Trends: Album sales continue to decline, in fact sales are down by 11% in the first half of the year. CD’s have fell at a rate of 16% due to big box retailers limiting their shelf space. That’s not suprising being that the first half didn’t produce a break out star.

Producer News: ZZ Top has signed to Rick Rubin’s label American Recordings, and Rubin will be producing the record as well.

Producer Mutt Lange who brought you AC/DC’s Back in Black and Def Leppard’s Pyromania will be producing the new Nickelback record. Mutt will no doubt eliminate those corporate rock tones and replace them with the much need gritty rock n roll sounds.

David Bendeth will be producing the new Breaking Benjamin record and Red Handed who recently signed to Virgin.

Better Than A Van: Touring artists are seeking alternate ways to save money due to rising gas prices. Here is a tip for touring artists – check out the site www.betterthanthevan.com that offers a community of free places for bands to stay while touring.

Recommended Show: Without Tomorrow performing at Universal City Saddle Ranch (Hollywood) July 5th and The Knitting Factory (Hollywood) July 9th. Listen to the track Break Free.

Shining Through: Did Shinedown re-write Metallica’s Unforgiven? We think so. Check out the track What A Shame. Let us know what you think…

Live Nation World: Shakira who has a strong international draw has signed to Live Nation. The deal is supposably worth 70 to 100 million and she owes Epic 3 more albums. Nickelback is close to signing with Live Nation as well according to Fox.

Piracy Crackdown: 26-year-old Daniel Dove faces 10 years in prison and will be sentenced on September 9, 2008 for copyright infringement. Daniel and his posse uploaded copyrighted material including games, movies, and music to EliteTorrents (internet piracy site).

TRL: Unsigned band, Settings, will appear on MTV’s TRL TODAY at 3:30 Eastern.

The European Union is attempting to rewrite the rules on royalty collection. The new plan gives royalty collection societies 90 days to terminate their monopolies. Currently, each country has it’s own collection society, which handles all of the licensing, royalty tracking and payout. They have flat per minute airtime fees that apply to every artist and songwriter, no matter what label they belong to. The European Union is looking to end this system, stating the current set up lacks efficiency. Artists, represented by the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA), fear the new competition will allow a few major corporations to rise to the top, driving down fees for the authors. Artists are threatening to pull their music off radio stations.

Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Meiko has signed with MySpace Records/DGC, who will release her debut album later this summer in partnership with Lucky Ear Music (Meiko’s own indie label). The talented artist’s recent self-release was a #1 Folk Album on iTunes, with over 200,000 song downloads, regular airplay on tastemaker KCRW-FM, and key placements in prime-time TV shows including “Grey’s Anatomy”. For more information, contact Mike Savage

Multiple Senators have written letters to FCC chairman, Kevin Martin, regarding the XM/Sirius satellite merger. Concerned about a monopoly and taking advantage of customers, they are asking that all new satellite receivers also receive over-air HD radio. They would prefer the merger not go through at all, but are willing to make a concession if free HD radio is included, and more than 20% of channels are reserved for minority and non-commercial programming. (FMQB)

The FTC’s civil suit against Burn Lounge rages on, with promoter Scott Elliott settling his tab. Unable to pay the full $117,710.69 judgment, he’s getting away with a $20,000 fine.

Pearl Jam sold out the 2,800-capacity Beacon Theatre in New York last night, raising $3 million for the Robin Hood foundation. Some fans paid over $2k for good seats. I guess it can still be done, afterall.

Rikki Rocket found not guilty of rape. Congratulations?

Boy George was denied a US visa and was forced to cancel his North American tour while he awaits trial for wrongful imprisonment. A 28 year old man has accused Boy George of chaining him up in his London loft and threatening his life.

Travis McCoy of The Gym Class Heroes was arrested for assaulting a fan who yelled the N-word at the artist during a Warped Tour performance. “I’m sorry. But when someone calls you something that offensive and that disgusting, you have to bash their head in with a microphone,” McCoy said of the incident. No word yet from Al Sharpton.

-AJ

Talk about marketing. I’ve never wanted to hear a rap album so badly in my life. A new story was released by Reuters promoting Nas‘ upcoming album, formerly known as Nigger. Not everyone was cool with him calling his album Nigger, because apparently the word existing is racist. Using it, no matter the context, is also quite racist. This post is racist. Nas argues that he has the freedom of speech and since the album expresses his personal opinion of what it means to be a black man in the United States, he should be able to use it. However, he has made a concession to retail and removed the title. How completely appropriate that the record that gets people up in arms about racism in rap is one of the few albums that even discusses the subject. It’s not pussy claps, drug promotion and living beyond your means that angers people about rap. It’s talking honestly and provocatively about important social and political issues that must be stopped.

KOAR agrees with Nas and Def Jam on this one. Finding an artist with something to say is a challenge. Their voice shouldn’t be stifled, but responsibility should be exercised. Al Shartpon needs to go away.

Are we still calling EMI a ‘music company’? Massive job cuts and uncertainty about leadership have been plaguing EMI lately and now they’re headed back to court with yet another lawsuit intended to take out online competition and punish past infringements. Yet another lawsuit no artist will see a dime from.

Metallica has announced the title for their new album will be Death Magnetic. Fans are excited. Let’s hope they don’t get burned again.

Great read via BurstLabs Blog regarding Viacom’s purchase of Hype Machine.

“Somebody please make this make sense to me – obviously Viacom can’t openly endorse a service that shares (or promotes the sharing of) copy-written material, so in buying it, wouldn’t they have to change it? And if the strategy is to pay $10M for an architecture that you can fill with your own content, it perfectly illustrates the erroneous mindset of the modern music industry. Jesus, spend half that much and MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN THING. You cannot tell me that you couldn’t have a team of programmers whip up a site that aggregates content from multiple other sites for less than 10 million dollars.”

Phish is threatening to reunite.

-AJ

New Realities: Check out the article ‘Music Row faces new realities‘ that discusses the changing music business.

The Myth of the Long Tail: The Long Tail theory crafted by Chris Anderson is slowly falling apart. Chris Anderson was probably listening to his indie records wishing that the internet would eliminate blockbuster hits and mass culture. I believe Coolfer explained it perfectly…

‘In the book, Anderson wrote that “we’re seeing a shift from mass culture to massively parallel culture,” or “millions of microcultures.” But that doesn’t appear to be the case. Mass culture is alive and well on the Internet. Consumers know the bad from the good. They know what’s popular and they will gravitate towards the hits. Niches will continue to exist, and heavy users will continue to dabble in niches, but the level playing field of digital distribution isn’t going to do away with mass culture.’ (Coolfer)

Kings of A&R: We will be traveling for the next 2 weeks. We will be attending some panels, meeting some artists and talking music shop – our favorite past time. Music news will be sporadic but we will do our best to keep you informed. Everything will return to normal in the KOAR world soon. In the meantime, email tips@kingsofar.com and send us your favorite track.