Opinion

By admin • February 9th, 2010

futureofmusicbook

If you are trying to make money selling recordings, or producing them you are selling into a market that is auguring into the earth. If you are a pure-play label – either cash out soon and go home before it’s really too late, or start writing a new business plan. It is time [...]

411mania

A recent study from the Wharton Business School on the actual cost and process involved in digital music has revealed some interesting information. In this case, it has pretty much proved what most people have been saying all along – We’re paying to much.
What is real interesting is that the study found that the real [...]

prohiphop

A press release from the Nielsen Company and Billboard titled “The Nielsen Company and Billboard’s 2009 Canadian Industry Report” isn’t really about Canada’s music industry as a whole but about album and single sales in Canada. That said, it’s well worth a look.
What bothers me about these reports is that they only look at sales [...]

wendyday

I gotta state right upfront that I am biased against 360 Deals. I understand WHY they exist, I just find them unfairly oppressive in the label’s favor in an industry with a draconic history of jerking artists out of money. I stopped negotiating deals for artists in 2005 because I refuse to do [...]

kerascene.blogspot

Artists have always needed fans - lots of them - but now more than ever, they need friends. Not groupies, but a group of smart individuals, or even - shockingly - a label.
But the broader theme was ‘partner,’ not just ‘label,’ during a Tuesday roundtable at the New Music Seminar in Los Angeles. “This is [...]

mojo4music

AS WE GET OLDER dreams of stardom inevitably slip away - who wants to be stomping round a stage at an age when a nice snooze holds more appeal than a line of cocaine? But what about management? How hard can that be? Surely you can just look at the fictional likes of Spinal Tap’s [...]

creativedeconstruction

Innovation is important. It elevates a product beyond simple retail and causes it to become a catalyst for change in the marketplace and culture. Innovation is also notoriously elusive. Today’s stroke of genius could be tomorrow’s old news. Worse, that first-to-market concept you’ve been hustling to get out the door could be short-circuited by the [...]

news.cnet

I was at Apple’s iPad launch on Wednesday, and maybe it was just Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field, but I don’t quite understand why the haters are piling on. A lot of PC-centric commentators are dismissing the iPad as an overpriced gadget, wondering why it’s lacking features that are standard on even the cheapest notebook [...]

oneworkingmusician

Watching the Grammy Awards tonight I was struck with one thought: they might call that the Music Industry, but that has nothing to do with what I do as a working musician. I have been a professional musician for 15 years, and it’s been my sole job for 9 of those years. But whatever that [...]

billboard.biz

Digital music prices are too high and consumers prefer a-la-carte downloading to bundled pricing schemes. Those are the two key findings in new research by Wharton marketing professor Raghuram Iyengar. The study is detailed in an article at Knowledge@Wharton. Or you can download the 36-page PDF of the paper, “Optimal Pricing for a Menu of [...]

musicradar

The Midem conference brings together the music industry’s finest minds and talking heads to announce, discuss, decide and argue the toss over the policies and technological advancements that will shape the coming year. Here’s everything you need to know about 2010’s event, in six easy steps…
MusicDNA, a new format that comes from the brains behind [...]

huffingtonpost

This week, the music world descends upon Los Angeles, and the Grammy countdown begins. On Sunday, the Recording Academy will present awards for the 52nd time. Billed as “Music’s Biggest Night,” the Grammys were established in 1958 to honor excellence in the music industry. Now, 52 years later, some might question the Grammys’ relevance, while [...]

techdirt

I’m at the Midem conference this week, and in preparing for it, Steven Masur asked me to write up a chapter for a book he was putting together of thoughts from various thinkers for a gathering of the International Association of Entertainment Lawyers (IAEL) here at Midem. Below is what I submitted. If you’re a [...]

midemnetblog.typepad

The 1990s were the recorded music industry’s high-water mark, with the CD at its height as a product. The CD now finds itself in terminal decline and with no heir apparent. Instead music fans have fallen out of love with the CD and struck up a whirlwind romance with free music. This is an affair [...]

