If you read that headline and immediately thought “WTF?” then join the club.

You might remember the story from last month where four people died when a festival tent at Pukkelpop in Belgium collapsed during a severe thunderstorm.  

Naturally, the festival organizers had insurance to cover these sorts of catastrophic things.  So if you’re the adjuster assigned to the case, to what would you assign blame?  The tent manufacturer? Those who erected the tent?  Perhaps those in charge of supervising the tent?  

No.  You blame illegal file-sharing.

That was one of the topics discussed here at transmitCHINA, the thinktank music conference.  We even went through an exercise to determine what industry/social/economic factors might lead to the end of manufacturing CDs and DVDs.  That included:

Next month will mark the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the iPod.  A site called PhysOrg.com has this look at how that device unveiled in the post-9/11 fog changed music. “Ten years

From Clash Music: 

“Abbey Road is one of the most iconic studios in the world. A tourist attraction in its own right, the studio has housed recordings by everyone from Glenn Miller’s Army Band to The Beatles to Radiohead.

“Now your group could benefit from their technology. Abbey Road has long run a mixing service, adding the final piece in the puzzle for countless groups across the globe.

“Adapting to a shifting environment, Abbey Road are now launching an online mixing service.”

That’s what some are calling this new trend in music apps.  Here’s what Billboard has to say on the subject:

For decades, the question, “What song is playing?” plagued music fans. If a DJ failed to announce an artist’s name or the song’s title, fans were left to their own devices to figure it out (usually singing, humming and/or reciting misremembered lyrics to bemused friends or annoyed record-store clerks). Often, people accepted the music playing through the speakers in TV shows, movies, and bars as background ambience, because they lacked a means to identify a song and discover the artist behind it.

Last week was good.  VERY good.  This week?  Not so much.

Overall album sales tanked by 22% from last week, but given that it was back-to-school, back-to-work and back-to-all-that-is-not-summer, it wasn’t unexpected.  Year-to-date sales remain equal to 2010.  There’s a bunch of other numbers I could throw at you, but that’s all we really need to know.