Tag: Amazon Music

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This Week In Music (April 8, 2022)

This Week In Music 4/8

From the Coachella headliner shuffle to Pink Floyd’s new song, we’ve gathered the biggest stories from across the industry.

If you’re reading this—Congratulations! You’ve made it through the first full week of April 2022. Spring is officially underway, and the industry is transitioning into summer tour season. That might seem a bit premature, but with ticket sales at an all-time high and artists ready to hit the road, live performances are the talk of every meeting. Will COVID let us have a great summer? Only time will tell.

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

Bad Bunny Breaks Yet Another Record

When Bad Bunny sets out to do something, he does it with the authenticity and passion he has for his artistry. In doing so, he has become a global icon who continues to elevate his stardom by pushing his creativity and breaking barriers with it. Well, his efforts are continuing to pay off, especially now thathis recent 35-date El Último Tour Del Mundo 2022 has officially become the highest-grossing tour by a Latine artist, according to Billboard Boxscore ’s over three-decade history of recording said numbers. 

According to figures reported by Billboard Boxscore, El Último Tour Del Mundo’s 35 shows grossed $116.8 million and sold 575,000 tickets. “That breaks down to $3.3 million and 16,400 tickets per night, or $4.7 million and more than 23,000 tickets in each market,” the publication reported. It overrode Luis Miguel’s earnings of $101 million in 2018-2019. Moreover, but in conversation with Bad Bunny’s agent Jbeau Lewis, Lewis told Billboard that “according to Ticketmaster, it was the third-highest sales day for any tour of all time, and would likely have broken the record had there been more dates to add.” Incredible, right?

The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia to headline Coachella after Ye drops out

After Kanye West dropped out of Coachella less than two weeks ahead of his scheduled performance, the festival has confirmed The Weeknd will join Swedish House Mafia to fill the headliner slot.

The Swedish three-piece and The Weeknd—who collaborated last year on “Moth to a Flame”—will close out the festival on Sunday. Swedish House Mafia were already set to play the festival, as the lineup announcement in January showed, but they had no specific date listed for their performance. Some suggested, as Variety did, that their position on the poster was in case Ye decided to drop out.

Amazon Music Price Increase

Starting next month, some customers of Amazon’s unlimited streaming music services will be paying more.

The Amazon Music Unlimited individual plan for Prime members is increasing from $7.99 to $8.99 per month, or from $79 to $89 per year. In addition, the Amazon Music Unlimited single-device plan (which allows one designated Echo or Fire TV to stream music) is going up by a dollar, rising from $3.99 to $4.99 per month. The updated pricing starts on May 5.

The ecommerce giant is raising the prices “To help us bring you even more content and features,” Amazon said in a customer notice on its site.

Pink Floyd Releases First New Song in 28 Years

This week Pink Floyd release their first newly created music since 1994’s The Division Bell when they release their new single and video for Hey Hey Rise Up with all proceeds going to Ukraine Humanitarian Relief.

The new single sees David Gilmour and Nick Mason joined by long time Pink Floyd bass player Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney on keyboards and features vocals from  Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Ukrainian band Boombox.

The song, which was recorded last week in David Gilmour’s barn, uses Khlyvnyuk’s vocals from an Instagram post of him singing Ukrainian WWI protest song The Red Viburnum In The Meadow in an empty Sofiyskaya Square in Kyiv. The title of the Pink Floyd track is taken from the last line of the song which translates as ‘Hey Hey Rise up and rejoice’.

South Korea is Building An Arena Dedicated To K-Pop

Earlier this week, South Korean internet company Kakao and the Seoul Metropolitan Government put forward plans to construct an entirely new arena dedicated to K-Pop.

Dubbed the Seoul Arena, the stadium is scheduled to be built in the Chang-dong, Dobong-gu area and is expected to be complete by October 2025. The ground breaking ceremony will be hosted in June after the final implementation plans are approved. The arena will host approximately 18,000 seats, with a capacity of 28,000 people for standing performances. A medium-sized performance venue that seats 7,000, as well as a movie theater and other commercial facilities, are to be included in the final blueprint.

