During the week or two of sound-checks leading up to the recording, we worked through the songs and attempted to rewrite them with fewer and different tones. Listeners can judge whether or not we were able to make these ‘stripped-down’ versions mean something.

- Alex Scally – Beach House

I like the new takes on a lot of the tracks, especially Real Love, which was one of my favorite songs from Teen Dream. The minimal approach to this EP brings the listeners ears right to Victoria Legrand’s vocal, a stark difference from the studio albums, which paint landscapes of textured sound with less of a strict focal point in the mix.

Check it out, and be sure to give White Moon a listen here:
Beach House – White Moon (Itunes Session) by subpop

New Beach House Track – White Moon is a post from: wax&wires

[Via CNET]

With the iTunes’ banner waving supremely over the digital music landscape, Google continues to build its own music service, CNET has learned.

According to multiple music industry sources, Google could launch a music service that offers song downloads and streaming music as early as this fall.

Google has already signaled that it wishes to give users of phones equipped with Google’s Android operating system a better music offering. At Google’s I/O conference last month, the search engine offered attendees a demonstration of a Web-based iTunes competitor. Also TechCrunch reported two weeks ago that it discovered a “Google Music” logo hosted on Google’s domain.

But Google’s plans go beyond Android, say music sector insiders. CNET has learned that Google first stoked excitement among executives at some of the top four major labels during the Consumer Electronics Show in January. That’s where they revealed some of the features that a Google music store might include, such as tying digital downloads and streaming music to Google’s search results.

Google did not respond to interview requests.

Read Full Article…

Google Streaming Music Service Rumored By Fall is a post from: wax&wires

Related posts:

1. Free Amazon Cloud Drive + Cloud MP3 Player

Sticking with the new shorter format, I give a quick rundown of what iTunes LP brings to the table, what works and what doesn’t. Can it resurrect album sales in a digital market?

I like iTunes LP for the most part. They need to make it more easily accessible from a permanent link on the home page of the iTunes store. I want to be able to see every ITLP album on a single page quickly and easily, which right now there’s not a lot. Second, they need to transfer the experience to the iPhone so that you can have the full album, including bonus content, on the go.

You can check out iTunes LP, and all 12 albums available with it, here.

What do you think?

wax&wires tv – Episode 006: iTunes LP Review is a post from: wax&wires

It’s being reported that Universal Music Group, the largest label in the world, has earned more money from Spotify in the past 5 months than it has from iTunes Sweden. The premium Spotify subscription runs for 10 euros a month ($14.27 USD), and users can also use the program for free with an ad-supported version.

“In five months from the launch, Spotify became our largest digital source of income and so passed by iTunes… It’s a fantastic development, explained by the fact that Spotify really has exploded.”

- Per Sundin, managing director UMG

So before we declare Spotify the new king of the music player hill, let’s break down what this could really mean.

Spotify is based in Sweden. Undoubtedly, there will be a lot more users supporting the home-grown product there; which may or may not translate to the tech-saturated US of A.

We also don’t know the rates that Spotify is paying UMG per play. If it’s some exorbitant amount greater than iTunes pays per track sold, then Spotify earning more money than iTunes for UMG does NOT equate to Spotify actually being more popular than iTunes.

What also may be of concern is that if Apple feels threatened by Spotify, they may block the Spotify iPhone App from the App store, just like they did with Google Voice. Without a way to take songs with you on the go (and don’t suggest a proprietary mobile device, those are lame and never worked for Pandora), Spotify would be doomed.

Spotify has also been tinkering with ways to enhance the social element of their product by including options to share songs on Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites. That’s where Spotify has a one-up on iTunes. Because it’s free and streaming, anybody with net can check out the songs that their buddies are listening too for free. Apple could never achieve that with iTunes because all songs must be purchased (or at least downloaded) to be heard in their entirety. The likelihood of me purchasing a song from iTunes solely because my friend tweeted it out… slim to none.

What Spotify needs to do next is borrow a play from the Zune marketplace; yes, I just said that. At the end of each month, premium subscribers should get to download and keep a certain amount of songs. If you paid $15/mo for unlimited streaming music AND got to keep 10 of the songs you played at the end of each month, the incentive to move towards the premium subscription increases dramatically.

That brings us to our POLL (You can select multiple options if pertinent):

Spotify Overthrows iTunes… for UMG… in Sweden… is a post from: wax&wires

WAXandWIRES TV – EPISODE 5

In this episode:
The state of The Album V Singles
Apple Cocktail album format
Muse gets creative with releasing their new single

I’m trying out a new format. Rather than full, crazy long episodes covering the gamut, I’ll put out shorter videos of just one topic at a time. Not as much fancy lighting, production quality, motion graphics, credit rolls, etc. Hopefully it will let me get the content out more timely though, and give you a chance to watch without getting bored or having to reschedule your day! The content ought to be driving the show more than the production anyway, so let me know what you think!

