Lyrics and the pressure to go viral: ‘You have to get somebody in two seconds!’ "Lyrics are so important to modern music, because people feel so deeply – and they really struggle to express that."

A more than ‘Ordinary’ campaign Before signing with Atlantic Records, American singer-songwriter and YouTuber Alex Warren found an audience through content creation hub The Hype House.  Music Ally spoke with EVP of international at Atlantic Music Group Torsten Luth and senior marketing…

Harry Styles set for listening parties as BTS return to cinemas There is news about the fan events for two big albums: ‘Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally’ by Harry Styles and ‘Arirang’ by BTS.

Snapchat x Gucci launch AI-powered Lens campaign Lenses on Snapchat have traditionally functioned like digital stickers. If an artist used a lens to promote an album, it usually meant some kind of customised accessory template — like signature glasses or a neon halo. With the Imagine Lens…

Another post-Super-Bowl spike for Bad Bunny – this time on YouTube We’ve heard from Apple Music about the post-Super-Bowl spike for Bad Bunny. Spotify also said he got a 210% bump. Now it's YouTube's turn.

Ascap distributed a record $1.76bn to its members in 2025 US collecting society Ascap has published its year-end figures for 2025, setting records for collections and royalty distributions.

Report calls out ‘dramatic fall’ for women in 2026 Grammys A new report from research firm AKAS wants to focus attention on “the missing voices of women in the 2026 Grammys”.

Concerts fuelled 18% growth for Hybe’s revenues last year Hybe posted annual revenues of KRW 2.65tn ($1.83bn at current exchange rates) in 2025, up 18% year-on-year.

IIMW recap: India has a venues problem India’s live music industry formed a substantial part of the conversations at the India International Music Week (IIMW) conference, which was held in Mumbai on 11-12 February and was attended by delegates from Australia, Europe, Africa and South Asia. Among…

‘Short-term virality’ may not build a durable music catalogue Music-finance firm Duetti has published its latest annual ‘Music Economics Report’ – wisely choosing not to pick a fight with Spotify over per-stream rates this time round. The study is based on analysis of more than 6m tracks, with one…

Spotify says AI risks are reason for new developer restrictions Developers building apps using Spotify’s API have been getting to grips with some big changes this month, restricting what data they can access, as well as limiting the number of users their apps can have. “Over time, advances in…

SoundCloud trends for 2026: Eclectic indie and hip-hop evolution SoundCloud’s position at the sharp end of new music trends is well known, so its annual ‘Music Intelligence Report’ is always worth a read. The 2026 edition is out today. As ever, it spotlights some of the emerging and evolving…

‘Global success masking domestic fragility’ for UK’s electronic-music sector The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) has released its fourth annual 'UK Electronic Music Report', with mixed findings.

Music agency Aura enlists indies for a new ‘sync collective’ Aura is a music agency in the UK that has just launched a new 'sync collective' gathering independent labels and composers.

Behind The Campaign: Alex Warren US singer-songwriter Alex Warren first came to prominence as a founding member of The Hype House, the TikTok-centric creator group based in Los Angeles. From here he started releasing music and signed with Atlantic Records. Torsten Luth (EVP of international at…

Megan Thee Stallion goes Olympic as YouTube adds AI playlists “The Winter Olympics are about to get a lot hotter,” promises the latest YouTube Short from Megan Thee Stallion.

AI-music startup Mozart AI raises $6m after reaching 100k users Mozart AI launched its ‘generative audio workstation’ last September, and says it has since signed up more than 100,000 users.

Claw·fm is an online-radio station just for AI agents’ music It’s quite the tagline. “Give your agent a music career.” The agents in question being AI agents, of course, as explained on Claw·fm's site.

Spotify’s AI promise: ‘We will not do deals that aren’t good for artists’ Spotify’s latest financial results revealed a strong finish to 2025 for the company, as it added 38 million net new listeners in Q4.

SoundExchange adds 17 more CMO partners around the world There ain’t no neighbouring-rights party like a SoundExchange CMO partnerships party, as S Club 7 (sadly) never sang.

Not Bad For a Girl calls out male-heavy dance-music lineups Seven years after it started advocating for more non-male artists on dance festivals and club lineups, Not Bad For a Girl is unhappy.

Distributor Symphonic launches AI-powered release-plan tool Symphonic is the latest music distributor rolling out AI-powered features for its artist and label clients.

Music Glue wants to help artists consolidate their online shops Too many shops, not enough time. No, Music Ally hasn't been jostling with the Westfield mega-mall crowds again.

Production-music firm Sonoton adds ‘VIP’ sample-curation service German production-music company Sonoton Music has an enviable client list in terms of artists, with Kendrick Lamar, PinkPantheress, Drake...

Open beta launches for redesigned Audiotool Studio DAW Audiotool has been building some momentum with its browser-based digital audio workstation (DAW) – it has 300,000 monthly active users.

