Top Social Media Management Tools for MusiciansElevate your music marketing with the Top Social Media Management Tools for Musicians designed to boost your online presence and engage your audience like never before.
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The Zombies founder Rod Argent recovering from a stroke, Announces retirement from touringFrom The Zombies’ Management:

We are saddened to report that Rod Argent, founder, keyboardist & primary songwriter of The Zombies, has suffered a stroke. Rod had recently returned home from a triumphant Zombies tour of the UK, and spent a weekend in London with his beloved wife Cathy, celebrating his 79th birthday and their 52nd wedding anniversary, before the stroke occurred. He was hospitalized overnight, and released the next day. Doctors have advised that Rod will need several months of rest and recuperation.

Rod has asked us to convey that he has made the very difficult decision to immediately retire from touring in order to protect his health. He was already preparing to wind down his live performance schedule after health scares on recent tours (a Fall 2024 USA run was in the works that was intended to be his final overseas tour, and a farewell to the country that launched The Zombies’ career in 1964). However, the stroke was an unmistakable warning sign that the risks are too great. Rod still firmly intends to continue his other creative joy of writing and recording with The Zombies, and has already been back at his piano for some much-needed “Bach therapy”.

The Zombies - Photography by ALEX LAKE insta @twoshortdays WWW.TWOSHORTDAYS.COM

We have managed The Zombies together for the past 11 years, and Chris was their US booking agent for the 11 years prior. We have witnessed hundreds of times how Rod transforms back into an 18-year-old during the 100-minutes he’s on stage each night with The Zombies. The energy he receives from his musical symbiosis with the current lineup - original singer Colin Blunstone, drummer (and cousin) Steve Rodford, guitarist Tom Toomey and bassist Søren Koch - is doubled by the energy that flows back from the audiences, with fans of all ages joyfully singing along to their classics and new songs. Each year, we’d secretly marvel at how this band could possibly be playing at an even higher level than the previous year, instead of diminishing with age. That being said, the other aspects of touring can be grueling, and can take their toll on 18-year-olds, never mind a musician approaching 80. As heart-breaking as this is for us, the band, our crew and our team, we are a family and fully support Rod in this decision.

Rod had retired from touring once before, in 1975 after spending his late teens and 20’s on the road with both The Zombies and his eponymous band Argent, in order to focus on his family, along with songwriting and production. This didn’t change until 1999, when Colin coaxed him to fill in on 6 of his solo gigs, after a keyboard player had dropped out at the last minute. Rod reluctantly told him, “I’ll do it...but 6 shows, that’s it.” On tour last month, Rod remarked to us how incredible and unexpected it was that those 6 shows turned into 25 years of touring and recording with the new incarnation of The Zombies, almost a third of his life.

And it’s been a helluva run.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Festivals like Glastonbury, StageCoach and KAABOO. Unforgettable shows like Central Park Summerstage, Santa Monica Pier, Stern Grove San Francisco, London Palladium, and Stubb’s at SXSW Austin. TV appearances with Jimmy Fallon and Jools Holland. Sharing stages with Tom Petty and Brian Wilson. Too many moments to count. The UK tour The Zombies just completed in June added two more highlights - a sold-out show for 2000 fans at London’s Barbican Centre with special guests like Paul Weller, and closing to a multi-generational crowd rapturously cheering them despite endless rain and mud at the Eden Festival in Scotland.

As Rod’s experience shows, we don’t know what the future holds.

What we have to tell fans today is that all upcoming performances by The Zombies will be canceled. However, our 2nd annual “Begin Here Festival” in St Albans UK (November 8-10, 2024) will continue. This fan weekend celebrating The Zombies and the historical and vibrant city where they formed is made even more important by this news. Our hope is to replace the scheduled Zombies performance with a special show honoring Rod, and ask fans to hold on to their tickets until we’ve had time to regroup and announce new plans. Colin Blunstone’s upcoming November performances of his seminal 1971 solo album One Year, at Begin Here Festival and other UK cities, will also continue as planned. Most importantly, know how much you are loved and appreciated by the band, and how grateful we are for your continued support. In the meantime, we will all get to enjoy The True Story of the Fake Zombies, an 8-episode true-crime Podcast detailing the 1969 story of an imposter version of the band on iHeart Radio starting today, and the official Zombies documentary, Hung Up On A Dream, directed by Robert Schwartzman, slated for theatrical and streaming release later this year.

Our last message is that if a classic artist that has made music you love is performing nearby, don’t miss the opportunity to see them. You can sit on the couch and binge Netflix another day. The communal experience of a live performance by a veteran artist is a singular and joyous moment. These artists are treasures who have stood the test of time and are giving their all, but they are fragile human beings like all of us. Don’t miss out.

