Beats & Bytes – It’s 2018 and The Music Business Is Better Than Ever

New Year, new us … right? Eh, sort of.

Perhaps a better way to look at the first month of the year is to take advantage of the opportunity to develop a better version of ourselves, rather than starting over altogether. The key is progress. Forward momentum. And that’s definitely something we’re seeing a lot of already here in 2018.

Perhaps you’ve been easing back into your groove by catching up with the recent music biz news from the past few days. ICYMI: Spotify’s IPO is reportedly slated for later this quarter, Jimmy Iovine is stepping down from Apple Music at the end of the summer, and labels are forging new partnerships with YouTube and Facebook in an effort to more effectively monetize digital consumption habits.

This is truly my favorite time of year, as labels, artists, businesses, and platforms are all strategizing for an exciting year ahead. At the center of much of this buzz is the annual Consumer Electronics Show, aka CES, which is taking place in Vegas right now. Though I’m sitting it out this year (my body thanks me for that!), I’m looking forward to hearing about how the major players in tech and culture are prioritizing music initiatives within their roadmaps for this year and beyond.

Closer to home, the team at NUE has our hands full with a major activation this week on behalf of the streaming app Live.me. If you’re in the New York area and plan on taking a subway these next few weeks, you’ll be seeing and hearing about this campaign for sure. More on that soon….

A hearty kombucha toast to all of my slightly-sober January folks.

Let’s do big things together in 2018!