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Posts Tagged “the new model”

The semi-enjoyable guitar-toting boy band McFly is the latest band to package an album with a copy of the Sunday paper; next month, they'll distribute some three million copies of their new album, Radio:ACTIVE, with the Mail On Sunday, which pulled a similar stunt with Prince last year. "Hopefully the three million people will all enjoy the music and they'll decide to see us when we go on tour," McFly singer Tom Fletcher told Reuters. Be careful, Tom: They may only like you enough to decide to rent Just My Luck on a rainy Saturday. [Reuters UK]

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Brooklyn Vegan's commenters respond to AP's version of the "hey, gas prices may be getting too expensive for small bands to tour" story the only way they know how: "hey. whatever it takes to get some of these bands who can't play their instruments to begin with off the road...i'm all for it." [Brooklyn Vegan / AP / Photo: Khuong Hoang]

3 comments

i need your digipak

Nine Inch Nails To Give Away 200,000 CDs Of "The Slip"... For Money

The Slip, Nine Inch Nails' digital album that only cost an e-mail address, will now be available for purchase as a limited-edition Digipak with a DVD and a big neato booklet full of shiny pictures. Dude, Trent, you know the cool thing to do would be to just give all of this away. That would show your fans on the free music forefront that you truly stand for freedom, and provide a positive example for them when they discover that no one wants to pay them for what they do either. You'll also be able to hear this ProTools epic on vinyl, the amount of copies of which will only be limited by those who think this rather digital recording is best heard in a pure analog state. And the MP3s? Free forever, baby! The future is now! More »

10:00 AM on Wed Jun 18 2008
By Anthony Miccio
604 views, 12 comments

Latest by Anthony Miccio: @coolfer: I dunno, each disc is numbered, and Al says they sold that many copies of Year Zero in one week, so it sounds like a limited run to me (not that he might not change their mind if it more »

Everyone who thinks "hey, don't worry, bands and labels can make up all that money lost from dropping-like-a-stone CD sales on the road"—and even people who have some semblance of sense—should read this Oregonian piece on the effects of high gas prices on touring bands, which contains factoids like this: "But a $200 door guarantee doesn't stretch nearly as far these days. [Portland duo] Talkdemonic, for example, travels in a van that gets close to 17 miles a gallon on the highway 'if we don't drive over 70 mph,' O'Connor says. Covering the 635 miles to San Francisco takes about 37 gallons of gas each way. With gas well over $4, that's more than $300 for a round trip." (Hey, you know what can make up that shortfall? Selling CDs! Oh, wait.) [The Oregonian / Photo: Jamie Carroll]

4 comments

executive deathmatch

Live Nation's 360 Deals Are Making Some Higher-Ups A Bit Dizzy

Concert monolith Live Nation has made lots of headlines for signing artists like Madonna and Jay-Z to big-money 360 deals, where the company pays out hefty advances in exchange for a piece of every piece in the revenue pie, from concert tickets to merch to album sales. But those deals are causing trouble in the corporate offices of the company: According to the Wall Street Journal, chief executive Michael Rapino wants to hold off on signing away any more money before someone figures out whether or not these deals are a good idea in the face of a possibly slowing economy, while chairman Michael Cohl wants to sign as many as 15 more of them, including one with Shakira and her hips. And this difference in opinion has apparently boiled over into what the WSJ is referring to as a "full-blown feud," complete with threats about terms of employment contracts! More »

12:00 PM on Thu Jun 12 2008
By Maura Johnston
632 views, 3 comments

Latest by n/a: The LYV stock value has not been same since signing Madonna. They should chill. more »

July 15: The original release date of the new album from Brooklyn bar-rock outfit the Hold Steady, Stay Positive, May 22: The album leaks, causing much message-board posturing/consternation. June 17: The new digital release date for Stay Positive. June 12: A blogger idly wonders why the label waited that long for the digital release, given that four weeks is an eternity in Internet-music time. [Pitchfork]

