David Emery OnlineThe Pope Signs To Geffen
Geffen Records, owned by Universal Music, is producing an album that will feature Pope Benedict’s voice accompanied by the Choir of the Philharmonic Academy of Rome. According to the company, he will sing and recite verses including prayers to the Virgin Mary.
I love the fact that Lada Gaga and the Pope can be on the same label; it’s obviously all about the music for those guys. I guess that when the A&R guys put ‘flowers’ on their expenses in this case they might actually mean it…
Visit ➔Hands-On with the Spotify iPhone App
We’ve been testing Spotify’s iPhone app since last week for this U.S. exclusive. Based on that, our prediction that it could generate big profits for Spotify — and for an ailing music industry — appears to be on the money. This slick app grants instant access to over six million on-demand tracks and your customized Spotify playlists, and it sounds great even on planes, subways, and other places where you can’t get a decent cell signal thanks to an offline playback feature.
Nothing unexpected here, but it looks like it works and works well, although the offline caching stuff looks a little over complicated. Also, I still don’t believe that they haven’t added a way of browsing the catalogue yet – you can still only search, and I can never think of the right thing to search for…
Update: There’s a video of it in action up now as well:
Visit ➔The Big Pink - Dominos
We’ve just put up the forthcoming single by the Big Pink up as a free download on their website – also below for your listening pleasure:
I think I’ve gone on about them enough, now.
Visit ➔A Ruby Retort [not a report] from 15 year old Chantelle...
On music:
I never buy CDs, I have a CD collection from when I was younger, but I can’t even remember the last time I bought a CD, it was from ages ago. I don’t use Spotify, I don’t know what it is at all, never heard of it. I use Limewire, to download all my music , though I have sometimes got music off of iTunes, though that’s just when I had the vouchers. I don’t do music streaming, what is it? It sounds interesting especially if it’s free, and it would be interesting… It has to go on my iPod though, if not then no! Actually I dunno, I’d probably use both… Actually no I wouldn’t use Spotify if it didn’t go on my iPod.
It’s going to be very interesting when Spotify gets its mobile app out the door (although I’m sure the kids will bulk at the monthly subscription it’ll need), as there’s a whole generation now that not only hasn’t really ever bought CDs, they’re not too interested in music ownership full stop.
Visit ➔Finally, A New Face For Topspin
(From the comments): “Are we supposed to believe that a sales widget with data capture is somehow ground-breaking? Granted, this is a great tool for indie musicians, but what TopSpin doesn’t talk much about is the high distribution fee they take when they don’t handle any physical fulfillment like Music Today et al, and there are plenty of other great solutions out there to sell your music digitally and direct market to fans. The data they capture isn’t leaps and bounds beyond what other great e-commerce innovators are doing, and as anyone who has dealt with widgets before knows, there is no viral magic that happens unless the act is great and is doing a decidedly low-tech activity of personally being in front of their fans performing their art. The problem I have with TopSpin supporters is that they’re heralding this company as the future when it’s really just following best practices other industries are familiar with. Until the music business catches up with others in its knowledge of how to leverage technology, companies like this can come in and sell a bill of goods to a lot of people.”
Quoted for truth. Nice response by Ian from Topspin further down as well.
Visit ➔Rock Band to Get its Own Music Marketplace
Rock Band Network, currently in closed beta, should launch to the public in August (with in-game sales later in the year), and allow for any wanne-be or tried-and-true beat master, music mixer, or soulful singer to add their music to the Rock Band catalogue for user purchase and game play.
It’s easy to forget, but the Rock Band and Guitar Hero track stores do a staggering amount of business so it’s great that they’re opening up. Also very useful, considering they may become chart eligible soon.
Visit ➔From Moby
How’s it going?
The album just came out and it would be #1 euro charts if not for michael jackson re-releases.
So that’s good.
But here’s something funny: the best selling itunes track is ’shot in the back of the head’.
Why is that funny?
Because its the track we’ve been giving away for free for the last 2 months and that we’re still givng away for free.
Odd.
How are you?
Moby
We’ve had many similar experiences – giving away a track can lead to higher sales; for example, at exactly the same time we were giving away The Horrors ‘Sea Within A Sea’ from their website we were seeing great sales of the track on iTunes (and it’s still the second most popular track from the album on there, even though we’re still giving it away).
Visit ➔