Indie-rock supergroup boygenius - the trio of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus - performed at the baggage claim area at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, upon arriving in the city for their SXSW set, Stereogum reports. In two weeks, they’ll release their debut album 'The Record'.
You enjoyed our hummus. You enjoyed our shawarma. You enjoyed our falafel. Arab music is about to take over, you motherfuckers” - rapper, curator, and strategist Suhel Nafar says in the Pitchfork piece about Arabic music which is supposedly "on the brink of a global breakthrough". Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna is to become the first artist to sing her entire set in Arabic on the biggest stage at Coachella. Egyptian artist Wegz, the most-streamed Arab artist on Spotify across Southwest Asia and North Africa in 2022, has recently sold out London’s 2,000-capacity O2 Shepherds Bush Empire and became the first Egyptian artist to perform at the World Cup. The P mentions others - 25-year-old UK-based Palestinian-American artist Lana Lubany, the collective Laylit which hosts parties in New York, Montreal, and Washington D.C., and DJ Nooriyah, who grew up in Saudi Arabia and Japan.
Metalica have bought Furnace Record Pressing, a vinyl pressing plant based in Alexandria, Virginia, in order to keep up with demand for their back catalog on vinyl, in addition to meeting their needs for their forthcoming album, '72 Seasons', coming put in April. The band first started working with Furnace, one of the largest vinyl pressing companies in the U.S., in 2008, Loudwire reports. The company has helped keep Metallica’s catalog in print along with expansive box set reissues of 'Metallica', 'Master of Puppets', 'Ride the Lightning', 'Kill 'Em All', '...And Justice for All', and others. The plant will continue to press non-Metallica projects.
Directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, the team behind 'Everything Everywhere All At Once', won three Oscars in a single evening - Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. At 35 years old, they’re two of the youngest Best Director winners in history, and also the first Best Director winners ever to come from the world of music videos. Stereogum had a tough time selecting only five of their videos as the best ones.
"Several start-ups are now using AI-generated soundscapes of ambient, downtempo and chill-out beats in hopes of having the same impact as sound therapy on issues like depression, anxiety and dementia" - Hii Magazine looks into the "increasingly growing sector that investors are paying attention to." Berlin-based Endel has an AI system that produces soundscapes to help people focus, relax and sleep. The company raised $15 million in a second round of venture capital financing earlier this year, and has over a million active users. Wavepaths, with Brian Eno as a member, is UK company that makes generative music for psychedelic therapy. It is currently used by hundreds of legal clinics in over 30 countries and has raised $4.5 million in its initial seed investment round last year. Brain.fm's algorithmic system selects from a catalogue of human-composed melodies, harmonies and chord progressions.
German composer Volker Bertelmann. also known as Hauschka, won the original score Oscar Sunday night for his music for the World War I epic 'All Quiet on the Western Front'. For this adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque classic, Bertelmann used his great-grandmother’s turn-of-the-century harmonium, a pump organ whose carefully mic’d interior noises - “the breathing, the air, the wooden cracklings” sounded to him like “a war machine.” The song 'Naatu Naatu' by M.M. Keeravaani and Chandrabose from the hit Telugu-language film 'RRR' has made history by becoming the first Indian film song to win an Oscar, beating heavyweights like Lady Gaga and Rihanna.
London rock band Brace Yourself! is putting their Banksy painting up for auction because “people should be able to see it”, Guardian reports. The band was formerly known as Exit Through the Gift Shop, and they were asked by Banksy more than a decade ago to choose a new name owing to copyright issues with his Oscar-nominated 2010 documentary of the same name. The band indeed changed their name, and got a Banksy in return. The painting, also named 'Brace Yourself! - features Death driving a bumper car - is on show in London before sale where it has estimate of $600,000-$800,000.
St. Vincent and The Roots performed a beautiful cover of Portishead‘s ‘Glory Box’ on The Tonight Show on Wednesday (Intl Women's Day). The atmospheric collaboration, faithful to the original 1995 single, saw St. Vincent deliver a powerful and haunting vocal, with her own spin on the song’s electrifying guitar solo. The Tonight Show house band The Roots accompanied her with subtle instrumentation, whereas a live string section gave a final touch.
The last three years have seen a slow rise in global music piracy, after a period of steady decline, according to a report from MUSO, a U.K. technology company. The platform has logged more than 15 billion visits to music piracy sites in 2022. Iran accounts for 15.05% of all piracy traffic picked up by MUSO, followed by India (10.29%), The United States (7%), and Russia (6%), Billboard reports. More than half of all the piracy in the United States takes place via stream-ripping, which relies on programs to get around YouTube’s copyright protection and convert audio into MP3s.
Recorded music revenues in the US - money spent on streaming subscriptions, as well as physical and digital music - grew 6.1% YoY in 2022 to $15.9 billion, the market’s seventh consecutive year of growth, MBW reports. Streaming grew 7.3% to a record high $13.3 billion in revenue and collectively accounts for 84% of revenues. Wholesale revenues – the money that makes its way back to record labels, distributors and artists – were $10.3 billion in 2022, the first time they exceeded $10 billion in the market. Also, retail revenues from paid subscription services (Spotify, Apple Music etc) grew 8% to $10.2 billion in 2022, exceeding the $10 billion mark annually for the first time. Revenues from vinyl records grew 17.2% to $1.2 billion – marking the format’s 16th consecutive year of growth - accounting for 71% of physical format revenues. For the first time since 1987, vinyl albums outsold CDs in units - 41 million vs 33 million.
