Music Trends

???

2008-01-08T11:47:00.000-05:00

Sony/ATV Music Publishing has instructed the Harry Fox Agency today to stop all future licensing of any of the publisher's repertoire for streaming or limited downloads, Billboard.biz has learned.

The instruction is expected to impact services like RealNetwork's Rhapsody, Napster and MediaNet (formerly known as MusicNet). It also raises the question of whether a service that offers a stream or a limited download of any of the publisher's songs released on records after today would be intentionally infringing the publisher's copyrights.

Here's the link.

Mac vs. PC

2007-12-30T15:13:00.000-05:00

I'm a loyal and very happy Mac-user (and I may sound like a Mac-spokesperson in this post :) - but this news caught my eye: Mac users more likely to download, buy tunes. A Long Island-based market research firm found that about half of Mac users surveyed purchased tracks from sites like the iTunes Music Store in the third quarter, compared with just 16% of PC users.From the article: "NPD analyst Russ Crupnick said the findings support his contention that Mac users tend to be more cutting-edge when it comes to digital entertainment."Interesting. It does not surprise me much, though - I have definitely grown into downloading more music since I have switched to a Mac. That may have happened as well had I stuck with a PC - but the bottom line is: I spend more time on my MacBook Pro than I ever did on my Sony Vaio (the last PC laptop I owned), and I especially spend more time with entertainment-type activities (music, pictures, movies) because the interface is so easy and elegant.

delta & playlists

2007-11-14T05:18:00.000-05:00

From an ad in Wired Magazine: Delta Airlines now lets you put together your own playlist from over 2500 MP3s on flights from JFK to Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle.

Madonna

2007-10-12T16:00:00.000-05:00

Madonna's latest move.

Wow.

In the news today

2007-10-04T22:48:00.000-05:00

We certainly do not live in boring times :). Get on the internet, turn
on your tv, and news about music, the music industry, and technology
is often taking center stage these days.

From CNN.com:

"A federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music
online and levied $222,000 in damages against her.

The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay the six record companies
that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case.
They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs online in violation of their
copyrights."

Here's the complete article

This is, obviously, a potentially loaded topic. But one I believe we
should discuss and wrestle with.

Personally, while I believe that copyright should be protected, I
think the RIAA, and this jury, have gone overboard here. $222,000?
That is insane. As an artist, in general, I want people to pay for my
music - it helps me pay the studio and production bills (I am not even
talking or thinking about mortgage and groceries :)). But I would not
want to be on the prosecuting side of the lawsuit against Jammie
Thomas. I believe that the RIAA lawsuits draw attention to the issue
of a technology that has raced ahead of the law and of convention -
like innovations often do. But I don't think the answer is lawsuits
against individuals. Instead, perhaps all this energy should go into
figuring out ways to work with these new technologies, to use them to
the consumer's advantage and the artist's advantage - and the two are
not mutually exclusive!

I am a huge fan of Andrew Dubber of Birmingham City University in the
UK. He has published the New Music Strategies Manifesto. I am not going to quote
it here because I think you read it in its entirety. He speaks to
virtually all aspects of this case (although the Manifesto is not
about this case per se), and he does it much better than I can.

Finally, competition?

2007-09-28T14:07:00.000-05:00

The Amazon MP3 Store is open - DRM-free MP3s for use with any music player - including the iPod.

The pros: it integrates seamlessly with iTunes, and therefore with my iPod. No DRM.
The cons: limited selection (for now). Lots of different pricing structures - that does not have to be bad, but I kind of like the simple, one (or two)-price fits all iTunes system.

Is this a legitimate competitor for iTunes? I don't know yet. But it is the first one that in my eyes has a chance.

revolution

2007-09-11T21:15:00.000-05:00

Last week, Apple and Starbucks announced a new, revolutionary distribution method: with the new iPod Touch (an iPod with wifi capabilities), when you enter a Starbucks location (right now, selected locations – all Starbucks locations should be online for this by the end of 2009), your iPod Touch goes online, and shows you the song that is currently playing in that Starbucks location. And it gives you access to the 10 songs that were played just prior to that. And…… wait for it…… it gives you a one-click option to buy that track, or any one of the ten previous tracks.

