Over the last several weeks, one newspaper after another has made note of Nielsen Soundscan's 2006 point-of-purchase data, which showed classical record sales up 22.5%, making it the "fastest growing" category for the year. Hip-hop was down (-20.7%), R&B was down (-18.4%), alternative was down (-9.2%), jazz was down (-8.3%)—soundtracks were up (+19%), but everybody dismissed that, attributing it to the dominance of a single title, High School Musical.
On March 2, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) published a "Determination of Rates and Terms," which announced an artist and recording company royalty fee structure for Internet radio based upon a "per song" structure. As it so happens, that was the model proposed by SoundExchange, a digital fee collection agency founded by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
So I'm sitting in traffic on MOPAC, the north/south expressway in Austin, listening to Willie Nile sing "Streets of New York," a tune that can be thought of as his "Jungleland" from his latest album, Streets of New York, on the CD player of my rented Jeep Liberty.