In a room of full of entertainment lawyers and Grammy execs on Friday, Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am offered frank insight and advice on how the music business can better manage its tumultuous relationship with technology.
"Believe me, I love Apple...but iTunes shouldn't be the answer," said Will.IAm in his keynote address at the Grammy Foundation's 13th annual Entertainment Law Initiative Luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "[For artists], it should be the scariest thing in the world."
Will.I.am described the plight of the modern musician as "like selling echoes" and pushed the need for young singers and songwriters to become experts in computers science so they may better benefit from a fast-paced marketplace.
Per his recent appointment as Intel's director of creative innovation, Will.I.Am spoke of the need to amp up efforts for tech education.
"We need to inspire kids to take notice of how and why a computer works," he said. "It's the marriage of art and science."
Will.I.Am, who was raised by a single mother in the projects of East L.A., has also been an active philanthropist since his early years in the Black Eyes Peas, a group he co-founded as a teenager with fellow band member Apl.de.Ap when the two were still in high school.
Among many endeavors, his six-year-old Peapod Foundation provides toys and supplies to local orphanages, including a new facility in Watts. He says the work should be an imperative for all musicians who reach his level of success.
"I do it because I want to do it," he said of charity work. "But if you don't use your own money, you don't really have a good reason to be doing it at all."
Lady Gaga’s brand new single “Born This Way” has reached the number one spot on iTunes U.S. in less than three hours since its release, becoming the fastest song to ever do so. The previous record holder was Taylor Swift’s “Mine,” which topped the singles chart in five hours. Click here to buy the song on iTunes now!
SourceTaylor Swift has been named Billboard and Nielsen SoundScan’s top selling artist of the year!
The 21-year-old country cutie was also named Billboard’s most played artist for the second year in a row. Tay had more than 1.128 million airplay detections throughout the year. Taylor is also the best selling digital artist in music history with 34 million tracks sold. Wow! Tay will hit the road next month to tour in support of her latest album, Speak Now
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This week, Lady Gaga’s single “Alejandro” tops the two million mark in paid downloads in the U.S., becoming the singer’s seventh consecutive song to reach the milestone. Gaga is the only artist in digital history to amass seven 2-million sellers as a lead act.
Take a look at the sales of Lady Gaga’s songs, as well as their peak positions on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, after the jump…
Singles:
“Just Dance” feat. Colby O’Donis – 5,844,000 copies (No. 1)
“Poker Face” – 5,722,000 copies (No. 1)
“LoveGame” – 2,258,000 copies (No. 5)
“Paparazzi” – 2,776,000 copies (No. 6)
“Bad Romance” – 4,414,000 copies (No. 2)
“Telephone” feat. Beyoncé – 2,643,000 copies (No. 3)
“Alejandro” – 2,000,000 copies (No. 5)
Non-Singles:
“Starstruck” – 625,000 copies
“Beautiful, Dirty, Rich” – 275,000 copies
“Boys Boys Boys” – 233,000 copies
“Monster” – 207,000 copies
“Speechless” – 197,000 copies
“Dance In The Dark” – 120,000 copies
“So Happy I Could Die” – 114,000 copies
Avril Lavigne is poising herself for a comeback. Not only will the pop-punk princess debut her brand-new single, "What the Hell," on "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2011," but she's also treating fans to a free download of the tune on New Year's Day.Source
In order to get the freebie, fans will need to head to the Avril's official Facebook page and "like" the starlet on January 1. As of now, the singer/songwriter has uploaded a 21-second video titled "Knock! Knock!" to the social media site to tease the premiere. The clip begins with the song's flashing title before a cameraman walks up to Lavigne's trailer and knocks on the door. The clip ends with the 26-year-old starlet opening the door and proclaiming, "What the hell?"
Earlier this month, the Canadian songstress described the lead single off Goodbye Lullaby, which hits stores March 8, as "an unabashed embrace of fun and freedom." However, Lavigne has stressed in numerous interviews that the rest of the LP will have a raw essence to it. Among other tunes featured on the new album are "Smile," which she described on her website as a rocker in which she "expresses her gratitude for special people in her life," the ballad "Wish You Were Here" and the song she told Entertainment Weekly was the album's most personal track, "Goodbye."
