Spotify
Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” Surpasses 1 Billion Spotify Streams
NIrvana’s game-changing single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” has surpassed one billion streams on Spotify, a rare feat for a heavy rock song. The achievement comes just a few months before the band’s landmark 1991 album Nevermind celebrates its 30th anniversary. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” changed the face of rock music as the first single released from Nevermind. The song and its iconic music video helped open the floodgates for grunge and alternative rock at a time when hair metal and pop ruled the MTV and radio airwaves. The song joins Linkin Park’s “In the End” among the more than 150 tracks that make up Spotify’s “Billions Club”, most of which are of the modern pop and hip-hop variety. A few songs from Queen (“Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Don’t Stop Me Now”) are als...
Spotify’s ‘Discovery Mode’ Is Payola, Just Not the Bad Kind (Guest Op-Ed)
Anyone with an internet connection can post their music to YouTube or Spotify. The challenge now is getting people to listen to it. To reach audiences, aspiring musicians can hook up with TikTok influencers who will dance to their songs for money. Or they can pay the thousands of independent playlisters on Spotify to add their tunes to popular playlists. An entire subindustry of social media music promotion has sprung up specifically to assist musicians with these endeavors. Historically, the justifications for regulating payola were (i) that it harmed consumers, and (ii) that it harmed competition. But as we describe in a forthcoming law review article exploring the history of payola, in the 1950s and 1960s, these “harms” were often used as a cover for run-of-the-mil...
Spotify Patent Filing Signals New Karaoke Feature
While digital streaming platforms have given us music to sing along with, it’s not often that the technology sings back. That might change with a patent recently filed by Spotify for a “Karaoke Query Processing System.” The news follows a September discovery by reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong, who found an unreleased in-app feature that would allow users to adjust the vocal levels of songs. Paired with this patent request, it seems Spotify is making serious plans to extend their reach into karaoke, though the company has not publicly addressed its plans for the technology. According to patent application, which was submitted on June 24th, this system is capable of matching audio clips of songs with their instrumental versions in order to play a ...
Jemele Hill Creates A New Podcast Network For Black Women With Spotify
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Troy Harvey / Getty Emmy award winning-journalist Jemele Hill is continuing to create a new lane for Black women in podcasting thanks to an expansion of her exclusive partnership with Spotify. The multimedia streaming company has announced that not only will there be a third season of the critically acclaimed podcast Jemele Hill is Unbothered, but that they are working with her to create The Unbothered Network. The Unbothered Network will be a production company that will create and produce podcasts that feature and amplify the stories and voices of Black women that have been ignored and obscured. Hill will head up a team of executives and producers that will work in tandem with Spotify and her own production company, Lodge Freeway Media. The team w...
Greenroom, Spotify’s Answer To Clubhouse Has Officially Launched
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Spotify / Spotify Greenroom Watch out Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces. There is a new live audio app on the block. Spotify’s acquisition of Locker Room has bear fruit in the form of a new live audio app called Greenroom that has officially launched on iOS and Android devices Wednesday (Jun.16). Greenroom is also the music streaming giant’s first attempt at a social media platform. It is basically like the Clubhouse allowing users to host and engage in live conversations about music, sports, and culture. Unlike most things Spotify launches, Greenroom didn’t come with any fanfare, with the company opting to roll out the new app to customers and letting it do all the talking and strongly encouraging them to sign up by tempting them with apps features and the ab...
Spotify launches Clubhouse competitor Greenroom
Spotify’s live audio app, Greenroom, formally launches today on iOS and Android, marking the company’s first real attempt at creating a social media platform. The social audio app, which is similar to Clubhouse, allows users to host live conversations about sports, music, and culture. Today’s launch doesn’t come with a marquee creator announcement or specific event planned, but instead, the company is taking the opportunity to encourage people to sign up and figure out how they’ll want to use the app. Some of its core functionality, a person close to the situation says, will eventually make its way to the actual Spotify app, so the team will monitor what happens in Greenroom closely. The app is built on Locker Room, which Betty Labs created and Spotify acquired in March. That app focused s...
U.S. Congress Casts Doubt on Spotify’s Controversial “Discovery Mode” Feature
The controversy surrounding Spotify’s divisive “Discovery Mode” has not subsided since the streaming giant announced the initiative in late 2020. The feature offers some artists and record labels a chance to boost the rankings of their music in the platform’s playlisting algorithm—a crucial tool for exposure—in exchange for a reduced royalty rate. Considering the notion that royalties are already extremely low—fractions of one penny per stream, to be exact—the contentious “Discovery Mode” feature seems to make things even more difficult for artists hoping to get their music in front of as many people possible while earning fair compensation for their works. “Discovery Mode” has now come to the attention of Representative Jerrold Nadler (chair...
House Judiciary Committee Probes Spotify’s Discovery Mode for Lowering Artist Royalties
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-06-04T01:48:59+00:00“>June 3, 2021 | 9:48pm ET Two high-ranking members of the House Judiciary Committee have sent a public letter to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek probing Spotify’s new Discovery Mode. Launched in November, this pilot program offers artists and labels reduced royalties in exchange for algorithmic preference in Radio and Autoplay formats (via The Hollywood Reporter). House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Chairman Rep. Hank Johnson Jr. (D-GA) addressed Elk on June 2nd. “[Discovery Mode] may set in motion a ‘race to the bottom’ in which artists and labels feel compelled to accept low...
Vodacom Tanzania and Mdundo Partner to Launch New Premium Music Bundle
From left: DJ Bike, Nguvu Kamando (Head of VAS, Vodacom), DJ Feruuh, Martin Nielsen, DJ Summer, Prisna Nichaulous (Music Manager, Mdundo), Michael Okeje (Head of Growth, Mdundo). Image sourced from TechCabal. Vodacom Tanzania has announced a new partnership with African music distributing and streaming service Mdundo. Together the companies are launching a new music bundle for the telecom’s subscribers. As reported by TechCabal, this new bundle will give Vodacom Tanzania subscribers access to Mdundo’s premium service as well as a bevy of curated mixes from some of Tanzania’s top DJs. “Instead of struggling and moving from one platform to another, we as a digital valuing company, saw the importance of creating one bundle which will include all music genres, that’s why we also decided to par...
Spotify Launches New Premium Offers in South Africa
Sourced from Forbes. /* custom css */ .tdi_4_6bf.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_4_6bf.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Spotify is launching new offers for its free and first-time South African users to enjoy the benefits of a Premium account. The music-streaming platform is offering three months free to eligible free and first time-users for the Individual Premium plan. For those who are missing their Individual Premium plan and cancelled for one reason or another, Spotify Premium is offering three months for just R59.99. Spotify Premium gives subscribers an audio streaming experience with ad-free music listening, and on-demand audio anytime. On Spotify, users get access to more than 70 million tracks and more than 2.6 million podcast titles that include topics such as c...
Reducing Artists’ Royalties for Promotion — Haven’t We Heard That Before? (Guest Column)
At the moment, Spotify says Discovery Mode will only apply to the radio and autoplay playlists (the tracks you hear when the playlist or album you were listening to ends). Make no mistake, Spotify is explicitly clear that they intend to expand this “pay for play” program to other “personalized” areas of the service. More opportunities to connect with new listeners and innovative tools are always appreciated, but Discovery Mode brings into question the credibility of Spotify’s recommendation engine. From its beginning Spotify proudly stated that it would be a good partner and maintain a democratized service that would never allow the proverbial “thumb on the scale.” Again, and again, we were assured that all artists would have a fair and impartial chance of success. We were promised that th...
