Quest love É a Novíssima Arma Da PANDORA Contra Apple E Spotify

Quest love is Pandora’s newest weapon against Apple and Spotify

As Pandora gears up to challenge Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal, the internet radio pioneer is going to need all the star power it can get.  With artist relationships, exclusive releases, and music curation becoming competitive weapons in the streaming music war,  Pandora doesn't have much choice. 

It's a good thing Questlove stopped by. The Roots drummer, NYU professor, and tireless party DJ just partnered with Pandora as its first artist ambassador and will soon host a radio show called "Questlove Supreme." 

Whether or not it was obvious when Pandora made a string of expansion-minded acquisitions last year, this type of partnership has become crucial as Apple Music's star-studded executive team has tapped into its extensive industry network (and Apple's cash reserves) to bring on household names from Drake and Elton John, even aiming squarely for Pandora's legacy territory with the launch of its Beats 1 radio station. For its part, Spotify recently hired Troy Carter to head up its artist relations efforts. 

This is a natural move for Pandora, which has been sharpening its focus on artists for some time, aided in no small part by cofounder (and one-time  touring musician) Tim Westergren. The partnership is also well timed: Pandora plans to launch a new Spotify-style, on-demand streaming service before the end of the year. 

CD's Continuam Dominando No Japão, Embora o Streaming Continua Murmurar

Compact Discs Still Dominate in Japan, Though Streaming Continues to Bubble Up

The Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) has released its half-year figures for 2016, and the results are predictable.

Digital revenues -- including streaming, album and track sales, music video and mobile ringtone sales -- totaled $255 million in the first half of the year. In the previous six-month period (the combined third and fourth quarters of 2015) the digital industry had a value of $236.7 million.

Japan has long adored the compact disc -- including 3" and 5" singles, rarely seen stateside -- a predilection partly sustained by the country's strong preference for local repertoire and love of limited, collectible releases. However, the writing is on the wall regarding streaming's ascendence, and Japan will be no exception, though it clearly continues to be an uphill climb for this "new" digital industry.

Indeed: $991 million was spent on CDs so far this year -- the highest-selling format in the country. Just $7.1 million was spent on vinyl. In total, the physical market -- including audio and video sales -- so far this year is said to have generated $1.9 billion in revenue. 

Line Music, a subsidiary of South Korean web giant Naver, was technically the first "full-feature" streaming service in the country. Sony previously had operated its expensive -- $14.50 per month -- Music Unlimited service. Music Unlimited was shut down earlier this year, replaced by the Spotify-powered PlayStation Music in early 2015, which is not available in Japan. Apple Music launched in the country later that year, and Spotify is expected a full rollout relatively soon.

O Karaoke No Carro Com James Corden Esta Dando Um Incremento Aos Artistas Da Música

James Corden's Carpool Karaoke Gives Music Artists A Huge Boost

First of all thanks to Liv Buli for this article

Rumor has it that James Corden’s celebrated serial segmentCarpool Karaoke will be taking on a life of its own, with a deal for a full blown 16-episode series inked between CBS and Apple Music (Well, not exactly a rumor, the deal was confirmed in late July).

The series has proved a boon not only to The Late Late Show host himself and the various celebrity guests who have graced the passenger seat, from Lin-Manuel Miranda to Adele (whose rendition of Nicki Minaj’s solo in “Monster” that has been viewed more than 120 million times on YouTube to date), but also to the artists whose music has been crooned.

According to recent data from Nielsen Audience Insights the episode featuring first lady Michelle Obama led to a distinct lift for tracks from artists Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, and fellow passenger Missy Elliot.

According to recent data from Nielsen Audience Insights, there is a marked increase in activity for the songs performed in James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. Graphic courtesy of Nielsen.

The week of the segment’s airdate on July 20th, fans streamed Elliot’s “Get Ur Freak On” close to half a million times on demand, a 22.7% increase from the week prior. This was the most dramatic lift, with consumption of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” spiking 7.9% and Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” rising 6.4%.

The impact is quite marked on Pandora as well, where in the week following the segment activity is up across all three tracks. Station adds jump more than 140% for “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” 40% for “Single Ladies,” and close to 200% for “Get Ur Freak On.” Adele’s “Monster” clip also spurred a notable 522% increase in station adds back in January.

