This story appears in Rolling Stone‘s 2021 Future of Music issue, a special project delving into the next era of the multibillion-dollar hitmaking business. Read the other stories here. Spotify had a plan to rule the world — before Rishi Malhotra messed it up. When rumors began to bubble in …
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Ever since Covid-19 brought concerts and tours to a crashing halt this spring, the global live music industry has been in a bind: It was one of the earliest industries forced to shut down, and it will likely be one of the last to reopen. In the meantime, promoters and …
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Last week, the ASCAP Pop Awards — a major songwriting awards show, closely watched by the entire music business — awarded Publisher of the Year to independently owned music company Kobalt. Considering that Kobalt’s songwriters helped write smash hits of 2019 like Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” and Lil Nas X …
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Watch a few Netflix titles back to back and you’ll notice a common theme: They tend to be peppered with good tunes. Stranger Things made waves for its brooding electronic-Eighties score; the rom-com Someone Great cast a Lorde song before it cast any actors; and Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Bruce …
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Spotify‘s free tier is one of the modern music industry‘s most controversial talking points — and one of the Swedish company’s strongest competitive advantages. Spotify has regularly proffered the following justification for its “freemium” model: In a world where YouTube and piracy sites allow any of us to access most …
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