In this episode, the big topic is how to create an experience behind your music. Like it or not, your songs are free (somewhere) on the net. You can fight that all you want, but what you ought to do is accept that the songs are given away. Count money you make off of song sales as bonus. From there you need to figure out how to create added incentive to get listeners to buy into an EXPERIENCE around those songs; whether it be exclusive behind the scenes content, concert tickets, t-shirts, whatever. Muse did a great job with that on their latest release, creating an entire interactive experience and geo-tagging hunt for their fans. Apple is doing this in an official way with “Cocktail,” but bands have been independently up to it for a while.

Remember back when CDs first came out and they would have “secret tracks?” That’s totally played out now, and went through a period of almost being expected on every album. We need a resurgence of that mindset in a fresh way though, artists who will put a little something special in the album in order to create excitement around picking it up. All the little hidden treasures that add a personal and original touch to the album, thus helping it find a home in your memory.

What are you doing to bring an experience along with your songs?

Email me with any questions or comments. I welcome them all. Thanks!

tim@waxandwires.com

wax&wires tv – Episode 005: Music is more than songs is a post from: wax&wires

This is in large part due to the fact that there are only a few select players in the digital download world (Amazon holding an 8% share, iTunes with it’s 69%, etc.), where as physical sales have a lot more fighters in the ring. Nonetheless, with NO physical sales (many companies like WalMart and Amazon have both digital downloads and physical sales), Apple is now the single largest music retailer. That’s crazy! 1 in 4 songs purchased today are purchased on iTunes!

You might be surprised to find that CDs still comprise 65% of all music sales; I’m not. I was an admittedly slow adopter of digital downloads, at least when compared to my haste in adopting other technologies. I think it was because I liked the album experience. I liked the higher audio quality. I liked going to the record store on Tuesdays, smelling the “new album” smell the first time you cracked the case open, reading the lyrics and viewing the artwork as the album got broken in on my stereo. I’ll talk a bit about that in WWTV 005. Apple is currently trying to figure out a way to bring back some of that nostalgia with Cocktail, which they should be all set to announce in a few weeks now.

Don’t abandon the CD just yet, it’s still the primary means of music consumption and you need to have your music available in the format people want it in.

iTunes Crushes Music Downloads, But CDs Still Reign is a post from: wax&wires

The project has a codename of “Cocktail,” and will reportedly launch this upcoming September; right around the time Apple plans to release a tablet touch-screen computer with 3G connectivity.

We’ve talked at length about the future of the album, different artists even abandoning the album in favor of singles-only releases (see the Barcelona segment of wwtv #001). We’ve discussed at nauseum ways to create incentive for fans to buy your album, or larger packages based around your music.

What you need to realize, is that you’re no longer selling your music. Like it or not, your music is free. You might not have priced it as such, or want it to be so, but the reality of it is (especiall for the big 4) all of your music is available somewhere for free. What you need to do now, is figure out how to monetize and capitalize on the exposure that your free music has given you. You’re selling an experience around the music, since the music itself isn’t going to pay your rent. Shift back to classic marketting. Shick and Gillette will be happy to give you a free razor, because they know that you’ll buy razor blades from them in the future. Microsoft is happy to take a loss on the XBOX 360 console itself, to sell you video games and downloadable content in the future.

The razor blade still has to be good. The video games still have to be stellar. The XBOX still has to work. So don’t think you can give out terrible music and sell your would-be fans an ugly sleeveless acid wash t-shirt. Your music still needs to be good, along with your bonus content, but think beyond your music as the thing that will earn you money. It might be the catalyst that drives your production, but it is not the bread-winner.

What are your video games? What are your razor blades? What are you offering people to create in them a DESIRE to purchase your goods?

Apple And The Big 4 Look For Ways To Resurrect The Full Album is a post from: wax&wires

Depeche Mode’s new single Wrong, from the upcoming Sounds of the Universe

Well, I can’t say we didn’t see this one coming. Depeche Mode has signed on with iTunes to offer a subscription to fans in order to help generate some hype for their upcoming Sounds of the Universe album. This will be the first iTunes Pass dedicated to a specific artist and gives fans access to exclusive songs, remixes, videos and other content for $19.

