A thought: as the traditional record industry continues to crumble, new and innovative ways to market bands and their music are emerging, as seen in today’s New York Times. Brian Message, manager of Radiohead, is interviewed in the business section about his latest business venture, called Polyphonic. He plans to invest a few hundred thousand dollars in a multitude of bands without record deals, helping them gain direct access to new audiences via the internet. Bands will be viewed as independent start-ups of sorts, recording their own music and cherry picking outside agents to run their publicity, touring, and merchandising while also maintaining ownership of their master recordings. Message is joined by Adam Driscoll of MAMA Group, a British media company, and Terry McBride of Nettwerk Music Group. The company will have offices in New York, Los Angeles, and London.

The Sony Walkman turned 30 today and yet no one has wheeled out a cake or piñata to celebrate. In fact Sony seems to be a bit bashful about this milestone birthday. Whether it is because of other issues going on in the company that take precedent or because the Walkman’s major opponent, Apple’s iPod, has been stealing the Walkman’s fans left and right, the Walkman isn’t getting the appreciation and celebration it deserves on this momentous occasion. Sony has been too busy with the Walkman’s younger siblings such as Vaio personal computers and Cyber-shot cameras to devote any real time to this virtually-defunct machine which, over the course of its 30-year lifespan, has been sold
385 million times. Instead, Sony devoted a small section in its archival exhibit alongside other discontinued products. It’s hard to keep up when in just 8 years Apple has already sold 210 million iPods (a number it probably took Sony approximately 16 years to reach, if you do the math). Nonetheless, the Sony Walkman was a major step forward in “Listening to Stereophonic Sound While Walking” technology (as Sony’s online archive puts it), and for that we are forever grateful.

—Meryl Natow