artists

blogs.seattleweekly

Who: “Sound Opinions” with Jim Derogatis & Greg Kot
When: 3:45 p.m.
Where: Words & Ideas Stage
Jim Derogatis (formerly of Chicago Sun-Times) and Greg Kot (Chicago Tribune), the hosts of the syndicated music radio show, “Sound Opinions” are a pair of affable music geeks with encyclopedic knowledge of pop music that’s as impressive as it is exciting [...]

cmj

So, we’ve told you about over a thousand artists that will perform. We’ve told you about how to register for your badges. We’ve even told you about our new music/gaming initative, CMJ Play. But the time has come to tell you about some of the panels you can look forward to at this year’s CMJ [...]

MI2N

TalentWatch, the only destination on the web where aspiring music artists from all over the world showcase their talent and tell their story in an engaging and entertaining video-driven format, selects “The Mo and Bek Show” to help promote the site’s artists. The show’s unique format was the reason TalentWatch founder, Gary Alan, approached the [...]

news.bbc.co.uk

Music festival promoters are being warned to stop paying big artists so much money. A group of organizers that represents independent music festivals in the UK and Ireland claim that if fees aren’t cut, fans could suffer. They say the money top acts are demanding to play has continued to rise despite the recession.
Last year’s [...]

Vimeo

Sound Around, a new service for artists, labels and managers to create and update their own custom iPhone applications is about to launch. While they’re still in private beta, you can signup to be notified when they release their initial product later this month, which seems similar to MobBase and Mobile Roadie.

Sound Around Demo [...]

knowthemusicbiz

I joined the Internet Digital Music revolution with the zealotry of a true believer! By 1999, I had arranged for the licensing of Folk-Rock icon Jesse Colin Young’s song catalog to eMusic.com for paid digital downloads, and had become General Manager of OnRadio.com, with music streams licensed to the
SPIN & VIBE magazine websites. In 2001 [...]

press release

Andre Harrell is the Black Man Genius with Style, the Originator of Ghetto Fabulous, and the Style Keeper of Uptown Swag. Mr. Harrell, the trailblazing Hip Hop Entrepreneur, has brought to you and discovered the infectious sounds of some of the biggest names in Music. From the ‘Big and Sexy’ persona of Heavy D. [...]

thebigmoney

How music freeloading has increased reliance on corporate sponsorship. Then iTunes opened for business in 2003, many assumed that the crisis of freeloading (downloading unlicensed digital content for free) was waning. A burgeoning array of legal, digital music services would finally compete to provide low-cost, high-quality music to an expanded consumer market, making unlicensed services [...]

techdirt
hypebot

We’ve discussed in the past some of Amanda Palmer’s business model experiments, and she’s guest posted on this site herself about connecting with her fans. Last month she finally was “freed” from her major record label deal and celebrated that fact. Anyway, she’s in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend performing both Saturday and [...]

tunerights

TuneRights offers users direct access to the music industry. Users are: artists, songwriters, musicians, fans, producers, recording and publishing companies. We connect songs with the people who believe in them the most. No song is too obscure. No contribution is too small. The TuneRights mission is to empower artists and fans, regardless of whether the [...]

blog.tunecore

In 2009, TuneCore Artists were paid for the download or stream of over 65 million songs and albums over all stores TuneCore works with generating over $35 million in gross music sales
From these 65 million units, TuneCore Artists sold:
* 26,230,308 songs, or about 40% all [...]

musicthinktank

I was on a recent panel in Memphis, TN, for The Recording Academy called “Grammy GPS: A Roadmap for Today’s Music Business.” The topic of my panel was Direct-to-Fan (DTF) commerce. In preparation, I pored over data (anecdotal and empirical) from the last 3+ years of working with Artists, Labels and Managers, including recent data [...]

walletpop

One old cliche resonates in the tax-happy bureaucracy of Chicago, where I live: “If they could, they’d tax the air we breathe.” This past week, though, the Illinois state legislature almost joined 19 other states in one-upping that hoary aphorism: They almost instituted a tax on honesty. On Thursday, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn backed [...]

