By Kevin Cornell
Another month is coming to a close, and TuneCore is here to fill all you independent artists in on some of the headlines you may have missed.
Whether it’s music streaming, publishing, product updates, studies and reports, or op-eds, we’re rounding up some music industry must-reads for all of you looking to stay in touch with the business and advance your career!
Music Industry Closes 2019 Strong
Happy New Year, indeed. It looks like 2019 was the fifth consecutive year of growth within the global recorded music industry – growing from $14.2B to $19.1B (with signs pointing toward $21B last year). Our friends at MusicAlly.com provided a great Trends Report and dives into the optimistic data. Read more here.
Fare Thee Well, 8tracks
TuneCore’s one-time partner 8tracks announced that it will be shuttering its streaming service at the end of 2019. While we’re sad to see it go, the company’s founder put together a nice blog post to both announce the news and commemorate his and his team’s efforts. Read more here.
Industry Legend Iovine Raises Speculation on Streaming
Odd as it may seem, esteemed producer and industry fixture Jimmy Iovine went all-in with the New York Times this month. The most eye-grabbing detail, naturally, was his talk of digital streaming’s margin problems to come. Typically when a guy like this talks, artists listen. Read more here.
Ausgezeichnet! Germany Streams Hit 107 Billion
56.4B in 2017, 79.5B in 2018, and, finally, over 100B audio streams in 2019 – those are some pretty significant numbers for the German music market! BVMI and GfK Entertainment released their analysis this month, pointing toward the largest jump in revenue growth since 1993. Time to start focusing on this market in your release promotion plans if you haven’t already! Read more here.
TikTok Ranked #2 Most-Downloaded App of 2019
While you may not be surprised reading this as an independent artist or industry pro, TikTok sliding in right behind WhatsApp as the most-downloaded app of the year is pretty big news. Especially given that your favorite distributor partnered with the platform to deliver music to it! Read more here.
Berkeley Scientists Reveal 13 Emotions Triggered By Music
Sure, you’ve gotten “strategic” with your songwriting in the past, but why not factor in some survey data to go full tilt with it and really connect with people? 2,500 people were surveyed to reveal the emotions that were triggered by certain songs/keys, and the Berkeley scientists who conducted it built a pretty incredible ‘interactive audio map’. Read more here.
New Spotify Playlist Pitch Targets: Pet Owners
That’s right, folks – Spotify has unleashed (sorry) a series of playlists aimed at the musically-inclined pet owner. It’s interactive, fun and cute – but there may also lie potential to boost your pet-friendly songs’ appeal to a new audience of Spotify users. Read more here.
U.S. Streams Pass One Trillion in 2019
Finally, another reason to be optimistic about the future of streaming and the recorded music industry overall: the U.S. market pushed over the benchmark of 1T streams for the first time this past year. Growing at a rate of over 29% from 2018, Nielsen Music shows an increase in Hip Hop and Pop genres, while Latin, Rock and Country fell slightly. Read more here.
Tags: featuring industry music business music industry Nielsen spotify streaming