true IMS Industry Insider | Welcome
12 Jun 2015
Business
  • Global Release Date will be begin on July 10 backed by a newly-created New Music Fridays brand. (RotD, RotD)
  • Music-minded entrepreneurs have launched two new pressing plants in the US – Cascade Record Pressing in Oregon and Burlington Record Plant in Vermont. (Resident Advisor)
  • Moog Music owner and CEO Mike Adams has unveiled an employee ownership plan to gradually transfer the ownership of the company to staff. (Fact, NY Times)
  • A new report by the IFPI and Music Canada has named London, Montreal, New York, Berlin, Austin, and Melboure as the best cities to adopt a vibrant music economy. (The Music)
  • Two of the technology startups trying to shake up the live music and ticketing market – Songkick and CrowdSurge – are merging. The new company will keep the Songkick brand, with the merger accompanied by a $16m funding round from three venture capital firms. (FT, Billboard, Guardian, TechCrunch)
  • Nettwerk Music Group has acquired New York independent house label Maxi Records [artists on the roster include Sagat, Danny Tenaglia, Armand Van Helden, Roger Sanchez]. (MBW)
  • Smart Bar starts record label, Northside '82. (Resident Advisor)
News and Features
  • Glasgow venue The Arches is entering administration. (Resident Advisor)
  • Eli & Fur launch the first artist partnership with Beatport. (RotD)
  • Holy Ship! has been spying on its fans via Facebook, blacklisting anyone who referenced drugs in online posts and banning them from future events. (Magnetic Mag)
  • There’s a new movement in the U.S. pushing for ‘sober raving’, hoping to banish the image of dance festivals as drug-fueled frenzies. (Deep House Amsterdam)
  • EDMbiz 2015 announces final program. (Billboard)
  • Jack U’s collaboration with Justin Bieber shot into Billboard’s Streaming Chart at No.10 this week. (Your EDM) 
Digital
  • Spotify paid out $300 million to rightsholders in the first quarter of the year. (Billboard)
  • Jukely, an app which allows music fans to attend an unlimited number of gigs a month for a flat fee has launched in London. (Standard) It gave subscribers access to Field Day festival as part of its opening fortnight promotion. (Times)
  • Spotify CEO Daniel Ek responded to the Apple launch with a nonchalant Twitter post. (Fact)
  • The new Apple Music service will incorporate a live internet radio station called Beats 1, available in 100 countries. The station will broadcast from three cities around the world, Los Angeles, New York and London, with Zane Lowe, Hot 97's Ebro Darden and former Rinse DJ Julie Adenuga broadcasting from the cities respectively. (Wired, Engadet)
  • Apple has announced its streaming service, Apple Music, as well as several other new music features. Launching June 30 priced $9.99, or $14.99 for a family of up to six, with a three-month free trial, it will provide paid on-demand streaming and free live radio via Beats 1 with limited skipping. It has placed high focus on intelligent algorithms and human curation. (Billboard, Register, Recode, Forbes, Mashable, Fact) Also announced is the Connect feature which will let artists upload music, photos, and messages which are shared with their fans, who can then comment and like individual posts.
  • Merlin has struck a deal with SoundCloud that enables more than 20,000 labels and distributors worldwide to monetise the revenue from uploads through advertisements and provide access to a richer set of data analytics, as well as the ability to remove infringing content. (RotD, Billboard, Guardian, FT)
  • Daniel Ek said he would only consider selling Spotify if it meant a bigger platform for its music. (Reuters)
  • “We’re going to disrupt the music labels,” YouTube executives apparently say, ahead of YouTube for Artists being unveiled at Midem. (NYPost)
  • Living Indie, a concert-streaming startup, successfully completed its crowdfunding round, having hit more than 130% of its initial target. (RotD)
Live
  • Hungary’s Sziget festival has announced its latest round of acts, including Major Lazer, Infected Mushroom and High Contrast. (DJ Mag)
  • Major Lazer revealed details of a four-date UK tour in October. (Mixmag)
  • Tiesto, Martin Garrix and Oliver Heldens are among the latest acts to be added to 2015’s Summer Splash Las Vegas. (Dancing Astronaut)
  • Some top tips on Europe’s finest summer festivals. (Billboard)
  • The New York edition of Awakenings festival will feature the likes of Adam Beyer, Henrik Schwartz and The Martinez Brothers on their Electric Zoo stage. (Resident Advisor)
  • Jamie xx celebrated the launch of new album In Colour with a show at an east London church last weekend. (Thump)
  • Deadmau5 unveiled a new Thunderdome-inspired mousetrap stage setup at New York’s Governors Ball. (Dancing Astronaut)
  • Soul Clap’s Eli Goldstein opened his intimate Black Flamingo club in New York over the weekend with a Razor-N-Tape takeover that featured POOLS alongside residents Jkriv and Aaron Dae. (Resident Advisor)
  • A breakdown of Field Day’s finest electronic acts this year. (Thump)
Comment, Opinion and Analysis
  • Across the music business spectrum the reaction to Apple Music has been cautiously hopeful. SoundCloud’s Alex Ljung comments:"The amount of listening happening on streaming is still very small. Apple is going to rapidly increase the market for all of us". (LA Times)
  • Midem: SoundCloud founder Alexander Ljung: ‘Freemium vs. premium debate is not helpful’. (MusicAlly)
  • Will Apple Music hurt the live music scene? (Guardian – Michael Hann)
  • The electronic music community needs to do more to ’embrace music streaming’ claims Lee Morrison, Believe Digital’s General Manager UK. (M)
