ONLINE MUSIC PROMOTES SALES: According to Yankelovich Partners, a research firm based in Norwalk, CT, nearly half of the nation's music fans are turning to the Internet to find artists they can't hear on local radio stations, and most of them say hearing a new song or recording artist online leads them to buy new music at a retail store in their town. 59% of the respondents that have downloaded or streamed music over the Internet said that listening to a song online has caused them to later buy it at a music store or other retail outlet. "This study clearly supports what the industry has suspected all along: that webcasters are driving music purchases online through e-commerce and offline at traditional brick-and-mortar stores," said Jonathan Potter, Executive Director of the Digital Media Association, representing more than 50 companies involved in the digital distribution of music. "As this survey clearly shows, webcasters offer consumers more choices to quench the thirst of a diversity of musical tastes," he said, "And consumers are responding to the diverse offerings by purchasing a wider range of recorded music they would not have known had it not been for the variety of music webcasters broadcast 24 hours a day."
Some of the survey findings include:
Are labels more upset about downloadable music (especially MP3's) cutting into their sales, or of losing the control of the product that actually gets heard, leading to sales of titles and artists not on their mainstream rosters? More info, including a copy of the survey results, can be found at http://www.digmedia.com.
BOTANGA.COM: Hispanics (from the island of Hispania?) are the fast growing segment of the U.S. population, and Rock en Español & Latin Hip-Hop are huge. 24-hour streaming Latin Rock & Hip-Hop site BATANGA.COM has had a growth rate of over 875% since January 1, and over 75,000 dedicated monthly listeners. They are now adding request driven channels for Latin Pop, Tropical (Merengue, Salsa & more) & Traditional mexican (Banda, Mariachi, Ranchera etc). The site is in both Spanish and English versions, and you can also buy the music you hear (imagine that...).
BMI ENET: BMI songwriters, composers and independent music publishers can now register new works online at the company's website, bmi.com. BMI's "eNet" facilitates secure interactive business communications with its more than 250,000 songwriters and music publishers. More than 1,000 songwriters have already registered over 5,000 works during beta-testing for the songwriter registration module. The online registration system is customized for each BMI songwriter, taking advantage of data already entered into the system, such as names of past co-writers and music publishers, so that the songwriter fills in the minimum information necessary for each new song registration. The new system is available to all BMI songwriters and composers and to individually-owned music publishers who register works on a song-by-song basis. BMI offers other digital protocols to larger publishers who register many works in large batches. Sez Alison Smith, Vice President, BMI Performing Rights, "The vast majority of the online are going through the system completely automatically. It's fast and efficient for the writers and cuts down substantially on BMI's back-office paperwork."
COURTNEY'S WISDOM: Artist Courtney Love gave a speech at the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference in New York on May 16, where she said some amazing things about artist's views on the recording industry, the issue of "piracy" and who are the real pirates, and the freedom and opportunity that online music presents to arecording artists today. Don Kimenker, co-founder of earBuzz.com, emailed the complete, un-edited transcript to their members, which included such gems of info as:
A complete copy of the speech is posted at Salon.com - http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html?CP=SAL.
GARAGE LICENSE: Licensemusic.com, a site where television, film and commercial music supervisors can find low-priced licenseable music, has teamed up with Garageband.com to help new and indie bands and artists geta peice of the license pie. Their LSP Program adds a complete and fully automated licensing solution to Garageband.com's capabilities, facilitating transactions between professionals seeking music content and garageband.com's artists. Since October 2000 more than 20,000 bands worldwide have created free pages and posted music at the indie music site, and the top 10 listings from each genre will be invited to participate in the automated licening program.
VIRTUAL GREEN: Green Day's oficial website (both www.greenday.com and www.officialgreenday.com) has launched with lots of high-quality, interactive content. The band is regularly involved inupdated tyhe content themselves, and will be posting video reports from their tour. They are completing their forthcoming self-produced Reprise album WARNING on October 3, 2000, and will be touring throughout the summer in the US and Japan.
ZUCASA.COM: ZU CASA (http://www.zucasa.com/) is an online "laboratory" for exhibition, performance, and promotion of experimental and improvised music. Created and maintained by Hans Fjellestad and Damon Holzborn, Zu Casa was first launched in 1997. The site is dedicated to the artists and fans of unpopular, uncategorizable, excellent music with a focus on improvisational forms. ZU CASA seeks to promote creative music through its new network of annotated links (organized by geography and category) providing a resource for artists, fans, and producers to facilitate touring and distribution of this diverse music between all of the active experimental music communities. This site is a great networking source for artists and fans alike for something you'll never hear on commercial radio, or see on MTV, VH1 or BET. They are also affiliated with TRUMMERFLORA (http://www.trummerflora.com/), a musicians collective dedicated to creative music in San Diego.
ONLINE MUSIC REVIEWS: I. C. M. A. Music Review (http://www.radiocountry.org) will review independent country, bluegrass, and gospel albums, and feature the best albums each month on their site. Send your package to I. C. M. A. Music Review, P. O. B. 271238, Nashville, TN 37227 (email Intlcma@aol.com for more info).
Passionmusic.net is a new, UK-based company on the Internet, selling music, games and videos, and also doing a news/reviews section. Interested indie artists may submit their work to Passionmusic.net, 1 Old Hall ST., Malpas, Cheshire, England SY14 8NE.
GirlMedia's GirlMusic Website wants to help female musicians and girl bands of all styles gain recognition on the web. They have net radio, interviews, contests, and have a live radio broadcast. They are always looking for submissions from new musicians; go to http://www.girlmedia.com/girlbands/ for more info.
ONLINE & ON THE AIR: WDVR-FM (http://www.wdvrfm.org/) is a diversified programming station with about 40 hours of country/bluegrass/Americana per week. Quite a few of the DJ's play Indie artists like Joe Paul Nichols, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Ed Burleson, Bill Murray, Dave Foley, Croonin' Kurt and the High-Geared Combo, Roger Wallace, Wayne Hancock, Ray Condo, etc. If this list should include you, send DJ Tom Wardle your package! Mail to 659 Haycock Run Rd., Kintnersville, PA 18930, or email Tom at djcowboy@erols.com.
WEBTIPS: none this issue
© 2000 Music Connection Magazine.