SoundExchange distributions topped $242.5M in Q2 2025SoundExchange distributions topped $241.5 million in digital royalties to creators from April to June 2025. Combined with the $253.2 million distributed in the first quarter of the year, ir annual distributions for the first half of 2025 are $494.7 million.
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‘KPop Demon Hunters’ sing-along re-release tops US cinema, with up to $20M in box office salesThe film outpaced Warner Bros.’ horror film "Weapons," which was reportedly expected to claim the weekend title with $15.6 million.
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Favorite One-Album WondersThe concept of a One-Hit Wonder is practically as old as the charts themselves, but what about the albums that hit it and quit? Single albums from bands that changed our worlds and then went silent? AllMusic selects some of our favorite records that rose up from nowhere and then never saw a true follow-up.

Film - TV - Theater - Games: PROPSThe Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL) is celebrating the passage of the HITS Act, which is designed to deliver long-awaited tax relief for independent music creators across the U.S and align the music industry with other creative sectors such as film, television and live theater. Through the legislation, eligible songwriters, lyricists, composers and music producers can deduct up to $150,000 in recording and production expenses in the year incurred. The SCL, a longtime advocate for the bill, and contributed to coalition efforts to see its passage. With the HITS Act now enacted, independent songwriters, composers, and producers gain crucial financial tools to support their careers in an evolving industry. For more information, contact Ray Costa at rcosta@costacomm.com.Moises, the A.I.-powered music platform with 60 million users across the globe, has announced its 2025 sponsorship of NPR’s Tiny Desk series, in support of a shared mission to uplift musicians. Moises and NPR are launching a major giveaway: one winner and a guest will attend a live Tiny Desk Concert at NPR’s Washington, DC headquarters, with travel, hotel, and NPR+ perks included. All entrants also receive a free five-year Moises Pro license. Open to U.S. and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec), the contest runs through September 12. Contact Emily Frances at emily@rockpaperscissors.biz for details, or visit npr.org/2024/03/14/1235248393/tiny-desk-giveaway. Multi-Emmy-winning composer Jeff Beal has been awarded the United Nations-backed High Note Global Prize for the song “We Believe in Hope,” created with renowned Afghan artist and advocate Aryana Sayeed and lyricist Joan Beal for the film Rule Breakers. This marks the first time a song has received the honor, recognizing its powerful message of unity, equality and women’s empowerment. Featured in Angel Studios’ film about Afghanistan’s first all-female robotics team, the anthem—performed by Sayeed and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus—was also dedicated to the UN’s new International Day of Hope. Past recipients of the prize include Cyndi Lauper and John Legend. Find the video on YouTube, and contact Rebekah Alperin at reb@gostoryboard.com for more information. On October 24, the Wild Honey Foundation and the Zevon Family will present Meet Me in L.A.: The Songs of Warren Zevon at the United Theater in Downtown Los Angeles. This all-star tribute concert will feature over 25 songs from Zevon’s celebrated career, performed by the Rob Laufer/Jordan Summers-led Wild Honey Orchestra and Friends and guests including Jackson Browne, Shooter Jennings, Marshall Crenshaw, Jorge Calderón, and more. Proceeds will benefit the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization and the Ed Asner Family Center for the Autism Community. For more information, contact wildhoneyfoundation@yahoo.com.From October 16-18, the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester will present the inaugural Soundtrax Film Music Festival, North America’s first dedicated film-music festival and conference, in Rochester, New York, which is considered the birthplace of motion picture film. Co-directed by Emmy winners Mark Watters and Jeff Beal, the event will feature sessions with Oscar-nominated composer Carter Burwell (Twilight, Fargo, True Grit), Disney's former VP of Music Bambi Moé, and Oscar-winning composer John Corigliano (The Red Violin). Attendees will experience concerts of Interstellar, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and John Williams: Reimagined. For more, contact Luci Paczkowski at lpaczkowski@shorefire.com.The post Film - TV - Theater - Games: PROPS first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Live Review of Laney Jones and The SpiritsSunset Tavern  Seattle, WAContact: andrew.borstein@redlightmanagement.comWeb: laney-jones.comPlayers: Laney Jones, guitar, lead vocals; Carson Lystad, guitar; Glen M. Hruska, bass, vocals; Brian Dowd, drums, vocalsDuring their debut Seattle performance at the Sunset Tavern, Laney Jones and the Spirits unearthed music’s rootsy, lo-fi past and hurled it into the present, blending gritty guitar tones, gravel-edged vocals, and rock-steady song structures.This was clear the moment the Nashville-based band stepped onto the red-lit stage and dug deep into the hazy, stratified sounds of “We Belong Together” and “Bitch Year.” Both tracks — from 2025’s Our Vinyl Sessions EP—were elevated by Laney’s distinctive raspy vocals, effortlessly shifting between registers, cutting through the songs’ sultry, sway-in-time rhythms.  Riding on shotgun old-school sonics, Laney Jones and the Spirits pulled their West Coast fans further along their retro garage rock adventures, dialing into several backroad songs that could just as easily be heard on a staticky AM station, a spotty FM auto-scan, or a carefully curated aux playlist. The band’s attitude-drenched, flanged-filled single, “Another Rolling Stone”—with a dueling guitar shred sesh—drew from the well of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Americana Noir, while the ebullient Nashville twang on “Not Alone”—from 2022’s Stories Up High—rode the radio-friendly, feel-good waves reminiscent of Sheryl Crow’s smooth voiced grooves.Organic rock tunes made a strong statement during Laney Jones’ set, but were beautifully counterbalanced by intimate, singer-songwriter-centered tracks. The aching atmospherics of “Long Way” (Stories Up High) and the spacey textures of the single “Stay at Home” tapped into boygenius’ wellspring of rich, indie-driven sound. Wrapping up their rock-edged set, Laney Jones and the Spirits threw some love to the crowd with a heartfelt “thanks,” followed by the inspiring lyrics and soaring chords of “Secret Weapon” (Stories Up High).  A fitting finale—part resolve, part rally cry—from a band redefining alt-Americana, boldly throwing it into the future.The post Live Review of Laney Jones and The Spirits first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Indie Musician News: Bandsintown, Instagram, Email, PlaylistsAre you an independent musician looking for some tips and tricks for success? Here are some of last week’s top indie musician news including a Bandsintown YouTube integration, an Instagram. Continue reading
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Music Business News Last Week: YouTube, Scalpers, Spotify, MoreCheck out the most important music business news last week from YouTube's exclusive partnership with Bandsintown., the FTC suing a concert ticket scalper, artists leaving Spotify, and more.
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Album Review of "American Wasteland" by Whitney Tai (8/10)Self-releasedProducer: TommyHatzThe joy of an album like American Wasteland is that each listen reveals something new. That betrays the fact that there’s a depth to the songwriting that transcends genres and trends. Tai has the sort of voice that tears away at your soul with unrelenting passion; as the emotions pile up, we’re left drained and satisfied. She has a gift for anthemic pop, resulting in swathes of epic melody washing over us in glorious waves. The combo of strength and vulnerability has yielded a killer record. The post Album Review of "American Wasteland" by Whitney Tai (8/10) first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

