Ep. 176: In 2026, labels, artists, musicians and creators are all working differently: generating millions of micro-royalties every month across global campaigns that involve multiple of partners across dozens of countries. Getting your music out there is easier than ever, but processing that increased volume of payouts becomes more complex – and we all have an expectation to get paid fast, and see what’s going on and what we’re owed at any given time.

So to find out what’s happening at the point where all those payment pipes meet, in this latest episode of Music Ally Focus, we partnered with a fintech company that processes tens of billions of payments each year – Tipalti, which works closely with labels like Ninja Tune to pay their artists what they’re owed.

We chatted to Tipalti’s Travis Hughson about what labels need in 2026, what artists want when it comes to payments, and how to maintain trust and transparency to keep all parties happy.

Some more Tipalti resources for the music business:

• Automated Royalty Payouts to Nurture Artists
• Ninja Tune Enhances Artist Satisfaction and Cuts Payouts Processing Time by 50% With Tipalti Mass Payments
• Fast, Secure Global Payments Anywhere
• Royalty Rate Explained: How to Determine Your Royalties

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This is a Music Ally Co-Labs podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠musically.com/music-ally-co-labs.

Co-Labs content is created by publishing partners in liaison with the Music Ally Editorial Team. We work closely with partners to ensure that it adheres to Music Ally's high expectations of quality, thoughtfulness, and usefulness.

Ep. 175: Mark Mulligan of MIDiA Research joins us to talk about labels in 2026. It's jam-packed with great advice for labels of all sizes and ambitions, including:

• The value shift between labels and streaming platforms in terms of the 'ownership' of the music consumer
• How labels should "specialise" - and what that means for the labels who try to do it all
• He advocates for labels to 'nurture' artists with long-term artist development. He explains why – and how a label boss might need to justify a three-year slow-burn strategy when they're under so much pressure to deliver now
• What revenue streams or opportunities might labels be labels ignoring because they're too focused on protecting the streaming status quo?
• There's also a fairly unexpected chat about Nu-Metal, Limp Bizkit, and UK Garage.

Midia report: The future of labels – https://www.midiaresearch.com/reports/the-future-of-labels-shifting-sands

Ride - Vapour Trail – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhNi5cU8mo

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Ep. 174: What's going to give you or your artist cut-through in 2026? At the start of last year we published one of our most popular podcasts of the year: when we asked Liam James Ward, CEO/co-founder of content strategy studio Something Something to look ahead into 2025’s upcoming marketing trends. Never let it be said that Music Ally Focus likes anything more than pushing against an open door, so when we had the opportunity to get Liam back on the show, we said yes.

(It was a timely recording too, as Something Something were recently named Agency of the Year in Music Ally’s 2025 Music Marketing Awards.)

Thus in this special episode of Music Ally Focus we’ll look beyond the bland and get clarity on the key changes and surprising developments in digital and social music marketing that emerged last year and what you can do in 2026, whether you’re a big budget high-flyer or a scrappy and ambitious DIY-er.

Liam also digs into fan accounts, the atomisation of content, and crafting fun and sticky videos that stretch the idea of authenticity into exciting new places. We’ll talk about clipping, communities and crafting constellations of content, and we’ll talk about how marketers already instinctively know what strategy they should take for their artist and that artist’s audience.

Something Something: https://www.somethingsomething.social/

Contact Liam: hello@somethingsomething.social⁠

Music Ally Campaigns of the Year: https://musically.com/best-music-marketing-campaigns-of-the-year/