From the featured section of Instagram’s Explore tab, they oozed a kind of sun-dappled cool obtainable only above a certain income threshold in the state of California. It was clear who the people in the photos were. What wasn’t obvious — largely due to the surreality of social media and …
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This story appears in Rolling Stone‘s 2021 Future of Music issue, a special project delving into the next era of the multibillion-dollar hitmaking business. Read the other stories here. In 2017, Jon Tanners, a music manager and former music journalist who held various A&R and marketing jobs at record labels, …
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Ahead of its highly publicized rollout of Spatial and Lossless Audio to users on Tuesday, leading up to the launch last month, Apple Music also quietly unveiled a feature that gives record labels their own pages the same way artists get. Apple Music listeners can find pages for major labels …
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Getting discovered in the music business has never been easy. Before the pandemic, artists could at least rely on the industry’s historic mainstay to break through — playing as many gigs as possible and hoping to build a following. But with that path closed for now, artists and their label …
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Martha Reeves, of Martha and the Vandellas, started her life on the road in 1962, cramming into a bus with Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, and other soon-to-be legends for the very first Motown tour. It was hardly luxurious, with everyone sleeping on each other’s shoulders, and washing their “unmentionables” in …
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Not long ago, Fortnite was merely a popular video game. In 2020 — after hosting Travis Scott’s record-breaking “Astronomical” in-game virtual concert, which drew 12 million fans and catapulted his new single “The Scotts” to a Number One debut — it became an unexpected champion of the music industry. Fortnite …
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LOS ANGELES – Leading independent media and entertainment companies MRC and Penske Media Corporation (PMC) announced a new joint venture to bring together their respective data businesses. The newly formed company combines MRC Data (formerly Nielsen Music), Alpha Data and Variety Business Intelligence, with MRC and PMC sharing equal ownership …
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UPDATE (9/19): President Trump said Saturday that he has approved a deal “in concept” that places TikTok in the hands of U.S. companies Oracle and Walmart, which would let the app avoid a U.S. ban. In a statement to Rolling Stone, TikTok said that it is working with Oracle as …
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TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer has stepped down just three months after joining, the company has confirmed to Rolling Stone.Mayer’s resignation comes as TikTok’s future remains uncertain as President Trump has repeatedly explored a potential ban of the Chinese-owned app in the U.S. over alleged national security threats. Mayer announced his …
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On February 21st, the rock band Younger Hunger released “Yung,” a new single that cataloged a litany of horrors — everything from stubbed toes to poisonous salads to vehicular manslaughter — on its way to a chorus that is stirring and alarming in equal measure: “They’re comin’ for my life!” …
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