In Case You Missed It: Reading Recap
Apple Sets Sights on Amazon Daily Deal Promotion
Unlike the recent hoopla over Abbey Road, no public outcry surrounding EMI’s recent sale of Olympic Sound Studios, birthplace of classic recordings from The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Who and Queen… Apple is starting to flex its iTunes market share muscle with labels over their use of Amazon’s Daily Deal promotion that features deeply discounted albums for new artist releases… Music start ups MOG and Spotify to go toe-to-toe at SXSW, MOG to announce new mobile app… Time Magazine profiled soon to be Universal Music Group head Lucian Grainge…And Peter Gabriel’s The Filter has announced a new deal with video site Dailymotion…
02.19.10In Case You Missed It: Reading Recap
London's Abbey Road Studios up on the block
More EMI headlines this week, as it was reported that company is trying to sell the legendary Abbey Road studios in London. An anonymous source told the AP that the search for a buyer has actually been going on for several months. After the news broke, stories appeared naming The National Trust and Andrew Lloyd Webber as both interested in buying… A face-off in the cloud may be brewing between Apple and Google, with reports that the latter is in talks with cloud media start-up Catch Media. Initial chatter of a possible showdown began at the end of last year with Apple’s high profile purchase of music service Lala… Ad-supported music service Guvera has announced their U.S. launch will be on March 30th. The Australian-based company also announced new licensing deals with BMI, SESAC, Harry Fox Agency and INgrooves, those following previous deals with Universal Music Group, EMI and IODA. Advertising in Guvera is less intrusive than similar services says LA Times writer Jon Healey, who recently took the new service for a test-drive…
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In Case You Missed It: Reading Recap
Apple's New Game-Changer?
No question about it, this week saw two stories dominate the headlines and bloglines and pretty much anywhere that covers music and media, and it wasn’t the Grammy’s… First was the announcement that the DOJ had approved the Ticketmaster – Live Nation merger, much quicker than most anticipated, with the result being the formation of Live Nation Entertainment. As to be expected the reactions were plentiful and varied, including a thumbs up from influential artist manager Jim Guerinot, while Spaceland Productions founder Mitchell Frank and other indie promoters see reason for concern – both stories appearing this week in the L.A. Times music blog Pop & Hiss… The other widely reported and debated news this week was the unveiling of Apple’s new iPad. The announcement of the one-of-a-kind device was greeted with praise and skepticism, as most new Apple products do, including estimations as to what the iPad will mean for the music industry, how it will take down the Kindle, why a rebuilt iTunes is more important and Bob Lefsetz explains why he won’t be buying one.
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Around Town: One Haven Music Pub, Apple Talk, Lucy Schwartz & more…
Lucy Schwartz EP Release Show @ Hotel Cafe - Wed, 1/27
One Haven Music Publishing led by Steve Backer and Michael Caplan is partnering up with the new BMG Rights Management publishing company via an exclusive, worldwide joint venture. BMG Rights Management is the entity formed by the financial firm KKR and Bertelsmann. Both industry veterans, Backer has had success in the label and publishing arenas (EMI Pub, V2 Records and Epic) while Caplan’s impressive A&R resume includes signing Los Lonely Boys and Matisyahu. Caplan is also the President and Co-Founder of the Or Music independent record label…
The Apple rumor-mill has been churning on high leading up to tomorrow’s “special event” in San Francisco, where many believe Steve Jobs won’t see his shadow and will unveil the highly anticipated, and up until now mythical, Apple Tablet - less likely but still in the running is the formal announcement of an iTunes music-streaming service and an answer to the Favre retirement debate…
Lucy Schwartz celebrates the release of her new EP Help Me! Help Me! (out today) tomorrow night in Los Angeles at Hotel Cafe. Schwartz first made waves in 2008 while still in high school, with her songs getting airplay on KCRW and placements in the film The Women – www.myspace.com/lucysong…
Friend of the show and Authentik Artists CEO Scott Austin has penned an open letter to Franz Ferdinand, taking the Glasgow group to task for their recent complaints via Twitter about their label and its licensing of one of the band’s songs for a new McDonald’s campaign…
**Update: Read Alex from FF’s response HERE
And mark your calendars for this Saturday at Spaceland where Future Sounds presents Nico Stai, Chief, Fences and Yikes! A Lion!…
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In Case You Missed It: Reading Recap – Extended Remix Edition
Linkin Park charity releases digital compilation to benefit Haiti
A lot to stay on top of over this short week, so enjoy this special extended edition of our weekly recap…
More chatter about a possible new iTunes streaming service from Apple continued, fueled by Michael Robertson’s prediction that the service will come in the form of a version update allowing users to access their iTunes media library from anywhere via the proverbial “cloud”… The lineup for Coachella 2010 was announced, and headliners include Jay-Z, Muse, Gorillaz and Thom Yorke… Ad-supported download service Free All Music announced a deal with EMI, who joins Universal Music as the first major music companies to strike agreements with the start-up… Elsewhere, Sony and Warner Music appear to be engaged in an eMusic pricing battle… YouTube launched a new music discovery and playlist experiment… Comcast appears to be taking steps toward an a la carte music streaming service for internet and cable customers… Other ISP news includes a report that Virgin Media’s long delayed “unlimited” subscription service might be called MusicFish, it might not be unlimited and could be arriving this summer… It looks like Live Nation is putting its venues on the block in an effort to ease regulatory concerns over the Ticketmaster merger… And Prince revealed a new song “Purple and Gold” that he penned for his beloved Vikings - sorry Purple One, we’ll be rooting for the Saints…
** If you haven’t yet, make sure to visit www.musicforrelief.org, where Linkin Park took the “pay what you want” model to their charity’s digital album that benefits the crisis in Haiti. The band quickly assembled a compilation of unreleased songs from Peter Gabriel, Alanis Morissette, All-American Rejects and many others. The effort saw a quick and impressive collaboration of artists, labels and publishers who all granted full gratis rights for the compilation, and over a holiday weekend no less.
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In Case You Missed It: Reading Recap
Apple buys streaming-music service Lala
A week ago today the news broke that Apple was buying music service, and new Google Music search partner, Lala, lighting up the tech and music world (cnet). How much Apple actually paid to acquire the streaming-music service has been a matter for continued speculation (TechCrunch)… EMI made an 11th hour content licensing deal with the new major label-backed video site Vevo, which officially launched on Tuesday (Epicenter). True to industry form there was a celebrity-filled gala to commemorate the occasion (Billboard)… MySpace formally acknowledged it has bought struggling Imeem and promptly shuttered the streaming service (VentureBeat)… And as expected, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and a handful of other Nielsen Media publications were officially sold to a consortium of investors (LATimes).
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In Case You Missed It: Reading Recap
Can't Buy My Songs... EMI and BlueBeat battle over Beatles
In the news this week… Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris appears to be making plans to bring in a successor, though the 71-year-old executive has no plans of retiring… MediaMemo reports that Apple is out taking the temperature of networks for a $30 a month iTunes TV subscription… MySpace will reportedly fall short of the minimum traffic levels specified in parent company News Corp.’s massive 2006 Google ad deal… And digital marketplace BlueBeat.com uses the old ‘psycho-acoustic simulation’ defense in legal action taken by EMI for the site’s illegal and bizarre sale of The Beatles catalog online… Is that like claiming insanity, or just insane?
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