Kings of A&R

Idol Streamrolls Over the Stars: “American Idol” led FOX to another ratings win Tuesday, trouncing ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” in the hour they aired opposite one another.

Signings: UK singer Adele has signed with Columbia Records. She has been hailed by the British press as the new Amy Winehouse” - I don’t think she is. Listen to the track Hometown Glory.

Smashing Pumpkins May Release Songs, Instead of Albums: “But I don’t think we will make records again,” the drummer Jimmy Chamberlin explains, pointing out that the band’s contractual commitment to Reprise Records is finished. “I look at it like the old business model is dead and the music business doesn’t know how to move forward. We want to keep things vital and keep things viable and get our music across while remaining relevant. Music has in many ways just become an advertisement for your tour.

“I think what we’ll do is start releasing songs,” Chamberlin continues. “The record or CD format places too many limitations on your piece of art. People just don’t buy records anymore.

MTV’s ‘Rock Band’ Song Purchases Double: MTV has said that more than 6 million songs have been purchased for the “Rock Band” video game—doubling the number of purchases as of just two months ago.

New Artist: Ferras is a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter who is signed to Capitol Records. Ferras struck a deal with the label after an audition for the label’s chairman Jason Flom while on Spring Break from Berklee College of Music. His record was released 3/11/08 and his single from the album ‘Hollywood’s Not America‘ was featured as the “exit song” of part of Season 7 of American Idol.

Facebook About To Pass MySpace In Worldwide Traffic: Facebook was up 2.6%, from January to February, while MySpace grew 3% according to comScore. Facebook continues to close rapidly on MySpace’s visitor total: At 100.7 million uniques in January, Facebook is now just about 8% smaller than MySpace’ 109.3 million. A year ago, MySpace’s worldwide lead was nearly 4x.

How Apple Succeeded: Despite flouting all the rules of being “evil,” Steve jobs has built one of Silicon Valley’s most successful companies. Read the article ‘How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong‘.

Striking a Deal: Siri Music, the creative venture from producer/songwriter Chauncy Jackson has entered a worldwide distribution and licensing deal with Avery Lipman and Monte Lipman’s brainchild, Federal Distribution via Universal Motown Republic Group. Stefani Vara’s will be the first album released under the multi-year deal.

Fox 411 columnist Roger Friedman discusses Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman and Lyor Cohen’s contract extension. Check out the comprehensive package.

The legal department was too busy figuring out new ways to remuneratively reward Edgar Bronfman and Lyor Cohen for destroying the company. The stock closed on Tuesday at $5.21 after rebounding from $5.02 earlier. There are no WMG albums in the top 20 this week. One wonders, are there stockholders? Where are they? How can this just go on and on? …

The Financial Times is reporting that Apple is in negotiations with the big record companies to offer an unlimited subscription model. The deal would give customers access to the entire iTunes music Library in exchange for a premium price for its iPod and iPhone devices.

Sources say the deal is hinged on a dispute over the price Apple would be willing to pay for access to the labels’ libraries.

Research had shown that consumers would pay a premium of up to $100 for unlimited access to music for the lifetime of the device, or a monthly fee of $7-$8 for a subscription model.

Starbucks Fighting For Street Cred: The New York Times says Starbucks has lost its creative vision and are now dealing with slumping CD sales. Critics and ex executives of the company say Starbucks has alienated business partners by demanding to much cut of music revenue and not being selective of the artists they carry on the shelves.

The starbucks model sucks - expensive coffee and expensive music! Why would people by the Radiohead ‘In Rainbows’ for 13.00 when you know that same record can be bought for $10 or under says artist manager Steve Ross.

Who Cares About First Week Sales: The Raconteurs are abandoning the standard months-long wait between finishing an album and releasing it with “Consolers of the Lonely,” which will hit retail March 25 via Third Man/Warner Bros according to Billboard. “The purpose: to get the album to the fans as soon as possible and as we promised,” the Jack White-featuring band says. “We wanted to explore the idea of releasing an album everywhere at once and THEN marketing and promoting it thereafter,” the band says. “The Raconteurs would rather this release not be defined by its first week sales, pre-release promotion or by someone defining it FOR YOU before you get to hear it.”

