The Canadian streaming king was immune to COV19. The Weeknd had an explosive week despite around the clock media coverage on the pandemic. His new album After Hours (Republic) moved 400k+ units.

It worked for The Weeknd but it may not work for everybody. One may think it’s easy to go unnoticed when the media has grasped the public’s attention with social distancing and self-quarantine measures. For instance, French singer Thomas Dutronc, who has Iggy Pop on his new album has delayed the release.
Is it a good time to release music? Established artists with expectations should probably wait until the seas calm down. They certainly won’t get the eyeballs they are looking for. Also, tours are postponed indefinitely.
In times of hardship, people want to explore new terrain and leave the familiar. Lets call it the new normal. Lesser known artists without a huge fan base and promo runs will benefit. People seek out new artists, new ideas, and new reads in a crisis because they want solutions and new experiences. New artists should release lots of new music now. Artists are living through history. This history will produce a new crop of artists that will spark generational change.
New artists could even garner that much more attention if they could get those ‘Pre-COV19’ artists to stop diverting attention on themselves with silly live streaming shenanigans.

Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation have filed takedown notices against “deepfake” videos that use artificial intelligence to make him rap Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire and Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy.

Here is the video, it’s pretty cool, even though Jay Z wants nothing part of it.
The anonymous creator of the YouTube-hosted videos, known as Vocal Synthesis, has said that copyright notices were filed by Roc Nation, stating: “This content unlawfully uses an AI to impersonate our client’s voice.” The two aforementioned videos have been removed, though others remain, including one of the rapper taking on the Book of Genesis.

Spotify added another 6 million subscribers in the first quarter. Still they are lowering expectations as ad sales got hit by the fallout of the pandemic.

Spotify said streaming of its music and podcasts is on the rebound and in many markets has already “meaningfully recovered.”
Spotify’s total subscriber base, which includes paid subscribers and subscribers that opt for Spotify’s free service with ads, reached 286 million, at the high end of the company’s expectations.
“Despite the global uncertainty around COVID-19 in Q1, our business met or exceeded our forecast for all major metrics,” the company said in it letter to shareholders. “For Q2 and the remainder of the year, our outlook for most of our key performance indicators has remained unchanged with the exception of revenue where a slowdown in advertising and significant changes in currency rates are having an impact.”

If it’s not revisiting old drama with Kardashians then Taylor Swift is attacking Bieber manager Scooter Braun for buying her masters. She had a chance to buy her masters, but shot down the offer. Her former label Big Machine has released a collection of previously released live recordings. This is typical in business, but Taylor doesn’t like it. Why? I don’t know. She gets paid and will cash the check.
She accused Scooter Braun of “shameless greed in the time of coronavirus”. She also attacked the financial backers 23 Capital including the Soros family and the Carlyle Group.
I’ll be honest, it’s hard to have sympathy for showbiz people who want to gyp the people who gambled on them when they were nobodies. Especially showbiz people worth hundreds of millions of dollars. You want to keep all your rights? Bankroll your own expenses from the get-go, instead of chasing investor money.

Up and coming indie artist Wrenn releases the track Internet Gaming. The 20 year old imagined herself being stuck inside when she wrote the song. Very prophetic, because who would ever thought we all be stuck at home? The Los Angeles based singer-songwriter sounds a bit like some acts from the nineties – Shirley Manson, Courtney Love. Not surprising, she cites Nirvana, Mazzy Star, and Dido as influences. Give it a stream on our Indie Invaders Playlist.