Amazon claims that the subscribers to Amazon Music Unlimited spiked 70% in the last year – totaling 32 million subscribers. But can the behemoth internet company really compete with Spotify? Not really. Much of the Amazon subscribers are older and Amazon isn’t sexy – I don’t think artists are racing towards ‘Amazon Artist of the Month’. Amazon is luring potential prospects through Amazon’s Echo speakers. Although Amazon is betting on its music service, Spotify and Apple and far ahead.

Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ became an overnight smash. But how?

Lil Nas X credits the track viral success to its massive popularity on TikTok.

The rejection of the track on country music charts added to the story but it’s most likely TikTok that turned the song into a meme turning it into a smash hit.

The 19-year old Atlanta rapper has experience with creating memes, becoming a tweetdecker on Twitter as a teen. “I promoted the song as a meme for months until it caught on to TikTok and it became way bigger,” he told Time.

If you are unaware, TikTok is a media app that allows you to create short music videos of 3 to 15 seconds and short looping videos of 3 to 60 seconds. The app is now playing a role in viral trends, spawning internet celebrities and launching songs.

Pollstar releases its midterm road report. So far, Elton John is a hot seller edging out Pink grossing $82 million. Other big tours come from rocks that include Metallica, Fleetwood Mac, KISS, and Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band.

Shawn Mendes clocked in 25 million during his Spring trek through Europe. Post Malone pulled in solid numbers. He racked in $4.3 million from 46,247 tickets at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on May 7-9. He has totaled $36.4 million from 414,782 sold seats.

Riding high from a top 40 hit, Panic At The Disco! grossed $15 million from 252,436 tickets at 29 shows.

Independent artists will need to use a third party distributor like TuneCore & Distrokid to upload their music on Spotify.

Spotify ended the direct-upload program called ‘Spotify for Artists‘ which allowed artists to upload their music without the need of a distributor.

Spotify said, “The best way for us to serve artists and labels is to focus our resources on developing tools in areas where Spotify can uniquely benefit them—like Spotify for Artists… and our playlist submission tool.” “We’re working with our distribution partners to help make this transition as simple as possible for the artists who uploaded music through the beta.”

Big Machine Label Group Scott Borchetta responded to the accusations by Taylor Swift who is upset with the relationship between Borchetta and Scooter Braun and the acquisition deal.

So, it’s time for some truth…

In regard to a post earlier today from Taylor, it’s time to set some things straight.

Taylor’s dad, Scott Swift, was a shareholder in Big Machine Records, LLC. We first alerted all of the shareholders on Thursday, June 20th for an official shareholder’s call scheduled for Tuesday, June 25th. On the 6/25 call the shareholders were made aware of the pending deal with Ithaca Holdings and had 3 days to go over all of the details of the proposed transaction. We then had a final call on Friday, June 28th in which the transaction passed with a majority vote and 3 of the 5 shareholders voting ‘yes’ with 92% of the shareholder’s vote.

Out of courtesy, I personally texted Taylor at 9:06pm, Saturday, June 29th to inform her prior to the story breaking on the morning of Sunday, June 30th so she could hear it directly from me.

I guess it might somehow be possible that her dad Scott, 13 Management lawyer Jay Schaudies (who represented Scott Swift on the shareholder calls) or 13 Management executive and Big Machine LLC shareholder Frank Bell (who was on the shareholder calls) didn’t say anything to Taylor over the prior 5 days. I guess it’s possible that she might not have seen my text. But, I truly doubt that she “woke up to the news when everyone else did”.

I am attaching a few very important deal points in what was part of our official last offer to Taylor Swift to remain at Big Machine Records. Her 13 Management team and attorney Don Passman went over this document in great detail and reported the terms to her in great detail. CONTINUE READING