Artists’ social media followings also see a surge thanks to Carpool Karaoke. For instance, Missy Elliot’s new Facebook page likes increased by 1300% the week ending July 26. Followers on Instagram and Twitter were up 187% and 24.5% respectively, and her Wikipedia page saw 315% more traffic than the week before.

One can only hope that the positive impact for featured artists continues once the series branches out. While the segments will continue to air on The Late Late Show, the show itself will no longer be hosted by Corden. The announcement of exactly who will serve as host, and when the show will premiere, is yet to come.

8 Maneiras Onde A Música Trás Benefícios ao Cérebro

8 Ways That Music Benefits Our Brain

Since music is such a big part of our lives,  it would be interesting and useful to have a look at some of the ways we react to it without even realising and how music benefitsyour brain.

Of course, music affects many different areas of the brain, as you can see in the image below, so we’re only scratching the surface with this post, but let’s jump in.

“Without music, life would be a mistake” – Friedrich Nietzsche

1. Happy/sad music affects how we see neutral faces

We can usually pick if a piece of music is particularly happy or sad, but this isn’t just a subjective idea that comes from how it makes us feel. In fact, our brains actually respond differently to happy and sad music.

Even short pieces of happy or sad music can affect us. One study showed thatafter hearing a short piece of music, participants were more likely to interpret a neutral expression as happy or sad, to match the tone of the music they heard. This also happened with other facial expressions, but was most notable for those that were close to neutral.

Something else that’s really interesting about how our emotions are affected by music is that there are two kind of emotions related to music: perceivedemotions and felt emotions.

This means that sometimes we can understand the emotions of a piece of music without actually feeling them, which explains why some of us find listening to sad music enjoyable, rather than depressing.

Unlike in real life situations, we don’t feel any real threat or danger when listening to music, so we can perceive the related emotions without truly feeling them—almost like vicarious emotions.

2. Ambient noise can improve creativity

We all like to pump up the tunes when we’re powering through our to-do lists, right? But when it comes to creative work, loud music may not be the best option.

It turns out that a moderate noise level is the sweet spot for creativity. Even more than low noise levels, ambient noise apparently gets our creative juices flowing, and doesn’t put us off the way high levels of noise do.

The way this works is that moderate noise levels increase processing difficulty which promotes abstract processing, leading to higher creativity. In other words, when we struggle (just enough) to process things as we normally would, we resort to more creative approaches.

In high noise levels, however, our creative thinking is impaired because we’re overwhelmed and struggle to process information efficiently.

This is very similar to how temperature and lighting can affect our productivity, where paradoxically a slightly more crowded place can be beneficial.

3. Our music choices can predict our personality

Take this one with a grain of salt, because it’s only been tested on young adults (that I know of), but it’s still really interesting.

In a study of couples who spent time getting to know each other, looking at each other’s top ten favorite songs actually provided fairly reliable predictions as to the listener’s personality traits.

The study used five personality traits for the test: openness to experience,extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability.

Interestingly, some traits were more accurately predicted based on the person’s listening habits than others. For instance, openness to experience, extraversion and emotional stability were the easiest to guess correctly. Conscientiousness, on the other hand, wasn’t obvious based on musical taste.

Here is also a break-down of how the different genres correspond to our personality, according to a study conducted at Heriot-Watt University:

To break it down, here is the connection they have found: [showads ad=secondl]

• Blues fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease

• Jazz fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing and at ease

• Classical music fans have high self-esteem, are creative, introvert and at ease

• Rap fans have high self-esteem and are outgoing

• Opera fans have high self-esteem, are creative and gentle

• Country and western fans are hardworking and outgoing

• Reggae fans have high self-esteem, are creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease

• Dance fans are creative and outgoing but not gentle

• Indie fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard working, and not gentle

• Bollywood fans are creative and outgoing

• Rock/heavy metal fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease

• Chart pop fans have high self-esteem, are hardworking, outgoing and gentle, but are not creative and not at ease

• Soul fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Of course, generalizing based on this study is very hard. However looking at the science of introverts and extroverts, there is some clear overlap.

