The rapper capped a week of festivities with a lavish New York celebration — complete with designer gifts and a $1 million game show.
Bowers & Wilkins are positioning the Pi8 earphones against AirPods Pro 3. Should they be? I have always viewed Bowers & Wilkins as a high end consumer headphone brand, so I was excited to check out their true wireless competitor to the AirPods Pro.
Also this week: Drake finances a new album for a Canadian rapper and Tate McRae's Victoria's Secret performance draws criticism.
Chris Brown producer Ishmael Montague has filed a nearly $1.25 million lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment (SME) for allegedly failing to pay due royalties and “stalling” his deal with Xposure Music.
Drake also extends his record with 18 diamond plaques.
We've totally got things under control
The star also voices the lead role in the upcoming film.
Here’s a recap of recent music industry hires and in-house promotions as of October 23rd, 2026. If you have a job shuffle to share, we’re all ears. Send us a note to news@digitalmusicnews.com. If you’d like to post a job on our Job Board, just send us a request to noah@digitalmusicnews.com.
See some of the photo booth gems captured backstage throughout the week.
The Oasis guitarist also recalled how meeting Matthew McConaughey inspired a change in his home decor.
The 2026 National Music Publishers' Association Gold & Platinum Gala, held Thursday, honored over 150 Nashville songwriters.
The alt-rock band hits the road with tour dates across the United States next summer.
Carmen Efferson, reportedly singer's one-time fiancée, had been living in Wonder's Hollywood Hills home since 1988, but oral arrangement broke down over insurance inspectors
Livestream the MLB championship series starting on Friday, (Oct. 23).
Live Nation’s amended court-mandated disclosure revealing Trump’s presence at key meetings with the DOJ raises even more questions, according to the Coalition for Ticket Fairness.
Kodak Black and Lil Baby hopped on the official remix.
Warner Records announces a new label joint venture, Crime & Punishment Records, with veteran producer and industry titan Tony Berg. Today, Warner Records has announced Crime & Punishment Records, a joint venture with veteran producer and industry titan Tony Berg.
Tune in Saturday October 24th to Faction Talk, channel 137, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West. If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
Bad things (and software bugs?) come in threes
UMG becomes the first major to ink a music licensing agreement with adaptive gaming-focused music platform Tyger. Adaptive gaming-focused music platform Tyger and Universal Music Group (UMG) have announced the first major music licensing agreement to connect artists and songwriters from UMG’s...
Songwriters of North America announces the 2026 SONA Awards at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles on October 29. Advocacy organization Songwriters of North America (SONA) has announced this year’s series of events designed to foster community and celebrate songwriters and composers,...
Monitoring was only partial and was easily bypassed
“Because of this, I am forced to cancel the remaining U.K./EU dates to avoid permanent damage to my voice,” singer writes
Slayyyter has canceled the remaining dates of her U.K. and European tour due to laryngitis and vocal cord tears. The pop singer took to Instagram Stories to announce the cancelation of the remaining dates on her “Wor$t Girl in the World” tour, which had 10 more shows on the docket.
Roan also joined Caroline Polachek to perform “Look at Me Now,” after kicking off the two-night run with a special Christina Aguilera-assisted duet
Save the Music initiative will provide grants to 25 schools’ music programs over the next three years
Para celebrar sua trajetória e a conexão especial construída com os fãs ao longo de sua carreira, Jão voltou aos palcos para sua primeira apresentação ao vivo em mais de um ano. Com o apoio do Spotify, o artista compartilhou esse momento com os fãs que fazem parte de sua história desde o início.
To celebrate his journey and the enduring connection he has built with his fans, Jão returned to the stage for his first live performance in more than a year. With some help from Spotify, he shared the moment with the fans who have been part of his story from the start. Now, the concert film...
The design started out as a fan submission on the LEGO Ideas platform and has now been greenlit. Source
Ask LLMs for their most controversial take on humanity, and it turns out they have little nice to say about us, as one AI experiment found
Influencer and rapper Mercedes New, publicly known as Shawty Dred, has been indicted on 46 counts of mail fraud and 15 counts of aggravated identity theft for allegedly masterminding a $4.6 million SNAP fraud scheme.
