As 2011 is drawing to a close, we thought we’d find out a little more about what kind of music listening preferences our members have used over the last 12 months.
There are now more ways to consume music than ever before, making the murky waters of the music industry even more treacherous for musicians, songwriters and performers, not to mention agents, managers and the like. Please consider taking our short poll and sharing some of your recent habits of consuming music in 2011. After you click submit you can see the results. Simply hit the back button on your browser to vote in another topic and see more results.
I’ve always battled with deleting tracks from my iTunes library. Similar to clothing, I feel like once I delete it (or give it away as the case may be) I will find some amazing use/need for it and then I won’t have it. With my very first iPod I uploaded every CD I could get my hands on. I’d been to MIDEM in Cannes that year, and had brought home loads of foreign sampler CDs – because they were free of course! I got them all uploaded onto my iPod, and then when one of them would come up during a shuffle of all of my songs – I’d wonder what the heck this song was and why was it on my iPod. Forgetting that I’d done this to myself.
I have finally deleted these tracks, but I have many others that I never listen to and they become part of the grey area of “I love that band, but don’t like that song.” And again I struggle with officially deleting these types of tracks. However, iTunes has a great skip feature to help people like me figure out what tracks really are safe to delete and that I won’t miss.
“Last Skipped can be used in a couple of different ways. Within iTunes, Control (right) click on iTunes’ column header, and choose Last Skipped in the contextual menu that appears. Click on that Last Skipped header to take a gander at the tunes you’ve skipped and the date and time you last skipped them. This hints that these tracks may be among those that you don’t really care for and are therefore candidates for culling. Control (right) click on that same column, choose Skips in the menu that appears, and then click on that Skips column and you’ll see how many times you’ve skipped a particular track. This provides even more compelling data on which tracks you can delete without regret.”
Check out the full article for all the tips and be sure to read the comments as well. Quite a few interesting and helpful hints provided from other iTunes users.
Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music both launched within a couple of weeks of each other. They join a number of well established and loved music streaming services such as Pandora, Rdio, Rhapsody, Last.FM and many more, with the supposed king of them all, Spotify (which is VERY good, by the way), still due “any day now”. So… what do the new kids on the cloud have to offer?
Amazon offers both a Cloud Drive and a Cloud Player. Cloud Drive is your hard drive, uploaded into the cloud (therefore backing up not just your mp3s, but other documents, also). The Cloud Player offers a place to store all new Amazon mp3 purchases, as well as access to your Cloud Drive. You can stream music on the go with the app for Android mobile phones or tablets. Cloud Drive offers all users 5Gb free storage, and, for a limited time, a free upgrade to 20 GB of Cloud Drive storage with an Amazon mp3 album purchase. Also, all new Amazon mp3 purchases saved to Cloud Drive do not count against your storage quota, essentially giving regular Amazon mp3 shoppers an ever-growing storage limit.
Google Music is still invite-only at the moment, but is essentially a similar idea – uploading of your current music files, and a place to easily add new purchases, that are then accessible from any Flash-equipped web browser, along with Android phones and tablets. Very similar indeed. The one big difference? You still need to purchase new music, and this will mainly point music consumers back to digital retail stores run by Amazon and/or Apple. The supposed reason for this hitch? Everyone’s favorite villains; the major labels. Wanting to much money up front apparently hindered Google’s ability to create a one-stop-shop, and has meant that the streaming launch is more of a stutter.
Worth noting is that both of these new players are iTunes friendly. They are not aggressively attacking the third big cheese, Apple, but instead recognize that millions of music fans already have playlists and organized folder based on 10 years of iTunes usage. To ignore this fact would be a foolish move, and making it easy and convenient for them to sync, swap, and move their music around is definitely the first step in taking a slice of the Apple pie (pun intended? Possibly.)
You seem to be web-savvy enough to be reading this blog, so I’m going to assume you’ve heard all the furor about The Beatles over the last 10 days. Yes, The Beatles have finally released their catalogue of music on iTunes, seemingly ending decades of feuds between Apple Corps (the company owning of much of the rights to The Beatles music) and Apple Inc. (Steve Jobs’ computer monster that originally signed a deal to never be involved in music.)
