The Blues Foundation will mark its 45th anniversary next year by honoring the 2026 Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) Award recipients during International Blues Challenge (IBC) Week, January 13–17, 2026, in Memphis.

This year’s honorees are: Cognac Blues Passions, John Anderson, Jeff Davis, Michael Gray, Jazz Alley, Nola Blue, Jim Hartzell, Robert Terrell, and Mark Jacobson.

Billboard and Rolling Stone owner Penske Media has taken its Google antitrust lawsuit to the next level with an amended complaint. Meanwhile, the court has rejected the tech giant’s dismissal motion. Penske submitted the 108-page amended action yesterday, after filing the original suit in September. As we reported then, the company is accusing Google of leveraging its search “monopoly” by effectively compelling publishers to consent to providing content for AI summaries and training.

Many users of the app were shocked, this week, by this addition to the Spotify Wrapped roundup – especially twentysomethings who were judged to be 100  “Age is just a number. So don’t take this personally.” Those words were the first inkling I had that I was about to receive some very bad news.

I woke up on Wednesday with a mild hangover after celebrating my 44th birthday. Unfortunately for me, this was the day Spotify released “Spotify Wrapped”, its analysis of (in my case) the 4,863 minutes I had spent listening to music on its platform over the past year. And this year, for the first time, they are calculating the “listening age” of all their users.

Spotify says yesterday’s launch of its annual year-in-review feature, Spotify Wrapped, was its biggest ever. The streaming service reports that Wrapped 2025 saw over 200 million engaged users within the first 24 hours, 19% more than last year’s AI-centered flop. Last year, it took Wrapped 62 hours to reach 200 million users, the company noted.

Engaged users are counted as those who have viewed at least one of the stories within the Wrapped experience.

In addition, Spotify said Wrapped was shared more than 500 million times this year, 41% more than last year. This includes native shares from within the app, as well as screenshots and downloads.

In particular, markets like the U.S., India, Indonesia, Japan, Colombia, and Thailand drove the metrics this year.

Much of the news around big concerts generating funds to support smaller venues has come from the UK. However, this is a trend that’s growing elsewhere in the world too, including Australia.

Olivia Dean’s upcoming arena tour there will see A$1.10 from every ticket sold donated to the Australian Music Venue Foundation to support its grassroots work across the country.

Dean is working with charity Plus1 on the initiative, and AMVF says she’s the first artist to participate in its funding drive in this way.

A few months ago, YouTube launched their Collaboration feature — joining Instagram and TikTok in allowing creators to post a video with more than one collaborator. Allowing up to five channels, the upload will feature each channel’s name and subscribe button. All views will count for each individual channel. 

When it comes to artist channels, uploads from other channels have long counted towards the artist’s views if they contain a substantial snippet of the artist’s recorded music. The new feature now makes it possible to include different types of content. It also reaches each channel’s subscribers more effectively.

Jody Williams, Founder and CEO of independent music publishing company Jody Williams Songs (JWS), has taken on management duties for Vince Gill under his new management company, Little Guitar Management.

Williams has served as Gill’s publisher for four years. Larry Fitzgerald, Gill’s manager for over forty years, remains as consultant to Williams. Long-time colleague to Fitzgerald, Jennifer Templeton remains as Gill’s day-to-day manager.

Music-publishing trade body IMPF has weighed in to the debates about GenAI licensing deals, urging its members to “say with conviction that they will not accept AI licensing agreements that do not allocate 50% of proceeds to songwriters and publishers”.

This is an argument that has been brewing for a few months now in the run-up to the first deals brokered with AI firms by major labels. While one company – ElevenLabs – is treating songs and recordings with parity in its deals with Merlin and Kobalt, the terms of other GenAI deals are unclear at this point.

We’re making it easier to access 24/7 account support on Facebook and Instagram with new tools like a centralized support hub.

In the past year, new account hacks decreased by more than 30% globally on Facebook and Instagram, and recovering an account is now faster and simpler with the help of AI — the relative success rate of hacked account recovery has increased by more than 30% in the US and Canada this year.

We’ve also improved how to recover your account if you ever lose access with smarter, adaptive processes.

The acquisition price for the events marketplace is a fraction of the $1.76 billion valuation it achieved during its 2018 IPO.

How big was Black Friday weekend for TikTok’s shopping arm? Huge, at least in the US. “Over the four-day shopping period alone, TikTok Shop saw extraordinary growth, with sales exceeding $500 million,” announced TikTok yesterday.

It added that nearly 50% more shoppers bought from the platform during this year’s event than last year’s. It wasn’t such a happy weekend for sellers of fraudulent products though: TikTok said that it rejected more than 40m listings “for IPR violations” [intellectual property rights].

After a run of more than 35 years, the prominent independent boutique agency Skyline Artists announced it is shutting its doors for good.

“We knew after the pandemic that it was time to wind things down,” said Skyline founder and president Bruce Houghton. “But I wanted to do it the right way and that took time.”

Early in Skyline’s history acts like Foghat, The Outlaws, Johnny Winter and Rick Danko helped to put the agency on the map. Later, the agency represented an eclectic roster of long-term clients ranging from George Winston to Solomon Burke and The Von Trapps to Merl Saunders

Americana was also a successful niche for Skyline ranging from legacy artists like Roger McGuinn and Tom Rush to the more contemporary including Darlingside and Gangstagrass.

