From the end of Spotify’s Car Thing to the impending launch of TikTok Music, we’ve gathered all the music news you need to know.
Can you believe it’s August? We are seven full months into 2022, and most haven’t had enough time to catch their breath, let alone catch up on music news. If you have been reading, it’s most likely related to your work. That’s understandable. We do the same.
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 Stories Of The Week
Spotify Discontinues Its ‘Car Thing’ Less Than Two Years After Launch
Spotify has unceremoniously stopped making the dash-mounted “Car Thing,” its first hardware device, the company announced this week.
The change was announced as part of Spotify’s latest earnings release for shareholders, which said that developing the Car Thing cost €31 million (approximately $32 million USD) and that its overall gross margin was “negatively impacted by our decision to stop manufacturing Car Thing.” Spotify told TechCrunch:
Based on several factors, including product demand and supply chain issues, we have decided to stop further production of Car Thing units. Existing devices will perform as intended. This initiative has unlocked helpful learnings, and we remain focused on the car as an important place for audio.
Announced in April last year, the short-lived device first went on sale in the United States in February for $89.99. It was designed to be an in-car dash-mounted music and podcast player to provide a more seamless and personalized listening experience, especially in the large number of cars that do not support modern in-car infotainment systems or Apple CarPlay.
Concord Music Acquires Australian Publisher Native Tongue
Concord is expanding its interests in the Australasian market by acquiring a key independent music publisher in the region, Native Tongue.
With offices in both Australia and New Zealand, Native Tongue has its own roster of songwriters and also represents a significant network of other publishers from around the world in the Australasian market. And for more than ten years now, that has included Concord Music.
The company’s founder, Chris Gough, went into semi-retirement in 2014, with the business being managed day to day by his children Jaime and Chelsea. They will now head up what will be known as Concord Music Publishing ANZ, as Managing Director and Senior VP respectively.
Confirming the deal, Chris Gough says: “Jaime and Chelsea along with our wonderful team of people have grown the company significantly in recent years. This is the next step, providing our home-grown writers with a truly international organisation capable of maximising their potential worldwide”.
Soundcloud Confirms Global Workforce Layoffs Totaling Nearly 20% of Staff
SoundCloud will be laying off approximately 20% of its global workforce citing “a significant company transformation” and the current economic and financial landscape.
“During this difficult time, we are focused on providing the support and resources to those transitioning while reinforcing our commitment to executing our mission to lead what’s next in music,” reads a statement by a rep for SoundCloud.
Earlier this year, SoundCloud began detailing changes to the company with the aim of providing increased levels of artist-focused support by incrementally upping monetization and providing additional distribution tools for artists at all levels of their careers. In this year alone, the company has teamed up with Pandora and Splice, acquired artificial intelligence company, Musiio, and also entered a joint venture with management and creative services company, Solid Foundation.
The music industry is paying tribute to powerhouse record executive Mo Ostin who died “peacefully in his sleep” on Sunday evening, according to a statement from Warner Records. He was 95 years old.
Ostin oversaw the careers of a long list of marquee talent: The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Prince among them.
Born in New York to Russian immigrants, Ostin’s early years in the business were spent at the jazz label Verve. In 1960, when Frank Sinatra started his own record label, Reprise, he hired Ostin as its administrative vice president. Reprise was eventually bought by Warner Records.
In 1970, Ostin became president of Warner Bros. Records. Under his leadership, the company was home to both mainstream pop stars like James Taylor and Fleetwood Mac to edgier artists such as Frank Zappa and The Sex Pistols.
ByteDance may be preparing for a global launch of TikTok Music service, according to trademarks filed in several countries found by TechCrunch. The China-based conglomerate has filed TikTok Music trademark in countries like the U.K., Singapore, New Zealand, Mexico, Malaysia and Costa Rica.
This comes after a Business Insider report last week, which pointed toward a “TikTok Music” trademark filing in the U.S. ByteDance had also filed another trademark in Australia under a similar name.
All of these trademark filings include similar text about the application’s functionality of listening to music, creating playlists, commenting on songs and participating in karaoke.
The trademark application says it would allow “users to purchase, play, share, download music, songs, albums, lyrics, quotes, create, recommend, share his/her playlists, lyrics, quotes, take, edit and upload photographs as the cover of playlists, comment on music, songs and albums.”
ByteDance already operates a music streaming service called Resso in India, Brazil and Indonesia, and a former ByteDance employee told us it had previously considered bringing this service to more markets under a “TikTok Music” title. Specifically, it had been considering launches in mature markets like the U.K. and Australia, the source said.
