Category: Digital Music
The Fusion Electronics CA-IP500 car stereo with unique iPod deep-throating dock action
Leaving your iPod sitting there in the ashtray while you pop into ASDA to see if they’re making jam or custard doughnuts in the bakery today is a definite no-no – so keep it safely hidden from view by ramming it right down into the stomach of the Fusion Electronics CA-IP500 music player.
The deep unit swallows an entire iPod, just like an old cassette-based car player, leaving it hidden from the view of opportunist thieves who want your iPod player for its potential eBay resale value and not your artistic tastes in music.
It’s slightly unsettling tearing the poor thing’s face off and ramming an iPod down its throat, but as long as you don’t get too emotionally…
RIAA to drop failed lawsuits strategy
It’s official – the RIAA is giving up on its strategy of suing thousands of individuals for file-sharing. The campaign, which began in 2003, has hit 35,000 people. At no point have the record labels ever won a contested court case, instead gaining masses of default judgements against defendants who never turned up.
It’s failed to stop file-sharing, too. Album sales have gone nowhere but down, even when taking into account digital sales increases. Not to mention the PR disaster it’s caused for the labels – who’ve sued pensioners, 13-year-old girls, and penniless single mothers.
Universal Music: We're getting heaps of cash from YouTube
For a long time, Google has struggled to monetise its video-sharing site, YouTube. Experiments with advertising have been coldly received by the community but perhaps things are starting to perk up – the executive vice president of Universal Music Group’s eLabs, Rio Caraeff, has said that his company is getting “tens of millions of dollars” from YouTube.
Universal is one of a handful of companies who have a deal with YouTube where ad revenue from Universal’s content is split between the parties. As Universal has a hell of a lot of back-catalogue content, that’s a decent chunk of revenue, but “tens of millions” is far more than I would have expected.
ENRAGED Jeff Buckley fans plan to scupper Alexandra Burke's 'Hallelujah' Christmas number one plans
The much-loved 1994 Jeff Buckley cover version of Leonard Cohen’s staggering Hallelujah is riding high in the charts, as FURIOUS Buckley fans mount an online campaign to stop a “cynical” cover by X Factor star Alexandra Burke earning the Christmas number one.
Thanks to the wonders of iTunes and the numerous other online record-flogging services that mean old records never die, the Buckley massive has already had some success – it looks like Buckley’s Hallelujah will end up at #3 in the chart next week, with Alexandra’s power ballad reinterpretation just pipping it to take the Chrimbo #1. Helping the bland warbler follow in such glorious festive footsteps as Bob The Builder, Mr Blobby and the Spice Girls…
Remove all traces of joy from Christmas with the Radiohead NES remake collection
Some extremely talented but sadly misguided musician has taken it upon himself to recreate a load of classic Radiohead songs using only the NES sound chip. The resulting generational soundclash is an appealing MIDI-like collection of easy-listening tunes.
Here’s one example – a stirring interpretation of ‘No Surprises’ from that album everyone liked a few years ago.
If you like that, you might also like Paranoid Android, a quite superb version of Creep and…
Last.fm music service comes to Vodafone
Vodafone has announced that it’s done a worldwide deal with Last.fm to bring scrobbling and social networking features to its customers’ mobile handsets.
Initially available on several Nokia handsets, including the N95, N96, N78 and 6210, with other handsets being added soon, the application will allow access to Last.fm’s social music features and online music profile…
Sony prepping touch screen, wi-fi, 16 and 32GB WALKMAN-brand media player
Sony is preparing to jump on the touchable media player bandwagon, according to sources, with an all singing, all dancing, all touching PMP set to be unveiled at this coming January’s Consumer Electronic Show tech binge.
The WALKMAN-badged player will, so some bloke on the internet told some other bloke on the internet, have a 3″ OLED screen for super-nice colour reproduction and long enough battery life to watch…
NOISE GATE: 6 Tenets for a New Music Industry, Part Six
Today’s the last tenet in the series, and next week I’ll wrap up with some conclusions before getting back to regular programming in the new year. Last on the list is the importance of getting artists onside. Many bands bitch like crazy about their label, and actively recommend that people pirate their content – it’s a strange situation and one that’s unique to the music industry. How do you get them onside? Click over the jump for my recommendations.
- Music must be sharable – word of mouth is more important than ever
- Revenue must come from multiple sources – if one bit of the industry becomes obsolete, it shouldn’t sink the whole ship
- New technologies are to be welcomed and understood, not feared and litigated against
- A&R can be crowdsourced, but remember the long tail
- “Added value” is key – give people a reason not to pirate things
- Your artists are your most important spokespeople
Calling all Bach lovers: get a limited edition iPod with composer's complete works
Here’s a pretty amazing deal for anyone whose a big fan of Johann Sebastian Bach. The online classical download store Passionato has teamed up with Hanssler Classic to launch its limited edition 120GB iPod loaded up with Bach’s complete works.
The whole package, which includes a full DVD backup in case your iPod decides that it likes the German composer’s flavour, costs £499. The estimated cost of buying the complete works on CD is around £1,000, and a 120GB iPod classic costs £175, so you’re getting all that music (over 175 hours worth) for just over £300. Not bad if you’re a Bach nut…
Relentless releases 'The Rev' visualization
Do you like energy drinks? I’ll admit that I’m not a massive fan – they taste like robot sweat – but some gamers love them, so I thought I’d point out this quite cool iTunes plug-in that Relentless has made for a marketing campaign of some kind. You can see it in action in the video above.
The website is a bit confusing, and you’ll have to register and give up your email address (or *an* email address, wink wink) to download the plugin, but if you’re the sort of person who digs visualizations, then this one’s more attractive than most. Blow it up big screen, and it’s like being friends with an aggressive squid. In a good way.
Relentless
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