Sony Music has teamed up with the British Fashion Council for London Fashion Week. Sony and British Fashion will be launching a series of albums to celebrate the event.
Each album in the series will be compiled by a different figure from the world of fashion, starting off with Burberry’s chief creative officer Christopher Bailey, who has put together Burberry Acoustic. The album includes Midge Ure’s No Regrets, Carter USM’s The Impossible Dream and Status Quo’s Everything, as well as four tracks recorded specially for the album.
The artwork for the album, which will be released during London Fashion Week on Monday September 20, has been designed exclusively by Burberry, with a lavish hardback book housing the CD and Burberry photography within the booklet.
Sony Music UK and Ireland chairman and CEO Ged Doherty says, “The love affair between British music and fashion dates back to the birth of rock and roll and will continue long after we’ve all gone.”
There is a lot of talk this morning about Sony planning to launch a new music and video subscription service based around its Playstation 3 console. However, the Financial Times reports that the service will also have a presence on Walkman music players, Sony Ericsson mobile handsets, Vaio computers, Bravia TVs and Sony Blu-ray players. Additionally, it claims that the service will launch next year.
In separate news, the Wall Street Journal claims that Amazon is working on its own subscription service, albeit focused initially on TV shows and movies rather than music. The WSJ reports that Amazon is pitching the web-based service to NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corporation and Viacom among other media owners. Its webby nature would mean Amazon’s service would also be accessible through connected TVs, Blu-ray players and games consoles.
Sony Music has just signed Taiwanese singer Lin Yu-chun. Lin was a part time shop worker who shot to fame via his rendition of the song “I Will Always Love You” — the Dolly Parton song made famous by Whitney Houston — became a sensation on video sharing website Youtube in April.
Lin who is only 24 years old will be joining the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Susan Boyle and Paul Potts, who all became famous by television shows and then signed to Sony Music after winning their respective shows.
Die Antwoord, the South African group that has been everywhere lately has just signed to Interscope according to their website.
Although official reps for the band remain silent on the deal, a “guess what!?”" button on www.dieantwoord.com hosts a short film featuring Die Antwoord’s Ninja being tattooed with the characters “$O$.”
“$O$” is the title of Die Antwoord’s debut album, which has until recently only been available as a stream on the Cape Town-based group’s website, which had more than 15 million hits in the first three weeks of February alone. Videos for the group’s songs “Enter The Ninja” and “Zef Side” are closing in on 4 million views each on Youtube.
Following a March business trip to the U.S. at the invitation of Sony/ATV International – Die Antwoord has a deal with the music publisher’s South African office – and a 20-minute set at Coachella, fans have been waiting for news of the official release of “$O$”.
In the 44-second clip, Ninja arises from the tattoo table to show his back, while the message “23 track $O$ album dropping fokken soon on Interscope Records” appears on the screen. The streamed $O$ album has 17 tracks.
Die Antwoord’s live bookings are through William Morris Endeavor Entertainment in New York. Upcoming gigs include Hard LA on July 17 at L.A. State Historic Park with M.I.A., N.E.R.D., Flying Lotus and Sleigh Bells and Hard NYC on July 24 at Governor’s Island.
Sony has just made a deal with Michael Jackson’s estate to release some of his unreleased material, since his contract with the label extends into 2017. However, there has been some recent findings according to the NY Daily News, that Jackson has actually recorded entirely new material back in 2007 that no one has heard nor has ever been released to the public. We wonder if this changes the deal between Sony and the late pop singer’s estate.
Jackson spent three months with Eddie (Angel) Cascio in New Jersey where he recorded 12 new tracks including “Breaking News,” “Burn Tonight” and “Water” – all of which can supposedly be heard in Jackson’s posthumous documentary film, This Is It.
Cascio’s family was very close with Jackson’s and the family still frequently visits the estate. They even left a special note in Jackson’s memorial booklet which read:
‘We promise to always remain “The First Family of Love. WE THANK YOU and will love you FOREVER and ALWAYS. ANGEL ‘Dr.Heat’ Cascio and the Cascio Family.”
Record industry trade Hits Daily Double has gone through the numbers for Q1 of 2010 to see how the major label marketshare is shaping up. Sony has been gaining some great marketshare from Universal, Im guessing that is mainly because of the huge success of Simon Cowell’s record label. Hits has more analysis. Free registration is required.
