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Kanye West's new album may hit Apple Music, Spotify tomorrow (update)
Anyone who's familiar with Kanye's antics knows to always take his words with a grain of salt. Back in February, after releasing The Life of Pablo exclusively on Tidal (a music service he owns a stake in), West tweeted that the album would "never never never be on Apple [Music]." But, thankfully for some of his fans, it looks like that statement won't hold true. According to reports from Mashable and Recode, citing sources familiar with the matter, TLOP will be released on Apple Music and Spotify this Friday, April 1st. Shocker.
Vevo's app can use your Spotify account to give better recommendations
Last year, Vevo rolled out a new iOS app that let users pick their favorite artists as part of an onboarding process meant to give better customized music recommendations (it later brought the same experience to Android). In the time I've spent with Vevo's apps lately, I've found they work well -- as long as you're a top 40 music fan. But going through that onboarding process is a pretty big pain point if you're a fan of music even slightly outside the mainstream; you just won't likely find many bands or singers you care about.
Rhapsody's music-streaming service comes to the Wii U
Rhapsody doesn't often beat Spotify to the punch, but today it did. The streaming service has announced that its music catalog, which features over 30 million songs, is now available on Nintendo's console. While the app is free to download from the eShop, you'll need a Rhapsody account to get access to any tracks. That said, people who don't have a subscription can sign up for a 30-day trial directly from the Wii U. This includes those of you who live outside the US, too, where Rhapsody operates under the Napster brand.
Sonos announces layoffs, refocuses on streaming and voice tech
Sonos has announced that it will be "letting go of some employees,"; part of reshaping the company in a new direction. In an (admittedly vague) blog post, CEO John Macfarlane doesn't say exactly how many jobs are going to be cut, but he says its's a consequence of the still in-transition music industry. "Everyone in the ecosystem is adjusting to a world of streaming services," he added, citing the addition of The Beatles back-catalogue across the top music streaming services.
Pandora will let bands insert voice messages into your music stream
Social media has increasingly broken down the walls between musicians and their fans, allowing bands to have more direct conversations with the people listening to their music. The "artist marketing platform" (AMP) that Pandora launched a few years ago was meant to be part of that move, helping to enable that connection between musicians and fans. In an effort to foster that connection, Pandora is launching AMPcast, a new feature in Pandora's existing artist management app that lets musicians record messages to fans on-the-go and insert them right into a user's audio stream.
Volvo is the latest to add phone-free Spotify to its rides
Volvo has been involved with a fair bit of high-tech stuff as of late, but the latest announcement from the company is a little less fantastical than garbage-collecting robots. The Swedish car manufacturer is partnering with Stockholm-based Spotify for a native streaming app in its XC90 SUV, S90 sedan (above) and V90 wagon this spring, no mobile device required. Accessing the streaming service in your new ride will require a Spotify Premium account, much like using it on a PlayStation 4 or other device would.
Kanye West's Tidal exclusive could hurt both him and his fans
Kanye West spent the weeks leading up to the release of his long-awaited new album going wild on Twitter. He simultaneously reaffirmed his runaway ego and also gave an inside look at his thought process as he finalized The Life of Pablo before its Valentine's Day launch. Album titles changed at will and West continually added and dropped songs. He took so long to finish things up that he missed the promised February 12th release date. Whatever you think of West, he's an artist. Even if his personality or songs turn you off, he's one of the most creative and successful musicians of the last decade. That makes his stubborn insistence on making The Life of Pablo a Tidal exclusive even more puzzling, because he's putting his stake in the music streaming service over his art. Both West and his fans will likely suffer for the decision.
Pirates prove Kanye's new album isn't really Tidal-exclusive
Kanye West's anticipated album had a bizarre launch, but once the album was finally released early Sunday morning, we hoped the drama would be over. We were wrong. Shortly after putting up The Life of Pablo as a Tidal streaming exclusive that you could also buy outright, West decided to pull the album from standard sales entirely. In one of his increasingly-commonplace Twitter rants, West practically begged followers to sign up to Tidal and proclaimed The Life of Pablo will "never never never be on Apple" and would never be for sale.
Kanye West's new album is streaming exclusively on Tidal
Music icon (and owner of perhaps the weirdest account on Twitter) Kanye West has finally delivered his highly-anticipated new album, The Life of Pablo. West has been teasing the album on Twitter for weeks now, changing the title and adding tracks at will. But now the full album (18 tracks, with four of those considered "bonus tracks, if you're keeping count) is streaming exclusively on Tidal for the next week. If you don't want to sign up for Tidal, you can also purchase a digital version for the eye-raising price of $20.
Apple Music for Sonos comes out of beta tomorrow
Sonos started supporting Apple Music in the middle of December, but then it was technically in a beta. As of tomorrow morning, that beta label will be removed -- the service is now fully supported by Sonos. In our experience, being in beta didn't really hamper usage of Apple Music with Sonos in our experience, but it's good to know that things should be even more stable than they already were. The company now covers pretty much every streaming music service you can think of, but of course you still need to use the official Sonos app to play music on your speakers (unless you're using Google Play Music on an Android device). Still, given how good its newest speakers sound, it's worth that slight frustration.
