Label:Life

In fact, they’re tracking every download and selling the data to the music industry. How one company is turning file-sharing networks into the world’s biggest focus group.

Joe Fleischer twists restlessly in his Aeron chair and nods at the voice on the other end of the telephone. Tapping his fingers on his computer’s mouse, he stares out the window of his Beverly Hills office at the new BMWs and battered Celicas inching down Wilshire Boulevard. “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” he says. “Got it.” Fleischer is talking to a client, an executive at one of the major labels who’s working a band he’s sure could go platinum, if only radio would give the group a chance. The band’s first two albums earned it a fervent fan base, but to get bigger, its new single needs airplay, the all-important spark of sales. “Give me a story I can take to radio,” the executive on the other end of the line tells him.

Fleischer hangs up, turns to his computer, and clicks through an online database. On his screen, he can see in astonishing detail when, where, and what Internet users are sharing on peer-to-peer file-swapping services like Kazaa, Morpheus, and Grokster. He searches for cities where downloads of the band’s single are outpacing its exposure on radio. He likes what he sees. In Atlanta, sharing of the group’s new album is up more than 1,200 percent over the previous week; in Houston and New York, 300 percent. So Fleischer checks to see how much airplay the track is getting on alternative rock stations in those markets. Very little, it turns out – less than five spins per week in each city. “Jesus,” he whispers. In Houston, “KTBZ only spun it once, and it still got into the top 15 downloads. This is hot”. [more @ www.wired.com]

Pick of the week this week is a track called ‘The Outer Marker’ (from the album of the same name) by Just Jack, released yesterday on RG Records.

I have chosen this release for two very different but equally important reasons.
Firstly it is innovative, genre-bending and basically honest music. Essentially rooted in Hip-Hop but naturally encompassing many other music and songwriting styles, Jack has a real talent for setting feelings that we all have to music.

Secondly, I am very impressed with the tireless and innovative way in which Jack and his label approach the ‘business’ end of his releases. Jack is [according to his label] setting a new precedent by being the first UK artist to make his album legitimately available in full in the MP3 format. From September 22nd, music fans will be able to buy the digital version of The Outer Marker (hard copy released 11/8/03), on RG Records, for just £6.99. They will get every track from the album in the MP3 format, exclusive access to a stream of the Lesson One video, ringtones and artwork they can print out if they want to burn the tracks to CD. Sounds like a plan to us! -ED.
Have a listen to the single Here and check out the rest of the album @ www.theoutermarker.co.uk

It took a question about music—“What’s your favorite song?”—to produce the only authentic moments at the recent Democratic debate in Baltimore/U.S.A. and to show just how unsatisfying these campaign events have become.

You wouldn’t know any of this, however, from the media coverage. Most of the political press corps didn’t think that the presidential hopefuls’ musical tastes were worth reporting. Those who did either poked fun at the subject or gave it the barest mention. But if these early debates are a chance to learn about the candidates, what’s more revealing—Joe Lieberman’s predictable punches at upstart Howard Dean, or his off-the-top-of-the-head decision to hedge on his preferences by naming two songs rather than one?

Think about it: What do we really find out from these formulaic encounters? The candidates prep themselves to eliminate the unguarded moment. The political reporters go along, teasing news out of the most ordinary of exchanges. (A sampling of headlines after the Sept. 9 debate: “Democrats Spar on Foreign Policy” and “Debating Democrats Take Jabs at Bush.”) The rest of us crave spontaneity, some relief from the canned reply.

So when journalist Farai Chideya popped her musical question, you could feel the electricity in the air. For the first time all evening, not one of the nine candidates seemed eager for the camera’s eye. Chideya had done the unthinkable: She had come up with a topic that had escaped the briefing books of all those crack campaign staffs. Would the candidates go for the politically palatable or the confidently candid? Or just fall back on their campaign theme songs? [Read on @ www.washingtonpost.com]

EMI Recorded Music head Tony Wadsworth railed against reality TV-generated pop, at the In The City Conference in Manchester yesterday.

Wadsworth received an impromptu round of applause from the conference delegates when he criticised companies which depend on such music. “Long term artist development is good for the soul and good for the bottom line,” he said.

