As Startups Irão Finalmente Deixar As Selos Das Gravadoras Obsoletos?

Will Tech Startups Finally Make Record Labels Obsolete? Not So Fast

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Record labels are irrelevant because they’ve been disrupted by a venture-funded technology start-up. The major labels exploit artists, who can now distribute their music directly to consumers online, plus get the data they need to make money playing concerts, selling merch or doing sponsorships. Sound familiar?

It’s an old joke -- on creators.

The latest telling involves UnitedMasters, a startup run by Steve Stoute, CEO of the marketing company Translation, and funded with $70 million by Google parent company Alphabet, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and 21st Century Fox. UnitedMasters will distribute artists’ music online, apparently without requiring them to sign over copyright. It will use the data it gathers to better target consumers with ads, while artists can use it to better target fans with offers for tickets or t-shirts.

It’s a great story. An old business gets disrupted, a new company is built and artists grow more empowered. Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitztold the Journal that the idea came together at a “Google Camp” event in Italy. And why not? Google co-founder Larry Page “has a deep sensitivity for the artist,” as Stoute told TechCrunch. Artists worried about how little YouTube pays will be happy to hear this.

It’s hard to tell what, exactly, is new here. TuneCore handled online distribution for artists more than a decade ago, and Topspin Media began helping artists reach out to fans directly in 2008. As far as giving creators access to data, both Pandoraand Spotify have been doing it since 2015. (The usefulness of the data varies; knowing you have fans in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco doesn’t make it that much easier to route a tour.) UnitedMasters didn’t respond to questions about how the company will operate and what would set it apart from similar ventures.

So far, startups haven’t really replaced record labels because none of them really do what labels do. Almost two decades ago, Napster said that it would replace labels by distributing music, but labels aren’t exactly in the distribution business -- truck drivers are. (No one gets invited to cool parties by disrupting long-haul trucking.) Several startups help artists market directly to fans, which is becoming an important part of the music business, but labels never really did that -- they’ve always sold music to retailers. From a business perspective, labels invest in artists -- which very few technology companies have shown any interest in doing. Because it’s a risky business.

And that’s what labels really do for artists -- they amortize risk. (They don’t talk about it in those terms because no one gets invited to cool parties by amortizing risk.) The odds of any particular act becoming successful are very low, but those that are can make an enormous amount of money. By signing to a label, artists get money and investment up front -- they sacrifice the possibility of profits for the certainty of getting an advance now. This isn’t for everyone, but it seems to have a great deal of value for some.

The reason recording contracts tend to favor labels is because the odds of any given project earning back its investment are fairly low. Venture capitalists ought to understand this, because their business works the same way -- which is why they offer entrepreneurs deals that favor them. Realistically, if your business is based on making enormous gains from one out of every 10 investments while the rest lose money, you have to structure deals that minimize risk on projects that don’t succeed and maximize gains on ones that do.

Everything else labels do can be replaced. It’s easier than ever to hire talented publicists or promotions or marketing executives -- partly because, over the past two decades, labels have laid off plenty of them. It’s much harder for artists to find a company willing to back them financially. (Many of the acts that now make so much money playing concerts began their live careers with tour support from their labels.) Banks aren’t exactly lining up to give small business loans to rock bands. UnitedMasters doesn’t appear to be in that business, anyway. Like other startups, it’s in the artist services business, which can be a great model, both for companies and creators. But usually -- and there are exceptions, but not many -- it takes at least some investment for artists to develop a career. That’s why TuneCore and Topspin, for all the good they did, didn’t break many important acts.

UnitedMasters, like other artist-services startups, represents another career development option to artists who don’t want a typical label deal. But Alphabet’s investment in the company suggests creators should look at the fine print.

A UnitedMasters blog post about the “music data chasm” makes the case that free streaming, which reaches many more consumers than paid services, can help artists by drawing in fans that they can monetize in other ways. Which, coincidentally or not, is exactly the point that Google has been making for years! There’s certainly some truth to this: Exposure helps artists sell concert tickets. But can’t most potential concertgoers afford a $10/month streaming subscription? And what’s wrong with making money on recorded music and tickets?

If UnitedMasters will determine the payouts its artists receive from streaming services, will it negotiate in their best interests or those of its investor Alphabet? Will Alphabet use YouTube to steer consumers to UnitedMasters artists -- and, if so, does that represent unfair competition? (Legally, probably not in the U.S.) For all its innovations, UnitedMasters isn’t likely change one of the biggest problems in the music business -- the fact that the best side of a deal to be on is still often both of them.

