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On Wednesday around midnight, a new song showed up on RapCaviar, Spotify‘s premier hip-hop playlist: “All Falls Down,” Kanye West’s second hit single ever, which came out almost 20 years ago. While RapCaviar is mostly focused on new releases, it does occasionally feature throwbacks. Still, the addition felt notable, because a new release from West and Ty Dolla $ign is expected to arrive at midnight tonight and executives around the music industry are curious how streaming service gatekeepers will respond.
Will they support the renowned artist who now goes by Ye, despite the fact that his repeated antisemitism and conservative trolling has caused a widespread backlash, leading most of his prominent business partners to sever ties since 2022? Or will they just ignore the new album all together?
“It’s going to be complicated,” says one former Spotify employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “There’s going to be a difference of opinion within those places on how to handle it. Some people in leadership positions will want to be harsh on Kanye for the nasty antisemitic things he has said. There will also be another side, the hip-hop teams, who will say, ‘No, it’s Kanye, people say crazy shit all the time, plus he apologized. We don’t care. We’re playlisting because it’s Kanye.’”
A digital marketer who helps artists with streaming strategy was more skeptical. “Streaming services didn’t support ‘Vultures’ [Ye’s previous song], so I would be very shocked” if they support the rest of the album, he says. “Even though Ye did his apology, it felt like that came and went so fast.”
Reps for Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music did not respond to a request for comment.
Streaming services mostly avoid trying to wade into moral debates about artists’ character. One exception came when Spotify announced a new policy in 2018, writing on its blog that “in some circumstances, when an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful (for example, violence against children and sexual violence), it may affect the ways we work with or support that artist or creator.”
The backlash against this announcement was swift. Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, CEO of Top Dawg Entertainment, told Billboard, “I don’t think it’s right for artists to be censored.” Others felt similarly, and a few weeks later, Spotify said “we are moving away from implementing a policy around artist conduct.”
That said, two former employees say Spotify still occasionally flexes its muscles around playlisting. When Megan Thee Stallion was shot by Tory Lanez in 2020, “his songs weren’t getting in any playlists after that,” according to a former employee. (Lanez was found guilty in court in December 2022.)
But Ye is not on trial, and he also has more than 140 Hot 100 hits to date. Many of these are still in regular rotation: His catalog has earned more than 480 million on-demand streams already this year in the U.S., according to Luminate.
Even so, his newest song sank like a stone. When Ye and Ty Dolla $ign released “Vultures” in November, it failed to crack the Hot 100, and it has amassed only around 33 million Spotify streams, a flop by Ye’s high-flying standards. (He released a video for the track “Talking/Once Again” with Ty earlier this week, but it is not yet available on streaming services.)
Two sources familiar with Ye’s search for a distribution deal say several streaming services signaled to them that they were unlikely to support new music from the star due to widespread outrage over his antisemitic comments. “For an artist as big as Kanye to release a new track and receive no major editorial placements is quite an outlier,” notes Nicki Camberg, a data journalist at the company Chartmetric, which tracks data on playlisting, social media, and streaming for artists. (“Vultures” was released through Label Engine, a distribution company owned by Create Music Group, according to identification information in YouTube’s Content Management System.)
“Vultures” has fared slightly better on the airwaves than it has on streaming services. The song has received airplay from around 30 stations, according to Mediabase. Two stations in Ye’s hometown of Chicago played the song the day it came out, and they’ve played it far more than anyone else: 199 spins so far in 2024 from WGCI and 181 from WPWX. The station that played “Vultures” third most this year, KVEG in Las Vegas, has played it 50 times.
Aside from the iHeart-owned WGCI, it’s noticeable that the stations playing “Vultures” are mostly owned by smaller radio companies, not the behemoths like iHeart, Audacy and Sirius. The track has received 2,144 spins overall, with 6.187 million audience impressions.
In the mid-2010s, radio was eclipsed by streaming services as the most important driver of listening behavior. Now a similar thing has happened to streaming services: Young fans are increasingly likely to discover music on short-form video platforms like TikTok. (Though they can’t find Universal Music Group songs there at the moment.) As a result, executives told Billboard in 2022 that “Spotify and Apple editorial playlists don’t have as much punch” as they used to.
