Spotify's Spanish AI, Eminem's Reign, and Brazilian Music's Rise 💃🏻

Question: In 2023, recorded music revenues in Latin America increased by 19.4%, outpacing the global growth rate. What percentage of the region's revenues came from streaming? Was it 70.5%, 76.8%, 86.3%, or 92.15%?

Welcome to this week's SongsBrews newsletter! You can find past issues in your User area.

A huge 👋 to all our new subscribers; we're happy to have you on board!

Spotify Welcome Livi!

We’ve spoken a few times about music becoming borderless. Strangely, many streaming platforms don’t release their content and features in more languages and capabilities from the start, considering how 'borderless' it has all become.

But progress takes time, and to that end: 

Spotify’s AI DJ now speaks Spanish, too. Say hello to Livi! The new AI voice comes from Olivia Quiroz Roa, a senior music editor at Spotify. In testing, her voice resonated with users.

The R&D department learned a lot from releasing the English-speaking AI DJ. Specifically, people are more likely to listen to a song they'd usually skip if there is a commentary. 

This makes a difference because to make AI really great, it needs a human touch. And while the voice might be AI, it is from a real person, so the recommendations feel more like they are from a friend rather than an endless pre-generated mix. 

The Spanish-speaking model will be available for Spotify Premium users where the current DJ is available. 

It also expands to Latin America—Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Slim Shady Isn't Dead... Or Is He?

No, instead, the Crowned King of Hip-Hop’s “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)” knocked Taylor Swift from the Billboard throne. 

Eminem’s album debuted at No.1 and ended Taylor's streak. Tying him with artists like Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, and Kanye West for the fifth-most No. 1 albums in chart history. 

Em has a strong track record of having his releases reach the No.1 spot.

Here's the breakdown of "The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)" numbers:

• Total First-Week Sales: 281,000 equivalent album units.
• Streaming Equivalent Units: 164,500 units, which equates to approximately 220.08 million on-demand official streams.
• Pure Album Sales: 114,000 units, all from digital downloads, as no physical copies were released.
• Track Equivalent Album Units: 2,500 units.

He previously had a ten-year streak of No.1 album debuts; this album makes it 11, although he has had 12 studio releases.

The album’s first-week sales also marked a rap album's biggest week in 2024.

Not only that but he was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. So, if anyone were going to see Taylor dethroned one week shy of breaking a record, Eminem would be the one to do it. 

So, after 25 years of consistency, what comes next for Marshall Mathers now Slim Shady has been laid to rest?  

📢 Remember, you can check your dashboard anytime for trends in music streaming. Freshly ground data served up piping hot!

Skipping Songs = Less Revenue?

It is a controversial view, but one that is circulating in the industry right now. Will Page, former Chief Economist of Spotify and current author of Pivot says it is time we take a new approach to skipped songs. 

Three key points from the full article: 

1. Completion means the song is played entirely and worth more than songs skipped before the end. 
2. Paying less for skipped songs would complement current streaming royalty accounting systems.
3. Stakeholders were assured that long songs are played to completion as often as short ones (based on modeling).

As Will points out, while there have been some adjustments to music streaming economics, they have largely remained the same for two decades. This could be a way to change the status quo.

Would it be easy? Absolutely not. 

Putting this song-skipping model aside for a moment, on average, 900 contractual agreements are tied into the royalty system. 

So, switching to either artist— or user-centric models is expensive and lengthy (although we see these models come into play now with Deezer, UMG, and Soundcloud). It is an incredibly complex process; some experts have stated it isn’t better. 

Enter the Fourth Option: Completion. 

While it does have the issue of accidental dormant listening (aka, music in the background), very long songs might also suffer from a late skip and the risk of short-song AI-Gen fraud (in the form of songs that are short enough to reach completion but long enough to count).

The benefits could be that fans start to appreciate songs entirely (rejuvenating the love of active listening). It rewards user intent, and, according to Will, it is a threshold that is easy to define in most cases—the end is the end, and anything else is a skip. 

Perhaps a bigger benefit is that it could stop the bots we mentioned before that play a song for 31 seconds to bypass the current 30-second threshold. 

It could be a revolutionary change for the royalties model.

