Spotify is the first music-streaming service to reach 100 million monthly active users, the company confirmed to The Telegraph today. The announcement comes three months after the service reached 30 million paid subscribers and raised $1 billion in debt financing for its fight against Apple Music.
Tumblr to launch live video on Tuesday
Twitter has Periscope. Amazon has Twitch. Google has YouTube’s live streaming. And Facebook has Facebook Live. Now, Tumblr is getting into live video, too. The company is preparing to launch a new live video feature on its service, beginning tomorrow, which will introduce a series of live broadcasts as well as a user-facing feature that could compete with Facebook Live, among other things.
British people increasingly turning to subscription services, research finds
Carried out by YouGov for e-commerce firm Zuora, the research reckons that 13.9 million people in the UK are now signed up to video-on-demand services. In music, it estimates that 5.9 million are signed up to Spotify in one way or another (which sounds a little low), and 2.9 million are currently hooked into Apple Music (which sounds a little high).
You Can Watch “Mean Girls” In Toronto With Lindsay Lohan
On June 22 in Toronto, you can, in fact, sit with us.
Written by the incomparable Tina Fey, Mean Girlsis a funny, clever satire of high school cliques, starring Lindsay Lohan and Ontario’s own Rachel McAdams.
See La Lohan in her career defining tour de force performance, as we so desperately want to remember her. (Those freckles!) Unleash your inner Regina, Gretchen or Karen and bring your fellow Plastics for a très cute movie date under the stars on the pier.
Join TIFF for an online movie party on an interactive platform, featuring some special guests! Connect at synaptop.com via video and text with stars and fellow fans, from wherever you are.
The screening will be live-commentated by Mean Girls’ star and gay icon Daniel Franzese (of Mean Girls and HBO’s Looking).
Simple Plan Add Fall Canadian Headline Dates To Extensive 2016 Tour Schedule
Multiplatinum-band Simple Plan have announced a 6-date Canadian tour that will see them play arenas this November in London, ON; Toronto; Ottawa; Quebec City; Halifax; and Montreal.
Fan club members will have access to tickets starting tomorrow. Tickets go on sale to the public on Thursday in Quebec City and Montreal, and Friday for the other four dates. Opening each date will be pop-punkers All Time Low and American band PVRIS.
“We are extremely excited to once again have the privilege to headline a huge arena tour back at home in Canada,” says the band. “All the love and support we get from our Canadian fans is very special to us and we absolutely love playing shows for them. We’re also really stoked to bring along All-Time Low and PVRIS with us, two amazing bands that we love and that we know our fans will be thrilled about. These shows are gonna be a blast and we already can’t wait for November!”
The tour is in support of the band’s fifth studio album Taking One For The Team. Simple Plan will also be touring all over Canada this summer with select festival dates (full list below), as well as joining Blink-182 and The Used at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg on July 7.
Last week, Alternative Press named Simple Plan one of the 10 most influential bands in pop punk. “While the album titles have gotten a tad more mature, their music still sounds made for every summer vacation,” writes the magazine. “Simple Plan aren’t afraid to take risks and still keep coming out with awesome pop-influence albums.”
The band recently released a video for their latest single, “Singing In The Rain,” that takes the band back to 1964. The video is streaming on the band’s YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/bSO6ikrxSqk.
“The video for “Singing In The Rain” is a love letter to one of our favourite movies of all time, ‘That Thing You Do.’ It’s about the exhilarating power that 3 chords, a drum beat and a catchy melody can have on the lives of the people who create it. The video takes you on the magical journey from rehearsing in a garage to playing stadiums and topping the charts. and the roller-coaster ride that is the music industry: both exhilarating and extraordinary, heartbreaking and bittersweet,” says the band.
Taking One For The Team album also features “Boom,” “Opinion Overload,” “Farewell (feat. Jordan Pundik),” “Perfectly Perfect,” and “I Don’t Wanna Go To Bed (feat. Nelly).”
Canadian summer tour dates:
JULY 7 WINNIPEG MTS Centre (With Blink 182)
JULY 17 CALGARY Stampede
JULY 30 EDMONTON K-Days
JULY 31 TUMBER RIDGE, BC Grizfest
AUGUST 6 LEWISPORTE, NL Mussel Bed Soiree
AUGUST 11 SASKATOON Saskatoon Exhibition
AUGUST 13 RAWDON, QC Parc de la Plage
AUGUST 19 ACTON VALE, QC Le Show De La Rentree
AUGUST 20 SMOOTH ROCK FALLS, ON Smooth Truck Fest
AUGUST 25 VANCOUVER PNE
Fall arena tour:
NOVEMBER 17 LONDON, ON Budweiser Gardens
NOVEMBER 18 TORONTO Air Canada Centre
NOVEMBER 19 OTTAWA TD Place Arena
NOVEMBER 21 QUEBEC CITY Videotron Centre
NOVEMBER 22 HALIFAX Scotiabank Metro Centre
NOVEMBER 23 MONTREAL Bell Centre (PVRIS only/Main Support TBA)
The List Of Winners IHeartRadio Canada Much Music Video Awards
Between the explosive live performances from artists like Hedley and Fifth Harmony and fans screaming at the top of their lungs for Shawn Mendes, Shawn Hook and Alessia Cara, there were a bunch of hardware handed out at the IHeartRadio Canada Much Music Video Awards on Sunday night. For video footage of the press Q&A, you can check out my Periscopes here.
