Vinyl releases from the likes of Taylor Swift, Pink Floyd and Bruno Mars were among the top-sellers from Record Store Day (RSD) 2026 in the United States, according to Luminate.

The yearly independent record store day celebration was held on April 18 and boasted a bevy of albums and singles (mostly vinyl titles) issued for RSD, and exclusively sold through indie record stores.

Following a federal ruling confirming that the BOTS Act doesn’t just apply to bot-powered ticket purchases – or individuals – where does the FTC v. Live Nation case go from here? That pressing question is front of mind for two main reasons. Most immediately, pretty much everyone is aware of states’ recent victory over Live Nation and Ticketmaster. One rollercoaster trial later, a jury determined that the companies had “engaged in unlawful conduct” en route to harming competition and overcharging consumers for tickets.

TikTok has just announced a new optimisation reminiscent of YouTube tags, which could be beneficial for artists reaching their intended audience. 

As app researcher Jonah Manzano posted to Threads, in addition to TikTok’s automatically-added keywords to posts based on popular searches, the feature now also enables users to manage the keywords assigned to uploads as they see fit, to better align content with user searches. 

Suno has formally assumed control of Songkick user data — presumably including artist preferences and location information built up through years of Spotify integration. The news comes five months after Suno acquired the concert discovery platform from Warner Music Group.

Emails sent to Songkick users on Thursday (April 30) confirmed that personal data held by the platform “will be transferred to Suno, who will become the controller responsible for that data going forward.”

According to TIME, Warner Music Group was named to the sixth-annual TIME100 Most Influential Companies list published April 30, 2026, with the magazine citing the company's approach to artificial intelligence. TIME's write-up quoted CEO Robert Kyncl: "AI is a fast-growing phenomenon. It's really important that companies like us stand up for artists and songwriters- do it early, and do it together with AI companies." According to WMG's announcement and the TIME piece, the recognition follows partnerships with AI music companies including Suno, Udio, Klay, and Stability AI, and WMG's public advocacy for the NO FAKES Act. TIME described WMG's approach as built on three pillars: lobbying for the NO FAKES Act; licensing and partnerships to ensure AI tools are trained on licensed music; and deal clauses that give artists choices to opt in or out of AI uses of their name, image, likeness, or voice.

Pollstar, the “Voice of Live,” and Victory Live, a leading-edge technology platform focused on optimizing live event ticketing, announced a data-sharing agreement that will give Pollstar subscribers access to average U.S. secondary-market ticket prices for touring artists directly within artist research pages on Pollstar.com. As part of the partnership, Victory Live will also incorporate Pollstar’s official primary-market ticket price averages into its platform for client use.

Starting today, all Pollstar Pro and Ultimate subscribers will see, where available, a 36-month average U.S. secondary-market ticket price included on Artist Tour History pages. This metric appears beneath each artist’s 36-month average gross, tickets sold, and average ticket

There’s something deeply counterintuitive about the idea that we would go to a pop concert — the most communal-seeming of all gathering places, outside of a football game or church — in order to stop cheering, forget about everyone around us and just go deep into someone’s personal headspace. That is the stuff of live theater, at its best, and not so much Live Nation. But of course Lily Allen is out to blur those lines with her tour of “West End Girl,” the narrative concept record she put out last year. As every fan learned pretty quickly into the run, she is doing the album, the whole album and nothing but the album, adding plenty of acting out and visualization but nothing so much as a “Hello, Cleveland!” to break the fourth wall. It could not be any more of a theater piece if she’d booked the Walter Kerr for six weeks.

The National Independent Talent Organization has elected a new slate of board members, adding four new directors to the trade group representing independent U.S. agents, managers and the artists they serve.

Newly elected to the NITO board are Thomas Cussins, founder and CEO of Ineffable Music Group; Alex Fang, vice president of New Frontier Touring; Liz Pjesky, head of marketing and ticketing at High Road Touring; and Amanda Silecchio-Frederick, artist manager at Madison House.

The audio entertainment company discussed improved customer retention with companion plans and advertising 'momentum,' but declined to address market speculation that it may acquire iHeart Radio.

Believe has unveiled a significant update to its Generative AI policy – one that simultaneously hardens the company’s stance on unlicensed music AI platforms, while deepening its investment in other AI tools.

On the first front: Believe and its global platform for self-releasing artists, TuneCore, are automatically blocking the distribution of AI-generated tracks partly or fully produced on unlicensed “pirate studios”.

