In late February we posted the news that iTunes had moved into the number two position in the ranking of the top music retailers in the US. The same group (NPD) has just released a new report for the first month of 2008, and reports that iTunes was the number one music retailer in the US during the month of January.

Apple was responsible for 19% of the music sold during the month of January, moving it ahead of Wal-Mart who sold 15%.

One could take these numbers in several different ways. First, the report is not based on actual sales data, but on a consumer survey. Secondly, detractors are quick to point out that Apple’s numbers are very likely skewed due to the redemption of gift cards consumers received as Christmas presents. That may be true, but I’d like to point out that the other retailers all sell gift cards as well, so that’s not a completely valid criticism of the report. However, the gift card factor could mean that iTunes might not retain the number one position once those cards have been redeemed and consumers return to normal buying habits. I do think it is a good indicator of future trends and wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple hold on to the number one rating.

While all this may not be an accurate reflection of the current bluegrass music industry, I would suggest that it is useful data to those in our genre interested in reaching new audiences. The February report, on 2007 sales, stated that 48% of US teenagers didn’t purchase any CDs during 2007. If bluegrass wants to reach a young generation, we should remind ourselves we’re in the music business, not the little plastic disc business.

NOTE: The NPD report has not been officially released as of this publication. The contents of the report were leaked and you can read about it at ArsTechnica.com.

The NPD Group released a new report yesterday detailing the changes in music consumption among U.S. music buyers during 2007 (report)

The report claims an overall increase in music acquisition of 6% for the year, while stating a decline in “average annual per-capita music spending” of 10%. That statement must be carefully read. All it really says, is that more music found it’s way into the hands of consumers during 2007, but on average each consumer spent less to acquire that music. Yes, that’s bad news for labels. Based on this report, the labels saw a 10% decline in revenue.

The report indicates that iTunes has become the second largest music retailer in the states. Only Wal-Mart sells more music. The problem seems to be that consumers are opting for purchasing single tracks rather than albums as a whole. This hurts pop/major labels who have invested heavily in the album/CD culture, whereby the consumer was required to purchase music in which they may have had no interest (other tracks on the CD), in order to acquire music they desired (the one or two tracks they really wanted). The ability to purchase individual tracks for download has resulted in increased freedom for the consumer, and spread their music spending cash around a little more.

This situation has also resulted in less money being spent on music per capita. Spending is down from $44 to $40 per capita for users of the internet. The assumption might be that the internet savvy user is simply acquiring his music illegally rather than purchasing it. The NPD data suggests though that the percentage of users doing so did not increase statistically in 2007, holding steady at 19%. The report does say that those users downloaded more music illegally during 2007 than they did in 2006.

The report also indicates that online music sales are now being driven by consumer between the ages of 36 and 50. This segment of the market having just acquired MP3 players in recent months.

I’m sure many of you are already familiar with iLike, and most with iTunes, but for those who aren’t I thought I’d share.

iLike is a social networking site that revolves around music. But the site isn’t where the magic is. It’s the iLike Sidebar that makes the music happen. The iLike Sidebar is an application enhancement for both iTunes and Windows Media Player. Since I’m on a Mac I’ll just tell you how it work in iTunes.

Once installed, the iLike Sidebar will become visible in iTunes and fulfill it’s purpose in life, helping you find new music. When you’re listening to something, the Sidebar will show the current track at the top. Beneath that it will show related music that you already own and have available in your library. Next up it will show you related music you don’t own, but can purchase from iTunes. It generally shows about 6 potential tracks for your interest. And finally, it will actually show you related music you can download for FREE from new artists wishing to connect with an audience.

Right now I’m listening to the new Longview CD and it’s showing me tracks from Del McCoury, Jim Lauderdale, Alison Krauss, Gibson Brothers, Laurie Lewis, and The Nashville Bluegrass Band. Those sound like pretty good matches to me.

There are other options with the iLike Sidebar. What I just explained above is just the “Related Music” tab. Other options include a tab for recent activity from artists you’ve selected as being favorites. These updates include new music, tour dates, and other events.

And then there’s the social part of the network. Just like MySpace or Facebook, you can invite friends in iLike and when you select the “Friends” tab in the Sidebar, iLike shows you the most recently played song by each of you friends. And this includes a link to listen and potentially purchase that music for yourself.

How well does iLike accomplish it’s purpose of connecting you, the listener, with new music? According to this study from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, it works extremely well.

* Long-term users of iLike added nearly 250% more music to their personal music libraries within a month of registering on iLike versus the month before.

