Music Industry News

The Voice of Music

Source: Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
June 21, 2010

I began my jazz life rather innocently as a Listener: a child sitting close to a V-M (The Voice of Music, it said on the inside lid) three-speed phonograph. I can summon up the worn brown felt of the turntable, the pattern of the speaker grille. And as I listened to the record of the moment I watched the label revolve, transfixed both by the music and by the whirling shapes the writing on the label made. When the record ...

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Pawn Shops and the (Jazz) Underclasses

Source: Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
June 21, 2010

One measure of the way things have been going for the jazz underclasses and the working poor in general over the last 20 years is to look at what's happened to pawn shops.Pawn shops are like tidal wetlands. You take estuaries for granted until a weather catastrophe hits and your split-level gets washed out to sea. Look at New Orleans.In the same way, when financial storms hit, pawnbrokers have been there to absorb some of the ...

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Trust and the Social Consumer

Source: HypeBot
June 20, 2010

If you subscribe to the concept that (at least sometimes) the band is a brand and the fan is at their core a consumer, there is something to be learned from the new Nielson Consumer 360 study.

“Consumers expect brands to be listening," Pete Blackshaw, Nielson EVP of Digital Strategic Services concluded in summing up the new study. “It's a no-blink environment." Consumers aren't always paying attention to your marketing message, according to the study, but they're always paying attention ...

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Live Nation's Stock Drop 16% Due to Concert Cancellations

Source: All About Jazz
June 21, 2010

Concert touring giant Live Nation, a Wall Street darling for much of the past year as it far outperformed the S&P 500 index, has hit some sour notes of late.

Widespread reports of a poor summer concert season -- including high-profile cancellations, poor ticket sales and the move by the company to drop its $13 per ticket service fee -- have hit the company's shares hard. Since April 1, Live Nation shares have fallen 16 percent compared to a 5 ...

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Music Revolution Forces Major Label EMI to Evolve

Source: All About Jazz
June 21, 2010

Back in the nineties, when CDs were selling strong, we called the major labels the Big Six. After the music business's major transformation over the past decade, we're down to the Big Three -- officially speaking anyway.

EMI, one of the so-called Big Four major record labels, no longer considers itself a “label" per se, but a “comprehensive rights management company" under new leadership of Roger Faxon, formerly the head of its robust publishing division. EMI's new strategy was undertaken ...

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Bandwidth Music | Technology Conference to Meet

Source: HypeBot
June 18, 2010

On August 19 and 20

TheBandwidth Music | Technology Conferencetakes place on August 19 and 20 in San Francisco. This year's event will feature speakers from LimeWire, Beggars Group, IODA, and A2IM, with a special keynote by Jac Holzman, the former CEOand Creative Head of Elektra Records(1950) and Nonesuch Records (1964), who isnow serving as Senior Advisor to WMG's ChairmanEdgar Bronfman Jr.

Other Featured Speakers AtConference:

Music Publishers File Suit to Shut Down Limewire

Source: HypeBot
June 18, 2010

After RIAA Success, Publishers Demand $150,000 Per Song

Eight members of the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) have filed a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against LimeWire. The suit follows a recent action filed by the RIAA that resulted in a court decision holding LimeWire liable for inducing copyright infringement leaving and leaving the company just days to show why the service should not be shut down. The publishers' suit is filed as a related case.

The ...

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Redeye Distribution Adds Marsalis and Welch Labels

Source: HypeBot
June 19, 2010

Redeye Distribution has added to artist lead indie labels to its roster: Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings' record label Acony Records and Branford Marsalis' label Marsalis Music. Both artists have been released via major and larger independent labels in the past.

Acony Records and Marsalis Music join such indie labels as Barsuk, Yep Roc, Kill Rock Stars, Thrill Jockey and Daptone and such individual artists as Josh Ritter, Sun Kil Moon and Martin Sexton distributed nationally by Redeye. Marsalis Music ...

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