Here’s a list of who took home the prizes:
Video of the year: Drake – “Hotline Bling”
Best post-production: Majid Jordan – “Every Step Every Way”
Best EDM/dance video: Grandtheft (featuring Lowell) – “Quit This City”
Best director: Drake – “Hotline Bling,” Director X
Best pop video: Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello – “I Know What You Did Last Summer”
Best rock or alternative video: The Strumbellas – “Spirits”
Best hip hop video: Drake – “Hotline Bling”
Best MuchFact video: Majid Jordan (featuring Drake) – “My Love”
IHeartRadio international Artist of the Year: Nick Jonas
Most buzzworthy Canadian: Drake
Most buzzworthy international artist or group: Fifth Harmony
Best new Candaian artist: Alessia Cara
IHeartRadio international duo or group of the year: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
IHeartRadio Canadian single of the year: The Weeknd – “Can’t Feel My Face”
Fan Fave artist/group: Justin Bieber
Fan fave video: Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello – “I Know What You Did Last Summer”
Fan fave international aritst or group: Fifth Harmony
Fan fave Vine musician: Rajiv Dhall
Daniel Lanois On “His” Sound, And Working With Brian Eno And U2
People talk about the Lanois sound. What, to you, is your sound?
Daniel Lanois: Maybe in the ’80s it was more specific to a certain approach, when I was doing a lot of records with Eno. We did a lot of textural work and I was really just serving Brian and his vision with those records, but I really got hooked on my effects. Since then, things have evolved and I don’t use so much of that now. My recent record coming out in the fall called Goodbye to Language, I developed this system of taking samples of already existing components and extracting them from—putting them out of sync with the track and then doctoring them externally through other boxes, maybe changing them to slow them down, and if I hit on something special then I go back in and find a spot for that special sound back into the track. It won’t work for most of the songs. I just run it randomly.
Is there a moment where you say, “Listen, guys, why don’t you try this instead?”
Lanois: There have been cases where maybe we just haven’t gotten the magic yet, and everybody is hoping to get it, and the best way to make a suggestion is to play a suggestion rather than talk about a suggestion. I reference the U2 song named “Beautiful Day.” We’d done a hand-played version of it, which never quite found its magic. So Eno and myself designed a more electronic, electro angle on it, which was built on a box [sings]—quite Germanic. We quickly put a version of it together in the morning prior to the band’s arrival and when they came in, they said, “What’s that? That sounds interesting.” We said, “Well, that’s your song. It’s just a rendition of it.” What was nice for Larry [Mullen] on drums, it got him away from the responsibility of playing the straight beat, so it gave him some freedom to experiment with something more unusual on the top. Sometimes people just need a little more of encouragement to go in a different direction. I never tell people that they’re wrong, or that it should be done this way rather than that. We might promote another approach, but by example, never by criticism. Criticism doesn’t work that way.
Watch a filmed version of Paul McCartney speaking to BBC 4’s John Wilson about his career.
In this filmed version of Mastertapes, Paul McCartney talks to John Wilson about his career and answers questions from the audience at Maida Vale studios.
Indie labels have 38% recorded music market share, contributed $5.6 billion to global music industry
New research undertaken by The Worldwide Independent Network (WIN), the organization that represents the interests of the global independent music community, has provided the most accurate picture to date of the global value of the independent music sector.
The new report, entitled WINTEL, was commissioned by WIN to analyse the global economic and cultural impact of the independent music sector. It is authored by Mark Mulligan of MIDiA Research in conjunction with Dr. Chris Bilton from Warwick University’s Centre for Cultural Policy.
The report will be launched at Midem on Friday.
Key findings from the research include the fact that, based on rights ownership, the global market share of independent record labels is 37.6%, representing $5.6 billion in 2015.
Beneath the global figure there is a hugely diverse range of national trends, with independent label market share ranging from just 16% in Finland up to 88% in South Korea.
The report focuses on the criterion of value ‘based on rights ownership’ when analyzing market share. This is an important distinction because, where independent companies use major labels in various territories around the world to distribute their music, the major labels include the value of revenues derived from the distribution of independently owned rights into the label’s assessment of the majors’ own market share.
Most independent labels do not have the international infrastructure needed to compete globally. The WINTEL report establishes that approximately 72% use international distributors and 52% use major labels or major label owned distributors. The claiming of market share by international corporations, which should be attributed to independent right holders, distorts the true picture of market value. WINTEL’s analysis by reference to rights ownership provides a much more accurate overview of the marketplace.
It is also important because market share is used by the leading digital music companies such as Apple, Google and Spotify in negotiations with the independent sector and often determines the levels of remuneration paid by these companies to music right holders.
To emphasize this point, the report also makes clear that digital music, and streaming in particular, has created increased opportunities for independent labels and that in virtually every country independent labels have significantly higher market share in streaming than they do in physical formats.
The report also found that averaging 19 years in operation, independent record labels have built sustainable businesses in the digital era. With an average roster of 40 artists each, they provide a crucial platform for artists that do not fit the major label ‘mainstream model’ yet have built broad audiences beyond ‘DIY’ platforms, locally and internationally.
This diversity on both a national and international level is hugely valuable to the cultural life of countries all over the world, giving a platform to artists that otherwise might not have the opportunity to reach a wider audience. Independent labels are the bridge between indigenous cultural content and global markets, while still maintaining the integrity and authenticity of differing traditions.
Alison Wenham, CEO of WIN said, “This is an important report, giving us the first truly global overview of the economic and cultural value of independent music. With a 37.6% market share based on rights ownership, and a contribution of $5.6 billion it is clear that the independent music community is playing an increasingly important part within the global music industry. Quite apart from the significance of the independent sector’s real market share, the vital contribution to the creation of local music in countries around the world assures that the cultural value and contribution of music is in very good hands with the independent sector.”
The full report can be downloaded as a PDF file