Universal Music Group must be taking its name seriously these days. At a time when some proclaim the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/031907premature">demise of the classical recording industry</A>, the conglomerate's many subsidiaries &mdash;Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, and Archiv, along with ECM, which has only a marketing and distribution arrangement with UMG &mdash;are embracing new projects on multiple continents with determination and optimism.

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%)&mdash;soundtracks were up (+19%), but everybody dismissed that, attributing it to the dominance of a single title, <I>High School Musical</I>.

On March 2, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) published a <A HREF="http://www.loc.gov/crb/proceedings/2005-1/rates-terms2005-1.pdf">"Deter… of Rates and Terms,"</A> 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 <A HREF="http://www.soundexchange.com/">SoundExchange</A&gt;, 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, <I>Streets of New York</I>, on the CD player of my rented Jeep Liberty.