Quick Hits: Songza’s Concierge reaches UK; overtaxed musicians on Bandcamp; Amazon’s top holiday tunes

Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:

Google rolls out Songza feature in UK: Earlier this month, Google rolled out the Concierge feature from Songza for the UK market. This feature, which leverages curation by DJs and other music experts, never launched outside North America before Google bought the platform in July. It is now available to UK listeners who have subscriptions to Play Music and/or YouTube Music Key. [TechCrunch]

British musicians might leave Bandcamp for tax reasons: Due to debates about value-added tax rules in the EU, some UK artists are considering pulling their direct downloads from Bandcamp. According to critics, the rules, which are aimed at preventing major corporations from skimping on their tax bills in the nations where they sell digital services, could have a negative effect on smaller businesses. Wondering Sound explained how UK musicians would be impacted and why they might be pulling out of Bandcamp.

Amazon’s holiday music winners: Online retailer Amazon released details about purchases made during the holiday season, including some musical data. Christmas by Michael Bublé, Greatest Hits by Journey, and All the Little Lights by Passenger were the top streaming choices for Prime Music members. Both That’s Christmas to Me by Pentatonix and 1989 by Taylor Swift were on the list of top CD purchases and MP3 downloads

Anna Washenko