Blog: Apartment 41

Calm Down, Apple Isn't Starting a Real Streaming Music Service - Which of the behemoths will get into the streaming music business first...Google? Apple? It's true, streaming subscriptions would eat into iTunes sales. Spotify Signs EMI Music to U.S. Deal | AllThingsD - I finally got some proxy access to Spotify (here in the states)...so far, so good. Can't wait for it to be official. Mozes launches mobile technology to let musicians sell merch at live events [...]

Radiohead Readies King of Limbs, the 'World's First Newspaper Album' | Wired.com - Besides my obsession with the music of greatest band ever, I'm also quite interested in Radiohead as attempt new models of distribution and marketing. Is the King of Limbs an LP...an EP...or maybe the first of a recurring, monthly music subscription (ala a newspaper model)? The Flaming Lips Release Song via 12 YouTube Videos [...]

Another day and yet another way to promote digital distribution of music. Today's Grouponicous Groupon is pushing a full download of Rihanna's new album, "LOUD", for $5 (50% off). While the record sales may be losing money from the discount, the very popular daily deal site sends such deals via email to millions of subscribers so in essence that money comes out of the marketing budget (see the $11 million Gap Groupon story ). It will be interesting to see how many more album sales this adds to Rihanna's first week. [...]

"The great power of digital distribution is that it's much easier to discover and listen to new bands. Back when we had to hunt down physical albums in stores, our rate of new artist discovery was much, much lower. That means a new band can build a widespread following much more efficiently than back-in-the-day, and can therefore do a world tour a lot earlier in their career, whereas huge, popular acts like U2 and Rolling Stones are already big as ever, and won't benefit from this additional digital distribution." Songkick.com has [...]

Sony Kills The Cassette Walkman On The iPod's Birthday [ GIZMODO ] - Sony stops making cassette walkmens finally and it turns out to coincide with the iPod's 9th Bday...yeah, I had no idea they were still making cassette anythings. It was a good 30 years Walkman...I'll never forget you bulky yellow version ! Live Nation to Power Concert Listings, Ticket Sales in iTunes 10 [ TECHCRUNCH ] - Makes sense that these two massive [...]

What do you do if you all your band's instruments get stolen? Buy 4 iPhones I guess. Pretty good song considering the circumstances... I'm sure they won't be the last to use the iPhone as their instrument but I'm also glad to read about the new Rock Band 3 that's coming out next week and actually teaches people how to play a REAL guitar: " You're actually playing the real notes, which is amazing in the sense that you can go and play that song after you're done learning it on your [...]

Inside every copy of Belle and Sebastian's new album Write About Love is a unique code which you will enter here and then write 300 words about love, in any sense of the word. Why you love. Who you love. What you love. Where you love. Anything. Just write about love. Then Belle and Sebastian will pick a winner (henceforth referred to as "Lucky") and Stuart Murdoch will fly out to Lucky's hometown, hang out with Lucky for an afternoon, and write and record a song about Lucky which will then be released on [...]

How Do You Teach Boy Scouts About Downloading Music? By Pretending It Doesn't Exist : "So how can Scouters teach ethical behavior related to music downloading? One way: Set a good example. When you haul around Scouts in your car, for example, only play CDs that you've purchased. If you play CDs that you've burned-even if they're legal-your Scouts may not recognize the difference between those and the pirated CDs friends have given them." [ Gizmodo ]

At most concerts these days, when the houselights go down, the tiny glowing screens go up. As more fans mark the moments with smartphones, cameras and pocket-sized video recorders, a new kind of digital divide is emerging. Music lovers who try to document and share the essence of concerts are squaring off against those who think that just defeats the purpose. The debate is drawing participants from both sides of the stage. [ WSJ ] John Jurgensen's recent WSJ article touches on an [...]

Stephen Ou, a 15-year-old developer from the Bay Area, whipped up iTunes Instant as an alternative, and it's pretty much perfect: streamlined, minimalist iTunes searching and absolutely nothing else. [ Gizmodo ]

Ping, a Social Network for iTunes [ LA TIMES ] - Pretty interesting new edition of iTunes is out today. Biggest change is its' music-centered social network, PING. Basically its a Facebook-like feed of your friends and followees music purchases, reviews and recommendations. Has potential to be a very important new music recommendation service for people and will definitely be huge for Apple as any new music your friend likes, can easily be purchased within iTunes. One cool feature is a sidebar that aggregates the top songs purchased/liked by people in [...]

Looks like Ticketmaster is trying play nice nicer. Not only are they now BLOGGING (not sure who gets to do that job...or who came up with the blog name, Ticketology ) but they have also started a few practices that they are alleging to be "for the people". First off, those hated TM fees that we all hate will now be included right off the bat in the very first ticket price you see when looking for tickets. This would lessen the instant hatred that erupts every time we see [...]

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Haha..." Fine Ticketmaster, you win "

YOUR BRAIN ON COMPUTERS [ NY Times ] It is a debate that has become increasingly common as technology has redefined the notion of what is "urgent." How soon do people need to get information and respond to it? The believers in the group say the drumbeat of incoming data has created a false sense of urgency that can affect people's ability to focus. Matt Richtel raises an interesting question...are we better or worse off today with the deluge of emails, cellphones, and digital everything? Like [...]

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How Pitchfork Struck a Note in Indie Music [ Time ] - I definitely agree that Pitchfork has become a force within the Indie Music scene...yet I hardly ever read any of their stuff. My outside view is that alot of fans find their reviews either uber-critical or too gushing. Either way, Taste-makers like Pitchfork are clearly getting more and more important. Live Nation posts a second quarter loss on sagging ticket sales [ LA Times ] - Uhoh, maybe the [...]

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Image via Wikipedia Very comprehensive article over at Lifehacker giving you all the details of the major music streaming services ( Spotify , Rdio , Rhapsody , MOG , Napster , Grooveshark , Pandora , Last.FM , Slacker Radio ). Their top recommendations? "The Best Services For : • Global availability: MOG and Grooveshark • Pricing per track available: MOG • Multi-platform availability: Spotify and Pandora [...]

Image by Rick Rey via Flickr Bloggers Ordered to Take Down Radiohead Songs That Were Once Free So can you actually steal something that was once free? In most cases, yes. One commenter summed it up nicely, writing that posting songs that were once available for free but now aren't, is a bit like "a shop giving away a free drink with a sandwich as a special offer one week, and then you go in and shoplift the same drink [...]