Random music news for Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Flying back from CES in Las Vegas today. I used to like the fact no one could reach me via email while I was in the air–a little respite, you know? Now I’m annoyed when I’m on a plane without WiFi. All that lost productivity…
Here’s some music news for January 8, 2019, from 35,000 feet over the US midwest.
- Interesting: The biggest-selling physical album of the first week of 2019 is the soundtrack for The Greatest Showman. It sold a grand total of 24,195 copies.
- Canadian music sales and streaming stats from last week vs. this time in 2018: Total album sales -21.1%; digital albums, -18.3%; physical albums, -22.7%; CDs, -26.7%; vinyl LPs, +28.7%; on-demand audio streams, +32.1% (1.266 billion streams last week).
- This punk band deserved to be yanked offstage.
- Yep. That was Axl.
- Rough Trade’s Carol Pope is having some health challenges. You can help her here.
- Here’s a good article on the return of The Pursuit of Happiness.
- SpongeBob is helping to launch the careers of some young rappers in a weird sort of way.
- Smart speakers show tremendous year-over-year growth. Over a billion devices have Google Assistant and 100 million are powered by Alexa (link).
- Netflix’s Bandersnatch allows people to choose their own story paths. What if you could choose your own soundtrack for a movie or TV show?
- Great. Now my houseplants will judge me.
About the Author
Alan Cross is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 30+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.