High Sierra Music Festival's Dave Margulies spoke with JamBase ahead of the 2026 multi-day event. The 34th annual HSMF returns July 2 – 5, where it will be held for the first time at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley, California.

High Sierra Music Festival has been held annually on 4th of July weekend since its founding in 1991, most recently at Plumas County Fairgrounds in Quincy, California. The 2026 edition marks the festival’s first year at the new Grass Valley site.

Former One Direction singer Zayn Malik, who was hospitalized last month with an unspecified illness, has canceled all U.S. dates for the 2026 tour behind his “Konnakol” album, which was released on April 17. However, dates in the U.K. and Mexico later this month, which take place before the U.S. tour was scheduled to begin, are still for sale on his website.

AEG Presents is expanding its footprint in the promoter space with today’s announcement that the company has formed a strategic partnership with independent comedy touring and promotion company Outback Presents. 

The announcement notes that the “partnership brings together AEG Presents’ global live platform with Outback Presents’ category defining expertise in stand-up comedy, comedy festivals and comedy touring.”

Big news for any wistful former Vine users in the house – the app is getting a reboot, under the new name Divine. 

Divine is offering access to roughly 500,000 restored Vine videos from the original service, as well as offering creators the floor to post new Vines, which has attracted the attention of some of the OG Vine creators.

Readers will recall we previously featured the Capolongo class action against Spotify, which squarely raised the question whether Discovery Mode operates as a payola-like system dressed up as “promotion.” That case has now produced a ruling—but not on the merits. Instead, it fits neatly into a pattern we’ve also covered before, including in Kaiser v. StubHub: when the business model is exposed, platforms don’t defend it in public court. They route the dispute somewhere else, usually to private arbitration.

Whether made by human hand or shady algorithm, emotion-based playlists are everywhere. But if you’re looking for a superior soundtrack to ‘all the feels’, get your ears round these selections from our music writers

The National Independent Talent Organization (NITO), the trade group for U.S. independent agents, managers and the thousands of artists they represent recently held their annual general membership elections for Board Of Directors.

Newly elected to the NITO Board are Thomas Cussins, Founder and CEO of Ineffable Music Group; Alex Fang, Vice President of New Frontier Touring; Liz Pjesky, Head of Marketing and Ticketing at High Road Touring; and Amanda Silecchio-Frederick, Artist Manager at Madison House.

Amy Allen picked up ASCAP‘s top honor in the pop field Thursday night, as the woman responsible for co-writing Sabrina Carpenter’s top hits and other smashes was awarded with the songwriter of the year trophy at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards in Hollywood.

Allen earned the trophy on the strength of Carpenter hits like “Manchild,” “Tears” and “Bed Chem” as well as Rose and Bruno Mars’ “APT.”

Fancy a chat with Charli XCX? If you’re in New York, you may have to join a long queue…

With fans eagerly awaiting her next post-Brat move, the British star’s latest Instagram post reveals plans for something called ‘Conversations’ to be held in New York this month.

The court approved the next post‑trial briefing schedule but will separately hear arguments over how the DOJ settlement review and the states’ broader remedies push should proceed.

A federal judge has scheduled a May 7 conference in the Live Nation‑Ticketmaster antitrust case, setting up the next major procedural fight after a jury found the companies illegally maintained monopoly power: whether the states that prevailed at trial can move quickly toward remedies, or whether Live Nation can delay that phase while its narrower settlement with the Department of Justice is reviewed.

Apple issued a better-than-expected revenue forecast for the current period after beating on sales and earnings in the fiscal second quarter. The stock rose about 3% in extended trading.

Sales for iPhones missed estimates for the second time in three quarters, the only significant number that came up short of expectations in Thursday’s report.

From the ambitions of LA28’s programme through to the needs of independent talent agents – the evolving, complex and increasingly fragmented ticketing landscape came under the microscope at TheTicketingBusiness Forum 2026,

The 14th annual, two-day Forum brought together a global community of industry leaders and expert speakers across a packed programme of debate, discussion and dialogue.

Spotify is rolling out a new Verified status. Starting soon, profiles that the platform has confirmed to represent actual, human artists will get a Verified by Spotify badge with a green checkmark icon. You won’t see the badge on any AI profiles — at least not right now.

In a blog post announcing the initiative, Spotify says artist profiles that meet certain criteria will be eligible for the Verified badge. To be Verified, an artist has to be in compliance with Spotify’s policies and have “identifiable artist presence both on and off-platform.”