Starbucks Dumping CD’s and iTunes Gift Cards: As of now, you can still find some new releases on the main counter and nearing racks, but Starbucks will have eliminated nearly all of its music retail offerings by September. The ‘spinner’ racks offering multiple CD’s, gift cards, and promotional giveaways for Apple iTunes will be gone. Starbucks is returning to their core business which is pushing expensive caffein.

Politicians Want Their MTV: After declining political advertising since its inception in 1981, MTV will now accept political ads. Up until recently, MTV has refused all political ads.

Jeannie Kedas, exec VP-communications for MTV’s music networks, said the change is effective immediately and reflects the importance of the youth vote.

Bucking The Trend: Coldplay’s opening week numbers for “Viva La Vida” are roughly equivalent to those of Coldplay’s last album, X&Y which sold 737,000 copies in its first week three years ago. No sign of slow down of the record biz in the Coldplay camp. Radio has also played a big role in the album’s success. In an aggressive but unusual strategy, the band sent two singles to stations in advance of its release, and this week the title song is No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart says The New York Times.

EMI – The Layoffs Begins: EMI pledged to trim 1,500 to 2,000 workers of its 4,500 recorded music workforce around the globe, and the cuts are now on its way, the same day EMI announced that Coldplay would land on top of the Billboard charts. According to sources, Capitol Records has begun to slash marketing and A&R.  What a grueling press release.

Live Nation Newest Signings? Live Nation could be making deals with Nickelback and Shakira according to Fox’s Roger Friedman. Friedman also responds to the negative publicity following Madonna. He suggests that Madonna’s ‘Hard Candy’ is floundering because Warner Music has done nothing to promote it, as retribution for her exit to Live Nation. Good theory for sure, but I still believe in the public, and Madonna’s newest album is nothing special. How many beat driven albums can the public buy? Something has to give…

Material Girl Show Signs Of Rust: Live Nation is on the defensive about the health of its $120 million Madonna deal according to the New York Post. The concern is over Madonna’s lackluster album sales and the large number of tickets available for her shows, including the November Los Angeles Show. Live Nation handed out big bucks to aging stars which eventually led to a dispute among the top executives.

Arista Drops Idol: Blake Lewis has been dropped by Arista. ‘Blake’s debut album Audio Day Dream failed to chart any singles, and by Idol standards, underperformed, selling 98,000 its first week and 299,000 to date.’ (MJS)

Recommended Listening: Receive by The Wedding. The band released an EP on Brave New World Records on June 1st. Check out live video here. The band’s mission? To bring the rock back.

Gas Prices Put The Brakes On Bands: Gas prices at $4 a gallon is taking a toll on indie bands. CNN has an article titled ‘Gas prices thwart indie band tours‘ and cites instances where bands are spending $150.00 between shows. Make sure you merch is designed well and that your selling LOTS of it to make up the difference in the rising gas price…It’s a long way to the top if you want to Rock N Roll…

Old School: Coldplay will defy the current musical landscape by debuting #1 on the Billboard Charts with expected sales of 700k.

Facebook Close To Myspace: Facebook has grown increasingly popular as it approaches Myspace numbers. MySpace claims to have about 110m active users, Facebook about 80m. Also, Facebook obtained more than 123m unique visitors in May compared with 114.6m unique visitors at MySpace. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has come under scrutiny as of late as he is facing allegations that his creation was based on ideas he stole from others.

Internet Shake-up: Hundreds of new domain names could be created by the end of the year, rising to thousands in the future according to BBC. Top level domains such as .com or .uk may be a thing of the past.

Signings: American idol winner Taylor Hicks will sign to jazz label Vanguard Records after being dropped from Sony. Oasis signed a three album deal with SonyBMG. The band will create music under their own label Big Brother Records while Sony will handle the marketing and distribution.

Recommended Listening: Everything I Ask For by The Maine. The band will release their new album titled ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop’ through Fearless Records on 7/8/08.

Chairman of Live Nation Resigns: Michael Cohl has resigned as chairman of the board of Live Nation, instead Cohl will serve as a consultant to the company. Cohls exit came after a dispute with Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino who were battling the long term stratey of Live Nation’s future.

British ISPs and Music Companies Enter Talks: British ISPs and music rights holders are now engaged in serious negotiations according to Digital Music News. The British government is finally stepping in and legislators are putting pressure on ISP’s and music right holders to find a solution for the massive piracy that has victimized artists and music companies. An annual industry conference that features labels, publishers, rights societies, artists, managers were finally greeted by participating ISPs that included Tiscali, Carphone Warehouse, Virgin, and BT.

