Music Industry News

Gigswiz Officially Lands in U.S. [launch]

Source: HypeBot
February 17, 2011

This post is by Ryan Van Etten (@ryanve), Editor/Producer of VirtualMusic.tv. GigsWiz officially launches in the U.S. today. Members of the team will be sharing details about the service with an announcement at NMS in Los Angeles today. Last week I had the chance to talk on Skype with Joonas Pekkanen, one of the three co-founders. GigsWiz is a ticket promotion service that aims to solve one big problem—most ticket promoters don't have a direct line to the fans of ...

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Rhapsody's President: "This is the Year for Digital Music..."

Source: Digital Music News
February 16, 2011

Is this the year it all starts to happen? Well, according Rhapsody president Jon Irwin, the answer is most definitely 'yes.' “The steady subscriber growth we are seeing is testament to the fact that this is the year for digital music, and we congratulate Pandora on its IPO," Irwin commented on an earlier story on Digital Music News. How much growth? Rhapsody subscribers now stand at 775,000, per January stats shared by Irwin. That's up about 100,000 since last April, ...

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Guy Hands Wants to Buy EMI Back

Source: HypeBot
February 16, 2011

Just a week after loosing control of EMI to Citigroup, Terra Firma's Guy Hands says he'd be interested in buying EMI back. “It's about price," Hands said in a speech to that  was his first public appearance since losing the label group.  But Hands didn't stop there... “Terra Firma and Citigroup agreed on what EMI was worth back in 2007. We clearly both got it wrong. Now, we disagree quite strongly about what it's worth," Hands told a crowd of ...

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Indies See Grammy Sales Bump, Majors Stay Flat

Source: HypeBot
February 16, 2011

Do the Grammy's still sell albums and for who? The answer: not Lady Gaga or Train. While the awards show didn't hurt them either, artists like Arcade Fire, Lady Antebellum, and Eserpanza Spalding saw the largest gains. In other words, the already well-known hit makers of the last year mostly stayed flat, with the exception of Eminem, while indies saw a significant bump in iTunes. However, it's also important to note that Lady Gaga's “Born This Way" never moved from ...

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Why Artists Should Ditch MySpace for Bandcamp

Source: HypeBot
February 16, 2011

This post is by Vince Neilstein, the Editor-In-Chief at Metal Sucks. There aren't any reasons to be using MySpace in 2011. I suppose it can't hurt to have a band profile there just in case someone happens to stumble upon it, but that's about it; MySpace is a useless, out-dated, cluttered, piece-of-shit platform and there are better options now available. All bands and labels should now be using Bandcamp for their streaming music needs. Here's why:

Less clutter. Bandcamp offers some ...

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How to Market Your Music, According to the Grammys

Source: We All Make Music
February 15, 2011

In 2011, everybody is very much past caring whether or not the Grammys are relevant. (After all, we figured out the answer to that question way back in 2007)

But it doesn't matter what you or I think. The Grammys are going to be here for a while, and they're going to continue to do what they've always done, which is to promote a particular vision of the music industry's shape, size and cultural role.

While the Recording Academy's vision ...

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Fanatic.FM Connects Bands with Brands for Charity

Source: HypeBot
February 15, 2011

How to monetize music is the biggest challenge of the post-Napster music industry.  At Midem 2010, Ian K. introduced himself with an exciting concept that's a four-way win for artists, brands, charities and fans. I've acted as an advisor since and late last week, Ian launched fanatic.fm in beta with Samsung Imaging as the lead sponsor. Here's how it fanatic.fm works and an intro video: Artists upload music to fanatic.fm where brands and fans bid to sponsor it.  After the ...

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Sonicbids and Songtrust Partner for D.I.Y Publishing

Source: HypeBot
February 15, 2011

Later today Sonicbds further expands its artist services offering with the addition of a new  Songtrust app within each artist's account. The app will help members manage their music publishing rights inexpensively and without the help of a publisher. Songtrust, developed by Downtown Music, simplifies song registration and royalty collections, and is on its way to becoming for d.y.i. music publishing what Tunecore is for digital distribution. Within the app users can also maximize licensing opportunities and track where their ...

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