INDUSTRY
EXIT Festival and Sunburn Top “Best Value Music Festivals” In the World
With 2022 festival season in sight, the industry is primed for a comeback. As noted by Quartz, the average price of a concert ticket increased from just $12 in 1981 to $64 in 2017, which is nearly double the rate of inflation over the same period. Plus, given the sheer volume of artists on the average music festival lineup combined with the higher production budget, the premium per ticket well exceeds that of the average show. In a data-driven exercise, Cool Camping sought to compile a list of the “Best Value Festivals” using a distinct set of criteria. The company compared the price consumers pay for tickets against a variety of factors, including a combination of a proprietary “Headliner Value” formula, the price of a beer, the cost of food, and the number of days...
A Fifth of Musicians Are Considering a Career Change Due to Lack of Income: Study
Instead of sweet music, musicians are hearing a death knell in the wake of the pandemic. According to a study by Help Musicians, one-fifth of musicians have considered a career change because they’re unable to make ends meet financially through music, among other factors. Other artists have done quite well on platforms like Spotify. Help Musicians interviewed nearly 1,000 musicians to gather insight and data on how the pandemic continues to affect working musicians. One-third of the surveyed musicians noted that they were still earning nothing after the pandemic. Nine in 10 musicians are earning less than £1,000 (about $1,338) per month. Peter F Recommended Articles “Whilst much of the economy is gradually getting back to normal, it will be a long time before musicia...
Royalties for Kygo’s “Firestone” Land On Royalty Exchange’s Secondary Marketplace
One investor may soon have the opportunity to own the rights to Kygo‘s genre-defining hit, “Firestone.” It was only with the release of Kygo’s second original single, “Firestone,” that Kygo sparked an unmitigated hype cycle around the production of tropical house music. Nearly seven years after its original release, the track that lit up the world now flaunts over 1.5 billion streams across Spotify and YouTube alone. At the beginning of 2021, royalty flows for the Platinum hit went on sale via Royalty Exchange, an online direct and secondary marketplace for intellectual property. Recommended Articles Royalty rights for “Firestone” were direct-listed in January via auction, where one investor secured a deal for $275,000. Desp...
How Club Restricted Promo Gets Your Electronic Tracks to the Right Audience
Dance music promotion organization Club Restricted Promo launched with one goal in mind: to get your music to the right audience. Artists must have a marketing plan behind any given song release—they can’t just drop new music into the ether and expect it to blow up. That’s why the company’s mission is rooted in their belief that “a song not promoted is as good as a song not released.” And with a team of tried-and-true music promoters, producers and curators who have worked with hundreds of artists from around the world, they have the tools and experience to make a track go viral. Club Restricted Promo taps into its vast network of DJs, public radio stations, Spotify playlist curators, YouTube channel operators, and blogs to p...
Twitch Launches Incubator Program and “Livestream Playbook” to Reinvest In Music Creators
Amid an embattled relationship with creators and music industry stakeholders, Twitch is looking to reset the clock with The Collective. According to the Amazon-owned streaming platform, The Collective is aimed at coaching artists to get the most out of livestreaming in the midst of what it calls a paradigm shift in music. According to Music Business Worldwide, the program has three distinct segments: “The Livestream Playbook for Music,” “Invite-Only Collectives,” and “Ongoing Backing From Twitch.” Acceptance into The Collective is based on Twitch’s decision regarding each artist’s application. Those accepted will receive hands-on support from Twitch in a variety of disciplines. First, Twitch’s music team will lead creators th...
Former C3 Managers and Proximity CEO Partner to Form Innovative New Agency, Kompass Music Group
As standards continue to change throughout the workforce, Jay Rogovin, Alec Donkin, Jade Gaines, and Blake Coppelson look to switch up the music industry with the launch of their new agency, Kompass Music Group. The vision behind Kompass Music Group is rooted in its goal to retool how the music industry is structured, providing unique support to their roster of artists while simultaneously spreading that influence into each sector of the music space. They aim to address and develop a stronger community understanding of topics such as sexual violence, risk reduction, mental health, diversity and inclusion, and environmental health. To help execute their key initiatives, Kompass has tapped 4’ o’clock Consulting. Founders Kristin Karas, COO of DanceSafe and Stacey Forrester, Co-Founder of Goo...
