From YouTube’s Ad Revenue to Kanye’s plans to keep ‘Donda 2‘ off streaming platforms, it’s been another crazy week in the music business.
After six weeks of uncertainty, it’s safe to say the music business is back in action at full capacity. The second full week of February has been filled with major shifts in tech, massive tour announcements, and new insight into the possibilities of Web3 that give us hope for the future of our industry.
We cannot ease your workload or give you more hours in the day, but we can help you stay informed. That is why we are thrilled to introduce This Week In Music, a brand new weekly column highlighting the best and most talked-about stories throughout the music industry. Each Friday, we will post links to various need-to-know articles and information.
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
Spotify’s Joe Rogan Problem Continues (For A Third Week)
Just when the controversy surrounding Joe Rogan and Spotify was beginning to quiet this week, a new report from The New York Times has thrown gas on the fire. According to the story, sources inside the streaming giant now say that Rogan’s exclusivity deal was worth north of $200 million—more than $100 million more than previously reported.
Spotify notoriously pays artists roughly $0.004 per song stream. Based on that, it would take approximately 50 BILLION song streams for a musician to make that much money from Spotify.
You could also consider that 50 billion songs are streamed before Spotify pays $200 million to musicians, but the company had no issue paying one person that much for their podcast.
Kanye West says Donda 2 won’t be available on streaming services
Kanye West will release his highly-anticipated new album Donda 2 on February 22 (2-22-22). To date, two songs allegedly off the project have found their way online (“Eazy” and “City of Gods”), but fans may have to work harder to hear the full project. According to West’s Instagram post on Thursday, February 17, Donda 2 will only be available for Kanye’s stem player.
“Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player,” he wrote. “Not on Apple Amazon Spotify or YouTube. Today artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own.” An order page for the Stem Player is currently live; it currently costs $200.
Ticketmaster and Snapchat partner on Ticketmatcher
Snapchat is partnering with Ticketmaster to launch a new way for users to discover live entertainment events within the Snap Map, the company announced on Wednesday. The new feature will be accessible through a new in-app Mini. For context, Snap Minis are third-party programs that live inside Snapchat’s Chat section. The new “Ticketmatcher Mini” matches users with events they might be interested in based on their preferences.
To get started, users can access the Ticketmatcher Mini through the rocket icon in the Chat section of the app. From there, users will be promoted with a brief survey to gauge their interests. The app will then display suggested upcoming shows based on your preferences that you can swipe left and right to browse through. The company sees this as a reimagined dating app that pairs users with interesting events as opposed to partners.
YouTube Ad Revenue Turns Heads
YouTube has long been one of the leading music discovery and consumption sources. The industry loves how easy the platform makes it to stream your favorite artists and discover similar new talent. However, YouTube also offers the lowest royalty rates of any digital music service, which has been a thorn in the side of musicians and professionals alike for years.
This week, the industry got an idea of how much revenue YouTube generates from its content. According to a report from MBW, YouTube is making close to $100 million every day from ad revenue. In fact, having generated $20.21 billion from ads in the first nine months of 2021 and $8.63 billion in Q4, YouTube’s total ads business across the 12 months of 2021 raked in a whopping $28.84 billion.
The Music Industry Still Fears Piracy in 2022
Remember Napster? The idea of downloading illegal MP3s of a new album when services such as Spotify and Apple Music exist may seem anachronistic in 2022. Still, piracy is a threat many continue to fear. As Forbes highlighted this week, a recent report found piracy in 2021 was up more than 15% compared to 2020, and many believe it will continue to worsen.
Snoop Dogg ends Super Bowl week having sold $44 million in “Stash Box” NFTs
It must be nice to be Snoop Dogg. Not only is the living rap legend a beloved pop culture icon worldwide, but he recently celebrated the release of his twentieth studio album, bought Death Row Records, and performed during one of the most critically-acclaimed Super Bowl halftime shows of all time. That alone is worthy of celebration, but Snoop also found success this week in the metaverse. According to reports, Snoop’s “Stash Box” NFT collection, which was released alongside his album, has generated more than $40 million in sales this week. That’s going to fill a lot of doggy bags.
Song Of The Week: Simple Plan- “Ruin My Life” feat. Deryck Whibley
