February 2021

Spotify expands into 80+ new countries

27/02/2021

Spotify expands into 80+ new countries making its subscription service available to an extra billion people. The announcement was made this week in an online event called ‘Stream On’. Local content will be added and an additional 36 languages will be supported. As part of our ongoing commitment to building a truly borderless audio ecosystem – connecting creators, listeners, and content – Spotify is embarking on a sweeping expansion that will introduce the world’s most […]

SOURCE: RIAA - US music industry streaming revenues

US music revenues grew 9.2% in 2020

27/02/2021

US music revenues grew 9.2% in 2020 to $12.2 Bn making it the fifth consecutive year of growth for the industry despite the pandemic according to the RIAA. Paid subscription services continued to be the primary driver of revenue increases, and reached a record number of subscriptions. Streaming music’s share of total revenues grew to 83%. Covid-19 affected the industry significantly through tour cancellations, retail store closures, and other disruptions. Revenues from recorded music measured […]

How to sort Spotify favourites by genre and mood

26/02/2021

Spotify is rolling out a new way for its listeners to easily sort their ‘Liked Songs’ collection for every mood and moment through new Genre and Mood filters. With this new feature, listeners with at least 30 tracks in their collections will be able to filter their favourite songs by up to 15 personalized mood and genre categories. Here’s how to turn on (and off) the new filters Go to ‘Your Library’ and tap on […]

Deezer launches Japanese music channel

24/02/2021

Deezer launches Japanese music channel which includes J-pop and City Pop as well as ambient sounds and gaming soundtracks. The dedicated channel brings fans a selection of playlists that capture the sounds and culture of Japan, ranging from J-pop and J-rock to Onsen and meditation. The Japanese Music channel follows a huge boom in streams across a variety of Japanese genres on Deezer. Its Japan Lo-fi & Chill playlist grew an astonishing 705% in November 2020, […]

Spotify to launch HiFi plan

23/02/2021

Spotify to launch HiFi plan in selected markets beginning later this year in CD Quality Lossless streaming. The announcement was made this week in an online event called ‘Stream On’. The new service will be called Spotify HiFi and the streamer offered the following five things about their new high quality music experience. High-quality music streaming is consistently one of the most requested new features by Spotify users. Spotify HiFi will deliver music in CD Quality, […]

Radio Sing Sing

21/02/2021

Radio Sing Sing is a French community internet radio station in Saint Malo, Brittany offering a range of streams ranging from MP3, AAC, AAC+, Opus, Ogg and two CD Quality Lossless FLAC streams, one with metadata and one without. According to the station: “From its creation in 2001, Sing Sing’s vocation was to introduce new talents through concerts, broadcast live, and that in exceptional places… the Cancalaise beaches, Saint Suliac on the banks of the […]

Kodi v19.0 Matrix released

20/02/2021

Kodi v19.0 Matrix released and is available on all supported platforms with the exception of the Windows Store build for Xbox which is still in development but expected soon. For audio and music lovers, there are significant improvements across the board to metadata handling: library improvements, new tags, new displays, and improvements to how Kodi handles release dates, album durations, and multi-disc sets. There’s a new, Matrix-inspired visualisation, improvements to the display when fetching files […]