1 and became the talk of the music business because it was released completely outside the usual channels of the recording industry. Milana Rabkin, Stem’s chief executive and one of its founders, compared the service to online payment apps that let friends easily split a restaurant tab. But aside from the album’s initial appearance on Apple Music — when it was delivered directly to Apple — Stem appears to have been the vehicle used to release “Blonde” to most major services. Stem distributes music to Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Tidal, SoundCloud and several other outlets. “Music is the only business in the world where the artist is responsible for doing all the paperwork,” Ms. LaPolt said.

Source: New York Times February 05, 2017 20:19 UTC