From Spotify’s publishing licensing expansion to Slipknot’s potential $120m catalog sale… it’s MBW’s weekly round-upThe biggest news from the past few days – all in one place...
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YouTube, YouTube Music updates are big wins for MusiciansAs part of its 10th Anniversary celebration, YouTube and YouTube Music updates are big wins for musicians and music marketers.
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Could State AGs use RICO to stop Ticket Scalpers and Bots?THe Federal Trade Commision is taking a more aggressive stance against ticket scalpers and their use of bots. Could State Attorney Generals a use RICO to stop ticket scalpers and. Continue reading
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Sounds and Visions: Senon WilliamsSenon Williams, bassist of Cambodian psych-rock outfit Dengue Fever, is also a dedicated visual artist and poet. His atmospheric, text-augmented drawings and luminous, large-scale paintings—along with zines, artist books, and monographs—merge harmony and dissonance, chaos and control, danger and dazzle. And the same dynamic fusion applies to his music. So how did his creative life come to span so many mediums?“I did not go to art school,” Williams says. “When I was a child at punk shows and backyard parties, I didn’t believe school was the education I needed to create art. Later, after working as an art preparator for some amazing galleries and large art moving companies, I worked as an artist’s assistant—not art school, but an art education.”However it started, it’s working out just fine, because Williams is currently in England, en route to the prestigious Freud Artist Residency in Příbor, Czech Republic. Over the next year, he’ll return to England and Europe for exhibitions at the Freud Museums in London and Vienna.He’s also just completed a new monograph, Scrapyard (Hat & Beard Press), which he calls “a facsimile of a scrapbook I created over three years of studio practice.” With 10 historical vignettes by Plain Sight Archive “about the history of scrapbooking,” its fall release coincides with a new short film, Tilt Horizon, which Williams co-directed with filmmaker Tabbert Fiiller. Williams will also host upcoming events at the Philosophical Research Society around his art, poetry, screenings, and books.This is all between tours with Dengue Fever, of course. “We played the Palupo Festival in Thailand, went to Phnom Penh to perform and record with master traditional musicians... the Levitt Pavilion in L.A., Seattle, the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Calgary Folk Festival… and have shows coming up in the fall.” A new album is on the way, plus instrumental and collaborative releases.As if that weren’t enough, Williams is also now playing bass in Acetone. “Acetone stopped playing in the early 2000s when key member Richie Lee passed away,” Senon says. “Due to a massive box release, my old friends Mark and Steve asked me to sit in. We’ve been performing live—during a N.Y.C. residency we played with the wonderful Susan Alcorn and Marshall Allen from Sun Ra Arkestra. Not originally in our plans when we started playing, we’ve since begun working on new material, and can expect a new album down the road.” And what a road it is.The post Sounds and Visions: Senon Williams first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Bandsintown inks YouTube deal to become platform’s exclusive provider of concert listingsIntegration will soon expand to YouTube's homepage – and to YouTube Music later this year
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The unflattening of streaming (and the case for friction)This post builds on our January 2025 post ‘The unflattening of music’ which itself built on two previous pieces (you can find links to both in that post).