Region on the Rise

A Warner Music Brasil, ADA, e o grupo Sua Música, dono da maior plataforma de música brasileira e distribuidora digital, Sua Música, uniram forças para melhorar e expandir o alcance de artistas regionais brasileiros em todo o mundo.

Warner Music Brasil, ADA, and the Sua Música group, owner of the largest Brazilian music platform and digital distributor, Sua Música, have joined forces to improve and expand the reach of regional Brazilian artists worldwide.

What better way to truly support regional music than by investing directly in companies already doing the work? Sua Música Group owns Brazil’s most significant music platform and acts as a digital distributor, too; with the investment from WMG, they are about to reach new heights. 

What does the partnership intend to do? 

It is a new way for artists to express themselves and reach new opportunities creatively. This is what Leila Oliveira, President of Warner Music Brasil, says about the partnership:

“The combination of Sua Música’s significant presence in regional music with our national reach and global network will amplify the efforts of both companies and offer artists new creative and commercial possibilities and opportunities.”

“Since the company’s creation, we have always grown with our own capital, and this investment will undoubtedly be very relevant to further accelerate all our business fronts. Warner Music recognized the full potential of our strategy, and we will certainly join forces to grow more rapidly in the national market.” – Roni Maltz Bin, CEO of Sua Música. 

Sua Música is now set to see phenomenal growth and expand its operations across Brazil, with a particular focus on finding, developing, and supporting regional artists and songwriters. 

This move follows WMG’s recent opening of an integrated headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. 

“Our aim is to provide partners and collaborators with an inviting and liberating space for creation. Featuring a spectrum of resources, from recording studios to collaborative lounges, we envision our new office as a vital hub for artists across Brazil—a space where novel ideas and expressions come to life.” – Leila Oliveira, WMB President. 

WMG isn’t alone in spotting regions on the rise; Sony Music also made a substantial quarter-of-a-billion dollar investment to buy Brazil’s Som Livre. 

These heavyweights in the music industry are setting up hubs and making significant investments, which means that this region is already showing phenomenal growth and has solid potential for the future.

IFPI Reported: Latin America +19.4% (2023 data report released 2024)

For the fourteenth consecutive year, recorded music revenues in Latin America rose steeply in 2023 by 19.4%, once again outpacing the global growth rate**. Revenues in Brazil (+13.4 %) and Mexico (+18.2%), the region’s largest markets, climbed double-digit percentages. Streaming was the key driver, making up 86.3% of the region’s revenues.

**In 2023, global recorded music revenues grew by 10.2%.

WeVerse On-Boards Ari

WeVerse has officially onboarded Ariana Grande as a new artist. Now, if you haven’t heard of WeVerse, here is the top line: 

WeVerse is a social platform that most often plays host to K-pop superstars like BTS and Enhyphen. It is a South Korean mobile app where fans can join communities, buy merch, interact with their favorite artists, and enjoy exclusive multimedia content. 

Onboarding Ari is part of the app's push for global domination. The platform had *10 million fans and about 150 artists. The superstar launched with a community and is now one of the leading Western artists on the platform. 

While having Ariana join the ranks is a huge deal, Hybe (who owns WeVerse) had a 12% YOY decline in revenue, and WeVerse was a more dramatic 18%.

 *The MAU for the app dropped to 9.2 million after BTS, their biggest-selling group, took a hiatus to perform their required military duty. 

Despite this, WeVerse secured an investment into the platform from UMG. 

Every artist who joins WeVerse gets a notice for their fans to help keep the community enjoyable for all. Here is Ariana’s [NOTICE] Guide for Ariana Grande Weverse Community.

Answer:  Did you get the answer right? Once again, it is all in the data! A huge 86.3% of the revenue came from streaming.

Quick tips: 

Use FreeYourMusic for smooth music transfers (up to 600 for free). 
Playlist curator? Artist? Check out: Music24. Grow streams (without bots).
Free personalized music posters based on your listening? Yes, please! Check it out: MusicPoster.io.

Thanks for being part of the SongsBrew community,

Until next time!

Exclusive access to the music metrics that matter sponsored by Music API & FreeYourMusic.