MUSIC BIZ WEEKLY ROUND-UP: Five Must-Read posts for May 17th 2013

Five more music-biz posts you may have missed, all designed to inform, inspire or simply entertain.

This week, we noticed we had a lot of posts saved in our bookmarks on Youtube and the hows and whys of using the site to spread the word about your work. Being the kind sort of folks we are, we've rounded them all up into one handy post just for you.

How Youtube Can Get You Seen, Heard, and Trended
Ignoring the huge picture of terrible teen tithead Justin Bieber at the start of this post, the rest of it is a great place to start when it comes to explaining how you can use Youtube to promote your music.

The Things I'd Gladly Pay for On YouTube...
Meanwhile, Digital Music News offer the site some suggestions on creating a premium-subscription business model. Some of the ideas are interesting, and we imagine would be incredibly useful if you spent a lot of time checking out music on Youtube.

YouTube Stars Fighting YouTube Networks Over Their Contracts
So, you've put a few videos on Youtube, everybody loved them, and now some new network has offered you a healthy contract where they'll pay you to make even more videos. Great, except you didn't read the fine print, and now you're stuck with that company til the end of all eternity. TechDirt explains.

YouTube's Dirty Little Secret
Well, that's a bit naughty.

Making Money From YouTube
And it's not the way you may think.

MUSIC BIZ WEEKLY ROUND-UP: Five Must-Read posts for May 10th 2013

Five more music-biz posts you may have missed, all designed to inform, inspire or simply entertain.

Spotify Is In 20 Countries. Deezer Is In 182.
Yet though the numbers may look impressive, which service has actually gained more ground?

Google+ Is Now #2
Only Facebook trumps G+ as the King of Social Networking. Perhaps further proof, if it were needed, why we all need to be on there. Bobby Owsinski has all the details.

Soundrop Brings Social Listening to Facebook
Speaking of Facebook, here's a look at Sounddrop's awesome new 'Listening Room' app for our favourite time-wasting social network.

How to get 80% of the results with 20% of the content
The basic principles of the 80/20 rule have been well established for a long time. Here, Chris Garrett explains how to employ them in your online content creation. You are creating content to promote your work online, right?

Ear Fatigue and Mixing Music – Know the Signs, Avoid Mistakes
Great advice from Echos for those involved in creating the perfect mix for your song.

MUSIC BIZ WEEKLY ROUND-UP: Five Must-Read posts for May 3rd 2013

Five more music-biz posts you may have missed, all designed to inform, inspire or simply entertain.

Global Song Database Set to Make Music Publishing Easier
The Unsigned Guide reports on a huge database currently in the works which will apparently document every song um, ever, and make issues around copyright ownership and publishing much easier to deal with.

Performing Music Gets Us High
A look at research which suggests performing music ingenuity does release enough endorphins to make us physically addicted to playing music. Interesting.

House of Representatives Pulls the Plug on Spotify
The first of our three stories on Spotify today. The US House of Representatives have ban on peer-to-peer file-sharing, so for some nonsensical reason they've blocked Spotify too.

Spotify Drops the Paid Download Option Entirely...
This was done a while ago now, but it was done with seemingly such discretion that you may not have even noticed.

How Spotify Has Become a Game Changer
The past and present of streaming music, and where it may go from here.

MUSIC BIZ WEEKLY ROUND-UP: Five Must-Read posts for April 26th 2013

Five more music-biz posts you may have missed, all designed to inform, inspire or simply entertain.

Apple's App Store Has Record Revenue, Google Play Boasts Faster Growth
Why do we care about this? Because apps are a growing market and chances are you've at least considered marketing your music through an app. If you have, you may want to look at these figures.

12 Essential Resources for Building a Killer Mobile App
On a very similar note, if you've decided that building an app is the way forward, you might want to check out Mashable's round-up of some awesome tools you may want to check out first.

Spotify Is Now Deploying 6 Different Types of Cookies...
Still on the digital front, Digital Music News reveals the different kinds of cookies Spotify has been dropping in your computer.

What the 2012 Nielsen Social Media Report Means for Music Marketing
We've been taking another look recently at this report from December 2012, and though we didn't think it would be of much interest at first, it occurs to us now that you really should take a look at this.

Paul Myers Discusses Content Creation in the Digital Market
Paul Myers talks to music marketing master Michael Brandvold and friends about content creation in another excellent installment of The Music Biz Weekly Podcast.

MUSIC MONDAY REVIEWS: Dicte & Hempler - Your Love is Killing Me

Taken from the aptly titled 'Dark & Stormy Sessions this haunting, tender number recorded live at the Coppenhagen Jazzhouse is as sultry as it is spellbinding. 

Sparse keys and the occasional sprinkling of strings underpin a powerful, arresting vocal from Dicte, backed up by the smooth, baritone voice of costar Claus Hempler.

A smoky, jazzy number that grabs your attention from the outset.

MUSIC BIZ WEEKLY ROUND-UP: Five Must-Read posts for April 19th 2013

Five more music-biz posts you may have missed, all designed to inform, inspire or simply entertain.

8 Steps To A More Successful Music Career (Free Ebook Download)
Shaun Letang gives us a free Ebook on how to make this year our best yet. If there's only thing you check out today, make sure it's this.

Still A Dumb Trend: Pop Star Endorsements Pretending To Be 'Creative Directors'
Nobody quite beats Techdirt for lambasting stupidity in entertainment and technology. Here we look at the odd trend of celebrity endorsers being given silly job titles. A fun read if nothing else.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Sign Stupid Record Deal
You remember when that Thrift Store thing happened, right? But did you see this hilarious video which sees our reluctant stars sign the worst record deal in history? If not, you should!

Music Pirates Buy More Songs
Last week, we posted a story which claimed that music sales went up when piracy went down. This week, Bobby Owsinski presents us with evidence to the contrary; that those active on file-sharing networks were already buying 30% more music than those who weren't. Interesting.

Aimee Mann: "My Record Isn't on Spotify. Artists Don't Make Money on Spotify."
Another great post from Digital Music News where the debates in the comments are as interesting as the post itself.

MUSIC MONDAY REVIEWS: Sinch - Hive Mind

Another band who only came on our radar in the early part of 2013, it's been at least a year now since Pennsylvanian powerhouse Sinch released fan-funded album Hive Mind.

So yeah, we're pretty late to the party, but boy are we glad we got here eventually. Powerful, emotional and excellent from start to finish, Hive Mind displays a sound that is oddly familiar and yet stands on its own right as the sound of Sinch making exactly the kind of music you imagine they've always wanted to make, and holding nothing back in the process.

Highights of the album include Targets on the Range, Mapless and Instructions How to Die, though as we keep the album on heavy-rotation at Almost Famous HQ, it has been quite impossible to find a bad track here at all.

Sinch then ladies and gentlemen, a band definitely worth keeping an eye on.