Showbiz News | Page: 1
Minatrix.FM launches a new project — the Minatrix.TV film portal
In recent weeks, many people noticed that the Minatrix.FM team’s activity during the New Year holidays was lower than usual. But this calm was deceptive. We were not resting — we were working on the launch of a new major project and laying the foundation for a new direction.
We are proud to announce: the Minatrix.FM team has launched Minatrix.TV — an encyclopedia of video and cinema, an independent film portal dedicated to movies, TV series, animated films, and music videos. It is important to emphasize: the project is non-commercial and independent, created out of love for cinema and visual culture, not for traffic or advertising algorithms.
A unified Minatrix ecosystem
Minatrix.TV is part of the broader Minatrix ecosystem. Minatrix.TV uses the same authorization system ...
Trends in Electronic Music: The Economics of Growth and a Culture of Meaning
The 2025 International Music Summit Report documents not merely the commercial success of electronic music, but a transition of the scene into a fundamentally new qualitative phase. Electronic culture is no longer a niche or purely entertainment-driven phenomenon — today it stands as one of the key ways of interpreting and understanding the contemporary world.
Economy and scale
By the end of 2024, the global electronic music industry reached $12.9 billion, confirming steady growth even amid broader turbulence across the music market. Crucially, it is not only the volume of this growth that matters, but its structure.
Streaming platforms report a sharp expansion of audiences: electronic music consistently accounts for a significant share of global listening on Spotify, Apple Music, an...
Melovin announces the end of his career in 2027 — farewell concerts and the artist’s statement
Ukrainian singer Melovin (real name — Kostiantyn Bocharov) has announced his intention to end his music career in 2027. The artist shared the news personally on his Instagram, accompanying the statement with an announcement of a series of farewell concerts scheduled for next year.
In an emotional message, the 28-year-old musician admitted that recently he has felt as though he has been living “faster than himself.” According to the artist, music, the stage, audience expectations, and constant public visibility have been — and remain — an important part of his journey, but his inner state no longer aligns with his former pace of life.
“I am ending my career in 2027. Lately, I often catch myself thinking that I’m living faster than myself. Music, th...
Happy New Year from Minatrix.FM — the year we created together
Friends, listeners, artists, and everyone who lives through music — the Minatrix.FM team wishes you a Happy New Year! This year became more than just another date on the calendar for us — it marked a true stage of growth, experimentation, and community building.
What we achieved this year
Minatrix.FM — more than just radio
Over the past year, Minatrix.FM has fully taken shape as a curated music platform, not just a stream:
we expanded the genre spectrum: from underground electronic and bass scenes to ambient, IDM, witch house, and experimental styles
we strengthened live broadcasting and editorial selections, focusing on taste rather than algorithms
we launched new themed hours and special rotations
International and multilingual growth
We continued developing mul...
Minatrix sums up the TOP 100 DJs 2025 — the most honest ranking of the year
2025 became a landmark year for the Minatrix.FM platform. For the first time in a long while, a truly independent and transparent DJ ranking was compiled—one where the decisive factors were not algorithms, budgets, or artificial boosts, but real artist activity and genuine listener engagement.
Minatrix TOP 100 DJs 2025 is more than just a list of names. It is a snapshot of the scene, reflecting who actually put in the work throughout the year—releasing music, developing their sound, and connecting with their audience.
Two nominations — two perspectives on the scene
The ranking was traditionally formed across two key categories:
Listeners’ Choice
A public nomination in which Minatrix.FM users voted monthly for their favorite DJs. Important: each vote had a dynamic we...
Global Music Industry Results 2025 — TOP 10: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube & Minatrix.FM
The year 2025 officially cemented a great divide in the music industry. The musical world is no longer unified: while giants like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music battle for milliseconds of attention using neural networks, autoplay playlists, and behavioral models, real cultural life is increasingly moving “underground” — toward live broadcasting, human intuition, and curatorial selection.
For the first time, annual platform reports revealed not just different numbers, but different realities. Against this backdrop, the Minatrix.FM Top 10 looks not like another chart, but like a manifesto. It is an honest snapshot of what happens when music is chosen not by cold code, but by a living person — guided by vibe, atmosphere, and audience reaction rather than reach...
French Touch recognized as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage
French house music, known worldwide as French Touch or French House, has officially been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This decision закрепляет the genre’s status not merely as a musical style, but as a full-fledged cultural phenomenon that shaped France’s modern identity and had a profound impact on the global electronic music scene.
What French House and French Touch Are
French House is a subgenre of house music that emerged in France in the early 1990s. Its defining features include heavy use of samples from 1970s–1980s disco, funk, and soul, dense “filtered” basslines, compression with a characteristic pumping effect (sidechain compression), and a strong dancefloor energy.
Over time, the term French Touch came to describ...
Court Evicts Larisa Dolina from Her Khamovniki Apartment: A High-Profile Finale to a Resonant Case
The Moscow City Court has ordered the eviction of Larisa Dolina and her family members from a luxury apartment in the Khamovniki district. The singer has also been deprived of the right to use the residential property. The ruling was issued on December 25, 2025, putting an end to one of the most widely discussed property disputes of the year and triggering strong reactions within the legal and real estate communities.
