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Apple Music Starts $50 Million COVID-19 Advance Fund for Indie Labels

Jason Tate

Rolling Stone:

Apple Music is the latest company to offer industry relief amid the coronavirus pandemic. It told independent record labels Tuesday that it is launching a $50 million advance royalty fund to make sure their artists get paid.

According to a letter sent to the labels and obtained by Rolling Stone, independent labels that earn at least $10,000 in quarterly Apple Music earnings will qualify for the royalty advances. To qualify, the indie labels must have a direct Apple Music distribution deal.

Yuri Suzuki Has Designed a Machine That Lets You Cut Your Own Vinyl

Jason Tate

Yuri Suzuki has designed the Easy Record Maker, a cute little machine for cutting your own records.

The machine comes with ten blank five-inch discs. You can plug in the audio source from any device, such as a computer or phone and then “engrave sound directly from the recording stylus,” Suzuki tells Design Week. You can then instantly playback sound using the tone arm and in-built speaker.

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StubHub Hit With $5M Class Action Lawsuit Over Coronavirus Refund Policy

Legal
Jason Tate

Billboard:

A Wisconsin man has filed a $5 million dollar federal class action lawsuit against StubHub for not refunding money he spent on a suspended NHL game.

Filed by plaintiff Matthew McMillan last Thursday in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin, the complaint accuses the ticket resale company of breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation, among other claims. McMillan is asking the court to prohibit StubHub from issuing coupons worth 120% of the purchase price in lieu of refunds and to order the company to reinstate its pre-March 20 refund policy.

Overcoming Lockdown: Instagram’s Head of Music Partnerships on Artist Adaptation

Instagram
Jason Tate

Perry Bashkoff, the Head of Music Partnerships at Instagram, talked with Cat Woods over at Blunt Magazine:

“Direct monetisation is something we’re exploring at the moment,” Bashkoff says. “From our product teams to marketing, we’re looking at tools that might provide a solution for artists. For now, we’re encouraging artists to use IGTV, stories and news. Miley and Demi Lovato are just talking to their fans, sometimes for an hour. A lot of our community is asking for donations to charities and organisations doing good, so we’re trying to figure out how to make it easier for people to donate in a simple way.”

The Weeknd Top The Charts

The Weeknd
Jason Tate

The Weeknd have the number one album in the country:

The album earned 138,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending April 2 according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. That’s down 69% as compared to the set’s first week, when it entered with 2020’s biggest week for an album: 444,000 units.

5 Seconds of Summer came in at number two due to a shipping error:

5 Seconds of Summer scores its fifth top 10 album on the Billboard 200 chart as Calm surges from No. 62 to No. 2 with 133,000 equivalent album units earned (up 1,159%) in the week ending April 2. Of that sum, 113,000 are in album sales (up 970%), 19,000 are SEA units and 1,000 are TEA units. The set is also the best-selling album of the week, and is No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart.

All five of 5 Seconds of Summer’s top 10 albums have also reached the top two. Calm is the quartet’s fourth full-length studio album.

Calm made an early arrival on the Billboard 200 chart dated April 4 at No. 62 with 11,000 in CD sales (in the tracking week ending March 26) from the band’s concert ticket/album bundle with its upcoming U.S. tour. The CDs were inadvertently fulfilled to customers prior to the album’s actual release date of March 27 due to a clerical error. Customers received the album as early as March 23. Longstanding Billboard policy is to reflect album sale activity in the tracking week that the paying customer receives the album.

Joel Madden Talks With Forbes

Good Charlotte
Jason Tate

Joel Madden of Good Charlotte talked with Forbes about life in quarantine:

I feel like the only message I have that matters right now is that we are really all in this together. The only thing we can do is hope for the best for one another, help each other when we can, take care of our families, and hang in there until we are on the other side of this. If we can all do our part and hopefully reach out to one another when we need support, I think when we get through this we are all stronger.

Hayley Williams Rolling Stone Profile

Jason Tate

Hayley Williams was profiled over at Rolling Stone:

Much of Petals for Armor feels like a continuation of the work that Williams began with her band on After Laughter — only this time, with the help of space and therapy, she can both grieve and move on with clarity. She structured Petals for Armor in three distinct parts, with the songs moving from dark into light in both subject matter and sound. That pattern reflects her own recovery from all the trauma that resurfaced as she made the record.

An Oral History of MySpace Music

Stereogum
Jason Tate

Stereogum released an oral history of MySpace Music.

As a new decade begins, it seems worthwhile to look back at the website that defined not just the previous era, but the way we continue to consume and discuss music online, in order to contemplate both how we got to our present moment and what we have lost along the way. In Stereogum’s oral history of Myspace Music, twenty artists and former Myspace executives discuss their experience both using and working on the site, living through the bubble years, and why it couldn’t last forever.