music industry

As part of Ernie Ball's PLAY Warped Tour Youtube Series, New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert gives advice on promoting a band, and the first thing he mentions is to call the job itself promoting—not marketing. “You're not a marketer. It shouldn't feel like an office job, it's not,” he says. “Promote your band, promote […]

[Photo credit: Christos Katsiaouni] What do you do when your local punk scene is all you know? Make a living out of it. Tony Rettman was just another kid at the show, now he’s a bonafide hardcore scholar. He’s published two books, Why Be Something That You’re Not: Detroit Hardcore 1979-1985 and New York Hardcore: 1980-1990, […]

[Photo credit: Christina Johns] Simply put, Jamie Coletta loves music. She grew up listening to New Found Glory and Brand New, and her grade school notebooks are probably covered in fantastically emo lyrics. But Coletta didn’t want to just listen and enjoy, she wanted to be a part of the process. After investing in a […]

Berklee offers a pretty kickass way for high-schoolers to spend their summer: at its Five-Week Summer Performance Program, based in Boston. A summer spent at the college is a taste of what it’d be like to attend Berklee. It’s also an opportunity to join the ranks of music industry professionals who have been at the […]

Jake Carruthers is a 22-year-old illustrator from Toronto who has created album art and T-shirt designs for many of the scene’s hottest acts—August Burns Red, Real Friends and Neck Deep are all in his repertoire. AP sat down to talk with him about his inspirations, what it’s like working with musicians and advice for starting […]

In part five of our Good Charlotte Musicians Institute Conversation Series, which features a guest appearance by Jessie J, we open up questions to the audience who inquire about touring, band life and the industry ins-and-outs. The video kicks off with a student’s question about allocating jobs and picking your crew members when going on […]

Sleeping With Sirens are the latest artists to participate in our MI Conversation series where AP Senior Editor Ryan J. Downey goes in-depth with the band in front of a live audience. Each member of the band talks about their musical origins: early influences,  introductions to music, how they started playing, first bands, old local scenes […]

Every wonder what it’s like representing some of the biggest bands in the scene? Here's your chance to find out! CreativeLive talks with Dave Shapiro—booking agent for A Day To Remember, Issues and many more—about his experience in the music industry.  “I feel a personal resposibility and obligation to these people,” says Shapiro. “They trusted me with […]

The New Yorker has ran a fascinating story about Bennie Glover, a (former) CD factory worker whose job involved packaging albums from some of the biggest artists in the world. Glover was considered the top leaker from the early, influential music/piracy group RNS—then called “the most pervasive and infamous Internet piracy group in history”—which leaked […]

Forget the music industry’s standard Tuesday album release day. A recent study ran by Digital Music News found that 68 percent of fans say albums from their favorite artists should be released on Friday or Saturday. Well, we want to know what you think: Which day of the week should new albums be released on? […]

As we reported last August, the idea of the music industry moving the global album release day to Fridays (instead of the traditional Tuesdays) was picking up some steam. Today, head of International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry (IFPI), Frances Moore, has confirmed that “by the summer this year new releases will be issued at 00:01 on Fridays.” “Music […]

Composer/producer PJ Wassermann recently wrote an article for Digital Music News, where he revealed the low amount of income he earned from YouTube ads. Wassermann asks, “How is a musician supposed to make a living with this kind of payout?” He then reveals his payout, or lack thereof: “151,781 views with 681,104 minutes playtime in […]

As CD sales and digital downloads continue to decline, vinyl remains one of the bright spots in the music industry—up 52 percent in 2014, according to Nielsen. Vinyl sales are likely to keep growing in 2015 (some of the pressing plants literally can’t keep up), so it only make sense that new services will spring […]

A recent study published in the PLOS One journal examines how a particular style of music’s complexity increases or decreases over time with respect to album sales. The study found that “album sales of a given style typically increase with decreasing instrumentational complexity,” which can be seen as “music becoming increasingly formulaic in terms of […]

The data created by music streaming, buying and sharing is being sucked up in a giant vacuum by the music industry. Now, more than ever, this data is being used to influence the creation of music and discover the next “big hits.” So far, it’s been very effective—a rare silver lining of the music industry […]

In an interesting display of transparency, indie musical duo Pomplamoose wrote a detailed article, describing what it took financially to go on a 28-day tour. To sum it up, the band made $135,983 in revenue and incurred $147,802 in expenses. So they lost $11,819. Ouch.   RELATED: How not to spend $150,000 on a 28-day […]

In a recent article, Mashable took a look at why all pop songs clock in around the three-minute mark. Author Yahana Desta points out the top three songs currently on the Billboard 200—Taylor Swift's “Shake It Off” (3:39 minutes), Meghan Trainor's “All About that Bass” (3:08 minutes) and Maroon 5's “Animal” (3:49 minutes). First, there’s […]

Things haven’t been looking too bright for the music industry lately: Digital downloads are dropping, CDs are archaic and streaming services like Spotify aren’t paying artists enough. While the internet has lowered the barriers of entry for bands, it hasn’t helped them earn a significant stake in the financial rewards. The distribution of wealth among […]

As earlier discussed, YouTube will be launching a music streaming service called YouTube Music Key. The beta version will be released on Monday of next week. Once it’s open to the public (sometime in 2015), you’ll be able to enjoy ad-free music and videos for $10 a month. The company said in a blog post, […]

 A few years ago, the Atlantic ran this really interesting graph that gives you a better sense of how musicians actually make money. The graph looks at everything from physical CD sales to digital downloads to streaming and charts the amount an artist would have to sell to actually earn the monthly U.S. minimum wage […]