#music-industry

#music-industry

I had to make a transition for survival from folk music, which was killed by the British Invasion. David Crosby was afraid that they were going to slap some kind of band on me and that it would ruin my music. So I made that record with voice and guitar. Then the record company sicced the band on me. It was called The Section, they were a good band for James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, but they couldn't play my music.

This time 36 years ago, Fabrice Morvan was preparing for his first Grammy Awards. It had been a wild few years for the 23-year-old Parisian and his best friend Robert Pilatus from Germany. The duo known as Milli Vanilli had rocketed to fame, going from obscure dancers in Munich to dominate the pop music scene. Not only were they nominated for best new artist, but they were expected to perform live. Underneath it all, the pair were quickly reaching their breaking point.

Queen guitarist Brian May has ruled out touring in the US for the foreseeable future, because of the potential danger it would pose. Speaking to the Daily Mail, the 78-year-old said: America is a dangerous place at the moment, so you have to take that into account. It's very sad because I feel like Queen grew up in America and we love it, but it's not what it was. Everyone is thinking twice about going there at the moment.

Over the last several years, Netflix has positioned itself as one of the few video streaming services focused on making an impact in the music industry. From the surprise revival of older songs like Bush's "Running Up That Hill" and Metallica's "Master of Puppets" in shows like "Stranger Things," to streaming the most originally produced music documentaries, there's no doubt Netflix's audience is musically in tune.

Scrolling back through Tyler Ballgame's Instagram posts is a striking experience. Barely a year ago, they largely comprised flyers for and cameraphone footage from gigs in tiny Los Angeles bars, the kind that make as much virtue out of the fact that entry is free as of who's playing: one bills his performance alongside a vintage clothes market and tarot readings.

Wang was on the edge of 17 when she arrived at Nashville International Airport with her entire life packed into three suitcases and a carry-on. She had traveled all the way from Zhejiang, China, chasing a dream that would ultimately shape her future: studying music business at Belmont University. Now 26, Wang is an Artist Development Manager at Sony Music Entertainment.

"Williams engaged in self-dealing, concealed material information, and...diverted revenues owed to plaintiff," wrote Hugo's attorney, Brent J. Lehman, in the suit. "Such willful, fraudulent, and malicious conduct warrants the imposition of punitive damages." In a subsequent email to , Lehman claims that "Mr. Hugo had no choice but to seek substantial compensation and accountability in court."

There's a lot of stuff these days I don't understand about punk myself. It became a very broad church, a long way from the Sex Pistols to the Talking Heads and from The Slits to the Dolly Mixture or something like that, musically. But also a lot of punks got the wrong end of the stick, and maybe some progenitors of it did as well.

Taylor Swift, Kiss' Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, Christopher Tricky Stewart, Alanis Morissette and Kenny Loggins make up the 2026 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees. Swift's songwriting has undeniably shaped contemporary pop music trends and she'll no doubt bring extra attention to this year's new class. Kiss founders Simmons and Stanley fresh off the band's farewell will also be recognized for their glam rock classics Rock and Roll All Nite and I Love It Loud.

Bandcamp has announced it will no longer allow AI-generated music to be hosted on its platform. In a post shared on Reddit, the company's support team revealed their plans to implement a policy prohibiting "any use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles," elaborating more firmly that "music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp."

In 2023, Drew Dixon, a former vice president of A&R at Arista Records, alleged Reid had groped and digitally penetrated her without consent on two separate occasions while she worked at the label. The first incident reportedly took place on a private plane to a company retreat; the second in Reid's car. After Dixon rebuffed Reid at future outings, she claims he derailed her career.

The (There's Gotta Be) More to Life singer, 39, is seeking unspecified damages as well as a trial by jury after filing a lawsuit this week against multiple parties including former manager Britt Ham, Universal Music Group, and ForeFront Records for multiple offenses including childhood sexual abuse, sexual battery, negligence and gender violence, according to the filing on the website for her attorneys at Stritmatter Law.

