Well-financed music upstart Lala.com is now refreshing its digital model, and tinkering with a cut-rate, streaming concept. Lala first stepped onto the scene with an online CD trading marketplace, one that allowed users to optimize their collections by posting and picking discs. Then, in June of last year, the company allowed users to upload their digital collections for internet-based access, a stab at ubiquitous media access.
Now, the company is preparing to toss another experiment into the ring. For ten cents, users will soon be able to buy unlimited streaming access to a specific song. After an initial, free listen, the user can buy the track and access it from any internet-connected browser. The catalog includes content from all four majors and a long list of independents, and totals roughly five million. The first 50 streams are given away for free.
Whether consumers will bite remains questionable, especially alongside free streaming models offered by Imeem, Last.fm, and others. And, paid subscription platforms offer easy, on-demand access to a similar catalog. Additionally, the ten-cent purchase does not include a download; it only offers streaming access from a virtual locker. Separately, Lala is also planning to sell MP3s.
The service, in beta, was first tipped to Digital Music News by mp3.com founder Michael Robertson, himself a leading-edge developer of ubiquitous, in-the-cloud music access solutions. But Robertson questioned whether the Lala model would resonate. “People prefer free stuff on the net and there’s plenty of it,” Robertson said. “A successful model needs to give more to paying customers not less to compete with free and the omnipresent black market of piracy.”
Robertson also pointed to an interesting alliance between Lala and Warner Music Group, an initial label partner. According to Robertson, Warner hatched the latest experiment with Lala, and invested $20 million in the company. The deal also allegedly includes CD-inserts advertising Lala, though Digital Music News could not independently verify the financing or advertising aspects late Tuesday. Robertson also pointed to a total Lala funding level of $34.7 million.
Busta Rhymes - Don’t Touch Me (Throw Water On ‘Em) REMIX featuring Lil Wayne, Nas, The Game, Big Daddy Kane, Spliff Starr and Reek Da Villian
MP3: Click Here
Skeletrina and her gallant tom Skeletrino are Adios and Ciao Ciao’s pet cats, out of the fires of perdition and living it up on earth. Coming Soon from STRANGEco and tokidoki!
Skeletrino and Skeletrina are sold together or individually. They will arrive at Tenacious Toys in June 2008.
Details: Rotocast vinyl, 1.5 inches tall. Window box packaging.
José González kick’s off a string of North American tour dates June 13th with an appearance at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival in Manchester, TN.
Additional festival appearances include the Sled Island Festival, in Calgary on June 28th, the Ottawa Blues Festival on July 3rd and the Austin City Limits Festival on September 27th. (Please find a full list of dates below)
González released his sophomore album “In Our Nature” on Mute September 2007. He recently completed a Green tour of North America with Reverb Rock (www.reverbrock.org) and digitally released the “In Our Nature Remixes EP” – featuring remixes from Todd Terje, Penchenga Nord, Beatfanatic, and Landberg & Skogehall – on Earth Day, April 22nd.
González also released the digital single “Teardrop” featuring the exclusive b-side “Four Forks Ache” on May 6th. (“Teardrop” is originally performed/recorded by Massive Attack).
“For a musician whose appeal seems to be an even, responsible, enlightened serenity — don’t-wake-the-baby music — he was nice and forceful, just alone with his instrument, his voice dry and his guitar laden with echo. Nylon-string guitars often produce a rounded sound, but with his economical, decisive, percussive strikes he made a sound like an ax splitting a log.”
-New York Times (Review of 3/11 show @ Highline Ballroom, New York, NY)
Tour Dates:
June 2008
13 – Bonnaroo Music Festival – Manchester, TN
14 – Headliners – Louisville, KY
15 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
16 – The Stone Pony – Asbury Park, NJ
17 – Iron Horse – Northampton, MA
18 – Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, MA
20 – Teatro Estudio Cavaret – Guadalajara, Mexico
21 – Lunario – Mexico City, Mexico
23 – Stone Church – Newmarket, NH
24 – Higher Ground – Burlington, VT
25 – 400 Annniversary Festival (Le Grande Scene) – Quebec City, QC (Canada)
26 – St. Matthew’s Church – Halifax, NS (Canada)
28 – Sled Island Festival (Canada Olympic Plaza) – Calgary, AB (Canada)
30 – The Broadway Theatre – Saskatoon, SK (Canada)
July 2008
02 – The Park Theatre – Winnipeg, MB (Canada)
03 – Ottawa Bluesfest – Ottawa, ON (Canada)
September 2008
27 – Austin City Limits – Austin, TX
Calling all future designers, entrepreneur‘s, graphic artists and dreamers.WIN $2,000 CASH and LOLLA TIX plus the winner‘s design gets sold at Threadless.com!
LOLLAPALOOZA WANTS YOU TO DESIGN A T-SHIRT!
In the ongoing ” Threadless Loves” series comes an exciting new partner, Lollapalooza! Yes, THE Lollapalooza that takes place in Chicago on August 1-3, 2008. Lollapalooza that‘s got a lineup of 130+ acts including Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Kanye West, Nine Inch Nails, Wilco, The Raconteurs, Love and Rockets, Gnarls Barkley, Bloc Party, The Black Keys, Broken Social Scene and a whole bunch more. Created in 1991, by Jane‘s Addiction front man, Perry Farrell, Lollapalooza established itself as the first large-scale showcase in the U.S. for the alternative music scene. It quickly became a lifestyle festival staple for exposing concertgoers to a subculture of ‘alternative‘ living and art, and providing a platform for numerous human rights and environmental causes.After all that, did you know that the actual word “lollapalooza” means “remarkable or wonderful person or thing?” This will be the theme for the ” Threadless Loves” design submissions.
If you chose to take on this challenge, your goal is to show us what inspires you and show us what makes you happy. Show us what “lollapalooza” means to you. Be sure to make it exceptional! If your design is chosen you get two 3-day passes to the Festival, two round trip air fares to the Festival from anywhere in the world, hotel accommodations for you and a friend, your design printed and sold through the Threadless store, $2000 in cash (yes, CASH) and more. Find out more and submit your design here:http://threadless.com/loves/http://threadless.com/loves/lollapalooza
This trailer is absolutely ridiculous. A co-worker and I saw Motorhead a few years back at BB King’s in New York City…other than not being able to hear for a day or 2 after, I had the pleasure of being backstage before the show. I’ll never forget standing next to the stage (when they were suppose to go on) and looking out into the crowd at hundreds of eager Motorhead fans cheering for them to take stage and looking backstage at the road manager protecting Lemmy’s dressing room door, saying it was going to be another few before he came out. Probably half hour later, Lemmy bursts through the door, Jack Daniel’s in hand, lights up a Marlboro Red (of course) and grabs his guitar to hit the stage. A few minutes after that a woman tries to casually walk out…I think it goes without saying what they were doing. Long live sex, drugs and rock & roll!