  • 'I'm not worried': Moog CEO Mike Adams on giving his company to itself. (Billboard)
  • Will .music domains make the internet better or just more of a crowded wasteland? (Diffuser)
  • Listening habits, social media engagement, spending history and more; find out what's unique about electronic music fans. (Midem)
  • SoundCloud edges towards making YouTube the odd one out. (Mark Mulligan)
  • YouTube is in the process of doubling its users, or trying to at least. (Billboard)
  • Some insight into what gives Apple the edge over their competitors. (Forbes)
  • It may only be four years old, but EDMbiz is fast becoming the best conference and expo for aspiring industry players to get their foot in the door. (Your EDM)
Clubs
  • We Love announces the full line-up for their debut season at Sankeys Ibiza. (Pulse)
  • ENTER. at Space Ibiza announces huge 2015 lineup. (Pulse)
Deals
  • Hardwell protégé Dyro is looking to emerge from the former’s shadow with the launch of his own label Wolv Records. (Your EDM)
Artist and Music Features
  • Giorgio Moroder changed pop forever with the bassline of Donna Summer’s 1977 disco classic I Feel Love. Alexis Petridis finds out who are among the star guests on his new solo album, Deja-vu. (Guardian)
  • Miguel Campbell tells Rich West about the trials of following his own path with the style of music he wanted to create when all around him were taking the quick path to the mainstream. (Sun - Rich West)
  • Why DJs need to ditch those goddamn masks. (Pulse)
  • The tracks that ruled the 2015 Ibiza opening parties. (Pulse)
  • Is Jamie xx the Sam Smith of dance music? (Guardian)
  • Dutch king Willem-Alexander was invited to Chicago, the birthplace of House music, to talk about the industry at a dinner hosted by the School Of House. (Deep House Amsterdam)
  • A nine-year-old DJ’d on the main stage at Sunset Music Festival in Tampa, Florida the other week. Is it a sign of just how watered down modern electronic music has become? (Dancing Astronaut)
  • 30 Under 30 in music: The class of 2015. Featuring Afrojack, Arca, Martin Garrix, DJ Mustard, Porter Robinson and FKA Twigs (Forbes)
  • The day I learned to stop hating laptop DJs. (Medium - DJ Rob Swift)
  • The Arches and the trouble with UK nightlife. (Resident Advisor)
  • Quality, quantity and diversity - Andrew Ryce explains why US newcomer Matrixxman is ticking all of the boxes. (Resident Advisor)
  • As the 2015 Ibiza season begins, the gladiators enter the arena. Who will triumph? (Mixmag)
  • Australian star Flume thought he was making strange downtempo tunes – but they’re making people dance the world over. (Guardian)
  • Armin van Buuren chats about recording his latest record and gushes over how far dance music has come since he first broke through. (Billboard)
  • Armin van Buuren just dropped this Game Of Thrones trance remix. (Billboard)
  • Ten Walls, GFOTY and Boddika have all said hateful things of late – so are they isolated bigots or symptomatic of a wider intolerance? (Guardian)
  • 10 legendary DJs, including Aphex Twin, Carl Cox and Fatboy Slim, give their verdict on EDM. (Thump)
  • Some key takeaways from Major Lazer’s recent Reddit AMA. (Dancing Astronaut)
  • Adult Swim recently announced their annual Singles Program release schedule, including some eye-catching singles from the likes of Skrillex, Run The Jewels and Flying Lotus. (Dancing Astronaut)
  • A retrospective look at the factors that led to Daft Punk permanently adopting their robot personas. (Your EDM)
  • Product placement is increasingly creeping into the lyrics of popular music, according to a study. (Times)
  • A  tiny club night in West Yorkshire has become the unlikely destination for electronica’s leading lights. Just get there before bedtime, says Tony Naylor. (Guardian)
  • Harangue The DJ: Awesome Tapes From Africa (Guardian)
  • More internet reaction to Ten Walls’ infamous post. (Thump)
Artist News
  • David Guetta's producing the music for the UEFA European Championships in France next year. (Mixmag)
  • Calvin Harris's album 18 Months is the 38th biggest-selling album of the decade in Britain. (NME)
  • Creamfields, Sonar and Pukkelpop have cancelled his upcoming performances, Phonica Records will no longer be stocking upcoming album Sparta, and Coda have dropped him from their roster. It’s been a tough week for Ten Walls following his anti-gay Facebook post on June 3. (XLR8R)
  • Disclosure have announced further details of new album Caracal, which is set for a September 25 release. (XLR8R)
  • Sbtrkt has accused Disclosure of aping the artwork from his Wonder Where We Land release for the cover of their new Caracal album. (Fact)
  • PC Music’s GFOTY has faced some heavy criticism following some inappropriate comments in her iMessage-based Field Day review for Noisey. (Fact)
  • Matt Zo has been firing some well-aimed shots at the EDM establishment recently, including the allegation that artists are buying festival slots. (Mixmag)
Albums
  • Leftfield (Guardian2 - 4* Jon Dennis, FT – 3* Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, Times – 3* Joe Clay, Times – Mark Edwards, Observer – Molloy Woodcraft)
  • Giorgio Moroder (Times2 – 2* Will Hodgkinson, Guardian – 3* Tim Jonze, Star – 4* James Cabooter)
Live
  • Field Day – Victoria Park, London (Standard – 3* Rick Pearson, Times2 – 3* Ed Potton, Guardian – 5* Dorian Lynskey, Independent – 4* Roisin O’Connor, Quietus - Christian Eede)
  • Jamie xx – St John at Hackney, London (Standard – 4* David Smyth)
  • Music On - Amnesia Ibiza opening 2015 (Pulse - Kyle Daley)
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