SPOTIFY Lança "Rise" Um Programa Para Artistas Emergentes

SPOTIFY LAUNCHES ‘RISE’ PROGRAMME FOR EMERGING ARTISTS

Spotify introduces RISE, its New Emerging Artist Program, with Kim Petras, Lauv, Russell Dickerson and Trippie Redd

Today, Spotify launches RISE, a program designed to identify and break the next wave of music superstars.

By harnessing its unmatched cultural influence and 140+ million music fans, Spotify will launch these artists of exceptional talent into the world through a dynamic combination of multi-tiered marketing and editorial programming on Spotify.

The launch of RISE includes on platform, out of home, digital and social promotion in addition to special, mixed-media RISE playlists. In the coming months, Spotify will create one-of-a-kind experiential events for each RISE artist and release bespoke audio and video content that dives deep into the story behind each rising star.

Spotify kicks off RISE with 4 genre-diverse artists; pop-sensation Kim Petras; pop/rock artist Lauv; country singer Russell Dickerson; and hip hop artist Trippie Redd. Launching in the U.S, Canada and the U.K., the program will add 4 new artists every few months, supporting a total of 16 emerging artists per year.

Delta Air Lines is also supporting Rise on aircraft seatbacks through their Delta Artist Spotlight program.

“Spotify is committed to supporting the careers of artists of every level, including the next generation of global superstars” said Troy Carter, Spotify’s Global Head of Creator Services. “RISE is a powerful platform and an investment towards the future of emerging artists and the fans who discovered them first.”

Check out spotify.com/RISE to hear more from each RISE artist.

About Spotify’s RISE artists

Kim Petras

Somewhere between nineties American pop and eighties European disco, rises the undeniable voice of Kim Petras.  Nodding to influences as diverse as Britney Spears, Baltimora, and the “Brat Pack,” the “side bun” sporting German-born and Los Angeles-based songstress powers up a new pop paradigm, sharing intimate lovelorn storylines over explosive production.

Her brand of escapism remains rooted in a boundless capacity for empathy. Knowing herself from the age of two, Kim notably began transitioning with female hormone therapy following her twelfth birthday before receiving gender reassignment surgery at the age of 16 and making worldwide headlines. Her bravery quietly and subconsciously punctuates the music.

“I have unique experiences and have had unique experiences, because I am transgender,” she continues. “Those experiences one-hundred percent go into my music. Being the outcast and being bullied makes you work harder in life. I had to fight for everything, because I was not the cool kid and had very few friends. At the same time, I’m just a girl going through heartbreak. It feels the same way to me as any other girl would feel about it. Whether or not you connect with people has nothing to do with your gender or sexuality.”

Ultimately, her experience and intimate understanding of pop yields a universal vision that’s as incomparable as it is inimitable.

“For a moment, I’d love for listeners to forget reality and have fun when they listen to me,” she leaves off. “They don’t have to think about anything negative. I hope they blast it in the cars or when they’re getting ready and want to feel fabulous. I hope it’s a soundtrack to their lives.”

Lauv

In his early teens, Ari Leff picked up a guitar and started writing songs that uncannily captured all the nuance of heartbreak. “For whatever reason, before I ever had any sort of relationship, I had this weird obsession with writing love songs and breakup songs,” says the L.A.-based singer/songwriter/producer. “I remember being a kid and my dad asking me, ‘Why do you write all these sad songs all the time?’ But to me that’s always been one of the most beautiful ways to connect with people on a real level. There’s nothing like openness of being in love, and for me that vulnerability is maybe the most important part of being alive.”

Born in San Francisco, Leff moved around the country throughout his childhood and learned to play piano and viola as a kid. Once he’d taken up guitar and thrown himself into writing those heart-on- sleeve love songs, he started a solo indie-electronic project that included booking his own tours. After high school, Leff began studying music technology at New York University, where he immersed himself in production and ended up signing to the publishing company Prescription Songs.

During his college years, Leff strayed from his intensely personal work and shifted his focus to writing and producing for other artists. “I got further away from how I’d started out writing, which was totally stream-of- consciousness and natural, and closer to writing what I thought people might want to hear,” he recalls. But during his sophomore year, Leff had a shift in perspective when he stumbled upon a particularly illuminating interview with Paul Simon. In the interview, Simon described his songwriting as a process of uncovering his most buried feelings—a concept that hit home for Leff. “Reading that interview, something clicked in me and helped me get back in touch with the way I used to write,” Leff says. “I started learning how to let go again,how to stop second-guessing and over analyzing myself, and just focus on being honest.”