'Fake Artists' No Spotify? Depois de Mais De Um Mês O CEO Fez Comentário

Those 'Fake Artists' on Spotify? Epidemic Sound CEO Oscar Höglund Says There Was 'No Special Deal'

After four months of quiet, Epidemic Sound CEO Oscar Höglund has finally spoken out at length in response to allegations that his company was promoting “fake artists” on Spotify’s playlists, and undercutting licensing fees and royalty payouts to traditional labels.

A production music company based in Sweden, Epidemic Sound was catapulted into controversy in July 2017 when Music Business Worldwide published a list of 50 “fictional” artist names that racked up more than 520 million total streams across multiple Spotify mood playlists, including Peaceful Piano, Ambient Chill and Deep Focus. The initial list of 50 has since grown to several dozen, raising tensions with major labels who accused Spotify of trying to cut content costs at the expense of more public-facing artists and songwriters. As of press time, the mood playlists in question still delegate anywhere from 15 to 65 percent of their real estate to Epidemic artists.

In an interview with Music Ally published yesterday (Nov. 20), Höglund denied that Spotify was commissioning tracks directly from Epidemic for a discounted rate -- a situation that would position Spotify as an exclusive B2B client of the production music company.

"We got in contact with all of the streaming services, and the one that was quickest was Spotify," said Höglund. "There was nothing exclusive about it: they were just fast, and we uploaded our music. No special deal, no back door, no nothing. We just uploaded our music." The CEO also revealed plans for Epidemic to expand its distribution to five to ten more streaming services by January 2018.

Moreover, claimed Höglund, these “fake” artist names are tied to real composers making a viable living -- as much as five figures a month -- off a model that is less traditional but no less legal. According to Höglund, Epidemic  pays composers around £1,500 to £2,000 upfront per track for 100 percent of the rights, plus a 50/50 split on Spotify royalties atop the upfront fee.

The agreement largely seems to be an exchange of recurring revenue for reach: outside of Spotify, Epidemic’s distribution network spans over 300,000 YouTubers, including 85% of all the world’s multi-channel networks and 20 of the top 100 accounts, and generates 20 billion monthly streams across YouTube and Facebook.

Yes, Epidemic’s business model is sound, and reflects a wider reality about how the sustainability of music revenue varies widely across different contexts: public royalty statements on sites like Royalty Exchange suggest that production music for film and TV pays much more consistent royalties over time than hit radio singles or pop catalogs.

In his interview, Höglund criticized incumbent rights holders for not mirroring Epidemic’s level of transparency and efficiency in their contract negotiations. “How does YOUR model work?,” he asked, addressing traditional labels and publishers. “And you get this ‘Well, it’s complicated, it depends, there’s this black box and this data and we don’t know really…’ response. How much does the label take? ‘Well, we don’t want to talk about that really because it varies a lot…’”

Despite his seeming transparency, Höglund glazed over the most serious accusation in the controversy, namely that Spotify was matter-of-factly steering a high volume of listeners to music for which they paid lower fees. Even if Spotify had no malicious intention, the fact remains that not all content costs are the same -- as a Spotify rep told Billboard, "it's a marketplace" -- and that the major-label and established indie content for which Spotify presumably pays a premium is losing out on some of the service’s most popular playlist brands.

For example, in February 2017, Spotify’s Ambient Chill playlist, which has over 505,000 followers as of press time, switched out 16 tracks by established electronic acts such as Brian Eno and Bibio for 28 songs by Epidemic Sound artists, according to Chartmetric. Eight of those tracks were removed from the playlist on April 15, 2017 for unknown reasons, but that still left a 38 percent share of the playlist dedicated to Epidemic’s roster at the time. According to TrackRecord, that share has since ballooned to 65%.

Critics claim that by prioritizing Epidemic’s catalog on playlists like Ambient Chill, both major and indie artists (as well as other unknown artists) end up making less money per stream due to Spotify’s pro rata royalty payout model. In fact, in the aggregate, major labels don’t perform that well on mood playlists anyway: for instance, according to Chartmetric, the big three account only for 4 percent of Ambient Chill, 6 percent of Deep Focus and less than 1 percent of Workday Lounge.

