Does your brain need scrubbing out after the weekend? Then you’ll be interested to note that Mancunian electronic artists Autechre have announced that they’ll be releasing a new album. Their music is a crushed up, jangling, unsettled and deeply atmospheric mix of glitchy, static sounding samples and electronic noises, sometimes over soothing synth lines and drum beats seemingly recorded over a telephone mic, sometimes blended with a brooding black wall of noise. Released and distributed through Warp on the 22nd of March, Oversteps will be Autechre’s tenth full album in a career that spans almost twenty years (their first single and EP were released in ’91 – make you feel old?). Tracklisting as follows, but if you can make head or tail of it you’re a better man than me:
Oversteps:
01 r ess
02 ilanders
03 known(1)
04 pt2ph8
05 qplay
06 see on see
07 Treale
08 osveix3
09 O=0
10 d-shoqub
11 st epreo
12 redfall
13 krYlon
14 Yuop
There are a lot of fresh tracks (some with less than 1,000 plays) up on their white-on-white myspace page (drag highlight it if you want to actually read anything) but none of them seem to feature on the new album listing.
HMV is one high street music chain that has thus far survived the decimation that has killed off Zavvi, Fopp, and other music retailers, and Luminar is a behind the scenes operator of a large group of nightclubs across the UK. According to a report in the Times‘the two companies are discussing the possibility of setting up a small number of pilots that would involve HMV stores and Luminar clubs cross-marketing to each others’ customers.’ This seems like a smart move on HMV’s part, taking a few more of their eggs out of the physical retail market. In the light of the proposed deal between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which if approved would sweep the board on high level gigs, it makes sense for mid level venues to start tying in with big players in the music industry for some marketing support, thereby providing another route to heavliy promoted artists, and safeguarding their territory from downward incursion.
HMV already has its own record label, and close ties into live venues, which are proving more resistant to the general slump in the music market than physical record sales.
Guy Ritchie may have split from pop Empress Madonna, but there’s still plenty of room for music in his life. The 42 year old director has clearly been spending a lot of his time (and doubtless his $50 million divorce settlement) as a newly single man in the pub he owns. As well as developing a line of new beers that he plans to market, he’s also starting up a record label to promote the pub’s house band – imaginitively named ‘The Punchbowl Band’, after the pub where they reside. Justin Timberlake is a fan of theirs, having previously performed with them; “Jamming with the guys was the best fun I have ever had without a woman.” Quipped the scruffy faced ex N’Sync member.
You know what time of year it is… and since it’s been a while since we posted anything about Lady Gaga, here’s a Christmas Carol, barbershop version of her song ‘Bad Romance’, from a strange group of people called the ‘Cherry Tree Singers’. Cherry Tree is a sub label of Universal’s whose roster includes Feist, Sting, Tokio Hotel and Lady G, so I’m guessing that these are label employees that have recorded an office sing-song of their more famous client’s releases. Consider this a taster for tomorrow’s upcoming Xmas playlist. [I know. I'm sorry.]
Warner Music Group just posted their Annual 10K with the SEC (click on the thumbnails to enlarge). Revenues are down, and the company has posted a -$77 million dollar loss for the year: double what they lost last year (-$35 million), but better than they did in ’05 (-$110 million). They’ve managed to shave 5% off their administrative costs, and there’s a marked increase in their digital revenues, up from $599MM to $656MM, which nevertheless fails to cover the drop in lost physical sales. Really it’s the same story we’ve been hearing from the majors for the last few years – the focus is gradually shifting across to digital music, and physical revenues are dwindling away, meaning that the big 4 are making less money and having to downsize their infrastructure. I’m absolutely convinced that after a period of shrinking like this, the big guys will return to profitability, and the quicker they shift their focus across to maximising digital and live revenues, the quicker this will happen.
