British pop singer Lily Allen made a post on her Myspace blog (I know right?) yesterday begging her fans to buy CDs. Her argument? Well… she doesn’t really have one.

“The internet is the most amazing thing, but it should be OUR thing,” she said, “and ironically piracy is just playing into the hands of the corporations. What these artists and creators do, they do for the love of it, I know its hard because money is scarce but we have to inject money back into these areas. It’s not fair to steal peoples material,I know it’s art and it has no physical value but even Shakespeare had shares in The Globe Theatre. People will lose their jobs.”

This sounds like something an artist would have said 5 years ago, are artists really still complaining about piracy? Come on Lily, it’s not even cute anymore, it’s just sad. The Internet is going nowhere, it’s time for you and your good friends at the major labels to update your business model.

The funny thing is, Lily Allen actually has a very strong and loyal fanbase and she is good at connecting with them. She could easily drop from her label and and put out her own product like many other big artists have succeeded in doing. It sounds like she’s been brainwashed to believe she needs a record label to survive, either that or she’s just too lazy to open her eyes and see that the industry she was once in no longer exists.

“People are being laid off in all areas and the record companies are no exception. My own label EMI laid off thousands last year. I don’t care so much about the high-ups (and by the way they’re always the last to go – what a surprise) but the people who are going out are the young ones, the life blood basically. They’re the ones that go first, , I’ve seen it. And the same is happening in TV and film. Why do you think you are just getting Terminator 6 and Harry Potter 7 instead of exciting new voices? Because the young voices are not there anymore. Do you care about that, or do you just want to watch and listen to the products of the last generation? Or do you want a voice that is heard and can make a difference?What I do know is we have to invest in this sector of our country guys, we are great film makers,we have incredible writers and authors, historically the best music makers, we cant throw it all away.”

Again, Lily sounds brainwashed. There has never been more opportunity for musicians and artists. The music business, the film business, the publishing business are all open playing fields right now. This was not the case ten years ago. Ten years ago the only way an artist could express themselves to the public was to give up all of their rights to “the man” and sit back while they take 90% of your earnings. This isn’t the case now. Artists can express themselves freely, finally. Lily, it’s people like YOU and your major label buddys who are ruining this freedom by running around suing your fans and isolating them to the point where they no longer want to buy music.

*Facepalm*

The Apple event took place yesterday after weeks of anticipation and among the big announcements; a new and improved iTunes 9 (surprise surprise), a new, cheaper iPod Touch line, a new iPod Nano equipped with a video camera and microphone (don’t look at me), increased storage and price cut for iPod classics and a “genius” function for the iPhone and iPod touch that creates playlists based on your history.

But what you all really want to know about is the not-so-top-secret “Cocktail” project. Well, I can reveal that Apple has launched a new digital album format called iTunes LP.

The iTunes LP is pretty much as we expected. It’s a digital album with extra features such as music videos, artwork, liner notes, lyrics, photo albums, bonus tracks etc.

Sounds good? I agree.

One thing we always talk about is artists giving fans a reason to buy, this indeed does. All these bonus goodies are likely to make albums more attractive to fans.

However; there is no such thing as a flawless idea in the music business, and this is no exception.

Apple is charging $16.99 for these LPs. That’s $7 more than a normal digital album. It’s not a reason to buy because fans are paying for the additional features, most of which they can download for free anyway. And one person is not going to want all of the extras, probably just one or two. So they’re going to be paying for stuff they don’t want.

The point is people don’t want to buy albums, so offering them the same thing at a higher price is not a smart move. Artists need to be offering fans this kind of stuff in the first place, not at extra cost. It will be interesting to see what kind of sales these LPs see over the next 6 months. My prediction is not many.

First of all, I must apologize for my absence from the site in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been incredibly busy elsewhere and any time I got to put into the site was mostly taken up by “behind-the-scenes work”, hence the lack of activity on my part.