SONG OF THE WEEK: Silverstein – “Die Alone“

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Amp is Reinventing Radio, But Will Anyone Listen? [Video]

Does the world need another social media app? According to the folks at Amazon Amp, the answer is an ecstatic “Yes!”

Remember Clubhouse? Near the beginning of the pandemic, Clubhouse became the hot social media platform people needed in their lives, offering drop-in audio conversations and unique access to celebrities. The hype was so great that virtually every major digital company has tried to copy Clubhouse’s success, and Amazon is no exception.

This month, Amazon gave the world Amp, a clubhouse competitor with one unique feature: music licenses. Unlike Clubhouse and all of its knock-offs, Amp users can choose from millions of free-to-use songs to include in their broadcasts. In other words, it gives people the ability to host their own radio show without ads or fancy equipment. Users can even take calls from their audience.

Cool as it may be, the idea behind Amp is not necessarily new. As host James Shotwell explains in this Music Biz update, the concept of turning everyone into a DJ has been tried multiple times over the last decade. Each time, a small portion of the population adapts to the new technology, but everyone else ignores it. Eventually, over time, the hype dies, and people move on.

Will Amp be an exception to this trend? Can Amazon give the world a good reason to download another social media app? Let’s discuss.

Music Biz is brought to you by Haulix, the music industry’s leading promotional distribution platform. Start your one-month free trial today and gain instant access to the same promotional tools used by BMG, Concord, Rise Records, Pure Noise Records, and hundreds more. Visit http://haulix.com/signup for details.

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Music Biz News Roundup for August 16, 2019 [VIDEO]

The Haulix news show returns with headlines from the world of streaming, podcasting, and more.

Music Biz News is back with all the stories you need to know from the last week in entertainment. In this episode, host James Shotwell shares the truth behind Amazon Music subscription numbers, the launch of Wouldstock, Spotify‘s latest attempt to lure podcast fans, and more.

Want even more video content? Subscribe to our YouTube channel!

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Spotify, Amazon, and more sue songwriters to prevent royalty rates from rising

Four of the largest music streaming services are appealing a ruling that promises to raise mechanical royalty rates by 44% over the next five years.

How much is a song worth? According to most streaming services, the answer is roughly $0.003 per stream. A new ruling from the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) aims to raise that value to $0.004 per stream, but Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, and Google disagree.

The four streaming giants are appealing the ruling that hopes to raise mechanical royalty rates by 44% over the next five years. Spotify, Amazon, Google, and Pandora have each filed separate appeals, with Apple the only major streaming player choosing to abstain.

The four companies also released a joint statement detailing their decision, which reads, “The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), in a split decision, recently issued the U.S. mechanical statutory rates in a manner that raises serious procedural and substantive concerns. If left to stand, the CRB’s decision harms both music licensees and copyright owners. Accordingly, we are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the decision.”

In a statement released today, March 7, the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) said that a “huge victory for songwriters is now in jeopardy” due to the streaming services’ filings.

NMPA President & CEO David Israelite commented:

“When the Music Modernization Act became law, there was hope it signaled a new day of improved relations between digital music services and songwriters.

That hope was snuffed out today when Spotify and Amazon decided to sue songwriters in a shameful attempt to cut their payments by nearly one-third.

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) spent two years reading thousands of pages of briefs and hearing from dozens of witnesses while both sides spent tens of millions of dollars on attorneys arguing over the worth of songs to the giant technology companies who run streaming services.

The CRB’s final determination gave songwriters only their second meaningful rate increase in 110 years. Instead of accepting the CRB’s decision which still values songs less than their fair market value, Spotify and Amazon have declared war on the songwriting community by appealing that decision.”

