Zack O'Malley Greenburg's Blog, page 61

What Jay Z’s $56M Bid On Swedish Streaming Service Means For His Empire

Jay Z isn’t the world’s most tech-oriented musician, and he’s never been shy about that fact. He has no verified Instagram account, rarely tweets and once bragged: “!”

Sothe news that he placed a $56 million bid on Aspiro, the Swedish parent company of high-quality streaming services WiMP and Tilt, may come as something as a surprise. Yet the deal appears to be all but done, judging by a recent press release.

“Aspiro’s board of directors has d...

Why Katy Perry Isn’t Getting Paid–Or Paying–For Super Bowl Halftime Gig

It’s safe to say Katy Perry is no longer a dark horse when it comes to getting major gigs. After spending her early years trying to make it as a gospel singer, she found mainstream success with breakout hit “I Kissed A Girl” in 2008; now she’s set to take the world’s biggest stage at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show.

Predictably, Perry’s rise to superstardom has been accompanied by stellar financial returns. Last year she pulled in $40 million and is headed toward an even bigger payday this y...

Truth In Numbers: Six Music Industry Takeaways From Year-End Data

In recent days, a handful of important year-end music reports have been published–from varied outlets includingNielsen SoundScan, Next Big Sound, Morgan Stanley, TechNavio and Concave Brand Tracking–and, as usual, the numbers contained in them reveal valuable insights about the state of the industry.

Despite the well-publicized struggles of the music business, there are plenty of positive takeaways.

“Music fans continue to consume music through on-demand streaming services at record levels, hel...

Netflix Spike Suggests Investors Unworried About Amazon

Shares of Netflix soared 17% today as investors gobbled up good news on subscriber growth and plans for international expansion outlined in the company’s fourth quarter earnings report.

“Internet TV is growing globally and Netflix is leading the charge,” saidReid Hastings, the company’s billionaire CEO.

Wall Street’s exuberance toward Netflix also reveals an intriguing subplot: the market doesn’t seem terribly concerned about competition from Amazon, whichrecently announced plans to expand into...

Ready To Roll: Wiz Khalifa Reveals His Pre-Show Routine

Though it won’t come as much of a surprise, Wiz Khalifa is fan ofThe Big Lebowski–and, in some ways, he sees similarities to The Dude’s rug when he looks in the mirror. More specifically, heunderstands that his role as a musician is, at least partly, to tie a room together.

“Call me the rug–Rug Khalifa,” he said moments before taking the stage at the Forbes 30 Under 30 music festival in Philadelphia.“It’s not just performing and jamming out, it’s opening people up to some new stuff. You’re goi...

Five Music Business Takeaways From CES 2015

After a week that saw everything from a driverless Mercedes to some breaking news from the Wu-Tang Clan, the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) is coming to a close in Las Vegas.

The exhibition saw some 150,000 visitors descend upon Sin City, including yours truly, temporarily sending prices at even the most mediocre hotels on the Strip into five-star territory and making taxi stands look like the scene at an Apple store on iPhone launch day.

Though much ofCES centered on the latest curved-screen t...

30 Under 30: Nine Questions With Martin Garrix

EDM’s youngest superstar celebrated his high school graduation last year in unique fashion: by playing gigs in front of hundreds of thousands in cities from Las Vegas to Warsaw.

“It’s crazy to see how much has happened in such a small time period,” Martin Garrixtold FORBES writer Ryan Mac last year.

The Netherlands native got his start as a teen playing parties in Amsterdam; his big break came in 2013 with the platinum single “Animals.” And now he’s part of the 2015 class of our 30 Under 30 lis...

Wu-Tang Taps Paddle8 Auction House To Sell Secret Album

Nearly ayear ago, the Wu-Tang Clan shocked the music world with an announcement too bizarre for fiction: the hip-hop collective had recorded a secret double album dubbed The Wu – Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, and was planning to sell just one copy.

The album’s producer, Tarik “Cilvaringz” Azzougarh, invited meto hear a snippet of the lone LP in Marrakech last spring. He explained that Wu-Tang wanted to reverse the devaluation of music and help it regain the fine art status it enjoyed during the...

30 Under 30: Ten Questions With Afrojack

You could say that Nick “Afrojack” van de Wall is a car guy. He cruises around in a Rolls Royce Ghost and keeps a Ferrari 458 and an Audi RS6 in the garage. He can afford it, too–he earned $22 million last year,No. 6among DJs. But ask him, andhe’ll tell you he still hasn’t made it.

“Richard Branson’s balling,” he explained in an interview for a recent ForbesLife cover story. “[Carlos Slim] is balling. I ain’t nowhere near balling.”

Afrojack is, however, unquestionably a part of this year’s 30 U...

Top-Earning American Idols 2014

see photosNBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Click for full photo gallery: Top-Earning American Idols 2014

Carrie Underwood got her start by winning the fourth season of American Idol—but that’s not the only way the star singer is intertwined with the show that made her famous.

Underwood is the top-earning Idol alum for the second consecutive year, pulling in $10 million before taxes, thanks to six-figure nightly fees on the road, music sales and a lucrative role in NBC’s The Sound of Music: L...