The Judi Dench Theatre, previously named the Shaftesbury Theatre, will be home to the production
Stop burning $165K on AI rewrites; Jac is meant to "gobble up" your polyglot stack
No new accounts from now, and the end will come in December
The label shares its name with "Sob Rock," Mayer's last album with Sony Music's Columbia Records, released in 2021. Source
Interesting new project from the minds behind SparkyLinux
The biggest headlines from the past few days... Source
Robinson will report to Position Music Founder and CEO Tyler Bacon and President Mark Chipello. Source
Joseph Strange sold 10 or more audio files of the music to buyers online for approximately $50,000, according to court documents cited by the DOJ. Source
The deal covers her self-titled 2004 debut, its 2006 follow-up, The High Road, and the versions of both albums she re-recorded and released in 2018. Source
Robert Garcia’s new letter, sent on October 22, addresses Eric Baker as Andro Capital’s Managing Director rather than as StubHub’s CEO. Source
Ishmael Sadiq Montague claims Sony made false statements to delay redirecting his royalties on the track to a company that had agreed to buy them. Source
If you've been feeling nostalgic for your old iPod, you can head over to Apple Music's 404 page to listen to music on a virtual re-creation of the first-generation iPod. The hidden iPod was spotted by users on social media on Friday.
Actor and bandmate Zach Shields released self-titled LP in 2009, toured briefly, then disappeared … until next week
$99 replacement opens old .pub files on Windows and macOS, without a subscription
“I get to work with a group of incredibly talented and deeply dedicated artists who will stop at nothing until the sound comes into focus and becomes a picture,” the singer-songwriter said
Tyger is one of the startups working on adaptive music for games: music that shapeshifts to match what’s happening on-screen as people play. Now it’s got a deal with Universal Music Group to bolster its catalogue. The post is from Music Ally.
Reservoir Media is the latest music rightsholder taking aim at AI companies in the courts. It’s gone with a double-pronged attack, suing both Suno and Anthropic on the same day this week. The post is from Music Ally.
With dancefloors and conference stages alike still bustling at the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), its organisers have teamed up with VibeLab for a new Nighttimme Culture Index tracking nightlife in six cities. The post is from Music Ally.
As the founding CEO of Unified Music Group, Jaddan Comerford knows a thing or two (or 17) about helping Australian artists break globally. In an interview with Artist Ally, he’s been offering his advice for emerging artists. The post is from Music Ally.
Watchdog also warns retiring Falcon and Dragon could leave US access to orbit short of a backup
The Philippines has a recorded music market that is growing steadily, with a “young, mobile-first population, improved connectivity and a growth in consumption for local music.” While data costs remain relatively high, streaming now represents more than 90% of total recorded music revenue.
As more and more artist teams integrate Pinterest into their marketing campaigns, you might want to start planning for your holiday push on the platform.
Kernel maintainers stop asking who used AI, as long as the code is good
Only a few days ago, on 18th October, Victoria’s Secret held its latest fashion show – resulting in various standout musical moments that were highly shared online.
We’ve been following the burst of launches of personal agents – Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s Dots and Anthropic’s Claude Duet – with keen interest recently. Unsurprisingly, so has Spotify. The post is from Music Ally.
YouTube has published a new Culture & Trends report, looking at how people use generative AI to express themselves creatively – and it points to some interesting new UGC potential. In a survey of almost 700 US video posters aged 14 to 44, 72% said they use AI on their videos or images.
You know what's really sick? Getting to the pub on time on a Friday
Whitehall wants tougher penalties and new powers over telecoms operators as Russian activity raises alarm
In March, Indian record label Zee Music Company announced that it had signed veteran pop act AdnanSami for “a series of original non-film singles”. Since then, it’s inked similar deals […] The post is from Music Ally.
