• The Eagles follow in Garth Brooks' footsteps by creating a "long-term strategic marketing agreement" with Wal-Mart. The Eagles' stated reason for being attracted to Wal-Mart is the company's position on sustainable business practices. While Wal-Mart is indeed getting serious about its responsibility to stakeholders, I'm sure The Eagles were attracted to the control and expected revenue from the deal. (Read press release)

• Australia's music download tally is predicted by one research company to double next year. Analyst Marc Ganz of Ibis World sees the CD now going past the maturity stage and into the life-cycle's decline phase. I don't agree with one thing he said, though. Ganz thinks the lower price of digital music will drive down CD prices. All I've seen from labels -- other than Universal Music Group -- is extra content and stable prices, not less content and lower prices. Next year, EMI will add content to every CD. Do you think it's going to drop prices? I don't. Not in the next year or two. (Read article at ABC.net)

• Orange Country emo-ish band Midnight Hour has signed with Interscope Records. (Read post at Punknews.org)

• Not a surprise, but it's nice to have it in writing: JupiterResearch predicts the iPod's market share is safe from Microsoft's Zune for 12 to 18 months. (Read article at Digital Trends)

[music jobs] HR Manager at EMI NA; New York, NY.