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👋 Warner from The AvA Connection. Connect with me here.
📰 In this week’s news, even with a rate hike, Spotify will pay songwriters substantially less next year.
🎙️ Plus an interview with Flight Facilities, the Australian electronic duo.
☀️ ICYMI… 25 tix left to our L.A. rooftop pool party on May 31
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The Weekly Buzz:
Spotify to pay songwriters $150M less next year according to Billboard
“By adding audiobooks into Spotify’s premium tier, the streaming service now claims it qualifies to pay a discounted “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium streams, given Spotify now has to pay licensing for both books and music from the same price tag” - Billboard
Warner Music’s revenue jumped 7% to $1.5B in Q1
The Good: Streaming rose 11% YoY, as WMG generated $213M in ad-supported streaming revenues. Full earnings report here
The Bad: Today the Supreme Court ruled against Warner Music in a producer’s battle over a Flo Rida song. Read more
TikTok sues the US Government over “divest or ban” law
TikTok’s owner ByteDance has (checks calendar) 255 days to sell TikTok’s US operations or face a ban.
An interesting part of the ruling is that current users would still technically be able to use the app after the “ban,” but once January 19, 2025 hits, no new users will be able to download the app, and no updates or bug fixes could be made. One outage and it would be over (Black Mirror please make this an episode).
The Call Log: Flight Facilities
Flight Facilities are an Australian electronic duo known for their hits Crave You, Arty Boy, and Lights Up. They’ve worked with the likes of Channel Tres, Aloe Blacc, Drama, and Broods, and have played everywhere from Coachella to The Sydney Opera House.
We sat down with them to discuss their career evolution, advice for the next generation and their newest release Days of The Week, a track that touches on all the places, people, plastic surgery, overpriced Erewhon smoothies, and influencer culture that people love (and love to hate) about Los Angeles.
Our conversation is below:
AvA: How did you both get into producing / writing music?
Flight Facilities: It seemed to be a natural progression. Jimmy was in bands in high school so he had an affinity with music creation from an early age. I became a dj after school and it naturally evolved from playing songs, to editing them, to remixing them to creating original music.
AvA: Who/what are some of your biggest influences as artists?
FF: To name a few, Daft Punk, Chic, The Chemical Brothers, The Bee Gees. We draw influence from everywhere but these 4 feel like a big staple in our genre and style.
AvA: Has the role of an Artist changed during your career, especially in terms of marketing yourselves and your music?
FF: Music marketing is always changing. We started on MySpace. Now people are breaking through on TikTok. And even if you do break through there, people tend to know about 15 seconds of the song. We’re lucky that we cultivated an audience when the attention span was a little longer. God knows how to build an audience from scratch now. Much more luck involved.
If anything we’ve stuck to what we know and tried to honour the fact that we’ve been around long enough to hold a nostalgic place in people’s musical lives. We’ve experimented more on the production front, but we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel on our sound. We’ve come to accept it’s what makes us ‘us’.
AvA: Your newest single "Days Of The Week" leans into the influencer culture in LA. What was your inspiration behind that, and where do you generally find inspiration in music creation?
FF: Aramis from Enumclaw led the charge on the lyrical content for Days of The Week. Neither he nor us are from LA, so when you’re there, the absurdity of it is staring you straight in the face. The whole session was a huge laugh, and we had a great time making it. Then it became a huge ear worm, so we knew we had to put it out. Other musical influences are usually found by listening to music. Being DJs, it’s very easy to hear something you like and think “I would love to have an original like this for our sets”.
AvA: You just wrapped up the Trouble Tour. What's next?
FF: We have a few shows here and there. We throw a party in Bali called ‘Higher’, and then our next big tour will be through Europe. We’re dropping into Ibiza a few times this year, which is always exciting to do.
AvA: What is one piece of advice you have for new artists or someone looking to succeed in the music industry?
FF: Make music that you like and that you would want to hear. Don’t make music just because you think other people will like it. Nobody can replicate your specific taste. That’s everyone’s secret weapon and what makes your sound uniquely yours. Unique things stand out and are more valuable.
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