emusic

eMusic to offer streaming?

5 minute read

In reading the recent New York Post article EMusic mulls sale as digital market shifts (pointed to by eMusic subscriber okierambler in a recent message board...

Some kind of a party

2 minute read

A while back my copy of iTunes saw fit to present me (for the first time?) with a party playlist. I honestly can’t imagine any party that would have this as ...

Should eMusic add streaming?

8 minute read

In two previous posts about my current use of eMusic I discussed my musical jobs to be done and how I might now supplement eMusic with other services in orde...

Obligatory Michael Jackson post

3 minute read

Given the extent to which Michael Jackson the person was crushed beneath the weight of Michael Jackson the commercial phenomenon, it’s sadly appropriate that...

Supplementing eMusic with other services

5 minute read

In my previous post I lamented the demise of eMusic as I’ve known it, and in preparation for the future discussed my jobs to be done related to discovering a...

eMusic and my musical “jobs to be done”

4 minute read

In less than a month my grandfathered eMusic Basic 2-year plan (40 tracks per month at a cost of $7.49 per month or $0.19 per track) will end, and I’ll face ...

Economics of eMusic and Sony

4 minute read

Most of the press coverage of the eMusic/Sony agreement has been either regurgitated press releases and echoes of the original New York Times story, or stori...

The letter Danny Stein didn’t write

9 minute read

As is amply clear from recent postings on the eMusic message boards and comments on 17 Dots, eMusic pretty much made a hash of its announcement of the Sony a...

New eMusic US pricing

4 minute read

Well, I significantly underestimated how far eMusic was willing to go in terms of changing its pricing to attract major label content. My personal guess was ...

eMusic to offer Sony back catalog

2 minute read

Danny Stein, eMusic’s new CEO, dropped some major news just now on eMusic’s semi-official 17 Dots blog. As reported in more detail in the New York Times, Son...

How long until a music industry revolution?

3 minute read

Bob Lefsetz recently published another broadside in his continuing crusade to drag the music industry into the 21st century. In this one he asked the followi...

Alex Ross picks on eMusic again

2 minute read

Continuing a tradition from last year, here’s what you can find on eMusic from the list of recommended 2008 recordings published by Alex Ross. (Note that Cap...

It’s not mobile music, it’s just music

2 minute read

I happened to get an eMusic email a few days ago (announcing new releases in the alternative/punk category) and noticed a link to a special offer for AT&...

A new game for Pakman

2 minute read

Today I got interrupted from my Swindleeeee!!!!! blogging slumber by the news that David Pakman is leaving eMusic. I have been critical of Pakman one or two ...

Is this why the Stones left eMusic?

4 minute read

I happened to be reading Bob Lefsetz recently on the Rolling Stones moving to Universal from EMI; after a few minutes I thought to myself, Hey, I think I kno...

Context comes to eMusic

2 minute read

Back in February I discussed eMusic’s failure to provide more information about the artists whose music it sells, and suggested some ways it could do better....

eMusic bids the Stones goodbye

3 minute read

Sometimes I can’t help but agree with Bob Lefsetz’s thesis that the music industry is well and truly f*cked, and this is one of those times.

CMO and CRM

3 minute read

I don’t have time to follow every little bit of eMusic news, but I do find it interesting to look at eMusic’s press releases from time to time. One that rece...

Please eMusic, Select some indie classical

less than 1 minute read

Now that I’ve gone and hyped eMusic Selects, I feel I’ve earned the right to make a suggestion, for any eMusic poobahs who may be reading this: As I understa...

eMusic Selects a strategy

4 minute read

I thought I should say a little bit about the new eMusic Selects program. eMusic really wants people to know about this; in addition to a link on the eMusic ...

Out of context

5 minute read

In the past I’ve discussed several ways in which I think eMusic could improve itself for the benefit of both its customers and its suppliers (i.e., the music...

Swindleeeee!!!!! migration is now complete

less than 1 minute read

The migration of Swindleeeee!!!!! to wordpress.com is now complete. The domain swindleeeee.com now redirects to the new blog, as do variant spellings such as...

Minimalist road trip

4 minute read

For the most part I resist writing about the actual music on eMusic, because I’m really not a very good musical critic. However from time to time I do feel t...

Alex Ross picks on eMusic

2 minute read

No, Alex Ross (of The Rest is Noise fame, both blog and book) isn’t being mean to eMusic; in fact to my knowledge he’s never mentioned it, at least on his bl...

Revisiting my Amazon predictions

5 minute read

Now that Amazon has opened a beta version of its MP3 store and everybody else has commented on it (see for example Hypebot’s roundup, as well as good takes f...

eMusic and accidental release syndrome

6 minute read

Last Sunday night I happened to be reading the eMusic message boards when I saw a new post announcing the availability on eMusic of the new album Kala from M...

To my remaining readers

less than 1 minute read

If anyone is still reading this blog, my apologies: I’ve been preoccupied with work and family matters and haven’t posted anything since May. In fact, things...

eMusic jumps into bed with Alltel

1 minute read

From time to time I like to highlight eMusic-related business deals. Here’s a new one (not mentioned on the eMusic press release page): eMusic will be the fe...

