Jeff Juin

Sports journalist Taylor Rooks paid over $2 million in medical debt for more than 1,800 residents in her Atlanta hometown

Joe Lim estimates that 90 percent of what you see on the internet is advertising in disguise, and he should know. For three years, Lim ran a company called Floodify, which at its peak operated 65,000 dummy social-media accounts used to drum up attention on behalf of paying clients. The point of this kind of marketing is that nobody is supposed to notice it. But lately, the machinery has started to show. In April, Justin Bieber headlined two consecutive weekends at Coachella. Coachella is the biggest stage in pop music save only for the Super Bowl, the kind of event that in theory generates its own attention. And yet on both weekends, a Discord server writer Lane Brown had been monitoring hosted paid campaigns for Bieber’s Coachella performances, offering clippers — people who are hired to turn a song, trailer, interview, stump speech, or whatever into short, social-media-friendly fragments — as much as a dollar per thousand views. “On social media, popular opinion is being formed, measured, and manipulated all at once, and every signal the platforms produce — a trending song, a backlash, a talking point, the feeling that ‘everybody’ is suddenly talking about the same thing — can now be fabricated by unseen actors with hidden agendas,” writes Brown. “Everybody is doing this now,” Lim says. “And if you’re not, you’re behind.” Brown reports on how the same techniques are now being used to fool people on every app they go to in order to find out what other people think, not just in music but across entertainment, politics, consumer products, and celebrity gossip: nymag.visitlink.me/w6Bu9N

@djvlad Kendrick and Ye.

100 years from now, which artist will be the most listened to?

@aliyahvallen 😆

i hate fat niggas!!!!!

@BrianZisook Feels like its a drake iusse they probably handed it in without letting the label know who to credit. And since its drake it will get pushed though. Normal lable practice is nothing can be in the que without cridits

It is NOT "standard practice" for an artist, label, or DSP to withhold credits. If credits don't appear upon release, the decision is either intentional or negligence. Here are the credits for four projects released today, two major-label and two indie, to cover all bases.

@BrianZisook @ReefHustleMusic 🤣

@ReefHustleMusic Cool post lol

It’s okay to fw Drake AND Kendrick It’s called “being a fan of Rap” lol

@aliyahvallen lol, I am guilty of this. I just have to check it out! 😭

i hate people that utilize every new ig feature. notes, reposts, threads, now instants!!!!! please!!!!! REST

I have to remind myself that Drake’s album comes out tomorrow. Hopefully, the music is good.

Michael Jackson died in 2009 with more than $500 million in debt. His estate also owed $40 million to the company organizing his comeback tour. Xscape, released 12 years ago today, was one of the first things they put out to start paying that down. The album was built from old recordings Jackson never finished, sitting in his archive from 1980 through 1999. The estate hired Timbaland to update the sound. He finished about one song a day. The album hit number 2 in the US, sold 157,000 copies in its first week, and went number 1 in the UK, France, Spain, Belgium, and Denmark. The main song from it, a re-recorded duet with Justin Timberlake, became Jackson’s first top 10 hit after his death. The catalog sales came next. In 2016, Sony bought out Jackson’s half of the company that owned the rights to the Beatles’ songs for $750 million. In February 2024, Sony paid at least $600 million more for half of Jackson’s own music, including Thriller, Bad, and the rest of his albums. That valued his music at $1.2 billion, the highest amount ever for a single artist’s catalog. In April this year, the new Michael Jackson movie, “Michael,” made $217 million in its first weekend worldwide. His estate helped pay to make it. That was the biggest opening ever for a movie about a musician, more than four times Bohemian Rhapsody’s $51 million. Forbes says the estate has earned over $3 billion since Jackson died. Court papers had described his finances as “in disarray.” Today his estate runs one of the most profitable businesses in music, and Xscape was one piece of how that started.

@BrianZisook Big facts, and people are inundated, overwhelmed with so much that is going on on social media. It’s truly a different world, and the record may be a hit, just not rt now. hell i have a record charting right now that I worked on 12 years ago that’s in the top 50 on Spotify.

Record labels have the data. If they choose not to spend on marketing, it’s likely because the data is telling them people don’t like the record. Many labels wait to see if there’s organic consumption before spending. That’s the game now.

Trump is not thinking about your pocket. The president said the only thing he is thinking about is Iran's nuclear capabilities. #trump #affordability #whitehouse #affordability #economy

@itselisaaaaa Damn..thought it was closer to the roots picnic.

@JeffJuin Monday lol

@FrankMagana15 I swear the only time these 2 get a repost "and come across my timeline" is when they speak on something that has to do with drake

Mal reveals that Drake had to clear songs for Rick Ross and French Montana for their Verzuz

@imanii_reena 😂😂😂

Jersey traffic was NEVER an all day thing until New York residents started migrating here.

@SeewhyChels that makes no sense since it was still up on Spotify and other platforms

🚨 Ebro says Kendrick Lamar’s music being temporarily removed from streaming may have been a label/distribution issue not the platforms themselves Ebro says takedowns usually happen between labels, distributors & rights holders not streaming services while Rosenberg jokes “of course” it happened the same week Drake’s ICEMAN is dropping Rosenberg also says Drake fans are “obsessed” and instantly started “stirring the pot” online over the situation and turned it into a conspiracy via The Ebro, Laura & Rosenberg Show

great music is collaborative.

JUST IN: Inflation is now eating up all wage gains for the first time in about three years. This is painful for Americans and a true financial squeeze. CPI Inflation in past year: 3.8% Wage gains: in past year: 3.6%

Jermaine Dupri responds to accusations that he took advantage of his former So So Def artists Kris Kross.