Chris Tuthill & Cindy da Silva

The Rocks Management 

The post The Zombies founder Rod Argent recovering from a stroke, Announces retirement from touring first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Why Is Music Getting Worse? Rick Beato has two answersIs music getting worse? Rick Beaton, whose commentaries and interviews have 4.3 million subscribers on YouTube, thinks so, and he thinks he knows why.
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Courtney Harrell shares strategies for Navigating the Music IndustrySinger and songwriter Courtney Harrell unveils her personal strategies for navigating the music industry. Her expert advice provides aspiring musicians with essential guidance for achieving success in a competitive environment.. Continue reading
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Virgin Music Group partners with Japan’s Frontier Works for anime music projectsThe global anime market has seen explosive growth in recent years.
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PRS celebrates 110th anniversary with commemorative publication in partnership with MBUKCollection society reflects on over a century of working on behalf of songwriters around the world
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Mastering Music PR: A Guide for Emerging MusiciansThis beginner's guide offers emerging music essential strategies for successful music PR. By following these practical PR tips, musicians can enhance their reach, build a strong brand, and accelerate their careers.
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Music Sustainability Alliance Announces 2025 Summit and Other ProgramsThe Music Sustainability Alliance, the hub for the industry to learn, innovate, and collaborate to advance sustainability in the music business, has announced its 2025 Summit dates as it ramps up its program offerings.

The 2025 Music Sustainability Summit, held each year on the day after the Grammy Awards, will take place on Monday, February 3, 2025, in Los Angeles.

The event, which convenes leaders from across the industry, covers a wide range of topics related to reducing the negative environmental impacts of the music industry while advancing and accelerating positive impacts.

left to right Kurt Langer, VP & Board Member, Joel Makower, Strategy Director & Industry Council Chair , Amy Morrison, CEO, Co-Founder & Board Member, Eleanor Anderson, Project Advisor & Board Member, Michael Martin, Co-Founder & Board Member

Among the topics covered at the 2024 summit were: 

the role of promoters and venues in advancing sustainability solutions

increasing the use of plant-based foods at concerts and festivals

creating zero-waste events by fostering reuse

advancing alternatives to diesel-powered electricity at events

streamlining industry freight and logistics

reducing the impacts of fan travel to music events

supporting the role of the artist as activist

“The Summit represents a meeting of the minds working on music industry sustainability, both leaders and learners,” said MSA CEO and co-founder Amy Morrison. “The industry has nearly unlimited potential to model the future we all want to see by supporting and propagating leadership practices and technologies that can address the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, the waste crisis and other societal challenges. The summit represents an annual opportunity to collaboratively learn and to showcase and accelerate the industry’s progress.”

In addition to planning the summit, the MSA team has recently launched three other initiatives:

— Music Votes, spearheaded by MSA and launched in June, is a collaboration among 20 music and cultural organizations to increase voter participation in the 2024 U.S. elections. It offers a turnkey solution for artists, managers, music companies, venues and other music outlets to have a tangible impact on this year’s election. 

— Three MSA Working Groups have been launched, in which industry representatives are collaborating to identify best practices and develop evidence-based recommendations and propose standards for sustainable practices. The three working groups focus on:

Renewable Energy and Power Solutions

Waste Management and Circular Economy

Reporting, Metrics, and Standardization

— The Green Room, an MSA webinar series, kicks off on September 3, with a session on “Turning Fans Into Activists,” including how musicians and bands are encouraging fans to become politically active, and do so without alienating parts of their fan base. Speakers include singer and activist Dawn Richard and leading sustainability communications analyst Suzanne Shelton. 

Register hereThe post Music Sustainability Alliance Announces 2025 Summit and Other Programs first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Warner Music Japan Chief Operating Officer Kazuhiro Shimada exitsShimada joined Warner Music Japan in November 2022
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Lenzo Yoon, one of the key execs behind the rise of BTS, is leaving HYBE (report)Exec joined the company in 2010 as Head of Strategic Planning
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How to plan your next release 2024 [Jay Gilbert]Veteran music marketer Jay Gilbert offers an updated how-to guide for every musician, label, and music marketer on planning your next release.
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Maximize your Ad Budget as an Independent ArtistThis ultimate indie guide covers strategic planning and targeted marketing to maximize your Ad budget as an independent artist or label. by Tim Jack, CEO @ RiseLA, posted on Symphonic. Continue reading
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Music Tectonics launches 2024 Music Tech Startup CompetitionApplications are now open for the 2024 Music Tectonics Startup Pitch Competition. This multifaceted event empowers startups to gain exposure and get feedback from investors and industry experts.
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Music isn’t getting worse, genre is

A couple of weeks ago Rick Beato put out a video titled “The real reason why music is getting worse”. The core arguments centre around too many people making music, and tech making it both easier to make music and  for people to be lazy creators. And while Beato followed his original argument with an ‘old man yells at cloud’ video (this time titled “I know you’re angry, so am I…”), he stood his ground. The problem is, what constitutes ‘good music’ is entirely subjective. If it was only about technique then the majority of popular music would consistently lose against classical or jazz. Music is good when it moves us. And it tends to move us most when we are young. Hence most generations thinking that the best music was made when they were young.

