Stuart Dredge

Music-fintech roundup: beatBread’s new CEO, Notes·fm x Stripe

Yesterday’s AIM Connected conference in London saw the UK indies body’s CEO Gee Davy call on the government to provide more support for the sector, particularly its role in discovering and breaking new talent.

If you don’t have a Substack in 2026, are you even on the internet? And seemingly that now applies to popular music-streaming playlist brands too.

The first round of judging is over for the Music Tectonics conference’s annual ‘Swimming with Narwhals’ startups contest. 10 companies have been named as semi-finalists for this year’s event.

Kacey Musgraves is the latest artist to appear in a music concert made for Meta Quest VR headsets. A 49-minute performance of hits plus tracks from her latest album has been launched as ‘Kacey Musgraves Middle of Nowhere: An Immersive Experience’, filmed in the Billy Bob’s Texas venue in Fort Worth.

The RIAA has published its 2026 mid-year report, revealing total wholesale revenues of $5.97bn for recorded music in the US.

TikTok has commissioned a new report to set out its value to South Korea’s cultural economy. The report, co-published with consultancy firm Kearney, also sketches out an argument that we’re in the time of ‘K-Culture 4.0’.

Earlier this year, YouTube launched ‘Stations’ on its service: old-school MTV-style linear channels of music videos that broadcast 24/7.

BTS blew a hole in the Grammys' plan to celebrate ‘Asian Pop’ music with its own category when they decided not to submit for the 2027 event.

Kobalt signs on for Spotify’s AI fan-made covers and remixes