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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The Salzburg Festival transforms the baroque city with everything from star-studded chamber evenings to experimental theater productions. This year’s program (Friday to Aug. 30) revolves around human passion, both religious and worldly. Krzysztof Penderecki’s modern oratorio “St. Luke Passion” opens both the festival and the concert series “Ouverture Spirituelle,” with Kent Nagano leading the Orchestre…

As online streaming embeds itself into the firmament of music culture, we’re faced with the strange proposition of having new discoveries fed to us by machines. Where once musical discovery was a wholly human endeavour, from digging to chatting to reading to good old-fashioned hearing, now it’s just as likely that a computer algorithm can…

Back in February the Wall Street Journal learned Apple Music was on pace to surpass Spotify in terms of paid US subscribers. Today, five months later, it has reportedly come to pass. Citing a detailed report from “a US-based, major distributor,” Digital Music Newsclaims Apple and Spotify are neck and neck with just over 20…

Sony Music has set out exactly how it will share profits from its Spotify equity with artists and distributed labels – and it’s better news than some might have expected. MBW can reveal all of the details from managers and indie labels who received an official letter from Sony breaking down its payout formula. First, a…

THERE WEREN’T A lot of people online in the early 1990s. Mark Kelly, keyboard player for the English band Marillion, early internet adopter and self-titled “co-inventor of crowdfunding,” was an exception. One night after a concert someone handed him a stack of papers—printouts from an email list of Marillion fans. Kelly went home, cranked up his…