Signing Stories: Deep Sea DiverDate Signed: September 2024Label: Sub Pop RecordsType of Music: Indie RockBand Members: Jessica Dobson, Peter Mansen, Elliot JacksonManagement: Red Light ManagementPublicity: Frank Nieto - frankn@subpop.comWeb: thisisdeepseadiver.comSeattle-based rock band Deep Sea Diver, led by guitarist and vocalist Jessica Dobson, is celebrating their stronger support from their new home at the legendary Sub Pop Records. With the backing of the label, Dobson most looks forward to the extra care and assistance that she will have access to, something foreign coming from her hustling DIY nature."In the beginning, I have been close to the process and it can be painful at times," Dobson shares. "Hearing crickets from the time you send your record in. 'Is it in the void?' 'Do people not like it?' This time around, it was pretty quick that we got responses and Sub Pop was one of the first that said, 'We believe this. Let's keep talking.'""With self-released albums on an independent label, we know what goes into promoting an album, keeping it on the radar... there are moving parts," says Dobson. Dobson has logged time as a touring member for Beck and The Shins and has performed with numerous other acts, including Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Spoon, Dinosaur Jr. and more. In addition to headline touring, they've supported Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco, and most recently, playing to the largest audiences of their career, supporting Pearl Jam."It's quite a gift for us to have landed on a label that we have respected for years," says Dobson. "We went with SubPop because they were on board and loved what we were doing already. That's what we'd hope for when signing to a label is that they love you already. You're not having to work backwards." As for connecting with fans and labels alike, Dobson advises, "You cannot force an audience to love what you do. You can just make the best [album] you can, and the people will decide." Deep Sea Diver recently shared a video for “Let Me Go,” a collaboration with Madison Cunningham. Their fourth album Billboard Heart is out now. Check the group on their tour, which kicks off and finishes up with hometown shows in Washington.  – Joseph MalteseThe post Signing Stories: Deep Sea Diver first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

From Ole Obermann leaving TikTok to Daniel Ek’s $666m… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe biggest stories from the past week – all in one place…
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Independent, College and Non-Commercial Radio Charts launchIndependent artists and labels often get their start at independent college, community and non-commercial radio. New independent radio charts launched by A2IM and Muzooka should bring much needed attention to these important outlets.
The post Independent, College and Non-Commercial Radio Charts launch appeared first on Hypebot.

How to Monetize Music on YouTube and TikTokIt's wonderful when a song goes viral, but it's even better to get paid for it. Learn how to monetize music on YouTube and TikTok and get every dime you deserve.
The post How to Monetize Music on YouTube and TikTok appeared first on Hypebot.

New Toys: Artiphon Orba 3--Handheld Synth with Built-In SamplingNashville, TN's Artiphon has released Orba 3, their third version of their portable handheld synth. Offering instant sampling as well as 300 built-in sounds, the Orba 3 has an omnidirectional microphone, allowing users to sample their voice, sound effects, or any other audio directly onto the instrument with no additional cables or devices required. The idea of the Orba 3 is to use its built-in sounds as well as sampling your own sounds to create beats and songs. Musicians and non-musicians alike can have fun and be proficient and enjoy making beats and sampling/building songs on the Orba 3. You can easily sample everyday sounds to make rhythmic hooks and add chords and melody to create. Orba 3 is a little larger than the size of a hockey puck and can fit easily in your pocket so you can record sounds wherever you are and build beats and songs on the fly.Orba 3 has four primary modes—Drum, Bass, Chord, and Lead—that integrate with the sampling feature. In Drum mode, each of the eight pads can hold a unique sample, while in Chord mode, samples are automatically tuned to fit musical chords. The sound engine automatically crops and tunes the audio. Users press the red “sample” button, make a sound, and Orba distributes it among the eight pads and pitch changes it. The looper helps you build songs. Tap the menu button to record each part, and a click track sounds. The built-in quantizer tightens timing so your loops lock in. Your movement shapes each part's sound. What does this mean? The Orba 3 has an accelerometer, gyroscope, and embedded haptic feedback. Designed to be physically interactive, it translates your gestures into music. Tap, tilt, shake the Orba 3 and each move modifies the sound. Move around the surface to control volume or add effects by tilting. For drums, shake a shaker or bump the side for a tambourine. The Artiphon Connect app is available free. It allows for Bluetooth MIDI control of all their devices and for Orba 3, allows for part volume mixing, the addition of reverb effects and expanded sound libraries including sounds inspired by genres like Trap, R&B, Electro-pop, Lo-fi, as well as electric guitars and upright pianos, vocals, and more. With the built-in battery, you can use it anywhere. The Orba 3 is an innovative and enjoyable unique product. There is a learning curve, but you can be making beats and creating with it right away. It connects via USB-C or Bluetooth to your digital audio workstation for MIDI control within production software. $159artiphon.comThe post New Toys: Artiphon Orba 3--Handheld Synth with Built-In Sampling first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Live Nation reports record 2024 revenue, more growth aheadLive Nation Entertainment released its full-year and fourth-quarter 2024 results, showcasing impressive growth with more ahead. As CEO Michael Rapino put it, "2024 was live music’s biggest year yet," and 2025 is poised to surpass it.
The post Live Nation reports record 2024 revenue, more growth ahead appeared first on Hypebot.

