The Evolutionary

Triangulation: Rethinking the Local Record Store in an Online World

Maybe with all of the economic apocolypse, it's time to rethink the notion of the HUUUge online retailer and consider what local record stores used to give us? Specialization. Knowledge. Credibility.

It's with that in mind that the recent comments from Steve Albini circa Record Store Day and the announcement that the Minneapolis-based Electric Fetus will open a digital store called ThinkIndie for local bands to release new music.

"We're not just a site. We have 40 years of record-store experience here. That's what's been missing from the digital stores," said Chris Hall, the Electric Fetus' webmaster when speaking to the Minneapolis StarTribune.

What's missing today is an online approach to the same sort of recommendation-based system that independent record stores could provide. Passionate people with a deep knowledge of segments of music, that can help turn people on to new ideas and new music. Let's see a piece of web-based software do that!

The New Normal: Fat Wreck Chords Smashes Through to the Post-Bubble Reality

San Francisco's Fat Wreck Chords has adjusted to the New Normal with a resetting of all the prices of their albums. Most titles will be sold for no mare than the flat price of $10, some even as low as $8.

"Sound crazy? I think it sounds reasonable. We make less profit, but bands hopefully will sell more CDs to more people, which is why we started doing this in the first place," said Fat Mike Burkett about the new pricing scheme.

Last.fm Still Moving To Subscription Model, Despite Backlash

The freevolution is in decline. Last.fm is set start start charging users outside of the U.K., U.S. and Germany a subscription fee of about three Euros per month.

"In order to keep providing the best radio service on the web, we need to ask our listeners from countries other than USA, UK and Germany to subscribe for three Euros (£2.78 / $3.95) per mont," said Last.FM co-founder Richard Jones.

Then came the backlash, forcing Jones to make a new announcement: they don't have a choice with an advertising-based service. Reality is real.

"... we simply can’t be in every country where our radio service is available selling the ads we need to support the service. The Internet is global, and geographic restrictions seem unfair, but it’s a reality we are faced with every day when managing our music licensing partnerships," he said in a follow up statement.

The service is also giving the heave ho to unofficial apps that use the Last.fm API to create independent apps. The great economic contraction continues ... nobody wants to give anyone a free ride anymore under the illusion of somehow magically making money some day in the future.

Users can listen to an initial amount of music for free (try before you buy!) before being prompted to sign up.

iTunes To Raise Prices? All Signs Point To Yes

When asked if iTunes will change its prices in early April, the magic eight ball says "All signs point to yes." There's all sorts of different takes on how much change and when it will happen, but the general web hysteria right now points to $1.29 as a major price change for all sorts of content, from music slotted as 'premium' to regular tracks, while some theories say that lower-end content will move to 69 - 79 cents.

"A coming shift towards variable pricing on the iTunes Store will actually skew towards higher price points, according to sources close to the plan.  Instead of a more even spread across 69-cent, 99-cent, and $1.29 prices, major labels are expected to disproportionately favor the $1.29 side of the aisle, resulting in greater costs overall," says Digital Music News.

"This will be a PR nightmare. It is for the music industry what the AIG bonuses are for the insurance industry,"  former EMI Music executive Ted Cohen recently told the LA Times.

The story in the LA Times went on to venture a guess that the price of a track could be determined by its popularity. The more people buy, the more the cost goes up.

Good-bye Blender; We'll Miss You.

Another print music magazine hits the dust today, reports Advertising Age. Alpha Media has announced that they are shutting down the presses on Blender magazine; the April 2009 issue will be its last.

"Since 2001, Blender has provided unmatched music coverage and entertainment news in its unique voice to a profoundly dedicated audience of music enthusiasts," wrote CEO Steve Duggan in a company memo.

Another portent of the times? You tell me.

Google Plays Hardball

Google and the U.K.-based Performing Rights Society have been negotiating over the royalties that should be payed by Google to the PRS for videos of the artists that the PRS covers. The talks seem to have moved beyond the niceties phase and into the hardball phase on Monday, with Google removing the PRS videos from the U.K. version of YouTube, until something better comes along.

Naturally, the PRS was shocked, shocked! at the reaction.

Google's view of the situation:
"There are two obstacles in these negotiations: prohibitive licensing fees and lack of transparency. We value the creativity of musicians and songwriters and have worked hard with rights-holders to generate significant online revenue for them and to respect copyright. But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our licence than before. The costs are simply prohibitive for us - under PRS's proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback. In addition, PRS is unwilling to tell us what songs are included in the license they can provide so that we can identify those works on YouTube -- that's like asking a consumer to buy an unmarked CD without knowing what musicians are on it.

We're still working with PRS for Music in an effort to reach mutually acceptable terms for a new licence, but until we do so we will be blocking premium music videos in the UK that have been supplied or claimed by record labels."
Read full text

Performing Right Society view of the situation:
"PRS for Music is outraged on behalf of consumers and songwriters that Google has chosen to close down access to music videos on YouTube in the UK.

Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing."
Read full text

So what does this all mean? Google could be using this as a negotiating tactic, forcing the artists that swim in the PRS pool to simulataneously yell at the PRS for cutting them off from royalties at a time when nobody can go without money. This would force the PRS back to negotiations more on Google's terms.

The Biggest Copyright Infringement Trial In the World

The Pirate Bay founders started their trial in Stockholm, Sweden today. They're being  charged with conspiracy to break copyright law, among other things. They seem amused by the whole thing, launching PR of their own.

"This is not a political trial, it's not about shutting down a people's library and it's not a trial that wants to prohibit file sharing as a technique. It's a trial regarding four individuals that have conducted a big commercial business making money out of others file sharing ... copyright protected works," said Monique Wadsted, a lawyer representing Warner Brothers, Columbia, MGM and other major media and computer games companies.

TorrentFreak does some nice coverage of the days events.

Los Angeles Station Indie 103 Goes Off the Air ... and Goes Online

These will be fun to watch over the next year ... some people see this as a bad thing because they focus on what's ending (negative), rather than see it as a transformation and a new beginning (positive.) With that in mind, Los Angeles-based Indie 103 has decided to fold down its FM broadcast and make the jump online. They'll be happy they did.

"Indie 103.1 will cease broadcasting over this frequency effective immediately. Because of changes in the radio industry and the way radio audiences are measured, stations in this market are being forced to play too much Britney, Puffy and alternative music that is neither new nor cutting edge. Due to these challenges, Indie 103.1 was recently faced with only one option --- to play the corporate radio game," they announced in a message on their web site.

Their hand was forced because of money, and although right now they won't be able to reach as many listeners in the immediate sense, they'll have the potential for much greater depth in listenership over time as they realize the potential of a global audience, and the emerging wireless phenomenon. What good is using a FM broadcast when things like car stereos will eventually connect to the internet on a wireless signal? The costly FM broadcast will look like a horrendous waste of money, overpriced and a relic of the previous century. Too bad for those still stuck on the FM dial.

2009: The Year of the Reissue (Starting With Radiohead )

In a time where everything is being downsized (or some would cheekily call it "right-sized), we're barely two weeks into the year before we're seeing the first big example of what's sure to play out over and over again this year ... the reissue.

In a now hyper-cost conscious media industry, 2009 could be the year in which the old guard of the music industry tries to make new packages on the cheap by packaging up old content and making it sizzle as a new package.

The story was broke on the Radiohead fan site AtEaseWeb who said that Capitol Records had announced that  "Twelve Radiohead singles are set for a re-release on limited edition vinyl."

It was later picked up by both Pitchfork (saying "Major labels recycling, the yuppies networking, the panic, the vomit, etc.") and NME, who were much nicer about it, but the Brits are known for their proper sense of etiquette.

That means 180-gram vinyl and includes titles like Drill, Creep, My Iron Lung, Just, Fake Plastic Trees, High and Dry, Street Spirit [fade out], Paranoid Android, Karma Police, No Surprises, Pyramid Song, There There and 2+2=5. April 21st release date.

So here we go. Why pay for new stuff to be developed when you can just raid the back catalog? That's good for profit potential and will surely keep the shareholders happy (as they could be, comparatively speaking) in a down market.

Apple Lets iTunes Music Go DRM Free, But Ain't No MP3

The move by iTunes to go DRM (digital rights management) free is a step forward for the Apple/iTunes crowd, but the change from restricted to DRM free doesn't mean that you're buying MP3s. The announcement today about the broad iTunes Plus plan (that now includes all of the music in the iTunes store) is a good step forward in The Evolutionary transition of the music industry, but don't think that you're buying MP3 files.

When you buy music from iTunes, you're still getting the AAC files, which means it will still work on an iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, or in iTunes. What does the DRM-free change mean? It means that now you can copy the file as many times you want, burn as many CDs as you want, use the song in as many iTunes libraries as you want, etc. They're not MP3 files ... yet. You can also use AAC files on other devices that support AAC, like the Sony Walkman, Zune, Wii, Xbox, certain mobile phones and a list of other devices.

Still, there are some good developments here. iTunes Plus music is encoded at 256-Kbps, meaning increased sound quality compared to the old iTunes music. You don't have to rebuy all of the songs in your library, you can just pay the upgrade price of 30¢ per song. Videos are 60¢ per song, and albums are 30% of the album price. Everybody's onboard, no outliers -- that means Universal, Sony BMG, Warner Music, EMI, along and thousands of independent labels are part of the upgrade.

They've also abandoned the 99¢ line, now offering music at 69¢, 99¢, and $1.29. I'll bet that was the trade off. The major labels probably wouldn't give on DRM-free unless Apple caved on variable pricing, a line they stuck to for a very long time.