He was born in Israel, spent four years in Jamaica, studied cinema and worked as a voice actor. Now, at 29, he sings like Janis Joplin and is the first Israeli musician to sign a four-record label with Sony Columbia. Ladies and gentelmen, presenting Asaf Avidan[youtube]. [more inside]
posted by alona on Oct 9, 2009 - 23 comments

“You can’t roll a joint on an iPod” or how the iPod killed the music industry. First the music biz overlooked the computer CD rom when they put copy control on cd burners. Then they eliminated the single. Shortly after that "mp3" replaced "sex" as the most popular search term. Apple has become the largest music seller largely against the wishes of the music biz, but 99 cents beats free. Yesterday Apple announced they were eliminating DRM. The questions remains, who needs Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, and EMI, does Apple? When is Apple just going to replace them? There were rumors a year ago that they would launch a record label with Jay-Z but that does not appear to have come to fruition.
posted by caddis on Jan 7, 2009 - 105 comments

Fiona Freed. Remember the Free Fiona campaign (discussed last month here)? Well, Sony hasn't caved (yet), but the entire album has been leaked online (get it here or via torrent.) I've listened to it a few times through, and all I can say is... wow.
posted by salad spork on Mar 22, 2005 - 53 comments

Meet the new Walkman. 20GB HD, 25 minutes of cache for skip-free playing. Works with Sony's Connect music service. Sharp-looking little player.
posted by jpoulos on Jul 1, 2004 - 48 comments

The Walkman turns 25: the Sony Walkman hit the streets on July 1, 1979. History, photos and more at the Walkman Museum.
posted by turbodog on Jun 30, 2004 - 11 comments

Music industry makes first mature move in years!
Universal and Sony will respond to piracy by selling CDs at $9.99 - and singles at .99. How easy was that? (Link requires free registration but well worth it, IMO)
posted by magullo on Jun 12, 2002 - 51 comments

Good news for Mac-owning, Celine Dione fans

"The process is pretty easy: I took a bit of electrical tape and applied it to the edge of the CD, the 'shiny side', - just a half inch of the stuff - and aligned it with the very edge 'data track session ring' visible on these copy protected CDs. Took the tape out to the outside of the CD and put it in my CD Rom."
posted by schlaager on May 14, 2002 - 17 comments

Sony's left hand disagrees with its right hand. Sony Electronics just announced a player at CES in Vegas which will play MP3's off of a CD in addition to playing normal audio CDs. Sony Music, on the other hand, is part of the SDMI initiative which is trying to stamp out MP3's. "They were pissed." (Via GeekPress)
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jan 7, 2001 - 10 comments

Sony to introduce new CD format. No, it's not DVD-Music. It's a new double-capacity CD format that Sony says "will be able to prevent illegal copying." I'm assuming the new format will require all-new hardware to read and to write. So my question is, what's the point? Won't another music format just increase consumer confusion and make them more reluctant to buy? Why come out with a 1.3GB format just as recordable DVDs, with much larger capacities, are becoming practical? Do they really expect people to buy all new hardware to support what is obviously a dead-end format?
posted by daveadams on Jul 5, 2000 - 12 comments