Spotify Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Spotify boasts an earworm-harnessing hack that allows users to identify the tunes running through their heads. The “lyrics search” was actually launched in 2021 — but the “secret” function is just now coming to the attention of many flustered users.To use the function, which is available on both iOS and Android phones, Spotifyers simply pull up the “search” function, which is used to locate everything, including songs, albums, playlists and even radio stations and upcoming concerts.

Spotify is wading into the controversial, often repulsive menage-a-trois of A.I., art, and business with a new listener guide called DJ. Powered by OpenAI and Spotify’s proprietary personalization technology, DJ speaks to Spotify users and offers recommendations based on your listening history as well as commentary between songs.

J.K. Rowling has addressed the backlash to her past comments about transgender people.Over the last two years, the Harry Potter author has generated widespread controversy with a number of remarks that many have perceived as transphobic.Now, speaking about the backlash in a new podcast, Rowling has claimed that fans “profoundly” misunderstood her point of view.In the upcoming podcast, The Witch Trials Of J.K.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds have shared a live concert on the 10 year anniversary of their album ‘Push The Sky Away.’The band performed tracks from the record at Los Angeles’ Fonda Theatre on February 21, 2013. Three days earlier the album was released.For a limited time the band are allowing fans to stream the concert, watch a performance of ‘Mermaids’ from the show and a video showing how the album was made.

Zoë Kravitz has co-written two tracks on Taylor Swift’s upcoming album ‘Midnights’.The singer-songwriter is set to release her 10th studio album this Friday (October 21). It’ll feature the single ‘Anti-Hero’ as well as a collaborative song with Lana Del Rey called ‘Snow On The Beach’.As reported by IndieWire, Kravitz has co-written tracks titled ‘Karma’ and ‘Lavender Haze’.Last month, Swift confirmed that her longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff had worked on ‘Midnights’.

upcoming album “Midnights”— which drops Friday — by revealing a new lyric each night this week at the stroke of 12 on a billboard in cities around the world. The first lyric was revealed at the witching hour Monday on a huge video screen in Times Square — and read, “I should not be left to my own devices.”“Listeners around the world have spent many a midnight with Taylor Swift. Through life’s triumphs, celebrations, and hardships, Taylor’s music and lyrics have always been a source of comfort when the clock strikes 12 and beyond,” Spotify, which is teaming with Swift, said in a statement.

Netflix miniseries The Playlist have heaped praise on the series.The six-episode docu-drama, which was released on the streaming site last week, charts the rise of Spotify in a “fictionalised” account, following co-founder Daniel Ek and the idea to start a music streaming platform amid piracy in the music industry.“I’m convinced that The Playlist on @netflix is the best original I have seen on the platform in a while,” wrote one viewer on Twitter.Another said: “Don’t sleep on #ThePlaylist on @netflix. It is honestly one of the best limited series I have watched in a long time and gives you a great insight into the workings of the music industry and streaming business.”“THE PLAYLIST on Netflix — a dramatisation of the founding of Spotify — is pretty great.

Spotify has been accused of a lax response to remove white supremacist content from the streaming platform.According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League, a total of 40 white supremacist acts were being hosted on Spotify, violating the platform’s rules against “dangerous content”.The report found that musical sub-genres embraced by these artists included Fashwave – electronic music that espouses white supremacist ideology, Rock Against Communism, a sub-genre of punk that promotes racism and antisemitism and National Socialist Black Metal (NBSM), a sub-genre of metal that espouses fascism and white supremacy.The ADL noted that several of these acts, many of which it says shared links to “other extremist spaces” directly in their profiles, are “verified” artists on Spotify, giving them licence to use the platform’s built-in tools to help surface their music on playlists.The report claimed that a keyword search on Spotify for the term Fashwave turned up in a total of 72 playlists created by the platform’s users, with titles such as 14/88 (a white supremacist code) and Right Wing Death Squad.It also highlighed instances of Spotify-generated algorithmic playlists curated for individual users that incorporate white supremacist content. Despite contravening the anti-extremist guidelines in Spotify’s content policy, such content has flourished on the platform, according to the report.A previous report in February, found that Spotify’s platform rules were lacking and “loosely defined,” leading Spotify to update those rules to add “a much more explicit anti-extremism policy.”But the ADL said in its new report that those rules “do not appear to be strictly enforced” and “Spotify still has considerable work to do in

