Sony BMG To Debut MP3 Album Cards

From Ed Christman, Billboard:

Sony BMG Music Entertainment will roll out its Platinum MusicPass series of digital album cards beginning Jan. 15 at Best Buy, Target and Fred's, with Trans World and Winn-Dixie coming to the party by the end of January.

In Canada, participating retailers include Best Buy, CD Plus, Shoppers Drug Mart, and Wal-Mart with HMV coming on board sometime during the first quarter.

The digital album gift cards, which retail for $12.99, will be artist-specific and feature album artwork, and will come with bonus material. The card will contain a scratch-off that will reveal a PIN number that can be redeemed for a download at MusicPass.com.

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Trans World To Close 138 Stores

From Ed Christman, Billboard:

Trans World is preparing to shut down 138 of its 962 stores in another year-end pruning of its real-estate portfolio. Going-out-of business sales for the planned closures began on Dec. 7 and the closings are expected to be completed by the end of January.

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Year Over Year Holiday Music Sales Off Over 20%

From Phil Gallo, Variety:

Overall music sales during the Christmas shopping season were down an astounding 21% from last year. From the week of Thanksgiving up through the day before Christmas Eve, 83.9 million albums were sold, a decrease of 21.38 million from 2006's 105.28 million.

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HMV Tops List of 3-Year-High Shorted Equities on FTSE250

From Iain Dey, Telegraph:

Hedge funds are beginning to make big bets on a collapse in the share prices of Britain's mid-sized companies.

The latest data reveals that the level of "short" positions - bets on falling prices - is now at its highest for three years on stocks in the FTSE250.

Top of the list is HMV, the music retailer, which has seen 34 per cent of its shares in issue pass into the hands of short-sellers. Paragon, the struggling buy-to-let mortgage lender, is the next biggest short in the index with 21 per cent of its shares shorted.

Other big shorts include Debenhams, the department store group, Bradford & Bingley, the mortgage bank, CSR, the semi-conductor manufacturer and Johnston Press, the regional newspaper group.

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iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store at Starbucks Suffers Glitches

From Glenn Fleishman, Macworld:

Starbucks and Apple launched their iTunes partnership Tuesday in Seattle and New York, but in at least one of its 600 debut locations, the program started with an off note. Some early glitches combined with a regrettable technology decision caused a few hiccups for what could be a promising service.

The Apple-Starbucks iTunes offering will work for anyone with an iPhone running the recent 1.1.1 software update, iPod touch, or computer running a recent version of iTunes. When those users are in a Starbucks, they’re able to see what song is currently playing in the store, see recently played songs, and access the entire iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store—a subset of the iTunes Store.

It’s an intriguing notion in theory—who hasn’t wandered into a Starbucks, heard a catchy tune, and wondered who the artist is and how you could get your hands on a copy? In practice, however, things didn’t go smoothly on this first day. Here’s an account of my Starbucks-based iTunes Wi-Fi Store experience.

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Eagles "Long Road Out of Eden" Triple Platinum

From Digital Music News:

The Eagles have now gone triple-platinum on their latest release, Long Road Out of Eden, according to figures released by the RIAA. That is a significant accomplishment for the group, and a validation of a Wal-Mart exclusive distribution strategy. "The album surpassed our expectations in sales from the very first week," said Gary Severson, senior vice president of Entertainment at Wal-Mart. The album was released on October 30th, and scored sales of 711,000 during its debut week.

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Led Zeppelin Reunion: Band's Albums Sales up 500%

From NME:

Sales of Led Zeppelin’s back catalogue have increased by 500% since the band announced then played their reunion show at the O2 Arena, which took place on Monday.

Music retailer HMV also revealed that sales of ‘Mothership’, Led Zeppelin’s recent compilation album, rose by 50% overnight following the gig, and was the biggest selling album in HMV stores in the UK yesterday.

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Retro Tech Channels Old-school Cool

From Jim Kavanagh, CNN:

According to the Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl LP sales grew slightly as a percentage of music sales from 2000 to 2006 even as overall music sales dropped to $12 billion from $14 billion.

And it's not just the classics. Such hip-hop heavyweights as Jay-Z, Linkin Park and Nas are pushing out new vinyl at a record clip, so to speak.

