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.BYTEDANCE EYES
A PLACE IN THE
STREAMING RACE
4
ByteDance, the parent
company of social video app
TikTok, is in talks with the
major labels to secure global
licenses to launch a new
streaming service, sources tell Billboard. The
deal, which is being negotiated alongside
license renewals for TikTok, will create a new
entrant in the music streaming race and give
Tencent another challenger in the Chinese
market. The music service, which ByteDance
has been demoing for a select group of
insiders, has been called “a whole new take
on streaming” by an industry source who has
seen it and will heavily incorporate social
networking features, according to sources.
ByteDance declined to comment.
Social networks designed around music
haven’t done well — Apple tried and failed
twice with Ping and Connect — but ByteDance
has a built-in audience of over 1 billion
monthly active users across all of its apps; it
also has access to a younger demographic
than Apple does. ByteDance initially planned
to launch the streaming service (which will
reportedly feature both free and paid versions)
before the end of the year, which could still
happen, but as negotiations continue the
launch could be pushed back to 2020.
“We’re at a point where the penetration of
a lot of these services is [already] reasonably
high,” says Russ Crupnick, managing director
at market research firm MusicWatch, about the
potentially limited audience for ByteDance’s
streaming platform in developed markets like
the United States and Europe. “The developed
world doesn’t need another streaming service
for young people, unfortunately. It makes
you wonder: What’s the problem that a new
streaming service is going to solve?”
TikTok has been operating on discounted
major-label licensing deals designed for
music startups, which were carried over after
ByteDance acquired the video-sharing platform
Musical.ly in late 2017. Now the company
will have to strike new deals that are more
beneficial for the labels if it wants its streaming
service to continue featuring content from
music’s biggest artists.
If ByteDance can become the fifth global
player in the streaming race, though, it will
shake up an industry where innovation
has largely been pushed aside in favor of
incremental improvements. While Spotify,
Apple, Amazon and Google all have somewhat
distinct features (Discover Weekly, Beats 1,
Alexa and YouTube, respectively), a service
with fresh ideas and a potential user base that
can rival streaming’s biggest companies could
throw a wrench into the market and make
innovation a top priority once again.
—MICAH SINGLETON
7
“I felt an extreme need not to
bullshit,” says Liz Phair of her
forthcoming memoir, Horror
Stories (Oct. 8, Random House).
For the indie-rock trailblazer, such
candor is nothing new: Beginning with
her groundbreaking 1993 debut, Exile in
Guyville, and throughout her career since,
Phair, 52, has favored blunt and honest
over anything rose-colored. So when it
came to writing a book, she wasn’t about
to offer anything but a collection of real-
life tales of motherhood, fame, death, love
— and all of the haunting mistakes she
made along the way.
You’ve always been very frank in your
music. Did you feel obligated to express
that same openness in Horror Stories?
I felt it, but not in an internal way. I
didn’t feel like a fan was looking over my
shoulder. But I did really feel that, what
was the point of putting out something
that wasn’t honest?
In an Instagram world, where we
constantly see curated lives, that kind
of honesty is rare.
Exactly. We’re all our own product, and
that’s not really life. I always felt grateful
to writers who would share their real lives.
I wanted to be a part of that, and I wanted
this book to feel real 50 years from now.
What’s the “horror” in these stories?
I started writing because I was so upset
with what was happening in the world,
and it was my way to feel empowered
when I felt incredibly powerless and
horrified. You see something really
traumatic, and then you just go on your
lunch break with colleagues — that
kind of cognitive dissonance between
absorbing all the stuff that’s emotionally
impactful and then carrying on as if it’s
not. I wanted to monumentalize caring. I
needed to monumentalize giving a fuck.
Horror Stories is the first of a two-book
series. What will the second look like?
It’s a companion piece called Fairytales.
It will be more about the big, flashy
career moments and big exciting things
that also are wrapped up in the lies we
tell ourselves — the way we perceive
things versus the way we really are.
The 25th-anniversary reissue of Guyville
synced up with #MeToo, and you
became a bit of a face for the movement.
Did you feel comfortable with that?
I felt a little unworthy. People were
looking to me for something, and I was
just as lost as everyone else. I realized
that everybody just needed to come
together where they could to support
something that flew in the face of what
was upsetting to them. I became a
symbol for a couple of months, and it
was weird at first, but then I embraced
it and realized I needed it as much as
they did. My music became a collective
“Fuck you,” but in a good way.
—MARISSA R. MOSS
LIZ PHAIR WRITES HER OWN STORY
What We Know About
Kesha
3
“While writing my new album,
I seemed to lose track of all
of my fucks,” says Kesha of
her next full-length. She didn’t
have many left to give on her last:
2017’s searingly personal Rainbow
was a triumphant return from a half-
decade hiatus, caused in part by a
bitter and still-ongoing legal battle
against her former producer, Lukasz
“Dr. Luke” Gottwald. (A trial date
has not yet been set.) A departure
from the giddy electro-pop that first
made her a star, Rainbow’s mix of
country, hard rock and piano balladry
earned Kesha her first two Grammy
nominations and a No. 1 album on the
Billboard 200. For its follow-up, she
has brought in producer Jeff Bhasker
(Harry Styles, Bruno Mars) for the first
time, as well as erstwhile Macklemore
cohort Ryan Lewis, who co-wrote
Rainbow’s top 40 hit “Praying.”
Meanwhile, Imagine Dragons’ Dan
Reynolds, Justin Tranter, Tayla Parx
and fun.’s Nate Ruess all appear in
the writing credits. While the as-
yet-untitled album is rumored to
be more uptempo and reminiscent
of her “TiK ToK” days, Kesha — who
also announced a second Weird &
Wonderful Rainbow Ride cruise for fall
2020 — will only say, “I have danced
a lot while making this one and cried
some tears. I’m not sure what genre it
is. Y’all will have to tell me.”
—JASON LIPSHUTZ
12
Mason Ramsey
saddles up for the
How’s Ur Girl & How’s Ur Family
Tour Pt. 2, starting Sept. 14.
In her much-anticipated memoir, the ’90s rock heroine takes an unvarnished look at her
life both on and offstage — and all of the “horror” she has faced along the way
Phair onstage in 1994.
13
It’s a season for solo albums with
Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard
(Jaime, Sept. 20) and Sonic Youth’s Kim
Gordon (No Home Record, Oct. 11).
14
Blink-182 caps a joint
tour with Lil Wayne
with its eighth LP, the oddly
titled NINE (Sept. 20).
15
Liam Gallagher reteams with writer-
producers Greg Kurstin (Adele, Sia)
and Andrew Wyatt (Miike Snow) for his second
solo album, Why Me? Why Not., out Sept. 20.
PREVIEW 2019
FALL
Howard