Of course there is a lot in Beato’s arguments, but the ‘problems’ he identifies are also the positive trends that underpin the tectonic shifts in today’s music business and culture. But (and I know you shouldn’t follow a ‘but’ with a ‘but’, but…) there is also a lot more going on. The tech and democratisation trends are merely responding to and catalysing wider cultural shifts in music –– with fragmentation and genre the prime movers.

There has been plenty written about genre coming to an end; that we are in a post-genre world. The truth is more complex. In some respects, genre was only ever intended as a way for audiences to navigate their way through music, signposts to what they will probably like. Genres still play this role, though mood and activity playlists are fast becoming an alternative architecture for categorising music. Nonetheless, genre  remains the primary way we understand music.

The canon of music genre was established years ago (pop, rock, metal, dance, hip hop, jazz, country, blues, classical, etc). Each of those meta-genres came to prominence with underpinning cultural movements and at specific periods in time, especially popular music: pop ‘60s, rock ‘70s, dance, hip hop and metal ‘80s, dance late ‘80s / ‘90s.

The last chapter of the genre cannon –– dance –– was the ‘90s (and yes, that is a statement that is asking to be disagreed with). All other genres since have formed within the now-canonised meta-genres.

The new genres of this millennium fall into four groups:

1.    Regional interpretations: amapiano, Brazilian funk, reggaeton

2.    Scene-driven sub-genres: hyper pop, drill, trap

3.    Genre reinvention: mumblecore, dovecore

4.    Genre revival: shoegaze, post-punk

Each one of these meta-genres push music in new directions but still claim membership to one of the genre canon.

The fact that meta-genres have become canonised is a reflection of the post-mainstream nature of music. Fandom has fragmented, and genre fragmentation is really the music manifestation of this foundational behavioural shift.

All of which means that the meta-genres are actually less important and useful than they were. They have always referred to the mainstream end of music fandom, with sub-genres being traditionally where the more tribal end of music fandom lives. While that tribalism still exists, the subtle-but-foundational shift is that the fragmentation of fandom means that many of today’s niche sub-genres are built around listening patterns more than tribal music scenes. Crucially, niche does not inherently mean small, it just means not mainstream (and just to complicate matters further, has itself become niche).

Perhaps the best way to think about music genre in the 2020s is less in genre terms and instead through the lenses of sound and culture. Music today is shaped in six key ways:

Technology: Music production technology is innovating at a rapid pace, not just in terms of what tech is being made but also how creators are using it. AI is accelerating and amplifying this. New, unexpected sounds are working their way into music and changing its shape and sound. Think hyper pop (auto tuned vocals, pitch shifted instrumentation), and neurostep (a dubstep sub genre that uses lots of hypergrowls and ‘neurotic’ sound design).

Cultural interplays: Regions fusing their local sounds with international sounds to create something new. Think Reggaeton’s fusion of dancehall, Latin music, and hip hop.

User modification: Music fans speeding tracks up or down, boosting the bass, or creating mashups all flow back into music’s creative melting pot. A TikTok user creating a trap / grindcore / ambient mashup could accidentally create an entirely new wave of sound. This will become increasingly widespread, especially when you put gen AI in the hands of music fans.

Scenes: Music used to create scenes. Now, music is often the soundtrack to scenes, especially online ones. As a consequence, music has the potential to evolve much more because it is not tightly bound by genre rules. Nightcore as the soundtrack to online games and manga communities was an early example, with its sound shifting over the years.

Context: Physical spaces used to shape music (think Paradise Garage, late ‘80s warehouse raves, etc). As we spend ever more time online, it is only natural that online spaces are becoming the places that shape music. Whether that be TikTok-core, Spotify-core or Roblox-core. TikTok-core is so meta that it is often referred to as ‘core core’. Even social media is reshaping music – look no further than techno’s shift  to Instagram-friendly, fast BPMs and big drops. If / when the metaverse finally becomes a thing, this effect could explode. Take a look at VR club Shelter to get a sneak peek of what the future may hold.

