Could Major-Label Money Taint Music Blogs? Buzznet recently acquired the music blogs Idolator and Stereogum. Universal Music invested into Buzznet in order to maximize exposure for their artists. Universal plans to license its catalog for full-song streaming and provide editorial content directly from artists who will participate as guest bloggers. While Universal Music may not save the day, music blogs need a shot in the arm. Generally, It’s been a harder time for music blogs as the tabloid and gossip industry is the preferred choice for pop culture.
New Music: Listen to Maybe in a Year & Rise and Fall by Carlotta.
American Idol Ratings Slip: “Idol” has slipped 7% in average total viewers (to 29.2 million, as of last week) compared with last season, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research. The ratings are still huge even though even if they were huger in the past.
Ratings Slip Due to the Lack of Talent? Idol contestant David Cook and his self-released album is on the charts and the current season isn’t even over. Cook auditioned in Omaha for “American Idol,” and is a friend of the multi-platinum selling artist Chris Daughtry. Some ask “what happened to “American Idol” simply being a competition for totally unknown or undiscovered artists?” Well maybe they need to go a step beyond the local yocals to find talent and maintain ratings..
Sparks Ignite: American Idol Jordin Sparks who is on the brink of stardom has been struck with a career-threatening throat injury that has forced her to cancel three shows over the weekend.
Study: Every other day it seems like we have a new study pertaining to illegal downloading. A new study says most music comes from friends or from peer-to-peer file-sharing and that 58% of music isn’t paid for in the US.
New Company Launch: Former Sony A&R executive Ben Goldman has launched a new company called Blackledge Music that will be distributed by Altlantic Records. His new signing are Josh Hoge, Tim Brantley and These Green Eyes.
Hits Cure Cancer: The music biz was shocked last week when hit maker Clive Davis was forced to give up his corporate role as head of BMG only to be replaced by Barry Weiss who is known for signing talent and cost cutting.
The New York Times says, “the pop hits that Mr. Davis is known for delivering typically require the kind of expensive videos and marketing campaigns that labels are reluctant to finance at a time when music sales have been sliding. Sony BMG’s decision to promote Mr. Weiss underscores the idea that hits alone cannot save the industry”.
The New York Times should have said HITS combined with erratic spending cannot save the industry. Major music labels definitely need breakout artists and Clive Davis along with his guardian angels know and understand the formula. Hits are the cure…
Ousting The Man Behind The Current #1 Album: Fox’s Roger Friedman said ‘the situation with Clive Davis at BMG Music on late Thursday caught all of us unawares —including Davis himself, his loyal lieutenant Charles Goldstuck and everyone else at Sony/BMG’. On BMG’s part, it was a brilliant stroke of deception.
Seven years ago, when word leaked out that Davis would be ousted from Arista Records, journalists like myself and Mitchell Fink — then of the New York Daily News — were able to raise a ruckus.
This time, the people arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic-like recording business moved swiftly and without one bit of thought about the larger picture.
Friedman says the “larger picture†is the bottom line, the succession of executives and who gets a bigger corner office. It has nothing to do with the future of the record business or any passion for the music. Otherwise, Schmidt Holtz and his other cronies wouldn’t have made such a miserable showing of ousting the man behind the current No. 1 album (by Leona Lewis), the biggest album so far of the year (Alicia Keys) or the one man with whom anything positive about the business is still identified.
 
Sony BMG Sending Shockwaves: Clive Davis has been replaced by Barry Weiss as chairman and chief executive officer of the BMG label group. Davis will become chief creative officer of Sony BMG. Stripping Clive Davis from his throne and kicking Charles Goldstuck (pictured), his right hand man to the curb sent shockwaves through the music industry. Some say the shakeup is a prelude to a break-up or sale of Sony BMG.
Music industry spent $2.8M lobbying federal government: The RIAA lobbied on a bill to limit fees charged to Internet radio stations for music broadcasts and on efforts to limit copyright violations, especially overseas.
ASCAP Launches ‘Bill of Rights for Songwriters and Composers’: The awareness is built around 10 core principles including “We have the right to be compensated for the use of our creative works, and share in the revenues that they generate” and “We have the right to license our works and control the ways in which they are used.”
Cowell Says Idol Singers Lack Personality: “They are giving very safe answers to questions, making safe song selections. We are not getting a sense of who they are. We have to try to pull it out of them more.” What are the ingredients of a superstar? Great songs, great live performances and being infectious!
