HYPE Talk to a label, it’s all about set-up. But in one fell swoop, Steve Jobs stole the Beatles’ thunder. We had this long run-up to on-sale today.  With the ongoing complaints that you couldn’t even get Beatle product, that it was sold out everywhere.  9/9/09 turned out to be a let-down.  The day the […]

What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where the biggest rock star doesn’t even play an instrument? I don’t know if you were online at 10 A.M. (1 P.M. on the east coast), but a roar was heard on the Internet louder than any audience explosion ever noted on a dB meter.  […]

Well, not exactly, but iPod shipments fell 7% to 10.2 million.To quote Tim Cook (via the WSJ): "We sold 10.2 million iPods which was down from 11 million in the year ago quarter. There were two key reasons for this decline: First, we reduced channel inventory by over 400,000. Second, sales declined by 4% year-over-year." […]

If only tracks had cost a nickel, or a dime.  Do you really think everybody would have jumped through hoops to steal them? Pretty soon, music’s gonna be free.  Call that Spotify.  As for labels pulling Spotify licenses, isn’t that like the government enacting Prohibition?  It would be one thing if no one had ever […]