Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” is eternal. Anyone born after its release in 1967 might assume the song had existed since the Big Bang; it’s the kind of music that you cannot pinpoint hearing for the first time because it sounds like it’s always been there. But if you were alive and listening to the radio the…

Because nothing says, “Fuck yeah, metal!” like meticulously curated data analytics, Spotify reported to shareholders this week that rock mainstays Metallica have apparently been using the service’s info to help plan its tours. According to the company’s CEO, Daniel Ek, the once-internet-hostile band has been using data from the service’s streaming info to figure out…

Sony’s recorded music revenues hit $1.93bn in the first six months of calendar 2018 – up $200m (or 11.3%) on the $1.73bn posted in the same period of 2017. That’s according to MBW’s calculations based on Sony Corp’s newly-published results for its fiscal Q1 (calendar Q2) ended June 2018, converted into USD at constant currency….

It’s all there in the syncopation, the cryptic words, the dark vibes: ‘Eleanor Rigby’ was Paul McCartney’s art song masterpiece. The lyrics: So, where did most composers of art songs and Lieder get their lyrical ideas from? Literature, mythology, yes… but mostly it came from life experience. Emotions, artistic extrapolations of the self, that kind…

It’s been a couple of months, and I still can’t talk to Alexa. My Amazon Echo Dot, the hockey puck-shaped smart speaker that emits a pale blue glow when asked a question or given an order, sits dormant in my office. It’s not because I dislike talking to machines. I’m a dictation expert on my…

Universal Music Group looks likely to have a new part-owner within the next 18 months – but it will not be ‘spun out’ onto the stock market via an independent IPO. That’s the decision of the Management Board of UMG parent Vivendi, which presented its recommendations on the matter to its Supervisory Board at the…

For decades now, mainstream conversations about gender in music have moved relatively slowly, tilling the same ground over and over until it turns fallow. It once felt like rolling a boulder uphill to even get most cis female musicians recognized as musical talents with the depth and breadth of their male counterparts, and it’s not…

Looking at this 18th century castle, it’s hard to imagine that it once housed one of the most well-known recording studios in all of France. From Pink Floyd to David Bowie, from the Bee Gees to even Iggy Pop, several internationally renowned artists chose the Château d’Hérouville for their recordings in the 1970s. Today we…

Crotchets, quavers and staves are the product of centuries of evolution and refinement. But who started it all – and how different did music look a couple of thousand years ago? It all started with the Ancient Greeks. Sadly, there are very few examples of written music from Ancient Greece – but we do know…

Who said it? “We live in a world where the most passionate fans are sitting in the nosebleed sections. The front-row tickets are going to scalpers and platinum credit card holders… a pain point for both artists and the fans. We’re able to give those fans the front rows – and we’re filling entire venues.”…