Industries arrive at pivot points when an accumulation of fissures coalesce into one big crack. Streaming is approaching such a point. We are still at the lots-of-small-cracks-appearing stage, but there is a clear sense of something building. With streaming revenues now representing close to three quarters of the recorded music market (excluding expanded rights), there is clearly an overriding incentive to fix the problem. Simply throwing in the towel and waiting for whatever comes next would hurt both creators and rightsholders. The challenges come from all directions and with different causes (major rightsholders feeling investor pressure; artists struggling to cut through the clutter; royalties not adding up for too many professional artists; music becoming commodified). But the problem is that the people underpinning the entire edifice – consumers – do not have a problem. And that is what needs most attention. 

When Spotify first arrived in the market 16 years ago, it was little more than a vast catalogue of music with a search box. If you didn’t know much about music, you weren’t going to get much out of it. Thus, the first wave of adopters were music aficionados, hastening the demise of downloads, where many were currently spending their money. Fast forward to today, Spotify – and other streaming services – are a dramatically different value proposition, catering not just to those aficionados (or superfans), but also for the passive massive that upgraded from radio and the occasional purchase. Converting so many passives into subscribers was one of streaming’s most important achievements. However, because there are so many more of them than aficionados (six times more in fact), it is only natural that streaming’s UX has prioritised their needs. This, in turn, has helped hasten the commodification of music. 

The great economic paradox of streaming is that it does not differentiate between aficionados and passives, charging them the same fee for the same product. Little wonder then, that aficionados have shifted their extra spend to live and merch. If the supremium tier does eventually make it to market, it will go some way to addressing this. But it will not be enough on its own – and may well come across as an unusual and out of place appendage to the standard streaming proposition. What’s more, there are signs that Gen Z are not warming to streaming like they should be, with 16-19 penetration growing FAR more slowly than other age groups. What links these two challenges is the fundamentally flat nature of Western streaming UX. That needs to change.

So much of streaming’s success was built on the digital era’s superpower: convenience. Yet it is that very thing that has driven cultural commodification. While convenience may have disrupted the economics of things like taxis, online shopping and food delivery, it has undoubtedly improved the experience. Rides have got better; home delivery has got better. With music however, convenience has improved the experience for some (passives) but lessened it for others (aficionados). Fandom did not catch the streaming bus. To address this, streaming UX needs to change.

The case for friction

As counter intuitive as it may sound, streaming has become too convenient. It needs some friction. Friction is not inherently a bad thing. Done right, it can lead to a sense of satisfaction and personal reward. Think about where friction-with-reward exists in our life: learning a new skill, fitness training, reading a long book. The games industry even turned friction into a product.

