Showbiz Sandbox 145: Rise of Playlisters Marks The Death of Music Blogs
April 16, 2012
Last week Doug Freeman, a music critic for the Austin Chronicle, wrote an opinion piece in response to a Hypebot interview in which Sean Adams, the founder of Drowned In Sound, suggested music blogs are no longer influential. Freeman joins us to explain that if blogs were simply gateways to new music discovery, then the streaming playlister is the new music blogger. New influencers and kingmakers will emerge in a shifting editorial landscape.
We also take you to the first weekend of this year’s Coachella Music Festival where more than 150 acts strutted their stuff to an more than 100,000 attendees. Headliners such as Radiohead and The Black Keys proved to be big hits, but Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg stole the show by performing with a picture perfect hologram of the late Tupac Shakur.
“The Hunger Games” continues to feast on the North American box office, but the number one movie in the world this past weekend was “Titanic 3D” thanks to a record breaking opening in China.
We also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Mel Gibson’s public fight with a screenwriter, an extended run for “Game of Thrones” and an anti-trust lawsuit against major publishing houses.
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Showbiz Sandbox 79: A New Social Music Chart To Rival Billboard?
November 16, 2010
Media measurement company BigChampagne believes that ranking songs and musicians based on radio airplay and record sales is an antiquated method. Joe Fleischer, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, explains how they’ve added social platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Pandora into the mix to create the Ultimate Chart, a new music chart giving industry heavyweights Billboard and Soundscan a run for their money.
Speaking of media metrics, the biggest entertainment launch in history occurred last week and it wasn’t a James Cameron movie. In fact, it wasn’t a movie at all, but a video game. “Call of Duty: Black Ops” earned a record setting $360 million in its first day alone.
If that’s not strange enough for you, the biggest headlines coming out of the Country Music Awards may not have been from winners Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton or even the red hot Taylor Swift. Instead it was actress Gwyneth Paltrow who performed the title song from her upcoming movie “Country Strong”. Paltrow proved she can really belt out a tune, though whether that helps rehabilitate her career or image remains to be seen.
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