GARRISON’S BLOG

In his RIAA blog post, Research Veep Joshua P. Friedlander
 recounts the Sonia Levitin children’s story “Nobody Stole the Pie” about how the citizens of Digby each asserted that it was “Not I” who stole the giant annual lollyberry pie after each had picked away at it bit by bit. Friedlander’s take on the impact of piracy on the decline of the music business is “A little bit, a little bit, a little bit won’t hurt.”

However, at the rate of 4 out of 5 downloads in the U.S. being illegal P2P and other unauthorized services, 80% of the online pie slices are stolen.

Over a 10-year period, the music industry here in the States has fallen from approximately $15 billion annually to $8.5 billion.  And, the digital marketplace has had a two-pronged impact. On the one hand, its helped offset the decline in physical sales, especially with the reduction in illegal P2P traffic. However,  almost 4 out of 5 digital music downloads in the U.S. are via P2P and other unauthorized services.  The impact of so many people eating a piece of the online lollyberry pie has done its damage to the music industry’s fiscal digestion.

According to SoundScan, the top 10 albums in 2009 sold a total of 21 million copies, and the top 10 tracks totaled 36 million paid downloads.  But the top 10 albums in 1999 totaled 55 million in sales.  Even with digital track sales factored in, those top sellers fell by more than 50%.

But, the impact goes far beyond number of units and downloads. During the same decade, domestic record company employees have dropped precipitously from about 25,000 people in 1999 to less than 10,000 today. More than half of these employees directly influenced the creation and development of new music. So, to those illegal downloaders stealing artists’ and record labels’ slices of the royalty pie so they can extend their self-perpetuated sense of entitlement beyond mommy buying them cars, condos and college educations, grow up. Stealing is stealing and if you think doing it is cool you’re not only a thief but an idiot. And don’t hand me that pathetic line like a young adult in his almost thirties did: “Hey, U2’s got enough money.” You want pie? Pay for it. Mommy’s kitchen is closed.

iTunes, the sleeping giant of the download market, awoke on the wrong side of the bed to declare war on Amazon MP3’s “Daily Deal.” The Daily Deal typically prices a current release for $1.99 – $3.99 for one day. Puffed up with the success of the Daily Deal, Amazon started asking record labels to give it daily exclusives. That was iTunes wake-up call to say it’s taking its football home if labels don’t stop participating in Amazon’s promos. ITunes went so far as to declare that it would not support some releases that are part of the Daily Deals. Amazon’s strategy  to promo certain releases ahead of their official availability dates with their Daily Deals is threatening iTunes eclipse of these early marketing strategies. Shoulda seen it coming.

Almost a decade after its last studio production “Promise”  occupied the top of the charts for 2-weeks in 1986, Sade’s “Soldier of Love” enters the charts at #1, its first debut in the coveted berth. Sade’s eight releases have all reached the top 10. the first group since Led Zeppelin to have its first eight releases claim that achievement.

According to research company Sysomos, 30.7% of all YouTube views are of music videos driven primarily by 20-35 year olds who account for 57.3% of all YouTube links via embedding the videos onto blogs and social sites. 25% of Vevo’s 30 million daily streams here in the States are Lady Gaga videos.

Billboard has listed the Top 10 Money Makers (with only 2 months into the year!):

U2 $108,601,283

Bruce Springsteen $57,619,037

Madonna $47,237,774

AC/DC $43,650,466

Britney Spears $38,885,267

Pink $36,347,658

Jonas Brothers $33,596,576

Coldplay $27,326,562

Kenny Chesney $26,581,141

Metallica $25,564,234

The appointment of Own Van Natta to CEO of MySpace was supposed to solidify the online music site as a key promotional partner with the big 4 record companies. One is left to ponder MySpace’s future with the sudden replacement of Van Natta with not one but two co-presidents: former product manager Jason Hirschhorn and former COO Mike Jones. Is this a signal that MySpace is trying to search for the solution to its problems internally or do its problems loom so large that it will take two captains to turn the ship around? And, will their tenure exceed Van Natta’s 10-months?

Hirschhorn and Jones will be challenged to make MySpace’s vision to combine social networking with sharing & recommending music a reality in the shadow of Facebook’s eclipse. The numbers according to comScore are not so optimistic: 112 million unique visitors for Facebook compared to MySpace’s 57 million with an average of 27 monthly visits compared to 14 respectively. And, that’s without Facebook having a music service! The chasm should widen even more now that Facebook has opened its platform to outside developers to create its music space. And, let’s not forget about the Twitter piranhas taking big bites out of MySpace with top drawer musical artists utilizing it for fan communication.

Whether or not Hirschhorn and Jones can move MySpace forward and beyond the CEO revolving door distractions remains to be seen.

