It’s just like the old days. Michael Jackson is ruling the charts.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks record sales, Jackson’s solo albums sold 415,000 units last week, mostly in the time between the Friday after his death and Sunday night, when scanning for the week closed. 58 percent of the sales were digital downloads.

Because Jackson’s titles are not eligible for the Billboard 200, they are relegated to the Pop Catalog chart, where he holds the top nine positions. Three of his titles — Number Ones, Thriller and The Essential Michael Jackson — exceeded 100,000 in sales, outpacing Black Eyed Peas The E.N.D. (88,000), which claims No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It’s the first time that a catalog album has outsold the No. 1 on the 200, the survey of current albums. This week, Jackson has done it three times over.

Additionally, Jackson titles hold the first four positions on the Digital Albums chart, and six of the Top 10

Read more.

Ever since the phrase “pull a Radiohead” entered the music blogosphere’s lexicon, we’ve watched as a diverse list of acts such as Nine Inch Nails, Saul Williams, Pennywise, and Portishead explore ways to reinvent the music business wheel. One of the highest-profile free agents is Pearl Jam – a group unafraid to fight corporate giants like Ticketmaster head-on. But Eddie Vedder and company don’t fear partnering up with a big box store either.

Billboard reports:

[Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis] confirmed that deals were also finished or in the works with an online retailer, a mobile partner, a gaming company and with a network or possibly networks of indie retail stores. “Target ended up allowing us to have other partners. We’ll be able to take care of all levels of the Pearl Jam fan…We wish we could tell the whole story right now, but all the deals aren’t done. Target was cool enough to realize that little independent record stores are not their competition.”

Pearl Jam will follow in the footsteps of AC/DC, Prince, Guns n’ Roses, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, and many other famous names that granted exclusivity deals with big box retailers. But Pearl Jam’s deal with Target is not quite as odious. Details after the jump.

Pearl Jam’s manager said above, “Target ended up allowing us to have other partners.” That sets Pearl Jam apart from the aforementioned big names, as the most popular disagreement to big box exclusivity deals was the lack of involvement on the independent record store front.  Unlike Prince’s triple album LOtUSFLOW3R, you won’t be forced to buy the album from only Target.

In addition to the album, director Cameron Crowe — already filming the band for projects relating to Pearl Jam’s 20th anniversary — shot a Pearl Jam/Target commercial with the new song, “The Fixer.”

While it certainly comes as a surprise that a band with the working class ethos of Pearl Jam would partner with a big corporation, Mp3s, iPods, and piracy changed the game. Yes, Pearl Jam has the ability to succeed at any of the possibilities the likes of Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails have put forth, if they can partner with a company like Target in a way that doesn’t compromise artistic integrity and still fill the pockets of everyone involved, why not go for it? Their manager, Kelly Curtis, justifies to Billboard why fans shouldn’t take it too hard:

Curtis says it was important to him and to the band to redefine the notion of an “exclusive” retail partnership. “I appreciate the efforts of bands like AC/DC and Radiohead,” says the manager, alluding to two of the bands that have self-released albums recently. “But I wanted our plan to be multi-dimensional to address old and modern ways of fans accessing music. It will allow all of our fans to have the same access.”

Rumored to be titled Backspacer, the new Pearl Jam album will hit stores sometime in the fall.

“Get Some” from The Tonight Show (2009)

“Porch” from MTV Unplugged (1992)

Radio behemoth Clear Channel is one of the latest victims in the music business downfall. The official news is as follows:

US radio giant Clear Channel Communications has announced a new round of layoffs, with 590 workers in its radio division to be cut. The new layoffs, which follow a round of 1,850 in January, will include employees in programming, engineering and customer service. The January layoffs were primarily in sales. Shows canceled due to the layoffs will be replaced by nationally syndicated shows. Clear Channel also said that it has suspended matching contributions to employees retirement accounts, but would resume making contributions if the company is successful in reaching 90% of its internal cost saving targets.

It sucks that people are losing their jobs, but is anyone really surprised? Radio has been a corporate game for so long, that it’s no longer relevant. So what now?

Much of the demise of the music business can be blamed on the Internet and iPods, but the truth is that as the outlets and gateways for music became more and more business, MTV stopped playing music videos and radio stations stopped taking requests. Labels have been paying for radio airplay for decades and spending lots and lots of money on trips and spiffs. Now that the labels are broke, are you surprised to see corporate radio is tanking as well?

The radio industry has been suffering declines in ad spending as listeners migrate to MP3s and non-terrestrial radio (XM/Sirius or Internet). As long as the music outlets are directly funded by the major labels, radio will be reduced to an audio billboard and will disappear.