During the making of "Goodbye Lullaby", the singer worked with producer/songwriter Butch Walker, pop innovator Max Martin, her former guitarist Evan Taubenfeld and even ex-husband, Sum 41's Deryck Whibley.
Could the Beatles be Ke$ha for a day after the iTunes announcement? Well, no. As of 5pm EST today the top charting Beatles song on the iTunes daily Top 200 comes in at #75, leaving Ke$ha, Katy Perry, and the Black Eyed Peas safely in the top three. The chart had a couple songs on there twice (for the same version, from the same release), so it might be a little off. But it gives you a small idea of how all of their songs would have have performed as singles — for instance, “Something” was the Harrison single from Abbey Road, not “Here Comes The Sun.” Here’s the list:
1 “Here Comes The Sun” (75)
2 “Let It Be” (77)
3 “Black Bird” (94)
4 “In My Life” (103)
5 “Come Together” (118)
6 “With A Little Help From My Friends” (122)
7 “Hey Jude” (142)
8 “Twist And Shout” (151)
9 “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (168)
10 “I Saw Her Standing There” (174)
11 “Eleanor Rigby” (176)
12 “Yesterday” (185)
13 “A Day In The Life” (191)
14 “Help!” (196)
15 “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” (197)
The Beatles soared up the iTunes record charts on Tuesday, with five of their classic albums entering the Top 20 less than 24 hours after the band's catalog was released for the first time on the world's No.1 digital retailer.
"Abbey Road" was leading the pack on Tuesday evening, with "The White Album" and "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" also proving the most popular Beatles album downloads on Apple's iTunes store. The special digital "Beatles Box Set", priced at $149 was also climbing up Top 20 along with the "Blue Album" of greatest hits.
On the U.S. iTunes singles charts, "Here Comes the Sun", "Let it Be" and "Blackbird" were among six Beatles singles moving steadily up the top 100 downloads, according to real-time data on the iTunes website.
Detailed figures on the numbers of U.S. downloads will be available next week from chart tracker Nielsen Soundscan.
Apple's iTunes store on Tuesday released 13 of the albums made famous more than 40 years ago by the Fab Four, ending years of fruitless negotiations between Apple founder Steve Jobs, the Beatles management company Apple Corps, and record label EMI.
Paul McCartney said he it was "fantastic to see the songs we originally released on vinyl receive as much love in the digital world as they did the first time around."
Drummer Ringo Starr said he was "particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes" and John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono said it was an appropriate move in what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday year.
In London, the Official Charts Company said it was certain that "their music will make a big impact" on the official UK singles charts, starting on Sunday when weekly sales and download figures are released.
According to Apple Corps, the band had sold more than 600 million records, tapes and CDs of its 1960s songs before Tuesday's iTunes releases.
Steve Jobs is nearing the end of his long and winding pursuit of the Beatles catalog.
Apple Inc. is preparing to disclose that its iTunes store will soon start carrying music by the Beatles, according to people familiar with the situation, a move that would fill a glaring gap in the collection of the world's largest music retailer.
The deal resulted from talks that were taking place as recently as last week among executives of Apple, representatives of the Beatles and their record label, EMI Group Ltd,, according to these people. These people cautioned that Apple could change plans at the last minute.
Spokesmen for Apple and EMI declined to comment.
Apple on Monday posted a notice on the home page of its iTunes store that it would make "an exciting announcement" Tuesday morning.
Terms of the deal that brought the Beatles music to iTunes couldn't be learned, and it was unclear whether other online music services would gain access to the catalog too. However, Apple maintains a roughly 90% market share in the digital-music business.
EMI has been under financial strain following an ill-timed leveraged buyout by Terra Firma Capital Partners LP in 2007. If the iTunes tie-up generates significant cash advances or sales, it could delay breaches in the company's loan covenants. Terra Firma borrowed £3 billion ($4.9 billion) from Citigroup Inc. to finance the deal, but has fallen into breach of those covenants, forcing it to add millions more to its equity position last year.
Even as recorded-music sales have plummeted, the Beatles have remained one of the most reliable franchises in the business. In 2009, 39 years after breaking up, they sold the third-highest number of albums of any act in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, with 3.3 million copies sold.
