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Streaming Is A Ways Off From Helping The Music Industry
July 11, 2014
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MIDiA Research is a boutique media and technology analysis company. They focus solely on the intersection of content and technology, working with the biggest global companies right through to small early stage start-ups.
From their latest report on global music forecasts, "2013 was the recorded music industry's 14th successive year of revenue decline. The prolonged death rattle of the CD continues to drag the global market down with it and things just got worse with the paid download entering its own tailspin. Streaming and subscriptions are the great hope and are growing at unprecedented rates. But the $9.99 products are not enough on their own, affordable mass-market products are needed, too. Even with them global music revenues will still decline slightly for the next five years. Without them revenues will shrink at pace and scale. "
Yikes. Five years away from any relief for the industry?
NOT good news for those hoping for some more immediate remedies. (And the only short-term remedies might be a few blockbuster albums like Adele's "21" in the meantime.)
Time for those in the industry to take a deep breath and reach for whatever will calm their nerves.
Read more highlights MIDiA's report
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FROM HYPEBOT: HOW MUCH DOES A MAJOR ACT GET PAID FOR PLAYING A CONCERT? (PRICE LIST)How much do major touring acts get paid to play a concert?
This "price list" has been making the rounds for more than a month.
While Degy, the middlemen that put together the list, is a totally reputable company, the prices shared are just starting points.
Continue reading "How Much Does A Major Act Get For Playing A Concert? [Price List]"
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FROM ROLLING STONE 'BARRY GIBB: THE LAST BROTHER'"Thirty-five years ago, Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb -- better known as the Bee Gees -- were the most popular band in the world. Their 'Saturday Night Fever' soundtrack knocked Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' off the top of the charts and stayed there for six months straight. They've sold more than 200 million records; as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame put it, at the time of their induction in 1997, only Elvis, the Beatles, Garth Brooks, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney had sold more. They're the only group in history to have written, recorded and produced six consecutive #1 hits."
The last surviving Bee Gee, Barry Gibb, Gibb looks back on the monster hits, the long-simmering feuds with his brothers, and the tragedy of life as a Bee Gee. Barry Gibb: The Last Brother
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MAKE YOUR SUMMER CONCERT PLANS MORE FUNThe summer concert and festival season is in full swing. Before going to see your favorite band, load your smartphone with apps that can enhance the concert experience.
CNET's Kara Tsuboi picks out a few of her favorites in this Tech Minute. Read more
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WOLFGANG'S VAULT LANDS ON YOU TUBE WITH 12,000 LIVE CONCERT VIDEOSThe people behind Wolfgang's Vault have remastered concert performances by Bob Dylan, James Brown and more.
If you've ever been to "the Vault," then you've seen and hear some great archived concerts.
YouTube gets injected with 12K live concert videos----------------------------
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GRACELAND MAKES ELVIS' MUSIC HISTORY REALYou may not fully understand how important Elvis Presley was to American music unless you visit his family homestead in Memphis, TN.
That's just what CNET Road Trip 2014 did. Check it out: Read more
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GRAMMY-NOMINATED ARTIST SHARES HIS ROYALTY STATEMENTSFrom Digital Music News: "There are tons of articles about music streaming sites like Pandora, Spotify, etc in relation to recording artists making money or not. Here's a screen capture of my quarterly royalty statement. 14,227 performances of music (almost every track 100% owned by me) generated $4.20. Notice one performance of "Ceremonies" or "Distant Lands" streaming radio showS like Hearts of Space that brings in 26 cents for the full writer's share compared to 2,088 performances of "Gypsy Rain" on Spotify that brought in a total of 60 cents..."
See the full story here.
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AEREO SEZ DESPITE SUPREME COURT DECISION, IT WON'T SHUT DOWNThe streaming-TV startup's new legal tack embraces the ruling against it, arguing that the decision means Aereo deserves the same copyright license cable companies get. READ MORE
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CHECK OUT WHAT FAST COMPANY'S LABS CALLS 'THE MUSIC INDUSTRY'S NEXT BIG DISRUPTION IN THE RECORDING STUDIO'My thanks to Charles Green who sent me an e-mail about Landr.com
From Fast Company Labs "LANDR is a new service that's likely to rattle some cages by providing recording mastering online and automatically. Traditionally, mastering is a skilled task performed by a recording engineer, but LANDR uses a sophisticated learning algorithm in order to eliminate the manual, human-powered work."
