EMI Plans Digital Music Service

EMI hopes to launch their own digital music service by year's end, the label revealed. Even though CD sales are consistently on the decline while digital sales rise, a source close to the new service says "This is not an effort to compete with iTunes or Amazon." Instead, it reflects an attempt to EMI to better connect with the internet age by providing consumers with a more modern, direct way of purchasing EMI music. The label hasn't counted out adding other labels to their enterprise, however. EMI's service will reportedly provide a blend of free and paid content, plus it will contain a "music discovery function" akin to last.fm and Pandora. The launch of their own music service might explain EMI's reluctance in the past to join similar sites like MySpace Music.

Related Stories:
• MySpace Music Launches After EMI Signs On
• Depeche Mode Signs Worldwide Deal With EMI
• After Power Shift, Layoffs Begin at EMI

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Star Trek' Is Crazy Good
• 
  TV 10 Shows to Watch This Summer
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter