cities. (IQ)
Spotify, SoundCloud, and the race up the value chain; Will 5G deliver for radio?; Four ways music will drive marketing in tears to come. (Medium)
Ostend Beach's GM and booker Jan Mortelmans discusses why experience and drive are key to working in the industry. (EDM)
Ecstasy warnings and harm reduction advice. (Fabric)
“We helped remould entertainment in Las Vegas”: Hakkasan’s James Algate on building the biggest brands in nightlife. (Inthemix)
Hearing damage: A DJs guide to preventing tinnitus. (DJMag)
With the rise of Shazam, The Identification of Music Group and "Track ID?" culture, some DJs have become increasingly protective of the music they play. But is secrecy the solution when the whole point of DJing is to share? (DJMag)
Young entrepreneurs share their blueprint for music innovation at IMS Ibiza. (Billboard)
IMS 2018: The evolving role of A&R. (DJTechtools)
DJ Ravine reports from IMS Ibiza 2018 for Point Blank Music School. (MagneticMag)

ISSUE: 08 Jun 2018

Music has a mental health problem that needs immediate treatment. (Variety)
How Ultra electronic music festival conquered the world, and its explosive growth in Asia. (SCMP)
Red taping raves is the opposite of safe. (DMNW)
The unspoken side of ghost producers. (YourEDM)
Legendary DJ Dave Booth on why the Hacienda was the worst mistake he ever made. (DailyPost)
From dealing with loneliness to providing an outlet for the world, music is a powerful tool for mental health. (MagneticMag)
Drug testing can stop the festival tragedies. (Times) Rather than treating young people buying Ecstasy or ketamine as criminals, the focus should be on keeping them safe.
From IMS Ibiza: How the dance music community is prioritizing mental health after Avicii's death. (Billboard)
The four biggest takeaways of IMS 2018: Dance music’s reflective summit. (DJTechtools)

ISSUE: 01 Jun 2018

For the Record: music journalism is still on the ropes. (IbizaVoice)
With all-male headliners and precious few female bookings further down the bill, this summer's music festivals stand for a sad - and dangerous - loutishness. It's time we staged an intervention. (GQ - Anna Conrad)
Inside the UK's first city centre drug testing facility. (Vice)
GBL – The toxic paint-stripper that’s staining clubland. (Mixmag)
We went undercover in a Chinese MDMA factory. (Mixmag)
Sarah McBriar started AVA after a trip to Glastonbury. It began as a one-day event, but now she has a four-day party on her hands. (IrishTimes)
Speaking at IMS 2018 in Ibiza, the Pete Tong paid tribute to Avicii who took his own life in April. (BBC)
The International Music Summit takes stock of the health of electronic music. (ParkettChannel)
IMS Ibiza 2018 recap. (WeRaveYou)
IMS 2018: A balance between big beats and big issues. (EssentialIbiza)
Eight things we learned from IMS Ibiza 2018. (MyIbiza)

ISSUE: 25 May 2018

As fascist groups threaten Tbilisi's club scene in the wake of last weekend's protests, Georgia's war on clubs looks far from over. (IbizaVoice)
EDC Las Vegas and the increasing impossibility of escapism. (LATimes)
'His ear for melody was extraordinary': Positiva's Jason Ellis pays tribute to Avicii. (MusicWeek)
What does feminism look like in the electronic music biz? (WUNC)
Dance music and drugs are long overdue a healthier relationship. (Noisey)
How the music industry condones a culture of excessive substance use. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 18 May 2018

How to optimize your SoundCloud tracks. (SoundCloud)
Hakkasan’s James Algate on building the biggest brands in nightlife. (InTheMix)
The Black Madonna’s guide to protecting your mental health when touring. (Dazed)
The demonstrations following police raids on Georgian clubs are a reminder of how meaningful dance music can be. (RA)
Pete Tong & Ben Turner talk IMS, Avicii & a new era for dance music. (MusicWeek)
Spencer Brown remembers Avicii, the man who made his career possible. (Mixmag)
Black Coffee and more talk afro house uniting South Africa in Global Dancefloor documentary series. (Billboard)
The new documentary Sound of Berlin, out May 18 via Apple Music, explores the city's irresistible magnetism. (Mixmag)
Industry Spotlight: Jason Hong [All Access Management]. (YourEDM)
Insomniac Records has built a culturally minded ecosystem for emerging artists. (LAWeekly)
New documentary, Girl, follows women DJs at the beginning of the EDM boom. (RA)
Can electronic music make you ill? (DJMag)

ISSUE: 11 May 2018

The rise of electronic music and strategic errors have caught Gibson guitars on the hop. (FTWeekend)
The rise of artist-run labels in electronic music changed everything. (Songkick)
Will electronic music make waves in Pakistan with the launch of Red Bull Radio? (Images)
How to use Spotify to boost your promo in 2018. (Decoded)
If you think dance music isn't as good as it used to be, technology may be about to prove you wrong. (IbizaVoice)

ISSUE: 04 May 2018

Ibiza - Where have all the freaks gone? (IbizaVoice)
The most commonly used drugs at music festivals. (DA)
How PR expert Alex Jukes made a booming career out of music festivals. (Forbes)
After the tragic death of the 28-year-old EDM pioneer Avicii, Felicity Martin looks at what can be done to help DJs and other artists suffering from pressures caused by relentless touring. (Independent)
Kaskade reacts to Avicii’s death and addresses mental health in music on his blog.
We must all consider the hazards of DJ culture. (RA)
Avicii’s death is the tip of the DJ anxiety iceberg. (IbizaVoice)
This is the conversation we should be having around Avicii’s death. (Stylist) “This is not a horror movie or a TV show: this was someone’s life.”
Christine Brown, Help Musicians UK Director of External Affairs, reiterates the importance of mental health in the music industry, how to help others, and what initiatives such as Music Minds Matter offer those who are concerned or in need. (RotD)
The music industry should be held accountable for Avicii’s death, here's why. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 27 Apr 2018

Nintendo Labo: Does it hold any potential for music-makers? (Fact)
Are the warning signs from Avicii relevant to everyone, or just EDM? (Pulse)
Depression, isolation and drug addiction: When DJing becomes a mental health issue. (Thump)
Death of 28-year-old Swedish DJ Avicii – the first electronic superstar to die near his prime – could be a turning point in an industry that was last year worth US$7.4bn. (SCMP)

ISSUE: 20 Apr 2018

What happened at Radar Radio is indicative of an industry-wide issue. (Trench)
Vinyl start-up Feedbands CRO Graham Langdon on cryptocurrency and vinyl's resurgence. (MagneticMag)
Dozens of festivals are signing up to achieve a 50/50 split of male and female acts by 2022. But is true parity on stage realistic? (SundayTimes - Lisa Verrico)
Should artists get a cut when their songs land on branded playlists on Spotify? (Billboard)
What ever happened to the mashup artist? (AVClub)
Is it still electronic dance music if they’re playing live instruments? (WSJ)

ISSUE: 13 Apr 2018

Can we please stop calling all dance music genres EDM? (DJMag)
How the UK and US both can shrink the pay gap at entertainment companies. (Variety)
How electronic music groups are dominating in 2018. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 06 Apr 2018

Dance music needs to shake its Facebook habit. (IbizaVoice)
God Save Our Gracious Scene: Music is the UK’s lasting point of pride. (Mixmag)
As dance music documentary What We Started makes big screen and iTunes debut, producers and directors Bert Marcus & Cyrus Saidi discuss the film. (Nocturnal)
IMS meets Alice Favre, Director of LWE. (IMS)
How Berlin’s DIY club culture inspired the new Singapore rave scene. (ElectronicBeats)
SoundCloud’s revenue soars past $100m mark, but is it enough? (DA)

ISSUE: 29 Mar 2018

How to develop a festival in an emerging market. (FestivalInsight)
Craig David and the new San Antonio blueprint. (IbizaVoice)
How people who have lived through horrific acts of terror at shows, festivals, and clubs hear music differently now. (Pitchfork)
Five companies leading dance music's global expansion. (Billboard)
Rightsify founder Alex Bestall on getting artists paid for music played by businesses. (MagneticMag)
'Beatport is back': CEO Robb McDaniels on the future for the DJ platform. (MusicWeek)
Ultra Music Festival 2018 plays a safe game with strong cards in 20th anniversary. (Billboard)
As Ultra celebrates electronic dance music, some wonder if its heyday is past. (MiamiHerlad)
Billboard released its own Top 100 DJ Poll: Is it better? (MagneticMag)
Ben Turner talks promoting gender equality and Association for Electronic Music's fifth anniversary. (Billboard)
Spotify is deeply integrated with Facebook: How safe is your streaming data? (Trichordist)

ISSUE: 23 Mar 2018

Dance music documentary What We Started is shameless EDM propaganda. (Pitchfork)
If Sankeys and DC-10 won't be around, how will Ibiza's clubbing landscape change in 2018? (IbizaVoice)
DanceSafe, an organisation devoted to promoting health and safety within the electronic music community, is speaking out on rape culture in light of current events. (YourEDM)
YouTube music channels have come seemingly out of nowhere to be one of the most important gatekeepers in dance music. To find out more about their world, we speak to four key channel owners. (IbizaVoice)
How Marshmello and manager Moe Shalizi built dance music's most irresistible brand. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 16 Mar 2018

Nepotism, charlatans and lowering DJ standards. (IbizaVoice)
Stop calling DJs 'eclectic’. (Mixmag)
Inside the booming black market for Spotify playlists. (DailyDot)

ISSUE: 09 Mar 2018

The sale of Ibiza holiday products to the British market has decreased by 3% in January this year compared to the same period of 2017. (TheIbizian)
Winter Music Conference faded away while you were prepping for Miami Music Week. (BigShot)
Mediocre men, watch out — gender equality in the arts can’t be resisted, says Richard Morrison. (Times)
For a creative industry that prides itself on being forward thinking, there’s still a long way to go on equality. But things are changing. (IQ - Rhian Jones)
How underground club music in China is thriving against the odds. (Fact)
Sónar Hong Kong organisers on experimental line-up, exploding local electronic music scene and their love of Science Park venue. (SCMP)

ISSUE: 02 Mar 2018

Gibson CEO talks challenges facing guitar retail industry: 'these are troubled times'. (Billboard)
Is Ultra Festival bringing dance music back to the Australian circuit? (TheMusic)
Is staring at the DJ while they play really that bad? (Mixmag)
How Kenya's electronic music industry is turning bass to bucks. (CNN)
The future of music: 10 predictions from industry professionals. (RedBull) Comment from Amy Lamé, London Night Czar, Victor De La Serna, Booking Director, elrow and more.
Rather than pay royalties to record labels, Spotify needs to start one of its own, along with perhaps a music publishing company, and deal with the songwriters and artists directly, including producing live performances. (Forbes)
Twitter, SoundCloud and the challenges of growing a social music strategy. (Billboard)
Is the vinyl resurgence actually helping dance music? (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 23 Feb 2018

Thomas Cox argues that amateurism on multiple levels within the dance music industry traps us in a harmful cycle. (Attack)
K-Pop's Non-K producers: How The Stereotypes, Diplo, Skrillex, LDN Noise and more lean into Korea. (Billboard)
For The Record: It's time we talked about ghost production. (IbizaVoice)

ISSUE: 16 Feb 2018

Why music festival culture is playlist culture. (Forbes - Cherie Hu)
We asked if you need to do drugs to enjoy dance music and this is what you said. (Mixmag)
Ibiza’s Airbnb ban will have significant implications on the global dance destination economy. (DA)
Please let this be the last of Paris Hilton in Ibiza. (IbizaVoice)
Post vs Pop: the growing divide within EDM. (DA)

ISSUE: 09 Feb 2018

How electronic dance music took over the world. (Spectator - Annie Nightingale)
This is how EDM is reviving the music industry. Or, “on how women and rhythm and blues have saved the day". (Medium - Marcus K Dowling)
Music Minds Matter: New helpline aims to lend an ear to musicians in need. (Independent)
Slaves to the algorithm: how Facebook is throttling underground culture. (Quietus)
Which DJs could carry a Super Bowl halftime show? (DA)
What are the larger implications of The Grammys steep ratings drop? (DA)
Elrow Bookings Director Victor De La Serna discusses what the global clubbing super power has in store for this season. (IbizaVoice)
Sunil Sharpe says ’It's laughable what we have here' in Dublin as DJs and venue owners call for longer licensing hours. (Journal)
Panorama’s line-up is proof mainstream festivals can get electronic music right. (Fact)
The Secret DJ on walking the fine line between cool and commercial. (Mixmag)
SoundCloud has grown to become an integral part of the world of digital music. Once expected to surpass a billion dollars in value, however, the service's future has now become uncertain. (Hypebot)
Meet the women running one of electronic music's biggest labels: Dirtybird. (Forbes)
Women's Audio Mission: Addressing the gender imbalance in pro audio. (AudioMedia)

ISSUE: 02 Feb 2018

What lies in store for Ibiza in 2018? The nervous annual stalemate of who plays where is about to reach its conclusion. (IbizaVoice)
SoundCloud’s uncertainty. (Berklee MBJ)
Industry experts, collectors, and enthusiasts from around the world discuss the future of the vinyl format. (Discogs)
Why dance music stars are crazy about cryptocurrency, and may make a killing. (Billboard)
Sexual harassment in dance music: Five women tell their story. (DJMag)
Do you have to do drugs to enjoy dance music?. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 26 Jan 2018

Music and tech start-ups: where is the innovation in 2018? (MusicAlly)
David Weiszfeld discusses his successful start-up venture Soundcharts, which acts as a system for monitoring artists' activity on social media and streaming platforms. (Hypebot)
Forgetting about vocal house anthems is a betrayal of club music's roots. (Mixmag)
Is electronic music production becoming too much like a paint by numbers kit? (MagneticMag)
Why are problems with turntables in clubs so common? Gabriel Szatan goes deep on the issue, and asks what can be done to solve this technical crisis. (RA)
How nightclubs are taking a stand against sexual harassment. (Noisey)

ISSUE: 19 Jan 2018

State of Play: Belgrade. (IbizaVoice)
Rave culture is making its move onto the blockchain. (Wired)
Cryptocurrency takes greater hold in music industry as artists are drawn to controlling and increasing royalties. (MN)
Music in VR needs its iTunes moment... and this could be it. (Wired) MelodyVR has recorded thousands of hours of music in virtual reality. It's almost ready to release them to the world. A single 360-degree music track will cost around £1, with a concert priced at between £8 and £15.
The music industry is caught up with streaming and playlists and with good reasons, but what about radio? How does the future look for the radio format and is it still relevant? (MusicThinkTank - Jesper Skibsby, CEO & founder of WARM)

ISSUE: 12 Jan 2018

For The Record: Is tech house the new EDM? (IbizaVoice)
How likely are you to get tinnitus from clubbing? (Independent)
Track ID culture is hotly dividing dance music but we ask the question, what's wrong with being so excited by a track that you need to know the name? (IbizaVoice)
DJs are using Spotify playlists to feed fans their favourite new tracks. (Spotify)
Music tech predictions for 2018: SoundCloud’s survival, the Bitcoin boom and more modular madness. (Fact)
Music copyright may be boring, but it is vital to protecting your intellectual property. (MagneticMag)
What is Opus? Here’s all you need to know about SoundCloud’s new audio file format. (Fact)
Predicting the “EDM bubble” will soon pop? You’re too late, it already has. (Medium - Ross Hsu)
London Night Czar Amy Lamé tells Craig McLean about her high jinks on the 24-hour Tube, gender neutral toilets and why London is a global party capital. (Standard)
A detailed look at Spotify's rebranded dance playlist Mint, previously electroNOW. (Chartmetric - Jason Joven)
Dance music is now a £5bn business but it’s still powered by mavericks. (Guardian2 - Matthew Collin)

ISSUE: 22 Dec 2017

Nearly two dozen acts so far on Ultra’s 2018 line-up also played in 2017. (YourEDM)
This November’s Tokyo Dance Music Event celebrated its second edition with more than 1,000 dance music professionals from across Asia. (Billboard)
Where brand sponsorships and live streaming are heading in 2018. (FestivalInsights, FI pt2)
EDM got sad and anxious in 2017, just like everything else. (Noisey)
Analog founder Ian Hindmarsh talks merger with Magnum Bookings. (MagneticMag)
Behind closed decks: former Dubspot employees offer insight on the school’s shoddy business practices, eventual closure. (DA)
15 industry figures tell us how to combat sexism and harassment in dance music. (Mixmag)
After a turbulent 2017, can SoundCloud survive the streaming wars? (Fact)
Why SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainor thinks ‘being first' in music is big business. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 15 Dec 2017

Beyond the grave: Could the alternative streaming site Fanburst fill the void in a looming SoundCloud demise? (DA)
Why San An’s 3am club ban is madness. (IbizaVoice)
It's time to stop ID'ing tracks in the rave. (Mixmag)
The year in dance/electronic charts: The Chainsmokers, Marshmello and Calvin Harris score. (Billboard)
Kate Mullins, Brand Partnerships Manager at Resident Advisor, on their approach to working with brands. (Frukt)
To fix SoundCloud, it must become the anti-Spotify. (TechCrunch)

ISSUE: 08 Dec 2017

The next time you hear an industry pundit decry the low per stream payouts from YouTube, consider who the source is and who is really threatened by access, transparency, diversity of art and competition for fans worldwide. (Billboard - Tracy Maddox, CEO of CD Baby)
Tokyo Dance Music Event touched on Japanese nightlife in the wake of the government's repeal of its notorious "anti-dance ordinance" last year. (Pollstar)
Isn't it time clubs weren't held accountable for drug deaths? (IbizaVoice)
Manchester is the beating heart of new music in the UK. (Mixmag)
How world-renowned DJ and production school Dubspot collapsed after being accused of fraud. (Fact)
Make it happen! Los Angeles deserves a Night Mayor. (Mixmag)
Is the french government hampering dance music with sound ordinances? (DancemusicNW)
David Dollimore, President of RCA UK and Ministry of Sound: “In this climate, you can’t sign lots of acts and hope one of them connects. It’s about focus, less is more, and realising the potential of things that are already on the roster.” (Hits)

ISSUE: 01 Dec 2017

How I got over a quarter million plays on my SoundCloud. (MTF - Bas Grasmayer)
Tokyo Dance Music Event: Japanese women industry leaders give advice on being successful in Asian market. (MagneticMag)
ZoukOut CEO Andrew Li explains how the Singapore dance festival grew into a two-day event with 40,000 in the crowd. (SCMP)
When DJs meet start-ups: TDME aims to build bridges across the Asian dance music community. (JapanTimes)
Amsterdam's 'Nightlife Mayor', Mirik Milan, expands upon the reception of his introductory visit, limiting policing, cost effective methods for taxpayers, and even a more realistic approach to inevitable alcohol and drug use inside clubs. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 24 Nov 2017

Sónar festival is beaming cutting-edge dance music to an exoplanet 12 light years from Earth. But can such experiments ever be more than hubris? (Guardian)
Is this the quiet before the storm for sexual misconduct in dance music? (IbizaVoice)
Not just Flume: innovative Australian electronic music surges globally. (SMH)
We're no longer running the RA polls. Here's why. (ResidentAdvisor)

ISSUE: 17 Nov 2017

What London's night czar has done in her first year. (Vice)
How German dance music artists came to control the means of vinyl production. (ElectronicBeats)
Five things we learned about building a team in dance music from the DJ Mag and PRS for Music Building Your Team panel. (M)
Artimage’s Masaji Asakawa talks dance music and digital evolution in Japan. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 10 Nov 2017

SoundCloud has one last chance to monetise — here’s what it should do. (NextWeb)

ISSUE: 03 Nov 2017

11 new companies innovating in the music industry. (P&P)
After 10 years of booming sales, we asked the industry to share its concerns and ideas about how to create a sustainable future for vinyl. (VinylFactory)
Why the music industry gets digital so wrong. (Amber Horsburgh, VP of Strategy at Downtown Records)
How Shots Studios plans to take over the music industry. (Billboard)
Throwing DJ Parties: Advice from seven successful party promoters. (DJTechTools)
A2Live founder Eric Zho tells IQ he is “trying to build a 360° music ecosystem” in a country home to 1.4 billion people – almost 19% of the world’s population. (IQ)
Native Instruments just got a $59m investment: what next? (DJTechTools)
Mixmag Global Editorial Director discusses the brand's history, direction and future in the current media landscape (Noiseporn)

ISSUE: 27 Oct 2017

Caribou, Daphni, and dance music’s critical stigma. (405)
fabric: Our final Transparency Statement and the end of our campaign.
Amsterdam Dance Event 2017: Five key performances. (RA)
Amsterdam Dance Event 2017: 9 moments to lose sleep over. (Billboard)
Nine ways Ibiza will change in 2018. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 20 Oct 2017

Help Musicians UK (HMUK) has released the final report and findings of Can Music Make You Sick? and announced three key pledges for the music industry. (RotD)
Ecstasy-related deaths are at a record high – but what can be done about it? (Mixmag)
A bullet proof guide to this year's Amsterdam Dance Event. (IbizaSpotlight)
Amsterdam Dance Event 2017: 13 must-see showcases. (Billboard)
Alison Wonderland, Annie Mac and more share their own harassment stories following Weinstein accusations. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 13 Oct 2017

Stop telling DJs to stay out of politics. (YourEDM)
Nicole Moudaber, Pepe Rosello, more discuss the changing face of Ibiza on DJ Mag panels. (DJMag)
Progress has been slow in bridging the gender divide within the UK music scene. Here successful musicians, producers and executives offer advice on breaking in. (Guardian - Naomi Larsson)
Both the Electronic Music Award's and Goldies fell short in an important way: accurately representing the many talented women at the top of the game. (ElectronicBeats)
SoundCloud competitor MixCloud just signed its first major label deal–but is a business model possible? (FastCo)
Research by Chinese tech company NetEase claims that the number of Chinese online dance listeners has grown from 197m people in 2016 to 286m now. (MusicAlly)
Ben Turner, co-founder of the International Music Summit, explains how the event helps music professionals overcome the challenges of working all over the world. (CITMag)
IMS conference report: This year saw business luminaries on the Chinese music scene and electronic music stars present keynotes while Nielsen offered the results of a study it conducted on Asia. (Billboard)
How SoundCloud lost its way. (Mashable)

ISSUE: 06 Oct 2017

More than three quarters of British festivalgoers consider their festival experiences to provide good value for money, reveals a new survey of spending habits. (IQ)
Oppose the developers: London is fighting to protect its LGBTQ+ clubs. (Mixmag)
Five things we learnt about breaking into dance music from DJ Mag and PRS for Music’s new series of talks. (M)
Watch: Ballantine’s x Boiler Room The Future of Sound panel. (XLR8R)
IMS Asia-Pacific releases 2017 aftermovie. (YouTube)
Nielsen has compiled the Asia Pacific Dance Music Study: a snapshot study of consumer interaction with music in the APAC region. (IMS)
China has seen explosive growth of 45.2% in electronic/ dance music listeners, according to the 2016-2017 China Electronic Music Market Research Report presented at IMS Asia-Pacific. (Hypebot, BusinessInsider)

ISSUE: 29 Sep 2017

Luke Hood, founder and director of UKF, which is now part of AEI Media, says: 'YouTube is a platform where you have to fend for yourself’. (MusicAlly)
How EDM insurgents Discwoman are taking on gender discrimination. (RollingStone)
From Storm to Ultra, music festivals are growing in popularity in China. (CNBC)
Recap: IMS Asia-Pacific concludes successful fourth edition in Shanghai. (IMS)
Five calls to action from IMS Asia-Pacific. (IMS)
Warner Music's Bart Cools delivers keynote at IMS Asia-Pacific. (MW)
Pasquale Rotella talks heat-related EDC date change: 'It wasn’t as comfortable as it needed to be’. (LATimes)

ISSUE: 22 Sep 2017

On the backs of massive growth in demand for live music over the last 10 years, performers are figuring out new and innovative models to satisfy demand by creating more supply. (TechCrunch)

ISSUE: 15 Sep 2017

Overcrowding in clubs is annoying and dangerous. So why does it happen so often? (Mixmag)
Will a music publishing matrix save the day? (IbizaVoice)
How streaming music services could be better for DJs. (DJTechTools)

ISSUE: 08 Sep 2017

James Palumbo co-founded Ministry of Sound but now prefers politics to partying. The Lib-Dem peer tells Rosamund Urwin about his latest mission, pet rescue. (Standard)
Staying in The Loop: the organisation testing drugs, one festival at a time. (NewStatesman)
What the hell does it mean to be a producer in 2017? (DA)
Is India actually destined to become the ‘next EDM hub’ of the world? (DA)
Dance music is still a boys’ club, says Jess Readett. (HuffPo)
Ibiza Rocks no more? founder Andy McKay on Ibiza’s ‘impossible’ regulations. (TheIbizian)

ISSUE: 01 Sep 2017

Changes to the West End are destroying San Antonio in Ibiza. (WhiteIsle)
AirBnB have announced that the Balearic economy could lose more than €550m per year under the new tourist rental regulations. (Ibizan)
Tickets to festivals are four times more likely to be bought fraudulently than those to sporting events, underlining the importance of IP detection, says Riskified. (IQ)
Do bootlegs matter? What Discogs’ new crackdown means for the site’s future. (VinylFactory)
Is SoundCloud a business or a community? (NYTimes)
Why aren’t there more women working in audio? (Atlantic)
Organised fun: Are advance ticket sales ruining clubbing? (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 25 Aug 2017

Sisters are doing it for everyone: Is female equality still a concern in electronic dance music? (Decoded)
Gary Richards, founder of Hard Events, a Live Nation subsidiary, talked to us and then immediately resigned from the company. As this interview went to press, he was in flux. (Pollstar)

ISSUE: 18 Aug 2017

SoundCloud struggles to turn fandom into hard cash. (FT)
SoundCloud survives but it’s bad news for musicians. (TheConversation)
Fred Davis, former EMI Vice President, is the “secret weapon” that investors believe will save SoundCloud. (HypeBot)
New management must transform SoundCloud into a mature business. (FT)
Exciting news and the future of SoundCloud. (Alex Ljung - Chairman, SoundCloud)
Is Cocoon still the best techno party in Ibiza? (Pulse)
Will virtual reality clubbing make staying in the new going out? (GQ)
EDM's $46 million man: How Calvin Harris became the world's highest-paid DJ. (Forbes)

ISSUE: 11 Aug 2017

Ibiza's obsession with VIP tourism is out of control. (IbizaVoice)
Is techno tourism what Detroit needs? (Slate)
Pasquale Rotella discusses Gary Richards leaving HARD, big changes on the horizon for EDC brand. (DA)
Ibiza: The Broadway musical? ‘It’s possible,’ says dance music trailblazer Patrick Moxey. (Variety)

ISSUE: 04 Aug 2017

The SoundCloud you loved is doomed. (Pitchfork)
How SoundCloud ended up on the brink of disaster. (Billboard)
The inside story of SoundCloud's collapse. (Buzzfeed)
If SoundCloud disappears, what happens to its music culture? (NYTimes)
How do songs end up on Spotify playlists anyway? (Forbes)
Who the drugs kill: Young Asian-Americans in southern California’s MDMA- and ecstasy-filled rave and festival circuit are dying in alarming numbers. (Outline)
Where do you turn when the music industry skews your mental health? (Noisey)
How on-site drug testing at festivals can help save lives. (Fact)

ISSUE: 28 Jul 2017

An extensive collection of SoundCloud thought pieces. (Redef)
How SoundCloud’s broken business model drove artists away. (Verge)
Mykonos: Dance music's next Ibiza. (Billboard)
Music festivals are booming – but so are allegations of rape and sexual assault. Are organisers doing enough to keep people safe? (Guardian2 - Hannah J Davies)
The Streaming Problem: How spammers, superstars, and tech giants gamed the music industry. (Vulture)

ISSUE: 21 Jul 2017

For The Record: Ibiza needs to stop playing it safe with DJ bookings. (IbizaVoice)
Why sniffer dogs should be banned at clubs and festivals. (Vice)
Four things you can do today just in case SoundCloud closes. (DigitalDJTips)
Why SoundCloud rap couldn’t save SoundCloud. (Spin)
Nothing good lasts forever, so back up your music. (Thump)
SoundCloud says it’s going to survive, but how? (TechCrunch)
How music streaming service SoundCloud ended up on the brink of extinction. (BusinessInsider)
SoundCloud tries to allay fears, but streaming needs a business model. (CDM)
Beyond SoundCloud: Why we share. (NewMusicBox)
Music fans and artists and many more have a lot to lose if SoundCloud goes the way of Vine. (FastCo)

ISSUE: 14 Jul 2017

SoundCloud matters because artists and labels depend on discovery. (CDM)
How losing SoundCloud would change music. (TheRinger)
NYC is reaching peak European techno, says Michelle Lhooq. (Thump)
Does hippy Ibiza actually still exist? (Mixmag)
Rave lifers tell us why it's acceptable to go raving aged 37 (and beyond). (Mixmag)
10 things we learned at IMS College – Malta 2017. (IMS)
IMS College Malta 2017 highlights. (IMS)
Club culture is plagued by sexism and white supremacy. These three women won’t stand for it. (Fader)
The potential death of SoundCloud should scare music lovers says Brian Feldman. (NYMag)
A SoundCloud employee writes about being hired and laid off within a week. (Hackernoon)

ISSUE: 07 Jul 2017

The GHB Tightrope: What’s really up with this dangerous party drug? (Pulse)
Fred Letts founded Percolate in 2012, five years later it boasts a fully-fledged team of seven dedicated music fanatics, plus a long-suffering accountant (who is also a music fanatic). (FestivalInsight)
Two years in: What will it take for stems to go mainstream? (DJTechtools)
Does a DJ set have to be perfect? (Mixmag)
Making music a ‘verb’ again; why the music industry needs computer coders. (Medium - Sam Potts, Head of Radio, Columbia Records)
How SoundCloud could transform Deezer’s market narrative. (Midia)

ISSUE: 30 Jun 2017

A music-lover's guide to tinnitus. (RA)
Drug checking won't abolish the risk of taking drugs, but it's still important. (Mixmag)
We still need to talk about sexism in dance music. (Pulse)
Raoul Chatterjee on SoundCloud's music discovery revolution. (MusicWeek)
Stop saying there isn’t a strong female presence in dance music. (Mixmag)
IMS: Female DJs deal with gender imbalance. (BBC)

ISSUE: 16 Jun 2017

What are words worth: we should change the way we talk about dance music. (Mixmag)
The Beatport Top 10 has regained its credibility, says Michael Sundius. (DA)
Is the future of remix culture mobile-first? (Medium - Bas Grasmayer)
Ibiza Report: IMS 2017. (DHA)
An insight into the corporate culture at SoundCloud. (JaxEnter)

ISSUE: 09 Jun 2017

The effect of festivals on music streaming. (Aloompa)
Blockchain could help musicians make money again. (HBR - Imogen Heap)
Breaking a music artist in America in 2017. (MusicAlly)
'We need fair representation': the rise of female-led record labels. (Guardian)
Dancing In The Dark: is club photography really necessary? (Mixmag)
Why dance music should be taken seriously: lessons from Ibiza’s 10th International Music Summit. (InTheMix)

ISSUE: 02 Jun 2017

Would we all enjoy nightlife more if we took it slightly less seriously? (Thump)
Dispelling the myths around pressing plant delays with a leading UK vinyl distributor. (StampTheWax)
Pete Tong on 10 years of the International Music Summit and why the US dance market has peaked. (Billboard)
IMS Ibiza: Day 4 with Dixon and The Martinez Brothers. (IbizaSpotlight)
IMS 2017: Examining the state of the dance music nation. (MusicWeek)
IMS certifies that the world of electronic music is sexist. (Elmundo)
10 takeaways from the International Music Summit 2017. (DigitalDJ)
The Top 10 of IMS Ibiza 2017. (DT)

ISSUE: 26 May 2017

How the UK election could affect the club scene. (RA)
Hype Machine is struggling to stay online, and that’s a shame. (Verge)
VIP is antithetical to dance music culture, says Ed Priest, Events Promo Assistant for Hospitality in the Park. (FestivalInsight)
The top 10 of IMS Ibiza 2017. (DT)
IMS Ibiza: Day 1 highlights with DVS1 and Neighbourhood PR. (IbizaSpotlight)
Best moments of IMS day 2. (IbizaSpotlight)
Four things to watch at this year's IMS Ibiza. (MusicWeek)
IMS Ibiza 10: How music industry has changed. (BBC)

ISSUE: 19 May 2017

Five lies In YouTube’s spin on Content ID. (MTP)
How the internet financially kills musicians and other artists. (WashingtonPost)
Streaming services aren't paying artists enough, says Spotify's global head of creator services, Troy Carter. (RA)
Does house have the "exact same formula as EDM" right now? (Pulse)

ISSUE: 12 May 2017

Live concerts are music tech’s next frontier. (VentureBeat)
SoundCloud's forgotten advantage, its embeddable feature, could be its secret weapon. (Forbes)

ISSUE: 05 May 2017

How the music industry uses a pervasive secret weapon to keep bands from freely touring. (LAWeekly)
Capitalism takes festival culture to the next level, but is it for the better? (MagneticMag)
The concert ticket industry is still broken. (Vulture)
Fyre debacle shows festivals should be left to the pros. (IrishTimes)
DJ Burn One breaks down the issues producers face in a streaming economy. (Pigs&Planes)

ISSUE: 28 Apr 2017

Dear promoters, it's time to quit overselling your parties. (Pulse)
What DJs really earn. (Mixmag)
Vinyl fantasy: Is the record boom bad for new music? (Fact)
How can I get on Spotify’s playlists? (Medium - Lucie Watson, Platoon)
Expensive tickets with backstage access are this year’s festival must-have. But are they really worth it? (SundayTimes - Lisa Verrico)
Watch: CBC film Where’d the Night Go?, investigating how artists, promoters, and venue owners survive in the face of rising rents. (Thump)
As streaming services boom, SoundCloud strives for relevancy. (Wired)

ISSUE: 21 Apr 2017

Ross Gardiner and Jemayel Khawaja, co-founders of Black Circle Media, explain why festivals should spend less on PR and more on original content. (FestivalInsights)
Crunching the numbers on this year’s biggest summer festivals to determine the most in-demand acts and hardest workers, as well as which fests are the most (and least) unique and diverse. (Pitchfork)
New data shows that more people want to access music than own it. (Forbes)
Online music is about to experience another MySpace moment. An emerging void signals new opportunity for innovation in digital music. (Medium - Bas Grasmayer)
International Music Summit's Ben Turner on whether the EDM bubble has burst. (MusicWeek)

ISSUE: 14 Apr 2017

The House Of Lords: fighting for the UK's right to party? (Vice)
What are privilege and power doing to club culture? (Thump - Tom Glencross)
Has the UK’s festival scene reached saturation point? (FT)
After 10 years of sharing music, is SoundCloud now going mute? (YourStory)
Research analysis: Medical care at electronic dance music festivals. (EMS1)
When will electronic dance music make it into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame? (Forbes)
How a decade of IMS changed the dance music landscape. (Pulse)

ISSUE: 07 Apr 2017

Is lo-fi house the first genre of the algorithm age? (Thump)
The history of electronic music and how classics still define modern EDM. (DMNW)
Asians need more visibility in dance music, argues Greg Scruggs. (Thump)
UK promoters, stop using warehouses as a shortcut to authenticity. (Thump)
Creatives as victims: Are artists really screwed? (MTF)

ISSUE: 31 Mar 2017

Event Welfare: more than just ‘the drugs tent’. (FestivalInsight - Corinne Lane is the Senior Co-ordinator of the National Event Welfare Service)
Festivals desperately need a content-driven approach to drug safety says Ross Gardiner, founder of Black Circle Media. (FestivalInsight)
Lose Yourself: why knowing set times in advance ruins a night out. (Mixmag)
Madrid promoters Olivia Morena and Noelia Rodriguez discuss the city’s vibrant electronic scene. (Thump)
Why Taiwan is an underrated electronic music hub. (Pulse)
SoundCloud cofounder: London was 'crucial to our success’. (BusinessInsider)

ISSUE: 24 Mar 2017

Vinyl vs streaming: What music industry experts predict for the two platforms in 2017. (Independent)
London’s music venues are recovering – but business rate review could stop them in their tracks. (CityMetric)
We want freedom: After-hours parties are the beating heart of New York nightlife. (Mixmag - Scott Enman)
SiriusXM’s Vice President of Music Programming/Electronic and Dance Formats Jonathan Broth, AKA Geronimo comments that EDM's death has been greatly exaggerated. (MiamiNewTimes)
A$AP Ferg, The Chainsmokers' manager and more discuss changing music industry in SXSW 'Digital Revolution' panel. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 17 Mar 2017

The Chainsmokers' manager Adam Alpert talks release strategy & evolution from DJ duo to arena act. (Billboard)
Why Ed Sheeran's Shape of You has become a rare two-week No. 1 on Dance Club Songs. (Billboard)
Is dance music's growth as an industry squeezing out the people who throw parties? Angus Finlayson unpacks one of the broadest problems facing dance music today. (RA)
How start-up MetaPop is turning illegal remixes into real revenue. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 10 Mar 2017

Why saying "no" will enrich your life outside of the rave. (Mixmag)
Say no to 60 minutes: extended DJ sets should be the industry standard. (Mixmag)
North America may have found its own Ibiza. (FestivalInsight)
Women in dance music: where are we now? (DJMag)
Could Sonalytic help Spotify build, not buy SoundCloud? (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 03 Mar 2017

Is vinyl Detroit's latest growth industry? (MetroTimes)
What the hell happened to pop house? (Noisey)
11 startups innovating the future of music. (MusicTechFuture)
Seven music tech trends for 2017. (Bonafide)

ISSUE: 24 Feb 2017

Until legalisation, allow users to test for tainted drugs. (HuffPo)

ISSUE: 17 Feb 2017

A letter to brands who use music: Put the band first and reap the rewards. (TheDrum - Geoff Cottrill, chair of the Grammy Foundation)
How to turn yourself into the world's most successful DJ without ever mixing a record - a guide to self-promotion. (Thump - Angus Harrison)
Politics and dance music are intertwined and there's nothing you can do about it, says Patrick Hinton. (Mixmag)
Allowing a DJ to perform for three to four hours should be the industry standard. (Mixmag - Funster)

ISSUE: 10 Feb 2017

“Build bridges over these walls”: How Trump’s travel ban impacts touring musicians. (CoS)
Did London have its Berghain moment when Printworks opened last weekend? (DJMag)
The Printworks opening party was a new dawn for London clubbing. (Pulse)
30 music startups worth watching in 2017. (MusicAlly) Including: Chew.TV, Dubset, Sonalytic, Vibble and more
Dance music is in danger of losing its best minds to the mainstream, says Dave Jenkins. (Mixmag)
Morley Dave of Lollop PR and Media gives us insight into making it in music. (MagneticMag)
Former Beatport CEO Matt Adell explains his new company Metapop and how everyone can make money on remixes. (NestHQ)
HARD founder & CEO, Gary Richards, chats techno, Holy Ship! and more. (Earmilk)

ISSUE: 03 Feb 2017

In uncertain times, Bandcamp might be the saviour we need, says Chandler Shortlidge. (Pulse)
A playbook for pushing the needle on diversity in music. (Forbes)
10 ways Ibiza will change in 2017. (Mixmag)
In developing a refreshed home for London's famed Ministry of Sound, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, an architect and partner at Rem Koolhaas's superfirm OMA, imagines a new way to make nightlife safer. (FastCo)
A guide to dance music marketing in 2017 PT.1. (Magnetic Mag)
The musician’s guide to SoundCloud. (Hypebot Part 1, 2, 3)
Eric Wahlforss, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at SoundCloud, on why staffing the company with musicians and music-lovers makes good business sense. (Telegraph)

ISSUE: 27 Jan 2017

Dance artists react to President Donald Trump's inauguration. (Billboard)
Dance music artists react to Women's March protests. (Billboard)
McCartney, techno and the Spanish civil war – what keeps UK music venues alive? (Guardian)
Jean-Michel Jarre identifies the Value Transfer. (MTP)

ISSUE: 20 Jan 2017

Where Japan’s club culture needs to go in 2017. (Japan Times)
Is anywhere safe to party anymore? (Pulse - Jemayel Khawaja)
Caught in a web of gentrification, police crackdowns, and dangerous drugs, the UK capital’s once-thriving nightlife scene is in serious jeopardy. (Pitchfork)
Annie Mac's new club culture documentary, titled Who Killed The Night?, explores the constant controversies circling around nightlife over the past decade. (Mixmag) Watch on BBC iPlayer here.

ISSUE: 13 Jan 2017

Why some of Canada's music clubs are losing the fight to stay open. (CH)
SoundCloud vows growth in 2017, but time is running out; at a crossroads, the company is desperate to turn its massive music platform into a real business. (FastCompany)
Seth Troxler defends dance culture ahead of Fabric’s reopening last weekend [Video]. (DA)
Analysis of Ministry Of Sound Recordings figures via MoS Group’s full annual accounts for 2015. (MBW) The label turned over £27.1m in 2015, 8% more than 2014. Just 25% of its total recordings sales by volume in 2015 was generated by digital formats.
At a crossroads, SoundCloud is desperate to turn its massive music platform into a real business. (FastCo)

ISSUE: 06 Jan 2017

Has music production been stuck in a nostalgia loop in 2016? (Fact)
Real Talk: Eomac on Misogyny in Dance Music - Ian McDonnell addresses the existence and consequences of misogyny in dance music and wider society. (XLR8R)
YouTube has already changed entertainment and the internet. Now for YouTube to get to the next level, it has to bridge the canyon between the worlds of TV and the web. No pressure. (Bloomberg)
Here's everything that's going to happen in club culture in 2017. (Thump)
In Apple-Spotify world, SoundCloud can’t find room. (Bloomberg)
Why vinyl isn’t about to save the music business and why albums need rethinking. (Mark Mulligan)

ISSUE: 16 Dec 2016

The best music marketing of 2016. (AdAge)
Testing SoundCloud’s claims that DJ mixes are safe from copyright takedown. (DJTechtools)
London night tsar Amy Lamé on the challenges of the job. (Guardian)
Mixcloud’s Nikhil Shah and the art of bootstrapping. (FT audio)
The future of party culture in Trump's America. (Fest300)
Trump on Drugs: Nightmare scenarios looking ever more probable. (Pulse)
An open letter to underground party promoters. (Pulse)
Less than a week after the fire that killed 36 at a 100% Silk event, there’s evidence that various city governments are cracking down on similar spaces. (RA)
Vinyl indignity: record sales are up, but small labels don't see the benefit. (Guardian)
Apple and Spotify are generating $7bn a year in streaming music revenue, assuming each subscriber is paying around $10 a month. (Recode)
8tracks, the site where users can listen for free to millions of playlists, explain the issues of running independent radio and the challenges of streaming music. (8Tracks)
Secondary ticketing: Days in the life of two tickets traded by a StubHub validated ticket seller. (MusicTank)

ISSUE: 09 Dec 2016

Is the “Disneyfication” of Amsterdam ruining the city for the locals? (Pulse)
How technology is powering the music industry… in figures. (Midem - Melina Druga)
The labels and publishers’ feel that it should be paying more, YouTube feels it is paying enough. The debate is not about to end any time soon. (Mark Mulligan)
Vinyl makes us happy, here's why we're buying more of it. (NewStatesman)
Blood, Ket, and Tears: What "The Sesh" can tell us about 2016. (Thump)
Why the music industry needs a revamped relationship with artists and entrepreneurs. (Variety)
Warehouse party safety: What to watch out for and how to prepare. (Billboard)
Are giant music festivals at the end of the road? (TheConversation)
Electric Daisy Carnival is one of the biggest EDM music festivals on the planet. So why is it cancelling EDC NYC, one of its largest dates? (DMN)

ISSUE: 02 Dec 2016

A Nielsen study suggests Instagram is one of the best platforms to reach music lovers. (Music3.0)
What is the most influential record label of all time? (The Question - Tony Wadsworth)
Chris Price Head of Music, BBC Radio 1 & 1Xtra: “I feel strongly that, in order to maintain a diverse and plural culture, radio should be driving the data, not following it. We need powerful, independent editorial voices driven by passion, not data.” (Hits)
Spotify’s march to monopolise playlists continues. (Medium - Tom Packer, Motive Unknown)
Amsterdam Night Mayor Mirik Milan has offered his thoughts on Sydney's controversial lockout laws. (Mixmag)
Will virtual reality raving actually be as good as the real thing? (Mixmag)
Is VR technology about to revolutionise the way we experience music? (Fact)

ISSUE: 25 Nov 2016

What Coachella 2017 will mean for dance music moving forward. (WeGotThisCovered)
Ticket touts are ripping us all off on an industrial scale – and ticket companies are letting them get away with it. (Telegraph - Damian Collins)
The legacy of David Mancuso. (ElectronicBeats)
London after dark: what next for the city’s nightlife? (FT - Henry Mance)
What's next for London's club culture? (RA)
The pros and cons of the Fabric ruling. (Pulse)
Fabric might be saved, but I won’t be going back to the disco. (NewStatesman)
Christian Eede looks at why the Fabric’s concessions for reopening might have come at a greater cost than they were worth. (Quietus)

ISSUE: 18 Nov 2016

20 music and technology leaders predict how music technology will change the business. (Eventbrite)
The British Medical Journal warns: "The war on drugs has failed" (Mixmag)
Dance music's political correctness witch-hunt is spiralling out of control. (Pulse)
Hieroglyphic Being wants you to know about the racist undertones of 90s rave nostalgia. (Thump)
An open letter to the dance music community in the wake of Trump’s election. (Pulse)
SoundCloud on acquisition talk: ‘There is a lot of interest in us’. (MusicAlly)

ISSUE: 11 Nov 2016

Five signs that you might be becoming a jaded raver and how to avoid it. (Magnetic Mag)
As streaming takes hold and revenue rises, the industry waits for its vital signs to stabilise - with experts cautiously optimistic that 2016’s numbers constitute a genuine revival. (Billboard)
The chart that tells the story of the music business. (Music3.0)
London-based independent record label Memphis Industries on direct-to-fan, running an independent label and advice for new artists. (Topspin)
A report from the Futuresource Audio Collaboration music conference panel What Does the Music Fan Really Want? (M)
Redesigning the Spotify icon suite. (Medium)
Is Facebook the musicians friend or a massive infringer? (Hypebot)
The part of the US Copyright Act that exempts some small restaurants and bars from paying public performance fees to collecting societies could be costing rightsholders more than $150m a year, according to a study. (Billboard)
Carl Cox has spoken about the current state of Ibiza and how he thinks it will cope now Space has closed. (Mixmag)
Global clubs are closing at a rapid rate, but out of the ashes a new kind of nightlife experience is emerging. (Protein)

ISSUE: 04 Nov 2016

Why the music industry needs to dump non-discretionary pricing. (Mark Mulligan)
Here’s what we lost with streaming. (Medium - Paul Cantor) Back when MP3-infested music blogs became popular, we had content and context.
Is Google trying to end copyrights once and for all? (HeatSt)
Whether you’re struggling to get gig tickets or being fat-shamed by an app – AI is calling the shots. Weren’t these algorithms supposed to be on our side, not making thing worse? (Guardian2)
Why Brexit is not music to the ears of British bands touring Europe. (Guardian)
Rob Hallett talks Essence Festival in South Africa, Brexit and why the live market is in trouble. (Billboard)
iPod: How it changed Apple. (Medium - Jean-Louis Gassée)
Why it's highly unlikely Apple Music will see a price cut. (Fortune)
Apple losing USB is a loss for music. (Pitchfork)
Record labels! Beware of fake independence! (Paul Sanders)
Ticketing’s distributed future is not only good for fans, it’s already happening. (TechCrunch)
Musicians are three times more susceptible to mental illness says new study. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 28 Oct 2016

14 easy ways to make clubbing safer for everyone. (Pulse)
Why the music industry needs Facebook to launch its own streaming audio service. (Medium - Darren Hemmings, Motive Unknown)
How Spotify can become a next generation “label”. (Music Industry Blog - Mark Muligan)
New Gatekeepers: How streaming platforms are taking over the music industry. (Hypebot)
Australian music royalties have hit record-breaking highs – but it won't save the industry. (Guardian - Tim Byron)
Four futures of the music business. (Medium - Cortney Harding) Contemplating the fate of an evolving industry.
Music has been totally disrupted by Silicon Valley, yet it’s still run by the same two moguls - Lyor Cohen and Jimmy Iovine. (Quartz)
Michael Huppe, the president and CEO of SoundExchange, discusses his organisation's position in the ever-changing music industry industry as its role in the streaming marketplace continues to expand. (Hypebot)
How Space moving to unfashionable San Antonio could revitalize Ibiza. (Pulse)
A SoundCloud sale would be bad for fans. (VentureBeat - DJ Skee)
Why the tabloid obsession with nightclub fights is so damaging to UK club culture. (Thump)
Why does the DJ Mag Top 100 list matter? 3LAU guest editorial. (YourEDM)
Full panels from IMS Asia-Pacific 2016: Rising stars, global power players, India & China and more. (IMS)
ADE closes and reminds us that Holland is the home of the truly innovative dance culture. (Pulse)

ISSUE: 21 Oct 2016

Irvine Welsh, writer of Trainspotting, has revealed his sadness over the closure of London club fabric. (Mixmag)
How sync licensing might work with Dot Blockchain. (Medium - Benji Rogers)
Inside Vevo's plan to beat YouTube and become the MTV of the digital age. (Forbes) Vevo anticipates $500m in revenue this year, much of it from its ad-revenue-sharing deal with YouTube.
Creative subjects like art history are vital – just ask engineers. (I)
Almost half of the people who do not currently subscribe to music streaming services think they are too expensive, a survey suggests. (BBC)
The rise of music streaming services and what it means for listeners and the industry. (ReportLinker)
Are streaming services labels-In-waiting? (MusicTank)
Australia In Crisis: Watch the IMS Asia-Pacific panel unpack the ripple effect of Sydney’s struggling music industry. (Pulse)
Watch more panels from IMS Asia-Pacific 2016: diversity, Japan, Australia, challenges and more. (IMS)
With the rise of playlists, is it even worth it to release an album anymore? And how will playlists change the way we listen to music? (Inc)
Apps: From your own digital DJ to making a ‘lip-dub’ video, there are lots of inventive new ways to enjoy music. (Observer)
Whoever is appointed as London’s night czar, they will need to wade in to policy details, support local campaigns and where necessary, push for legislative change. (MusicTank)
Annie Mac: 'Radio definitely isn't a thing of the past’. (Guardian - Peter Robinson)
Are VIPs are killing off the club scene? (Sunday Times - Kate Spicer)

ISSUE: 14 Oct 2016

Is tech's future music's past? Why Silicon Valley is looking to music execs. (Billboard)
A review of the Ibiza-based DJ Awards hosted at Pacha. (Pulse)
Pandora and Spotify have become so important as sources of revenue for the music industry that they're now "too big to fail," says an analyst. (Investors)
How millennials are warping the vinyl industry. (Economist)
Should nightclubs be considered sites of high culture? (Economist)

ISSUE: 07 Oct 2016

The possible Brexit implications for the music industry now that negotiations will begin by next March. (Billboard)
Nick McCabe: Hakkasan's club impresario who was once ‘broker than broke’ is a winner in Vegas now. (Standard)
Is the era of free streaming music coming to an end? (Pitchfork)
Irving Azoff says the “pirates" at YouTube are “really evil”. (Amplify)
At Next Radio 2016, Ben Bowler from Chew.tv exposes the technological and societal changes which drive today’s young audiences. (YouTube)
Lyor Cohen's move to YouTube: Good or bad for the music industry? (Billboard)
Watch Skrillex's fascinating panel at IMS Shanghai. (Billboard)
Rumoured talks between Spotify and SoundCloud could lead to a mega-music platform that solves problems for both companies. And maybe artists, too. (FastCo)
SoundCloud for sale: will Spotify tame the wild west of underground electronic music? (NewStatesman - Emily Reynolds)

ISSUE: 30 Sep 2016

"Radio is of the past – it’s not relevant,” said Austin Kramer, the Global Head of Dance & Electronic Music at Spotify, during a panel on playlists. (MusicAlly)
Thanks to a simple YouTube to MP3 converter, 25-year-old student Philip Matesanz is making millions, and he’s taking on the music and ad tech industries in the process. (OMR)
Eric Zho Op-Ed: China is a nuanced new frontier for electronic music. (Billboard)
EDM's Big Asia Play: Promoters look to break new market with festivals, conferences. (Billboard)
Five major moments from IMS Asia-Pacific 2016. (IMS)
Will Theakston, Warp Publishing’s Head of Licensing, on the blossoming relationship between the music and gaming worlds. (M)
Spotify may be buying SoundCloud, but who wins? (Mark Mulligan)
The Spotify and SoundCloud deal may not happen, but it makes plenty of sense. (Recode)
Spotify could out-dance Apple if it does acquire SoundCloud. (TechCrunch)

ISSUE: 23 Sep 2016

Here are six ways clubs can help reduce sexual assault and harassment. (Thump)
The music industry is slightly less doomed thanks to streaming. (Fact)
11 incredibly simple steps that will make every festival so much safer. (Pulse)
Jason Swamy, promoter of Thailand's Wonderfruit festival and speaker at IMS Asia-Pacific, shares his experience promoting talent and events, and fundamentals on what makes a successful festival. (MNA)
On the eve of IMS Asia-Pacific, Storm promoter and IMS AP partner Eric Zho discusses roadblocks and opportunities in the country’s burgeoning dance scene. (DancingAstronaut)
The rise and fall of Gatecrasher. (Thump)
Are Britain’s clubs doomed? (Sun)
Why Fabric’s next move should be supported by the entire music industry. (RotD)
The London nightlife crisis according to Scuba, the last DJ to play Fabric. (Pitchfork)
UK: Can nightlife be saved? Live stream panel from Fabric. (Boilerroom)

ISSUE: 16 Sep 2016

Can Buddy help us beat festival fatalities? (Magnetic Mag)
Jamie Nimmo talks to the financial backers behind Crowdmix's £15m failure. (Standard)
Alex Chew and Raj Datwani of Ultra Singapore discuss the brand. (AsiaOne)
Ultra Music Festival executive producers Alex Chew and Raj Datwani discuss how the brand is breaking new ground in Singapore. (Billboard)
BTraits discusses drug use, Fabric and clubbing in general. (Pulse)
EU takes a swipe at YouTube’s safe harbour. (Mark Mulligan)
Britain’s clubland is shrinking but Fabric had survived the trend – until now. What does its loss mean for the capital’s cultural profile? (Guardian2 - Dorian Lynskey)
Nick Sabine and Paul Clement, co-founders of Resident Advisor, discuss the importance of keeping Fabric open, gentrification, starting small and why they have no plans to sell up. (Guardian)
Who is killing Britain’s nightlife? (Sunday Times - Katie Glass)
The torn fabric of London nightlife. (FT Weekend)
Social Fabric: Will the closing of London's great nightclub unravel a scene? (NPR)
AFEM’s Mark Lawrence: We are calling for a united dance floor to fight for UK nightlife. (Pulse)
To save Fabric and nightlife, dance music culture must unite, says Ben Turner, co-founder of the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM) and International Music Summit (IMS). (Billboard)

ISSUE: 09 Sep 2016

Sound System Culture: Fighting for noise in a Sydney subdued. (Pulse)
Five years at SoundCloud. Reflections on music, gratitude and vulnerability. (Medium - Jane Shin, Former Senior Artist Relations Manager at SoundCloud)
Why I won’t write about EDM anymore. (Observer - Justin Joffe)
London’s night time economy. (Market Mogul - Thomas Nguyen)
Fabric fans laugh at idea that faster BPMs are dangerous but take #FabricReview hearing very seriously. (Billboard)
To be young in 2016 is now even more dull without Fabric. (Time Out)
Fabric RIP FAQ: everything you need to know about the club's closure. (Time Out)
The loss of Fabric is another blow to London's cultural reputation and the closure of the capital's leading club will hurt more than just music lovers. (New Statesman)
'London will always have places to dance, but Fabric was more than that' - readers share their memories of the club. (Guardian)
Make no mistake: if Fabric was a cocaine-plagued members club for the wealthy, it never would have been shut down. (Independent - Coco Khan)
Fabric closure: What next for the UK's club scene? (BBC)
Even if you don't care about clubbing, Fabric's closure is a saddening blow to British culture. (Telegraph - Alice Vincent)
Fabric forever: Remembering one of the best clubs the UK has ever seen. (Mixmag)
Reaction: Fabric's closure is a cruel, unjust blow. (Clash)
Fabric: Seven things you can do today to protest the club’s closure. (Fact)
Fabric’s closure isn’t the end; the fight for UK nightlife starts now. (Thump)
Closing Fabric solves nothing. (Resident Advisor - Joe Muggs)
Fabric: a nightclub that thrived by taking dance music seriously. (Guardian - Alexis Petridis)
London’s mayor has attacked the decision to close Fabric. (FT)
Fabric Forever: Remembering one of the best clubs the UK has ever seen. (Mixmag)
Don’t blame clubs like Fabric for drug deaths – they don’t sell drugs. (INews)
I blame Fabric’s closure on this country’s backward drugs policy. (Guardian - David Nutt)
Fair trial or simply a formality? DJ Mag investigates Fabric's hearing. (DJMag)
Fabric is closed – so what does this mean for UK nightlife? (Mixmag)
Was this the real reason Fabric was shut down? 'Operation Lenor' and a cash-strapped council and police. (Independent)

ISSUE: 02 Sep 2016

Adam Webb looks at FanFair Alliance’s stand against industrial-scale touting. (RotD)
The urgent need for a sustainable music industry and the tech that makes it possible. (Medium - Bas Grasmayer)
Spotify's global head of creator services Troy Carter says "exclusives are bad for artists, bad for consumers and bad for the whole industry." (Billboard) Spotify now has more than 39m paid subscribers, up from 30m in March.
A combination of factors have gotten Spotify where it is now. Market conditions, bad management, arrogance, stiffing songwriters and getting too big, too fast. Until all those things change to one degree or another, it’s likely that the Spotify IPO myth will remain just that. (MusicTechSolutions)
Save Fabric: our clubs are under threat as never before. (Observer - Bill Brewster)
Sasha has expressed his concerns about the future of fabric London and its significance for London's nightlife in an open letter. (Pulse)
The story of how ecstasy came to be banned. (Pulse)
A girl walks home alone at night from the club – the differences between the end of the night for men and women, and thoughts on how to address them. (Thump)
London's clubbing scene is suffering closures, but what can promoters do to be creative in the face of tough times? (Independent - Shaun Curran)

ISSUE: 26 Aug 2016

Diary of a chronic booth blagger. (Pulse)
Dancing should not be a death sentence. (Magnetic Mag)
Can Chew be to music what Twitch is to gaming? Find out what it takes to build the world’s largest video platform for DJs. (Medium)
Live streaming DJ sets on Facebook Live: Copyright issues? (DJTechTools)

ISSUE: 19 Aug 2016

A look at how to create electronic music despite disability, using innovative technology. (Electronic Beats)
DJ Rupture aka Jace Clayton discusses the impact of the use of auto-tune on the industry. (NPR)
Why shutting down Fabric won’t stop drug deaths. (Dazed)
Four women have died at Britain's BoomTown Fair festival in five years. A drug policy reform advocate speaks out. (Broadly)
The CEO of Ministry of Sound Australia on what the purchase by Sony Music will mean for the company. (TMN)
Mixmag, in association with Global Drugs Survey, has launched a campaign to promote safer ecstasy use. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 12 Aug 2016

Torrentz has died, but it won’t take torrenting with it says Brian Barrett. (Wired)
The ridiculous concept of the 'value gap' in music services... and how it could harm both the tech industry and the music industry. (Techdirt)
Goodbye MP3, we hardly knew ya... (Forbes - Bobby Owsinski)
The Sony Music/Ministry of Sound acquisition has digital implications. (MusicAlly)
A core group of "superfans" are the bedrock of the UK's festival scene, attending four or more events a year, Eventbrite research suggests. (BBC)
Why raising the festival attendance age to 21 is not the answer and will probably just make deaths from drugs worse. (eFestivals)
Why Ministry of Sound had to sell (and why Sony couldn’t resist it). (MBW)
Will Sony's Ministry buyout result in compilations dominance? (Music Week - Daniel Gumble)
David Balfour examines the reasons why Ministry may have chosen to enter the Sony family. (RotD)
Quick take: Sony Music UK buys Ministry Of Sound Recordings. (Mark Mulligan)

ISSUE: 05 Aug 2016

From Lollapalooza to Panorama, this is a golden age of festivals. (Guardian)
Is this the end of the digital music era? (Midem - Melina Druga)
What are streaming services paying artists? (DMN)
Live video is exploding, but rising consumer demand for unscripted, real-time performances requires an entirely new skill set for up-and-coming musicians, says Dave Marcello, Head of Growth at Audiokite Research. (Hypebot)
David Ireland argues that it's time to take responsibility for our own actions at festivals as deaths are now almost always anticipated. (Magnetic Mag)
Pill testing: the cure for music’s drug problem? (IQ)
Resident Advisor Editor Ryan Keeling on value of nightclubs and current dance music climate. (Billboard)
How SoundCloud functionality is evolving. (CDM)

ISSUE: 29 Jul 2016

Catherine Hilgers and Discwoman’s Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson discuss how to ‘rave safe’ both as a woman and in light of recent events. (XLR8R)
Crowdmix's failure appears to have been managed disgracefully - and that gives all of us in the startup industry a bad name. (Medium - Fred Destin, VC)
Could newly launched music discovery platform Orfium finally be the one that gets it right? (Pulse)
How pirate download sites are hurting dance music. (Thump)
Does touring kill creativity? (Mixmag - Joe Muggs)
The rise, fall and possible resurrection of Beatport. (Thump)
Where is the next Ibiza? Five contenders - from Croatia to Tulum. (Billboard)
Is Ibiza's clubbing reign over? (Pulse)
Have Ibiza's glory days as a dance music mecca come to an end? (Billboard - Dorian Lynskey)
Can AEG veteran Randy Phillips save bankrupt SFX? (Billboard)

ISSUE: 22 Jul 2016

The Economist has released a new film about the music industry, investigating how major record labels are being disrupted by the digital revolution. (YouTube)
Gender equality at festivals in 2016 – a discussion. (Thump)
Project REGAIN looks at the possibility of reversing hearing loss. (Mixmag)
Reports of rape in and around London venues has increased by 100% since 2011, stats from the Metropolitan police show. (Mixmag)
Why I’ll never be a ghost producer - It’s killing EDM. (Medium - Collin McLoughlin)
Has EDM opened doors or slammed them shut in dance music? (BBC)
A network of illegal music download sites are "affecting dance music in a really bad way". (BBC)
Ibiza's Department of Tourism head Vicente Torres explains exactly what the tourism tax does, how the island plans on coping with water demands, and what the department think about Ibiza’s busiest year yet. (Pulse) "we have a limited capacity [to cope with increasing tourism] being an island."