From the Landr website: "LANDR revolutionizes the mastering process with drag-and-drop simplicity, achieving results that rival professional studio work in minutes. This opens up a world of possibilities for producers: LANDR your demos before sharing them, drop in full length DJ mixes or live recordings, make a track on the road and have it mastered in time for your gig the same night. LANDR lets you integrate mastering seamlessly into your creative process." Check out Landr
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THE 'A-SIDE' - THE BONUS TRACKSLady Gaga Covers Gershwin Brothers' "I've Got A Crush On You" At Ottawa Bluesfest: Watch
Iggy Azalea's 'Fancy' Covered by Jimmy Fallon (as Neil Young) with Crosby, Stills & Nash
Paul McCartney Returns to Stage After Hospitalization
Kinks: Jimmy Page Did Not Play on 'You Really Got Me'
Ringo Taps Steven Tyler, More for a Cause
Bruce Springsteen Releases Short Film, 'Hunter of Invisible Game'
5 Insane First Drafts of Famous Song Lyrics
10 Best Albums of 2014 (So Far): Critics' Picks
Led Zeppelin's Final Concert With John Bonham
The Artists Declaration of Independence
Universal Expands DIY Digital Music Distro and A&R Platform Spinnup
Indie Labels Force YouTube U-Turn
Are cassettes the next big thing?
Hollywood Box Office Down 20%, Few Hits in Sight
Monoprice MBS-650 review: Best-sounding ultrabudget speakers
The tech you can't wait for
Trouble with the curve: What you need to know about curved TVs
Hate paying for return shipping? There's a subscription service for that
Get an Electrohome retro turntable stereo for $119.91
Next iPhone might be nearly indestructible
Short News Items ...
BRUCE JUICE ON JEOPARDY:
What song did Bruce Springsteen originally intend to give to the Ramones? Which city did the singer send greetings from on his debut album? If you know the answers, you would've done okay on last Thursday night's Jeopardy!, which devoted an entire category to the singer. How well do you know the answers? Springsteen Gets His Own 'Jeopardy!' Category
NEW FLOYD:
Pink Floyd is about to return with their first album in 20 years. Polly Samson, the wife of singer-guitarist David Gilmour, surprised fans on Saturday when she casually announced over Twitter that the band has a new record in the works and it's coming out this fall. "Btw Pink Floyd album out in October is called 'The Endless River,'" Samson wrote. "Based on 1994 sessions is Rick Wright's swansong and very beautiful." (Keyboardist and founding member Wright died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 65.)
MACCA ALL BETTER:
You'd never have guessed that Paul McCartney had recently been ill from the fully charged 40-song set he put on at Albany's Times Union Center this past weekend. The show lasted almost three hours and included a 40-song set. Paul has added another date to summer's hottest ticket: the 'Out There' world tour has confirmed a September 28th stop at Petco Park in San Diego -- marking Paul's first concert in the city since the 'Wings over America' tour passed through in 1976.
AND MACCA'S NEW VIDEO:
"Early Days," one of the highlights from Paul McCartney's 2013 album 'New', gets a video treatment with none other than Johnny Depp jamming with the former Beatle and some blues vets. A Rolling Stone exclusive. Read More
YOUTUBE WANTS GOOD STREAMING AT ISPs:
VentureBeat reports that YouTube has recently started informing users that their Internet Service Provider might be the reason for their poor video streaming playback. The notifications, first stated by Quartz yesterday, pop up on videos that take an excessive amount of time to load, or frequently stop mid-way through playback to buffer. Read more
ED SHEERAN STREAMING BIG TIME:
Hypebot reports that the new Ed Sheeran album X is debuting at the top of the U.K. and U.S. sales charts. However, perhaps the greatest proof of its strength is the records its setting on Spotify. Sheeran is leaving global streaming landmarks set by Daft Punk, Eminem and Lana Del Ray in the dust. Read more
STEVIE TO 'THE VOICE':
Stevie Nicks is joining "The Voice" as an adviser to Adam Levine's team for the upcoming season. Nicks has been working with Levine and his 12 team members as they assign songs and rehearse with the contestants in preparation for the show's battle rounds.
