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Apple Music's Behind The Songs hub highlights songwriters and producers
The section also puts session musicians in the spotlight.
Spotify's new songwriters section takes you behind the music
Spotify is launching a new Songwriters Hub inside of its apps: a section in the Browse tab for the creatives behind the music.
Tidal's interactive credits let you explore artists' other projects
In the days of CDs and records, exploring the credits for a piece of music simply meant reading the album sleeve. But with digital music, discovering the unsung heroes behind your favorite music -- the producers, the engineers and studio musicians -- is a bit trickier. Jay-Z's music streaming service Tidal wants to put an end to that, as the platform launches a new interactive credits feature.
Spotify adds songwriter and producer credits to its iOS app
After adding songwriter and producer credits to its desktop app in February, Spotify has made it easier to find out more details about tunes you're listening to on the go by bringing credits to the iOS app. Starting today, when you tap the options button on a song (the ellipsis on the right of the screen), you can view the credits, though only if record labels have provided those details, Music Business Worldwide notes. There's no word as yet on when credits will arrive in the Android app.
Spotify now shows songwriter and producer credits
Spotify announced today that when listening through the desktop platform, users will now be able to view song credits. Starting now, right-clicking on a track and selecting "Show Credits" from the menu will bring up its performer, writer and producer credits as well as the source from which that info was provided. Spotify says that currently, those details have been compiled from record label-provided metadata and they may be incomplete in some cases, but going forward, the feature will become more functional and will use information from other sources.
Court rules that Pandora won't pay higher royalties to songwriters (update: ruling details)
Pandora has been fighting tooth and nail against potential songwriting royalty increases, and it appears that this tenacity is largely paying off. A court has ruled that the streaming radio service should pay the same 1.85 percent royalty rate that it has paid for years, resisting both Pandora's call for 1.7 percent (like traditional radio) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers' (ASCAP) demand for 3 percent. Details of the ruling are under a court seal, so the motivations behind the decision aren't yet clear. However, ASCAP is more than a little upset by its loss; it sees the verdict as proof that full-scale licensing reform is necessary to "reflect the realities" of modern music. Whether or not that's true, the Society may have inadvertently sabotaged its own case. It pointed to iTunes Radio's higher royalty rate as a model for fair compensation, but Apple is willing to make little to no profit from its music services -- ASCAP may have unintentionally suggested that its proposal wasn't realistic. Update: A week later, the details of the ruling are available. The judge determined that ASCAP was colluding with publishers to force Pandora to pay higher rates; it would ask publishers to leave the group so that they could negotiate more lucrative deals on their own, raising their royalty demands to give ASCAP more leverage at the rate court.
Nick Jonas is Wizard101's mystery composer
The cat is out of the bag and the teenage girls are out of their minds: Wizard101 has announced that Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers is the "mystery composer" whom we've been trying to guess for the past couple of weeks. Jonas both wrote and produced the soundtrack for Wizard101's latest world of Wintertusk, which includes seven pieces of music. Apparently, the songwriter was psyched to be a part of a video game for the first time: "This was a first for me. I never produced or wrote music for a game or in this case, a whole world before. So I jumped at the chance to work with KingsIsle. It was very cool to be part of a project that allowed me to help create the mood for Wintertusk and interact with an audience in an entirely new way." Players can even meet Nick Jonas -- well, his virtual equivalent -- in the game and watch as his character conducts an orchestra. The world of Wintertusk with all of its "cool" music is currently open for all to experience.
TUAW's Daily App: Songatron
You may remember Jonathan Mann as "that guy who wrote that song Steve played at the Apple event," but of course Mr. Mann is a talented and extremely experienced musician and songwriter who's been churning out a song every single day over on his Songatron website. He's released an app with the same name, and of course, he's written a song and made a video, which you can hear and see above, about the app. The app (surprise) also makes songs -- the idea is that it works like Mad Libs, where you put a word in, and then each song in the app plays, inserting your word where it's meant to go. It's kind of kooky, but just like all of Mann's work, there's enough joy and fun put into it that it works -- even if your words don't line up exactly, hearing it all put together is bound to elicit a laugh or two. You can Facebook, Twitter or email songs that get made, and while there are ten songs to choose from right now, the app's description promises five new songs every month (some of those may end up being in-app purchases). Songatron is available as a universal app for US$1.99. And if you're a Mann fan, stay tuned -- we're told that Mr. Mann will be at Macworld, and we're planning to chat with him there. Should be fun.