Knut Frängsmyr appointed Chief of Music at Epidemic SoundFormer Klarna exec joins Stockholm-based music licensing platform
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TikTok music dominance is fading as younger users defectWhile by some metrics TikTok is still outperforming YouTube and Facebook, there are the MusicWatch team found clear signs that TikTok music dominance is fading, especially among its younger users.
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BMI Presents 29th Annual Key West Songwriters Festival LineupThe annual Key West Songwriters Festival presented by BMI announced today the first details behind the five-day event, set to take place April 30th through May 4th. In its 29th year, the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association and Rams Head Presents will welcome more than 150 BMI creators as the island transforms into Music City. Multi-day offerings of free and ticketed shows will include veteran songwriters to the next big hitmakers as they showcase the artistry behind their songs while also introducing new music to audiences. Additional songwriters will continue to be revealed and schedules will be made available in late March at www.keywestsongwritersfestival.com.The “unparalleled five-day experience for music fans” (Keys News) will feature stripped-down and full-band performances from Nashville’s hit songwriters and local favorites such as Chuck Cannon, Bob DiPiero, Rebecca Lynn Howard, Raul Malo, Lee Thomas Miller, Taylor Phillips, Liz Rose, Jeffrey Steele and Bridgette Tatum. Prominent newcomers like Matt Castillo, Bre Kennedy, Jackson Nance, DJ Smoke and The Kentucky Gentlemen will make their debut. The festival will commence with the official “Sunset Pier Kick Off Party” at the Ocean Key Resort & Spa, on Wednesday (4/30), featuring Dylan Altman, Robert Randolph and Guthrie Trapp. As previously announced, Nate Smith will headline the Coffee Butler Amphitheater on Thursday (5/01) with support from Chase Matthew and tickets are available here. The annual free block party at Main Stage Duval Street will be held on Saturday (5/03) with talent to be announced soon.After making their inaugural debut at last year’s festival, “Sunday Songs: Music & Mimosas” at Williams Hall will return on Sunday (5/04) as well as hourly rounds from the Key West Woman’s Club at Hellings Curry Museum and intimate theater showcases at La Te Da. New venues will be on display such as the Marquesa Hotel, The Alamo and Island Dogs while Rams Head Southernmost Bar & Restaurant will be the event’s headquarters. Longstanding popular destination spots throughout the island will return like Key West Theater, Southernmost Resort, Blue Heaven, Dante’s Key West Pool Bar & Restaurant and San Carlos Institute.“We're excited for another year of collaborating with BMI and the amazing venues across the island to highlight the industry’s best songwriting talent,” said Kyle Muehlhauser, owner of the Key West Songwriters Festival and Rams Head Presents.Additional info on Platinum passes and ticketed shows at the Key West Theater and San Carlos Institute will be available here. Proceeds from the five-day event benefit the BMI Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1985 that supports music education and creation through various grants and scholarships, along with the Michelle Foundation, a Key West-based nonprofit that helps children and families in need. Over the years, the festival has provided a platform for established and emerging songwriters to showcase their work through one-of-a-kind experiences. Notable BMI alums include Luke Combs, Florida Georgia Line, Maren Morris, Jelly Roll, Cole Swindell and more.The 29th Annual Key West Songwriters Festival is sponsored by Delta Air Lines, Gallagher, HD Radio and Texas Roadhouse. Songwriters will have the opportunity to enjoy the “Lift Off to the Kickoff” event at BNA in Delta’s Sky Club as Delta Air Lines is the official airline for the festival.The post BMI Presents 29th Annual Key West Songwriters Festival Lineup first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

TuneCore launches new ‘Advanced Trends and Analytics’ dashboard for for self-releasing artistsThe new dashboard features cross-platform performance tracking and real-time engagement metrics, among other functions
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Facebook is deleting all live streams: Act Now!Facebook is deleting all live streams and live video recordings that are 30 days old or older starting on February 19th.
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Study shows major growth in Patreon Creator incomeThere have been a major growth in Patreon creator income, according to the new State of Create report based on internal data from its creator community.
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Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fixI recently wrote about the unflattening of music, how creativity, craft and fandom can – if done right – counter the growing commodification of music. Not surprisingly, I focused on the music side of the equation but in doing so I missed the other big flattening challenge music faces, not from music but from artists themselves, or rather what artists are having to become. Music, or at least popular music, has always been more than just about the music, it has been the artist too.  But if there was previously some kind of equilibrium, the balance between craft and character has tilted firmly to the latter. It has done so because the social ecosystems in which the music business operates, reward personality more than they do craft. The music business needs to find a way to extract itself from this culture meatgrinder.