France sets date for anti-piracy law: More good news for artists and the anti-piracy front. France’s ‘three strikes and you’re out’ antipiracy law, which will knock off offenders off the Internet for up to a year, will hit the statute books early next year. P2P sites and feed Internet addresses will be monitored for thieves looking to steal movies and music. They hope this law will cut piracy by 70% to 80%.

The Orchard Aquires TVT Assets: Bankrupt indie label TVT Records has entered in an agreement with The Orchard to sell its recorded music arm according to the NY Post. ‘The Orchard will acquire the TVT catalog, its artists contacts and TVT’s physical distribution business’. The companies are hoping to seal the deal on July 3rd.

Many reading KOAR are fans of bands that they think should make it big more often than not, these bands don’t achieve the level of success that we expected. Whether they just don’t get picked up by a major and end up disbanding after years of not being offered a record deal, or, among other situations, signed to an indie label and never reached the audience you thought they deserved. In this version of Soundcheck, I’m going to talk about a few bands that I felt had the talent and the songs to make it big, but for some reason didn’t. Check out the songs in Soundcheck Myspace player at http://www.myspace.com/soundcheckkoar

First off, Orson from Los Angeles, CA. After Maroon 5 had big hits in 2003 and 2004, I thought that this funky pop/rock band had a sure hit in the states with their single “No Tomorrow”. After a few years in Los Angeles and a minor amount of buzz, these guys went over to the UK and quickly got a deal from Mercury. “No Tomorrow” reached #1 on the UK singles chart in 2006 and the debut album “Bright Idea” debuted at #1 on the UK album chart in the spring of that year. In my opinion, American pop stations missed out on this one.

Boston-based pop/rock band Averi released two full-length albums before parting ways with lead singer Chad Perrone in 2006. “The Bones Underneath” is a track that defines what this band is about with a good mix of saxophone and radio friendly melodies. They opened for bands like Matchbox Twenty, Eve 6, and Gavin Degraw, but were never offered a record deal.

Florida rockers Waking Season seemed poised to take rock radio by storm a few years ago with tracks like “I’m Sorry” and “Cold Day in Hell”. The success never came and the band has seemingly disappeared in recent years.

Adelayda signed w/ indie label Superkala Records in 2004 and saw minor radio success with their single “Not Tonight”. They had the vocals and the power ballad, but they disbanded a few years ago and haven’t been heard from since.

CONTINUE READING

Chaos of the music business has become more interesting than music: Sasha Frere-Jones is a critic of The New Yorker and disappointed that the New York Times laid off the famed music reporter Jeff Leeds.

‘Music reporters may be more relevant than critics now. It is only a mild exaggeration to say that the chaos of the music business has become more interesting than the music.We need reporters who value critical thought as much as an early lead. Critics live on big ideas and dine out on punch lines. Bloggers shoot first, ask blunt questions, and aggregate the paid folks’ writing when it works. Leeds is as fast as the bloggers, a better reporter than most critics, and a good critic even when limited by house style to implication and artful association.’

Are we insterested in the music Radioplay has to offer or how they release the music? sames goes for NIN…

A Taste of Democracy: Nine finished” tracks from Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” were leaked online yesterday by the Web site Antiquiet.com. The links were removed following a cease-and-desist order from the band’s management.

Coldplay accused of Plagiarism: A less than stellar band from the US called Creaky Boards is trying to win their ticket to fame by accusing Coldplay of plagiarism. The band blamed Chris Martin for the alleged artistic theft, saying that Coldplay’s frontman attended a Creaky Boards concert in New York last year. Chris Martin says it’s a proven fact that he was in the studio in London, not attending a Creaky Boards show in NYC. We don’t like to give this lame band press, but here is the video from Creaky Boards. Also, if you listen to both tracks, only 4 notes in the song show a slight similarity.

iTunes: Apple has announced that consumers have purchased and downloaded over five billion songs on iTunes.

Radiohead Ticket Giveaway Fails: Radiohead were left with a raft of empty seats at a recent French gig after a ticket giveaway proved a utter failure. Singer Thom Yorke and his gang announced that 50 passes were available, but the fans would have to collect them by bicycle from record label XL’s Paris office. Their were 35 unclaimed tickets out of the 50 – stop with press stunts and just act like a band again…

Amazon Dabbles With Discount Prices: Amazon is now deep-discounting select MP3 albums, part of an effort to generate more excitement among music fans according to Digital Music News. Coldplay’s X&Y dropped to $1.99, along with the rest Coldplay catalog titles. Other albums will be dropped as low as 99-cents. ‘According to one executive, Amazon is now dabbling with “Russian prices,” a reference to the now-defunct AllofMP3 and other deep-discount sites, though lower-priced experimentation could raise broader sales volumes.’