The Beatles aren't the only big iTunes holdout. AC/DC, Bob Seger and Kid Rock all have witheld their music from the online store. Other longtime digital wallflowers such as Metallica and Led Zeppelin have relented in recent years.
The Beatles' arrival on iTunes was delayed in part by ongoing trademark litigation, the most recent round of which was resolved in 2007.
The Fab Four's arrival in the digital age comes very late compared to most other major acts'. The group also was a latecomer to the CD era, waiting until 1987 to issue their main body of work on a medium that the industry had embraced in the early to mid part of the decade.
People who have done business with the group and its corporate entity, Apple Corps, describe a very slow-moving process in which the two surviving bandmembers, and the heirs of the other two, can take a long time to reach consensus.
The group started moving with a bit more alacrity following the 2007 death of Neil Aspinall, the long time Beatles confidant who ran the band's company, Apple Corps Ltd., for many years. Founded in 1968, Apple Corps controls certain rights related to the Beatles recordings, although the recordings themselves are owned by EMI. Mr. Aspinall was replaced as Apple Corps' CEO by Jeff Jones, a former executive of Sony Music's well-respected Legacy division, which handles back-catalog releases for Sony Corp.'s various record labels.
After the arrival of Mr. Jones, the Beatles started modernizing their affairs more quickly than they had previously. In 2009 the group issued remastered CD versions of their studio albums with improved sound quality, something for which fans had been clamoring for years. The band struck a deal to release a videogame, The Beatles: Rock Band, last September. That title has seen mixed sales.
Even the solo catalogs of the members of the Beatles have become available via iTunes and other online music services for varying lengths of time, prompting headscratching in the music and technology worlds about why the Beatles albums proper still weren't available.
The Beatles-iTunes agreement represents a watershed in a fraught, decades-long relationship between two of the biggest icons in their respective fields.
The two sides have traded lawsuits since 1978, when the Beatles alleged that the computer maker, incorporated as Apple Computer in 1977, infringed on the band's trademark in the name and logo of Apple Corps.
The lawsuit was settled in 1981 for an undisclosed sum, plus an agreement that the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker wouldn't compete in the music business.
Then in 1989 Apple Corps sued again, charging that Apple Computer had violated the terms of the earlier settlement by giving its computers increasingly powerful musical abilities, such as hardware that enabled its computers to control synthesizers.
The two sides announced a settlement in 1991, after 100 days in court, with Apple Computer paying roughly $29 million to the band.
Then in April 2003, Apple Computer again raised the band's hackles by launching the iTunes music store. Two months later, Apple Corps sued Apple Computer in High Court in London, alleging that the online music store violated the 1991 agreement.
In 2006, after a one-week trial, the court handed the computer maker a rare victory in the long-running legal saga, dismissing the claims of the musical entity. Judge Edward Mann ruled that the Apple logo on the iTunes Store doesn't appear "in connection with" any particular music being sold, and instead is simply an icon for the store itself.
The two sides announced a settlement in early 2007 under which the computer maker, then known by its current name, Apple Inc., took control of the trademarks at issue and licensed them back to Apple Corps Ltd. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
Michael Jackson has become the most downloaded artist in history, according to global sales records from Nokia's Ovi Music Store.
Musicologist Geoff Roberts attributed the upsurge in Jacko downloads to the recent anniversary of his death on 25 June, and his 52nd birthday which would have been today, 29 August. "Michael Jackson has always been a pop music legend. But the anniversary of his death and birthday celebrations seem to have revived Jackson fever as fans rediscover his songs – making him the most popular solo artist of all time."
Surprisingly, it is India where the King of Pop is most popular. There, Michael Jackson tracks make up 26 percent of the country’s total Ovi downloads, followed by the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Finland.
Of Michael’s hits, Beat It is the most downloaded, with Billie Jean and Thriller close behind.
Just behind Michael in the download stakes are Lady Gaga, Elvis Presley, Black Eyed Peas and Rihanna.
The Man In The Mirror hitmaker died of an overdose of sedative Propofol on 25 June 2009.
Fans have paid tribute to the star on his 52nd birthday at an event outside his childhood home in Gary, Indiana. Michael Jackson impersonators entertained the well-wishers and members of his family were on hand including father Joe Jackson, who cut a birthday cake.