* Five months later, active iLike users continue to add nearly 30 to 50% more music per month than before joining.

* It is indicated that the iLike Sidebar may account for this dramatic increase in music purchasing among iLike users.

I don’t know if I’ve added THAT much music to my library because of iLike, but I have discovered a few artists I wouldn’t have otherwise. Check it out and see if you like, I know iLike.

It can be argued that a music video is a good promotional tool. And while that may be true, bluegrass artists seeking to get a video out to their fans have quite probably felt some frustration. Youtube and other online streaming services can be a good way to let people see your video, but what about getting a higher quality version into the hands of your fans?

TuneCore may be your solution. The company has been around for a while and offers a service allowing you to sell music through iTunes and other similar digital retailers. The way TuneCore works is quite different from other services such as CDBaby. TuneCore charges you a flat rate submission fee (per song, album, or video) along with a yearly hosting fee. After that, you keep 100% of the money paid out by iTunes.

Your video must meet iTunes requirements, and at this time only music videos are being handled by TuneCore. No other type of video will be submitted to iTunes. iTunes sells the videos for $1.99, you get $1.40.

Most videos will cost you $85 upfront and a $20 annual hosting fee. Longer videos may incur a higher setup charge from TuneCore. The upfront submission fee is non-refundable, so if iTunes rejects the video for quality reasons, you lose the money.

A band would only need to sell 75 copies of the video through iTunes to break even during the first 12 months.

If your band does submit a video that gets accepted into the iTunes store, please let us know so we can get the word out here to the bluegrass community.

In the midst of the inescapable media coverage last week marking the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, here’s a story you might not have seen.

Bluegrass singer/songwriter Shawn Camp and rockabilly singer Billy Burnette have joined forces to release The Bluegrass Elvises, a new CD out August 14 with bluegrass versions of some of The King’s most cherished hits. Songs covered bluegrass style on this CD include Don’t Be Cruel, All Shook Up, Jailhouse Rock, Burnin’ Love, Hound Dog, That’s Alright Mama and several others.

In addition to Camp and Burnette, musicians on this project include Scott Vestal and David Talbot on Banjo, Aubrey Haynie on fiddle, Chris Henry on mandolin, and Mike Bub and Terry Eldridge on bass.

Audio samples for all 13 tracks can be heard in iTunes, and you can find out more about the CD on The Bluegrass Elvises site.

A track from King Wilkie’s latest CD, Low Country Suite, has been selected as the Discovery Download in iTunes for this week. Any iTunes subscriber can get the track (Wrecking Ball) at no charge starting tomorrow (8/21) through next Monday (8/27).

This is part of iTunes’ weekly New Music Tuesday, where they highlight new recordings deemed worthy of mention, with one or two free tracks available each week, based on a rotating schedule by genre.

You will see a link for the Discovery Download on the front page of the iTunes Music Store - look for the FREE ON iTUNES link near the bottom of the page. It will also be available from the front page of the Country genre section of iTunes.

Speaking of King Wilkie…

We posted back in June when their video on the making of Low Country Suite was available at Amazon.com. That video is no longer up at Amazon, but we found it on YouTube.

UPDATE 8/21: The direct link to the King Wilkie Discovery Download in iTunes is here. You must have an Apple or AOL iTunes account (free), and be logged in to download this free track. The link is good through 8/27/07.

I’m asking that question of bands and labels that are selling music. Do you sell your stuff in iTunes? If not, now may be the time.

The news today is that Apple’s iTunes Music Store has lept ahead of both Target and Amazon.com to become the third largest retailer of music in America. Only Wal-Mart and Best Buy scored larger market share.

The new numbers considered every 12 tracks sold online to equal 1 CD. And with that formula in hand, Wal-Mart (who also sells online) grabs 15.8 percent of the market, Best Buy scores 13.8 percent, iTunes 9.8, Amazon.com 6.7, and Target 6.6 percent.

We’ve heard time and again that CD sales are slipping, and indeed they are. CD sales during the first quarter of this year were down 16% over last year. Yet during that same time period, digital sales rose 49%. Yeah, I know, digital sales only make up slightly less than 25% of all music sales, but it’s the segment that’s growing. In fact, according to a story on the ABC News site, Nielson SoundScan is reporting that overall music sales for this year are up 14% over last year, and that due to the rise in digital sales.

At a time when a lot of artists are in despair over the decline in CD sales, this strikes me as good news. If you sell music and you aren’t selling downloads, it’s time to adopt the format the market is embracing.

How these numbers would break down for bluegrass music, I don’t know. I suspect they are quite similar to overall industry based on conversations I’ve had with various artists that come through the studio.