Music discovery used to be a high-friction experience. Fans would trawl through (often pompous) music reviews, tune into their favourite DJ’s radio show on a late weeknight, and / or wade through endless shelves of albums in stores, perhaps being fortunate to get a surreptitious recommendation from the person behind the till. Many would say it is entirely a good thing that those are the features of a bygone era (though obviously not music journalists and record shop owners). But as is so often the case, it is the generation that comes after the first wave of adopters that can see what is missing from the new era. This is why, with streaming personalisation better than it has ever been, waves of Gen Z are busy crate digging in record shops. The sense of personal reward they get from finding a gem is simply not paralleled by streaming.

Streaming UX needs to learn how to introduce friction, but crucially only for those who want it, when they want it. The majority of people – even aficionados – want a friction-free experience most of the time. The opportunity is to create invitations to do more. The music industry bemoans the shift from lean in to lean back. Now is the time for dive in.

Crucially, this needs tying to identity, because that is central to the reward. For example, when someone spends time doing whatever the streaming equivalent of crate digging might be, they get a ‘hidden gem’ badge which goes on their profile page (it is perplexing that we still don’t have public user profile pages on streaming). Much as I am loathe to use the G word, gamification will be part of the equation. Music is meant to be entertainment. Listening to a work out playlist in the gym or a lo-fi study playlist is not entertainment, that is distraction. 

Bringing back friction will not solve all of streaming’s problems. No single thing will, but it will finally start to push back against the overwhelming trend of flattening. A whole slate of interconnected solutions will be needed for streaming’s other problems. The good news is that MIDiA is currently working on a major new report that will propose just that. The humbly titled ‘Future of streaming’ report will be arriving in the coming months. Watch this space!

Position Music Signs Rising DJ Trio Levity to Global Publishing DealPosition Music has officially added another rising star to its roster. The Los Angeles-based independent music company announced the signing of Chicago-based electronic trio Levity to a worldwide publishing deal.The group—comprised of John Hauldren, PJ Carberry, and Joshua Tarum—has seen a rapid rise since their debut in 2023, amassing nearly 100 million streams across streaming platforms and establishing themselves as one of the most promising new acts in electronic music.A statement from the company discloses that, “Levity’s growth over the past two years has been extraordinary—what began with a last-minute set at Electric Forest in 2023 has evolved into sold-out headline shows and key slots at major festivals like EDC, Lollapalooza and more. I’m so excited to be working with them and their managers Adam and Harrison at 2+2 Management. Levity has had an explosive start and we’re only scratching the surface of what they’re going to achieve.” This comes from Mike Torres, A&R at Position Music.Levity expressed equal enthusiasm about the partnership. A statement from the band shares that, “We are so excited to be working alongside the wonderful team at Position Music! The opportunity has given us the chance to share our music with a wider range of people and take our music to the next level. We can’t wait to see where else our partnership will take us!”The signing comes on the heels of a busy summer for the trio, including a performance at Lollapalooza. Known for sets that go beyond DJing, Levity emphasizes crowd interaction and blends a wide range of electronic sub-genres into their live shows. Their 2025 schedule is already filling up with major festival appearances, including Do LA (Coachella Weekend 1), EDC Las Vegas, Beyond Wonderland, and Lollapalooza.Levity recently released their new single, “Like This,” from their forthcoming EP Snack Pack via Ultra Records. The group is currently on tour, with dates scheduled across the U.S.:9/4 – Showbox SoDo (Seattle, WA)

9/5 – Showbox SoDo (Seattle, WA)

10/10–10/12 – Seven Stars Festival (Arrington, VA)

10/31 – Stage AE (Pittsburgh, PA)

11/8 – Cow Palace (Daly City, CA)

11/14 – Shrine Expo Hall (Los Angeles, CA)

11/15 – Shrine Expo Hall (Los Angeles, CA)

11/21 – Mission Ballroom (Denver, CO)

11/22 – Mission Ballroom (Denver, CO)

11/28 – Brooklyn Paramount (Brooklyn, NY)

11/29 – Brooklyn Paramount (Brooklyn, NY)

12/30 – The Fairgrounds (Nashville, TN)The post Position Music Signs Rising DJ Trio Levity to Global Publishing Deal first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.