Talk about a buried lede: The industry insiders at HITS Daily Double decide to write about Alex Zubillaga’s exit from the sinking ship that is the Warner Music Group, information that is news to a select group of people. As WMG head Edgar Bronfman’s brother-in-law, Zubillaga’s departure is a little strange, and the fact that neither Bronfman nor Lyor Cohen’s deals have been extended past their expiration a year from now is also interesting. But the real news comes a bit further down the page: When the higher-ups at WMG purchased Roadrunner Records, they “forgot” to check the contract of the band they bought the entire label for in the first place, and who they’re now trying to negotiate with in a last-ditch effort to make good on their investment.
Larry Norman, often referred to as “The Father of Christian Rock”, died at age 60 on Sunday. The complimentary title bestowed on Norman sounds like the ultimate left-handed rock compliment, making it seem as if he spawned a parade of goateed chubby guys strumming acoustic guitars and singing about Jesus. But Norman, a renegade in a musical genre that often rejects those with any opinion whatsoever, merits a moment in the mainstream spotlight for a life well-lived and vastly underappreciated–and even more importantly, he deserves a lot more attention from the industry to which he gave birth.
The New York Times takes a mildly interesting topic–what people listen to when they work out–and gives it the academic treatment today. It has contributions from several professors (one likes to ice skate to the Buena Vista Social Club! another suggests that “Push It” might be the perfect workout track!), the confusing revelation that Oliver Sacks likes to swim to Wagner, and the assertion that people find music from Rocky encouraging. But there was one sentence that caught my attention.
Sure, we’re ten days into the new year, and the music year just passed has been covered in every imaginable manner, but have we heard the contributions of the true driving force in the music industry? The consumers who are keeping the leaky ship afloat? The voice of those people has been heard… through the announcement of Verizon’s top ten ringtones for 2007. The list (which is, curiously, arranged in alphabetical order) after the jump, but for now a few thoughts.
THE GOOD: I suppose the good news depends on your opinion of one-hit-wonder rap hits of the past year (Hurricane Chris, Sean Kingston, Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em). Maybe the good news is that there’s only one Fergie song on there, and it isn’t “Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal).”
THE BAD: “The Way I Live” by Baby Boy Da Prince, and of course, Fergie.
THE WHAAAA? With Interscope announcing that Soulja Boy hit the three-million mark in ringtones, yet had only just reached gold status as far as actual album sales, it nearly makes my head hurt to think of where the music business is going from here, or if anyone will actually be releasing songs that last more than 30 seconds by this time next year.
There’s an wonderful chicken and waffles restaurant in Phoenix that features a sign on the wall which (more-or-less) reads “If we don’t meet your expectations, please lower your expectations.” It might be a good idea for a similar sign to be placed in the office of everyone who makes economic forecasts for a music retailer in America, what with both Barnes and Noble and Trans World Entertainment releasing their sales information for the holiday season.
ARTIST: Missy Elliott
TITLE: “Ching-A-Ling”
RELEASE DATE: Feb. 8, 2008
WEB DEBUT: Jan. 10, 2008
It seemed like a marriage made in corporate heaven. The deal that had Starbucks and satellite-radio company XM Radio working together to blend overpriced premium coffee with stylish adult alternative tunes has fallen apart, with XM giving $22 million of its stock to the coffee conglomerate in order to flee with a remnant of its dignity. So, what happened?
Happy 63rd birthday, Rod Stewart. You’re going through an odd era as far as your status among critics goes, with appreciation for the Faces on the rise, while nearly everything that followed only seeming to chase trends and, in the words of Rolling Stone, “become a bilious self-parody.” While one would be justified in questioning a tribute to you, considering your later work–including the seemingly endless tribute to the “American Songbook,” which was wildly popular with my mother-in-law and sold incredibly well for being a sign of the apocalypse–everyone, no matter how severe their aesthetic crimes, deserves recognition on their birthday. So here’s ours…
A profile of the producer/singer/guy-who-wears-wads-of-cash-as jewelry The-Dream (government name: Terius Nash) in Women’s Wear Daily starts off as one might expect: He likes expensive things and is part of the line of producers who have remade urban radio in their own image, stealing some of the spotlight from the singers of their songs. In the middle of the piece, however, writer Jacob Bernstein manages to capture the unsustainable nature of the current urban music business.
Like every home, I’m certain, the Casa de Gibson has been busy compiling our own year in review package for publication in our annual Arbor Day newsletter (it’s a long lead-time publication). While we were discussing our top five events of 2007, there was some disagreement about the top spot, with my wife Tara’s contention that the birth of our daughter should be No. 1, and my contention that since said birth on Dec. 17 missed the Dec. 15 cutoff it will have to wait and see how it does in 2008. Rules are rules, I say. I placed the Happy Mondays reunion at Coachella up top, and that’s when the real ugliness began.
