Bypass: Music Industry News for Independent Artists

Sunday edition • 3 min read

Gen Z Is Picking Up Another Y2K Habit

What's Up

When did the kids decide jewel cases were cool again, and why didn't anyone tell us?

Disc Makers, the indie pressing plant that's been cranking out physical music for 80 years, says their CD revenues are up 9%, with April jumping 18% and May already running 24% ahead of last year. And no, it's not millennials reliving the good old days either. It's teenagers. Literal teenagers.

So What

Two things are working for CDs right now: price and practicality. Start with price. Vinyl will run you up about $25-40; CDs are just $10-14. We'll let the numbers talk there. The next thing is practicality. Most kids aren't driving a $100k BMW with a freaking home theater setup. They're driving their parents' beat-up 2007 Toyota Camry that has a CD player.

Now What

Bring. CDs. To. Your. Shows. They take like two bucks to manufacture. Sell that for $10 or $15, and you get to pocket $8 to $13 from each sale. That's the kind of margin Spotify's never going to pay you.

[Full story at Hypebot]

DistroKid Now Asks If Your Music Is AI-Generated

What's Up

DistroKid is now asking you to please, pretty please, let them know if your track is AI-generated. Specifically, they want to know if it was made or assisted by AI and by how much. Guess they couldn't be bothered to build their own AI detector.

So What

Love that for you, DistroKid. Except… this is an honor system. The exact people pumping out AI slop aren't going to flag their own crap. At least Deezer pretends to auto-detect this stuff. DistroKid's just asking the class if anyone cheated on their exam. That said, lying on the disclosure is the sort of thing that's going to bite later. You probably don't want a subpoena for a lawsuit anytime soon, now do you?

Now What

Just tell the truth at upload. Generated a vocal chop with Suno? Tick the box. Ran your demo through an AI mastering tool? Well… you're probably fine. But still, tick the box. Honesty won't cost a dime. But a lawsuit might.

[Full story at DMN]

French Montana Bet on SoundCloud. Pay Attention

What's Up

Remember the SoundCloud Follower Exclusive Releases thing we were yelling about a couple of issues back? French Montana (yeah, that French Montana) just tried it out. He dropped his new track "Grimey" for his 149,000 SoundCloud followers a full week before its full launch.

So What

Let's make something clear. This man does not need SoundCloud. He's got 30 million monthly listeners on Spotify, so him using this feature is him telling everybody else to try it out. But will the other DSPs get petty and start punishing artists for SoundCloud exclusives? Don't know. The jury's out. Montana's betting they won't.

Now What

Gold star for anyone who set up Follower Exclusive Releases when we first ran this. If you ignored us, that's fine, but today's the day. Try it out with your next demo before it hits streaming. It'll give people a reason to follow.

[Full story at Music Ally]

While You Were Making Music…

🎧 Post Malone swaps Jelly Roll for BigXThaPlug to save Nashville ticket sales [and the Blue Dot Fever claims yet another victim]

🪤 AI music video startup Sondo AI claims it has 10 million users [we checked; it's not Suno]

🤷 31% of 13-15 year-olds are using AI to be creative, according to Snap [a bit vague on what's "creative" there]

One Thing To Do Today: The Mechanical Licensing Collective is taking you back to school with this one. Their course, Music Registration 101, covers metadata basics, how to navigate the MLC portal, and how to avoid the mistakes that land your royalties in the dreaded black box. Start at themlc.com/courses.

Today's edition by Jordan F.

For indies who ship music, not excuses.