New York Times says Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic

Atlantic Records says digital sales have finally surpassed CD sales. Most of their musics sales in the US are now from digital products – ala digital music downloads and ringtones.

“We’re like a college basketball team on an 18-2 run,” said Craig Kallman, Atlantic’s chairman and chief executive.

The future still looks clouded even though a milestone has been achieved – “While digital delivery is becoming a bigger slice of the pie, the overall pie is shrinking fast.” The hope has been lost that digital sales would make up for declining sales of CD’s. The music industry is now hoping to profit from other businesses including concert tickets and artist merchandise, but the live business is shrinking too. Unfortunately, only a few legendary artists can fill arenas and they are usually unwilling to share the slice of the pie.

The transition of moving to a digital business has made things more complicated. Of course others believe they found somewhat of a solution. “I think we’ve figured it out,” said Julie Greenwald, president of Atlantic Records. “It used to be that you could connect five dots and sell a million records. Now there are 20 dots you can connect to sell a million records.”

“Replacing compact disc sales are small bits of revenue from many sources: Atlantic Records’ digital sales include ring tones, ringbacks, satellite radio, iTunes sales and subscription services”. At the same time, record labels — Atlantic included — are spending less money to market artists. In the pre-Internet days, said Ms. Greenwald, “we were so flush, we did everything in the name of promotion.” Among the cutbacks are less spending to produce videos and to support publicity tours when a new album is released.”

Guns N’ Roses Chinese democracy is blasting the Chinese Nation according to a newspaper published by China’s ruling Communist Part. The album “turns its spear point on China,” the article said. The track Chinese Democracy refers to Falun Gong meditation movement. I suppose China is on Axl’s long list of enemies.

Coldplay To Split? Chris Martin hinted that the end of Coldplay may be near. “I’m 31 now and I don’t think bands should keep going past 33”, said Martin. “Up until the end of next year, we’ll just go for it in every sense. I don’t believe in time off… We’ve still got our own hair, we can still fit into our musical trousers and we’ve got to make the most of that.”

Velvet Revolver has split with RCA Records. Velvet Revolver continues their long search for a new lead singer. Velvet Revolver fell apart because there were too many big egos in the band said Weiland — and I’m including myself. “It wasn’t necessarily about bad egos, just big egos, and unfortunately, it just mistakenly kind of eroded.”

‘Chinese Democracy’ has broken all kinds of records after being streamed on MySpace. The “listening party”, has had the largest listeners for an artist album stream launch on the site to date.

Simon Cowells management company and Jordan Sparks have parted ways. The 19 Recordings label will continue as Jordin’s record company with its joint venture partner, Jive Records.

Irish piano rockers The Script were just featured as the U.S. iTunes free single of the week with their track, “Before the Worst”. The feature has helped push a few artists like The Fray, Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, and Metro Station with their breakout hits. It’s also featured many songs from artists we haven’t anything from since. Already with a #1 album in the UK and a strong international following, it looks like The Script have a better chance at being the second coming of The Fray than the next Wired All Wrong.

Southern tinged alternative rock band Kings of Leon are finally making a significant impact at radio in their home country with their recent single, “Sex on Fire”. The band who has played some of the biggest festivals overseas and has seen great success elsewhere, but wouldn’t even be recognized at a Nashville Wal-Mart seem to have their breakthrough with their fourth album, “Only By The Night”. The success of “Sex on Fire” is set to help spawn another hit with second single, Use Somebody”. Now time will tell if this band can maintain their home turf success.

Drum & Bass Goes Mainstream: Popular Australian drum & bass band Pendulum are another band who could start being recognized stateside thanks to their sizzling, genre bending single, “Propane Nightmares”. Can this track make a serious impact at alternative radio and beyond, here in America?

Signings:
Staying in Australia, it was previously reported that emo rock act Closure in Moscow had signed with Science Records, but have now apparently struck a deal with Equal Vision (Chiodos, Circa Survive) instead. A seemingly perfect home for this band, EVR has seen strong sales and popular tours featuring bands already on their label, so Closure in Moscow should do nothing but help this label maintain their strong reputation in this particular music scene.

Interscope has reportedly signed California rap duo LMFAO who could fit in easily on a tour with everyone’s favorite recent Universal signing Hyper Crush. If you’re not blinded by the flashy Myspace page, or distracted by track titles like, “I’m Not a Whore” and “I’m in Miami Bitch” then you might want to try out the track, “YES”. The track is lyrically ridiculous, but I find it catchy as hell. Whether you like it, or hate it, this may very easily end up alongside Katy Perry and Pink singles on the Top 40 chart.

Quick Picks:

Red – “Never Be The Same” – one of the singles from the band’s upcoming album, “Innocence & Instinct”, guess it was time for a power ballad.

Picture Atlantic – “Circe” – won an opening slot for Coldplay in July.

Middle Class Rut – “Busy Bein’ Born

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

Taylor Swift sold 592,000 copies of her new record making herself immune from the dwindling record biz. She is more than an artist, she is a role model and a figure head to a certain segment in this generation. Christina Aguilera ‘Keeps Gettin’ Better” came out just in time for the Christmas holiday but sold only 72,869. Old School marketing strategies cannot get the public excited to spend 10 bucks on a diva that graces the pages of tabloid mags and gossip columns. Pink’s ‘Funhouse’ sold 52,000 records this week. Metallica’s ‘Death Magnetic’ sold 31,000 records, can we say they cameback? Regardless, The Day That Never Comes is a classic song. AC/DC ‘Black Ice’ sold 105,146 with a total of 1,320,000.

Guns N’ Roses new release expects to sell 600k in its first week, which would make this one of the biggest releases of the year. Once again, where are the new artists?

13 years later, Guns N’ Roses ‘Chinese Democracy’ can be streamed in its entirety on myspace.

Guns N’ Roses began to write and record new music in 1994. Ex-bassist Duff McKagan is quoted as saying, “The band was so splintered at that point that nothing got started”. Slash has criticized Rose for making the band seem “like a dictatorship”. Slash quit the band in 1996; drummer Matt Sorum and McKagan left soon afterwards.

Chinese Democracy is a collaboration of artists who include:

* Axl Rose – lead vocals, backing vocals
* Robin Finck – lead guitar, backing vocals
* Bumblefoot – lead guitar
* Richard Fortus – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
* Tommy Stinson – bass guitar, backing vocals
* Dizzy Reed – keyboard, piano, percussion, backing vocals
* Bryan Mantia – drums, percussion
* Frank Ferrer – drums, percussion
* Chris Pitman – synthesizer, programming

Former members who are featured

* Buckethead – lead guitar
* Paul Tobias – rhythm guitar

Additional musicians

* Sebastian Bach – backing vocals (uncredited)
* Patti Hood – harp
* Marco Beltrami – orchestral arrangement
* Paul Buckmaster – orchestral arrangement

The Cost Of The Record: According to a March 2005 New York Times article, production costs for the album have reached $13 million