MusicTech Rewinder - Issue #21

ENJOY READING AND HAVE A FABULOUS WEEKEND!

Cheers,

Matt

Not only is Handwash Jukebox a brilliant use of Amazon Alexa to make washing hands fun, but there’s also an embedded element of music discovery.

Musicians and music lovers are hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. After all, music needs communities, but social distancing measures prevent rehearsals and concerts, cutting musicians off from their audience.

Muso released data which showed that movie piracy during COVID lockdown has surged to “unprecedented” levels, up by 41% in the US in the final week of March 2020 versus the same period of the prior month.

Monica Corton runs through the best services for monetizing live streamed and on-demand performances, starting with Twitch and Cameo.

Despite talk of concerts returning on a small scale, the months ahead will see pay-per-view tours, crowdless gigs and more livestreams.

An Australian team called “Uncanny Valley” won the inaugural Eurovision AI song contest for their song “Beautiful the World,” even with lyrics like “dreams still live on the wings of happiness.”

Things get very murky when computers can replicate the human voice.

South Korea’s music streaming platforms have reinforced personalized playlists based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology and big data analysis as they face the arrival of Sweden-based music streaming giant Spotify in Korea.

James Burke is in Sweden, home of the most advanced electronic music studio in the world. Can he get a tune out of it?

You know the sound from tracks like "Strawberry Fields Forever," but now, dive inside the Mellotron and discover what makes it incomparably unique.

Artists want streaming to pay them more but there is no simple solution. Here are the economics of the problem.