A Journal of Musical Things

Streamlining the music scene to help you save time, money, and energy.

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Here's our weekly check on Canadian sales of CDs and vinyl

16 hours ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

It’s not even a battle anymore. Vinyl will win over CDs in 2025. The question is by how much. Here are the latest sales figures courtesy Luminate. CDs sold in Canada last week: 26,303 (down 13.1% from last week)Vinyl sales in Canada last week: 47,649 (up 33.1% from a week ago, thanks to the sales on Record Store Day).
My spring speaking tour wraps up this week with three more events

1 day ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

I started this coast-to-coast spring speaking tour back in February, and it finally wraps up this weekend. If ten more people buy tickets to the Fredericton event, that will be 17 sellouts out of 20 shows. I hope to see you soon–and yes, there will be more dates announced for later this year. Hang tight. April 23 – Fredericton, NB at The Cap. Just ten tickets left!April 24 – Halifax, NS at The Carleton. SOLD OUTApril 26 – Whitby, ON at Whitby Curling Club.
And the winner of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame fan vote is...

1 day ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

…Phish. Once jam band fans get motivated, they’re unstoppable, apparently. Some 326,000 people cast their ballots for them to win the populist race. They’ were followed by Bad Company, Billy Idol, Cyndi Lauper, Joe Cocker, Soundgarden, and Chubby Checker. Phish got more votes than the bottom four artists combined (White Stripes, Outkast, Oasis, and Maná.)Here are the final numbers for the 2025 fan voting for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Fancy a summer concert in a vineyard? Jackson-Triggs would like to help.

1 day ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

A couple of summers back, I went to a concert at the Jackson-Triggs winery in Niagara-On-The-Lake to see a bill that included Tom Cochrane, Jim Cuddy, John Mann of Spirit of the West, and Kathleen Edwards. The gig was held at an amphitheatre in the middle of the vineyard. Spectacular stuff. Jackson-Triggs has been holding events like this for years (save for COVID) and will continue to expand things for the 2025 season.
Nice place, Lenny Kravitz! Let's take a tour of his Paris home.

1 day ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

Lenny Kravitz has a side hustle as a real estate developer and decorator with his company Kravitz Design. He’s completed a number of commercial projects (like the lovely Bisha in Toronto) and employs the same care when it comes to his personal abodes. Since about 2000, one of Lenny’s homes is a four-story Paris mansion formerly owned by Countess Anne d’Ornano, the former Mayor of Deauville. Let’s take a tour, shall we?
Ongoing History Daily: George Martin's EDM(ish) roots

1 day ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

The musical evolution of The Beatles was insane. They went from songs like “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “A Day in the Life” in less than five years. Most of this was due to the talents within the group, but we also have to credit producer George Martin for helping The Beatles realize their full potential. Some of Martin’s experience included early experiments with electronic music. In the early 60s, he met a sound technician at the BBC named Maddalena Fagandini.
Random music news for Thursday, April 24, 2025

1 day ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

Place your bets on who will be the new pope. I’ve seen odds for the name the next pope will take. “Francis” is in the lead, followed by Benedict, John Paul, Leo, and Urban. Some bookies are even accepting bets on “Donald,” “Taylor,” and “Elon,” all at 500-1. Moving to music news for April 24, 2025…It’s a miracle! Liam and Noel Gallagher spent Easter today. The Cure will release an album full of remixes of songs from Songs of a Lost World on June 13. It’ll be called Mixes of a Lost World, of course.
More than 100 Canadian artists have signed an anti-Pierre Poilievre open letter

2 days ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

With our federal election coming up Monday (April 28), the rhetoric and hype is starting to peak and a sizeable portion of the population believes that Pierre Poilievre will lead to a Trumpization of Canada. More than 100 Canadian artists have signed an open letter that opposes Poilievre and the Conservatives.
A new study says music fans are very concerned about the environmental impact of traveling to concerts

2 days ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

Reverb is an organization that focuses on trying to make the world of music more green and less harmful to the planet. Their latest study focuses on the environmental impact of concert travel, calling it “live music’s biggest climate challenge–and it’s greatest opportunity.”Reverb surveyed 35,000 concertgoers in Canada and the US. Here’s what they found. 91% of the people in the survey are concerned about climate change. I’m not sure what the remaining 9% are thinking.
A Fyre Festival music streaming music service? Please...

2 days ago | ajournalofmusicalthings.com | Alan Cross

In case you haven’t heard, Billy McFarland’s Fyre Festival 2 has, to the surprise of no one, collapsed. It will not be held anywhere in Mexico next month. In fact, it may not be held anywhere, ever, even though McFarland says that this is just a “postponement.” Sure. Fine. But McFarland and his buddies don’t know when it’s time to give up. Someone named Shawn Rech (an entrepreneur of some sort) has acquired some IP from the Fyre Festival and plans to use it to build a new music-streaming service.