Apple Music has surpassed Spotify in paid subscribers. That’s hard to believe because Spotify has been the king of streaming music. But according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple Music has 28 million paid subscribers while Spotify has only 26 million. Spotify still has more subscribers than Apple that comes with their free service. While Spotify and Apple are battling it out, both are trying to lure new subscribers.

Apple Music rise to dominance also follows the extreme backlash towards Spotify’s songwriters royalty rate. Music mogul Irving Azoff said, “Apple understands they’re in the artist business. Clearly, Google, Pandora, Spotify and Amazon don’t.”

Lil Nas X ‘Old Town Road’ will certainly go down as one of the most memorable marketing campaigns. The rappers song was removed from the Billboard Country Charts last week because it wasn’t country enough. Although it references country lyrics, it’s a hip hop song. “Christian radio won’t jump on heavy metal act Slipknot because they reference GOD in a lyric” says an industry insider.

Regardless, this was a genius marketing strategy. The track was released by Columbia, which labeled the song as a “country-inspired rap track”. The track shot up the Apple Music country chart and it was tagged as country on Soundcloud. It simply didn’t make sense and Billboard didn’t know what do with situation, so they pulled the song. Billboard noted, “while Old Town Road incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version”.

Lil Nas X says the song had a right to be placed there. “The song is country trap. It’s not one, it’s not the other. It’s both. It should be on both. I believe whenever you’re trying something new, it’s always going to get some kind of bad reception.”

Although Old Town Road may not be added to the country charts anytime soon, it doesn’t matter. The track is benefiting from non-stop press coverage.

Cara Hart, an LA-based singer-songwriter from Barcelona just released her debut pop track Breaking Habits. It’s not groundbreaking but still fun and playful with a hooky chorus. Cara says, “Breaking Habits’ is a tribute to that moment where you can see a situation in hindsight and it’s all 20/20. Obviously, in this case, it’s about a boy, but it’s also a song about all the cycles we get trapped in because of our own bad habits… and sometimes our bad habits can be the people we let in that might not be good for us.” Give it a stream!

Power singer Stephen Sims releases the cover of Yazoo Don’t Go. It’s pretty amazing. The track was recorded in Gloucestershire, California and Nashville, and mixed by Ryan D Williamson (Owl City). Sims says, “This song had such a massive impact on me growing up as it was one father’s favourite tracks. I think Alison Moyet is one of the greatest British female vocalists so it was daunting taking this on. But I hope my arrangement and vocal does some justice to the original.” The British singer-songwriter made the Top 50 Viral Chart on Spotify and I can see his latest cover which will be released via AWAL make some noise. Give it a stream.
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Billie Eilish is just 17 years old. She has a billion plays with hardly any radio support. In fact, she doesn’t write radio hits, but she’s received tons of attention, especially from the media. You can chalk it up to good marketing but I really think Billie has the knack of captivating an audience through photos and videos. She’s a new kind of star.

She insists on near-complete control. “I could easily just be like, you know what, you’re going to pick out my clothes, someone else will come up with my video treatments, someone else will direct them and I won’t have anything to do with them,” Eilish said. “Someone else write my music, someone else produce it, and I won’t say anything about it. Someone else run my Instagram.”

“Everything could be easier if I wanted it to,” she continued. “But I’m not that kind of person and I’m not that kind of artist. And I’d rather die than be that kind of artist.”

Also, rather than working with typical go-to pop producers, most of her songs are written with her 21 year old brother. She’s kept everything in-house. With all that, she’s looking to score the second biggest debut of the year.