Wiz Khalifa To Release Album March 29 On Atlantic

After his smash performance at the AFC Championship Playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Jets, up-and-coming rapper Wiz Khalifa announced online that his new album is titled Rolling Papers, and will be out March 29 on Atlantic. The Pittsburgh native is currently riding the success of his hometown AFC Champion Steelers with the hit "Black And Yellow."

Will Cloud, iPad Apps, Music Limited, and the Service Sector Salvage The Music Industry

With the launch of the new music service from the major record companies, "Music Unlimited", and the popularity of the iPad from Apple which now boasts over 6,000 apps, and the intervention of "cloud" based IT networks, the music industry is evolving once again.

How soon will we see a difference in the falling revenue from music sales (physical and now digital) and live concerts? Only time will tell, but at least companies are becoming more aware of how important it is to stay on top of technology as it is developed. I can't say the same for most artists who still have the meandering dreams of glamour and fame, but most never realize this because they are not taking their "music careers serious enough and looking at it as a business "first".

The whole digital, connected, cloud, apps and services sector are at the heart of the evolving music market, if you are still stuck on archaic ways to deliver your music to the masses, then you need to get in the know of the evolving music business.

The digital sector and data in particular is the life blood of business and if you look at any other industry everything is automated and if the music industry is to move forward we are going to have to go down this route.

With MIDEm wrapping up it's 2011 convention in France, everyone is now talking about cloud based music services, and so many are unfamiliar with or are unaware what it truly means to the delivery system of information not only in the music business but business period.

With "cloud based" services like Music Unlimited offered up by the majors (SONY in partnership with EMI, UNIVERSAL and WEA), Music Anywhere by Britain's Carphone Warehouse, and a new upstart mSpot trying to secure licensing from the majors, will it be enough to compete with a fast-growing number of free and paying music streaming services that include Spotify, Pandora, Last.fm, Groove Shark and We7 that are already sharing a big chunk of consumer revenue globally through "ownership" of intellectual property? Or will the idea of cloud based services that are pushing "access" over "ownership" be the saving grace of the entire global industry? Only time will tell, especially since Nokia has already closed down its unlimited music service in most of the 33 markets in which it operated.

Cloud-based services differ from the music streaming services that download onto a computer by allowing users to house all their music on a remote server (or cloud) as well as giving them access to millions of tracks.

The cloud also acts as a "locker" for their own music collection so that users can access their music on different devices.
The big question mark is whether these services will bring the new revenue for the music industry, particularly after Nokia closed down its unlimited music service in most of the 33 markets in which it operated.

One potential new market is the auto industry, after Ford announced it would integrate the US-based Internet mobile radio streaming service, Pandora, into its new vehicles.

SonyCloud services are attracting a lot of attention at MIDEM this year, as they promise to help music lovers connect their music to a host of digital devices at home and on the move.




FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Cloud computing is location-independent computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid.

Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture and utility computing. Details are abstracted from consumers, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.

Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption, and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves over-the-Internet provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet. This frequently takes the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if it were a program installed locally on their own computer.

Most cloud computing infrastructures consist of services delivered through common centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear as single points of access for consumers' computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers, and typically include service level agreements (SLAs)

The key characteristic of cloud computing is that the computing is "in the cloud" i.e. the processing (and the related data) is not in a specified, known or static place(s). This is in contrast to a model in which the processing takes place in one or more specific servers that are known. All the other concepts mentioned are supplementary or complementary to this concept.

Generally, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure, instead avoiding capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on a subscription basis.

With Cloud now taking precedence over delivery of information, e-mail blasting, and the older approaches to disseminating music to the masses will dissipate over time and all those choosing to remain in the fray of the innovations that technology presents to the "New Music Industry", will more than likely still have a tremendous opportunity to capitalize as the industry continues to evolve.

Diddy-Dirty Money's 'Last Train To Paris' Hits Big Internationally

Diddy-Dirty Money's 'Last Train To Paris' album has officially pulled into European territories with its 24th Jan release and became the smash hit release of the new year.

In less than two days, the album has already made top 20 in 6 European countries. It has seen top 10 iTunes chart success as #4 in the UK, #3 in Ireland, 8 in Austria and #6 in Switzerland. 'Hello Good Morning,' the thumping single released last year, is also now certified platinum with over 1 million sold.



The debut album from the new super-group comprising of music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, singer-songwriter Dawn Richard (a founding member of the platinum-selling girl group Danity Kane) and songwriter Kalenna Harper (whose credits include work with music luminaries such as Jill Scott, Jennifer Lopez and Timbaland) was released in Europe via Bad Boy/Polydor Records on 24th January 2011, following its December Top 10 U.S release.

The album's latest single, 'Coming Home,' went into the Official UK Single Chart last week at number 4 and will be followed by the hotly anticipated Usher collaboration track 'Looking For L

Talib Kweli on The Music Industry, Kanye West, and New Album

From his favorite MC's of the 'new era' to his thoughts on Kanye West to what we can expect from his new album, Talib Kweli offers his thoughts on all.

Jennifer Lopez Excited About New Single And Her Long Anticipated Album

Jennifer Lopez recently spoke to MTV News about how much she emotionally connects to her new single, "On The Floor." She said that the minute producer RedOne played the track for her, she instantly loved it and made him play it 20 times in a row. "I really feel like, emotionally, I connected to it, but also because of how much I love to dance and how much that's always been such a big part of who I am since I started," J. Lo explained.

