Tag Archives: features

I. It was right after a glorious six-week European tour, in the middle of talks with a new management team about a big release for her newly finished album On My Own, that singer-songwriter Lera Lynn first felt it. Something in her body was off. She was getting nauseous on …

This story appears in Rolling Stone‘s 2021 Future of Music issue, a special project delving into the next era of the multibillion-dollar hitmaking business. Read the other stories here. Ant Taylor was at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London when he realized that he wanted to revolutionize the ticketing business. …

There’s perhaps no one in the music industry more well-positioned for leadership than Ethiopia Habtemariam, who became chairman and CEO of Motown Records last week. Habtemariam, 41, has worked in music since she was a teenager, interning for LaFace and Elektra. She forwent a college education and worked up the …

At 23, Nija Charles has already established herself as one of the most sought-after songwriters in hip-hop and R&B, penning tracks for Beyoncé, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Summer Walker. Even as the walls between genres are becoming more porous in the streaming era, professional songwriting can often be …

Adam Weiner has just finished doing pushups in his underwear while singing Canadian punk band SNFU’s “Time to Buy a Futon” for 165 paying fans. “Whoo! I’m really schvitzing now,” Weiner, the frontman and songwriter for Philadelphia rock revivalist band Low Cut Connie, tells the camera, as he puts on …

In 2006, I worked my first shift as a beat journalist in the video game business — an industry I would go on to cover for the following half-decade. The big news that year was the arrival of Gears of War, developed for Microsoft’s Xbox 360, in which a troop …

As the pandemic-induced economic crisis decimates the music industry, many musicians and songwriters are scrambling to make a living. For those who have written songs but yet to receive payment through traditional sources — publishers and performing rights collection agencies — a number of financial companies are vying to help. …

This is the second installment of Rolling Stone‘s Music in Crisisseries, which looks at how people all across the music industry are coping with thecoronaviruspandemic. ___ Early this year, King Princess — rising singer/songwriter Mikaela Straus, backed by a band of close friends — was preparing for a big European …

For the artists who rely on SoundCloud to distribute their music free of charge, this week began with an alarming email. On Monday morning, the streaming service proclaimed that it was “bringing lossless HD storage and downloads to all.” But hidden inside that early Christmas present was a razor blade: …

Dawn Ostroff had spent most of her career in the TV and movie business before stepping into her job in music streaming a year ago. But the veteran television and video executive is now tasked with pulling off Spotify’s biggest new gamble in years. Ostroff’s mission is to grow the …