Categories: Music Biz Agonistes

Industry Woes Finally Hitting Country Music

Posted by: Jon Fine on January 09

Last summer, Glenn at coolfer.com called my attention to a very interesting music-biz stat: In 2007, country album sales were in steep decline. And they were. Around the time we...

Resolved: A New Way To Measure Music Sales!

Posted by: Jon Fine on November 15

I was mulling over CD sales of a pal’s band, which have hit around 25,000 in the US. Not shabby, for the kind of band they are. (Broadly: oddball, brainy,...

More On Managers Becoming Record Labels

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 26

Glenn over at worthwhile music-biz blog Coolfer--a guy from whom I’ve pilfered many a notion--jumps off from a column I wrote about managers being the next record labels and takes...

Radiohead Multiple Choice

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 11

Please choose one or more of the following. Radiohead’s much annotated pricing scheme represents: A. The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning of the end, of...

What Passes For A Music Business Victory These Days

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 05

So the record companies just won the first file-sharing lawsuit that actually went to trial yesterday, when a judge in Minnesota found Jammie Thomas liable of copyright infringement related to...

Radiohead's Business Head

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 01

I've written elsewhere about how I don't much care for Radiohead's music. But what they're doing with the selling of their just-announced new album is nothing short of brilliant. For...

Obscure Music Statistic Of The Day, Part 2: Coolfer's Analysis Of The Mid-Tail

Posted by: Jon Fine on August 29

Just saw this post on coolfer.com where proprietor Glenn Peoples has been slicing and dicing SoundScan data in all manner of ways in an effort to further parse music sales...

Obscure Music Statistics Of The Day

Posted by: Jon Fine on August 28

I'm at work on a music biz-related column and it's given me the chance to geek out on all manner of sales stats. No real surprises lurk in the below...

The Media Landscape, Not Content With Unbundling The Album, Now Continues To Unbundle The Song

Posted by: Jon Fine on December 11

Buried within another sharp state-of-the-industry piece from the New York Times' music biz reporter Jeff Leeds is the following nugget: [Steve] Rifkind, the SRC executive, said, “I find myself, when...

Sign Of The Times, Department of Popular Music

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 28

The good news is, there is one musical act that reliably delivers platinum CD sales with a minumum of promotion. The bad news, as Slate's Jody Rosen points out, is...

The Only Thing I WIll Write about the Super Bowl, its Ads, and/or the Haltime Show

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 06

THE SETTING: A steakhouse in Brooklyn, where the Fine family is gathered to celebrate my father's imminent 70th birthday. THE SCENE: Jon Fine and his 5 year old nephew Zeke...

Insufficient Funk . . .

Posted by: Jon Fine on January 26

. . Grand Funk, that is. This week's column, on the declining fortunes of the mainstream rock band, can be found on newsstands starting tomorrow and right here....