When Donald Trump revealed his desire to ban TikTok in August of last year, his words sent the app’s creators and influencers into a frenzy, and many began to eye Triller, a similar app designed for sharing short-form video clips. At the time, Triller claimed it had 250 million global …
Read More »A Field Guide to Music's Potential Crypto Boom
In a huge labyrinthine ecosystem of labels, publishers, distributors, and royalty collectors, the idea of artists getting paid quickly may sound like a revolutionary concept. What if it wasn’t? What if the music industry‘s hundreds of thousands of artists — who are especially cash-strapped when they can’t tour, like right …
Read More »SoundCloud Will Host a Gaming Tournament Inside Fortnite
Turns out the cloud has room for more than just sound. On Wednesday, music streaming platform SoundCloud announced that it is partnering with Twitch — the gamer-centric livestreaming service — to launch SoundCloud Player One, a three-hour gaming tournament that will start on February 18th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. …
Read More »Could Hip-Hop's Next Global Superstar Emerge From India?
Raja Kumari was not born in New Delhi or Mumbai or Kolkata — rather, 8,000 miles away, in Claremont, California. But Kumari and her record label have a huge ambition this year: to smash down doors for Indian rappers all over the world. Kumari, whose parents emigrated from India to …
Read More »Lizzo, Shawn Mendes, and More Pledge to 'Press Pause' on Music Gatherings
Ricky Reed, a producer behind four songs on Lizzo’s Grammy-winning Cuz I Love You album — six, if you’re looking at the deluxe version, which includes megahit “Truth Hurts” — is imploring musicians, songwriters, producers, artists, and executives to press pause on songwriting sessions, meetings and shows. And “no going …
Read More »Surprising No One, TikTok Is Driving a Lot of New-Artist Growth
In 2008, Jay Sean released “Ride It,” a dance-floor come-on that became a hit everywhere — except for the U.S. Now, it’s enjoying a second life. A house-music remix by Regard became popular on the video app TikTok, which allows users to set short clips to music. After the “Ride …
Read More »At Work With Dan Rogers, Executive Producer of Nashville's Grand Ole Opry
This is the fourth installment of Rolling Stone’s series At Work, in which we explore the fast-changing music business from the perspective of a different industry leader each week. Read earlier pieces in the series here. No matter how Nashville evolves, the Grand Ole Opry remains an unwavering constant. At …
Read More »A New Tool From Spotify Walks the Line Between Advertising and Pay-For-Play
At the end of October, Spotify introduced a new option for labels that allows them to pay to “drive incremental streams” for their artists. This is the centerpiece of an advertising initiative called Marquee. Labels can now purchase a pop-up ad prompting users to listen to Taylor Swift’s Lover, for …
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