MySpace Changes Full-Album Streaming On MySpace Music Under The Radar

You would think that with it's main competitor Facebook, not only bypassing it, but leaving it in it's proverbial wake, that any good news or what seems to be good would be something that would hit all the press release web-o-spheres, but for some reason MySpace chose to make a change and let it slip under the radar. Maybe it's because after the company was sold, the new owners have never really figured out to run shop over at good old MySpace.

MySpace Music chief Courtney Holt stepped down, only after a few days of the news being leaked that MySpace was up for sale. So was this change quietly made in the wake of him stepping down, or was he forced out because too many radical changes have been made that never really panned out for the portal. There have been numerous rumors of internal corporate chaos,

The change to MySpace Music that appears to be an attempt at boosting overall membership of the site: Require users to login or create an account to enjoy full album streams.

This change at best leaves many to ponder what are they really trying to do over there? With their new streamlined site that seems even more difficult to navigate than the original, who is truly calling the shots over there on major decisions as would either cause abandonment of or a slew of new members to the site? One thing for sure MySpace had better figure it out soon, before all is lost to the almighty Facebook, and any other upstart that may be more than competitive with innovative ideas that could cause even more members to abandon the site that was once once heralded as "it".

I don't think that having users now login only to stream music is the one definite solution of many problems MySpace now faces, especially when the norm for years has been streaming with no attachment to MySpace. I guess Facebook got that one correct.

Another huge problem that MySpace faces is how to gain back it's integrity from the corporate machine takeover of major record companies that has flooded MySpace for the last several years. The majors have flooded the portal with what at first glance seems to be "independent artists" that have launched their own labels and have a hard luck story of their journey to make it in the industry, and often offer "free" music to unsuspecting members of MySpace who have fallen for this trickery time and time again. Without mentioning any labels or artists, this trend started back in 2005 with an artist who seemingly overnight had the media and MySpacers eating out of their hands with a hard luck story for the ages, and all the time pushing the wholly independent tag, but actually signed to a major record company. How can they continue to have integrity and build their membership with a ruse like this that now permeates the portal? When you stop to consider who owns Myspace and start to make connections you will soon see how obvious this all is.

Numbers For R&B And Rap On Billboards Recent Top 200 Albums Speak The Truth

After taking a peep at the numbers for R&B and Rap sales on Billboard's TOP 200 Albums Chart for the week ending February 20, 2011, from first glance you would think, "Wow, that is a lot of units being sold there". But taking a second glance, a seasoned veteran of the business would know these numbers a few years back would have meant that someone at a label was going to lose their job, and a few artists may be dropped from their contracts. But this is the state of the business today as we see even the burgeoning promise that digital sales once held, even tapering off.

Janelle Monae has sold only 149,000 units, which definitely would have been a deal killer for sure back in the "heyday" of the business, when albums were being shipped "Gold" and "Platinum" on pre-orders before one sale was even made at the retail level. Eminem is one of the only artists on this list that is still selling numbers that are recognizable from the days of old. How did Saigon Kick even make it to the top 200 of album sales?

I have ran across numerous sites today touting these numbers, but they must be new to the game, because these numbers would be laughable at best back in the days when selling over a million records was the norm. There were the times when Biggie, 2-Pac, etc., were easily moving 3, 4, 5 times platinum. So you tell me that now artists moving a few thousand units are given the prestige that they once claimed. This instantly tells you how much damage illegal downloading, piracy and p2p file sharing services have been to the industry. Some argue that it hasn't, and vilify the RIAA for going after the "innocent", but someone please give me a more defined explanation where has the record sales gone, if it hasn't been the aforementioned that has caused it? Yes, I do understand about the "bad economy", the push by the major record companies to place out in the marketplace artists that normally wouldn't even have been looked at a few years ago because of "consumer demand" for bad music (arguable again), but this still doesn't hold much weight compared to illegal downloading, piracy and p2p file sharing. I am still waiting on one article, from one person with absolute reason to give a more defined explanation on the state of the industry and the reasons that it is now in a tale spin for most.

I don't even see "Cloud" based music services being a boon to anyone but the major record companies themselves, with their "Music Unlimited" portal, and a few savvy entrepreneurs that will only capitalize off of those artists with no better alternatives to deliver their music, and folks who still legally purchase music. The major record companies main goal is "control". They want to control the delivery system of music to the masses and gain the highest in profit margins that they once enjoyed. If these numbers are not an indication that the business model has to change, then what will it take for those outside the realm of the major record companies to take notice and do something about it?

The business is still relevant, and there is definitely a ton of money that can still be made, but I implore artists to seek the numerous forms of alternative revenue streams that now exist besides wholly depending on music sales, whether signed or independent.


