Music Biz Monday // 8.26

Every Monday, we’re sharing the latest news and information for the music industry and technology worldwide.

Get your learn on and stay in the know with Symphonic’s Music Biz Monday!

Apple Music Relaunches Best of The Week Playlist With New Name

Apple Music has been updating a number of its marquee playlists over the past month, but the biggest came Friday (Aug. 23), as the streaming service rebrands Best of The Week — consistently one of Apple Music’s top 10 playlists — as New Music Daily, which the company is calling its first “premiere global editorial playlist.”

New Music Daily is Apple Music’s vehicle to debut and highlight new music on the platform. The multi-genre playlist will feature 60 songs and Apple Music editors will choose a new song every day to lead New Music Daily, and that artist will be the cover star for the playlist. Normally, New Music Daily will be updated every day with a new lead song and cover star between Monday and Friday, but for the first 30 days the playlist will be updated seven days a week.

\\ Read more on Billboard //

SPOTIFY GETS MORE FREE: 3 MONTH PREMIUM TRIAL LAUNCHED FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS, RIVALING APPLE MUSIC

There is sometimes a tense relationship between Spotify and music-rightsholders when it comes to the service’s aggressive Premium price promotions.

Record labels have become accustomed to seeing SPOT launch a deal, a couple of times a year, which tempts new subscribers to the service by offering them three months of Premium access for just $0.99. (A typical individual Spotify US subscription, of course, costs $9.99 a month.)

\\ Read more on Music Business Worldwide //

How Artist Imposters and Fake Songs Sneak Onto Streaming Services

Last December, new music from Beyoncé and SZA appeared out of nowhere on Spotify and Apple Music. Released under the names “Queen Carter” and “Sister Solana” respectively, these full-length projects initially seemed like surprise drops with a twist. Soon fans realized that something wasn’t right: Many of the Beyoncé recordings came from old sessions, and the SZA songs sounded like unfinished demos, which the singer later confirmed. Neither Beyoncé nor SZA had anything to do with the releases, in fact. It wasn’t the first time a big artist’s music had been uploaded illegally to Spotify and Apple Music, and it wouldn’t be the last.

In the most troubling of these scenarios, fake releases have actually crept up the streaming charts. In March 2019, when a fake Rihanna album called Angel was uploaded to iTunes and Apple Music under the name “Fenty Fantasia,” it made it as far as No. 67 on the iTunes worldwide albums chart before being yanked off the platform. Then, in May, a leak of Playboi Carti and Young Nudy’s “Pissy Pamper / Kid Cudi” was uploaded to Spotify as “Kid Carti,” under the artist name “Lil Kambo.” Two million-plus streams later, “Kid Carti” topped the service’s U.S. Viral 50 chart before being removed. Ironically, “Pissy Pamper / Kid Cudi” was never released officially because of sample clearance issues involving Mai Yamane, whose 1980 song “Tasogare” serves as the basis for its beat. None of the involved artists—Yamane, Carti, Nudy—ultimately saw a dime from streams of the song.

\\ Read more on Pitchfork //

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE STORY OF SPOTIFY: THE TV SHOW

Yellow Bird UK, a Banijay Group company, has optioned the screen rights for Sven Carlsson and Jonas Leijonhufvud’s tell-all novel, Spotify Untold (Spotify Inifrån).

The book is currently in development for a limited series which “will examine how a secretive start-up wooed record companies, shook the music industry to its core, and conquered Wall Street,” according to a press release.

\\ Read more on Music Business Worldwide //

ERIC PRYDZ’S 5-TON HOLOSPHERE SHOWS THE AMBITIOUS FUTURE OF CONCERT TECH

Swedish DJ and producer Eric Prydz and his team are behind some of dance music’s most extravagant and tech-forward events. His latest effort is his most ambitious — and potentially his shortest run ever. It’s called EPIC 6.0: Holosphere, and after years of development the multi-story, transparent LED sphere only saw one performance at Belgium’s Tomorrowland festival. “What a lot of people don’t realize,” Prydz tells me, “is that even though they buy a ticket and they come to see the show and it’s two hours, for us, it’s been two years.”

\\ Read more on The Verge //