TechCrunch reports an offer from Dimensional to buy all outstanding stock of our digital music distribution competitor The Orchard, whose operation currently has offices in 25 countries, and is losing $17.5 million dollars a year. The purchase offer is for $2.05 per share of common stock, valuing the company at $12.8 million, about 28% of their annual revenue of $45 million. Rumours also abound of a merger between The Orchard and eMusic, which would see the vertical value chain completed, from artist to store – seemingly a simple and sensible synergy, but since eMusic is also rumoured to be for sale predicting where the chips will fall may be difficult. Private owners of The Orchard will have a lot of cost cutting to do whatever the case, so look to see a lot of those international offices closed down, and a consolidation of revenue streams and staffing before long.
A report from business analysis firm Ovum says they think UK based Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) could bundle a silver bullet with their broadband contracts by adding a digital music service to their offerings. They argue that this would increase customer loyalty (Ovum call it reducing consumer churn), generate additional revenue per customer, reduce online music piracy and increase music industry revenue. They estimate (and they don’t say how they arrived at the figure) that direct revenues from selling music-inclusive deals could be around £103 million by 2013, representing 41% of 2009’s market.
Commenting on the report earlier this week the BPI’s Geoff Taylor said “It’s increasingly clear that it isn’t smart to be a ‘dumb pipe’. This report shows that the revenue potential of digital music services alone makes sound economic sense for ISPs.”
Fair enough. But take note that Universal Music Group sponsored the report, the same UMG that are desperately worried about the collapse of their revenues, and the same UMG that are invested in Spotify, a music service that could very easily sell premium subscriptions bundled with an ISP package. This is by all indications a great idea, and would go a long way to helping the ISP community appease big music – who are accusing it if not of complicity then at least negligence in the article of stopping access to copyright infringing sites and torrent trackers like the infamous Pirate Bay – but an awareness of possible bias might encourage conservatism when looking at Ovum’s estimated numbers. There are a lot of solutions vying for the fast growing digital music dollar, it’s a market in which we’re currently diversity and innovation, and a big move like the one the BPI are advocating could seal the future of music online.
Just a bit of fun, but since we’re based in Cornwall, we thought it might be of interest to our users to know that there’s a Cornish version of Wikipedia. Click here, and 1,000,000 bonus points to whoever writes RouteNote an entry!
From the luxurious position of having a major label deal with his main band, Blink 182, singer and guitarist Tom DeLonge can afford to experiment with his other project, Angels And Airwaves. The band are releasing their third album, imaginitively entitled “Love”, without the support of a label. The first two A&A albums were put out through Geffen, and sold in the hundreds of thousands, but “Love” will be offered as a free download, with premium versions comprising extra tracks and bonus material available to buy. The band will also be touring and selling $6.95 a month ‘memberships’ on their website. The hope is that these and other efforts will compensate for the recording and promotion costs of the album. DeLonge told Billboard in an interview that they’re hoping to get 20 million downloads of the album, and that:
“If only 5% of that 20 million came back and interacted with the Modlife platform that powers our Web site, the revenue would far exceed anything we’d make from a major label, in any way, shape or form,”
In this blogger’s opinion a 5% response rate is very optimistic, but it’s great to see bands pioneering different propositions in the modern digital-heavy marketplace. Presumably the album won’t be available on iTunes, or any of the other music stores RouteNote distributes to, which will mean that a lot of music users will not be able to access it through their normal channels, a closing of avenues which may cost a lot to replace in terms of product awareness.
Here at RouteNote we are always trying to improve our digital music distribution service. On Friday we announced the launch of three new partners, Napster, Deezer and Thumbplay. If you are a new artist to RouteNote then you can easily signup to take advantage of these new partners straight away. However, if you are an existing RouteNote artist you need to do the following steps:
Login and Head to your My Content section
Select the Edit button for each track you want to add to the new partners (Thumbplay, Napster and Deezer).
Select the new partners via the Tick boxes (or select all button)
Hit Save Changes and your Done!!
