Though human beings now have instant access to an endless amount of music in every style imaginable, it can often feel like streaming services are hell bent on narrowing our perspective instead of expanding it. Whether their recommendations come from algorithms or actual people, the results merely flatter our tastes, leading us to what Ben…
Scientific Study Confirms Freddie Mercury’s Voice was One-of-a-Kind
Science has officially confirmed what we already knew about Freddie Mercury: he had an unequivocally great singing voice, particularly for a rock vocalist. Swedish, Austrian, and Czech researchers took a deeper, more scholarly look at the singer’s voice to come to some empirically-based conclusions. Published in Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology this past Friday, the study “Freddie…
A MILLION NEW TRACKS ARE BEING UPLOADED TO STREAMING SERVICE NAPSTER EVERY 6 WEEKS
In March, we learned at Spotify’s Investor Day that Daniel Ek’s service is adding around 20,000 new tracks to its library every 24 hours. It was an impressive stat, but for record labels – whose job it is to ensure their artists get noticed above the noise in the marketplace – it was also a…
What We’re Missing in the Analog vs. Digital Debate
The words “digital” and “analog” are used so often, we’ve stopped asking what they mean. From the shift to streaming media to the retro resurgence of the vinyl LP, “digital” typically stands in for “the future” while “analog” is seen as a relic of the past. But perhaps there is more to these concepts than…
Those Songs of Summer Are Always Going to Be Average
Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2012 earworm “Call Me Maybe,” Nelly’s 2002 anthem “Hot In Herre,” and Luis Fonsi’s 2017 hit “Despacito” all have at least two things in common: They were each the official song of summer in their respective years, and they were all, statistically speaking, “average.” Humans are attracted to averages, and this so-called…
There’s an “Inverse Piano” in Your Head
A Kavli Prize–winning scientist details the magic of transforming vibrations into sound in the inner ear Neuroscientist James Hudspeth has basically been living inside the human ear for close to 50 years. In that time Hudspeth, head of the Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience at The Rockefeller University, has dramatically advanced scientists’ understanding of how the…
Over 7.6 million vinyl LPs were sold in the US during the first half of 2018 (A 19.2% increase from the same period last year.)
Vinyl LP sales in the USA hit record numbers during the first half of 2018, reports Nielsen Music. Over 7.6 million LPs were sold between 29th December 2017 through the 28th June 2018, a 19.2% increase from the same period in 2017. Nearly 1 million of those sales – approximately 799,900 – occurred during the week…
Does Bluetooth Really Sound Worse?
To listen on Bluetooth or not to listen on Bluetooth? That is the question that many music fans have been asking lately. The issue was brought to a head when Apple announced it would be doing away with the traditional headphone jack in the iPhone 7 and releasing new wireless headphones called AirPods, which are…
MUSIC STREAMS IN THE US GREW BY OVER 118BN IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2018 – THE BIGGEST JUMP IN HISTORY
Here’s an encouraging stat for the global music business: the amount of music streamed in the United States in the first half of this year grew by the largest volume ever seen. According to Nielsen Music’s new mid-year report on the US market, there were 403.4bn total music streams in the States in the six…
Ed Sheeran’s Copyright Battles Are Much Weirder Than Anyone Can Imagine
Investment bankers, Bowie bonds, paternity challenges and alleged adoption concealment — when it comes to a copyright lawsuit over “Thinking Out Loud,” alleged to be a rip-off of Marvin Gaye’s classic “Let’s Get It On,” there are fireworks. Ed Sheeran is one of the most successful singer-songwriters working in the pop music industry today. He’s…