The 25.8 million viewers who pushed the 52nd airing of the Grammys into Nielsen nirvana are influencing the charts as consumers:

Lady Antebellum, “Need You Now” is #1 for 2nd week: title track performed at Grammys.

Lil Wayne, “Rebirth” debuts at #2: LW was a Grammy performer.

Nick Jonas, “Who I Am” enters at #3: Grammy presenter.

Susan Boyle, “I Dreamed A Dream” is 11 weeks on charts: Susan was butt of Stephen Colbert’s jokes at Grammys.

Lady Gaga, “The Fame”at #4 after 67 weeks on charts and “The Fame Monster” is moves up to #12 after 11 weeks on charts: Grammy show opener and winner.

Various, 2010 Grammy Nominees, moves from #8 to #5.

The Black Eyed Peas, “The E.N.D.” at #6 from #10 after 35 weeks: Grammy performers and winners.

Zac Brown Band, “The Foundation” at #10 from #22: Grammy’s best new artist and performer.

Beyonce, “I Am…Sasha, Fierce” moves ahead to 14 from #35 after 35 weeks: won a record 6 Grammys and performer.

Taylor Swift, “Fearless,” moves from #13 to #7 after 65 weeks on charts: won 4 Grammys and performer.

I confess. I am a diehard vinyl fan. What the almost three decades old compact disc gave us in terms of convenience came at the cost of a loss in fidelity (as well as artwork). The CD was also marketed as scratch free which, based upon the drum machine-like skipping sound I’ve experienced many times, is a dubious feature. I have yet to A-B a CD to a vinyl recording of the same music and where the vinyl didn’t come closer to the original warmth and true sound of the instruments and vocals. Sure, there are the occasional ticks and pops but I’ll take those along with the superior sound.

I never threw out a vinyl record jacket, poster or liner notes. They were the tangible value-adds to my purchase of the music itself. Sure, CD’s are smaller and more can be stored than vinyls in the same space. But, it’s heartbreaking to see how many jewel cases and the mini art in them are tossed after the CD has been burned and put into a multiple CD storage binder. Then MP3’s trumped even CD’s and music quality went even further down the tubes. CD’s were replaced by free downloads. The iPod and iTunes sealed the CD’s fate. Now, fans could cherry pick only the songs they wanted to hear and the musical portfolio of artists became ignored. Fans became consumers and were no longer connoisseurs.

And, now, MusicDNA is being heralded as the next step “up” in this evolution of listener formats. As far as sound quality goes, claiming an improvement over MP3’s does not start my engine. And, centralizing upsells like artwork, liner notes, lyrics, tour info, blogs and videos which are available elsewhere if you search the Net, is, like CD’s-to-vinyl, just hyping convenience all over again. It might help the record industry at large by allowing these additional purchases to be made only on top of the original purchase thereby eliminating piracy, still leaves the sound quality of the music itself no farther along.

The legendary cultural landmark that has attracted fans from around the world, the Beatles’ Abbey Road Studios were officially declared a historic building today.

Originally a 9-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in the 1830’s, the building was later converted to apartments. Gramophone Company bought the building in 1931 and converted the structure into recording studios. The Gramophone Company morphed into the Columbia Gramophone Company to become EMI which assumed ownership of the studios renamed EMI Studios and then Abbey Road in 1970. The studio will forever be associated with The Beatles who, with Sir George Martin, revolutionized recording techniques with flanging, recording backwards, double tracking and many, many more ground-breaking advances.

The zebra crossing photo of The Beatles taken by Iain Macmillan in 1969 became a mecca for music fans. However, the original location was moved in the ’70’s from the left side of the Belisha beacon (adjacent to John Lennon in the photo) to the right side of the beacon.

English Heritage spokeswoman Helen Bowman said government’s move “has probably been sped up” by recent speculation over the studios’ future.

In spite of its internal problems, EMI is not selling The Beatles legendary Abbey Road Studios…at least not right now.  Last year it did receive a 30 million pounds offer but the struggling industry giant held on to it. However, don’t take this as a sign that EMI is okay financially. Far from it. The company admitted in 2009 that it was “holding preliminary discussions for the revitalization of Abbey Road with interested and appropriate third parties” which may be an indicator of potential future partnering with investors as a move to preserve Abbey Road Studios as well as white knighting EMI’s massive loan obligations.

Next month Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio will be inducting rock group Genesis into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Wyclef Jean will honor Jimmy Cliff. Barry and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees will induct ABBA. Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong is set to honor The Stooges. And Jackson Browne will induct David Geffen. The induction ceremony takes place March 15 in New York and will air live on Fuse TV at 8:30 p.m. EST.