Music Retail Graphs

Here’s a really cool set of graphs from Hypebot (read my thoughts below):

MusicRetail R7 Mint Music Retail Graphs

Physical vs Digital:

16% growth in the past two years, wow.  Part of me is still surprised that physical products still outsell digital products.  The other part of me realizes that labels seem to do everything they can to prevent themselves from making money in the digital realm, so it’s not that surprising that physical products still provide most of their income.  Their only hope is that they open up to digital, learn how to make money with it, and reap the benefits.

Digital Retailer Market Share:

No surprise here.  iTunes rules the roost.  I can’t wait to see this chart the year after Spotify gets here.  I bet it will take a sizeable chunk of this chart.  For now, I’ll have to check out this “Other” store though, they seem to doing quite well.  (j/k)

Monthly Transactions Per User:

I really have to wonder if the variable pricing thing has anything to do with the chart going up.  The new iPhone 3GS also came out in July.  In any case, even the modest boost in Rhapsody‘s numbers show that people are very interested in music, we jsut need to have access to it.

Spending:

Simple version:

Subscription services have a steady, predictable, going-along-with-the-pricing-plans numbers here.  Napster lost a bunch of customers while Rhapsody and eMusic gained.

iTunes has the lowest spending per transaction, but has had a slight growth per user.  I’m betting $.69 to $1.29 per track is too high of a price point, otherwise their numbers would be higher in both categories.

FYE and CD Baby have the highest per transaction numbers because people are forced to buy the entire CD at retail prices.  You’ll notice people aren’t spending as much there as before.

Playdar

I read recently on Wired’s Epicenter blog about a new application that really excites me.  It excites me because this is what computers are supposed to do.

Playdar works with streaming sites like Last.fm, Pandora, Spotify, etc and examines any music files you have on your computer.  If you’re listening to a streaming site and that site wants to play a song you already have on your hard drive, it plays the file on your hard drive instead of streaming it.  This is brilliant because it saves the streaming company money, which keeps them in business longer.  For the listener, it means you’ll probably get a better sounding song because typically the stuff on your computer is higher quality than what is streamed.

Hopefully, all the streaming companies and music players (*cough* iTunes *cough*) will support this as a plugin soon, so as Van Halen sang, we can get the best of both worlds!

Imogen Heap’s Business

Just read a great article about how Imogen Heap is shaping the new way of doing the music business.  For the past two years she’s been working on her latest album, Ellipse, which releases on August 25.  I won’t go into all the details, you can read the article for yourself on Deep Dive Marketing.  Here’s a summary:

  1. Twitter – She started when Twitter was still pretty new and was the first to establish how Twitter could be used by an artist
  2. vLog – She posted weekly video blogs on YouTube showing off bits of her album, talking about her life, asking for help writing her press bio, and just having some fun
  3. Flickr – She used Flickr’s social networking powers to get fan-designed album artwork and packaging
  4. She built her tribe over time
  5. Crowdsourcing – After being notified that someone had posted an advanced copy of her new album on eBay, she asked her fans to drive up the cost (to the $10,000,000), which they did, causing eBay to remove the auction, thereby preventing her album from leaking early
  6. Heap Tweetup – She hosted a Tweetup, or a meeting announced on Twitter, where she played some songs and met fans.  When the venue kicked them out, she stuck around in the alley and signed autographs and chatted with each and every fan.
  7. Cafe Heap – these are live videos chats with Heap hosted on Vokle.

Is she perfect, hardly.  Is she blowing the minds of people in the industry, you betcha.  Even Lefsetz thought this was overkill and that if everyone had to do it this way, the industry will collapse.  The way I see it, accessibility is now the norm and if you’re not, then you might not have an audience.

Kuroshio Sea + Barcelona = Simple, Cool Music Video

I just watched this amazing video.  The aquarium is the Kuroshio Sea in Okinawa.  It’s the 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world.  I’m totally digging the song too.  That haunting melody is just gorgeous and I love the chord changes in the chorus.  Check out the video:

What makes this really cool (and big news this week), is the song under the video, which is “Please Don’t Go” by the band Barcelona.  They found out about the video from friends and family and have seen a major increase in their iTunes sales due to the aquarium video’s viral success.  Check out this message from the band:

Spotify

I’ve been hearing for months about this music service in Europe called Spotify and how it’s simply amazing.  They say it will be the death of the MP3.  They say it will rival iTunes.  They’ve said that about alot of stuff and none of it came true.

