Spotify Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Spotify is reportedly planning on introducing a feature to allow users to slow down, speed up and remix songs on the platform.The developments have been detailed in a new report by the Wall Street Journal, who say that the streaming service is looking to experiment with tools that will allow users to manipulate existing songs on the platform.The report suggests that users will be able to edit and mash together tracks to create modified versions of songs that can them be added to “virtual collections” on Spotify, but which will then not be available to share on external platforms.The Wall Street Journal suggests that “discussions about the tools are early and licensing agreements have yet to be worked out,” but that they hope the additions will “appeal to young users, while generating new revenue for artists.”At the start of this month, the streaming platform officially demonetised all songs with less than 1000 streams, having first announced the policy last year in the ‘Modernising Our Royalty System’ report.According to Spotify data, there are around 100 million songs on the service, yet only around 37.5 million meet the new requirements to generate revenue.Spotify said that 99.5 per cent of all streams on the platform “are of tracks that have above 1,000 streams.” They went on to claim that demonetising the tracks won’t result in a “change to the size of the music royalty pool being paid out to rights holders”.It argued that instead it will “use the tens of millions of dollars annually to increase the payments to all eligible tracks, rather than spreading it out into $0.03 payments.”Spotify also went on to say it requires a minimum number of unique listeners now if royalties are to apply – a measure brought in to

report on creator renumeration that directly addressed streaming. The inquiry into the economics of streaming has heard evidence from industry professionals over the last six months, including Hipgnosis’ Merck Mercuriadis, MPA CEO Paul Clements and VV Brown and others.The new report stated: “As new means of consuming creative content have become the norm, creators across the sector have experienced persistent declines in their royalties and residuals.“Royalties can provide income smoothing, financial certainty, greater career flexibility and support during retirement for those who receive them.

Spotify has announced that it will be raising the price of its monthly premium membership by more than nine per cent.Last summer, the streaming platform hiked its subscription prices for the first time ever in the 10 years since the streaming service launched. At the time, the premium plan went up to £10.99 per month, up from the previous price of £9.99 monthly in the UK.

Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor has hit out against streaming, saying it has “mortally wounded” many artists.The musician made the comments in a recent GQ interview, where he took aim at companies such as Spotify and Apple Music for their payment terms.“I think the terrible payout of streaming services has mortally wounded a whole tier of artists that make being an artist unsustainable,” he said.“And it’s great if you’re Drake, and it’s not great if you’re Grizzly Bear. And the reality is: Take a look around. We’ve had enough time for the whole ‘All the boats rise’ argument to see they don’t all rise.

Spotify have now officially demonetised all songs on the platform with less than 1000 streams.The policy was launched on April 1 and came after the streaming giant released a report last year, Modernising our royalty system, in which news of the decision first appeared. The move has been planned by the platform for some time.The new regulations come following months of speculation about new policies the streaming service would be introducing, including rumours that the company would be making it harder for artists to generate royalties from their music.According to Spotify data, there are around 100million songs on the service, yet only around 37.5million meet the new requirements to generate revenue.This means that around 60 per cent of tracks will not qualify for the new threshold, although Spotify did recall that these songs make up less than one per cent of the total number of streams on the service.Spotify said that 99.5 per cent of all streams on the platform “are of tracks that have above 1,000 streams.” They went on to claim that demonetising the tracks won’t result in a “change to the size of the music royalty pool being paid out to rights holders”.It argued that instead it will “use the tens of millions of dollars annually to increase the payments to all eligible tracks, rather than spreading it out into $0.03 payments.”Spotify also went on to say it requires a minimum number of unique listeners now if royalties are to apply – a measure brought in to attempt to stop the rise in fake streams after a rise in fraudulent activity was detected.Late last year, Spotify announced that it was cutting down 17 per cent of its workforce in order to save costs.

Joni Mitchell‘s music has finally been made available on Spotify once again.Two years ago, Mitchell announced that she would be removing her entire catalog from streaming giant Spotify in solidarity with Neil Young after he withdrew his music from the platform in protest of the service platforming misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.As of today (March 22), Mitchell’s music has been reinstated, less than two weeks after Young announced his return to the platform. Mitchell has yet to publicly comment on her return to the platform.In January 2022, Young announced his withdrawal from Spotify over concerns that the streaming giant was giving “irresponsible” podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines.

