Music Industry News

Dig the Freedom Jazz Dance WebMagShow Volume 2

Source: Ken Hohman
February 14, 2011

Slake your appetite for new jazz, rare jazz, jazz reviews and extemporaneous jazz comments at the Volume 2, 2011 Edition of the Freedom Jazz Dance website. Pay a visit to freedomjazzdance.net today and dig through the ear and eye candy I've created in the second installment of this one-of-a-kind Mini Jazz Webzine & Show. FJD WebMag #2 for 2011 features...

FJD Featured Recording of the month by Hadley Caliman & Pete Christlieb FJD Dusty Gems—listen to this month's rare recordings ...

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The Creativity Never Ceases

Source: Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes
February 14, 2011

The Montreal International Jazz Festival's innovative programming is one of the creative charms that keeps jazz fans coming back for more. Every year, there's a new twist or musical pairing that makes its presentations stand apart from other venues. It's a staggering jazz festival just in the quantity of its 600 or so performances. But the quality puts it over the top as what I consider the world's finest jazz festival. It runs like clockwork, draws most of its audience ...

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Why Would Anyone Want to Acquire a Label, Anyway?

Source: Digital Music News
February 12, 2011

Wall Street was jumping on another rumor today—this time, that WMG is being more aggressively shopped. Haven't we heard this one before? Of course we have, though the latest—courtesy of the New York Post—suggests that Bronfman and company are jockeying to sell their label before Citigroup can sell theirs. So this is how it ends? We've heard a lot of mismatched rumors on this, though the Post is now pointing to the presence of 20 different potential WMG buyers, many ...

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The Perils of Music Industry Criticism

Source: HypeBot
February 12, 2011

Wesley Verhoeve of Family Records was kind enough to remind me via Twitter that if you say bad things about the major labels often enough, it's important to balance out your criticism with some solutions. Well, Mr. Verhoeve I'm working on it. For the last couple weekends, I've dedicated my writing and time to figuring out the problems with cloud-based music subscriptions. To me, they are an essential part of the next music business or whatever we call it now. ...

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Why Music Keeps Us Coming Back for More

Source: HypeBot
February 12, 2011

"Music itself can be identified as a language. Every language has structure, each with a set of grammatical rules put into place for correct communication. Yet beyond structure music also has the ability to create feelings and emotions without a verbal context. Music, like words, has the ability to make us cry, enlighten and transcend us. By alternating the pitch, rhythm and tempo, we are subsequently intrigued by these violations in communicating through music, which leaves us coming back for ...

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Guitar Hero Franchise Dies, Music Industry Loses

Source: HypeBot
February 11, 2011

Activision has terminated the division that designed Guitar Hero and it's follow-ups. Since 2005, there have been roughly twelve titles in the franchise. That's six main titles and six expansions. Warriors of Rock, the most recent title, sold fewer than 100,000 copies during its debut month. Due to market saturation and diminishing novelty, the music video game series grew stagnate in recent years and failed to achieve financial projections. While some musicians and critics will dance on the grave of ...

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Rich Venture Capitalist Converted into Music Pirate

Source: HypeBot
February 11, 2011

Fred Wilson, a predominate venture capitalist and blogger, converted into a music pirate the other day. This is someone who is extremely well off and, by his own admission, spends upwards of $2,000 a year on music in his family. And yet, Wilson found himself pirating the latest Streets album from the Internet: “searched the Internet for the record. It was not even listed in iTunes or eMusic. It was listed on Amazon US as an import that would be ...

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An Uncommon Career as a D.I.Y. Musician

Source: HypeBot
February 11, 2011

In 2005, Josh Phoenix, 25, sold cell phones by day and retreated to his home studio by night. This is a situation that many D.I.Y. musicians find themselves in. They have an unsexy job that pays the bills and when they return home, they create music they love. Fast forward to today and Phoenix finds himself in a slightly different career. As time went on, he grew interested in digital photography and video editing. Like recording, he mastered those fields ...

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