| | | | MUSIC MARKETING TIPS, MUST-KNOW SKILLS & ESSENTIAL NEWS Need more Knowledge? Music Ally Pro will teach you all the skills you need! | | | | | | | Hi , and welcome to The Knowledge – Music Ally's weekly ¯\_(ć)_/¯ at the modern music industry. This is the email that absolutely does not like The World's Biggest Spider Web one tiny bit. Below are highlights of the news, tips, analysis and learning that make up our industry-leading subscriber services. Please forward this signup link to anyone who'd like a FREE Music Ally account – and for this newsletter to creepy-crawl into their inbox each Friday. (And hit reply if, yes, of course you're interested in a video called "1990–1992 ILLEGAL RAVE - 6 Minutes of UK Free Party Madness!".)
This week's Knowledge – in-depth and at-a-glance:
š¬ BULLETIN NEWS: Suno strikes its first licensing deal, with Warner Music Group
š¬ MORE NEWS: Napster blames 'misconduct' for vanished $3bn funding round
šµš« SOMETHING 4 THE WEEKEND: Weekly, week-ending music, in time for the weekend
✂️ MARKETING NEWS: What is clipping? How music can tap into the latest TikTok trend
š¤ A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA... Our favourite unusual stuff found online this week
Note: Ⓜ️ = link to Music Ally subscriber content
| | | š§ The Price of Music Podcast is your weekly music biz explainer! It's hosted by the BBC's Steve Lamacq and Music Ally's Stuart Dredge. Each week they discuss the hot stories and important trends in the global music business – and answer listeners' questions (including the ones you've always been afraid to ask...)
Listen now! Spotify / Apple / YouTube / Other | | | š¬ BULLETIN NEWS: Suno strikes its first licensing deal, with Warner Music Group
It's been a busy few days for AI music firm Suno. The week began with revelations from their pitch deck, then they took control of the narrative, announcing that they had inked their first deal with a major label: Warner Music Group. - The pitch deck claims that the firm now has more than one million paying subscribers, up 300% in the last year. It also reportedly breaks down Suno's plans for the $250m of new funding, including that 20% will be spent on mergers and acquisitions
- Later in the week, Warner Music Group was announced as the first major label to strike a deal with Suno. The agreement brought with it news of Suno's plans for "new, more advanced and licensed" models in 2026, including restrictions on what its users can do with the music they create.
- A blog post from the startup went into more detail about how WMG's artists will fit into all this. "We will be introducing content from WMG artists who opt in for the use of their names, images, likenesses, voices, and compositions to be used in new AI-generated music," explained Suno.
š Read all our Suno coverage here. | |  | | ⚡ TROLLEY: Powering Fast, Compliant Payouts for the Music Industry
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| | | š¬ MORE NEWS: Napster blames 'misconduct' for vanished $3bn funding round The $207m acquisition of music-streaming service Napster last March was supposed to herald a glorious new era for the famous brand, but recent revelations raise questions about the future for the service. - At the time of the acquisition, its new owner, Infinite Reality, had recently raised a $3bn funding round
- But the parent company revealed to shareholders last week that the investment has not come through.
- Forbes covered the tangled details, including Napster's claim that it has been a "victim of misconduct".
- The publication has been on this story for most of 2025 already, including reporting on the mystery surrounding who the unnamed investor behind the $3bn funding was.
- This year has also seen layoffs and lawsuits for Napster, including one from Sony Music in August alleging $9.2m in unpaid royalties by the music-streaming subsidiary.
š Read all of our Napster coverage here. | |  |
šµš« SOMETHING 4 THE WEEKEND: Weekly, week-ending music for the weekend
Isn't it a funny how in the music biz we spend so long yakking about strategies and platforms and budgets and stuff, and the actual music can sometimes feel a bit relegated to "oh yeah, and that too" status?
This is the bit of The Knowledge that rights that wrong – and gives you something good to listen over the weekend.
This week, it's 41 years since Band Aid recorded "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in response to the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. On 25–26 November 1984, a remarkable number of 1980's pop stars and their enormous floofy haircuts descended on a Notting Hill studio in London. There, they recorded their parts of the song written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, who, as per this excellent contemporaneous video footage, "hoped to raise between a million and million and a half pounds." The song became a phenomenon and raised over £8 million for Ethiopia within a year. The song, its intentions, how the money was spent, and the song's message were very much products of the period – and it has gathered plenty of criticism at the time and since. However, as an example of how music, the industry, and artists can successfully unite – with fiery determination – around an issue, it's perhaps unsurpassed. It's also uncomfortably honest, particularly considering – or perhaps because of – its creation during the self-obsessed mid-1980s: Bono's infamous "thank god it's them instead of you" line still grabs the listener's attention in a way unlike many others in pop history.
All that said, let's not discuss 1989's Stock Aitken Waterman-produced "Band Aid II" version, which – despite the unique pairing of Kylie Minogue, D Mob, Cliff Richard, Jimmy Somerville and Technotronic – was, let's say, not quite as good. | | | ✂️ MARKETING NEWS: What is clipping? How music can tap into the latest TikTok trend As a label or management team, how can you do more with video on social media without pushing your artists to burnout point trying to provide it? Clipping may be one answer. A session at Music Ally Marketing Week, our new online event, delved into what clipping is and how it works, and the benefits it can bring for artists and music. - Ranked Music CEO Thiago Machado was joined by his colleagues, head of strategy Adriana Holzmann and market lead Alec Karageorges, to explain all in the session
- Holzmann kicked off with a clear definition of clipping in this context. "It's transforming long-format content such as music videos, behind-the-scenes [footage], long-format interviews, performance videos – anything that is longer format – into short, snackable content," she said.
- Karageorges pointed to rapper ian, with his 'Magic Johnson' track, as one of the first musicians to follow this playbook. "And now we've seen mass adoption from everyone, from indie artists like Russ to Drake and Partynextdoor with their most recent album release, getting over 100 million views on their clipping campaign."
- One of the big advantages of clipping is that it doesn't rely on the artist to create the posts. Clipping is also fast: Machado said that a typical campaign can be up and running in between 24 and 48 hours, which is speedier than traditional influencer-marketing campaigns.
š Read in full here - and register to access videos of all of the sessions at Music Ally Marketing week for FREE here. | |  | š¼ Music Ally Jobs - The latest and best jobs for the global music business, trusted by both top music industry companies and experienced professionals on top of their game.
Are you looking for a job? Click here to see the full list of vacancies! | | š¤ A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA...
And finally… our daily Bulletin newsletter is loved by subscribers for its instant industry analysis - but secretly, the part they like most is the 'A Little Something Extra' section at the bottom of the email. Here's a few of the best recent links and a couple of Knowledge extras: | | | š§ Music Ally Subscribers get so much more Knowledge! Have you got your FREE Music Ally account yet? Our free account lets you access up to 10 Music Ally News and Analysis articles from our premium paid service every month – and it only takes 30 seconds to sign up. Click here and dig in! | | | But wait! There's more! Our paid premium subscriber account gives you unlimited access to news and analysis, Sandbox digital marketing guides, Behind The Campaign deep-dives, big-picture Insight Reports, Country Profile reports... all with the music marketing, tech, and industry focus that makes Music Ally a must-have resource for key decision-makers in the music industry. Check it out here! | | | | Music Ally Pro is our powerful new platform consisting of an integrated suite of knowledge and skills tools, a responsive AI AllyBot that draws from our full insight resources, and a unique marketing campaigns database. We also offer in-house learning and development as well as marketing strategy and implementation for labels, managers, artists and publishers. | | | | | | | |
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