Lewis Capaldi has covered Olivia Rodrigo‘s ‘Driver’s License’ for Spotify Singles – hear the cover, recorded at Abbey Road, below.Capaldi recently returned with comeback single ‘Forget Me’, which went straight to Number One in the UK singles chart and came complete with a music video that recreates Wham!’s ‘Club Tropicana’ video shot-for-shot.Alongside the ‘Driver’s License’ cover, Capaldi also shared a stripped back version of ‘Forget Me’ for the Spotify Singles release.In a statement about the new song, Capaldi wrote: “I’m back. My new single is called ‘Forget Me’, and let’s just be honest here, lyrically it covers a lot of the same ground as before.

Wet Leg have covered Ashnikko for Spotify Singles – listen to their take on ‘Daisy’ below.The duo are currently on a US tour behind their self-titled debut album, which they recently restarted after cancelling a number of gigs due to “mental and physical health” issues.Discussing their Ashnikko cover, the band’s Hester Chambers said: “I remember going to stay with Rhian around the time we recorded ‘Chaise [Longue]’ with Jon McMullen and she had told me about this artist she’d been listening to loads. She sang and played ‘Daisy’ on the guitar in the morning while we had coffee.

according to The Wrap, in Australia, Canada and the UK, where Markle still has a very loyal fanbase despite her Prince Harry leaving royal life in 2021.“Archetypes” has also outperformed the “Game of Thrones” podcast that was centered around the new spin-off “House of the Dragon,” which premiered on Sunday.In the podcast, Markle discusses the stereotypes faced by women in professional and social environments and featured tennis legend Serena Williams as her first guest.This is not the first time Rogan, who’s had a very fraught relationship with Spotify, has been dethroned. In September 2021, a podcast entitled “Batman Unburied” topped Rogan before he reclaimed the top spot again.Rogan also has some history of beef with Markle, after calling her a “little American hussy” in February 2021, which caused all 113 episodes to be mysteriously removed from the streaming platform.Several Twitter users rejoiced at Rogan’s downfall.“MEGHAN KNOCKED JOE ROGAN OUT OF THE #1 SPOT!!!!! MY GOD THIS IS A HUGE DEAL.

Spotify has launched a new concert tickets website where fans can buy gig tickets directly from the streaming service.The website, Spotify Tickets, went live yesterday (August 10). According to MusicAlly, the site is “strictly a test rather than a full commercial launch”.Through the site, Spotify users can buy tickets for a string of upcoming US shows by TOKiMONSTA, Limbeck, Annie DiRusso, Crows, Dirty Honey, Four Years Strong and Osees.

SoundCloud, who last year announced that it’d be the first music platform to direct the fees of its paying subscribers to the artists they stream.SoundCloud said that it was “a more equitable and transparent way for independent artists who monetise directly with SoundCloud to get paid”.It’s an approach that’s been previously backed by many musicians who have criticised the economics of online streaming.Leading streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music currently operate on a system where royalty payments are distributed in accordance with which artists have the most plays.But it has been criticised by smaller and up-and-coming acts, who claim that the system allows huge global names to generate vast amounts of money while leaving little for musicians who have not achieved similar success.Now, it’s been confirmed that Warner Music Group has implemented SoundCloud’s royalty system. Each artist credited with having earned royalties from a particular recording will earn a share based solely on each stream of that specific release.However, Far Out Magazine cites the results of a recent report by Media Research which found that 56 per cent of artists surveyed were making more revenue by using SoundCloud’s old pro-rata model rather than the new one.Numerous other major streaming platforms – including Spotify and Apple Music – are currently still using the pro-rota model.Upon SoundCloud introducing the fan-powered system, the company’s chief executive officer Michael Weissman said: “Many in the industry have wanted this for years.