4. Music can significantly distract us while driving (contrary to common belief)

Another study done on teenagers and young adults focused on how their driving is affected by music.

Drivers were tested while listening to their own choice of music, silence or “safe” music choices provided by the researchers. Of course, their own music was preferred, but it also proved to be more distracting: drivers made more mistakes and drove more aggressively when listening to their own choice of music.

Even more surprising: music provided by the researchers proved to be more beneficial than no music at all. It seems that unfamiliar, or uninteresting, music is best for safe driving.

5. Music training can significantly improve our motor and reasoning skills

We generally assume that learning a musical instrument can be beneficial for kids, but it’s actually useful in more ways than we might expect. One study showed that children who had three years or more musical instrument training performed better than those who didn’t learn an instrument in auditory discrimination abilities and fine motor skills.

They also tested better on vocabulary and nonverbal reasoning skills, which involve understanding and analyzing visual information, such as identifying relationships, similarities and differences between shapes and patterns.

These two areas in particular are quite removed from musical training as we imagine it, so it’s fascinating to see how learning to play an instrument can help kids develop such a wide variety of important skills.

Similar research shows this correlation for exercise and motor skills in the same way, which is also fascinating.

6. Classical music can improve visual attention

It’s not just kids that can benefit from musical training or exposure. Stroke patients in one small study showed improved visual attention while listening to classical music.

The study also tried white noise and silence to compare the results, and found that, like the driving study mentioned earlier, silence resulted in the worst scores.

Because this study was so small, the conclusions need to be explored further for validation, but I find it really interesting how music and noise can affect our other senses and abilities—in this case, vision.

7. One-sided phone calls are more distracting than normal conversations

Another study focused on noise, rather than music, showed that when it comes to being distracted by the conversations of others, phone calls where we can only hear one side of the conversation are the worst offenders.

After a survey showed that up to 82% of people find overhearing cellphone conversations annoying, Veronica Galván, a cognitive psychologist at the University of San Diego, decided to study why these are such a pain.

In the study, participants completed word puzzles while one half of them overheard one side of a mundane phone conversation in the background. The other half of the volunteers heard the entire conversation as it took place between two people in the room.

Those who heard the one-sided phone conversation found it more distracting than those who heard both people speaking. They also remembered more of the conversation, showing that it had grabbed their attention more than those who heard both sides and didn’t remember as much of the discussion.

The unpredictability of a one-sided conversation seems to be the cause of it grabbing our attention more. Hearing both sides of a conversation, on the other hand, gives us more context which makes it easier to tune out the distraction.

Then again, as we’ve explored before, getting distracted is often not such a bad things for various reasons.

8. Music helps us exercise

Back to music again, and we can see that just like silence doesn’t help us to be more creative or better drivers, it’s not much use when we’re exercising, either.

Research on the effects of music during exercise has been done for years. In 1911, an American researcher, Leonard Ayres, found that cyclists pedaled faster while listening to music than they did in silence.

This happens because listening to music can drown out our brain’s cries of fatigue. As our body realizes we’re tired and wants to stop exercising, it sends signals to the brain to stop for a break. Listening to music competes for our brain’s attention, and can help us to override those signals of fatigue, though this is mostly beneficial for low- and moderate-intensity exercise. During high-intensity exercise, music isn’t as powerful at pulling our brain’s attention away from the pain of the workout.

Not only can we push through the pain to exercise longer and harder when we listen to music, but it can actually help us to use our energy more efficiently. A 2012 study showed that cyclists who listened to music required 7% less oxygen to do the same work as those who cycled in silence.

Some recent research has shown that there’s a ceiling effect on music at around 145 bpm, where anything higher doesn’t seem to add much motivation, so keep that in mind when choosing your workout playlist. Here is how this breaks down for different genres:

Now if we team up these different “tempos” with the actual work-out we’re doing, we can be in much better sync and find the right beat for our exercise. If you match up the above with the graphic below it should be super easy to get into a good groove:

If you like that post, you should know that the effect of music in man is what separated him from other animals. Due to the high effect of music in the life of human being, it is capable of breaking boundaries to unit people from different background and cultural heritage.If you want to learn more about the importance of music, click here.

