News 431 - RAIN News

Leaked emails reveal Sony considered selling its music publishing division

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Anna Washenko

Sony experienced a debilitating hack on its confidential information earlier this month, with hackers publishing reams of email correspondence between the company’s leaders online for public viewing. Some of these emails revealed that Sony Corp. was considering selling off the music publishing arm because of concerns over its growth prospects. Thanks to a 2012 acquisition, the music publishing arm includes Sony/ATV Music Publishing and EMI Music Publishing. Continue Reading →

Quick Hits: Rdio’s 2015 plans; a Serial critique

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Anna Washenko

Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Rdio CEO looks to 2015; critiquing Serial’s crime reporting; Continue Reading →

SoundHound’s best of 2014 roundup

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Anna Washenko

Music recognition and discovery app SoundHound is adding its voice to the year-end roundups. It named Pitbull as the top artist of the year. Not only did he have several popular tracks under his own name, including the official song of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, but he was also involved in several collaborations that boosted his ranking. Continue Reading →

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Google adds lyrics in search results

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Anna Washenko

Are lyrics the new hip feature for music services? Hot on the heels of Deezer announcing the addition of Lyrics to its streaming service, Google is now displaying the words to certain songs in its search results. For the tracks getting the lyric treatment, a large number of the lines will appear at the top of the hits with a link to the full lyrics on Google Play. Continue Reading →

UMG chairman pledges to “re-design business models”

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Brad Hill

In a leaked internal memo published by Billboard, CEO and Chairman of Universal Music Group, Lucian Grainge, promised a continued commitment to artist development, and pledged to “re-design business models” as necessary. The memo comes at a time when major labels are engaged in publicized contract renewal discussions with Spotify. Continue Reading →

iHeartRadio tops reader’s choice for music in Adweek’s Hot List

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Anna Washenko

The best-of lists continued today with an installment from Adweek. The magazine polled its readers on the top apps of the year for a range of industries, and iHeartRadio was chosen as the Hottest Music App of 2014. iHeart secured 44% of the votes to top the list. Continue Reading →

Taylor Swift added 819,000+ new YouTube subscribers in November

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Anna Washenko

When Taylor Swift and her label chose to remove the pop singer’s latest album and back catalog from Spotify, they unintentionally sparked the emergence of some fascinating data about online music listening habits. First came Nielsen’s discovery that Swift’s YouTube streaming counts ballooned from the moment her audio streams dropped. Second, we now have data showing that she added the most subscribers on the video network during November. Continue Reading →

Pureplay of the Day: All-Transistor Radio

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Brad Hill

Ready for an antidote to the ordinary? The extraordinary All-Transistor Radio, a project of Magic Transistor, is the answer. More eccentric than college radio, All-Transistor Radio is programmed by a disparate affiliation of music collectors around the world. Continue Reading →

Review: Tapely redesign aims to recreate mixtape magic

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Anna Washenko

Most true music aficionados will always have a soft spot for the tradition of the mixtape. As more of our listening migrates onto computers and smartphones, our old tapes and CDs can start to seem like relics from a bygone time. Sure, you could turn to an online playlisting service, and many of them are quite good, but thus far none of those platforms has recaptured quite the same experience of making a mixtape for somebody. Today we took a look at Tapely, a site that aims to tap into that classic mixtape activity. Continue Reading →

Fun facts about holiday tunes from Pandora

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Anna Washenko

Pandora has released an infographic with data about U.S. listening habits during the holiday season. Utah clocked in as the state with the highest percentage of holiday music at 19%. Maine came in just behind at 17%. Holiday stations are vastly more prevalent for women, who are 88% more likely than men to create those channels. Continue Reading →

Internet Radio Rewind #024

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Brad Hill

A weekly podcast from RAIN News

Sponsored by AudioBoom

A six-minute blast of news you need to know in streaming music and online audio. This week: New research into music videos; PodcastOne’s breakthrough partnership; Fighting back against a podcast patent; Deezer gets a CEO…and music lyrics; Vessel — a new video service; Ed Sheeran loves Spotify and calls Taylor Swift a past-era artist. Continue Reading →

Deezer incorporates Lyrics into the streaming experience

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Anna Washenko

It’s been an eventful week for Deezer with the addition of a new CEO and a new CMO. The streaming service is also incorporating a new feature this week called Lyrics. As you might guess, this means that listeners can hit a button in the music player and see all of the words to a track while it plays. Continue Reading →