A midyear report was released from Luminate that reports on music industry trends and insights. The findings show that new music is decreasing in popularity while old music is more popular than ever, in other words, catalog’ is crushing current music. While the new releases get all the press, it comes to a shock that new songs make up less than 5% of the overall streams.

The answer is why?

Big hits and blockbusters are less frequent. Also, the hits that are massive, don’t have the same reach like the hits of yesterday, simply, the big hit isn’t that big anymore. Olivia Rodrigo delivered a multi-format blockbuster, but as big as the album was, it wasn’t as big as Adele’s 21.

The bigger story is old artists trump new artists. The idea that younger folks reject their parents’ taste in music is a farce. College students can identify older pop and rock songs as easily as the new stuff and in many instances, they like the older music compared to current tracks. .

What’s Next?

People are hoping that some kid somewhere will break all the rules and make things exciting again and just possibly change the world.

With so many artists cancelling shows , it’s hard to keep count. As of last week, Shawn Mendes has pulled out off the road due to mental health concerns.

Mendes posted an update to Twitter that he’s canceling the next three weeks of shows citing mental fatigue. That’s eleven shows. “I’ve reached the breaking point,” he says.

Mendes was just a kid who idolized Justin Bieber, and like his predecessor, got caught up in the pop machine. Touring got grueling for Mendes who got his start in 2013 after he posted a cover from Justin Bieber’s on the social video app Vine which quickly followed a record deal on Island Records.

Mendes spent his 10 year run dabbling in acting, modeling, and music which followed several world tours and high profile celebrity relationships. It’s exhausting that quickly leads to burn out.

Elon Musk has cancelled the Twitter deal. The deal was pulled because Musk cannot verify authentic Twitter accounts.

“My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate,” Musk previously said in a tweet. “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does.”

A letter sent by the Telsa CEO’s legal team to Twitter on Friday said that the agreement was being “terminated” due to Twitter allegedly making “false and misleading representations” regarding “fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform.” Twitter’s stock price sunk following the statement, dropping 5.3 percent after the market closed.

Singer Kate Bush has garnered new fans after her 1985 hit Running Up That Hill appeared in Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things. She also made out big earning about $2.3 million in streaming royalties according to Luminate. She also owns the copyright to her recordings, and will keep the bulk of that money.

Stranger Things 4 hit 1 billion hours viewed which makes the show the second most-watched Netflix season ever, after Squid Game in 2021. It was in Netflix’s Top 10 in 93 different countries this weekend, the company says.

The FCC is calling on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from its App Stores claiming national security concerns.

The FCC commissioner said ByteDance, a Chinese-based parent company is beholden to the Chinese government and required by law to comply with (Chinese government) surveillance demands. The FCC has claimed ByteDance staff had accessed US TikTok users date repeatedly and is out of compliance.

TikTok has openly admitted it can access user data outside of the U.S. including China.