A new study says most of U.S. Still Buying CDs:

Americans are still buying CD’s and traditional media outlets like radio, TV, and movies still hold the keys to the music kingdom. Don’t be suprised by this and don’t call it a bunch of bull. If you want the web to hold more influence, it has to be cleaned up and it must be organized. Right now, it’s to dark and chaotic with illegal downloading running rampant, with no respect to copyrights.

“86% of music buyers said they rely on radio, TV or movies to find out about music, while 64% consult family, friends and co-workers, and 51% said online information had no impact whatsoever on their music purchases.

“Seventy-four percent of those surveyed said their most recent music purchase was done at a retail location, compared with 22% who had purchased a CD or download online.”

“With regard to finding out about new music, 68% said the Internet helped them find out more information about an artist they were already aware of, while 57% said they used online resources (e.g. artist/label sites, streaming samples, Web radio, e-mail promotions) to introduce them to new artists.”

For a more in depth insight of the study, go to Digital Media Wire or Coolfer.

Top Current Albums

Death Cab For cutie – Narrow Stairs – (TW) 143,586
Duffy – Steal Thin – (TW) 73,000
Taylor Swift – Just Me – (TW) 36,000
10 Years – Division – (TW) 29,672
Daughtry – (TW) 15,000
Def Leppard – Songs From The Sparkle – (TW) 11,258 – Total 86,000

Top Digital Tracks:

Riahanna – Take A Bow – (TW) 195,655 (Total) 462,351
Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love – (TW) 140,495 (Total) 2,071,654

Top Digital Albums:

Leona Lewis – Spirit – (TW) 4,589 (Total) 89,319

Leona Lewis sold 2 million digital singles but only sold 89,000 digital albums. Big difference. There isn’t an artist currently that sold 500,000 digital albums. Consumers need to believe in the album again and that can only come from the artist themselves…

Top Music DVD’s:

Led Zeppelin DVD – (Total) 1,134,591
Eagles – Farewell Tour DVD (Total) 1,351,884
Celine Dione – Live in Las Vegas DVD (Total)291,206

The Next Idol: David Cook wins ‘American Idol’ by 12 million votes. A record of 97.5 million audience casted votes by phone and text. Last year’s total vote count was 74 million.

Song of The Year: Hinder’s “Lips of an Angel” won ‘Song of the Year’ as it generated the most airplay of any tune on BMI’s most-performed pop song list during the designated award period. The song was co-written and recorded by producer/songwriter Brian Howes and Hinder. The track climbed to the no. 1 slot of Billboard’s Pop 100, Hot Digital Songs and Top 40 Mainstream charts, achieving broad crossover success. Want to be known? write a great song…

If you have trouble writing a great song, find a songwriter that will bring in a new dynamic. A song must have a verse, pre-chorus, chorus, and bridge – and the song must build throughout never dropping out, just like a good movie. Even if you don’t like Lips of Angel, it has all the components of a great song. We want to hear the perfect song – email tips@kingsofar.com

New Music: 20 year year old Alex Goot writes, records, and produces his own material. It’s piano driven pop. Listen to the track Scared and Doctors Orders. He definitely caters to the emo fans. Is emo still a valid name? can we move past this yet? I can’t wait until we never have to use the word EMO again…

Death Cab For Cutie scored their first #1 debut with ‘Narrow Stairs’, moving 143,586 units. Pretty darn good!

Here is what Chris Wallace of Death Cab has to say about the Radiohead model..

“My favorite thing about ‘The Radiohead Model’ is that really, nothing dramatic happened … It’s available online, and also in stores. I trade my currency away to a retailer for a Radiohead product or experience. There isn’t such a new model. And that’s the most genius thing, to me, about In Rainbows … They’ve told a story everyone was dying to hear.” (via Coolfer – Stereogum)

It is slow on exciting news today, but more news to follow later in the day, more new music and recommended listening…

Napster Drops DRM: Napster has stripped DRM from all paid downloads on its digital music service and replaced them with unprotected MP3s. As of today all six million songs in the Napster catalog will be available without DRM protection.

