Ok, ok, we went thru this a few times, but Rolling Stone comes down with some pretty good analysis of what is made off the sale of 5 different medias:

1/ Streamers services (as Spotify and Mog)
2/ Itunes
3/Youtube & Vevo
4/Internet Radios (as Pandora)
5/ CD (remember that small silverish plastic circle ? that's a CD, as in cee-dee)

Basically, CD were bringing home far more money for the labels and the artists (about 10 Euros for the label and +/- 3 Euros for artist + songwriter) , but the new Music Economics dictate differently now:
- streamers will pay roughly 0,002 Euros a stream to artists (labels does the same)
- Itunes takes its 30% share and gives the label 40 Euro Cents while the artist and the songwriter shares 21 Euro Cents
- Youtube pays 0,70 Euro Cents per 1000 viewings to the label who shares with the artist according to the contract (usually round 15% of gross sales)
- Internet radios are paying such a small amount of Euro Cents that i don't dare writing it down. Ok, it's 0,0007 Euro Cents a stream.

Now, we can all gather round and make a group hug and cry at how the music industry went down...

We often are talking about the 5th Beatles that never made it, the guy who was replaced the day prior to recording the songs that would put then english band so high in Pop Heaven, or we can talk about the french guitar player who was playing with The Police but left before Roxanne hit the charts, you know, the guy who was in a band before that band broke big and who's name is forgotten by us...

But in this case, we're talking about Syd Barrett, guitar player and songwriter within Pink Floyd with whom he collaborated on albums up to 1968's A Saucerful Of Secrets.
After that album, psychedelic drugs had taken the most of him and he was unable to perform live. Or to record. He would be defintively replaced by David Gilmour.
Syd, on his own, made two weird but splendid albums: The Madcap Laughs and Barrett. Syd was to die nearly anonymously in 2006.

Now, his estate have finally put together a superb book about Syd's writings, paintings and art. It's well worth looking at it.

more on the book: http://barrettbook.com/

We all know the industry has to face crumbling physical sales and digital ones don't quite make up to it, if only because people now buy more on a song-per-song basis than full albums. Some like to lament, some prefer to act. As Mister Valaire, a band from Quebec, is doing and their exemple is worth the attention.

Lost in the gigantic noise zone that is the internet, there's something like 5 million bands on the now as-good-as-dead Myspace, these fierce canadian musicians had an album out 2005 in (Mister Brian) which flopped with elegance but already proposed to the buyers an extra to the physical album with access to some digital content.
In 2007, weeks before Radiohead "pioneereed" the pay-as-you-want In Rainbow, Mister Valaire digitally released the "Friterday Night" album for free, under Creative Common licence, and the album soon reached 27.000 downloads about one year later. From the 27000th download onwards, the email adress was asked from the people downloading the album, providing a very valuable marketing angle. In 2009, the album reached 40.000 downloads, and Mister Valaire awarded itself a well-deserved Golden Hard Disk Trophy.

In 2009, their...

In these hard times for the music industry, one may wonder why there's not more boldness and audace as, after all, the greater the risk the bigger the reward can be...But no, what we see is less risks and more marketing plots.
Like this one: take a legendary band who had its moments way back in the old millenia, stir the medias, pump up how great they were, how successfull they have been and plan a few, a very few, dates. BINGO !

The Stone Roses, a proverbial UK band, has just done that. And the funny part is that they were already a nostalgia band with their sixties sound and the full Summer Of Love surrounding their works. Oh, they weren't bad, it's just that one may be surprised that their reunion gets to highs never seen before: tickets prices are rocketing and the band will make something like 19 millions $ for just three shows. More that they ever made, back when they were in their prime. Yes, nostalgia does sell more than new tunes !

http://www.spinner.com/2011/10/21/stone-roses-reunion-tickets-going-for-...

If you're a little bit serious about the music biz, or if you are "simply" a music lover, you cannot ignore the phenomenom that's Lady Gaga. In a few years, she has grown out of being a rather obscure indie musician to a planetary status of POP STAR, with no less that 25 millions album sales and 70 million singles sales plus a media coverage that's about permanent.

Now, we can ask ourselves how worthy she is, but we all know the charts align good artists or terrible but successful business coup without second thoughts, and the most flamboyant and creative artist can share the Top Ten with horrendous copycats, bad singers equipped with AutoTune or lavish singers who sell their physical assets more than their dubious songs. We cannot ignore the fact that the mass is often ill driven and it will buy a marvellous piece of music one week and fall down for a vicious marketing trick the week after.

So, what's the deal with Lady Gaga? This little video-clip "deconstructs" how she succeeds so well: simply put, everything is being taken care of. The songs are good more often than not, her looks are great and polarizing, the PR approach is intense but...

I was going thru Ebay the other day, and was absolutely amazed at the value some instruments obtain now, years after they're no longer available in the shops. Nor that it matters that their value goes up, but seeing how rare some have become conforted me that there are some great music instruments musems out there to preserve them, to show them, to express how music is an international language and can be produced with zillions of different instruments and obey (or not) to different codes and harmonies. Music is probably the most common language we all share on this blue planet and this need to be remembered.