ISSUE: 15 Jul 2016

Will it even be called music? The intriguing future of virtual reality. (Quietus)
But who’s buying? A column about the music business. (Stereogum)
A tech expert explains what Apple’s camera blocking patent means for concertgoers. (Thump)
Is streaming helping to bring vinyl back to life? (Pulse)
How we can get sexist trolls out of electronic music. (Fader - David Renshaw)
The top five music-startup mistakes. (MusicAlly)
Crowdmix bites the dust. (Mark Mulligan)
In the week of the demise of Crowdmix, David Balfour wonders what the future holds for digital music services. (RotD)
Five reasons to make it to IMS Asia-Pacific. (Pulse)

ISSUE: 08 Jul 2016

Why Brexit is bad news for UK's independent music industry. (Forbes)
What are the Brexit legal implications that creative industries need to know about? (Crefovi)
How Apple Music and Tidal transformed streaming (and why Apple may be buying Tidal). (Mark Mulligan)
Do the growing number of music festivals actually make any money? (Telegraph)

ISSUE: 01 Jul 2016

Gino Raidy looks at how the private party scene is democratising the dancefloor in Beirut. (Thump)
Is live streaming becoming a real business? (TubeFilter)

ISSUE: 24 Jun 2016

Twitter invests in SoundCloud, but why? (Forbes - Bobby Owsinski)
How do we keep venues and clubs safe in the wake of the Orlando tragedy? (Pitchfork)
Eight top takeaways from EDMbiz conference. (The Wrap)
Dance music visionaries unite at EDMbiz conference & expo 2016. (Magnetic Mag)
EDC 2016: A lack of festival deaths bodes well for its future. (LATimes)
IMS Ibiza 2016: The making of Pete Tong’s Ibiza Prom. (DataTransmission)

ISSUE: 17 Jun 2016

A California club bans DJs who use laptops … but why? (Guardian - Ben Beaumont-Thomas)
In Light Of Tragedy: To The Weekend And The Dancefloor – Valerie Lee discusses the effect of recent attacks in clubs and encourages defiance in the face of fear. (Mixmag)
Haçienda resident Dave Haslam meets music multi-tasker Seth Troxler at IMS Ibiza. (Dummy Mag)
Longtime resident Carl Cox, Space Ibiza owner Pepe Roselló and Safehouse Management founder Lynn Cosgrave talk 27 years of Space Ibiza at IMS Ibiza 2016. (Pulse Radio)

ISSUE: 10 Jun 2016

The headwinds facing music startups. (Musonomics)
After 10 years of movement, Detroit is ripe for a techno takeover, says Devin Culham. (EDM.com)
Why Brexit will be a devastating blow to the global club scene. (Pulse)
EDM needs an intervention, says Annie Rinsky. (YouTube)
Ticketmaster: 10% of Brits will pay £300 to attend Ibiza dance festivals. (IBITimes)

ISSUE: 03 Jun 2016

SoundCloud’s free “auto-mastering” audio tool is more of an auto-turd. (ARS)
The music industry is still struggling to make the internet pay. (Management Today)
Banning workers from San Antonio could be disastrous for Ibiza. (Mixmag - Dave Pimbleton)
Getting hands-on with Open Source Music: You won’t be needing a message bot, says Warp Records' Head of Digital. (Midem)

ISSUE: 27 May 2016

Are subscription music services a sustainable business model? (MusicClout) “There is significant revenue that can be generated by the services as a whole, but the individual stream payments will remain in fractions of a cent and will only decrease as the services become more popular”.
‘Partying With Depression Turned My Life Upside Down’ – a look at mental health in the club scene. (Thump)
Co-founder and former CEO of Beatport from 2002-2010, Jonas Tempel, penned an open letter to the SFX-owned music streaming and digital retail site in response to recent news of the downfall of the site. (EDM.com)
The two Spotify charts you need to see. (Mark Mulligan)
Chart of Spotify free users compared to global record revenues and YouTube revenues compared to global record revenues. (ArtistRightsWatch)

ISSUE: 20 May 2016

The Blockchain is the new Google. (TechCrunch)
Big Festival Brother? What summer music festivals are doing with your personal data. (Mashable)
SoundCloud Go: Why the new music streaming service won't work. (TrustedReviews)

ISSUE: 13 May 2016

With the streaming exclusives seemingly here to stay, David Balfour wonders who will be the winners and losers from this strategy. (RotD)
After the download: When Apple turns off the iTunes Store. (Mark Mulligan)
An alternate history for music, YouTube, and everything else. (David Newhoff)
"You (YouTube) have built a business that works really well for you and for Google, but it doesn’t work well for artists," says artist manager Irving Azoff. (Recode)
The music industry seems to love YouTube. Why do they keep saying they hate it? (Recode)
How the new music moguls write their own rules. (TBI)

ISSUE: 06 May 2016

Streaming services have lost $1bn between them over the last three years. (MBW)
Streaming services are saddled with high costs in royalty fees, meaning the likes of Tidal faces steep challenges, making the sale of the company to one of the bigger players “a likely option”, says Mark Mulligan. (FT)
Radio's future is mobile and connected - a report from the Worldwide Radio Summit. (Emmanuel Legrand)
Eventbrite publish a report on “all the event industry statistics you need to know”.
Apple Music is being overhauled? Good - here's what it needs to do. (Guardian)
If Amsterdam and Berlin can embrace the night life, why can’t Britain? (Guardian)

ISSUE: 29 Apr 2016

The lawsuit against Tidal makes it clear that a fumbling ad hoc rollout for Kanye West will never be a net positive. (Wired)
Why you shouldn’t subscribe to Tidal, even if you’re a Beyoncé fan: "More than two thirds of music executives believe the service will be dead by the summer." (NextWeb)
Digital pioneer, Jaron Lanier, on the dangers of “free” online culture. (Wipo)
The simple maths of the new music industry. (Paul Sanders)
Matt Everett asks what life is like for an artist making music in the streaming age. (BBC Radio)
Inside Pandora's plan to reinvent itself — and beat back Apple and Spotify. (FastCo)
After the album: how playlists are re-defining listening. (Mark Mulligan)
Spotify is becoming MySpace, while Apple Music becomes Facebook. (9GiantSteps)
Fears grow that iPhone’s glory days are over. (FT ) Weak results and a downbeat outlook suggest Apple is living in the shadow of past success.

ISSUE: 22 Apr 2016

YouTube's dreaming of a $40bn record business. Just a 'fantasy free-for-all'? (MBW)
Music creators need to take some responsibility for not getting paid properly. (Auddly - Helienne Lindvall)
72% of Spotify listeners are millennials. Here's how they use the service. (AdWeek)
Manager Peter Mensch is the latest to slam YouTube for not fairly paying artists. But there’s more to the online music streaming debate than meets the ear. (Guardian - Eamonn Forde)
Who paid for your Coachella ticket? A social experiment gone wrong. (EDM.com)
Five takeaways from the IFPI's country-by-country report on the global record business. (Billboard)

ISSUE: 15 Apr 2016

With artists becoming brands in their own right and brand partnerships becoming increasingly embedded in culture, marketers and talented artists have more influence than ever before. In this round-table discussion, five industry experts explore what this means for the branded communications industry, the possibilities opened up by the power of music to connect with fans. (CannesLions)
Facebook might be about to change everything in music using Vertical Reality. (Sammy Andrews)
Data can help artists book shows, grow their fanbase, make sales and learn more about how to cater to those who love what they do. So where is it found? And how can it be used to boost careers? (M - Rhian Jones)
Governors Ball and Founders Entertainment heads Wolowitz and Russell talk Live Nation and new ventures. (Billboard)
We’re sick of reading about the bursting of the EDM bubble. (EDMTunes)
Half of consumers say they have listened to an album online before buying a vinyl copy, according to a poll. (BBC) 48% of people who bought vinyl last month admit they have yet to play it and 7% say they do not even own a turntable.
46% of Americans ‘not that into streaming,’ study finds. (DMN)
Streaming hits 67.5m subscribers but identity crisis looms. (Mark Mulligan)
Will SoundCloud Go burst the streaming music bubble? (DailyDot)
How can we save the London club scene? (Dazed)
The IFPI and its major-label members are training their fire on a “value gap” between the amount of free, ad-supported on demand streams on services like YouTube, and the money those streams generate for the industry. (MusicAlly)
IFPI first take: Declining legacy formats continue to hold back growth. (Mark Mulligan)

ISSUE: 08 Apr 2016

What do the vinyl charts mean, anyway? (Clash)
What's Spotify going to do with that billion dollars? Maybe nothing. (Billboard)
Does music television have a future? It may now… Thanks to XITE. (EDM.com)
What Spotify's debt means for artists and labels. (Hypebot)
Is music streaming killing off the creative musician? (EDM.com - Devin Culham)
As Spotify, SoundCloud and Apple Music raise the bar, here’s how YouTube can stay the course. (Cuepoint - Cortney Harding)
Credit Suisse expects revenue from paid streaming services to grow nearly six times from 2015 to 2020. (BusinessInsider)
A report by the EU’s Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) suggests 25% of 15-24 year-olds in the European Union have intentionally used illegal sources to get digital content in the last year, while 13% have done so unintentionally. (Euipo)
Why getting paid in the music industry is so complicated, and how it can be better. (Billboard - David Balto)
What’s happening at Beatport after the SFX bankruptcy. (CDM)
SoundCloud shafts its most important people, the musicians that provide great original content and the fans who listen to it, in favour of paying the labels, argues Neal Rahman. (Magnetic Mag)

ISSUE: 01 Apr 2016

Why we need an Open Source music industry. (Midem - Grant Bussinger, Warp Records' Head of Digital) Has the industry still "not come to terms with the core concepts behind the root of its own disruption?"
The best way to prevent drug-related deaths at festivals. (EDM.com)
Where are the female record producers? (Star)
Spotify’s billion dollar challenge. (Mark Mulligan)
What does Spotify’s billion dollars of debt mean for labels and artists? (MTS - Chris Castle)
What does Spotify want to buy with a billion dollars? Will it get in to video? (Recode)
SFX sinks, Miami Music Week attendance is down, Vegas has had enough and everything is just fine. (Magnetic Mag)
Quick take: SoundCloud goes premium. (Mark Mulligan)
SoundCloud's next move will change the streaming game (again). (Billboard)
Is SoundCloud Go a serious streaming contender? Hands-on with the long-awaited subscription service rival. (Fact)

ISSUE: 24 Mar 2016

Analysis on what it took to have a No 1 single in 2015. (James Masterton)
The mechanics of the rights involved and the revenues paid by YouTube. (MTP)
Crowdfunding: what appears as freedom can turn out to be a behaviourist straightjacket. (Ratpie - Paul Sanders)
Has the bubble burst for music festival giants? (EDM.com)
How much is Sony/ATV worth? A deep dig into the financials of the ATV buyout. (Billboard)
Five lessons for creative businesses from the world of music management. (Guardian - Jim Carroll, former UK chair of BBH)
Can Big Data discover the next pop star? (FastCo) Online music hub ReverbNation is finding talented artists by mixing data with human curation.
The best and worst things about electronic music today. (EDM.com)
Streaming is now the recording industry's core, and it's being treated as such. (Billboard)
Social media is twice as important as mailing lists for the marketing of nightlife events in the UK and Ireland, reveals new data released by Eventbrite. (IQ)
Studies suggest young people have fallen out of love with nightclubs. We asked our readers to tell us whether this is really the case – here’s what they said. (Guardian)
What does SoundCloud's deal with Sony really mean? (EDM.com)
Is SoundCloud's Sony deal too little, too late? (Inc)

ISSUE: 18 Mar 2016

A new study from Nielsen is analysing those fans' behaviours to assess Instagram's impact on the music industry. (Billboard) Users spend 42% more than the general population on music, and they are also twice as likely to pay for music streaming.
Research claims that 68% of US smartphone owners listen to streaming music on a daily basis, with Amazon’s Prime Music the most popular service in the US. (MusicAlly)
Artist and Professor Melissa Ferrick explains why she's suing Spotify. (Billboard) “It’s not that I don’t think it’s a cool way to listen to music, they’re just not legally obtaining the licenses they need for streaming”.
Bad data is the worm in the apple for streaming music. (Mark Mulligan)
Blockchain: Panacea or pandemic? (Trichordist)
Fall of an empire: six things to expect in the wake of the SFX crash. (Mixmag)
Dull hipsters in broad daylight – why I’m done with today’s dance music. (Spectator - George Hull, Bloc founder)
How streaming services can crack social. (Midem - Dan Griffiths, Director of Interactive Marketing, The Orchard)
Algorithmic music curation is hailed as the future of streaming. So what does that mean for DJs and tastemakers? (Pigeons&Planes)

ISSUE: 11 Mar 2016

Here's why Netflix and YouTube just parked tanks on each other's lawns. (MarkMulligan)
Why radio needs music supervisors. (Billboard)
David Balfour considers the wider impact of Sony Music’s acquisition of Essential Music. (RotD)
The music startup meltdown. It’s going to get worse before it gets better… (Medium - Cortney Harding)
The number of physical stores in the UK selling music, video and games has reached an all-time high of more than 14,800, according to latest figures published in the annual ERA Yearbook. (RotD)
Is now a good time to talk about gender inequality? (Beatport)
A new study has revealed that music pirates tend to be better consumers of music in the long term, spending more on music than the average per capita in the US. (EDM.com)
Jonathan Geronimo, head of EDM Programming at SiriusXM Radio, claims the EDM bubble hasn't even come close to bursting. (MiamiNewTimes)
Artists should demand revenue-generating platforms work with one another to amplify complimentary offers, says Absolute's Digital Director Adam Cardew. (Midem)
Do we actually need to talk about 'female DJs' in 2016? (Thump)

ISSUE: 04 Mar 2016

A love letter to record companies. (ERA - Kim Bayley)
Music’s role in digital content is small and shrinking. (MarkMulligan)
How record labels buy social media love from teenage ‘influencers’. (IBTimes)
Is the #OscarsSoWhite controversy just as relevant in the EDM world? (EDM.com)
How can a country (the US) that allows art to be made available for commercial use without any compensation for the artist be in any way progressive? (DIYMusician)
Artists will rise again to being the most valued part of society. (Midem - Grant Bussinger, Warp Records' Head of Digital)
Stephen O'Reilly on how to launch a music app - keep it simple, find your niche and launch early. (Storify)
Clubbing in crisis: Does anyone still care about nightlife? (Beatport - Katie Bain) As rents rise and fans seek new experiences, clubs struggle to keep their disco balls spinning.

