Category: music

Seems like everybody’s downsizing these days. The latest – the summer pop festival scene, where smaller, more focused events are replacing the big Lollapalooza-type free-for-alls. – Chicago Sun-Times

Never heard of him? Six months ago the 19-year-old invented Napster, the digital music download software that has turned the music recording world upside down. Now he finds himself at the middle of the music upheaval and he’s being sued by his favorite band. – The Observer (UK)

Michael Berkeley had a big success with his first opera, based on two Kipling stories. But his second opera – based on “Jane Eyre” was much difficult to write. For one thing, the manuscript for the first half was stolen with his briefcase on the train last year… – The Telegraph (London)

Last year more than $300 million worth of tickets were sold online, and that number is expected to grow to about $4 billion by 2004, according to Forrester Research. Tom Stockham, president of Ticketmaster.com, part of the Ticketmaster Online-City Search network, said about 20 percent of tickets purchased in this year’s first quarter were bought online. That’s up from eight percent of sales in the first quarter of1999, and less than two percent at the same time in 1998. – Seattle Times

The musicians who actually play the notes get paid peanuts. But the guys out in front of them waving the stick get movie-star salaries. So what gives? Why are they worth so much? – The Guardian

So why did this big gap open between popular and serious music? “Arguably the most important development in music over the past 1,000 years has been the standardization of proportional musical notation, allowing complex musical works to be passed on in a visual form.” – Christian Science Monitor

Jazz great Herbie Hancock plans to launch a web site and record label – both called Transparent Music – to develop jazz, R&B, and blues for the baby boomer crowd, instead of the dominant 18-34 hit-singles market. “Only targeting this market would be like if all the food manufacturers started making Häagen-Dazs,” he said. “We’d all get sick.” – Wired

“Where once the classical recording giants could allow themselves to fill a cultural need while making money, now they are only interested in making money – lots of money, and quickly. A new recording by ‘N Sync sells 1.1 million copies in a single day, and the accountants wonder why a Kissin or Pierre Boulez cannot do the same. A successful classical recording will sell not much more than 10,000 to 20,000 copies, unimpressive by the inflated standards of the pop music market.” – Chicago Tribune

Yes there was a lot of speculation last week that CD prices might start falling after the FTC did away with minimum-pricing rules. But don’t hold your breath, say music industry observers. The big chains are no longer as competitive as they once were, and all retailers are scared of the internet. – Dallas Morning News

“When the bounding, affable Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel made his local debut in 1996, he seemed almost certain bait for the sharks–a great singer and a great entertainer just a little too eager to soak up audience adulation, too ready to overdramatize. Certainly it has worked–his popularity continues to soar. He is one of the biggest tickets in big-ticket opera.” – Los Angeles Times