A few days overdue, but nonetheless finally ready for prime time! We’ve been putting together something quite special at Revolver Towers for a while now, and we can finally unveil what we’ve been so excited about: our artists’ music can now be sold in more than 300 of the most prominent download stores worldwide.

On Monday the 6th of June, Apple’s keynote at their World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC 2011) had many positive things to announce: OSX Lion, with its $24.99 price tag, vast array of new and improved features and cloud download to Macs (ala Steam); iOS version 5 for mobile devices, and their revamped mobileMe cloud service – dubbed iCloud – to complement them all.

Of all the features introduced, most are unremarkable or arguably not very innovative. If anything, they are just an amalgamation of features previously available elsewhere, except now in an Apple-mandated, fully synchronised, pain-free fashion. All you need to enjoy? An Apple device.

However, the real announcement (the one occupying most of the acres of print and online coverage, and the one also keeping the independent music sector on tenterhooks) has been Apple’s music service. Precious little was revealed prior to the WWDC keynote (in typical Apple fashion), but the real kicker from Steve Jobs came with the traditional ‘One More Thing’ announcement… iTunes Match. Click to read the full rundown from the event and understand why Apple’s new cloud-based music subscription service might not be without its problems.

We’re always pushing ahead with new technology and new gadgetry. Our shiny new digital store is no different – and it’s now live on the Internet!

320kbps MP3s of Revolver Records, Heavy Metal Records and Revolver Digital artists, all in one convenient place, instantly downloadable… And for less than they cost on iTunes. Bargain or what?

Head over to Digital.RevolverRecords.com and start your virtual cratedigging sesh today!

Announcing our new Revolver Digital Store, in collaboration with Friend For Music!

As part of our longstanding commitment to music, we have always been at the forefront of new developments in the industry.

Be it Direct Metal Mastering and releasing music on the (then-new) CD format in the 1980s or our support of the first mass market music services in the early 2000s. Today, we continue to release CDs and make increasing amounts of our catalogue available for instant purchase or via one of the many streaming services, satisfying the shifting customer demand we have witnessed over the past decade.

Like many other indie labels, we have no illusions as to the state of the music industry – whilst revenues began to decline in the 1990s, that decline has no doubt been accelerated by the widespread availability of copyrighted music via the Internet. For all the inches of copy, coverage and layoffs in the “Big Four” labels, it has directly hurt independent labels to a far greater extent. And not only that, but artists have felt the pinch too – for labels releasing new material, it’s more important than ever to preserve the integrity of a release prior to its full release whilst still offering promotional copies to radio stations, journalists and selected individuals.

As you may have seen on Hypebot or NME.com this week, the BPI’s final summary of 2009 music industry figures have been released and it’s ‘a mixed bag.’

The gory details:

* Total UK recorded music trade income rises 1.4% overall to £928.8m
* Trade revenues from physical formats down 6.1% to £739.9m
* Digital income now a fifth of total recorded music revenues – up 47.8% to £188.9m

The main observation: digital sales have offset the losses accrued in physical sales, leaving not a very large margin of growth at all. Forrester Research usually provide their insight into BPI stats and figures, and once again they’re on hand for an expert opinion…

Once upon a time, the major labels controlled the charts absolutely with an iron fist. Radio stations only playlisted tracks from major labels, payola was rife and pluggers knew the station controllers on a first name basis, they were in their offices so frequently.

Today, the major labels control the charts, but independence is slowly making itself felt. Radio stations still really only playlist tracks from major labels, but even with the passing of John Peen there are still some notable torchbearers for new, fresh and independent music (think Zane Lowe et al). Payola? Well, it’s still probably there to an …

Although the latest BPI statistics show that an all-time record of 98.6% of all UK single sales were digital (over 117 million!), the digital world has not fully divorced itself from its history in the real world.

If you’re an artist selling your music online, you still need the essentials – EAN13 barcode, catalogue number and (most importantly) an ISRC for each track, or you simply cannot have your tracks on any of the major online stores. (As a label with 30 years’ operating experience and almost a thousand albums under our belt, this irony’s not lost on us!)

However, unless you work with them on a daily basis, ISRCs can look confusing. How are they made up? What do they mean – and what purpose do they serve? In the first of our Industry Insider articles, Revolver explains it all – read on to find out.

Time and time again, we receive boxes upon boxes of demos at Revolver Towers. A few of them are good, some not so much – but a lot of them are completely irrelevant, which makes us sad.

‘Why is this?’ you say. ‘How come you don’t listen to all the demos you receive?’ Well, for a couple of reasons… First: indie labels usually don’t have many staff members. Second: when we do get time to listen to some demos, it’s usually not much (twenty minutes here, ten minutes there)… Most demo appraisal happens in small bursts, just so we can work …

If you’ve not been keeping an eye on the news recently, you might have missed the announcement from EDC that they have decided to shut down their Blackburn manufacturing facility on the 31st of December this year. From then on, all of their manufacturing operations will be moved to EDC’s Hannover facilities. As one of the last remaining CD manufacturers with facilities actually located in the UK, this has come as sad news – not only for the Blackburn’s local economy and the company’s employees, but for the entire music industry in general.

Jack Straw, the Blackburn constituency MP, …

A 45% increase in digital sales has helped slow the decline in the UK music market to just 4% in the first half of the year.

New interim trade delivery figures from the IFPI show that of the top five music territories, the UK was the best performer digitally with sales worth $115.8m (£74.52m) already (they stood at $169.5m [£109.02m] at the end of 2007).

Thus, although physical sales slumped 10% – the UK and US markets combined accounted for a 60% loss of physical sales globally – in the same period, the digital growth prevented a total collapse.

Digital sales now account …