Top 200 Album Sales (Top 5 Hip Hop/R&B)

Rank/ Artist/ Album/ This Week/ Est. Total

5 Bruno Mars/ Doo Wops & Hooligans/ 61,000/ 727,000

6 Eminem/ Recovery/ 61,000/ 3,634,000

7 Various Artists/ 2011 Grammy Nominees/ 56,000/ 149,000

9 Nicki Minaj/ Pink Friday/ 46,000/ 1,127,000

10 Rihanna/ Loud/ 45,000/ 976,000

25 Lil Wayne/ I Am Not A Human Being/ 21,000/ 770,000

36 Kanye West/ My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy/17,000/ 1,032,000

43 T.I./ No Mercy/ 15,000/ 440,000

58 Saigon/ The Greatest Story Never Told/ 11,000/ 11,000

171 Janelle Monae/ The Archandroid/ 3,900/ 141,000

To take a look at the updated complete chart for the week of February 26, 2011, go to the link below.

Music Albums, Top 200 Albums & Music Album Charts | Billboard.com

Will Cloud-Based Music Services Ever Become Standard In The U.S.?

Has anyone that you know, including yourself, purchased a substantial amount of cd's over the last year?

The old industry model of both physical distribution and retail may be on it's last legs as the industry struggles to maintain it's foothold on the model they created.

With rumors of new cloud-based music offerings surfacing everyday, when will they finally emerge and gain enough traction to penetrate the US music industry?

This may eventually prove to be the ultimate dagger for the record labels who are fighting harder than ever to find ways to maintain any form of control over their content and effectively monetize a new delivery system.

With SONY and it's partners, the other 3 major record companies, EMI, WEA, and UMG all on board to finally release it's "new born" child, Music Unlimited, in the United States, after offering it in several global markets, with the intention to capture the market and compete with other online portals that either offer digital subscriptions, mainly cater to online music consumers or offer indie artists a way to share their intellectual property freely, will this be enough? How will sound cloud based services both help the major companies and industry maintain it's current hold on the revenue pie, and offer something better to both artists and consumers alike? No one knows for sure, but I'm willing to bet my last dollar on it that numerous shadow companies are out there now waiting for this turn in the business model to take hold so they can find ways to circumvent it, the same way they did with physical distribution and retail.

Who will step up to take down Apple's iTunes? If Spotify even hammers out an agreement with the 4 majors, will they ever be as relevant to the market as iTunes has been? With their success outside of the United States, will Rdio, Grooveshark and Pandora be the answer for both radio and retail driven ads targeted to music consumers to prop up both industries simultaneously?

With BitTorrent and numerous other p2p sites biting the dust, will consumers be driven to buy into the idea of Music Unlimited, Spotify and others that want to recharge the industry with new "paying" consumers? No one knows for sure, because there hasn't been one company yet that has really offered anything outside the realm of earning revenue, vice offering something better for consumers in any platform, device, etc..

How will cloud based services affect the average middle class earner that now finds themselves struggling in a harsh economy?

According to the Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/income.html), the national median household income in 2009 was $49,084 for single households and $71,830 for married households. Below we can take a look at regional differences:

Median Household Income

West: $53,833
Northeast: $53,073
Midwest: $48,877
South: $45,615

So with these figures that tout what middle class workers are earning, the economy in a tailspin, and numerous consumer services, and necessities of life (food, insurance, gas, clothing, etc..) going up, how will these new cloud based music services be a boon to the middle class earner's pocket book?

Lady Gaga Is "Normal" On The Cover Of Vogue's "Power Issue"

She has been called many things, has sold more digital downloads, an has more plays on youtube than any artist downloads than any other artist, shocked the British with an outlandish outfit to meet the Queen of England, continues to rankle the mainstream for her outlandish outfits, and behavior, but no matter what her critics may say about her, one thing she definitely is "RELEVANT".

So who better to grace the cover of Vogue‘s annual Power Issue than the pop star herself? Forsaking her m.o. of incomprehensible dresses and painful-looking headgear, Gaga is photographed in a breezy white gown and subdued pink wig that looks more colorfully roaring ’20s than her usual avant-garde fare.


But it’s actually refreshing to see Gaga’s real — albeit heavily makeuped — face not hidden behind couture architecture.

In the article, Gaga talks about her highly anticipated single, which hits radio stations this Friday, David Bowie and rocking out to Beethoven as a child.

On her upcoming single “Born This Way”: “I wrote it in ten f—ing minutes, and it is a completely magical message song, and after I wrote it, the gates just opened, and the songs kept coming. It was like an immaculate conception.”

Rihanna, Lenny Kravitz To Headline At NBA All Star Game 2011

Rihanna, Lenny Kravitz and others will be the main musical acts for the NBA All-Star Game, which takes place on February 20 in Los Angeles. Rihanna will perform "What's My Name?" and "Only Girl (In the World)" at halftime, while Kravitz will play his new single, "Come On Get It," during the player introductions, according to Billboard.com.