Ed Sheeran has hit a milestone streaming record, becoming the first artist to ever hit 100million followers on Spotify.The English singer-songwriter has taken to Twitter today (July 27), sharing a video in which he shows off a white t-shirt that was sent to him by the streaming service that reads “ASK ME ABOUT MY 100 MILLION SPOTIFY FOLLOWERS” in all-caps. In the clip, shot before a show on Sheeran’s current stadium tour, Sheeran comedically goes up to disinterested staff at the venue in order to get their attention with the shirt.The only person in the video who gives a positive response is singer Maisie Peters, Sheeran’s current support act, who replies: “Well done, Ed Sheeran!” Peters then gives Sheeran a hug.

Metallica‘s classic track ‘Master Of Puppets’ have increased significantly following its use in Stranger Things‘ season four finale.In the finale, titled ‘The Piggyback’, Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) played the 1986 track on a rooftop to distract a horde of demonic bats protecting the lair of main villain Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).Following the episode’s release last Friday (July 1) on Netflix, Metallica shared a post on Instagram on Tuesday (July 5) praising the show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, for the sequence.“The way The Duffer Brothers have incorporated music into Stranger Things has always been next level, so we were beyond psyched for them to not only include ‘Master Of Puppets’ in the show, but to have such a pivotal scene built around it,” the band wrote.Since its appearance on the show, the song has shot to Number Seven in Spotify‘s Top 50 USA playlist, the first time it has ever broke into the playlist’s Top 10 according to Digital Music News.Earlier this week, it was revealed that Robert Trujillo’s son Tye added guitar tracks to ‘Master of Puppets’ for the song’s inclusion in the show.Elsewhere in the fourth season, the show used Kate Bush track ‘Running Up That Hill’ – sending the song to Number One on the Official UK Singles Chart and reportedly earning the singer an estimated $2.3million (£1.9million) in streaming revenue.Speaking after the track achieved its third week atop the UK chart, Bush recently said: “I just can’t believe it – No. 1 for the third week.

MixMag).The increase in rates, which amounts to 44 percent, follows a long battle with streaming platforms like Amazon Music, Spotify and YouTube.The percentage of label revenue (the TCC rate) has also been capped, meaning  publishers will only be able to receive a limited royalty rate.The president of The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), David Israelite said in a statement: “Today the court reaffirmed the headline rate increase we earned four long years ago, confirming that songwriters need and deserve a significant raise from the digital streaming services who profit from their work.“We will fight to increase the TCC, or percentage of label revenue, which amounts to an insurance policy for songwriters, in the next CRB and will also fight for stronger terms regarding bundles.”Artists will receive the backdated rates, although this could be months away according to Bart Herbison of the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI). He said it is “still unknown when songwriters will receive their payments”.He added: “The bad news is that the definition of “bundled services” and of total content costs, one of the streaming rate tiers, were not what we wished.

Crosby, Stills and Nash is back on Spotify after the musicians initially removed all of their music earlier this year in solidarity with Neil Young.Back in February, Crosby, Stills & Nash joined a growing number of acts who demanded that their music be removed from Spotify amid the COVID controversy involving Joe Rogan.Members of the disbanded folk supergroup, which when joined by Neil Young were known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, supported Young who in January said that he wanted all his music pulled from the streaming platform.Young took aim at controversial podcaster Joe Rogan – a prominent skeptic of the COVID vaccine who has a $100million exclusivity contract with Spotify – pointing out the widespread misinformation shared through his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience.In February, Crosby, Stills and Nash said: “We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast. While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences.

Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground production company is heading to Amazon’s Audible platform.Following the end of a three-year deal with Spotify, the Obamas have reportedly inked an exclusive multi-year, first-look deal with the Amazon-owned platform.While firm details surrounding the Obamas’ new deal with Audible remain unclear at this time, comments from Michelle Obama hint at the possibility of their content with Audible being released on multiple streaming platforms.The Audible deal will see the Obamas “keep striving to tell compelling, provocative, and soulful stories — while doing everything we can to make sure they reach the folks who need to hear them,” Michelle Obama told The Hollywood Reporter.A Higher Ground spokesperson also told The Hollywood Reporter that the two companies “plan to make the Audible Originals available to the widest possible audience”.The newly signed deal with Audible comes after the Obamas’ three-year deal with streaming giant Spotify ended earlier this year. The Spotify deal saw them “develop, produce and appear” on select podcasts through their Higher Ground production company.The Obamas’ contributions to Spotify notably included the eight-part podcast series Renegades: Born In The USA with Bruce Springsteen.

Kendrick Lamar performed a short set during a Spotify event in Cannes last night (June 20) – you can watch footage of his live performance below.The Compton rapper played live at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès yesterday as part of Cannes Lions Festival – six days before he is due to headline the Pyramid Stage on the final night of Glastonbury 2022.Lamar, who recently released his long-awaited fifth studio album ‘Mr.

Kantar found a drop in the total individuals with access to at least one music subscription, now at 39.5 per cent, down from 43.6 per cent at the start of 2020.That includes 600,000 fewer under 35s who have access to a music subscription compared to the previous year, with students who have access dropping from 67 per cent to 59 per cent.

The Los Angeles Times. The digital disappearance was uncovered revealed by JRE Missing, an automated watchdog that keeps tabs on episodes.Per the site, the glitch affected a whopping 36 episodes, which were reportedly recorded before the podcast purveyor acquired the show — including its catalog of past episodes — in 2020 for $200 million.Naturally, the phenomenon might seem suspect given Spotify’s history of surreptitiously deleting “JRE” episodes over controversial content.However, the latest batch seemed to have been Houdini’d at random as they featured a grab-bag of guests, including Republican Texas Rep.

Spotify took its first step into the metaverse by partnering with Roblox to create the company’s first island and yesterday (May 24) it unveiled K-Park, a “homage to all things k-pop”.An off-shoot of Spotify Island, the limited-time world will allow fans to interact with Stray Kids and Sunmi through signed digital merch and virtual meet and greets.

Spotify for the first time in over two years, the streaming service has confirmed.In early 2020, Spotify announced that it was pausing all political ad sales in the US ahead of the 2020 presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, saying in a statement that the advertisements were too hard to “validate and review.”Now, as reported by Protocol, Spotify has said that ads of this nature are slowly set to return to the service.“Following our pause of political ads in early 2020, we have spent the past two years strengthening and enhancing our processes, systems and tools to responsibly validate and review this content,” Spotify said in a statement.“We are now beginning to sell select political advertisements in opted-in third-party podcasts via the Spotify Audience Network in the U.S.”According to Pitchfork, political ads will not play between songs for users on Spotify’s free tier, and that the service will only work with known candidates.“At this point in time, we do not yet have the necessary level of robustness in our process, systems and tools to responsibly validate and review this content,” Spotify said in a statement to Ad Age at the time of removing political ads at the start of 2020.

The Hu have today (May 13) shared their thunderous new single, ‘This Is Mongol’ – check it out below.The track is another preview of their upcoming second studio album, which is set for release later this year via Better Noise Music.A statement said of the track: “As with all of their music, The HU connects the world to Mongolian culture and its unique core values of natural preservation and spiritual connection with the earth. These core values are on full display in the new, epic official video for ‘This is Mongol’.”Check out the song and video here:Speaking about the video, singer and tumur hhuur player Jaya from the band said: “We shot in the Mojave Desert, Nevada and the environment reminded us of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

cancel Joe Rogan have apparently only had the opposite effect: The “Joe Rogan Experience” host claims that he’s amassed millions of Spotify subscribers amid ongoing uproar over past episodes, in which he’d featured alleged anti-vaxxer guests and dropped the “N-Bomb.”Rogan, 54, dropped the bombshell about his alleged influx of subscribers on Friday’s episode with British pundit commentator Douglas Murray.“You have been put through the wringer since we last met,” exclaimed Murray, referring to the “Fear Factor” host being in the social media skillet. “They did a number on you.