Russell Dickerson

Russell Dickerson was born for the stage. “I’m just naturally that kind of dude: a big, loud and over-the- top guy,” he says with a laugh. Yes, one of country music’s most talked-about new talents — and the voice behind the smash single “Yours,” a stunning ballad inspired by his wife of four years, Kailey, that’s racked up over 33 million streams to date on Spotify, where he’s been on the Hot Country, Country Gold Playlists and more for over a year, and exploded since being serviced to country radio in April — need not go into “entertainer mode” before he catapults himself onstage to deliver one of his notoriously amped-up live shows. He’s already there.

Even as a Union City, Tennessee-raised, obsessive teenage music fan, one who’d regularly wait in wraparound lines to see his favorite artists perform in Nashville (“I just got hooked on that energy”) and held up Garth Brooks and Keith Urban DVD’s as his personal Gospel, Dickerson, says being “that dude onstage was always the dream. We would scream every word of every song, and all I could think about was ‘I want to be that guy!’” Now, thanks to contagious tracks and a stellar live show,he’s steadily built a serious fan base of his own.

Trippie Redd

Blending the elements of rap and trap with touches of emo and punk rock, Trippie Redd creates music that transcends through genres and resonates with audiences. The 18-year old Canton, Ohio native first emerged online in 2015 with a series of tracks and videos that launched him to viral success. People took notice. Trippie signed with Caroline-distributed Strainge Vision in 2017 and released A Love Letter to You, spawning a series of streaming hits including, “Love Scars”. In October 2017, Trippie followed up with his second mixtape, A Love Letter To You 2. Critics and fellow artists have taken notice, and the praise and invitations to feature on tracks speak for themselves. Trippie’s unique vocal style has separated him from the pack. His tracks see him rap, croon, and distort his vocals into a slow-fade that keeps you guessing and makes you keep listening to see what he’ll do next.

Stranger Things: Agora Toda A Trilha Sonora Em CD e Vinil

Stranger Things: Music From The Netflix Original Series Release on CD & Vinyl

Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, today announced it will release Stranger Things – Music From The Netflix Original Series on Friday, October 27, timed to the launch of Season 2. Pre-sale of the album begins today https://lnk.to/StrangerThingsSdtk.

Available for digital streaming or downloading and on CD, the 30 track compilation album includes a range of beloved 1980s hits and classic tracks featured in “Stranger Things” and the highly-anticipated second season, “Stranger Things 2.” The album features nineteen songs and eleven audio clips from the show. A 12″ vinyl edition of Stranger Things – Music From The Netflix Original Series will be released later this year.

Artists and original hit recordings appearing on Stranger Things – Music From The Netflix Original Series include Toto (“Africa”), the Bangles (“Hazy Shade of Winter”), Corey Hart (“Sunglasses at Night”), and more, along with unannounced titles from Season 2.

The multi-award-winning “Stranger Things” was most recently nominated for 18 Emmy Awards, including Music Supervision—the first year ever the category was recognized by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

“Stranger Things 2” returns globally to Netflix October 27th. Set in 1984, the citizens of Hawkins, Indiana are still reeling from the horrors of the Demogorgon and the secrets of Hawkins Lab. Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) has been rescued from the Upside Down but a bigger, sinister entity still threatens those who survived. The second installment of the series also features Winona Ryder (Joyce), David Harbour (Chief Hopper), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Natalia Dyer (Nancy), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan), Joe Keery (Steve), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), and Season 2 newcomers Sean Astin (Bob Newby), Dacre Montgomery (Billy), Paul Reiser (Dr. Owens), and Sadie Sink (Max), among other stars.
Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, “Stranger Things” is a Netflix original series, directed and executive produced by the Duffer brothers and Shawn Levy of 21 Laps. Iain Patterson and 21 Laps’ Dan Cohen executive produce.
About Legacy Recordings

Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, is home to the world’s foremost library of historically significant commercial recordings, a peerless collection of works by the most significant musical artists of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Across a variety of platforms, the label has revolutionized the catalog market, offering contemporary music fans access to thousands of meticulously restored and remastered archival titles representing virtually every musical genre including popular, rock, jazz, blues, R&B, folk, country, gospel, Broadway musicals, movie soundtracks, rap/hip-hop, world music, classical, comedy and more.