Apple Music reportedly hits 10 million subscribers
Apple was quick to crow that its fledgling music service had 6.5 million paying customers back in October, but many people were understandably cautious. Were those numbers actually going to grow, or had Apple already scooped up most of the people who were interested? Apparently, the folks in Cupertino don't have much reason to worry. Financial Times sources understand that Apple Music recently racked up its 10 millionth paying subscriber -- not bad for a service that's barely half a year old. Spotify took 6 years to reach the same milestone, although it now has 20 million Premium subs and (thanks to its free tier) 75 million active listeners.
Streaming music was twice as big in 2015
Nielsen just removed any doubt that streaming music is here to stay. The research group's end-of-year music report reveals that the number of on-demand US streams nearly doubled year-over-year in 2015, to 317.2 billion streams. Downloads unsurprisingly took a hit, with individual song sales diving 12.5 percent and whole albums dropping 2.9 percent. However, the sheer volume of streams appears to at least partly make up for the shortfall -- Billboard notes that the revenue is equivalent to 211.5 million purchased albums. While artists aren't necessarily getting all that extra money, it's a positive sign.
Spotify is on the hook for $150 million in class-action suit
A class-action lawsuit filed this week claims that Spotify knowingly and willingly distributes songs without obtaining the proper, mechanical licenses, Billboard reports. The suit, filed by the band Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker frontman David Lowery on December 28th, seeks $150 million in damages. The artists launched a class-action suit because Spotify's actions affect more than 100 people, according to the complaint.
Pandora ends its war with two major music publishers
If there's one thing that Pandora likes, it's a fight, but even the firm that bought an FM radio station to stick it to the man has limits. The outfit has decided to make peace with two of its most formidable adversaries: music licensing agencies ASCAP and BMI. Pandora has revealed that it's signed a new, multi-year deal with both entities that'll see it pay what'll probably be a higher fee every time one of their songs is played. Naturally, the terms of the agreements are being kept secret, but USA Today thinks that it'll be above the 2.5 / 1.75 percent that BMI and ASCAP, respectively, currently earn.
You can start using Apple Music with your Sonos speakers
Just as Sonos promised last month, Apple Music is now available on its platform. Subscribers of Apple's streaming service can, finally, pair their account with Sonos' speaker lineup -- including the brand new, top-of-the-line Play:5. Sonos says the feature will be labeled as a beta for the time being, but it aims to have it fully fledged and bug-free by "early" next year.
Google Play Music's family plan goes live this week
Back in September, Google announced that it would offer a family plan for its Play Music subscription service, and today it's finally launching. Just like Apple Music, $14.99 every month will get you and up to five additional family members access to the Google Play streaming music library. That includes access to 35 million songs on demand, ad-free playback (naturally) and the ability for each family member to stream simultaneously on their own devices.
Spotify reportedly testing subscription-only tracks
According to the Wall Street Journal, Spotify may be considering reversing a longstanding policy requiring artists to make their music available to both the company's 80 million free listeners and 20 million paying customers. Essentially, it would allow certain musicians to withhold certain tracks and make them only available to paying subscribers for a certain amount of time. This decision, for which the WSJ cites an unnamed source within the music streaming company, comes after pop star Taylor Swift yanked her entire catalog from the site last year over the rule.
Sonos will support Apple Music starting December 15th
Sonos will close a major gap in the services that it supports on December 15th -- that's when the company's products will start working with Apple Music. The company said that this would happen by the end of the year back in June, just before Apple Music launched, and it seems that it'll make good on its promises. The service will first be available as part of an open beta, with full availability to come in early 2016.
Too good to survive: The rise and fall of Rdio
Spotify is probably how most Americans were introduced to streaming music over the last four years or so -- the service has grown by leaps and bounds since it launched in the US in July of 2011. But a relatively small group of music fans were enjoying pretty much all that Spotify had to offer months before it hit the US. That group was using Rdio, and we'll now have to find a new option: Rdio will be dead soon, sold off to Pandora in a bankruptcy deal. The service will remain a cautionary tale about the brutality of survival in the streaming music world. A great product is important, but it's clearly not enough.
Rdio's collapse will hurt Sony, Roku and Shazam
When a company goes under, the firms that it still owes money to have to bear the pain of those unpaid debts. Rdio's collapse has, unfortunately, sent ramifications through the tech and music industries that'll see firms like Roku and Shazam reaching for the Tylenol. Music Business Worldwide is claiming to have details of Rdio's bankruptcy filing that reveals that it owed $2.7 million to Roku and $1.7 million to Shazam. In addition, the service had promised Sony Music $2.4 million and Facebook $495,000. Ouch.
