How Paul McCartney Landed First No. 1 Album in 36 Years
*By Conor White*
Paul McCartney is celebrating his first number-one album in nearly four decades.
"Egypt Station," released on September 7, sold 153,000 copies during its first week, including an impressive 147,000 in physical sales. And it's not the 76-year-old former Beatle's core Baby-Boomer fan base behind his latest success ー it's streamers.
Daily Dot managing editor Austin Powell says those numbers are certainly the ones to watch.
"'FourFiveSeconds,' \[McCartney's\] track with Kanye and Rihanna ー that's been streamed nearly 500 million times on Spotify," Powell said Thursday in an interview on Cheddar.
"So he has this other audience that he can tap into and that Spotify can push his music towards as well."
Powell noted that with physical album sales dropping from over half a billion in 2007 to just 169 million last year, artists have sought help from the very platforms that damaged their sales in the first place ー McCartney, for instance, recorded a live performance specifically for Spotify.
To date, "Egypt Station" has been streamed over 6 million times across all platforms, and that number will only continue to grow.
"I'm sure he got a nice push from Spotify itself ーgiving those notifications, letting people know the new album was available to stream," Powell said.
Spotify's power and influence continue to spread, as does that of its rival, Apple Music. The two services now account for more than 80 percent of paid streaming subscribers in the United States, leaving their competitors to fight for meager scraps.
And those smaller players ー including industry pioneer Pandora ー don't have great odds, according to Powell.
"I think there are only two that stand a fighting chance, and that's Google via YouTube, and that's Amazon," he said.
"They can bundle streaming into an existing service," he said.
For full interview [click here] (https://cheddar.com/videos/streaming-nation).
The six-month trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has come to an end with the former tech startup star found guilty of four out of 11 counts of fraud. Michael S. Weinstein, Esq, chair of the white collar criminal defense practice at Cole Schotz, and former Department of Justice trial attorney, joined Cheddar News Wrap to discuss what happens next for the former mogul. "Do I think it's going to be more than five or seven years? Probably yes. I think that's probably a fair range at this point," he said about her potential prison sentence.
Conor Cunningham, executive director at MKM Partners, breaks down how airlines are navigating COVID-19 outbreaks and highlights the growth spots within the travel industry.
President Biden will sit down with farmers today, looking to ease supply chain issues in the meat industry. The administration aims to combat the impact corporate consolidation has had on rising prices for consumers and lower earnings for farmers and ranchers. President Biden plans to leverage $1 billion to eliminate this bottleneck, along with helping slow price increases and boosting farmers' earnings. Chloe Demrovsky, president and CEO of Disaster Recovery Institute International, explains the struggles that the meat industry is facing ahead of the meeting.
Elon Musk continues on his path to make a reusable rocket with his starship project, but it's not going to be easy. If successful, the rocket would heavily reduce launch costs, in addition to further developing Starlink, Musk’s satellite-based internet service. Rick Tumlinson, founding partner at Space Fund, spoke to Cheddar News about the future of SpaceX.
Kevin Book, Managing Director at Clearview Energy Partners, breaks down the factors that impact the price of gas and what this means for renewable energy initiatives.
Kelsey Sutton, streaming editor at Adweek, talks about the offers going on during Disney+ Day and what the entertainment giant is doing to boost subscriber growth.
We are just one day away from what has been called the most influential tech event in the world. CES 2022 will officially kick off on Wednesday in Las Vegas, but the annual tech summit is being impacted by COVID-19, like so many other recent events. The Consumer Technology Association originally planned for a hybrid event to take place from January 5-8, with some in-person events and some virtual; however, a few big-name companies announced they will not be attending in-person, so the CTA decided to shorten the event by one day, with it now ending on Friday. Consumer electronics senior analyst Will Greenwald joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
