links for 2009-08-19

9 out of 10 people in the U.S. never listen to music on their cell phones. That's the key finding in a new Forester Research study The Future Of Music On Cell Phones. In my opinion the music and cellular industries have only themselves to blame.

The pioneers of the music industry couldn't have seen this coming in their wildest dreams. When publishers were selling sheet music in the late 1800s, the idea of people privately sharing their product, independent of location and physical constraints, would have seemed ridiculous. But now record labels have been decimated by the digital shift, and are rethinking their entire business model to survive.

Bad Lieutenant is the new band formed from the ashes of the New Order break up. It features Bernard Sumner and late-period New Order guitarist Phil Cunningham, as well as new guy Jake Evans. Their first single, called ‘Sink or Swim’, is streaming on the band’s MySpace as I type…

Elbow have the makings of some 40 new songs for their next record, the follow-up to the Mercury-winning 'The Seldom Seen Kid'. "I've got a couple of books worth of scribbles so we're just going to keep doing that for maybe six months. After that we'll hammer the strongest ideas into a record," frontman Guy Garvey told BBC 6 Music.

– Apple (AAPL) now controls the largest share of the music business, its iTunes Store accounting for 25% of unit sales in the first half of 2009, up from 14% in 2007.
– Compact discs are still the most popular format for paid music, accounting for 65% of unit sales