Even on an earnings call on Thursday (Feb. 8), Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl noted that “the data discovery and consumption trends” in music “are driven by the algorithms of the larger platforms and users sharing playlists with each other” — not playlists controlled by the various platforms. “The guys who do playlists had a lot of power four or five years ago,” says one longtime A&R. “Now their power is dwindling, because it doesn’t matter what they say. The kids choose at the end of the day.”
This could work to Ye’s advantage. If he’s able to luck into a viral moment, it won’t matter much whether he’s put on editorial playlists initially; listeners will find the music and play it, and the audience response will impact streaming services.
So far, “Vultures” hasn’t generated this kind of enthusiasm. “From a fan perspective, if it was going crazy and everyone was talking about it, that would push it,” the digital marketer says. “But I haven’t seen that anywhere.”
Since unveiling Spatial Audio in June 2021, Apple Music has been pushing labels and artists to rework their music in the immersive format. Now, the platform is offering a financial incentive in the form of increased royalties.
In a letter sent out by Apple Music to its partners on Monday (Jan. 22) and obtained by Billboard, the streamer revealed that beginning with month-end royalty payments in January, music available in Spatial Audio — which is supported by Dolby Atmos — will receive a royalty rate up to 10% higher than content not available in the format.
“Pro-rata shares for Spatial Available plays will be calculated using a factor of 1.1 while Non-Spatial available plays will continue to use a factor of 1,” the letter reads. “This change is not only meant to reward higher quality content, but also to ensure that artists are being compensated for the time and investment they put into mixing in Spatial.”
The letter offers an update on the format’s adoption by artists and users, including a claim that more than 90% of Apple Music listeners have experienced the format and that “plays for music available in Spatial Audio have more than tripled in the last two years.” It additionally states that the number of songs available in the format has increased nearly 5,000% since launch and more than doubled over the last year alone. The company further claims that more than 80% of songs to have charted on the platform’s Global Daily Top 100 in the past year are available in Spatial Audio.
Seemingly to deter bad actors, the letter includes a mention of Apple Music’s “zero-tolerance policy against deceptive or manipulative content,” noting the service has a “quality control process that includes flagging content not delivered in accordance with Apple Music’s Spatial Audio specifications and standards of quality.”
Spatial Audio officially rolled out on June 7, 2021. The format, which provides a surround sound experience in users’ headphones, is offered at no additional cost for Apple Music users, seemingly to speed adoption. As part of this effort, Spatial Audio tracks also enjoy enhanced visibility on the app’s home page, sitting higher than even new music releases. Early adopters of the format included Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, The Weeknd, Billie Eilish, J. Cole and Post Malone.
In a June 2021 interview with Billboard, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vp of internet software and services, conceded that encouraging artists to mix their tracks for Spatial Audio would be a challenge given the time, work and financial investment required.
“This is not a simple ‘take-the-file that you have in stereo, processes through this software application and out comes Dolby Atmos,’” Cue said at the time. “This requires somebody who’s a sound engineer, and the artist to sit back and listen, and really make the right calls and what the right things to do are. It’s a process that takes time, but it’s worth it.”
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Source: Apple Music / Apple Music
Kid Cudi and Kanye West are cool again. During a recent interview, the latter said a sincere apology from Ye is what led to them squashing their latest public fall out.
Cudi hit up Apple Music 1 and spoke to Zane Lowe about a number of topics, but of course the first many want to know is what’s up with him and Yeezy? In case you need catching up, recently the two friends were not on good terms, at all. Back in 2022 (they’d also been on the outs before), Ye dropped his Donda album, and Cudi was noticeably not on it despite being one of his most frequent collaborators. But then Ye threw salt in the wound by specifying that Cudi’s absence was due to him being friends with Pete Davidson, who at the time was seeing Ye’s soon to be ex-wife Kim Kardashian.
The “Day N Nite” rapper continued to stress that their friendship was done for almost two years before they were seen hugging it out in late 2023 while Ye was live streaming that Vultures album, that still hasn’t dropped, btw.
