Supreme Court eyes Section 230 ruling that could be BAD for musiciansThis week the U.S. Supreme Court began arguments on the Gonzalez and Taamneh cases, and their rulings either could dial back or eliminate existing protections that web platforms have from. Continue reading
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5 legal ways to get more Spotify streamsFrom ways to customize your profile to collaborating with artists, here are 5 tips on how to get more Spotify streams this year without getting yourself in trouble. by Collin. Continue reading
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Remembering Mark LaneganMarch 22, 2023, marks one year since the passing of one of rock's all-time great vocalists, Mark Lanegan. Author Greg Prato offers remembrances from Nick Oliveri, Jack Endino, Gary Lee Conner, and more.

Babyface Upgrades His Mixing ConsoleKenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, the prolific award-winning hitmaker behind chart-topping songs by artists such as Toni Braxton, Mary J. Blige, Madonna and Mariah Carey, has upgraded the mixing console in the A room at his Brandon’s Way production facility in Hollywood. The two-room private complex, which opened in 1996, now features a new 48-fader Solid State Logic Duality Fuse SuperAnalogue console with SSL δelta-Control and integrated Fusion coloration processor, which joins an SSL Duality in the Studio B.

The very first production completed in Studio A at Brandon’s Way, which was named to celebrate the birth of Babyface’s first child, was a collaboration with Stevie Wonder, “How Come, How Long.” The song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. Most recently, in November 2022, Babyface released his 11th solo album, Girls Night Out, a 13-song collection featuring some of R&B’s most iconic singers, including Ella Mai, Kehlani, Ari Lennox, Muni Long and Queen Naija, which was written and produced at Brandon’s Way.

A perfect pairing“We had a 96-fader SSL 9000 J Series in Studio A, one of the first,” reports Paul Boutin, who has been chief engineer at Brandon’s Way for more than two decades. "This replaced the SSL 4080 G+ that was originally installed."

Studio A eventually became a writing room, with Babyface favoring the B room for most of his production projects and the 9096J was used less frequently, Boutin says. “I have a Duality in my room, so I know the board,” he says, so he suggested a second Duality to replace the aging J Series desk. The recently installed console in Studio A is SSL’s newer Duality Fuse version, which features a Fusion analogue processor integrated into the center section. Fusion offers six analogue coloration tools for adding tonal character, weight and space to stereo stems.

The new SSL Duality Fuse is outfitted with angled producer’s bays at each end, matching the footprint of the 9096J previous installed in Brandon Way’s A control room. The new console also includes SSL δelta-Control to seamlessly integrate SSL’s analogue console automation with today’s DAW-based workflows.

Outstanding track recordBoutin had been working on a project with Babyface at Record Plant for about six months when he was invited to take a fulltime position as an assistant at the new facility when it opened in 1996. At Brandon’s Way he has collaborated with Babyface on two dozen Gold records, 15 Platinum records and 16 multi-Platinum releases, and has participated on three Grammy-winning albums while garnering a further 18 Grammy nominations. Babyface, an 11-time Grammy-winner, four of them for Producer of the Year, a Recording Academy Trustee Award-winner and a 2017 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, has worked with a who’s-who of pop and R&B royalty, including artists such as Boyz II Men, Bobby Brown, Aretha Franklin, Katharine McPhee, Vanessa Williams, Celine Dion, Phil Collins and many, many others.

Babyface's history with making hit records with SSL consoles dates back to the mid-'80s, during his collaboration with Antonio "L.A." Reid. Kenny states: "SSL has always been at the forefront of my hit making formula. Nothing else allows me to achieve the level of production excellence."

About Solid State LogicSolid State Logic is the world’s leading manufacturer of analogue and digital audio consoles and provider of creative tools for music, broadcast, live and post production professionals. For more information about our award-winning products, please visit: www.solidstatelogic.com.

Is the slowdown in big-money music catalog deals officially over?Moves from Hipgnosis, Shamrock, Primary Wave, and a big brewing Michael Jackson story have all pumped excitement into 2023's M&A narrative
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HYBE revenues soared 41.6% YoY to $1.37bn in 2022, surpassing the 1 billion dollar mark for the second straight yearHYBE posts 2022 financial results

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Spotify set to add TikTok-style swipe music discoverySpotify will announce the addition of a TikTok-like music and podcast discovery stream at its Stream On event on March 8th. A new mobile homepage similar to TikTok will allow. Continue reading
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Instagram adds direct-to-fan broadcast chat Channels, Facebook coming soonInstagram is adding Channels, a one-to-many messaging tool for musicians and creators to engage with followers. At a time when algorithms are increasingly coming between artist and fan, the ability. Continue reading
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Filling music streaming’s Disney+-shaped holeBack when Disney+ started its meteoric rise, there was a lot of thinking around what lessons the music streaming market could learn. Three years on from the launch of the subscription video on demand platform, the shine has come off it a little, registering its first ever subscriber loss, but not before becoming a major market player and changing the way in which the industry thinks about developing streaming shows. Disney+ was part of the ‘big bang moment’ of transformative change in the video streaming market. Meanwhile, the music streaming market basically stayed the same. This may have been tolerable during its time of plenty, but now, with global music streaming revenue growth looking set to have dropped to 7% for 2022, the lack of change leaves music streaming vulnerable in a time of scarcity. Never has there been more need for change and innovation. Disney+ might still just point us to the path forward.

