music blog
TikTok Sets Sights On Spotify, Makes Moves On Native Music Streaming Service
It looks like a new streaming platform is moving into town. It’s called TikTok Music and it will be a place for users to buy, play, share and download music, as well as livestream audio and video just like they do on the TikTok app, according to Music Business Worldwide. Sources say TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has big plans for TikTok Music, which is said to directly compete with Spotify, Apple Music and other major streaming platforms. Earlier this month, MBW uncovered a patent filing and job listings posted by ByteDance for A&R positions across North America, suggesting the company might actually be structuring TikTok Music more like a bona fide record label. Back in February, TikTok Music also began tweeting the phrase, “Welcome to a new...
Listen to Ivy Lab’s Haunting Album, “Infinite Falling Ground”
Revered experimental bass music duo Ivy Lab have released their third studio album, Infinite Falling Ground. Spanning 14 tracks, Infinite Falling Ground is a tour de force for Ivy Lab, whose reimagined sound is explored through haunting, deeply introspective production. Coming nearly five years since Death Don’t Always Taste Good, the album finds the pair journeying through eclectic concepts and sounds, making for their most entrancing work yet. The album’s opener, “Celeste” serenades us into a hazy, lo-fi vibe. It doesn’t last long though, as tracks like “Balaclava” and “Q Nix” conjure haunting, melancholic bass and hollowed sound design. Wrapped in dusty hip-hop cloaks and swathed in downtempo electronica, “Our Time” and “Late Night Fit” will hit home for fans of Ivy Lab....
Secretly Group Union Agrees to Contract With Management
The Secretly Group Union has secured a contract with its employers. The union members announced last night (October 11) that they successfully negotiated a contract with Secretly Group, and that they have voted to ratify the contract. “This was a long and very difficult fight, but we could not be prouder to be the first independent label group union,” the union wrote. Secretly Group labels, including Secretly Canadian, Dead Oceans, and Jagjaguwar, also took to social media to announce that the collective bargaining agreement had been reached. Dead Oceans wrote: Yesterday, @secretlyunion (OPEIU, Local 174) voted to affirm its collective bargaining agreement with SG Services, Inc., including Dead Oceans. This agreement marks a new chapter in Secretly’s ongoing commitment to our staff, to our...
Beck No Longer Opening for Arcade Fire on 2022 North American Tour
Beck will no longer open for Arcade Fire on their upcoming North American tour in support of WE. Instead, the Hatian band Boukman Eksperyans will be opening for Arcade Fire. The first show on the tour is set for Friday, October 28, in Washington, D.C. Representatives for Arcade Fire and Beck offered no comment when reached by Pitchfork. Arcade Fire began their tour in Ireland in August, just a few days after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against frontman Win Butler. (Butler has maintained that all of the alleged interactions were consensual.) Feist had been scheduled to open for Arcade Fire in Europe, but she left the tour after playing two concerts, citing the allegations against Butler. Arcade Fire responded, “We are very sorry to see Leslie [Feist] go home, but completely u...
Video Of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Surfaces From Jan. 6 Attack, Twitter Reacts
Written By D.L. Chandler , Senior Editor Posted 9 hours ago @dlchandler123 D.L. Chandler is a veteran of the Washington D.C. metro writing scene, working as a journalist, reporter, and culture critic. Initially freelancing at iOne Digital in 2010, he officially joined the iOne team in 2017 where he currently works as a Senior Editor for Cassius Life and Hip-Hop Wired. D.L. covers a variety of topics including breaking news, politics, Hip-Hop music and culture, fashion, and Black history. He currently heads the SPIRIT.ED column for Cassius Life, which focuses on adult beverages and their history. D.L. has worked in the past for MTV News, Billboard, and several other publications. His first big break in journalism came with the now-defunct Politically Black in 1999, the nation’s first ...
‘House of the Dragon’ Showrunner Explains Why There Is Melanin In His Version of Westeros
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Ollie Upton / HBO Unlike Game of Thrones, there is a lot more melanin on screen in House of the Dragon, and there is a perfectly good reason for that. During a recent segment on TheGrill and interview series from TheWrap, House of the Dragon co-creator Ryan Condal revealed the decision to make a traditionally white character in the book Black was not done for progressive reasoning. “I think it was not that simple,” Condal said. “I think the reason that it’s been a successful choice … is because it was thought out. It wasn’t just done perfunctorily or wasn’t just done to tick a box or … to be seen as progressive.” But, in the same breath, Condal, who also serves as the showrunner for the GOT prequel series, seemingly contradicted his initial statement. “It...
