Kings of A&R

Napster Drops DRM: Napster has stripped DRM from all paid downloads on its digital music service and replaced them with unprotected MP3s. As of today all six million songs in the Napster catalog will be available without DRM protection.

Recommended Show: Los Angeles alt rock band, Palmerston, will be peforming at The Knitting Factory this Thursday, May 22nd. Palmerston’s single “Addicted” was added to: WRZX/Indianapolis, KAZR/Des Moines, KACV/Amarillo and MusicChoice. More information can be found here.

An Overnight Sensation: Flobots has the No. 1 downloaded hip-hop album on iTunes this week — in their hometown. How fast did it happen? Oh, really fast…

“I’ve never seen anything happen for a local band so fast,” said Nerf, program director at KTCL, the local station that gave the Flobots an early break. In the past, with every band that has taken off out of Denver, it’s been a slow, tedious process to get signed, and a slow, tedious process to get the album ready to go, and a slow, tedious process to get the song to radio.”But this all seemed to happen in a month, and if that kind of inertia and momentum keeps going, these guys are going to be an enormous success.”

Local Denver band Meese signed to Atlantic Records, a couple months before Flobots signed with Universal Republic. Meese signed a traditional deal as they will be spending months making their first record.Flobots signed an ‘as is’ deal with Universal, which means the label will release their self produced record.

New Music: Listen to Surrender and Broken by Without Tomorrow. The band has performed on Taste of Chaos and Warped Tour, and plan on releasing their new record “Chasing Dreams” in June. A list of upcoming shows can be found on their myspace.

Apple Is Getting Into The Ringtone Business: Apple and the major music labels will sell ringers to iPhone users via iTunes. Apple will also allow users to convert songs they have previously purchased through iTunes into a ringtone says the New York Post.

YouTube a Destinition For Videos: Pete Wentz is pissed because MTV will not play music videos. Here is what he has to say:

I could only assume that you would be completely frustrated with the same things i am with mtv. it is a network called music television that does not play music videos. and when they do play videos it is in 30 second clips on TRL or underneath the credits of whatever reality show.

the truth is we have a collective memory of videos. certain ones we can all sit and look back and say “oh i remember that” or “i cant believe axl rocked the nwa hat and the bicycle shorts in the same video”. people say that with the a.d.d. generation people cant pay attention to a whole music video whenever we have asked. that people wont watch those anymore. i disagree. as most of you do as well. the truth is whole videos should be played. bands should play live. premieres should be a big deal like they used to be, not just a snippet of a video. artists should be able to let their imaginations go and know that people will be able to see what they have crafted. artists should talk about their ideos. we should and can make the music video important again.