Streaming
Spotify to Acquire AI Voice Startup Sonantic
Spotify said on Monday (June 13) it will acquire Sonantic, a tech company that specializes in creating hyperrealistic artificial voices. In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Spotify said Sonantic’s technology could allow the audio company to better communicate with users when they aren’t looking at their screens and help reduce other barriers to entry for new listeners. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Based in London, Sonantic was founded in 2018 by Zeena Qureshi and John Flynn. The company caters toward entertainment industry professionals and, in 2020, raised €2.3 million (about $2.4 million) in seed funding. Sonantic has also worked with Val Kilmer, who was diagnosed with throat cancer and ...
Taylor Swift Drops 11-Minute ‘Short Film’ Version of ‘All Too Well’ Song on Spotify & Apple Music
Is 10 minutes of “All Too Well” just not enough “All Too Well” for you? Fans noticed that an 11-minute version of Taylor Swift‘s opus, with updated instrumentals and a retailored outro, was quietly made available to stream on Saturday (June 11) as the singer-songwriter-director screened and discussed her All Too Well short film at the Tribeca Festival in New York City. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The newly released, cinematic version of “All Too Well,” officially titled “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (The Short Film),” actually clocks in at 11 minutes, 26 seconds. The actual “10-minute” version that was released on Swift’s re-recorded Red album is 10 minutes, 13 seconds long. The end of Swift’s latest edit of the song repeats the...
Jennifer Lopez Says She Was Asked to Cut ‘Kids in Cages’ From Super Bowl Set, Plus More ‘Halftime’ Revelations
Jennifer Lopez‘s Netflix documentary Halftime premiered at the Tribeca Festival on Wednesday. The film, which arrives on the streaming platform June 14, gives viewers an inside look at the singer preparing for the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show, for which she shared the stage with Shakira, but also touches on personal tidbits in Lopez’s life that fans would otherwise not see. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Here are five takeaways from Halftime ahead of its arrival on Netflix Lopez Was Frustrated With the NFL Over Time Constraints for Her & Shakira’s Performance While Lopez was honored to be asked to perform at the Super Bowl, the NFL wanted to bring in Shakira for her performance — a move that led to the singer suggesting that she a...
Spotify Lays Out Roadmap to Higher Margins: Here’s the Plan
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and a parade of top executives had a simple message for investors in a live-streamed presentation from New York on Wednesday (June 8): Our margins will be better. Although the company has communicated its long-term vision through quarterly earnings calls, press releases and occasional Wall Street conferences, it hasn’t gathered the investment community for a meaningful conversation since going public in 2018. “I’m not sure that journey’s very well understood,” said Ek. “And, frankly, we probably haven’t done a very good job explaining it.” Despite posting 24% revenue growth in both 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, the company’s share price is down 51.7% in 2022. As CEO, Ek’s job on Wednesday was to captain the nearly four-hour presentation communicating to investor...
Elon Musk’s Sister Has a Streaming Service Dedicated to Romance and Erotica
Apparently Tosca Musk cares about romance novels the way her brother Elon Musk cares about posting memes on Twitter. That’s why she’s launched Passionflix, a growing streaming site dedicated to steamy adaptations of Harlequin page-turners, erotic fan-fic and more. Profiled by The New York Times, the fledgling entrepreneur explained that she’ll be sitting in the director’s chair for many of the platform’s adaptations, while also licensing existing content such as 2013’s Random Encounters starring a pre-Royal Wedding Meghan Markle and the 2014 rom-com Two Night Stand starring Miles Teller as well as tried and true swooners like 1995’s Sabrina — yes, the one with Harrison Ford — and 1996’s The English Patient. Subscriptions to the site cost just $6 per month and content is rated on a unique s...
St. Vincent Channels Her Inner Disco Queen on ‘Funkytown’ Cover for ‘Minions’ Soundtrack: Listen
St. Vincent is ready to go to “Funkytown” — are you ready? The singer released her cover of the Lipps Inc. classic on Friday (June 3), which appeared on the forthcoming soundtrack for Dreamworks’ Minions: Rise of Gru soundtrack. The reimagined track, which was produced by Jack Antonoff — who additionally curated the soundtrack, and is featured on it alongside his band, Bleachers — sees the singer tapping into the song’s disco roots. Artfully placed autotune to her vocals and distorted strings sets the “Funkytown” cover apart from the original, while the video for the track shows a Minion-ified version of Vincent, complete in a maroon suit and her signature blonde bob and bangs. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news H.E.R., Bleachers,&nbs...