Towards the end of Tether, there is a song called Silk and Velvet; its sound is characteristic of Annahstasia's debut album. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar and her extraordinary vocals husky, expressive, elegant are front and centre. The arrangement is subtle but not drearily tasteful: arching noise that could be feedback or a distorted pedal steel guitar, which gradually swells into something climactic before dying away.

Aiyana-Lee's entry point into Spike Lee's world feels almost too on-the-nose for this specific movie: a direct message on Instagram, sent after he discovered her song "My Idols Lied to Me." "I thought there was no way it was real," she laughs, recalling waking her mom at six in the morning to investigate. But it was legit; they met that same day, and the collaboration quickly became something deeper than a single placement.

The team behind the song have admitted using AI during its creation. Producer and songwriter Harrison Walker said the original vocals were actually his own, but were heavily manipulated using music-generation software Suno - sometimes called the "ChatGPT for music". Meanwhile, the second producer Waypoint, real name Jacob Donaghue, confirmed on social media that AI was used to "give our original vocal a female tone".

As I watched the episode unfold, my giddy delight in Dianne Wiest's performance slid into sadness at what a dreadful corner Mother Constance felt herself backed into, disgust at Monsignor Frank ( David Rasche) for placing his ambition above the needs of the convent, and further disgust at Mother Constance's choice to exploit the solution to her long-ago crisis of faith in service of committing the worst of sins.

The projects that Brodie takes on are created with a mix of digital and physical - his work shouts that hands are at work. Lady Gaga is stretched and made viscous for the cover of Mayhem, her sixth solo studio album, for which Brodie provided art direction and design, with creative direction from Mel Roy of mtla studio and Todd Tourso of Iconoclast.

And, yes, often about as stomach-churning as that combination sounds. At the heart of this series the female-focused follow-up to 2024's Boybands Forever is a lot of old ground. Viewers of a certain age will know the trajectories retraced here (the head-spinning arrival of Spice Girls, the scrappy ascent of Atomic Kitten, the existentially challenging lineup rotation of Sugababes, the talent-show conception of Little Mix) and the dominant themes (tabloid hell, merciless management, relentless touring, intraband resentments) like the backs of their faintly wrinkled hands.

In a blogpost announcing the agreement, Spotify referred pointedly to a move-fast-and-break-things approach to copyright in some parts of the tech industry. Some voices in the tech industry believe copyright should be abolished, said Spotify. We don't. Musicians' rights matter. Copyright is essential. If the music industry doesn't lead in this moment, AI-powered innovation will happen elsewhere, without rights, consent, or compensation.

They have sold out venues on both sides of the Atlantic. Their first-ever gig was opening for a former member of Arcade Fire. Their 2024 album has been acclaimed as sounding like a lost classic of 1970s rock. Their two top tracks, Bright and Masquerade, have notched up 700,000 streams on Spotify. In fact, by the numbers, they're having one of the most buzzy rock debuts of recent years. Yet they don't really exist. They don't even have a name.

Swift's twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirl, released 10 days ago, is unquestionably a commercial success. It broke streaming records on Spotify with more than 5 million pre-saves, as just one example. But that doesn't mean that everyone loves it. The reaction from music critics has been lukewarm and the reaction from fans is decidedly mixed, with some saying they adore the album and others saying they can't stand it.

When Boyzone reform for their special one-off show next year, there will be more than a touch of natural history about proceedings.

But the masters rights for her first six albums - which means the actual recorded versions of her songs and music videos - belonged to her first label, Big Machine Records, as is standard in the music industry. This year, Swift finally struck a deal and reclaimed the master recordings from Shamrock Capitol, the private equity firm that acquired them in 2020.

She boards the subway in sweatpants, adopting the script of a down-on-her-luck mother of three selling CDs to get by like the enterprising teens and adults hawking wares to straphangers. It takes all the worst suggestions about the solvency of her career to the extreme. She's a millionaire cosplaying struggle, though maybe she views it as a peek at a timeline in which her music doesn't take off.