There's a fascinating and quite boring article in the latest issue of "Newsweek" about the creativity gap, how creativity is declining in America. Reading it I couldn't stop thinking about the music business.
Ahmet Ertegun wrote songs. Sure, he liked getting paid, but getting rich was not his primary motive for getting into the business, it was his love of music. And he wasn't wealthy enough to be able to go it alone, he enlisted the bank account of his dentist.
Contrast that with the executives of today. Who got into music because of the money. Or the flash. That creative spark of Ahmet, the ability to put multiple elements together to create something infectious, that's absent in today's conference room. I'll even give Clive Davis credit, although I felt his mainstream, formula concoctions squeezed out vitality, there was a creative process at work, based on the music more than the marketing.
Today's labels are all about the deal. And we all know, they came to innovative online marketing last. It's no wonder that the labels were trumped by MTV three decades ago...they couldn't SEE the power of music on television!
But it's even worse in the sphere of concert promotion. Promoters have traditionally been businessmen, pure and simple. Buying a product and selling it. Sure, Bill Graham added more, but isn't it fascinating that he had a background in theatre!
In other words, maybe Michael Rapino can't save Live Nation because he can't come up with enough breakthrough creative concepts. As for Randy Phillips and AEG, how difficult is it to scoop the cream off the top? The real skill is building from the bottom, taking something outside and making it mainstream. But the music business squeezed the innovators out. Every young kid with an idea was fired, if he even got a job to begin with, and went into tech, and sure, many of those ideas failed, like stiff albums, but we ended up with Facebook and iPhone apps and so many cool gadgets and software. Whereas in music we've got nothing new, just endless riffs on what came before.
Even the artists. We didn't nurture creativity, we were only interested in good-looking automatons we could tell what to do. So, when you finally got them in an interview, they spoke about clothes and thanked their sponsors. Go off script and you get punished. But weren't we always drawn to those who went off script?
In other words, businessmen squeezed all the creativity out in the name of profits. And now the business is in the hands of the concert promoters, who were always the least creative element in the chain. The label built the stars, the concert promoter sold them. Now the promoter must build the star, but he doesn't know how. As for fixing his own business, he's flummoxed. He thinks if he just lowers the price, somehow people will magically appear.
But they don't.
We're drawn to cool. To the wow factor. And sure, these can occasionally be manufactured, but less in music and more in movies. Music's appeal is its authenticity. Eliminate that, and you've got product. But people will only overpay to go to a crowded, overheated auditorium if the act has that something extra, that je ne sais quois. Wasn't that Bowie's appeal? He was just one step beyond. In both music and staging.
No band-aid is going to fix the music business. The solution will come from innovative ideas, implemented by those with creative risk ingrained in their DNA.
In other words, the music business can't be fixed by the usual suspects, those presently in charge, because they just don't have it in them, they lack creativity. John Sculley could steer Apple, make the books balance, but only Steve Jobs could come up with the products people salivated over, that throngs clamored to buy. Only musicians more familiar with studios than hairstylists can create the underlying product. Sure, an executive can delineate market realities, but as soon as the executive starts changing the music, that's where trouble begins. Hits exist in their own rarefied air. The audience comes to them. Hiring Dr. Luke to create a me-too concoction that runs up the chart and is quickly forgotten is what's killing the business, not what's keeping it alive. The bands in Brooklyn may be too out there to ever break through, but they've got the right idea, throw out the conventions, start over with a clean slate, focus on music and fun, then the money might follow.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html
AS A TAG LINE = SONGS2SHARE IS DOING SOMETHING VERY CREATIVE & WE HELP EVERY LAYER OF SONGWRITER MAKE GREAT SONG MATERIAL.
SECTION FOUR: SITES WHERE YOU CAN UPLOAD YOUR BAND’S MP3s OR VIDEOS
Double Stereo
PO Box 4397, Austin, TX 78765
PH: 512-825-9108
Sal Silva III sal@doublestereo.com www.doublestereo.com A free digital music platform for bands, and record labels (no sign up or membership fees). Our core business is music promotion, digital music sales and merchandise order fulfillment.
MoFro Music
Dave Creel david@mofromusic.com www.mofromusic.com It is a place to share bands, reviews, compositions, mash-ups, re-mixes and anything else music related. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to submit whatever it is they have to share.
Music Forte
931 W. 75th St. #137-261, Naperville, IL 60540
PH: 888-659-2867
Greg Percifield greg@musicforte.com www.musicforte.com As a social network, we’re unique in that we cater to only musicians and music enthusiasts. We’ve also taken a very intricate approach in seeing that our network is powered by the musical soul. This means that you’ll discover music and services that are relevant to you in a myriad of ways.