“When the Music Modernization Act became law, there was hope it signaled a new day of improved relations between digital music services and songwriters. That hope was snuffed out today when Spotify and Amazon decided to sue songwriters in a shameful attempt to cut their payments by nearly one-third.

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) spent two years reading thousands of pages of briefs and hearing from dozens of witnesses while both sides spent tens of millions of dollars on attorneys arguing over the worth of songs to the giant technology companies who run streaming services. The CRB’s final determination gave songwriters only their second meaningful rate increase in 110 years. Instead of accepting the CRB’s decision which still values songs less than their fair market value, Spotify and Amazon have declared war on the songwriting community by appealing that decision.

No amount of insincere and hollow public relations gestures such as throwing parties or buying billboards of congratulations or naming songwriters “geniuses” can hide the fact that these big tech bullies do not respect or value the songwriters who make their businesses possible.

We thank Apple Music for accepting the CRB decision and continuing its practice of being a friend to songwriters.  While Spotify and Amazon surely hope this will play out in a quiet appellate courtroom, every songwriter and every fan of music should stand up and take notice. We will fight with every available resource to protect the CRB’s decision.”


Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) Executive Director Bart Herbison also responded to the companies’ decision, saying:

“It is unfortunate that Amazon and Spotify decided to file an appeal on the CRB’s decision to pay American songwriters higher digital mechanical royalties. Many songwriters have found it difficult to stay in the profession in the era of streaming music. You cannot feed a family when you earn hundreds of dollars for millions of streams.

Spotify specifically continues to try and depress royalties to songwriters around the globe as illustrated by their recent moves in India. Trying to work together as partners toward a robust future in the digital music era is difficult when any streaming company fails to recognize the value of a songwriter’s contribution to their business.”

If the ruling holds, the 44% increase will be only the second substantial increase to mechanical royalty rates to pass in the last 110-years.

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Amazon introduces ‘Song ID’ to help smart speaker owners learn about music

Don’t know the name of the song you want to hear? Amazon’s new Song ID feature has the answer.

The smart speaker revolution is upon us. Last month, a new study from Adobe Analytics found that more than 1/3 of American consumers, 36% to be exact, own one or more smart speakers. That figure is expected to grow substantially in the coming months, and even further in the years that follow.

The upside to the popularity of smart speakers is that it leads consumers to listen to more music more often. A study by AudienceNet at the end of 2018 found that homes with smart speakers listen to 50% more music than homes without and that those same homes are 49% more likely to listen to music for more extended periods. They also listen to more playlists.

But there’s a problem: Many consumers don’t know the title of the songs they hear on the radio, and even more don’t know the artists who sing them.

When someone wants to hear a song on their smart speaker, they must ask for it. For Amazon devices, users often say, “Alexa, please play __________.” The device then searches for that song or artist and plays the track it believes the user wants to hear. It’s a great system that is far quicker than pulling a record from a shelf and placing it on a turntable or popping a CD into a boombox, but it only works if the consumer knows exactly what they want to hear.

Let’s say someone wanted to hear “Let It Go,” the popular song from the Disney film Frozen, but they couldn’t remember the name of the movie. That person could ask Alexa to play “Let It Go,” but there are at least 42 songs on Amazon Music and Spotify with that title. Which one would it choose? If it chose another version than the desired one, what could the consumer do?

To aide in educating consumers about the music they love, Amazon has introduced ‘Song ID.’ When enabled, Alexa will announce the title and the artist name before playing each song while you’re listening to a radio station, playlist or new release on Amazon Music over your smart speaker.

The optional feature for Echo devices can be enabled or disabled by voice at any time by asking Alexa to “turn on Song ID” or “turn off Song ID.”

In addition to making consumers aware of what they’re listening to, Amazon also hopes ‘Song ID’ makes users more comfortable talking to Alexa. The software does not have much a personality itself, but users who trust the device are more likely to use it for other things, such as ordering products from the Amazon store.

The new feature is live today across Amazon Music in the U.S. and works on Echo devices, says Amazon.

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