Hear how Canada’s largest airport, Toronto Pearson, helps support Canadian music artists achieve international success.
Yahoo and Live Nation Live-Stream Concert A Day Numbers Were REALLY Impressive
Yahoo and Live Nation’s ambitious undertaking to live-stream a concert per day for a full year (dubbed Yahoo Live) finished its first run on July 14, and the results are in: The program logged 135 million live streams from 225 global markets, with a largely millennial audience that spent an average of 24 minutes with each stream.
Though that averages out to roughly 369,000 viewers per concert, Yahoo Live is returning for a second year with a slight shift in focus — instead of one concert per day, live streams will be staggered to three or four per week to better maximize Yahoo and Live Nation’s marketing support.
Via Billboard
Mid-Year Concert Touring Report. Guess Who’s #1 And #2?
The Stones’ Zip Code Tour of stadiums was just getting underway during the period covered by the Billboard Boxscore midyear recap (Nov. 12, 2014 to June 2, 2015). But the half-dozen shows reported to Boxscore make the Stones the fifth-highest-grossing act for the period, averaging $6.3 million per night.
Via Billboard
Why Record Labels Are Making a Comeback
Record label execs have taken a page out of the movie/TV book (explained in detail here) and the practice of windowing has been widely accepted by consumers: Few people complain about the difference between a $10 movie-theater ticket (upon release) and $4 VOD rental (at home, six months later).
Harvesting consumer willingness to pay is a great way for the labels to boost revenue and profitability without shrinking the market. This release strategy works particularly well in the context of music subscription services. I expect record labels to increasingly play off the various providers (Spotify, Apple, Google, etc) against each other, and possibly even use their market clout to force a higher-paying tier (say, $20/month) for subscription plans without any holdouts. It’s worth every bit for the avid music buyer; s/he was spending more than $120 a year on CDs and digital downloads, anyway.
Finally, music subscription services lend themselves much better to monetizing the back catalog. Today, I listen to my old albums on Spotify. Essentially, I am paying again for the same music I already purchased years ago, because many streaming pennies do make up for real dollars. As absurd as it may sound, this is akin to people replacing their vinyl collection with CDs in the ’90s.
In addition, streaming services are also much better at (re)monetizing the back catalog of songs and albums that people would otherwise never have bought (yes, even if only penny by penny again). This revenue is pure profit, since the direct costs are nonexistent: No A&R, virtually no distribution, and no marketing expense.
Via Re/Code
The Beatles Get Animated In These Album Cover Gifs
The Beatles become more animated in this collection of cool animated images of their album covers, via Animated Albums’ Tumblr
Elvis Presley’s Isolated Vocals For “Suspicious Minds”
“Suspicious Minds” was written by American songwriter Mark James, and after his recording failed commercially, the song was handed to Elvis Presley by producer Chips Moman, becoming a number one song in 1969, and one of the most notable hits of Presley’s career. “Suspicious Minds” was widely regarded as the single that returned Presley’s career success, following his ’68 Comeback Special. It was his seventeenth and last number-one single in the United States. Rolling Stone later ranked it No. 91 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
And it’s my favourite Elvis song of all time.
Video Lecture: Lonnie Liston Smith & Gilles Peterson (Bristol, 2015)
Lonnie Liston Smith learned his trade in the late ’60s and early ’70s playing with jazz giants such as Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Pharoah Sanders, Argentinean saxophonist Gato Barbieri, and the master himself Miles Davis (on Big Fun and On the Corner albums). However, it was as the leader of his Cosmic Echoes band from 1973 onwards that Lonnie really made his name with his trademark Fender Rhodes keyboard sound, and classic fusion compositions such as Astral Travelling, Cosmic Funk, A Chance for Peace, and the all-time dancefloor classic Expansions. In this lecture from the 2015 RBMA UK Tour stop in Bristol, Lonnie speaks about the album alongside longtime supporter and UK radio royalty Gilles Peterson.
People ages 0-100 answer the question “how would you change the world?”
SoulPancake brought in people ages 0-100 to answer some of life’s big questions. Well, technically, they couldn’t find anyone 100 years old – but they did find a gentleman who is 105. In this second episode, they asked the question, “how would you change the world?”
I Want This. Cassette Shaped Coffee Table
Ross Langley made this cassette sharped coffee table with custom made steel legs and removable remote and bottle holders. The label can be used as a whiteboard allowing him to write custom titles in true cassette tape style. I wonder if it comes with a giant pencil.
Only old people will get that.
