– Alternative rock band Breaking Benjamin opened up with 124,790k with the #2 spot on Billboard.

-Death metal act Slayer debuted with 62,449k.

– KOAR’s Alumn and Favorite Under the Influence of Giants recently released their debut on Island.

-Â Baton Rouge rock band Meriwether signed a deal with Suretone Records/Interscope.

– YouTube said Tuesday that it is talking with record labels to post thousands of music videos online, aiming to move beyond being a site for sharing home videos to being a provider of mainstream entertainment like Yahoo and others.

What we really want to do is in six to 12 months, maybe 18 months, to have every music video ever created up on YouTube,” cofounder Steve Chen told Reuters. “We’re trying to bring in as much of this content as we can onto the site.”

Warner Music and EMI said they are each trying to work out a business model with YouTube

YouTube, which hosts more than 100 million+ videos online a day, suffered a six-hour breakdown on Tuesday — its first-ever unplanned outage.

“We are experiencing a temporary site outage due to a database-related issue,” YouTube spokeswoman Julie Supan said in an e-mail to Reuters five hours after the outage began.
“To clarify and ensure accuracy, the site is not down for maintenance,” Supan said in a statement released shortly before the site recovered. “This was an unplanned outage.”

According to Internet audience measurement firm YouTube surged into the No. 40 ranking in July among U.S. Web sites, with 16 million visitors, up 20 percent just since June.

(Reuters)

-Indie NYC act Interpol signs with Capitol. Majors are continuing to pick up indie bands with decent sales. Indie bands still believe in majors despite what anyone says. (Hits)

–Classic Case has signed with Fearless Records. This band has been slugging it out on the indie emo scene for some time. Great live show.

Check out the LA Times “Musician Is Front Man at Geffen”

Ron Fair who is now head of one of Universal Music Group’s labels, has rekindled the debate over who should run the music industry: business executives or people with experience creating music.

Jimmy Iovine says “I’d always rather teach a music guy how to sell a record than try to teach a business guy how to make one,”. Ron knows what a star looks like, and he knows how to produce a hit. The rest of the business is easy compared to that.”

Others stake a different claim.

“We need executives who think about groups as brands, not just musical acts,” said Andy Gould, manager of such Geffen acts as Rob Zombie. “There are very few execs who know what to do beyond send a song to KROQ and pray it gets played. I think Ron is up for the challenge, but it’s going to be tough if he’s mostly in the studio.”

Fair says he will shift Geffen’s focus from a mishmash of genres to singer-driven albums and the most commercial of genres: pop.

“To succeed today you have to get the biggest exposure possible, and that means pop,” said Fair. “Pop music dominates radio, it dominates television, it dominates commercials and the Internet.”

There’s so much competition for people’s consciousness now that a band has to grab anything that gives them exposure,” Fair said. “There’s no such thing as selling out, now. There’s just getting heard.”

“It’s good to have someone in that position who actually loves music,” said Gould, the manager. “If it works, the music guys might just win back this business.”

As sad it seems, Ron Fair is right. Selling out doesn’t exist anymore and competing for the people’s consciouseness is a hard task in this ADD Generation. Also, label heads must have a sense of music and business. One who only knows music will fail and one who knows only business and is tonedeaf will fail. Aint that the truth.

Bono: The Billion Dollar Business Man
I always saw Bono as a savvy business man. Tom Petty is a traveling rock star, but Bono with his oversized sunglasses is on his way to the respectable “Trump” status. The savior of the third world and his private equity group Elevation Partners, a $1.9 billion media and entertainment buyout firm bought major shares in Forbes Magazine and became the first outsider to invest in its business media properties. Bono set up Elevation Partners, named after a U2 song, last year with five former senior figures from the world of business, including the former chief financial officer of Apple Computers.
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Performance Videos Are Passe.
Don’t waste your money on cliche performance videos anymore unless of course your showmanship is a cut above the rest. YouTube changed everything and it changed they way stars are born. The fact is, kids are bored with peformance videos and are more intriqued by videos with a creative twist (IE: OK Go’s “Here it Goes Again” – viewed 2 million times on YouTube). Just think about it, a real video that would be suitable for MTV/VH1 would cost 150k and that is the on the low side. OK GO spent peanuts on a video and it landed on Fuse, VH1 followed by major press including Wall Street Journal, N.Y. Times, and Washington Post. Spending money doesn’t equate to a successful video nor video play. Creativity is more important. What a beautiful success story that bears truth.

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NY Singer Builds Big Following With Web Exposure
Jamie Kristine Seerman has been offered major labels deals but turned them down even though she has no financial backing and a marketing plan. She has faith in the Internet, iTunes and inexpensive recording, and would rather maintain control of her work. She released a five-song EP on the Internet site www.insound.com and on her MySpace page. Her song “Gray or Blue” became a top-selling folk song on iTunes and her EP made the top 100 albums.
Paste magazine music editor Jason Killingsworth said the music industry is so fragmented that for many artists, “there is no compelling reason to sign up to a major record label.”  (Reuters)

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**send your demos and new music to KOAR. We want to hear your new music. If your an artist and believe you are the “real deal� send an email to dean@kingsofar.com and provide us a link to your music.