Obviously there are limitations – for now. Not all Starbucks locations are able to do this. Only the iPod Touch and the iPhone are compatible.

But consider this: have you ever walked into a store and they are playing a great song. You don’t know who the artist is, or what the song title is, but you instantly like it. Up till now, you’d have to be motivated enough to approach an employee and ask them what is currently playing, be lucky enough to find an employee who has the time and willingness to figure this out for you, you have to record the info somehow, and either remember it later to go buy it on iTunes or Napster or whatever service you use, or you have to go buy the CD. Not much instant about that. With this new scenario, you hear the song, you decide you like it, and you immediately are offered the option to buy it.
Right now it’s Starbucks. It’s not that big of a leap to your favorite TV series (perhaps through iTV? Tivo?) and that great song (that was placed through a sync license) in that very emotional scene at the end of the season finale. Or the movie sound track for the latest Bond movie (or Bourne movie).

I recently read an ebook on internet music marketing by Andrew Dubber. One of this main points is the sequence that people buy music in: people hear music, they like music, and then they buy music. This new distribution strategy makes the jump between those steps almost immediate.

Finally, the convenience. When you hear a song you instantly are offered the option to download it. When I first started using the iTunes music store I was convinced I would not use it much. Then I started discovering new music. And realizing I could buy one song with one click (well in my case two – I make myself confirm each purchase). I am not going to tell you how much money I have spent in the ITMS over the past few years, but it’s significant. And more importantly, I would probably have never bough most of these physical CDs – I buy a track or two, and decide I like it enough to buy the entire project – but often I would not have bought the project had I not been able to buy the one track.

A car, a job, a bunch of iPhones......

2007-08-28T15:19:00.000-05:00

That is what a 17-year-old teen from New Jersey is getting in return for the iPhone he modified so it can be used with cellular networks other than AT&T. It took George Hotz 500 hours - or about 8 hours a day since the iPhone's launch in late June. not bad for a summer job!

Click here to read the complete article.

Happy Birthday

2007-08-20T13:48:00.000-05:00

On August 17, 1982, the first CDs were produced - containing Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony. Which means the CD just celebrated its 25th anniversary. The CD's progress was amazingly fast, though - by 1986, CD players were outselling record players, and by 1988 CDs outsold records. It also provided a huge boost for the recording industry during the 1980's as music fans replaced their aging cassettes and vinyl LPs with compact discs.

And althought CD sales have sharply fallen over the past few years, and other, newer formats are poised to take its place, it will be a while before we have seen the end of the CD - I, for one, still like having the physical CD in my possession and uploading that into my iPod - as opposed to just relying on iTunes (even though I spend more money than I would like on Apple's digital download service).

Classical music concert in Second Life

2007-08-14T12:55:00.000-05:00

On September 14, The Liverpool Philharmonic is to perform a concert in the virtual online world of Second Life. Audience members from across the world will "sit" in a three-dimensional virtual version of its home venue in the north-west England city and listen live as the real orchestra plays.

Vasily Petrenko, the youngest Principal Conductor in the Philharmonic’s 165 year history, will lead the orchestra as they perform works by Rachmaninov, Ravel and two contemporary Liverpool composers. Petrenko, singer Kate Royal and composer Kenneth Hesketh will be represented during the cyber event by animated Second Life characters known as avatars. The ticket winners, also represented by avatars, will watch the concert live as audience members.

Radio Play

2007-08-14T12:36:00.000-05:00

Just read an excellent article by Sheena Metal about the role radio can play in an independent musician's career - instead of copying it I'd encourage you to read the entire article here.