I had mentioned briefly in an article a short while back that I was waiting for bands and record labels to harness the iPhone app as a means of cranking out exclusive content and generating more revenue.  We’ve now seen Kyte develop that exact service for various big time labels and artists. With an iPhone app, users could stream any content from a certain artist to their mobile, and the artist could update it from the back end on the fly. The main difference in this subscription and an app is that an app can update on the go since it’s just pulling data to stream from the artist’s server. The subscription downloads new content to iTunes, which is great since you get to keep the files, but then presents an extra laborious step in that you have to hook your iPhone in to your computer to load the content for mobile access. Nonetheless, this Depeche Mode subscription is another manifestation of the artist content app, and I’ll be more surprised if other artists don’t jump on the bandwaggon sooner than later.

Fans who purchase the Depeche Mode subscription will get exclusive content for 15 weeks leading up to the album release, and will automatically receive a copy of Sounds of the Universe when it comes out on April 15.

Depeche Mode Teams Up With iTunes For “Season Pass” is a post from: wax&wires

For indie artists looking to distribute music via the myriad of online avenues, RouteNote provides a great solution. They will distribute your music to iTunes, AmazonMP3, eMusic, Last.fm, imeem and others, while only charging you a light commission.

It’s a no brainer that your music needs to be easily accessible in the MP3 markets that people are using. While a lot of budget services will offer you download cards to sell, and host your music on their site for you, that’s only going to have as much reach as your own website or gigs give you. If somebody searches iTunes for your band’s name, your music needs to show up. Web presence is critical to the success of the emerging artist, and saturating the web with your music is a first step in gaining popularity.

There are services from DiscMakers and other CD pressing companies that will offer to get your music up as an extension of pressing your CD. The problem with those deals is that they charge you an upfront “set up” fee, just like with pressing a CD. I can’t fault them for that, as it makes sense. From the artist’s perspective though, there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever recoup that money. RouteNote alleviates the stress of the situation by only charging you a commission for the music that is actually sold through them.

You can save a lot of legwork by utilizing services like this, and it makes sense when there are no upfront charges.

Check out RouteNote here.

RouteNote: An Solid Way To Distribute Your Music is a post from: wax&wires

IMAGE: Declan McCullagh Photography

Well as it turns out, that very store will be closing its doors for good this upcoming April. Not because of the sagging economy; not because of the incredible overhead for a 180,000 square foot Times Square lot; not because of iTunes and digital music sales pushing CDs into obsolescence. The number one music store in the country, moving $55 million of goods each year, will be closing its doors because it can make more money renting the space out.

Virgin pays only $54/square-foot for the Times Square landmark, and current market value for retail space in the area is at $700/square-foot. While the store generates $6 million in profit per year, Vornado (the real estate company that acquired Virgin Entertainment Group North America) expects to earn much more than that by leasing the space to other retailers. That cuts the total number of Virgin Megastores to 5, making the 14th street store in Union Square the premier Virgin Megastore in New York. Even the future of that store is in question, as they leased the ground floor to Nordstrom Rack this past holiday season; yes, during the holiday season which is supposed to be prime time for retailers. If they can afford to lease out prime space to other retail outlets during shopping high times, I can’t imagine it bodes well for them in low times, which are certain to be just around the bend.

As much as they might pin this on making strict business sense from a real estate perspective, you have to assume that the decline of CD sales played into it at least a bit. Brick and mortar music stores have become more of a novelty than a wise business venture. If the number one CD retailer in the US has better things to do with its time and space, expect to see other music shops go down soon.

Virgin Mega Store Times Square Closing is a post from: wax&wires

Universal Music Group GM & VP, Rio Caraeff

In the interview, Caraeff discusses everything from internet radio, to DRM, and mobile music platforms.

Some noteworthy points:

Caraeff admits that the industry has come a long way in the past few years. He views streaming music as the critical step that the labels must be on board with, citing UMGs deals with last.fm, iMeem, and MySpace as examples. All of those services were structured to be free-to-consumer, being ad supported. Caraeff also mentions how subscription-based music services have not caught on with the success that many hoped for. People are not willing to pay for things that they can get elsewhere for free.

Furthering that thought, Caraeff sees the solution to music piracy coming from the labels providing a superior alternative to piracy, rather than litigation. As you all know, that has been my stance from the start. Steps that UMG has taken in the aforementioned streaming music markets are ways in which consumers can get music legally, but still for free. I truly believe people would rather do things legally, they just put their comfort ahead of the law at times.

