12,000 of the world’s independent record labels have joined together to create a virtual fifth major.

“80 percent of the world’s music releases come not from the majors but from independent labels. Getting access to this music is a hassle for stores like iTunes and webcasters like Last.fm, since it takes an incredible amount of effort to do thousands of different (and small) deals. It’s not a great situation for the indies, either, which individually don’t possess the clout needed to get the best deals.”

A little over a year ago, the indies launched Merlin, a one stop rights clearinghouse for indie artists. More importantly and according to Ars Technica, “Merlin has announced that it is working on deals with several soon-to-be-launched services, including the highly-anticipated music service from MySpace.” Read the rest here..

NIN Releases Another New Album: Trent Reznor has been on a writing binge lately. Trent announced that he released another album titled ‘The Slip‘ and is giving it away for free. ‘We are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com says Trent’. ‘For those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon.

Fueled By Success: The New York Times has a piece titled ‘An Alternative Approach To Marketing Rock Bands‘ which discusses the indie label Fueled By Ramen. The people at the label instill a hard work ethic for the bands they sign. ‘When Mr. Janick signs bands, he tells them how hard they will work, not how rich they will become’. Regardless, hard work and blogging until your fingers fall off doesn’t guarantee success. For instance, “The last album from the Academy Is sold half of what its previous release did, and the new album from Cobra Starship, another of the label’s bands, may not sell 100,000”. It’s all about the songs…

Recommended Listening: Save The Day By Mayday

Check Out My Myspace Plays: TuneBoom, the myspace play count inflator which was used by major and indie labels has mysteriously gone OFF LINE after it was talked about in the blogosphere. ‘Bands and labels looking for a way to fake MySpace popularity have plenty of other ways to manipulate the play counts on MySpace Music says WIRED. What do the number of myspace plays mean? Usually nothing. Of course if you have zero myspace plays, it may just appear that you are DEAD.

Todays artists are eager to put their home made demos on myspace believing it’s their window of opportunity. Sometimes it is but most of the time it isn’t. I notice that artists spend more time networking than writing songs. Songs will make you known, not myspace plays. If it wasn’t for the track REHAB you would never see Winehouse snorting crack on TMZ. Send us your Myspace link and let us know what song we should be listening to. We don’t care how many plays you have, but it has to be at least one. Email tips@kingsofar.com

New Music and Recommended Listening:

Listen to Without You by Standary of Living. Currently performing shows in support of their self produced and Independent released EP titled Patience. For fans of Jimmy Eat World and Counting Crows.

Miami rock band, Another Black Day, will release their self-titled debut through Bieler Brothers Records on May 20th. The track Wicked Soul has begun to gain support at rock stations across the country.

Minneapolis pop act Baltimore who consists of polished seasonal players just released a self titled EP. The track Scream Out Loud was featured on the final episode of MTV’s the Gauntlet 3. Listen to the track This Is The End.

State of Shock who hails from Canada was nominated for a 2008 Juno Award for Best New Group. The track “Money Honey” was a top 10 single at three formats including Rock, CHR and Hot AC, and is #1 on this weeks Sirius Hits #1 Countdown.

The track Handlebars by Flobots surprised the music biz for its quick reaction among program directors and listeners alike. We suggest you read the Idolator column that discusses how the track is finding its way
on different radio formats. Watch the video here.

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.