Dicas Para Músicos: Evite Estes Erros Antes de Fazer Suas Apresentações

Tips For Gigging Musicians: Avoid Making These Common Mistakes

First of all thanks to Steve Banik for this article.

Whether you’re new to playing live or you’re a gig veteran, you’re not immune to some of the common pitfalls of playing live. In this post I’ll describe how to avoid some of the downsides of live engagements.

I have assembled groups and booked gigs, but I have primarily played keyboards as a sideman in the 25 or so bands I’ve been a member of since 1994. I have played regularly in Indianapolis, Nashville, Chicago and Madison WI, and I currently play regularly with 2 jazz groups in the Madison area.

In part one of my two part post, I’ll explore several topics and will share my experience with leading a band, booking shows, promoting, working with live sound engineers, getting paid and writing contracts.

In part two, we’ll look more closely at money (again), co-writing, guest players, substitute players and travel/accommodations.

With that, here are some key concepts followed by some comments based on my experience:

Don’t Get Short Changed

When I toured professionally in Nashville, I was a member of the American Federation of Musicians. For each of our live TV show performances, we named a different band member as band leader. This was so that person could collect a larger paycheck through the union as leader. I think this is a good idea, but you don’t want to rely on it and you should beware of the possibility of getting shorted.

For example, say there are 5 members in your band and you end up doing 4 TV dates in the calendar year. Simple math – one person isn’t going to get leader pay. The intentions were good but one band member never saw the payday that the other band members saw. That sets up the potential for resentmentwithin the band which can be toxic.

If you’re touring as a sideman for a major label artist, consider setting a goal for yourself to eventually become bandleader of that or another band. This helps to develop your leadership skills and will open the doors to a multitude of opportunities. Touring with major label artists allows you to play with some of the best musicians in the world.

Relax, You Did Everything You Could Do

If you’re the band leader and you book a show, on the day of the gig make sure you designate some time before the downbeat to get yourself into a music frame of mind. I have found myself struggling through the first couple of songs because I was still thinking about how I’d find the agent after the gig to give her back the parking passes, how I’d forgotten to get enough cash to pay the sub after the show, that I didn’t have time to eat dinner before the show and I wondered if I’d be able to eat before 10pm, etc.

These are not the kinds of thoughts you want running through your mind as you play your first solo. For me, all it takes is 10 minutes of silence and privacy to get into the musical frame of mind. At crowded venues this is hard to do – sometimes a bathroom stall is the most privacy you’ll get – but it works.

Promote, but Don’t Spam Your Fans

Take the time to promote your gig on Facebook and Twitter, but don’t spam your followers. Be sure to tag the venue and/or the booking agent in your post so that they’re aware you’re promoting too. It’s also a good idea to list the gig in the entertainment section in the online edition of your local newspaper and/or TV station websites. The listings are almost always free.

A couple of years ago, I discovered that the community editor for one of our local newspapers noticed one of my listings and he wrote a short piece about my upcoming show in the events section of the newspaper. It was an unexpected promotional boost ahead of the event and as an added bonus I was able to link back to the article in my social media posts.

Everything Is Negotiable (Remember That)

I’m a firm believer that all bars and restaurants with live music should provide at least some food and/or beverages to all of the musicians. Sadly, in some bars and restaurants, food and drink is the only form of “pay” you’ll receive – no show pay, just a $25 gift certificate and maybe some free tap beer. These venues clearly don’t value your time and services, they just see you as a way to keep warm bodies at the bar for a longer period of time.

Some venues do buyouts (a small amount of cash per band member instead of food/drink) but usually they won’t do this for you unless you ask. It doesn’t hurt to ask – the worst they can say is no? If you don’t get what you wanted in one area, ask for something in another – for example, a small bump in pay for the next gig. Everything is negotiable.

One of the best outcomes of good negotiating is that it shows that you take your profession seriously and that you and your band acts accordingly. Also make sure you understand how and when you’ll be paid. If you are the band leader, keep enough cash on hand to pay your band once the gig ends in case the venue pays you with a check.

I have had to run to the ATM after a gig so that I could pay my band when the venue unexpectedly presented me with a check. I recommend that band leaders sign up for Square since some venues might like to pay via credit card, plus with Square you no longer have to wait and worry about a check clearing.

