Thank you to the many people who sent me comments about the AI-generated remixes, available on my Soundcloud “Artifacts from the Labyrinth Remixed” playlist (streaming for free): https://soundcloud.com/kyoko-kitamura/sets/artifacts-from-the-labyrinth The comments ranged from “AI music is bad and uninteresting” to “development is lightening fast, and AI is so powerful, we should all be aware of the…
For Phase Two of my recent project Artifacts from the Labyrinth, I uploaded tracks from the EP to the AI music generator Suno to create cover versions. The results were devastatingly convincing and extremely disturbing. The new mixes are compiled in my Soundcloud playlist but if you just want the highlights, listen to the Japanese Male Idol version and the Math Rock version. Had…
Students often asked me about the legitimacy of text messages they received from various “promoters”. I have yet to see one which looks legit. The music promotion landscape has undergone an enormous change since I first started working in media more than 35 years ago. Back then, there were powerful major labels collaborating with powerful…
This is the final post in the three-part series on music discovery methods. For previous posts, please visit How do we find music? and How do we find music? (2025 version). Every year in my Music Monetization class, we look at recorded music revenue growth by region. Available numbers for 2024 showed us that Latin…
(This is Part II of the three-part series on music discovery. Part I is How Do We Find Music? and Part III is How Do We Find Music? (Outside of the U.S. version).) Every year in my Musical Taste and Monetization class, we trace the evolution of our listening habits, observing ourselves and becoming more…
With the rollback of DEI efforts by the Trump administration, I thought it would be timely to revisit the case of Keiko Yamada, a.k.a. Larry Clark, which attracted attention among music educators back in 2019. Using AI as my assistant, I gathered information online and came away with a different perspective this time, surprising even…
Are AI-powered music-generating and streaming platforms from China part of the next disruption? If we consider 1995-2005 as the “resistance era” against streaming (i.e., major labels clinging to physical media profits through very creative methods, in yellow below), perhaps we can consider 2005-2025 to be the “simmering period” of streaming consolidation. We are now witnessing…
(For my students in 2025 Composing for Improvisers class at Bennington College) March 14, 2025 Kyoko Kitamura In this class, we approach Structured improvisation as one of many ways to create an environment where participants can engage in a musical conversation using a shared set of building blocks. (Many words can be used in place of “building blocks”,…
A new era has arrived, one in which Spotify becomes profitable. I pulled numbers from Spotify’s annual reports going back 10 years and one thing stood out yet again: the falling % of cost of revenue to revenue. Cost of revenue (COR) for Spotify “consists predominantly of royalty and distribution costs related to content streaming.”…
The fantastic article on Spotify by writer Liz Pelly in Harper’s Magazine (The Ghosts in the Machine) felt like an apt summary at the end of the year. I appreciated the nuanced approach, especially since the writer makes efforts to follow and interview current working musicians on the scene, which is so often not the…