Music Biz Features

It was the middle of June when more than two dozen songwriters, producers, and publishing representatives poured into an expansive, secluded creator’s “compound” just outside of Los Angeles’ wealthy Brentwood neighborhood. For three days, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., they wrote songs — in between catered meals and fierce …

This story appears in Rolling Stone‘s 2021 Future of Music issue, a special project delving into the next era of the multibillion-dollar hitmaking business. Read the other stories here. The first time Nwaka Onwusa toured the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, she was blown away by everything …

The conventional artist-driven fan club needed reinvention. Finally, after years of looking, we found away to do that. Fans clubs have existed since the advent of popular music: The Grateful Dead pioneered and perfected it, then others monetized it. The Dead firmly believed fans should be in control and gave …

The only artists up for the 2021 Best Children’s Album Grammy are white — which, in a year of reckoning for the Recording Academy over diversity problems, has drawn wide ire, and led to three of the five white nominees writing to the Academy last month asking for their names …

Since the pandemic began, every record labels’ marketing team has been throwing around the same buzzword phrase: “getting creative.” Traditional album marketing tactics like touring — which is essential for developing artists who need to build up a new audience and strengthen relationships with their existing fanbase — have gone …

The abrupt reshuffling of major events like Coachella, SXSW, and Pearl Jam and Madonna’s shows due to coronavirus is already devastating to the live music industry — but by some predictions, we’re only seeing the start of the chaos. Coronavirus-related event cancellations seem to be barreling in by the hour, …

Are the world’s biggest superstars having a tougher time of things on Spotify in 2019? Or is it just that the service really misses Drake? On December 3rd, Spotify confirmed its biggest track and artist of the year. (A little premature, perhaps, but announcing such things early in December allows …

When Tunji Balogun was young, a series of black superstars soared through mainstream pop music — Michael and Janet Jackson, Prince, Whitney Houston. “I remember growing up with tons of black faces on my screen,” he says. “But then something changed in the late 1990s, early 2000s: It just kind …