SINGLE MUSIC: The New One-Stop Shop Store For Direct-To-Fan Music Sales

SINGLE MUSIC is the brand-new industry app is exclusively aligned with Shopify to enable and empower artists and labels to directly sell music via their official web sites with instant reporting to Nielsen for official Billboard chart tallying. After its soft launch this past spring, SINGLE MUSIC continues to rapidly grow. 

This exciting new paradigm for direct-to-consumer music sales has aligned itself with many top merchandising companies such as Live Nation Merch, Futureshirts, The Hyv, Absolute Merch, Top Drawer Merch and others which includes managing the ecommerce for artists like Nine Inch Nails, Beck, Ryan Adams, LANY, RL Grime, Queens of The Stone Age, Harry Styles, R.E.M., Nirvana and many more. 

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All Things Must Pass. Maybe.

Atari has filed for bankruptcy in the USA. The filing was not nearly as surprising as the realization that the company, a pioneer in arcade-style video games, is actually still in business in 2013. Atari is not alone. The downward arc of the personal computer technology cycle is bringing about exits by several former industry leaders. Is there a lesson here for the fate of music formats?

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Hal Leonard Publishes Less Noise, More Soul

Thought-provoking essays on the search for balance in the art, technology, and commerce of music

MONTCLAIR, NJ (February 11, 2013) – Less Noise, More Soul features the unique perspectives of highly accomplished performers, engineers, and producers on the question how modern technology has influenced and shaped the way we create and consume music today.

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Amplage: 0.4 Small Word of Advice - Working as a sound engineer

Today I’d like to discuss with you some invaluable information about working as a sound engineer. Whether it is in the studio or as a live engineer you are always providing a service for a client/customer and you must do your best to accommodate their needs.

This rant is brought on by my music ventures of Friday. I went to watch some amazing musicians perform for a University event and the musical content was completely butchered by a tech team who seemed to be a bit in the dark of their job role. Then later on during the day I watched Evermore and Maroon 5 perform at Rod Laver where I saw some people who obviously are very much into their job and were in complete control of the situations.

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Computer Science and Music Technology

Computer Science and Music Technology

You’re a heavy-duty programming dude or computer grrl, but you also love music.  Is there any way to reconcile these two interests?  Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that computers and technology play a major role in the 21^st century music scene. Audio sequencers, MIDI and associated laptops are standard operating equipment for performers like Prince, Kraftwerk, OK Go, international deejay Paul Van Dyk or electronic music pioneer Thomas Dolby. Indeed, popular music today – from indie rock to hip-hop to house – would not be the same without innovations in computer science and technology. The following article is an exploration of the pioneering inventions and innovations in music technology that, through the use of computers, continue to define the musical experience of today.

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Why Is Europe Leading the World In Music Innovation?

Yesterday, I was on Google+ and I ran across a post from The Independent about how London is the global centre for music tech, which is very interesting because the last I checked the U.S. is still the number one music market in the world.

London has more concerts per year than anywhere in the world,” says Ian Hogarth, who co-founded the company in Shoreditch in 2007. “It’s also a place where there’s a density of people with a passion for technology – so it’s natural and organic that so many music technology companies have been founded in London.”

Europe and the UK especially, seem to have a higher respect and value for music versus us Americans and they seem to respect the art of music innovation more. Most of the entrepreneurs that I have spoken with from the U.S. are music geeks who saw a problem and wanted to create a solution – which is great! I see nothing wrong with that, but I think there needs to more of a balance between music geeks and great developers working in the music tech space in the U.S.

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Hey Developer Guy Read This Before You Build That App

So, I was reading an interview in Wired Magazine on Marc Andreessen, the creator of the first browser, this past weekend and he was asked about the future of the web. In the article titled ‘The Man Who Know’s What Next,’ Marc states “The application model of the future is the web application model. The apps will live on the web. Mobile apps on platforms like iOS and Android are a temporary step along the way toward the full mobile web.”

I interviewed Ari Stein of WahWah.FM a month or so ago and he told me “Who knows 5 to 10 years from now apps may not even exist.” This was a very interesting statement to me, because WahWah.FM is a mobile app which is currently available for iOS users only with plans to create an Android app once additional funding is secured. I pondered about making that statement the title of the post but I wanted to focus on their product because I think it’s great.

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EXFM MOBILE. BETTER THAN EVER.

NEW YORK, March 5, 2012 - Extension Entertainment Inc. (exfm) announces the immediate availability of our newest iPhone and Android apps. Version 2.0 allows for discovery, playback and sharing of an endless feed of the best music on the web wherever you go. Available now for free worldwide on iPhone, iTouch and iPad iOS 4.0 or higher and Android devices version 2.1 or higher. (exfm screenshots/logo)

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Rexly Wants You to Press Play and Hear Something New

Rexly is a highly personalized social music service that uses data from your personal listening habits and your “super trust” network to deliver fast and relevant digital recommendations. Rexly strives to rock musical worlds by collecting the most meaningful data and applying the most powerful recommendation techniques, in an environment that respects privacy and reveres individuality.

Earlier this week, I was able to speak with Co-Founder Joel Resnicow as he was returning from the SF MusicTech Summit. Joel is a serious data geek with plans of making Rexly the Walmart of digital media.

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Crowdsourcing Live Music

Switchcam, a new music startup, is algorithmically “reconstructing” concerts from fan footage.  Switchcam has created software that takes concert videos from YouTube and syncs them together recreating the event.  The syncing is so exact, that viewers are able to switch views and camera angles enabling the viewer to see the concert from different perspectives.  

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What is Going on Here?

Here we are in the land of “Best music apps for Facebook”, “2011’s Best Music Start-Ups”, “Creating a Powerhouse Website”, and so on and so on; yet there are so many artists still aimlessly drifting around as if we are still in the 90s.  Please someone tell me what is going on here? Does it not make sense to think that what you’re doing does not make sense anymore? Today there are artists still fighting to get a record deal, yet they haven’t sold a single song, no strong online or offline presence, mundane social media activity, no knowledge of the available technology and programs, but in 2011 they want a record deal. It’s a joke. We have to get to a place where we’re serious about the industry that we chose to sustain and in return it sustains us.  You can’t expect fans to make the transition in supporting a non-major label driven music industry, if you haven’t made a transition yourself.

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