How an elite deal turned into a legal precedent
The story began in early 2025, when buyer Polina Lurie responded to an advertisement offering an apartment for sale in central Moscow. After viewing the property, the parties followed the standard market procedure: a deposit was paid, preliminary and main sale agreements were signed, and the transaction was officially registered...
Witch House: From an Internet Cult to Eastern European Rave
The Witch House genre has long moved beyond the status of an internet curiosity or an aesthetic joke. Today it is a multi-layered musical phenomenon that has traveled a long path—from the American underground of the late 2000s to a powerful Eastern European rave wave that effectively prevented the genre from disappearing.
Origins of the genre: from a joke to a cult
Witch House took shape in the late 2000s – early 2010s as a reaction to the glossy and predictable electronic music of that era. The term itself was coined by the artist Pictureplane—initially in an ironic sense, without any intention of defining a fully fledged genre.
However, the name quickly became associated with a distinct sound and aesthetic. Witch House developed not through clubs, but through online pla...
Leak of 86 Million Tracks from Spotify: What’s Happening and What It Means for the Music Industry
The non-profit project Anna’s Archive has reported the large-scale acquisition of content from the streaming platform Spotify. The dataset reportedly includes 86 million audio tracks and metadata for 256 million musical works. Spotify has acknowledged the fact of unauthorized access and announced the launch of an internal investigation.
The company clarified that a third-party entity was involved in the data collection, using automated tools, bypassing DRM mechanisms, and performing mass metadata extraction. Some of the accounts used in the process have already been blocked, and the platform’s security systems have been further strengthened.
Why Spotify Was Chosen
Anna’s Archive emphasizes that while Spotify does not cover all music ever created, it currently represents t...
Court Ends ₴600,000 Dispute Between Moon Records and Kuzma Skryabin’s Family
The Commercial Court of the city of Kyiv has refused the company MUN RECORDS its claim to recover more than 600,000 hryvnias from LLC “KUZMA SKRYABIN” in a case concerning an alleged infringement of copyright and related rights to the musical works of the band “Skryabin.” In doing so, the court effectively put an end to one of the most high-profile legal disputes surrounding the legacy of Kuzma Skryabin.
What the court decided
According to the ruling in case No. 910/9689/25, the court denied the claimant’s request to recover 605,600 hryvnias in compensation. The dispute concerned an agreement dated January 1, 2017, on the transfer of property rights to the musical works of the band “Skryabin.”
MUN RECORDS claimed that LLC “KUZMA SKRYABIN&rdqu...
More Than Radio: How Minatrix.FM Unites Artists Around the World
People often say that music knows no borders, but in today’s industry this has turned into an empty cliché. At Minatrix.FM, we see it differently. For us, a “global community” is not dry listening statistics from different countries or soulless analytics charts. It is a living ecosystem made up of real people who share moments of their lives with us—genuine joy, personal stories, and even the first snowfall.
Music as a personal connection: a letter with more life than any promo video
Just recently, our editorial team received a message that doesn’t fit into the usual framework of the music business. Our resident, the talented DJ and musician HestiLL from Iran, sent us not just a new demo track or a technical question. He sent a piece of his soul.
In the...
What Is Intelligent Drum and Bass? A Complete Genre Guide on Minatrix.FM
Intelligent (also known as Intelligent Drum & Bass or Intelligent Jungle) is a subgenre of drum & bass that emerged in the mid-1990s as a more melodic, atmospheric, and conceptual alternative to hard jungle and dancefloor-oriented D&B.
The core idea of the genre is a shift away from dancefloor aggression toward musicality, mood, and thoughtful composition. Intelligent is aimed less at clubs and more at focused, attentive listening at home.
Origins of the genre
The 1990s context
In the early 1990s, drum & bass evolved rapidly and aggressively. London’s jungle scene was closely tied to rave culture, fast breakbeats, and heavy sub-bass. However, by 1994–1996, a number of producers began searching for a more mature and musical form.
This gave rise to a direction tha...
Psy Chill: Music of Expanded Space — History, Artists, and Psychedelic Vibe
Psy Chill (or Psychedelic Chillout) is a subgenre of electronic music that emerged as a calm, atmospheric counterpart to psytrance. It blends elements of ambient, downtempo, dub, ethnic music, and psychedelic electronics, while preserving the depth and spatial awareness characteristic of the trance scene.
Unlike dancefloor-oriented psytrance, Psy Chill is not designed for peak energy, but for relaxation, recovery, and immersion. It is often used as background music at festivals, in lounge and chillout areas, as well as for home listening and meditation.
Origins and development of the genre
Psy Chill began to take shape in the late 1990s and early 2000s within psychedelic trance culture. Large psytrance festivals created a need for dedicated relaxation spaces — so-called chillout zone...
Florida Breaks — the history and sound of 1990s Orlando Breaks
Florida Breaks (also known as Orlando Breaks or Orlando Sound) is a subgenre of breakbeat that emerged in Central Florida (USA) in the late 1980s and developed most actively during the 1990s. The genre became an important part of American club culture and had a noticeable influence on the development of the U.S. breaks scene.
Florida Breaks is characterized by an energetic, dancefloor-oriented feel, a powerful bass presence, and a clear focus on club play, in contrast to the more experimental or “dark” British breakbeat sound.
Origins and historical context
The Florida club scene
Florida Breaks emerged within the nightlife and rave environments of Orlando, Miami, and Tampa. At that time, Florida was one of the key centers of American dance culture, where the following styles we...