Independent labels producing punk, metal and other "outsider" music prefer the vinyl format as a kind of rebellion, said Dave Ignizio, owner of Square Records. Fans of those genres defiantly tell the world, "We're just still gonna buy records, I don't care what everyone else is doing."

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Sales Malaise Spreads to the Hot 100

From Chris Molanphy, Idolator:

If you, current pop act, are not an Oprah-anointed permhead with a name rhyming with "Lohan," you are not having a fun week: A mid-holiday-season malaise has settled over the Billboard charts. That's clear from the current results on the Hot 100, where Alicia Keys holds on to the top spot for a third week even as her sales fall considerably.

Incumbency Has Its Privileges: Every song in the Top 10 of the Hot 100 sold fewer copies at iTunes and other buck-a-song sites last week than the week before. Digital sales for Keys' smash--just nominated today for a Best R&B Song Grammy but, weirdly, no pop Grammys--fall 35% (the biggest drop in the song's chart life), and "No One" relinquishes the title of top seller to Flo Rida's "Low" featuring T-Pain, whose sales only shrink by 5%.

With radio deeply entrenched in holiday playlist patterns--even stations that don't play Christmas music aren't adding many new records right now--expect the top of the chart to stay sleepy through the end of the year.

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Average Briton Buys Less Than One Digital Track Per Year

From Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Financial Times:

Retailers are urging the music industry to drop piracy protection for online downloads after new figures showed the average Briton has bought fewer than three digital tracks in the past three years.

Incompatible proprietary technologies, aimed at defeating rampant piracy in the digital music era, are instead “stifling growth and working against the consumer interest”, said Kim Bayley, director-general of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).

Her warning comes as high street retailers and digital music specialists watch pre-Christmas sales trends nervously. The music industry makes at least 40 per cent of its revenues in the fourth quarter, but the traditional sales build-up has started later than usual.

Although Leona Lewis – the X Factor winner backed by Simon Cowell’s Syco label – this month notched up the highest first-week album sales for a debut artist, album volumes are down 11 per cent, or 12m units, for the year to date, according to the Official UK Charts Company and Music Week.

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New Music Store Opens in Mill Valley

From Paul Liberatore, Marin Independent Journal:

"Keeping Music in Mill Valley."

That's the slogan of the new Mill Valley Music store, which celebrates its grand opening from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at 320 Miller Ave.

The store specializes in new and used vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, T-shirts, posters and guitar strings.

If it sounds like the recently closed Village Music, it's because the owner is Gary Scheuenstuhl, who worked with John Goddard at Village Music for 25 years.

"I think the community needs this," Scheuenstuhl said as he set up shop. "People want something like this, and we aim to support local music by creating a real community environment. We're trying to make this place a hangout."

After 40 years in Mill Valley, Village Music closed partly because of the economic challenges a traditional record store faces in the age of digital downloading. But Scheuenstuhl is counting on the community getting behind an independent record store carrying on the legacy of Village Music.

"I'm acutely aware of downloading and casual burning of CDs, so I'm certainly not doing this to get rich," he said. "How many record stores have you seen open lately? But some things you don't do for money. You do them for the love of music."

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(WMG) Downgraded to $5 by Pali Research

From Idolator:

Last month, stock analyst Rich Greenfield said that shares in Warner Music Group were worth a mere $7.50, thanks to consumers viewing music as "just above dust bunnies" in the "worth" department. The stock plummeted, and yesterday Greenfield downgraded the stock's price again, saying specifically that reduced floorspace in big-box stores will hurt the recorded-music business even more.

Rumor du jour has EMI and new owners Terra Firma waiting for WMG to fall even further, then trying to finally combine the two companies once and for all.

Ned Raggett picks it up from there:

It’s been a little over year since the implosion of Tower Records, its long-delayed but inevitable execution (rumors had been going on for years), and my multiple visits to the Costa Mesa location were primarily defined by the appearance of those dust bunnies, both the actual balls of detritus and the numerous musical equivalents. As the prices dropped and more and more of the truly great stuff disappeared into the collections of hoarders like myself — and I was still surprised at the good discs I was finding at 80% or more — the saddest thing about it all, beyond the fates of the employees who were stuck looking for work as Christmas approached, were the monstrous piles of multiple copies of one or two discs by some poor sap of a band or an MC whose stock had likely been bought on consignment and whose life’s work ended up practically being given away at a buck a disc, or even a cent.

