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.’

The Rapper Bucks The System: Lil Wayne debut at No. 1 with a million units sold. “There’s no logical answer,” said Universal Motown President Sylvia Rhone of why consumers are snapping up Lil Wayne albums, but few others. “This is one of the most anticipated hip-hop records of all time. He’s more of a household name than people give him credit for.” Just think about it, every club goer is grinding to ‘Lick Me Like A Lollipop‘.

WWE Spikes Music Sales: ‘It broadcasts television shows in 130 countries and in 20 languages. It averages a weekly global audience of 47 million viewers.’ Impact on music sales from a WWE placement can be immediate. For instance, WWE featured the song “Leave the Memories Alone” by veteran hard rock band Fuel and spiked downloads to 8,000 during the next two weeks, according to SoundScan. WWE music director Jim Johnston wants to get the word about just how much music is used in WWE and said “The labels will stumble over themselves to get on MTV, but no one’s watching MTV.”

New Music Stream: Thriving Ivory’s album is now streaming on Vh1.

The Decline: Read the article ‘A brief history of the album’s recent decline in value‘ that appears in the Los Angeles Times. ‘Less than 10 years ago, it was common for albums to cost $15 and above. Apple helped redefine what the price of an album could be in the minds of consumers, but Steve Jobs’ company is far from the only reason that albums are costing less and less.’

Last.fm Adds Videos: Last.fm just added 12,000 music videos to its site today following a deal with Universal Music. The deal is funded through advertising. Warner just pulled its catalog off of Last.fm finding it not profitable.

New Study/ Thieves Pay For Music? Eighty percent of illegal file-swappers would be interested in a paying for a legal file-sharing service that gave them universal access to digital music, according to a new study. We think the study is full of it. I think someone just wants buffet of music for a monthly cost..

Court Allows Transfer of Promotional CDs: Troy Augusto who regularly sells promo CD’s on ebay was sued by Universal Music for copyright infringement. The court ruled against Universal.

Climbing: Carolina Liar is climbing up fast on the alternative rock charts. Check out the track I’m Not Over.

Recommended Listening: Take Me by Kingsley

Orphans Works Update: Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN) and Congressman John Hall (D-NY) (formerly of Orleans and the only professional musician in Congress) will host a town hall meeting on the controversial “orphan works” legislation on Saturday, June 21, at 2pm at the Sunset Grill in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public.

ISP’s Embracing Music Biz: Read the article ‘Cash, not idealism, behind ISP embrace of music biz‘ that talks about ISPs wanting a piece of the fat ad/content pie.

Breakout Artists: Who are the breakout artists this year? can you name them?

Bandwidth Hogs: Time Warner Cable began a trial of “Internet metering” in a Texas city asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. AT&T is now considering a priced based on data volume. “The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.”

Recommended Show: San Francisco’s Magic Bullets kick off a short West Coast tour back in Seattle June 17 at Tractor Tavern with Beestings and Sweet Dominiques. The band will then be heading East for gigs including Pianos (August 6 and 7) and the NAMU Festival (August 9). Management is Rob Wells and legal is Chris Castle.

Sirius and XM Deal Almost Done: A key U.S. regulator expressed support for the 16-month-old deal, driving up both companies’ shares. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he would support the transaction, with the companies agreeing to a series of conditions.

Recommended Listening: Still Young by Shirock

Myspace Gets A Facelift: Myspace will be launching a redesign of its site this week. The first phase of the project, internally called “MySpace 2.0,” will launch on Wednesday June 18. “The changes affect five major areas of the service: homepage, navigation, profile editor, search and the MySpaceTV Flash player.” You can see some screenshots here.

Rolling Past EMI: It looks like The Rolling Stones are ending their long relationship with EMI and will sign a new deal with Live Nation.

New Survey/ The War On Piracy: The largest academic survey of young people’s music ownership has found that teenagers and students have an average of more than 800 illegally copied songs each on their digital music players. “On average every iPod or digital music player contained 842 illegally copied songs”.

Guy’s World: We suggest you read the lengthly article titled ‘EMI’s New Boss Sees Cracks in Music World‘.

Rollez Stonez: Rolling Stone senior editor Austin Scaggs is starting a “Perez Hilton-esque” music blog for the magazine next month according to Gawker. Look at me, “I’m Famous”….