Citigroup owns EMI: Will they start selling CDs at bank branches?

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It feels like if anybody can do it now, she could be the one. She has the sales base and heat from the last few albums. And with all the amazing things she has going on, she is as likely as anybody to reach a million units, especially with the efforts of Big Machine and Universal behind her.
Red Light Management and ATO Records president and CEO Will Botwin • Regarding the chances Taylor Swift can actually manage to sell a million copies of her upcoming “Speak Now” in its first week. While Eminem got close recently, thanks to his 741,000-strong debut of “Recovery” back in June, Swift could really pull it off. The things that might hold her back, though? Well, her digital sales have been traditionally weak, her label might charge the full sticker price for her album, her style of music limits how many formats would be willing to play her songs, and it’s possible she may have peaked already. At age 20. source

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09 Jun 2010 11:27

When the corporate industry dies it will be no great loss to the world. So don’t tie yourself to the sinking ship because, believe me, it’s sinking.
Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke • Discussing the fall of music industry capitalism in a British textbook. He seems to have a good handle on this. He left his big corporate label, EMI, just a couple years before they fell into particularly dire straits. EMI is now the property of private equity firm Terra Firma, and since the 2007 acquisition, they’ve had massive debt and restructuring problems. (via Pitchfork) source

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Perhaps movie moguls will succeed where musicians and their moguls have failed so far, and rally America to defend the most creative economy in the world, where music, film, TV and video games help to account for nearly 4 percent of gross domestic product.
U2 lead singer Bono • Regarding file-sharing’s danger to the content industries. As crazy as this quote is, it starts out even crazier: “But we know from America’s noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China’s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it’s perfectly possible to track content.” This guy is just as arrogant and full of it as the glasses and haircut (and crappy recent music) suggest. He compared file sharing to child porn and free speech. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

If only we could do this. Then we’d truly be smart. TechDirt, a popular technology blog well-known for taking the music industry to task for its heavy-handed approach to technology, has gone out of its way to champion artists who have fully embraced the promotional tool technology can be, such as Trent Reznor and Jill Sobule. Now, they’ve gone a step further and used these very techniques as tools to promote the site. Give a donation of a certain amount, and you can become a member of the site’s music club or book club and get tons of amazing goodies. Give a bit more and the site will review your business model. Genius, kids. Genius. *golf clap* source

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