The PRS figures, picked up by the Guardian,  credit new agreements with online music services, such as Google Play and Microsoft’s Xbox Music service, with the increase. While impressive, the online revenue numbers are a combination of royalties from sales as well as streaming services. Radio royalties are not combined with those of physical audio products, CDs, music DVDs, and older media, which if added together for an “old vs new” media comparison, would total £127 million ($192 million).

Online royalty payments rose 32.2-percent compared to the £39.1 million ($59.2 million) earned in 2011, despite some criminal interference. Overall music revenues rose 1.7-percent to a record £641.8 million ($972.2 million).

The post UK Online Music Royalties Exceeds Radio for First Time appeared first on Takes On Tech.

I Give It a Year stars Rose Byrne, Anna Farris, Simon Baker, Rafe Spall, Minnie Driver and Stephen Merchant. The film opened in the UK in February, and made its North American premiere earlier this month at the SXSW Film Festival.

Both a romantic comedy and a send-up of the genre, I Give It a Year picks up where other rom-coms end, after the glamour of a fairy tale romance and wedding has worn off, and the realities of marriage start to sink in. I Give It a Year plays nagging fights, judgmental families, and extramarital hijinks to great comic effect.

Magnolia plans for a theatrical and VOD release in their Ultra VOD program later this year.

The post Magnolia Pictures Buys the US Rights to I Give It a Year appeared first on Takes On Tech.

The musical portion of the program will be accompanied by a Q&A session with cast members Theo Rossi (Juice) and Ryan Hurst (Opie) along with SOA music supervisor Bob Thiele in a moderated panel format. Current dates are as follows:

• Apr 18 –  The Midland Theater Kansas City, MO
• Apr 19  - Riverside Theater Milwaukee, WI
• Apr 20 –  Mill City Nights Minneapolis, MN
• Apr 21  - Vic Theater Chicago, IL

The post Katey Sagal and SOA Cast to Appear Live appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Justin Timberlake

You can stream the album to your computer or your iPad for free for a limited time on iTunes. You can also pre-order from iTunes for $10.99 and get Timberlake’s new song Mirrors.

The post Listen to The 20/20 Experience Free on iTunes appeared first on Takes On Tech.

“Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland,” the band, which now consists of bassist Robert DeLeo, guitarist Dean DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz, said in a statement.

The band hasn’t disclosed the reason for firing Weiland.

“I learned of my supposed ‘termination’ from Stone Temple Pilots this morning by reading about it in the press,” Weiland said in a statement.

“Not sure how I can be ‘terminated’ from a band that I founded, fronted and co-wrote many of its biggest hits, but that’s something for the lawyers to figure out,” he added.

Weiland, 45,  helped the Stone Temple Pilots score hits with guitar-heavy songs like “Plush” in 1993 and “Interstate Love Song” the following year.

The band broke up in 2003 and reformed in 2008.

During that interval Weiland was in the rock group Velvet Revolver with former members of Guns N’ Roses among others.

The post Stone Temple Pilots Fire Front Man Scott Weiland appeared first on Takes On Tech.

“We have found no evidence that Google’s policy has had a demonstrable impact on demoting sites with large amounts of piracy,” the RIAA said in a statement. “These sites consistently appear at the top of Google’s search results for popular songs or artists.”

Between December 2011 and November 2012, Google removed 97.5 percent of all URLs listed in copyright removal requests. It now takes the company an average of six hours to process each request, with infringing websites being hit in search rankings if sufficient numbers of complaints are received.

Google suggests the vast majority of requests are legitimate and subsequently honored, however many are found to be blatant attempts to abuse the takedown system. Examples of misuse include an unnamed movie studio that asked for a legitimate IMDB page to be removed from search results, a reporting organization that asked for unfavorable movie reviews to be omitted, several instances of companies attempting to delist competitors, and attempts by individuals to remove search results pointing to negative comments or other information.

