Streaming
The Sword Announce Conquest of Quarantine Session, Cover T. Rex’s “Children of the Revolution”: Watch
The Sword have announced a new socially distant performance series, Conquest of Quarantine. The heavy rockers are today premiering the first tune from the three-song lockdown session, a cover of T. Rex’s “Children of the Revolution’, exclusively via Heavy Consequence. The new series comes on the heels of The Sword’s recent career-spanning compilations, Conquest of Kingdoms and Chronology 2006-2018. Both cull archival live recordings, B-sides, and rarities. As singer-guitarist J.D. Cronise told us in our recent interview, the band hoped to tour in support of the album before the pandemic effectively paused live music. Instead, The Sword performed together virtually in isolation and streaming the footage for fans. “Since we’re not touring this summer as originally planned, we figured we shou...
Clutch Announce Live from the Doom Saloon Volume II Livestream Concert
If you’ve ever wanted to build your own Clutch setlist, now’s your chance. The band might even play it during its upcoming livestream performance, dubbed “Live from the Doom Saloon Volume II”. Clutch are encouraging fans to pick their “dream 14-song setlist” for the virtual concert, which costs $9 and streams at 5:00 p.m. PT / 8:00 p.m. ET on August 7th (and available on-demand through that weekend). Donations from the show go to benefit the Innocent Lives Foundation. Any Clutch song from their 1991 “Pitchfork” 7-inch through 2018’s Book of Bad Decisions and their recent Weathermaker Vault Series is game. It’s a lot to choose from, but whoever submits the winning setlist — as picked by the band — will receive an insane prize pack including: a TremLord 30 combo amplifier from Orange Am...
Brazilian Funk Powerhouse KondZilla Launches Twitch Channel With Exclusive Deal
The arrangement — which involves exclusive music, video and gaming content — follows the Twitch deal with rapper Logic earlier this week. Brazilian funk music company KondZilla, which operates one of the biggest YouTube channels in the world, has signed a partnership with Twitch to operate a channel on the streaming platform, in one of the first major deals Twitch has done with an international artist or label. Under terms of its deal, KondZilla is providing exclusive music, gaming, video and podcast content, including live remixing of video game tracks produced by DJs on Kondzilla Records, Andre Izidro, head of marketing and intelligence at KondZilla, tells Billboard. The Twitch channel will promote games, chats and feature funk music and stars from KondZilla, such as Mc Jotta...
Spotify and Universal Music Group Ink Licensing Deal, Expanding Label’s Role as ‘Early Adopter’ of Tools
Spotify and Universal Music Group have finalized a new and expanded multi-year global licensing agreement. As part of the arrangement, announced Wednesday (July 22), the label group deepens its role as an early adopter of Spotify’s marketing tools and other tech features that both parties hope will foster more impactful connections between fans and artists in innovative ways. “With this agreement, UMG and Spotify are more aligned than ever in our commitment to ensuring the entire music ecosystem thrives and reaches new audiences around the globe,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, UMG chairman and CEO, in a statement. “Given our commitment to innovation and early adoption of music technologies, and Spotify’s leadership in the development of forward-thinking tools, our ...
Digital Devices Hit ‘Inevitable’ Milestone, Passing Analog in Listening Time for 2020
Digital devices are now the dominant method of listening to music, and the coronavirus seems to be behind the latest growth wave. For the first time since Edison Research began documenting audio consumption with its Share of Ear study in 2014, digital and on-demand platforms owned over half of consumers’ time spent listening during the second quarter of 2020. Listeners accessed music through smartphones, computers, internet-connected TVs and smart speakers during 53% of their listening hours. The other 47% of listening came through more traditional means, such as AM/ FM receivers, SiriusXM devices, CD players, turntables and standard TV. In the previous study, traditional devices still maintained the advantage, amassing 55% of the daily time spent listening. Digital’s rise past...
#MetallicaMondays: Watch Metallica Play Master of Puppets in Its Entirety at 2006 Berlin Show
For the latest installment of #MetallicaMondays, the thrash legends are revisiting their 2006 Master of Puppets 20th anniversary tour. On the very metal day of June 6th, 2006 (6/6/06) at Berlin’s Waldbühne, Metallica played their classic 1986 thrash masterpiece in its entirety, front-to-back, also premiering “The New Song”. The archival concert footage goes live this evening (July 6th) at 8:00 p.m. ET / 5:00 p.m. PT via Metallica’s YouTube channel below. The Berlin show is historically significant for seeing the world premiere of “The New Song”. With fans clamoring for a new studio album — it had been three years since St. Anger — the performance of new material ignited a surge of hype surrounding what would eventually become Death Magnetic. “The New Song” didn’t make it to the final ...
