And The Update Is...The Charts Are Country. The Industry Is AI. Now What?
And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan
And The Writer Is
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 4 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Every week, And the Writer Is brings you the most important news moving through the music industry — straight, sharp, and no fluff. This week Ross Golan opens the weekly And The Writer Is… news update (week of April 20, 2026) by highlighting major chart wins:
- Swimf by BTS is #1 on the Global 200 for a fourth week
- Choose In Texas by Ella Langley holds #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a seventh week
- Her album Dandelion debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200
He teases an upcoming Stagecoach interview and notes a strong country music moment.
New music + industry highlights:
- Olivia Rodrigo dropped a new single Drop Dead, debuting at #1 on Spotify charts, co-written/produced by Dan Nigro
- The podcast re-released Dan Nigro’s episode to celebrate
Business + industry news:
- Paul Epworth sold his catalog for a massive (undisclosed) amount
- Streaming platform Deezer is now receiving 75,000 AI-generated tracks per day (44% of uploads), raising concerns about “AI slop”
- Splice introduced a new AI tool that pays sample creators, which Ross praises
Other updates:
- Massive Attack signed a new deal banning certain rules (brief mention)
- Miranda Lambert signed with MCA Nashville, signaling a major upcoming era
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to and the update is I am your host, Ross Golan. |
| 0:20.5 | This is the news in the music industry for the week of 420, 2026. |
| 0:29.5 | As you guys have probably seen, Swim by BTS is still number one on the global 200 chart for the fourth week. |
| 0:36.4 | Choose in Texas by Ella Langley is number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the seventh |
| 0:41.7 | week. |
| 0:42.7 | Her album Dandelion debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. |
| 0:47.1 | Pretty impressive work. |
| 0:49.0 | We are on our way to Sage Coach. |
| 0:51.3 | So we are in a country state of mind over here. |
| 0:54.8 | Excited to show you guys and tell you more about that interview shortly. It is a banger. |
| 1:01.7 | Surely, you know, Olivia Rodriguez released a new single, which debuted at number one on |
| 1:07.6 | Spotify, US and Global Song Charts. That song is Drop Dead. And it was |
| 1:14.1 | co-written and produced by our friend Dan Nigro. So we released his, we re-released his second |
| 1:23.0 | episode this week. And because it's a classic. And we are excited to celebrate that for him. |
| 1:30.5 | Paul Epworth in some news, Paul Epworth sold his catalog for probably a gazillion dollars. |
| 1:36.3 | Of course, we don't know exactly how much it was, but he's written some hits for Adele and |
| 1:40.9 | Rihanna and Florence and The Machine. Florence and the Machine would be a cool |
| 1:49.2 | cover band of Florence and the Machine and rage against a machine that probably doesn't actually |
| 1:55.6 | exist. But I'm just going with the flow here. So D.Zer now receives 75,000 AI generated tracks per day. |
| 2:09.0 | Bots on bots, on bots, on bots. |
| 2:11.9 | That makes a 44% of new uploads increasing from 60,000 a day in January. |
| 2:19.3 | But Dizer and the other DSPs are definitely aware of the AI slop and I'm sure it's costing |
... |
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