Iceland Airwaves releases volcano-watching soundtrack

Iceland Airwaves has put together a Spotify playlist to soundtrack the spectacular eruption of a volcano at Geldingadalur, on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, which started on 19 March and at press time is still ongoing.

Featuring the likes of the B-52s’ ‘Lava’, John Grant’s ‘Magma Arrives’, Carole King’s ‘I Feel the Earth Move’ and Björk’s paean to Iceland, ‘Jóga’, the playlist – billed as ‘some cool tunes to enjoy while Iceland heats up’ – is intended to accompany visuals of the eruption, which is being livestreamed by Iceland’s state broadcaster, RÚV, and can be watched in real time above.

“If you don’t know what soundtrack best suits a volcanic eruption, we have you covered,” says the showcase festival, which returns to Reyjkavik from 3 to 6 November 2021. Four-day festivals passes for Iceland Airwaves 2021 are on sale now, priced from 17,990 kr. (€120).

While the eruption at Geldingadalur could, according to geologists, continue for weeks, months or even years, volcanoes in south-west Iceland do not typically produce much ash, meaning it is not expected to affect air travel – unlike in 2010, when the ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption ruined a number of international tours.

Listen to Iceland Airwaves’ volcano-watching playlist below:

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Lockdown listening: IQ New Signings playlist returns

IQ’s New Signings playlist, featuring a selection of tracks curated by major international booking agencies, returns today, providing the perfect soundtrack for those long summer afternoons in lockdown.

Launched last month, the playlist complements IQ Magazine’s popular New Signings page, which keeps the live industry updated about which new, emerging and re-emerging artists are being signed by agencies.

The June edition features contributions from CAA, ITB, X-ray Touring, UTA, ATC Live, Primary Talent International, Paradigm, ICM, 13 Artists and Pitch & Smith, each of which have picked up to five tracks apiece featuring some of their most exciting new talent.

Listen to the latest selection using the Spotify playlist below – or click here if you missed May and need to catch up first.

Separated by agency, the full track list for June’s New Signings playlist is:

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Streaming companies up live presence with new concerts

Apple and Amazon, whose Apple Music and Amazon Music platforms are respectively the second and third most popular music streaming services worldwide, have announced plans for new live events this summer.

Ecommerce giant Amazon will expand this year’s Prime Day – a Black Friday-like discount day for members of its Prime loyalty programme – with a new entertainment component: a Prime Day concert headlined by Taylor Swift.

Available to view from 9pm EST (1am GMT) next Wednesday (11 July) on Amazon’s Prime Video service, the concert’s all-female line-up also includes Dua Lipa, SZA and Becky, as well as actor Jane Lynch, who will host the event.

“We can’t wait to celebrate Prime Day with an extraordinary night of unforgettable performances, for members around the globe,” says Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music. “Prime Day brings members the best of both entertainment and shopping. To celebrate, we’ve curated a line-up across multiple genres with performances from artists our customers love.

“We’re looking forward to celebrating Prime Day with this can’t-miss, one-of-a-kind event.”

Amazon previous organised a series of shows in the UK, dubbed Prime Live Events, though these were wound up in early 2018 following the shutdown of its Amazon Tickets business.

“We’re looking forward to celebrating Prime Day with this can’t-miss, one-of-a-kind event”

Apple, meanwhile, is taking Apple Music’s Up Next programme and playlist, which focuses on emerging artists, to retail stores across Europe and the US under the banner Up Next Live.

Up Next artists, including Bad Bunny, Daniel Caesar, Khalid, Ashley McBryde, King Princess, Lewis Capaldi and Jessie Reyez, will each play an intimate show in Apple shops in Italy, France, London and the US, starting with Latin star Bad Bunny at Apple Piazza Liberty in Milan on 9 July.

Apple operated its own music festival, Apple Music Festival (formerly the iTunes Festival), in London from 2007 until its cancellation in 2017, and has also sponsored select tours.

Commenting on his involvement with the Up Next initiative, Puerto Rican-born Bad Bunny says: “The impact [of being part of Up Next] can be seen in everything, in numbers, in plays, in shows. There are a lot of fans that, when I go out in the street in the US, people who do not speak Spanish, I think they will not know me and they stop me, they ask me for pictures and they sing my songs…

“It helped me very much to make myself known in a market different from mine, not only the US, but in places where Spanish is not spoken or where perhaps Latin music does not dominate, exposing my music and giving people the opportunity to get to know what I do.”

