Executive Remix

Check out this clip spoofing the A&R remix process. It's pretty much the same scheme for producers. Most of this is sad but true, although I'd say it would take more than just a FEW calls and e-mails to get paid. Welcome to the biz, kidees!

Props to Mikey for the link.

How to Rob a Hipster

Saw this on Nah Right today and figured I needed to post it since a. it's a 50 cover and b. The Knux are name-checked. Clever and funny stuff from Big City Philadelphia. Some guys mentioned may not think so though... A little dose of humor is good.

Record Label- The Game

Check out this link for a funny satire on the company that brought you Rock Band's new video game, Record Label.

iTunes Subscriptions?

I don't have any specific inside information on this unfortunately, but this story has some interesting information about the digital future of the music industry.
As I posted below, I am a firm believer in the subscription based model as the plausible solution for the music industry. While an iTunes based hard-drive iPod model, in my opinion, is not the final frontier, it's a big step in the right direction. Hopefully, Doug and Steve can see eye to eye on this one and make a deal.

Cuban Says: Season of Music

Check out this link to Mark Cuban's blog (I didn't know he had one either) posting about his take on the music industry. Cuban suggests that there is strong evidence that folks are willing to buy digital singles, but not albums (physical or otherwise), because it's easier to stomach spending $.99 a pop, and that if an artist released music over a "season", like a television series, people would get interested in stringing the purchases out over time. While I agree that it's certainly easier to get consumers to pay $.99 a song rather than shell out $13+ for a whole album, Cuban is missing a key fact. The songs that people are purchasing in high volume at $.99/song are hits. If it was so easy to record and produce and market and promote a string of bona-fide hits, his suggestion might make some sense. In fact, Cuban points to Flo Rida's "Low" as the illustrative example. Yeah, #1 record, tons of sales. But how much money does a label have to spend to make a hit? And, how many artists are signed that the same amount is spent on that don't have hits and thus can't sell- singles or otherwise. Unfortunately, that's why I think Cuban's argument fails. But I like the fact that someone is thinking differently, because the way we are thinking now obviously isn't working at all.

UPDATE: Here is a response to this article from Steve Guttenberg hoping that the creativity of the album as an artform is presrved.

Death & Taxes

Check out this article from Tech Crunch writer Michael Arrington on the criticism of the idea of a "music tax".
While I don't agree with Arrington's belief that music should become entirely free and that artist's future income should depend on live performances (What if the artist doesn't want to tour? Who is going to pay to have these albums recorded and created?), I do agree that a ISP tax is not the answer.
Getting people to pay to have all of the music all of the time is the right philosophy. But their method of getting the music needs to be completely changed. If the music industry does this right, the concept of owning music will be dead. Forget a cd, no reason for a hard-drive full of music files, not even an mp3 player will be necessary. All of our industry's efforts should be placed on creating a service of convenience.
If everyone has the option to either spend their valuable time downloading, file sharing, organizing, burning, etc. to get music for free or to cut out all of that and hear whatever they want whenever they want on a new (read: not yet created) portable and multi-use device (goes in car, home, on-the-go) through a service, I believe that they will pay for that convenience. A global streaming jukebox, with an incredible interface, videos, suggestions, playlists, you name it.
Now, I understand that this isn't an easy overnight thing. The wireless networks (except actual Wi-Fi) are not advanced enough to carry this bandwidth yet. But the newer generations are faster and faster, and this capability will come. And I hope that this SERVICE (and whatever device that Apple or someone else creates to carry it) will come along with it, sooner than later.
Until then, this is certainly the winter of the music industry's discontent.