One of my own goals of 2009 is to cover more news about the music industry as it changes each and every day. I am first and foremost a fan of music and with that comes the constant challenge of “Where do I find my music?”. We have the luxury here at Roots headquarters to get new CD’s in each and every day however CD’s are a dying breed. For musicians don’t worry, CD’s are built for live shows. That won’t change as audiences love taking away something tangible from a show. Take note of the latest figures from music sales in 2008. While digital sales were up 10.5% in 2008, CD sales dropped 20%. In 2008, we had a big causality in the Americana scene with the loss of MilesOfMusic.com which was a staple online CD store for Americana. It’s a clear sign of the shift in the consumption of music.

With physical cd’s sales dropping like a rock, the trend is clear as it has moved to digital sales. In general, this is a VERY bad thing for Americana Music. The issue is now artists have lost premier cd shelf space in your local cd shop and must rely on the mammoth online sales venues to get some notice. Getting notice is near impossible as discovering new music online is often like finding a needle in a haystack unless you know exactly what your looking for. iTunes is the dominant site for digital music sales however Amazon.com, eMusic and Walmart have slices of the pie online. The problem with online music is dependence on the platform from which you buy. iTunes is notorious for it’s DRM (digital rights management) which prevents you from using any other player than an iPod however in 2008, the rolled out a lot more artists as iTunes Plus music (which means this will play on any mp3 player). Amazon.com is completely DRM free which is great but their software to browse the site is horrid. This brings me to the point of the whole article — Spotify.com

Over the past few days there has been a tremendous amount of buzz around a new site called Spotify.com. Spotify is an online system which allows you to pull in music from there servers and build your own streaming playlists. While this may not sound great, it truly is. The interface is fast, vast and simple. The sound quality is absolutely crystal clear. Their music catalog is extremely deep. Overall, Spotify.com is one hell of a setup. The problem? It’s not available in the USA yet. Spotify has a large amount of work to do to handle the licensing issues, however as it stands right now you may never need to “download” a song again with this great setup.

How does this impact the Americana Music artists? In my humble opinion, it will help. Here’s my theory which may be completely wrong but I’ll let the artists speak up. Americana Musicians make no money on digital sales today. They make all of their money at live shows. Which is why the majority of artists have no issues giving their music away for free to gain fans which in the end directly impacts their show revenues. Spotify’s system makes it very easy to sample all kinds of music. Their goal is to have advertising offset the licensing so in the end musicians will get paid. The freedom to listen to full cd’s will directly help all Americana musicians.

Time will tell how Spotify impacts the industry. This could be a real powerhouse that defines the future of music. To be continued.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been looking into a relatively new and thriving trend in the birth of music aggregators sites.  A music aggregator is an electronic hub of sorts for music blogs, mp3’s and news.  My own interest in it is to get Americana Roots listed on all these sites, however I’ve found these sites to be really useful in tracking some of my own favorite bands.  There are a handful of established sites out there and I’d expect more to come in 2009 as it seems to be trend.  Also, for musicians, this is a terrific way to track how your album is being received by music bloggers across the net.

1.) http://www.mog.com

2.) http://www.hypem.com

3.) http://www.elbo.ws

4.) http://www.captaincrawl.com