As we published in this post, that’s certainly the standpoint of Swedish artist, Magnus Uggla and the Lady might well feel the same, based on the information in this post, saying that she was only paid a pittance by the Swedish performing rights society for a huge number of plays on the music streaming service Spotify:
According to a report today, Lady Gaga’s track “Poker Face” was one of the most popular tracks during a five month period on Spotify and was played more than a million times. So how much money does she get paid by STIM (the Swedish Performing Rights Society) for this massive achievement?
SEK 1150 – that’s around $167 or roughly 113 Euros.
But that’s not quite the whole story… The performing rights contribution splits out to $0.000167 a play, but so what? Lady G (or more likely her record label) will also be being paid directly by Spotify with a flat fee per play (a couple of pennies per track) and a chunk of the service’s ad revenue. Lady Gaga’s direct revenues from that many streams will be in the five figure $USD range, and the performing rights system probably does more to support their own bureaucratic infrastructure than it contributes towards paying her a sensible wage. It would be interesting to know exactly what proportion of their receipts is paid to artists, and what is spent on running the society, as well as why the PRS collects a fee for every track played on services like Spotify, even those of tracks by non-PRS-members.
Lily Allen has previously complained on Twitter “@citricsquid did you know the major own hold massive stakes in Spotify, and earn advertising revenue at yet another loss to the artist”that she’s not seeing any of the revenue from her Spotify plays, but this is likely to be because the majors have all bought shares in Spotify, and are both giving them an easy ride on the music licensing fees and taking their own substantial cut of anything that comes back. Lily Allen would do well to have a little faith in Spotify, given her well publicised feelingsagainst file sharing.
Of course, this diminished revenue wouldn’t be a problem if she’d signed her music up for digital distribution to with someone like RouteNote, who get the full per track rate, and only take 10% on the back end.
That said, the decision of the majors to support Spotify and other streaming services is a pragmatic one; if it is really the case that freemium services are reducing piracy and providing a way for labels to ‘monetize’ their catalogues online then it makes sense for the majors to be in on the ground floor and take advantage of future success, especially since they’re looking such ghastlyfinancials [pg. 33 for the headlines] in the face. Right, now that’s sorted we can all go back to wondering whether or not the Lady is a trap…
You’ve got a great band together, some great ideas, you’ve polished your performance, you’re happy with your sound and you’ve got the perfect 15 tracks to lay down on the debut album that’s going to be the major weapon in your assault on the charts. One problem. You haven’t got the ten grand you need to have it recorded and mastered in a professional recording studio. What’s the solution? Chicago based rockersI Fight Dragons had the rather brilliant idea of getting their fans to fund them, with a hundred dollar contribution to the recording fund buying a ‘membership’ including all the band’s previous recordings on a specially produced USB drive, “and they guarantee[d] the owner a free digital copy of anything we ever release, as well as free admission to any live show of ours now and forever. And there will only be 100 ever made.” They posted a link on their website, sent an email out to their mailing list, and the drive/membership combination sold out in 48 hrs. This is a great example of a band that’s connected with its fans, and has given a huge amount of added value to a small group of committed fans that will continue to support them throughout their career, cherish their relationship with the band, and recommend them to all their fans. Read Hypebot’s take on the matter here, and the rest of IFD Brian’s post here, on the WeAreListening blog.
Like everyone else on Wall Street, and particularly in the music industry EMI is facing pressure from it’s creditors, and the outlook is not improved by the rejection of a recent proposal from Terra Firma (EMI’s owners) to pump £1 billion into the company, in return for Citibank (the sole major creditor to EMI) writing off a proportion of the £2.6 billion of the debt owed to it. Presumably this means that without a similarly radical solution, EMI is going to be facing issues maintaining liquidity or meeting it’s covenants (the agreements which govern the amount of debt it’s allowed by it’s creditors to operate with).
Even the upturn in their revenues, while encouraging, only represents a small percentage, and we’re not yet privy to their yearly report, which they’re holding off until after their talks with CitiBank have reached a workable conclusion. Looking at last year’s operating losses of -$258 million and a total loss (including things like amortisation and depreciation of assets) of -$757 million, the company is looking another thumping loss in the face, without much prospect of a return to the black side of the line in the short term (take a look at pg 33 of this report for the scary numbers).
