I’m listening to the new Mudcrutch album featuring Tom Petty and digging it big-time. Not all of the songs are gems, but it has a great Tom Petty feel - more on the fun, rhythmic side vs the weird drug induced side (Don’t Come Around Here No More - anyone?). Lots of blue grass feel, guitars and pure Americana. This will definitely be in my play list this summer.

The other album that I am digging is the new Jason Mraz “We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things”. Although I was disappointed with Jason’s sophmore effort (Mr. A-Z), I love this disc. It is fun, sharp and touching. Jason has regained his form with a really polished effort that is end to end a great listen.
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I must admit, I was a little late to the Coldplay party only discovering them with Clocks off of A Rush of Blood to the Head, but I’ve grown to really appreciate their music and was excited to hear the new single - Violet Hill and was psyched to see it on Rhapsody on Day One of release. I looked in both Napster and Rhapsody to see what info was available and sure enough, an editor took the time to comment on the song in Rhapsody, but not editorial at all in Napster. Rhapsody so kicks Napster’s ass on the editorial side.

I love this song. It has the trademark build-up, strong melodies, a guitar based under riff, motivating beat and Chris Martin harmony. This will go into my running/riding playlist for sure.
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I’m always thinking about the name of the band that I’m going to start when I get really good at playing the guitar. Some of these names I’ve been carrying around with me for a while and some have just popped-up recently. I’ll add to this list as I come across good ones:

New Additions!
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Clive Davis is an icon in music and is being demoted at BMG (one of the big four music publishing groups). Inside and outside the building, the label announced that Davis would be shifting into a creative role, while Barry Weiss assumes top stripes at BMG.

So, what does this mean? Nothing to those outside the business really. Clive is responsible for identifying and launching hundreds of major artists. The music business is in turmoil so I expect to see more shifting of the deck chairs on the deck of the Titanics that are the major labels.

Van Morrison gets the blues! should be the headline for this review. As both a Van Morrison fan and a lover of the blues - I love this CD! I might even go out and buy it! From the opening slow bluesy jam of “How Can A Poor Boy?” with it’s Hammond organ, harmonica and sparse production to the Live “And the Healing Has Begun” which is more traditional celtic Van Morrison - this CD is almost perfect. It is the first CD with all original material since 1999’s Back on Top. Van’s music doesn’t change drastically, it just gets deeper and more comfortable. Like a great pair of shoes.

How Can A Poor Boy? - Slow, Bluesy and real. Anything with a Hammond Organ turns me on.
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I’m a huge Black Crowes fan, have been since Shake Your Money Maker when a buddy said “you have to listen to these guys!”. With that said, I wish Warpaint was better. The up tempo songs don’t have the same energy as early work and the melodic, slower songs don’t have the same heart. While there are some gems on this album (Locust Street and God’s Got it are my favorites) there is not enough here to purchase the CD. Thanks for saving $14.99 Rhapsody!

- Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution - a good song, but not great. The first single.
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Jill Sobule wrote the moderate hit “I Kissed a Girl”. She also has been on two major labels that have dumped her and on two Indies that have gone under. Now she is going to the web and her fans to finance her next CD. I find this story interesting not from the stand point of that she is doing it and how she is doing it but what she is giving in exchange for donations. She has set a goal to raise $75,000 to cover recording, production and promotions costs for the CDs. As of March 10, she has reached $80,782 - congrats! A chunk of change, but relatively modest. The cool thing is that by “investing” in the CD you get stuff in exchange:

She has 12 levels total ranging from “Friend” for $5 to “Plutonium” for $10,000. Here are some examples of what you get:
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Yahoo! and Rhapsody announced today that Rhapsody will be taking over the music subscription service business from Yahoo!. I think this is a big win for both Rhapsody and Yahoo! as Rhapsody is the best subscription service available and Yahoo! has been unable to keep up and turn a profit. Rhapsody’s technical foundation and user interface is well in front of anything else on the market including Zune, Napster and Yahoo!

The digital music space is a notoriously small margin business. If you look at the revenue from the sale of a single song - $.99 on iTunes - the actual cost to iTunes for that song is $.78 or so on average. This cost includes royalties to artists, songwriters, producers, record labels, etc. This means the sale of a song has a COGS of 79%. That’s a hard cost without including the cost of building and distributing the software, writing the copy, getting all of the info about the song from AMG or Muze or whoever.
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The Consumer Electronics Show was very good to Rhapsody. I chatted with some folks who were there and heard that a lot of people were very interested in the Rhapsody DNA functionality and how Rhapsody has integrated into TiVo, Denon, Sansa and Sonos. Rhapsody is packaging these as “Music as a service” playing off of the “software as a service” trend.

As part of this move - lots of new partnerships and devices were announced including:
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I’ve been playing with the new search box on Rhapsody.com which was launched in December and I must say it is vastly improved over the previous search experience. Two big changes:
1) two new drop down categories have been added - By Lyrics and By Video.
2) the search results display as you type out the letters. For example if you type inn Dan it shows all the artists that start with dan - as you type in more letters it gets closer to what you need.
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