I was being puckish when I first wrote that, thanks to Peloton, “fitness classes are the new music festivals” — but it seems the exercise company may have taken me seriously. On Tuesday morning (June 29th), the at-home fitness company announced All For One Music Festival, a three-day, virtual event …
Read More »Indie Shop Sales Were Cut in Half This Record Store Day — But There's Still Hope
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story compared the first-day sales of 2020 Record Store Day, which has been divided into three days, to 2019’s Record Store Day, which took place on one day. This story has been updated to more accurately reflect the comparison. Rolling Stone regrets the …
Read More »At Work With Mjeema Pickett, Spotify's Head of R&B and Soul
This is the third installment of Rolling Stone’s series At Work, in which we explore the fast-changing music business from the perspective of a different industry leader each week. Read the first here and the second here. Of Spotify’s thousands of employees, there are few more sought-after by the music …
Read More »Shakira's 'She Wolf' Won the Super Bowl
We already knew Shakira and Jennifer Lopez‘s Super Bowl Halftime Show had enormous cultural impact. The numbers back it up as well: Streams and sales for Jennifer Lopez and Shakira soared on Sunday and Monday well after the lights had gone out at Miami’s Hard Rock stadium, according to Alpha …
Read More »Future 25: Jody Gerson, CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group
Jody Gerson knew she had a knack for identifying future stars even when she was just “Xeroxing sheet music and lead sheets” for a publisher in her first post-college job. She went on to prove it at major publishing companies like Warner/Chappell and Sony/ATV, signing 14-year-old Alicia Keys in 1996 …
Read More »Welcome to the Rolling Stone Charts
What does it mean to be popular? That’s a question that music fans and music makers alike have asked for ages — but recently with more urgency than ever before, as listening patterns in the digital age shift and splinter. There are now dozens of ways to tally listeners’ music …
Read More »What Is Happening to Streaming's Superstars?
Think of the biggest-earning artists on music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, and the usual megastars might come to mind. Drake, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran and Billie Eilish and Khalid, for example, have all featured at the top of the biggest global charts on the biggest global services …
Read More »The Five Most Powerful People in the Music Industry Don't Work in the Music Industry
In just under two weeks, the people making the biggest decisions in the modern music business will, inevitably, feel their blood pressure rise. At a Los Angeles location, a few days before Grammy night, Billboard will reveal its annual Power 100 — a countdown of “the most influential individuals in …
Read More »Most Exciting Music Tech From CES 2019
Music has been center stage this week at CES 2019, the latest edition of Las Vegas’s international annual consumer electronics bacchanal. As smart speakers and smart home devices become ubiquitous in households around the world, audio-tech companies new and old are now fighting to show off fresh-off-the-line premium technology at …
Read More »Grammy Exec Neil Portnow: 'We Need to Make a Difference'
On February 10th, 2019, the Staples Center in Los Angeles will light up with the 61st Grammy Awards — a show that contains a number of notable firsts and lasts. It will be the first show where each of the biggest categories have eight nominations instead of five, thanks to …
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