It’s unclear whether the music business as we now know it has a future, and that’s true for the people on the periphery of the business, not just the big shots. As anyone who’s watched the TV reality show I’m With Rolling Stone for more than a few seconds, it’s pretty clear that rock criticism is as dead as prospects for that Van Halen reunion tour. But the digital music companies that hope to be the future of music do appear to be hiring. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that “a group of music experts, disc jockeys, producers, journalists and musicians [are] responsible for editorial content and programming on Zune Marketplace.” Microsoft’s attempt to break the dominance of Apple’s iTunes/iPod combo is not alone in its quest. There are similar teams at RealNetworks. MTV Urge and elsewhere trying to balance personal taste with marketplace demands, leading us to the greatest quote ever, from Rhapsody editor in chief Jon Maples: “"Our customers aren’t paying us 15 bucks a month for us to tell them that their musical taste sucks.” (Disclosure: I was a small part of a previous attempt by Microsoft to do something similar, back in 1995.)
It will be interesting to see how the editorial teams at these stores treat the debut product by Tila Tequila, who you may know as the person with the most friends ever on MySpace, more than 1.7 million. The New York Times reports that the MySpace phenom is releasing her first single this week. Rquila’s manager tells the Grey Lady: “This is really new territory, we’re about to find out what the connection is between social networking and music sales.” Tequila, who has posed for Playboy, is much better known as a personality than as a music performer, is about find out whether her success is transferable. Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, notes “She does not have a history as a recording artist online that in any way matches her popularity as a personality online.” If the sales of Paris Hilton’s CD is any indication, Tequila may be spending more time with photographers than record producers in the months to come.
Related:
-- Microsoft Projects 1-Million-Plus Zunes Will Be Sold by the End of June 2007