Radio remains, to this day, one of the best ways for musicians to promote their music and their projects in their area….and now, thanks to terrific technological advancements, nationally and worldwide. But most indies focus too much on the almost-impossible-to-crack Top 40 station market, and don't realize there are more effective ways to use radio instead: independent radio, specialty shows on local stations, and college radio.

Margarine, not butter

2007-08-09T15:43:00.000-05:00

I read a great music business blog - The Secret Music Life of Kat, and I read such a good post on there today (it's from last month - I am catching up after being out of town most of July) that I wanted to re-post it here.

Basically, it's about butter and margarine. No, really. The analogy being that margarine, even though most people prefer the taste of butter, is more often used because it is easier to use.

Here's part of Kat's post:

I imagine your music fans are somewhat like me. If you want them to spread the word about your music, you need to be spreadable. You need to make it as easy as possible for them to promote you AND you have to give them something to promote. Don’t just create a great CD. A great CD alone won’t make people talk about you for long.

1. Create a great CD - definitely a good place to start.
2. Give away a free song (to give them something to talk about and promote).
3. Make graphic badges, logos and buddy icons and make it easy for them to use (post the code, host the images on your server)
4. Have a story to tell. Give them some background on one of your unique songs or a particular experience you’ve had.
5. Offer bios and copy of various lengths so that journalists and bloggers can easily get and use the information they need.
6. Post YouTube videos of your live show. Encourage your audience at each show to video your set and post it to YouTube.

Put yourself in their shoes and try to think of any way you can make it easier for your audience to spread your music.
Be spreadable. Like Margarine. Not Butter.

What I love about Kat's music blog is that it is practical and insightful at the same time, and I, for one, need that in the busy-ness of everyday music life.

Pay for play - performance royalties & radio

2007-08-07T15:18:00.000-05:00

In the US, performers do not receive royalties for their recordings that radio stations broadcast over the air - unlike in Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Last week, on July 31, the MusicFIRST coalition (more than 150 recording artists and nearly a dozen organizations including the American Association of Independent Music and SoundExchange) kicked off an attempt to convince Congress to eliminate the exemption for terrestrial radio broadcasters.

In every other developed country worldwide, copyright law grants performers (artists, musicians, and vocalists) and producers (copyright owners such as record companies) as well as songwriters and publishers the right to receive royalties for the public performance of their recordings and compositions. And in most countries, those that broadcast sound recordings via digital and analog transmissions are required to license and pay to play that music. But in the United Stated, only digital broadcasters have that requirement.

Obviously there are two sides to this argument - and a sudden change in the copyright structure for radio broadcasters would have consequences, in some cases very serious ones. But at the same time, performers who do not write songs but help make them hits should receive something when radio broadcasts the song they recorded.

iTunes & Universal... or not?

2007-07-03T10:17:00.000-05:00

The New York Times reported yesterday that the Universal Music Group - the world’s biggest music corporation - last week notified Apple that it will not renew its annual contract to sell music through iTunes, according to executives briefed on the issue who asked for anonymity because negotiations between the companies are confidential.

Instead, Universal said that it would market music to Apple at will, a move that could allow Universal to remove its songs from the iTunes service on short notice if the two sides do not agree on pricing or other terms in the future, these executives said.

Embarrassingly for Apple, the removal of its catalogue would mean the loss of Apple poster child U2.

Can and will Universal go through with this? Ultimately, I think that they won't. Universal, and others in the record industry with them, is not happy with Apple's fixed $0.99 price and the fact that the "iTunes-model" encourages or at least facilitates buying singles instead of albums. Sales of digital music through iTunes and other sources accounted for more than 15 percent of Universal’s worldwide revenue in the first quarter, or more than $200 million, so it would be a significant financial blow.

As a music-consumer, I love iTunes. Sometimes I purchase one song by an artist I think I may like but don't really know yet, and I end up buying the entire album if I like the one song. Sometimes I just buy an individual track because I have always wanted that particular song but would never and will never buy the entire album. In any case, the music industry is better off, because in neither case would I have bought the entire project outright. And the low price? It makes me buy more. It's actually kind of scary to see how much I have spent on iTunes in the past two years.

