I just “Guess Things Happen That Way,” for old men
Last week we mentioned Apple was close to their 10 billionth song download, and on Wednesday night Louie Sulcer of Woodstock received what he believed to be the best prank call in his entire life. After someone on the other end of the phone claimed to be Steve Jobs, Sulcer was told he just downloaded the 10 billionth song from iTunes.
What was the song? Why the man in black himself, Mr. Johnny Cash’s “Guess Things Happen That Way.” It was only the 100th song Mr. Sulcer had ever downloaded from iTunes since his children gave Sulcer his first iPod back in October as a birthday present. Now, in addition to 10 minutes of international fame, Sulcer will receive a $10,000 in Apple credit to be used on the over 1 million download options iTunes has to offer that range from songs, movies, and even audiobooks.
And finally, after all the hype over winning the grand prize, 71-year-old Sulcer received yet another mysterious call on Friday from Cash’s daughter, Rosanne Cash. She called Sulcer to thank him for listening to Johnny Cash. Her husband, singer/songwriter John Leventhal concluded the phone call with his own rendition of “Guess Things Happen That Way,” making it the most magical week any music lover could hope for.
I’m just happy it wasn’t a Justin Bieber song Sulcer downloaded. That would have been uncomfortable. Read the full article with Sulcer interviews here.
Change We Can Believe In: LMFAO’s Sky Blu Slaps Mitt Romney On The Forehead
You may have heard that a certain department store mannequin was confronted on a flight Monday out of Vancouver by a “violent passenger” that was escorted off the plane. What you probably didn’t hear was that said passenger was 50% of LMFAO – Sky Blu to be specific. Initially the incident was reported as being instigated by Sky Blu, but according to LMFAO’s account of the incident (posted on TMZ) it was Romney’s “Vulcan Grip” on Sky’s shoulder that caused the half-asleep rapper to tap Romney on the forehead to get him to release. Mittens’ wife screamed (oh the humanity!) and the duo was escorted off the plane and got tickets for a later flight. Contrary to some reports, Sky was not arrested. Sky Blu said he’s sure Romney is a “nice guy” but he wouldn’t vote for him.
iTunes Hits Nearly 10 Billion Downloads
iTunes representatives have recently stated on the website that, “iTunes changed the way you buy music, making songs and albums available for download, day or night. Seven years later, we’re about to celebrate our biggest milestone for music, yet—10 billion songs downloaded.”
iTunes also released that the 10 billionth downloader will win a $10,000 iTunes gift card!
Take a look at the 25 most downloaded songs of all time (on iTunes):
#1) “I Gotta Feeling” – Black Eyed Peas
#2) “Poker Face” – Lady Gaga
#3) “Boom Boom Pow” – Black Eyed Peas
#4) “I’m Yours” – Jason Mraz
#5) “Viva la Vida” – Coldplay
#6) “Just Dance” – Lady Gaga & Colby O’Donis
#7) “Low” – Flo Rida
#8) “Love Story” – Taylor Swift
#9) “Bleeding Love” – Leona Lewis
#10) “TiK ToK” – Ke$ha
#11) “Disturbia” – Rihanna
#12) “So What” – Pink
#13) “I Kissed a Girl” – Katy Perry
#14) “Single Ladies” – Beyonce
#15) “Hot N Cold” – Katy Perry
#16) “Stronger” – Kanye West
#17) “Live Your Life” – T.I. ft Rihanna
#18) “Hey There Delilah” – Plain White T’s
#19) “Right Round” – Flo Rida
#20) “Party in the USA” – Miley Cyrus
#21) “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” – Journey
#22) “Bad Romance” – Lady Gaga
#23) “Use Somebody” – Kings of Leon
#24) “Fireflies” – Owl City
#25) “How to Save a Life” – The Fray
Fast Company Names 10 Most Innovative Music Companies of 2010
I found this list on hypebot.com and it put me on to a few different companies that I wasn’t aware of. Of course you’ve got Spotify topping the list, the music industry’s “Savior” supposedly, but I’m still skeptical to how this company will survive or even pay artists a substantial royalty instead of .44 cents per track. Thanks to T-Pain for commercializing auto-tune, Antares Audio Technologies is rolling in the dough. I was unaware of the things Jack White was doing with Third Man Records, looks like he’s taking the DIY business model to new heights. I’m still to cheap to buy Beats by Dr. Dre, but those headphones are official. I don’t blame him for not putting out Detox, why sell a $15 CD, when your $300 headphones are flying off the shelves. Electronic Daisy sounds like something I wanna check out in the near future, I can’t even imagine how nuts a festival like that would be. But check out the list, what other companies do you think should have made it?