Additionally, Josh Groban will perform the U.S. national anthem before the game, and Melanie Fiona will sing Canada's anthem. A day before the game, Cee Lo Green, Far East Movement and Keri Hilson will perform at the NBA's All-Star Saturday Night, which features the slam dunk and three point contests.

Trial Over Michael Jackson's Death To Be Televised

L.A. Superior Court judge Michael Pastor ruled on Monday that television cameras will be allowed to film the involuntary manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, who faces up to four years in prison for the death of Michael Jackson.

Pastor has blocked cameras from broadcasting jury selection, and he has requested proposals from local news crews to ensure the "absolute least intrusive placement" of a television camera in the courtroom during the trial, according to Reuters.



Pastor also announced that he would bump up the opening date of the trail by four days to March 24, at which point jury selection will begin. Murray has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the trial is expected to last approximately six weeks.

In other Jackson family news, Janet Jackson has taped an exclusive interview with Meredith Vieira for the Today show and Dateline NBC in which she says she is still grappling with the untimely death of her brother. While discussing her new book, True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself.

Jackson also talks about her troubled childhood, her relationship with her family and her lifelong struggle with her self-esteem and her weight.

Spotify Says It Is Close To U.S. Launch

Spotify has revealed to its selected American test users that the popular European streaming music service will debut in the States in "the coming months." All Things Digital has printed an email sent out to people with a "promotional test account in the USA." In the email, the company says, "We are really looking forward to launching the service in full in the USA over the coming months, and hope that you will continue to use the service and be one of our key advocates."

The email goes on to ask its beta testers to sign up for an eventual paid account for when Spotify launches here. All Things Digital's sources say that approximately a million Americans are testing Spotify for free currently.
Yesterday, Warner Music Group Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. endorsed Spotify, saying that licensing revenue from it and other streaming services will be an "immediate source of growth" for the record label in 2011.

The Music Industry Distribution Revenue Pie: (Who Gets A Slice And Why)

One major hurdle that independent musicians have to overcome is the problem of distribution. It doesn't matter if you are pushing your product out of the trunk of your car, through friends, a local "street team", an online digital store or music subscription service if you are an independent artist, without it (distribution), you might as well just continue to play your songs for your close "true" friends and all your relatives at the annual family reunion.


Since so many people get confused or just totally don't have the inside knowledge on the infrastructure of the business and how it actually operates, here is food for thought. Traditionally, record labels coordinate the production, manufacture, distribution, promotion, and enforcement of copyright protection for sound recordings and music videos.





Record labels are themselves owned by a larger umbrella company called a "distributor" of which there are only 4 remaining, "The Big 4", (UMG, SONY, EMI and WMG). There formerly were 6, called "The Big 6", (UMG, SONY, EMI, WMG, BMG, and MCA). These music groups are usually partners with multi-national conglomerations that have access to non-music related resources like beverage companies, fast-food chains, movie studios, television stations, satellites, and new technologies. These distributors have invested millions of dollars in a vast distribution oligopoly that has been streamlined over the last sixty years.

Any music that isn't recorded or distributed by one of these corporations is typically considered to be independent or "indie."

80% of music is distributed by the big four music groups: Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group, and Warner Music Group. So with that being said, the truth and nothing but the whole truth so help me Music Gods, where does that leave the rest of the folks who are trying to weasel in on the remaining %20 of revenue available to share among digital upstarts that offer digital distribution like TuneCore, iTunes, CDBaby, Reverbnation, eMusic, MusicNet, and music subscription services like Spotify (which is still not available in the US), Mog, Napster, Rdio, and Rhapsody. The major distributors has a subscription service, Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity, that has launched in several countries, and will soon launch in the US, that is intended to directly compete with the aforementioned digital companies.


HERE'S A LOOK AT THE TOP RECORD LABELS, THEIR ARTISTS AND THEIR U.S. MARKET SHARE:

Top record labels: artists, market share Posted 10/10/2008 9:58 By Source: Nielsen SoundScan, company Web sites.

_ UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP: 35.12 percent market share in U.S.

Labels include: Geffen Records, Island Def Jam Music Group, Motown Records, Verve Music Group, Decca Music Group.

Artists include: Gwen Stefani, Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, Kanye West, Shania Twain.


_ SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT INC.: 22.79 percent market share.

Labels include: Arista Records, Columbia Records, Jive Records, RCA Records.

Artists include: Alicia Keys, Usher, Chris Brown, AC/DC, Leona Lewis.


_ WARNER MUSIC GROUP CORP.: 21.12 percent market share.

Labels include: Atlantic Records, Warner Bros. Records.

Artists include Madonna, R.E.M., Green Day, Eric Clapton.


_ EMI GROUP PLC: 8.35 percent market share.

