American music magazine Billboard is presenting a new event aimed at “celebrating the passion that is changing the music landscape.” By bringing together artists, music business entrepreneurs, investors and other key parts of the industry, FutureSound hopes to instigate some meaningful conversations about the next evolution of the music biz.

One of the oldest trade magazines around, Billboard has long been the source of information and its charts have become a measuring stick when it comes to commercial success. In recent years, the very meaning of success has changed, as well as the work done and paths followed to achieve that success, and it is the new challenges that face a modern musician that need to be addressed. Seeking to align its huge user base with some of the key players, Billboard has created the FutureSound conference, a combination of keynote discussions, solution sessions, workshop roundtables & networking. Given the turbulent music industry in California, San Fransisco seems a fitting location for such an event.

FutureSound sees something of a divide still between the creative artists who want to achieve their goals, and the creative developers and entrepreneurs who invent applications and offer services for those artists. Throw in the dilemma of rights-holders and the issue of receiving payments in a digital world and you have a complex situation. Bringing all sides together and presenting different sides of the situation will hopefully find solutions and middle ground on key issues, those being: The Challenges of Entrepreneurship, Music Licensing, and Leveraging the Social Web.

Billboard FutureSound 2011

November 17-18, 2011
Terra, San Fransisco
Use promo code FBK11 and get 15% off the FutureSound registration rate
Register here.
Facebook event page.


by Lee Jarvis.

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Today while catching up on the latest music industry news, I literally put my face in the palm of my hand and shook my head in dismay. As I was just glimpsing over the headlines on Billboard.com it quickly came crashing down on me how ridiculous these supposed “newsworthy” items were.

Here are some of my favorite disappointments of the day:

Justin Bieber to Star as Himself in 3D Biopic
Really? We need a Justin Bieber movie? And in 3D? Justin Bieber apparently has taken over the world and the minds of not only the music industry moguls, but has also now succeeded in capturing those of the film industry. I think 2012 just got a lot closer to becoming reality… The end must be near.

Bret Michaels To Co-Host ‘Miss Universe’ Pageant
Bret Michaels was the choice to host “Miss Universe” this year – this washed up artist is starting to pop up everywhere. Yes people liked him on the Celebrity Apprentice, but really does he have any business hosting a beauty queen pageant? There used to be class in the Miss Universe pageant – I remember watching it growing up and it was the event of the evening, but Bret Michaels? I have no more words…

Dee Snider Keeps It Real on ‘Growing Up Twisted’
This is what we need: another reality show about another washed up musician and his crazy family. Hopefully Dee and his wife beat the curse of the reality show divorce rate. Maybe this one will be different, but all the rest have reminded me of a train wreck happening in slow motion before your eyes.

Will.i.am Doesn’t Support New Michael Jackson Album
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Recently there have been quite a few animated “tributes,” per se, of pop stars and some of their hit tunes, and some re-worked versions.

Billboard has called attention to a few, which included Ke$ha’s song “TiK ToK” on the Simpsons, and Kanye’s face off on The Cleveland Show. Also, will.i.am was given a not-so-flattering tribute on the season premiere of The Boondocks. The episode focused on all the celebrity hype surrounding President Barack Obama’s election back in 2008, and it featured a music video with a cartoon likeness of Black Eyed Peas front-man. The song took the beat of “It’s a New Day,” which will.i.am released after Obama was elected President, and added surprisingly catchy (yet, NSFW) lyrics.”

On the Sunday night episode of The Simpsons the song “TiK ToK” has the entire cast appearing throughout the song for the opening credits, obviously replacing the regular theme. The song is sung by Ke$ha throughout, with various characters ‘lip synching’ along to it. It’s extremely entertaining and crazy all at the same time. I’m sure it caught all of the viewers’ attention as it did mine – it was definitely an unexpected yet cool twist. It’s amazing to see all the different ways pop culture keeps ebbing into our lives in different facets.

After the Simpsons came The Cleveland Show. In the episode Cleveland Jr. takes on Kanye West, after supposedly hitting on Kanye’s girl. (more…)

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The new Lady Gaga video with Beyonce came out last week, and I was just now able to sit down and watch the whole thing – the explicit version, which I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into by clicking the little play arrow.

I’m still not sure what I think of the whole thing. Shocked, that’s the first feeling that comes to mind. I know MTV no longer plays music videos, and the whole music video idea seems to have faded out to some extent. But what Lady Gaga and Beyonce have done is much more than simply a music video; It’s a short film. It’s nearly ten minutes long to start, and I’m kind of left thinking about their motivation for the project.

Billboard had the following to say about it: “Lady Gaga and Beyoncé unveiled the video for their “Telephone” collaboration on Thursday night (Mar. 11), and it more than measures up to the hype. Directed by Gaga’s “Paparazzi” video helmer Jonas Akerlund, the “Telephone” clip is chock full of intrigue, prison fights, makeout scenes, mass poisoning and plenty of skin-baring versions of what you might call “outfits” (if strategically placed caution tape counts as such).”

(more…)

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Independent artists benefit from a more level playing field; MTV Networks creating opportunities in music.

MTV and Harmonix are to launch the Rock Band Network later this year. The Rock Band Network is a platform that will allow bands to upload their music for review by the Rock Band game creators, and possibly available as part of the game’s store, tapping into the wealth of publicity and revenue created for musicians by the Rock Band brand.

The system was devised in part to help expand the content available to the gamers, something which the limited staff was struggling to find the time to provide. And so recording artists will have the opportunity to add to the 700 tracks already part of the program by taking the stems from their original masters and creating MIDI tracks for each instrument, before sharing it with the Rock Band Network community.

Here is a short video from the people over at Joystiq, explaining the idea and the process.

There’s also a lot more detail at Billboard if you want to get into the bones of it all.

So, exciting times! Yet more ways for independent artists, studios, labels, bands, managers and many more music professionals to create their own successes, and find work in the music industry. Best of luck!

Lee Jarvis.

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