Barry Willis

Media conglomerate <A HREF="http://www.viacom.com">Viacom</A&gt;, parent company of <A HREF="http://blockbuster.com"&gt; Blockbuster Music</A>, has reportedly put the ailing chain on the auction block. Most likely buyer is Torrance, California-based music retailer <A HREF="http://wherehouse.com">Wherehouse Entertainment, Inc.</A>, which has 220 stores of its own, primarily on the West Coast. On Wednesday, May 13, Reuters news service reported that Wherehouse had tendered an offer of $200 million for Blockbuster. Wherehouse has been in intermittent discussions for several months with Viacom.

Author and television producer Howard J. Blumenthal has completed his Jazz and World Music <I>CD Listener's Guides</I>, the first two volumes in a four-volume series. The publications include brief biographies of the top artists in each genre, arranged alphabetically, and hundreds of short reviews of the discs the author considers essential.

The world&#198;s first DVD-Audio single will soon be out from the rock group Full on the Mouth. "People Mover" is a track from the group&#198;s forthcoming album, <I>Collide</I>. "We felt a 5.1 surround-sound mix would be a great medium to showcase the capabilities and technology of DVD and the electronic elements of Full on the Mouth,'' said Charlie Lico, chief executive officer of the band&#198;s label, Pioneer Music Group, which is a subsidiary of <A HREF="http://www.pioneerusa.com"&gt; Pioneer Electronic Corporation.</A>

The numbers are up for <A HREF="http://www.cdnow.com">CDnow</A&gt;. The world's largest online music retailer reported April 30 that its first-quarter sales increased 288% over the same period in 1997. The company took in $10 million in revenue through the period ending March 31, an increase of 26.4% over the previous quarter, in which revenue totaled $7.9 million.

Remember when you weren't too busy to make your own cassette tapes to play in the car? How you could link one song to the next by genre or theme or beat or musical key? Remember how much more satisfying it was to listen to those tapes than it was to listen to the radio? No commercials, no announcers, no filler---and you liked every tune.

Questions for music lovers: 1) Have you been racking your brain trying to remember who recorded <I>Ruby Vroom</I>? 2) Do you know how many Tim Hardin recordings are available on CD? 3) Which album featured Head East's "Never Been Any Reason," considered by some connoisseurs the greatest rock song ever?

Specialty audio manufacturers did better than expected in 1997, with factory sales as high as $1.4 billion, as reported <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10148/">last week</A>. More figures from the <A HREF="http://www.cema.org">Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association</A> indicate that the High End's good fortune is part of a bigger trend.