If you bought a ticket from Ticketmaster between Oct ’99 and May ’10, get ready for some bucks/ticket discounts coming your way. Ticketmaster has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit brought against it in 2003 that alleged the ticket giant’s processing fees were just a “profit component” and didn’t recoup any actual costs of doing business. [More]
How To Move Mystery Songs From Your Brain To Your MP3 Player
By December 13, 2010
Back in the Stone Age, it used to be the job of radio DJs and Sam Goody employees to translate your pathetic humming and insipid descriptions of songs you like into genuine song titles, as well as the tunes’ artists and albums. [More]
You Make The Call — Did Lady Antebellum Rob Alan Parsons Project Blind?
By November 19, 2010
If it sounds like you’ve heard Lady Antebellum’s Country Music Award-winning “Need You Now” a million times, maybe it’s because it’s been on the radio since 1982, when the Alan Parsons Project released the same song with different words as “Eye in the Sky.” [More]
Michigan College Cancels New Pornographers Show Because It Doesn't Want To Promote Porn By Association
By September 15, 2010
Anyone who has ever listened to the songs of Canadian power pop supergroup The New Pornographers is aware the band is strictly PG. And the folks at Calvin College in Michigan are aware of this fact. But that still hasn’t stopped them from pulling the plug on the band’s scheduled show for fear that their school be associated with the word “pornographers.” [More]
Amazon Cancels My MP3 Download Order, Giving Me Free Music
By August 9, 2010
Brent says an Amazon billing snafu gave him two free MP3s then sent him an email saying the transaction was canceled. By the time Amazon had shut down the order Brent had already downloaded his songs. He has a theory as to why the muck-up occurred: [More]
Chicago Music Fest Bum Rushes Paying Audience So It Can Prepare For Fundraiser Dinner
By August 3, 2010
Ravinia, a century-old Chicago summer music festival, is getting hardcore about raising money. This year it sold tickets to a concert performance of songs by composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim, sung by Broadway veterans and played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Sondheim is always a big deal for musical theater types, and the event seemed like a home run for both the fans and Ravinia–until the concert ended after 65 minutes with no encores, and the general admission audience was told to leave so that Ravinia could reward their core supporters with a gala dinner. [More]
I Used Twitter To Score Free Concert Tickets And Get Cruel Live Nation Security Guard Fired
By July 29, 2010
Jess took her ailing mom to see an American Idol concert in Massachusetts but was mistreated by employees who were less than willing to accommodate her mom’s special needs. The next day she took to Twitter, fired off a couple complaints and spurred Live Nation to make things right. [More]
Pop Tunes Bastardized For Your Kid's Pleasure
By July 27, 2010
Since 2001 Kidz Bop has cranked out albums of pop hit covers with children singing inelegantly sanitized version of the originals. The discs provide the soundtrack to little kids’ birthday parties everywhere. They’re also the official soundtrack of hell. [More]
Judge Slashes RIAA's $675,000 File Sharing Award To $67,500
By July 10, 2010
A federal judge yesterday bench slapped the Recording Industry of America, calling a jury’s $675,000 verdict against file sharer Joel Tenenbaum both eye-popping and unconstitutional. The judge struck a strikingly populist tone in reducing the verdict to $67,500, arguing that the same legal reasoning that protects large corporations from excessive punitive damages also protects “ordinary people” like Tenenbaum. [More]
Dollar Tree Stops Playing Music In Store
By July 7, 2010
Ultra-cheap discounter Dollar Tree has turned off the in-store music in all of its stores, citing cost issues. On the company’s Facebook page, shoppers keep complaining that the company is being too cheap (many don’t seem to know about licensing fees for music), but Dollar Tree’s official response is that it freed up expenses to keep prices low. [More]
Sony, Live Nation Are Conspiring To Keep Me Away From The Lilith Fair
By June 24, 2010
Kevin is big enough of a man to admit he needs to get his Lilith Fair on. He was so pscyhed about getting his tickets as early as possible that he pre-ordered a Sarah McLachlan CD just to get a pre-sale concert code that gave him access to early tickets. [More]
Apple Shuts Down Lala Music Service, Saddens Customers
By April 30, 2010
It’s official, Apple is shutting down Lala.com, a streaming service where users could pay for the rights to steam songs or buy and download them. After May 31, 2010, however, the web music will stop streaming and customers will be given iTunes credit. [More]
Ticketmaster Charges You $2.50 To Print Your Own Ticket, $0 For Mail
By April 16, 2010
Theoretically, companies charge you additional fees to offset costs of your more expensive choices. Or, to discourage or encourage certain behaviors. Ticketmaster, as usual, has a different idea. They charge you $2.50 for you to print your own ticket at home, and $0.00 to have them mail it to you. That’s a headscratcher, until you realize people printing their tickets at home are often last-minute people and if you’re in a rush you’re more likely to agree to additional fees if it gets the job done. [via Reddit] (Thanks to Bargaineering!) [More]
New Song Tonight From "United Breaks Guitars" Guy
By March 2, 2010
Tonight at 7:30 Eastern the third and final installment in the “United Breaks Guitars” music trilogy hits the streets in a live webcast release party. As you wait for that latest hot joint, relive the magic and catch up on the story of the country singer who watched in horror from their airplane as baggage handlers tossed around his Taylor guitar on the tarmac and broke it, by watching the first two videos: [More]
Madonna Planning Clothing Line With Macy's
By February 22, 2010
Women’s Wear Daily says that Madonna is in talks with Macy’s to launch an exclusive women’s collection that would include apparel, accessories, intimates, and footwear. “Label names under serious consideration for the product lines include Material Girl for the apparel and Truth or Dare for the lingerie and underwear.” I’m crossing my fingers there’s a “Papa Don’t Preach” maternity line in the works as well. [More]
Sky Mall Kitties Song Celebrates Nonsensical Pet Products
By February 22, 2010
Do you marvel at the ridiculous products in the SkyMall catalog? Musician Nina Katchadourian does, and she has written a song about them, viewed through the lens of the cats featured within its pages. The SkyMall Kitties. [More]
Ticketmaster Agrees To Only Sell Tickets It Has
By February 19, 2010
Ticketmaster has settled with the FTC over charges that it used “deceptive bait-and-switch” tactics when selling concert tickets, reports the Los Angeles Times. As usual for this kind of settlement, Ticketmaster admits no wrongdoing. For instance, the FTC noted that in one case “the same set of 38 tickets for the Springsteen concert in Washington were sold and resold 1,600 times,” and Ticketmaster waited as long as three months to let affected customers know, which is a clear example of not doing anything wrong. [More]
Microsoft Investigating Why Songs Are Disappearing From Zune Pass
By February 8, 2010
If record labels decided to pull some of their songs from the Zune Pass service in the past couple of weeks, they did a poor job telling Microsoft about it. The company seems to be as in the dark as Zune Pass subscribers about why songs, albums, or entire discographies have gone missing. Ars technica reports that a Microsoft employee wrote on a Zune forum, “We are investigating your reported missing albums indicated in this post—and will come back to you as soon as we understand why they’re missing.” [More]
