Search Results for: Radiohead

Troubled British singer Amy Winehouse is the perfect poster girl for the current state of the music industry. Music isn’t her problem. Everything else is. That’s exactly the same situation that the music industry – faced with lagging sales, a lack of star power and defection from its biggest moneymakers – finds itself in these days. And when the music industry has problems, the Grammys – celebrating their 50th anniversary Sunday – do as well. Winehouse and her stunning R&B revivalist debut “Back to Black” (Universal Republic) are up for six awards; she’s the only artist nominated in all four… Read more »

Lily Vasquez, a marketing manager from Clifton, New Jersey, spent nearly eight years trying to break into the music business as a singer before she stumbled across SellaBand.com. The Web site is one of several where artists can have their albums funded by fans — a proposition that takes advantage of digital technology, online social networking and the current uncertainty in the established music industry. The sites are reinventing the relationship between artists and their fans, upsetting the traditional role of the record label as the tastemaker, promoter and distributor of music. “I didn’t really understand the site when I… Read more »

Lily Vasquez, a marketing manager from Clifton, New Jersey, spent nearly eight years trying to break into the music business as a singer before she stumbled across SellaBand.com. The Web site is one of several where artists can have their albums funded by fans — a proposition that takes advantage of digital technology, online social networking and the current uncertainty in the established music industry. The sites are reinventing the relationship between artists and their fans, upsetting the traditional role of the record label as the tastemaker, promoter and distributor of music. “I didn’t really understand the site when I… Read more »

Coachella’s indie roots will be watered down with classic rock this year. Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters has been tapped for the festival’s closing slot, performing the band’s 1973 opus, Dark Side of the Moon, in its entirety, organizers announced. The full lineup for the 2008 edition of the music festival was revealed Monday at a news conference in Mexico, with mellow rocker Jack Johnson and trip-hop trio Portishead set to hold down the other two headlining slots. Other highlights at this year’s Coachella include Kraftwerk, the Breeders, the Verve, Death Cab for Cutie, My Morning Jacket, Rilo Kiley, the… Read more »

In a dramatic demonstration of the economic toll of digital piracy on the music industry, EMI Group is expected to fire more than a quarter of the London-based company’s employees and radically alter the way it does business to further cut costs. Guy Hands, who was installed as chief executive of the world’s fourth-largest record company after it was bought last year by investment company Terra Firma, is expected to announce cuts of at least 1,500 employees today as part of a major restructuring, two EMI executives said. EMI also will become the first major label to eliminate the large… Read more »

After 2006 — a year when virtually no one managed to launch a digital music service in competition with Apple’s dominant iTunes — 2007 was a refreshing change of pace. Several fresh faces emerged onto the digital music scene this year, buoyed in part by record companies’ newfound willingness to experiment with different business models, but also by the departure of several high-profile competitors. By far the most visible service to throw in the towel this year was MTV’s Urge; now, a new entity called Rhapsody America joins Rhapsody’s technology with MTV’s editorial and music curation staff. Sony began the… Read more »

Music management groups representing some of Britain’s biggest acts are seeking a share of the proceeds from concert tickets re-sold over the Internet on Web sites like eBay, Viagogo and Seat Exchange. But they are likely to face stiff resistance from the sites, one of which has argued that such a levy would effectively mean paying an artist twice for the same ticket. Management organizations behind more than 400 performers, including Robbie Williams, the Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead, aim to unite the live music industry in a new Resale Rights Society that would license the unregulated secondary ticket market. Tickets… Read more »

Amazon today launched a public beta of “Amazon MP3”, a new digital music download store with a huge selection of a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads. Amazon MP3 has over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels. Every song and album on Amazon MP3 is available exclusively in the MP3 format without DRM software. This means that Amazon MP3 customers are free to enjoy their music downloads using any hardware device, including PCs, Macs, iPods, Zunes, Zens, iPhones, RAZRs and BlackBerrys; organize their music using any music management application such… Read more »

Now that the three young women in Candy Hill, a glossy rap and R&B trio, have signed a record contract, they are hoping for stardom. On the schedule: shooting a music video and visiting radio stations to talk up their music. But the women do not have a CD to promote. Universal/Republic Records, their label, signed Candy Hill to record two songs, not a complete album. “If we get two songs out, we get a shot,” said Vatana Shaw, 20, who formed the trio four years ago, “Only true fans are buying full albums. Most people don’t really do that… Read more »

Every day, the roughly one million people who visit the iTunes Store home page are presented with several dozen albums, TV shows and movie downloads to consider buying — out of the four million such goods the Apple site offers. This prime promotion is analogous to a CD being displayed at the checkout stands of all 940 Best Buy stores or featured on the front page of Target’s ad circular. How do bands get these boosts? Who decides whether Arcade Fire is plugged at the top of the iTunes site — or whether Nickelback gets no mention? Apple has jettisoned… Read more »