Joss Stone acclaimed as... wait, what now?

It's that time of the year when magazines, websites, podcasts, television shows, groups, bloggers and Facebook Marketing Entities hand out 'best of the year' accolades.

Billboard has done a list, and amongst the winners this year is Joss Stone.

Joss, it appears, is the Reggae Artist of the Year.

You're surprised. How do you think the Jamaican Observer feels?

Puzzled, the paper has dug into the Billboard archive to see if it had somehow missed Stone being hailed as the greatest modern reggae act. It hadn't:

The album did not impress Billboard magazine writer Steven Horowitz who described Stone’s ‘reggae experiment’ as “unconvincing”.

He added: “For more than a decade, Joss Stone has been a serial genre-hopper. Switching from R&B to blues, funk to rock, the 28-year-old Brit has powered six albums with soulful vocals beyond her years. The songs are technically impressive, as expected from Stone, but unconvincing.”

Makes you wonder what the guy at number two must be like. Some chap called Bobby Marley.

Album charts apparently still going; intend to add streaming

The addition of streaming to the singles charts gave a headache to the Official Charts Company - how do you weight a listen to a tune against the purchase of a CD?

They're now adding streaming data to the album charts, and that's created an even more Sheldon Cooper style twisting of data to make sense.

They've rejected the model used by the Billboard charts:

In the US, the Billboard chart equates 1,500 streams of any song from an album to one sale.

However, that leads to situations where the popularity of one song pushes the entire album up the chart.

(Additionally, and surely more worryingly, it means that the effort of one song is going to be counted for both the singles and album charts, which seems odd.)

So what have the UK chart counters come up with?

The Official Chart Company says it will weight its data to avoid similar situations.

It will look at the 12 most-streamed tracks from each album, then down-weight the two most popular in line with the average of the next 10.

These streams will then be added together and divided by 1,000. This "stream factor" will then be added to the physical/digital sales of the album, to produce an overall "sales figure" that determines an album's position in the countdown.

Louis Walsh was last seen heading home to see if he still had his log table.

There's nothing like a completely transparent system to make the list of best-selling album, is there?

You might ask why it's only streaming albums which get adjusted if people access them but only want to listen to two tracks? Why shouldn't physical CDs be marked down if the purchaser only makes it through the first couple of songs, or rips it to their PC but only ever plays the hits?

The album chart, like the singles chart, will ignore YouTube data completely so won't even reflect what people are really listening to.

The music industry underestimated Taylor Swift

When people who work in the industry tell you how everything else has ruined their business, never forget the biggest problem is that they don't really know what they're doing.

Take how badly they misjudged Taylor Swift:

Just a couple weeks ago, industry sources were telling the music trade publication Billboard they expected Taylor Swift to sell about 750,000 copies of her new album, 1989, in its first week.

How good was that estimate?

Now, with 1989 out for just one day, Billboard says she’s likely to hit a million.

So, industry sources out by a quarter of a million copies.

To be fair to them, how could they be expected to know Taylor Swift was going to sell a million in a week? Nobody's done that since... erm, Taylor Swift did it with her last album. (Her album before that did a million, too.)

Music industry execs: they wouldn't even bother killing the goose that laid the golden egg, as they wouldn't even have realised it was laying golden eggs in the first place.

Who sells the most vinyl?

Amazon. Obviously.

But before we move on from the question, it's interesting to note who else sells vinyl in quantities in the US:

1. Amazon 12.3% of US retail vinyl market
2. Urban Outfitters 8.1%
3. Hastings Entertainment 2.8%
4. Hot Topic 2.4%
5. Trans World Entertainment 2.2%

Yes, there's two clothes shops on that list. (I know Hot Topic would claim they're some sort of alternative lifestyle shop, but they're a clothes shop with a record rack.)

Chris Brown: still reeks

To be fair, the full story from the Chris Brown/Billboard interview isn't released until later today, so perhaps it will be less painful than the cover makes it look:

But the 'maybe I was out of control' strapline doesn't give one hope.

Maybe you were out of control, Chris Brown.

Or maybe you're a violent, beat-first asshat who is now trying to salvage some sort of career with a minor concession that perhaps - just maybe you were out of control.

Or maybe you knew exactly what you were doing when you pulped Rihanna's face that time.

Maybe that.

Apple worried, reckons Billboard

It turns out that the only people in the world who are surprised by the weak start for iTunes Radio are people at Apple who, according to Billboard, are surprised to discover if you offer people a decent, customisable streaming service, they become reluctant to buy:

iTunes Radio, which launched in September with much fanfare, so far only sees about 1%-2% of listeners clicking the buy button, while overall music downloads have been declining upwards of 15%, according to several label executives.

"Hey, you can come by and pet my kitten whenever you like. Whenever you want, just knock on the door and you can pet my kitten. 24 hours a day. Kittens on demand. Oh... would you like to give me some money and you can take the kitten home? No?"

Perhaps more worrying for Apple than this discovery that people aren't stupid is that, as streaming and other services kick in elsewhere, their importance is waning:

One independent label said that iTunes’s share of the label’s revenue has eroded from more than 70% in 2012 to about 50% today.

Apple have, in effect, have had the labels' nipples in clamps since the launch of the iPod - and the labels have squirmed, but they've liked the experience. Now, controlling 50% of the market is still a couple of screws on the clamp, but if that figure keeps falling the majors are going to start shouting their safe word. Without dominance, Apple's relationship with the mainstream music industry is going to change, and not in Apple's favour.

Apple, of course, aren't saying they're flying around in a blind panic, but you know there are frantic meetings going on where iPads are being furiously poked and boxes being thought out of.

For years, other companies dreamed of an iTunes killer. Turns out the might have just waited for natural causes to do their work.

PRobit: Norman Winter

Norman Winter, former head of Press for MCA/Universal and the PR to Michael Jackson, has died.

Winter was doing the press for Jackson at the time of Thriller, which would be enough for a career in itself; but his client list just rolls on and on:

Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Janet Jackson, Queen, Rick James, Barry White, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Who, AC/DC, Steppenwolf, Meatloaf, Johnny Rivers, the Jefferson Airplane's Marty Balin, Christopher Cross, Bobby Ross Avila, Donny Osmond, Garth Brooks, Herb Alpert, Paul Anka, Phil Ramone, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Bootsy Collins, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Brian McKnight, Outkast, Usher, Jimmy Cliff, Steve Martin, Joan Collins, Arsenio Hall, Morris Day and gospel luminaries Jennifer Knapp and Deniece Williams.

And that's before you get to the rap artists.

Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Babyface and Bangin' On Wax (the Bloods & Crips collaboration), Domino, Bone Thugs - N - Harmony and Eddie Griffin.

And the Latin artists.

Emmanuel, Lucia Mendez, Chichi Peralta, Renegade, Luis Cardenas and the Golden Eagle Awards

I've lifted those client lists from Billboard; it's worth noting that Billboard merely cut and pasted a big chunk of them direct from Winter's own website.

That website also recalls the time Winter introduced Elton John to the US:

A real London bus. Whoever would have thought?

Norman Winter died from complications related to Lewy Body dementia on Thursday, 22nd August.

Billboard has found the missing views... mostly

So, those billions of views which the majors lost on YouTube? Billboard thinks it can account for them:

The company recently decided to remove view counts for videos that are no longer live on the channel, or so-called "dead videos." For Universal and Sony, that meant thousands of music videos that over the past three years slowly have migrated to the VEVO channel, which is jointly owned by the two companies. A senior label executive confirmed the migration.

In a strategic move, Universal, Sony and EMI in 2009 jointly put their music videos in the VEVO basket with the belief that by aggregating the videos, they could command better advertising rates as well as grow viewership.

That meant high-profile videos that once lived separately on the Universal and Sony YouTube channels have been relocated to Vevo. As a result, the views that those videos received during their time on the dedicated label channels were taken away in YouTube's latest "clean up" effort.

In other words, those views happened; they weren't "faked" or even double counted when they went on to Vevo. But because the videos are no longer on the channel, YouTube considers them "dead videos." They still live on in YouTube, just under a different channel.

Aha - so the major labels are in the clear. This is merely tidying away the views for videos which are no longer visible, right?

Mostly.

As Billboard admits earlier in its piece:

A YouTube spokesman confirmed that the company routinely adjusts their view counts in two ways. The first is by " de-spamming" the data, which takes out things like videos that automatically play without intervention from the viewer or pop-under videos that viewers may not actually see.

In the latest "de-spam," YouTube subtracted 1.5 million views from Sony and Universal's channels.

Notice how "de-spamming" is given quotes, as if it - hee hee - hardly counts as spamming at all. And lest anybody wish to spend more time thinking about what happened to cause these dubious spam views, Billboard plays that figure down further:

That may sound like a lot, but it's just a fraction of the 1.3 billion it subtracted throughout its entire video library.

See? Nothing to see here... move along, everyone.

Except 1.5million doesn't just sound like a lot, it is a lot. Yes, compared with the figure for all the videos on the site, it's small - and compared to the larger number of views which apparently were taken down for videos now on Vevo, it's small. But 1.5million is still rather a lot, and not the sort of thing reputable companies should be doing.

Indeed, were it another two companies with that many of dodgy views - companies not in partnership with YouTube, for example - it'd be surprising if Google allowed them to remain on the site.

But, of course, Billboard isn't going to bother about that question.

Gordon in the morning: McFly attempt to break America

I suppose there's some sense in McFly having a crack at becoming as big in the US as they are in the UK right now, as... well, it's not like their UK popularity of 2012 is setting the target especially high, is it?

Gordon is being very supportive:

After a decade topping the UK charts, the four-piece are finally making a bid to crack the States.

The early signs are very good. Two nights at The Roxy, then two more at the famous Gramercy Theatre in New York this month all sold out in under a minute.

Finally making a bid to break the US, eh?

Have we forgotten 2006, when - buoyed by an appearance on the soundtrack to a Lindsay Lohan movie (oh, boys, you are so of your time) - the band, erm, made a huge push to break the states. Look, their website was very excited:

McFly are as we speak on a jet plane home after an 8 day promotional trip to the U.S. The boys have giving back to back interviews and performances from the East Coast in New York to the West Coast and Los Angeles ahead of the release of their U.S. album on May 9th and their movie debut in Just My Luck on May 12th. The boys will be back in the studio writing and recording in the UK before returning to the USA at the end of the month.

That album was the only one that got an American release.

And, despite Gordon's reportage, the band are pretty clear that this isn't really an attempt to build a massive new Romeny-voting fanbase, but merely a thank-you to their existing, small fanbase there - they don't even have a US label right now. They told Billboard about the dates, stressing what it was all about:

"We just want to go over and do some small shows for the fans that we know we have there," says McFly's co-lead singer and guitarist Tom Fletcher. "We've been wanting to do that for years and years and years and years. But we've just never had the opportunity, or something else has come up."

"We have some fans in America that have been fans for like eight or nine years -- right from the beginning -- so much so that they fly over to see us in the U.K. It's amazing that they are so dedicated. So I think we owe it to them to come over."

Doesn't really sound like a band seeing this as their big US break, does it?

Music industry exceutives blame PC Mag for exposing their futility

You can understand the rage felt by the music industry executives who have signed a letter accusing PC Mag of 'encouraging' people to steal music.

What got them angry was a piece written in response to the closure of LimeWire, which effectively said "there are lots of similar services which haven't been shut down".

In other words: the music company has just spent a fortune fixing a leak in their bathtub while the water is cascading from the hot water tank in the roof.

Still, let's hear what the copyright industry has to say, shall we?

We write to express our deep disappointment with your decision to publish Chloe Albanesius’ October 27 article, “LimeWire is Dead: What are the Alternatives?” as well as Sarah Jacobsson Purewal’s November 9, 2010 article “LimeWire is Quietly Resurrected: It's Baaack!” Both articles are nothing more than a roadmap for continued music piracy. The disclaimer in the first, “PC Magazine does not condone the download of copyrighted or illegal material,” rings hollow to say the least.

If, like me, you missed these articles, you'll be delighted that the wise owls at the record industry have drawn your attention to them - Limewire Is Dead and It's Baaaack may very well have passed unnoticed had there not been all this foot-stomping from the RIAA. They really know how to grow an audience with a viral campaign, don't they?

Let’s be honest. The vast majority of LimeWire’s users were interested in one thing and one thing only: downloading our music for free with the full knowledge that what they were doing was illegal. The harm done to the creative community when people are encouraged to steal our music is immeasurable. Disclaimer or no, when you offer a list of alternative P2P sites to LimeWire – and include more of the serial offenders -- PC Magazine is slyly encouraging people to steal more music and place at risk the tens of thousands of music industry jobs – including singers, songwriters, musicians and the technical professionals who put it all together. Even worse is offering a direct link to a “resurrected” Limewire as follows: “I went ahead and downloaded LimeWire Pirate Edition for *ahem* research purposes, and can report that it appears to be working very smoothly. In the event that you, yourself, would like to do some research, you can download the client here (direct link).”

We've all been doing this long enough, yes, to not need to point out that use of the word "steal" and claims of job losses is just nonsense. Or that filesharing services have non-evil uses, and just as saying 'here is a list of places that sell crowbars' isn't an extortion to breaking and entering, saying 'here are peer-to-peer networks' isn't an encouragement to commit crime.

Our argument is buttressed by the fact that PC Magazine offered no alternatives that are 100% legal.

None of the alternatives listed are any per cent illegal. The befuddled music execs have confused 'contain unlicensed files' with 'are not RIAA-approved music selling sites'.

In fact, legitimate download services, who have developed business models based on a respect for copyright and have entered into mutually beneficial arrangements with the music industry are undoubtedly outraged by your feeble attempt to undercut their ability to compete in the legal marketplace.

Legitimate music download services aren't listed in a piece about peer-to-peer networks because they're not peer-to-peer networks. It's like moaning that there's nothing about vegetarianism in an article recommending butcher's shops. And those legitimate services have managed to build a presence alongside, not even despite, the existence of much better-known peer-to-peer networks. Generally, they've tended to accept they're part of the landscape and concentrate on giving people reasons to pay for files instead - something the music industry still seems incapable of grasping as being fundamental to a successful online business.

We would hope that your sense of decency and the realization that even PC Magazine has a responsibility to the rule of law, would have informed your editorial decision in this matter. We suspect you’d feel differently about this issue if, like the music industry, you’d had to let go more than half of the talented writers and journalists who create your magazine because of uncontrolled piracy of their work. Unfortunately, it is clear that the rule of law was an afterthought.

Yeah, you journalists, sitting around in an industry which hasn't been affected in any way by the development of the internet. It's not like your stuff can be cut and pasted, is it?

Oh.

Here's the list of signatories in full:

Rich Bengloff, President, American Association of Independent Music
Ray Hair, President, American Federation of Musicians
Kim Roberts Hedgpeth, National Executive Director, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
John LoFrumento, CEO, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
Del Bryant, President & CEO, Broadcast Music, Inc.
Elwyn Raymer, President, Church Music Publishers Association- Action Fund
Ed Leonard, Chairman, Gospel Music Association
Gary Churgin, President/CEO, Harry Fox Agency
Barry Bergman, President, Music Managers Forum-US
Jim Donio, President, National Association of Recording Merchandisers
David Israelite, President & CEO, National Music Publishers Association
Steve Bogard, President, Nashville Songwriters Association International
Neil Portnow, President/CEO, The Recording Academy
Mitch Bainwol, Chairman & CEO, Recording Industry Association of America
Pat Collins, President/COO, SESAC
Rick Carnes, President, The Songwriters Guild of America
John Simson, Executive Director, SoundExchange

Ray Hair? Seriously?

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Elena Kagan

Ben Sheffner combs through Elen Kagan's record to date in an attempt to calculate how she might vote on big copyright cases should she be confirmed on the Supreme Court:

Still, it's reasonable to conclude that she likely takes a broad view of fair use—not necessarily a bad thing for labels, which have cited the fair use doctrine when defending themselves against sampling claims. And the industry can't help but be concerned that, while at Harvard, she may have absorbed, at least through osmosis, the highly skeptical view of copyright that pervades academia.

The verdict that the music industry might find her having, you know, thought for a living "concerning" is both delightful and a reminder of why the record labels are beyond hope.

Apple try to stop sales vanishing down the Amazon

According to Hypebot, Apple have started to use their market share to - shall we call it bully? - to bully labels into not taking part in the Amazon Daily Deal.

Alarmed at the prospect of Amazon effectively underwriting the cost of spot promotions on albums, Apple warned labels to not do deals with its rival. Billboard quotes anonymous music industry insiders who claim to have been on the wrong end of Jobs' boys turning up with a "nice artist here, shame if something happened to their visibility on the largest online music store" friendly warning.

If that's true, Apple are running a little out of control.

And Hypebot reckons it has evidence:

But the proof of Apple's tactics and the labels' acquiescence can be found within the [Amazon] Daily Deals themselves.

Gone are most of the new hit makers. There are a fraction of the one day exclusives that there were just a month ago; and the label executives are back to complaining about iTunes instead of helping an alternative compete with them.

It's amusing, though, that the labels are so weak and unable to think things through that they're caving in to Apple and then moaning about Apple's dominance. Perhaps if they said "yeah? Well, how long do you think iTunes would keep market share if you did bury major label content that was being discounted over on Amazon?" then they wouldn't be sat at home wailing about how Apple treat 'em bad.

The positive thing in a dismal story is that if the majors are too frightened to get the subsidised promotion on Amazon, there are plenty of other, smaller labels - labels who could probably benefit from a bit of extra support from Amazon.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet - Billboard

Were you looking for a way to while away your weekend? GoogleBooks has put the entire Billboard archive online. Goodbye, weekend.

Billboard hires bloggers

In a bid to keep up to date with what the kids are up to, Billboard has hired a couple of these bloggy chappies from off the internet: Glenn Peoples and David Prince.

The real bad news here is that Peoples is going to shutter Coolfer to concentrate on his new job; Prince is going to continue with The Daily Swarm, but it will shift from main focus to side project.