Starbucks Slowing Down: Starbucks walked away from the recorded music biz because the caffein pusher has to many other fishes to fry. Starbucks CORE business is coffee, not music. It’s challenging to put any thought into music when earnings have sunk 21% in the second quarter. The company even plans to cut on planned U.S. Store Openings.

Will YouTube Make Money? CEO of Google wants to make money off of YouTube, but he just has to figure out how. “I don’t think we’ve quite figured out the perfect solution of how to make money, and we’re working on that says Chief Executive Eric Schmidt’. Of course the only solution seems to be advertising. Schmidt said YouTube planned to introduce new products aimed at generating advertising revenue.

Who’s The Sellout? As for his entry into the music business…Â You’re just jealous. He’s passionate about acts, he’s got an audience, he’s a tastemaker (Lefsetz on Perez Hilton)

The amazing critic Bob Lefsetz just wrote these even more amazing words about the Gossip Gangstar! (Perez Hilton)

Don’t let anyone fool you. This love letter relationship is just about press and attention.

The one (Lefsetz) who tells you never to sell out to the BIG MAN, sells himself out to Perez Hilton. I think many critics and artists are frightened of the queen of gossip and want to assure themselves a hunky-dory relationship exists in an effort to escape possible negative press. The easy road is to join popular culture. The artistic road to change is pain and suffering. Building a career is about saying NO, not saying YES. I understand Perez Hilton has become a marketing bullet point because of his popular blog. I also understand the motto “If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em “, just don’t educate me about CHANGE and SELLING OUT.

New Music: Check out the indie band SeaBird. Our favorite tracks are Stronger and Let Me Go On. Singer Aaron Morgan says this about his record, “There is a redemptive quality present in this record, even in the darker moments. We hope this record will be an oasis for those who were left thirsty by years of heartache.”

Attention Artists: We feel your pain and certainly understand how it must feel for not being paid for your creation. You’re told everyday that you should be giving away music for free and never should expect a real payday. The good news is that online media giants like Yahoo, RealNetworks and AOL could pay up to $100 million in royalties owed to thousands of songwriters and publishers, after a federal judge established a formula for determining the payments. Of course these companies are tying to buck the system but let’s hope the federal judge upholds his formula for potential license fees on songs played by the three online services from July 1, 2002 through December 31, 2009, the trade group said.

Concert Attendance Slips:Â Could it because of the credit card crunch? Is everyone in debt up to their ears? We think so…

The Silicon Bubble: Music site Hype Machine has a $10 million dollar offer according to ValleyWag. The Hype Machine is an MP3 blog aggregator.

Another music site called MOG received $2.8 Million in new financing from Universal and Sony according to VentureBeat. The site offer reviews, videos, music videos.

So far this year, venture capitalists have invested 58 million dollars into music tech companies. Check out the stats and the summary here.

Investors are throwing money around to these music related social networking sites with no guarantee. Even major music labels are getting in the ring and betting on these sites. Investors of these sites claim social networkers are the next generation of broadcasters and are successors to traditional radio.

Critics don’t understand how these sites can be successful on their own even though they talk multiple revenue streams led by advertising. What is the true sticker price for these sites?

Kelli Richards, president of the digital media consultancy All Access Group warns that investors may be disappointed by just how much revenue these sites can generate and compares the rich multiples to the kind of irrational exuberance that valued Facebook at $15 billion. “It’s too early in the game to say definitely what kind of cash flow, what kind of potential these companies are going to have,” concludes Perlson.

At the end of the day, we are going to have happy investors or just another bubble that is about to burst.

Lawsuit Filed Against Project Playlist: The major music labels have filed a lawsuit against a popular music site called Project Playlist. The labels accuse Project Playlist of massive copyright infringement since it does not have a license for any of its content. Once again, this is another example of a music site that profits from artists without giving anything back.

Grand Theft Auto 4 Breaks Record: The newest installment of the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto 4 goes on sale today. The sales expectations are humongous. “The video game industry estimates “GTA 4″ will sell about 6 million copies and make about $400 million in sales worldwide in its first week alone.”

Buzzing: The Canadian band, Age Of Daze has been making some noise with their independent release titled Hollywood Ending. The track ‘Afflicted‘ has been #1 on Sirius Octane for over 8 weeks. The track is also #18 on the Canadian Rock BDS chart.