O Melhor 'Soundbar' Para Sua Casa

The Best Soundbar For Your Home

This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. 

After conducting a thorough survey of Wirecutter readers and combining those insights with the results of our previous testing, we think the Sonos Playbar is the right soundbar for most people. The Playbar sounds fantastic, and it’s easier to set up and operate than any other soundbar we’ve tested. The Playbar does not offer the same amount of physical or wireless connectivity as other, higher-performance soundbars we’ve tested in the past, which limits its usefulness a bit if you have a large library of Blu-ray movies or use other sources. But if you use your entertainment system primarily for watching TV, enjoying video-streaming services, or playing digital music (and as best we can tell from our survey results, that’s most of our readers), its lack of inputs shouldn’t be a dealbreaker. And though it doesn’t have Bluetooth or AirPlay support, it is part of the easiest-to-use, best-sounding whole-home audio system we’ve tested.

If high-performance audio is your primary concern and you don’t want to be locked into the Sonos ecosystem, we still think our previous top pick, the Paradigm Soundscape, is the all-around best soundbar you can buy today. Another great (but pricey) option is the Yamaha YSP-4300, especially if you’re a die-hard movie viewer and you want the best virtual surround effects without the inconvenience of installing extra speakers.

If $700 to $1,800 is too rich for your blood, we also have a guide to budget soundbars. Stepping down to this level means giving up many of the benefits of our high-performance picks, especially in build quality and sound performance, but even our low-priced picks will give you an experience far better than the speakers built into your TV can offer.

Who should get a soundbar

A soundbar provides much better sound quality than the speakers in a TV, computer, or smartphone, without the complexity of a receiver and speakers. Separate components almost always provide more value for your dollar, but they also take up more space and require additional cables; their operation is more complicated, too. The best soundbars utilize additional drivers for each channel, have more-powerful amplifiers, and feature advanced designs.

How we picked

Selecting soundbars to bring in for evaluation required parsing through many reviews and talking to soundbar reviewers such as Brent Butterworth (an audio reviewer since 1989 for publications including Sound & Vision), Matthew Moskovciak (senior associate editor for home theater at CNET), and Darryl Wilkinson (editor-at-large for Sound & Vision). We also looked at the products introduced at the CES trade show to see what was new and deserving of evaluation even before reviews were available.

Chris Heinonen

Tested soundbars, left to right: Martin Logan Motion Vision, B&W Panorama 2, Definitive Technology SoloCinema Studio, Yamaha YSP-4300.

We eliminated all pedestal designs, which are typically fatter and designed to sit directly under your TV’s built-in stand. While a soundbar of this design can sound great, as the pedestal allows for larger woofers and better bass, the fatter, wider design requires that it lie flat on a table. If that format works for you, some good options are available, but we wanted our main pick to work for everyone who is willing to pay for good sound.

We also eliminated passive soundbars that require a separate receiver to power them. We also dropped almost anything without Bluetooth or AirPlay support, because you shouldn’t have to pay extra and use up more ports to play music from your phone or computer.

Ultimately, the most important overall factor is sound quality. Extra features and benefits are nice, but sound quality is nonnegotiable. After sound quality, features and usability are important.

How we tested

We assembled the soundbars in a home theater room that had acoustic treatments then mounted the soundbars on speaker stands or a table and listened to them with music, movies, and TV. We used an Oppo BDP-103D as the source component, as it can play back Blu-ray, SACD, CD, FLAC, and any other digital format you throw at it; the Oppo player also has analog, coaxial, optical, and HDMI outputs, so it can work with every soundbar no matter what input is required.

We did additional listening in a living room with the soundbar on top of a credenza, with a wall to the left and open space to the right.  After those extensive listening sessions, we invited audio reviewer Stephen Hornbrook to evaluate the bars.

Our pick: Sonos Playbar

Michael Zhao

The Sonos Playbar is low but deep.

The Sonos Playbar is a great-sounding soundbar with lots of features that make it easy to use as the center of an entertainment system. It’s simple to set up and offers the best access to streaming content or your music library of any soundbar out there. With no Bluetooth or AirPlay support, and only a single optical input, it is rather limited in connectivity, but if you’re simply looking for a great-sounding, simple option that you can expand into a whole-home audio system, it’s hard to knock.