There are many weaknesses in the Western music streaming market that are well known and that do not need to be relisted in their entirety here, but there are three that stand out above all others (and to be clear, we are talking about the services side of the market, not the remuneration side, which we previously covered here):

Unlimited, ungated access to everything, everywhere

Minimal differentiation (catalogue, pricing, value proposition, etc.)

A fandom void

Meanwhile, video streaming has long provided a ‘sliding doors’ view of what music streaming could have been if licensing had been done differently at the start:

Catalogue segmented across different services

Wide variety of price points and value propositions

Ability to target niches

Strong ARPU growth due to users having multiple subscriptions

But, just as music has been hit by economic scarcity, video has even more so. Expecting consumers to have multiple subscriptions (nearly three quarters have two or more) might fly in a time of plenty, but as household budgets tighten, the business case suddenly looks vulnerable. Cancelling one video subscription is a relatively pain-free decision. It reduces choice, but it does not mean losing everything. By contrast, the vast majority of music subscribers have just one account, giving them access to everything. Music streaming’s exceptional value for money is becoming a recession-busting asset that the TV industry may be looking at with envy at this stage.

It is all about growth

So, with all this said, why could there still be lessons to learn from Disney+? The simple answer is: growth. With subscriber penetration topping out in mature Western markets, music rightsholders and streaming services only have price increases as a realistic growth driver in these markets. But, if a new, additional service was to launch, then a very real chance of ARPU and revenue growth arises. To be clear, now would not be the time to launch it (for the very same reasons that Disney+ just lost subscribers). But now is the perfect time to plan and build, with a view to launch once the global economy returns to full health and consumer purse springs loosen. The challenge, of course, is how to build something that can deliver genuine additive value when all the other DSPs already have all the music. Here is a vision for how that particular circle can be squared.

Introducing music+

Let us call this concept ‘music+’ for now. Music+ would have to be something that is different from, and complementary to, the mainstream DSPs, in terms of both content and value proposition. It would need two key ingredients:

Community and identity: As MIDiA identified last year, scenes are the new growth opportunity for music and fandom. Fandom itself is simply a symptom of identity. Music has long played a crucial role in communicating and shaping identity. But Western streaming services are audio utilities that sacrificed fandom in favour of convenience. There is no meaningful way of communicating identity. This is why TikTok is the place that music fandom happens in the West, driven by gen Z, who sought something more meaningful than the convenience that was so valued by millennials. So, music+ would have community and identity at its core. User profile pages would be the core asset. A place where users can say who they are, what music they like, where they can connect and communicate with other users, curate radio shows, post playlists, etc. They would also display listening badges (e.g., “I am in the top 5% of fans of…”) and virtual artist merchandise, such as badges, limited-run digital artwork, etc. NFTs may yet prove to be the future of artist merch, but right now it lacks the crucial ingredient – context. Buying merch is about communicating identity. User profile pages would be the trophy cabinet for virtual merch and collectibles.

Content for fans not consumers: Streaming has commodified listening, even for music aficionados (half of whom stream passively). Music+ would be a place for aficionados (20% of all consumers), where fans go to deep dive on their favourite artists and connect with likeminded fans. Artists would provide content, such as sessions, cover versions, sneak previews, limited-availability live streamed concerts, Q+A sessions, photos, etc. That would provide much of the content, but even more would come from fans themselves. Aficionados are four times more likely than average consumers to lean forward and create content. Leaning through to create is the ultimate expression of fandom, and TikTok has proven the use case. So – and this is where things get controversial – music+ would need to operate under a user-generated content (UGC) license. The vast majority of music’s current UGC platforms (YouTube, SoundCloud, TikTok) followed the ‘do first, ask for forgiveness later’ approach. Music rightsholders would need to embrace, rather than tolerate, UGC in order to power the creation of an entirely new music catalogue. Their incentive would be to drive rather than respond, by seeding the platform with content, such as artist sound packs and stems.

Music+ would not be a mainstream proposition, but that is entirely the point. It would be an additive proposition for fans. If priced at a modest cost (say $4.99) and got enough support and input from artists and rightsholders, then it would have a good shot at developing a content library that would deliver real value to fans, and in doing so, plug the fandom hole that Western streaming has never seemed to be able to fill. 

5 Ways to create a more compelling Music Livestreamby CHRIS ROBLEY of DIY Musician How to improve your music livestreams. Celebrated independent songwriter and pro live-streamer Emma McGann shares her top five tips for delivering an engaging livestream.. Continue reading
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As HYBE eyes a $900m stake in K-pop rival, SM Entertainment slams BTS company’s ‘hostile takeover attempt’SM Entertainment CFO Jang Cheol Hyuk argues that HYBE's takeover bid would lead to the latter company's monopolization of the K-Pop industry
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‘APAC isn’t a region to apply a one size fits all strategy.’MBW’s World Leaders series interviews Nina Rabe-Cairns, Managing Director, APAC for Ingrooves Music Group
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Facebook, Instagram add paid Meta Verified accounts with key benefitsMeta’s Facebook and Instagram have announced that they are adding paid verifications similar to Twitter’s Blue checkmark. Adoption of Twitter Blue has been slow, but Meta’s offering has some benefits,. Continue reading
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TOP POSTS: Last week’s most-read posts on HypebotCatch up on what everybody has been talking about with last week’s most-read posts. We’ve got topics ranging from Ticketmaster on ticket fees, to the current state of music advertising and. Continue reading
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Last week in music industry commentaryCommentators in the thick of the industry last week shared their opinions and thoughts on TikTok marketing myths, the state of indie music, and more. Realities of today’s gender gap. Continue reading
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