An awesome bassline, some seriously great grooves and a killer melody on Dublin post-punk band's new song. 'Skinty Fia' is taken from the new album of the same name, out 22nd April on Partisan Records.
The global recorded music industry saw its wholesale revenues increase by USD $4.0 billion in 2021 to $25.9 billion, according to IFPI. That sum is the largest in history, MBW reports. Also, that $4 billion year-on-year increase was much higher than in the previous years - YOY growth in 2020 was $1.5bn, and in 2019 it was $1.5bn. Annual paid-for streaming revenues bounced up by $2.2 billion to $12.3 billion last year. Revenues from physical formats – CD and vinyl combined – grew to $5.0 billion in 2021, up from $4.3 billion in 2020. Ad-funded streaming platforms or free streaming, including video services, generated $4.6 billion in 2021, up 31% year-on-year.
“I left at the end of last year, after the new record was complete. There was no acute reason beyond that I’ve changed—and the band has changed—over the last almost 20 years. Time for new things” - Arcade Fire longtime multi-instrumentalist Will Butler and the younger brother of bandleader Win Butler, broke the news on Twitter. Will Butler joined Arcade Fire in late 2003 and first appeared on Arcade Fire’s debut album, 2004’s 'Funeral', and has contributed to every album since then, including the band’s upcoming studio LP 'WE'. Butler announced he is working on music for a David Adjmi play.
ng Stone looks at the Russian rappers going against the war in Ukraine. "The big bosses will send [you] to the slaughterhouse. Bosses never gave a f*ck" - rapper Morgenshtern says in one of his songs. Oxxxymiron has opposed the war since its beginning, canceling Russian shows in protest. Siberian rapper-producer Slava Marlow shared footage on his Instagram story of the March 1 Russian strike on Kharkiv’s Freedom Square that killed at least 10 people. The Face is believed to have left Russia for Dubai sometime in early 2022. He said - “You made a wrong joke. And you wound up on the blacklist”.
The Smile continue their walk on the edges of early Radiohead and avant-garde sound on 'Skrting On The Surface'; Greentea Peng shares her first new track since last year’s debut album - the psychedelic r’n’b ‘Your Mind’; Father John Misty's 'Goodbye Mr. Blue' is pleasant and comforting, just like the nature; a reminder of Jenny Hval’s recently released album, her gorgeous single ‘A Year of Love’.
Arcade Fire have announced their new album 'WE', which deals in topics of isolation and human connection - the band’s sixth full-length is due out on May 6th. Arcade Fire set out to record an album in February 2020, but when the pandemic began, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne decided to write more songs - “It was the longest we’ve ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever,” Butler said in a statement. The project was produced by Radiohead’s producer Nigel Godrich. They’ve shared the first single, 'The Lightning I, II' - listen to it below.
Spotify has struck a major four-year sponsorship agreement with Barcelona worth $310 million. MBW calculated that in order for an artist to generate $310 million in recorded music royalties on the Spotify platform – at $0.00348 per-stream average rate – they would need to rack up a gigantic 89.08 billion plays on the service. No artist in the history of Spotify has ever, across their entire catalog, attracted that many plays. The most cumulative streams ever recorded by a single artist on Spotify is Drake with 62.84 billion.
Detroit proto-punk outfit MC5 has announced that a new album of original MC5 songs will be released in October via Ear Music, a full 51 years after the release of the band’s last album. The album is also set to feature contributions from Kesha, Tom Morello, Alejandro Escovedo, Jill Sobule, and Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath.
'Heat Waves' by Glass Animals was released as a single on June 29, 2020, and in March 2022, this week, 'Heat Waves' hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 after a 59-week climb, by far the longest climb to #1 in Billboard history, Billboard reports. The funny thing is, it's an old song now - SOUNDSCAN will register it as a "catalog" transaction since it's older than 18 months.
Universal Music Group saw its overall annual revenues across publishing, records, and merch hit €8.50 billion ($10.03 billion) last year, surpassing the USD $10 billion mark for the first time in history, Music Business Worldwide reports. That figure was up 17.0% year-over-year in constant currency. Also, Universal’s total revenues on a Euro basis in 2021 (€8.50bn) were more than double the size of UMG’s annua
