Psonar has just launched their new pay-per-play streaming music service. The new service will charge users 1p (or 1 cent / Eurocent in the US and Europe) per play of tracks that they don’t own, streamed to their PC or mobile device. To pay, users will have a choice of charging the costs to their mobile bill using Bango billing, or using a credit card or PayPal.
The Pay Per Play elements will launch across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Scandinavia during the second quarter of this year, although no rollout in the UK and US has yet been confirmed.
Initially it will be available on PC and HTML5-capable mobile devices, with native iPhone and BlackBerry apps to be launched soon.
Chromeo is one of my favourite bands at the moment. Chromeo tracks that im loving include Fancy Footwork and Dont Turn The Lights On. You can see Chromeo live with Holy Ghost!, Neon Indian, and/or Telephoned this summer.
Tour dates include:
07/26 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
07/27 – Philadelphia, PA @ Trocadero
07/29 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
07/30 – Boston, MA @ House Of Blues
07/31 – Montreal, QC @ Metropolis
08/02 – Ottawa, ON @ Capital Music Hall
08/03 – Toronto, ON @ Phoenix
08/05 – Detroit, MI @ Majestic
08/06 – Chicago, IL (Lollapalooza)
08/07 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave
08/10 – Calgary, AB @ Flames Central
08/11 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore
08/12 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox Market
08/13 – Portland, OR @ Roseland
08/16 – San Diego, CA @ House Of Blues
08/19 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Twilight Concert Series
08/20 – Denver, CO @ Ogden
08/24 – Austin, TX @ Stubb’s
08/25 – Dallas, TX @ Palladium
08/26 – Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom
08/27 – Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
08/29 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl (w/ The Chemical Brothers)
Pandora is a music service based in the USA which introduces listeners to music they’ve never heard before is one of our central missions, and we welcome independent artists from all backgrounds and levels of visibility, working in all styles, to submit their music for possible inclusion in Pandora’s Music Genome Project.
Every song selected is manually analyzed by a trained musician along up to 400 distinct musical attributes, a process that can take anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours per song. Pandora submissions are open to artists from all over the world, but at the moment they only operate in the USA, and royalties from streaming music is only paid to USA artists.
The Basics: How to Submit
To submit music to Pandora, you’ll need these items:
1) a CD of your music
2) a unique UPC code for that CD*
3) this CD to be available through Amazon as a physical CD (and not just as MP3s)**
4) the legal rights to your music
5) a standard free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, that will be associated with this submission
6) MP3 files for two of the songs from your CD
Once you have all of these items ready to go, you can submit your music to Pandora for consideration here: http://submitmusic.pandora.com/.
Beach House are a great USA band out of Maryland. Beach House is a great alternative or indie band and they have been nice enough to drop us their latest UK edit for their track Zebra. Check it out and let us know what you think.
Pac Div are the new kids on the block with some great hip-hop. Their latest track, “Don’t Mention It” is a great track which they have taken focus on the whole look at me mentality.
Check it out and let us know what you think. Remember just click on the arrow button to download the track for free.
Feel like going out, but only got your dark, intense face with you? Fear not! Massive Attack have announced a Spring tour, playing big venues in the States, Australia and Belgium (but not in the UK for some reason). The tour supports their new album Heligoland, their 5th studio album.Hopefully we can look forward to some gigs nearer to Bristol once they’ve come home after this lot:
03-12 Perth, Australia – Kings Park
03-15 Sydney, Australia – Opera House Forecourt
03-19 Canberra, Australia – Royal Theatre
03-20 Melbourne, Australia – Sidney Myer Music Bowl
03-23 Brisbane, Australia – Riverstage
03-25 Auckland, New Zealand – Vector Arena
05-07 Toronto, Ontario – Sound Academy
05-09 Toronto, Ontario – Sound Academy
05-11 New York, NY – Terminal 5
05-12 New York, NY – Terminal 5
05-18 Los Angeles, CA – Wiltern Theater
05-19 Los Angeles, CA – Wiltern Theater
05-25 San Francisco, CA – Warfield Theater
05-27 San Francisco, CA – Warfiled Theater
05-30 George, WA – Sasquatch Festival
09-03 Antwerp, Belgium – Sportpaleis
Not to be outdone by streaming competitors Spotify, who are rumoured to have gained a new funding partner (and consultant) in the form of Napster/Facebook founder Sean Parker, MOG have announced second round funding of $10,000,000 dollars, which they plan to use to take the platform into Europe, as well as funding Stateside expansion. As things stand, the two competitors are entrenching in their home territories, but the date of their confrontation on one side of the Atlantic must be drawing closer, even though no dates have been mentioned by either team. MOG’s monthly subscription is less than half the price of Spotify’s, but Spotify has major label backing, plus a vocal and passionate fanbase. Pandora are keeping their heads down, and quietly getting on with dominating the internet-radio and car dashboard scene, but the clash between these two will likely define the major player in on-demand streaming. The future of this type of music consumption is far from gilt-edged, however, as Spotify are still struggling to up their paid (£9.99 a month) subscription rates to supplement their ad-funded service, while MOG are operating at about a 17% conversion rate from their free trial to a $5 a month subscription. Whether either of these approaches will be successful enough to fund them in the long term remains to be seen, but given the high level of uptake, there is certainly a market for on-demand. Who gets to service it is currently being decided.
Luxembourg’s biggest media star, Spotify has admitted a new investor to the fold, at least according to TechCrunch. Sean Parker was one of the founders of both Napster and Facebook, and would be Spotify’s first and only US investor. If the rumour is true, then it would not only help Spotify’s cash situation (always helpful), but also give them the inside track on running a music service in the States, and might give an indication that the launch of Spotify in the US is approaching.
It has been reported that US sales of recorded music will drop to $5.52 billion in 2013. This downward trajectory will extend a pattern that began in 2000, when physical sales started to decline after rising dramatically during the heyday of the CD.
Harmonix has confirmed that its Beatles-themed music game will be released on 9 September this year, and will be called The Beatles: Rock Band. An official site has gone live today inviting gamers to sign up for alerts when pre-ordering begins.
It’s a big deal – the game will launch simultaneously in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, and will be available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.
The game will include support for guitar, bass, mic and drums, but will also offer “a limited number of new hardware offerings modeled after instruments used by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr throughout their career”.
Pandora
