And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - And The Update Is...Spotify Deletes 500K Streams ,TIDAL Takes a Stand Against AI,The Charts Have a New Enemy

Episode Date: July 4, 2026

And The Update Is…a weekly beat on the industry . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to and the update is I am your host, Ross Golan. And this is the music industry news for the week of June 29th, 2026. Happy 250th birthday to the United States of America. One of the leaders in the world for intellectual property protection. So songwriters everywhere can be protected. We do lead the world in participation. with streaming services, which sounds crazy to those who are listening to this who don't know that, but that is a true story.

All right, well, let's get to some news. Here's a story for you. Spotify delete streams of a chart-topping song after suspicious Cal She Betts. That's right, the platform removed more than 500,000 streams of Malcolm Todd's draft earrings. On Concern, traders propelled it to number one. Well, that's interesting because we're used to labels and all these other people. people dealing with payola, but we are not used to random traders taking advantage of processes of streaming services.

That is a wild, a wild story. It makes you wonder how many times it's been done before and how many times that will continue to happen. Maybe the biggest news that people have been talking about this week is that title introduces AI music policy and labeling system. They are not going to pay AI generated news. music, any royalties. Shots fired to you, Spotify and Apple, are you going to pay AI Slop creators?

I hope not. Title is leading the way there. Congrats, Title. I hope people use your platform and others can learn from that. Primary wave isn't just stopping at Cobalt. They're investing $100 million in Atticus Works Partnership, which is a strategy that's revolving around books and theater and working with author. Estates and Rights Holders.

Virgin Music Group announces new leadership team following downtown acquisition. Shout out to all of our friends over at Downtown and Virgin. You guys know who we are talking about. Also, in that same breath, same thing with Firebird announcing their $750 million or whatever they got for investing in the music industry as well. Shout out to those guys. All these people are friends. each other and we like them. So that's that's a personal shout out because you know good good folk. Always rooting for those people. SoundCloud and Twitch launched DJ performance series. SoundCloud

sessions will feature DJs through live streams created to help them connect with fans and grow audiences. For signings, Timbalin after all these years has a new management, Ben Willis and Josh Adriano of Indie Pop for management. That is a surprise if you know tim and his team that is a that is a big a big move with a very successful producer ash shout out to you she's a she's a gem she signs with atlantic records universal music publishing group and doomsday for publishing that is a big deal because ash is an exceptionally talented human kim petra signed with new management that should help her as she's about to release her album. Ellie Goulding signed for new touring, so maybe we'll get a tour from her. And if you have,

uh, if you've never seen her live, she's wonderful. Lucky day signs with Warner Records. Warner Records, not stopping. Don't stop, won't stop. Okay, let's get to some charts. Choose in Texas by Ella Langley is back to number one on Billboard Hot 100 chart. I think that means that it's been number one for six years now. You seem pretty sad for a girl. So in Love by Olivia Rodriguez is number one on Billboard. 200 chart for the second week in a row. 21 by Hugo debuts at number one on Spotify's top albums debut global chart.

Always excited to see people top charts that are not household names in some circles. Somber debuted at number one for his new single My Body isn't ready. Considering that he's number one at

top 40 radio at the moment, that guy is just killing it with 100% songs. You can always check out the interview we did with him. That was enlightening. ML2 by Young Boy Never Broke Again. NBA Young Boy. Debues at number one on Spotify's top album debut USA chart.

If you don't know how big young boy is, he may be the highest selling rapper of all time. He's some stat like that. It's pretty insane. So not surprised to see him there. So nobody's as prolific as he is. Okay, anyway, that's our news for the day. Again, have a safe July 4th weekend, and we will see you on the flip side.

New episode coming out Tuesday. It's a really good one with an artist that I love. Super stoked about that. Don't forget to join our Patreon. We got a lot of content that's coming up every week now on that, and we're excited to give away some UA gear to some lucky Patreon followers. All right, talk to you soon.

Bye.