Together with
Teenage stream. ICYMI, Olivia Rodrigo dropped her new album, GUTS, on Friday, and we’ve been vibing to it all weekend. It seems like everyone else has, too. The highly anticipated follow-up to SOUR debuted with 60 million first-day listens on Spotify. At this rate, don’t be surprised if she breaks the record for most streams in an opening week (which she did in 2021). Talk about déjà vu.
In other news… Parrot Analytics fills the measurement gap, Tiny Desk Concerts authenticate music’s biggest acts, and WMG signs its first AI-generated artist.
Top Trends
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ENTERTAINMENT
Swoop up some data // Illustration by Kate Walker
Parrot Analytics puts a number on content’s cultural value
The Future. In the absence of streamers providing hard viewership data, Parrot Analytics has filled the gap by measuring everything from social media engagement to piracy rates to find out how much demand people have for a movie or show. While critics argue Parrot’s products may favor titles that appeal to the very online Twitter (sorry, X) crowd, its ability to measure their cultural footprint may eventually become a vital tool for future Hollywood contract negotiations.
Demand data
Parrot Analytics is really in demand right now.
Parrot aggregates “social conversation, streams, search traffic, and other signals” to determine “a holistic view of audiences’ engagement with and interest in a TV show.”
The firm’s subscriptions start at $99 per month (far below that of rival Nielsen) to appeal to individuals and smaller companies.
Still, Parrot’s star has ascended so high that clients now include Disney, Prime Video, CAA, and Legendary.
It plans on expanding its measurement system to sports teams, intellectual property, video games, and brands in the near future.
Parrot was pushed into the spotlight this summer after SAG-AFTRA proposed in its contract negotiations that the firm be used to determine streaming viewership for an updated residual system. The studios (again, many who are clients of Parrot) rejected the idea, claiming Parrot’s metrics don’t account for hard viewership data (which they refuse to share in a truly meaningful way). Talk about a complicated relationship.
Maybe a solution to the problem (and to reaching a consensus to end the dual strikes) is to create a new equation that takes into account Parrot, Nielsen, and firms like Antenna and Samba TV to calculate an overall score.
We hope some high-priced entertainment lawyers are already working on it…
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MUSIC
Harry Styles // Courtesy of NPR via YouTube
NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concerts” bring pop stars down to Earth
The Future. The Tiny Desk Concert has evolved from a launch pad for quiet singer-songwriters to a place where pop stars try to prove they’re the real deal — taking up the torch of MTV’s highly influential Unplugged series. While the Tiny Desk Concerts are still a great place to discover new artists, their role as a superstar reset may end up becoming their legacy.
Small space, big energy
Music’s biggest acts doing Tiny Desk Concerts demonstrate they’re just as worthy of a small room as a packed stadium.
NYT argues superstars like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and Usher have put on performances that show, even stripped of all the bells and whistles, they have raw talent and charisma.
The series is meant to show their songs not only have power when accompanied by high production value and screaming fans, but also in their very nature (even acoustically or backed by a string quartet).
That’s because, as pop music “moves over into the disembodied world of digital sound production,” artists want to cement those musical decisions as a choice, not a crutch.
And with the audio and video engineered by in-house NPR staff, the series forces stars to do what they hate most: give up control.
What ushered in this wave of “authenticity baptisms?” It all harkens back to T-Pain’s 2014 performance, where he, at the height of the criticism for his use of auto-tune, proved he had a killer voice. People were floored.
At 26 million views, his concert is still one of NPR’s biggest hits.
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MUSIC
Courtesy of Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group signs AI
The Future. While virtual musicians have been around for years, Warner Music Group recently signed its first AI-generated act: a CGI model and influencer named Noonoouri. The venture could set the stage for someone like Ghostwriter (the mysterious artist who faced the wrath of WMG after posting a song with deepfaked Drake and The Weeknd) to score a label deal if they worked with an “original” AI voice. Just don’t expect any Grammys.
Generated talent
Noonoouri, a model with IMG who probably has way more IG followers than you, has become “the first-ever strictly digital pop star,” per Hypebeast.
To cement the venture, she… it… the team pulling the strings… released a single titled “Dominoes” in collaboration with DJ Alle Farben.
The artist’s voice was created using generative AI, with lyrics from Andrew Bullimore, Jenson Vaughan, and Serhat Sakin.
WMG, which has been aggressive in both tamping down on AI-powered copyright infringement and figuring out a model for AI generations to funnel money back to artists, said all the revenue generated from Noonoouri’s work will go to “all creatives, songwriters, singers, and musicians who contributed to the track.”
That sounds like a win.
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Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Media, Music, & Entertainment
The Toronto International Film Festival, which kicked off last week, may be a “stress test” of how alive the fall festival acquisition market will be amid Hollywood’s dual strikes. Read more → thr
With NBCUniversal’s Peacock breaking ground as the first streamer to put full episodes of its shows on TikTok, striking creatives may have another war to wage for collecting residuals. Read more → fastcompany
The US Copyright Office ruled songwriters and publishers are owed late pay when music streamers don’t pay royalties on time. Read more → billboard
Fashion & E-Commerce
McKinsey and NielsenIQ found that while 78% of US consumers believe buying sustainable products is important, they don’t want to pay more for them. Read more → bof
Long Wharf Supply Co. is making sweaters from discarded oyster shells and plastic water bottles. Read more → fastcompany
The iconic Barneys New York fashion brand has been raised from the dead thanks to an unlikely collaborator: Forever 21. Read more → thr
Tech, Web3, & AI
Tesla plans to build a $25,000 EV and a robotaxi after the rollout of the Cybertruck. Read more → axios
Spotify is starting a new chapter by offering its fledgling audiobook programming for free to paying subscribers for a limited time. Read more → wsj
The IRS is putting AI on the case to catch tax evaders. Read more → nyt
Creator Economy
After going viral on TikTok and selling 600,000 tickets in 48 hours for his world tour, comedian Matt Rife will get his own Netflix special. Read more → deadline
TikTok Shop is chock full of cheap Chinese products, making it more Temu than Amazon. Read more → bloomberg
Patreon is getting its own chat rooms as a subscriber perk. Read more → tubefilter
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.