CNET reports that Apple will launch iTunes for Windows next week!

I've been green with envy since reading the rave reviews of the Mac iTunes, so me and my iPod eagerly await our turn to try it out!

As part of a settlement over price fixing, consumers of CDs, casettes, and albums are eligible for a possible $20 refund. Consumers of music bought between January 1, 1995 and December 22, 2000 are considered part of the class action.

But I wonder if the record companies are also going to include bills for illegally downloaded music with the checks?

Not interested in somebody you meet, but hate telling them no to their face? As first seen in this article (via Obscure Store), the Rejection Hotline is a fake number you can give out that will break the news to the unsuccessful suitor. Numbers available in 14 cities and even internationally! Guess I'll have to remember the number for Chicago, so I don't end up a victim!

As a cool aside, the founder, Jeff Goldblatt, is a fellow 1999 Emory University grad.

Well this isn't yet Real World in a double-wide, but on the heels of a Beverly Hillbillies reality show, Fox is planning a Green Acres reality show! They're going to take weathy people (possibly celebs) and transplant them to the rural south, without their cash, cars or jobs.

Now I am curious who would volunteer for such a show? They've already got money, and you'd hope that along with that come some dignity. I just can't imagine some Manhattan socialite wanting to work the night shift at some Alabama Wal-Mart just to get on TV. And Anna Nicole's already got her show...

As if we aren't already sick of stupid reality shows, now Beverly Hillbillies will become a reality show. CBS plans to take a rural, lower-middle class family and transplant them to Beverly Hills, granny and all. Is this really any different from the Anna Nicole Show?

The only reality show I'd want to see that's never been done would be for MTV to have the next Real World take place in a double-wide trailer in rural Mississippi. Maybe with a foster child thrown in, for good measure.

So the Osbournes are taking in a teenager whose mother died of the same cancer that afflicts Ozzy's wife Sharon. He'll continue his eductation and be a part of the "Osbournes" show next season.

Gosh, only the second season and they're already resorting to taking in troubled youth? Kind of like when Leonardo played homeless youth Luke Brower on "Growing Pain" or when the Cosby's took in cousin Pam, or The Brady's took in cousin Oliver.

Now you can have Tony Soprano's house! The house that play's Tony Soprano's on TV is owned by Victor and Patti Recchia, and they are offering up a CD-ROM with full blueprints for only $699 so that you, too, can have Tony's house. Meadow and Anthony Jr. sold seperately.

I had an interesting conversation with a good friend of mine from NY about the music biz the day after that Janis Ian post. He was, until AOLTW cutbacks a month ago, an asst. to the President of Atlantic Records. He knows just how tight the relationship acutally is between the labels and the radio/live venue operators (i.e. Clear Channel) and how there's virtually no way for somebody not connected with a major label to get any airplay. The whole pay-for-play is back.

My friend doubted my thoughts about artists using the internet as their primary promotion venue because he thought only certain segments of musicians have enough of a following who are comfortable downloading music, but I argued that that could rapidly change. While a band like Phish or Dave Matthews might be able to do it today, it won't be long before all segments of the population will be comforable with downloading music, particularly if it were legal and easy.

And I believe that the whole Cluetrain effect could have an impact. Music is really something passed by word-of-mouth and any human contact with the band really seems to have a bonding effect with fans. I remember how cool it was when I got an acual email back from a member of moe. after seeing their show at Variety Playhouse in Atlanta a few years back. Helps to explain why some bands keep loyal fans for years while others come and fade in no time.

I also intrigued by the potential for satallite radio to open up a new market for bands that haven't been picked up my labels or who want to bypass the labels. Kind like how cable TV allowed for new programming that allowed viewers to bypass the networks' programming designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience.

9-time Grammy nominee Janis Ian strongly refutes most of the claims by the record industry that free downloads are ruining the music biz. She makes many good points and pretty clearly articulates how the record companies are doing their best to hurt themselves while at the same time taking advantage of the musicians.

I have to agree that it's not Napster, etc. that have hurt music sales but the limited access to new and interesting music. The consolidation of the radio industry has left all major cities with very genre-specific, narrow-playlist stations playing only those that have been "chosen" by the record labels.

But I don't have the time to attend a bunch of live shows to find new bands, and I am not going to spend $15 for a CD that I've heard good things about but never actually heard. Maybe a friend can loan it to me, but maybe I don't know anyone who has it. Am I going to buy it? Probably not! But if I can hear it, then I just might.

I am waiting for the day in which the Internet and other technologies allow future musicians to completely bypass the traditional distribution channels, allowing the artists to profit more from their work while at the same time getting the music to the fans for less money. Everyone is happy (except for the record execs)!