“Classical music fits badly into the Walkman world, and even worse into the iPod world. For one thing, the technology doesn’t suit it very well. Try listening to an opera on an iPod, and you’ll discover the software puts a gap between tracks, which is pretty annoying if you’re trying to enjoy the dramatic flow … Continue reading “Why The iPod Fails At Classical Music”
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s efforts to create a third national radio network aimed at young people and playing the hottest new music seemed to wither on the vine before it even began, but after several years and countless reimaginings (none of which included actual radio broadcasts,) the so-called “Radio 3” seems ready to take off … Continue reading “Brave New Waves”
“Internet users in the U.S. downloaded 158 million individual songs from services like Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes during the first half of the year, compared with 55 million in the year-ago period, SoundScan said. U.S. album sales, including downloads, fell 2.5 percent to 301.2 million units in the first half from 309 million a year … Continue reading “Music Sales Down, Downloads Triple”
Clive Gillinson Leaves a successful London Symphony behind. “First among British orchestras, it set up a New York office and a residency at Lincoln Center. Its record label, LSO Live, sells tracks on iTunes. Gillinson slashed concert tickets to a fiver with a view to attracting younger listeners and urged players to get a life … Continue reading “London Symphony At A Crossroads”
Sony says it wants to create an “iTunes for movies.” “Films will be put onto flash memory for mobiles over the next year. Movie studios are keen to stop illegal file-sharing on peer-to-peer nets and cash in on digital the download market. Movie piracy cost the industry £3.7bn ($7bn) in 2003, according to analysts.”
A Canadian professor has an idea he thinks would breathe new life into the music business. He “proposes putting all recorded music on a robust search engine — Google would be an ideal choice, but even iTunes might work — and charging an insignificant fee of, say, five cents a song. In addition, a 1 … Continue reading “Music For All! (And Profits Too)”
“This week the South Huntington Public Library on Long Island, New York, became one of the first public libraries in the country to loan out iPod shuffles. For the past three weeks, the library ran a pilot program using the portable MP3 devices to store audio books downloaded from the Apple iTunes Music Store. They … Continue reading “For Some Real Fun, Try Putting Ulysses On ‘Shuffle’”
Despite all the music industry’s moaning about the coming apocalypse of illegal downloading, CD sales in the U.S. rose by 2.3% in 2004, and continue to dominate the music-buying marketplace, accounting for 98% of all music sales. UK sales were up 3%, and set an all-time record for albums sold. Legal downloading from sites such … Continue reading “So What Was All That Whining About?”
A new UK music website promises to “democratize” how music is distributed. “TuneTribe is offering unsigned artists and acts with existing record deals an 80% share of royalties instead of the traditional 15% offered by majors such as Sony and EMI. Bands can set the price for downloading their own music, with the benchmark set … Continue reading “A Website Where Musicians Get The Money”
4 million iPods have been sold this Christmas season, and cultural commentators have been falling all over themselves to define what the new era of portable digital music really, really means – you know, in, like, a really big, cosmic sense. Jim Walsh would like all the technogeeks and live music doomsayers to just settle … Continue reading “It’s Just A Jukebox, People!”
