Music fans may have witnessed a glimmer of hope watching Adele clean up at the Grammys who scored an award in all six categories including Pop Vocal Album, Best Pop Solo Vocal Performance, Short Form Music Video, Record Of The Year, and Song Of The Year.

Lady Gaga was shutout at the Grammy Awards as Adele beat her 3 times. It seems that auto-tune and manufactured songs written by overpaid songwriters which has saturated radio may have hit its peak. This may explain why Adele’s smash album spent 20 weeks on the chart at #1, sold 6.6 million albums and will sell another 250k records this week.

Foo Fighters David Grohl commented on the state of artistry recommending to learn an instrument and sing in the microphone.

“To me this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of music is what’s important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that’s the most important thing for people to do… It’s not about being perfect, it’s not about sounding absolutely correct, it’s not about what goes on in a computer. It’s about what goes on in here [your heart] and what goes on in here [your head]”

In the case of Adele’s impact, will the music industry scramble to find the next Adele? I’m not sure if that is possible because Adele is unique.

“She’s a rare case of an artist where she can breeze in, sit down and just knock everybody out. On top of the quality of the songwriting, there’s just an indefinable charisma and power to her voice. It was so obvious that there didn’t need to be anything to mask it,” Thompson recalled. “There wasn’t an issue of production…there was nothing dressed up about it…She never even took off her gloves.”

Instead of the music business flooding the market with Adele clones, it should be viewed as a learning lesson. We can learn that the public picks up on sincerity in performance and artists are still capable of selling millions of CD’s. The cliche “it’s all about the music” comes to life.

Richard Russell, founder of her record label, XL Recordings says:

“The whole message with [Adele] is that it’s just music, it’s just really good music,” he told U.K. newspaper, the Guardian.

“There is nothing else. There are no gimmicks, no selling of sexuality. I think in the American market, particularly, they have come to the conclusion that is what you have to do.”

Russell said the “faux porn” imagery of some female artists had left him feeling “a bit queasy.”

With Adele topping charts, he thinks record companies will think again about how they market female artists and suggests that will have a positive influence on young girls.

He said: “Now you see that Adele is No. 1. What a great thing, how amazing. Not only are young girls going to see that, but [also] the business people who are behind all those videos.

“It’s going to make them rethink what they should be doing.”

Adele said in a recent interview with Q magazine that she did not sexualize her image because it did not fit with her music.

“Even if I had Rihanna’s body, I’d still be making the music I make and that don’t go together,” she said.

The Greatest Voice Of All……
Whitney dead in Beverly Hills…
Was in the Los Angeles area for a musical tribute to music executive Clive Davis...
Whitney Houston Approached for Seat on ‘X Factor’ Judges Panel
Sold 200 million records worldwide…
Grammy Party is set to become a memorial…
Final interview…

It was a big week on the internet. Popular sites including Google spent the entire day protesting SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) which is a bill that would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to protect copyrights.

For the last several years the music industry suffered knockout blows from online piracy and critics have accused music executives from ripping off artists and consumers. Dot-comers accused them of greed and short-sightedness, seen as the fat cats making obscene profits on the back of musicians’ creativity.

At the end of the day, web gurus such as Kim Dotcom are more greedy and arrogant than record execs.

Kim Dotcom, the 37-year-old man behind Megaupload.com makes no apologies for ripping off artists and he says this about music labels.

“You need to understand that some labels are run by arrogant and outdated dinosaurs who have been in business for 1,000 years,” Mr Dotcom said. “These guys think an iPad is a facial treatment, the internet is the devil, and wired phones are still hip. They are in denial about the new realities and opportunities. They don’t understand that the rip-off days are over.

Kim Dotcom generated over $175 million in subscriptions and advertising while ripping off $500 million from copyright holders.

Kim Dotcom is living in a multi-million mansion in New Zealand and sponsored a $500,000 New Year’s eve fireworks display celebrating his move. He races Mercedes and you can find him posing with women beside a large yacht. Mr. Dotcom and his crew own more than 20 sports cars that feature numbered plates reading GOD and HACKER.

Who are the arrogant fat cats ripping off the artists? It’s obvious.

The US government shut down one of the world’s largest filesharing website Megaupload that received 50 million daily visitors, accounting 4% of total internet traffic.

According to prosecutors, Megaupload illegally cheated copyright holders out of $500m in revenue as part of a criminal enterprise spanning five years.

Kickstarter helped raise nearly $20 million for musicians last year.

“Music was the second most-funded category behind Film & Video last year, according to stats just shared by Kickstarter. In total, music projects rallied $19,801,685 (and 21 cents), a healthy chunk of the nearly $100 million in pledges in 2011. That is more than triple the volume from 2010, though we don’t have a music-specific breakdown from last year. ” (Digital Music News)