Here’s a cool video about why the Mainstream Music Industry sucks from people that have been in it for a while (and even profited from it at some point):

Listen to Dick Dale. He knows what he’s talking about. I run a label and I agree with his advice. But my label doesn’t own our band’s music. :)

Enjoy. Share.
Ivan

Ivan writes “Bombardier Manifesto” for Creative Loafing, blog posts about the music industry, being in a band and marketing. Ivan also runs Mohawk Bomb Records.

You know when you learn something pleasantly unexpected?  For instance, a favorite band you wrote off as finished because its principal members blame each other for stupid shit through music blogs announces their first tour in years? What’s that feeling called? Oh, yeah… hope!

The Pixies return to action this summer with a series of European concert dates, including a June 14 appearance at the Isle of Wight festival with Neil Young, Billboard has confirmed. The gigs will be the first for the alternative rock standard-bearers since 2007, dispelling doubts that the group’s most recent hiatus was permanent. Further details about the additional European shows will be released soon. No North American gigs are planned, according to Billboard’s sources.

The full article from Billboard provides a bit more background, but barely scratches the surface of several years of tension. Statements made by Frank Black and Kim Deal towards the end of 2007 fueled my pessimism that the reunion was over.

In an interview with Pitchfork while prepping the last Breeders album, Kim Deal landed some pretty revelatory blows about the Pixies reunion:

[When] this whole [Pixies reunion] started out, we were going to do a couple of shows. [Guitarist] Joe [Santiago] said he had one kid and one was on the way, and he said, “Do you wanna do it?” And I said, “Oh God, no, Joe!” And I told everybody this, but nobody believes me. And he said, “Kim, this is really important to me. It will change my school district, where I can put my daughter into school.” And I said, “Okay, of course. Of course, I will do this.”

I thought it was going to be a couple of shows, and it turned out really good. I had a really good time doing it. People were just so happy we were doing it. It was just so nice, like [an] “it’s over, thank you, bye,” kind of thing. And so there was never any– I don’t know, I think it gets talked about whenever Charles [Thompson, aka Frank Black] has any release, which is often. I have a feeling that’s when he talks about it more than anything. Because him and Joe haven’t gotten together to write any songs, so I think it’s kind of something to bring up whenever he needs press. That’s the only time I hear about it. I have no idea, dude.

So Kim only agreed to the reunion so Joe could buy a nicer house? New Pixies albums only get discussed when Frank Black has a new release of his own to plug? Them sure sounds like fightin’ words to me!  Just two months earlier, Frank blamed Kim for the lack of album progress. In the meantime, this article profiled drummer Dave Lovering’s magic career.

If I was in a band, I wouldn’t tell the music press that my bassist is the obstacle preventing progress on a new record; and I sure as hell wouldn’t tolerate my bassist saying the question of new music is only asked when I have a new solo album! Thankfully, I’m not Frank Black — and the Pixies still exist! Am I bummed they’re emulating the recently announced Faith No More reunion and only touring Europe? Hell yeah, I’m bummed. But it’s a start. I have hope.

“Where Is My Mind?” (live)

“Nimrod’s Son” off Come On Pilgrim

Tampa’s (actually Brandon’s) own Damon Fowler’s national debut CD, Sugar Shack, makes its first appearance on the Billboard Blues Chart this week at #12.

This from a release by his record label, San Francisco-based Blind Pig:

Audiences and critics alike are responding to the young guitar phenom’s exciting, soulful blend of Southern rock and swamp blues.  In an early review,  Billboard called the CD a “notable project” and Fowler a “formidable slide guitar player … his playing throughout the album is deft … and his original material is solid,” while The Virginian-Pilot said “Sugar Shack effectively introduces a major talent” and praised Fowler’s “formidable guitar chops and slide work, versatile tenor voice, and expert command of rustic American music styles.”

If you haven’t seen CL’s multi-media feature on Fowler, click here.

Billboard magazine, long the music industry bible, celebrated the 50-year anniversary of its Hot 100 singles chart not too long ago, and issued a compilation of the top songs and artists of the last half-century. I’m not even that much of a chart hound and I got lost in the lists for quite awhile. Billboard’s Hot 100 is based on actual sales and airplay, and therefore has been an accurate historical gauge for what’s really been popular in music over the years. Peruse the 50-year charts here.

Here’s a quick quiz before you go browsing:

1. One man (who was a member of two bands) is in the Top 11 artists. Who is it?

2. Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson both made the Top 10 artists. Which one placed higher?

3. What contemporary hard-rock band placed highest on the Hot 100 list?

4. Who placed more solo songs on the Hot 100, Paul McCartney or John Lennon?

ANSWERS IN COMMENTS. (Click on Leave a Comment” below)