Universal Music Group to compete with iTunes: The world’s most powerful music executive aims to join forces with other record companies to launch an industry-owned subscription service. Universal CEO Doug Morris is in talks with Sony BMG Music and Warner Music Group as potential partners. Together the three would control about 75% of the music sold in the U.S. The goal is to get hardware makers or cell carriers to absorb the cost of a roughly $5-per-month subscription fee so consumers get a device with all-you-can-eat music that’s free. Music companies would collect the subscription fee, while hardware makers theoretically would move many more players. (Business Week)

‘She’s All Yours’: Warner Music passed along a report from a Bank of America subsidiary explaining why the material girl is no longer worth a nine-digit payday. The big risk it to overpay for an artist that does not seem to be generating the revenue to support the contract being discussed. Madonna will turn 60 years old in the last year of the proposed deal, it is “fantastic” for her but does not “make economic sense” for WMG. Lastly, her loss will not meaningfully impact Warner’s near-term sales. (Variety)

Platinum selling nineties band Sponge has signed with Icon Entertainment.

Los Angeles based indie act The Sound Of Animals Fighting signed to Epitaph

KOAR is really digging the Milwaukee 4 piece alt rock band Northern Room. We fell for the band after listening to ‘We’re On Fire’ and ‘Last Embrace’. The song ‘Last Embrace’ came about after the lead singer Andrew Jonathan lost a family member to suicide. In fact, a video company was so inspired by the song and its meaning that they decided to shoot a video for the track. Northern Room will be performing at the BMI/CMJ Show at Arlenes Grocery on Wednesday October 17th (9:45). For more information contact
Dan Friedman.

Many fans feels they purchased a glorified demo…

The Radiohead offering of letting fans decide the price of their new record began with excitment, respect, and admiration. Fans are now angry over the low quality of the downloads and the band’s manager’s statement that the you-choose-the-price downloads were just a promotional tool for the release of the physical CD.

Radiohead’s previous albums were already available as MP3s encoded at 320 kilobits per second — the highest-possible compression rate in the format, but it was announced that the new record RAINBOWS would be available at 160 kbps (poor quality) — after the majority of their fans had already paid for the download. To be fair, the band did give the fans the power of choosing how much they wanted to pay to download the album.

Most promo MP3s come at a higher bit rate,” wrote the author of U.K. blog Kids Pushing Kids. “Worst pound and pence I’ve ever spent.”

I have lost a bit of respect for Radiohead for this. I would never make people pay for 160. They may as well just stream stuff off MySpace” responded one commenter.

No one seemed to understand why Radiohead decided to release Rainbows at 160 kpbs, though guitarist Jonny Greenwood told Rolling Stone, “We talked about it and we just wanted to make it a bit better than iTunes, which it is, so that’s kind of good enough, really.

Statements from band’s management that seem to indicate that the downloadable album was just promotional tool for physical CD also resulted in disgrunted fans.

Is Radiohead fighting for the fans and the music? or is this a kanye west marketing plan in disguise. Maybe everyone is just nitpicking…

The end of Radiohead’s run of number one albums: Radiohead is not a chart-registered retailer so they will not be eligible for inclusion in the chart. This has sent shivers through the industry, with some hailing it as a breakthrough for the digital age and others predicting the end of the world as we know it.

EMI Guy Hands selecting his dream team: According to Hits the team would consist of People magazine Publisher Paul Caine, Clear Channel Communications New York SVP Programming Tom Poleman and pop producer/songwriter Billy Mann. Other sources claim People magazine publisher Paul Caine turned down Guy Hands’ offer. Musical chairs on the Titanic? I can already hear the song Amazing Grace…

Madonna Strikes 120 Million Deal: Madonna will sever her ties to Warner Bros. and sign a landmark 120 million dollar 10-year deal with Live Nation concer promoter. In return, Live Nation would be granted the rights to three studio albums as well as the right to promote concert tours, sell merchandise and license Madonna’s name.

Radiohead have drawn a mixed reaction from fans, the music industry and fellow musicians with the ‘Pay What You Want’ experiment.

About a third of fans decided to pay absolutely nothing, according to The Times daily.

“We’re prepared to take a risk and we might come out looking very foolish. But we believe if your music is great, then people will pay for it,” Bryce Edge, one of the band’s managers.

Another boss, Chris Hufford, added: “There are actually people who are going on websites and saying, ‘I don’t actually like Radiohead, but I’m going to give them some money because I think it’s a brilliant idea’.”

Singer-songwriter James Blunt chimed in and warned that the Radiohead approach could be dangerous for artists. “I don’t think they should devalue it,” he told The Times. “I’ve got to pay a band and a producer and a mixer. I don’t know how I’d necessarily pay them if I sold my albums for 1p.”

Alex Turner, the singer with Arctic Monkeys, said the experiment was “very interesting” but reserved judgment.