The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) and Luminate unveiled a new certification program on Thursday (June 12) to celebrate commercial success in the independent sector. One Star will signify 50,000 album sales, while Two Star marks 100,000. The Three Star award is a big jump up, equating to 300,000 sales.
In a statement, Dr. Richard James Burgess, CEO of A2IM, said the “certification was created to recognize real achievement on terms that truly reflect how the independent sector operates.”

– Elias Leight, Billboard

Given the lacklustre growth in US recorded music revenues last year, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if music publishing revenues also showed signs of weakening.

But that hasn’t happened. New numbers from the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) show that publishing revenue growth actually accelerated in 2024, compared to the year before, rising 13.41% to $7.039 billion.

That marks a notable increase from the 10.7% growth rate seen in 2023, and it marks the 10th consecutive year of double-digit music publishing revenue growth in the US, NMPA President and CEO David Israelite told the audience at the trade organization’s annual general meeting on Wednesday (June 11).

– Daniel Tencer, Music Business Worldwide

Spotify’s actions have already been publicly lambasted by this author, the NMPA and the songwriter and music publisher communities as perhaps the worst affront in a long line of offenses committed by Spotify against songwriters. So why am I writing about this issue again, a year after first doing so in Billboard? Because with a year’s worth of additional facts and data at hand, it is my opinion that this is one of the greatest injustices visited upon songwriters in the era of music streaming, sadly perpetuated by the company that has perhaps benefited more than any other from the creativity and labor of songwriters. All songwriters and music publishers should be aware of this critical issue and deserve to know all of the supporting facts.

– Adam Parness

Coca-Cola and music partnerships go back a long way, but its latest move – launching a label imprint with Universal Group – is one of the most interesting. The label is called Real Thing Records, and will focus on working with emerging artists. The first two signify its global ambitions too: Aksomaniac from India and French-New Zealand artist Max Allais.

– Stuart Dredge, Music Ally

Toward the end of his speech, which included slams at Spotify and Amazon Music for their “bundling” packages that have enabled them to pay hundreds of millions of dollars less to songwriters, Israelite address the plight of what is often termed the “non-performing songwriter,” which is more accurately songwriters who are not major recording artists as well. In the vinyl and CD era, a non-performing songwriter could do well, because the percentage of the price of an $18 CD that their song earned was often substantial. Needless to say, in the streaming age, that same percentage of $.003 per stream is infinitesimal.

– Jem Aswad, Variety

One of the stylish visual changes to the iPhone on iOS 26 is a new layout for the lock screen when music is playing. Artwork can now be animated and shown full-screen on the iPhone display, with playback controls resting on a platter of a liquid glass.

You can try this out right now with Apple Music. Play a song that has animated album art, and lock the phone. But users of third-party music streaming apps like Spotify will also be pleased to know that Apple is opening up this capability as an API, so third-party developers can also adopt it.

– Benjamin Mayo, 9To5Mac