Here at RouteNote we are always looking to add new partners for all our artists. Stay tuned for even more coming soon!
Deezer is a French business, but has agreements with all 4 major labels to stream ad-supported music to their 9 million registered users across 35 different countries. In the three years since its launch, Deezer has been voted the most innovative website of 2007 by readers of 01Net, ahead of both Facebook and Dailymotion. Deezer also won the 2008 Red Herring award, for Europe’s most innovative web companies, among various other awards. The proof of their success is really in the number of people listening to music through their service, which keeps on growing. In addition to their music streaming service, Deezer also offers:
- Access to radio channels: Hip Hop, Rock, Electro, Jazz, Live, French Scene, Disco etc.
- Surfing intelligent online radio
- Information about artists, albums, tracks, introducing subscribers to new music
- Sharing playlists, chat and musical tastes with friends via the community of ‘Deezernautes’
- Watch videos
Napster was the first cat among the digital pigeons with it’s peer to peer service, but they’ve come a long way since their rebellious beginnings, and now their subscription service offers both unlimited streaming and a number of DRM free downloads per month, available online and on smartphones in Europe and the USA.
Thumbplay is the largest mobile content provider in the U.S. Operating both web based and mobile services, including licensed music, video and games. They have deals with all the majors, and several independent labels and artists, and now you can get access to their services through RouteNote. Hundreds of millions of cellphones in the US are waiting to download your music.
To get your music live with these music stores and all our other online music partners, sign up for our music distribution service, and get our new music upload tool. You can have your tracks online in minutes, and earning you money in a matter of weeks.
Hot Chip are previewing their new album ‘One Life Stand’ over on the Guardian’s website (unfortunately only fully available in the UK), via We7’s streaming service.
The album itself is a return to their previous form, mixing heavily electronic beats and samples with roomy, live sounding instruments at will, but always with delicate care and attention, Baroque sounding string synths, trashy Pixies-esque drum kits, steel drums, marimbas[?], vocoders [ sorry Justin ], and flagrantly dance sounding bass lines nestle in together under the distinctive semi-falsetto vocals rising above the tracks, blending elements of electronic music from the last two decades together in a disctinctively stylish way.
Hot Chip may not have the bass-thumping force of other electronic acts like Simian Mobile Disco and the Chemical Brothers, but this album drips energy and musicality. Check out the video of the album’s title track they’ve posted on their Dino-space – if you like it you might consider catching them on their current tour, visiting most regions of the UK before moving on to Europe and America, full listings below.
You can also pre-order the album from their website, getting yourself a free bonus track in the process (but sadly obviating the need for a digital distributor, ho hum…)
Band Name: Polina Kourakina
Genre: Acoustic Alternative with a hint of Jazz and Blues.
[EDIT: 3rd person from a 1st person perspective usually makes my hackles rise, but Polina is really enthusiastic about her music, so give her a chance and check out her stuff ] When Polina Kourakina steps up on stage, there’s a small giggle and wink of a smile across her face. She then lightly hops up on the stool provided for all the show and tell individuals, and clears her throat. She then quickly makes the scene fill with a presence of calm serenity and young minded spirit by stating “here’s my soul in a bundle of 6 strings tightly wound on my guitar”. The song starts slowly, increasing in tempo, which makes your heart beat with the rhythm. Finally an astounding sound of a voice crawls out of that tiny little girl, proclaiming her love for the music. The reason I believe polina kourakina is so unique compared to other musicians is how she controls the scene, and draws people in with her choice of poetry, and chord progressions. Undeniably I cannot see her on the face of some poppy magazine cover, but yet on a tour bus heading to a strongly awaiting town of individuals waiting to hear the songs of life, love, pain, and hope. What does her music sound like? It’s soothing, original and calms the soul. Polina has played in many places, from café’s in D.C., to the dive in bar in San Diego. This shows to most that no matter what coast you’re on, you’ll love what you hear. She, will be the best, and greatest, but what this little young lady has, no other can match up to. Her love for the music, you
see through her soul when she is on stage. The riffs with her voice, the choice of jazz notations seep into your every crevice finding you inside. Inspired by her mom, and loved ones.