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Fox 411 gossip Roger Friedman has a crackpot idea for stopping the tide of record-store closings, and he can at least blame some of the genesis for it on the guy who helped shepherd Michael Jackson's career back in the day: "Frank DiLeo, Michael Jackson's former manager, recently suggested that the labels get together and open a 'state' store, one in each big city, to carry their catalogs and new releases. It's not a bad idea. Otherwise, the record industry will soon have no public face at all." Well, first of all, the record industry does have a public face—although it resembles that of a snarling, wild-eyed lawyer—and second of all, I don't know if a "state-run" store where only product from and distributed by the major labels would really help that perception so much, given that said idea is pretty much in line with the "bumbling cartel" front they're currently presenting to the world. (Although I have to admit that watching it get launched would probably be great fodder for future blog posts.) [Fox 411 via Coolfer]

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EMI's new senior vice president of digital strategy is not only trumpeted by the company as a founder of tumbleweed-filled virtual world Second Life, he's proud to say that he doesn't know of, or buy, much new music. He sure does like that Amazon sells stuff without DRM, though—and he complains about the iTunes Store's offerings being "broken" by copyright protection, even though the shop made a big deal about going DRM-free with his new employer's wares last year. I guess he didn't have to endure one of those job interviews where you're required to prove that you know, you know, something about your potential place of work and the job you'd be doing there. [Silicon Alley Insider]

1 comment

the new model

Wal-Mart Talks Money With AC/DC, Prepares To Slash Shelf Space Even More

Ubiquitous American retailer Wal-Mart got a fair amount of press for its status as "one of the few remaining chain stores selling music" today, with stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal about its upcoming music strategy. But the WSJ gets the scoop: Wal-Mart's next store-exclusive release will be the upcoming album by AC/DC, which is slated to hit stores in the fall. Unlike the two other classic-rock stalwarts who had chart-topping exclusives with the Bentonville behemoth, the Eagles and Journey, AC/DC's album will come out on a major label (Columbia). The Journal notes that "Columbia's decision to sell a major new release at only one chain has the potential to alienate retailers left out," although those alienated retailers can at this point be counted on one person's digits. And how is Wal-Mart going to celebrate its music mogul status? By demanding lower wholesale prices and cutting floor space even more! More »

8:53 AM on Mon Jun 9 2008
By Maura Johnston
555 views, 3 comments

Latest by n/a: And as always, hip hop stays losing. They can repackage every dad rock band under the sun and fit it into the WalMart corporate vision, but there's no way they could do something similar with Trick Daddy, Common, or more »

The owner of the New York record store Rockit Scientist thinks that anyone who legally downloads music is an idiot, since digital music is free everywhere you look. (One wonders what his his fellow neighborhood denizens Other Music would think of that. But LPs like the ones he has for sale at his store are definitely worth the money, while CDs are less so. This quote seems to signify that dude thinks his business' days are numbered: "If I was a kid I'd be downloading music," he told CNet, "but if you ask me I think the music business blew it by charging too much for CDs." [CNet]

1 comment

the new model

Tori Amos Departs From Epic, Prepares Her Own Indie Journey

The latest '90s alt-rock icon to streamline the relationship between themselves and their fans' dollars by cutting out the major-label middleman: Tori Amos, whose manager told Billboard that the singer has split from Epic and "chosen the path of independence for her next work." Amos had been working within the major-label system for the past 22 years, first for Atlantic (which released the ill-fated Y Kant Tori Read, and her solo albums through 2001's underrated all-covers album Strange Little Girls) and then for Epic. More »

2:00 PM on Mon Jun 2 2008
By Maura Johnston
414 views, 5 comments

Latest by revmatty: A Tori release on her own terms is money in the bank. She'll probably personally see 3-4x the cash from sales even if the sales are only 10% of what they were when she was on Epic. Note more »

Questions, Questions From the "statements that I pretty much agree with 100% file, so there's not much else to add to them" file comes Ryan Catbird's rumination on the "all music should be free" model: "I still think the more important question is: 'What if an artist that hasn't already built a career on the label system released their work directly, gave it away for free, retained their rights, etc. Would it matter?' The answer, sadly, to that one is "no, it doesn't matter." Myriad small unheard-of bands are out there posting their albums for free every day, but there's still no good way for them to get heard. For all the chatter about how new technology/Music 2.0/viral marketing etc. has the power to 'break' new artists, there are precious few examples of this actually occurring." A related thought that's probably an extension of my "future of Coachella" post : Is the push for free recorded music going to result in mass music culture turning into something that's even more fossilized than classic-rock station playlists, which at least add one or two new artists to their rotation every year? [F.U. & The Blog You Rode In On]

16 comments

the new model

Music-Biz Bigwig Thinks That Sticking "2.0" At The End Of The CD's Name Will Solve Industry's Woes