13eleven.wordpress

One thing that always strikes me about unsigned artists and bands is how possessive they can be about their music. Now I know that creating music is a very personal experience, and can also be a lot of hard work not to mention the personal expense of getting your lovingly crafted songs onto some form [...]

roymitchellcardenas

In spite of the difficulties posed by illegal downloading (limewire) and similar non-profitable uses of one’s music on websites (youtube), it’s an exciting time to be involved in music because the possibilities are endless. However, I must add that I’m on the edge of my seat for something big (and by “big” I mead lucrative) [...]

knowthemusicbiz

I was once told a story about Bill Murray and Hunter S. Thompson. I can’t verify the specifics of the story but I suppose for the purposes of this article it doesn’t much matter. During the production of the 1980 Film “Where the Buffalo Roam”, in which Murray was to play a young [...]

bbc.co.uk

Think back a decade to the year 2000 - and the state of the music industry then. The first MP3 players were already on sale, but were only in the hands of early-adopting gadget fans. The music industry was selling its products exclusively through shops or mail-order, and while Napster was making waves, the file-sharing [...]

techdirt

It’s no secret at all that it’s tough to become famous in the music industry. In the past, you had to hope for one of the golden lottery tickets from a major record label. Otherwise, after a few years of trying, you went back to something else instead. But is it becoming any easier these [...]

ericbeall.berkleemusicblogs

We’re seeing the future— all over again. Just when the music industry had finally started to almost get the hang of selling mp3s on iTunes (even if we still haven’t figured out how to sell music from around the world, which blows my mind) the weather shifts and suddenly our new technology is dead.
“Gone is [...]

BILLBOARD.BIZ

This year will host numerous events that could well change the course of the music industry. From the future of music giant EMI to the impact of the Performance Rights Act, many events that will occur in 2010 could have deep, long-term consequences. In no particular order, they are:
1. The Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger
If the Department [...]

blackbookmag

At the end of last year, a new voice emerged to half-rap its way to the first #1 single of the new decade: that voice belonged to Ke$ha. Having first appeared on Flo-Rida’s Dead or Alive-sampling “Right Round” last year, the 22-year old Ke$ha’s rise has since been meteoric. Today, she will officially topple Susan [...]

techdirt

This is a guest post from Fred Wilhelms, a lawyer whose concerns about SoundExchange we recently wrote about. Due to the length of the post, we’ve put some of it after the jump, so you’ll need to click through to read the whole thing — but, trust us, it’s worth it.
Back before New Years, Techdirt’s [...]

creativedeconstruction

The following is a post from Rich Huxley of the UK band Hope and Social. Rich will be contributing a monthly series giving insight into his experiences as an independent artist.
Following on from my first guest post here on Creative Deconstruction, I wanted to focus on the wider implications of one of the special [...]

thegrio

T-Pain, left, and Kanye West at 2008 BET Awards. Both artists heavily use Auto-Tunes technology in their music.
Technological changes in the last decade made it so that you could fit your entire music collection, thousands of songs, into a contraption the size of a credit card. But beyond the boom of MP3 players, iTunes and [...]

thefastertimes

Barry picked up on a New York Times article last night about how CD sales were down for the 8th time out of the past 9 years and album sales overall have declined by over 50% since the year 2000. You can believe that this is because of downloads, but the reality, based on [...]

midemnetblog.typepad

In this guest post, French music industry blogger Hugo Amsellem returns with a radical suggestion: what if the ISPs merged with the majors?
In times of crisis, phenomena of concentration are common, and the music industry has not escaped this rule for a century. We have seen it before with the advent of radio or rock&roll, [...]

allaboutjazz

Being in this business for a long time as a musician, educator, author and lecturer, I have some thoughts on the marketing of jazz musicians and audiences. Though it’s easy to blame the media (and they deserve some of the blame), I think the biggest problem lies squarely on the shoulders of jazz musicians and [...]

allhiphop

I will never forget the experience of being invited in the Fall of 1995, by Nas to visit him while he was recording tracks (in November at Sony Music Studios) for his highly anticipated album, It Was Written.
We had been building for over a year since I had interviewed him for The Final Call newspaper, [...]

