The Unlikely Prince of Indie

Posted on 20. May, 2009 by refe.

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Greg Kot, in his new book Ripped, focuses on the story of an unlikely but high profile independent artist – Prince. While the diminutive 80’s pop star and his music may not seem relevant to many of you, it turns out he is actually an interesting example of an artist bucking the traditional system [...]

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Amazon to Torrent Site: Stop Letting Your Users Buy Our Music

Posted on 11. May, 2009 by refe.

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Amazon.com looks to be the latest example of a major music retailer missing out on a huge opportunity to profit from file sharing – and this one was practically handed to them!

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Imogen Heap Uses Twitter, ‘Heapstream’ To Connect with Fans

Posted on 05. May, 2009 by refe.

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I have talked ad-nauseum about the opportunities that social media provides artists to get the word out and connect with their listeners. Sometimes I feel like I am beating a dead horse – surely everybody get’s it by now, right? But the more I talk with new artists and record labels the more I realize [...]

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Why Bands Need to Completely Change the Way They Think

Posted on 12. Apr, 2009 by refe.

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For decades the economy of the music industry revolved around the Album. Record labels built their empires on them. Artists’ careers could be measured in release dates. Fans would often wait for years for their favorite band’s latest masterpiece. Touring was also seen primarily as a way of supporting the release of a band’s latest [...]

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Bands Offer to Pay Fans to Download New Album

Posted on 10. Apr, 2009 by refe.

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Those who believe that free downloads have devalued music are going to love this: In an effort to stand out from the flood of free music pouring onto the Internet these days, indie band Officer Roseland recently offered to pay fans $1 to download their new album Stimulus Package. At MyStimulusPackage.org, fans can either take [...]

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Cable on its way to Becoming Obsolete

Posted on 02. Apr, 2009 by refe.

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The cable industry’s annual trade convention is going on this week, and the big topic of discussion this year is the Internet. According to yesterday’s article in the Chicago Tribune, Cable has watched the Music and Newspaper industries struggle to adapt to the digital world, and there has been a lot of talk about how [...]

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Bands offer Pay What You Want Merchandise

Posted on 02. Apr, 2009 by refe.

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One of my favorite blogs posted about a few bands who have taken a ‘Pay what you want’ approach to selling merchandise. Radiohead was the first high-profile act to use this model when they offered their In Rainbows album to be downloaded with an open price tag from the band’s website, and since then many [...]

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Mininova Now Offering Links to Artists’ Merchandise

Posted on 31. Mar, 2009 by refe.

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BitTorrent site Mininova launches a new feature today that will help artists and record labels generate revenue directly from their free torrents by adding links to their products. Users will be able to sell CD’s, merchandise, artwork, concert tickets, or whatever else they would like to offer. Bands have been using file-sharing services like BitTorrent [...]

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Why Music Streaming Will Not Destroy Music

Posted on 26. Mar, 2009 by refe.

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Business Week ran an article recently that talks about the “problem” of online music streaming services. The article claims that while online streaming was initially intended to promote music, and therefore promote the purchasing of music, it has actually had the opposite effect. The author describes a 23 year old man who has gone from spending [...]