Many artists including Pure Prairie League, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Firefall, Orleans and The Machine had been with Houghton for more than two decades.

Apple Music is getting ahead of Spotify Wrapped with the launch of its yearly recaps. This year’s Apple Music Replay is available natively within the app and comes packed with even more listening stats, allowing you to review all the new artists you listened to, which ones you kept returning to, and who made a comeback in your playlist.

It also highlights your most-listened-to songs, how many artists you listened to, your favorite genres, and how much time you spent listening to music on the app. There’s a shareable highlight reel as well, which you can post to apps like Instagram and TikTok. Apple already offers monthly music recaps and the ability to review all your listening stats, but it’s always fun to see how your taste has evolved throughout the year.

The Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart has said artificial intelligence is an “unstoppable force”, and musicians and other artists should bow to the inevitable and license their music to generative AI platforms.

These platforms use artificial intelligence to analyse existing songs and tracks, using that knowledge to generate completely new ones as prompted by a user. For example, someone could ask the AI platform to generate a song about a boozy night out in the style of a Britpop band, and it wo

Few lawsuits have the potential to reshape an entire industry. But Live Nation, long the dominant force in live entertainment, now faces a cascade of legal challenges that could do just that. For companies in the live entertainment and production sector, or those relying on mass arbitration clauses, exclusivity provisions, or vertically integrated platforms, the outcome could reconfigure the legal framework that has governed their operations for decades.

Earlier this week, Spotify unveiled—or should we say, unwrapped?—the 2025 edition of Wrapped, its annual recap of what users listened to, and this time, it comes with (ahem) more layers than ever before.

In addition to the classic features, there are several new and updated ways for listeners to connect and dig deeper into the moments that defined their year in music streaming. They can now also control the speed of the experience and revisit specific features without starting from the beginning.  

The International Live Music Conference (ILMC) has announced an expansive agenda for its 38th edition, set for 24-27 February at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel.

From global deals, AI, and free speech to country, K-pop, and new markets, the programme for the world’s largest gathering of live music executives is bigger and broader than ever before.

Asia Live will make its debut, with three dedicated panels shining a light on the dynamic region, while Middle East Live returns to highlight one of the world’s fastest growing regions. The latter is supported by Theory Eleven Entertainment, Blu Blood Middle East, and PRG, and will feature three panels on topics like venue development, cultural growth, and regional touring.

As previously announced, CAA’s Rob Light is set to make his debut appearance at ILMC as he sits down for the Hot Seat Interview, unpacking his storied career in the industry.

2025 is ending with some positive news for young creatives in Detroit, and it’s down to artists Big Sean and Usher.

The stars are investing $1m into a project called the Detroit Entertainment Innovation Incubator. It’s a production facility within the soon-to-open Michigan Central Boys & Girls Club.

The club said that the new facility will offer “a full suite of advanced programming that equips young people ages 14–24 for high-growth careers from film, television, and music production to AI, 3D, immersive technologies, and special effects”, with mentorship and seed funding for startups also part of itsplans.

Morgan Pitt has been named Director Of Booking for Geodis Park and the Wicks Family Field at Joe Davis Stadium, home of the Nashville Soccer Club.

Most recently, Pitt served as Senior Concerts Booking Manager for Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, helping secure performances from Ed Sheeran, Marcus Mumford, Mitski, Bob Weir, Goose, Sierra Ferrell, and others. Prior to joining the Ryman team, she gained experience in multiple roles across the sports and entertainment industry including time with the Boston Red Sox, the Madison Square Garden Company (MSG), and NBC News.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday granted a full and unconditional pardon to music industry executive and Oak View Group co-founder Tim Leiweke.

Leiweke faced a single federal felony charge of restraining trade after he was accused by the Justice Department in July of orchestrating a bid-rigging scheme to build and operate an arena at the University of Texas’ Moody Center in Austin.

Prosecutors alleged that Leiweke conspired with the CEO of Legends Hospitality to rig the bidding process to ensure that Oak View Group would become the only qualified bidder.

“We’re not an independent label. We’re a pissed-off startup. That’s what I call it,” says producer Joey Moi, one of the three chiefs of Big Loud Records, along with Seth England and Joey Moi. It’s good rhetoric, but at the very least, Big Loud gets to be both those things, when they’re not being mistaken for a major, with a level of success that includes the biggest male artist in the music business, Morgan Wallen.

This Friday, December 5, marks the final Bandcamp Friday of 2025. 

Fans continue to show up, and artists consistently tell us how meaningful these days are, so to build on that momentum, we are adding more Bandcamp Fridays next year, bringing the total to eight. More moments to discover new music, more opportunities to support the people who make it.

After spending the last three years in North Texas, the annual Academy of Country Music Awards will make its return to Las Vegas in 2026.

Now in its 61st year, the team behind the ACMs, including the Academy of Country Music, Amazon Prim eand production partner Dick Clark Productions announced that the 2026 ACMs will take place at MGM Grand Garden Arena on Sunday, May 17.

The show will be livestreamed on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on the Twitch streaming platform.