UK music startups raised £14m of public funding since 2020 In a busy day for announcements about music-related funding of different kinds, industry body Music Technology UK has published its latest report: focusing on government investment in music-tech startups. It calculates that the UK…

NIVA protests after report of Live Nation’s antitrust lobbying A report this week from news site Semafor has flung some more cats into the pigeon-packed US live-music industry, and it concerns the antitrust lawsuit that Live Nation is facing. “Live Nation executives and lobbyists have been…

Wasserman feels heat from artists over Ghislaine Maxwell emails Thus far, music-industry executives haven’t figured prominently in coverage of the Epstein Files being released by the US Department of Justice. Billionaires and politicians, yes. Music figures, not so much. Not yet, at least. One who…

Report finds four companies own majority of European music festivals A report from Live DMA and Reset Network has found that four major companies can be linked to the lion's share of Europe's music festivals.

Marketing Director – Secret City Records – Montreal or Remote The OpportunitySecret City Records is looking to hire a full-time Marketing Director to lead our international marketing efforts across artists and releases throughout the calendar year, as well as supervising the Marketing department…

Spotify taps third-party sources for ‘About the Song’ feature Spotify has a new feature providing its listeners with more context about the music they listen to. It’s called ‘About the Song’ and will show up as “short, swipeable story cards” in its mobile app’s ‘Now Playing’ screen if listeners…

Super Bowl rockets Bad Bunny streams despite president’s rage “The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence,” was the take of one…

EC says TikTok’s ‘addictive design’ breaches Digital Services Act Having seemingly secured its future in the US – and fixed its technical teething troubles there – TikTok’s next regulatory headache is kicking off on the other side of the Atlantic. The European Commission has published a…

Spotify has published its ‘music streaming policy roadmap’ We hear regularly from music-industry bodies of all stripes about their policy asks from regulators and politicians. Now Spotify has published its own lobbying priorities in a ‘Maintaining the Growth and Resilience of Music Streaming: A…

Saregama Q3 FY2026 results: ‘Dhurandhar’, drastic drip in live income A drastic 92% dip in earnings from events dragged down Indian major label Saregama’s revenue from operations by a sharp 46% year-on-year, for the quarter ended December 31, 2025. The gap was too large to be filled by the upticks…

District by Zomato’s ‘Touching Grass’ report tracks trends in India’s concert-going culture Indian “going-out” app District by Zomato has released ‘Touching Grass’, a “cultural intelligence” report, which CEO Rahul Ganjoo, says seeks to answer the question ‘How are people really going out today?’.…

Report: music management is ‘highly skilled but structurally fragile’ The European Music Managers Alliance (EMMA) has released a study based on a survey of 330 music managers in more than 30 countries.

Nvidia seeks dismissal of lawsuit over Anna’s Archive contact Last month, we reported on a lawsuit accusing tech firm Nvidia of downloading “millions of pirated copyrighted books” from the Anna’s Archive shadow library to train its AI models. The news made for particularly difficult reading within…

Sony Music reports double-digit growth for recordings and publishing Sony Group Corporation has published its latest financial results today, including figures for its music businesses, covering the final quarter of 2025 (its fiscal Q3). The headline figure is ¥542.4bn ($3.45bn at current exchange…

YouTube subscriptions are now generating around $20bn a year Tech giant Alphabet’s latest financial results are out, and they reveal how much YouTube made from advertising in the final quarter of 2025, as well as the year as a whole. YouTube ads generated $11.38bn of revenue in Q4 last year,…

Spotify update underscores shifting role of lyrics on music-streaming services Spotify just announced changes to its 'Lyrics' feature, including global adoption of its 'Lyrics Translation' function.

Liverpool City Council launches grant programme for grassroots venues Liverpool's council is introducing a new support scheme for grassroots venues, delivered in partnership with charity the Music Venue Trust.

Suno exec hits out at ‘walled gardens’ vision for GenAI music The ‘walled garden’ was a key feature in several of the AI-music licensing deals struck by major labels in late 2025.

B2B music firm Soundtrack expands with Tunify and Ambie deals Swedish company Soundtrack has built a business offering background music to businesses and the hospitality industry.

Impala report sets out goals for European indies ecosystem Indies body Impala has a new report out today: ‘Powering an Independent and Culturally Diverse European Music Ecosystem’. 

ECSA and Gesac press case to clamp down on ‘coercive buy-outs’ ECSA and Gesac have renewed their calls for a clampdown on ‘coercive buy-outs’ – particularly from big video-streaming services.

Chappell Roan is the latest headliner for Fortnite Festival The number 13 may be unlucky for some, but Fortnite Festival’s Season 13 certainly isn’t for Chappell Roan.

The future of music streaming: community, connection and… friction? The future of music streaming was under the spotlight in a strand at Music Ally Connect, with a particular focus on supremium tiers.

Apple says it demonetised 2bn fraudulent music streams in 2025 Apple Music identified and demonetised up to 2bn fraudulent streams last year according to longtime exec Oliver Schusser. He was talking to The Hollywood Reporter about Apple’s ongoing efforts to tackle fraud on its music service.…

Victoria Monét speaks on nuances of mentorship in Black Music Action Coalition speech Last week's Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC) event at Sun Rose in Hollywood featured a speech by singer-songwriter Victoria Monét.