In a surprising stat, Caraeff reveals that 40-45 percent of UMG’s overall digital business comes from mobile channels like Verizon and AT&T, especially in urban markets. UMG does not believe that the mobile platform is the sole platform of the future though, but rather a single revenue stream amongst dozens.

Caraeff goes on to talk about the UMG YouTube deal, the impact of Apple and much more.

You can read the full article here.

Universal Music Group Chief On iTunes, DRM, and Android is a post from: wax&wires

The tracks are good too, including songs from Brett Dennen, Joshua Radin, Jon Foreman and Emiliana Torrini.

Thanks Kyle Starr for the link!

20 Free Singer/Songwriter Songs On iTunes is a post from: wax&wires

Beyond the lack of Digital Rights Management, it looks as though there will be plans for labels to impose pricing brackets on songs within iTunes. While that may make iTunes more competitive with other online MP3 stores, rumor has it that many of the songs will actually go up in price rather than down. Back catalog tracks will be priced as low as 79 cents each, but newer hit songs are expected to jump in price. I have to assume these terms were part of the compromise in getting the major labels to come on board.

There are also unconfirmed rumors that Apple will be announcing a mobile iTunes store for iPhone users to download songs directly to their devices via AT&T’s 3G network.

Even with its inferior song quality and pricing, iTunes remained the top MP3 store on the net by linking use so tightly to the iPod. As the iPod blew up in popularity, iTunes was carried along with it. Over the past year or so, we’ve seen users begin to venture away from iTunes in favor of more consumer friendly music stores, though none ever really rose to threaten iTunes as the top seed. Now that Apple will finally ditch DRM, and potentially lower prices, this may all but ensure their online music dominance. Stores like WalMart, Amazon and eMusic will need to find a new way to compete.

Apple iTunes Goes DRM-Free is a post from: wax&wires

Related posts:

1. Free Amazon Cloud Drive + Cloud MP3 Player

Daito Manabe’s Electric Stimulus to Face Test 3 is a bizarre (but awesome) innovation where he attaches electric stimulators to his face, and syncs them up with music to force his facial muscles to contract on beat. Here are some photos of the device used to translate the signal into voltage, the Den-Kuri Master, which was originally intended to help musicians feel the beat as a metronome sending out electrical impulses. Don’t try this at home.

Tired Of Your iTunes Visualizer? Electrocute Your Face! is a post from: wax&wires

It unveils a few more details that I didn’t know about in my initial post, including the application of the first sale doctrine in a digital media world. The first sale doctrine was initially drafted in 1908 and essentially said that the purchaser of a good is entitled to sell it without permission of the original owner, publisher, or copyright holder as long as no additional copies are made.

Here’s where there’s growing difficulty with the used mp3 market. We can’t be sure if the first sale doctrine actually applies, since there’s no way of knowing whether or not an additional copy was made. Sites like Bopaboo can ensure that additional copies of songs aren’t sold on their site by the same user, but cannot ensure that additional copies are not retained by the user or sold elsewhere.

In the article, Rich Bengloff, the president of the American Association of Independent Music, talks about how the industry is reluctant to embrace used sales because there’s no monetary return to the original creators or publishers. Nate Anderson, the author of the article, asks Bengloff what the difference is between selling a used song on bopaboo and a used dinner table on craigslist. After all, the original carpenter of your dinner table doesn’t see additional returns when you sell it. Bengloff states that the carpenter might see returns in the form of needing to repair the table or re-stain it, where as the digital copies of music don’t whether so there’s no market for additional return. I totally disagree. I’m not a fan of the used mp3 market, but I think that he’s making a severely flawed argument. If you’re going to chalk it up as a worthwhile return that a carpenter might get hired to refinish a table he made years ago, you would have to argue that artists have a worthwhile return from used mp3s in the form of an extended fan base and concert ticket sales. I would bet that more people would go to a concert of a band after downloading their used mp3, than would hire the same carpenter who built their table to refinish it. Who even has their tables refinished? I can think of one person I know who has refinished a table, and he did it himself rather than hiring a carpenter to do it (much less tracking down the original carpenter to come in). On the flip side, I couldn’t even count the number of people I know who have gone to shows and concerts, or bought merchandise after downloading a band’s music online.

I’ll let you read the article for yourself to develop your own view on it.

Bopaboo is now seeking licensing from the music labels, which would actually give the labels a bit of return for used mp3s sold on bopaboo in exchange for not taking legal action against the website. There’s a slim chance that with the support of the labels bopaboo could succeed, but I don’t see it happening so long as the free p2p music market is still so at large.

But enough with my commentary, check out the original article here.

First Sale Doctrine and Used MP3 Sales is a post from: wax&wires