Moby has a new album out, and it’s streaming exclusively on one service: but NOT a music-streaming service. Although we rather gave that away in the headline, didn’t we…
Yes, ‘Long Ambients 2’ is being made available exclusively through meditation app Calm, with six tracks designed to help people relax and get to sleep.
Calm has a 30-day exclusive on the album, before it’ll be made available on music streaming and download services. And this kind of partnership isn’t a new thing for Moby: ‘Long Ambients 1’ was released in 2016 through a partnership with internet firm WeTransfer.
The new launch is part of Calm’s expansion beyond guided-meditation tracks into music. The company says that its Calm Music section, launched 18 months ago, has already generated more than 150m streams from a 200-track catalogue of music for sleeping, focusing, relaxing and listening to ‘nature melodies’.
Calm also raised an $88m funding round earlier this year: news that spurred Music Ally to wonder whether the company should be on the acquisition radar of big music-streaming services like Spotify, which is pushing hard into non-music audio content.
Moby’s Calm partnership was brokered by UK marketing agency Motive Unknown. Calm says it has more than one million paying subscribers and tens of millions of free listeners – a sizeable audience for an artist’s new album to be put in front of.
Music Ally’s next Learn Live webinar will help you understand what’s required for artists to thrive in new international markets!