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Starbucks WiFi iTunes Program Goes Online in Larger Markets

From Richard Driver, BloggingStocks:

The Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) partnership with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) first announced almost two months ago to bring the iTunes Store into Starbucks locations is now up and running. A San Francisco area writer noted the program's opening in the city's 360 stores last Wednesday. The program offers coffee drinkers the ability browse through the iTunes Store on their WiFi enabled computers, iPhone, or the iPod touch and purchase music tracks.

The biggest feature is the ability to purchase tracks then currently playing in the Starbucks store, but the iTunes connection does not extend to other internet sites, or video and other content in the store. Consumers must still pay for WiFi access to other internet sites in the stores, due to an agreement between Starbucks and T-Mobile. Ken Lombard, the head of Starbucks Entertainment, told Ellen Lee, a San Francisco Chronicle contributor, "we'll never turn our store into a music store" and she notes, "through the Apple partnership customers will have access to any music they like." Unfortunately, if you do not live in the larger markets, you will be waiting until as late as the end of 2009 to see this feature fully operating, as it is extended to the 6,000 U.S. Starbucks locations.

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This Week In Music Business Stupidity

From Tony Sachs, Huffington Post:

The first-week sales total of over 700,000 for Long Road Out Of Eden is certainly healthy even by old, pre-Napster standards. And because the Eagles must all be pushing 90 by now, they could care less about the future of music retail, as long as they get the big payday today. But getting in bed with a retailer which doesn't have a real investment in the music business is going to come back to bite the biz on the ass. A music-based behemoth like Virgin or F.Y.E. has a real interest in keeping physical music sales as healthy as possible, and will work with labels and artists to ensure that. On the other hand, when CD sales fall below a certain level at a Wal-Mart, they'll just take the floor space currently devoted to music and put in more lawn mowers or hunting rifles. The Eagles, once again proving they're spawns of Satan, are killing music retail to sell their new CD. Thanks a lot, guys!

Of course, the compact disc and brick-and-mortar music retail were already on their last legs, if not using a motorized wheelchair, before The Eagles made their deal with the Wal-Devil. And New Yorkers can order the CD from the Eagles' website or download it, for a fee. And downloading is the future of the music business, right?

Wrong. Just ask Radiohead, whose noble "pay whatever you think it's worth" experiment with their new, (currently) download-only album, In Rainbows, seems to have backfired. Apparently, over 60 percent of those who downloaded the album paid nothing for it, with just 12 percent volunteering to pony up the traditional $8-12 cost of a CD or an album on iTunes. Which proves what Luddites and over-35s like me have been screaming for years -- music isn't just the sound coming out of your speakers, it's a tangible thing, with packaging and artwork and a booklet and pictures. If I'm paying money for music, I want a physical object, not just a file on my hard drive. And while I may sound old-fashioned, I'm obviously not alone -- people aren't listening to less music than before, but as the compact disc rides off into the sunset, they just aren't paying for it as much anymore.

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Music World to Close Stores

From Marina Strauss, Globe and Mail:

Music World Ltd., the last domestically owned national music chain, has been put into bankruptcy protection by new owners who expect to wind down the money-losing business - another victim of a rapidly changing music listening and buying landscape.

With 72 stores and a presence in almost every province, the retailer joins Sam the Record Man and others that have succumbed to the new world of music downloading, online file-swapping services and digital radio. As well, music merchants have been squeezed by Wal-Mart Canada Corp. and other big-box stores that sell compact discs as loss leaders.

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Jim Cramer: Best Buy Should Stop the Music

From TheStreet.com:

Best Buy should get out of the business of selling CDs, Jim Cramer said on The Street.com Wall St. Confidential Web video Friday.

Although Cramer says the consumer electronics retailer "really has this field to itself," it has a "tremendous amount of floor space" devoted to music CDs.

Cramer called CDs a "going-away business. Way too much floor space devoted to a dead weight category."

Cramer said many people get their music from iTunes, and that's a trend that's going to continue.

"The weakness is what they have on the floor," Cramer said, "but the strength is that they may be the only game in town."

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