Money In The Bank

It’s a good idea to ask the venue for a deposit, especially for one-off private events. When signed contracts aren’t present, I look at a deposit as earnest money. It shows the buyer’s good faith in the transaction. I think it also makes it harder for either side to back out of the deal.

Contracts Help Prevent Cancellations

Cancellations are a pain, but they do happen. So far it has probably occurred to me less than 10 times in my career. If you’re the band member, there’s not much you can do to prevent the cancellation nor is there an avenue of recourse if it’s not your fault and you don’t have a contract.

Usually the gig is just rescheduled, but I have seen gigs get cancelled when the venue suddenly decides they’d like to have another band for that particular night. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. Stay away from venues like this. If you have a contract, specify a cancellation period with the full final total payable to you in the event of a cancellation.

The Pecking Order

Avoid gigs where the sound engineer is paid first followed by the band. There shouldn’t be a pecking order because it usually means someone is about to get shorted. In addition, the crowd didn’t pack the bar to see the sound guy, they came to see your band. Great live sound engineers are hard to find and are worth their weight in gold, but if you’re stuck doing a gig in a mediocre venue with a mediocre engineer that’s paid before everyone else, make that the last gig you ever do there.

I hope you found this information useful. Stay tuned for part two, and feel free to contact me with questions or comments. Thanks to Greg Savage for posting this and for continuing to provide valuable information for composers seeking commercial placements.

8 Maneiras Para Compor Músicas Mais Eficientemente

Eight Ways To Compose Music More Effectively

We’ve all been there.

Struggling to come up with a melody or working out that perfect ending for your song.

This is one of the most frustrating aspects of composing music, especially when you are working towards a deadline. This article contains a few suggestions on how to compose more effectively.

1) Don’t disregard your ideas too quickly

This happens all too often with composers and songwriters, who do not persevere with their ideas for long enough. If you start over too often, you will go round on circles and not get anywhere. This quote by one of the most famous inventors of all time is certainly very true when it comes to composing music.

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration”- Thomas Edison

Obviously there are occasions when you should start again, but only do this after exploring all the different ways of developing your ideas.

2) Write something every day

This follows on from the previous point in displaying perseverance as a songwriter. Unfortunately, you cannot assume you will write X number of bars each day. Composition does not work that way as you will have more productive days than others.

However, by doing just something each day, no matter how little, you will feel a sense of progress that will keep you motivated to finish your composition.

3) Go for a walk before you start composing

Rather than dive straight into your music making at the crack of dawn, go for a walk first. The extra oxygen from all the fresh air helps you focus better when you compose and you may come up with some interesting musical ideas or lyrics from just being inspired by nature and your surroundings.

4) Listen to your music with fresh ears

Take regular breaks when you compose as your ears get tired listening to the same repeated loops and musical ideas. Have you ever wondered why you create some music one day, and the next morning you sometimes feel deflated with what you hear? If you work for too long on the same passage of music, your ears learn to accept what they are hearing. This is especially true for mixing your tracks using music software.

5) Write out a structure

Planning a composition in advance really works wonders in certain situations. If you are writing some film music, it is essential to have a structure in mind in order for your music to fit the scene. However, it could be argued that planning too much can stifle true creativity. You should try composing both ways and see what works for you, but it generally helps to have a rough plan in mind when you write music.

6) Seek the advice of other musicians and friends

Often you need a second opinion on your work. If you hit a dead end with your composition, ask your friends to hear your music and ask their advice on what to do next. Even people you regard as non-musicians can often surprise you with their suggestions. Ensure you take any criticism constructively and ask what they like or don’t like about your music.

7) Write in a style you have never done before

This can really help to improve you as a musician and develop a real interest in composing. If you write hip-hop music, have a go at writing a jazz composition. If you compose film music, try your hand at creating a dubstep track. This may seem a bit off the wall, but it keeps you fresh as a composer and exposes you to new and interesting styles of music. Just spend time listening to new genres of music and go for it!

8) Learn from other composers, songwriters and producers

Figure out how your favourite musicians develop their ideas, as it will certainly help you create ideas yourself. You could visit their websites to see if they offer any advice on composing or producing.

