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Platform updates, artist stories, and music industry insights.
US CD Sales Jumped 58% as Fans Pay to Back Their Artists
US CD sales jumped 58.6% in early 2026 and vinyl kept growing. Why fans buy music they already stream, and how to buy straight from the artists you love.
US CD Sales Jumped 58% as Fans Pay to Back Their Artists
US CD sales jumped 58.6% in early 2026 and vinyl kept growing. Why fans buy music they already stream, and how to buy straight from the artists you love.
How UK Garage Went From Pirate Radio to TikTok's UK Song of the Summer
UK garage went from pirate radio to TikTok's UK Song of the Summer, led by a 2008 record. How the sound began, split into new styles and came back.
POP Montreal Turned 25 and Brought Divan Orange Back to Life
POP Montreal turned 25 by reopening Divan Orange, reuniting Think About Life and booking Sister Nancy at 1 a.m. What listeners heard across the week.
Why More Than 70,000 People Turned Out for Amapiano
A beginner's guide to the South African sound that just drew a stadium crowd, from its roots and the log drum to the tracks to play first
Lo-Fi Beats Began as a Mistake Producers Decided to Keep
From tape hiss in a 1960s home studio to a 24/7 livestream, the genre built on imperfection is the one that asks least of an independent artist
City Pop Was Rescued by an Algorithm and Kept by Listeners
A 1980s Japanese genre almost nobody outside Japan had heard became a global favourite through a recommendation feed, and it stayed popular long after the feed moved on
Music Discovery Through Another Fan's Likes Triples the Response
SoundCloud measured what happens when a person, not a machine, puts a track in front of someone
Dream Pop Was Named by One Band and Defined by Another
A guide to the hazy, reverb-soaked sound that started on a Scottish indie label and found a whole new audience through bedroom recordings
Dance and Electronic Music Gained More US Share Than Any Genre
Dance and electronic was the fastest-growing US genre in the first half of 2026, gaining about half a share point. Most of its streams come from tracks released in the past 18 months, and the independent sector is growing across the middle and lower tiers, making it an unusually
Funk Carioca Reached K-Pop Through a Splice Sample Pack
A listener's guide to funk carioca: where the sound came from, what makes the beat work, the subgenres worth knowing, and the artists to start with.
Every Reggaeton Song You Know Shares the Same Drum Pattern
One two-bar loop, borrowed from the Caribbean and rebuilt in Panama and Puerto Rico, turned into the most danced-to rhythm of the century. Here is how to hear it.
UK Garage: From Pirate Radio to the Global Dancefloor
How a British club sound built in the 1990s became one of the loudest things in dance music again