With all the delays in the ‘launch’ (the iTunes Store went live in 2003, and digital music has been around longer than many music consumers), I wondered if it was a case of too little, too late. Nielsen Soundscan released the figures yesterday, and in the first seven days, The Beatles sold over 2 million singles and more than 450,000 albums. Quite a lot. Well, kinda…..
I’m not a die-hard Beatles fan, but I own 4 of their albums on CD or 12″ vinyl. I’m not in a rush to go out and sweep up another 4 or 5 digitally, especially when Amazon played along and dropped the prices of all the remastered Beatles albums on CD to a competitive $7.99 each. I’m sure I’ll pick up another one or two at that price soon, but right now I have been sidetracked by their Thanksgiving week sale, where they have slashed prices on various digital albums to just $1.99 each. So far I have picked up LPs from John Legend & The Roots, Gorillaz, Belle & Sebastian, KT Tunstall, Vampire Weekend and more.
Before this starts sounding too much like a promotion for Amazon, my point is this… Album pricing needs to be drastically adjusted. At $1.99 I am (and many others are, i’m sure) sweeping them up: exploring new sounds, current trends and past hits of unknown artists. Discovering new music and taking a ‘risk’ is fun and easy. Yet, I don’t know if the industry can sustain at that price point (at least, not with major labels and their costs involved.) Eight bucks for a CD? I’m still going to have to choose wisely, and just pick up one or two a month that are dead certain. I’m not risking too much – too many memories of being burnt by terrible LPs from the 90s
$12.99 for a digital album that isn’t full WAV or FLAC quality, and I may have bought in previous formats over the last 20 years, and could potentially rip a better quality recording from… I’ll pass every time. If convenience is king (and, it is), it is not convenient for me to spend 52 bucks to ‘replace’ my Beatles collection with inferior quality audio, years after I bought the CD/vinyl.
Correcting this price point could inspire a whole new generation to buy a collection of Beatles albums. I’m not saying that younger music listeners aren’t into them now, but chances are they ripped a copy of Sgt Pepper about 10 years ago. This year, there have been two much more headline worthy releases – Taylor Swift sold a whopping 1 million albums in the first week with her latest release, and Eminem topped off a $60m tour with another million sales of his ‘Recovery’ LP – going platinum in just two weeks.
With all the hype for the Beatles, and all the things this could have been, I feel it is much ado about nothing. And so… Apple (Inc. and Corps), if you halved the price per unit and sold twice as many units, would that have been a bad move?
So, it seems that Apple spent a ton of money on Lala only to close it down 5 months later.
This past weekend, Lala users received a notification email and this notice was posted on the music streaming website. Current users will be able to use the service until May 31st, after which any credits or balances will be transferred to the iTunes store. They also announce to Lala members that “In appreciation of your support, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple’s iTunes Store.” This will also be the last chance to hear our Music Jobs Lala playlist, ‘Rockin into 2010‘, so go check it out now.
I have no doubt that Apple will use some of the Lala technology to create an iTunes streaming service – music ‘in the cloud’ is where it’s at these days. While no official announcement has been made from Apple in this respect, reports and predictions have been flying around since the buyout, and the computer/music giant have their finger on the pulse enough to recognise the trends that have occurred in recent times.
It is a shame that another quality streaming service has to go (Imeem shut their doors after the Myspace acquisition), but hopefully there will be something good come of all this, rather than the usual bullish business moves and subsequent dumbing down of a great service.
The current state of Haiti is horrible. Millions of people, terrible conditions, and much needed long-term help. As a result, MTV put together a telethon packed with celebrities and musicians in order to help raise money for relief efforts in Haiti. Several major broadcast networks and cable channels aired MTV Networks’ “Hope for Haiti“, an all-star telethon for Haitian earthquake relief, on Jan. 22.
The telethon was presented by different hosts in different cities – Wyclef Jean (Haiti native) in New York, George Clooney in Los Angeles, and Anderson Cooper directly from Haiti. All proceeds from the show go to Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti Foundation, as well as UNICEF, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, and the Red Cross.
