With all the changes happening in the market today, we often get into the mindset that we need to completely change the game in order to compete. Much of this is rebellion against the traditional way of doing things. Much of this is a survival method for artists who feel they won’t get noticed unless they do something completely groundbreaking. And much of this is from people who just aren’t sure what the best way to market their work is. But we lose sight of the fact that in reality, often times you only have to change one little thing in order to change the game.
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I was perusing MySpace last week for new music, when I stumbled across a catchy electropop group called Ultraviolet Sound. After deciding I wanted to buy their album, I was surprised to discover it wasn’t on iTunes or Amazon, nor was it available on CD. Instead, the band had a widget on their MySpace page powered by a company called TrueAnthem that allowed me to download their entire album for free. But like all things free, there is a catch. Or several.
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Amazon currently has over 3,000 songs available for download totally for free at their MP3 store. Most of the stuff is either old or independent, but there’s definitely a lot of good stuff to be had. The thing that interests me the most about this is how poor the advertising on this is. Finding that “free” page is kind of difficult, when Amazon should be plugging it left and right to try to attract customers. There are a few other bizarre things about these tracks, but for now just go grab yourself some free music.
A good way to watch your company die is to bite the hand that feeds you. In order to protect my integrity as a lowly bit player in this industry, I will change the names of the offending parties to which I refer.
The Bleinstein Company, no stranger to disappointing revenue, now plumbs its reputation as a champion of independent cinema and the voices behind them in press releases for their DVD distributions banner, Third Rail Releasing (not an offending party). That reputation, however, was earned back when the Bleinsteins ran Bliramax. Now, with their chips relatively down and no Oscar prospects on the foreseeable horizon, they’re quick to regard their straight-to-DVD acquisitions as mere cash grabs, and Third Rail’s work as “a good way of differentiating between what we really believe in, and what has been for ancillary value.”
I am quick to respond.
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Last October, Radiohead gained a good amount of fame when they decided to release their album, In Rainbows, online for whatever price you felt it was worth — including $0.00 if that’s what you decided to put in. So effectively, you could download the entire new album in MP3 format, immediately, for free. So then, why in the world did millions of people opt to download it illegally via BitTorrent anyway?
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If you haven’t checked out Redbox, I recommend you do so. The idea is pretty simple — they have a kiosk, usually inside of a grocery store, that stocks some of the more recent DVD release films. You stick your credit card in, movie automatically comes out. The real kicker is the price — you get to keep the movie until 9pm the next day for only one dollar.
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Despite my relatively positive opinion on eMusic, I have cancelled my membership. It’s not that the service wasn’t good, but rather, it is unnecessary. The biggest problem is that it is not a strong enough store on its own to replace iTunes or Amazon, and at the same time, it does not really complement either of them very well, either.
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Apple has announced that the iTunes Store has surpassed five billion legal song downloads. This is pretty cool, but hardly a surprise, since iTunes has been the top music retailer in the country since April, even amongst brick and mortar retailers. Regardless, this is still extremely awesome. I pretty much use iTunes exclusively for music purchases unless what I am looking for is not available. How about you?
So apparently EMI announced that they’re going to be releasing several albums on vinyl on August 19th of this year, including stuff by Radiohead, Coldplay, the Beach Boys and John Lennon. Indie kids everywhere are rejoicing (or are complaining that EMI is simply trying to earn a few bucks for the shareholders) whereas some analysts wonder if this is a good decision financially. There’s talk of vinyl being “brought back” in a time where physical media seems to be going away… but the truth is a lot more simple than this. Ready for it?
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So eMusic has been around for quite some time, but has it changed over the years? How does it fare against iTunes and Amazon? I hadn’t used it for some time, so I went over and grabbed myself a subscription.
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