Good news if you make money from online sales — the BBC reports today that streaming music revenues have increased 40% globally so far in 2012:

On-demand services like Spotify and We7 will generate £696m for the global music industry in 2012 – a rise of 40%, new research has suggested. It means streaming music is the fastest-growing sector of the industry, overtaking downloads, which are due to see an increase of 8.5% this year.

CDs and vinyl still dominate the industry, accounting for 61% of all music sold worldwide. But sales of physical products dropped by 12% globally, and 30% in the UK. The research was carried out by industry watcher Strategy Analytics, which noted a marked contraction in the UK music market during the first six months of 2012.

But still, not all’s well in digital music land…

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.

Ah, Spotify. The company that first irked, then courted the major labels. Since 2008, it’s gone through some fairly seismic changes — leading the way with premium tiers and gradually eliminating the free-for-all ‘freemium’ tier which resulted in almost every man and his dog having a Spotify account.

However, as royalty payments have increased, Daniel Ek’s company has been forced to reduce the amount of money it allows to leave its coffers, a sure sign that the intrusive interstitial advertising hasn’t proved as effective as they’d liked…

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.

Today on BBC News Online I observed an interesting opinion piece discussing how the recent wave of indie rock artists has somewhat faded into premature obscurity. But why?

It’s been a busy few months in the music industry, and the middle of the month’s been punctuated by an against-the-grain suggestion from former Warner Music label head Rob Dickins at this year’s In The City festival:

“What we need is a revolution. What we’ve got is an erosion. When I was running Warners, a chart CD could be £12.99. A chart CD now can be £6.99, maybe even £5.99.”

Dickins then went on to proffer a price point of just £1 for an album on CD. His suggestion forms part of an enlarged theoretical “360″ model – where labels are involved …

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 …

Let’s dive into the wonderful history of physical releases and find out why getting on top of your digital music strategy is so important. Follow us down the rabbit hole…