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

Madeline Nelson (Amazon Music) and Jennifer Masset (Spotify) to keynote; Recording Academy roundtables, Web3 series, and CLE announced!

The music industry is no stranger to change. From vinyl to cassette tapes, CDs, and now streaming, the way we consume music has evolved dramatically over the past few decades. However, the industry is now facing a new challenge – an inundation of music content. With the advent of AI-generated music, the industry is about to experience a flood of new tracks, and the current tools in use may not be enough to navigate this new world.

WASHINGTON D.C. (CelebrityAccess) - Music tech company SoundExchange announced the launch of a new partnership with music metadata company Music Story, to enhance SoundExchange's existing sound recordings database. Under the terms of the deal, SoundExchange will

The climate campaigning organisation Music Declares Emergency has launched a new initiative, Fan Club for Climate, “a community of music-lovers who care about the planet.” The fan club is a weekly newsletter containing “inspiring messages from musicians” and tips on making climate-positive decisions, but it’s also a network-building exercise.

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.

It’s crucial for artists to have a strong online presence – however, with so many platforms available, it can be challenging to know which ones are impactful and where to focus your marketing efforts. This is the problem Immensity hopes to solve. Immensity is a tool that takes all the data from online platforms – as well as custom datasets – and analyses them to help artists’ teams see which platforms are driving the growth of specific metrics, such as engagement and streaming. This insight should then help marketers optimise their campaigns.

Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Amy Grant, Kacey Musgraves, Jason Isbell, Maren Morris, Margo Price, Mickey Guyton, Kelsea Ballerini and dozens of other top Nashville musicians are calling for the Tennessee General Assembly to pass “common sense gun safety legislation” before lawmakers end their session a few days from now, according to a report in the Tennessean. (A complete list of signees is below.)

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.

Instagram has been famously restrictive when allowing users to post links to external websites: only one link was allowed, and that was only possible in your bio at the top of the profile, not in text accompanying posts; hence the endless pleas to “see link in bio”. Now that’s changed: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news that Instagram (which is owned by Meta) will support up to five links via his Broadcast Channel (Instagram’s public messaging tool).