We recently told you about the law suit filed by David Grisman’s Dawg Music (Acoustic Disc) label against online video sharing site YouTube.com. It appears that’s not the only lawsuit he’s filed recently. He’s also suing Universal Music Group and Warner Music for contracting to sell his music online through digital download services without first consulting him, or paying the expected royalties.

What’s more, he’s extended the suit to include eight online download services which have distributed the music provided to them by Universal and Warner. The eight include Apple’s iTunes, AOL Music Now, Buy.com, Microsoft’s MSN.com, Napster, RealNetworks’ Rhapsody, WalMart.com, and Yahoo Music. He finds them guilty by association. That’s going to be a hard sell in my opinion because these services always pay to the label, who then distributes royalties to the artist. It seems to me his complaint should be with the two labels he signed contracts with to distribute his music.

The filing claims that “irreparable injury” has been done to Dawg Music by this situation and Grisman is seeking $150,000 for every work whose copyright was violated. Taken as a whole and spread across all the defendants, this would equal millions of dollars.

It seems Grisman has a contract with Universal and Warner, but his complaint is that they took on themselves authority that wasn’t granted to them by the contract. I’ve seen some pretty vague wording in some record contracts offered to artists by the labels that would give the label the right to “all future media” or some such. This could be one of the cases. I think Grisman needs to focus on his contract with the labels in question. I really don’t think he has any case against the online retail outlets.

Earlier this year, Rebel Records reissued a pair of classic Ralph Stanley recordings as iTunes download exclusives. Now comes word of two others, recently available again from the iTunes Music store.

Down Where The River Bends was first released in 1978, and marked the Clinch Mountain Boys debut of Charlie Sizemore as a lead vocalist and Junior Blankenship on guitar. This pair remained with Stanley for the next ten years, and were also featured on the other new Rebel iTunes reisuue, Memory Of Your Smile, initially released in 1982.

These two Stanley reissues are only available in the iTunes Music Store, where audio samples of each track can be heard, with instant download purchase enabled.

Rebel announced this summer that they would be making many of the out-of-print titles in their catalog available as download-only reissues, and have a pair of albums from the Forbes Family as well as the prior Ralph Stanley projects now up on iTunes. No further download reissues are expected this year, but more will be announced in January 2007.

Rebel Records has reissued the first two projects that The Forbes Family recorded for them in the mid 1980s, both as download-only releases via the iTunes Music Store.

The two projects are Gleams Of That Golden Morning, and I’m Just A Pilgrim, which feature the four part harmony of Lori, Lisa, Homer and Jay Forbes in their trademark bluegrass Gospel style.

You can hear audio samples from either project, or purchase them for download if you have iTunes software installed on your computer.

Tom Garber at Rebel tells us that they have several more download-only reissues in the works, including two more classic Ralph Stanley albums in November.

The first single from the upcoming Chris Thile Thile CD, How To Grow A Woman From The Ground, is available now as an iTunes exclusive. The song is Chris’ take on Jimmy Rodgers’ Brakeman’s Blues, and features Chris on mandolin and vocal, with Chris Eldridge on guitar, Greg Garrison on bass, Noam Pikelny on banjo and Gabe Witcher on fiddle.

We have posted several times about this new project, and how it marks Thile’s return to an embrace of the bluegrass and traditional music that had initially attracted him to the mandolin. Not every song would fit that description, but this track has him in that environment. His version of Brakeman’s Blues features a wild, passionate set of variations on the classic line-ending yodel that manages to surprise you each time the phrase comes along. The pickers demonstrate in turn why they are considered to be among the enfants terrible of modern bluegrass, and Chris’ Monroe-inflected mandolin solo is especially impressive.

We’ll have more to say about it as the release date nears. It is a powerful recording from one of this music’s future stars. We hope to have a GrassCast interview with Chris before long as well.

The full CD will be released on September 12, but the single can be purchased now directly from the iTunes Music Store for $.99, where you can also hear an audio sample of the song in iTunes.

See previous posts:
Pre orders now available for new Thile CD
New tracks from upcoming Chris Thile release
Chris Thile trivia contest on MySpace
New Thile CD samples up
Chris Thile touring this summer

Rebel Records announced on Friday (2/24) that their entire catalog is now available for digital download from Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Every current, in-print release can be purchased via iTunes, as well as a few out of print titles. Rebel plans to make more out of print titles available on the iTunes Music Store, including some early Ralph Stanley albums, by later this spring.

We’ll be sure to update wth more details as we get them.