From Walmart’s upcoming music festival to Wu-Tang entering Fortnite, we’ve gathered all the music news fit to print from the third full week of April.
If you’re reading this, you made it. The third week of April 2022 came and went like fury, but you remain undefeated in your quest for music business longevity. You’ve accepted that each setback is another opportunity for growth, and you appreciate each victory because you understand what it took to make it this far. We’re proud of you. Hopefully, you’re proud of yourself as well.
As for us, we’re hard at work on the biggest developments in company history. The bosses tell us we cannot spill the beans, but believe us when we say the future is bright.
We cannot ease your workload or give you more hours in the day, but we can help you stay informed. Below you’ll find the biggest stories of the week, all covered by the best outlets in tech and entertainment. Click around, learn what’s happening, and use the weekend to prepare for the end of the month.
But let’s be honest. There is no way we can hope to cover everything that happens. If you see a headline we missed that people need to know, please do not hesitate to send james@haulix.com an email. We’ll include your links in the next update.
The Biggest Stories In Music This Week
Is The Resurgence Of Vinyl Records Good News For The Environment?
Tomorrow (23 April) is Record Store Day, which is a chance for music lovers around the world to unite and indulge in their favourite pastime, without fear, judgement or next month’s credit card statement.
Researchers at Keele University estimate vinyl records typically contain around 135g of PVC material with a carbon footprint of 0.5kg of CO2.
Based on that calculation, sales of 4.1m records would produce 1,900 tonnes of CO2, which does not take transport and packaging into account.
The music business, like many other sectors after COP26 is keen to flex its sustainability muscles, so should more be done to promote more eco-friendly ways to produce vinyl and enjoy the music we all love.
Simon Parker, the founder of eco-friendly record club Naked, said he had always been aware that he’d been selling records made from plastic, but it had never caused him serious concern because most vinyl records enjoy such a long lifespan.
“I don’t think vinyl records are something people think of as a product with an environmental impact,” he told Forbes. “They’ve been around for such a long time that we take their existence for granted. But when we started looking into it, we soon realised there was a problem.”
Walmart Heirs Hoping To Launch Arkansas Music Festival
Names like Coachella and Bonnaroo are fixtures of the music and arts festivals scene. But one newcomer is about to enter the mix, with the help of none other than America’s richest family.
Members of the Walton family, heirs to the Walmart fortune, are helping to launch a new art and music festival later this year, The Wall Street Journal reports. The event is known as FORMAT, short for For Music + Art + Technology, and it will kick off during the weekend of September 23.
Its launch is being led by two grandsons of Walmart founder Sam Walton, Steuart and Tom Walton, and the latter’s wife, Olivia Walton. They’re working with creative firm Triadic and Lollapalooza concert promoter C3 Presents on the festival, according to the Journal.
FORMAT will take place on a 300-acre field surrounded by woods belonging to the Waltons in Walmart’s birthplace of Bentonville, Arkansas; there will be 400 camping sites on the festival’s grounds. The event will target an older demographic than the typical music and arts festival, welcoming up to 17,000 guests in their 30s and 40s, with tickets starting at $275, the Journal reports.
It may not be a sequel to Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, but it’s something: the Wu-Tang Clan is coming to Fortnite with a new clothing collection. The iconic members of the hip-hop supergroup aren’t coming to the game themselves; instead, players will be able to buy Wu-Wear gear in the Fortnite item shop starting April 23rd at 8PM ET. There will be two different outfits available, along with some Wu-Tang accessories like reactive backpacks and, naturally, a Wu-Tang hands emote.
Warner Nashville Succession Plan to Proceed in 2023, With John Esposito Taking Emeritus Role
As expected, Warner Music Nashville’s chairman-CEO John Esposito — widely known in Music City as just “Espo” — will move to an emeritus role in 2023 in a long-talked-about succession plan that will see his two key lieutenants moving into more elevated roles, a source close to the situation confirms to Variety. The move is expected to be formally announced within the next few weeks.
The label’s two current executive vice presidents, Ben Kline and Cris Lacy, are expected to pair up and together assume Esposito’s chairman-CEO roles at the label, as has been expected since they were promoted to their current posts in 2019. Billboard reported the news early Tuesday; a rep for Warner declined comment.
The move comes as no surprise, since Esposito has long said that he foresaw Kline and Lacy succeeding him. Having previously said he could never see retiring altogether, Esposito is expected to stay on in an oversight role.
RIP Cynthia “Plaster Caster” Albritton
Cynthia “Plaster Caster” Albritton, an artist whose best-known work her sculptures of male rockers members has died at 74. Representatives for the sculptor and self-described “recovering groupie” confirmed the news to Variety, reporting that Albritton died in her home town of Chicago on Thursday (April 21) after a long illness.
Caster became famous for her molds of body parts, including the penises of Jimi Hendrix and his bassist, Noel Redding, the Animals’ Eric Burdon, a variety of rock tour and road managers, the MC5s Wayne Cramer and Dennis Thompson, singer Anthony Newley, the Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra, the Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley and more than 40 other filmmakers and rock-adjacent figures.
Spotify Makes Video Podcasting Available to All Creators via Anchor
Spotify’s evolution into video continues with a new development available to millions of creators worldwide. This week, Video Podcasts are open to all Anchor creators in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Like their audio counterparts, video creators can reach millions of people on Spotify and leverage exclusive monetization offerings—including Spotify’s Podcast Subscriptions—to turn Video Podcasts into a new source of income. Fans, meanwhile, have the option to either view episodes front-and-center or seamlessly switch them to the background for on-the-go listening.
New features include:
- Podcast Subscriptions: Spotify Podcast Subscriptions will be available for video podcasts, empowering creators to own their monetization model by creating exclusive content, gating video, and more.
- Free Integration with Riverside: Spotiify has partnered with Riverside – a platform for remote audio and video recording. The integration enables creators to record and publish video content for free with Riverside, with a quick distribution path to Spotify via Anchor.
- Embeddable video: Now, when you embed a Video Podcast episode from Spotify, the video will play directly in the embed player wherever you placed it.
- Video Bulk-Replace: Bulk-replace allows Anchor creators to easily replace their existing audio episodes with video versions from an easy-to-use interface,
- Video Analytics: Video-specific analytics will give creators deep insights into their videos’ performance on Spotify, enabling them to better understand their audience and publish content suited to them.
- Interactive capabilities: Interactive podcast features, like Polls and Q&A, will be available for Video Podcasts, so creators can connect with and get feedback directly from their listeners.