There was never going to be any kind of agreement on this: the team members in the RN office have got wildly differing tastes, and to be honest, are completely fickle. However, we’ve compiled a little rundown of our desert island discs, and hopefully there’ll be some undiscovered or long-forgotten gems in there for you:
JS – Admin:
Incubus – Light Grenades
We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor
System of a Down – System of a Down
Bloc Party – A Weekend In The City
Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf
Thom Yorke – The Eraser
Fair to Midland – Fables from a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True
The Mars Volta – Frances the Mute
Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero
Tool – 10,000 Days
Radiohead – Amnesiac
DM: Marketing
Beethoven – 3rd Symphony
Cinematic Orchestra – Man With a Movie Camera
Fat Freddy’s Drop – Based on a True Story
Tom Waits – Rain Dogs
Otis Redding – The Dock Of The Bay
John Martyn – Solid Air
Fink – Sort Of Revolution
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
Chemical Brothers – Surrender
Nirvana – Nevermind
JB – Tech and Support [note the proper organisation of his list]
1. Kid A – Radiohead
2. Amber – Autechre
3. Treasure – Cocteau Twins
4. Selected Ambient Works 1 – Aphex Twin
5. L’usine – L’usine
6. The Queen is Dead – The Smiths
7. Script Of the Bridge – The Chameleons
8. Dummy – Portishead
9. It’l End in Tears – This Mortal Coil
10. Turn on the Bright Lights – Interpol
SZ: Admin
Rage against the machine – (self-titled)
Thin Lizzy – Wild horses
ACDC – For those about to rock.
Foo Fighters – Foo Fighters
Iron maiden – Edward the great
Jeff Wayne – War Of The Worlds
Kings Of Leon – Youth and young manhood
Dandy Warhols – 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia
Guns and Roses – Appetite for destruction
Jacko – Thriller
There were some non-reports (you know who you are), but you can see what a model of diversity we are… no wonder everyone wears headphones for most of the day.
TechCrunch reports an offer from Dimensional to buy all outstanding stock of our digital music distribution competitor The Orchard, whose operation currently has offices in 25 countries, and is losing $17.5 million dollars a year. The purchase offer is for $2.05 per share of common stock, valuing the company at $12.8 million, about 28% of their annual revenue of $45 million. Rumours also abound of a merger between The Orchard and eMusic, which would see the vertical value chain completed, from artist to store – seemingly a simple and sensible synergy, but since eMusic is also rumoured to be for sale predicting where the chips will fall may be difficult. Private owners of The Orchard will have a lot of cost cutting to do whatever the case, so look to see a lot of those international offices closed down, and a consolidation of revenue streams and staffing before long.
A 
] When Polina Kourakina steps up on stage, there’s a small giggle and wink of a smile across her face. She then lightly hops up on the stool provided for all the show and tell individuals, and clears her throat. She then quickly makes the scene fill with a presence of calm serenity and young minded spirit by stating “here’s my soul in a bundle of 6 strings tightly wound on my guitar”. The song starts slowly, increasing in tempo, which makes your heart beat with the rhythm. Finally an astounding sound of a voice crawls out of that tiny little girl, proclaiming her love for the music. The reason I believe polina kourakina is so unique compared to other musicians is how she controls the scene, and draws people in with her choice of poetry, and chord progressions. Undeniably I cannot see her on the face of some poppy magazine cover, but yet on a tour bus heading to a strongly awaiting town of individuals waiting to hear the songs of life, love, pain, and hope. What does her music sound like? It’s soothing, original and calms the soul. Polina has played in many places, from café’s in D.C., to the dive in bar in San Diego. This shows to most that no matter what coast you’re on, you’ll love what you hear. She, will be the best, and greatest, but what this little young lady has, no other can match up to. Her love for the music, you
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