With album sales dropping for the fifth year in a row in 2009, and free streaming sevices such as Spotify and Last FM (and Apples rumoured iTunes streaming service) the music industry must look at new ways to engage the customer and create revenue.
When we used to buy an album it was not just for one song but for the whole package, the cover, the other songs, that gave you more of an idea as to what the artist was about and the cover notes that where always a good read.
What can be done to create this type of satisfaction with a download? This is where the album app comes into play, with multiple covers, videos and links to websites and social media platforms all included in your download. Why stop there, remix and mash up culture is seen across all media now so why not allow you customers to remix the track and then make these remixes available for others to buy.
Facebook and i-phone apps will allow this new remix option with downloaded albums, and there are also standalone platforms like MXP4, at Poker we look forward to seeing what becomes of this new and exciting technology.
As we have been saying for a while now at Poker PR, the world of music and how we listen and purchase is changing.
Spotify and Pandora have changed the way we do this. Now iTunes, leaders in music downloads are rumored to be launching a streaming service to compete in the market.
posted by David Mitchell
Music downloads made headlines today after trade body BPI revealed album downloads rose by 56.1% in 2009.
This accounts to one in eight UK album sales making up £16.1m of the UK market, but the less positive news was total album sales dropped 3.5% in 2009 to 128.9 million overall.
2009 was an unprecedented year for weekly single sales – both CD and download – which rose 32.7% to a record £152m, with 98% being downloads. Week 52 of 2009 had the biggest surge where 4.22 million singles were sold – more than any other week that year.
As well as MP3 players given as presents around Christmas which could be responsible, Ed Real, Managing Director of download store www.trackitdown.net commented that “heavy discounting is probably responsible for the upsurge in units sold due to the likes of Tesco selling singles as little as 29p. In spite of sales, there are still problems as it doesn’t matter how many you sell as it isn’t going to make a difference to either the label or artist”.
But the BPI figures show “more people are buying units legally, which gives traction to the legal download business. It proves that people are prepared to spend money on high quality digital products if presented to them as an alternative to illegal downloading.”
Poker favourites SoundCloud will be among many companies taking part in the Music Hack Day in Stockholm, Sweden on the 30th/31st of January.
The main goal of Music Hack Day is to explore and build the next generation of music applications. It’s a full weekend of hacking in which participants will conceptualise, create and present their projects. Music + software + hardware + art + the web. Anything goes as long as it’s music related.
These events massively influence what we will be doing with music on web in the future, with big players like Spotify and Last FM taking part in the European event. Poker PR will be watching out for the results with eager anticipation.
Check out this nice 3D visualiser built with the SoundCloud API… SOUNDCLOUD+TV …
and don’t forget to check out Poker PR’s SoundCloud page… Poker PR’s SoundCloud
Poker PR client www.digitaldoghouse.co.uk has teamed up with www.rivmixx.com to offer you 15% off everything in store. And with Digital Doghouse already being the cheapest place to buy house music online, music has never been cheaper!
To claim your 15% off, all you need to do is click here for your exclusive promo code, then head to Digital Doghouse and simply enter the code at the check out.
If you haven’t yet visited Digital Doghouse, you are about to get first hand experience of the site’s user friendly navigation, content rich editorial, and library of quality, underground house music.
Merry Christmas from Digital Doghouse!
Out today on Dutch imprint, Adapt Recordings is the label’s last release of the year - ‘All Because of You’ by Bastian Creon
With the soulful vocals of UK artist Tasita D’amour and co producers Paul Sissons and Daan van Joolen on board, Adapt 004 is fresh, funky and tantalising, and is yet another example of the diverse sounds on this label.
There’s an extensive remix package with a sound to suit most tastes from Firebeatz & SOL Soundsystem, Howard D, Marten Fisher & James Nidecke, Jesse Voorn and two mixes from label boss Jørgensen.
Check it out here www.adaptrecordings.com
Supported by: Axwell, Syke ‘n’ Sugarstarr (aka SE:SA), StoneBridge, Soul Avengerz, Gabriel Castellon, Jim ‘Shaft’ Ryan, Prok & Fitch and Sarah Main.
ADAPT TO THIS!
Buy from www.beatport.com
YouTube recently added full 1080p HD support to its video playback options; this is great news as a growing number of consumer video cameras are now supporting the true HD format. This means we will be watching all the cute babies, skateboarding dogs and bad dancing in glorious detail and there will be no hiding behind poor quality videos in all those parodies any more.
To celebrate this new format, YouTube have teamed up with the Muppets for what has to be one of the best parodies ever … and possibly the Christmas number 1 … with this Bohemian Rhapsody cover.
www.digitaldoghouse.co.uk [DDH] is an al a carte digital music download store, dedicated to selling a choice selection of dance music from industry leading labels and artists.
It’s genre specific selling house music in its many forms. In store you’ll find the likes of Mau5trap, Get Physical, Moon Harbor Dance 2 Dance and a whole lot more!
We are thrilled to be working on the launch of this brand. DDH has the fastest downloads speeds around, it sells supreme quality MP3 and .WAV files at the cheapest prices, has a no nonsense easy to navigate site, excellent customer service and content rich editorial. It’s also the first electronic music store to introduce the ecard – buy music in just one click and with no minimum spend!
Record label’s will be bowled over too as DDH offers flexible contracts, competitive royalty rates, and bespoke promotion for labels in store.
Check it out now www.digitaldoghouse.co.uk
We’re as excited as kids in a sweetshop as we’ve snapped up the fantastic DJ Kramnik to our roster.
This up ‘n’ coming DJ has got the UK music press all in a quiver over his 90 minute feature length, album mixes he creates with more passion and dedication than the DJ scene has witnessed in a long time. Kramnik spends literally hours every day researching new music for his immaculately crafted mixes.
From progressive to techno and electro, and everything else in between, his mixes tell an emotive musical story, and so much so that DJ Mag made his first mix ‘The Zen Zong’ a Top Pick in their June issue; iDJ flagged him up as ‘one to watch’, and Total Kiss FM exclusively aired the mix in their ‘Main Room Mix Session’ slot.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, he’s created a brand new 90 minute mix called ‘The K Song’ which you can download for free on his website www.kramnik.dj Please sign his guest book and let us know what you think. He’ll be playing an excerpt from this mix, live at the BPM event in Birmingham this Saturday 3rd October.
There’s huge news in the world of digital music as Spotify and iPhone – two of the biggest names in music from the last decade – have joined forces. Music download store Spotify has produced the long awaited iPhone app that’s soon to appear on iTunes – meaning the future of music distribution has dramatically changed once again.
Times are changing… will music eventually become free altogether? And where does the record label sit within this new model? Noone knows the answer just yet, but only time will tell.
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