And finally, as an independent artist, I love that people can try out one track. I love that my consumers have choices.

So I hope that Universal takes a step back. I don't think this is a good move for artists or for the music industry as a whole. Just my $0.02.

Internet radio going silent

2007-06-26T02:09:00.000-05:00

An interesting article on CNN.com a few days ago:
Today, Tuesday June 26 most Internet radio sites (like Pandora and Live365) , are going off the air in observance of a Day Of Silence - in protest of a new levy the government and the music labels are about to impose. An arbitration committee in Washington DC has drastically increased the licensing fees Internet radio sites must pay to stream songs, and the fees are retroactive for eighteen months. For small internet radio stations that will likely be the end.

In addition, it was decided that webcasters should cough up a minimum $500 "administrative fee" for every channel they broadcast online, resulting in Yahoo, Pandora, and RealNetworks (some of the biggest internet radio providers) having to spend $1.15 billion per year on the administrative fee alone.

Should licensing fees and royalties be paid? Absolutely. But not to the extent that the vehicles that serve the music to us, the consumers, are driven out of business. I hope that today's silence will speak, and if you want to know more or support the internet radio stations, you can do so by clicking here.

Esmee & Justin

2007-06-18T11:28:00.000-05:00

A little bit of Dutch pride in today's post - Dutch YouTube star Esmee Denters (an 18 year old girl who started posting videos of herself singing current pop songs on YouTube last October and became an overnight sensation) has become the first artists signed to Tennman Records, Justin Timberlake's new record label. Her YouTube videos have received more than 20 million views in the past nine months, and she is now slated to open for some of Timberlake's European shows as well as an album release later this year.

And to think, this is a Dutch teenager that just for fun started singing into a karaoke machine in her bedroom and posted the results, again just for fun, on YouTube. Just one more sign of how much impact these new media can have in today's music world.

The big, wide, open market

2007-06-14T13:58:00.000-05:00

According to digital media research firm Media-Screen, Internet users spend 54% of their time online searching for entertainment content. And considering how many internet users there are, and how much total time gets spent online......

Wow.

Two in the Garden

2007-06-12T19:44:00.000-05:00

My band in its most complete set-up has 9 musicians. On average, it's at least 6. And I usually feel somewhat lost when I have less than 5. The White Stripes, a two-piece band, this summer is headlining at Madison Square Garden for the first time. Just Jack White & Meg White, guitar and drums. To me, that is amazing, and reason enough to want to go see the show.

My generation

2007-06-08T09:08:00.000-05:00

The elderly rockers known as The Zimmers (the name comes from the Zimmer frame, the British term for a walker) entered the British Top 40 chart Monday at No. 26 with their guitar-smashing take on The Who's "My Generation." The group, whose average age is 78, was formed by Tim Samuels for a BBC documentary. Samuels said the band was intended to combat the victim status of the elderly.

"If you can judge a society by how well it treats its old people, we'd be in trouble," Samuels said. "I wanted to do something to help them fight back; something with a little bit of attitude and chutzpah." "My Generation" was recorded at the famous Abbey Road studios, and there's a great picture of group members crossing the street the way the Beatles did on their Abbey Road album cover. The single is now on iTunes and all proceeds to go charity.

Haven't seen this yet? You should: the song on YouTube and the band's MySpace.

Square pegs

2007-06-07T00:10:00.001-05:00

This is so cool..... some of my absolute favorite writers.... all together - if this does not come close to the essence of music, I don't know what does. Check out the Square Peg Alliance.