As you might expect for a soundbar at this price, the Playbar offers true three-channel audio, with a discrete center channel for voices and other on-screen sound effects. All in all, the sound quality of the Playbar is noticeably better than that of most rivals. It can’t hit the same low octaves that our upgrade pick, the Paradigm Soundscape, can, at least not without the assistance of a Sonos Sub (which itself costs as much as the Playbar), but it offers very good performance above those lowest octaves.

Coachella Tornou-se O Primeiro Festiva A Atingir A Marca De $100 Milhões De Dólares

Coachella Just Became The First Annual Music Festival To Hit $100 Million In Grosses

First of all thanks to Hugh McIntyre for this article.

For years now, Coachella has been the biggest music festival in the United States, and there is simply no doubting or disputing that, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any room for the gargantuan party to continue to grow!

According to Billboard, the Indio, CA-based music festival broke its record when it comes to grosses this year, bringing in an incredible $114.6 million, which now stands as the biggest sum for not just this one event, but any of its kind. 

That figure makes Coachella the first annual (or at least recurring, as the media outlet points out) music festival to blow past the $100 million figure in a single year. There are other one-off events, such as last year’s Desert Trip, which have brought in more cash, but they don’t take place every year. Desert Trip, which last year took over the same grounds in California as Coachella, brought some of the biggest names to ever release music—The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who headlined the initial staging—to a massive crowd, which was willing to pay high prices to see their favorites. 

Last year, Coachella just barely missed passing $100 million last year, when the event pulled in just over $94 million. The brand was able to increase its earnings so dramatically this time around thanks to an allowance from the town of Indio, CA that allowed event organizers to sell an additional 52,000 tickets, bringing the total attendance to 125,000 people per weekend. Keeping in mind that Coachella is staged over two back-to-back weekends in April, it's not too difficult to see where all that extra cash came from.

It will surely be difficult to see these already-incredible numbers continue to climb (at least in any major way, like what happened this year), but those at Goldenvoice working on the brand surely have a few ideas in mind. At this point, there is never a worry about Coachella not selling out, so it’s all about finding ways to raise prices, extract more money from attendees or, as was the case in 2017, find room for more people, which can only happen so many times.

O Futuro Do Audio Nos Games - Entrevista Com BECKY ALLEN

THE FUTURE OF GAME AUDIO – WITH BECKY ALLEN:

First of all thanks to Jennifer Walden for this article.

What's next for game audio? We got the chance to speak with Becky Allen - head of audio at PopCap/Electronic Arts, and keynote speaker at GameSoundCon - about just that. And here, she shares her insight on the current challenges, advancements, and future opportunities in the game audio industry:

GameSoundCon is coming up quickly — Nov 7-8th in Los Angeles. The two-day conference explores tools and topics relevant to sound designing and composing for games, VR, and AR. This year’s keynote speaker is Becky Allen, head of audio at PopCap/Electronic Arts in Seattle, WA. She has over 20 years of experience in sound, composing and sound designing for companies like Microsoft, Soundelux Design Music Group, and PopCap Games —where she recently handled audio direction for Plants Vs. Zombies Heroes. 

Allen doesn’t just simply work in the game audio industry. She also facilitates the expansion of the craft. Allen is a founding volunteer of the Audio Mentoring Project — a mentoring program in which game audio veterans use their extensive networks of contacts and industry experience to encourage the learning and development of less experienced members of the game audio industry.

Here, Allen shares her thoughts on GameSoundCon, as well as gives insight on current challenges, advancements, and opportunities in the game audio industry. Find out what she sees for the future of game audio. 

What’s one advancement you’ve seen in game sound in the past year that you’re excited about?

Becky Allen (BA): There’s a renewed focus on the importance of accurate 3D spatialization of audio through VR/AR and a lot of excitement around that. VR/AR is still the new frontier for audio and our fellow sound designers and creators are tackling new and interesting issues. I look forward to hearing their work as it advances. 

Audio in VR/AR is a key and essential part to maintaining the illusion of a virtual world and if audio isn’t working well, the experience breaks. Because of this, we see more emphasis on the sound and its significance for this new platform.

What’s the biggest challenge for game audio at the moment? How do you see that resolved in the future? Tech wise, what would you want to see for game sound?

BA: Regardless of the size and scope, systems for delivering dynamic and captivating content are becoming more complex. The complexity of systems requires deeper understanding of scripting and at some points coding. These skills are becoming more important for a sound designer to develop.

Tech-wise, it’s the same that we have been developing for decades — more and better tools in the hands of the sound designers and composers. Our tools have made great advancements and we continue to drive these innovations through new ideas and creative desire. 

