Want to eat like the kings of K-pop? On Wednesday (May 26th) morning, McDonald’s started serving the “BTS Meal” — 10 chicken nuggets, medium fries, a medium Coke, and sweet chili and cajun dipping sauces inspired by recipes from McDonald’s South Korea. The meal release will be followed at 7 …
Read More »Amid 'Driver's License' Craze, Spotify's Canvas Tool Launches Out of Beta
In just a couple months, Olivia Rodrigo has shattered multiple records with her breakout hit, “Driver’s License,” from scoring the biggest debut in Rolling Stone 100 chart history to netting the greatest first-day streams of any artist. So it’s fitting that “Driver’s License,” whose Canvas art on Spotify also garnered …
Read More »Here's Where You Can Donate to Help Struggling Music-Industry Workers
It’s been nearly a year since Covid-19 essentially shut down concert tours — the financial backbone of most working musicians – in the United States and beyond. As a result, thousands of musicians and touring professionals, many of whom work as nonunion independent contractors, are still out of work and …
Read More »How South Africa's 'Jerusalema' Became a Global Hit Without Ever Having to Be Translated
Just around 10 million people speak isiZulu, a language out of South Africa. So how did a song in the little-known dialect become a hit with billions of people around the world? The song in question is “Jerusalema,” created by 24-year-old Limpopo native Master KG with the vocals of singer …
Read More »Neil Young's Great, Lost 1975 Album 'Homegrown' is Finally Here. It Was Worth the Wait
One Los Angeles evening in 1975, Neil Young gathered a few friends together at the Chateau Marmont to play them some music. He had two new albums in the can, and wasn’t sure which one to release. Sitting inside the same bungalow that John Belushi would die in just seven …
Read More »How Chvrches Scored the Netflix Deal of the Music Industry's Dreams
The third season of Netflix‘sElite, a Spanish-language drama centered around the secret machinations of teens at a private high school, kicks off with a scene overlaid by Chvrches‘ synth-pop song “Forever.” As plot lines unfurl across eight episodes, the song rears its head again, and again — and again, marking …
Read More »At Work With Barry Weiss, CEO of RECORDS
This is the seventh installment of Rolling Stone’s series At Work, in which we explore the fast-changing music business from the perspective of a different industry leader each week. Read earlier pieces in the series here. Veteran music executive Barry Weiss is a difficult man to Google, with everything from …
Read More »Eminem's Oscars Surprise Gave Him the Best-Selling Song in the Country
While it took the folks in the room at Sunday night’s Oscars a moment to register the fact that Eminem was actually there, performing his 2002 hit “Lose Yourself” — particularly Idina Menzel — his performance ended with an uproarious standing ovation. The reaction among music fans was similar: Sales …
Read More »Amazon Music Is Growing Three Times as Fast as Spotify
When Amazon rolled out a standalone music-streaming service in 2016, the music business largely dismissed it as yet another Spotify clone, entering far too late in the game. But the e-commerce company’s efforts in music are quietly shaping up to be major drivers in the industry. Days after Amazon enlisted …
Read More »DIY Artists Will Earn More than $1 Billion This Year. No Wonder the Major Labels Want Their Business
Slowly but surely, independent artists are devouring the recorded-music industry. This, at least, is the view from the major labels, who are watching self-releasing or “DIY” acts gobbling up increasing percentages of global market share — to this day, still a primary performance indicator for the likes of Universal Music …
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