“I don’t believe in wasting good people in record companies on projects which have no overseas potential and have a life span of less than a year.”

Such acts “clogged up the media arteries for artists who have more to offer,” he added.

Pressed afterwards by ITC founder Tony Wilson, Wadsworth added, “There is nothing wrong with pop. What I don’t like is the TV industry putting young people in a zoo-like environment and making sub standard music that everyone forgets about in nine months.”

“I’m fed up turning on the TV and feeling like I’m in a village hall or at Butlins. It’s not healthy and I don’t think it is going to make the culture of this country any richer.”


[www.musicweek.com]

HMV Europe managing director Steve Knott is urging labels not to penalise traditional retailers as the industry prepares to move into the download era.

Knott, formerly elected to replace Virgin Entertainment Group’s Simon Wright, says he is concerned that High Street outlets are being unfairly hit by moves to make the downloadable version of a single available weeks before the physical CD goes on sale.

He claims that this will increasingly become an issue as the Official Charts Company begins to record sales of legal downloads.

“If you have a download chart integrated with the physical sales charts, you really have to release downloads at the same time as the physical release, otherwise you’ll end up with loads of gaps in the chart racks in all the stores,” he warned.
(Musicweek 20.09.03)

Suing young music fans? Slashing the prices of CDs by as much as a third? Selling music downloads and encouraging people to burn discs at home?

Can any of these turn a generation of casual pirates into paying customers? It won’t be easy: “Once you have gotten used to getting music for free, taking it away is an ordeal,” says Joel Holland, 18, of McLean, Va., who has “downloaded music for years.”

And seismic changes could be in store. “I honestly think the solution is going to be something totally new,” says Nicole Martin, 20, of Chapel Hill, N.C. “The current paradigm just doesn’t make sense any more.”
[more @ www.usatoday.com]

[This rest of this article gives a good overview of the current state of play.-ED]

To celebrate 10 years of madness from Wall of Sound YR has produced a couple of online campaigns designed to please the eyes and ears. Take a look and listen to the Wall of Sound at www.offthewallgame.co.uk or, if wasting time is more your cup of tea, check out an Arkanoids/breakout game with a special WOS twist at www.offthewallgame.co.uk. We expect to see nothing but industry names on those high score tables…SJ.

In a case that certainly neither party could say they didn’t see coming, Apple Computer and Applecorps, the record company owned by the Beatles, are heading back to court.

Reportedly, Applecorps has filed a lawsuit in London against the computer firm over a 22-year-old agreement that Apple Computer use the Apple name only for computer products—not music-related enterprises. Apparently Applecorp looks upon the digital music machinations—iPod and iTunes—of the Cupertino,Calif.based computer firm none too kindly.

The case, filed in London High Court and seeking penalties and injunctions against Apple Computer, would open the latest chapter in a long and winding road of litigation between the two sides that dates back to Apple Computer’s founding. Steve Jobs-who was heavily influenced by the counterculture attitudes of the late 1960s and early ‘70s—has been said to have admitted that the computer company was named Apple in partial tribute to the Beatles.

[more @ www.forbes.com]

Talks are due to continue this week between Warner Music and BMG, the music arms of AOL Time Warner and Bertelsmann, about merging their recorded music businesses.

If agreement is reached, the five main music groups would be reduced to four, and one of the world’s largest music companies will be jilted – Britain’s EMI.

Eric Nicoli, EMI chairman, is convinced of the logic behind a merger. But EMI, a long-standing advocate of consolidation, could be isolated. In a business hit by falling sales, intense competition and pricing pressures, will it survive or succumb to the brutal economics of the music industry?

[more @ news.ft.com]

Johnny Cash, a towering figure in American music spanning country, rock and folk, has died, his manager said. He was 71.

“Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure,” said Cash’s manager, Lou Robin, in a press release issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville.

Known as the “The Man in Black” to millions of music fans around the world, Cash struggled up from Depression-era sharecropper roots and became a true folk hero by listening to the myriad marginalized voices around him and setting them to song.

[more @ www.ajc.com]