iTunes and AIG? Don’t think so.

Well…what is one to make of this?

ITunes’ announcement to increase prices on many hits singles and selected classic tracks to $1.29 while possibly lowering the price on some older tracks below the current $0.99 threshold has created quite the stir in some circles.

Firstly, let me be clear…in all my many years in the music (and record) industry, I never…repeat…never understood how uniform pricing made much sense. That Springsteen, 50 cent, Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson and U2 albums and singles sport the same pricing as the latest freshly-signed hopefuls, be they folk singers, new age harp players or country and western swingers really takes some effort to explain.

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Add MP3s to your Music Think Tank posts

Authors and Contributors can now add MP3’s to their posts on Music Think Tank.  If you would like to add an MP3 to your post, click here for instructions.

Please make sure you have legal permission to upload a file to enable playback and free downloading from Music Think Tank.

Anyone that wants to post news or stories (including MP3s) can do so on MTT Open.  The registration process is simple and quick.

Here’s a song to try.  The Fears by Jediah.  Playback is powered by the Yahoo Media Player.

Readers using RSS will have to click over to Music Think Tank to try it.

EMI is screwed. Utterly screwed.

An article on All Things Digital caught my eye this morning. At face value, it’s just another one of those reports about people coming and going at the top end of the major record labels. Douglas Merrill, formerly CIO of Google, then Head of Digital for EMI, has left the building.

And it’s not surprising that Merrill was unable to singlehandedly reverse the fortunes of the label. He could have had the greatest strategy in the world - but the end goal was the wrong one, so his efforts would have been to no avail regardless of what he did.

And it’s this line from the internal memo at EMI that gives the game away:

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Fan-Funding & Donation Sites: 9 Ways to Raise Money for Your Next Music Project

Are you ready to record a new album, produce a video, or take on an ambitious new music project? But you don’t have the cash on hand to make it happen now?

Do what a growing number of smart artists have done in recent years: ask your fans to contribute!

The band Marillion reportedly raised $725,000 by pre-selling its Anoraknophobia double-CD album before it was ever recorded. Jill Sobule raised more than $80,000 from about 500 fans to record her California Years album, due out in 2009.

But even lesser known artists have had success with this fan-funded business model. Take a look at what these indie acts have done to involve their fans in music fundraising:

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Social Media & Online Marketing For Musicians - 10 Questions For an Expert in the Trenches

I am just back from SXSW Music and I was sad that I missed the Interactive portion of this years SXSW which from what I could follow online was amazing… I spoke on a great panel called Social Networks for the Anti-Social which was wonderful and I’ll write more about it soon but there was one person who in my humble opinion should of been on that panel with us… Cory Denis. Cory was busy speaking on her own panel Rawking SXSW Year Round: Staying Inspired

Cory Denis is a woman I admire deeply. She and I have an interesting history. She worked at What Are Records? the label I started out at. But she arrived after I had already left, so we never actually had the pleasure of working together during the time. Cory is nothing short of a genius at marketing bands and artists.

She is brilliant because she thinks about both sides of the fence from the both the artists and the fans perspective.

I’m thrilled that she was willing to be interviewed for this piece.

Social Media & Online Marketing For Musicians 10 Questions For Cory Denis

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Keep your mixes consistent by using a reference

Like most of you, I work a “day job” to pay the bills. I run my own CD mastering business by the name of Resonance Mastering. Unlike other mastering houses, I don’t believe in “corrective mastering.” If I hear a problem with a mix, I’ll ask the client to go back and fix it! Many clients routinely hire me for mix consultation, in which I offer detailed suggestions on each track in order to fine-tune their release before mastering. I run into the same problems again and again, so I find myself offering up the same solutions, which I’ll present here over the course of four articles.

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Digital Music Becomes (more) Rhizomatic: Evolutionary Traits of The Music Industry

As digital audio files continue to flow freely on the Internet, music itself mimics certain inherent characteristics of the web best understood through Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s (D&G) rhizome metaphor. In A Thousand Plateaus, D&G introduce the concept of a “rhizome” to describe a representative model that extends in all directions and has multiple entryways; since then it has most commonly been used as a metaphor to represent the Internet. Understanding digital music as rhizomatic is important because it interprets the transformations of the digital music culture as a natural progression towards rhizomatic qualities – and provides us with an insight into what might be the future of “the music industry”. A few of the defining characteristics of the rhizome are connectivity, heterogeneity, multiplicity and cartography. Music can be understood as rhizomatic when its characteristics mimic those of the rhizome; thus music becomes more rhizomatic when those characteristics are amplified. According to D&G, any point of a rhizome “can and must be connected to anything other”. So we might think of anything that blocks connectivity as a contributing factor in making something less rhizomatic. Firewalls and 404-errors are just two examples of obstacles that fulfill this role. Digital music is also subject to a large set of infringing obstacles, some of which include DRM, other restrictions due to copyright laws, and pay-only access for downloads. As we see these barriers disappear, we also see digital music becoming more rhizomatic. While highlighting the defining characteristics of the rhizome…

I’ve suggested 5 examples illustrating how music has become more rhizomatic:

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Remember the mullet? File sharers are next.

Updated on April 1, 2009 by Bruce Warila

Can you say stuck in the past? According to the news, the new U2 album has been downloaded illegally over 400,000 times since it was released. While this isn’t a number to sneeze at, it reminds me of the mulletheads that put hood scoops and air blowers over their carbureted engines in the early 1980s. When the rest of the world switched over to fuel injection, the mullet-powered Camaro became a thing of the past.

