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Clear Channel Reports $5 Billion Loss : MusicRow

Believe that one and let me unload some shares of GM stocks on you today — for $500 a pop.

So lies a big difference in the rock, pop and Top 40 Country world compared to the stars of bluegrass. Indeed, you can walk right up to Dr. Ralph Stanley’s CD table at a festival, buy his latest release and have him sign it. Or, if you just happen to already have a copy that you didn’t buy at Doctor Ralph’s table full of goodies, no matter — the iconic Ralph Stanley will still oblige you with an autograph.

In a February online survey undertaken by the International Bluegrass Music Association, many respondents — 31 percent –said they most often purchase their recordings that way, directly from the artist or record label. That was topped only by the 42 percent of respondents who said the bought their CDs online from Web sites. Just over 13 percent buy their CDs in the mass retail market while another 10.5 percent get their recorded music products via direct mail.

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Bluegrass fans put spin on CD-buying habits | BluegrassJournal.com

Eminem’s former production team, F.B.T. Productions, sued Universal over the issue in 2007. The brothers behind F.B.T. claimed that, when Universal provided music to stores like iTunes, it was actually “licensing” the tunes to another distributor rather than distributing them itself.

The distinction makes a huge difference in the royalty rate: Eminem received a 12 percent royalty on CDs, which Universal distributed, but a 50 percent royalty whenever the music was “licensed.”

read entire article:
Eminem producers lose bid for massive iTunes royalties – Ars Technica

Are iPods changing our perception of music? Are the sounds of MP3s the music we like to hear most?

Jonathan Berger, professor of music at Stanford, was on a panel with me at a meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Mountain View, CA on Saturday. Berger’s presentation had a slide titled: “Live, Memorex or MP3.” He mentioned that Thomas Edison promoted his phonograph by demonstrating that a person could not tell whether behind a curtain was an opera singer or one of Edison’s cylinders playing a recording of the singer. More recently, the famous Memorex ad challenged us to determine whether it was a live performance of Ella Fitzgerald or a recorded one.

Berger then said that he tests his incoming students each year in a similar way. He has them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality. He described the results with some disappointment and frustration, as a music lover might, that each year the preference for music in MP3 format rises. In other words, students prefer the quality of that kind of sound over the sound of music of much higher quality. He said that they seemed to prefer “sizzle sounds” that MP3s bring to music. It is a sound they are familiar with.

I remember wondering what audiophiles were up to, buying extremely expensive home audio systems to play old vinyl records. They put turntables in sand-filled enclosures with elaborate cabling schemes. I wondered what they heard in that music that I didn’t. Someone explained to me that audiophiles liked the sound artifacts of vinyl records — the crackles of that format. It was familiar and comfortable to them, and maybe those affects became a fetish. Is it now becoming the same with iPod lovers?

Our perception changes and we become attuned to what we like — some like the sizzle and others like the crackle. I wonder if this isn’t also something akin to thinking that hot dogs taste better at the ball park. The hot dog is identical to what you’d buy at a grocery store and there aren’t many restaurants that serve hot dogs. A hot dog is not that special, except in the right setting. The context changes our perception, particularly when it’s so obviously and immediately shared by others. Listening to music on your iPod is not about the sound quality of the music, and it’s more than the convenience of listening to music on the move. It’s that so many people are doing it, and you are in the middle of all this, and all of that colors your perception. All that sizzle is a cultural artifact and a tie that binds us. It’s mostly invisible to us but it is something future generations looking back might find curious because these preferences won’t be obvious to them.

On a related note, a friend commented recently that she doesn’t understand why people put up with such poor sound quality for phone calls on cell phones, and particularly iPhones. “I can hardly hear the person talking to me,” she said. “I don’t think smart phones are making any improvement to the quality of the phone call,” she added. “Is it not important anymore?” She wondered why people accepted such poor quality, and so did Jonathan Berger, but a lot of people just don’t hear it the same way.

Compact Disc was born in 1982 in Germany, after some years of gestation in the Netherlands. It first appeared in retail form in the form of Billy Joel’s 52nd Street on Oct. 1, 1982.

CD led a long, expensive and uproarious, if sometimes quarrelsome, life. It was never happier than when accidentally dropped on a hardwood or tile floor. It was then eager to make a disheartening noise upon striking the floor and springing open, scattering all its many pieces across the floor.

The cause of death of Compact Disc was said to be irrelevance. Symptoms of that lingering malady had become more noticeable of late. No memorial services are planned at this time.

Entire Article:
CMT : News : NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Death of CD Confirmed

The Nashville Potato Guns recording their upcoming release… wow!  Wait till you hear these guys!

“Even if the industry doesn’t do all that well going forward, we could really carve this out to be a nice profitable niche,” said Bill Gagnon, a senior vice president at EMI Catalog Marketing, who is in charge of vinyl releases. He said that people who buy vinyl nowadays are charmed by the format’s earthy authenticity.

Link to Article:

Digg – Another Spin for Vinyl Records

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Album-loving artists blame iTunes for changed music tastes

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CD Turns 26 and It Still Won’t Die | Maximum PC