Music Industry 2.0
Bath based band The Girls are attempting to claim TWO world records on Wednesday 31st of May in a hot air balloon. The rock band, who released the critically acclaimed Zebra Jeans EP in 2005 and are due to release their debut album in 2006, will be recording a new song titled What I Did Today. Written for the flight, the lyrics refer to the naughty things you can do when you are above the world below. (more…)
B2B digital music provider 7 Digital has launched indiestore.com, a new site that lets unsigned artists and independent labels upload their own content to sell and distribute online.
Indiestore enables artists to build their own download store, earn cash from the sales of their tracks and help gain a chart position in official charts in the UK, US and 20 other countries.
In addition, artists can promote their gigs and stay in touch with their fans on their indiestore.
The site is designed to help artists replicate the success of the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Gnarls Barkley, who built up a loyal fanbase through online music and community groups to boost their profile.
Taylor Hicks, the winner in the nationally televised finale Wednesday of “American Idol,” has two distinguishing features: He’s a 29-year-old Alabaman who has gone prematurely gray, and he tries awfully hard to over-sing like soul-crushing crooner Michael Bolton.
But even as Hicks huffed and puffed his way through his ponderous signature ballad, “Do I Make You Proud,” while runner-up Katharine McPhee faded into an instant prime-time footnote, it was clear that he was not the night’s biggest story.
Instead, show-stopping performances by Mary J. Blige and Prince signaled that Wednesday’s decisive winner was the music industry, which has gone from treating “Idol” as a schmaltzy novelty into a meal ticket. The franchise has led to 33 million records sold by contestants since 2002. It draws an average of more than 25 million viewers a show, nearly double the size of the audience for the Grammy Awards, and commands $1.3 million per 30-second advertisement, a rate exceeded only by the Super Bowl and Academy Awards telecasts.
Microsoft has spent the last few years getting smacked around by Apple in the digital-music market, and it must be getting tired of this treatment. So it’s doing something drastic: It’s throwing its own MSN Music store under the bus and launching a new music program that spotlights another company’s service.
Microsoft’s new Windows Media Player 11, released in test form last week, looks and works little like older versions of the company’s music and video organizer—starting with its front-and-center placement for Urge, a new music store from MTV.
Microsoft and MTV say this integration of software and store offers an ease and simplicity to match iTunes. But if a week’s trial of the service is any clue, Urge will have a hard time competing with such also-rans as Rhapsody, Yahoo and Napster, let alone Apple.
The Holy Grail of online music sales is the ability to offer iPod-compatible tracks. Like the quest for the mythical cup itself, the search for iPod compatibility has been largely fruitless for Apple’s competitors, whose DRM schemes are incompatible with the iconic music player. For a music store that wants to succeed, reaching the iPod audience is all but a necessity in the the US market, where Apple products account for 78 percent of the total players sold. Perhaps that’s why eMusic CEO David Pakman sounds downright gleeful when he points out that “there’s only two companies in the world that can sell to them—Apple and eMusic.”
A federal judge on Monday gave final approval to a settlement in a class action suit against Sony BMG Music Entertainment over anticopying software the company had embedded in some music CDs.
The agreement covers anyone who bought, received or used CDs containing what was revealed to be flawed digital rights management (DRM) software after Aug. 1, 2003. Those customers can file a claim and receive certain benefits, such as a nonprotected replacement CD, free downloads of music from that CD and additional cash payments.
In a step further empowering music fans to customize their online experience, AOL LLC today announced the launch of the AOL Music Now Web Services ( http://developer.aolmusicnow.com ) developer site. The new site offers tools to enable web developers, bloggers, and individual music fans to add custom feeds of artist, album, chart, playlist and other dynamic music information from AOL Music Now directly to other sites including their own web site, blog, or AIM Pages beta profile ( http://www.aimpages.com ). (more…)
Pete Doherty looks adrift and rudderless today as it’s confirmed that Rough Trade records – the label that signed him after he split with his former band The Libertines – have decided against signing up Babyshambles for a second album.
The revered indie label formed off Portobello Road in the 1970’s, and is currently home to the Strokes in the UK. It’s been responsible for launching the careers of The Smiths and The Fall, but A&R staff have reportedly been unable to renegotiate with Doherty and co due to his erratic behaviour. Babyshambles were on a one-album deal, which they signed in early 2005.
Karnal Film Productions is planning to make the first black metal porn movie. Nice.
Karnal Film Productions has completed work on what it claims is “the world’s first black metal porn movie.” Entitled “Phallusifer – The Immoral Code”, the theme of the film is “something never done before: Hardcore porn with hints of S/M and Satanic imagery starring the Harlot Queen as herself and a frontman of a known black metal band whose identity will remain anonymous, and the soundtrack is mainly comprised of decadent black metal music,” reads a press release. “I am now contemplating on which bands’ music to use for the movie,” stated the director (who is the frontman/axeman of yet another black metal band and who wishes to remain anonymous for the time being).
Groove Mobile, the world’s leading mobile music download service, today announced a worldwide licensing deal with the Association of Independent Music (AIM), a non-profit trade organization for independent record companies and distributors in the United Kingdom. With today’s announcement, Groove Mobile will now provide some of the UK’s finest independent bands and undiscovered talent with instant access to the mobile phones of music lovers across the globe. (more…)