Music
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Elon Musk says Mark Zuckerberg’s understanding of the future of AI is ‘limited’
It’s fascinating to imagine the conversations that happen behind closed doors between the world’s richest and most powerful, so when they occur in the open — and over topics that impact the future of the world — it’s hard to do anything but grab the popcorn and watch intensely. Billionaire business icon Elon Musk — of Tesla, SpaceX and more fame —… Read More
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Google Play Music gets more personalized with New Release Radio, customized to your tastes
It’s no longer enough to simply offer on-demand music as part of the value proposition for music streaming services – you have to enable discovery of new tunes and make recommendations, too. While it’s fair to say that Spotify is leading the market in terms of its influential playlist selections, rivals are quickly following suit – including Apple Music and Google… Read More
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The ‘Beat Shazam’ TV show allows viewers to play along at home
Beat Shazam is one of those TV game shows that you don’t just watch — you can play along at home, using the Shazam app. In fact, the company recently added the ability to sync your gameplay to recorded footage of the show. Let’s back up a second, for people who haven’t watched: Beat Shazam is hosted by Jamie Foxx and premiered on May 25, on Fox. During each episode… Read More
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SoundCloud, the ‘YouTube for audio’, cuts 173 jobs, closes San Francisco, London offices
Some rough news today for SoundCloud, the audio streaming site whose content is largely based around uploads from its 175 million users in 190 countries. The company has announced that it is laying off 173 employees, and it is closing offices in San Francisco and London. The moves are being described as cost cutting measures “to ensure our path to long-term, independent success,”… Read More
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Apple Music’s first new personalized playlist wants you to Chill
This week Apple is beginning to roll out the first new personalized playlist under Apple Music’s “For You” section. The playlist, entitled “Chill,” is muxed based on editorial curation and algorithmic interpretation of your musical tastes. Read More
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Pandora CEO Tim Westergren is officially out amid company shakeup
Following rumblings of a shakeup over the weekend, Pandora confirmed today that co-founder Tim Westergren is stepping down from his role as CEO. Naveen Chopra, who stepped in as the company’s CFO back in February, will be filling in the top spot as interim CEO while the board of directors looks for a permanent replacement. Read More
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Sean Parker has left Spotify’s board; Padmasree Warrior, Thomas Staggs join in lead up to IPO
As Spotify inches its way to a public listing, the streaming music company — which now has 140 million users — has made some significant changes to its board of directors. Sean Parker, the early supporter and investor who once founded digital music service Napster and helped usher Facebook into the world, has left Spotify’s board of directors, along with Klaus Hommels… Read More
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Pandora raises $480M from SiriusXM, sells Ticketfly to Eventbrite for $200M
Troubled streaming music service Pandora has finally found a white knight of sorts to boost it with a cash injection as it looks to improve its business: SiriusXM has just announced it will be investing $480 million in cash into publicly traded Pandora. Pandora also is selling Ticketfly to Eventbrite for $200 million. Read More
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Pandora adds a continuous listening mode with AutoPlay, while considering a Sirius XM investment
Pandora today is rolling out a new feature to its Premium tier that will allow subscribers to continue to listen to music, uninterrupted, when their current track, album or playlist ends. Called, simply, “AutoPlay,” the feature works by shifting users to a personalized radio station based on whatever it is you were listening to before. Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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Stem raises $8M to get music artists paid more seamlessly
While music streaming has become more and more commoditized, artists still have a wide array of places to distribute their songs like Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music — but getting paid properly can start to complicate things. That problem gets even more difficult when there are multiple people collaborating on the same song and it’s not clear who is getting how much of a cut from… Read More
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eMusic’s new owners believe they can convince users to start buying songs again
Take a moment to consider all that has transpired in your life and the world since the last time you logged into eMusic. For me, it’s been roughly five years, I think, and among a few other slightly more consequential things, I (like much the rest of the world), have begun consuming music completely differently. But the brand, which re-launched this week with a design and rejiggered… Read More
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Music royalty collector Kobalt nabs $75M led by Hearst Entertainment at $775M valuation
As music streaming continues to grow in ubiquity, a company that’s built a platform to collect royalties on music played across billions of streams is cashing in on the opportunity. Kobalt, the European startup that has built technology and a platform to collect music royalties by tracking when even a sample of a song is played across multiple platforms, has raised another $75… Read More
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SoundCloud’s ‘The Upload’ uses machine learning to help you find new tracks
SoundCloud made a name for itself among the landscape of music streaming services as the one where creators themselves uploaded music and other sound recordings — picking up the moniker “the YouTube of audio” in the process. Now the company is launching a new discovery feature that plays on that idea and highlights what’s getting added. The Upload, as it is called… Read More
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Two new Loog guitars let your toddler shout at the devil
Loog is a New York-based guitar company run by a music teacher named Rafael Atijas. These three-string guitars are designed for kids as young as 3 years old and they make guitar easy and fun – at least according to my kids who played with them when they were much younger. The new models are called the Mini for ages 3 and older and the Pro for ages 8 and older. The Mini is a smaller… Read More
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Spotify acquires blockchain startup Mediachain to solve music’s attribution problem
Spotify has acquired the Brooklyn-based blockchain startup Mediachain Labs, whose team will join the company’s office in New York where they will work on developing better technology for connecting artists and other rights holders with the tracks hosted on Spotify’s service. Prior to its acquisition, the startup had developed several technologies that could aid in these… Read More
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New partnership makes Google Play Music the default on all Samsung devices, with double the storage capacity
Samsung and Google today announced a new partnership that will make Google Play Music the default music player and music service including on new Samsung phone and tablets worldwide, starting with the launch of the Galaxy S8 and S8+. The deal comes with an added bonus for Samsung users – they’ll be able to upload up to 100,000 of their own songs to Google Play Music for free. This… Read More
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