Two museums jumps to mind: one in Phoenix (Arizona), large, with an incredible light, loaded with great instruments and with extensive possibilities of trying some of them yourself. Its mission, accomplished as it seems, is to gather instruments from all over the world and celebrate the ways differents cultures do different music.

The other one is here, in Brussels (it actually gave the idea to the Phoenix people): it's located in an amazing Art Nouveau building, and is much smaller, more mysterious and...

Many people were laughing out loud when Google threw in an hefty sum of money to buy Youtube a few years ago but I reckon we may see the end of that smile as we do think this is going to be major.

In a few weeks, Youtube partners will be able to sell merchandising (in a word: anything related to your band or your label or music related business) on Youtube and this option opens up for indie labels or artists as well as Amazon and alike. Now, studies have shown that 3 billions (and we mean BILLIONS) videos are watched everyday on Youtube and 127 millions viewers are passing thru the site daily. That's a LOT of consumers waiting for nothing but a simple button allowing to buy the song they just watched, a concert ticket, or a tshirt, or a DVD or a cap or any other goodies the sellers can throw at them...

Just to give an idea, people watching videos on Facebook are only about a third of that...Can't wait for Google + to integrate the Youtube merch shops directly and see Youtube becoming a major sources for revenues...It's been a long time for Youtube to come up with a business model other than simple ads, but now the time has come...

the news by Youtube...

Merely novelty acts before the fifties, girls groups were huge in the early sixties as the growing industry started to work with teams of music composers/authors backboned to bold record companies like Tamla Motown, Red Bird or Philles Records. Production standards were very high and the public loved it, making huge stars from groups like The Supremes, The Ronettes or The Shirells.

When rock music started to happening and push pop music in a relative second role, groups like Labelle were soon marketed as slightly glam' (Lady Marmelade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDlHaZz9PNo) and opened the door to disco with groups like Sister Sledge (We Are Family http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNAQ8LLptUo) or Silver Convention (Fly Robin Fly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_77OclyEvo).
The eighties saw a different kind of group girls, moving from the relative naivety of the first ones to bands with (slightly deeper) lyrical content or blatant innuendos: from Bananarama (Cruel Summer...

Daft Punk is the most famous band to come out of the French Touch movement, a 1995> 2000 music genre based around house music and filtered samplings from funk and disco. This genre (which ancestor track is probably the famous Dee-Lite Groove Is In The Heart http://youtu.be/etviGf1uWlg), has attract worldwide success but also criticisms due to the extensive use of often never credited samplings. Art has always been based on recycling and adapting older forms of arts, adding up newer views and angles, and we can say with samplings that what matters is not where things come from, but where you take these things. But damn: pay credits to the original artists !

This said, Daft Punk has launched all by itself a sound that is totally recognisable and while one can be dubious at the endorsement Daft Punk had with several multinational corporates, or the excrutiating heavy-footed self complacency they have shown, songs like Da Funk or All Around The World (and its marvelous Michel Gondry video) will never fade out. And if they do, it will be thru a filter device ;)

part II of the Daft Punk fan documentary:...

Sabina England is a genius. And a very funny woman.

Her video "Allah Saves The Punk" takes us back to the early black&white silent movies and it's moving, scary and fun while informative about the clash of generations that can exist within the same society.
This short movie goes far beyond just one culture and religion (Islam) as about the same scene could be found within other cultures be them christian, jewish, happening in Sicilia, or in Nigeria, in a poor family or a rich clan. It's all about how people can be blind and hermetic when drilled to adress hate before love or ignoring the natural differences between people and how some seek changes and openess while others indulge in fears and close-mindedness

Born in Britain, raised in the UK and the US of A, Sabina was declared deaf at 2 but that didn't stop her to become a movie maker, a poet and a theater playwriter: against all odds, she has become a true artist and a visionnaire who's work transcends races and creeds and becomes international.

her website http://www.sabinaengland.com/
more on Sabina England...

Interesting inside view on how David Bowie recorded one of his best song ever: Heroes.
The place ? Hansa Studio in Berlin, the year is 1977. Bowie is very busy indeed, he has just released one of his greatest, but rather uncommercial, album with Low but also produced The Idiot and Lust For Life with Iggy Pop.

Bowie's method and unorthodox ways were conforted by the presence of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. While the basic backing tracks are often resume of jamming done with a "normal" band playing around some chods structures, everything else is very experimental: Brian Eno fiddles with an EMS Synthi while Robert Fripp delights himself in discipline and feedback. All that with the limitations of recording in these days: you can't really sync two multitracks machines and you are down with what's in the studio: nothing less, nothing more. And this is where David Bowie's personality comes into play: while the recording process is laidback, David gets very tense when writing lyrics and often picks up subjects commended by the Gestalt...or outside the window.

