CMPE Media » Music Industry

Nashville readies next generation of stars

www.cmpemedia.com — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:32:55 +0000

It’s never been easy breaking into the record business, but when you live in a cultural hotspot like Nashville, Tennessee, it sure helps. Two years ago, aspiring Tennessee songwriters were gifted with another advantage: the “Partners in Craft” program at Middle Tennessee State University. This program partners MTSU commercial songwriting majors with mentors in the publishing and recording industry. These mentors include members from Sony, EMI, Carnival Music, Universal Music Publishing, Warner-Chappell, and more, some of whom are MTSU alumni. PIC is itself a partnership between MTSU’s Recording Industry department and the Nashville ASCAP office.ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) includes Nashville as its own genre on its website, along with jazz, pop/rock, rhythm & soul, and more. Nashville reciprocated in 1989 by declaring February 13 (the day before Valentine’s Day) as ASCAP Day. The office already offers songwriting workshops for those who apply, but the PIC program has been a whole different kind of success. In just two years, 53 students have joined, ten students either have or have had internships, and graduate Eric Paslay is close to signing a major-label contract.

New music technology for would-be DJs

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:35:52 +0000

The story of Last.fm seems like every start-up’s fairy-tale dream: a bunch of music fans start up a personalized radio and social media network in a small East London office. It catches on worldwide. Then, the site is bought out by CBS. When Last.fm dropped its coveted on-demand music streaming service in April 2010, though, spectators worried that CBS was running the service into the ground. Now, a new partnership with music technology developer MXP4 has them back in the newsand could be changing the way the online radio industry works.MXP4 produces audio-mixing software which lets people manipulate their favorite songs by adding instruments, stripping away backing music, or blending songs together. The technology is now available on the websites of licensed artists and on MXP4′s website. Record execs believe this could be the key to reintroducing or repackaging artists’ back catalogues. Last.fm also believes the technology will have a positive financial effect. They hope that the brands which promote on the site will use the technology in their ads. This will let users mix any music used in the promotions.The partnership with Last.fm may be more exciting for MXP4 than for Last.fm, as it’s the first time MXP4 has licensed its technology for commercial use. Previously, a free MXP4 app was released for K’naan’s “Wavin’ Flag,” the World Cup theme song. The developers are hoping to attract more record labels to their product, and are also in talks with Spotify and other online music distribution outlets. As the face of the music industry changes, it will be interesting to see how users react to increased interactivity. Perhaps it will inspire a new generation of music mash-up artists, but will it allow record labels to compete with the alternative (and sometimes illegal) modes of music sharing? Only time will tell.

Veteran broadcaster Tom Leykis launches new online initiative

admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:28:26 +0000

For radio music fans who feel the waters have grown stale in recent years, there is now light on the horizon. You won’t hear it on the FM dial, though: “New Normal Music” is currently an online-only initiative, though it was started by radio veteran Tom Leykis. Leykis promises to bring a wealth of experience to the venture, and says the show will highlight artists not normally played on Modern Rock stations, starting with a continuous stream of 50,000 songs less than a year old.Leykis has been involved with radio since he was 14 years old, when he served as a fill-in host for Long Island station WBAB. He contributed to talk radio shows in the late 1970s and became the host of the long-running and often controversial talk show The Tom Leykis Show in 1994. The show ended in 2009, and Leykis began a weekly program called The Tasting Room focusing on the high-class lifestyle.The manifesto currently up on the website reveals Leykis’s signature style, lambasting the ages of many popular artists like Rivers Cuomo of Weezer (40), Tom Delonge of Blink-182 (34), and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (47). While acknowledging the contributions of these artists, Leykis insists that radio stations cannot truly take a chance on exciting new artists, and is dedicated to changing that via the web.”New Normal Music” will be available on all major devices, including the iPad, iPhone and Droid as well as home computers. The site will also take requests and offers audio quality which Leykis claims is higher than any radio station. It will be interesting to see if and how radio stations take Leykis up on his implicit challenge, but if you’re interested, make sure to tune to “New Normal Music” when it launches July 1.

Spotify offers exposure for unsigned artists

admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:17:43 +0000

Artists who have been distributing their music through TuneCore now have the opportunity to reach a larger audience, thanks to a deal with European digital music site Spotify. The process involves a one-time yearly fee for each track which allows it to be streamed by listeners.TuneCore has already achieved some success, announcing that artists featured on the site were paid for over 65 million songs and albums in 2009. This represents an impressive achievement for a site founded in 2005. TuneCore also differentiates itself from other digital music retailers by keeping none of the sales or rights for the music. Artists like Frank Black of the Pixies and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails have also involved themselves with the site, either by purchasing or releasing music.TuneCore already supports distribution via iTunes, AmazonMP3, eMusic, and more, and added Mog, iLike, Zune, MySpace Music and Thumbplay earlier in 2010. By partnering with Spotify, which was founded in 2008 and already has around seven million users, TuneCore aims to reach more listeners than ever before, and also provide more exposure for the many artists on its site.Spotify is continuing to grow, with one estimate placing it at 10,000 new users a week. In March, CEO Daniel Ek also announced that Spotify would be buying server space in the United States, in the hopes of launching around the third quarter of the year. Music fans and industry heads alike will no doubt be keeping an eye on these sites as they continue to develop, so make sure you’re there for it too.

Capricorn Recording Studio in danger

admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:04:37 +0000

The studio which launched Duane Allman to stardom may not last much longer. Capricorn Recording Studio, located in Macon, has been placed on the Georgia Trust’s 2010 “Places in Peril” list. Some of the issues noted include extensive weather damage, vandalism and burglary, and the dilapidated state of the surrounding buildings. This may not mean much to fans of artists like the Marshall Tucker Band, the Charlie Daniels Band, and Dixie Dregs, which were all launched from the studio.Capricorn was founded in 1969 when founders Phil Walden and Frank Fenter started the Capricorn Record Series, which became noteworthy after releasing the Allman Brothers Band‘s debut album later that year. Two years later, the studio released what many still consider its most acclaimed album, the Allman Brothers’ double LP At Fillmore East. In 1979 the studio went under for the first time, but was relocated to Nashville in 1991. There, it became a part of the Warner Records label and held its own in a changing industry, recording artists like Widespread Panic, Cake, and 311.However, changing owners and other problems led to the studio’s closing in 2000. At one point, the building was under the protection of Mercer University. However, the studio was finally foreclosed upon at the end of last year. It has stood as a reminder of its glory days since then, but now even that appears in danger of changing. Fans interested in seeing the “birthplace” of some of their favorite artists should make the journey while they still can.