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The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that Michael Jackson’s album Thriller is the first album to be certified platinum 33 times in America.
The Recording Industry of America is known for keeping track of how many albums are sold within the U.S.. Jackson’s album was released in 1982 and has sold around 33 million copies in the country. This is a new record for the music industry.
For many of us, music is something that can always improve our mood.
Hearing one of our favorite songs can turn our day around and instantly make us feel better. Music has the ability to make us feel immense pleasure, almost like a powerful drug. A new study conducted at McGill University says that music actually affects the same part of the brain as opioids do. Similarly, these chemicals are also activated when participating in activities like eating sweets or exercising.
The study notes that people “consistently rank music as among the top ten things in their lives that bring pleasure, above money, food and art.”
Prince has returned to Spotify after not being on the streaming service for two years.
The release of the music came just hours before the airing of the 59th Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday. The release of the catalogue on Spotify was planned purposely for this time, as the awards ceremony had planned to air a tribute to the late singer.
Since returning, the singer has collected over 1.5 million monthly listeners. Prince’s top song on Spotify is “Purple Rain”, which is currently at 25.4 million streams.
Accessing Prince’s music on online hasn’t always been easy. The demand for Prince’s music online has soared since his death. While going out and buying physical albums is not necessarily a popular activity anymore, Prince’s grieving fans rushed out to stores to retrieve his music after hearing the news of his death. According to Nielsen Music, on the day he died in April 2016, Prince sold 239,000 physical albums.
According to IFPI, streaming is the music industry’s fastest-growing revenue source. Streaming services are continuously looking for new ways to improve and offer the best services to its users.
Google is currently looking to advance, and is planning to merge two of its music streaming apps
Currently, Google owns two separate music subscription service apps, YouTube Music and Google Play Music. Product teams from both apps are working on a way to combine the two apps. No sudden changes for app users will appear soon. However, in the future, a single music-streaming app from Google is likely to appear.
The 59th annual Grammy Awards took place on Sunday, February 12. The Grammys presented awards to several notable artists, such as Adele, who took home a total of five awards.
Artists not only receive great recognition for their music during the ceremony, but what follows after the ceremony is just as exciting. Artists who collect awards often receive a spark in sales following the award show. The positive influence on sales after an artist receives a Grammy is known as the “GRAMMY effect”. The “GRAMMY effect” also takes place after artist’s performances.
“This is for every indie artist,” said Chance the Rapper during his acceptance speech for Best Rap Album at Sunday’s 59th Annual Grammy Awards.
During Sunday’s 59th Annual Grammy Awards, Chance the Rapper won Best New Artist, Best Rap Album, and Best Rap Performance. The rapper now has a total of three Grammy Awards under his belt. The number of Grammys that Chance the Rapper now possesses actually outnumbers the amount of albums he’s sold. Chance has succeeded in winning three Grammys without selling a single album.
This week, it was announced that Facebook hired Tamara Hrivnak, who previously worked as director of music partnerships at YouTube and Google Play.
According to NPR, Hrivnak’s role will be to conduct Facebook’s global music licensing strategy, and form better bonds with the music industry.
Disagreements between Facebook and the music industry have been prominent within the past few years. Many videos containing music are uploaded to Facebook on a daily basis; however, much of the music is not licensed. This has instigated a rift between Facebook and right holders.
Technology is frequently advancing, and with virtual reality content becoming more relevant, the music industry is looking for ways to use this to their advantage.
While the concept of virtual reality and possession of VR headsets is not common quite yet, music companies are already teaming up with tech companies to create new music virtual reality experiences. These experiences allow for fans to watch performances from their favorite artists on virtual reality headsets, right from the comfort of their own home.
Companies such as Samsung and Google are currently selling virtual reality headsets. At the moment, the headsets are very costly.
Pandora is noted as the most streamed service of 2016, beating out other popular platforms such as YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music.
According to Digital Music News, Pandora became the most streamed music service with a 28% share of music listening.
Pandora allows for users to create a station built on an artist or song they enjoy. Based on the artist or song being played, Pandora will recommend new music that is similar. Users have the ability to thumbs up and down tracks being played, to help curate the station to better suit their specific musical tastes. Above all, the site provides a suitable place for new music discovery.
Paul McCartney has filed a federal lawsuit against Sony/ATV Music Publishing to reclaim the ownership of several hits he wrote with the Beatles.
McCartney is aiming to regain the rights to a total of 267 of the band’s tunes. Among these hits are “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, “All You Need is Love”, “Hey Jude”, and “Yesterday”.
According to Rolling Stone, McCartney’s legal team is citing the 1976 Copyright Act which states that the rights to works made before 1978 must be returned to their creators 56 years after the date of the original copyright. 56 years of Beatles hits are approaching rapidly for McCartney.