James Blake has reportedly found a “solution” to streaming, and has dropped previously unheard tracks on a new platform called Vault.The announcement from the musician comes after he went viral recently for a series of posts, criticising the lack of royalties artists can make by streaming their music or sharing it on TikTok. Following the posts online, Blake began teasing that he had found a “solution” to the issue.Now, he has revealed that this is through a newly launched platform called Vault, which allows fans to pay a monthly fee to receive unreleased music from an artist.

Neil Young has announced his return to Spotify for the first time since 2022, though he doesn’t seem to happy with the decision – see what he had to say below.In January 2022, Neil Young announced that he would be removing his music from Spotify after episodes of Joe Rogan’s controversial podcast spread misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines. At the time, Joe Rogan’s podcast was signed exclusively to Spotify.In November 2022, Young doubled down on removing his music from Spotify, explaining that the streamer was putting out low-resolution versions of his music: “Why would I keep it on there when it sounds like a pixelated movie?”The Joe Rogan Experience‘s exclusivity to Spotify has since ended, and has been picked up by Apple and Amazon, prompting Young’s return to Spotify.

James Blake has spoken out about the challenges that musicians face in getting paid fairly for their work in the TikTok age. The electronic musician posted a string of comments on his X/Twitter account on Sunday morning (March 3), taking the time to express his thoughts on the current financial state of the music industry, and what he perceives as the unreasonable obstacles facing musicians. Blake first responded to a post quoting him speaking about not making “a cent” on a recent viral TikTok hit.

Spotify, Apple Music and YouSee Musik.As per The Guardian, prosecutors claim the huge numbers of streams required to generate this much revenue from streaming couldn’t have been achieved by genuine users. They allege that unauthorised techniques were likely to have been used instead to generate the streaming figures between 2013 and 2019.The man has subsequently been charged with data fraud as well as breaching copyright law by taking work from other artists, changing the length and speed of the songs and publishing them under his own name.The man has pleaded not guilty and the defendant’s lawyer, Henrik Garlik, told Danish broadcaster DR: “I don’t think that such a case – regarding matters which the prosecution believes to be data fraud in connection with playbacks of musical works via various tendering services – has ever been tried in court.“Somewhat dependent on the result, there is a possibility that both my client and the prosecution will appeal the verdict to the high court.

Spotify has announced that it has entered into a partnership with the live events platform Bandsintown.Founded in 2007, Bandsintown is a website and app that allows users to find information about tours and concerts that are in their area, with artists having the ability to control their own listings.Now, Spotify has confirmed that Bandsintown listings will be directly integrated onto their platform. “Bandsintown is on a mission to help artists get discovered and sell out shows,” said Fabrice Sergent, co-founder of Bandsintown.

according to an exclusive report in Deadline. Details of the new series have yet to be made available, but it is known that Markle will host the show, according to the report.

Spotify have hit out at Apple‘s new plan for higher transaction fees, calling them “outrageous”.Under the new plans, Apple will charge up to 27 per cent commission on app developers selling products away from the Apple Store.In response, Spotify have accused the company of “stopping at nothing” to protect profits, and urged the UK government to prevent a similar situation in the UK.The fees were introduced after a legal battle with Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite. It allows people to subscribe to services while bypassing Apple’s system, but charges them up to a 27 per cent commission.

2023 Luminate year-end report – a company with over a 30-year history of measuring music consumption – only 10 songs from 2023 had over a billion streams globally to date.Helena Kosinski, Luminate’s VP Head of Global, shared a visual year-end report which broke down key figures and trends of the past year. This included a look at the overall availability of “ISRCs” (which stands for International Standard Recording Codes) and how many of them are consumed.Created in the form of a pyramid, at the top peak were the 10 tracks from 2023 that were streamed over a billion times globally to date.

The Weeknd‘s massive hit single ‘Blinding Lights’ has become the first song in history to reach four billion streams on Spotify.Spotify’s most-streamed song of all time, as revealed in early 2023, appeared on Abel Tesfaye’s ‘After Hours’ album. It was released at the end of 2019, and has spent over 100 weeks in the charts.In that time, it set a new record for most weeks in the Top Five of the chart (43), Top 10 (57 weeks) and Top 40 (86 weeks), and replaced Chubby Checker’s 1960 hit ‘The Twist’ as the biggest US Billboard Hot 100 single of all time.In a statement about crossing the four billion mark, The Weeknd said: “I’ll never stop being humbled by anything I create making its way to millions of people let alone billions!“I’m so thankful this song makes people feel a way that they keep going back to listen.”Last year, The Weeknd reacted to the news that Taylor Swift is now the only other music artist with 100million Spotify listeners.Swift, who became the first female artist to reach the milestone, still currently sits behind The Weeknd, who has the most monthly listeners on the streaming service with more than 110million.Last summer, The Weeknd broke another record for highest attendance at Wembley Stadium.

