A Song A Day

Alternative title: Take profit-seeking out of music, and what do you need to succeed?
Here’s an analogy.
Think of the traditional record industry as a planet. Over time it’s grown bigger and bigger, and pulled all these other satellites (artists, managers, pluggers, promoters, fans, music writers, radio DJs, PR and marketing people) into its gravitational field. And […]

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Two current stories on the web have elided in my mind and are causing my brain to overheat. So I’ve decided to use this post to try and work out the issues.
The first story is an amusing overview of the current ‘indie’ scene here in the UK, from the Independent. It’s wilfully curmudgeonly, but ultimately […]

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A quick note about a new site I’ve just stumbled across, Musicbizhacks, the latest blog from Adrian Fusiarski, the man behind the excellent Buzzsonic.dj music industry directory.
Musicbizhacks consists mostly of links to digital music articles from around the web, but also includes Adrian’s own insightful musings on making a living from music in the web […]

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In the old days, labels used to give you an advance when you signed a recording contract with them. It wasn’t really your money, it was just a loan, and if you weren’t successful it usually left you in sizeable debt. Now, they lock you into 360 degree deals and squeeze you for every little […]

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As I mentioned previously, destroying the record labels because they’ve been slow to adapt to the new digital landscape is something of a blinkered view to take. The record ‘industry’ as it stands right now consists of a huge system of interlinking parts that, while they may no longer work too well together – or […]

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Can you not be both? Amidst all the Myspace Music hyperbole came one phrase from Chris DeWolfe that slightly made me shudder - “This is really a mega-music experience that is transformative in a lot of ways,” he said. “It’s the full 360-degree revenue stream.” 360-degree streams is the buzzword du jour of the major […]

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In a move that’s sent shockwaves through the music industry, Fakesensations, a band you’ve probably never heard of, have decided to allow fans to buy their new album Isaac and the Secret Chord for £7.99 (or $9.99), from any of various online download stores.
From October 15th, fans will be able to purchase the album […]

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There’s a great story about how, when the Beatles completed Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the early hours of April 21st, 1967, they left Abbey Road and took an acetate of the recording to Mama Cass’s house in Chelsea, stuck speakers in the windows and broadcast the album to the neighbourhood. People in […]

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Two posts in one day! But rarely do two items in the papers anger me so much. John Harris, ex-NME journo (from just before the time I joined), Socialist firebrand and now Guardian columnist, can usually be relied upon for sober, insightful and generally left-leaning comment.
In today’s Guardian, however, he seems to have been replaced […]

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This is obviously a very sad and misguided decision, and sets a worrying precedent. The RIAA are probably very pleased with themselves - but they shouldn’t be. All the reports of this case, aside from the cowardly neutral - sorry, independent - reporting of the likes of Billboard, are leading with the words “single mother” […]

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