Wack 100 Doubled Down On 21 Savage Snitch Claims
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Wack 100 is known for speaking his mind in a very blunt fashion whether on social media or in his preferred medium of Clubhouse. The manager for The Game and Ray J doubled down on earlier claims he’s made that Atlanta rapper 21 Savage is an informant. Wack 100 took to Instagram and shared a series of posts that, in his view, connects 21 Savage to a program he called the U Visa program. According to Wack 100, the program is how 21 Savage, who was not born in the United States, was able to avoid deportation after catching criminal charges. From Wack 100’s Instagram: Here’s the informant that informed on @21savage individual name “3838” Let’s eliminate the fanship Eliminate the popularity vote ::: This is how they got to him …..This ...
Azealia Banks Entered The Nicki Minaj vs. Latto Chat With High Key Slander
HipHopWired Featured Video CLOSE Source: Tim Mosenfelder / Getty Azealia Banks has entered the chat. The enigmatic rapper with a superior talent of reading her foes, real and imagined, for filth has chimed in on the current and ongoing war of tweets between Latto and Nicki Minaj. You can catch up on why Nicki and Latto are airing each other out social media right here. As soon as the bickering went full title, you knew it was only a matter of time before Banks added her couple of cents, and then some. Banks took to her Instagram stories to share her acerbic take, which includes alluding that Nicki Minaj has a drug problem, needs to worry about her baby son more and is only fattening up the pockets of men in the music industry. “When is she going to realize that everytime she fight [sic] wi...
Kelly Clarkson Slows It Down for Alec Benjamin ‘Kellyoke’ Cover: Watch
Kelly Clarkson kicked off the Friday (Oct. 14) episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show with a beautiful and mellow rendition of Alec Benjamin‘s2018 Billboard Hot 100 hit “Let Me Down Slowly,” featuring Alessia Cara, for “Kellyoke.” Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The American Idol winner looked stunning under blue lights, rocking a black T-shirt, cheetah-print skirt and black boots while singing her heart out with her piano player in the background. “Could you find a way to let me down slowly?” Clarkson sang. “A little sympathy, I hope you can show me/ If you wanna go, then I’ll be so lonely/ If you’re leavin’, baby, let me down slowly.” Clarkson earned a standing ovation from her impressed crowd for her powerhouse vocals on the cover. “Let ...
The Ledger: How Streaming Platforms Are Looking Beyond Music to Boost Their Margins
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. The 2004 documentary Super Size Me took a humorous look at the health consequences of fast-food restaurants’ practice of up-selling customers to higher-priced, larger-portioned items – a super-sized cup of Coca-Cola rather than a large, for example. To the customer, up-selling looked like a good deal: the additional soda or food cost only a few cents more. For restaurants, the tactic padded margins because the difference in price dwarfed the cost of goods. Super Size Me comes to mind when looking at music subscription services and their quest to improve their margins. Those services have the equivalent of a super...
Jimmie Allen to Guest-Star on ‘The Conners’
Country singer Jimmie Allen has announced that he’ll appear on the new season of ABC’s The Conners. “This is gonna be a good time,” he tweeted. “Learning my lines as I type.” The sitcom — a sequel to the 1988-97 series Roseanne, which was briefly revived in 2018 before creator Roseanne Barr was fired over controversial tweets — is now in its fifth season. It’s yet to be revealed whether Allen is playing a character on the show or himself. Allen has appeared on other television shows this year too, performing on American Idol and serving as an advisor to Blake Shelton on The Voice. The singer got his start on season 10 of Idol back in 2011 but was cut before the show’s live voting rounds; he signed a deal with Wide Open Music shortly thereafter. More than a decade after his time on American...
Newly-Formed Indie Promoter Restless Presents Launching With L.A.’s Substance 2022 Festival
Veteran Los Angeles concert promoters and talent buyers Brian Tarney and Liz Garo have joined forces to form Restless Presents, an indie promotion company that’s producing the upcoming Substance 2022 festival. Previously produced by Tarney’s ticketing and marketing company Restless Nights and Live Nation, the annual celebration of dark rock, industrial, electronic post-punk will feature one of its strongest lineups to date, with performers including Jesus And Mary Chain, The Chameleons, Clock DVA, Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Steven Mallinder, electro-royalty ensemble Miss Kittin And The Hacker, Boy Harsher, Light Asylum, Youth Code, SEXTILE and Kontravoid. The festival is slated for Oct. 21 and 22 at the Los Angeles Theater. Tarney and Garo have...