But now as Cudi is promoting his latest album, INSANO, he and Ye are brothers, again. “Siblings hurt you the most,” Cudi told Zane Low. “So you go through things, but family is always there. You don’t give up on family. And I think in the thick of it, when it was going down, I wanted to walk away. I wanted to give up, but in thinking about it the past couple years, it’s like this is someone who is my brother ultimately who came into my life and championed me and did things for me that nobody else did for me early on in my career. People don’t even know that Kanye paid for the first day and night video when I didn’t have a deal. This was like, he needs a video, so I’m a pay for it. Guy saw me to shoot it, saw me the first director. Didn’t know me, but was sure just doing a favor and so shit like that.”
True, true. But it was Ye actually saying “sorry” that sealed the deal, this time.
He adds, “He’s learning and he’s growing. He knows he made some mistakes and I think that that’s the beauty of it, is this is a beautiful thing. It’s like he knows he’s been on one hell of a ride and he knows, he’s said some things that he might not be able to come back from in a lot of realms, in a lot of spaces from certain people. But we grow and I think I pray for him, and that’s my brother. And the reason why we became cool again is because he apologized to me and it was sincere. I was just like, ‘Wow.’ Kanye does not apologize to anybody and say sorry to anyone. And that’s my brother, man. I know he loves me and there’s just nothing like Kanye and Cudi. We like the duo that everybody loves to see.”
Until they’re not. As for Insano, Cudder is quite excited about it. “I want people to arguably have the debate about my sh*t being one of the best albums of the year,” he said. “I didn’t want to have any doubts. I wanted to make something that was completely undeniable.”
Kid Cudi’s new and 11th album Insano is out now. Check out the full interview below.
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While Spotify is planning to start penalizing labels and distributors for egregious instances of streaming fraud, Apple Music quietly rolled out its own strengthened fraud protections — including hitting repeat offenders with “financial adjustments” — more than a year ago, according to an email obtained by Billboard that the platform sent to music industry partners in March. Apple Music’s internal metrics indicate that the policy has already led to a 30% drop in streaming manipulation.
In the March email, the streamer defines manipulation as “the deliberate, artificial creation of plays for royalty, chart, and popularity purposes” as well as “the delivery of deceptive or manipulative content, like an album of 31-second songs.” “In October [2022], we launched new tools and policies designed to prevent stream manipulation on Apple Music,” the email explains. “Since we launched the new tools, manipulated streams have accounted for only 0.3 percent of all streams.”
That 0.3 percent figure is lower than the stats cited by some of Apple Music’s rivals. A Spotify spokesperson told a Swedish newspaper earlier this year that “less than one percent of all streams on Spotify have been determined to be tampered with,” while Deezer has said that it finds 7% of plays to be fraudulent. (This comparison only goes so far, though, because each service might define fraud differently, and not all of them have ad-supported tiers.)
In a statement, an Apple Music spokesperson said the platform “takes stream manipulation very seriously. Apple Music has a team of people dedicated to tracking and investigating any instances where manipulation is suspected. Penalties include cancellation of user accounts, removal of content, termination of distributor agreements, and financial adjustments.”
When Apple Music emailed industry partners in March, the streaming service noted that “despite the low percentage [of fraud], manipulation remains a widespread and persistent problem: That 0.3% of streams came from more than 85,000 albums across hundreds of record labels.”
As a result, the email indicates the company outlined a sharper anti-fraud policy in October 2022, promising to take “remedial actions against content providers with repeated and significant stream manipulation.” This means of incentivizing reform has worked for some — half the distributors that were flagged for fake streaming have reduced manipulation on their content by over 45%, the company said.
To help labels and distributors figure out where fraud is occurring, Apple Music’s email says the platform started sending daily reports detailing “a content provider’s albums with streams held in review.” “After each review,” the email goes on, “we remove manipulated streams and release legitimate plays. At the end of each month, content providers also receive a report with all excluded streams.” (Spotify has now also ramped up the reporting it provides to labels and distributors, according to one executive at a distribution company, “adding a new dimension of seeing repeat offenders.”)
“This all happens before Apple Music pays royalties and tabulates charts,” the email noted. “We block wrongdoers from the primary advantages of stream manipulation and redirect royalties to valid plays of content.”
The last six months have seen a flurry of companies committing publicly to fraud mitigation. More than half a dozen distributors formed “a global task force aimed at eradicating streaming fraud” in June. And when Deezer announced a new partnership with Universal Music Group in September, Michael Nash, UMG’s executive vp and chief digital officer, promised that “fraud and gaming, which serves only to deprive artists their due compensation, will be aggressively addressed.”
