Search Results for: Record Store Day

New York – Digital music sales notched a third consecutive record-breaking week in the period ended Jan. 2, thanks to the ripple effect from a Christmas-inspired sales surge of MP3 players and download gift cards. Digital track volume spiked by 1.6 million transactions last week, making a seven-day total of 6.7 million downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The jump marks an all-time high for download sales in a single week, breaking the benchmark of 5.04 million in the week ending Dec. 26. This marks the first time in the history of the Billboard Hot Digital Tracks chart that download sales… Read more »

New York – “eMOTIVe,” the new album from Virgin Records recording group A Perfect Circle, was greeted with spectacular one-day sales upon its Tuesday arrival in stores. The collection, which sees APC reimagining radical rock classics for a new generation, is the week’s #1 album on iTunes. In addition, “eMOTIVe” is expected to debut as the top-selling rock record on next week’s Soundscan charts. The album’s first single, a twisted take on John Lennon’s “Imagine,” is lighting up the switchboards at rock radio outlets coast to coast. The song is quickly bulleting up the chart at both Active Rock and… Read more »

Major and independent record labels today announced the first-ever retail availability of the much anticipated DualDisc – a two-sided disc made up of a CD player side and a DVD player side. A broad range of titles have begun to hit retail shelves in the first wave of products that will continue throughout the holiday season and into next year with releases from EMI Music, Silverline Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group. DualDisc is a new music product that combines audio and video content on a single disc. In addition to a full album… Read more »

Green Day leads the roster of rock and rap artists contributing music to Madden 2005, the latest in the series of football video games bearing the name of legendary announcer John Madden. The title track from Green Day’s forthcoming album, American Idiot, will appear on the game even before it reaches radio stations or record stores, while other artists contributing tracks from current albums include Franz Ferdinand, Hoobastank, the Hives, Chevelle and New Found Glory. Madden 2005 arrives on August 17. Green Day’s new album, American Idiot, is set for release on September 21. Hard rockers Earshot contribute their own… Read more »

With the music industry looking to cut costs amid lower profit margins, record companies see fewer incentives to investing in artist-run label projects. Twelve years ago, Madonna decided to apply the business instincts that made her a superstar toward finding and developing new acts for her own music label. Maverick Records flourished early on. It generated hits by the likes of Alanis Morissette and Prodigy, validating the decision by Warner Music to form a partnership with its biggest star. But Maverick’s good fortunes started to turn during the industrywide sales slump that began in 2000. The label-parent relationship soured, landing… Read more »

In its first year, Apple Computer Inc.’s online music store has sold more than 70 million songs and the computer maker is offering a free song to customers for the next eight days to mark the store’s anniversary, the company said Wednesday. Apple, maker of the Macintosh computer and the wildly popular iPod digital music players, also upgraded its iTunes digital jukebox software with new features such as “iMix,” which lets customers publish their playlists on the iTunes online music store which other customers can then purchase. “We’re very, very excited about the results from the first year,” Steve Jobs,… Read more »

Tower Records Inc. is singing a new tune: Chapter 11. The music and entertainment chain on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, burdened by too much debt and hammered by competition from large retailers, and Internet music downloading and piracy. The bankruptcy filings for Tower and its privately held parent, MTS Inc., cap a long period of distress for the money-losing chain of 93 stores, which sources say was unable to find a suitable buyer. MTS, based in West Sacramento, California, said its 3,100 employees, vendors and in-store and online customers will not notice operating changes because of the… Read more »

Serious record collectors generally do not flip through the CDs and DVDs at Wal-Mart, Best Buy or Target. The music departments in those stores are mainly known for offering a narrow selection of chart toppers. But increasingly mass merchandisers and electronics retailers have become the place to go for music that cannot be found anywhere else. That is because many big-name artists with new releases to promote do not just turn to their labels, they also strike exclusive deals with major retailers. In this holiday shopping season, for example, an extended version of Rod Stewart’s new CD, “As Time Goes… Read more »

Online music piracy isn’t likely to vanish soon, but the rise of paid online services and the growing popularity of portable digital music players portends greater demand for digital music next year and better fortunes for the embattled recording industry, music executives said Monday. Taking a mostly positive outlook on an industry racked by a three-year slide in CD sales, executives for recording companies and Internet music retailers told hundreds at the Music 2.0 conference in Universal City that online music sales should take off in 2004. “What we see is an explosion of interest in this space. It’s a… Read more »

The Network might call itself a new band, but exactly how green is this masked group? On September 30, a mysterious five-piece group called the Network, a band “brought together by an ancient prophecy,” released its debut album, Money Money 2020, on the indie label Adeline Records. Now, Internet sleuths believe they’ve sniffed out the true identity of the Network, and all clues point to Green Day. Or so they think. First off, there’s no arguing the Network sounds like a new-wave version of Green Day, with such tunes as “Spastic Society,” “Supermodel Robots” and “Right Hand-A-Rama.” Plus, the band’s… Read more »