ERA, the digital entertainment and retail association, the value of UK music rose seven per cent to an all-time new record of £11.9billion.The ERA say the “main driver of growth” in 2023 came via streaming and digital services, which increased their revenue by more than £800million in one year. Streaming now accounts for 91.7 per cent of the total revenue for UK music nationally.As well as streaming, sales of vinyl increased by 18 per cent, and CD sales also saw a two per cent increase in sales – the first value increase in the medium in almost twenty years.It means music revenues were at their highest since 2002 and are now just 0.8 per cent below the music industry’s greatest revenue year of 2001.ERA Chairman Ben Drury said of the statistics: “The entertainment business is defying gravity, delivering eleven straight years of growth regardless of wider economic conditions.“Due credit should go to the amazing creative talent behind the movies, music and games we all love, but we should also recognise the huge contribution of the digital services and retailers who have reinvented the entertainment experience for consumers over the past 15 years,” he continued.“The overwhelming majority of the money raised by digital services and retailers goes direct to the content owners, and their success is directly benefitting creators.”ERA CEO Kim Bayley added: “With revenues just a fraction away from music’s all-time-high, this is a red letter day for the music industry and is a testament not just to the creativity of artists, but to the entrepreneurial drive of digital services and retailers.“A world without streaming now seems unthinkable.

“Murder on the Dancefloor” — a disco delight by British singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor — was released in 2001, it became a bit hit in the UK. But the track from her debut album, “Read My Lips,” failed to slay the States.Twenty-three years and one full-frontal nude dancing scene later, all that has changed because of “Saltburn.”The euphoric victory boogie by Barry Keoghan’s coked-up character Oliver at the end of the buzzy black comedy psychological thriller is set to the bass-bumping groove of “Murder on the Dancefloor.”And after “Saltburn” went from its limited theatrical release in November to its streaming debut on Amazon Prime Video on Dec.

NME recently supported the Featured Artist Coalition’s 2023 End of Year Party and AGM at Walthamstow’s Signature Brew in London. Following on from 2021 and 2022, NME returned to support the event as well as chairing an artist-led ‘Year in Music’ panel discussion featuring Murray Matravers of the band formerly known as Easy Life, Sam Duckworth of Get Cape.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor has hailed the resurgence of her hit ‘Murder On The Dancefloor’ after it featured in Saltburn.In the movie, actor Barry Keoghan is seen dancing in the nude to her 2001 single in a memorable final scene.As a result, the track has now enjoyed a resurgence and entered Spotify‘s global chart for the first time after it clocked up over 1.43million streams.Reacting to the news, Ellis-Bextor wrote on X: “Wow.. thank you for all the Murder love. Happy new year! Xx.”Wow..

Spotify has pulled out of two music festivals in France after the country changed its tax laws in relation to streaming services.The company confirmed that it was withdrawing its support from Francofolies de La Rochelle and Printemps de Bourges as of next year.Earlier this month (via EuroNews), French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the country was introducing a new tax measure on music streaming services that would be “based on a very low rate of levy on the turnover” of the services.The country’s Ministry of Culture confirmed the details on December 13, saying that the tax contribution would be “at a rate of 1.2 per cent of [streaming services’] turnover in France”, although platforms with turnover of less than €20 million would be exempt.In response, Spotify have argued for a voluntary contribution instead of the tax. “This is a real blow to innovation, and to the growth prospects of recorded music in France,” said a representative of the company.

Life is extremely good nowadays if you’re a long-beloved, accordion-playing, specialized song parody artist. Weird Al Yankovic has seen a bit of a resurgence in recent years with number-one albums, Emmy nominations, Grammy awards, and, finally, a not-so-true biopic release last year to critic and audience acclaim, “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” (read our review).  READ MORE: The 21 Best Films Of 2023 By all accounts, the film was a great success, and Weird Al’s career is somehow hotter than ever.