Back to business though and one story that’s been generating a frenzy this month is the new digital album format being developed by the major record labels and Apple (separately). Since rumours have been flying around for a few weeks now you’ve probably read or heard about it somewhere, I just wanted to play catch up though for those that haven’t heard and drop my 2 cents.

A brief overview; Apple announced they were working on a secret project which was given the name “Cocktail”. The idea behind Cocktail is a single file download that would include songs, videos, artwork, lyrics and liner notes for an album. This new format would presumably work very nicely alongside their iPod line and the new Tablet rumoured to be released later this year. Apple apparently reached out to the majors (Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI) for a partnership, however the majors decided instead to team up and develop their own competing format – CMX – which would, again presumably, require its own supporting player.

There are a number of reasons why this post got the Facepalm treatment, let me start by looking at my calendar; it says August 2009, though reading the above paragraph you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d accidentally stumbled into Stewie Griffin’s time-machine and travelled back to 2003. 6 years ago, this would have been a great idea and may have revolutionized the music business… but Apple did that already. Now with 200 million iPods, 20 million iPhones and 8 billion iTunes tracks sold, and over 3/4 of the mp3 player market behind them, the major labels want to wave their arms and say; “hey, we can do that too!”.

Consumers are going to take one look at CMX and do one of two things:

1. Buy the album elsewhere so they can actually listen to it on their iTunes and mp3 player.
2. Pirate the album.

So all they’ve done is further isolate music fans. Since when did people care about liner notes anyway (I’m talking about the mass market, not us music geeks)? And how big are these files going to be? HD images and videos? It’s likely each album will take up over 100mb. Aren’t we living in a world that wants everything faster and smaller?

To me this just sounds like another lame attempt by the major labels to limit access to music (I’m sure the files will be caked in DRM) and squeeze another few pennies out of a dying format (the album), because let’s face it, they don’t know how else to produce and market music. If they actually go through with it, CMX will be an epic fail and the majors will once again be the laughing stock of the music business.

I almost wasn’t going to post this, in the couple of weeks we’ve heard so many positive stories of artists finding a business model that works for them, it’s a shame to have to sit and write about record executives still barking up the wrong tree. But my job is to report on the news, good or bad, so that is what I shall do.

Okay so here’s the story; Antonio “L.A.” Reid, CEO of Island Def Jam Music Group, has decided it would be a super idea to plaster ads all over Mariah Carey’s new CD in an attempt to reduce costs. These ads will appear in a 34-page mini magazine, co-produced with Elle, right beside the lyrics and linear notes. The ads are said to reflect Mrs Carey’s image, brands such as Elizabeth Arden, Angel Champagne, Carmen Steffen’s, Le Métier de Beauté and the Bahamas Board of Tourism will make an appearance in the booklet.

“The idea was really simple thinking: ‘We sell millions of records, so you should advertise with us,’” Antonio “L.A.” Reid, chairman, Island Def Jam Music Group told Brandweek. “My artists have substantial circulation—when you sell 2 million, 5 million, 8 million, that’s a lot of eyeballs. Most magazines aren’t as successful as those records.”

Apparently Mr Reid has been in a coma for the last 5 years and isn’t aware that nobody is selling 8 million CDs anymore, much less Def Jam. As far as I’m aware Mariah didn’t manage even 2 million on her last effort.

This whole concept is ridiculous to me, rather than diving into new and exciting business models that could potentially save their ass, major labels are still attempting to eke out every last penny they can from an old, dying business model. Year-to-date album sales were down 13.9 percent for the week ending July 19, 2009, compared with the period last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan (227 million units vs. 195.5 million units).

These ads might cut some manufacturing costs, but at the end of the day, Island Def Jam are still pushing a product that nobody wants. Ads aren’t gonna sell records. Consumers don’t want CDs, what will covering them in advertising do to change that? Nothing. And that’s what major labels should be focusing on right now, trying to find ways to survive for the future. This is a short term solution to a never ending problem, major labels are buying umbrellas for the storm whilst many independent artists are building houses, who’s still gonna be here in the morning?