Why Aspiring EDM Artists Can’t Miss the Amsterdam Dance Event
For over 25 years, the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) has been recognized as the most influential gathering for the electronic dance music industry. Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world come together for the massive summit and ADE Festival, which take over Amsterdam every October. In the wake of the region’s #UnmuteUs protests, which were carried out in response to the Dutch government’s restrictions on nightlife and music festivals instated weeks before ADE 2021, the conference’s organizers managed to produce another wildly successful event. Opting to ax the conference portion, they gave attendees just what they needed: dance music hedonism. Nicky Romero headlining the Protocol Recordings Label Night at Escape Nightclub for Amsterdam Dance ...
Songwriters Get Hit In the Wallet by Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora… Again
Digital service providers Spotify, Apple Music, Google, and Pandora have submitted paperwork stating what they believe songwriters’ royalty rates should be for the years 2023 to 2027. The Copyright Act states that every five years Copyright Royalty Judges oversee discussions to determine what streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music pay as a mechanical royalty rate to songwriters and publishers. These platforms are notorious for incredibly low payout rates and “exploitative practices” when it comes to paying music creators. Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek. Magnus Höij/Wikimedia Commons The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) has fought for higher mechanical royalty rates for music publishers and songwriters. The organization’s president and...
Celebrate LGBT History Month With This Playlist Featuring Transgender Dance Music Artists
As LGBT History Month wraps up, a San Francisco area radio show has curated a playlist of songs by transgender artists who are continuing to shift the sound and change the music industry one release at a time. Titled “TRANS*CENDENTAL: TRANS*EXCELLENCE,” ADP.FM’s playlist is comprehensive and consists of music by Honey Dijon, Big Freedia, Pabllo Vittar, and many more. It also features two tracks by the late SOPHIE, a renowned electronic music producer who died following an accidental fall in January 2021. Check out the full “TRANS*CENDENTAL: TRANS*EXCELLENCE” playlist below. Recommended Articles The LGBTQ+ community continues to fight what seems to be a never-ending battle. Their voices are slowly bei...
Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing? How Spotify’s Discovery Mode May Harm Artists and Listeners
This is an opinion column. The thoughts and viewpoints expressed are those of the author, Richard James Burgess. Burgess, who is credited for coining the music genre terms “EDM” and “New Romantic,” is the CEO of the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM). On its face, Spotify’s Discovery Mode might seem like a boon for some artists. Agree to accept a reduced royalty rate and the platform’s algorithms will suggest that artist’s music to more users—in hopes of expanding their base of listeners. But the scheme will most likely generate more profit for Spotify while hurting the very people Discovery Mode is alleged to benefit: artists and listeners. Spotify’s Broken Promise to Listeners When Spotify launched, its premise was an exci...
Three in Four Black Music Professionals Have Experienced Racism, Study Finds
New research out of the U.K. has put numbers to the issue of racism in the music industry. Thorough and wide-reaching, the first-of-its-kind study, titled “Being Black in the UK Music Industry,” quantifies experiences of anti-Blackness and its consequences on wages, mental health and education. On both the creative and business ends, 88% of Black music professionals have experienced direct or indirect racism in their line of work, according to the study. “We’re not allowed to be above average…We’re expected to be perfect,” one respondent described. “We’re expected to be the full package before our career has even started.” Nearly three in four Black respondents have also experienced racial microaggressions: “...
Interview Tips for DJs From Veteran Music Journalist, Kat Bein
Whether you’re a new DJ on the scene or a veteran music producer, taking interviews about the music you make is weird. It’s uncomfortable and awkward. In fact, for most people, talking about yourself is. In interview settings, it’s not too challenging to see why sharing a homegrown song requires confidence, vulnerability, and even a little courage. Strangely though, not much in the way of written guidance exists out there for musicians, particularly in dance music. How then should they navigate these encounters? What are some ways interviews go wrong? We sat down with Kat Bein, a quirky and skilled music journalist with an exhaustive list of legends along her career path, to lay the groundwork for what we believe is a much-needed guide for DJs. Bein has chatted with Boys Noi...