Bring Me The Horizon‘s landmark 2013 album ‘Sempiternal’ has surpassed one billion streams on Spotify.The Sheffield band’s fourth album, the follow-up to 2010’s ‘There Is A Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is A Heaven Let’s Keep It A Secret’ saw BMTH draft in Worship keyboardist Jordan Fish for the first time and add more electronics to their brand of alternative metal.Celebrating the milestone, BMTH took to Twitter to share a video of clips from the album.“NiNE yEArS oF SeMPiterNaL.

Spotify is facing renewed criticism from US Congress over its Discovery Mode feature, which allows artists to receive additional exposure for a reduced royalty rate.Three Congress members – Yvette D. Clarke, Judy Chu and Tony Cardenas, who represent the Congressional Caucus on Multicultural Media, have sent a letter to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek criticising the feature.In exchange for a boost in visibility, artists and their labels agree to receive a “promotional” royalty rate on those streams, believed to be lower than the standard rate through the feature, which was announced in November 2020.Highlighting this issue, the letter said via Variety: “Choosing to accept reduced royalty payments is a serious risk for musicians, who would only benefit if Discovery Mode yields more total streams for an artist across their entire catalogue, not just the track covered by the program.”“And if two competing artists both enroll their newest track in the program, any benefit could be cancelled out, meaning that the only profit goes to your company’s bottom line.

Harry Styles‘ new single ‘As It Was’ has broken a Spotify record on its first day of release.‘As It Was’ is the first taste of Styles’ forthcoming third studio album ‘Harry’s House’, which he announced last month with a teaser trailer. It’s set for release on May 20, and will follow on from 2019’s ‘Fine Line’.Yesterday (April 2), Spotify confirmed that the single had become the most-streamed song in the United States in a single day, beating a record that was formerly held by Olivia Rodrigo for her single ‘Drivers License’.According to Billboard, ‘As It Was’ had 8.3 million streams in a day, while ‘Drivers License’ previously held the record with 8 million streams.With 21.6 million streams, Styles’ new track is also the most-streamed song globally on Spotify in a single day for 2022 so far, topping Anitta‘s ‘Envolver’ which saw 8.6 million single-day streams in March.You know it's not the same As It Was.

Glass Animals have shared their cover of Lorde‘s single ‘Solar Power’ – you can listen to the band’s rendition of the 2021 track below.The cover is the latest to be recorded for an ongoing special edition of the Spotify Singles series, which is celebrating the Best New Artist category at this Sunday’s Grammys (April 3).Following on from recent covers in the series by Arlo Parks and Finneas, Glass Animals have now shared their take on Lorde’s ‘Solar Power’, which was the title track from the New Zealand artist’s third studio album.“I chose ‘Solar Power’ because in a time when we were all stuck indoors a bit, this song made me feel like I was on a beach…. we all needed a bit of that!” Glass Animals frontman Dave Bayley said in a statement about their choice of track.“It’s a stunning song, and then I just had a version of it in my head where it was faster with a gospel choir behind it….

Spotify if his podcast becomes censored to the point at which he has to “walk on eggshells” and mind his “Ps and Qs”.The host of The Joe Rogan Experience, which is Spotify’s biggest podcast, said in a recent episode that he’ll back out of his reported $200million, three-and-a-half-year exclusivity deal he agreed with the platform in 2020 should it decide to bow to external criticism.Rogan became embroiled in controversy recently after Neil Young demanded his music be removed from Spotify if the platform wasn’t willing to remove podcast episodes in which Rogan had broadcasted dangerous misinformation over the COVID vaccines.During a recent episode, Rogan, an ex-mixed martial arts commentator and TV host, got into a conversation with MMA fighter Josh Barnett about the podcast industry.“I will quit. If it gets to a point that I can’t do it anymore, where I have to do it in some sort of weird way where I walk on eggshells and mind my p’s and q’s, fuck that!” Rogan said, which you can see in a clip above.He alluded to other controversies, which include his past use of racial slurs that recently came into the spotlight, saying that he worries about “every little thing” being picked on.“There’s more people poring over it but it’s the same thing.