Category Archives: Technology

Radiohead ‘Pay What You Want’ Strategy an Unconventional Success

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The Listening Post published an intriguing article today on the analysis of Radiohead’s groundbreaking ‘pay what you want’ distribution strategy for In Rainbows, which allowed fans to download the album from their website for whatever price they wanted with a valid email address.  Many critics of the strategy considered it a failure because the album became wildly popular on file sharing networks almost immediately upon its release.

But was it really a failure?  Analysts at MCPS PRS have crunched the numbers and beg to differ.  Sure, the album was ‘illegally’ shared more than 2.3 million times within the first 3 weeks of it’s release.  And that’s a lot of email addresses and potential revenue the band lost.  But the firm claims Radiohead’s strategy was a success nonetheless; winning the public’s attention to top the charts in both the UK and US and enable a hugely successful worldwide tour.

They conclude that when it comes to judging whether an album is a success these days, the old metrics just don’t cut it.  And that the music industry needs to stop thinking of shared files as lost sales, and start treating them as an aspect of reality upon which they can build their business. Hear hear!  

The full report will be available on the MCPS PRS website tomorrow.  Until then, enjoy another groundbreaking Radiohead development – the new video for House of Cards using LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology.  No lights or cameras were used.  Just this 3D LIDAR technology.

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MySpace Set to Launch Music Subscription Service

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I’ve long be a proponent of the music subscription model (see Rhapsody and Topspin) and am convinced that the entire music industry will be soon headed in this direction. Case in point, MySpace has an upcoming music joint venture with 3 of the 4 major labels that will launch in September (EMI is still a holdout). MySpace Music will be a combination music store/subscription service, with unlimited playbacks of full tracks, but for free. The revenue model will be advertising and paid downloads. Advertisers are already lining up, with some eight-figure deals being negotiated.

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Rock Band 2 – Drummer’s Delight

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I’m quite the Rock Band junkie and have pretty much appointed myself house drummer.  Play with me and you’re relegated to vocals or guitar, but drums are off limits.  Not that I don’t like to share and all; it’s just too painful to watch a newbie flail around on the drum pads, and only a matter of time before they inadvertently pause the game mid-song by whacking the XBox menu button instead of the pad.  Grrrrr.

I started to seriously drool when Adam forwarded me this post from Gizmodo about this new third party Ion Drum Kit available with the impending release of RockBand 2 in September. This isn’t the drum kit shipping with Rock Band 2, you’ll have to pay $300 for this one.  But my, isn’t it pretty?

There’s also a new crop of songs coming with Rock Band 2 to get excited about.  But until then, we’ll be rocking out to the best Rock Band song EVER!

Boston/Foreplay-Long Time

Pandora Ranks as Top iPhone App

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Techcrunch reported that Pandora is currently the fourth most popular free app on iTunes (behind Apple’s Remote, AIM, and WeatherBug), and has reportedly been seeing a new listener every 2 seconds. Usage over the weekend hit an all-time high for the service, with 3.3 million tracks streamed to iPhone listeners alone. Perhaps more impressive is the retention rate of listeners, who are averaging over an hour of listening per day.

The Pandora music stream is great on the new iPhones with the 3G and Edge networks.  Between the iPhone and Sonos Digital Music System, music lovers are no longer tied to their computer to enjoy the benefits of Pandora’s personalized music recommendation service.  Rock on.

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Rhapsody Launches Beta MP3 Store

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Anyone who knows me is well aware of how big a fan I am of Rhapsody.  It’s one of my essential tools for digesting and discovering new music.  The music subscription service model has always made a lot of sense to me and I believe is a model we’re going to see a lot more of.  Especially as more and more artists attempt to circumvent labels and go direct to fans (with the help of technology like Topspin).  

After all, why wouldn’t you want to pay $12/month to access a virtual unlimited amount of music – anywhere, anytime.  It’s beautiful.  Especially when leveraged through the Sonos Digital Music System (in which Rhapsody is already integrated).  I have an ongoing Rhapsody playlist of new music that I add to whenever I hear or read about a new artist.  Then I just queue up the playlist and listen to it whenever I’m at work or futzing around the house.  With the combination of Rhaspody and Sonos, listening to music is no longer a dedicated form of entertainment.  