Singleless Simpson: Ashlee Simpson will be releasing her third album on April 22nd through Geffen called Bittersweet World. Not suprisingly, her new album features production from Timbaland. Her first two singles have failed to react on the radio charts.

Warner Renews CEO Edgar Bronfman’s Contract: Warner Music Group chairman and CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. has re-upped to run the New York-based major for another five years says Billboard. People close to the situation said the backers remain satisfied with Bronfman and recorded music chief Lyor Cohen, who is in the middle of negotiating his own contract extension.

Hits Daily Double looks at it differently claiming, ‘ Edgar Bronfman’s new five-year deal has emboldened the label chief to sell the WMG board on re-upping N.A. head Lyor Cohen for a similar term. He apparently succeeded in convincing Sperling and company that, despite massive evidence to the contrary, Cohen is indispensable. Said one high-profile music business attorney: “Can you name two music business execs in the last 50 years who have done worse in their jobs, and been rewarded more, than these two clowns?”

Internet Shakeup? Google says Microsoft buying Yahoo could shake up the internet by restricting the free flow of information and some how monopolizing the internet. Honestly, monopolizing the internet and making it  a legitimate business may not be that bad. The internet and its element of chaos can’t stay the same, it needs organization - plus, Google needs competition.

New Music: Death Cab For Cutie’s new single ‘I Will Possess Your Heart’ can be purchased on Amazon.

Retailers Clash with Pepsi over Free Music: Pepsi is at odds with some of its biggest US retail customers over a national marketing campaign offering free digital music downloads from online retailer Amazon says the Financial Times. “You have to ask yourself why Pepsi would team up with a company that doesn’t sell its products, and risk antagonising all the people that do sell its products,” said a source at one retailer. (read full article here)

YouTube Soars in Popularity: YouTube accounted for 1 Out of Every 3 U.S. online videos viewed in January. Video Metrix service, revealed that YouTube accounted for one-third of the 9.8 billion videos viewed online in the U.S. during the month. The total number of videos viewed in January was down slightly from the more than 10.1 billion viewed during a record-breaking December 2007.

American Idol Reveals Sexism? Idol fans are up in arms since the show kicked Frenchie Davis off the show for posing topless but allowed David Hernandez to remain in the competition who was recently revealed as a former male stripper in a gay bar. Other critics claim Idol is guilty of political correctness. Of course this is a double standard, regardless, Idol loves the scandals brought on by the press. (more reading here)

SXSW Attendees Doubled In Size: For established recording companies, the instantaneous and often unpaid distribution of music online is business hell; CD album sales are on an accelerating slide, and sales of downloads aren’t making up for the losses. But for listeners, as well as for musicians who mostly want a chance to be heard, the digital era is fan heaven. As major labels have shrunk in the 21st century, South by Southwest has nearly doubled in size, up to 12,500 people registered for this year’s convention, from 7,000 registered attendees in 2001, not including the band members performing. In an era of plummeting CD sales and short shelf lives even for current hit makers, the festival is full of people seeking ways to route their careers around what’s left of the major recording companies. (NY Times article here)

SXSW Draw Deep-Pocket Corporate Sponsors: Citigroup, Miller Lite, and Dell pay between $100,000 and 200,000 each in exchange for having their logos plastered around town. (wsj)

The Beatles Dethroned? Move over, Beatles. Mariah Carey is on the verge of tie with the legendary British band for having the most chart-topping hits says the Daily News. Mariah’s newest single “Touch My Body” will give her 18 No. 1 singles, setting her neck in neck with the Beatles.

Backpeddling: We hear Shadows fall we be leaving Atlantic Records only to return to their former label Century Media. Atlantic gave the band a hefty sum of money during a bidding war, but the latest record only sold 90k.

