Music Industry
The Evolution of the Live Show: Marc Myers Joins The What Podcast
Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Radio Public | RSS Marc Myers, a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, joins Brad, Barry, and Lord Taco to discuss his new book, ROCK CONCERT: An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There. It’s a fun conversation on The What Podcast that looks at the evolution of the live show from the ’50s to the ’80s. Myers gives insider info about how rock concerts evolved, how a particular series of events led to the arena shows we know and love today, and what the industry looks like in 2021. Take a listen above, and make sure you like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Advertisement Related Video Launched in 2018, The What began as a p...
The 165 Songs Banned from American Radio Following 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
Following the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, close to 200 songs were shadow banned from American radio stations by Clear Channel Communications, known today as iHeartMedia. There were little to no consequences for DJs who broke the embargo, though as The Daily Beast, Kerrang, and others have noted, it had a chilling effect on radio play for the targeted songs. Today, the list stands as a curious relic of a time where unfathomable tragedy led to one of the most sweeping censorship movements in recent history. Clear Channel announced the “suggestions” in a memorandum sent out to its over 1,100 radio stations on September 14th. Many songs were cited as “lyrically questionable,” which meant that the words could be triggering, as in James Taylor’s...
UK Initiative Calls On Music Industry to Hold Sexual Harassment to Account
As live music events continue to return, an open letter from the UK organization UN Women is aiming to ensure that they do so in a safer and more inclusive capacity for women. A survey conducted by YouGov in 2018 identified that 40% of women report being sexually harassed at public live music events. Within the music industry itself, the survey reported 60% of industry professionals who are women have been subjected to sexual harassment. “As our spaces reopen this summer, we will not wait around while another woman experiences sexual harassment, violence or abuse—as an artist, as a professional, or as a fan,” the letter says. “Let’s act now to make our music industry and live events safe.” Numerous artists including MNEK, Sigrid, Anne-Marie, an...
New Artist Database Launched In Support of Non-Binary Creatives
In honor of this year’s Non-Binary Awareness Week, an aggregated database of the industry’s artists and creatives who identify as non-binary has been launched. The annual event has historically marked an important period for organizing around the issues of non-binary advocacy. This year artists are taking an important collective step towards ensuring equitable representation for non-binary creatives in the music industry. Developed by DJ Soyboi, the new database seeks to share the names, creative disciplines, discographies, and portfolios of non-binary creatives within the industry at large. The concept was shared by fellow artist India Jordan on Twitter. The database currently contains over 200 entries and spans several disciplines with non-binary DJs, producers, d...
New MusicCareers Platform Aims to Help Jobseekers Find Post-Pandemic Work
As the music industry continues to find its footing in the wake of the devastating economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new resource has launched with the goal of aiding both employers and jobseekers in identifying new opportunities. Entrepreneurs Budi Voogt and David Sikorski recently unveiled MusicCareers, a music industry-specific job board platform dedicated to finding work for jobseekers. Last year saw a bifurcation of the music business unlike any other period in history. According to the BBC, live music revenues fell around 85% in 2020. However, commercial music sales continued to grow substantially due to the tailwinds of an 18.5% increase in streaming subscription revenue in 2020. The result of such stark market shifts has left many workers feeling unfamiliar with the...
MC Galaxy dumps music for food business
Former singer, Innocent Udeme Udofot, more popularly known as MC Galaxy is living his dreams. After years of churning out hit singles the ‘Sekem’ dance originator seems to have dumped music for good, having not released any song for a while now. Instead he has concentrated on fulfilling his dream of owning an indigenous eatery with specialty in local cuisines. In 2019, the Uyo born artist gave his fans a sneak peek of what he has been up to since he disappeared from the music scene. Located in the highbrow area of Lekki Phase One, the restaurant has since welcomed some of his celebrity friends who support his new hustle. Not resting on his oars with his restaurant business, newsmen reliably gathered that he also has his eyes in the real estate business too which he is planning to launch af...
