31 Reasons Why Spotify Can’t Help Artists…

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1. Goldman Sachs
2. Kleiner Perkins
3. GSV Capital
4. Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV)
5. Lansdowne Partners
6. Abu Dhabi Investment Council
7. Baillie Gifford
8. DE Shaw
9. Discovery Capital Management
10. Halcyon Asset Management
11. Northzone
12. P. Schoenfeld Asset Management LP (PSAM)
13. Rinkelberg Capital
14. Senvest Capital
15. DST Global<!–/*
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17. Coca-Cola Company
18. Universal Music Group
19. Sony Music Entertainment
20. Warner Music Group
21. AFSquare
22. Fidelity Ventures
23. Lakestar
24. Founders Fund
25. Sean Parker
26. Li Ka-shing
27. Horizons Ventures
28. Wellington Partners
29. Creandum
30. Horizons Ventures
31. 137 Ventures

List of current Spotify investors and stakeholders, or those actively seeking to commit funds in the current Series G.  Spotify’s total financing is now approaching $950 million.  

Sources: Digital Music News, Crunchbase, and Sky News

The post 31 Reasons Why Spotify Can’t Help Artists… appeared first on Digital Music News.


Source: Industry News

The Most Popular 420 Songs…

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1. Cypress Hill – “Hits from the Bong”

2. Peter Tosh – “Legalize It”

3. Snoop Lion & Collie Buddz – “Smoke the Weed”

4. UB40 – “Red Red Wine”

5. D12 – “Purple Pills”

6. Kendrick Lamar – “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”

7. The Notorious B.I.G. – “Juicy”

8. Bloodhorse – “I’m Burned”

9. Bob Marley & The Wailers – “Sun Is Shining”

10. BVA & Leaf Dog – “Crazy Trips”

11. Sublime – “Smoke Two Joints”

12. Afroman – “Because I Got High”

13. Nas & Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley – “As We Enter”

+Spotify Can’t Pay an Artist. But They Can Pay 6 Different Lobbying Firms…

14. Spice 1 – “Smoke ‘Em Like a Blunt”

15. Snoop Dogg – “Gin And Juice”

16. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony – “The Weed Song”

17. Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”

18. Bob Marley & The Wailers – “One Drop″

19. Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg – “The Next Episode”

20. Kid Cudi – “Marijuana”

 

Source: The 20 most streamed Spotify tracks from over 40,000 420 playlists

Photo by Frank on Flickr used with the Creative Commons License

The post The Most Popular 420 Songs… appeared first on Digital Music News.


Source: Industry News

Updated: The 25 Most-Bought Record Store Day Releases

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Updated 4/21/15 11:40 AM PST to reflect updated information from BuzzAngle.

1. The White Stripes – “Get Behind Me Satan”

2. Metallica – “No Life Til Leather” cassette

3. Run The Jewels – “Bust No Moves”

4. David Bowie – “Changes”

5. The Replacements – “Alex Chilton”

6. The Black Keys – “Meet Me in the City”

7. Built to Spill – “Untethered Moon”

8. Father John Misty – “I Love You, Honeybear”

9. Bob Dylan – “The Basement Tapes”

10. Syd Barrett/R.E.M. – “Dark Globe”

11. Mumford & Sons – “Believe”

12. Citizen Dick – “Touch Me I’m Dick”

13. Ramones & Husker Du – “Sheena’s a Punk Rocker”

+Hey Record Store Day, Face the Facts. You’re Hurting Indie Labels.

14. Various Artists – “The Darjeeling Limited”

15. Twenty One Pilots – “The LC LP”

16. The Doors – “Strange Days”

17. The Decemberists – “Picaresque”

18. Foo Fighters – “Songs From The Laundry Room”

19. Johnny Cash – “Koncert V Praze – In Prague Live”

20. Social Distortion – “Social Distortion”

21. David Bowie/Tom Verlaine – “Kingdom Come”

22. Phish – “New Years Eve 1995 Live at Madison Square Garden”

23. Jerry Garcia – “Garcia (Compliments)”

24. Various Artists – “Sun Records Curated By Record Store Day Vol. 2″

25. The Zombies – “R.I.P. Album”

 

Source: BuzzAngle Music

Photo by Phil King on Flickr used with the Creative Commons License

 

 

The post Updated: The 25 Most-Bought Record Store Day Releases appeared first on Digital Music News.


Source: Industry News

The Future Sucks Very Badly for Pandora, Morgan Stanley Says…

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Pandora is extremely unlikely to reach profitability any time soon, and may need hundreds of millions of dollars just to survive the next few years, according to a just-released Morgan Stanley assessment.

In the analyst report, issued this morning, Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne outlined a number of bad, really bad, and seriously f*&king bad outcomes for Pandora, depending on how the royalty winds blow.

“Our gut is despite the rhetoric, labels do not want its $450 million (and growing) royalties to go away – so direct deals may result if the CRB ruling is onerous.”

The most critical of these will come from the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which is currently deliberating Pandora’s financial fate and considering possible increases.  According to Swinburne, that could quite easily result in a 5 percent annual increase in 2016, and another 5 percent bump heading in 2017, all of which would force Pandora to seek “up to $350 million” in financing just to stay afloat until 2021.

Swinburne also sees Pandora’s stock getting beat down into the $2-3 range during that desperate period.  As of midday Monday, Pandora (P) is trading just above $17, with top executives continuing to cash out heavily.

Ironically, Morgan Stanley was the lead underwriter on Pandora’s IPO, a soggy cake that is now being forced down Spotify’s throat.  Meanwhile, major publishers are pushing extremely hard to structure direct, more lucrative deals with Pandora, with the US Department of Justice recently indicating a willingness to relax rules that currently prevent those agreements.  In that soup, Swinburne notes that an “onerous CRB decision” could force Pandora to structure direct deals just to survive, and simply secure the ‘least worst’ financial obligation.

“With no CRB visibility, top-line trends drive our view.”

Image by ‘Captain Smurf,’ licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution Generic (CC by 2.0).

The post The Future Sucks Very Badly for Pandora, Morgan Stanley Says… appeared first on Digital Music News.


Source: Industry News