musicthinktank

If you have not tried MOG’s new streaming music service, then take a few minutes and watch the demonstration video. MOG’s streaming music service features a fader that enables music fans to simply adjust the flow of new (relatively unknown) music that’s inserted into any MOG music stream. I believe Echonest powers this [...]

genyrockstars

The recent album promotions by 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg were some of the top marketing moves of the year. That had nothing to do with their music. Let’s take a quick look at some of the highlights.
Item #1 - 50 Cent on Muscle and Fitness Magazine
50 graced the cover of the February 2010 issue [...]

ericbeall.berkleemusicblogs

After an upbeat pep talk to begin the year, it seems appropriate now to acknowledge what we all know:
Things do not always go as planned.
Have you noticed that? If you’ve tried any of the previously given tips on how to get your music out there, I’m pretty sure you’ve definitely noticed that as good as [...]

musicthinktank

Support and help can be a funny thing. If some one offers to help someone, most would hope that they are helping to get that person moving forward to a better place, closer to success. Or perhaps delivering some of the tools or resources (including, yes, money) that will lead to bigger and better things. [...]

Lefsetz Letter

Is this paradigm dead?
The blogosphere is rife with stories that Whitney Houston is back drinkin’ and druggin’. One writer connected it with the stress of her new album. Whitney had a new album? Oh, that’s right… I never heard a single song and other than this negative news blip, [...]

huffingtonpost

I’m watching “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve” just before midnight when I realize that Dick Clark isn’t so rockin’ anymore. I also remember that I haven’t made my New Year’s resolutions yet. Resolution #1: no more “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve.”
Dick Clark just bums me out. He embodies all of the contradictions [...]

theskinny.co.uk

Will Page is an influential music industry economist. As head of economics for the UK’s PRS for Music collection agency, he’s principally concerned with representing and researching on behalf of UK artists. At the start of a new decade, he gives his take on the forces at play.
We at PRS for Music estimate the total [...]

sltrib

Now that everyone on the planet — including your 84-year-old mother — has a Facebook page, why are cool local musicians still flocking to MySpace?
MySpace.com was a revolutionary social-networking tool when it was launched back in 2004, but over the past several years a competitor, Facebook.com, has attracted more users. In response, MySpace has [...]

thisisbrandx

1. The end of the velvet rope: “With the tougher economy, staff will have to recognize that bars are an extension of the hospitality industry, so all customers must be treated really well,” says 213 proprietor Cedd Moses, owner of downtown bars such as Seven Grand and Tony’s Saloon. Already we’ve seen bouncers loosen up: [...]

thinkingbetterthinkingmeta.blogspot

You know what? I am very happy for Sezairi Sezali, the third Singapore Idol.
I haven’t followed a single episode of Singapore Idol this season, because I cannot stand the tackiness and plasticity of the pop music industry. But at least someone could and he made it.
Sezairi is a musician. He makes band music. And someone [...]

genyrockstars

2009 was supposed to be the year that everything changed. Digital downloads were supposed to rule and fan supported bands were to break out of the indie scene and take the world by storm. Instead do you know who ran 2009:
* The Black Eyed Peas
* Jay-Z
[...]

musichotalbums.blogspot

The music industry is now alive. It seems that there’s nothing good is ever said about the industry. Everywhere you turn are musicians, like the illegal downloading of music, the best-selling album, the video game at least on national television, radio plays only a handful of songs in mind and can not have too [...]

creativedeconstruction

Many bloggers and artists seem to be ending 2009 on a note of cynicism. While the year began with a sense of excitement about new possibilities available to artists, the independent music community has begun sounding unusually negative lately, even jaded. It’s like everyone is racing to be the first to declare the DIY revolution [...]

mediafuturist

Merry Christmas and a happy 2010 to everyone in the Music Industry! Below is a short video I made specifically for all you music industry people reading my blog (plus 2 other videos I believe you may enjoy, as well - if you need more, please go to my GerdTube channel on Blip.tv).
In addition, here [...]