Apple Music Partners With ‘Verzuz’ to Simulcast the Battle Series & Offer On-Demand Streaming
Verzuz, the breakout live-streaming battle series co-helmed by legendary hip-hop producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, will now be available on Apple Music and Beats 1. Each battle will be simulcast live on the music streaming service for free, at the same time it streams on the Verzuz Instagram account. After the live battle, music fans will be able to relive the musical greatness by watching it on-demand via the series’ exclusive partnership with Apple Music. This Wednesday (July 22) will bring a face-off between Snoop Dogg and DMX, beginning at 5:00 p.m. PT. Before the big showdown — being billed as “the battle of the dogs” — fans can get ready by tuning in to the official Snoop Dogg and DMX Cheat Sheet playlist curated by Apple Music host Lowkey. Apple Musi...
SoundCloud Is Now Offering Algorithmic Audio Mastering for $5 a Song
SoundCloud has partnered with Dolby to offer algorithmic audio mastering. “Mastering on Soundcloud” provides a variety of “mastering profiles,” and seeks to bridge the gap between amateurs and professional-quality masters for a fraction of the price. When done by a skilled human, the final master can cost anywhere between $50 and $200 a song. On SoundCloud, that service is available for $4.99. If it works — and that’s not guaranteed — it could do what Instagram filters did to photography, and radically reshape the market. Of course, many “groundbreaking” products are ultimately worse versions of what’s currently available, and that may be the case here. But SoundCloud and Dolby are big players, and what they say they can do is tantalizingly cheap. In a new blog post, SoundCloud revealed th...
DMX Will Challenge Snoop Dogg for Verzuz ‘Battle of the Dogs’
There’s a dogfight coming to #Verzuz. In what’s billed as “The battle of the dogs,” DMX will square off with Snoop Dogg for the next round of the Verzuz series, due to take place July 22. There are no puppies in this stoush. DMX’s decades-long career includes 15 visits to the Billboard Hot 100. Snoop, of course, is a mainstream superstar with a long list of movie credits, TV series and no less than 43 Hot 100 hits, including three No. 1s: “Drop It Like It’s Hot” (featuring Pharrell), and assists on Akon’s “I Wanna Love You” and Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”. Verzuz was launched in March by hip-hop producers Timbaland and Swizz Beatz. Starting life as a 20-song showdown between evenly matched producers, the series has also come to enlist writers and performers. Some of the hottest b...
Spotify’s Russian Push Targets New Market With Considerable Growth Potential
The streaming service has announced an expansion into 13 new markets, reaching potentially 250 million new users — if only it can sign them up. Spotify is launching its streaming service in Russia and 12 other countries in Europe, marking an important expansion that will bring the music streamer to nearly 250 million new listeners and effectively blanket Europe with the service. In addition to Russia, the 16th-largest streaming market, Spotify will push into Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine. The launch comes as the digital streamer has been expanding aggressively into new markets. It introduced the platform in India in 2019; in 14 markets in the Middle East and Africa in 2018 (inc...
U.S. ‘Looking At’ TikTok Ban Says Sec. of State Mike Pompeo
Sec. of State Mike Pompeo said that the U.S. would “certainly look at” banning Chinese social media apps including short-form video app TikTok over national security and privacy concerns. “With respect to Chinese apps on people’s cell phones, I can assure you the United States will get this one right too,” Pompeo said in an interview on Monday’s episode of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle. “I don’t want to get out in front of the president, but it’s something we’re looking at.” Pompeo added that people should only download TikTok “if you want your private information in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.” The news comes as TikTok increasingly looks to distance itself from its parent company Beijing-based...
#MetallicaMondays: Watch Metallica’s Hit-Filled 2007 Lisbon Show
For the latest installment of #MetallicaMondays, the thrash legends are revisiting their Lisbon, Portugal show in 2007. The archival concert footage goes live this evening (July 6th) at 8:00 p.m. ET / 5:00 p.m. PT via Metallica’s YouTube channel below. The show took place at Lisbon’s Super Bock Super Rock and kicked off the “Sick of the Studio Tour” prior to the release of Death Magnetic in 2008. The European trek was named during a fan competition, with the band choosing the winning entry. Appropriately, it reflects Metallica’s many hours in the studio working on the laborious Death Magnetic, which was considered a return to the band’s thrash metal roots upon release. The hype for Death Magnetic was boiling by the time Metallica took the stage in Lisbon. Fans clamored for what message boa...