The post RIAA Report States Google’s Anti-Piracy Efforts Are Ineffectual appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Spotify has allegedly already started talks with Warner Music, and should meet with people from Sony and Universal in the near future. The sources suggest that Spotify urgently needs a deal; some 70 percent of the service’s revenues are said to pay for music licensing fees, while another 20 percent covers customer acquisition. That leaves just 10 percent for everything else, effectively negating any profit

The post Spotify Hoping to Offer Free Service Tier on Mobile Devices appeared first on Takes On Tech.

“Josh & Me & BABY makes three!!!,” she tweeted. She also posted photos of herself and her husband as toddlers.

It is the first child for the couple married in 2009.

The post Fergie and Josh Duhamel Having Their First Baby appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Yesterday, Baauer climbed all the way to the top of iTunes’ all-genre “Top Songs” list, and despite the fact that “Harlem Shake” has been temporarily displaced by One Direction’s “One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks),” it’s still ahead of powerhouse sellers like Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” and Rihanna’s “Stay.” Plus, once the Directioners have all bought their fave boy band’s song, which should take approximately an hour, “Harlem Shake” will likely return to No. 1.

It’s unclear whether sales for “Harlem Shake” are driven by buyers who want to use the song to make their own 30-second-long videos  or if they’re true fans of the song.

Last week, YouTube reported that over 4,000 “Harlem Shake” videos were being uploaded every day

The post ‘Harlem Shake’ hits No. 1 on iTunes appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Some of the features include offline playback of cached tracks; the abllity to add/remove tracks, stations, and playlists on the fly with the My Music tool; searchable listening history; and improvements in audio performance, album art, and search. Rhapsody offers a music streaming service for a number of platforms.

The Windows Phone 8 app can be downloaded starting today.

The post Rhapsody Launches Windows Phone 8 App appeared first on Takes On Tech.

The Guide is a tool that music lovers can use to more easily discover music, news, sports, and other radio channels. It is also easier to view station, artist, song, and album pages, as well as to share content via social networks and email. The application itself is free to download for Android and iOS devices. he BlackBerry and Windows Phone versions have yet to be updated.

The post Slacker Relaunches with New Plans, Redesigned Apps appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Austin Wintory’s composition of thatgamecompany’s Journey soundtrack earned him a Grammy nomination in the Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media category, an accomplishment Wintory was shocked to achieve. It marked the first time a full video game score was recognized by the Academy, following Christopher Tin’s win in 2011 with the song “Baba Yetu” from the Civilization 4 soundtrack.

Last night, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross took home the Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, for their The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo music. Wintory took the news in stride on Twitter, congratulating Reznor on the win.

“Obviously I didn’t work on #JourneyPS3 hoping to win a Grammy,” Wintory later tweeted. “The entire point was the game itself and that’s gone beyond my wildest dreams.” Journey won the top honor at the DICE 2013 awards.

The post Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Wins Best Soundtrack Over Journey appeared first on Takes On Tech.

One Direction – Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson – were discovered by Simon Cowell on the U.K.’s “The X Factor” in 2010. The band quickly gained a following to become one of the competition’s all-time most popular acts, finishing in the final three and garnering a gigantic and loyal fanbase along the way.

In March 2012, One Direction’s debut album, “Up All Night,” made U.S. history, as it was the first time a U.K. group’s debut album entered the U.S. Billboard 200 chart at No. 1. The band has sold over 13 million records worldwide. In November 2012, One Direction released their sophomore album, “Take Me Home,” which includes the hit “Live While We’re Young.”

The post Trailer for the One Direction 3D Movie appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Until now, a subscription was required to download and own tracks from eMusic. Now, while customers will be able to buy tracks from the store without needing the subscription, those that do still pay the fee will get discounts of between 25 and 50-percent on their purchases, as well as a credit for free music downloads.

The change in business model is hoped by eMusic to encourage more people to buy music through it instead of services such as iTunes, though this is not the only positive side-effect of the new business model. Klein claims to be “in talks with potential partners in the OEM market, and also with wireless and cable operators, as well as big box retailers.”

The post eMusic Online Store Now Open to All – Subscriptions Provide Discounts appeared first on Takes On Tech.

“In an evening that celebrates the artistry of movies and music,” said producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, “how could the telecast be complete without Barbra Streisand? We are honored that she has agreed to do a very special performance on this year’s Oscars, her first time singing on the show in 36 years.”