There are a few notable exceptions: Warner Music alone owns a whopping 41 out of 62 tracks (a 66 percent share) on Reading Chillout, Universal Music owns 18 percent of Calm Vibes and the major labels collectively own 49 percent of Peaceful Piano. Spotify renewed its licensing deal with Warner Music in August 2017 -- just months after the fake-artists fiasco first blew up, which likely put pressures on the service not to squeeze out major-label content with other offerings.

A harsh reality that emerges from this debate is that Spotify and its competitors are fundamentally tech companies that commodify and product-ize music -- and arguably prize those content owners who can tailor their products to the platform at hand. As a Spotify rep told Billboard, "all of our playlists are performance-based. The user experience comes first."

In this vein, Höglund argued that Epidemic Sound's success on Spotify is simply a matter of beating other legacy content owners at their own game, by leveraging Spotify's unique features and strengths for what they're truly worth. “We don’t have any legacy, we’ve come from a new world, and we’re creating a new premise for how we think it should work," he said. "We’re utilising all the latest technological advances and services out there to make something super-efficient in terms of getting music out there, and getting people paid. If you compare that to the old world, it’s like night and day. And there is nothing fake about it.”

'Loudwire Music Awards' No AXS - UM Ganho Para Loudwire E O Heavy Metal

'Loudwire Music Awards' On AXS A Win For Loudwire And Heavy Metal

First of all thanks to Steve Baltin for this article.

On October 24 some of the biggest names in hard rock and heavy metal gathered at Los Angeles’ Novo Theater for the first annual Loudwire Music Awards. Fans saw a mix of cross-generational metal acts, from iconic artists like Judas Priest’ Rob Halford, winner of the Lemmy Lifetime Achievement Award, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iomni, recipient of the Courage Award, and Sammy Hagar, Humanitarian Award, to more contemporary artists like Avenged Sevenfold, who closed the night with a four-song concert after winning Metal Album Of The Year for The Stage, and Halestorm.

The show aired live on Mark Cuban’s AXS TV, making the real winners of the night the genre of heavy metal and metal website Loudwire, whose Josh Bernstein produced the event after years producing Revolver magazine’s Golden Gods awards.

“The reality is if you’re a current hard rock or heavy metal musician the opportunities to be on broadcast TV in 2017 are pretty limited,” Bernstein says. “Every once in a while you might get to be on Jimmy Kimmel or maybe one of the late night shows. The opportunities are very few and far between, so to have a network the stature of AXS giving us that opportunity and that sort of public voice is incredible. It means the world to these artists.”

Hagar, who as mentioned took home the Humanitarian Award and hosts the show Rock & Roll Road Trip on AXS, loves the marriage between the network and the show for the opportunity it provides young hard rock bands.

“Social media and TV, if used properly, is the most valuable tool on the planet because in the old days before you had computers and even cell phones and all those things a band would go on tour for three years before anybody had heard of them. And then here comes MTV and all of a sudden overnight you’ve got a Duran Duran and one of the biggest bands in the world with one hit because of the power of TV,” Hagar points out. “If you use that power properly I think it’s fantastic. My favorite band from the night was Halestorm. They opened for me at a festival in Kansas City earlier on in the year, back in June, and I interviewed them for Rock And Roll Road Trip. And Lzzy [Hale] is a real star, she screams her butt off and plays guitar and gives it up on stage. They’re a real band, they don’t have backing tracks, they’re just out there rocking hard. I like bands like that and I love seeing them be able to get exposure on TV so they don’t have to tour the world for three or four years before anybody hears of them.”

For AXS, picking up the show and giving a home to metal, which remains one of the biggest live draws as evidenced by the success of the Guns ‘N’ Roses and Metallica tours, No 1 and 4 for 2017 with 151.5 and 88 million respectively at the halfway point of the year, was an easy decision.

“Heavy Metal is one of the most underserved genres on television, despite its massive and dedicated fanbase that spans all across the globe,” said Evan Haiman, vice president of music programming and production, AXS TV. “By airing the 2017 Loudwire Music Awards, we wanted to tap into that audience and give them a chance to celebrate this dynamic and diverse art form on a grand scale. This year’s event had added significance for us, as AXS TV host Sammy Hagar was presented with the Humanitarian Award for his many philanthropic projects. It was a true honor to showcase one of our own, as he accepted this achievement.”

