Music News

Photo Credit: Nine Inch Nails by Allina S (chocolate_starfish__) / CC by 2.0 Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross announce the full lineup for Future Ruins, a new festival bringing together the biggest composers in film and TV. Future Ruins is set to take place at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center on November 8, featuring performances that include festival organizers and Nine Inch Nails duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The festival is described as a “first-of-its-kind music festiva

Photo Credit: Live Nation Live Nation is rolling out its new ‘$30 Ticket to Summer’ promotion for 2025, offering fans access to over 1,000 concerts across the United States and Canada. The $30 flat-rate per ticket includes all fees except local taxes—and is a price hike compared to previous $10 and Lawnie Pass promotions. The deal is available for a limited time starting May 21 and offers tickets to a range of major acts including Avril Lavinge, Halsey, The Offspring, Luke Bryan, Weird Al, The

Riot Games’ recent Linkin Park Anthem release broke streaming records in the first five hours. In an interview with Downtown Music, Maria Egan, the Global Head of Music at Riot Games, reframes the idea of how music impacts audiences: “Music primarily serves as a community-building tool. It’s a memory machine. Where there’s music, there’s memories.” The following recaps an interview with Maria Egan as part of Downtown Music’s series, The Music Industry Lives Here. Downtown Music is a company DMN

Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, who’s exited the Universal Music board, testifying before Congress. Bill Ackman has officially stepped down from the Universal Music Group (UMG) board, citing “increasing demands on his time.” The Pershing Square Capital Management head confirmed that departure in a brief release, with UMG having put out a concise disclosure of its own. Per the former announcement, the aforementioned demands pertain to Ackman’s “other Pershing Square commitments,” among them hi

In Part I of our Understanding Copyright in Music series, we explored the different types of works and copyright rights in music. In Part II we’ll discuss different types of music licenses. There are many kinds of music licenses. What and how you license will depend on the type of work you are licensing—whether it is a musical work or sound recording (or both)—and what kinds of uses you are allowing the licensee to do with your work. Below is a list of several types of music licenses and how th

Which way, USA? Latest DMN Pro data shows a problematic slide in stateside Spotify subscribers (Photo: GDJ) DMN Pro was first to report serious subscriber slowdowns at Amazon Music in 2024. Now, it’s Spotify’s turn: according to leaked figures, the mega-DSP shed stateside subscribers in early 2025. In response, Spotify told DMN its paying subscribers are growing ‘in all regions,’ but declined to offer further details. Spotify came out swinging in its latest quarterly financial call, thanks to

Photo Credit: Anthropic The high-profile copyright lawsuit between major music publishers and Anthropic’s chatbot Claude just took a dramatic turn. Anthropic’s legal counsel is accused of submitting a court filing containing AI-generated hallucinations to an academic citation that does not exist. Today a federal judge in San Jose ordered Anthropic to address allegations that one of its expert witnesses referenced a non-existent academic paper in the company’s court filing. The citation is purp

Just how much distribution can be done on a phone? According to Too Lost, the answer is pretty much everything. For many artists and labels, the complex tasks of music distribution are frequently handled on desktop. That’s a belief held by some of the largest distribution platforms, though Too Lost is now giving its artists complete mobile capabilities via a just-released app. The result is a completely portable distribution solution built for on-the-go artists, including those on tour. Accord

Photo Credit: Casandra Fine’s Instagram (Cassie) Cassie, star witness for the prosecution in the sex trafficking case against Diddy, started off the trial with a lurid account of their time together. Singer Cassie, who dated Sean “Diddy” Combs for roughly a decade, testified against the music mogul as the prosecution’s star witness in the federal sex trafficking case against him. The 38-year-old told jurors a harrowing account of her relationship with Combs, involving weekly drug-fueled sex pa

Photo Credit: Tory Lanez by The Come Up Show / CC by 2.0 Rapper Tory Lanez is recovering after being stabbed 14 times in prison as he serves a 10-year sentence for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet. Tory Lanez is recovering in a hospital near the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi where he was attacked at about 7:20 AM on Monday, according to a spokesperson for the State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He has been serving a 10-year sentence for shooting super

Photo Credit: Merlin (Jeremy Sirota) Jeremy Sirota, CEO of Merlin, the global digital rights agency for independent music, has announced he will step down at the end of 2025. Sirota was in the CEO position for nearly six years—with no replacement named at the moment. Sirota shared the news via LinkedIn, calling his tenure “the privilege of a lifetime” and expressing pride in Merlin’s role “the most important entity representing independents.” Sirota says despite his departure, he feels the col

Tencent Music has once again reported subscriber and profit growth — this time for Q1 2025, when the company leaned into “IRL” SVIP initiatives. Photo Credit: Tencent Music Tencent Music (NYSE: TME) has revealed continued subscriber and profit boosts for Q1 2025, which also delivered licensing renewals with Sony Music and others. The QQ, Kugou, Kuwo, and WeSing operator shed light on its first-quarter financials today. In keeping with the company’s 2024 results and heightened focus on core st