GTA 6 trailer was released earlier this week and featured Tom Petty’s ‘Love Is A Long Road’ which has now received a massive spike in listeners on Spotify.In data provided by Spotify, it has been revealed that the song has seen a “huge streaming increase of 36,979 per cent” since last week before the trailer was released.This isn’t the first time gaming has brought new popularity to older songs. Earlier in the year, HBO‘s adaptation of The Last Of Us caused a 4,900 per cent increase in streams for Linda Rondstadt’s ‘Long Long Time’.Spotify has also created a Grand Theft Auto playlist in collaboration with developer Rockstar Games, featuring songs such as ‘Fortunate Son’, ‘Danger Zone’, ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’, and ‘Mississippi Queen’, all of which have featured in previous Grand Theft Auto titles.The trailer for GTA 6 was released a day before when it was intended to drop due to a leak on social media.

Spotify has announced it is cutting 17% of its staff, with around 1800 jobs expected to be lost in the process. Chief executive Daniel Ek broke the news on Monday, saying in a public memo that the "difficult" decision was made in reponse to economic growth slowing "dramatically." Ek said "substantial action to rightsize our costs" was required in order for the company to reach its financial targets.

Spotify has announced it will cut down 17 per cent of its workforce in order to save costs.The streaming platform previously laid off 6 per cent of its staff earlier this year in January, saying at the time it was doing so to promote “speed”.This time, chief executive Daniel Ek has said he made the “difficult” decision as economic growth has “slowed dramatically”. Spotify employs around 9,000 people, meaning 1,500 jobs will be lost in the current round of layoffs.“I recognise this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions,” Ek wrote.

Taylor Swift will reportedly earn over $100million (£78million) from Spotify streams alone in 2023.The popstar was recently crowned Spotify’s Top Global Artist of 2023, with Swift racking up over 26 billion streams on the platform.Now, Billboard has estimated that Swift will bring home $100million from Spotify alone. According to their royalty calculator, the 26 billion streams Swift has accumulated will have earned her $101million in royalties by the end of December 2023.

told NBC.“The Sound Town selected for each eligible user has the most similar taste profile to their own — based on their most streamed artists of the year and how those artists are streamed in other cities across the globe,” they added.Folks on X (formerly Twitter), however, beg to differ with Spotify’s dubiously “global” assessment.Platform users pointed out that all three of these cities are college towns and came to the conclusion that being placed in Burlington, Berkeley and Cambridge indicated LGBTQ listeners, with top artist-allies such as boygenius, Charli XCX and Janelle Monáe.According to Spotify, listeners “must have at least three top artists who over-index in a particular city” to match with their Sound Town.more people are tweeting about san luis obispo than even live there pic.twitter.com/sM8wvw9GGDthe tl rn pic.twitter.com/uuvZ94mzyyTheir data revealed that 0.6% of listeners matched with Burlington; 0.3% got Berkeley; and 0.1% were assigned to Cambridge.

Taylor Swift has surprise released ‘You’re Losing Me (From The Vault)’ on Spotify after becoming the streaming platform’s Top 2023 Global Artist.The pop singer took to her official X/Twitter page to share the news of her latest accolade and to announced that the “From The Vault” track was finally on the platform for her fans to stream.“Um ok this is unreal?? I just wanted to say to anyone who listened to my music this year, anywhere in the world, thank you. Getting named Spotify’s Global Top Artist in 2023 is truly the best birthday/holiday gift you could’ve given me,” began her tweet.Um ok this is unreal?? I just wanted to say to anyone who listened to my music this year, anywhere in the world, thank you.

The Hives, Linkin Park, L.S. Dunes and more have shared their Spotify Wrapped stats for 2023.Taking to their official X/Twitter page, The Hives thanked all of their fans for tuning in and listening to their music this year. “Behold! The Hives on Spotify Wrapped,” began their message.They continued: “The results are in! Music is finally measurable! The graphs are pointing up! Showing healthy growth across all platforms and engagement and stats this and that blah blah blah.

Spotify Wrapped has been launched, revealing the most popular artists, songs, albums and podcasts in the UK and giving users special insight into their own listening habits.Shared each year by the streaming platform, this latest edition introduces a range of new features and is available to access now via the Spotify mobile app (iOS and Android) or on desktop by heading to the website.As well as showing the usual insights into each user’s own listening habits, a new range of features have been rolled out for the 2023 edition too. These include a new section called ‘Me in 2023’ which reveals which one of the 12 listening styles best describes the way you listen on Spotify, and a new section called ‘Sound Town’, which matches you to a city based on your listening and shared artist affinity.Pre-existing insights such as Top Five Genres and Top Five Artists have also been given a new design, and some of the most popular musicians of 2023 have recorded messages that will be played if they feature as one of your top artists.An AI DJ feature has also been added to guide listeners through their personalised Wrapped – serving up a mix based on your taste and sharing commentary about some of your favourite artists, genres, songs and more.

