Japan jumps into the music stream
The biggest moment for streaming music in Japan this year came via a handwritten letter. In late June, Kenta Matsumoto of pop-punk trio Wanima shared a note on Twitter announcing that his band's entire catalog would be uploaded to streaming music platforms like Spotify ...
Spotify has one eye on untapped podcast market in Japan
Spotify paid nearly $340 million to acquire podcast producer Gimlet Media and services provider Anchor in deals disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, prompting analysts to start considering what this all meant for the industry. The growth of podcasts in recent years ...
The central pair behind electronic project AmPm didn't have high expectations when they flew to Jakarta last August for Spotify On Stage, a live event organized by the market-leading music streaming service. "We were the first act up, and I think most of the audience ...
Post-holiday gamble: Apple debuts HomePod voice speaker to take on Google and Amazon
After missing the critical holiday shopping season, Apple Inc. has jumped into the voice speaker wars with the HomePod smart speaker, a device that will use its Siri voice assistant and compete against offerings from Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. Apple said on Tuesday ...
AmPm's Spotify strategy bears fruit
Japan's biggest breakout musical act of 2017 wear polar bear masks. The duo AmPm debuted this past spring, cloaked in fuzzy headgear and withholding all biographical information. In just over six months, the pair have had their easy-breezy electronic music released via Dutch label ...
Taylor Swift returns to Spotify after almost three-year boycott
Taylor Swift is releasing her entire catalog on all streaming services, ending the pop star's boycott of Spotify Ltd. over her ability to limit her songs to paying subscribers. The albums will become available at midnight New York time Thursday night, Swift's management said on ...
Big in Japan? Artists from abroad may find it more difficult to draw a crowd
There are now just three major record labels left on the planet: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. These three companies control as much as 80 percent of the music that is commercially available in the world — and not just ...
Can Spotify dent streaming-averse Japan?
Spotify's long-awaited launch last month has industry watchers wondering whether it will make a major breakthrough in altering Japan's $3 billion music industry, where 80 percent of sales still come from CDs and other physical formats. With most of the world's major streaming services now ...
Spotify finally launches in Japan, a nation where other music streaming services have struggled
Popular music streaming service Spotify is trying its luck in Japan, where consumer demand for packaged media such as CDs is traditionally strong and the market for streaming still has huge potential to grow. Visiting Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek announced the company's foray ...
Music streaming services face new test as Coldplay snubs Spotify
First Taylor Swift kept "1989" off free music streaming services and scored the best weekly album sales in more than a decade. Then Adele spurned Spotify and Apple Music with her new "25" and did one better: She shattered the record for opening week ...
A decade ago, Apple Inc. helped revitalize a music industry hit hard by online piracy with its iTunes Store. Now, amid a steady slump in digital downloads, the industry is hopeful that the tech giant's new streaming service will give record companies another desperately ...