A breakdown of the newly added voice-request support for Spotify’s AI DJ. Photo Credit: Spotify Spotify has officially added voice-based music requests to AI DJ, listener engagement with which is said to have “nearly doubled over the past year.” The streaming platform announced its latest DJ expansion (and the engagement spike) in a brief release today. According to Spotify, the AI feature now responds to and tailors sessions based on a variety of English-language voice requests from subscrib

Photo Credit: Apple Music Apple Music teams up with Universal Music Group to introduce Sound Therapy, an audio wellness collection to help listeners relax, focus, or sleep. Available exclusively on Apple Music, Sound Therapy is designed to blend songs subscribers already know and love with special sound waves made to enhance users’ daily routines, while retaining the artist’s original vision. Backed by research and powered by Universal Music Group’s (UMG) proprietary audio tech, Sound Therapy

Photo Credit: Daryl Hall by Becky (transistr_sistr) / CC by 2.0 Daryl Hall airs his grievances with the term when discussing the genre during his appearance on the Broken Record podcast last week. When it comes to the term “yacht rock” to describe his music, Daryl Hall can’t go for that. The singer pulled no punches during his appearance on the Broken Record podcast last Thursday with host Justin Richmond. Richmond brought up the Doobie Brothers being retroactively dubbed “yacht rock” for one

Photo Credit: Julian Hochgesang iHeartMedia now commands a 40% share of advertising revenue and markets in the United States, as measured by Miller Kaplan. That’s according to the radio conglomerate’s Q1 2025 earnings call with investors. The milestone underscores iHeartMedia’s continued ability to outpace competitors and leverage its vast audience reach, robust ad tech investments, and the largest sales force in audio to capture the growing slice of advertising revenue. For Q1 2025, iHeartMe

The House of Lords chamber, where an amendment to the UK’s heavily debated AI bill has passed 272-125. One much-publicized opposition campaign later, the UK AI bill, including a controversial “opt-out” approach to generative model training, has suffered a setback. That’s according to outlets from across the pond, which have described a new amendment to the proposed law as “a heavy defeat” for the government. As we previously noted, said law as written would have given gen AI developers the gr

Photo Credit: CBGB Festival New York City’s CBGB gets a revival in 2025 as a one-day fest under the K-Bridge in Brooklyn on September 27. Even though New York’s beloved punk venue, CBGB, closed its doors in 2006, the name lived on within CBGB Fest, which was revived in 2012, 2013, and 2014. Now, the festival is back for a new edition in 2025, co-presented by CBGB & OMFUG and The Bowery Presents. Previous editions of the festival were multi-day events across multiple venues, CBGB Fest 2025

Photo Credit: Quick PS U.S. House Republicans have introduced a sweeping provision in the latest budget reconciliation bill that would prohibit states and local governments from regulating artificial intelligence for the next decade. Late Sunday night, new language was added to the budget reconciliation bill stating that “no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision

Photo Credit: The Come Up Show / CC by 2.0 With the ugly Drake v. Universal Music defamation lawsuit – and the discovery process – moving forward, both sides have requested and received a protective order covering “highly confidential or proprietary business information.” The presiding judge signed off on that protective order this afternoon, on the heels of Universal Music’s firmly worded attempt to dismiss the amended complaint. By now, most are at least generally familiar with the high-sta

Snoop Dogg, who’s officially set to host a live New Year’s Eve special on NBC. Additionally, the Death Row owner is preparing to serve as a coach on the forthcoming 28th season of The Voice. Photo Credit: TechCrunch The Olympics, The Voice, and now New Year’s Eve: Snoop Dogg is officially set to cap off 2025 with a two-hour special from Miami. NBC formally announced that year-end programming, aptly entitled Snoop Dogg New Year’s Eve, in a brief release today. As things stand, concrete details

Photo Credit: Madonna for Live Nation A Netflix limited series about the life and music of Madonna is in early development with director Shawn Levy at the helm. Madonna is partnering with Netflix and director Shawn Levy on a limited series about her storied career. The show is not related to the previous Madonna feature film at Universal Pictures that was scuttled in 2023 when the singer announced her worldwide Celebration Tour. According to Variety, sources say Madonna “remains committed to

Photo Credit: Live Nation Live Nation has formally petitioned the US Supreme Court to appeal a ruling that prevents the company from forcing arbitration in a massive consumer antitrust lawsuit. In a petition filed on May 5, Live Nation asks the court to consider its appeal after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to strike down “unconscionable” arbitration provisions in Ticketmaster’s terms of use. Live Nation argues that California and the Ninth Circuit Court’s decisions have s

Photo Credit: Ashley King / Ticketmaster website Ticketmaster’s long-criticized ticket pricing with tacked on fees is finally getting a nationwide overhaul, but only after heavy government intervention. The ticketing giant rolled out its ‘all-in pricing’ across the United States starting today. That means consumers will see the full ticket price—including mandatory fees—up-front, rather than being blindsided when checking out. The move comes in response to mounting pressure from both the FTC a

SoundCloud says it hasn’t used music uploads to train generative AI models. But related debates are ongoing after the platform seemingly left the door open to training undertakings down the line. Photo Credit: SoundCloud Is SoundCloud using your music to train generative AI models? The company says it “doesn’t allow AI training or scraping with music on our platform,” but questions remain in light of a controversial terms of service update. Former Stability VP of audio Ed Newton-Rex, a longti