Music Biz Features

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. Others may opt for docs about Jay-Z or the Notorious B.I.G.; Dallas Martin’s favorite music movie is Inventing David Geffen, about …

Early this week, Dolly Parton tweeted footage of her receiving a Moderna coronavirus vaccine shot. Among veteran musicians, it turns out she’s far from alone when it comes to getting the jab: More and more classic rockers and country acts over 65 are being vaccinated, leading to new conversations about …

Music streaming isn’t just a big part of the record business: It basically is the record business. According to RIAA data, streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube contributed 85% of all record industry revenue in the United States in the first six months of last year, …

Few people in music have had a bigger year than Merck Mercuriadis, the founder and CEO of Hipgnosis Songs Fund, who has tossed a billion dollars at songwriters, artists, and producers to grab the copyrights of the biggest charting hits of the past 50 years. Mercuriadis recently purchased catalogs from …

The music industry is not known for immediately embracing new technology. So it was a surprise that last month, as Miley Cyrus prepared to release “Midnight Sky,” her first solo single in almost exactly a year, the singer was teasing the track through Reels, a new feature of Instagram that …

This is the latest of Rolling Stone’sMusic in Crisis series, which looks at how people all across the music industry — thousands of whom have been out of work for months due to the global concert shutdown — are coping with the coronavirus pandemic. When the U.S. government first gave …

As protesters and industries react to the killing of George Floyd and other black victims of police brutality, artists, executives, and companies from across the music business will participate in a day of silent protest on Tuesday — though a lack of clear messaging from the major labels makes its …

Recording studios are still closed along with all other “non-essential” businesses. That hasn’t derailed music-making for huge stars with home studios or bedroom pop purveyors who rely entirely on laptops. It does, however, present a problem to everyone in between. But what if artists could order a sound-proofed RV — …

Concert season is coming at the worst possible time this year. As the global coronavirus outbreak creeps into major cities across the U.S., the music business — which depends on large-scale festivals for billions of dollars in annual profit —is weighing the costs of canceling lavish events against the economic …