Soundtrack.io

Hip hop has been around for 50 years, and it’s still full of surprises.

1980: the first rap song to go gold.
1986: a rap song about sneakers landed its group a $1.6 million endorsement deal.
1989: one album cleared 105 samples for $250,000. Experts say it would cost about 10 times as much today.
2021: a 1994 debut album joined the US Library of Congress National Recording Registry.

And the world’s first regular national TV show dedicated to hip hop? That was in France.

The full story goes from block parties in New York to grime in East London and hiplife in Ghana. It shows how one sound got translated, not just copied, around the world. There are five playlists to try in your space, too.

Settle it for us: was the 1990s hip hop’s best decade, or is the best still to come?

Won't stop, can't stop: the irrepressible rise of hip hop What does culture sound like while it's inventing itself? Decades on, hip hop expanded into a universe of ideas so vast that you can barely see the edges.

PRS for Music and Soundtrack.io announce new partnership to improve distribution of public performance royalties.

PRS for Music is expanding its use of music usage data to improve the accuracy of royalties paid to songwriters, composers and music publishers when their music is played in businesses across the UK. The new partnership with Soundtrack will provide the next generation of usage data, detailing what music is being played in shops, bars and public spaces.

By partnering with the music streaming service for businesses, Soundtrack, PRS for Music will receive play-by-play data showing the exact music played across around 7,000 UK premises. Those businesses include Ole & Steen, Uniqlo, Dr. Martens, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Kiehl’s, Joe & The Juice, and TAG Heuer. The UK Parliament also takes advantage of Soundtrack’s platform.

PRS for Music works with background music providers to incorporate play data from businesses into royalty distributions. The addition of Soundtrack data significantly improves the accuracy of collected usage data, and extends the number of businesses for which PRS for Music has direct information about the music being played. The partnership additionally reduces reliance on analogous data where actual usage information has historically not been available to the organsiation.

The move forms part of PRS’s commitment to continually improve the accuracy and speed of royalty distributions to songwriters, composers and publishers. PRS will begin incorporating Soundtrack data into its royalty distributions from December 2026.

Ben McOwen Wilson, CEO of PRS for Music, said: “Our focus at PRS is simple: to pay our members as accurately and as quickly as we can. When songwriters’ and composers’ music is being used, we want the information that allows us to recognise that use and get the right royalties paid to them.

“That means taking advantage of the best data and technology available. Where we can know what music has actually been played, and the technology is accurate and cost-effective, we should use it. We’ve been working with partners in this way for years, and our new partnership with Soundtrack gives us actual usage data from thousands more businesses across the UK. It’s another important step towards making our distributions reflect the music that people are really listening to.

“And there is much more we can do. I want PRS to be market-leading in looking for better data, testing new technology, and working with partners across the industry to drive better outcomes for our members. Ultimately, it all comes back to the same goal: identifying music use more accurately, paying members more quickly, and making sure the value created by their music finds its way back to them.”

Ola Sars, Founder, CEO & Chairman of Soundtrack, comments: “Soundtrack research shows that in most countries, public performance royalties are distributed based on proxy data and not actual usage, this partnership proves that there is a better solution available. We're closing the gap with consumer streaming and bringing the same digital accuracy and standards to the music-for-business market.

Soundtrack is the fastest-growing music-for-business provider in the world, and has direct licensing agreements with thousands of rights holders and a direct connection to the digital music value chain. That enables us to give PRS unique and accurate, up-to-date usage and ownership data from Soundtrack’s extensive repertoire of 150 million songs.”

For a small island, the UK has started a lot of music scenes.

Mods, punks, Teddy Boys, goths and ravers each came with their own sound. Many of them grew out of music from somewhere else, from American blues to Caribbean sound systems.

Which decade of British music would suit your guests best?

Read the full article: https://www.soundtrack.io/blog/british-music/

Blues works in more businesses than you might think.

It isn’t all heartbreak and slow tempos. From acoustic picking to electric shuffle, the blues covers a lot of ground, so it can fit a café, a restaurant or a store.

What would your guests make of a little blues in the mix?

Read the full article: https://www.soundtrack.io/blog/blues-music/

Many business owners rule rock out for their café on the grounds of volume. That’s only really true of a slice of it.

The genre splintered almost as soon as it arrived and never stopped. Folk rock is gentle enough for a Sunday brunch service. Glam was built for a good mood. Garage sounds like four people playing in a garage, because it was. And yes, some of it will clear the room.

Eighty-odd years of it, traced from the blues and country of the American south through everything that came after.

Rock music: How the world fell in love with distortion When we realized what kind of hell-raising noise can be made with an electric guitar, rock music became the voice of the young and angry.

🕸️ The cobwebs are up. The skeleton is out of the back room for its one month of glory. There’s pumpkin on the menu board.

🎃 And the music is whatever was on last Tuesday.

Music does as much for the mood as anything you hung up this week. We’ve done the spooky part for you, from properly eerie through to just orange enough to count.

👻 Take your pick: https://app.soundtrack.io/browse/holidays/tab/halloween

Soul music is at its best in rooms where nobody is listening on purpose.

A neighborhood café on a quiet Sunday morning. A restaurant in the lull before dinner service. A record store on a rainy afternoon. Soul warms all three without ever asking for attention.

It’s good at that because it was never trying to impress anyone. A cracked voice, a note held a little too long, a singer who sounds like they mean it rather than like they rehearsed it. Those were never mistakes to fix.

Where it came from, and how a sound born in church ended up on dance floors in northern England

Soul music: Where emotion became an art form Some music fills the room. Soul music finds the place you thought you'd left behind.

How do you look after your head when the week gets busy?

For a lot of people, the first answer is music. It's ours too. This Saturday is World Mental Health Day, so the Soundtrack team is spending the week finding a few more ways to take care of ourselves:

🧘 Tuesday: yoga
🎤 Wednesday: a talk on focus with psychologist Johan Bergstad
⚽ Thursday: football
🏃 Friday: a run

Tag along in our Stories, and maybe you'll feel inspired to do a little more for your own wellbeing this week, too.

Which kind of music helps you switch off? Tell us in one word below.

Music licensing has a reputation for being complicated, and it has earned it.

The fundamentals, though, take about five minutes to get straight. Worth doing before you press play.

What a music license is and why your business needs one 👇

What's a music license and why do I need one? Putting on some music in the background at your business isn't as simple as just pressing play.