WaTunes.com info@watunes.com www.watunes.com A revolutionary music service that helps independent artists get their music into online music stores like iTunes and eMusic entirely free.
CreateSpace
100 Enterprise Way Ste. A200, Scotts Valley, CA 95066 info@CreateSpace.com www.createspace.com Join our Community for help, advice, or to throw ideas around and collaborate with other musicians. Distribute your music on Amazon.com and other sales channels as an audio CD or MP3 download. Set the list price for your audio CDs and choose from a selection of royalty plans for your MP3 downloads. Use our online tools to set up your titles — they’re free! Since copies of your titles are manufactured as customers order, you’ll never worry about inventory and set-up fees.
PRS for Music http://www.prsformusic.com Exists to help businesses and community groups get access to some of the world’s best loved music, while making sure that songwriters, composers and publishers are rightfully rewarded. We’re proud to work for the future of one of the UK’s most vibrant creative industries. Let’s help the creators keep on creating.
BANDIZMO.COM contact@bandizmo.com www.bandizmo.com The free music site dedicated to the exposure of unsigned bands and independent artists. Allows songwriters and bands to be found through detailed genre-driven search engines. It’s free to join, free to use and has relationships already built with numerous record companies.
myZOOZbeat.com feedback@zoozmobile.com www.myzoozbeat.com ZOOZbeat is a gesture-based mobile music studio, simple enough for non-musicians and children to immediately become musically expressive, yet rich enough for experienced musicians to push the envelope of mobile music creation. myZOOZbeat.com enables users to save the music they create with ZOOZbeat on the iPhone and iPod Touch as MP3s, and share them using Facebook and Twitter. Users can also listen to songs uploaded by their friends, and to special featured and recent songs from users around the world.
ZOOZbeat Latin feedback@zoozmobile.com www.myzoozbeat.com ZOOZbeat is a gesture-based mobile music studio, simple enough for non-musicians and children to immediately become musically expressive, yet rich enough for experienced musicians to push the envelope of mobile music creation. ZOOZbeat Latin allows the creation of songs with Samba and Tejano rhythms.
SongCast
2926 State Rd. #111, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44223 info@songcastmusic.com www.songcastmusic.com One of the World’s largest distributors of independent music. We have deals with iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, Emusic and Napster, allowing us to put our artists’ music in front of millions of music buying consumers. With SongCast, you can start selling your own music on these major retail sites right away. We also provide you with customized code to link your MySpace and other websites directly to the stores. Your fans will easily be able to find and purchase your music online. Combined with the power and social phenomenon of sites like MySpace and Facebook, it is no longer necessary to give away your musical freedom to a major record label.
MyMusicSite.com
339 5th Ave. #405, New York, NY 10016
PH: 646-670-6611
Brad Turk bturk@mymusicsite.com www.mymusicsite.com An online music community helping independent artist sell, promote and create ringtones with their music.
Music Gorilla
12407 Mopac Expressway N. 100-312, Austin, TX 78758
PH: 512-918-8978 FX: 212-258-6394
Alexia info@musicgorilla.com www.musicgorilla.com Exposure to major labels, indie labels, film studios and publishers.
Boost Digital
Level 6 220 Pacific Highway CrowsNest, NSW 2065 Australia
PH: +612-9460-1400 FX: +612-9460-0044
Graeme Logan graeme@boostdigital.com www.boostindependentmusic.com MP3 music downloads store for independent & unsigned artists & bands to sell, host, promote & download all MP3 music online. A MP3 store to buy & sell all independent & unsigned music online
JukeBoxAlive
311 Montford Ave. Asheville, NC 28801
PH: 828-232-0016
Will Cumberland cumberland@jukeboxalive.com jukeboxalive.com Our Advanced Jukebox Player protects your music from being digitally downloaded, yet allows fans to hear your music online. This creates exciting possibilities for you to present yourself to new audiences without being ripped off.
Forget the Pirate Bay trial, forget P2P piracy and cease and desist letters. They are now the sideshow. We’re moving from ownership to streaming. Spotify is king here, but it’s not the only one. There’s MySpace, there’s iMeem and the pay granddaddies, Rhapsody and Napster. Streaming is better than ownership. All of the foregoing are licensed by the major labels and numerous other rights holders. Can these outlets generate enough capital for the rights holders to garner the revenues of yore? Doubtful. iMeem is on the ropes right now. But that’s irrelevant. Bottom line, people are becoming accustomed to being able to access everything whenever they want. The old model of buying individual items will not evaporate overnight, but it will start to fade, just like the CD, which was the last physical vestige of this paradigm.