We don’t always cover festival line-ups at Music Ally South Asia but the bill for Weverse Con Festival India bears a bit of examination because this is the inaugural edition […] The post is from Music Ally.
Classic arcade game put to shame by judgemental Bugdroid
Four projects for facilitating AI agents move under vendor-neutral governance
You can buy the airplay. You can’t buy the hit. Elon Musk has reportedly spent approximately $366 million on political efforts during the current election cycle, including $276 million since July, much of it directed toward helping Republicans retain control of Congress.
We’ve heard plenty about Suno the defendant. But what about Suno the filing party? As it grapples with high-stakes infringement complaints from UMG, Sony Music, and a slew of others, the AI music platform is now demanding a trove of streaming-data documents, pertaining to several DSPs, from the...
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) demands answers from StubHub CEO Eric Baker amid allegations of his hedge fund making millions in reselling tickets on the platform. California Rep.
Live Nation has amended its court disclosure about negotiations with the DOJ, confirming a brief appearance by President Trump at the March 5 meeting in which the two parties finalized the terms of their antitrust settlement.
AI audio company Sonilo announces an $11 million funding round led by B Capital with participation from Redpoint. The funds will help scale operations. Sonilo, a generative audio company that builds proprietary video-native music and sound models, has announced an $11 million funding round led by B...
Catching lightning in a tech support bottle
A former Eminem employee has pleaded guilty to a copyright infringement charge related to the reproduction and sale of unreleased tracks by the artist. Joseph Strange, a 48-year-old man who was formerly employed by celebrated rapper Eminem (real name Marshall Mathers), has pleaded guilty in the...
The winners of annual awards given out by ASCAP for the year’s most outstanding music writing and broadcasts include biographies of film composers John Williams and Bernard Herrmann, as well as a documentary about cult R&B artist Swamp Dogg, liner notes for an archival release from Frank Zappa,...
Spotify has reported double-digit year-over-year (YoY) user growth – and subscriber-base expansions “across all regions” – for Q3 2026, when its revenue jumped 16% YoY. Meanwhile, the company’s stock (NYSE: SPOT) is up about 9% from yesterday’s close.
The artist will feature in the gothic film based on Peter Cameron's novel, What Happens at Night
We are here to forget about all the outside shit. Metallica's agenda is love, energy, and heavy music, baby!” After Hetfield made this statement, ...
The rights to Damon Dash’s life story have been auctioned off for just $550,000, with the money set to go to his creditors amid bankruptcy proceedings. Music mogul Damon Dash’s bankruptcy proceedings continue with the auctioning off of the rights to his life story, which sold for $550,000.
Another log on the litigation fire: Suno is now facing a nearly $200 million copyright infringement and DMCA complaint from Reservoir Media, which has also fired off a similar action against Anthropic. Richard S. Busch-repped Reservoir submitted both suits to the U.S.
Singer-songwriter and Variety Hitmakers 2024 honoree Raye has won the 2026 Mercury prize for her epic second studio album, “This Music May Contain Hope,” beating out Olivia Dean, Paul McCartney and others for the prize. The Mercury Prize has no real equivalent in the U.S., and is intended to...
The rapper and social media personality is allegedly connected to over 500 EBT fraud incidents in Georgia
John Mayer has had his hands full with what felt like a hundred projects over the past few years — with putting out new music not among them. It takes a stretch of the memory to even recall that he announced a parting of ways with Sony Music back in 2022, with no followup revelation […]
John Mayer is launching his own record label in a partnership with Universal Music Group’s Mercury Records, bringing him back to the major label fold. John Mayer has announced the launch of his own record label, Sob Rock Records, in a partnership with Universal Music Group’s Mercury Records.
Chaka Khan will receive the Classic Soul Honor at the 2026 Soul Train Awards, celebrating the singer-songwriter’s influence on R&B. Across her career, which spans more than five decades, Khan helped shape the sound of soul, funk and R&B with her music, including hits like “Tell Me Something Good,”...
“Adversaries are clearly spending time (and tokens) on this bug,” researcher says.