Someone click over to Torrent Freak and tell darkshare, labeldeath and redfilephantom to garage the Camaro and trim the mullet; fuel injection has arrived. Sorry angry dudes, the cost of acquiring a music collection is approaching zero

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practicing with limitations - material and how to deal with it, part I

as I explained in the post practicing with limitations I beleive practicing is most exciting when you set limitations to what you do and when you do it. (the ‘when’ includes time management principles to get a daily practicing routine happening and I’ll cover that soon)

so, now you’ve narrowed down your field of study to what excites you most, you’re enthusiastic about learning something new and you are ready to start. but what happens next, when you actually practice? how can you practice the selected material and make your daily routine a daily success?

here are a couple of principles to make it happen.

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download music business legal documents for creating your own 360 deal

If you are setting up a legal entity (a corporation for your band / music-related business) with the objective of providing economic and upside incentives to everyone that is or will be involved in your business (your bandmates, your management team, your potential investors, and possibly even your sponsors/promoters), here’s a free set of legal documents that you can use as a basis for creating what the music industry calls a 360 deal (as in 360 degrees).

What is a 360 deal?
A 360 deal (in my mind) is a catchall term that describes a structure whereby everyone involved pledges all related (related to the core of the business) rights, services and assets into a corporation that is owned by all of the participants. A 360 deal may or may not include investment capital.

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What artists should know about Last.fm

On the surface, Last.fm and Pandora seem redundant. Both recommend new music based on your current favorites, and allow you to influence their suggestions by approving or disapproving of each song as it plays. But while Pandora suggests songs based on their underlying musical characteristics, Last.fm relies on guilt by association. The formula is right out of the Amazon playbook: “Fans of band x also listen to band y. You like band x, so you will probably like band y.” To illustrate the difference between the two approaches, Ben Gibbard is the lead singer for both the indie rock Death Cab for Cutie and the electronic The Postal Service. While Pandora would likely never recommend one to fans of the other, Last.fm deems them the closest match.

Last.fm has over 21 million active users in more than 200 countries, which makes their recommendation engine quite powerful. Download the software to connect your media player to their database (i.e. enable “scrobbling”). Most desktop media players are supported, along with the iPhone and Google’s Android OS. Obviously, your plays on the site are also tracked.

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Small is the new big, and why house concerts could save touring artists.

This post by Fran Snyder originally appeared on the ConcertsInYourHome.com blog.  Fran is a touring singer-songwriter, and founder of ConcertsInYourHome.com

House Concerts - Mozart was onto something.
Mozart was well known for performing “parlor concerts,” in the homes of rich patrons who would delight in the opportunity to show off their acquaintance with him. Things have changed, however, and you no longer need to be rich to have access to some of the finest talent available. Furthermore, many of these artists are genuinely interested in their fans, and enjoy an opportunity to connect in a way that rarely happens in traditional venues.

Breaking New Markets = Breaking the Bank
Most acts, regardless of talent, are lucky to draw 30-40 people when they play in a new area. The resources needed to get beyond those numbers are getting more expensive and less effective all the time. Publicity and radio promotion can cost many hundreds if not thousands of dollars per week, and these methods employ people to beg, bribe, or cajole overwhelmed media personnel (writers, DJs, music programmers) who can rarely make the returns worthwhile. Ask any act how many “butts in seats” result from a nice article in the paper. Few, if any. Likewise, airplay doesn’t yield much unless it is sustained. Posters and flyers? Don’t get me started.

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Musician’s SXSW South by Southwest Survival Guide

Making the Most of Music Conferences
The Musician’s Guide to Navigating SXSW and All Other Music Conferences

Six Steps to Maximize Your Conference Experience, Make More Music-Business Contacts, and Advance Your Music Career

Over my 13 years of attending SXSW I’ve seen plenty of bands who did get a coveted showcase and not only did they not get signed, but also they did not meet any key players in the business or benefit their careers in any way by showcasing.

Reasons for this included: They received awful showcase venues and times; they were busy loading and unloading gear, babysitting band members, or getting tanked at parties to make the journey worthwhile; or they opted for their measly $100 stipend instead of for the gold: the festival pass.

Here’s my musician’s South by Southwest survival guide to get your through one of the most massive and overwhelming conferences of the year. This guide is not just for SXSW; it’s also for any music conference out there!

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Give 'em something they can feel!

On February 25, I was contacted by a woman, via instant messenger, who is a fan of my band’s music. I’m often contacted by fans. Yet there are times when I am able to “shoot the shit” with them, and there are times when I’m a bit occupied. Nonetheless I always try to give a few moments of my time to anyone who takes the time to absorb our music.

Although I’ve enjoyed speaking to each and every one of our supporters, speaking with her was one of the most inspiring and eye opening moments of my life.

She’s been unemployed since Jan, and her living conditions aren’t the best. Although she has a college degree, and appeared very articulate, she has been unable to find any work. Needless to say she wasn’t in the best of spirits.

All she really wanted to do was talk about today’s music. (In her opinion) It wasn’t very rousing, and she longed for the days when music (particularly hip hop) moved her spiritually. She proceed to tell me how our music was different and how much she connected with it.

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