TikTok launched a new feature on Tuesday (Nov. 14) that allows users to easily save music they find on the platform to Spotify, Amazon Music or Apple Music for future listening. This will presumably reduce friction between the apps, helping translate interest on TikTok into streaming activity at a time when the music industry has been concerned that the relationship is weakening.
“TikTok is already the world’s most powerful platform for music discovery and promotion, which helps artists connect with our global community to drive engagement with their music,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, said in a statement. The new feature “takes this process a step further, creating a direct link between discovery on TikTok and consumption on a music streaming service, making it easier than ever for music fans to enjoy the full length song on the music streaming service of their choice, thereby generating even greater value for artists and rights holders.”
This “Add to Music App” will be available to users in the United States and the United Kingdom. TikTok started testing the integration earlier this year with Apple Music.
When TikTok initially came to prominence more than four years ago, virality on the app often appeared directly correlated with a jump in streams. But that link appeared to weaken as the app ballooned in popularity. The top 10 TikTok tracks in the United States were streamed far less in 2022 than they were in 2021, according to data from Luminate. And the top 10 songs on the app in 2021 were streamed far less than they were in 2020.
“For a while it was like, ‘All you gotta do is get a song going on TikTok, and it’s outta here!’” a major label executive told Billboard last year. But “it’s not a guarantee anymore” that a song will become a hit, the executive said.
Some sounds appear to thrive on TikTok but never catch fire on streaming services, where they actually generate money for the music industry. Labels will surely be excited if the “Add to Music App” helps strengthen the connection between TikTok activity and clicks on Spotify.
In the past, Spotify and TikTok have sometimes seemed at odds, competing for user attention and influence over the music industry. During the former’s Stream On event in March, for example, Gustav Soderstrom, Spotify’s co-president, took a subtle jab that seemed aimed at TikTok: “Discoveries on Spotify, unlike many other platforms, give creators so much more than just a fleeting moment of viral fame,” he said.
This sentiment was echoed at the same event by Sulinna Ong, Spotify’s global head of editorial, who noted that “there’s a disconnect between where music is being teased and where music is actually being streamed. The most powerful time to reach fans is when they’ve chosen to engage with music, like when they open up Spotify.”
But despite past poking and prodding, the two platforms now appear happy to work together. “We want to create less work to get to the audio you love,” Sten Garmark, Spotify’s global head of consumer experience, said in a statement. “That means being everywhere our users are and creating seamless ways to save songs to Spotify to enjoy when and how they choose to listen.”
Karolina Joynathsing, the director of business development for Amazon Music, used similar language in her own statement. “Some of the best parts of being a music lover are those serendipitous moments when you discover a new song or artist that you connect with instantly,” Joynathsing said. “At Amazon Music, we’re looking to make it easier to convert those moments into enduring fandom,” leading to the adoption of the Add to Music app.
TikTok plans to roll out the new feature in additional markets in the coming months.
It’s hardly a surprise, but it’s still a significant achievement: Taylor Swift is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2023. She’s the No. 1 most-streamed female artist in Apple Music history and is also the female artist with the most songs to reach Apple Music’s Global Daily Top 100.
“I am so honored to be Apple Music’s Artist of the Year,” Swift said in a statement. “Thank you to every single one of you for making this year the most incredible, joyful, celebratory year ever. From streaming the music nonstop to screaming it together in real life at the shows, dancing chaotically in movie theaters, none of this would have been possible without you. Thank you so much.”
This is the first time Swift has received this award, which is now in its fifth year. Billie Eilish was Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2019, followed by Lil Baby (2020), The Weeknd (2021) and Bad Bunny (2022).
“Taylor Swift’s impact on music is absolutely undeniable — not just this record-breaking year, but throughout her entire career,” Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats, said in a statement. “She is a generation-defining artist and a true change agent in the music industry, and there is no doubt that her impact and influence will be felt for years to come. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to celebrate her achievements.”
As we all witnessed in real time, in wonder and awe, Swift reached a new level of superstardom this year. In the first 10 months of 2023, she saw 65 songs reach Apple Music’s Global Daily Top 100 — more than any other artist ever.