theatlantic

I was at the EMP Pop Conference in Seattle last weekend, and during a free associative panel discussion on pop and the 2000s, conversation gradually shape-shifted toward the notion of “selling out.” Artists, no longer drawing checks from record sales (if they ever were…), now look toward new platforms to sustain their careers, resulting in [...]

guardian.co.uk

Last week, Amanda Palmer declared on her blog: “I am very happy to announce that I have finally been released from my contract with Roadrunner Records.” Palmer went on to say that she hadn’t been able to release her music for free while signed, but now she was going to do just that in the [...]

press release

Music Intelligence Solutions, Inc.’s uPlaya service, a leader in the field of digital music and media discovery, was recently named one of the Top 10 Innovative Technology Companies in Georgia by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), the state’s leading technology organization. The uPlaya service, powered by Music Intelligence Solutions, Inc., was selected for [...]

themhms

Former Rapper Master P gives crucial advice to rappers and entrepreneurs. Percy Miller (born April 29, 1967), also known as Master P, is an American entertainer and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of P. Miller Enterprises, an entertainment and financial conglomerate and Better Black TV. Master P has signed with Priority Records [...]

artisthousemusic

In this segment of a panel discussion held at Loyola University, New Orleans in 2008, the panelists They dissect the decisions made by labels, promoters, artists and distributors that affect the quality of the music, and share their thoughts on what kind of music sells, why, and how it affects the marketplace and hip-hop culture.

guardian.co.uk

The future of the British music industry is being jeopardized by the refusal of banks to back the next generation of artists, labels and entrepreneurs, according to music industry executives. The next government needs to deal with the refusal of high-street banks to offer credit to music start-ups because this is preventing the industry from [...]

monster

The music industry is changing and Sonicbids is helping to change it one gig at a time.​ Sonicbids is a website that helps bands connect with people who book or license music.​ The Sonicbids online community is made up of over 210,000 emerging artists and 19,000 promoters from over 100+​ countries worldwide.​ We also work [...]

huffingtonpost

Over the last few years, we have all witnessed the decline of the music business, highlighted by finger-pointing and blame directed against record companies, artists, internet file sharing and any other theories for which a case could be made. We’ve read and heard about the “good old days” and how things used to be. People [...]

billboard.biz

I’ve been very fortunate to be affiliated with artists and their managers who have collectively sold over 300 million records. Not once during my three decades in practice did I ever get a call from a record company executive who said, “Hey Bob, we just had a phenomenally profitable year and therefore we are sending [...]

press release

CD Baby, one of the largest digital distributors for independent music, and Disc Makers, the leading independent CD and DVD manufacturer, have adopted Limelight (http://limelight.rightsflow.com/), an online mechanical license clearance form for artists and labels looking to clear cover songs.
Limelight, which is powered by RightsFlow, provides artists and labels a simple, easy method to [...]

youtube

Immitter (i′mid·ər) is the first radio that any musician can contribute to and any listener can influence - A Social Radio. Here’s a quick explanation mocking the “plain english” series.

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

Over the past decade, the music industry was roundly criticized for how it responded to the proliferation of digital content — launching hundreds of lawsuits against otherwise law-abiding consumers who downloaded music. Although many companies have backed off from that approach, the challenge remains to find a business model for digital music. If songs can [...]

news.cnet

Getting paid for digital downloads from iTunes, Amazon, or other stores is pretty straightforward. The artist or label submits songs for download, perhaps through a distributor like TuneCore or The Orchard. Each time a user buys a download, the store takes its cut, the middlemen take their cut, and the artist gets the remainder.
If you [...]

futureofmusicbook

Ariel Hyatt, expert music publicist, discusses the important of building, maintaining and knowing your Community as an artist. The story of “What Are Records” and “The Samples”. To see the full interview, check out.
MPN is an online service for music business people and music and artist managers creating the future of the industry. MPN provides [...]

musictank.co.uk

All attendees will receive a free, post-event transcript and complimentary drink on arrival. Panel announcements will be made shortly. Interested in event association? MusicTank welcomes appropriate event sponsorship enquiries, for which a rate card is now available. Please contact jonathan@musictank.co.uk
INTRO:
The UK release process is one of the most front loaded in the [...]

knowthemusicbiz

Imagine you’re at a busy metropolitan airport. The luggage carousel goes around, and people stop by, check the luggage tags, and pick up their belongings. As the day wanes, though, there are still lots of suitcases left on the conveyer belt with no luggage tags and no one to claim them. Now, what if I [...]

