Morning routines have changed significantly. Every day now looks like the weekend. | | | | Thank you for the face masks: Abba's wax figures at Madame Tussauds Berlin, April 29, 2020.
(Britta Pedersen/Picture Alliance/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Morning routines have changed significantly. Every day now looks like the weekend.”
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| | rantnrave:// "Everything linear dies" was one of SPOTIFY chief DANIEL EK's points of emphasis during the company's Wednesday morning Q1 earnings call. It's a familiar one for a company that aims to steer music fans away from programmed radio listening and toward on-demand streaming listening. It's something of an official Spotify talking point. Ek on Wednesday: "The 20-year trend is that anything linear dies, and on-demand wins." Then-CFO BARRY MCCARTHY in 2018: "The 20-year trend here is linear dies, everything on-demand wins." (H/T STUART DREDGE of MUSICALLY for making the connection.) Should that be a 22-year-trend now? Ek said this year of the quarantine may be speeding the trend along, with listeners having moved out of their cars, where radio is still king, and back into their homes. But the company, which continued to grow its subscriber base during the quarter (there are now 130 million subs worldwide), saw its average revenue per user continue to dip, and with ad revenue also down slightly, Spotify lowered its 2020 revenue projection. The numbers would be considered "mixed under normal circumstances," VARIETY's JEM ASWAD noted, but against the backdrop of a pandemic that's devastated so many industries, Ek and current CEO PAUL VOGEL were "downright enthusiastic at times." Overall usage dipped during the beginning of the pandemic but has spiked again in recent weeks. But linear programming is more than holding its own, too, as the always insightful CHERIE HU points out, in the form of appointment-viewing livestreams that have in many ways become the major music story of the lockdown era. Where's the music zeitgeist in 2020? VERZUZ battles? INSTAGRAM LIVE DJ sets? FORTNITE concerts? Or subscription streaming? Even Spotify has hedged its linear vs. on-demand bets in recent months with features like its podcast-plus-music playlists, which are literally on-demand but which mimic linear programming in spirit. Maybe linear doesn't die. Maybe it has staying power. Maybe our sheltered existence has proved the two spheres can happily co-exist, and they don’t even have to stand six feet away from each other... Spotify's earnings call also highlighted a trend that's been seen elsewhere: a quarantine-inspired push away from new releases and toward the comfort of catalog music. That's been mirrored in the linear livestream world, too, whether it's D-NICE spinning hip-hop, R&B and pop classics or POST MALONE playing an entire set of NIRVANA songs. "I miss the comfort in being sad," he sang, while demonstrating something closer to the comfort in escape and catharsis... Oh, and: Spotify has no current plans to raise its prices, as many artists would like, but Ek told MusicAlly, "It’s definitely encouraging to see we have that opportunity for when the economy improves, and (when) we feel that’s the right trade-off to make"... The late HAL WILLNER's final project, his T. REX tribute album featuring ELTON JOHN, U2, JOAN JETT and more, is coming Sept. 4... Hugs to the crew at my old haunt MTV NEWS, one of the departments hit hard in Wednesday's VIACOMCBS layoffs. A lot of good writers lost their jobs, which is happening with terrible frequency these days... What would a new (but old) OASIS demo be without a new new Oasis feud?... RIP BOB FOUTS and JOE PRIESNITZ. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| When we listen to a “live” recording, we project ourselves into an event that we couldn’t have experienced firsthand. | | |
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| Sports and live music venues could take on a much different look after COVID-19, starting with fans being sprayed with sanitizer before entering the building or event space. | | |
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| A collection of memories, stories, and tributes from some of his closest friends and collaborators. | | |
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| Veteran artist manager le'Roy Benros pens a guest editorial, breaking down how he and his team created an 11-country virtual world tour in three weeks. | | |
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| The recording career of country music’s greatest artist, surveyed, sized up, and sorted. | | |
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| To lift spirits and lessen isolation during this dark time, Tim Burgess of Manchester’s Charlatans has invited the world over to his house for a listening party. He spins records, including his own but also by other bands, inviting members of Oasis, Supergrass, Flaming Lips, Idles, the Cult, The The, the Pogues, the Libertines and many others to talk about their music while music fans around the world chime in too. | | |
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| Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and CFO Paul Vogel have been fielding questions from analysts following the company's publication of its Q1 2020 financial results. | | |
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| As social distancing stretches on, songwriters, labels, and music supervisors all want one thing: Songs that are happy. | | |
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| In a broadcast exclusive, world-renowned singer-songwriter Fiona Apple joins Democracy Now! for the hour to discuss her critically acclaimed new album, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” which was released early amid the pandemic. “I’ve heard that it’s actually making people feel free and happy,” Apple says, “and it might be helping people feel alive or feel their anger or feel creative. And that’s the best thing that I could hope for.” | | |
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| When we talk about the influence of American performers on African music, we usually think about a few obvious examples, legends like Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix or James Brown. In this episode, we go beyond these stars to explore the legacy of some lesser-known inspirations. | | |
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| Artists and administrators wrestle with how to make art-and money-in the age of coronavirus. | | |
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| The revival of record industry fortunes in recent years is credited often to Spotify, or streaming more broadly, and is often another example of technology advancing a slow moving industry. If only. | | |
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| Travis Scott's "Fortnite" event showed what's possible and that there are more opportunities out there. | | |
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| Apropos of nothing, "E=MC2" hit number one on the iTunes chart this week and has held the spot ever since. | | |
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| The musician Mike Hadreas wanted “new rules” for himself. After a pivotal collaboration with a dance group, he’s returning with a thrilling album, “Set My Heart on Fire Immediately.” | | |
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| From Imogen Heap to Frank Ocean, the songs that are laced through the years-spanning love story give it new life. Here, the people behind those musical choices explain their process. | | |
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| Poster artist Randy Tuten found his inspiration in beer bottles. | | |
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| Deborah Borda, now head of the New York Philharmonic, talks leadership in the coronavirus crisis. Her strategy: Invest in a future that people want. | | |
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| Atlantic Records' in-house producer Ebonie Smith discusses how she approaches production, lessons learned across her career, and why she’d like to do away with the term 'urban.' | | |
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| It was June of 2014, and an unsolicited submission came into my inbox from an artist named Luke Bell, accompanied by a BandCamp link to an album called 'Don't Mind If I Do.' Nearly six years later, the most common query that lands into that same inbox that Luke Bell first submitted his music to is "Where is Luke Bell?" | | |
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| | | | | Megan Thee Stallion feat. Beyoncé |
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