Well, there are plenty of reasons, though UK-based Ditto Music now claims to be able to distribute music into iTunes in under a day. “We’ve slashed upload times from 4-5 weeks to just 24 hours,” Ditto Music cofounder Lee Parsons told Digital Music News this morning. “This means that any artist can have a song for sale on iTunes, and be eligible for the charts the very next day.”

That easily beats advertised turnarounds for TuneCore (2-3 weeks), ReverbNation (6-8 weeks estimated for all placements), and CD Baby (5 weeks). Of course, bands can upload songs onto their own sites in one minute, but iTunes offers a nice imprimatur. And, it also means chart eligibility. “To think that through Ditto artists can release a chart eligible single to iTunes in just 24 hours is a staggering testament to the progress of technology,” Parsons enthused.

The secret? Parsons pointed to super-clean data and great turnaround on the iTunes side. Ditto already distributes 12,000 artists, but now the company has to back its claims or face some heat from competitors. Stay tuned.

And the swiping continued. “Who uses Photobucket and Flickr? Not professional photographers — those are hobbyists, and those are the people who are using Tunecore and iTunes to clutter the music environment with crap, so that the artists who really are pretty good have more trouble breaking through than they ever did before.”

Tough talk, though this is part of a longer-running debate – one that has infuriated Tunecore CEO Jeff Price in the past. Silverman has largely used Soundscan stats to prove his point, a measuring stick that Price feels is flawed and incomplete.

Part of the problem is that the album is rapidly becoming an outdated format, something that Silverman acknowledges. Still, Silverman maintains that 10,000 albums (physical+digital) represents a critical threshold out of obscurity, a level most artists rarely reach. “If you can’t sell 10,000 albums in digital and physical combined, you’re still relatively obscure,” Silverman stated.

Of course, Silverman is quite the operator, and this interview was well-timed just before the New Music Seminar in New York – an event Silverman co-founded. As a self-appointed messiah of sorts, Silverman is also trying to lead struggling artists to the promise land with some different solutions.

That includes a totally different type of artist deal, one predicated on broader revenue sources and equal revenue-sharing – unlike hopeless recouping arrangements created by labels. “Every artist is a business, and has its own corporation under this model, and all of that artist’s creative equity goes into that — not just music, but everything they do,” Silverman described. “And the investors who are investing and trying to promote on the other side — they own half. So it’s more like a business. An equity partnership.”

Perhaps a location problem, as the larger Bing Entertainment is a US-only launch. But from the zip code of Santa Monica, Bing clearly recognized “Your Location: United States”.

Sort of a non-starter, and easy reason to jump back into Google’s integrated music results. Still, after the bugs are worked out, this integration may have some potential. A search from Drake, for example, offers some top songs and upcoming tour dates, as well as opportunities to link into networks like Facebook and Twitter. On top of that that, a number of well-integrated tabs contain images, YouTube videos, albums, an integrated Wikipedia result, and ticket-buying opportunities.

Bing is also layering Zune, iTunes, and AmazonMP3 buy options for about five million songs, as well as associated lyrics. Those also worked, for those willing to stick around.

Enter M.I.A., an artist whose ranting-and-raving of late has had little to do with music. The real question is whether a war against the New York Times was worth it for this artist, or if it simply ended up drawing more attention to a well-articulated lifestyle contradiction. And more importantly, did any of the back-and-forth result in added revenues or sustained interest? The answer could inform future publicity and marketing approaches.

It’s still too soon to make a call on this, though in the shorter-term, some notable bursts happened across iTunes and YouTube (in addition to the blogosphere). Journalist Lynn Hirschberg published her controversial up-close-and-personal piece on May 25th, and M.I.A. essentially went ballistic on Twitter about a day later. That included posting Hirschberg’s cell number for the world, but also the publication of a protest song on the 30th.

Digging into time-matched data from BigChampagne’s BC Dash, the reaction on YouTube was interesting to watch. Views on the well-established “Paper Planes” were actually sliding until May 30th, at which point a surge took place. By June 6th, the video ranked 161, up from 214 the week earlier. Views had more than tripled to 322,000 during the growth week before going right back down. This seemed like a sugar rush waiting for another distraction.

And iTunes? Here, a small bounce happened on “Paper Planes,” starting on June 28th, also according to data tracked by BigChampagne. After flirting with a 300th-place ranking on the iTunes Store, “Paper” rose to 244 by the 30th before ultimately subsiding.