Por Dentro Da Guerra Do Youtube Com A Indústria Da Música

Inside YouTube's War With the Music Industry

Beck, Taylor Swift and Kings of Leon's Caleb Followill are among the high-profile artists who have appealed to Congress to regulate what music can stream on YouTube.

Last year, Deadmau5 sent his lawyer, Dina LaPolt, a Skype message: "Please shut this down." He'd found a YouTube channel with 400 unauthorized videos containing his songs: album tracks, remixes and full live shows. "We had to have a paralegal sit in my office for six hours and send 400 takedowns," says LaPolt. "After that, the channel shut down – and it popped up again two days later. It's a big issue for him." 

YouTube, with more than 1 billion users, is the most popular source for music streaming on the Internet. But it's become a source of frustration for artists including Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Beck, Kings of Leon and others, who recently signed an open letter to Congress calling for reform on the law that allows YouTube to host millions of unauthorized videos. "The artist has no choice – their music is on YouTube even if they don't want it there," says Irving Azoff, manager of acts such as the Eagles and Van Halen. Azoff has published a separate letter to YouTube, calling for action on two issues: its relatively small royalty payments to artists, and its inability to efficiently remove content from the site.

The music business has less bargaining power than ever: As album sales have fallen about 60 percent in the past decade, YouTube has become increasingly important – 98 percent of American Internet users ages 18 to 24 visit the site – and the company says its ad sales have delivered $3 billion to artists and content creators. "YouTube has become radio for kids," says Ken Levitan, who manages Kings of Leon, Cheap Trick and others. 

But unlike radio, Azoff says, YouTube is a bad business partner. It allows leaked material and poor-quality live music to stay online. And it pays far less on average than streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. "YouTube revenue for a superstar artist is a joke," says Azoff. "Their accountings are too complicated and opaque to give an accurate per-stream number. They're acting like an old record company by making the accountings so difficult, the artist remains in the dark."

Like any site, YouTube can stream material without artists' permission thanks to 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The law allows companies to post copyrighted content online if they agree to take it down upon request. But in the YouTube age, this means artists' representatives need to monitor hundreds of millions of new videos every day. YouTube says it has addressed the issue, spending $60 million to build a "Content ID" program, which uses digital "fingerprints" to identify pirated material.

This system catches 99.5 percent of copyrighted material, says Robert Kyncl, YouTube's chief business officer. "I challenge somebody to find a better system of copyright management anywhere," says Kyncl. "It's been nearly a decade of us investing in the system when no one else does anything."

Azoff says YouTube's 99.5 percent claim isn't good enough: He estimates that the videos it doesn't catch account for "48 million unauthorized plays per day. That still requires an army to manually claim the remaining videos." 

"YouTube destroys my business and makes money by enabling theft worldwide." –Steve Miller

Some artists hire private services to manage the flood of content. Queen uses Believe Digital, a music-distribution company that employs a 40-person staff, to issue takedown notices or monetize unofficial videos. "If we don't want something, we block it," says Denis Ladegaillerie, the company's chief executive. "If we want it available, we make money. It's a significant source of revenue that did not exist before." Other artists throw up their hands: "YouTube destroys my business and makes money by enabling theft worldwide," says Steve Miller, whose material, including full albums like Greatest Hits 1974-1978, can be found on YouTube.

Azoff points out that YouTube can fully control content when it wants to – it keeps pornography off, plus it charges $10 per month to watch original shows. "Taylor Swift should be able to decide which of her songs are available for free and which are part of a paid subscription service," he wrote. His proposal? For YouTube and its parent company, Google, to join him in lobbying Congress to reform the DMCA. So far neither is onboard, and the tech industry's response has been lukewarm ("Note to Irving Azoff: YouTube Doesn't Need Change. You Do," read a recent Fortune headline).

Corynne McSherry, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for digital rights, points out Azoff may be forgetting that things have gotten better in recent years: "I don't think copyright owners appreciate what they got. In 1997, if you wanted to get music taken offline, you had to go to court."

But Azoff isn't backing down. "Some of us believe we live in an era of government by Google," he says. "Their power to influence Washington is unprecedented. But you can't walk away from a fight just because it is going to be hard."