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 [...]

npr

How has technology changed the relationship between musicians and their fans? While major record labels still struggle to grasp the power of the MP3, artists, including Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes, have embraced and even found creative solutions around file-sharing.

wired

Independent artists who sold their music through imeem’s Snocap music storefronts on MySpace and other sites won’t be paid what’s owed even after MySpace Music’s acquisition of some — but not all — of imeem, Wired.com has learned.
MySpace Music bought “certain assets” from imeem, and they do not include imeem’s liability to more than 110,000 [...]

Loren Weisman
braingrenademusic

As the holiday season approaches, and we get in to that thing about good will to all, all those other quips about being better people for a moment—which personally, I think should go through out the whole year and not just the shopping season (sorry, holiday season), I wanted to put out a quick [...]

todaysthv

Should radio stations pay artists and labels to play music?The music community is taking sides over the Performance Rights Act.It’s a bill that will force radio stations to pay copyright owners and artists royalties for playing their music.
Senator Blanch Lincoln is chief sponsor of the Local Radio Freedom Act. It’s a resolution directly opposed to [...]

seattlepi

The recession has been hard on most of us. But for self-employed, freelance artists in any discipline it’s become a dire situation. Jobs and sales have gotten fewer and pay less. And finding another job outside the arts often means giving up an integral part of yourself.
Yet, as local actors, musicians and visual artists tell [...]

pbs

Over the past month, I received a significant amount of feedback on my recent MediaShift article, What Will Record Labels Look Like in the Future?. People from all areas of the music industry reached out and shared their feelings on future business models, and strategies for moving forward.
Regardless of their background, practically every person I [...]

blog.copyrightalliance

A recurring theme in criticism of copyright is that this isn’t really about individual creators. They are merely victims of The Man. Distributors use their market power to maximize profit, and that comes at the expense of creators.
Okay. Any individual creator, unless they occupy the far left of the Pareto Curve up where massive profits [...]

NANCY SINATRA
NYTIMES

WHEN I hear great American standards on the radio, I think of all the songwriters, artists and musicians whom my father, brother and I have worked with over the years. It reminds me that every recording has two parts, the composition and the performance. It also reminds me how many wonderful artists and musicians [...]

nytimes

There was a time when most aspiring musicians had the same dream: to sign a deal with a major record label. Now, with the structure of the music business shifting radically, some industry iconoclasts are sidestepping the music giants and inventing new ways for artists to make and market their music — without ever signing [...]

latimes

When you click play on the YouTube version of 50 Cent’s “I Get Money,” the rapper actually gets money.
Thanks to a revenue ad sharing model that launched on the video site a couple of years ago that has earned some cash for indie video producers, the music industry is collecting a relatively small but steady [...]

SARAH MCBRIDE
wsj.com

Congress is considering a bill that could upend the way money gets distributed in the music business by giving artists and record labels a share of broadcasters’ take.
The legislation would force radio companies to pay royalties of as much as $500 million a year to record labels and artists whose music they play. [...]

John Mellencamp
huffingtonpost

Over the last few years, we have all witnessed the decline of the music business, highlighted by finger-pointing and blame directed against record companies, artists, internet file sharing and any other theories for which a case could be made. We’ve read and heard about the “good old days” and how things used to be. [...]

p8z

Here’s something to remember: if you receive 1,000 hits a day on your web page, it won’t mean a thing if only one of those visitors is interested in your product. Use your time and energy to generate publicity that brings you a meaningful, targeted audience! Don’t worry about getting thousands of random hits on [...]

Matthew Braga
blogto

Sitting in a hall surrounded by artists and record executives is, quite frankly, a surreal experience. Not only is there the constant threat of a recession looming over the music industry’s head, but 2009 is set to be the worst year in the industry’s history - on both a Canadian and global scale as [...]

Silvino Edward Diaz
villanovan

American music needs a new business model. The sharp rise in piracy over the past decade has left the industry disfigured; like a dog without a leash, it has been scavenging aimlessly, seeking an answer, yet only finding each failure to be more bitter than the last.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry [...]