iAnts

David Byrne and Brian Eno have a new album out entitled Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.  

Thing is, this new album is available exclusively from their website.  You can stream the entire record (for free, of course) and if inclined, purchase it in a variety of digital and physical formats. Regardless of which format you select, you can download it immediately while waiting for the physical CDs to ship later this year. There’s also a limited edition Deluxe Package designed by Sagmeister Inc.

Embedded here for you listening pleasure.

[via Topspin]

Decided to finally upgrade to the latest version of WordPress and in the process decided to also temporarily update the look of this blog. For those of you that had contacted me about the dark font on the previous theme, hopefully it’s now a little easier to read. In the meantime, I’m working on creating a custom theme which should be ready soon.

Seems British singer-songwriter Tallulah Rendall couldn’t decide whether to offer a free digital download of her new single, “Only You” or hand out “viral vinyl” at her recent show. In the end, she opted for both.

So last week, each person who walked through the door of Bush Hall (where she was performing) received a vinyl single wrapped in artwork. Each record also came with a unique download number and those who received it were encouraged to share the code with their network of friends.

Here’s the part I really like and think is quite genius. The person whose code gets used the most wins a free album when it’s released. Rewarding fans for their loyalty and creating a viral campaign at the same time.

If interested, you can download “Only You” here.

[via Street Attack Marketing]

The NPD Group, a leading market research company just issued a press release pertaining to the five leading music retailers in the U.S for the first half of 2008 (January through June, based on purchases of CDs and a-la-carte digital music downloads). No real surprise that iTunes continues to dominate the digital download landscape. The Top 5 ranked as follows:

1. iTunes
2. Wal-Mart (Walmart, Walmart.com, Walmart Music Downloads)
3. Best Buy (Best Buy, Bestbuy.com, Best Buy Digital Music Store)
4. Amazon (Amazon.com, AmazonMP3.com)
5. Target (Target and Target.com)

NPD’s data reflects the ongoing consumer shift from physical CDs to digital music, as iTunes maintained their leadership position reached earlier this year. Amazon rose from fifth place to fourth primarily for two reasons: first, online CD sales have seen less erosion than CD sales at brick-and-mortar stores; and second, Amazon launched its digital music store, Amazon.mp3, last year.

“We expect Apple will consolidate its lead in the retail music market, as CD sales continue to slow,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group. “Amazon’s CD buyers tend to be older, so they haven’t abandoned the CD format to the extent seen in the average music buyer. Plus Amazon’s successful introduction of its digital download store will help the company improve its position in the future.”

The information in this press release was derived from surveys of U.S. consumers, age 13 and older, reporting on their purchases of physical product (CDs), digital music, and wireless over-the-air (OTA) transactions — excluding ringtones. Purchases from retailer Web sites and brick-and-mortar stores are combined in this ranking. Note: NPD uses an equivalency of 12 single-track downloads per CD, for retailers who sell digital music as single tracks. In addition, NPD only tracks digital music sold by the song or album, not music purchased under subscription from services like eMusic, or subscription revenues from Rhapsody and Napster.

[via NPD Group]

Nine Inch Nails has been giving away their new album, “The Slip” as free download for some time now via the band’s website but oddly enough it seems that eMusic subscribers have also downloaded a paid version, pushing this album into the Top 10 on the daily download chart yesterday. “The Slip” is also in the Top 20 weekly album chart.

This album is also available from Amazon.com but it ranks considerably lower on the their album download charts. Same with iTunes, it’s not even in the Top-100 album charts.

What does all mean? According to Digital Audio Insider, perhaps the difference in chart positions provides some evidence of the difference between using an “all you can eat” download subscription on eMusic and making a specific purchase decision within the Amazon mp3 or iTunes store. I also get the feeling that most eMusic subscribers do not take advantage or use up their monthly download allotment, hence they are also buying music they may have downloaded for free, well, at least this is the case with “The Slip”

[via Digital Audio Insider]

Myspace CEO Chris DeWolfe announced at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference yesterday that they will launch a new music service in September.

Fortune reported that this new offering will enable MySpace members to listen to music for free as well as purchase downloads, ringtones, T-shirts and concert tickets.

TechCrunch offers a little more info adding that MySpace Music will be a combination music store/subscription model (with free unlimited streaming) and revenue will come from advertising and paid downloads.

MySpace hosts profiles for 5 million artists and that 65% of their users embed music on their MySpace pages and over 5 billion songs are streamed on MySpace each month.

As reported in March, this joint venture with the major labels will probably encompass some sort of equity stakes for the labels and perhaps some advertising revenue sharing. Wonder if MySpace will also pay for streaming. Even fractions of pennies would add up seeing they stream over 5 billion songs a month.

[via Fortune]

eMusic are now offering their users a slew of new features that will allow them to share content outside of the eMusic community. Users can now bookmark the eMusic album page they are interested in or send it to a number of social network sites, including some of the most popular like Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, Twitter, Stumble Upon and more.

Additionally, eMusic customers will not only see album information and track-listing on the artist page they are exploring but they will also be treated to additional content being pulled in from YouTube, Flickr and Wikipedia while encouraging their users to share their findings online.

“Stores like iTunes, Amazon and even the new Rhapsody are missing the boat,” said David Pakman, President and CEO of eMusic. “Blogs and recommendations from friends are now more relevant in music discovery than what music critics have to say, but what’s missing is a place that brings that all together. eMusic is that place. This is the first of six months of dramatic product improvements which we believe will set the bar for the way “long tail” retailers — and indeed all entertainment retailers — must function online.”

So what does this mean for an indie artist or label who has their content on eMusic? Well, perhaps it’s time you get around to creating a Flickr page, A Wiki entry and/or a YouTube channel so that the world’s second largest digital music service after iTunes can pull in some of your content.

[via WSJ]

iLike announced a new advertising platform which empowers concert promoters to reach concert goers based on location and musical tastes.

Advertisers are provided with tools to retrieve data about the total number of people who saw their ad, how many interacted with it and how many people clicked on the link to buy tickets. Advertising rates are charged on impressions the ads receive.

Promoters have historically relied on informing live music fans through print, email lists and radio & TV ads. This new method now allows them to reach social network users — typically teens or 20-somethings who might not otherwise hear about a concert as they do not rely on traditional media for their information.

iLike boasts about 30 million registered users and its Facebook application make up around 40% of its total users.

Fans seeing an artist specific ad are treated to music, a link that allows them to inform their friends about the event, seek out other fans who plan to attend and of course, a link to buy tickets.

[via Mashable]

Radiohead just released a new video for “House of Cards” treating its fans to an another unconventional art form. This time without the use of cameras or lighting. Instead they used two types of technologies to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR.

You can learn about how the video was made, the 3D technologies behind it and explore data visualization and get a hands-on experience. Click here to access this information.

And the fun does not stop there. Radiohead has also released the data behind their video for you to manipulate, upload and share it with the community. You can find the code here and share the content here.

Now back to the video which has received over 1.2 million plays on their YouTube channel over the last 5 days.

[via Radiohead.com]

Apple just announced that they sold 1 million of these new 3G iPhones in just three days since its launch on Friday, July 11, which was made available across 21 countries. Still no word on how many were sold in Canada.

Some iPhone customers decided to take a slightly different approach to using their new phone. This was the case with Tom from Will It Blend.

[via Apple]