Kristin Robinson
Kristin Robinson digs into the business and technology machinery behind modern music, with a particular focus on how publishing, deals and artificial intelligence reshape the way songs are made and paid for. She writes for Billboard as a senior music business correspondent and hosts the masthead’s On The Record podcast, giving her both a reporting and moderating role in conversations about the industry’s most complex topics.
Music publishing, copyrights and the money flow
Robinson’s core beat is music publishing and the systems that govern how creators are compensated. Her reporting follows catalog sales, PRO and licensing disputes, and publishing-side restructurings, treating them as defining business stories rather than background noise. In recent coverage she has broken down major catalog and rights transactions, unpacking how deals affect songwriters, producers and catalog valuations across genres. She regularly explains new revenue models and payout structures around streaming, synchronization and neighboring rights, translating legal and financial detail into clear implications for rights-holders.
Her work also extends to the less visible corners of copyright, including fraud and enforcement actions in digital ecosystems. She has reported on royalty scams and YouTube-related fraud schemes from the perspective of writers and publishers, highlighting where systems fail and what reforms insiders are pushing. Across these stories she returns to the same question: who controls the publishing stack, and what that means for the creators whose work funds the business.
Artificial intelligence and emerging music technologies
Robinson has developed a distinct specialty in artificial intelligence and its impact on the music industry. She covers AI music generation tools, data training practices and the legal fights around them as front-line business and creative issues, not future hypotheticals. Her recent reporting includes a Billboard cover story profiling Suno, framed as one of the most controversial companies in music because of its AI-powered song creation platform and the questions it raises for rights-holders and artists. She then uses follow-up pieces and newsletter analysis to debunk misconceptions around high-profile catalog deals and AI-related hype, grounding her work in contracts, policy, and financial detail.
Beyond AI, she tracks broader music technology trends: distribution platforms, rights-management software, and tools that promise to streamline royalty accounting or fan engagement. Her stories often connect product launches or venture-backed startups to the existing publishing and label infrastructure, assessing whether they genuinely shift power or simply slot into established structures. Through her Machine Learnings newsletter, she offers recurring coverage of how rapid advances in AI and data-driven tools are challenging legacy business practices at labels, publishers and collecting societies.
Industry analysis, long-form features and hosting duties
Robinson’s format ranges from news analysis to long-form features and on-the-record conversations. For Billboard she writes deep-dive pieces on the biggest music business stories of the year, grouping developments around themes like live entertainment, AI and mergers to show how separate headlines connect into wider strategic shifts. She also authors narrative features that trace the evolution of roles inside the studio and the business, such as her profile of producer and songwriter Finneas, which explores how the record producer’s job has expanded across creative, technical and business dimensions in the streaming era.
As host of Billboard’s On The Record podcast, she moderates discussions with executives, correspondents and authors about topics like superfans, live music economics, and platform policy. The show extends her reporting voice into audio, where she frames the agenda, surfaces critical questions for guests, and distills complex debates into takeaways for industry professionals. She also appears as a speaker and guest on music-business panels and podcasts, often brought in to talk about AI, publishing and the future of music business reporting.
Career path and public presence
Robinson joined Billboard to cover music publishing and has since been promoted into a senior correspondent role focused on music business and technology. Her advancement inside the masthead tracks with the expansion of her beat from publishing into AI, mergers and broader business strategy. Alongside her writing and hosting work, she maintains an active presence on social platforms under the handle “wordsbykristin,” where she shares new cover stories, teases podcast episodes and highlights other music business journalists and analysts she admires. That public-facing activity, coupled with her reporting portfolio, positions her as a visible voice on how rights, technology and money intersect across the contemporary music industry.
4 more music journalists.
Aisling Murphy
Aisling Murphy is the theatre reporter and critic at The Globe and Mail. She stands out for writing about theatre as both art and infrastructure, with coverage that links new Canadian stage work, awards culture, and pop-inflected criticism. She covers theatre, music, and pop culture in a detailed, conversational style, moving between reviews, reported features, and analysis of the systems that shape what gets produced. Her beat includes the Dora Awards, Toronto stages, new writing, intimate productions, and smaller venues, as well as controversy where artistic decisions meet politics and community response. Before The Globe, she was senior editor of Intermission Magazine, and her bylines include The New York Times, Toronto Star, CBC Arts, and the Baltimore Sun.
Alex Hudson
Alex Hudson is Editor-in-Chief of Exclaim! and leads coverage of music’s links to sports, literature, and technology, with a strong focus on Canadian artists. Hudson reports on how music intersects with other fields, not as a separate industry. Recent coverage has included Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer on how playing piano saved his career, Ottawa Bluesfest’s Canada-wide soccer watch party, Lakes of Canada’s Margaret Atwood-inspired album Transgressions, Hannah Mary McKinnon on The Beaches influencing her rock-themed novel, and Alexander Nilsson’s 1001 Albums Generator as a tool for broadening music discovery beyond algorithmic recommendations.
Alexis Mikulski Ruiz
Alexis Mikulski Ruiz is a commerce writer whose distinct focus is the buying and streaming side of music, entertainment and lifestyle, helping readers decide how to watch major events and what to purchase around them. She is an e-commerce specialist at Rolling Stone, covering products, platforms and deals tied to award shows, festivals, sports and everyday culture. Her beat blends music streaming guides with shopping and product recommendations across fashion, beauty, tech, food, wellness and drinks. She reports through experience-focused service journalism, using lists, comparison roundups and step-by-step guides to answer concrete questions about how to stream major cultural moments, where to shop and which products to choose. Her background includes commerce and lifestyle writing for consumer publications such as Esquire, Men’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Oprah Daily, Women’s Wear Daily and Billboard.
Allie Gregory
Allie Gregory maps how audiences encounter new music by tracking the practical pathways of releases, tours, festivals, platforms and projects. She is a managing editor and news writer at Exclaim!, where she is a primary editorial contact for forthcoming releases and news tips and helps shape the outlet’s daily agenda around new music and its broader entertainment context. Her reporting centres on timely album and tour announcements, live logistics and festival programming across indie, metal, country, pop and adjacent film and streaming news. She writes direct, information-heavy pieces that foreground calendars, support acts, set times and programming structures, while also producing longer-form interviews, cultural stories and staff-pick recommendations that connect artists’ work, controversy and creative campaigns to how audiences encounter music and entertainment on the road, at festivals and on screens.