Tag Archives: Music

New Report Reaffirms TikTok’s Influence On Music Streaming



A report commissioned by TikTok confirms what we’ve all known since the social media platform went mainstream in 2020: TikTok drives music streaming, Mashable reported.

Conducted by entertainment data and research company Luminate, the “Music Impact Report” boasts TikTok’s positive influence on the music industry. It found TikTok users are twice as likely to find and share new music on social and short-form video platforms. This finding is unsurprising considering songs often go viral on the platform as part of challenges that encourage viewers to make their own videos featuring the song.

According to Mashable, the “Music Impact Report” shared that TikTok engagement correlates with increased streaming numbers. This finding combined with TikTok’s new partnership with Spotify and Amazon Music “TikTok Music” – suggest the app aimed to further ingrain itself in the music industry.

Billboard reported that the study, commissioned by TikTok and conducted by Luminate, is full of statistics demonstrating TikTok’s power. First and foremost: “Higher TikTok engagement – whether that’s likes, views, or shares – corresponds with elevated streaming volumes.”

According to Billboard, this is why labels have been pestering their acts to post, post more, and post again, sometimes to their artists’ chagrin. On top of that, U.S. TikTokers “are nearly twice as likely to discover music on short-form video platforms than the average user of social media or social-form video platforms,” according to the study’s analysis.

Artists and labels all know that TikTok can galvanize an audience to share and stream and buy; what thy don’t know is how to trigger that activity. Spend on ads? Pay influencers? Pray? And maddeningly, even when songs do go viral on the app, some of them don’t turn into streaming hits at all.

Musically reported reported the findings from the report include the claim that TikTok users are “significantly more likely” to use a paid music streaming service than the average consumer, and that they spend “significantly more money” on music products (for example, merch and tickets) than the average listener.

While this isn’t quantified globally, the report does provide US stats. There, 62% of TikTok users pay for a streaming service compared to 43% of consumers over all.

Meanwhile, 38% of TikTok’s American users attended a live music event and 45% bought artist merch in the last year, compared to 33% and 35% respectively for overall music listeners.

The report also claims that TikTok users “have a stronger preference for international music than the average music listener.” That’s based on their answers to a question about whether they see ‘access to music by global artists’ as being extremely important for their choice of streaming service. 28% of TikTok’s US users said yes compared to 21% of overall listeners.

Considering all of this, it seems to me that there are a whole lot of music fans that prefer to listen to music on TikTok than on other music streaming services. This group also buys merchandise and tickets to music concerts.


Raycon introduces new Power Speaker and Boombox at CES



Music is important to most of us, although our tastes vary, sometimes greatly. From pop, rock and country to classical, Celtic and reggae, we’re all over the map, but all want good sound and sometimes we want it loud. Raycon has unveiled at CES 2022 its new sources for listening to all of your tunes. 

First up is the Power Speaker Ultra, which lets you bring the club wherever you go, with awe-inspiring lighting effects, customizable EQ and multi-link mode for connecting additional speakers.  

Old school looks meet new school sound quality in the Power Boombox, with four audio modes, eight hours of sound and LED party lights wrapped in a spill-resistant case. 

Release dates for these two products have not been announced yet, however, pricing has been, with the speaker carrying a tag of $399.99 and the boombox weighing in at $99.99. You can keep an eye out for both Raycon. 

 


Amazon Music and Ring still out of reach due AWS outage



It’s been a bad day for folks who wanted to chill with music, holiday tunes or not. At least if you’re were relying on Amazon Music to provide the tunes. It could be downright scary if you’re relying on Ring services, also owned by Amazon. Ring handles security and one business we spoke with noted that only nine of its 16 cameras were operational, those are the wired ones. The wireless are useless for the time being.

Both services operate under AWS, a high-end cloud-computing system that runs some of the largest systems in the world. Generally, it’s considered reliable and consistent. As of now, Amazon’s latest status update reads:

[2:04 PM PST] We have executed a mitigation which is showing significant recovery in the US-EAST-1 Region. We are continuing to closely monitor the health of the network devices and we expect to continue to make progress towards full recovery. We still do not have an ETA for full recovery at this time

We will continue to monitor the situation and keep you informed.