Genre fluidity: All of the above factors lead to genre fluidity, with artists increasingly happy to throw together elements of many different genres. In the old world, the genre-police would have angrily shouted down these efforts (and to be fair, some still do) but there is much more willingness to straddle genre’s old boundaries. The walls are coming down.

The music business, and music critics, are often too keen to identify new genres. But simply putting ‘core’ after a word does not invent a genre. Most often it explains a sound phenomenon, with music responding to one or more of the above six factors. Spotify-core is one such example. And because the digital world is forever changing, the nature of music is forever changing. If the 2010s was characterised by artists trying to make music that ‘works’ on Spotify –– with big intros, drops and hooks –– the 2020s is seeing music with a more aesthetic and mood based approach. This is music responding to its surroundings rather than the creation of music genre. 

Some of the change is truly innovative, some of it entirely reductive. And the reductive change is not simply driven by the long tail of enthusiast creators learning their way. The biggest artists and songwriters are just as culpable: of the 960 songs from the US Billboard Top 40 in the entirety of the 21st century just 32 diverged from 4/4 time. In the era of fragmentation, creators big and small will do whatever it takes to cut through. In this paradigm, genre can be a barrier rather than a signpost, confining a song to just one lane of music culture’s highway. 

Genre is not going away, but while it was once the only place music could go, it is now just one part of a much more nuanced and complex picture. And that’s a good thing.

ASCAP Empowers Music Creators to Vote in Major Election YearThe American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) today announces the launch of the 2024 ASCAP Citizen campaign. Powered by nonpartisan, nonprofit voter registration organization HeadCount, ASCAP Citizen encourages ASCAP’s more than one million songwriter, composer and music publisher members and their communities to make their voices heard in this year’s elections.

As the congressional debate around artificial intelligence regulation intensifies, the 2024 ASCAP Citizen campaign focuses on why voting is important for ASCAP members, emphasizing the direct impact policy can have on a music creators’ ability to make a living. This year’s campaign kicks off earlier than ever, on July 9, and will run through Election Day on November 5.

The campaign launches with a video featuring ASCAP members Leon Thomas (“Snooze,” SZA), Madison Love ("Bad Things,” Machine Gun Kelly & Camila Cabello), Jimmy Jam (“What Have You Done for Me Lately,” Janet Jackson), Marcus Miller (“Jump to It,” Aretha Franklin), Siddhartha Khosla (Only Murders in the Building), Joe Ragosta ("Need a Favor,” Jelly Roll), Akil “worldwidefresh” King (“BLACK PARADE,” Beyoncé), Amanda “Kiddo A.I.” Ibanez (“Calm Down,” Rema & Selena Gomez), René G. Boscio (The Watchful Eye), Amanda Jones (Moving On), Jaren Johnston (“Take Me to the Bottom,” The Cadillac Three)and Georgia Middleman (“I’m In,” Keith Urban)sharing why it’s critical for music creators to participate in the democratic process, and sending the message to elected officials that music creators vote. 

Throughout the campaign, @ASCAP social media channels will feature educational content and personal messages about the importance of voting from ASCAP members across every genre. The initial list includes LENA ("Tu Corazón”), Blu June (“CUFF IT,” Beyoncé), Pinar Toprak (Captain Marvel), 310babii (“Soak City (Do It)”) and more. ASCAP will also amplify “get out the vote” messages from other top ASCAP creators partnered with HeadCount including Olivia Rodrigo, Alicia Keys and Kehlani.

“Whether it is protecting creators’ rights through copyright law or new artificial intelligence regulations, policy directly impacts our members’ livelihoods. It’s vital for music creators to stay engaged with democracy and that starts with voting,” explained ASCAP CEO Elizabeth Matthews. “It’s time to show elected officials that they should listen to more than just our members’ songs, because music creators vote.”

"We're thrilled to continue our partnership with ASCAP to empower music creators and their communities to vote in the upcoming elections. ASCAP Citizen embraces music’s power to bring people together – and music creators’ power as advocates for making our voices heard," said Lucille Wenegieme, Executive Director of HeadCount.

For the third election year in a row, ASCAP is an official partner of National Voter Registration Day on September 17. ASCAP Citizen will engage in online and on-the-ground grassroots voter registration mobilization throughout the summer and fall, and will shift to get-out-the-vote efforts in the days leading up to Election Day, including early voting efforts for Vote Early Day on October 29.

Starting today, anyone can visit www.headcount.org/ascap to register to vote, verify or update their voter registration status and view their local ballot.

More information about ASCAP Citizen can be found at www.ascap.com/citizen.The post ASCAP Empowers Music Creators to Vote in Major Election Year first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.