"[National Assn. of Recording Merchandisers president Jim] Donio cited statistics about piracy, pointing out that 42% of all music acquisition is paid, and that despite a recent rebound in the first quarter of this year, CD sales continue to drop. He then suggested that a new version of 'CD 2.0,' a sort of hybrid compact disc, might be a solution." Unfortunately, the Billboard piece that mentions this bit of nomenclature doesn't really get into what "CD 2.0" will consist of. Perhaps it means that it'll be more advanced than the DualDisc, which was apparently version 1.92 of the CD? Maybe they'll all be bundled with a social-networking component! Please, Jim Donio, tell me what you actually mean by using the oh-so-tired "2.0" appellation, and note: any answer that uses the phrases "Web 2.0" or "well, we were thinking of putting a screen saver and maybe some mobile wallpapers on the disc" automatically gets a big honking BZZZZT. [Billboard]

5:30 PM on Tue May 6 2008
By Maura Johnston
171 views, 7 comments

Latest by okiedoke: Geez. I was planning on copyrighting CD 1.5 next week. Guess I should start on 2.5 now. Or maybe even get a big jump on 3.0. I'm feeling ambitious this week. more »

To continue Free Alt-Rock Day, the Offspring are offering a free download of their new single, "Hammerhead," which is written from the point of view of a soldier wrestling with the idea of killing for the greater good. The song is a bit more than verse-chorus-verse, further revealing the influence of American Idiot. Are you ready to hear Dexter quote "yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death?" [offspring.com]

5 comments

well, how about that

"The Slip": The New Nine Inch Nails Album That's "One Hundred Percent Free" (With An E-Mail Address)

Over the weekend, a new Nine Inch Nails song emerged, and that would seem to have been the warmup for this morning's wee-hour release of the slip, a.k.a. Halo 27; the 10-track, 43-minute album is free to all takers as long as you give the NIN site's robots an e-mail address. "Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years—this one's on me," Reznor said in a parenthetical aside on his blog. Someone buy that man a protein shake! Details of the release after the jump. More »

8:00 AM on Mon May 5 2008
By Maura Johnston
2,157 views, 7 comments

Latest by punkybunky: The first three tracks make "Discipline" & "Echoplex" seem like welcome respites. Reminds me of a harsher version of Witha-Teetha so far, which I really liked after I got used to it. Seeing a cornball title like "Demon Seed" worries more »

More than 600,000 people grabbed the free download of Coldplay's ""Violet Hill" from the band's Web site yesterday. I'll be impressed if Coldplay can sustain enough interest in this clattering, echoey mess through next week—when Johnny-come-latelies have to pay for it—to make a consistent chart impression. [NME]

3 comments

the new model

Radiohead Already Over The Whole Free Download Thing

The "pay what you want" online release of In Rainbows may have set Trent Reznor and Billy Corgan off to discover their own maverick ways, but it looks like Thom Yorke is a little tired of the brave new world. "I think it was a one-off response to a particular situation," said Yorke. Rather than admit that he's loving the taste of Dave Matthews' crunchy granola over at ATO, or that financially the online release of In Rainbows wasn't all that it could have been, he's crediting his anomie on the lack of "significance" it would have if they did it again. It's always about significance with you, isn't it, Thom? More »

9:45 AM on Wed Apr 30 2008
By Anthony Miccio
580 views, 9 comments

Latest by n/a: Comment on Radiohead Already Over The Whole Free Download Thing um, In Rainbows didn't "set Billy Corgan off" to do anything. Smashing Pumpkins released an album for free way back in 2000, back when ipods and mp3s were still not more »

synergies

Saul Williams' Net Album Gets Boost From Shoe Ad

Turns out Trent Reznor's grumpy reaction to the sales of Saul Williams' The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust was premature, as sales of the net-only release have doubled since Williams' "List Of Demands" began appearing in Nike ads. The funny thing is, "List Of Demands" isn't on Tardust, but on his 2004 self-titled album. While only about 60,000 of the 225,000 downloaded copies of Tardust were paid for, that's still twice as many sold than for the in-stores album that actually features "List Of Demands." More »

5:10 PM on Mon Apr 14 2008
By Anthony Miccio
782 views, 9 comments

Latest by n/a: Songs about reparations sure make me want to buy sneakers! more »