These were quick shots of adrenaline, and probably not enough for a marathon. But the rest of the story is unfolding before our very eyes, and it may take months to truly understand the impact of the Times “Trufflegate” controversy. On the content front, “Paper” is easily the most recognizable M.I.A. track, especially in the US. Closer to the here and now, “X–O”* is a solid lead-in single for the upcoming album, but the track is still gaining critical steam.

Perhaps the most interesting test comes mid-July, when M.I.A. releases her upcoming album, Maya (stylized as ///Y/). That has already leaked, based on the efforts of at least one rabid fan. Now, the question is whether fans will react when the real thing hits mid-July, or whether controversy now sells for a limited time only.

The story is a lot more complicated than that, though perhaps EMI is simply an easy punching bag at this stage*. Part of the blame should also be shared by Apple Corps., the Beatles business entity, though finger-pointing is never a sign of progress.

Either way, the band known for smashing and evolving creatively is now a total dud in the digital space. The Beatles are one of the last standouts on iTunes (and other platforms), for reasons that seem difficult to articulate.

*EMI subsequently offered a statement after the initial publication of this report. “Discussions are ongoing,” an EMI representative stated. “We would love to see The Beatles’ music available for sale digitally.”

The move is happening alongside an eroding subscriber base. At the tail end of last year, Rhapsody counted 675,000 subscribers, down from 800,000 at the end of 2008. That caused joint venture partners MTV Networks and RealNetworks to step back from the service, after a period of healthy investment and emphasis.

Additionally, Rhapsody is preparing for an onslaught of competition. MOG, Spotify, and Thumbplay are all rattling, though the results for Rhapsody suggest that scaling subscribers is difficult.

As of Tuesday morning, Rhapsody is officially an independent entity, albeit with healthy minority positions from its former owners. The newly-independent company is renamed Rhapsody International.

The quick-release follows a similarly-early iPhone jump. The aggressive app and consumer electronics approach, according to Pandora founder Tim Westergren, is helping to power serious usage gains. Just recently, Pandora crossed its 50 millionth user, an accomplishment achieved through word of mouth but also a multi-platform approach. “An ever-increasing number of folks are coming to Pandora for the first time on a smartphone or a Blue-ray player, or a connected home audio device,” Westergren blogged.

Big number, but this is also a deceptively complicated space. Pure-play internet radio stations are just part of the picture, attracting a healthy 38 million (or 62 percent) for at least five minutes a week. That overlaps with the important category of terrestrial simulcasts, which lure a weightier 82 percent. That shows the potency of local stations, though Bridge notes that internet-only and terrestrial simulcasts will reach parity by 2017.

In turn, the internet radio finding is just one component of a far broader report that also analyzes terrestrial radio and audio device habits. On the terrestrial side, listener levels are predictably eroding, though the study details a considerable decline. Specifically, Americans are now listening to an average of 18 hours per week – still a considerable amount, but 4 hours less than 2005. That attrition is happening across the board, though most acutely within the teenage and 18-24 demographics.

A portion of those hours are getting absorbed by digital platforms, across PCs and devices. The disconnected MP3 player is now clocking 11 hours per week, up 7 percent since 2007, though the bigger growth curve belongs to the smartphone. Those are “creating all the disruption in this study,” according to Bridge, for obvious reasons.

But how much disruption? According to Bridge, smartphone-based streaming audio is experiencing double-digit growth across every demographic. The 18-24 set is clocking the most with 5 hours weekly, though the 55-plus category is growing the fastest. Listening hours among the older set has expanded nearly 28 percent (to 2.3 hours weekly) since 2007.

But this is still a horse-race with many laps ahead. At the closing bell on Wednesday, Apple finished at the nosebleed $235, and an accompanying cap of $213.1 billion. Walmart landed at $55.60, for a resulting cap of $211.56 billion.

So what’s a few billion here and there? Perhaps the more important contest involves Microsoft (MSFT), whose second-place cap of $256.86 billion suddenly seems surmountable. Exxon Mobil (XOM) remains atop the roost, with a $316.23 billion valuation

That consolidation also extends to the iTunes Store, where searches for individual contestants redirect to the official ‘American Idol’ page. The redirect was first tipped to Digital Music News by an AI contestant, and the policy was subsequently confirmed by sources at Apple.

But the real proof is in live search. Just try searching a current contestant – Aaron Kelly, Casey James, Crystal Bowersox, or any other – and the iTunes redirect occurs. That is part of the agreement between the companies, though labels attempting to sell earlier content from these artists are finding it difficult to get visibility. That is a reasonable complaint, though these labels also stand to benefit from the ‘American Idol’ exposure, especially if the artist makes it into later rounds.