creative deconstruction

Sufjan Stevens on the Existential Crisis of the Album

Posted on 19. Oct, 2009 by refe.

The album has reigned as the prince of popular music formats for nearly a century. Yet, it’s become unclear how long this reign will last. Digital technology has transformed the way many listeners experience music and fueled a resurgence of the short-form single.
For the past several years bloggers, critics, industry pros and consumers have contributed [...]

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New Album Releases August 4th, 2009

Posted on 04. Aug, 2009 by refe.

A lot of great new tracks dropping today, as well as several notable vinyl reissues.
Modest Mouse releases their much anticipated new EP No One’s First, and You’re Next to much rock mag fanfare. Taking a page out of the Creative Deconstruction release strategies article, six of the EP’s eight tracks were released earlier this year [...]

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New Album Releases July 28th 2009

Posted on 29. Jul, 2009 by refe.

This week’s new releases include Amadou & Miriam with The Magic Couple, the Postal Service sound-alikes Owl City with the vinyl edition of Ocean Eyes, and a behemoth 13-Disc Rolling Stones box set.
One release that caught my eye is the new Starflyer 59 Ghosts of the Past. The album is aptly named – before revisiting them [...]

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New Album Releases July 21st, 2009

Posted on 21. Jul, 2009 by refe.

Not a lot of big name acts releasing new albums this week, but that certainly doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything worth checking out. In fact, often that means there’s a lot more to check out.
As far as recommendations go, The Starlight Mint’s, The Fiery Furnaces and Wye Oak’s new records are worth a listen, [...]

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Deconstructing the Week in Music 6.29 – 7.5

Posted on 05. Jul, 2009 by refe.

Here’s a recap of what went on in the music industry this week. Make sure to check out anything you might have missed and leave your comments. Know something we don’t? Submit a story.

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Deconstructing the Week in Music 6.22 – 6.28

Posted on 28. Jun, 2009 by refe.

Here’s a recap of what went on in the music industry this week. Make sure to check out anything you might have missed and leave your comments. Know something we don’t? Submit a story.

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How to Create a Release Strategy for the New Music Marketplace

Posted on 25. Jun, 2009 by refe.

If you are an independent artist or record label I want to challenge you to try something different. The normal course of business for most artists is to spend months or years writing and recording an entire album’s worth of material. Once it’s finished, you hype it as best you can for a few more [...]

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Video Pick: Carina Round ‘Backseat’

Posted on 11. Jun, 2009 by refe.

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Album Sales Continue to Drop – Down 18% In May

Posted on 05. Jun, 2009 by refe.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone at this point, but album sales were down 17.8% in May over the same month in 2008, and 37.7% lower than May 2007. Not a great start to the weekend. This is bad news for the recording and music retail industries because there are still precious few within them who have truly begun exploring business models that rely less heavily on the sale of CDs and digital downloads.

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Resurgence of Vinyl Could Be Just What the Industry Needs

Posted on 02. Jun, 2009 by refe.

A pair of Wired stories recently reported evidence of a significant uptick in the sale of vinyl records, showing that while CD sales have declined 11.7 percent this past year, vinyl sales have increased 36.6 percent.  This recent resurgence of vinyl is beautifully ironic. This is the digital age! Music is cheap, convenient and portable. Innovations [...]

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