Amazon Music goes down for the holidays, or at least for now



Haul out the holly. Oh, wait. Are you also one of those people that decorates the house to music? Or just like to keep the holiday spirits up during the season? Well, if you use Amazon Music for that, then your home or office is a very quiet place this morning. 

A short time ago the software and retail giant which provides one of the most popular music services available has gone down. Amazon has gained a large market share thanks to also being the creator of one of the most popular home listening devices, the Amazon Echo, or Alexa, as it prefers to be known. 

This is proving a weird one. The outage is apparently not widespread. We’ve sent a question to Amazon and are awaiting responses, which we’ll pass along when received. We’re also receiving some reports of Ring, also an Amazon property, also being down.

In the meantime, a steady stream of people continue to complain about the outage of Twitter. Come on Amazon, don’t play Grinch to some customers today. 


LP Pop Culture Remix



Movies and music have been lynch-pins of popular culture going back to the middle of the 20th century, capturing and delivering on the zeitgeist of a generation. Many films and albums have become iconic, instantly recognisable from a scene, a track or an album cover…which makes them ripe for a send-up.

Steven Lear (aka whythelongplayface) takes on these sacred cows with some fantastic mashups of film characters and album cover art. Star Wars provides rich pickings and his Instagram account is full of album covers with characters from the films inserted into the scenes. Yoda as the baby in Nirvana’s Nevermind. Leia and Han Solo in John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy. massive at-at rather than massive attack. All instantly recognisable.

 

If you click through on the revised album covers in Instagram, Steven shows both his version and the original that inspired it.

  

Star Wars isn’t the only source of material – there are remixes from all across the film and LP canon. If there’s anything you particularly like, T-shirts and posters can be ordered via http://www.whythelongplayface.com/.

All images courtesy of Steven Lear.


Jingle All The Way with a Bluetooth Bauble Speaker



Looking for the final decoration to finish off dressing your O Christmas Tree? Well take a look, or rather a listen, to the Accelerate Holiday Tunes bauble with Bluetooth speaker. Connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth and instead of a Silent Night you’ll be Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. The decoration comes in four different colours – Red, Gold, Green and Silver Bells.

The 200 mAh battery will Jingle Bells for about two hours before needing a charge via the supplied USB cable. There’s a microUSB charging port on the back and it takes a similar amount time recharge. You could go for a Sleigh Ride while you’re waiting.

Avoiding a Blue Christmas is straightforward. Hold down the power button to put the bauble into pairing mode and look for HOLIDAY TUNES in the Bluetooth settings of your smartphone. Once paired up, any music played on the phone from Spotify, Amazon Music, iTunes, etc. will come out the Holiday Tunes bauble. It’s not worth Driving Home for Christmas just to hear the music but the sound quality’s better than you’d imagine. There’s a hanging loop for putting the bauble on the tree.

The Holiday Tunes bauble is available from Amazon.co.uk, priced at around GB£12-£15 (the price changes a little). You may find it cheaper in store too – try Home Bargains. It’s kitsch Christmas fun so even if it’s a White Christmas and It’s Cold Outside, you’ll have a Holly Jolly Christmas with your favourite tunes.

More in the YouTube video below. It really is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Disclaimer: This was a personal purchase.


iHeartRadio takes a trip south



When it comes to streaming music services, there’s no shortage of ones to choose from. Only a few have become big names – Pandora, Spotify and those run by major companies like Apple, Google and Amazon. Another popular one is iHeartRadio.

Now iHeartRadio is taking a trip south of the border, as the company announces its foray into Mexico. This is a team effort as the company is working with Grupo ACIR,.

“iHeartRadio México is available now in beta and will officially launch November 3 at the iHeartRadio Fiesta Latina so get excited! To listen now, music lovers across México can download the iHeartRadio app via Apple App Store or Google Play Store and listen online at iHeartRadio.mx“, the steaming service claims.

To celebrate the launch of iHeartRadio Mexico, Grupo ACIR will award a lucky music fan a once-in-a-lifetime VIP experience at the fifth annual iHeartRadio Fiesta Latina in Miami on November 3, Good luck in the contest.