Hypebot • new music industry, music marketing & music tech news from across the web

Last week, I went to see one of my favorite artists, Theo Katzman, play the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. Theo, who I recently featured on the New Music Business podcast, is a completely independent artist — no label; no manager. 

I wanted to avoid the exorbitant service fees tacked onto the tickets when purchasing online, so I showed up to the Wiltern’s box office the moment it opened on show day to snag (what I thought would be) a $30 “face value” ticket. However, when it came time to pay, the clerk told me that it would be $35. “There’s a $5 per ticket service fee added” she explained.  I asked her, “How can I avoid the service fee?” She replied: “You can’t.”

Instagram today is rolling out a new feature for adding links to user profiles that challenges Linktree, Beacons and numerous other “link in bio” solution providers. The company announced on Tuesday it will now allow users to add up to five links to their Instagram profile bios, which can direct their followers to other content — like their online businesses, brands they want to promote, causes they care about, or even their profiles on competing social platforms, among other things.

LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) -- A host of artists, celebrities, and organizations within the entertainment industry have rallied around “Drag Isn’t Dangerous,” a new telethon that seeks to assist efforts to combat the recent wave of

AEG Europe has announced the appointment of Lynsey Wollaston as Vice President and General Manager for European Festivals. In her new role at AEG Europe, Lynsey brings over 16 years of commercial and operations experience to oversee the European Festival team's day-to-day operations and play a key role in developing and supporting the strategic vision

A 10-part limited series from Wondrium has the celebrated performer exploring the little-recognized historical roots of the banjo... and its tangled journey as the quintessential American instrument

After the acrimonious takeover battle between BTS-backer Hybe Corp. and tech giant Kakao for control of SM Entertainment, Korea’s financial regulators are probing the deal-making that eventually led to Kakao’s victory.

 NetCredit has analyzed publically available Spotify play data to calculate highest-earning songs on the service, country by country. The result is a lot of data and a glorious array of detailed infographics. 

A song featuring AI-generated vocals purporting to be Drake and the Weeknd has been pulled from streaming services by Universal Music Group (UMG) after going viral over the weekend. The label condemned the song, called Heart on My Sleeve, for “infringing content created with generative AI”.

The track was originally posted on TikTok by a user called Ghostwriter977 and shared on streaming services under the artist name Ghostwriter. By the time it was removed yesterday afternoon US time (17 April), it had racked up 600,000 Spotify streams, 15m TikTok views and 275,000 YouTube views.

AI-powered speech and music recognition company SoundHound has closed a new $125 million loan facility, with what it says is, “$100 million fully-funded” at closing.

The credit agreement also allows SoundHound AI to potentially tap into additional capital of up to $25 million. 

SoundCloud has teamed up with Israel-based music marketing platform Feature.fm to provide independent artists with marketing tools and resources as they launch their careers.

Feature.fm‘s services include shareable and trackable pre-save and smart links, campaign and artist landing pages, real time-analytics, and a self-serve ad platform, among others.

The company claims that it created more than 1 million links for 300,000 artists last year.

Utopia Music is moving through a period of intricate change: it has bought and then subsequently sold both Sentric and Rostr; announced layoffs in November 2022; held a reorganisation that included the departure of its CEO in January 2023; and was sued by SourceAudio, a company it didn’t acquire but allegedly had promised to, in February 2023.

Paramore singer Hayley Williams joined the growing chorus of public critics of Ticketmaster, slamming the ticketing giant owned by promoter Live Nation Entertainment while onstage performing in Cardiff, Wales. Williams, whose group is set to return to North America for a sprawling tour with Bloc party, Foals, The Lind

The company plans to expand distribution for Science Vs and other Gimlet shows in the future. It’s a big change from the streamer’s previous strategy.

Deal follows the news that Latin music officially generated more than $1bn in US recorded music revenue in 2022.

More than 13,000, that's a baker's dozen thousand, Omega bread baskets and dolly equipment belonging to Bakers Basco were recovered from festivals and outdoor events during 2022, following the success of a targeted awareness campaign highlighting the environmental impact of misplaced bakery equipment often left behind at festivals and outdoor events. During the course of

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is lobbying against "Apple's stranglehold" on app stores, speaking with lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

In an unusual move that seems intended to eliminate age-discrimination in music releases, BMG, one of the world’s largest music companies, announced Tuesday that it will abandon the “outdated” industry distinction between “frontline” — a.k.a. new releases — and older catalog recordings.

The company, which notes that older catalog recordings account for up to three quarters of revenue in the streaming era, will fully integrate its new release and catalog recordings businesses. It is the first major company in the industry to do so.

Roxi, a music streaming service for television, has attracted £7 million ($8.7m) in new funding.

The investment comes as Roxi, based in the UK, prepares to launch the service in the US, The Daily Mail reported Saturday (April 15).

According to The Daily Mail, The startup raised the funds from existing investor comedian Alexander Armstrong, as well as U2 guitarist Adam Clayton and the band’s ex-manager Paul McGuinness.

Myxt, an audio file management platform for creators, has raised $2 million in a seed funding round led by Accel Ventures and Quiet Capital.

The firm was founded in 2018 by Chris Wetherell and Sheena Pakanati, early engineers for tech companies including Google, Stripe, and Twitter. 

Coachella has reportedly been fined $117,000 (£94,000/€106,000) for breaking its curfew on all three days of weekend one.