• Janet Jackson debuted at the top of the album chart with 181,000 units sold -- a total that passes for a hit these days. Total album sales for the week were 7.95 million units, a 6.4% decrease over the same week last year. (Billboard.biz)

• EMI Music Publishing signed Sam Sparro. (Press release)

• Ezmo shut its virtual doors. Honestly, I had never heard of it. (Bit Player)

• The price tag for Universal Music Group's acquisition of Univision's recorded music and music publishing divisions was $153 million. (Reuters)

• A good blog for you to check out is Broken Record at the Houston Chronicle. I found it only because blogger Jeff Balke linked to a Coolfer post. Good to see more newspapers adding blogs. (Broken Record)

• Something to keep in mind as higher bitrate files are offered at download stores: "A recent informal study at the science blog Cognitive Daily revealed that out of nearly 700 volunteers, only 33 listeners could reliably tell the difference between recordings encoded at 128 kilobits per second (kbps) and 256kbps." (Electronic House)

• What can unknown artists expect from tip jar album releases? Benn Jordan is a good case study. The electronic musician put his music on P2P networks and included in the file package an html file with a PayPal "donate" button. Only 2.36% of downloaders donated. (National Post, scroll down to middle)