Music News Recap from the Weeks of 3/26 - 4/17

Due to slow news weeks and my crazy schedule, I opted to skip a few weeks in the interest of brevity.  This post brings you: iTunes selling high res files, Warner Bros' discovery re: YouTube, David Byrne & Billy Bragg's thoughts on streaming, Wu Tang, and Billboard's use of Twitter for charts.

Two articles surfaced this week indicating that iTunes will begin selling high resolution audio files sooner than later as a response to dwindling music download sales (down 13.3% from this time last year).  Whether you view this as a cynical marketing ploy or not, 24 bit is the future & the right direction.

Here's the other article that refers more specifically to the higher res files: http://bit.ly/1esoNr2 

When Warner Bros pulled all of their music from YouTube in a copyright dispute in '09, they actually saw sales of top charting albums increase by 10k units/week.  The phrase "top charting" is important, as this is not necessarily reflective of non-charting, non-Warner artist's experiences:  

The issues musicians face regarding music streaming is daunting and complex.  We can already see how it's playing out with giants like iTunes (see above).  Here's a long/smart post on on the subject from David Byrne. A lot of it is background/definitions that, if you already know, you can skip to the suggestions at the end:

And a thoughtful response from musician Billy Bragg: http://on.fb.me/1qPLwPA

Only Wu Tang... I know most of you have already seen this make the rounds but I think this is ridiculous AND brilliant, and underscores the importance of making your music "limited edition" and special in the age of intangible, unlimited copies:

Last but not least, 2 things I did not know: Billboard uses Youtube data to determine charts & music is the most-discussed topic on Twitter:

Have a good weekend peeps.  Thanks for reading.