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Posts Tagged “universal music group”

ironies, pt. 2

Weezer Finishes Its Album-Release Push, Tosses The Internet Aside

When Weezer's YouTube-"inspired" video for "Pork & Beans" initially came out, it had one unintentionally hilarious aspect: Its official version wasn't embeddable, a policy that was in keeping with the semi-walled garden YouTube policies of the band's major-label overlords, Universal Music Group, but seemed odd given that the whole point of the video was for it to become a meme and garner lulz from people who still think Tay Zonday is worth a chuckle. Shortly after this bit of cognitive dissonance was pointed out, Universal took the embed blocks off the clip, "Pork & Beans" hit it big on Digg, and all was well—until Weezer's latest self-titled album got a sales beatdown from Disturbed on the album charts. (Aww.) Fast-forward to last night, when the Silicon Alley Insider noted that the clip's no longer embeddable! What gives, man? I thought Weezer was for the geek-children! More »

9:00 AM on Tue Jun 17 2008
By Maura Johnston
382 views, 5 comments

Latest by Maura Johnston: @pantycrickets: If only! more »

Universal is appealing Tuesday's UMG vs. Augusto verdict, as they refuse to believe that the judicial system is going to sit there and let people sell (or — gasp! — throw away) promotional CDs. Some may think their aggression against used CD merchants could further alienate hardcore music fans. But really, has anyone ever received a promotional copy of an album and then decided to buy the real thing so they could appreciate the album artwork without a distracting gold stamp? I can't expect the music industry to approve of what a cheapskate I am (though I also don't expect them to win.) [Digital Music News]

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if at first you don't succeed

QTrax! It's Back! And It's Ready For Action!

After a disastrous launch of a content-free version of its site that left its CEO sputtering and pundits giggling, the ad-supported music service QTrax is ready to try again, with a relaunch set for June 18. QTrax's initial launch was plagued by all of the major labels it trumpeted in its press release holding their content back from the service at the last minute; since then, EMI and Universal Music Group have signed their wares away to the site, although both labels have stipulated that their music has to be distributed through a method that's more traditional (and less BitTorrent-like) than QTrax's licensed peer-to-peer service. (Which should end well.) Anyway, I know it's a long shot, but I wonder if any budding entrepreneurs out there have taken away the lesson that they should focus less on the splashy launch parties and more on developing an actual product with their seed money. It's a hard lesson for dot-coms to learn—even in 2008, inexplicably—but it certainly makes the Google News hits a bit less ulcer-inducing. [Silicon Alley Insider]

9:00 AM on Thu Jun 12 2008
By Maura Johnston
156 views, Comment

Who on earth thought that a show set in the halls of Universal's London office and modeled on the 1987 Michael J. Fox vehicle The Secret Of My Success would be a good idea for dissemination in 2008? I have an answer: Bebo. And I have an addendum that makes said answer cross over from "ludicrous" to "amazing": It's only going to be online. A synopsis: "The series revolves around a junior employee in Universal's facilities department who secretly launches his own start-up label in the post room and is "hungry for success" to make his way up the ladder and take over the job of his boss Greg. ... The producers of the Bebo show, which follows in the footsteps of Kate Modern and Sofia's Diary, will 'draw on real life experiences' and use cameos of real life Universal artists to bring 'additional authenticity' to the storyline." Perhaps this is supposed to be entertaining in a "last days of a crumbling empire" way, although something tells me that they won't be getting to the Very Special Leak-Related Storylines until, say, season five. [Guardian; HT Loudersoft]

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Earlier reports on Universal Music Group masters from labels like Decca being destroyed by the fire on the Universal Studios lot are, happily, false. A UMG spokesperson told Billboard: "We had no loss, thankfully. ... We moved most of what was formerly stored there earlier this year to our other facilities. Of the small amount that was still there and awaiting to be moved, it had already been digitized so the music will still be around for many years." [Billboard]

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Kanye West, Method Man, Redman, Common, Universal Music Group, Island Def Jam, and Interscope Geffen A & M were all hit with a copyright-infringement suit by the daughter of musician Joe Farrell, thanks to their sampling his 1974 song "Upon This Rock" without Farrell's estate's OK. [Reuters]

