L il Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake is a sprawling epic of an album, an 18-track, 62-minute journey two rather chaotic years in the making. It’s also, at its core, something of a concept album, following the Philadelphia rapper’s abduction and subsequent journey through space. In other words, Eternal Atake was …
Read More »Universal Music Debuts Its Own Artist Analytics to Rival Spotify's Program
Universal Music Group, home to acts like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey, Queen, and Kanye West, rolled out an in-house artist analytics app Thursday that lets musicians and their managers see data from major music-streaming services as well as social engagement information from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The app …
Read More »Lizzo's Eight Grammy Nominations Are a Triumph for Music Streaming
In 2004, journalist and entrepreneur Chris Anderson wrote an article for Wired arguing that the future of entertainment would not lie in a handful of chart-topping megahits but in the “millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream” — known in stats terms as the “long tail,” …
Read More »Def Jam's Fierce Gamble on the Future of Hip-Hop
It was either, depending on how you looked at it, a great blessing or a growing problem: Def Jam had way too many rappers on its hands. In a single year, the record label had gone on a mad signing spree for one young act after another, prompted by streaming’s …
Read More »High-Res Music Service Qobuz Launches in the U.S.
High-resolution music service Qobuz will make its much-anticipated American debut on Thursday, the company confirmed toRolling Stone.Qobuz — pronounced “co buzz,” and currently available in Europe, the U.K. and Ireland — offers both downloads and music-streaming subscriptions at CD quality and high-res quality, and its unique hybrid service will be …
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