However, I just saw the demo video of the Spotify iPhone app and I have to say I’m pretty impressed.  I can see how this will make buying songs obsolete.  Why would you store songs on your iPhone when you could just stream them, anywhere, anytime, nearly instantly?  Plus, you’re not limited to the songs you own, you get all six million+ songs in their catalog.  That doesn’t even mention the fact that you can sync it with your iPhone to play them when you’re not connected to the Internet.  I know Elliot Van Buskirk at Wired really likes it.  Am I a new believer?  Yep, call me converted!

Recent news says that Spotify is coming to the US, but I’m sure our greedy labels and the RIAA will find a way to screw it up and/or make it ridiculously expensive.  Let’s also hope that Apple doesn’t get a case of the stupids and reject the app.

Check out this video.  You’ll be blown away. I’m thinking this is exactly what The Future of Music described. This IS the future of music.  If you’re an artist, you gotta find a way to get your stuff onto Spotify!

Song Recorded on iPhone

I’m a total tech geek and gadget freak.  I refresh MacWorld and Engadget every 30 seconds to get the latest pics and tidbit of info when Apple has major announcements.  I geeked out when Google recently announcement Google Wave (soo looking forward to using that!).  When I found out LA Band The 88 recorded their new single entirely on the iPhone app Four Track, I had to check it out.  The results are impressive and the song is really catchy!

So, my fellow artists, if you have an iPhone, you have no excuse for not having recordings of your songs.  Four Track is only ten bucks.  I use it and it’s well worth the price.  You can get The 88′s song, Love Is the Thing, from iTunes, check out the making of video:

Come Get Your Fantasy World!

It’s now time for you to hear what I’ve been working on for the past year.  Fantasy World is now available.  You can get the entire EP as free 128-bit MP3′s from http://music.christopherjoel.com.  Of course, if you’re so inclined, you can also purchase it from there, or any of the following online stores:

Cinco de Mayo = Fantasy World

CJ name FWEP Clip

This is best news I’ve been able to deliver during the past year: the EP is done. Yeah, you read that right; it’s finally finished! Recorded, mixed, mastered, artworked (is that a word?), uploaded, and ready to be in your hands!…er…ears, that is. I swear, this has been like being pregnant. Well, not quite, its been a year since we started! Either way, I’m letting my baby out into the wild.

May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, Fantasy World by Christopher Joel will be released on iTunes, Amazon.com, Amie Street.com, here on christopherjoel.com, and quite a few more places. Why wait three more weeks? I’m redesigning everything: my website, my myspace, my facebook page, my twitter profile, my sonicbids EPK, and quite a few other things to match the artwork.

Speaking of the artwork, it was done by one of my favorite artists, Aaron Grayum. For now, that banner up there is all you get to see, but if you search the internet for Christopher Joel, I think there are a few places you can see the rest of it early. For now, I’m going to tease you with just that little bit. :)

I’m working on the EP release party, which will be here in Nashville, and some special promotions for that night too; you won’t want to miss it!  I’ll email everyone on my mailing list with details as soon as I get them, so sign up for the mailing list if you haven’t already!

Garageband Artist Lessons

I just read through all the live blogging notes for the Macworld keynote that happened this morning. Of course, every music blog on earth is going to mention the variable pricing that was introduced to iTunes. Fine, not a problem. The thing I noticed: artist lessons available for download in Garageband. So what, you say? They’re $4.99 each. My question is: how much of that goes to the artist and how does one submit material to this mysterious store?

I’m thinking like this: do you have to wait for Apple’s invitation or can you film your own and submit it? If so, how does the revenue get split, same as the iTunes store (70/30)? This could be a huge profit center for artists in the future. Your casual fans could buy the mp3s, but your hardcore fans could buy your lessons.

5 Cent Downloads & $5 Albums

This is a great article and very insightful.  I couldn’t agree more.

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2008/11/5-cent-downloads-5-cds.html

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