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Alient Ant Farm will get its own version of the budget compilation 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection in May, which is rather odd. In case you've forgotten, the smooth criminals' major-label debut, ANThology, came out in early 2001, which would seem to exclude them from 20th century mastery. So is Universal too cheap to create a new logo? Is the band engaging in irony? Did no one notice/care? This may be more absurd than when Creedence Clearwater Revisited put out one of these. [AbsolutePunk]

7 comments

web 2.no

Major Labels Launch Yet Another Anti-YouTube Offensive

The music-video site PluggedIn launched today with about 10,000 videos from Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, and EMI. Branded with the tagline "Filter the noise. Hear the music," PluggedIn is being seen by the major labels as an opportunity to once again dictate how their content should be experienced and used by the masses, bringing things back to the way they were before those pesky indie labels and YouTube remixers ruined their expense accounts and fat-cat lifestyles. Its picture quality is really quite nice, but it doesn't allow embedding of its videos, and as mentioned, it only has about 10,000 clips in its label-generated database right now—although it's licensed the All Music Guide's content in an effort to make its content well look a lot deeper than it actually is. And not only that, it kicks those pesky people who have opinions about music that may be different than yours—and the ability to spell—to the curb, too! More »

12:30 PM on Wed Apr 16 2008
By Maura Johnston
428 views, 9 comments

Latest by n/a: hey Maura, Seth here. thanks for giving us a shot! more »

crime?

Music Writers Will All Be Criminals If Universal Music Group Has Its Way

I love the way Universal Music Group is stubbornly trying to hold on to the revenue stream of "lawsuits against anyone who dare cross us." It's so cute, isn't it? Well, those of you out there who have ever been the unwilling recipient of one of UMG's shittier promo CDs may not think it's so cute once you realize that the record company is now trying to go after anyone who's not only sold one of said promos, but tried to be at least a little bit more ethical about flipping stuff they got for free by throwing the unwanted discs in the trash. Those CDs are property of Universal Music Group forever, dammit! And you can bet they'll come around in 50 years to make sure that you still have that copy of Dreaming Out Loud that has "must be surrendered upon demand" stamped on its front, and if a thorough search of your place doesn't turn up that CD, you will be in so much trouble. More »

1:00 PM on Wed Apr 9 2008
By Maura Johnston
1,328 views, 14 comments

Latest by MrStarhead: You can tell how an album's doing by where the promo copies are being sold at Amoeba in LA; if it's been out less than a year and you can pick up a stack of 15 in the clearance bin, more »

push th' little daisies

Universal Music Group And Wal-Mart Present World With Another Reason To Bury Its CDs

"The insert in more than 20 Universal Music Group (UMG) titles available now at Wal-Mart as a part of Wal-Mart's "Earth Month" promotion is so earth-friendly that, when properly planted, the special seed paper will actually bloom into wildflowers. From the uniquely organic insert to environmentally sustainable packaging for new albums from Sheryl Crow, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Counting Crows, and the effort is further proof that green is growing fast in the music industry." More than 20 titles? That makes it sound like Wal-Mart is expanding its music section! Full list of albums that can double as mood-brighteners after the jump, and no, Ween's Pure Guava isn't one of them. More »

1:15 PM on Mon Mar 31 2008
By Maura Johnston
413 views, 13 comments

Latest by n/a: Most of those acts are already six feet under more »

Universal Music Group announced today that it was buying the recording and publishing operations of Univision Music Group—a Spanish-language group of labels that includes Univision Records, Fonovisa Records and Disa Records—for an undisclosed sum, and that it would promptly phase out the "Univision Records" brand. The deal will also allow Universal Music Group to promote its artists on Univision Communications' stable of Spanish-language TV networks, thus solidifying "vertical integration" as this week's No. 1 music-biz buzzword. [Reuters]

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the new model

Vivendi Rolls Out Its All-You-Can-Eat Music Plan (On Phones)

Vivendi is beta-testing a site called Zaoza, which sort of looks like the prototype for the "all the music you want for a low monthly fee" sites that music executives have long dreamed about, in France, and it's rolling the service out in Germany later this year; people interested in signing up for the site's beta test who aren't friends with already-existing users have to certify that they're between the ages of 15 and 25, which seems to be a big flag about the users that this program is targeting. The details: More »