The Changing World Of: Record Label Streaming
In 1999, Pavement put out the single “Spit On a Stranger,” pairing it with the B-side track “Harness Your Hopes” as a CD-only release. A decade later, in 2008, the band’s 1997 album Brighten The Corners was released in expanded form to digital retailers like Apple’s iTunes Store, complete with bonus tracks and B-Sides from those sessions, including “Harness Your Hopes,” which appeared digitally for the first time. And that’s where the journey for many of those songs would have ended: as footnotes and rarities for collectors and superfans. But the rise of streaming and social media changed all that. In 2017, for reasons that are still a little mysterious to both the band and its label Matador, “Harness Your Hopes” began to explode on Spotify, leaping into the top spot among Pavement’s most-...
Bradley Cooper Is Unrecognizable as Leonard Bernstein in ‘Maestro’ First Look Photos
Netflix unveiled a glimpse at their new film Maestro on Monday (May 30), including Bradley Cooper‘s jaw-dropping transformation as West Side Story composer Leonard Bernstein. In the photos released from set, a ’50s-era Cooper is rendered in black and white alongside Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s wife, actress Felicia Montealegre. He’s also miraculously aged up to portray the conductor in the 1980s, when he was in his 60s, using makeup and a wig. In one snap, he sits behind a desk, virtually unrecognizable as a cigarette burns between his fingers; in another, he paces in an auditorium as he waves his finger, either conducting the action on stage or giving a note. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The biopic of the West Side Story composer is ...
The Ledger: Sony Music’s Cautious Catalog Approach & Other Investor Call Highlights
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. Sony’s annual investor presentation was a rare opportunity for Rob Stringer, chairman of Sony Music Group and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, to go on record on the important financial issues of the day. Any analyst or investor listening in got some helpful insight into Stringer’s thinking about how Sony spends money and what will account for future revenue growth. Stringer’s presentation recapped Sony Music’s fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, as well as its double-digit growth over the previous five years. Revenues were up $3 billion since 2017, profit margins have improved and streaming now accounts for 70% of total ...
Donald Trump to Launch Streaming Platform for “Canceled Content” and “Non-Fake News”
Donald Trump is plotting his return to television. The former president’s company Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) is currently building out a streaming service, which will be home to undoubtedly highbrow broadcasting like “canceled content” and “non-fake news.” Per The Hollywood Reporter, TMTG — which is led by CEO Devin Nunes — recently unveiled their mess of an S-1 filing, which attempts to outline their specific plans: “TMTG+ intends to offer programs including, but not limited to blue collar comedy, canceled shows, Trump-specific programming, faith-based shows, family entertainment, shows that embrace the Second Amendment, and news. TMTG intends to license, produce, and deliver news, sports, and non-woke entertainment content through this platform.” These plans sound ...
Sony Music Group Extends Program for Unrecouped Artists and Songwriters
More legacy artists and songwriters are going to be able to profit from the boom in streaming and other digital royalties after Sony Music Group expands its program for paying royalties to more artists with unrecouped royalty balances, chairman Rob Stringer announced Wednesday evening (May 25) during a presentation to Sony Corp. investors. With Artists Forward and Songwriters Forward, both launched in 2021, Sony Music decided to pay royalties to artists and songwriters who were signed before 2000 and haven’t received advance since. Sony Music didn’t wipe the slate clean by modifying contracts or adjusting the account balances. Instead, it would ignore the negative account balances of artists whose royalties earned over the previous two decades never caught up with their advance and expense...
‘WTF With Marc Maron’ Podcast Inks Multi-Year Deal With Acast
Marc Maron has struck a three-year deal with Acast to host, monetize and distribute the comedian’s hit podcast, WTF With Marc Maron. As part of the deal, which begins on July 1, WTF will also offer bonus content, merchandise and live event offerings via Acast+, the podcast company’s subscription service. The back catalogue of WTF, currently available without ads on SiriusXM’s Stitcher Premium, will also be taken down and moved over to the open feed when the deal goes into effect, though a “small portion” will be paywalled on Acast+, according to Acast spokesperson Ryan Hatoum. New episodes of the show will continue to be released twice a week and will be available for free across all major podcast platforms, while advertisers will be able to pla...