Swift saw consistent streaming lifts throughout the year, particularly around the enormous success of The Eras Tour. The week the tour kicked off in March, Swift’s streams grew 61 percent globally. She continued to see double-digit growth in monthly streams throughout the summer. Apple Music’s Set List: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was the No. 1 most-streamed Set List of the year, and among the top 40 editorial playlists of the year.
“Cruel Summer,” from Swift’s 2019 album Lover, became one of the biggest songs of the summer on Apple Music worldwide. The song re-entered the Global Daily Top 100 in April for the first time in four years and has remained there ever since.
Midnights still stands as the biggest album of all time by a female artist in Apple Music history by first-day and first-week streams worldwide.
On Wednesday (Nov. 8), Apple Music is spotlighting the music and moments that defined Taylor Swift’s Eras era. Listeners can tune in to an array of radio programming celebrating Swift’s two decades’ worth of melodic album narratives, as well as interviews, album collections, and playlists that showcase the singer-songwriter’s journey leading up to this historic year. Tune in at apple.co/am-1.
Swift’s Artist of the Year honor is part of the Apple Music Awards, and she will receive a physical award that includes a silicon chip that powers Apple products. The award is Apple’s “silicon wafer” suspended between a polished sheet of glass, and a machined and anodized aluminum body. According to a press release: “In a symbolic gesture, the same chip powering the devices that put 100 million songs at listeners’ fingertips also sits at the very heart of the Apple Music Awards.”
In other Swift news, she heads into the 2023 Billboard Music Awards on Nov. 19 as the leading finalist, with nods in 20 categories, and is set to restart her blockbuster Eras Tour on Thursday in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Apple reported a blowout quarterly earnings report, with its serviced division (which includes Apple TV+, Apple Music and other media-related offerings) hitting another new record with $22.3 billion in revenue.
That was up from $19.2 billion a year ago, and from $21.2 billion in its last quarter.
In total, Apple delivered revenues of $89.5 billion in its fiscal Q4, with profits of $23 billion, reflecting strong demand for its iPhone line.
“Today Apple is pleased to report a September quarter revenue record for iPhone and an all-time revenue record in Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. “We now have our strongest lineup of products ever heading into the holiday season, including the iPhone 15 lineup and our first carbon neutral Apple Watch models, a major milestone in our efforts to make all Apple products carbon neutral by 2030.”
Apple is seeking to improve its revenues and margins in its services business, raising prices on Apple TV+ and other subscription offerings last month. Apple TV+ now costs $9.99 per month, though it is also included in the Apple One subscription bundle, which includes products like Apple Arcade, Apple News, and extra cloud storage.
“We achieved all time revenue records across App Store, advertising, Apple Care, iCloud, payment services and video, as well as the September quarter revenue record on Apple Music,” Cook added on the earnings call.
As for Apple TV+, Cook touted Martin Scorsese’s new movie Killers of the Flower Moon, and noted the awards that ths ervice has garnered.
“We’re telling impactful stories that inspire imagination and stir the soul,” Cook said. “Making movies that make a difference is also at the heart of Apple TV+, and we were thrilled to produce Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, a powerful work of cinema that premiered in theaters around the world last month.”
Apple CFO Luca Maestri added on the call that Apple’s services division now has “well more than one billion” subscribers.
Also on the call, Cook confirmed that the company is investing significantly in generative artificial intelligence: “Obviously we have work going on, I’m not going to get into details about what it is because as you know, we don’t we really don’t do that,” Cook said in response to a question from an analyst. “But you can bet that we’re investing, we’re investing quite a bit. We’re going to do it responsibly. And you will see product advancements over time where those technologies are at the heart of them.”
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Apple is shuttering the Apple Music Voice plan, which let users access songs only through Siri for $4.99 per month. Apple initially announced the Voice plan in October 2021. Users who found using the app too taxing or too expensive could request music by mood — tunes for a dinner party or for studying — […]
As part of our continuing efforts to serve the music industry and its creators, Billboard now features a royalty calculator for Spotify and Apple Music for readers. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Created by Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, a legal and consulting firm that specializes in […]
As part of our continuing efforts to serve the music industry and its creators, Billboard now features a royalty calculator for Spotify and Apple Music for readers. The calculator below was created by Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, a legal and consulting firm that specializes in music industry law; and is based on the firm’s analysis […]