Riveting stuff from an amazing album.

...

The wah-wah pedal is one of those incredible inventions born from hazard and visionary moments from individuals...
Del Casher was a guitar player and session musician in the USA and he was always in the look-out for special effects. He was very much in love with the wah/mute effect used by trumpet players when they sometimes cover the cone of the instrument, giving it a voice-like effect. Around the same time, the british music organs company VOX wanted to establish its range in the USA and Casher was incororated in the "Vox Ampliphonic Orchestra", a band that would show the organs at work. There was a device called the MRB, a medium range loudness device but the price of a knob was deemed too expensive for the company so instead they installed a rotary knob. And while you were turning that knob up and down, the coming and going effect was tantalizing to Del Casher: this is what he was looking for... But how to operate it while playing the guitar ? A US engineer called Brad Plunkett changed the knob into a pedal and there it was: the wah-wah pedal was born. We're talking 1966 here but it took 3 years to reach that magical moment where the Mc Clyde Wah-wah V846 pedal...

It's funny how the eighties is the only decade that seems to make it comeback every year and no one shouts ENOUGH ? All decades have their glossy appeal and a few words can describe them (the fifties are early rock n'roll and rythmn&blues, sixties are psychedelia music, seventies long hair bands or punks, etc...) but the eighties seem to shine so much for some, like if it was the decade that musically couldn't go wrong.

But it did :)

Rolling Stone has made a poll about the 80's worst songs...And yes, Rick Astley is in it...
Find out here http://www.rollingstone.com/music/photos/readers-poll-the-10-worst-songs... what are the 80's musical worst moments.

These geeky and cool people at Visual.ly have come up with a nice graphic display of the music sales tendencies since 1973 and it does look both thrilling and desesperate at the same time :)
An interesting data is the price of music and how it came down since the LP: while a minute of music did cost you 0,55$ in 1977, now it only cost you 0,26 $ thru Itunes and we're not even counting how much it costs you if you're a Spotify user: at 10$ a monthly subscription, lets just say we need to get into microdollars...

At least, with this poster-like graphic the decline looks good, it's the big picture that hurts...

This said, we can still be positive: people still love music and musicians still love doing music. We just need to rebuild a platform where everyone is contented....

http://visual.ly/evolution-music-impact-digital-music-industry

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KOLLECTOR: track your songs on radios in real time. worldwide.
register for the free beta...

Even in an industry self-dubbed as open minded, it can be dangerous to come out of the closet and declare yourself gay. Nor only will you start being a flag for homophobic people but you can somehow have doors shut in front of yourself cos you're entering a territory that scares some people, and this industry isn't half as open as it says...And physical anti-gay attacks have rise 13% between 2009 and 2010 in the USA alone.

This interesting article from SPIN shows how uneasy the entire situation can be: being openly a gay artist still isn't "easy". http://www.spin.com/articles/special-report-homophobia-haunts-indie-rock
The Boy Georges' interview is brilliant and so insighful : it sets the score on how the situation of gays in the medias has evolve...

"The Ghosts, they are everywhere, everywhere, in the lobby, in the elevator ! They want so much attention!" so said the Chelsea's hotel biograph, Sherill Tippins, who's been told by a medium friend .

When does a building acquire a different status than just stones mixed with cement ? When do walls start to talk ? When do a place start to have a life of his own and become haunted by its inhabitants ? Can a simple hotel be more than just rooms to rent and a lobby for a 20$ breakfast ? The 1880 NYC hotel has surely obtain his extraordinary status if only by the quality of his tenants: from Tennessee Williams to Marylin Monroe, Sid Vicious, the beat poets or Bob Dylan, the list never ends.

The Chelsea has just been bought by Joseph Chetrit, a mysterious and rarely-to-be-seen real estate tycoon who's architect promess the hotel will remain as such, with his history and feel.
I'm sure 100 ghosts will see that it does.

the inspiration article : http://www.npr.org/2011/10/03/140294070/at-nycs-chelsea-hotel-the-end-of...

They had it coming: it seems that Facebook has finally reached a plateau where customers start to feel annoyed and angry enough, or just bored of the novelty, to start leaving the site. Oh, this isn't a scoop: Facebook's growth has been slowing down these last months, hardly a number to keep Mark Zuckerberg awake at night, but curious people should begin to wonder why, even when taking on account certain markets start to saturate. And the battle for World Domination between Google and Facebook has started, with Facebook on a hurry to outrun Google + on the more geeky aspects and that may well signify the end of Facebook....

Another new element comes into play and added up to the recent updates on Facebook one can feel a certain number of Facebook trendsetters and users aren't ready to take it all: the launch of the Spotify/Facebook app was so badly handled that a certain amout of users have decided to leave Spotify and Facebook. And it's more than just these two companies being under the radar for intruding too much into their users' life: Pandora is being taking to court for privacy issues. It seems like the ALL IS GO approach of the social networking is finally facing...