"The playlist is the new album. Consumers love to customize and express themselves through playlists, which are a tremendous driver of discovery."

That's Michael Nash, Warner Music Group's executive vice president of digital strategy and business development. He was telling me about the record label's decision to strike a licensing deal with the music-focused social network called imeem.

"Imeem's model is a template for how we want to build our business in social media and online communities," he said, adding that it is "fair to assume" that Warner is in discussions to make its content available on other big social networks as well.

Others have reported that MySpace is working on it's own music service.

He went on to say that shifting all music consumption online would cause record labels to come up short on the revenue side. Instead, establishing a revenue-sharing deal with a site likeiImeem, and integrating a way to purchase music as well, will help labels get revenue from several different channels.

David Card, an analyst with Jupiter Research, said he's bullish on the opportunity for the digital music industry, which is growing at a clip of 20 percent a year. He projects $3 billion in digital music sales in the next five years. But that compares to about $10 billion that typically comes in from CD sales--so labels are more willing to take chances on ad-supported models.

"Labels have never tapped into ad-supported marketing before," Card said. He pointed out that the royalties from traditional radio stations often went to publishers, composers and songwriters rather than the recording studios. Labels saw radio time as good publicity, "all in support of selling the physical problem," he said.

Now that online streaming services have become a powerful form of music discovery, like radio, labels are interested in tapping into the strong advertising revenue from the Web. "They're coming around and are aggressively experimenting," he said.

Imeem founder Dalton Caldwell said giving labels more control over what music gets shared--by using music fingerprinting technology created by Snocap--helps them have more confidence in Imeem's model.

"The music industry has been slow to change and now [labels] are hyper-accelerating through some of these changes that could have been made over the years," he said. "Now we're able to partner effectively with these guys and we're starting to see the traction.

There is also the "concept scenario" where cherry picking may not be the best idea. For example, if you wanted to enjoy a concert, you probably would not want to select a few songs. Also, my brother recently suggested a Christian rock band to me, Wavorly. They are on Flicker Records, which does not appear on the RIAA site; however, I do believe they have a distribution deal with EMI and Chordant. Anyway, one of the reviews of there latest album has the following line:

"This whole album feels like a concept piece. Each song seems to pick up where the other left off. There is definitely a musical through line in this album and that just makes me love it even more. The musical interludes are perfectly placed and compliment the work as a whole. "

--excerpt from Amazon review by By Gary D. Hall "ClerkKant" (camden, AR United States)

B000Q66I4U

Perhaps there is something to be said for today's youth not having much interest in a complete musical work as a concept, but oh well.

If we don't need records, then we don't need record labels.

Right.

I consider record labels in the same category as Thomas Kinkade paintings.

i got this far....
"The playlist is the new album. Consumers love to customize and express themselves through playlists, which are a tremendous driver of discovery." ....and my mind said "so singles are "in" again?"

Leflaw...surely you're referring to Kinkade's interesting use of light and color!

or stroke and texture ....

"Two former employees, Terry Sheppard and John Dandois, told the panel of further examples of Kinkade’s unpredictable behaviour: bringing disorder to a Las Vegas performance by the illusionists Siegfried and Roy by repeatedly yelling the word “codpiece” from his audience seat, and urinating in public - in an elevator and on a model of Winnie the Pooh at a Disneyland hotel. “This one’s for you, Walt,” Mr Sheppard claimed the artist said as he did so."

see STROKE and TEXTURE ....

He pissed on Pooh!

now there's some honey for ya!!!

CodPiece! CodPiece!

WTF?

src="http://images.dmusic.com/v7/emoticons/gasp.gif" align="middle" alt=" (Holding Breath)" title=" (Holding Breath)" />T&ih=002

I love that in the description it says "no C of A but who would fake one of these?"

Bob Ross' Happy Little Tree, Fluffy Little Cloud, which could hit theaters as early as March of 2008. ... now there was a man........

"all in support of selling the physical problem..."

That WAS supposed to be "product," right? I mean, "problem"?

Anyway, I'm not exactly thrilled to hear that MySpace might be launching a music service. It makes sense for them to go there, but I'm not exactly happy about it.

Labels saw radio time as good publicity

But first they spent 17 years trying to sue them out of existence. Then they paid the record labels for this "good publicity." Now they want radio to pay THEM because... uh... well, there's no rational reason that doesn't involve forgetting everything that happened in the world of music before you woke up this morning.

unpredictable behaviour: bringing disorder to a Las Vegas performance... by repeatedly yelling the word “codpiece” from his audience seat, and urinating in public - in an elevator and on a model of Winnie the Pooh at a Disneyland hotel. “This one’s for you, Walt,”

To which Ozzy Osbourne replies, "Whlltenny buster musta stula ack frmeye grmnpatter. Armchers!" Roughly translated, "Well then the bastard must have stole his act from my grandfather. Amateurs!"

"Any artist who wants to put out an "album" is a fool."

Bullshit. Albums are still a worthy thing to have. Amend that to say "Any artist who wants to put out an "album on an RIAA label is a fool." and I'll agree.

"and my mind said "so singles are "in" again?""

Singles have never been 'out'. The record labels just tried to kill them (convince you they were 'out' by not having any available to buy) because they cost too much money when compared to a full CD, and didn't make the record label enough money. It was the killing of the single by the record label that lead to the creation of Napster, record labels sales dying, suing dead grandmas and disabled moms, and all the rest.