From Guns n Roses to AC/DC! Yes, we really are keeping up with the times! It’s funny how these, ahem, ‘mature’ bands are leading the way with their music strategies.

Anywho, I thought I’d report on the Young Brothers and co, because they recently took a stand against iTunes. They believed that an album should not be able to be broken down and purchased as individual tracks. Something that Apple is very sure should be able to happen, and something that I am sitting on the fence about. If you are going to make a ‘proper’ album (and I wouldn’t do it any other way), then the songs really should come as a package. There’s the mixture of styles, tempos and the interludes and the way it all moulds together to make an album something a bit more special than a compilation. There’s also the fact that many albums I have bought and immediately assumed ‘I don’t like track 3’, only for it to evolve with me and a couple of years later I realise that my favourites are the unknown and once disliked tracks. If, however, you are a current major label pop starlet and you are going to throw together 2 hits and a bunch of fillers in order to get something out in time for Christmas and your album would normally become the staple of car-boot sales around the country, then I can see the appeal of shortening the pain and just purchasing the two tracks. Although, to be honest, you could shorten the pain for all involved by not recording a bunch of rubbish in the first place (that rant is going to continue in a new blog post, I can tell you…).

So, AC/DC’s ‘Black Ice’ album would not be available on iTunes for the above reason. The result? Over 780,000 sales in it’s first week in the US. That’s also thanks to an exclusivity deal with Wal-Mart and strong promotion on their part. I the UK, they outsold Kaiser Chiefs two to one, and I believe that sales hit around the 120,000 mark. Ultimately, they hit the number one spot in an incredible 29 different countries!

Am I saying that we should all now ditch the digital revolution and just sell physical albums? Of course not. AC/DC is in a unique position and can strike up such a deal because of their strong history. Ultimately, the physical only strategy was to their greatest benefit. And I AM saying that you should explore all options to find the greatest benefit to you. Maybe that is physical releases, maybe that is an exclusive digital deal with Stompy, maybe you should give your music away. You decide, I’m just here to open you eyes

Lee Jarvis.

I’ve been thinking some more about my post last week, debating how much you actually earn from selling your music online these days. Coupled with the news that’s been finally weaned from Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ Album and the fact that the more forthcoming Trent Reznor’s figures on Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Ghosts I-IV’ album, I thought I’d blog further on the topic of what you can earn by giving your music away.

Regarding ‘In Rainbows’,”More than three million people acquired the album,” points out Warner Chappell Music senior vice president of International Legal & Business Affairs Jane Dyball, who admits “I had doubts there was money to be made online”. That figure includes downloads sold across various retailers, and physical packages sold online and through brick-n-mortar stores, and Dyball noted that 1.75 million copies of the physical, full-priced release were shifted. The band may have decided to not give out any specific figures on sales, but that hasn’t stopped people from estimating revenue ($10m in the first week?) and average price paid per album ($5? $8?). Other companies are saying that these figures don’t allow for those who paid $0 for the album (ComScore.com), and Radiohead’s representatives then reply that those figures are inaccurate but don’t give us anything solid to go on. Despite the option of a ‘$0’ price on the official website, between October 10 and November 3 2007, ‘In Rainbows’ was still downloaded from Torrent websites to the tune of 2.3m downloads. So just about no-one can figure it all out once the Torrent numbers are thrown into the mix.

So how about Nine Inch Nails? Front man Trent Reznor must have thought it a huge success. Not only having the respect of your loyal fans and the Music Futurists out there… not only giving the old major labels an e-middle-finger… but also pocketing $1.6 million dollars in revenue in the first week. It must have been a success, as they’ve made the follow-up album ‘The Slip’ available for free download in multiple formats, all DRM-free and encourage you to “remix it, post it on your blog, and share it with strangers”. What an amazing attitude; these will surely go down in history as all-embracing album experiments. It should be right there alongside Michael Jackson being the first black artist with a video on MTV (Billie Jean, 1983). (your random fact for the day )

It wasn’t that easy though – Reznor reported earlier this year that in the two months up to January 2nd, his previous collaboration with Saul Williams consisted of 154,449 people downloading a standard quality of ‘NiggyTardust’ and just 28,322 of them paying the $5 for the higher quality version. In his blog, Reznor suggested that he was “disheartened” by the results.

So, it wasn’t the quality which drove people to illegally download via torrents. Reznor went back to the drawing board and tried a slightly different approach. He now understood the need for a physical product to help launch the album, in fact he released several variations for both CD junkies and hard-core NIN fans (the $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition of Ghosts I-IV immediately sold out its run of 2500).

At 43 years old, technically on the upper end of Generation-Y (if not Generation-X). Reznor is refreshing, and a true pioneer in his actions. Major labels may be starting to offer 360 deals for some artists, but GIVING the music away? That must be a long way off (if at all).

What would you give to have a Reznor in charge of your career? Well, maybe you can… YOU. Maybe Indies are gaining more and more advantages over the majors and you want to choose this path. If so, then this is the place to subscribe – I’ll be talking a lot more about this over the coming months.

Lee.

If you’ve not left your TV, radio and internet-less cocoon for the last four weeks, then you wouldn’t have realized that Madonna has just released her 11^th studio album, Hard Candy. With all-due respect to the comeback(?) queen of pop (I guess she’s never really been away long enough for a comeback), what really caught my attention was the promotion of the album.

Madonna has always re-invented herself to the new emerging markets, physically and musically. This album is no different, and working with the biggest producers of recent years, Timbaland and The Neptunes, as well as performing alongside Justin Timberlake on the launch single, ‘4 minutes’, ensures that sales are already through the roof thanks to a fresh generation of music buyers and millions of long-term fans.

But the way that this album was also marketed to the new generation of music buyers really struck me. With the release date being 28^th April (in the UK), Warner Bros decided to market the album by releasing seven songs on the seven days prior to this, available to download via mobile phone. Myself growing up with CDs, I quite like the artwork of and album, and I like to read all the inlay notes while I listen to it for the first time (GEEK ALERT!). I’m sure people love vinyl LPs partly for the same reason. However you can’t ignore the streams of ‘yoofs’ around the shopping malls, all playing the latest pop tracks on their mobile phones – the market here is huge! Gone are the days of monotone rings, these are full mp3s, and all the major mobile companies offer various packages and download sites through which they aim to claim back some of the download music monopoly that Apple hold.

I look forward to hearing more about how the move was received by her worldwide audience, and I’m sure I’ll be bringing you more news on this very soon. I think that as much as recent years have been a rocky ride for the digital music industry, the years ahead will be filled with innovative ways to feed the revolution.

Lee.