ISSUE: 26 Feb 2016

Does Spotify need to go after exclusive content? (Verge)
The truth behind songwriter royalties: billions of streams pay less than minimum wage. (Auddly - Helienne Lindvall)
PewDiePie's YouTube audience dwarfs that of pop's biggest stars. Here's how the music business can catch up. (Midem - Bas Grasmayer, MTN)
Announcing Spotify Infrastructure’s Googley future. (Spotify - Nicholas Harteau/VP, Engineering & Infrastructure, MusicAlly)
The full video of Vevo CEO Erik Huggers interviewed at the Recode conference. (Recode)
One music copyright can be better than two. (Paul Saunders)

ISSUE: 19 Feb 2016

Is Amazon Prime Music technically the most popular streaming service? (Forbes)
Daniel Ek, Founder and CEO of Spotify, answers questions on Quora about the service and plans. “The big platform companies don’t generally like partnering. We do. This opens up lots of doors.”
How BandPage just screwed half-a-million artists. (DMN) YouTube is one of the worst-paying platforms for artists. Now, they own your trusted syndication partner.
Bandpage sold to YouTube. All your middlemen are for sale. Let’s do better. (Medium - Jesse Von Doom, CashMusic)
The 2016 Billboard Power 100 is dominated by white men born before Elvis had a hit. This isn’t only a problem of representation – it’s also bad for the industry. (Guardian - Eamonn Forde)
Artificial intelligence could disrupt the live music space. (Medium - Cortney Harding)
Jack Ü’s Grammys performance had nothing to do with dance music, argues Katie Bain. (Beatport)

ISSUE: 12 Feb 2016

Why tech house needs to just f**k off. (Pulse - Chandler Shortlidge)
Thinking about physical media in the digital age. (Thurrott)
Will performance royalties create a new class of radio pirate? (RadioSurvivor)
So Spotify doesn’t know who to pay? Here’s the simple solution. (Auddly - Helienne Lindvall)
About the gender politics of the dance and electronic music scene. (CultureVultures)
Former Cooking Vinyl digital marketer Sammy Andrews claims ‘the future of our industry is our artists’ at last week’s FastForward conference in Amsterdam. (MusicAlly)
Fast Forward 2016: in praise of positive thinking. (Medium)
Young voices tackle the music business: takeaways from Amsterdam's inaugural FastForward conference. (Forbes)
Recorded-music spending grew by 11% in the Netherlands in 2015, while live spending rose by 14% – and Spotify says its growth in the country has played an important role. (MusicAlly)
Breaking Beatport: examining how SFX Entertainment destroyed a beloved brand. (YourEDM)
From the warehouse to the classroom: The academic rise of electronic music. (HuffPo)
The sunset of SFX: Where to now? (Billboard)

ISSUE: 05 Feb 2016

EDM events that restrict free expression are betraying our culture. (EDM.com)
“We need to keep artists inspired” (Midem - Adam Cardew, Absolute Label Services' digital director)
The YouTube paradox – How YouTube has reshaped the entertainment industry. (4pt5)
Spotify’s bridge loan to nowhere is all the rage. (MTP)
It's time for Spotify to figure out what it really wants to be. (Verge)
PRS For Music CEO Robert Ashcroft discusses challenges and innovations in music royalty collection. (Forbes)
Sony Music has for the first time broken down its global recorded music income by format – with streaming comfortably ahead of downloads. (MBW)

ISSUE: 29 Jan 2016

David Price, Head of Anti-Piracy Research and Analysis at IFPI, says a new paper suggesting pirate downloads help sales doesn't stand up to scrutiny. (IFPI)
Is YouTube killing the UK’s live music scene? (BBC - Mark Savage)
Touring can’t save musicians in the age of Spotify. (NYTimes)
Spotify songwriter lawsuits: what, why and what happens next? (MusicAlly)
Worldwide revenue for the top ten music-streaming apps was up 120% in 2015, compared with the previous year. According to app store monitor App Annie’s annual report, Spotify ranks No. 1 in many regions. (Billboard)
How artists make more money - a cautionary tale by Jon Webster, President, Music Managers Forum. (MMF)
Why SoundCloud will be worth more than Spotify. (TechCrunch)
Relive the talks from IMS Asia-Pacific 2015. (IMS)
How misguided drug policies are failing the EDM community. (CoS)
The practice of discreetly paying for co-production is normal in dance music. Will Lynch argues that it shouldn't be. (RA)

ISSUE: 22 Jan 2016

Why has Bitcoin failed? (Medium - Mike Hearn, Bitcoin developer)
Can there be any defence of EDM? (HuffPo - Jess Melia)
SoundCloud's new Universal deal means streaming won't be free for much longer. (Yahoo)
Everyone is doomed (except Adele): the cold, hard truth about the Nielsen Music Report. (Stereogum)
Deezer's N. American CEO, Tyler Goldman, explains the future of streaming (and those confusing subscriber numbers). (Billboard) "At some point I think these services will have lots of types of audio content and it would only make sense that the rights holder would get paid based on actually what's being consumed of their content, not of others."
Is the music industry finally learning to live in a digital world? (Independent - Ben Chu)
We need to talk about booking fees. (EDM.com)
What exactly is responsible for the death of so many British nightclubs? (Thump)
Explore the Asia-Pacific market with AFEM presents developing the eco-system. (IMS)
Artist to artist: East meets West at IMS Asia-Pacific 2015. (IMS)

ISSUE: 15 Jan 2016

Music marketing in 2016: Six key trends. (HybridLanguage)
A BBC project used Shazam to look into the music people search for on their phones. (BBC)
Independent singer, songwriter and publisher Melissa Ferrick, who filed a $200m lawsuit against Spotify, alleging use of her songs without proper licencing, shares the motivation behind the suit. (Hypebot)
Can Spotify pioneer Ken Parks change online TV with Pluto TV? (FastCo)
The labels still don’t get YouTube and it’s costing them. (Mark Mulligan)
How crowdfunded music festivals are offering an alternative to increasingly corporate ones. (Independent)
Mark Davyd, Chairman of the Music Venue Trust: The man fighting to save UK music venues and the culture created within their walls. (Huck)
The lights are going out in night clubs all over Europe. (Economist)
Why clubs are cranking up the quality instead of the volume. (Guardian - Joe Muggs)
Imagining a post-SFX world. (PollStar)
Notable talks from IMS Asia-Pacific [video]. (IMS)
Kaskade discusses the Asian market in keynote interview at IMS Asia-Pacific 2015. (IMS)

ISSUE: 08 Jan 2016

The evolving music industry is turning top managers into moguls - operating across media, tech and consumer brands. (Medium - Eric Peckham)
How Spotify pays (or doesn’t pay) songwriters. (MTP)
From digital disappointment to the end of the app era, here are eight trends for 2016. (TechCrunch)
2016 social media marketing predictions from the experts. (SME)
Brands and advertisers are falling over themselves to tap in to the colossal success of EDM, and many of its stars are happy to help the marketing effort – with conditions. (Guardian)
Drugs policies and electronic music culture. (RA - Luis-Manuel Garcia)

ISSUE: 18 Dec 2015

2015: The year of a million streaming services. All numbers aside, the market just isn’t that huge yet. (Medium - Cortney Harding)
2015: EDM'S end of days. (Mixmag) Dance music's dayglo moment has passed, says Marcus K. Dowling
The near-death of raves: The fate of independent music venues in 2015. (Quietus)
Barbara Ellen: For Spotify, some artists are more equal than others. (Observer)
If Spotify is really preparing to change its policy on Premium-only content, it will be anything but an easy road for the service to navigate, David Balfour suggests. (RotD)
Music royalty payments are at an all-time high. So why are artists turning on the streaming companies? (HuffPo - Mike Montgomery, CALinnovates)
Calling Deadmau5 a hater is missing the point. (EDM.com)
The British electronic music scene is alive and kicking. (HuffPo - Carl Loben, DJ Mag)
Why is free water still not mandatory for music events? (Magnetic mag)

ISSUE: 11 Dec 2015

Two Australian experts on drug use and policy share the real facts about ecstasy. (Thump)
The growing role of playlists in the music industry. (MusicAlly)
How many more records could you be selling this holiday season if your album wasn’t free streaming? (Trichordist)
Why does a record deck beat any digital musical format? Serbian turntable maker Igor Gligorov explains. (BBC)
Spotify's Year in Music shows just how little we pay artists for their music. (Verge)

ISSUE: 04 Dec 2015

After Time Warp's venue troubles, NYC promoters weigh in on the city’s war on dance. (Pulse)
Former Epic and Columbia US A&R veteran Ben Goldman discusses how the A&R aspect of the music industry has transformed, as well as providing some advice for artists on what those in his field look for in a band. (Hypebot)
This is why giving people access to on-demand music that's 'free all the time' is a problem. (BusinessInsider - Brian McAndrews, CEO of Pandora)
No new technology encapsulates the potential for positive change for this suffering music industry more than the Blockchain. (Medium - Benji Rogers)
Renown manager Troy Carter talks about the future of technology and music. (Entrepreneur)
The rise and rise of headphones: Why the set you buy isn’t just a question of sound quality, but identity. (Independent - Rhodri Marsden)
The future appears bleak for companies whose sole business is music streaming. (FT) Ministry of Sound’s Lohan Presencer says that “it’s very dangerous relying on companies whose primary business is not music to subsidise the music industry”.

ISSUE: 27 Nov 2015

Analysis of Pandora’s business by MusicAlly poses the question: if it costs more than $1bn to develop and market a service that remains firmly unprofitable after six years of such investment, then the economics of streaming music aren’t adding up for the service, let alone creators.
Rdio's collapse another nail in the coffin of the 'digital economy’. (Register)
Hey ladies: Apple thinks you can't find music without men's help. (EDM.com)
Apple’s iTunes is alienating its most music-obsessed users: the collectors. (Wired)
Ghost production: it's inevitable and rampant, but not across all genres. (EDM.com)
Let's face it: The ad-funded on-demand music experiment has failed. (Herman Verkade)
The promoter checklist: how to throw a great party. (Mixmag)

ISSUE: 20 Nov 2015

How Songkick 2.0 is merging the needs of fans and artists. (FastCo)
Apple's iTunes is alienating its most music-obsessed users. (Wired)
Pandora is making acquisitions and experimenting with its model to fend off rivals. (FT)
Can music be damaging to your mental health? (EDM.com)
Are there dark clouds on the horizon for SoundCloud? (Observer - Stuart Dredge)
20 years on, how important is ADE? (Thump)
What is the future of London clubbing? (i-D - Joe Muggs)
Why Rdio: the inside story. (Verge)
Ibiza is evolving from a party destination to a playground for the wealthy elites - and its nightlife is feeling the growing pains. (Thump)

ISSUE: 13 Nov 2015

Charity Music Releases - Altruistic or Easy Marketing? (EDM.com)
“In just the US, songwriters were not paid royalties by Spotify on what appears to be over 14bn monetised streams… It is endemic across most of the interactive services.” (Billboard - Jeff Price, Audiam)
ID&T's new CEO is a huge win for EDM...here's why. (EDM.com)
Is SoundCloud a good or a bad thing for musicians? (MU pdf - p38)
Are superstar DJs the future of pop music? (EDM.com)
Even dance music’s most notable DJ’s need vocalists, like Ellie Goulding, to reach radio. (NewYorker)
Why EDM is here to stay. (GQ - Dorian Lynskey)
Stadium hardcore act Scooter have sold 30m records in their career. Here’s a look at how and why they became so popular. (Thump)
Hey famous DJs: wanna prove you don't use ghost producers? (EDM.com)
"I believe that curation is an art form,” says Ministry Of Sound's CEO Lohan Presencer, following the launch of a new music service/radio app hybrid - Ministry Of Sound Live. (NME)
Dubset's 2015 Mix Transparency Report: Data collected from music’s top 25 streamed mixes. (Dubset) Featuring the 10 most sampled labels, most streamed mixes, artists and tracks.

