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REWIND: The New Music Industry's Week In Review

EDMbiz Invades Las Vegas as Electronic Dance Music Shows Powerful Growth. But Are EDM Artists Buying Facebook Fans? DJ Excision Speaks Out On Controversy

• Vinyl Sales Booming to Delight of Indie Labels, Record Stores & Events
• Daniel Ek & Sean Parker Fail To Explain What Spotify Pays Artists
• Amanda Palmer 's Kickstarter Campaign Soared Past a Milliion Leading to Partying in the Streets
• Usher Adds Fan Avatars & Holograms To Live Show

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Create MPEE3's With Guitar Pee Urinal [VIDEO]

In what is either a brilliant piece of marketing or an indicator of just how far you have to go to get people to read music's top trade magazine these days, Billboard's Brazilian edition has created the world's first Guitar Pee Urinal. Here's how it works. Drink a lot. Run to the bathroom. Pee on the special urinal to trigger notes in your electric guitar solo. Flush and write down the number the urinal generates just for you. Visit guitarpee.com on your mobile to listen your MPEE3 and others.  Or you can watch the video:

Usher Adds Fan Avatars & Holograms To Live Show

Capitalizing on the enormous reaction to the Coachella "resurrection" hologram of Tupac, many have been seeking ways to utilize this new technology in order to cash-in on the buzz. One such person is Usher, who will be adding this technology to his live-stream concert at the Hammersmith Apollo in London on June 11^th. In doing so, Usher will fuse social media, holograms, avatars, and live music for the one of the most immersive and interactive performance experiences to date.

The Week In Music Publishing 6.1.12

For the first time in UK history, digital music sales have eclipsed physical sales. According to the BPI (British Recorded Music Industry), digital accounted for 55.5% of trade revenues in Q1 2012. Good news also for paid subscription services, with income growing 93% year-on-year to £9 million.

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Are EDM Artists Buying Facebook Fans? DJ Excision Speaks Out On Controversy

Controversy broke out this week in the Electronic Dance Music scene over whether or not major EDM dj's are buying Facebook Fans. A graphic showing multiple artists' Facebook fan pages with Mexico City as the "Most Popular City", including Skrillex, David Guetta and Excision, was interpreted as possible proof by Mixmag.  This possibility was then spread around the web via EDM fans and web publications.

Excision got into the fray with a Facebook post attempting to debunk the possibility. Though convincing on a personal level, Excision failed in his task and the issue remains open.

Brainstorming Doesn't Work

According to Keith Sawyer, “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.” It’s an interesting concept especially for musicians when they are coming up with creative ideas. On Music Think Tank, Derek Miller talks about the dynamics of group creativity and suggests that this may be a reason for the sophomore slump and more.

How Music Streaming Services Could Help Artists, Fans, Labels, Charities & The Music Industry

Guest post by Benji Rogers (@benjikrogers), Founder & CEO of PledgeMusic.

I'm not into streaming. I've never really made a secret of that, and as such it occurred to me that rather than simply bashing it and those who seek to profit from it, I should come up with a solution that would make it work for everybody. And yes, this includes the independent artist as well.

The Problem As I See It

Twitter, Pepsi Announce Music Partnership For Live Concerts, Downloads & More

Music is definitely huge on Twitter – so huge in fact, that the top five most-followed accounts are musicians. Recognizing the high amount of engagements musicians experience through their service, Twitter recently announced a global partnership with Pepsi focusing on music; giving Twitter’s 140 million active users a unique and real-time way to discover and consume music.

Music App News, Duly Noted: Announcements, Articles, Analysis

Guest post by Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

It’s a good sign that so many people email Evolver.fm with music apps news. We’re not too surprised, given that we’re attracting a growing audience not only here, but on other publications where our articles appear: Wired.com, Gizmodo, CNET, Billboard, Hypebot, midemblog, Huffington Post, and Business Insider, for starters, with more to come.

Americana Music Association Names 2012 Nominees [Full List]

The Americana Music Association announced the 2012 nominees for its Honors & Awards yesterday in LA. John C. Reilly offered the nominations at The Grammy Museum’s Clive Davis Theatre. Here's the full list of 2012 nominees in that The New York Times described as "the coolest music scene today."

ICM Finalizes Agency Management Buyout

International Creative Management has finalized a buyout deal that will see the exit of private equity partners Rizvi Traverse Management with  former CEO Jeff Berg removed from ownership in the agency. While terms of the agreement were not disclosed, the Wall Street Journal reports that Berg and Rizvi Traverse Management received a combination of cash and non-voting preferred stock in the new agency.