After Bernstein departed the Golden Gods Awards show to produce the more alternative and pop-leaning AP (Alternative Press) Music Awards, the former disappeared, so Bernstein was happy to be brought in by Loudwire parent company Townsquare Media to give metal another spotlight show.

“The Golden Gods went out of business and ceased to be, which is unfortunate,” he says. “And the drum always beat pretty loud for me within the industry to sort of come back and do something. So when I got offered the job at Townsquare Media the first thing they wanted me to do was build and create the ultimate hard rock and heavy metal show in America. In many ways Loudwire is taking the place of the Golden Gods, but building on what Loudwire has done and celebrating the genre.”

He was also excited by the cross-promotional opportunities Townsquare Media offers. “I always describe Townsquare as the best kept media secret in the business,” he says. “They have three main verticals – the first being radio, they are the third-largest owner and operator of radio stations in the country; they have a very robust live events business, including country festivals, state and county fairs; then the other part of their portfolio is the 20 or so massive digital brands, mostly that focus on music, including Loudwire, XXL, Taste Of Country, Ultimate Classic Rock and each of those is, in many cases, the number one or number two websites for their respective music genres. My role was to come in here and connect all the dots between all the different divisions. And a perfect example is this awards show. We have the Loudwire website, we have Loudwire Nights, which is a syndicated radio show and then we have a live events division that wasn’t really tied to that. So I kind of came in and created a live events property out of a digital brand and then looped in our radio brand so we can all work in synergy here. And it worked out really wonderfully.”

For Hagar, who admits he was embarrassed at first at being presented an award for his philanthropy just because he doesn’t believe charity work should be done for the credit and glory, it was a very special night for both he and the genre.

“Standing backstage the day of the show with all these people who started coming up to me and saying, Congratulations, dude, I’m such a fan, can I take a picture? I started feeling pretty good about myself,” he says. “They were all so friendly and so cool about it by the time I walked out onstage I felt really good. And it was so awesome, I got choked up being up there telling the story of how it really started, back in the Van Halen days when it was the Make A Wish Foundation in Indianapolis and some little nine-year-old boy named Steven, they brought him to the show and he was a Sammy Hagar guy. They said he’d watch MTV all day waiting for my videos or me and Van Halen so, so would I mind going down to see him at the hospital? I get there and it was heartbreaking. So having an experience like that tightens the bolts down pretty tight.”

It was also important for the genre of metal to present a humanitarian award and people to see the good work done in that world. “Especially metal bands like Metallica,” he says of other acts doing philanthropic work in the metal scene. “James Hetfield’s my partner for five years now with Acoustic For A Cure and when I asked him to do it he said, ‘I’ve really been thinking a lot about this lately. So everyone comes around to it.”

Música No Reino Unido Reclama Dos Impostos

UK Music Calls for Government to Scrap Tax Hikes to Help Save Grassroots Venues

A large number of British music venues will struggle to survive if a planned hike in business tax rates goes ahead, warns umbrella organization UK Music.

The trade body’s chief executive Michael Dugher is urging the British government to reconsider plans to increase business rates by 4 percent in 2018 and instead to work with the music industry to help safeguard its future.

“The margins that many music businesses operate within means that even the slightest increase in costs can create a significant challenge,” wrote Dugher in a letter to Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, ahead of next week’s budget announcement.

Business rates are taxes paid on non-residential properties in the U.K., such as shops, offices, live music venues and recording studios, calculated on a building’s market rent value.

The rates are set each year by the government (based on figures from the Office for National Statistics) and are presently due to rise by 3.9 percent -- equivalent to around £1 billion ($1.4 billion) -- in April 2018.

If that increase goes ahead, many grassroots venues throughout the U.K. will be forced to close, said Dugher, pointing to the “woefully unjust” tax rises that music companies have already received in 2017.

According to UK Music research, The Lexington, a 200-capacity venue in London, saw its business rates jump by 118 percent in 2017. In contrast, Arsenal football club’s 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium received a 7 percent cut.

Other small venues in the U.K. have experienced tax hikes of between 20 and 70 percent this year, with British arenas also seeing large rises, including a 141 percent increase for London’s The O2 arena.

Record labels, publishers and recording studios are also affected by any climb in business rates, with UK Music calculating that London’s Abbey Road and Air Studios both saw their "rateable value" rocket by over 30 percent this year.    

“The Chancellor must rethink these changes which are woefully unjust and could have a potentially catastrophic impact on some music venues and recording studios,” stated Dugher.