A recent Rick Beato video critiqued a major label exec for his focus on the social prowess of artists. Social has done more than anything else to push the balance towards character. With its focus on the personal, social has inherently shifted the marketing burden onto the shoulders of the artist. They are the ones that most often build brand, audience and streams from their social activity. Social now accounts for 17% of all entertainment time, more than streaming music (13%) but its soft power is bigger than its share-of-time hard power. This is because social is often our discovery entry point for everything else. For example, TikTok is the number one place Gen Z discover new music. 

But music is just one sub-strand of social, which means that artists are competing with all other creators for attention. Which is complicated further by the fact that algorithms nichify everything, making cutting through harder still.

Building fan relationships may be the ideal, but ultimately the algorithm rewards ‘buzzy’ behaviours and artists find themselves not only having to continually say something, but having to say something that cuts through. So, it is not even artists’ character that is being pushed, but an exaggerated, caricature. Artists end up, intentionally or otherwise, building a persona, a character. It is because of this double meaning (i.e. personality AND persona) that I use the word ‘character’ – that, and because it alliterates nicely with ‘craft’ 

When labels (obviously not all of them, but many of them) look for artists that have strong social followings, they see that as a reflection of the artist’s popularity and potential. It is, but more so, it is a reflection of the artist’s character and the suitability of that character to the social algorithm.

All of this might be a price worth paying, were it not for the side effects:

Social is not actually that effective: Despite all the effort put into social, its conversion rate isn’t great. Only a minority of people stream music they discover on social. The music business thinks of social as a funnel but really it is more like panning for gold, with water streaming out of the bottom (pun intended) but what’s important being left behind – the gold nuggets of fandom, identity and community.

We can’t see the ‘whys’: Music marketers can measure the effects of virality (the ‘whats’) but not the causes (the ‘whys’). They can’t tell whether it was the song or the creator that created the viral moment. They can observe correlation but not causality.

Passive fandom: Viral moments are the result of passive fandom, but artist success depends on deeper, active fandom.

Character can be an obstacle: Artist character is important but it is only part of why we like the music we do. We all like some music by artists we don’t particularly like as people. But the more we rely on the artist’s character as our route into their music, the more likely we are to not engage with music at all if we don’t like the artist. And with streaming flattening music, there is progressively less chance of us serendipitously discovering a ‘real’ artist’s music on streaming, sans character.

Craft gets relegated: With the focus on doing and saying stuff that fires up the social algorithm, the craft of music loses ground. Either because artists find themselves with less time to make music, or because labels and management sign the artists who emphasise character over craft, content over composition.

In many respect, artists and labels can’t be criticized for playing to the system. If they don’t, they risk failure. They are caught up in a system that rewards character over craft. So, what is the solution? It is much easier said than done, but the music industry needs social places where either music alone lives, or at least it has a starring role. Apple tried and failed years ago with iTunes Ping! but it was the wrong execution and at the wrong time. It was basically TikTok 10 years before TikTok, but not done very well.

To succeed, this new place (or places) will have to avoid making the same mistakes as today’s social apps. It will need to emphasise music over personality. It will need to be a place without trolling. Which will likely mean gated fan communities, where bad behaviour is not tolerated, perhaps leveraging the Twitch model of community-led moderation. Ideally, it will also be a slow internet, a place where virality, likes and follower counts take second place to community, culture and real conversation. 

Sounds ridiculously idealistic right? Perhaps it is, but these are the underlying values of human society. Technology has shifted us away from them and AI threatens to push us even further away. People are forced into behaviours that make sense to the machine more than they do to humans. Anyone who has seen the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown will have seen an artist that wanted it to be all about his music, who didn’t want to have to be a star. Things will never be like that again, and indeed there are many ways in which today’s world is immeasurably better. But over the intervening decades the pendulum has swung entirely in the opposite direction. Now the time is right for it to settle somewhere in the middle.

AllMusic Feature - Birthdays On This DayA fun item that many users may not know about is our "Birthdays On This Day" feature on the homepage of AllMusic. Each day we highlight 15 prominent musicians who were born on this date, from rock, to jazz, to hip-hop, to classical and every genre in between. Scroll down to see today's list.

On… Universal’s Asian AdventureMBW Reacts is a series of analytical commentaries from Music Business Worldwide written in response to major recent entertainment events or news stories.
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