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Tidal is reportedly months behind on royalty payments
Remember how Jay-Z relaunched Tidal with the promise of treating artists more kindly than Spotify? If you believe Dagens Naeringsliv, just the opposite is true. The Norwegian newspaper is continuing a string of exposés with claims that Tidal is behind on payments to at least some labels, including the big three (Sony, Warner and Universal). Indie labels and artists have complained that they haven't been paid for months, with Propeller Records noting that it hadn't received Tidal royalties since October.
Tidal will debut an unreleased Prince album in 2019
Tidal and Prince's estate are done battling it out in court, ending things in good terms and with a new album, to boot. Jay-Z's streaming service has announced that it's debuting a new Prince album with previously unreleased songs in 2019. It will stream exclusively on Tidal for 14 days and will be available as a download seven days after it launches. Prince's estate will also release a physical version worldwide following Tidal's exclusive.
YouTube's revamped music charts focus on what's hot right now
YouTube hasn't been shy about wanting to be a cornerstone of the music industry, and that now includes one of the staples of the business: the charts. The video giant has launched revamped charts in 44 territories, headlined by a brand new "trending" section. The fresh area shows which music videos and songs are hot both worldwide and in given regions based on activity at multiple points in the day, with the option to play them all if you want a sense of the cultural zeitgeist.
Spotify pulls R. Kelly from playlists as part of new conduct policy
Spotify has implemented a new policy that drops promotion of musicians involved "hateful conduct," and there's already one artist in the crosshairs. The streaming service told Billboard that it has pulled R. Kelly's music from its own playlists (including the influential RapCaviar and automatic playlists) in light of long-running (and mounting) allegations of sexual assault, coercion and similar crimes. The company isn't removing R. Kelly's music, but it doesn't want to endorse artists whose behavior is "particularly out of line with our values."
Nine Inch Nails skips online ticket sales to fight scalper bots
Nine Inch Nails will not sell tickets online for its just-announced "Cold and Black and Infinite" theater tour this fall. Instead, NIN mastermind Trent Reznor is going old-school in an effort to beat the ticket bots: You'll have to wait in line at the venue. Each person can buy up to four tickets. Why? Let Reznor explain it to you himself:
Instagram may soon offer a soundtrack for your Stories
With recent music licensing deals between Facebook and record labels like Sony, Warner Music, Universal and other European publishers, it would seem as if Facebook, and by extension Instagram, is uniquely poised to bring soundtracks to shared videos. According to a report at TechCrunch, it seems as if some code in the Instagram Android app could point to new music features like stickers that would let you find and add copyrighted music to your Stories from places like Spotify or SoundCloud.
The $200 Uno synth crams a ton of features into a small package
IK Multimedia is known for its wide variety of music gear, including MIDI controllers, mixers and instrument interfaces. Now the company has just launched its first analog synth, a compact little machine named Uno. The company's own Erik Norlander (one of the designers behind Alesis' Andromeda synth) collaborated with Italian boutique synthesizer maker Soundmachines to create the Uno. The device has a small footprint, though it packs a ton of manual controls for easy programming. It's made to serve both newbies and veterans: Uno has a two octave touch-sensitive keyboard and 100 different presets, along with selectable scales and an arpeggiator to make getting up and running easy.
Spotify touts 75 million subscribers in first quarterly earnings report
Spotify made its New York Stock Exchange debut last month, and today the streaming service announced its first earning report as a public company. As part of its pre-filing paperwork, we already knew the company had amassed 170 million monthly users, but as of now Spotify touts 75 million paid subscribers. That's up from 71 million earlier this year. For comparison, Apple Music recently hit the 40-million mark, though recent reports indicate Apple may catch Spotify by the end of the year.
Make trippy music in VR with pals (and OK Go)
When I heard that OK Go frontman Damian Kulash was teaming up with VR studio Within to create an interactive music-making experience, I was stoked. But when I checked out Lambchild Superstar: Making Music in the Menagerie of the Holy Cow at the Tribeca Film Festival, I was simply bewildered. Not in a bad way, though. Although it's not the traditional jam session I was expecting, Lambchild was still a supremely quirky and unabashedly weird trip of discovery and collaboration.
HD vinyl is a promise, not a product
Günter Loibl thinks vinyl needs an update. Two years ago he filed a patent for a new way to make records, using lasers (rather than a traditional cutting lathe) to pack the grooves tighter and add 30 percent more usable space. Thanks to the laser, it's actually better for the environment too. The promise is records with longer playing times, more dynamic range and extra amplitude. Supposedly you can even enjoy the benefits of "HD vinyl" albums on the turntable and needle you already own. On paper, this all seems like a win-win. But there's a problem: This isn't the first time someone promised an upgraded listening experience, and music collectors tend to be a skeptical bunch. Vinyl lovers have less to complain about lately too, thanks to advances in pressing technology that make new records sound pristine, free from the format's pops and crackles. You won't be able to buy an album on HD vinyl until next year, at least, and once you can, it's going to cost quite a bit more than a traditional album. Loibl's company, Rebeat Innovations, doesn't have any test pressings for proof and won't until at least this August. Still, Loibl wants you to trust him. "Be a little patient and let me convince you," he said.