Creatively, what would you like to see in the future for game sound?

BA: With the increased amount of data collection that we now see coming from gameplay, we are able to craft individual experiences for each player on a finer level. We can drive unique experiences for each player that is different, believable and compelling each time — much like our real-world experience. Creatively this opens up many possibilities for designers in all areas: sound design, music design, and voice.

You’re the first female keynote speaker at GameSoundCon. Can you tell us a little about that conference and why you would recommend it to your peers and newcomers to the industry?

BA: GameSoundCon (Nov 7 – 8, in Los Angeles) is a conference specifically for audio people. It’s a great conference to learn about new tools, share skills and knowledge, and also to network. 

This is a smaller conference than GDC, which is wonderful but can be overwhelming. At this conference, you have more quality time with the participants and can really dig into deeper topics and have more substantial connections with individuals. 

Also, to acknowledge your statement above, yes, I am delighted to be the first female keynote speaker and I hope the first of many. 

Audio Para Realidade Aumentada - A Trilha Sonora Da Sua Vida

How Augmented Reality Audio Will Let You Soundtrack Your Life

Last month, Apple launched iOS 11, and with it, a slate of augmented reality (AR) applications that allow users to do things like paint in thin air, try out virtual furniture, and fill the world with gifs galore. And Apple is not alone in the AR charge; Google, Microsoft and Snap are all in the game. Meanwhile, maybe the most telling moment regarding the state of AR in 2017 came back in April, when Facebook chairman/CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his intention to “make the camera the first mainstream AR platform.”

But while most people were gazing at all the shiny stuff presented by these titans of tech, they didn’t hear the revolutionary developments taking place in a totally different -- but equally vital -- type of reality augmentation: audio. In fact, AR for the ears is just as poised for mainstream adoption as it is for the eyes.

Leaving aside the semantic debate around “Augmented” vs. “Mixed” Reality, as a general category AR can be defined as the “integration of digital information with the user’s environment in realtime using a device.” It’s easy to grasp how users will see AR content through screens (and later glasses), but how will they hearaugmented reality?

Hearables

A renaissance in “Hearables” has begun to reveal how we’ll be able to control the world of sound around us. In a nutshell, these are wireless earbuds that pair with our phones -- think of the movie Her -- but they’re so much more than a hardware upgrade. These “smart headphones,” such as Doppler’s Here One, Nuheara’s IQBuds and Google’s recently-announced Pixel Buds grant an unprecedented degree of precision in “tuning” the soundtrack of our lives -- and in blending our lives into that soundtrack.

Noise-cancelling headphones are designed to uniformly dim the sound around you, and while hearables can do that, they offer something more complex: the ability to “live mix” the world with realtime signal processing. We've been able to EQ our music and devices in the past, but it wasn’t something we could make instantly responsive to the noises of life. Here One and the IQBuds have preset filters for common environments like offices and cities, but the real fun comes in the tinkering. Maybe you want to hear ambient sounds louder than you otherwise would, or you’d prefer to tweak certain ranges, or you just want to add reverb for kicks. That’s the power of smart sound.

A Elite Sport Bluetooth earphone manufactured by Jabra GN is displayed during the ShowStoppers event at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

This also means you can create unique concoctions with your tunes. If you appreciate the low-end rumble of the subway, you might layer it under a minor-key banger like Cardi B's “Bodak Yellow.” Maybe you’d prefer to hear beachside seagull calls and waves washing up on the shores to Kamasi Washington’s “Desire.” This isn’t something you need fancy post-production software to do; with hearable technology, this is something you do live. Whatever you choose, you can make each instance completely distinct. 

Though recording isn’t a native feature yet, it’s already possible with third-party recorder apps -- meaning you can save these to revisit later (and you’ll be able to save higher-fidelity versions as the apps evolve). Plus -- say you really dig the effect of a given environmental sound -- you can record that in isolation to add to other audio creations later.

The “wearable” reference in the name means hearables are designed to merge with daily life. Paired with AI like Siri and Google Voice, much of this functionality with can be accessed through voice -- so if a user decides they'd prefer to hear more reverb, they can simply say, "Turn up the reverb." The form factor is crucial; for AR to thrive, it needs a mainstream infrastructure. The lightweight, (largely) hands-free approach situates hearables as an appealing market-ready AR solution with staggering potential. 

