Sources told Kings of A&R several weeks ago that an act known as
Hyper Crush were buzzing among industry execs in the west coast. Those sources attended a Hyper Crush performance and thought it was a cruel joke, in fact, one source said, “This was the most horrible act I ever saw, I cannot believe I was sent here.” Regardless, we at KOAR forgot about this story until we woke up today and read in the Los Angeles Times that the hip hop/elecronic act Hyper Crush inked a deal with Motown/Universal.

What caught the attention of the act was their myspace according to the Times. Hyper Crush has two tracks at nearly a million ‘plays’ and just over 71,000 ‘friends.’ You can decide for yourself if Hyper Crush will be the breakthrough act of the decade, regardless, is the record business still using myspace friends and the number of plays as a sole indicator to sign artists? If the music business approaches 2009 as the same as 2008, serious trouble will linger around the corner.

Read the article ‘Election Puts Tech and Movies On Opposite Paths‘. The big content companies are at crossroads as The election of Barak Obama puts into play an ambitious and progressive technology policy agenda that starts off with “protect the openness of the Internet.”

This Week Sales: Snow Patrol sold 49,000 copies of their new album titled Hundred Million Suns, and Pink only sold 180,000 copies of her new album FunHouse while having a #1 song in the country.

SXSW: The deadline for applying to SXSW is tomorrow. SXSW will take place March 18-22.

Hailing from San Diego, California comes Alternative/indie rock band
War Stories a band driven by the unique, rich, and soulful vocals of Evan Robinson. Previously signed to Columbia, the band was dropped two months before their record was released. That set back which could have ended the band only helped them find a new beginning & they released their debut, self-titled album in August. Check out, “Lion” and see if they’re worthy of a second chance at stardom.

Dallas Osborn currently attends San Francisco State University and works on the Live 105 (KITS) Action Team.

Listen to Run and Don’t Leave by Brandon Stanley who hails from Sugar Land. This singer songwriter defines himself as americana/pop cites and is influenced by Don Henley, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, Emerson Hart, and Jackson Browne. His songs will certainly find their way on Film and TV and he plans to tour extensively in the new year.

Throwing Music Pirates Off The Net: The law that will tackle music piracy was voted overwhelmingly by the French Senate. Net firms will be enrolled as watchdogs that will keep an eye on consumers indulging in casual piracy and companies will be encouraged to install firewalls blocking content sharing by employees. Read the entire article here.

Bleak 2008 Christmas Season: As reported last week, Circuit City will close down 155 retails stores and slash its work force. Of course this is another blow to the music business as Circuit City bolstered CD sales. Music retailer Wal-Mart offers more damaging news as it is rapidly downsizing shelf space for music CDs while increasing availability of Blu-ray, video games and electronics.

“As packaged media continues to fade, Wal-Mart is focused on acquiring exclusive rights to music content, which enables it to sell multiple products to a consumer at one time; not just an $11.99 CD,” Greenfield wrote. He said Wal-Mart’s scaled-back interest in music coupled with the potential bankruptcy of Circuit City Stores, a top music CD retailer, portends a bleak 2008 holiday season for the music industry.

Hollywood is looking to cash in on uploaded videos to the internet. Viacom plans to pair advertising with video clips that MySpace users upload to the site, whether they have permission or not. This is similar to that of YouTube, which launched a system that offers copyright holders a choice of removing material or letting YouTube place ads in exchange for a piece of the revenue.

These media companies like MTV cannot make money even though they are embracing the consumer led digital revolution. In fact, MTV plans to cancel their big annual Christmas party and plan to fire a slew of employees according to sources. How much is Hollywood looking to cash in on viral videos watched by millions? I certainly hope their expectations are low.

The founding member of The Descendents, Frank Navetta, passed away on October 31, 2008 after becoming ill over the course of a few days.