Streisand won her first Oscar for Best Actress in Funny Girl (1968), and was nominated again in 1973 for her lead performance in The Way We Were. She was also nominated for producing the Best Picture nominee The Prince of Tides (1991), which she also directed, and for co-writing the original song “I Finally Found Someone” from The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).

Oscars for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, February 24, at the Dolby Theatre™ at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and will be hosted by Seth MacFarlane live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

The post Barbra Streisand to Perform on The Oscars appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Users will get an unlimited number of track skips for mixes, and can also download more than the current limit of four Mixes at a time, each Mix consisting of over an hour’s worth of music, and can be played without an Internet connection, according to a company blog post. The Music+ quality is also said to be up to eight times the quality of the free tier, and also includes the option of setting when downloads of the high-quality streams can occur, such as when on a Wi-Fi connection. A web app will allow access to Music+ through a computer or smart TV as well as Lumia devices, while lyrics for songs can be downloaded and scrolled through as a song plays through.

Nokia Music+, rolling out in the coming weeks, will cost around $4 per month, depending on territory.

The post Nokia Announces Subscription Plan for Its Music Service appeared first on Takes On Tech.

“Everybody Needs a Best Friend,” with music by Walter Murphy and lyrics by Seth MacFarlane, is nominated for an Original Song Oscar. This will be Jones’s first time performing on an Oscar show.

“I had such a great time recording this song with Seth, and was thrilled to find out that it was nominated for an Oscar,” said Jones. “Getting to perform it at such a prestigious event, which my friend is hosting, is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“We are happy to have Norah Jones perform Seth’s and Walter Murphy’s nominated song on our Oscar telecast,” said producers Zadan and Meron. “We are big admirers of Norah’s singing and she will help celebrate the unique circumstance of having an Oscar host who is also nominated for Best Original Song.”

Oscars for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, February 24, at the Dolby Theatre  at Hollywood & Highland Center, and will be hosted by Seth MacFarlane live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

The post Norah Jones Will Perform Nominated Song From Ted at the Oscars appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Adele’s exclusive Oscar show performance will be the first time she will have performed “Skyfall” anywhere live and will also mark her first U.S. television performance since the Grammys last year.

“It’s an honour to be nominated and terrifyingly wonderful to be singing in front of people who have captured my imagination over and over again,” said Adele. “It’s something I’ve never experienced and probably only ever will once!”

“We have enormous respect for Adele’s unique artistry as a songwriter and a singer,” said Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the producers of this year’s Academy Awards show. “She is currently one of the most successful recording artists in the world, and we believe that her performance of ‘Skyfall’ will be an exciting Oscar moment for audiences watching at the Dolby Theatre and on television screens around the world.” 

Oscar.com celebrates Adele’s performance with a special gallery of some of the most memorable James Bond theme songs through the years. You can check it out here.

Oscars for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, February 24, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and will be hosted by Seth MacFarlane live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

The post Adele to Perform Skyfall at the Oscars appeared first on Takes On Tech.

An idea that Pandora is “cooking up,” he says, is giving artists the ability to log in and see a map that shows “where their thumbs-ups are.”

Bands could plot tour schedules that would hit their “thumbs-up zones” and “then, with a click of a button, log out, get in the van and drive to those cities,” Westergren says. “Their listeners will be alerted a couple weeks before they get to those locations … that this band is coming and have one-click ability to buy tickets.”

Westergren didn’t offer a timeframe for possible availability of the service. However, he said that such a service, combined with the growing Pandora listening audience – it had 67 million active listeners in December 2012, up 41% from last year – could boost the music ecosystem. “Put that together with a robust radio and we have the makings of real exciting healthy, profitable and growing music industry,” he said.

The post Pandora Founder Plots DIY Touring Service appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Brett Boles, author of the musical “Foreverman,” and Tony Award-winning producer Van Dean have organized a benefit concert later this month to raise money for United Way of Western Connecticut’s Sandy Hook School Support Fund.

“From Broadway with Love: A Benefit Concert For Sandy Hook,” featuring song, dance and other appearances from some of Broadway’s biggest names, will take place at the Palace Theater in Waterbury, Conn., on January 28. Waterbury is 20 miles from Newtown.