Finally, Rhapsody has added an MP3 download component, without all the DRM (Digital Rights Management) hassles like Apple iTunes.  (Which means when you download a track or album you can do whatever you want with it – no proprietary formats, limited sharing, etc.)  I still love eMusic and inSound for their great selection of Indie music.  But I find that Rhapsody is the ideal platform for most of my music research.  I’m very happy about this new MP3 service and hope that the the next iteration with include the option for monthly download bundles as part of my subscription.  🙂

One to Watch: DigforFire.tv

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My 3 year old is obsessed with The Duke Spirit and their lead singer Liela Moss. Every day he practices singing his favorite Duke Spirit songs into his microphone and playing his tambourine – ‘just like Liela’. Part of his self-prescribed training involves intently studying all of The Duke Spirit videos available on YouTube. They only have videos out for a few songs and most of the live footage available is unwatchable (‘that’s a bad one mamma’). So imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this amazing live performance from the soon to be launched DigforFire.tv.

There’s not a lot of information on the site as to what it’s all about, other than it looks to be NYC-based, if not affiliated with 89.1 WNYU. Whatever the case, the quality of the small amount of content they have up there now makes Pitchfork.tv look like amateurs.  It’s like the IFC for indie music, with well produced documentaries, interviews and live sessions.

I can’t wait to see more from these guys. In the meantime, we’ll be rocking out to this great live track from The Duke Spirit – This Ship Was Built to Last. They look so polished and professional here it’s hard to imagine they’ll be playing such a tiny venue as The Bottom of the Hill on July 23.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “One to Watch: DigforFire.tv“, posted with vodpod
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Topspin Unveiled. Let the Revolution Begin.

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Topspin officially emerged from stealth mode last week to unveil their technology platform that aims to help music artists build their business and brand directly with fans – without the help of a label.  There’s not a lot of public information on the product itself other than it sounds like a Salesforce.com (CRM) for the music industry – a suite of tools designed to help artists build relationships and distribute music directly to fans. 

What’s great is that Topspin is not trying to brand this product to consumers.  It’s completely B2B, which means artists will be able to incorporate Topspin technology into their own websites and social networking platforms.  Reportedly artists like David Byrne and Dandy Warhols are already using the technology to offer a subscription model to fans that will give them access to a host of content either exclusively or before general release.

While the direct-to-fan model is not a new concept – think Radiohead, The Raconteurs and supposedly the forthcoming Beck album – not every band has had the longevity or popularity of groups like these to implement such a strategy successfully.  That’s where the beauty of technology like Topspin comes in.  As Topspin’s new CEO, Ian Rogers, stated in this month’s Billboard interview, it empowers the middle class of artists – those either past their commercial prime or too new to enjoy the marketing support of a major label.

It’s a paradigm shift either way you slice it, for both artists and fans in terms of how music is distributed and consumed.  I can’t wait to see how it all plays out. I just hope Topspin plans on launching a similar platform for the film industry too!

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Sirius Left of Center Blog Radio

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Nothing makes me happier than to start my day with a cup of Peets and a session of Blog Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Left of Center, channel 26.  Monday through Saturday at 9AM PT, Blog Radio is hosted by a different indie music blogger who gives their take on the music scene.  Here’s the current line up:

They rebroadcast it everyday at midnight as well.  It’s a great way to discover new music. And yet another good reason to get a Sonos player!

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Sonos Digital Music System

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Probably the most common question my friends ask me is how I have so much time to listen to all the music that I do. Well, here’s the answer: Sonos. It’s simply the best digital music system – period. It allows you to play any music, in any room, from anywhere, all over your house. (And it’s an excellent way to drown out the incessant whining of a 3 year old.) I can choose to listen to my own music library, any Internet radio station, Pandora, Sirius Satellite Radio or Rhapsody. You virtually have millions of songs at your fingertips.

I have this set up at home and in the office, so I’m constantly listening to and exploring new music without having to carve out a chunk of my day to sit down on my computer and ‘research’ the subject. Whenever I read a new album review, I simply queue it up in my playlist through my Rhapsody account (which costs you about $10/month to access to all the music you could possibly imagine) and play it in the background as I go on about my day.

It’s like having my own virtual radio station. But the best part is, if I hear something I like, all I have to do is pick up my wireless handheld remote (that I carry around like a newborn baby), check out the artist, click a button and add it to my library.

Voila. My music secrets are now revealed.

To learn more about how Sonos works, watch this demo. Do keep in mind that to listen to music in every room of your house, you do have to have speakers in every room in your house. Which is why I also highly recommend an in-wall speaker distributed audio system, which requires professional installation. But we’ll talk more about that in another post. Just wrap your head around Sonos for today.

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