As previously advised, Terra Firma has been in discussions with EMI’s lender. Until these discussions have come to a conclusion, it is not appropriate to publish an Annual Review of Maltby Capital for the 2009 financial year.
As already announced, EMI Music (the recorded music division) delivered a strong operational turnaround with EBITDA increasing from £51 million to £163 million for the year ended 31 March 2009.
EMI Music Publishing, the leading publisher of popular music, continued to deliver strong performance with EBITDA increasing from £112 million to £135 million for the year ended 31 March 2009. (via the EMI website)
[I'm not sure I agree that this upswing qualifies as a turnaround, in the face of their yearly losses overall...] If one of the big 4 were to fold under market pressure, what would happen to the rest of the industry? Collapse of the mega-label structure would surely spell anarchy in the music industry as a whole, but anarchy is good for change…
It’s been a while since we reiterated this: RouteNote is here to help YOU get your music online and selling. There are a lot of other players in the digital distribution market, all offering different models of payment and return, different combinations of stores, different packages and percentages, but we think we have the simplest, most efficient and cheapest service on the net.
We don’t charge any upfront or subscription fees, and only charge a 10% fee out of any revenue that you get once you start selling music. Other sites either expect you to shell out fees that can end up totalling hundreds of dollars before you even sell a single track, or take big chunks out of your back end in return for their services (The Orchard will take a flat rate of 30%). Other places will charge you depending on how many stores you want to sell through (Tunecore, Musicadium) – we don’t do any of this stuff. We just want you to confirm that you can license us the rights to distribute the music you upload, tell us the email address attached to the paypal account you want us to send revenues to and then upload your music. Our contract doesn’t make any claims on the music’s copyright, just enables us to make, store and send copies of your files, and it has a break clause of 60 days, so if you get fed up with us, or suddenly get signed by Warner you’ve only got a couple of months maximum wait before you can make a move. Once you pass our moderation (we need to check you’ve not just uploaded a Spice Girls album, or some hateful tirade against Guinea Pig owners) we’ll turn it around within 4 weeks and get your music to iTunes, eMusic, Spotify, Amazon MP3, Snocap, and other online digital stores that cover more than 95% of the online market.
You can check out our agreement once you’ve input your details in the Register page – don’t worry, you don’t need to sign your life away to look at the agreement – you have to specifically agree before we’re in business! We hope you’ll think it’s equitable (feedback on what you’d change is always welcome), and we look forward to having you join the 1,500 artists and labels who are already working with us to make their music make money.
Just a brief one for all those who are fans of James Murphy’s (as I am). A new track, Bye Bye Bayou will be out on vinyl on the 7th of November, and digitally via DFA’s site on the 24thov Nov.
Does your brain need scrubbing out after the weekend? Then you’ll be interested to note that Mancunian electronic artists Autechre have announced that they’ll be releasing a new album. Their music is a crushed up, jangling, unsettled and deeply atmospheric mix of glitchy, static sounding samples and electronic noises, sometimes over soothing synth lines and drum beats seemingly recorded over a telephone mic, sometimes blended with a brooding black wall of noise. Released and distributed through Warp on the 22nd of March, Oversteps will be Autechre’s tenth full album in a career that spans almost twenty years (their first single and EP were released in ’91 – make you feel old?). Tracklisting as follows, but if you can make head or tail of it you’re a better man than me:
Like everyone else on Wall Street, and particularly in the music industry EMI is facing pressure from it’s creditors, and the outlook is not improved by the 
It’s been a while since we reiterated this: RouteNote is here to help YOU get your music online and selling. There are a lot of other players in the 
Just a brief one for all those who are fans of James Murphy’s (as I am). A new track, Bye Bye Bayou will be out on vinyl on the 7th of November, and digitally via 