From their own site: "The Square Peg Alliance is a group of singer/songwriters who really like each other. We have all been doing music on our own but have decided to join forces like the wonder twins - except there are 13 of us instead of 2. There is no guy in a suit putting all of us together. We really just believe in each other's art and want to support it.
We don't write music so we can be the next big thing (or if we do, it hasn't worked for us). We believe that there are folks out there who like music even if it isn't played every three minutes on the radio, even if it isn't on a big label, even if it isn't accompanied by a music video, even if the shows aren't flashy or even if the records don't go platinum (or gold, or silver, or aluminum foil, etc.).
That is why we are the Square Peg Alliance. Thirteen artists who might not fit perfectly into the traditional mold of the music business, but have found a home with each other."

Amen.

Sir Paul & the coffee shop

2007-06-05T11:45:00.000-05:00

Paul McCartney's newest project, Memory almost full, is being released today - on the brandnew Starbucks "Hear Music" record label. In celebration Starbucks is playing the new CD all day long in its more than 10,000 stores in 29 countries. The album will be sold at most Starbucks stores worldwide, in all major music retailers, and on Apple Inc.'s iTunes online store, making it the first of McCartney's 21 solo albums to be released digitally.

I am writing this as I sit at a Richmond, VA, Starbucks, and so far I have heard about half the CD. Most people don't spend hours and hours in Starbucks - but for those of us who use it as our office away from home, it likely will become a bit monotonous today. It's enjoyable, but I doubt I would listen to it much if it wasn't Paul of the Beatles. It is, however, a great marketing stunt - great exposure both for McCartney and for Hear Music. For a good synopsis, read CNN's article about Memory almost full.

James

2007-05-31T20:57:00.000-05:00

"I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday, and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it, and you need them to hear it."

James Taylor

Back to school

2007-05-29T13:17:00.000-05:00

I usually do not write a lot of personal info on this blog - but I wanted to make an exception today. For the past year I have been consulting at Thomas Dale High School in Chester, VA - working with the orchestra students on putting together a benefit concert for a local teenage cancer patient. The students worked on everything from song selection to arrangements, from poster and T-shirt design to the actual program, and from radio interviews to marketing and advertising. The result was a fantastic concert - performed by the Thomas Dale High School Orchestra and my band, Offering - with songs like My Immortal (Evanescence), Suddenly I see (KT Tunstall), and Sweet dreams are made of this (Eurythmics). It was unique in many ways - amazing original arrangements for rock band and orchestra and students taking the lead on a large chunk of the project being just two of them. If you are in the Central Virginia area, make sure you don't miss the concert next year, and for those of you who aren't - maybe we'll do some kind of an internet broadcast, or at least post something on YouTube.

This morning I was back at the school for a follow-up meeting with the students - and to start planning for next year. And since summer vacation is coming up - happy summer to all TDHS orchestra students, and thank you for the fantastic work you guys did! I look forward to making it even better next year. And congratulations to the graduating seniors..... I will miss working with you guys!

Gladys Knight - WOW

2007-05-28T00:31:00.000-05:00

I actually enjoyed watching Gladys Knight during last week's American Idol finale perform with the top six female contestants of this season. Unlike some of the guest artists and mentors of this season, while she is not the youngest anymore, her voice still sounds amazing, and when I just looked her up on Billboard.com, I saw that she was born in 1944 - she's 63 years old, people! You GO, Gladys!

And did you know that she started performing with the Pips when she was only 8?

My favorite music blog....

2007-05-26T22:23:00.000-05:00

.....is one I just found: The Secret Music Life of Kat. Kat, in her own words, is a thirty-something stay at home mom who has lots of ideas and needs an outlet. Her vision for the blog: "I love music. I love technology. I love business. This blog is a repository for ideas that pop into my head, interesting news that I read and hopefully for eventually creating a community of people who are interested in music and helping musicians use technology to promote their art."

I have only been reading her blog since last week, but I am hooked. I can find great music sites, the fantastic "forms to get a musician organized", links to other artists' blogs, concert ideas, info on record labels and on where to get free music - basically Kat rocks! How she does all does while being the mom to two toddlers and one newborn........ no idea! Check out Kat's music blog - you won't regret it.