New Music: Listen to the track titled Electric Choir by The Hoodies. The band had a track featured on the ‘Real World’ and have performed along side the likes of Say Anything, Gym Class Heroes, Hellogoodbye, and The Format.
Recommended Listening: The Same Way and How Much Longer by Brave Citizens.
Top Current Albums:
Leona Lewis – Spirit – (TW) 204,841
George Straigt – Troubadour – (TW) 59,000 – (Total) 225,609
R.E.M. – Accelerete – (TW) 46,000 – (Total) 162,464
P.O.D. – When Angels and Serpents Dance – (TW) 33,582
Danity Kane – Welcome To The Dollhouse – (TW) 46,596 – (Total) 399,370
Panic At The Disco – Pretty Odd – (TW) 27,622 – (Total) 203,471
Taylor Swift – (TW) 26,219 – (Total) 2,785,932
Nine Inch Nails – GHOSTS I-IV – (TW) 25,807 – (Total) 38,270
Jack Johnson – Sleep Through The Static – (TW) 25,754 – (Total) 1,032,024
Daughtry – (TW) 24,705 – (Total) 3,966,481
Top Digital Tracks:
Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love – (TW) 223,232 – (Total) 1,139,947
Madonna – 4 Minutes – (TW) 195,197 – (Total) 641,542
Jordin Sparks – No Air Duet with Chris Brown – (TW) 153,648 – (Total) 1,240,374
Usher – Love in This Club – (TW) 121,384 – (Total) 1,027,029
Mariah Carey – Touch My Body – (TW) 117,046 – (Total) 563,570
Music DVD:
Fall Out Boy – LIVE IN PHEONIX – (TW) 6,274 – (Total) 22,900
Celine Dion – NEW DAYA LIVE IN LAS VEGAS – (TW) 5,888 – (Total) 265,551
John Legend – LIVE FROM PHILADELPHIA – (TW) 5,138
Blue Man Group – HOW TO BE A MEGASTAR – (TW)3 ,582 – (Total) 7,822
**Story of the Year’s new album The Black Swan (Epitaph) can be streamed here. Disturbed’s new single “Inside the Fire” has debuted at number 5 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks and number 23 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks. Fall Out Boy’s cover of “Beat It” entered the Hot 100’s top 20 last week.
The Top of the Heap: The music biz is treating Leona Lewis very nicely. She has debuted at No. 1 on this week’s U.S. pop chart, selling 205,000 copies of her Syco/J Records debut, “Spirit†and has become the first British solo artist to ever debut atop the Billboard charts.
New Music: The Austin alternative band, Dawn Over Zero has posted a new track titled Circulation which was produced by Matt Novesky of Blue October. Listen to Circulation as well.
Musical Chairs: Nick Gatfield who has just stepped down as president of Island Records UK, will take the position as head of A&R at EMI for North America and the UK.
War on Piracy: The Pirate Bay, the illegal file sharing site is threatening to seek damages from music industry lobby group The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for blocking access to its website.
A Mega-Star in the Making: Miley Cyrus who is only 15 years old earned herself $18.2 million last year. Plus, we like her sense of humor because she found Madonna’s 4 minutes song silly which shows in this youtube video that can be viewed here.
Fake It Till You Make It: Myspace just makes things to easy for the average joe band. Labels, promoters and music critics use to check a band’s MySpace page to see how many plays they have but they have come to realize (or at least we did) it’s generally a poor indicator in evaluating the overall success of a band.
According to Wired, a company called TuneBoom Pro claims it can artificially inflate MySpace play counts over a thirty day period for any artist, charging on a sliding scale:
$147 for 1K plays
$417 for 5K plays
$747 for 300K plays
A TuneBoom Pro representative said they even have worked exclusively for the majors up until about a year ago when we offered our services to the independent artist and labels. This isn’t suprising because everybody at one point thought the number of Myspace plays held some type of value but everybody came to the realization that it doesn’t contribute to the overall bottom line. If a relatively unknown artist is getting over 10k plays a day on a consistent basis, then its worth checking into for sure. At the end of the day, it all comes down to GREAT songs….
PluggedIn: Will Smith and his entertainment company called Overbrook Entertainment has unveiled a music video site called PluggedIn featuring thousands of videos from EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and indies. Users can create their own personal profile pages on PluggedIn, but these videos cannot be embedded on outside sites.
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