Sympathy for the labels, part 2

7 minute read

In my previous post I discussed the difficulties that independent labels were having in adapting to the new landscape of the music business, and whether eMus...

Sympathy for the labels, part 1

4 minute read

I previously commented on the Billboard article about labels’ unhappiness with eMusic, although I got some of the facts of the article wrong—an obvious remin...

Pakman blogs

2 minute read

David Pakman (CEO of eMusic—but you already knew that, right?) has traditionally confined his public comments to press interviews. However in the wake of rep...

Goodbye labels?

1 minute read

I don’t normally do breaking news, because frankly I’m just too busy to keep track of what’s happening every day in the music business. However I’ll make an ...

Two takes on Amazon’s digital music plans

3 minute read

Now that I’ve done a lengthy eMusic-related post I feel less guilty about doing yet another post on Amazon and its rumored plans to enter the digital music m...

My Amazon predictions: looking good so far

3 minute read

It’s unseemly to gloat that I told you so, but I’m not being paid for this gig so I’ll take my satisfaction where I can find it: According to a Digital Music...

17 dots plus 3 dots is too many dots

1 minute read

I love that people at eMusic are posting at 17 dots; as I mentioned previously, it’s integrating eMusic itself into the eMusic user community. But… I do almo...

Labels and eMusic: Making it up on volume

2 minute read

Hypebot seems to engaging in a mild form of eMusic deathwatch lately, this time questioning eMusic’s apparent success in adding new subscribers and labels. A...

Amazon rumors continued

1 minute read

Courtesy of Hypebot’s New Music Business Briefing this week: The mainstream music industry press (in the form of Billboard) talks about the possibility of Am...

Hypebot’s advice for Amazon

4 minute read

Today Hypebot posted the promised article discussing how Amazon can succeed in the digital music business. Also as promised, I will now comment on Hypebot’s ...

Amazon and eMusic: A match made in heaven?

3 minute read

Well, I leave off blogging about eMusic for a month and look what happens: I happen to check Hypebot this evening and find that Amazon is rumored to be buyin...

What is eMusic’s Free Prize?

2 minute read

I recently read Seth Godin’s book Small is the New Big–basically a collection of his blog posts published on dead trees. (I checked it out from the library, ...

Memo to eMusic: Surprise me!

4 minute read

As chance would have it, I was inspired recently to try to start blogging again about eMusic, after a few months during which I was busy with other things an...

Amazon versus eMusic?

5 minute read

When I last commented on the subject of Amazon.com and digital music I had some rather scathing things to say. Now, according to a Hypebot article Amazon is ...

eMusic mashups from eMusic’s Jon Strunk

less than 1 minute read

How come I didn’t know about this before? Jon Strunk, a product manager at eMusic, not only has a blog (is he the only person at eMusic with one?), he’s also...

Interoperability lost, except at eMusic

2 minute read

In a comment to his blog post The strange world of digital music, Nicholas Carr acknowledges the role that Apple’s proprietary DRM scheme has played in fendi...

Off with its head: eMusic and the Long Tail

5 minute read

I’ve been meaning for a while to comment on the Guardian article A musical tail of hits and misses, which attempts to address the question of whether the muc...

eMusic Europe officially launches

1 minute read

Well, it’s old news to us, but according to Reuters eMusic is officially launching its Europe service; it appears that eMusic is trying to take advantage of ...

eMusic is hiring

2 minute read

In a prior post a while back I talked about how job postings were useful clues to what a company’s up to. Well, I found some more eMusic job postings, courte...

eMusic pricing, part 2: Powers of nine

5 minute read

This is the second in a series of posts about eMusic’s pricing strategy. (See also part 1.) In this post I discuss the possible motivations behind eMusic’s p...

Tzadik (sort of) on eMusic

3 minute read

I happened to read a blog post by a John Zorn fan ruminating about whether to buy albums from Zorn’s Tzadik label from eMusic or elsewhere. So he asked Tzadi...

eMusic UK press (but no release)

1 minute read

Press articles on the launch of eMusic UK are starting to appear; representative articles can be found in The Register and MacWorld UK, with other outlets li...

eMusic goes eUropean

3 minute read

The big news on the eMusic message boards the past day or so is that eMusic is introducing a European version of its service (currently in “beta”). There’s n...

USA Today article touts eMusic

1 minute read

The mainstream media is beginning to take note of eMusic. The latest sign: a favorable article in USA Today, “EMusic’s pitch: Download song-and own it”. I fo...

A new Day for eMusic’s web site?

1 minute read

My last post illustrated one way to figure out where a company like eMusic is going: look at its job listings. This post shows another way: look at press rel...

eMusic toolbar for Firefox coming?

1 minute read

As part of my day job I try to keep track of what’s happening in the various Mozilla discussion forums. Today I happened an interesting post in the mozilla.j...

Prepare to be swindleeeeed

less than 1 minute read

For quite some time now I’ve been a subscriber to eMusic, a digital music site that offers DRM-free MP3 tracks by artists on independent (non-major) labels. ...