Can Songwriter Points Catch On?

Songwriters today have it a lot tougher than previously, thanks to streaming. While artists aren’t making a whole lot per stream, songwriters only make about 20% of that, and chances are it’s split with a publisher. Now a number of small labels have pledged to offer songwriter points, or a royalty derived from the master […]

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Episode 500 Celebration With Engineer Dennis Moody, TikTok Artist Accounts, And Samsung-Google Immersive Audio

Can you believe that it’s Episode #500 of my Podcast? To celebrate I have my very first guest from Episode 1, engineer Dennis Moody. Dennis is one of the few engineers who’s as comfortable in a recording studio as he is in a live concert setting. Likewise, he’s just as comfortable mixing a rock, R&B, […]

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France’s Music Streaming Tax Will Be Watched By Other Nations

Music streaming platforms, especially Spotify and Deezer, are in an uproar over France’s proposal for a new music streaming tax. This could be a precursor for other countries trying the same thing, but it could also backfire on French government as well. The proposal calls for a 1.75% tax on music streaming, which doesn’t sound […]

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The Top Social App For Teens Is A Surprise

If you read just the headlines of posts and news stories, you sometimes get a false sense of reality, so when real research is presented, it’s often at odds of the facts that we think we know. One of those facts is the general perception that teens spend most of their time on TikTok. That’s […]

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Take A Guess How Much “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” Makes

We all know that a holiday hit can be the gift that keeps on giving, but it’s hard enough to have a hit during the rest of the year let alone on a major holiday. That said, there’s always a lot of speculation just how much one of these big holiday hits brings in. Well, […]

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Top Songs On TikTok For 2023

Like many social platforms, TikTok provides a lot of year-end information that if nothing else, shows you what trended during the year. One of the best categories of these trends were the top top songs on TikTok during the year. It’s broken out for both the United States and Global. See how many songs you […]

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If A Vinyl Record Store Doesn’t Report Sales, Does It Even Exist?

In 2022 vinyl records surpassed CD sales for the first time in 30 years, showing the remarkable new life for a format that was given up for dead at one point. Vinyl sales continue to grow and have become a major revenue source for artists and labels alike, but new changes to how the sales […]

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Spotify To Pull Out of Uruguay Over Poorly Written Law

It’s not unusual for lawmakers in any country to try to do the right thing only to fall pry to unintended consequences due to a poorly written law. This could be a hastily written amendment to a bill that is destined to pass, or just a bill that was either poorly conceived or not thought […]

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Will Bad Actors Be Stopped Now That Spotify Is Charging For Fraudulent Plays?

Fraudulent plays hurt everyone involved in streaming, but now Spotify is taking a small step towards thwarting the problem. The company has stated that it will charge 10 Euros for each song that receives 90% of its streams in a fraudulent manner. This seems like a small tap on the wrist instead of a massive […]

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The Album Returns As The Day Of The Viral Music Star Comes To An End

It wasn’t that long ago that record labels where fighting over artists who had their 15 minutes (more like seconds) of fame on TikTok. Large deals were handed out in hopes that the next wave of talent had arrived. The problem was that almost none of those deals ever worked out, as the viral music […]

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Introducing The Musician’s Ai Handbook

I’m pleased to announced that my new Musician’s Ai Handbook is now available in both print and ebook versions. This comprehensive guide (already #1 on Amazon – thank you everyone!) shows musicians, artists, songwriters, producers, and anyone in the music business how to use artificial intelligence as a highly creative tool to generate new ideas, […]

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YouTube Dream Track Makes It Easy To Clone Artists On One Hand, But Penalizes You For Doing It On The Other

Tell me if you can figure this one out. YouTube made several announcements this week about incorporating Ai on its platform, but the announcements seem to be at odds with one another. The first one indicated that it would crack down on any Ai deep-fake clones that are uploaded, and the second said that it’s […]

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There Are More Music Genres Than You Can Even Imagine

One of the things that’s particularly hard for artists and bands to determine is what genre their music fits into. The fact is that if you’re doing it well it probably fits into several, or none at all. That said, Spotify has tried to cover just about every genre from every part of the world […]

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Apple Music Song Royalties Almost Twice As Much As Spotify

It’s always been known that many music streaming services pay out a lot more in song royalties than Spotify. Even though the numbers that are reported are vague averages (more on that in a bit), it’s still illuminating that Apple Music is paying out almost twice as much as Spotify. You can see for yourself […]

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Yes, You Can Make Money From YouTube Cover Songs

Most artists and bands start by playing cover songs, but once they cross over into doing their own music, feel that they have to leave the covers behind. That might be a mistake however, as this new report conducted by Sonarworks indicates. Cover songs, especially on YouTube, can be a viable way not only to […]

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