Search Results for: Record Store Day

Even when adopting the most drastic measures, record labels seem helpless to prevent albums from surfacing online before their release dates. So now one label is taking the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach. Four months before the debut album by New York trio the Secret Machines hits stores, Reprise Records, a Warner Bros. subsidiary, is making it available for sale online. In a campaign tied to Reprise’s online marketing campaign, the label is trying to make sure fans have a legal way of acquiring new music they hear about on the Internet. “[When] there’s no legal alternative,… Read more »

Downloading music online from rogue file-sharing networks got 14-year-old Annie Leith sued for thousands of dollars. Now it has landed her a leading spot on a national ad that will debut during the Super Bowl. Leith and her 17-year-old sister downloaded 960 songs over a three-year period using the popular Kazaa program. But the free music binge got Leith ensnared in the legal dragnet cast by the Recording Industry Association of America in September. “We didn’t know it was illegal,” the New York City high school freshman said Friday. The lawsuit was ultimately settled for $3,000. But Leith couldn’t pass… Read more »

On Jan. 6, San Francisco’s Moscone convention center pulses with all the energy of a rock concert. A crowd sprinkled with hip-hop teenagers, digerati, and aging hippies streams in to hear the annual state-of-the-Mac keynote from Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive Steven P. Jobs. Every facet of the event bears the fingerprints of the obsessive Jobs – right down to the music that fills the air. This year, it’s the King himself, Elvis Presley. Later, Jobs rolls the tape of Apple’s famous “1984” ad that ran on Super Bowl Sunday that year – and hasn’t been broadcast since. Only this… Read more »

Aerosmith has announced a 40-city North American tour in support of their 14th studio album, Honkin’ On Bobo. Scheduled to kick off in the US in March 2004, the tour will hit cities in both the US and Canada through June. Clear Channel Entertainment, the world’s leading promoter and marketer of live entertainment, will promote and produce the tour. Cheap Trick has been announced as the tour’s special guest. Universally renowned as America’s premiere rock band, Aerosmith’s tour promises to be nothing short of spectacular with the band performing classic hits from their 30 year career, as well as new… Read more »

Apple announced today that over two million iPods have been sold since its introduction, solidifying its position as the number one digital music player in the world. Apple also announced the immediate availability of a new 15GB model offering customers 50 percent more storage for just $299 (US). All iPods work seamlessly with the award-winning iTunes(R) digital music jukebox software and the pioneering iTunes Music Store, which has sold over 30 million songs, providing music fans with the best digital music experience on either a Mac(R) or Windows computer. “With over two million sold, iPod is unquestionably the leading digital… Read more »

The Rolling Stones’ performance at the “SARSfest” extravaganza in Toronto last July will be released on DVD next spring. The Stones’ tour manager, Michael Cohl, told the Toronto Sun that all 13 performers at the July 30 Downsview Park concert were recorded and should be included in the DVD, but it’s not known if the entire concert will be released. “We’re hoping by April or May to have it out,” Cohl said. The daylong concert, which was designed to boost Toronto’s sagging economy in the wake of the deaths caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), attracted some 450,000 people… Read more »

The future of the music industry is being held, quite literally, in the palm of a twentysomething’s hand. Not the “business” side of the music industry – you know, the folks you’ve perhaps heard weeping into their bowls of caviar over the 31 percent decrease in album sales over the course of the past year, a downturn the suits pin on the advent of digital music downloading and CD burning. No, the “art” side of music business is being forceably changed. Artists are either coming to terms with changes in the ways their music is distributed – or doggedly railing… Read more »

The great digital music giveaway is about to begin. In the new year, some of the world’s biggest brands will promote their products and services by doling out millions of free downloads through alliances with digital music services. “You’re going to see lots of free music given out via third-party companies,” buymusic.com founder Scott Blum says. “It’s not going to be Apple and iTunes driving the business. It’s going to be companies like Pepsi and other third parties that are promoting digital music on bottle caps and on labels.” Indeed, Apple Computer has inked a deal with Pepsi to give… Read more »

The music industry’s traditional packaged-goods retail business may be continuing its long decline, but the sale of downloadable tunes is hot and getting hotter. On December 16, Apple Computer announced that it has sold more than 25 million songs through its iTunes Music Store since its inception four months ago. The Cupertino, CA-based technology pioneer is now selling about 222,000 individual songs per day, at 99 ¢ each, a volume more than three times the 70,000 per day the company was selling in September, when the iTunes service was available only to Apple users. In October, the service was expanded… Read more »

Child molestation charges against Michael Jackson are being driven by “money and revenge,” said defense attorney Mark Geragos, who vowed to derail the alleged victim’s credibility and fight what he called a prosecutor’s vendetta. For District Attorney Thomas Sneddon, whose similar 1993 case against the pop singer evaporated when the accuser reportedly accepted millions in settlement money, the charges filed Thursday represent a second chance to convict the fading pop star before the prosecutor begins his planned retirement. Unlike the 1993 case, Sneddon says, this time he has a cooperative witness who isn’t interested in a piece of Jackson’s fortune.… Read more »