Marketing Madonna: The material girl is making money from her new album without selling copy. Madonna entered in contracts with Vodafone, Unilever and Fuji, which will use her music to sell products from hairspray to mobile ­phones offering free publicity. Madonna’s deal with Vodafone will allow customers to listen to her new album on their mobile phone prior to the April 28th release date. Also, her new video will make its debut online rather than on MTV. The truth is major corporations want to be associated with superstars and the material girl will always say ‘YES’.

U2 Signs with Concert Promoter Live Nation: U2 have signed a 12-year deal with concert promoter Live Nation to handle the band’s merchandising, digital and branding rights. Live Nation has promoted every world-wide U2 tour since 1997, and it’s subsidiary even manages the band’s Web site and fan club. The U2 and Live Nation deal does not cover distribution of recorded music or music publishing and the band will continue to release records through Universal Music.

Warner Hires New Digital Head: Warner Music recently hired Digital Head Jim Griffin who previously worked at Geffen running the technology department. Warner hired Griffin to lead the brigade of a controversial plan to bundle a monthly fee into consumers’ internet-service bills for unlimited access to music. Blogger Michael Arrington of TechCrunch called Warner’s plan a “music tax on U.S. residents. The effects on innovation in music would be disastrous if such a scheme were ever to become reality,”. Check out Chris Castles blog on Jim Griffin.

Why Steve Jobs wants to sell you a music subscription: Steve Jobs doesn’t care about music, he is concerned with iPod sales. So why does the CEO of Apple now supporting the subscription model? ‘iPod buyers would pay anywhere from $20 to $100 to get all the music they can download. Ah, but they’d have to download it from iTunes, onto an iPod’ says Valley Mag.

Sara Bareillas Beats the Odds: Bareillas won a songwriting contest and her prize was free CD duplication, but she didn’t even have a CD to duplicate. The monster hit, ‘Love Song’ was written out of frustration towards her label because every song she turned in was shot down. She sang the national anthem at Dodger Stadium when she was in middle school and she auditioned for The Mickey Mouse Club along with Britney, Justin, and Christina. All of her efforts eventually landed her a record deal and of course a hit song that she wrote. I love the persistence!

Tour Sponsorships: Music tour sponsorships have grown 75% since 2003 and will hit $1.04 billion this year according to BrandWeek. This is fantastic for touring bands or at least for great bands who have built a career on the road.

New Music: Check out the new track titled ‘It Has To Be This Way‘ from experimental band Kaddisfly. It’s a good song but the mastering job is poor, which is why it sounds like a wool blanket is suffocating the tracks. The band has a slew of tour dates running thru April and May.