NEWS BRIEF: RIAA vs Google, Opening Acts Rise, Streams vs Sales, SiriusXM, Slacker, OurStage, More

The RIAA wants to issue unlimited takedowns to Google. (ars) But data shows that labels aren't even using the current system to its limits.

• The Rise of the Opening Act - Now it's often the headlining artists - not the promoters or the labels - who choose the bands playing first. Show up early. (WSJ)
• An analysis by Glenn Peoples of the strong digital music report just issued by UK's BPI suggest that streaming is not hurting download sales. (Billboard)

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Amanda Palmer Passes $1.12 Million With Hours Left, Plans "Party On The Internet" Tonight

Amanda Palmer had raised $1,123,971 on Kickstarter as of 4PM ET on Thursday from 23,541 backers.  The campaign runs until 11.59 PM EDT tonight. After several days of major media interviews, she was busy planning a "Party On The Internet" celebration live from Brooklyn from 6PM to Midnight tonight to be broadcast on Ustream.  An understandably excited Palmer wrote:

EDMbiz Invades Las Vegas Next Week & Why EDM Matters More Now Than Ever

Electronic dance music (EDM) is undeniably booming at an incredible rate in the United States and worldwide (although the U.S. is notoriously late to the game in terms of a mainstream influence). This means that there are plenty of new opportunities to be pursued by industry professionals. Recognizing this, next week’s inaugural EDMbiz conference (6/5-6/7) is designed to facilitate relevant conversations focused on the most pertinent topics specific to the scene including technology platforms, festivals, sustaining community, and more.

Music Monsters Creates Custom Mobile Music Games For Indie Artists

Capitalizing on the rising popularity of mobile gaming, Music Monsters is a mobile music game app that allows indie artists to sell music and generate game-based revenues by providing their fans an artist-custom version of the game. While playing the game on their iPhone or Android device, fans can buy the artist's songs, buy the game levels for the songs, and share the artist's game with their friends.

ArtistRequest Enhances Booking Efforts, Creates Request Form on Facebook Pages

Here’s a cool tool that could enhance booking efforts for artists: ArtistRequest is an app designed to entice promoters when they’re most interested about the artist they can potentially be booking. ArtistRequest creates a booking request form right on the artist’s Facebook fan page, and can also be embedded on their website or wherever else they’d like it.

Vinyl Business Booming: Third Man Records, Independent Label Market, Origami Vinyl

One of the bright spots in music sales is the still growing love of vinyl. Events like Record Store Day fuel the boom as does the desire for tangibility in an age when digital media feels as cheap and insubstantial as tap water. Examples of the boom include the success of Jack White's Third Man Records, the growth of London's Independent Market Label and the emergence of one of many LA record stores Origami Vinyl.

Why Isn't NoiseTrade A Bigger Deal?

By now, any musicians or music fans that don't know about NoiseTrade just aren't paying attention. The site has been around since 2006 [2008 official launch] when musician Derek Webb gave away his music in return for some info (name, email, etc...) and has seemingly been growing ever since. Visiting the site today you see big names like Jars Of Clay, Young The Giant,  The Rocket Summer, and Andrew Bird just to name a few. The problem is not content, but the fact that NoiseTrade is not on the tip of everyone's tongue.

Watch Sean Parker & Daniel Ek Dance Around What Artists Get Paid On Spotify (VIDEO)

When asked whether Spotify pays artists fairly, my answer has always been and remains that it's too early to tell.  Startup music services, particularly those built on new revenue models, need a great deal of time to develop.  Spotify is relatively new in the U.S. and most other markets, but many artists and labels in Scandinavia, who have known the service the longest, seem pleased with payments.  But watching Spotify CEO Daniel EK and investor Sean "Napster" Parker dancing around what artists get paid left me uncomforable.

10 Reasons gTar, the iPhone-Powered Guitar, Justifies the Crazy Hype

Guest post by Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

In a nutshell, the gTar is a $450 guitar with an iPhone for a brain. We reported earlier this week on how it has raised lots of money.

Many early supporters agree that this thing looks awesome, and it’s not even the first instance of a learning guitar, or even one that runs on MIDI for that matter. But it’s the first we’ve seen that puts it all together the right way, with the right look, and the right brain: a smartphone app on an iPhone.