Japan Gets Wise and Fights Piracy: The nation’s four Internet provider organizations have agreed to forcibly cut the Internet connection of users found to repeatedly use Winny and other file-sharing programs to illegally copy gaming software and music. (full article here)

Guy Hands Officially Becoming Hands On: EMI boss Guy Hands has sent a letter to every employee in the group’s UK recorded-music division telling them that their jobs are officially under scrutiny. Those in marketing, sales and distribution will be worst hit while the A&R (artists and repertoire) division, which is responsible for finding new artists for the label, should be relatively unscathed says the Times Online.

Recommended Listening: Emo act Blameshift just finished performing 4 shows at SXSW. The band released their debut May 1st, 2007 which was produced by Michael Birnbaum and Chris Bittner (Coheed and Cambria, The Sleeping). Check out the track Fake.

New Music: Indie pop act The Hush Sound will be releasing a new record titled ‘Goodbye Blues’ on March 18th through Decaydance / Fueled By Ramen. The full stream is available here. This CD requires a couple of listens.

New Music: Indie act Alive in Wild Paint will release their debut album ‘Ceilings’ in March through indie label, Equal Vision Records. We have tons of ambient and atmospheric bands in the big jungle and I can’t say this band will rise above what’s already out there. Regardless, it’s a decent first effort. Check out the track ‘Children of Divorce‘.

Dear Ashley Dupre, Enjoy Your 15 Minutes of Fame: Mark Beech

Dear Ashley Alexandra Dupre, here’s your big break. You have 15 minutes of pop-music fame. Sadly, you’ve already used up six and a half minutes of it with two underwhelming songs. This isn’t a great start.

Your single “What We Want” has been played to death on the Internet. Your other track, “Move Ya Body,”  also shot up to the maximum download price on the web site Amie Street.

Your two-track ‘album’, as the site calls it — surely the shortest album in history — is called ‘Unspoken Words,’ which couldn’t be more apt when you’re not giving interviews. Either way, it costs $1.96. And you’re getting 70 percent of the sales, according to the site’s co-founder Joshua Boltuch. Not a bad deal.

There are some worrying things though, such as the online poll by New York radio station Z100. As the weekend wore on, people were turning against “What We Want,” with more than 36 percent voting “This sucks.” Almost 40 percent thought it was just okay and less than a quarter liked it.

You won’t be so pleased with the tags that users on the AmieStreet site have associated with you: “Eliot Spitzer” (why does it have to keep coming back to him, you may ask) and “call girl, prostitute, Heidi Fleiss.”

“Move Ya Body” would sound okay in a hair salon or gym. It’s beyond bland, just dull. “Move ya hips, move ya body up against mine.” Nobody in their right mind expects Dylanesque poetry in a dance track like this. Which is just as well because “sex, money, drugs that’s what I’m about” is as good as we get.

Ashley, don’t worry that you can’t sing well. It has never stopped Madonna.

While some major record labels might see you as “damaged goods” you’ll probably get a contract, and beyond music there’ll be publishing, modeling, and “Spitzer the Movie” is a sure thing once the lawyers have slugged it out. (Read full commentary by Bloomberg contributor Mark Beech)

American Idol Continues to Be A Monster: Leslie Moonves CEO of CBS called Fox’s ratings hit “American Idol” a “monster” and urged somebody to “kill that show.” ‘American Idol’ continues to be a monster,” Moonves said. “It’s a phenomenon. If somebody would kill that show, I’d really appreciate it. But it’s a national phenomenon, and it continues to do extremely well. It’s tough to compete with it.”

Trent on Radiohead: The Nine Inch Nails front-man has been quite vocal these days and this time he critiques Radiohead’s offering of Rainbows. “I think the way [Radiohead] parlayed it into a marketing gimmick has certainly been shrewd,” Reznor said when speaking to Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Michael Atkin.

“But if you look at what they did, though, it was very much a bait and switch to get you to pay for a MySpace-quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Reznor continued, “but I don’t see that as a big revolution [that] they’re kinda getting credit for.” To me that feels insincere. It relies upon the fact that it was quote-unquote ‘first,’ and it takes the headlines with it.”