Sony’s new MyPlay store is live, and they’re hoping they can claw back some of their sales margin from iTunes, currently the biggest outlet online. Doubtless this will have some effect, especially if they plug it into the Play Station Network, but I don’t think they’ll really be able to take much market share away from iTunes, eMusic or the other established download stores, as their catalogue won’t be comprehensive. Unless they sign deals with the other majors to sell their content too, which seems unlikely to happen – why would EMI want to give Sony an advantage? – then the twin pitfalls of limited catalogue and people’s unwillingness to open and run multiple credit-card accounts will hinder their progress. Unless they gouge their competition heavily on the pricing of their own product, they’ll remain a minority player in the download market.
The very popular music discovery and download site AmieStreet will soon be adding the Sony Music Entertainment catalog. AmieStreet which is best know for their fan-driven pricing model will bring the Sony catalog to their community, however not at the fan-driven pricing model and instead Sony has set their own pricing levels at $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29 per song.
I find it funny how AmieStreet have been making some great progress in the music discovery and consumption sector with their pricing model, but the Major label is too scared to actually let the average consumer pay what they think the music is worth. Is this because most of the garbage pop that comes out of the major labels isnt really worth much?
Anyways, AmieStreet has created a special section on it’s website (http://amiestreet.com/blog/sony) which highlights a small sample of the artists, both old and new, that are already available.
“Amie Street has proven to be an innovative platform for engaging music fans and introducing them to both emerging and established artists,” said Michael Paull, Executive Vice President, Global Digital Business, Sony Music Entertainment. “We look forward to our music being available to Amie Street’s growing community.”
Then why doesnt Sony actually adopt their pricing model then if its working?
“The partnership with Sony Music is a huge development for Amie Street,” said Peter Asbill, Co-Founder of AmieStreet.com. “We want to be the best place to discover new music for all types of customers, from indie to mainstream, and adding the unparalleled Sony Music catalog is a critical step towards fulfilling that promise.”
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr turned up onstage at Microsoft’s E3 press conference last night to plug the upcoming music game The Beatles: Rock Band. The game will include over 45 songs with others also available to download from a dedicated online store.
One – All You Need Is Love – will have all royalties from sales donated to the Doctors Without Borders charity. There’s a trailer too – the first sight of how the game will look. Watch it above and let us know what you think.
A few days ago it was reported that eMusic has come to a deal with Sony to add their catalogue. However, there has been a lot of reaction from this new deal for eMusic, because this is the first major record label eMusic has added. Hypebot has a great preview of the service and then some interesting reactions that have been voiced on the eMusic message boards.
Jellybones: Thank you eMusic. Its been a good run here for me. I love emusic, been here over 5 years. But I can’t afford my tracks to be cut by 2/3 for the same price.
90 downloads will become 35. Sorry, not worth it for the selection. I can go buy a couple albums (maybe only 2 instead of 3) but I can get exactly what I want.
Kez RE: I feel sold out. It seems eMusic is enraptured with the dazzle of their future customer-trolls and have cast aside their loyal member base.
From the UK xtrev: As noted down in the bowels of the ‘Major label…’ thread, the new more expensive price plans have appeared on site today. Including Booster prices. Damn.
Don’t think I’ll be buying many more 50 track boosters at 20.99 UK pounds. That’s a HUGE increase over the previous 14.99. If this is an example of what it means to have major label content here, then frankly they can shove it.
btx: Except for very rare circumstances, I’m not particularly interested in giving my cash to the major labels, that’s why I come here. If it is going to cost me more for their presence [even if I should choose not to download their stuff], that may be the end for me.
d.w.: “Effective Jul 6, 2009, your plan will change to the new eMusic Plus plan which gives you 37 downloads for $14.99 every 30 days.
We’re sorry that we’ve had to retire your current plan, but we’re confident that you’ll find even more music to love among the many new additions to the music catalog. And of course, you can always choose a different plan by visiting the Plan Options page within Your Account.”
My current plan is (grandfathered) 65 tracks per month for $14.99. This means that your Sony deal results in a 100% per track price increase over what I’m paying currently.
I appreciate(?) that you’ll be adding a lot of music from major labels that I could frankly not give a crap about (Alicia Keys — really?), but literally halving the amount of tracks I get on my current plan is a bit much to take. I’ve been a subscriber since 2000, but I am seriously considering canceling at this point.
eMusic is one of our great partners here at RouteNote and I would have rather seen the service stay with the indie industry and not attach themselves to the major labels, but now it seems like there is a new opportunity in the market for another indie service.