Spotify is set to release its annual ‘Wrapped’ feature once again this year, where music fans can look back at their favourite releases of 2023.The feature arrives at the end of each year and shares stats, rankings and summaries with subscribers about their most listened to songs, albums, podcasts artists and genres.The streaming service has already begun teasing the rollout of this year’s ‘Wrapped’. Last year saw Taylor Swift named as the most streamed artist in the UK, while Bad Bunny took the global title for the record-breaking third year in a row.Spotify has not yet shared an official date that users will be able to access their ‘Wrapped’ roundup, but it’s usually any time between the final days of November and the first week of December.

Spotify have confirmed that all songs on the platform must have a minimum of 1,000 streams before they can earn any royalties.The new regulations come following weeks of speculation about the new policies the streaming service would be introducing, including rumours that the company would be making it harder for artists to generate royalties from their music.These new amendments were finally outlined in a new blog post by Spotify yesterday (November 21), which noted several new policies that are being implemented in the hopes of containing the volume of content on the platform and minimising the risks of fraud.In these new policies, it was confirmed that Spotify would be introducing a payment threshold for 2024 – meaning that songs must hit 1,000 streams on the service before they can earn any royalties.According to Spotify data, there are around 100million songs on the service, yet only around 37.5million meet the new requirements to generate revenue.This means that around 60 per cent of tracks will not qualify for the new threshold, although Spotify did recall that these songs make up less than one per cent of the total number of streams on the service.Unsurprisingly, artists have been quick to share their take on the new changes to the royalty structure on Spotify, with some highlighting the negative impacts it will have on emerging talent.

have risen 366 per cent since 2020.The Met have said despite this statistic, investigators do not target any specific genre in their work: “The Met works closely with social media platforms to identify content we believe could provoke or cause violence,” said a spokesperson for the Met (via DJ Mag).

Spotify has confirmed the streaming thresholds for its new royalty model.Reports emerged last month that the streaming giant’s restructuring would mean that less popular tracks wouldn’t earn any royalties, despite the company reporting profits and subscriber gains.According to a Billboard report, a track would have to meet a minimum annual streaming threshold before it would start to generate royalties.However, the streaming threshold at which tracks will generate royalties has now been confirmed in a Consequence guest column by Kristin Graziani, president of music distribution platform Stem.“After doing some analysis on what Spotify has actually communicated to distributors, we can say that in reality, these changes are intended to benefit emerging and growing artists,” Graziani wrote.According to the article, Spotify is introducing three new policies in 2024. Firstly, all tracks will have to reach a minimum streaming threshold of 1000 streams within 12 months to be paid a royalty.

“Friends” theme song “I’ll Be There for You” non-stop since the actor’s shocking death Saturday.The Rembrandts tune has had over 1.3 million streams across Spotify and YouTube this week.Singer Charlie Puth, 31, even performed the song at his concert in Melbourne, Australia on Sunday before transitioning into his 2015 hit “See You Again,” which was written for the film “Furious 7” as a tribute to Paul Walker.And the hardcover edition of Perry’s 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” occupies the top spot on Amazon’s Best Sellers in Memoirs list, while the paperback version sits at No. 3, as of Monday evening.Perry played funnyman Chandler Bing on the NBC sitcom “Friends,” which aired from 1994 to 2004.The “Fools Rush In” star is believed to have drowned at his Los Angeles home Saturday afternoon.

Spotify has revealed that Taylor Swift has broken two new records on the streaming platform.The singer released her re-recording of ‘1989’ on Friday (October 27), the fourth album in a series of re-recordings. It follows an ongoing dispute between the superstar and Scooter Braun, former owner of her previous label Big Machine Records – read here for a refresher of the situation.Since ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ was released, Spotify has said that Swift broke two new records.

big professional embarrassment from Spotify, Meghan Markle is allegedly close to making a big deal with its competitor, Audible. “Word of mouth is spreading that it will lead to a huge payout—even bigger than the millions Spotify splashed out—and Meghan is thrilled that she’ll be in the company of Michelle and Barack Obama, who signed a multi-year contract with Audible last year,” a source told “The Mirror.”Meghan, who the source said “seems very confident at the moment” in the potential deal, “knows her new deal with Audible could be make or break for her Hollywood dream.” The Duchess of Sussex, 42, and her husband Prince Harry, 39, have been the subjects of ridicule – and mockery on “Family Guy” – for their multi million dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify, which haven’t produced much content.