He went on to say that the Chancellor “should use his Budget to make sure the venues and studios that gave artists like Adele, The Beatles and Oasis their big break are not put under threat because of soaring rate bills.”

According to the Music Venue Trust, 35 percent of grassroots music venues across the U.K. have closed since 2007, with London hit particularly hard by increases to rents, business rates and licensing restrictions. Famous venues that have closed their doors in the past decade include The Marquee, Astoria, 12 Bar Club and Madame Jojo's.

Apple Atrasa O Lançamento 'Smart Speaker'

Apple Delays Release of HomePod Smart Speaker: 'We Need a Little More Time'

Saying it needs "a little more time" before it's ready, Apple has delayed the release of the tech giant's much-anticipated HomePod smart speaker until after the holidays. The speaker was announced in June at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference and is priced at $349.

The HomePod had been scheduled to ship in December, in time to compete with the Amazon Echo, Google Home and Sonos during the holiday speaker shopping rush. That will have to wait until "early" next year, though the company did not give a specific date for the eventual release.

"We can’t wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple’s breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers," the company said in a statement on Friday. "We'll start shipping in the US, UK and Australia in early 2018."

Read more: Apple's iTunes Division Touts Record $8.5B Revenue

Information about the speaker has been dripping out since its unveiling in June. On an earnings call on Aug. 1, the HomePod was said to have “incredible sound unlike any on the market" and is designed to work especially well with an Apple Music subscription -- an emphasis that has led to speculation that it won't support third party apps. The company notably didn't mention the HomePod during its big product special event in September, instead focusing on new iPhones and a music-friendly Apple Watch.

Russia! 'Yandex.Music Streaming Service' Sacode O Mercado

Yandex.Music Streaming Service Becomes Russia's Top Non-Game App

The mobile app of a leading Russian music streaming service, Yandex.Music, has landed the country's biggest non-game mobile app in revenue, based on sales in App Store and Google Play, according to a recent report by App Annie.

App Annie would not reveal the actual revenue figure, and similarly, Yandex, "the Russian Google," which runs Yandex.Music, doesn't do separate accounting for the streaming service.

However, Yandex.Music app has been installed between 10 million and 50 million times from Google Play so far, compared with between 1 million and 5 million installations of the app of Zvooq, the closest homegrown competitor to Yandex.Music.

The Yandex.Music app has been gaining momentum since the previous study by App Annie, released in January 2017. Back then, Yandex.Music was in fourth place.

In total, Yandex.Music had 250,000 subscribers in Russia as of early 2017, the most recent available figure. According to local media reports, Apple Music has over 600,000 and Google Play Music around 100,000, but neither Apple nor Google have confirmed those numbers.

The Yandex.Music app can be downloaded for free, and users of the streaming service are charged 1,690 rubles ($29) a year or 169 rubles ($2.9) a month after a 30-day trial period.

However, Yandex.Music is likely to face more severe competition in the future as Yandex' major competitor, Mail.Ru Group, which runs social networking websites VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, also recently launched a streaming music service, Boom. It also runs apps available from the App Store and Google Play.

Currently, Yandex.Music has over 35 million tracks in its catalog and attracts a monthly audience of over 20 million users.

Earlier this year, it became Russia's first music streaming service to enter an integration deal with Facebook, under which users will be able to share 30-second excerpts from music tracks they stream with their friends on the social network.

YouTube Lança Competição Mundial De 'Best.Cover.Ever' - Veja Vídeo

YouTube Kicks Off 'Best.Cover.Ever' Series With Demi Lovato, Katy Perry and Jason Derulo

YouTube Launches 

YouTube has long been the place where aspiring singer/songwriters have uploaded videos of themselves performing in their bedrooms with the hopes of following in the footsteps of Justin Bieber and being discovered. A new series hosted by the platform itself is helping to give these wishful artists the recognition that they hope for. On Nov. 20th, YouTube will premiere Best.Cover.Ever., a global singing competition that allows musicians to submit cover performances to their favorite artists in the hopes of being selected to perform alongside their idols.

The show, which is executive produced by Ryan Seacrest Productions and Endemol Shine North America, put out a call to artists around the world, challenging them to cover a song by one of the Best.Cover.Ever. season one superstars: Katy Perry, Demi Lovato, Jason Derulo, Charlie Puth, Keith Urban, Backstreet Boys, Flo Rida, Nicky Jam, Bebe Rexha and DNCE.

