DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS

U.S. Music Sales Jumped 6.9% In 2011; Adele Was Top Artist   U.S.music sales increased 6.9% last year as consumer purchases of albums, driven by digital downloads, grew for the first time since 2004. Nielsen and Billboard yesterday [Jan. 4] released a report showing that overall sales of albums, single tracks, and music videos increased to 1.61 billion units, while total album sales expanded 1.3% to 330.6 million. Sales of digital albums climbed 19.5% from 2010 figures, fueled by demand for Adele's "21," which sold 5.8 million copies in all formats and made the Sony Music release the year's best-seller. Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" single sold 5.81 million digital copies through the end of 2011, making it the best-selling download of the year, followed by LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem," with 5.47 million total downloads, and Katy Perry's "E.T.," which sold 4.83 million digital tracks. Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group controlled 29.9% of the U.S. music market in 2011, while Sony Corp.'s music unit accounted for 29.3%, Warner Music Group had 19.1%, and EMI Group controlled 9.6%. [Full story:Bloomberg BusinessWeek]   U.K. Music Sales Slipped For Fourth Year In A Row   Unlike the U.S. music market, which grew 6.9% in 2011 [see story, above], sales of music in the U.K declined for the fourth consecutive year. According to BPI, the organization that covers the British phonographic industry, combined sales of digital and physical albums fell 5.6% to 113.2 million units in 2011. Digital album sales rose 26.6% to 26.6 million, while sales of albums on CD declined 12.6% to 86.2 million in total. All figures are compared to 2010 numbers. BPI figures show that the CD remains the favored album format in the U.K., accounting for 76.1% of total sales compared to a 23.5% market share for digital and 0.3% for vinyl. Consumer purchases of digital albums have continued to grow, however, with 15 albums selling more than 100,000 digital copies in 2011. Sales of vinyl LPs rose by well over a third (43.7%) during 2011 to 337,000, their highest tally since 2005. Total singles sales in the U.K. increased 10.0% overall to 177.9 million in 2011, with the vast majority [99.3%] sold as digital tracks and bundles. An additional 1.1 million CD singles were sold in 2011, representing just 0.6% of the total. All of the top 20 best-selling singles of 2011 sold more than 500,000 copies apiece. [Full story: Fresh Business Thinking] Bye-Bye, Beyond Oblivion: Music Service Closes Before It Opens   Beyond Oblivion has closed its virtual doors before they ever opened. The service, which had raised $87 million from an array of investors that included Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and Wellcome Foundation, was founded by British record producer Adam Kidron to provide major competition to Apple iTunes and Spotify. Through an online music platform that was to be called Boinc, Kidron intended to offer a cloud-based service allowing users to store and share music on multiple devices. Beyond Oblivion would have paid a royalty to the record labels each time their music was played, while revenue would be generated by charging a flat fee to consumers for use of the digital music locker on their hardware. Kidron blamed the failure of the company on the difficulty of "co-ordinating the diversity of the ecosystem", which included complex royalty agreements between the artists, labels, and manufacturers. "Beyond was always a tremendously grand ambition as the advances required by the record labels and music publishers were substantial, reflecting the breadth of the rights required to create a true digital music one-stop," he said. [Full story:Digital Spy] Noisetrade Provides "Tip Jar" For Indie Artists' Downloads   Many musicians like to forget the days when they played for tips, either in a dark smoky coffee house or a cold, noisy street corner. But the website known as Noisetrade conjures up that image, at least in a virtual sense, by offering downloads of more than 300,000 albums by mostly-independent artists. Every track is free, and can be downloaded after the user enters his/her email address and zip code. They then have the option of paying something online via a "tip jar" - donations range from $1 to $100 - but no one has to do so. Users then are emailed a link to a ZIP file of the album that expires in a few days, and they also can recommend a particular album to their social network contacts, as well. Noisetrade hasn't received much publicity but it is making money, in the "few" hundreds of thousands of dollars annually," according to various press reports. Derek Webb, David McCollum, Mark Nicholas, CEO Brannon McAllister, and Joe Kirk launched the site in 2008, and six months later they hit the million-download mark. [Full story: Read Write Web] Study: Personal Listening Devices Can Damage Hearing Permanently   "If you keep doing that, you'll go deaf." There isn't a Baby Boomer or Gen X-er alive who doesn't remember that sort of parental admonishment, but new research suggests that personal listening devices [PLDs] can be a serious health hazard for teens. According to a study released by Tel Aviv University, listening to MP3 players at high volume puts teens at risk for early hearing loss; in fact, one out of four teens is in danger of early hearing loss as a direct result of these listening habits. "In 10 or 20 years it will be too late to realize that an entire generation of young people is suffering from hearing problems much earlier than expected from natural aging," observes Prof. Chava Muchnik of TAU's Department of Communication Disorders. Chava and her colleagues studied teens' music listening habits, finding that hearing loss caused by continuous exposure to loud noise is a slow and progressive process. People may not notice the harm they are causing until years of accumulated damage begin to take hold, Muchnik says, recommending that - in lieu of government-imposed regulations - manufacturers adopt the European standards that limit the output of personal listening devices to 100 decibels. Currently, maximum decibel levels can differ from model to model, but some can go up to 129 decibels. [Full story: Psych Central] Digital Music Trends For 2012: iOS, Albums, And Google+   The end of an old year and the start of a new one offers a tempting opportunity to review past habits and suggest emerging trends to expect in the coming days. As Billboard's Glenn Peoples observes, "there is hardly a shortage of trends to watch in digital music, from Internet radio to subscription services to a never-ending stream of services aimed at independent artists." With that in mind, he identifies three developments that merit close attention in 2012: They are: 1] iOS is for purchasing. Although more Android devices are being activated, Apple's iOS is the choice for people more likely to spend money on digital content. 2] The Album is Resilient. "The list of challenges facing the album format is long and daunting," Peoples writes. "Fewer brick-and-mortar retailers carry CDs, and available shelf space continues to be under threat. [But] digital album sales - in units - are up 19% through December 25 and are certain to finish the year well ahead of the 15% gain achieved in 2010. 3] Google+ Is Growing But Still Second Fiddle. A new estimate by Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen puts the Google+ social network's reach at 62 million total users. It has more bells and whistles than Facebook, but Facebook is a time hog. Still, Google+ is growing, and could have 82 million users by February 1. That would be great for Google Music, Google's new download store that allows buyers to share songs with friends via Google+. [Full story: Billboard.biz] Al Bell Presents American Soul Music ... And American Soul TV If you're into classic and contemporary Soul, R&B, Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Hip-Hop Soul, Rap Soul, and Neo-Soul, we invite you to listen to Al Bell Presents American Soul Music. Former Stax Records owner and Motown Records Group President Al Bell personally has programmed this awesome radio station online, presenting your favorites from the 1960s and '70s [and some '80s], a lot of the best new music that's being released today, and some real gems you haven't heard in a long, long time. Come to www.AlBellPresents.Com  and hear it for yourself!