YouTube Music Cracks Down on Rampant Chart Manipulation

YouTube

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:

YouTube will no longer allow paid views and advertising to influence its YouTube Music Charts, the company announced this morning. Instead, it will calculate its rankings based only on view counts coming from organic plays. In addition, it’s changing its methodology for reporting on 24-hour record debuts to also only count views from organic sources, including direct links to the video, search results, Watch Next and Trending — but not video advertising.

Spotify Acquires SoundBetter

TechCrunch:

Spotify today took another step in its efforts to build out services for artists to help diversify itself away from a business model predicated on paying music streaming royalties to labels: it has acquired SoundBetter, a music production marketplace for artists, producers, and musicians to connect on specific projects; and for people who are looking to distribute music tracks to those who want to license them.

Mark Hoppus Shares Unreleased The Cars Cover

Mark Hoppus

Mark Hoppus has shared an unreleased cover of The Cars’ “Just What I Needed” on Soundcloud. It included the following message:

A couple years ago, I was asked to record a creepy cover of Just What I Needed for a tv show. They wanted moody and strange, dark, and drony, with space for dialogue to go over it. I went into the studio with my friend James Ingram and this is what we came up with. The show was cancelled so quickly the episode never aired, but if you can imagine a grim and grizzled detective determinedly working a murder case that shook them to the very core of their being, this is the music the show requested. It’s been sitting on a hard drive ever since, and with the sad news of Ric Ocasek’s passing, I thought I’d put it up here. Enjoy it. And go listen to The Cars.