Please pardon the repetition in the headline, because EDM means “Electronic Dance Music,” but it’s important to understand that we’re talking about a music service here - and that this one is for EDM.
Song Backer is a new platform for funding music videos of cover songs. It's basically a form of crowdfunding that leverages the popularity of cover song videos on YouTube. Song Backer feels a bit awkward in this early stage but is potentially a strong contender if they can attract musicians with healthy followings on YouTube. Believe it or not this looks like a viable niche for a music tech startup despite a growing amount of related activity.
Clambr's Richard Marriott got "50 Experts" to weigh in on "How to Promote Your Blog with Just 3 Tools." It's a big page that's now at 53 professional web marketers, SEOs and marketing bloggers. But I think their choices of blog marketing tools and their rationales for using them, which also reveals some of their approaches to blog marketing, offer useful insights for musicians, music businesspeople, music writers and music marketers who are creating content, building brands and spreading the word through blogging.
Robert Sillerman's SFX Entertainment continues its acquisition treak taking a majority stake in European ticketing services firm Paylogic in a deal estimated to be worth approximately $16.5 million.
CD Baby has shared some behind the scenes stats that also provide a seldom scene view of the vibrancy of independent and d.i.y. music. The company currently distributes 5 million digital tracks on behalf of 330,000 artists. In 2013, those artists generated $58 million in revenue, up from $53 million in 2012. This year, 77% of artist revenue came from were digital downloads, 8% from streaming and 15% from physical goods.
Following thousands of articles about how Spotify pays — or doesn’t pay — enough money to artists, the company, again worth $4 billion after another round of investment, issued a mini-website on Tuesday to explain how it is not ripping off artists by streaming their music for free or for a monthly subscription to music fans in 39 countries.
Being signed to a major label is certainly beneficial to an artist in terms of brand exposure and distribution, but anyone with an interest in the music industry can attest that touring has always been and continues to be an artist’s best opportunity to make significant revenue. Unlike the recording side of the global music industry, which has suffered as a result of digital disruption and is currently less than half its pre-digital size, the live music business continues to thrive. According to Live Nation, its global concert revenue amounted to $3.87 billion in 2012, and more than 32 million people attended the promoter’s nearly 15,000 shows in North America.
The trade group formerly known as NARM, is launching resources and a network to help music tech startups. It is the first product that the Music Business Association (Music Biz) has introduced since its rebranding and reorganization in early October.
This week Spotify shared the top streaming artists, albums and singles around the world and in the U.S. plus a variety of Spotify stats with a Year in Review 2013 special. Macklemore & Lewis earned most streamed artist, album and single on a global level. In the States, Imagine Dragon took most streamed album and single honors while Drake was dubbed most streamed artist. Worldwide, Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" was named Most Viral Track of 2013 while Lorde was identified as the Most Viral New Artist.
(UPDATED) Beats Music will launch in January, company exec Ian Rogers announced this morning. "If you’ve spent any time around me in the past six months you’ve surely seen me buried in my phone making playlists, poking, prodding, and testing our forthcoming service, Beats Music," wrote Rogers on his blog." "We’re nearly ready for liftoff."
More on when You Tube Music will launch and next week's Spotify announcement here.
Google is arguably the only company with the cash and moonshot moxie to release something like Google Glass — those funny glasses with the screen in them that some people like to make fun of, while others can’t wait to get their face in one.
UPDATED: There will be no Christmas surprise launch of Beats Music or a YouTube streaming music service, sources tell Hypebot. (Ian Rogers just announced that Beats Music will launch in January.) Both will miss the biggest buying season of the year; and while neither company has set an exact launch date, each is promising stakeholders a debut in the first 3 months of 2014. Meanwhile their competitors, are reconfiguring their teams, rolling out new products and ramping up marketing.
Music Startup Beta, happening in Los Angeles Saturday and Sunday, December 7 and 8, is a unique concept organized by Corey Crossfield, Ryan Cox, and Jason Espiritu of The Collective. Teams of "designers, developers, and business professionals" will work together hackathon-style to create "music industry related startups." Music Startup Beta has an impressive list of participants and, even if the affair sounds a bit complicated, it should be quite a scene.
Last year Haim topped the BBC's Sound of 2013 list and made Shazam's 2013 New Artists to Watch list. This year Banks and Sam Smith make both lists. Both the BBC and Shazam came up with interesting lists of musicians that should be worth checking out if you're not already familiar with them. Since there are overlaps that gives us a list of 23 musicians to watch in 2014.
Every musician fights their own unique battles on the road to a successful career. We all have family members, friends, role models and other professionals we've looked up to, been guided by, or maybe even had career altering conversations with. It's a tough world, but a united group of successful females tends to be quite the powerhouse.
Stereobot.com is a leader in music licensing for TV, Film, Video Games and apps, and they are now seeking more amazing music to grow our library. Stereobot if accepting submissions from catalogs and labels (but not bands/ individual producers).
Though it seemed likely that Spotify would eventually add useful services for artists, I'm still more excited by the actual news than I would have expected. Spotify is now offering a bunch of educational news for musicians about the service (not so exciting but needed), free analytics powered by Next Big Sound for artists and management, ticketing sales added to Songkick's concert listings and upcoming plans to offer merch sales via Topspin. Though issues will still be raised about payouts, Spotify's just taken a huge step forward, eliminating the ability for new music services to launch with artist support as a differentiating factor.
Partnerships with Next Big Sound, Songkick and Topspin
Two weeks after a major round of layoffs, music streamer Rdio has named Anthony Bay as its new CEO. He succeeds Drew Larner, who will become Vice-Chair of the company's Board of Directors. Bay is a former digital media executive at Amazon, Microsoft and Apple.
Though you can't quite call it a comeback, indie record stores in the States are making news with events like Back To Black Friday. But the biggest news draws on England's love of vinyl with the opening of Rough Trade NYC adding to two London locations. The Guardian has an interactive digital presence in one of Rough Trade NYC's shipping containers. London will also host the first 3d record printing shop and the citiy's Independent Label Market manifests in LA later this month.
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