Music + Tech Round-Up May 09 2014

MUSIC AND TECH ROUND-UP

Don’t you just love 4 day weeks? We wish we had more of them! As usual we’ve got our Music + Tech round-up, so you can end your week up to date with any industry news!

Bloom.fm Looking for Buyers

Music streaming start-up, Bloom.fm, has found the need to pitch itself to buyers after its sole backer (Russian TV channel, TNT) pulled their £8 million funding. The app allows users to subscribe for as little as £1 a month and has a user bad of  1.2 million people.

Aggressive Pricing of Sheezus

Lily Allen’s third album, Sheezus, is selling for just 99p on Google Play. This pricing strategy has been criticised by The Horrors’ Rhys Webb who claims that “Her record ­company have done that to give Lily a surefire Number One.” Maybe he’s right as Sheezus is currently at number one in the UK midweek charts, 12k+ sales ahead of everyone else including The Horrors with their new album, Luminous.

That’s not all Lily’s been doing, she recently had a rather intense interview with Pop Justice.

Apple to Buy Beats

Apple is in talks to buy Beats from Dr. Dre and Jimmy Lovine for $3.2 billion. We can see how Apple might want to sell better headphones, but the industry is a little puzzled as to why they’d want music streaming service, Beats Music. After all, the tech giant only launched iTunes Radio last year. Maybe something bigger is in the works.. we’re anxious to find out! One thing that is known for sure is that this signals a major shift for streaming services into a more powerful and widely recognised sector of the music business.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Review

Check out this review of Samsung’s flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5. The review claims that “Samsung has now moved into Apple’s territory” and “the majority of people who buy the new Galaxy phone will be happy with what they buy, and rightly so.”  We are pleased that the reviewer has our very own 7digital app on their home screen!