A long list of Tony Award-winning or nominated performers are scheduled to appear, including Brian Stokes Mitchell (“Kiss Me Kate“), Stephen Schwartz (“Wicked“), Marc Shaiman (“Hairspray“) and Christine Ebersole (“Grey Gardens“).

“The outpouring of love and support from the Broadway community has been incredibly heartwarming,” Dean said in a statement. “Everyone was looking for a way they could use their talents to bring something positive to the community. ‘From Broadway With Love’ provides them with the perfect outlet to do so.”

Although the evening will be free for Sandy Hook families and first responders, some tickets will be available to the public for $50 to $250.

The post From Broadway with Love: A Benefit Concert For Sandy Hook Happens on January 28 appeared first on Takes On Tech.

The event will mark the ninth year that City Winery founder Michael Dorf has held a show to raise money for educational programs. Groups that have previously benefited from the concerts includes organizations like the Church Street School of Music, Music Unites and Young Audiences New York. This year’s show will assist Little Kids Rock, the Center for Arts Education and several other groups.

The Rolling Stones, Elton John and Bob Dylan are among the artists who have been honored in the past. Dorf says he believes Prince is a necessary addition to that list. “Prince is one of the most prolific songwriters in my collection, and he makes my Top 10 when I think about the artists who have truly shaped modern music,” he said.

Prince released a new music video in November for his song “Rock and Roll Love Affair”. The track is to be included on his upcoming but still untitled album.

The post Prince Will Be Honored at Carnegie Hall appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Pepsi announced Friday that 100 fans will hit the stage when the Grammy-winning diva performs on Feb. 3 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.

A contest that kicks off Saturday will allow fans to submit photos of themselves in various poses, including head bopping, feet tapping and hip shaking. Those pictures will be used in a TV ad introducing Beyonce’s halftime performance, and 50 people – along with a friend – will be selected to join the singer onstage.

The photo contest — at www.pepsi.com/halftime — ends Jan. 19, but Jan. 11 is the cut-off date for those interested in appearing onstage with Beyonce.

The post You Can Win a Spot on Stage with Beyonce at the Super Bowl appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Madonna, 54, topped Billboard’s list of highest-grossing live tours, earning an estimated $228.4 million in ticket sales from her sold-out ninth worldwide tour in support of her 12th studio album “MDNA.” The singer will wrap her tour in South America this weekend, after performing more than 80 shows across the world starting in Israel in May.

Madonna came ahead of pop star Lady Gaga, who landed at No. 6, with ticket sales of $124.9 million from her worldwide “Born This Way Ball” tour. Gaga, 26, is currently midway through her tour, which kicked off in South Korea in April, and will wrap in Oklahoma in March 2013.

Music publication Billboard compiled its list through estimated gross ticket sales figures from Billboard box scores, which tracks concert tours, ticket prices and sales.

The top five highest-grossing tour acts of 2012 included Bruce Springsteen, 63, and the E Street band at No. 2 with $199 million from 72 shows and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, 69, at No. 3 with $186 million.

Cirque Du Soleil’s homage to late singer Michael Jackson in “The Immortal World Tour” ranked No. 4 with $147.3 million over 183 shows, and British rock band Coldplay was fifth with $147.2 million over 67 shows.

The post Madonna Earns Billboard’s Top-Grossing Tour Crown appeared first on Takes On Tech.

We’re gonna do some recording in January, early February,” drummer Butch Vig to Rolling Stone.

The post Garbage Heading Back Into the Studio appeared first on Takes On Tech.

He became popular in the 1950′s with the advent of the “West Coast ” jazz movement and gave fans such classics as “Take Five” and “Blue Rondo a la Turk”. Mr. Brubeck was one day short of his 92nd birthday.

The post Jazz Legend Dave Brubeck, Dead at Age 91 appeared first on Takes On Tech.

