(Photo: lollypopslv.com)

A great week for chest-thumping and big moneymaking. Pop the hood for the goods.

RACKS ON RACKS ON RACKS

In news likely to make you hate your job, '90s also-ran Akinyele says he's bagging millions from his new strip club joint. Akinyele is famous for the potty-mouthed anthem "Put it in Your Mouth." While subsequent projects flopped, the Queens rapper may have found his true calling.

Ak and his business partners, Cliff Dutton and Jay, launched a strip club called Lollypops in Las Vegas. And the rapper issued a press release claiming that they raked in $5 million in one week.

How exactly do you make that much in one week?

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Photo by Marc Brubaker

The music business fuckery continues. An industry so destructive it only benefits the top dogs (and even so, temporarily), while the actual players continue to eat sand out of peanuts. Who's winning? Who's losing?

Dig in for this week's music-bidness shenanigans.

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Marc Brubaker

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) released its 2012 report this week, confirming that the music industry may finally have a reason to be cautiously optimistic about its future. The industry saw its first year-over-year growth since 2004, piracy notwithstanding.

The IFPI report is a must-read for anyone who cares about music. Eight things we learned from the report after the jump.

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So you want to be a rock star? Cool. Well, there's this thing called the Internet. You see, the Internet is like the giant beanstalk in Puss in Boots. Take the right steps and it'll get you all the way to the top. You might even find a magical goose. Take one wrong turn, however, and down you go tumbling off the giant beanstalk. Don't tumble off the giant beanstalk. But if you're curious about how NOT to promote your music online, please read on.

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Photo by Robert Bejil

Where were we? Oh yeah, crystal ball and prophesies. You ready for this? OK. What follows is a list of events we expect to befall the music industry in 2012. Yes, these are etched in stone and should be regarded as gospel. Full prophetic titillation ahead.

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XL/Columbia

Theologians love saying things like "Man is created superior to animals" and "Animals can't be equal with humans." And then we go scouring philosophy books to see if animals have immortal spirits and if this means we'll someday meet our pets in heaven. That's a bunch of horse dung.

The only difference between man and animal is a five-letter word: greed. Greed makes the world go round. Greed is what fuels business decisions in entertainment. Greed is the CEO of the music industry. Keep that in mind as you reflect on this year's music business highlights.

And because the topic wasn't already exhaustive enough, we decided to make things interesting by throwing in band names. We're pretty sure we left out a few stories, so please feel free to give us shit about it in the comment box.

Peep game.

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Spotify made one hell of an entrance in July. Swedish-founded and U.K.-headquartered, Spotify arrived the States three months ago to adoring fans. Like a new bride, glowing in the light, flashing that pizza smile logo at us. Everyone wanted a piece of the sexy digital jukebox. Now that the veil has been peeled and the honeymoon has ended, it's clear that Spotify isn't exactly the messiah of legal music. One heartbroken groom in particular, Thes One of People Under the Stairs fame, isn't so into Spotify.

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techonzo.com

Google is finally launching its own music service. Google Music is a full-scale music service/store designed to compete with Amazon and Apple. Android boss Andy Rubin says they're very close to launch. About a dozen independent labels are have already joined forces with Google and the service is slated to arrive in the next two weeks.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that Google Music is off to a rocky start. Although Google has been talking to all four major music labels about licensing their catalogs for the new service, the The Wall Street Journal reported that only EMI (the smallest) is close to striking a deal.

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J: Cole: Zero hit singles, 218K first-week sales.

​The music industry has been reeling from a host of ailments, none more severe than crippling record sales. Fortunately, 2011 has been a strong year so far, with CD sales on the rise.

Spearheaded by the likes of Adele, Lady Gaga and Lil Wayne, album sales rose to 228.5 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That's a 3 percent uptick from the 221.1 million albums sold over the same period in 2010.

Adele has moved more than 4 million copies of her single "Rolling in the Deep." But she's not just an MP3 marvel; she also sold 4 million copies of her album 21. You get the feeling that she would've still sold a shit-ton of records without a hit single.

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No other company has changed the music industry as much as Apple. For the better part of the last decade, the late Steve Jobs and his co-conspirators have empowered music consumers in ways no one would have ever imagined.

The monstrous iTunes store made it possible for anybody to buy music without ever leaving the comfort of their home. And it paid huge dividends. iTunes went from a small digital enterprise to the world's largest music retailer in just eight years. Not largest online store - largest store, period, a bottomless pit of songs and albums, all affordable and within the click of a mouse.

Here are five ways Apple revolutionized the music industry.

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