June 30, 2006

CatchMusic - DEAD
DiscLogic - DEAD
EMEPE3 - DEAD
Etherstream - DEAD
Iriver Media Online - DEAD
Music4Cents - DEAD
NetMusic - DEAD
OnlinePromo - DEAD
Viztas - DEAD

June 26, 2006

In the fey little vowel imposed upon us by the iPod, the self seems to be reduced to a mere whisper. I am sorry for imposing myself on you. I am insignificant. I listen to music as I walk around, but I do it with earphones on.

But it's a false humility. The essential quality of the iPod is narcissism: The world I can create in my head, through music or podcasts, is much more interesting than what you people can come up with.

June 22, 2006

Diana Ross's new jazz album isn't exactly new -- she recorded it about 35 years ago.

But there's something decidedly contemporary about the CD, which goes on sale June 20 (it's already available at Starbucks). It's part of a new wave of old music, as a sales-starved industry scours its libraries for old or unreleased material it can spin into easy profits.

In 1972, Ms. Ross was riding high on the release of her Billie Holiday biopic "Lady Sings the Blues," for which she later received an Oscar nomination. In conjunction with a movie soundtrack composed of pop-influenced renditions of Billie Holiday tracks, Ms. Ross also separately recorded purer jazz versions of the same material, along with some standards. But according to Universal Music Group, which now owns Motown, the jazzier versions, arranged by Gil Askey, were rejected because the label wanted her to work on more commercial releases.

Now the economics are different. It usually costs less to hire a "vault asset specialist" to find previously recorded tracks from an existing performer than it does to record new songs or market a new artist -- especially when established musicians can be paid royalties on old music at the lower rate they typically would have been paid when it was recorded. (Universal declined to comment on Ms. Ross's royalties, but her business manager says her deals have been renegotiated several times since 1972.)

full article here (scroll down to "music")

June 21, 2006

June 16, 2006

June 06, 2006

Snow Patrol, 'Grey's Anatomy'
More than 22 million viewers heard this band's single, "Chasing Cars," in the final moments of this medical drama's season ender on ABC. The result: The song sold 21,000 downloads in the week after the finale, according to Nielsen SoundScan, compared to 1,600 downloads the week before...

Imogen Heap, 'The O.C.'
On May 18, British singer Imogen Heap's latest single, "Speeding Cars," was featured on the season finale of Fox's popular teen drama, "The O.C." In the week that followed, the song sold 7,000 downloads, up from 1,500 the week before, according to Nielsen.

Mr. Mossberg: Let's talk about the [Apple] iPod for a second. Is it too late to significantly dent their share? Can you bring out a digital Walkman with the kind of end-to-end experience with the software and the service that can really go after them?

Mr. Stringer: It's a mountain to climb. We're coming out with a device that uses OpenMG [a Sony copyright management technology], which is not everybody's favorite over here, [but] will do well in Japan. It will dent Apple in Japan mostly for nationalistic reasons I suspect ... If you're talking about delivering music, [there's] the Sony walkman phone. We sold three million before Christmas in Europe, but thanks to the confusing cellular system in America, we're only just bringing the Sony walkman phone into the United States. We're bringing out another Sony Ericsson phone that pushes email and that will give BlackBerry a bit of a headache. That's coming out this summer. I'm not suggesting this is going to have Steve Jobs sleepless, but you just have to keep coming at him, and I'm fairly convinced that the next generation of devices will master software.

June 02, 2006