While a mobile music store adds little to the marketplace on its own, the addition of a free scan and match service, allowing up to 20,000 songs to be stored from a customer’s personal music collection, is certainly unusual in Europe. While apple and Amazon both offer scan and match services that can hold an entire music library at a cost, Amazon’s free version caps out at just 250 tracks. An app called “Music Manager” can be downloaded and organize what tracks can be added to the Google Music digital locker, uploading those that are not available to play on the service. Tracks can then be played through the Play Music app on handsets or through a web interface, though Google does limit the number of downloads to twice per track, rather than streaming them.

The app was last updated on Google Play on November 12th, and according to store metrics, has received between 10 million and 50 million downloads since launch. Google Music has already been available in the states for a year.

The post Google Ships Play Music Store, Music Manager in Europe appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Sirius XM Radio

“SiriusXM’s Town Hall with Willie Nelson” will air live on Willie Nelson’s Willie’s Roadhouse, channel 56, on Tuesday, November 20 at 2:00 pm ET. “SiriusXM’s Town Hall with Willie Nelson” will be rebroadcast on Willie’s Roadhouse and Outlaw Country, channel 60, throughout the week. The special is part of SiriusXM’s “Town Hall” series, intimate gatherings with iconic musicians and a studio audience of SiriusXM listeners. Previous “SiriusXM Town Hall” specials have featured Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, Tom Petty, Jason Aldean, Aerosmith, Coldplay, Ringo Starr, Roger Waters, Gregg Allman, Linkin Park, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Ziggy Marley and the surviving members of Nirvana.

Moderated by Johnny Knoxville, a fan of Nelson’s and a SiriusXM host, “SiriusXM’s Town Hall with Willie Nelson” will feature Nelson answering questions about his life, influences and his outlaw wisdom, all of which is narrated in his new book Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.

After the live broadcast, “SiriusXM’s Town Hall with Willie Nelson” will be available on SiriusXM On Demand for subscribers listening via the SiriusXM Internet Radio App for smartphones and other mobile devices or online at siriusxm.com.

The post SiriusXM to Air Willie Nelson Town Hall on Nov. 20 appeared first on Takes On Tech.

In the video for “Looking Hot,” Gwen Stefani and her three band mates – Tony Kanal, Adrian Young and Tom Dumont – play cowboy and Indians in stereotypical costumes offended fans and the Native American community. Stefani, 43, donned a high-fashion version of a traditional Native American headdress while Dumont and Young wore cowboy getups in a mock showdown with Kanal, who also wore stereotypical Native American costume.

The band, after receiving many angry comments on their video on YouTube, opted to pull the video shortly after its release Friday, and issued an apology on their website the next day.

“As a multi-racial band our foundation is built upon both diversity and consideration for other cultures,” they wrote. “Our intention with our new video was never to offend, hurt or trivialize Native American people, their culture or their history.

“Although we consulted with Native American friends and Native American studies experts at the University of California, we realize now that we have offended people. This is of great concern to us and we are removing the video immediately.

“The music that inspired us when we started the band, and the community of friends, family, and fans that surrounds us was built upon respect, unity and inclusiveness,” they added. “We sincerely apologize to the Native American community and anyone else offended by this video. Being hurtful to anyone is simply not who we are.”

The post No Doubt Apologizes and Pulls Video After Protests appeared first on Takes On Tech.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 soundtrack, a joint effort of Trent Reznor and Jack Wall, will be available for download on iTunes this upcoming Tuesday, right alongside the launch of Treyarch’s game. If you want a sample, you can listen to the main menu theme song right now on YouTube.

If you’re picking up the Hardened Edition or Care Package Collector’s Edition, the soundtrack is included, so don’t sweat the iTunes soundtrack.

The post Black Ops 2 Soundtrack Hitting iTunes at Game Launch appeared first on Takes On Tech.

Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX theaters on December 14, the Peter Jackson film stars Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Evangeline Lilly, Andy Serkis, Richard Armitage, John Bell, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Barry Humphries, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Sylvester McCoy, Bret McKenzie, Graham McTavish, Mike Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean O’Gorman, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt, Conan Stevens, Ken Stott, Jeffrey Thomas, Aidan Turner and Billy Connolly.

The post Neil Finn to Provide Credits Song for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey appeared first on Takes On Tech.