We’ve seen a few stories in recent years about artists being penalised (promotion-wise) on one streaming service because they’ve done a deal with another – Apple Music and Spotify usually being the cited services. Nicki Minaj’s recent criticism of Spotify for allegedly reining in its promotion for her new album ‘Queen’ after it debuted (slightly) early on Apple Music being the latest example.
Here’s a new twist though: the sight of both services promoting the same single with billboards in New York’s Times Square. The beneficiary is British artist Nina Nesbitt, who as MBW points out, isn’t signed to a major label, but rather distributes her music via Cooking Vinyl. The label’s boss Martin Goldschmidt told the site that there aren’t any deals behind the scenes here. “All the DSPs believe in Nina and love her music – it’s really that simple. Spotify and Apple are both playing a big role in getting the momentum going on this music, and now radio is getting interested in the UK, US and beyond.”
Of course, there is the wider context of both DSPs wanting to break emerging stars from outside the major-label world to establish their clout too – a similar trend has been at work down the years on Apple’s App Store, when it carefully created hits for indie mobile games to remind the big games publishers who was the boss in that ecosystem…
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…