Are Excessive Lyrics Ruining Pop Music? The year-end top 10 songs from 1960 to 1969 have an average word count of 176. The year-end top 10 songs from 1960 to 1969 have an average word count of 176. Chris Brown and T-Pain use 742 words in their “Kiss Kiss.” While music can express what words cannot, music rarely gets a chance in contemporary pop, and certainly not in “Kiss Kiss.” Except for the first two seconds, vocals fill the song’s every moment. Read full article here.

Trent Never Stops: NIN have teamed up with YouTube to host a “film festival” around Ghosts. The concept is for the fans to submit videos for their favorite tracks.

Active Rock Charts….

1. Puddle Of Mudd - Psycho
2. Foo Fighter - Long Road To Ruin
3. Theory Of a Deadman - So Happy
4. Breaking Benjamin - Until the End
5. Avenged Sevenfold - Almost Easy
6. Seether - Fake it
7. Five Finger Death Punch - The Bleeding
8. Ashes Divide - The Stone
9. Atreyu - Falling Down
10.3 Doors Down - It’s Not My Time

How to Become Famous: Forget about routing a tour or adding friends on myspace. Instead, find yourself a high profile government official and show him a good time. Instant fame. Ashley’s first song “What We Want” hit Amie Street’s top price of 98 cents before midnight last night. She uploaded a second track “Move Ya Body”. The tracks suck but I’m sure they are selling.

Artist updates: Chasing Satellites by Hello Operator got 16 weeks on Much Music.

Kings of A&R: We need a shot in the arm. Send us new music. Email tips@kingsofar.com with a link to your myspace and a song we should be listening to.

Calling All Girls: We always knew Spitzer was obsessed with the music business and he even went on record claiming radio sucked. KOAR posted an article on Spitzer back in October 2006 when he suggested J Lo couldn’t even hum her own tune. Truth is stranger than fiction. His secret relationship involved a female who had big aspirations for the music business. Ladies and gentlemen — meet Ashley Alexandra Dupré. We checked out her song ‘What We Want‘. I don’t know who produced this, but it’s dated club beats. It seems digital retailer, Amie Street, has convinced Ashley Dupre to suspend her myspace so that people can exclusively buy her music through them. More importantly, we have to feel sorry for the girl. Enough with drama!

New NIN Album Generates $1.6M First Week: The online release of the new Nine Inch Nails album “Ghosts I-IV” resulted in just under 800,000 transactions in its first week, totaling $1.6 million in revenue according to the band. NIN will not release traditional sales figures to SoundScan.

Music Industry Proposes a Piracy Surcharge on ISPs: The music biz is considering a file sharing surcharge that internet service providers would collect from users. I don’t know how realistic this is, but I suggest reading the full article that’s filled with different opinions on the topic.

Resigned: XM Satellite Radio’s chief creative officer, Lee Abrams, resigned from the company today in order to accept a position as Chief Innovation Officer for Tribune Company.

A Success Story That’s Not So: Shayan Italia is an Indian-born singer-songwriter and has developed himself with almost no help from a record company, raising £500,000 from a group of private investors to shoot a professional video. His Reflection reached No 1 on YouTube’s music video charts last week, with 190,000 plays in the first 24 hours of its placement online.

Italia owns his material, selling 1 per cent shares in the business that controls all his copyrights, plus any tour and other music-related income for £12,000 a time. Investors own 40 per cent of all Italia’s future music output. For all his talent, the big break is yet to come and there is not yet any return for the investors.

Times Online says “people get very excited about the death of the record company and about finding clever ways to ward off its demise”.

Other media companies who pretend to play record label like the one above will lose their shirts 99 percent of the time. If you want me to write a check for 500k, you better come out of the box with a song like ‘Welcome to the Jungle’.

Video Hogs Cause Congestion: There has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat comes from online communications and entertainment — video clips and movies, social networks and multiplayer games. What kind of future awaits the internet? Read the full article here.

New Music: Check out the Nashville, Tennessee act SafetySuit. They recorded the album titled ‘Life Left to Go’ with producer Greg Archilla (Matchbox 20, Collective Soul, Buckcherry) . They just released the track “Someone Like You” on iTunes via Universal.