Veteran communications exec Liz Morentin has launched Greenvalley Media & Marketing, focusing on entertainment, media and technology companies and their leaders.
The LEGO Group and Daft Punk ink a partnership that brings the iconic duo’s robot alter egos to the LEGO universe, building on the success of a fan project.
Not to kill the human, of course – to kill the antibiotic-resistant bacteria causing their infection
Legendary bassist. You know, the guy with the long beard who’s played with seemingly EVERYBODY! Video: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=r9cRgq4WQLs&si=S67aBYnuLybzXuPZ&drli=1 Audio: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leland-sklar/id1316200737?i=1000797598116...
I asked Ellen Burstyn where a Grammy would go, if she ever won one. She stands up to show me. “I wonder if I took my iPad off the stand and walked you into my office, where they all are,” she says, immediately reaching for it over a video Zoom. Her assistant, Caitlin, gets the […]
Musician will release “Tom and Jerry,” his first single since his 2021’s Sob Rock, on the his new label
Charli xcx and Martin Scorsese’s collaboration is extending beyond the cover for her new album “Music, Fashion, Film.” Sources tell Variety that the pop star has a cameo in the Oscar-winning director’s upcoming movie “What Happens at Night” alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.
Spotify's Q3 2026 shareholder deck shows that Latin America accounted for 24% of the company's 306 million Premium subscribers at the end of September. Source
No actual digits or cats were harmed beyond the number crunching that went into this LLM poisoning experiment
It looks exactly like what you’d expect a Teenage Engineering guitar amp to look like. | Image: Teenage Engineering Teenage Engineering is branching out into instrument amps with the previously leaked EP-35, a multi-input, multi-instrument, battery-powered amp with built-in effects.
When BTS opted out of the 2027 Grammys, it raised a question that goes beyond one band: can a category built to celebrate Asian music also end up setting it apart? Artists, executives, and the data weigh in on what recognition should look like for a global sound.
DEAG acquires the remaining 25.1% stake in handwerker promotion from its founder, Fred Handwerker, becoming the sole shareholder of the company. Deutsche Entertainment AG (DEAG) is acquiring the remaining 25.1% stake in handwerker promotion e.
The new label, Crime & Punishment Records, has signed singer-songwriter Elle Bramhall as its first artist. Source
It’s hard to single out any one song as the “secret weapon” of Chappell Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess”; as the best pop debut of the 2020s, the entire album was pretty weaponized. But the ballad “Coffee” certainly counts as a sleeper — and Roan was not sleeping on it when […]
Vendor 'strongly recommends' upgrading to a fixed version 'as soon as possible'
A man who was charged with stealing and selling unreleased Eminem music that leaked to the web last year has pleaded guilty to criminal infringement of copyright.
New York is getting a Halloween double bill: on October 31, Harry Styles’ final night at Madison Square Garden will be paired with an electric disco dance party for fans across the city.
We didn't want to issue SSL/TLS certs anyway, eMudhra suggests after one private key turns out to be the number 4
From Bad Bunny to Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican artists have made an indelible mark on music worldwide. And while the island’s talent continues to reach global audiences, Spotify is committed to expand access to the resources and spaces the next generation of Puerto Rican creators need to pursue their...
Spotify told investors its rollout of QR code verification to ensure Family Plan members live in the same household is not a "crackdown," just a routine improvement.
Fandom is not “one-size-fits-all”, but rather an amalgamation of different engagement types and levels of activity. In last year’s Defining entertainment superfans report, MIDiA began to demystify engagement by creating four core fan archetypes according to how fans engage with their favourite...
One more tile, we're gonna celebrate! We're up all night to get blocky! Yes, the Daft Punk / Lego crossover is finally here. The post is from Music Ally.
AI-music startup Moises has inked its latest partnership, with SoundCloud. It’s a promotional deal that includes a technical integration, with artists on SoundCloud able to export their tracks into Moises for mixing, mastering and stem separation. The post is from Music Ally.
