creative deconstruction

Music News From Around the Web – Friday, June 18 2010

Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by refe in NEWS

Recording Industry sales sink to a new low.

I’ve compiled a selection of some of the most important music industry news of the past week, along with a few of my own thoughts. Let me know in the comments section if you think I’ve missed anything notable.

Music News from Around the Web

Album sales at lowest point in decades

The good news just keeps rolling in!

For the week ending May 30, the U.S. music industry sold a total of 4,984,000 albums, according to Nielsen Soundscan. This figure, which includes new and catalog releases, represents the fewest number of albums sold in one week since Soundscan began compiling this data in 1994.

By comparison, album sales for the week ending May 31, 2009, totaled 5.76 million. The highest one-week tally recorded during the Soundscan era is 45.4 million albums, in late December, 2000.

Let’s not kid ourselves here, this is grim stuff. However, as anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows, this is not the whole story.

Record sales continue to decline – rapidly – but the music industry as a whole continues to grow and show incredible potential. So, independent musicians take heart. These numbers are only one piece of the puzzle that continues to add new pieces each day. That means that it is growing more complex, but also more diversified. Which is good news, especially when we are watching the flagship go belly up into the water. Read the full report at Billboard.

ArtistData acquired by Sonic Bids

ArtistData acquired by Sonic Bids

Sonicbids has acquired ArtistData, a popular platform that many musicians and labels use to simultaneously update their content across the web. The move signals an expansion for Sonicbids beyond its popular electronic press kits and gig opportunities to also helping artists promote their shows after they’ve been booked. ArtistData founder Brenden Mulligan has been named Vice President of Strategic Development for Sonicbids.

This came as a bit of a surprise to me, only because last year I met with ArtistData founder Brenden Mulligan near his home-base in Chicago, and he seemed pretty excited about other plans he had for the service. It sounded at the time that his play would be data analytics, and perhaps that’s part of what made ArtistData so attractive to buyers. Sonic Bids was not the first suitor to approach Mulligan, but it looks like he was finally made an offer he couldn’t refuse. Read more at Hypebot.

Social works for Spotify.

Spotify goes social and watches premium subscriptions double

More evidence that the power of the social graph in music discovery:

The daily number of people signing up for Spotify’s paid Premium service has doubled since the update to its desktop client in late April that added Facebook-fuelled social features and the ability to play a user’s locally-stored music.

That’s according to Spotify’s UK managing director Paul Brown, in an interview for the latest Music Ally Report. “As we put Social and Local out there, Premium subscriptions doubled on a daily rate,” he says. “For us, it’s increased consumption, it’s brilliant for discovery, and we’re getting a net positive increase in people stepping up the ladder to pay.”

Read more at Music Ally.

MySpace Co-President latest to walk out the revolving door

In a shocking turn of events, MySpace has confirmed that Co-President Jason Hirschhorn has left the company a mere four months after accepting his co-leadership role with Mike Jones. Who would have thought when MySpace announced it was appointing Co-Presidents that it would end badly? Read more at Billboard.

Reports claim AOL to sell Bebo

…and the world asks, “What’s Bebo?”

In the scale of huge corporate mistakes, AOL’s acquisition of Bebo in 2008 ranks pretty highly. AOL paid $850 million for the social network, then watched it fade into mediocrity as Facebook left it for dust. Now a series of reports have suggested that AOL has agreed a deal to sell Bebo to a private investment group for a mere $10 million. Ouch.

Read more at Music Ally.

More Music Industry News:

Record sales for week ending 6/13/10 at the Lefsetz Letter.
Music publishers file suit to shut down LimeWire – HypeBot.

Tags: artistdata, MUSIC INDUSTRY, record sales, sonic bids, Spotify