" Ruim Para A Indústria" Os Artistas Da Spotify Sussurram E Troy Carter Combate a Exclusividades

'Bad for the Industry': Spotify's Artist Whisperer Troy Carter Slams Exclusives, Updates Company's Subscriber Total

Carter is intent on strengthening “the bridge between Spotify and the music community.”

Carter also reveals that Spotify now has 39 million paid subscribers, up from 30 million in March.

In June, when Atom Factory founder/CEO Troy Carter announced he was joining Spotify as global head of creator services, many music executives thought he would be securing his new employer exclusive releases, a la Apple Music's deals for Frank Ocean's Endless and Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book. But on a recent afternoon at the company's New York office in Chelsea, Carter, 43, declares that "exclusives are bad for artists, bad for consumers and bad for the whole industry." 

Instead, he half-jokingly promises "Spotify inclusives."

Since most users will never subscribe to more than one streaming service, he believes that limiting access to music only incentivizes fans to seek it out on pirate sites or YouTube, where it generates less revenue. "I was brought onboard to strengthen the bridge between Spotify and the music community," he says.

Frank Ocean's Album Is the Straw that Broke Universal Music's Back (and It May Get Him Sued)

With Apple and rival Tidal continuing to make exclusive deals and Amazon said to be planning its own music streaming service, Carter will be making his case for wide releases to labels, managers and artists, and he'll have the wind at his back: He tells Billboard that Spotify now has more than 39 million paid subscribers (up from 30 million in March), whereas Apple Music announced 15 million subscribers in June.

That means Spotify -- which is planning to go public in the second half of 2017, according to Bloomberg Businessweek -- is adding subscribers faster than ever. And it increasingly exposes users to new music, provides marketing for artists and helps sell concert tickets.

"That goes beyond distribution," says Carter. "We can become a full-stack solution for artists."

Construa Um Auto falante "Frankenstein" Que Você Sempre Sonhou Com o Sonic Blocks

Build the Frankensteinian speaker you’ve always dreamed of with Sonic Blocks

Enter Sonic Blocks, the product of a father-and-son team recently launched Indiegogo that takes a much more flexible approach to sound. As the name implies, the Sonic Blocks system is modular, allowing the customer to choose between different woofers, tweeters, and midrange drivers in addition to more cosmetic touches like lights.

“Sonic Blocks is a unique new modular approach to audio/music system design that allows users to quickly and easily swap or add individual speakers to meet their individual preferences and needs,” Sonic Blocks co-founder and CEO Scott Wilker told Digital Trends. “The virtually limitless expansion options and future-proof architecture of Sonic Blocks makes other music systems obsolete.”

Whether or not the system is so revolutionary you’ll want to throw out your home stereo or other speakers remains to be seen, the specs do look pretty impressive. Not only is Bluetooth connectivity supported, but Wi-Fi and DTS Play-Fi are as well, while wired connections are available in both analog and digital forms, with S/PDIF, TOUSLING, and USB connectors available.

Actual performance will vary based on the configuration, but the class D amplifier is claimed to be capable of producing over 90 dB SPL at one meter distance, which would mean plenty of volume. The lithium ion battery is described as offering over 15 hours of playback, though again, this could vary based on any number of factors. Light panels not only pulse to the music, but can show Wi-Fi strength, battery power, and more.

Backers can pledge as little as $25, but to actually get your hands on a speaker, you’ll have to pay at least $200, and that’s for the limited edition starter bundle, of which only 50 units are available. Most backers will have to spring for at least the $430 Double Stack, which includes one “brain,” two “exoskeleton” housings, two tweeters, four full-range drivers, three bass drivers, and a total of nine speaker grilles.

For $530, a sound bar kit is available that uses a similar component list for a more home theater-oriented setup. For those looking to spend even more, a $650 twin stereo kit is available as well as a $1,600 kit offering multiroom functionality for up to a total of five rooms. While the kits offer a starting point, users can mix and match components as they wish.

The 30-day campaign is looking to raise a total of $50,000, but this is a flexible funding campaign, so the creators intend to move forward no matter the outcome. If everything goes according to plan, finished units will ship in early 2017, but potential backers should keep in mind that as with all other crowdfunding campaigns, there is a level of risk here. For more information, see the Sonic Blocks campaign page on Indiegogo.