There has been speculation for months that Meta’s Threads social network was about to overtake its arch-rival X (formerly Twitter) for monthly users. Now – at least according to Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg – it has happened. The post is from Music Ally.
Hive has helped its 1,600-plus venue, promoter and festival clients to sell more than $1bn of tickets using its event-marketing platform. Now it’s raised some money of its own to continue growing. The post is from Music Ally.
Under tredje kvartalet 2026 växte vi till 306 miljoner premiumanvändare, med tillväxt i samtliga regioner, och nådde 788 miljoner månatliga aktiva användare. Samtidigt blev både bruttomarginalen och rörelseresultatet bättre än väntat.
In Q3 2026, we grew to 306 million Premium Subscribers, with growth across every region, and reached 788 million Monthly Active Users, while our Gross Margin and Operating Income came in ahead of expectations.
Canberra, Australia – Today a group of 63 international media organizations led by the News/Media Alliance delivered a letter to senior Australian politicians asking them to reject proposed changes to the country’s copyright laws that would allow artificial intelligence companies to use copyrighted...
Apple is officially launching a rebrand of Apple Music. Following the appearance of a redesigned wordmark in a video and an updated app icon in an iOS 27.2 beta, Apple introduced the new "identity" for Apple Music today.
Every October, Spotify’s RADAR Creators program taps a new class of podcast creators who stand out with fresh voices and perspectives. The podcast arm of our RADAR program, which champions emerging artists and songwriters, RADAR Creators offers marketing, editorial, and promotional support to help...
Serato DJ for iOS is finally bringing the company's pro-level DJ suite to the iPhone and iPad. Until now, the company had only dipped its toes into mobile software, with apps like Pyro that basically just added some autofades between songs in a playlist.
The right song sounds even better on the open road. Today, Spotify is introducing a new way to listen while driving: our next-generation in-car app, launching first across Audi’s current lineup.
Sequential recommendation benchmarks are widely used to evaluate models that predict what a user will... The post Do Sequential Recommendation Benchmarks Require Higher-Order Sequence Modelling? appeared first on Spotify Engineering.
With Meta in the regulatory hotseat and western “social” apps becoming increasingly entertainment-first, a natural question arises: is the opportunity ripe for a new competitor? Few saw TikTok coming, but the short-form video app –boosted by the Covid pandemic – has reshaped the social media...
The most successful creators no longer look like online personalities. They now operate as fully-fledged media businesses with capital, networks, and business expertise – and they’re using these attributes to help nurture the next generation. Source
Arturia is adding to its Freak line of proudly weird digital synths with the MiniFreak 49. Under the hood, it's almost identical to the current MiniFreak, but it adds a number of more professional features and some interface improvements.
Spotify says it has removed more than 50 million songs considered AI-generated slop or spam from user recommendations over the past year. That's according to an announcement on Tuesday that says Spotify has also made changes to its recommendation system to highlight more music made by human...
Believe and Spotify have signed a licensing agreement for Spotify’s upcoming tool, allowing Believe and TuneCore’s participating artists and labels to benefit from new creative and revenue opportunities, while enabling fans to create remixes of their songs.
A year ago, we laid out our plans to protect artists and listeners from spam, impersonation, and deception in the age of AI. One core idea drives this work: human artistry comes first. Here’s what we’ve done, and what’s next.
Demystifying the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon: the past, present, and future center of Hollywood.
The Copyright Act of 1976 was enacted as Public Law 94-553 on October 19, 1976, signed by President Gerald Ford, which makes it fifty years old today. It has governed over an era of significant technological advances, including the rise of home video, satellite communications, digital content, the...
If you spend any time on r/synthesizers or watch a lot of synth videos on YouTube, you've probably noticed the explosion of custom firmware for hardware synthesizers, samplers, and grooveboxes.
J Mascis on stage during Dinosaur Jr.’s Baby’s Alright show in NYC. | Photo: Terrence O’Brien Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis is known as something of a slacker guitar god. He stands stoically onstage, barely moving, as he seemingly effortlessly works through deft guitar solos and lopsided riffs.