Recommended Show: Los Angeles alt rock band, Palmerston, will be peforming at The Knitting Factory this Thursday, May 22nd. Palmerston’s single “Addicted” was added to: WRZX/Indianapolis, KAZR/Des Moines, KACV/Amarillo and MusicChoice. More information can be found here.

An Overnight Sensation: Flobots has the No. 1 downloaded hip-hop album on iTunes this week — in their hometown. How fast did it happen? Oh, really fast…

“I’ve never seen anything happen for a local band so fast,” said Nerf, program director at KTCL, the local station that gave the Flobots an early break. In the past, with every band that has taken off out of Denver, it’s been a slow, tedious process to get signed, and a slow, tedious process to get the album ready to go, and a slow, tedious process to get the song to radio.”But this all seemed to happen in a month, and if that kind of inertia and momentum keeps going, these guys are going to be an enormous success.”

Local Denver band Meese signed to Atlantic Records, a couple months before Flobots signed with Universal Republic. Meese signed a traditional deal as they will be spending months making their first record.Flobots signed an ‘as is’ deal with Universal, which means the label will release their self produced record.

New Music: Listen to Surrender and Broken by Without Tomorrow. The band has performed on Taste of Chaos and Warped Tour, and plan on releasing their new record “Chasing Dreams” in June. A list of upcoming shows can be found on their myspace.

Apple Is Getting Into The Ringtone Business: Apple and the major music labels will sell ringers to iPhone users via iTunes. Apple will also allow users to convert songs they have previously purchased through iTunes into a ringtone says the New York Post.

YouTube a Destinition For Videos: Pete Wentz is pissed because MTV will not play music videos. Here is what he has to say:

I could only assume that you would be completely frustrated with the same things i am with mtv. it is a network called music television that does not play music videos. and when they do play videos it is in 30 second clips on TRL or underneath the credits of whatever reality show.

the truth is we have a collective memory of videos. certain ones we can all sit and look back and say “oh i remember that” or “i cant believe axl rocked the nwa hat and the bicycle shorts in the same video”. people say that with the a.d.d. generation people cant pay attention to a whole music video whenever we have asked. that people wont watch those anymore. i disagree. as most of you do as well. the truth is whole videos should be played. bands should play live. premieres should be a big deal like they used to be, not just a snippet of a video. artists should be able to let their imaginations go and know that people will be able to see what they have crafted. artists should talk about their ideos. we should and can make the music video important again.

Tougher Times For EMI: Citigroup is giving Guy Hands three extra months to turn EMI around. EMI who houses artists including Coldplay and Kylie Minogue must generate underlying earnings of £180m by September to meet key targets set by Citigroup. If EMI does not meets its goals, then what happens next? Most likley, there will be am extensive shakedown between Citigroup and EMI.

TVT Records Under Investigation: Creditors are claiming a financing deal between owner Steve Gottlieb and hedge fund D.B. Zwirn was aimed at diverting assets from the creditors according to the New York Post. “The creditors’ committee is conducting an investigation into the elaborate finance transactions of [TVTRecords] and its affiliates,” Richard Wolfe, the chair of TVT’s creditors’ committee, said. “I believe the scheme was designed to insulate the value of the publishing assets of [TVT] from its creditors.”

iPhone Now Welcomes File Sharing: An illegal file sharing application for the iPhone and iPod touch is now available. “We were able to download half of a full-length movie in 20 minutes, while our first song download took only three minutes over WiFi says Wired“.

Signings: Camera Can’t Lie has signed to Atlantic Records. Mercy Mercedes has signed to the Militia Group…what’s up with the Cher autotune effect?

The Lack of Memorable Talent, Makes Idol Boring: “Contestants who were good but not memorable made for mediocre television, watchers say.” “Because the talent level was so high, nothing anyone did was surprising,” Anderson said. The audience for American Idol” has dropped by about 8 percent from the nearly 31 million viewers who watched last year, but “Idol” has withstood the downturn better than many other hit series, such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” down about 20 percent.

Bruce Flohr, a former record company executive now with Red Light Management, is an “Idol” admirer but said the show has to do a better job of weeding out lesser singers who make it too easy to guess who will make it through to the end.

“Part of the problem is people are starting to use the show as a vehicle to stardom, whether they truly want to sing or not,” he said.