January 30th, 2011
Artist To Watch :: Whalers
Whalers
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Album: How The Ship Goes Down (Buy)
Label: Unsigned
Whalers – That Rabbit
January 28th, 2011
Digital Music News :: Is This Working?
[Via – DMN]
Is this strategy screaming for change? We just took a look at the top 100 singles on the iTunes Store (for Friday afternoon), and found that 95 of them were priced at $1.29. The remaining 5 were $0.99, and none were $0.69. Meanwhile, paid downloads are flattening (up just 1% in the US in 2010 last year according to Nielsen Soundscan).
So what happens when you expand the list? Apple actually posts the top 200 singles, so we expanded the count. But even among the top 200, 93.5 percent were $1.29, with just one 69-cent track available.
This is all part of a hard-fought victory by the majors, who wrestled with Apple for years to achieve ‘variable pricing.’ But this obviously isn’t working, and the trajectory suggests that iTunes singles will decline in 2011. “The price increase probably couldn’t have come at a worse time,” Warner Music Group chairman Edgar Bronfman, Jr. even admitted during a financial review at about this time last year. That implementation happened in 2008, or as Bronfman noted, in “the teeth of the worst recession since the Depression.”
So, why not change the pricing strategy, and save this format? The idea as initially proposed was to hike the price on more popular tracks, while matching lower pricing tiers with catalog songs. Sounds reasonable enough, though it looks that even this game plan has changed. Sources to Digital Music News recently noted that EMI has decided to price everything at $1.29 – new, old, whatever. We called EMI about this, and they declined to answer the question, though an initial examination validates the claims.
The results of our deeper dive are ahead. (Continue Reading)
January 26th, 2011
The Black Keys :: KCRW – December 13, 2010
![The_Black_Keys_409977b []](http://www.rollogrady.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/The_Black_Keys_409977b-.jpg "The_Black_Keys_409977b []")
Black Keys – Live on KCRW – December 13, 2010
Set List:
Everlasting Light
Next Girl
Chop And Change
Howling For You
Tighten Up
She’s Long Gone
Ten Cent Pistol
Sinister Kid
Your Touch
Download:
Black Keys – Brothers (iTunes)
January 25th, 2011
The Kills :: Kiss The Wrong Side
THE KILLS
Cheap And Cheerful (2008 UK limited edition 2-track 7″ vinyl single)
Label: Domino
The Kills – Kiss the Wrong Side
January 25th, 2011
Devin Therriault :: In My Solitude
![devin- []](http://www.rollogrady.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/devin-1.jpg "devin- []")
Devin Therriault will be making his Los Angeles debut this Thursday at the Echoplex. He will be joined by headliners Monotonix and Ty Segall. You can purchase tickets here.
MP3: Devin Therriault – In My Solitude (demo)
January 25th, 2011
J. Irvin Dally :: Big Ugly Yellow Couch Session
![j-irvin []](http://www.rollogrady.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/j-irvin-.jpg "j-irvin []")
J. Irvin Dally recorded three acoustic songs for a recent Big Ugly Yellow Couch session. BUYC is an acoustic video session series run out of the Brooklyn apartment of writer Carlye Wisel and photographer/videographer Donald Rasmussen. Previous sessions include Twin Sister, Dawes, Yellow Ostrich, Phantogram, and others. They offer MP3’s and video footage of the sessions. It’s a great site worth checking out.
Download:
J. Irvin Dally – Despistado (Buy)
MP3: J. Irvin Dally – Brown Sugar (BUYC Session)
MP3: J. Irvin Dally – Sun Room