Miley Takes A Bite of the Forbidden Fruit: Miley Cyrus who is a multi million dollar brand took on a tremendous risk by engaging in a racy photo session that will appear in Vanity Affair. The fact that Miley doesn’t even need Vanity Affair makes this ordeal more shocking. This is an extremely poor business move and will somewhat tarnish her brand. These girls just can’t keep their clothes on.

New Music: Run Kid Run is a 4 piece pop rock band that comes from Illinois. The new record titled ‘Love At The Core’ will be released TODAY through Tooth and Nail Records. The record was produced by James Paul Wisner (Dashboard Confessional, Further Seems Forever, New Found Glory). Listen to the song ‘Love At the Core‘.

32 Leaves who hails from Arizona just came off of tour dates w/ Theory Of a Deadman and Airbourne. Their track ‘All Is Numb‘ is starting to happen at radio.

A Lonely Woman’s Fight Against the Music Biz: The suggested reading for today is an article that can found in Business Week titled ‘Does She Look Like A Music Pirate?‘ After being accused for stealing songs, Tanya Andersen has decided to take the record industry to court for conspiracy laws.

What’s Next For Metallica? Lars Ulrich, Metallica drummer, mentioned that the band only has one album left to record for Warner Brothers under their contract. Lars Ulrich insuinated that the internet plays an important role in Metallica’s future and stated that they were watching the moves of others including Radiohead and Trent Reznor. (cnet)

Top Current Albums:
Mariah Carey – TW (462,000)
Leona Lewis – TW (94,842) Total 300,232
R.E.M. – TW (29,985) Total 192,449
P.O.D. – TW (12,797) Total 42,385
NIN – TW (11,749) Total 50,019
Nickelback – TW (9,789) Total 6,736,276

Confused Idol: American Idol may look into serious changes after the ratings dip according to the New York Post. Since the ratings dip, staffers at Idol have created a survey asking viewers how they would react to possible changes in the show’s format. Even though the ratings have decreased, the show is still HUGE.

“We’re not in denial,” Fox exec Preston Beckman told Broadcasting & Cable, the TV business weekly. “It’s still the biggest show on TV, but that doesn’t mean there are things we can’t do.

iPod Slump: Check out this article in the New York Times how Apple will prepare for an iPod Slump. ‘Apple sold 10.6 million iPods in the first three months of 2008. It has a 73 percent share of the music player market in the United States and a growing share abroad’.

New Coldplay Single: Coldplay sent out an email informing the world that they will be giving away their new single, ‘Violet Hill’, as a free download beginning tomorrow. The free download will be available for a week.

New Music: Pop country artist Shannon Nicole has posted a new song
Buses and Trains on her myspace. St. Louis radio station KYKY just added the song.

Recommended Shows: Alternative band, My Getaway, will be performing this Tuesday, April 29 at 8:15 p.m. at the Knitting Factory in Los Angeles. They were voted as #1 unsigned band in Alternative Press.

Recommended Listening: Raincoats by U.S Royalty. For fans of Deathcab.

Starbucks has decided to walk away from the recorded music business.

Instead, ‘Starbucks will hand over day-to-day management of its year-old music label to Concord Music Group, as it strives to contain costs and rejuvenate its coffee shop business’.

‘Just recently Starbucks unveiled its Hear Music label with great fanfare. Paul McCartney was the first artist to release an album under the Hear Music label, which has since also released CDs by Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, among others’.

Ken Lombard, who oversaw Starbucks’ music unit for much of its existence, is also leaving the company.

This isn’t the first time Starbucks had a failure. In 2006, Starbucks promoted a movie, “Akeelah and the Bee,” which turned out to be a box office flop.

‘It also scrapped a plan to allow customers to create customized CDs in its stores’.

‘In recent months, however, the chain’s overall fortunes have soured due to a sharp downturn in U.S. consumer spending. On Wednesday, the company blamed hard-hit housing markets in California and Florida for slowing sales and warned that its quarterly and 2008 profits would be below expectations’.

“There are people who can handle it better,” Bob Goldin of industry research firm Technomic said of Starbucks’ music business.