Christina Aguilera To Sing National Anthem At Super Bowl XLV

It has been confirmed that Christina Aguilera will sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl in Dallas on February 6. "I have been performing the anthem since I was seven years old and I must say the Super Bowl is a dream come true," the singer said in a statement. "I am really excited to be part of such an iconic event." Aguilera previously performed at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2000. This year, the Black Eyed Peas will do the halftime show honors.


Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Green Bay Packers Sunday, February 6, 2011 - 6:30pm ET on FOX www.nfl.com

Is Piracy Killing The Music Industry?

"A lot of people in the industry want to blame downloading for the state of the business. But I think if most music wasn't (expletive) to begin with people wouldn't be downloading it for free,." "Seriously – who wants to risk hard-earned money on music that's maybe 98 percent crap? I'm not going to. I still buy new albums, but people ask what my favorite new album is and nine times out of ten I don't have one. Music is garbage. - Slipknot's Corey Taylor

Piracy is killing music, and the music industry will never make as much money as it did back when everyone was replacing their tapes and records with compact discs, according to the latest reports. Sound cliche? Let's take a look.

I’d hate to break the news to all the suits in the music business but the CD is dying, and the album is dying with it. Sure, the true music enthusiast will appreciate the art that a well orchestrated album is, but the masses are increasingly spending their money on singles. The album has lost much of it’s appeal and function to the iPod generation.

In 2010 the UK music industry sold 161.8 million singles (digital and physical) compared to 66.9 million in 2006.

the BPI points out that album sales overall were down by 7%. Although digital album sales were up 30.6%, physical CDs were down by 12.4%.

Everyone tends to want to blame the artist, but even an indie artist gets hurt by piracy, they still at at the mercy of digital pirates on file sharing services, because they don’t have the legal backing or financial resources that a major does to go after every single violation.

Sorry but ITunes, Amazon, CD Baby, etc. still charge the artists just like a label does, yes the artists get a larger share of sales, but the total cost of promotions, marketing, manufacturing, merchandising falls on the lap of the artist, and whether or not the artist sells one cd or not, these sites still get an upload fee to their sites, and they make money off artists that have not even sold one single song or very little. So who is getting raped here?

Of course the majors are directly responsible for the digital revolution in a negative way because of their MAPS agreement in the 90′s, and instead of capitalizing off of the digital revolution, they railed against it. They are now attempting to play catch up by shutting down all the competition whether legal or illegal, so I get that one. But this argument over numbers that seem to be inflated only because most of these tech zines and sites complaining about the RIAA and piracy in itself, tend to negate the years between the numbers they usually post in these articles, does not make a legitimate argument.

In each of the past two years, the rate of increase in digital revenue has approximately halved,” reads a Times’ article. “If that trend continues, digital sales could top out at less than $5 billion this year, about a third of the overall music market but many billions of dollars short of the amount needed to replace long-gone sales of compact discs.

There are a few problems with assertions that the sky is falling where music is concerned. For starters, revenue (including services like Pandora, Spotify, YouTube) is not the same thing as sales (CDs, iTunes, Amazon), so when the Times talks about “digital music sales,” it’s leaving many of the most popular music services out of the discussion. - From Wired.com

So is that to say the numbers are being padded for digital and cd sales because music subscription services are being left out of the equation? Digital downloads in my opinion do count as a "sale", so these numbers should always be included, even if a consumer signs up for one of these music subscription sites and has free reign to download whatever they like.

Contrary to "popular belief" or whatever any industry professional or insider may be telling you, the US music industry has seen numbers fall over the past several years (http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/amplifier/70991/2010-album-sales-way-worse-than-2009-album-sales/) as compared to other countries. File sharing and piracy are not responsible for that? Ok, then who or what is, ghosts?

In a previous post I wrote about a new music service that will be offered by the major record companies in the U.S., seems they now want to jump on the digital bandwagon instead of sitting on the sidelines. Music Unlimited, which has more than 6 million songs, lets Sony Music Entertainment and partners Universal Music Group, EMI Music and Warner Music Group effectively cut out middle men and gives them more control over revenue. Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity, which Sony unveiled in September, started in the U.K. and Ireland in December and in France, Germany, Italy and Spain this weekend.

Will this curtail piracy or help the industry salvage falling numbers? Only time will tell.

On another note, consumers(who tend to pirate on these file sharing sites) need to pipe down! You can’t get a free car, free gas, free bottled water, a free radio component system, a free stove, a free meal at your favorite 5 star restaurant, so why should you not want to pay for music that is “property” as the aforementioned items?? Bottom line, this music belongs to the artists and to the distributors that put them in the marketplace unless the artists are completely independent and not even using a digital distribution service.

Artists need to learn the business, and then they won’t be signing one sided contracts. It is quite alarming to say the least when one artist in particular, Michael Jackson owns %50 of the publishing (an artists largest source of income), of some of the world’s major artists through several of his acquisitions of music publishing catalogs. That includes The Beatles, Justine Bieber, Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Eminem, Rick Ross, etc., etc… In 1984 he acquired ATV’s 4000 song publishing catalog and then merged it with SONY’s music publishing wing in 1995, which has generated over a billion dollars since his untimely desmise.

LOOK AT THIS LATEST REPORT FROM THE BBC ON THE GLOBAL PUSH TO END PIRACY