Country superstar Toby Keith notched his third No. 1 album this week with his new "Big Dog Daddy," which sold 204,000 copies to beat out rapper Fabolous' "From Nothin' to Somethin'" and Paul McCartney's "Memory Almost Full." If you don't know much about Keith, the titles of his previous chart-topping albums should give you some sense of what he's all about: "Shock'n Y'all" and "White Trash With Money."
Variety reported on a PricewaterhouseCoopers study that predicts digital music distribution will exceed physical distribution in three years. The study pinpoints "new mobile services, attractive pricing, enhanced interoperability and record-store closings" as the main factors driving digital music's increased market share. Ring tunes -- song clips downloaded for use on cellphones -- were marked as a particularly hot digital growth area, with sales expected to rise from this year's forecast of $800 million to $1.58 billion by 2011.
Columbia Records is asking fans for help in deciding the track listing for its new Bob Dylan compilation album, called, simply, "Dylan," and due on Oct 1. Now's the chance to finally give Dylan's version of "Mr. Bojangles" the recognition it deserves. You can nominate that and any other Dylan song here.
Who was right, Clive or Kelly? By now the struggles between pop star Kelly Clarkson and her label boss Clive Davis over the direction of her new album, "My December," have been well documented. In a nutshell, Davis didn't think the album had any potential hit songs and Clarkson told him to lay off. Decide for yourself who had the better judgment -- the album is streaming on MTV's Web site in advance of its official release on June 26.
The Internet will be much quieter than usual on June 26. That's when thousands of online broadcasters plan to participate in a "Day of Silence" to protest a set of newly proposed royalty hikes that they say will endanger their ability to exist by making broadcasting prohibitively expensive. In lieu of their regular programming, stations including Live365.com, AccuRadio.com and KCRW.com will play sounds signifying the "concept of silence" (e.g., static, intermittent bleeps) as well as a smattering of public service announcements.
-- David Marchese
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