Universal Music launches High Fidelity Pure Audio discs, uncompressed albums on Blu-ray. The Universal Music Group has announced a new music format called High Fidelity Pure Audio, which uses Blu-ray discs to deliver truly uncompressed audio in its purest quality.
They can be played in Blu-ray players, compatible computers and the PlayStation 3. The Xbox One and PS4 will also be able to play them after their respective launches. And like with many Blu-ray movie releases today, each High Fidelity Pure Audio disc will come with a download code for the MP3 versions of each track, so you won't have to figure out how to rip them for listening to on the move. Several different audio formats will be offered on the discs. You can listen to the album encoded as Dolby True HD or DTS Master Audio at 2.0 and, where available, even 5.1 surround sound.
To begin with, Universal will release discs on 21 October featuring artists such as Amy Winehouse, Bob Marley, Nirvana, Queen, The Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder. Prices for each album will vary, but expect to pay between £10 and £15. What the Music Industry Can Teach Book Publishers and Authors About Subscriptions. The launch of eBook subscription service Oyster has set the proverbial cat among the pigeons in the publishing world.
Publishers and authors are frantically trying to work out just what on-demand subscriptions will mean for their business and whether Spotify or Netflix provides the best analogue for them to benchmark against. It is an intriguing turn of events. Five years ago book publishers looked to the music industry for lessons to learn about digital and they studied voraciously. Thom Yorke calls Spotify 'the last desperate fart of a dying corpse' Spotify celebrates its fifth birthday today, but the streaming music service probably shouldn't expect a present or card from Thom Yorke.
The Radiohead and Atoms for Peace musician has renewed his attack on Spotify in an interview with Mexican website Sopitas, describing the company as "the last desperate fart of a dying corpse", and attacking its relationship with major labels. "I feel like as musicians we need to fight the Spotify thing. Can retail learn from One Direction? The music industry is often touted as an example of a business model that failed to adapt sufficiently quickly to the digital age: CD sales fell off a cliff while digital revenues failed – by quite some considerable way – to make up the shortfall.
Yet the music industry has learnt many lessons and retailers would do well to heed these. The success of One Direction achieved through social media is a case in point. Recently hired by Argos as digital director, Bertrand Bodson, a former EMI Music executive vice-president, knows better than most the ways in which the music industry was forced to reinvent itself. He says that the industry came up with creative revenue sources such as streaming, brand partnerships and virtual gigs. The key became focusing on providing "a better experience". And it's that word, experience, which is key; in music, the live experience has become a critical source of much-needed revenue.
Feature: Bands & Brands. Music is being brought to you in association with car manufacturing corporations.
Do you care? What is selling out in 2013 and does it even matter? We investigate IN the mid- to late-nineties, the price for an EP from Detroit house legend Moodymann was typically around £6, if you could find one in the shops. In 2012, however, the producer’s latest release — an eight-track download-only collection of late-night house that goes under the name of ‘Picture This’ — costs precisely zero thanks to the benevolence of Scion AV, which describes itself as “a platform for passionate artists to focus on developing their art and exploring the endless possibilities”. Such apparent largesse is typical of Scion, which has also given away downloads by everyone from The Melvins to New Jersey garage don Todd Edwards on its website. Feature: PSY. The extraordinary DIY success of ‘Gangnam Style’ was the defining music story of 2012.
But who is PSY, what just happened and what does this mean for the future of pop? Words Ben Cardew Illustration Laurie Sherman With all due respect to Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift, PSY’s cantering electro classic ‘Gangnam Style’ was THE song of 2012 — a hit so ubiquitous, with such incredible cultural cachet, that it long since stopped mattering whether you liked it or not. Amazon AutoRip service gives out free digital copies of CDs. 10 January 2013Last updated at 12:06 ET Free digital copies of CDs by Adele and Pink Floyd and many others are on Amazon's list Online retailer Amazon has launched a service that stores free digital versions of CDs bought via its store.
Reports. History of the Recording Industry. The Hen Convention (1897. Clip description Vocalist John James Villiers, with piano accompaniment, performs a song which features imitations of chooks. 'The Hen Convention’ was recorded in 1896 and is the earliest known Australian sound recording.
Curator’s notes This recording was made on a wax cylinder, the earliest medium for recording and reproducing sound.
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