Friday, May 13, 2005
Yahoo Music Engine Adds Open-Source Twist With Open Plugin Development
Yahoo’s move into the music etail portal space this week fascinated technology-watchers and rattled competitors. As the dust on the announcement settles, Yahoo is making a public—and seemingly welcome—gesture to the open-source community to contribute to the service with the unveiling of a dedicated plugin development blog.
Noted in Yahoo developer Jeremy Zawodny’s blog, the plugin dev blog is a clearing house of widgets divided into two buckets: Those that alter the behavior of the YME application (which, like Napster or Rhapsody, must be downloaded and installed on the client system to access the YME music library) and those that change the behavior of a web browser to integrate data calls to the YME service via a public API.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Yahoo Music Engine Squeezes Competitors
The announcement of the Yahoo! Music Engine portal and its low-ball price points sent the stock prices of competitors into a tailspin on Wednesday (5/11).
Yahoo!, Inc. unveiled its music retail portal, dubbed the Yahoo! Music Engine, on Tuesday evening. The service is a subscription-based music streaming service that allows users the option to purchase tracks at a small premium.
The service will launch with prices of $6.99 monthly and $4.99 a month if purchased as a year-long contract. Both of the service’s primary competitors, Napster and Real Networks’ Rhapsody, charge $14.95 a month for a similar product offering.
Monday, June 21, 2004
Universal Easing Back On CD Price Cuts
Universal Music Group’s CD price-cut plan, hailed as a hope to get music buyers back into stores, has hit resistance from retailers, all but killing the effort.
Nine months ago, Universal Music executives announced with great fanfare that the company was preparing to slash prices on CDs. The strategy was expected to breathe new life into the flagging offline retail sector, which has been hit hard by a combination of illegal online music trading, audience migration to online stores and a long-running sag in pop sales on the heels of the Jive Records-powered teen music boom of the late 90’s.
Today, Universal’s grand plan has been quieted by a combination of resistance from the very retailers the price cuts were expected to help and internal reconsideration of the program’s details.
Online Music Alliance Set To Splinter
Echo, a consortium of major retailers funding a proposed online music shopping standard infrastructure, is reportedly being abandoned.
Billboard reports that the major backers of the project, including Best Buy, Borders Group, Hastings Entertainment, Tower Records, Trans World Entertainment and Virgin Entertainment, are each pursuing their own music retailing strategies with individually-selected partners.
The Echo project was founded to take advantage of economies of scale in developing consumer music shopping and delivery tools.
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Q&A: Adam Levine of Maroon 5
As teenagers in the mid- to late-‘90s, Adam Levine, Jesse Carmichael, Mickey Madden and Ryan Dusick trudged their way through the music business in the rock band Kara’s Flowers.
That band caused a stir in college radio with their Reprise Records debut, “The Fourth World,” before deciding to re-invent itself.
With the addition of guitarist James Valentine, the group opted for a funkier sound and renamed itself Maroon 5. Its first album, 2002’s “Songs About Jane,” immediately spawned the hit “Harder to Breathe,” which became a VH1 staple.
Thursday, August 07, 2003
Revamped Doors lineup to perform ‘L.A. Woman’
The Doors 21st Century will perform the 1971 album “L.A. Woman” in its entirety for the first time in Wantagh, NY.
The group plans to film the performance and release it as a concert DVD in early 2004.Original Doors frontman Jim Morrison died before the band released the “L.A. Woman” album.
Read more at The Doors 21st Century website
Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Dave Matthews solo album to feature Phish’s Trey Anastasio
Dave Matthews’ first solo album, “Some Devil,” unites Matthews with Trey Anastasio, known to many a jam-band fan as the guitar wizard from Phish.
Anastasio performs on four tracks and co-wrote one song, Grey Blue Eyes,” with Matthews. Longtime Matthews collaborator Tim Reynolds appears on the album as well.
In a press statement, Matthews said that the album sprang from a few songs that just weren’t right for the full Dave Matthews Band treatment.
“The sessions grew into a sort of writing and recording experience—something I hadn’t really planned on,” Matthews said. “Eventually the tracks began to take on a personality and grew into an album. I’m really excited and I hope people like it.”
The 14-track collection is due in stores Sept. 23.
Monday, August 04, 2003
Aerosmith, Britney, Mary J. Blige perform at NFL event
Aerosmith, Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige, Aretha Franklin and others have signed on to perform at The National Mall in Washington, DC, on Sept. 4 as part of “NFL Kickoff Live 2003.”
The event—which ABC will air live from 8-9 p.m. ET—leads up to that night’s season-opening match-up between the Washington Redskins and New York Jets.Spears reportedly plans to perform a couple of new songs at the show.
Phish ends tour with a two-day party
An estimated 70,000 fans braved washed-out campgrounds and knee-deep mud to witness the return of Phish to the former Loring Air Force base in Limestone, Maine over the weekend. About 2 a.m. Sunday, the band launched into a surprise 4th set of the festival, performing atop the air traffic control tower as gymnasts in rappelling gear dangled, bounced and danced on the sides of the tower.
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Dwight Yoakam heads into cover territory again
Dwight Yoakam will release his second CD of cover songs Sept. 23rd. Songs on the set include the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’,” “Mystery Train,” and “T For Texas.” A U.S. tour, in progress since June, will continue through October 10th.
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Timberlake sings with Rolling Stones, dodges bottles
Pop-star Justin Timberlake, who performed at Wednesday night’s SARS benefit concert, reportedly faced a tough crowd when he hit the stage. Some members of the roughly 400,000-person audience threw water bottles at the singer and heckled him during his brief solo set. He was again faced with flying bottles when he joined The Rolling Stones during the group’s song “Miss You.”
Pop-star Justin Timberlake, who performed at Wednesday night’s SARS benefit concert, reportedly faced a tough crowd when he hit the stage. Some members of the roughly 400,000-person audience threw water bottles at the singer and heckled him during his brief solo set. He was again faced with flying bottles when he joined The Rolling Stones during the group’s song “Miss You.”
Read more at MTV.com
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Elvis’ Producer Sam Phillips dead at 80
Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, best known for discovering Elvis Presley, died of respiratory failure on Wednesday (7/30). Phillips also worked with Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty, B.B. King, Charlie Rich and Carl Perkins.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=529&ncid=529&e=1&u=/ap/20030731/ap_en_ot/obit_Phillips >Read the full story from Reuters
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Dixie Chicks’ tour bus rear-ended
A pickup truck struck the back of The Dixie Chicks’ tour bus near San Antonio in the early hours of Thursday morning (7/31). The only member of the country trio on board, Emily Robison, was not hurt.
The bus was parked at the time of the accident, and was reportedly partially blocking a lane of traffic in which the pick-up truck was traveling.
Read more from the Houston Chronicle
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Title and release date surface for new Pink album
Pink’s follow-up to her multi-platinum 2001 release “Mizzundastood” will hit stores on Nov. 11, and is tentatively titled “Try This.” The set features a cut tentatively titled “God Is a DJ,” which will likely be the first single.
Read more at VH1.com