For many years, most music-streaming services gave social features a swerve, seeming comfortable with the conversation around music happening on other platforms. As we head into 2026, that appears to be changing. Spotify brought messaging back to its service in August, and now Amazon Music is testing a new feature called ‘Fan Groups’. For now it’s only available in beta for listeners in Canada, reflecting a careful rollout to gauge reactions.

Nigeria-based music service Hafrikplay is raising a $5m Series A funding round according to a profile of the company by Condia. The report claimed that the round is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, and will help Hafrikplay expand across Africa. The company is also working on a partnership with telco MTN Nigeria to help people pay for its subscription plans.

K-Pop, superfans and American expansion are continuing to pay off for Hybe, with financial results this morning showing that its Q3 revenues were up by 37.8% year-on-year. Hybe generated KRW 727.2bn ($500.4m) last quarter, breaking its quarterly-revenues record. What’s driving this? Concert revenues for starters. They were up 231.1% to KRW 245bn thanks to tours and fan events from the likes of Seventeen (pictured), Tomorrow X Together, Enhypen and BTS star Jin.

Very few things wouldn't be improved by the addition of a nine-tailed fox demon, don't you think? It's certainly the case for TV romance.

It’s 10 years since the release of ‘Stories’ the second album by late electronic-music star Avicii. Now his estate has worked with Pophouse Entertainment on a three-part documentary promising fans a behind-the-scenes look at the album. How? Because the studio sessions were filmed and Avicii (aka Tim Bergling) always had a YouTube series in mind for that footage. “Part of this album is that I have every session filmed.

Just the two announcements from Spotify yesterday: a slow day by recent standards. The first is a new feature for free and premium users worldwide giving them weekly “listening stats”. Delivered within Spotify’s mobile app, it shows people their top artists and songs from the previous four weeks, as well as highlights of milestones and new discoveries, and playlists to spur further listening.

Big artists like Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Mac DeMarco and Future have all been known for releasing multiple albums back to back in the same year. But few are crazy enough to roll out multiple releases in one day. Enter US jazz drummer Makaya McCraven, who released four EPs this 17 October. With material sourced from live recordings, the music was post-produced in the artist’s Chicago-based home studio and curated into the four separate works: Techno Logic, The People’s Mixtape, Hidden Out!, and PopUp Shop.

At her show at Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom in Chicago performing her hit mixtape Fancy That, PinkPantheress spotted a fan offering her something in a plastic bag. “Is that a roast fucking chicken in here? Did you bring me a bag of roast chicken?” asked the artist, upon realising what it was. “Is this a gift? Am I meant to keep this?” …

Less than 10% of songs streamed in Australia are created by Australians, which is what led Aussie artists Keli Holiday (Adam Hyde) and Thelma Plum to champion an effort to get more local fans streaming local artists. “Many people don’t know this, but Australian music, as it currently stands, is at an all-time low as far as listening numbers are concerned, said Hyde.

As part of our coverage of developments with AI and music, we’ve been writing about some of the tensions within the music industry around deals with GenAI companies. Rightsholders have been clear in demanding permission, payment and transparency from the GenAI firms, but bodies representing artists and songwriters are equally clear that they expect labels and publishers to extend those principles to musicians as deals are signed.

If you've been following the rise of rock group Sleep Token, you'll know that they have a committed legion of superfans

Sounds Right is the organisation behind the project making ‘Nature’ an artist on streaming services, creating a flow of royalties to climate-emergency projects when artists use nature sounds in their tracks. So far, that music has reached more than 26 million listeners, with $400k already committed to conservation projects. Now the initiative is expanding: Nature is now also a digital music distributor.

We have to hope Spotify’s lawyers weren’t hoping to wind down for the end of 2025 just yet. Hot on the heels of a lawsuit from rapper RBX alleging fake Drake streams, now the streaming service is facing a new class-action lawsuit targeting its Discovery Mode feature.  Filed on behalf of an individual subscriber, Genevieve Capolongo, the lawsuit claims that listeners are being misled because “Spotify’s playlists and recommendations are shaped by undisclosed pay-for-play arrangements and hidden commercial incentives”.

Collecting-societies body Cisac has published its annual Global Collections Report, breaking down its members’ collections in the previous year – 2024 in this case. The headline is a 6.6% increase in collections to a new record of €13.97bn. 90% of that is music, with the rest being audiovisual, visual arts, literary and drama collections. For the rest of this story, we’ll be focusing just on the music portion, which grew by 7.2% to €12.59bn last year.

US indie-folk band Big Thief released Double Infinity, their sixth studio album, on 5 September. It was their first new album in over five years, although various solo projects helped bridge that gap. Will Tompsett (US label head & global marketing head at 4AD), Emma Toney (marketing and audience development manager), Casper Mills (international product manager and artist relations) explain how:

Music-supervision company Too Young has officially launched its sync-licensing marketplace Catalog, the plans for which we reported on in September last year. The platform is launching with more than 30k tracks from independent labels including Warp, Ninja Tune, Partisan Records, Beggars Group and !K7, and has been tested by fashion brands Hermès and Dior during its beta period. The goal: to redirect more sync budgets towards independent labels.

Major labels have shown themselves willing to sue brands for using their tracks in TikTok posts without the necessary sync licences.

Amazon has been steadily rolling out its new, smarter Alexa+ voice assistant to more people. Now they can also use it within Amazon Music’s mobile app. This is only for people who are already in the Alexa+ ‘Early Access’ program, mind. Features include a more conversational interface to find music, create playlists and get context around them.  The announcement yesterday…

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Live Nation has broken another of its quarterly-revenue records. The live-entertainment giant reported revenues of $8.5bn in the third quarter of 2025, up 11% year-on-year. That included double-digit growth for its concerts business (up 11% to $7.28bn) as well as ticketing (up 15% to $797.6m) and sponsorship and advertising (up 13% to $442.7m).

Getty Images brought one of the first high-profile lawsuits against an AI company when it sued Stability AI in the UK – but now it has lost.

UK indies body AIM held its AGM yesterday, and chair Ruth Barlow focused on the arguments about UMG’s Downtown Music acquisition.

Naver is one of Asia’s biggest tech companies. Based in South Korea, its business ranges from search and news aggregation to video streaming and mobile payments, as well as being the original developer of social app Line. Now it is partnering with Spotify.  Maeil Business Newspaper reported on the “strategic collaboration” that will link various Naver’s services to Spotify – although full details will be announced at a later date.

Just in time for Halloween last week, Forbes published its slightly-ghoulish rankings for the ‘highest paid dead celebrities’ of the year so far. Top of the list is Michael Jackson, with an estimated $105m of earnings for his estate this year courtesy of streaming royalties but also five productions of MJ: The Musical and a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show.

Udio may have struck a deal with Universal Music Group, but the major labels’ lawsuits against rival Suno remain active – and now the company has an extra legal action to deal with. Danish collecting society Koda is suing Suno, accusing it of training its models on copyrighted works without permission. “We are excited about what responsible AI can do for music, but innovation can’t be built on stolen goods,” said Koda CEO Gorm Arildsen.

Spotify has published its financial results for the third quarter of 2025, revealing strong growth in its free and paid listeners.