Bowie Hits Number 1 on UK Album Charts

When all the sales were tallied up for the week yesterday, David Bowie's The Next Day ended up at #1 on the UK album charts, selling 94,000 copies.  This is his first #1 UK album since Black Tie White Noise in 1993.

Fans will be watching closely to see how the album does in other territories.  In the US, he's apparently neck-and-neck with the new Bon Jovi album, What About Now.  Amazingly, Bowie has never had a #1 album in America.  Ever.

I don't have any figures for Canada, but I'm hoping he'll do well here, too.  We'll find out late Tuesday/early Wednesday.  Watch this space.

(Via The Independent)

Cleaning a Vinyl Record...with Wood Glue?

This is one of the most counter-intuitive things I've ever seen. Cleaning a record by pouring goopy glue all over it? Yes, apparently. Still, I would think twice--three times--about using this method on some of my uber-rare records.

(Via Hack 247)

Michael Jackson's Family Sues Promoter for $40 BILLION

No, that's not a typo.  The Jackson family wants FORTY BILLION DOLLARS from promoters AEG Live for allegedly working their boy to death--or, more specifically, hiring the wrong doctor--the Propofol-administering Dr. Conrad Murray--to look after him.

They arrived at the $40,000,000,000 number (looks pretty impressive when you write it out all the way, doesn't it?) this way:

-$10,000,000,000 for future lost earnings

-$30,000,000,000 in unspecified damages

Good luck with that.

(Via NME)

Why Online Music Discovery Is Still So Hard

With tens of millions of songs available online, there's so much to be discovered.  But why is it still so hard? Digital Music Trends offers this opinion.

Technologies like Pro Tools and Bandcamp have democratized the production and distribution of music as never before. Unfortunately, many artists – even those as widely appealing as Sallie Ford and The Sound Outside – don’t reach large fanbases. Finding music online isn’t all that different from the way we used to do it before the dawn of the MP3. Here’s why, and how you can start to fix it.

Despite significant advancements in digital distribution, none of today’s major platforms has solved the problem of music discovery.

Pandora and Spotify initially seem like good candidates. Spotify in particular, with the recent launches of its Follow and Discover features, appears to be turning resources towards the issue.

Continue reading.

Lashing Out Against "Music Industry Pimps"

This was one of the more passionate panels at SXSW this past week.  Billboard reports:

Daryl Friedman, VP of advocacy for the Recording Academy, moderated the panel, which bore the provocative title “Who’s Ripping Me Off Now?” He was joined by David Lowery, the artist and producer who ignited a firestorm online last year thanks to his critical letter to NPR intern Emily White, who blogged openly on the site about having never paid for music. East Bay Ray, guitarist for the punk band the Dead Kennedys, and Nakia, an Austin-based singer/songwriter and former contestant on NBC’s “The Voice.”

Lowery kicked things off by addressing his high-profile spat with White, who recently spoke out about the incident for the first time in an Op-Ed for Billboard.biz.
 
“I read what she wrote and it seems like she’s been thinking about things a little bit more,” he said. “I’m glad that we’re all thinking about this more.”
 
Lowery was less gracious toward those who he said were behind a campaign of “willful corporate ignorance” about the harmful effects of illegal downloading. He showed a PowerPoint presentation likening those wh oclaim filesharing doesn’t take money from artists to climate deniers and people who think President Barack Obama is a secret Muslim.

Continue reading.