1. Spotify – North America is still waiting.
2. Apple Corps – The Beatles, not Steve Jobs.
3. Man Made Music – Joel Beckerman connecting sounds with brands.
4. Vevo – Fast Company says, “Vevo is on its way to becoming the Hulu of music videos.”
5. Antares Audio Technologies – The Auto-Tune folks.
6. Third Man Records – The Jack White empire.
7. Beats by Dr. Dre – The partnership between Monster, Interscope Geffen A&M Records chairman Jimmy Iovine, and Dr. Dre made giant studio-quality headphones a fashion accessory.
8. Ticketfly – The concert ticket service uses software pioneered in the hedge-fund industry to let groups of friends buy tickets together.
9. Insomniac Productions – Electric Daisy Carnival annual electronica festival in L.A. that grew to 135,000 in 2009.
10. Playdar – This open-source app looks for tracks on the Web and the users hard drives and pulls them together in a single jukebox.
Tweet some Tracks: Swift & Blip
I’m not really sure who’s hip to these services, but I’m surprised I haven’t seen folks in my Twitter timeline using them more. Instead of just tagging #MusicMonday or #nowplaying, try enriching your tweets with a link to share the song to your followers and they can listen in as well. After the jump are the the two tools I use most frequently to spread music through Twitter.
AEMMP Records Begins Hip-Hop Artist Search
Think big Chicago MCs, AEMMP Records is looking to sign its first hip-hop act in four years. We are now on a citywide search to find the next Chi Town hip-hop legend.
Before you write us off for being student run, or if you think we’re not serious, check this out: AEMMP just received the award for Best College Label Release of 2009 from the Independent Music Awards (IMA) for the compilation album entitled Chompilation. Besides that, Columbia has cultivated some of hip hop’s hottest new acts like Kid Sister, Flosstradamus, and Mikkey Rocks of the Cool Kids to name a few.
Heading up the search for AEMMP is Calid Bowen, a forward-thinking new A&R man. Bowen is a Columbia graduate student who interns at Universal Motown and has worked under Young Money/Cash Money A&R great, Octavius Crouch. When asked about his new role at AEMMP, Bowen said, “I’m really excited about this opportunity, and I’m ready to make history! Chicago has birthed a lot of my favorite emcees and I can’t wait to find that next superstar.”
If you feel like you are the one to fill the void for AEMMP, email your demo tracks, myspace, facebook, or EPK information to calid@aemmp.org
“That Tree” Snoop Dogg ft. KiD CuDi (prod. by Diplo)
Uncle Snoop always seems to come through with at least one hit a year to keep him relevant. His “I Wanna Rock” single is charting well and has the whole club singing “Snoooooop Dooooogggg,” when the hook hits. Snoops latest offering is somewhat of a surprising mixture of styles as he teams up with fellow stoner KiD CuDi and super producer/DJ Diplo. Snoop and CuDi’s love for the Mary Jane is about the only thing these two have in common. “That Tree” speaks to that affection, as KiD CuDi’s hook states “Its so simple what I need/You know I keep my fam/But I cant forget that tree.” The song sounds more like a KiD CuDi that Snoop jumped, as Diplo’s percussive production fits CuDi’s choppy melodic better. Snoop sounds a little out of place on this record, but after a couple listens you forget about the awkwardness and Snoop’s cool takes over. I’ll give this record 3.5/5, but take a listen and judge for yourself!
Pandora Keeps Chugging Along…
Blu-Ray devices! Table top radios! Ford partnerships!
Just a bit of the excitement buzzing around the corridors of streaming online-radio service Pandora in 2010. Pandora, now ten years old, churned out its first profitable quarter EVER in December of 2009 – with revenues of $50 million. And get this – $30 million of that stack of cash went to artists in the form of royalties! The service is 40 million-subscribers strong, and is seeing 35,000 new iPhone subscribers daily (250,000 on Christmas day 2009 ALONE). Online music services all over the net struggle to stay afloat due to advertising, lack of user-loyalty, and an overall lack of ability to keep labels happy with royalties. What are they doing different? CNNMoney reports just what is keeping Pandora alive, and why the music industry is choosing to embrace it over so many “On-Demand” digital music servers.
Big Science get hot in the Boiler Room
That’s right, our boys in Big Science have had a busy February as they round off this chilly month with one final February show. Come out and hear the latest Big Science tracks that will be appearing on their latest EP this Spring to be released on AEMMP Records!
All the info is below, Columbia College bands Glittermouse and Truman & His Trophy will be sharing the stage Friday evening with Big Science so you know it’s going to be a rockin’ good time!
Spotify keeps on talking, but not showing
The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was last week, and the CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek, was there to spread some interesting facts about his streaming music startup. Mr. Ek stated that the average Spotify users has roughly 15,000 tracks in their collection, and all Spotify users together have created roughly 100 million playlists. These numbers are astonishing, I agree, but it still doesn’t detail any plans of coming to the USA or becoming a viable, profit-making business in the music industry. This is all just talk until we something significant. Check out the article on Techcrunch here.