Streaming market leader Spotify has also taken its playlists on the road, including the Latin-led ¡Viva Latino! Live, grime-focused Who We Be Live and US hip hop-orientated RapCaviar Live.

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Spotify takes another playlist on the road with ¡Viva Latino! Live

Spotify is bringing its popular ¡Viva Latino! Latin music playlist to the stage.

Produced in partnership with US promoter Cárdenas Marketing Network (CMN), ¡Viva Latino! Live will feature performances from what Spotify calls the “hottest artists making a name for Latin music across the globe”, including Daddy Yankee (of ‘Despacito’ fame), Jowell y Randy, Bad Bunny, Becky G and Natti Natasha.

The tour kicks off at Allstate Arena (18,500-cap.) in Chicago on 23 August, with additional cities, both in North America and internationally, and more performers to be announced at a later date.

The launch of ¡Viva Latino! Live follows the successful debut in the UK of Live Nation-backed Who We Be Live, based on the grime playlist of the same name, and similar event RapCaviar Live, also a Live Nation co-production, stateside. Earlier this month it announced Hot Country Live, a show at the newly Live Nation-booked Rooftop at Pier 17 venue in New York, set to debut in early July.

“These are exciting times in Latin entertainment, and we are proud to partner with such a dynamic, music-centric company as Spotify to produce ¡Viva Latino! Live, which brings together some of the biggest names in Latin entertainment for one night,” says CMN chief executive Henry Cardenas.

“The decision to take this playlist on the road is a true testament to the impact Latin music is having around the world”

“This partnership and initiative demonstrates Spotify’s commitment to Latin culture, and the artists that influence it, in a way that brings true engaging live experiences to the hearts of music fans around the world.”

“Since launching our ¡Viva Latino! playlist in 2014, we’ve witnessed the Latin music culture grow beyond even our wildest hopes and expectations,” adds Rocio Guerrero, head of global cultures, shows and editorial at Spotify. “The decision to take this playlist on the road is a true testament to the impact Latin music is having around the world right now.

“This is a really exciting moment for Spotify and Latin music fans everywhere—and we can’t wait to have some fun.”

A presale for the Chicago show opens on Ticketmaster today, with GA tickets starting at US$49.

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Relive 5 decades of festival lineups with Playlister

With the 2017 festival season now in full swing, travel website Expedia has revamped its online Playlister tool, which allows Spotify users to compile playlists based on the line-ups of five decades’ worth of music festivals.

Featuring a database of 27,914 events dating back to the 1960s, Playlister leverages Spotify to create a playlist of each festival’s popular artists and tracks – or the most obscure – “allowing listeners to fondly recall the good times”, says Expedia.

Each individual festival is also provided with a ‘mainstream score’, detailing how much they have grown in popularity since their inception.

Here’s a few examples, using the most popular acts at Glastonbury ’84 (a classic) and the most obscure tracks at Woodstock:

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Bonnaroo app offers personal festival playlists

Bonnaroo 2016-goers can relive their festival experience through the Bonnaroo mobile app thanks to new technology debuted by the application’s developer, Aloompa.

Using 300 on-site bluetooth beacons – the same set-up that allowed the company to analyse the most in-demand US festival performers of 2015 – Aloompa tracked attendees’ behaviour at Tennessee festival, including the bands they saw, and then used the data to create a unique playlist, or ‘Livestory’, accessible from the festival app. This Livestory (Bonnaroo’s is named My Setlist for Bonnaroo) features “curated artist imagery and music” and can be streamed and shared with friends.

Aloompa says Livestories are “an engagement-rich opportunity for brands to connect with attendees on a deeper level” and that a “popular Diageo vodka brand” – it’s Smirnoff Ice – “took advantage of Livestory at this year’s festival”.

“Livestories allow us to learn more about our audience so that we can improve the festival experience year over year”

Bonnaroo’s Jeff Cuellar says: “We’re continually working to enhance the attendee experience and create fan first integrations not found at any other festival. Leveraging Aloompa’s innovative platform, we’ve developed a unique way for fans to compile their Bonnaroo music memories in one place. This also allows us to learn more about our audience so that we can improve the festival experience year over year.”

Bonnaroo 2016 was the least-attended in the festival’s history, with ticket sales down 28,156 on last year and 46% from an all-time high of 85,094 in 2011, although promoter Live Nation remains bullish about its prospects, describing it as “vibrant as ever”.

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