Neil Young insists in the latest issue of MOJO magazine that the door is not shut on a possible revival of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – or at least, not as far as he’s concerned. “I think CSNY has every chance of getting together again,” he tells MOJO’s David Fricke. “I’m not against it.” In addition to his conciliatory words regarding his latterly-estranged bandmates, Young talked MOJO through his latest album, Peace Trail, and shared his feelings about the current political situation. While underlining his commitment to causes that place him in apparent opposition to the new regime in the White House, Young is also surprisingly phlegmatic about President Trump, whom he describes as “water on the garden of activism”. Young’s latest thoughts on protest music, including a reflection on his groundbreaking 1969 song Ohio, his current philosophy of music making, and news of Pono – Young’s bespoke high-end digital music technology – round out a fascinating interview. Read more about Neil Young here.
Bandcamp Saw Sales Go Up In 2016 (Even For CDs)
And now some genuinely great news in the music industry: every aspect of Bandcamp’s business was up in 2016. Digital album sales grew 20%, tracks 23%, and merch 34%. Growth in physical sales was led by vinyl, which was up 48%, and further boosted by CDs (up 14%) and cassettes (up 58%). Every single one of these numbers represents an acceleration over last year’s growth. Hundreds of thousands of artists joined Bandcamp in 2016, more than 2,000 independent labels came on board (like Dischord, Merge, and Dualtone), and the rate of fan signups tripled. Fans have now paid artists nearly $200 million using Bandcamp, and they buy a record every three seconds, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The record business overall did not fare as well. According to Nielsen, it grew 3% in the U.S. in 2016, while sales of digital albums fell 20%, tracks were down 25%, and physical albums dropped 14%. These declines are not at all surprising given the industry-wide push toward subscription music rental offerings, and indeed as the year came to a close, those services reached a combined 100 million paying subscribers.
Frank Ocean and the concept of musical identity
Kaptain Kristian’s video essays are always informative, and here’s a look at Frank Ocean’s method of lyrical storytelling.
A World Map In Song
An imaginary world map where the continents, countries, cities, oceans, rivers and landmarks are made up from the titles of over 1,000 songs. From the obvious classics such as Born in the U.S.A. (Bruce Springsteen), Back in the U.S.S.R. (The Beatles), Anarchy in the U.K. (Sex Pistols), China Girl (David Bowie), New York, New York (Frank Sinatra), Radio Ethiopia (Patti Smith) and Radio Free Europe (R.E.M); to cult classics and some of our own personal favourites such as Trans Europe Express (Kraftwerk), No Sleep till Brooklyn (Beastie Boys), London Calling (The Clash), Town Called Malice (The Jam), Hong Kong Garden (Siouxsie and the Banshees), Fake Tales of San Francisco (Arctic Monkeys), Hit the North (The Fall) and Afrika Shox (Leftfield). Zoom in and see more of their World Song Map here.
John Wick channels Michael Jackson and takes out masked goons, all with a pep in his step
John Wick doesn’t look so scary now, does he?
Here’s What The World’s Oldest Piano Sounds Like
Dongsok Shin performs the Giga of Sonata number 6 in B flat major by Lodovico Giustini (1685-1743) on the earliest known surviving piano, made by the instrument’s inventor, Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731), in Florence, 1720. This sonata is from the 12 Sonate da cimbalo di piano e forte detto volgarmente di martelletti, Op. 1, written in 1732. These are the first known pieces to have been composed specifically for the piano.
James Blunt Will Release Brand New Album “The Afterlove” On March 24
Britain’s very own Twitter all-star is back… James Blunt will release his fifth studio album, ‘The Afterlove’ on March 24th through Atlantic Records. The new album is the follow-up to ‘Moon Landing’, which reached platinum status in the UK and spent 33 weeks in the UK Top 40 after it was released in 2013.
James worked with a wide range of talent when writing and recording ‘The Afterlove’ including Ed Sheeran, Ryan Tedder, Amy Wadge (Ed Sheeran, Shannon Saunders), Johnny McDaid (Example, Biffy Clyro), Stephan Moccio (Miley Cyrus, The Weeknd) and MoZella (Miley Cyrus, One Direction).
James Blunt will also be embarking on a UK headline tour, The Afterlove Tour, which includes a date at London’s Eventim Apollo. This is the first tour for James following his extensive Moon Landing Tour, which saw him perform over 140 shows across the world over the course of twelve months.
November UK Tour Dates as follows:
17th Nottingham – Motorpoint Arena
18th Leeds – First Direct Arena
20th Glasgow – Clyde Auditorium
21st Birmingham – Barclaycard Arena
23rd London – Eventim Apollo
24th Brighton – Brighton Centre
25th Bournemouth – BIC Windsor Hall
James Blunt has sold over 20 million albums worldwide and 12.8 million singles. He’s also amassed over 625 million views on YouTube and over 680 million global streams on streaming platforms.
Billboard’s Charts Are A-Changin’ Starting Next Week
Billboard’s genre album charts are evolving to a consumption methodology, following the successful conversion of the iconic all-genre Billboard 200 chart to a multi-metric ranking, including traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The first newly formulated genre album consumption charts will premiere on Billboard.com on Tuesday, Jan. 31 (with charts dated Feb. 11), and will reflect album sales, track sales and audio on-demand streaming data, tracked by Nielsen Music, for the week ending Thursday, Jan. 26.
The transformed genre charts will match the Billboard 200 formula, equating 10 digital track sales from an album to one equivalent album sale (TEA), as well as 1,500 on-demand song streams from an album to one equivalent album sale (SEA). Sales and streaming data is compiled by Nielsen Music.
On-demand audio subscription services contributing to the Billboard 200, and the above charts under their new methodology, are Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Slacker, Napster, Google Play, Groove Music and Medianet.
The charts making the move to a consumption methodology are:
Top Country Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, plus:
-R&B Albums
-Rap Albums
Top Rock Albums, plus:
-Alternative Albums
-Hard Rock Albums
-Americana/Folk Albums
Top Latin Albums, plus:
-Latin Pop Albums
-Regional Mexican Albums
-Tropical Albums
-Latin Rhythm Albums
Top Dance/Electronic Albums
Top Gospel Albums
Top Christian Albums, plus:
-Christian/Gospel Albums
Soundtracks
Top Catalog Albums
Holiday Albums
Infographic: Essential Digital Marketing Tools
Smart Insights just released an infographic and their free Digital Marketing Tools and Services 2016 download recommends 30 categories of marketing technology and our pick of the most popular 5 in each category. We’ve grouped them across the Smart Insights RACE Planning framework for managing digital marketing so you can review where you could make better use of the tools across the customer lifecycle.
Science Proves Dogs Love Reggae Music
A new study by the Scottish SPCA and the University of Glasgow finds that dogs love reggae — and soft rock. “Researchers played a variety of music to dogs at a rehoming centre in Dumbarton and assessed physiological and behavioural changes,” reports the BBC. While dogs, like humans, proved to have varying individual tastes — and while all types of music tested had a soothing effect — overall the canine subjects responded most positively to reggae and soft rock. (BBC and The Current)