News Universal Music buys Nashville’s House of Blues Studios for $4.3M UMG also owns Capitol Studios in Los Angeles and Abbey Road in London
News Spotify opens Discover Weekly playlist to brand sponsorship Microsoft has joined as the beta launch partner
News Primary Wave signs A Star Is Born songwriter Dj White Shadow DJ White Shadow (Paul Blair) produced Lady Gaga's Born This way
News Republic Records promotes Joseph Carozza to EVP, Media & Artist Relations Carozza will continue to be responsible for the label’s media department and oversee press strategy
News Universal Music Group is worth $33bn, says Deutsche Bank Investment group suggests Liberty Media, Tencent or Google could buy into UMG
News What Netflix’s ‘choose-your-own-soundtrack’ paradigm reveals about the future of the music industry If movies become more interactive on our televisions, what will it mean for licensing?
News Downtown signs worldwide music publishing deal with Tori Amos Downtown will administer the singer and composer's complete songbook and future works
News When the Music Modernization Act becomes law, who’s going to take care of it? A number of organizations already vying for control of the yet-uncreated 'mechanical licensing collective'
News Universal expands in China and Asia with local hires and promotions Aaron Wang, Tracy Mu and KT Ang all join major, as other execs are promoted
Interviews VFiles: ‘We want to be the next Motown’ After signing a distribution deal with Caroline, what's the ambition for youth networking brand VFiles?
Interviews ‘Artist development is a long game — you want to make a solid foundation.’ H.E.R. manager Jeanine Mclean-Williams discusses management principles, artist development and playing the long game
Analysis News How to have a streaming hit in the USA: hire 9.1 songwriters (and a rap artist) BuzzAngle data reveals all you need to know about 2018's top-selling singles and albums
News Ed Sheeran to face US jury over Marvin Gaye plagiarism allegation Sheeran is being sued by the estate of Let’s Get It On co-writer Ed Townsend
News SoundCloud nabs BTS star exclusive – his track breaks platform’s all-time 24 hour record The previous record on SoundCloud was achieved by Drake’s Duppy Freestyle in May 2018
News NetEase Cloud Music partners with South Korea’s Cube Entertainment NetEase has been granted access to Cube Entertainment's complete music catalog
News Merck Mercuriadis buys again, as Hipgnosis snaps up Giorgio Tuinfort catalog “Giorgio is arguably the most underrated hit songwriter of the last 20 years."
Analysis News More than 1/4 of all music streamed in the USA last year was hip-hop Overall on-demand stream volume will likely top a TRILLION this year
News UK record industry enjoys £109m annual growth – but album sales tanked in 2018 Album sales across physical and digital formats fell by 13.2m