ISSUE: 06 Nov 2015

From rave to riot: how Lambeth's illegal 'Scumoween' party turned scary. (Standard)
Maybe Spotify isn’t killing the music industry after all. (538)
10,929,203 Streams on Spotify = $56,329.35. (Josh Collum) 'In my world, Spotify is not the problem. I repeat… Spotify is not the problem.'
It's a $6.2 billion industry. But how did Electronic Dance Music get so popular? (CNN)

ISSUE: 30 Oct 2015

Why do people bother whipping their phone out for shot after terrible shot of a DJ in the booth? (Thump)
The single biggest impression one gets from BitTorrent's Artist Survey is how outrageously difficult it is to make a living as an artist in the 21st Century. (Billboard)
How artists really make money in the cloud – or don't. (Rolling Stone)
Spotify broke the law on songwriter licenses, therefore rights holders have to build another database? (Trichordist)
Detroit, Chicago and New York created modern Electronic Dance Music, yet no one seems to know that? (Magnetic)
Why Ibiza’s new clubbing laws won’t stop the party. (Pulse)
Can special task force revive London's ailing live music and club scene? (Pulse)

ISSUE: 23 Oct 2015

Why Sydney’s lockout laws are failing. (Resident Advisor)
Spotify says artist protests are shrinking as more money rolls in. (SMH)
Music’s future: Stronger artist/fan connections and less ‘stupid vanity statistics’. (Musically - Lucy Blair, Motive Unknown)
Thump address some important and puzzling questions raised by DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs of 2015 List. (Thump)
A few of DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs give their reasons why more women don’t appear on the list. (Thump)
Is electronic dance music inherently sexist? (HuffPo - Carl Loben, DJ Mag Editor)
Why DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs poll is harmful to dance music. (LA Weekly - Liz Ohanesian)

ISSUE: 16 Oct 2015

Blockchain and the music industry. (Medium - David Galbraith)
According to a report, 66% of the 98m US households with broadband connections use a streaming audio service. Of all US broadband households, 40% stream audio using a free service, the report says, while 26% subscribe to paid streaming services. (Billboard)
Is EDM about to take off in China? Reports from Shanghai’s first ever edition of the International Music Summit suggest so. (Thump)
The uncertain future of EDM. (Forbes)
SFX faces its future: five possible outcomes following wednesday's big deadline. (Billboard)
Robert Sillerman interviewed about the future of SFX. (NYBJ)

ISSUE: 09 Oct 2015

Why Rudimental is leading the live performance game in EDM. (Magnetic Mag)
Do the Hollywood blockbuster-style festival ‘aftermovies’ really reflect what events are actually like? (Mixmag)
US festivals have been on the receiving end of a lot of ill-will recently. Here are 10 possible reasons why. (Thump)
Apple Music: the music industry’s three-month verdict. (MusicAlly)
Apple Music has failed, thinks Ewan Spence. (Forbes)
"Electronic music has never been better" – Bestival and BBC’s Rob Da Bank is enthusiastic about the health of dance music. (M)
EDM After The Drop: What a wounded corporate giant, SFX, means for dance music culture. (NPR)

ISSUE: 02 Oct 2015

The 10 best-selling tracks on Beatport this month. (Mixmag)
Australia’s recently introduced "lockout" laws are putting Sydney's club scene under serious threat. (Resident Advisor)
Are the DJ Awards becoming dangerously predictable? (Thump)

ISSUE: 25 Sep 2015

This is how Shazam is shaping the music industry. (BBC)
Why Apple Music still falls short of SoundCloud. (Hypebot - Oliver Cox)
One billion and counting: Eric Zho on the massive untapped electronic music market in China. (Dancing Astronaut)
The current focus within the industry on streaming playlists and ‘playola’ doesn’t show any signs of going away, David Balfour comments. (RotD)
The new payola: chart-rigging and scams in the EDM bubble. (Thump)

ISSUE: 18 Sep 2015

Music Market 2015: On 2014's trends and British global sales. (BPI's Geoff Taylor - YouTube)
How can social networks master music? (Medium - Cortney Harding)
Apple's $3bn acquisition of the headphone manufacturer Beats may have been more about snaring Jimmy Iovine. (Bloomberg)
Will the mainstream success of EDM lead to more adventurous dance music being made? (Thump)
Will all this bad EDM be a good thing for dance culture? (Thump)
Human curation vs. big algorithm: An interview with Mixcloud's Nico Perez. (Hypebot)

ISSUE: 04 Sep 2015

The music industry has a huge problem with perceived value. (Forbes)
How technology improves the music festival experience. (Forbes)
Designing new mobile experiences for the music-loving generation. (TechCrunch)
What EMI's six-month sample amnesty means for the music industry. (Guardian - Eamonn Forde)
As PRS sues SoundCloud, is the balance of power still tipped towards large tech companies? (Register - Andrew Orlowski) "The problem isn't identification of works, it's the unwillingness to implement the identification technology, as internet companies know the loophole favours them".
PRS for Music’s decision to launch legal action against SoundCloud has implications which could reach far beyond those two organisations, David Balfour comments. (RotD)

ISSUE: 28 Aug 2015

Google's plan to win the music-streaming marketing war: Partner with cool brands. (AdWeek)
Spotify is spying on you - but is it really that surprising? (Thump)
Is house music headed in a worrying direction? (Thump)
Dance music has an elitist problem. (Pulse)
Carl Cox revealed he thinks VIP culture is spoiling Ibiza in an interview with Scottish newspaper The Daily Record. (Fact)
The fall of SFX: From billion-dollar company to bankruptcy watch. (Forbes)
Ten DJs and producers discuss SoundCloud’s future and what will they do if it succumbs to its troubles? (Spin)

ISSUE: 21 Aug 2015

The saga of SoundCloud, and how streaming may become less and less free. (Fusion)
A look at seven streaming platforms that have the chance to become the next SoundCloud. (Thump)
An interesting comparison between the money made by modern DJs against musicians from 1969’s Woodstock Festival. (Dancing Astronaut)
Some believe banning raves in California will make little difference to drug-related deaths. (Mixmag)
Why hasn’t the dance community made any progress on the state of its drug policies? (Dancing Astronaut)
Why the British nightclub is dying (by a nightclub owner). (Telegraph - Alex Proud)
More than half of the UK’s nightclubs have closed in the past 10 years. (Guardian) Sam Wolfson asks, is it down to fun-hating bureaucrats or have our nights out changed for ever?

ISSUE: 14 Aug 2015

Why is contemporary commercial club music so indebted to lazy sampling? (Thump)
What Apple Music’s 11m trialists really mean. (Mark Mulligan)
Who’s to blame for the closure of nearly half of the UK’s nightclubs in the last decade? (Thump)
A recent study has shown that fans respond favourably to brands that sponsor music festivals. (Your EDM)
Not going out: Why Millennials are no longer going to nightclubs. (Independent - Ian Burrell)
Why are Britain's nightclubs in such a desperate situation? (Telegraph - Elizabeth Anderson)
Has America completely forgotten its roots in dance music? (Magnetic Mag - David Ireland)
Brits are still in love with rave culture, says Carl Loben. (HuffPo)
SFX founder Robert Sillerman's EDM gamble is facing steep odds. (Billboard)
Pay to play, dance music's Payola. (Billboard - Laidback Luke)

ISSUE: 07 Aug 2015

Decentralised events: how live streaming revolutionised live music. (Hypebot)
‪Why is the live music business living in the last century? (Medium - Cortney Harding) While the recorded music biz has started to embrace big data, the live space lags far behind.‬
Inside Spotify's plan to take on Apple Music. (FastCompany)
Always on, crammed full of superstar DJs and with Zane Lowe at the helm, Apple Music’s flagship station Beats 1 presents itself as the future of radio. But how is it faring so far? (DIY)
Some insight into the reasoning behind Instagram’s decision to ban the #EDM hashtag. (Thump)
Coachella, Tomorrowland, Bonnaroo and more: How top music festivals use social media. (Hubspot)
Sources claim SoundCloud’s ‘negotiations’ with Universal and Sony have "devolved into arguments, with monstrous upfront payment and equity demands peppered with the spector of equally massive lawsuits". (DMN)

ISSUE: 31 Jul 2015

What does a SoundCloud subscription mean for music blogs? (HBF)
Apple Music nightmare: adding music doesn't work as expected, I lost access to 4,700 songs after turning off the service. (LoopInisght)
Debating the merits and authenticity of DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs poll. (Your EDM)
Do bad DJs deserve to be defended? (Thump)
Do these two events signal the end of EDM as we know it? (Thump)
The commercialisation of music festivals and the rise of super concerts. (HuffPo)

ISSUE: 24 Jul 2015

How 'New Music Friday' fails to benefit consumers and independent record stores. (Medium)
How music magazines are changing to stay alive. (Billboard)
Does the Reddit revolt foretell a similar uprising for the music business? (Forbes)
Why is water in Ibiza clubs so expensive? (Mixmag)
How playlists are curating the future of music. (Pitchfork)

ISSUE: 16 Jul 2015

Hi-res streaming will soon be the standard, says 7digital CCO Pete Downton. (WhatHiFi)
Is streaming good for music? (BBC World Service)
Analysing Beats 1's first week: Most-played songs and every show's tracklist. (Billboard)
If the video games industry is having such a good time of it, Thomas Quillfeldt asks: what can the recorded music business learn from games? (RotD)
Can SoundCloud be the Facebook of music? (Bloomberg)

ISSUE: 10 Jul 2015

Are club nights with rules trying to force us into having fun? (Thump)
‘Freebooting’ is an obstacle to Facebook music ambitions. (MusicAlly)
Sony Music has a noteworthy response to claims it is enriching itself at the expense of artists by taking a stake and advertising income from Spotify in lieu of negotiating fair-market royalty rates. (Billboard)
The cost of independence: economics and labour in DIY music. (Bandwidth)
In the US, industry pros are asking if Nielsen botched radio ratings — and inadvertently forced stations off the air. (538)
A post about the professionalisation of the internet, and how it could help Spotify win the streaming war. (David Emery)
Artists should take on record labels, not streaming services. (FT - Jonathan Ford)
July 5 2015: The new release day when everything changed. (Popjustice)

ISSUE: 03 Jul 2015

The digital age has changed the way album covers are created, designed, and thought about. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. (Fusion)
Music subscription uptake is low but losing paying users is the real time bomb. (MusicAlly)
Why the boom in big outdoor music festivals may not be sustainable. (Economist)
Don't believe the hype? 'High-res' music has its skeptics. (SJMN)

ISSUE: 26 Jun 2015

The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) has produced the Forward Into The Night report, which claims that the business of restaurants, pubs, bars and clubs is worth £66 billion to the UK. (Fact)
Wearing next to nothing at the rave: Is it a feminist issue or a generational one? (Thump)
A letter to my daughters and the female EDM community - I have two words for you…… Self respect! (Medium)
The dance music community’s responses to recent hateful behaviour from some of its most popular artists has proven that there’s zero tolerance for hate speech. (Thump)
Following Matt Zo’s recent rants about the state of the EDM industry, here’s some truths on EDM’s growing use of ghost producers. (Your EDM)
Some helpful tips on coping with your post-festival comedown. (Deep House Amsterdam)
Some useful tips on making it through this year’s Glastonbury with your sanity intact. (Thump)
Controversy still surrounds Jennie Livingstone's landmark film Paris Is Burning, but is it warranted? (Guardian)

ISSUE: 19 Jun 2015

Is the manner in which modern EDM is being consumed worrying for its future? (Your EDM)
EDM festivals book about 20 times more men than women, and now there's Nielsen data to prove it. (Digital Music News)
Brighton Music Conference gets down to business: how digital Darwinism can drive Dance Music. (Decoded)
FT Masterclass: DJ’ing with Eric Wahlforss, co-founder of SoundCloud. (FT)
Was the Apple Music launch proof that Tim Cook lacks the innovative edge of his predecessor? (FACT)
Pandora bought a radio station in South Dakota in a clever plot to pay lower music royalties. (BusinessInsider)
It's no longer all about ads — Here's how publishers, streaming sites, and apps are using subscriptions to boost revenues. (BusinessInsider)

ISSUE: 12 Jun 2015

Across the music business spectrum the reaction to Apple Music has been cautiously hopeful. SoundCloud’s Alex Ljung comments:"The amount of listening happening on streaming is still very small. Apple is going to rapidly increase the market for all of us". (LA Times)
Midem: SoundCloud founder Alexander Ljung: ‘Freemium vs. premium debate is not helpful’. (MusicAlly)
Will Apple Music hurt the live music scene? (Guardian – Michael Hann)
The electronic music community needs to do more to ’embrace music streaming’ claims Lee Morrison, Believe Digital’s General Manager UK. (M)
'I'm not worried': Moog CEO Mike Adams on giving his company to itself. (Billboard)
Will .music domains make the internet better or just more of a crowded wasteland? (Diffuser)
Listening habits, social media engagement, spending history and more; find out what's unique about electronic music fans. (Midem)
SoundCloud edges towards making YouTube the odd one out. (Mark Mulligan)
YouTube is in the process of doubling its users, or trying to at least. (Billboard)
Some insight into what gives Apple the edge over their competitors. (Forbes)
It may only be four years old, but EDMbiz is fast becoming the best conference and expo for aspiring industry players to get their foot in the door. (Your EDM)

ISSUE: 05 Jun 2015

SoundCloud may be under pressure, David Balfour notes, but how many other platforms can claim such a unique and distinct position? (RotD)

ISSUE: 28 May 2015

How Beatport hopes to become the home of electronic music. (NextWeb)
It doesn’t sound like anyone should expect to get rich quick from SoundCloud’s monetization plan. (DancingAstronaut)
Music industry failing? Nonsense. Electronic music is doing just fine. (Thump)

ISSUE: 22 May 2015

Ministry of Sound’s Lohan Presencer has criticised Spotify before, but he’s just as angry at Universal Music Group and its rivals for their approach to digital music. (Guardian)

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