Spotify streaming comes to Sky Q boxes
Spotify is available on Sky Q from today, letting you play music via your Sky Soundbox or stream music to your TV speakers via AirPlay or Bluetooth. It's the first high-profile app to come to the platform since it launched two years ago, and its arrival kickstarts the raft of new features -- including machine learning, additional voice commands, a new kids mode and a wide-screen user interface -- which were announced for the service earlier this year.
Bandsintown integrates Apple Music for in-app streaming
If you're like me, looking at your local concert listings is usually accompanied by blasting the music of the bands you encounter along the way. That task typically requires multiple apps, but live music discovery company Bandsintown now offers Apple Music subscribers the ability to stream tunes directly inside of its mobile software. When you visit an artist's tour dates page, you'll see a play button up top. Tap it and a selection of songs will begin. You can also tap an EQ icon in the bottom right corner of the app to browse other tracks.
A first look at Spotify’s redesigned free mobile experience
As rumored, Spotify today unveiled a redesigned app that's geared toward users of its free music-streaming service at an event in New York City. The new mobile experience is all about personalized on-demand listening, with 15 playlists that are curated by Spotify based on your listening habits. That includes sets like the Daily Mix, which feature songs you've "hearted" (aka liked) and Discover Weekly, which is designed to help you expand your music taste with artists and tracks you may not be too familiar with. The Release Radar playlist, meanwhile, will let you keep up with all the new music popping up on the service. Spotify says that the more songs you "heart" or "hide," the smarter its playlists will get and others will begin to populate as a result.
Spotify brings on-demand listening to its free mobile app
Spotify's free tier is now decidedly more useful when you're on the move. The streaming music service has unveiled a new free version of its mobile app that no longer forces you to shuffle tunes -- you can listen to songs on-demand so long as they appear on one of your 15 personalized discovery playlists, such as the Daily Mix or Release Radar. That's roughly 750 songs (about 40 hours of music), but it beats having Spotify take charge of the track order every time you push play. Accordingly, you'll now get song recommendations based on user-made playlists.
Pandora Premium arrives on Xbox One
Pandora has dragged its heels expanding its Premium service beyond mobile -- a web player only arrived in February, nearly a year after the mobile launch. But now it's opening up its offerings further still. From today, you'll be able to use the streaming service on Xbox One while you're gaming.
Deezer now creates playlists based on your listening habits (updated)
Not to be left behind by the competition, Deezer is tweaking its Flow feature. The app's latest update augments the automatically curated playlist tool to include tracks from artists related to what you're listening to. More than that, the patch gives Flow its own tab within the navigation panel. "You want to discover new music but still have control over what genre is recommended? You in a rock mood and your favorites Nirvana and Guns 'n Roses would definitely cheer you up? Just select the Flow tab that will float your boat," the Deezer announcement says.
iHeartRadio offers curated playlists to free users
iHeartRadio added on-demand music streaming powered by Napster to its broadcast radio-centric service in 2016. The company later added curated activity-, era- and genre-based playlists for paid subscribers since then, too. Now the company is bringing this Playlist Radio feature to all of its users, including free members.
Spotify lures away Apple Music's head of hip-hop programming
The war between Apple Music and Spotify is clearly heating up. Variety has discovered that Spotify recently poached Carl Chery, Apple Music's Head of Artist Curation for hip-hop and R&B programming. It's not certain when he's leaving or what he'll do next (we've asked both Apple and Spotify for comment). However, it could be a big coup -- Chery has been influential not just at Apple, but in the music industry at large.
'GTA IV' will lose some of its in-game music over licensing issues
Grand Theft Auto IV, the game that keeps on giving for Rockstar Games, hits its tenth anniversary this month. That's quite a feat, but as Kotaku UK reported, it also means that it's losing the rights for a bunch of in-game songs. The developer told the site that "due to music licensing restrictions, we are required to remove certain songs from the in-game soundtrack ... in particular, a large portion of the Russian pop station, Vladivostok FM."
Apparently high-definition vinyl is coming next year
The process of making records hasn't changed much over the last hundred or so years, but that itself could change soon. Austria-based Rebeat Innovation has begun the work to bring vinyl into the 21st century. Of course, that involves lasers. Specifically, converting analog audio information into a digital, 3D topographic map of the music, and then etching that into a platter with light. According to Pitchfork, this process will result in around 40 percent longer playing times per side, 30 percent more amplitude and will offer better sound quality overall. It'd also sidestep the chemicals typically used in the record-making process.

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