Some people tend to get annoyed by the “Bono” type musicians trying to save this and save that, but I disagree with those people. Musicians and celebrities have gained stardom, and with that stardom the attention of millions of people. They are creating awareness about topics, places, and efforts that need our attention. They are actually doing some real good and attempting to help make this world a better place. What’s wrong with that? If more people sought out those opportunities or made helping others a part of their lives, this world would be a much better place – for everyone.
I applaud these celebrities and musicians who are taking part in this telethon, for finding a positive way they can contribute to the relief fund in Haiti.
Check out a video from the event, of Bono and Jay-Z’s Haiti Single “Stranded”…
To review on the “Hope For Haiti” telethon, which aired last week – it was a phenomenal success. The music choices were pretty cool – I got to see a good portion of the performances. I also found it quite impressive that the stars of the telethon were also on the phones. I was not expecting that. I thought that it was a great idea and an additional incentive to get people to call in and donate. Call and speak with Steven Spielberg, Stevie Wonder, or Taylor Swift – heck yeah, where’s the number! I applaud the stars for getting in the trenches a bit more, in addition to their performances. I started watching it with Madonna singing “Like A Prayer” (a personal favorite). In a few of the blogs that I subscribe to, they have had quite the discussion about whether her performance was lip synched or not.
The collaboration between Jay-Z, Rihanna, Bono, etc. – was jam packed with stars. Their performance is currently the most downloaded song from the event on iTunes. I also thoroughly enjoyed Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris’ rendition of “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. Beautiful song, beautiful performance, and so fitting.
Overall, the telethon was entertaining and it raised a lot of help for Haiti.
According to Rolling Stone, the event raised over $61 million dollars to help the destruction and devastation that has occurred throughout Haiti. Also, the organizers of the telethon will continue to collect donations for the next 6 months!
In addition, you can also download the entire live performance on iTunes, as well as purchase the album of all of the live performances from the telethon. Check out http://www.cmt.com/haiti for links to all available music and videos, and a variety of online stores to purchase from. Again, all of the proceeds, that’s 100%, go to relief efforts in Haiti. Hopefully over the next 6 months a lot more donations keep coming in.
I’ve always liked Apple. They may not have invented digital music, or the portable digital player, but they fine-tuned them and distributed them to mass markets to perfection. More music is being heard by more people in more places than ever before, and for that, we should be grateful. (Figuring out how to strategize and monetize these new markets is a different matter.)
It seems that iTunes has ruled the mp3 generation, but times and trends are moving ever faster, and there’s now a whole new generation of consumers that may never even own an mp3. Streaming is big business these days. Enter Lala, one of several successful (read: popular but not entirely profitable (yet?)) online music streaming services that has established itself with the non-owning and mobile music markets. Being able to listen to music through a web browser is something that gives music fans greater freedom, and access to their collection from any computer, smart phone or other mobile device, and is something that Apple lacks within iTunes.
Apple may well be looking at using the Lala team and functionality to enter into the streaming market, and with the way they have revolutionized similar parts of the music industry, who knows what may be in store.
One thing I hope Apple does figure out, is if they are paying $17m or $80m+ for Lala assets. Either way, it is a lot of money for a service that has et to find a profitable business model. Moving from CD-swapping to a (comparative to Pandora and Spotify) complicated streaming system has proved difficult, and investor Warner Music wrote down $11 million of the original $20 million it put down.
Lala had recently struck deals with both Google and Facebook, hoping to widen it’s user base with new search traffic and gift options. Apparently Google was also looking at acquiring Lala, and having narrowly missed out they may try and pursue other deals in the near future. Finding a way to tie it’s music search division in with either a download or freemium/ ad-funded streaming service seems inevitable, and well within Google’s scope. In fact, there have been several similar deals in recent months. Imeem was bought by Myspace, whom also previously acquired iLike.
Although Apple’s future movements may not be yet announced, I am certain they will continue to push the digital music industry forward (and outwards) with their services and reach new listeners across the globe.
For many members searching for jobs in the music industry, each little bit of income helps, and streaming seemed to offer hope of another revenue source to help make a living from music. However, Spotify, the streaming application that is immensely popular in Europe (and due to launch in the US soon, has come under fire along with the performing rights societies about the minuscule amount that artists actually receive.
