Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:
Blonde has made a million: Frank Ocean’s Blonde album has made a huge impact on the music business, not just as the latest exclusive release for a streaming platform but also for his choice to break from Universal and go independent. Because of that split from the label, plus the heavy interest in his new work, Forbes has estimated that Ocean took away about $1 million just from Blonde‘s first week on the market.
Exclusives top the sales charts: In case you needed another reminder of how big exclusives are right now, Music Business Worldwide has an impressive stat. The three week-one top-selling albums so far this year are all streaming exclusives.
A piano that can do it all: And a fun one to round out today’s batch. Wireless home speaker systems are a hot segment in tech, but Yamaha has taken it a step further with its Disklavier Enspire. This acoustic instrument is a reproducing piano, meaning it can automatically play itself. Yamaha’s DisklavierTV tech means that the instrument can play note-for-note recreations of live or on-demand piano performances on its own. This model is also equipped with the company’s MusicCast wireless multiroom audio system, so those performances can be heard on speaker systems across a home rather than just in the room with the instrument. The future is pretty cool sometimes.