Category: music

Standoff in San Francisco

San Francisco Opera, which is looking to rebound from a nearly $4 million deficit in 2003, may be staring down the barrel of a strike by the company’s chorus, dancers, and production staff, an action which could cancel the SFO’s summer season. The company previously reached an agreement for a 5% pay cut with its orchestra musicians, and says that it cannot afford more than a 2% raise for the members of the chorus, who are paid less than the pit musicians and are not guaranteed work. But the union representing the chorus insists that the current arrangement is unfair, and wants the singers’ work weeks to be guaranteed, and for their salaries to be pegged to 90% of the orchestra’s scale.

The Case For Music (And Musicians) Over The Music Business

“As we listen these days to the cries of music-selling middlemen that those sweet songs of yesteryear will disappear in a world of unbridled file sharing, we need to remember that the interests of music professionals don’t necessarily coincide with the interests of music listeners. Sure, new technologies and ways of doing business have hurt many trades related to the music industry. There are many fewer people making a living as song pluggers, sheet music publishers, and the like. There are probably fewer professional live musicians than there would be if we had never enjoyed radios, jukeboxes, transistorized stereos, or computerized file sharing. Yet with every change, people’s access to better reproduced, more portable, more personalized music grows.”

The Next Great Voice? (Here Now)

Last year extravagant claims were made for tenor Salvatore Licitra – that he was the Next Great Voice. After hearing him then, Joshua Kosman wasn’t entirely convinced. Now he is. “In a glorious return visit Sunday night to Zellerbach Hall, Licitra delivered on all the most extravagant claims being made on his behalf. His singing was expansive, powerful and superbly shaped, and he wooed the audience with all the dewy charm of a fresh-faced young suitor.”

Big Music Sues 500 More Downloaders

Music sales are up this year (and profits too) but that isn’t stopping Big Music from suing downloaders. “The Recording Industry Association of America said Tuesday it is suing another 532 people — including 89 on university campuses — in its latest wave of lawsuits against alleged file swappers. Since September, the industry trade group has tried to sue 1,977 people in various parts of the country for allegedly trading music illegally on file-sharing networks. Most of the suits are pending. This time, the RIAA made a point of targeting people who trade on university campuses, who are most likely students.”

Capitol Idea – A Record Company That’s Growing

Capitol Records is that rare music label that has been expanding even as the music business has contracted in the past few years. “Since taking over nearly three years ago Andrew Slater and his very hands-on approach to music making — from rerecording parts of songs to dissecting new videos — have transformed Capitol from a languishing heritage label best known for the Beatles and Frank Sinatra into a company that can once again develop hit artists.”

Groking The Norah Jones Phenomenon

What accounts for the phenomenal success of an artist like Norah Jones? “There are sociological explanations. Critics point out, accurately, that young artists like Jones, who is twenty-five, and Josh Groban and Michael Bublé are selling soothing songs by the seashore to a much older audience. These artists’ faith in melody and acoustic instruments ostensibly provides evidence that not all musicians below the age of thirty are getting tattooed with runic symbols and sending viruses to each other on tiny, inscrutable batphones. Record companies have agreed to think that the older audience is their pot of gold. This is half science—the percentage of records being bought by listeners above the age of thirty is growing—and half hearsay.”

A Grey Response To Black And White Laws

The public is getting increasingly irritated with Big Music’s attempts to tighten copyright. EMI’s recent move against Danger Mouse and the Grey Album “was a spectacular backfire in the war over what’s fair when the muse runs afoul of copyright law in the Digital Age. Technology is making it easier than ever to sample and rework recordings, and to the chagrin of entertainment companies and some artists who hold copyrights, the public is showing little sympathy for their efforts to control original works.”