Hypebot recently reported that Spotify paid Lady Gaga just $167 For 1M Plays: Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” was one of the most popular tracks for 5 months on Spotify; being played more than 1 million times. But according to reports this weekend, the Swedish Performing Rights Society only paid her $167. If true, it confirms other complaints from other artists like those of Swedish musican Magnus Uggla who pulled his music off Spotify declaring, “I’d prefer to be raped by Pirate Bay than played on Spotify”.
When an artist starts out with earning no income from their music, they are quite happy to give it away for the exposure it may create. Obviously it is easier for a small band to offer a free mp3 and say “we may have lost a potential $1000 in order to gain some new fans”, than it would be for Universal to do it with a Lady Gaga single and consider losing (potentially) a lot more.
However, the idea of exposure still remains. Streaming can be a way for people to try out new artists without committing to a $15 album (of which, Universal made many, many terrible ones). There are already reports saying that streaming is drawing consumers away from P2P sites, and with the Pirate Bay trial and Joel Tenebaum ruling gaining so much press this year, some users will be scared off using such sites in the future. The Pandoras, Spotifys and LastFMs of the new music industry are an essential part of artist promotion in my opinion, and so I would consider pulling your music away from them is a foolish move.
As there is no way to measure the direct income derived from a person who streams two tracks, then goes to buy them from iTunes, and then pays $40 to see the artist in concert, it can be hard to judge.
I would stick my neck out and say that it helps though.
We’d love to hear your response on this – comments around the Music Jobs office range from outrage at the royalty rates for artists to “that’s about $166 too much”! Feel free to comment below.
The music streaming app that is currently taking the UK and Europe by storm is looking to set-up in the US in the very near future. (This may well help create music industry jobs in the USA, so keep checking the Jobs Board!)
Founded by two Swedish entrepreneurs, Spotify has over six million tracks available to stream, and gives users the ability to create, save and share playlists, offering greater interaction and discovery. They are working with US music publishers and labels to evolve a deal to enable them to offer the same service here. Having dealt with many of the key companies regarding European licenses, it’s a very real possibility that they will be operating here soon.
The relatively new start-up (October ’08) is hoping to launch it’s desktop application in the US by the end of this year. However, even greater potential could be reached if they are approved as an iPhone app. The issue there? It could be so good as to make Apple’s iTunes virtually redundant to millions of music consumers.
Spotify derives revenue from a number of audio commercials during playback (current EU advertisers include Nike, Ikea, H&M and more), or a monthly fee for a premium service with no commercials, greater audio quality and extra premium-only content. The monthly fee is currently £9.99 in the UK (approx $15), and word is that the mobile app would only be available to those who subscribe to this.
People are becoming excited about the possibility of a real contender to iTunes, and as a fan of aiding music discovery, I really hope that Spotify will push forward with the licensing deals. They provide a great service, and user word-of-mouth will ensure a global success.
Well, it’s always been on the cards, but the biggest news of the week is that Apple have finally been able to make iTunes tracks available without the Digital Rights Management that was essentially ‘watermarked’ into all previous tracks.
So you can now buy a tune from iTunes and play it on Microsoft’s Zune player or similar by SanDisk. It really took us until 2009 to get to that stage? The major labels and countless independents have been selling DRM-free tracks via Amazon for about a year, so why did they hold out on Apple?
Steve Jobs announced that EMI were willing to drop DRM back in 2007, but the rest of the majors (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment) have held out for some unknown reason. Actually, the reason is know; it’s because majors have no idea how to move forward in this music evolution. They were unwilling to hand over DRM-free copies to iTunes because of the scale of it’s sales, fearing a loss of control and rampant, escalating piracy. They struggle to keep hold of things like DRM so that people don’t ‘steal their money’.
Here’s a thought. Will Apple’s news make much difference? The people who already buy millions of tracks from iTunes are doing so (mostly) happily and playing them on their millions of iPods and iPhones. As far as they know (or care), DRM has never been an issue. People who have wanted to download DRM-free music for their non-Apple devices have been able to find it fairly easily. Will these settled buyers bother to jump ship? Especially with the new price rises too (more on that later). The infamous Bob Lefsetz thinks the news is very much a non-issue, saying that “the only people who care about DRM don’t pay for music, they just steal it. Otherwise, Amazon would have eclipsed Apple and the Seattle company would own the online music market”.