1:50 PM on Thu Feb 21 2008
By Maura Johnston
148 views, 3 comments

Latest by Ned Raggett: Zaoza What you gonna do-a A knock on the door RIAA! more »

in his own words

A Music-Industry Captain Drops Some Science For The Masses


Have you ever wondered what it's like in the executive suites of the major labels? The fast thinking that goes on there, the lightning-quick decisions that get made, the sheer mental power that's exhibited every time one of the handsomely paid people at the top opens their mouth? Well, get ready to get disappointed! The above video is a 20-minute interview with Interscope/Geffen/A&M chairman Jimmy Iovine, and throughout, the bigwig not only looks like he needs some extra coffee, he accuses ungrateful artists of wanting to emulate Shaggy and calls will.i.am a "genius." For those of you who would rather watch outtakes of the Gene Simmons sex tape than slog through the whole thing, I've compiled a few highlights after the jump! More »

1:00 PM on Wed Feb 20 2008
By Maura Johnston
3,416 views, 11 comments

Latest by CarsmileSteve: "A lot of times, the music's stupid." i would like this on a t-shirt please. more »

lawsuits

Artists Sue Universal Music Group For Unpaid Royalties

A group of recording artists that includes the estates of Benny Goodman, Sarah Vaughn, and Count Basie sued Universal Music Group earlier today, saying that they had been cheated out of more than $6 million in royalties over the past 10 years, citing royalty statements between May 1999 and February 2007 that they claim contained inaccuracies. Most of the artists in the lawsuit were on labels that had been gobbled up by Universal during its climb to being the largest recorded-music entity on the planet; Universal issued a statement saying that they believe the claims outlined in the lawsuit are "baseless." [Reuters]

5:49 PM on Fri Feb 15 2008
By Maura Johnston
222 views, 2 comments

Latest by n/a: And they accuse people who download music of ripping off artists! more »

a return to innocence?

Attention Gregorian Chanters: Your Music Just May Be Back In Style

Universal Music Group is taking out ads in magazines geared toward men of the cloth in hopes that they'll find a choir who will be up to the task of recording albums of Gregorian chants. The ads are running in papers like The Catholic Times, The Church Times, The Catholic Herald, The Tablet, and The Universe, and interested parties can send in audition tapes to UMG until the end of February or, presumably, the minute that the involved A & R reps are struck by some sort of divine intervention. Universal's managing director for classics and jazz is saying that UMG is going on this search because the record company wants to "reach singers from outside the X Factor generation." Aw, does this mean that the world won't be subjected to Clash Of The Gregorian Choirs? I was really hoping that Enigma would come out of hiding to be a guest judge on it. [Press Association / Ad text via Nothing To Do With Arbroath]

8:55 AM on Mon Feb 11 2008
By Maura Johnston
148 views, 6 comments

Latest by Lampbane: So would this X Factor generation be the original team led by Cyclops, the Peter David revamp with Havok in charge, or the current series with Jamie Madrox? Oh wait, wrong X-Factor... more »

People have watched one billion Universal Music Group videos on YouTube, according to a press release issued by the recorded-music behemoth and the video-sharing site. Just think how much higher that number would be if it counted all the "unofficial" versions of videos that are lurking within the site in an effort to get around UMG's annoying, archaic, and more-adjectives-that-begin-with-"a" anti-embeddng policies. [Billboard.biz]

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"Vivendi's Universal Music Group saw revenue drop 3% in Q4 and 1.7% for 2007, the company said today. Digital sales grew 51%, and now make up 14% of revenues.... If you strip out UMG's revenue from its purchase of BMG publishing, full year sales would have dropped 5.8%, and Q4 would be down 7.8%. Yecch." [Silicon Alley Insider]

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Jean-Bernard Levy, the chief executive of Universal Music Group parent company Vivendi, doesn't think that things in the music business are as bad as they seem—especially since his company's operating margins are better than ever. Also, he thinks that CD sales will still be key to the music business going forward, that DRM is something worthy of being "strongly attached to," and that every man, woman, and child on Earth should get a pony to call their very own, unless they download music illegally. (OK, OK, one of those items was a joke. And if you think it's the DRM one, you're very very wrong!) [Guardian]

2 comments