A week and change after schedule, the much-ballyhooed MySpace Music–in which the fading social-networking service and the major labels come together in hopes of making at least some money off their technology–has launched. Some clicking around reveals that it’s not really that much of a great leap forward as far as the consumer experience goes; the number of streamable songs from artists on participating labels (Universal, Sony, and Warner; EMI has signed on, too) is way up in some cases, thanks to the new site’s desire to be the biggest Amazon affiliate ever. But the big innovation–aside from an upgraded music player that also has links to Amazon’s MP3 store embedded within–being the ability to create playlists from songs that are streaming on the service. Streaming playlists with Amazon affiliate links attached? It’s like 2005 all over again!
MySpace Music–the joint venture between the social-networking site and the major labels that is apparently going to revolutionize digital music by putting opportunities to actually buy songs and other music-related widgetry right into artists’ profile pages on the site–is still trudging toward its now-one-week-late launch, and I guess to remind people that we’re supposed to be excited about the whole thing, someone leaked a few blurry screenshots of the project. (Kind of odd that the screenshots of a site that’s all about making money for Big Music were leaked to the nerd-insider site TechCrunch, which is firmly in the “music should be free at all times” camp, but I’m sure the fine people at MySpace know exactly what they’re doing in the PR department. Cough.) What new, exciting changes will you see the next time you visit your favorite band’s MySpace page? Let’s do a side-by-side comparison of these alleged prototypes and what they’re replacing.
The probably delayed launch of MySpace Music has coincided with the social-networking service buying ad space in New York’s Times Square and on Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard–because when an online service pours a lot of money into ads, it’s always a good sign about the viability of its business, right? But what’s more notable about the Times Square ad (pic above, via Songs For Soap) isn’t the fact that one of the Jonas Brothers looks like he’s hoisting an Urban Sombrero above his head. It’s what’s in the immediate vicinity of the ads, and how they represent big music’s accelerated decline in the new millennium.
MySpace Music, the ass-saving joint venture between the major labels and the buggy place for friends that was supposed to launch today but will instead bow sometime this week, is apparently hoping to raise “well over $100 million” in anticipation of it being worth–hold on to your hats–some $2… More »
Dear MySpace HR department: I know you guys are having a hard time finding a CEO for your big joint venture with the music business, having asked a ton of people, all of whom have turned you guys down. More »
Cheeky piano-heavy trio Ben Folds Five have announced that they’re reuniting for a show where they play their 1999 album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner in its entirety. The concert–which takes place in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 18–is the first installment in the “let’s have bands play the albums you love so they can keep raking in the nostalgia cash” series Front To Back, which is sponsored in part by nowwhat.com. (As Al Shipley put it, the site’s “named after the phrase bands utter after they stop making good albums and have to just play the old ones.” Ha ha! OK, it’s actually an ethics-lite site sponsored by the insurance giants at State Farm. Same diff?) Anyway, as with so many music-publicity claims these days, there’s something a little strange about the video announcement of the show, which I’ve embedded after the jump.
The latest problems plaguing MySpace Music, the fading social-networking service’s joint venture with the majors that is allegedly going to launch in September: A slew of candidates for the CEO position have flat-out turned down the gig; finding a CEO now, if it happens, would be dicey, since any… More »
MySpace music: It’s about as well-thought-out as you would expect, i.e. it still doesn’t have a CEO or a launch date even though it was announced to much fanfare back in April. Anyone want to offer up odds on this thing actually launching by the end of 2008? More »