The Artist-Superfan’s Brave New Superstore
Primary Wave, run by long-time music executive Larry Mestel, may steal the headlines. His company uses billions to buy the music publishing and masters of mega-artists like Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, Bob Marley, Prince, and Whitney Houston. But Twitter shaman Jack Dorsey’s recent acquisition of Jay-Z’s streaming service, Tidal, by his company, Square, is equally tantalizing. And it points to something that is bubbling up in the business right now that is still early, but ultimately will build into a huge, new movement of massively monetizing direct artist-fan connection and engagement. Dorsey’s rationale for buying Tidal is to give artists a direct path to easily transact with their fans (think merchandise, for example), much like retailers use Square to cut out the credit card middlema...
An Introductory Guide to NFTs in the Music Industry
Last week, rock band Kings of Leon became the first band to release an album as an NFT, expanding the possibilities for crypto and blockchain technology in the music industry. If that first sentence already lost you, you’ve come to the right place. NFTs are undoubtedly the buzziest new topic in music and for good reason. In February 2021 alone, NFTs earned nearly 22 million dollars in the music industry, according to data collected by Water & Music, but it’s much like explaining the Internet to someone in the ’90s who has never seen it before. NFTs are highly conceptual and unprecedented, but it makes sense once you get used to the idea. Consider this article your true introductory guide to NFTs in the music business, wherein, we will break down the most important characteristics of th...
Just Because COVID-19 Restrictions Are Lifting Doesn’t Mean Venues Are Opening
Over the past 24 hours, several states have reduced the restrictions in place to curb the spread of COVID-19. On Tuesday, both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves abruptly decided to lift all capacity restrictions on businesses and end their states’ mask mandates starting next week. Then today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that plays, concerts, and other performances can resume indoors at limited capacity beginning next month. Just because music venues are allowed to reopen, however, doesn’t mean they’re all jumping at the opportunity to do so. The intensity and longevity of the coronavirus pandemic has been a major burden, if not an outright death bell, for independent music venues over the past year. Despite Congress allocating $15 billion for thea...
Congress Allocates $15 Billion to Independent Theaters and Concert Venues As Part of New Relief Package
The United States Congress has agreed to a new bipartisan coronavirus relief package that allocates $15 billion in funding to independent movie theaters and concerts venues. According to USA Today’s Nicholas Wu, the relief package incorporates the Save Our Stages Act. First introduced by Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota over the summer, the act calls for six months of financial support to “keep venues afloat, pay employees, and preserve a critical economic sector for communities across America.” Under the original proposal, venues would be provided grants accounting for either 45% of a business’ operation costs from the previous year or $12 million in total — whichever is the lesser amount. Venues would then be allowed to use that money to pa...
Taylor Swift Sets Record for Shortest Gap Between No. 1 Albums
Taylor Swift has another record to her name. Her latest surprise release, evermore, debuted this week at No. 1 — just four months and 18 days after its sister album, folklore, opened atop the same list on August 8th. As Billboard notes, that’s the shortest gap between new No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart by a woman since they began tracking data in March 1956. Additionally, with folklore still sitting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, Swift becomes the first female artist to have two albums concurrently in the top three since 1963. evermore marks Swift’s eighth No. 1 album of her career overall. Only two other female artists have more No. 1 albums to their name: Barbara Streisand (11) and Madonna (nine). The all-time record holder for the most No. 1 album is The Beatles (19), while JAY...
Court stops COSON from general distribution practice
A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has declared that the General Distribution which is practised by the Copyright Society of Nigeria, COSON, is illegal. The practise involves the annual distribution of the same amount of music royalties, usually about N30,000 each, to thousands of the organization’s members. This practice was challenged in court by the Music Publishers’ Association of Nigeria, MPAN, in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1418/2019; Green Light Music Publishing Ltd, Chocolate City Music Ltd, Premier Music Publishing Company Ltd v. Copyright Society of Nigeria Ltd/Gte. The judgement which was delivered on November 25, 2020, by Justice Oguntoyinbo also ordered COSON to stop further distribution of royalties “in a manner known as ‘General Distribution’ or how so ever called which does not re...
