Tune.FM Raises $20M, new music AI Model by 3LAU & Spotify AI features

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Here you can read about music news in web3, musicians spotlights & their latest music NFT drops, opportunities for musicians, upcoming music spaces on X, curated content & more!

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^News

Tune.FM Raises $20M by LDA Capital

Tune.FM, a Web3 music streaming service, has successfully secured a substantial $20 million investment from LDA Capital to enhance artists' earnings by an impressive 90%. The goal of this financial boost is to revolutionize the currently artist-unfriendly revenue model prevalent in the music streaming industry. Setting itself apart in the Web3 music domain, Tune.FM utilizes Hedera Hashgraph technology, providing artists with micropayments per play and the opportunity to earn through JAM tokens associated with NFTs.

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Spotify confirms test of prompt-based AI playlists feature.

Spotify is testing a new "AI playlists" feature, allowing users to create playlists using AI technology and prompts. Discovered by a TikTok user, the feature is accessible through the "Your Library" tab by tapping the plus (+) button, presenting users with an option to turn ideas into playlists using AI. Users can input prompts or choose from suggested ones, such as focusing at work with instrumental electronica or exploring niche genres. Spotify confirmed the test but didn't provide details on the technology or a launch timeframe. The company has been investing heavily in AI, recently launching an AI DJ and exploring AI's applications in podcast summarization, audio ads, and music creation.

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Zora integrates Splits, enabling artists to collaborate and earn onchain.

Zora, by integrating with Splits, has significantly simplified the process for artists to share Protocol Rewards and Sale Revenue with collaborators. By allowing artists to deploy their own Split contracts directly within the Zora app during the creation or editing of an NFT edition, the platform has streamlined the once manual and cumbersome task of splitting onchain earnings. This automation enhances the overall experience for artists, as they can now effortlessly define the distribution of earnings by entering collaborators' addresses and specifying the percentage of future income each collaborator is entitled to receive.

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3LAU launches new music AI model and uses it to create a new song.

DJ 3LAU has officially released "For You," marking the first collaboration between two AI music models—3LAU AI and Grimes AI. The song is now available on various platforms, and the beat model will be accessible via NFT starting January 12th on Royal. Over five months, a dedicated team worked on a generative music model based on 3LAU's previous tracks, resulting in 15 beats. The chosen beat was refined, and Grimes AI vocals were added to produce a new song that, in 3LAU's words, "sounds good." Soon, the model will be open for public use, encouraging collaboration on new music projects, with early access for those who own a 3LAU NFT.

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“We❤️the Art” Contest by the Optimism Foundation received over 1000 NFT entries!

Last year, the Optimism Foundation launched its largest ever art grant with over $1m in rewards for on chain music and art, titled "We❤️the Art", which just ended a week ago, concluding with over 1000 NFTs submitted by web artists3.

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Global music streams grew by 33.7% to 7.1tn in 2023

^{News curated by issue 153 of The Knowledge – Music Ally Newsletter}

The stat comes from research firm Luminate’s 2023 Year-End Music Report, which was published this week:

• The 7.1tn streams were across audio and video services, with that total up 33.7% year-on-year. Of that total, 4.1tn were on-demand audio song streams, up 22.3%.

• Luminate’s report doesn’t state the video total outright, but it’s easy to calculate from its figures for total streams and audio streams. There were 3tn on-demand video song streams in 2023, up 63.3% from the 1.9tn in 2022.

• It may be an uncomfortable topic for music rightsholders to think about, but video streams appear to be growing nearly three times faster than audio streams.

• Luminate’s ‘Track Streaming Pyramid’ data is very interesting in the light of Spotify’s decision to not pay royalties to tracks until they reach 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months.

• According to Luminate’s calculations, 152.2m tracks were streamed less than 1,000 times in 2023. That’s a startling 82.7% of all the audio ISRCs that it tracks for this research.

_{Opportunities}

Artists looking to drop on Sona can now sign up to their form.

Apply here.

EntertainM Opportunity for musicians & DJs

At EntertainM we are going to bring in HUGE UPDATES that will enable all musicians & DJs to monetize their metaverse performances. DM me on Twitter if interested.

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How you can make 2024 the best year ever for your music!

_{From Music Marketing Monday Newsletter by Andrew Southworth} 

“Have a release plan

Ideally you should some idea of how your releases are going to go throughout the year. This doesn’t mean you need release dates for every song throughout the year, just a general cadence for how things are going to go.

For example, knowing you’re going to be releasing new singles every 6 weeks. Or knowing the release dates for the first 3 singles with general spacing for the singles that come after it.

Things will change throughout the year, and you might pivot based on the results you’re getting. But you still need to create the plan and write it down!

Create a content strategy

A LOT of artists hate the word content, and they don’t enjoy social media.

However making content around your music is incredibly important not only for organic social media growth, but also for audience engagement and for ad creatives.

The content you make supports every marketing activity you pursue. If it doesn’t exist or it is low quality everything else will be much harder.

You need to find content you can make in volume, you enjoy making and that people want to watch. For example, if you love playing live, making performance videos should be enjoyable and easy for you.

Choose marketing channels

There are a ton of ways to promote your music effectively and generally all of them work when done right. For example:

• Social media content

• Paid advertising

• Collaborating with other artists

• Playlist promotion

• Playing live

• PR

From all the artists I’ve talked to that ‘made it’ and are professional music artists making a living with their music - it’s almost never just 1 of these things that results in success.

Very often people are doing multiple things at a time, and one thing leads to another until eventually something happens. It’s different for everyone. Anyone promising that you can ‘just do this one easy thing’ to be successful is likely trying to scam you. It’s almost never one thing, and it’s almost never easy.

General Recommendation

It’s hard to give a broad recommendation that applies to everyone, but if I had to give one it would be this:

• Make great music

• Release singles every 4-8 weeks

• Create 30-50 pieces of social media content for every release

• Launch a Facebook / Meta ad campaign for each song

• Focus 90% of your marketing efforts after the song is released

• Interact with your audience as much as possible

Marketing your music always requires either time or money, and most likely some of both. If you have no budget, you’ll really need to double down on social media. If you have a lot of budget you can relax a bit on socials, but make sure you don’t abandon it.”

Interesting Upcoming Music Spaces👀

^{Music NFT Drops}

My Top Picks This Week👇‍

Do you want to be in the Shooting Star section? 

Send me a Twitter (X) DM with your journey in web3 and a brief description of yourself for a chance to be featured!

_{Shooting Star}🌠

Having dedicated 17 years to music creation with no formal training or music theory, Hashcatchm decided to attend audio school in 2014 at The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences to enhance the quality of their music without relying on studio time. Transitioning into a career as an audio engineer after interning at a recording studio, they eventually lost motivation for making music.

In 2023, a shift occurred after discovering web3 through a friend, leading to the realization that past skills could be applied. Inspired by the "Web3 Expos3d" space by Shanice Best and Scott Bourke, Hash embraced authenticity and created the song "Expos3d" (Wristbands).

This experience reignited their passion for music and the desire to connect with the web3 music community. Future plans include releasing singles on Sound.xyz with a unique utility aimed at supporting and uplifting other artists.

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Thank you for reading! Got feedback? Send it to @irathy_eth!