As with many industries, the holiday season is one of the best times of year for music sales, and although high profile albums tend to take in much of this money, independent artists can also take advantage of the season to give their own music an extra push, as well as set themselves up for a successful new year….

Stu Bergen’s career has thrown up one sanity-saving truth on a number of occasions: “There’s always a peak after a valley.” In mid-1993, Bergen, then an on-the-up promotions exec at Epic Records, accompanied one of the most powerful rock music radio programmers in the US to Lollapalooza….

Coldplay is aiming to debut at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with their latest effort, A Head Full of Dreams. Industry sources suggest the album, which was released through Parlophone/Atlantic on Dec. 4, could shift around 200,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Dec. 10….

Adele’s 25 album is set to surpass 5 million copies sold in the U.S. by the end of its third week on sale, according to industry forecasters….

It’s official: Ed Sheeran’s tour Down Under is a record breaker. The English singer-songwriter set a new attendance mark at AAMI Park in Melbourne with 33,602 on Saturday night (Dec. 5), only to break it again the next night with 33,877. …

Despite years of unwavering rhetoric, Spotify is said to be considering a loosening of its tight hold on the freemium model….

BitTorrent used to be the ultimate bandwidth hog.  These days, video and audio streaming apps are easily taking that crown.  According to details released this morning from Sandvine, streaming apps like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video, Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, and Hulu now consume an impressive 70 percent of internet bandwidth in North America. That figure is likely…

While many operating in and around the music business may question the real value of beingnominated for a GRAMMY these days, many industry veterans such as Sammy Hagar, Cage The Elephant, and Tori Kelly still feel that such a nomination can do a lot of good for one’s career….

Pandora has inked a multi-year licensing deal with SONGS Music Publishing, continuing a trend of direct deals between the Internet radio service and rights holders in the United States. The agreement follows Pandora’s licensing deal with one of the major publishing companies, Sony/ATV Music, a month ago….

Coldplay withheld its last album, Ghost Stories, from Spotify for four months after releasing the physical and digital versions. For the one before that, Mylo Zyloto, the wait was three months. For the band’s seventh studio effort, A Head Full of Dreams, the wait will only be a week. Spotify has confirmed to BIllboard that Dreams will be made available to stream…