Labels include: Capitol Records, Virgin, Blue Note.

Artists include: Coldplay, Katy Perry, The Rolling Stones, Lenny Kravitz.


_ ALL OTHERS: 12.61 percent.


ONLINE MUSIC STORES CUT

Each online store takes a cut out of the initial sale. Apple will give indie artists that aren't on a label about 70 cents for each 99 cent song sold. That's not a bad deal. Recording artists on a major label get anywhere from 4 to 11 cents per song sold depending on their contract. Most major artists makes more for a CD sale than they actually do for a digital download. So this is possibly a better solution for the independent artist.

These U.S.-based services all stream within the United States. Rdio additionally offers service to Canada, and Napster has service in Canada, the UK, and Germany. (Napster offers far fewer tracks in Canada—2.5 million—than it does in the other countries.) All four services offer different levels of service and price plans, depending on whether you intend to stream only to a Web browser or hardware device (the Sonos Multi-Room Music System, various Roku boxes, or Logitech's Squeezebox products) or also to your iOS device. Mog, Napster, and Rdio offer $5-a-month plans for Web- and device-streaming. For $10 a month these services additionally offer streaming and downloads to their free iOS apps. If you’re willing to commit for an entire year, Napster also offers annual plans. For $50 a year you can have Web and device streaming; with mobile access and downloads included, the price is $96 per year. At one time Napster included five MP3 downloads per month with every subscription, but it has since discontinued that perk.

Rhapsody no longer provides a streaming-only plan. Instead, for $10 a month you get Web and device streaming plus the ability to stream and download to one iOS device. For $15 a month you can stream to up to three iOS devices.

Currently Mog streams to Roku devices. Sonos and Squeezebox devices support both Napster and Rhapsody. All of the services except Mog sell music as well as stream it. Purchased tracks from Rhapsody, Napster, and Rdio are DRM-free MP3 files encoded at 256 kbps.

If your plan on selling a lot of CD's then TuneCore's zero percent sales commission is the best option. CD Baby takes 9% for every digital sale. However, TuneCore will charge about eight bucks each year to maintain your CD on all their stores. If you don't sell a single CD then after four or five years, you'll end up paying more than CD Baby. However, you never stop paying a commission on CD Baby sales. If you sell a lot of disks, CD Baby will cost more. I guess it depends on how well you sell.

TuneCore vs. CD Baby
TuneCore CD Baby
Setup Fees $27 per disk $35
UPC Barcode free $20
Digital Stores Served ~ 10 ~ 40
Yearly Fee $7.98 none
Sales Commission none 9%
Setup Time 2 Months 2 Months


On TuneCore their so called "world wide distribution costs are as follows:

$9.99 per Single
$9.99 per Ringtone
$49.99 per Album


These are just small examples of what is out there available to independent artists besides the traditional means of delivery to the marketplace. Yet, even after all is said and done, an artist's biggest tool is the ability to understand not only the business infrastructure itself, but the marketplace and consumers as well. Without that knowledge or the understanding of it, and having a music professional by your side guiding you through the small steps you need to take, you will be setting yourself up for failure. Having a lot of "street money" isn't going to cut it, because you can't pay your way out of every situation that may present itself.

Twitter is now the #3 social network (if you count Hotmail as #2). One report finds only 15% of consumers download anything. Another study finds most Twitter tweets never get a get a response. So just e-blasting, posting on social networks and tweeting about your cd is just not enough. You still need a comprehensible promotion and marketing plan to succeed.

No matter how good your music sounds, a great promotion and marketing plan still needs to be developed in order for an artist to be as successful as they are. Branding still requires the time to create a model and plan on how to approach the marketplace, from an artist's imaging, to the music, the connections to lifestyle companies, traditional zines and e-zines, social networking site promotions, in-stores, tour support, radio ads, etc., etc. That all takes time, months if not a year of intensive planning, development and research before a product and artist even hits the market. It is just not coincidence.

Jim Jones To Release "Capo" April 5th, And Star In VH-1 Hip Hop Based Soap Opera

Jim Jones is set to release his fifth official studio album titled CAPO on Tuesday, April 5th, 2011. The new album is the follow-up to Pray IV Reign and is set to feature appearances from Raekwon, Snoop Dogg, Roscoe Dash, Cam’ron, Juelz Santana Vado and Rell.

Jones is also set to take part in a new VH1 8-part docu-soap series entitled “Love & Hip Hop,” which premieres on March 14th, 2011. The new show features Jones and his longtime girlfriend Chrissy Lampkin.


The show follows four dynamic women who are connected to the world of hip hop, whether it's through the men they love, or their struggle to be heard as an artist. The show provides a dramatic, funny and sometimes heartbreaking look into the female side of the New York hip hop life as these four women try to claim their own place in it.