Music With a Brain

Speaking of AI, that’s where the soundtrack of the future gets even wilder.

Hearables allow users to listen to music in totally new ways -- and they listen to you in return. The Jabra Sport Elites, for instance, can track your speed, distance, calories, heart rate and even VO2 Max estimations (a measure of the the maximum amount of oxygen the body can use that helps determine aerobic endurance). Equipped with this knowledge -- alongside platforms like Spotify and Soundcloud -- it won’t be long before hearables will be able to auto-select theperfect track to get you through the trough of your workout. Here One has a “Smart Suggest” option that uses location data to suggest tuning presets; if your GPS indicates you’re in a restaurant, it will recommend the “Restaurant” setting (which amplifies front-facing audio and dampens the rest). This feature points to a future where connected apps can automatically harness data to create the perfect EQ for your songs at any given moment -- modulating this in realtime to maintain the exact same sound as you move throughout different environments.

That same location data can be used to bring AR into real world sites; geolocation will provide new ways to socialize around music. As devices intended to stay in your ears for extended periods of time, hearables incentivize the notion of “planted” songs and playlists. Imagine being able to create mixtapes along particular routes and share them with friends or followers. If you thought a particular song was the perfect encapsulation of a given city block, for example, you could “drop” it like a pin so that anybody following you could experience that block the exact same way when they crossed the trigger point. Or, say you bike to work and believe you’ve created the single greatest playlist for cruising through the commute. With geocoded music, you could share that playlist with other people taking the same route so that songs were cued to particular locations in the ride. Artists might even release albums this way, turning an album release into a scavenger hunt of sorts.

Gamers play with the Pokemon Go.REMKO DE WAAL/AFP/Getty Images

AR games like Pokemon GO will inevitably start to employ AR audio, too; in-game music will adapt depending on circumstance. It could be something as simple as autoselecting a song from your library based on location and the time of day, or it could be programmatic music that adjusts to your biometrics in realtime; you spot a Mewtwo, your heart rate spikes, and the music shifts to augment the experience.

And our participation will produce new data that will change the music we’re able to encounter in the first place. Spotify generates your “Discover Weekly” playlists based on your and other users’ behaviors. Think about how wild something like that gets when you “three-dimensionalize” that information by adding factors like time, location and EQ into the mix.

This technology is still young, but powerful solutions already exist today -- and that's not even scratching the surface of other advancements in the world of sound. There have been exciting developments in Internet-of-Things (internet-connected “smart” household devices), artificially intelligent music, and, most importantly, spatial audio, which adds “3D” directionality to sound. These technologies are converging with hearables to further immerse us in a futuristic music fantasy world that's quickly becoming reality.

Keep an ear out; the first few notes sound pretty amazing.

Pandora Lança 'Fall Into Country' Para Incrementar O Marketing Da Música Country

Pandora Launches 'Fall Into Country' Marketing Push

Pandora is stepping up its outreach to country music fans with a new "digital country music festival" campaign that will feature concerts, station takeovers and other exclusive content, all as part of an effort to grow what is already the service's second biggest genre audience and, of course, to attract more paid subscribers.

The campaign, dubbed Fall Into Country, launched on Thursday with targeted ads to existing country music fans touting exclusive content. Blake Shelton is kicking off the "festival" with a concert at OZ Arts Nashville on Nov. 3, followed by events or content featuring Luke Bryan, Kelsea Ballerini and Darius Rucker. Details for Bryan's contribution are being hammered out, but Ballerini's set will involve exclusive content tied to her upcoming album, and Rucker will be taking over popular station.

According to Beville Dunkerley, Pandora's industry relations director in Nashville, the campaign is essentially a packaging of events already in the works for the fall.  "It all started with Blake Shelton," Dunkerley told The Tennessean. "His camp actually came to me saying Blake wanted to do something special around his next album release."

The online marketing campaign for Fall Into Country was designed to look like an app for a country music festival. If you're a fan of top artists in the genre, you'll likely see the targeted ads, which will include a link to donate in support of victims of the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.

The goal, the company said, is to grow its audience of 60 million country fans (second only to hip-hop) for both its ad-supported radio tier and hopefully entice many to become subscribers to one of its paid tiers.

"Country music is really important for Pandora," CEO Roger Lynch told the Tennessean. "We have over 60 million country listeners of all ages. It's also I think a segment that has been under-represented in streaming. So I think it's a big opportunity as things continue to move forward in streaming for us to continue our leadership position in country."