The established stars then sat down and helped to choose two finalists whose cover videos they were most impressed by. The finalists were flown to the YouTube Space in Los Angeles where they are given the chance to perform for their idol. The stakes are high, as the winner from each episode is given the opportunity to duet on the show with their favorite superstar.

According to Ludacris, the show's official host, the premise is unlike anything we've seen from popular talent search competitions such as American Idol, The Voice, or America's Got Talent.

"It's an interesting way of bringing new talent, not only to meet their idols but also to put the spotlight on them so they can help further their career," he tells Billboard. "You have the competition aspect, the music aspect, the finding a star aspect, and the people meeting their idol aspect."

And the submissions, according to the rapper, were definitely unique. "Covers have long been popular but these artists are really stepping it up -- playing with the arrangement of the song, melodies and everything," he says. Ludacris cites a group that performed on the show as an example. "They took a Keith Urban country song and made it fit to their R&B style." He adds that fans of the stars that the episodes center around will also enjoy watching the emerging talent challenge their idols to step out of the box and tackle new renditions of their songs during the winners' collaborations.

The show is something that YouTube's global head of original content, Susanne Daniels, has been wanting to make for some time. "Ryan Seacrest brought this pitch to me when I was at MTV, two and a half years ago," she says. "We couldn't work out the deal there but when I went to YouTube, Ryan was my first call and we realized the show works perfectly on YouTube for a myriad of reasons -- fans love music on YouTube, fans love covers on YouTube, and the platform allowed for the submission process to be interactive -- we could have them upload their covers on the site and enlist the artists to do call outs on their channels to inspire the fans to enter."

Those call outs were well received. "We got submissions from tens of thousands of artists from all over the world," Daniels discloses, noting that finalists traveled to the Los Angeles set from as far away as Australia, Latvia, and the Philippines to participate in the series.

Twenty-one year old Katy Perry fan, Riley Biederer was one of them. "I'm a YouTube cover artist. I'm fairly active on YouTube. I saw the video asking for submissions and decided to go for it," she explains.

The Atlanta-based singer/songwriter's acoustic cover of "Firework" was hand selected by Perry and she was then flown to California as one of two finalists competing to impress the star. While she's hoping that the show will boost her exposure as an artist, for Biederer, the best part of the process was the chance to talk shop with her idol. "She gave me some cool advice -- to stay true to the writing roots of where I cam from," the contestant says, of meeting Perry. "It was really cool to have someone that you've looked up to and listened to for so many years tell you that they are inspired by your craft and are pushing you to continue to do what you love. I'm more inspired to push forward with my music now than ever before," she proclaims.

Southern California's Undecided Future, who call themselves a "future, funk, R&B band," had an equally positive experience as finalists on the Jason Derulo episode. The band put their own unique spin on "Trumpets," and were given the chance to perform in front of the song's performer himself.

While he was unable to divulge how far they made it in the competition at this time, drummer Matisse Pasillas did reveal that meeting Derulo armed the band with a behind the scenes look at the business side of the industry as well as tips on how to perfect its stage moves. "He taught us how to be confident while performing and to have fun," he says.

Undecided Future's experience with Derulo will air on November 20th in the first batch of released episodes and the group is already preparing for the aftermath. "We're releasing a song in December called 'Intoxicated.' We're looking at the future now. We really want to continue to build on this exposure that this show has brought us and run with it," says keyboardist/vocalist Nick Stone. "And it was all because of a cover song."

Ludacris tells Billboard that aspiring artists should never underestimate the power of a cover tune. "I got my start doing covers of LL Cool J's 'I'm Bad' in a talent show when I was 9 or 10-year-old," he says, nothing that if Best.Cover.Ever. was around in his early career days, he would have jumped at the chance to partake. "I'd absolutely be submitting an LL or Outkast cover!" he exclaims.

"YouTube is one of the best places to discover new music and new artists from all over the world," says Daniels. "Best.Cover.Ever. is designed to discover the next big artists only on YouTube. We hope that this is an opportunity for these emerging artists to take their careers to the next level, not only by giving them a worldwide audience through the show, but also by providing them with invaluable advice from the superstar artists."

Best.Cover.Ever premieres with its first three episodes, featuring Jason Derulo, Demi Lovato, and Katy Perry, on November 20th on the show's official YouTube page.