From Springsteen’s ticket prices to a lack of interest in new music, we’ve gathered the biggest music news stories of the week.
July is chugging along, the hot temperature isn’t the only thing heating up. Artists from all walks of life are experiencing a boom of interest thanks to better weather, and professionals are hard at work making the most of the moment. Consider this a reminder to go outside and touch the grass. You deserve to feel the wind in your hair while your favorite songs play at a loud volume. Don’t let the consumer have all the fun.
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 Music News of the week:
Ticketmaster’s Dynamic Pricing Causes Headaches For Springsteen Fans
Fans buying tickets for Bruce Springsteen’s US arena tour were shocked to find many seats halfway back in each venue selling for $4,000-5,000 and even less desirable seats priced at $1000-$2000.
These were not scalped or resale tickets, but rather primary tickets sold by Live Nation its owned ticketing company Ticketmaster and their new Platinum dynamic pricing system.
“Platinum” tickets, which can be placed by the promoter anywhere in the arena from the front section to the back rows, fluctuate in price much like an airline ticket in reaction to supply and demand.
WMG Sign On To Soundcloud’s Fan-Powered Royalty System
When SoundCloud launched its artist-friendly fan-powered royalty system last year, the model was only available for independent artists subscribed to the streamer’s paid tiers. Now, SoundCloud has inked its first major label partnership with Warner Music Group, whose artists can now earn fan-powered royalties on the platform too.
Since the early 2000s, artists and record labels alike have struggled to figure out how musicians can make a living when it’s so easy to download .mp3s online. New models like music streaming on Spotify can feel like a stop-gap, though, since payouts from these services can be paltry if you’re not Lizzo or Olivia Rodrigo.
Spotify pays artists via a pro-rata model, which means there is a large pot of money that gets divided among all artists depending on how many streams they each get. But that means that the success of superstar musicians can inadvertently take away from the payouts of up-and-coming performers.
The user-centric model, or what SoundCloud calls fan-powered royalties (FPR), is designed to level the playing field for smaller artists.
Pat Benatar Won’t Perform “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” Out of Respect To Shooting Victims
Amid the endless gun violence in the United States, Pat Benatar is taking a stand by choosing not to sing her 1980 hit, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” on her current tour.
“We’re not doing ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ and fans are having a heart attack and I’m like, I’m sorry, in deference to the victims of the families of these mass shootings, I’m not singing it,” she said in a new interview with USA Today. “I tell them, if you want to hear the song, go home and listen to it. [The title] is tongue in cheek, but you have to draw the line. I can’t say those words out loud with a smile on my face, I just can’t. I’m not going to go on stage and soap box – I go to my legislators – but that’s my small contribution to protesting. I’m not going to sing it. Tough.”
BMG Acquires Back Catalog of Jean-Michel Jarre
The torrent of catalog acquisitions continues and this time, its BMG who announced it has acquired the entire music publishing back catalogue of pioneering French electronic musician Jean-Michel Jarre.
The deal includes the rights to Jarre’s classic hits such as Oxygene and Equinoxe along with Jarre’s writer’s income stream. The agreement expands upon BMG’s previous acquisition of the sound recordings for Jarre’s first three albums that came as part of their purchase of the indie label Francis Dreyfus Music in 2012.
A towering figure in the French electronic music scene, Jarre has generated 85m album sales over his career and has performed in front of some of the biggest audiences in history, including the Paris Bastille Day concert 1979 (1m people), Houston 1986 (1.3m people), Paris-La Défense 1990 (2.5m people) and Moscow 1997 (3.5m people).
“This partnership with BMG means a lot to me. Hartwig Masuch and the entire team have been part of my family for many years. Moreover, I am pleased that my publishing back catalogue is sheltered here in Europe and that my work will continue to grow in such good hands. Today is a new start allowing me to develop fresh ideas and giving me the means to explore new territories. Together we will thrive,” Jean-Michel Jarre said.
New Music Is Becoming Less Popular, Report Finds
Music Business Worldwide reports on the results of this new mid-year report from Luminate, the market monitor formerly known as MRC Data/Nielsen Music. The report looks at a metric called total album consumption, which takes into account streams, downloads, and digital and physical music sales. According to Luminate, the consumption of new music — defined as anything that came out within the last 18 months — is down 1.4%, or about two million equivalent album-sales, compared to the first six months of 2021. This is during a time when total album consumption went up 9.3%. So it’s not just the market share of new music that’s going down; it’s the actual consumption of the stuff.
By contrast, consumption of catalog music, defined as anything that’s at least 18 months old, doing great; it’s up 14% compared to last year. Thus far in 2022, catalog music accounts for 72.4% of the market, compared to 27.6% for new stuff. Even with hyped-up new releases from big stars like Drake, the Weeknd, and Kendrick Lamar, new records just aren’t making the same kind of cultural impact.
There are a couple of other factors worth considering here. For one thing, a lot of the old music that’s doing well isn’t really that old; more than a third of that catalog consumption is of music that came out between 2017 and 2019. Also, streaming offers us a chance to see what people actually listen to, rather than just what they buy; in the pre-streaming era, these data collectors couldn’t tell if you were just listening to the old records that you already owned. And old music has always been popular; the Beatles’ 1 is still the biggest-selling album of the 21st century. Still, it’s pretty striking that nostalgic consumption is completely overwhelming the hunger for anything new.