YOUTUBE REVENUES:
VentureBeat reports that YouTube was profitable off $3.5 billion in revenue generated in 2013. Google owns YouTube, but the company has never stated the streaming services revenue figures within its quarterly or annual earnings reports. The $3.5 billion figure is also from a tad to a lot lower than analysts predictions. For example, eMarketer estimated that YouTube would make $5.6 billion in ad revenue for 2013. Read More
WHITE VINYL:
As part of his label Third Man Records' "Vault Package" series, Jack White is issuing a live double-LP of rare White Stripes recordings titled 'Live Under the Lights of the Rising Sun.' The duo, which broke up in 2011, recorded the tracks on their first overseas trip during Tokyo gigs in October 2000.
QUEEN'S STORY:
It was an utterly unexpected rebirth, from the moment Freddie Mercury and Queen took the stage for the historic 1985 Live Aid concert: 72,000 people singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" as if that's all they'd been waiting for. As Queen reunites, Rolling Stone revisits their tragic rhapsody. Read More
AMERICANA HONOREES:
Classic rocker Jackson Browne, Country legend Loretta Lynn, virtuosic accordionist Flaco Jimenez and genre-defying bluesman Taj Mahal will take home lifetime achievement awards at the Americana Music Honors and Awards ceremony in Nashville this fall.
WITHOUT NAKED WOMEN, THIS HAPPENS:
For an international pop superstar, Robin Thicke had a pretty crappy week. His ode to estranged wife Paula Patton sold just 530 copies in its debut week in the U.K. That's 2% of his previous album's first week U.K. sales. In the U.S., his first week numbers were a little better at 25,000, but that's still a whole lot less than the 177,000 his last album "Blurred Lines" sold in week 1. ( Robin Thicke's New Album Sold Just 530 Copies Last Week In UK )
Leaving Us
Henry "Hank" LoConti Sr., founder of Cleveland's legendary Agora concert club and a driving force in rock 'n' roll's rise to greatness, died Tuesday. He was 85. LoConti, who passed away in his home in Independence, battled lymphoma. Opened in 1966, the Agora was a jumping-off point for countless careers. Bruce Springsteen's Agora shows are a thing of legend. But the club also played host to a wide array of acts on the rise, from KISS to Judas Priest to Metallica to U2, the Clash, Gang of Four, Southside Johnny and AC/DC. Read more
Quotes of the week
"Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It's my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is. I hope they don't underestimate themselves or undervalue their art."
-- Taylor Swift, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece on July 7, in which she expresses optimism for the future of the music industry
The B-Side - 'Blips'
THE ONION (www.theonion.com) STORY OF THE WEEK:
Environmental Study Finds Air In Chicago Now 75% Bullets
CHICAGO—Highlighting increasingly dangerous conditions within the city, a new study published Monday by Northwestern University's Department of Environmental Studies revealed that approximately 75% of the air in Chicago is now composed of bullets. Read the rest and laugh
Read the rest here and laugh: Click Here.
The Music Industry Past, Present & Future, And The Internet I answer questions on EconTalk
I did an interview about the industry and the Internet at EconTalk with host Russ Roberts. Russ is also a professor of economics at George Mason University, blogs at Cafe Hayek, and has written three novels that teach economics. He's also the co-creator of the Keynes-Hayek rap video. (And if your understanding of the economic meltdown that occurred needs to be enlightened, this video will do it)
In the interview we talk about the evolution of the music industry, the impact of the digital revolution, and I give my reasons for believing in the virtues and potential of the Internet in enhancing the music industry. I point out, as I have many times here in the newsletter, that the internet allows numerous artists to make money from their music and it can enhance revenues from live performances by expanding an artist's base. We also discuss the challenges facing record companies and I suggest that the full potential of the Internet as a distribution channel has yet to be fully exploited. There's a lot of ground covered, but based on the comments already posted of those who have tuned in, they've enjoyed it.
Read more about it by clicking here.
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Smart Marketing Consulting Services has been in business sixteen years, and consults clients in the music, entertainment, attraction, media, and technology industry on branding, marketing, online exploitation, maximizing new media, and more.
"And the beat goes on, the beat goes on ... drums keep poundin' rhythm to the brain."
"Work is life, you know, and without it, there's nothing but fear and insecurity." -- John Lennon
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