But, philosophy aside, sales just suck. In eight weeks, Bruce Springsteen has sold 483,803 albums. An absolutely horrible figure. Bruce is fine, he’s got a guaranteed contract. The man who made this deal, Andy Lack? He was neutered and then left the company. Sony is holding the bag, it’s Sony’s problem that they’re upside down on Bruce’s new album. Nothing seems to make a difference, the Super Bowl, all that press, people just don’t want Bruce.
But he can sell a bunch of tickets.
U2 is doing better than Bruce. They’ve got a cume of 693,310. But this last week, their third on the chart, showed another 42% drop, they sold 76,317 albums. Not exactly chicken feed, but there’s no way they get to ten million, there’s no way the label takes everybody out to CUT and orders thousand dollar bottles of wine on this revenue.
Kelly Clarkson is still number one, but she only sold 90,393 albums, after selling 254,671 last week. Her sales are declining. Everybody’s sales are declining. To look to music sales to make your income is to be absolutely horrified. They’re going in the wrong direction.
We can delineate why, but you know, it’s not a secret. You can get the stuff free and you’re not beholden to just a few acts. No one can dominate. It’s every man for himself. Green Day is debuting their new video on MTV. Do labels still make videos? Does MTV still play them? Isn’t that like saying they still make Beanie Babies, or Hula-Hoops? Videos are a passe fad, late twenty first century relics, now it’s about the music once again. And the trappings are not enough to sell the music. Otherwise, Scarlett Johansson’s album wouldn’t have stiffed. Running a record label is bad business, which is why companies want 360 deals. But the label is no longer the dominant player, the focus is now on the act itself. How does the act itself break through?
I’m not saying the act, the musicians themselves, have to do all the work, but they’re no longer slaves on the plantation, they’ve got to take their destinies into their own hands. Rather than look for a fat cat to dump a bunch of money on them, they’ve got to start from the ground up, by themselves, no one’s got that kind of money anymore, you’ve got to start with AWARENESS!
Don’t see it as free music. That’s referencing the old game, where music sales were the main source of revenue. That hasn’t been true in years. Most acts make the lion’s share of their money on the road. How are you going to get people to come to see you?
Sure, radio still has some power, and television too, but they’re waning in influence. You reach fewer and fewer people, many of whom don’t care. And if you’re trying to get them to buy your record to check you out, you obviously don’t surf the Net, because everything is available free, to hear online!
Think about this. You used to have to purchase the record to know what you were getting. Now you can test drive everything first. But why bother to buy after test driving? If the dealer lets you keep the car every day, why bother to own it? That’s what streaming is. Granted, now you can only stream efficiently on the lot, in front of your computer, but that’s going to change, as 3G wireless penetration expands, as 4G makes its debut. You’ll be able to stream your music anywhere. And then the game will change. It’s how are you going to get someone to LISTEN to your music?
After a label sold a CD, it didn’t care if the buyer played it. The label didn’t care if the buyer threw the damn thing away. But in the future, it’s going to matter exactly how many times someone plays your tracks. THAT’S how you’re going to get paid! It’s not about a good come-on, it’s about ultimate delivery!
How can you get someone to spin your tracks so much, so many of them, that they’ll bond with you and not only want to come see you perform, but buy your merch. Online streaming payment is now low, if it grows dramatically, it will be slowly. Piracy will not be the problem, but overall revenues will. So see the game not as getting someone to pony up the bucks for your tracks, but to listen to them!
In this transition period, let everybody stream all of your music, whether it be from a third party site or your own. It’s your only hope of breaking through the clutter. Sure, you can sell your music too. Some people still want to own it, others want a souvenir. But don’t get hung up on recorded music as revenue stream. True revenue comes way down the line, when you’ve established a body of work and a fan base.
Are you getting this? It doesn’t pay to be a one hit wonder. All that money the label spends? It reaches so very few people, only a fraction of whom want to own, and a tiny slice of whom want to see the act live, usually once.
You lamented the decline of artist development at the label? Don’t worry, artist development has come back! It doesn’t pay to jam.
Don’t worry about driving your SoundScan numbers, worry about getting people to listen. It’s not about money, but time. How can you convince someone to burn three or four minutes of their time checking you out. That’s why you’ve got to be really good, because with so many options, both musical and other entertainment varieties, people make decisions very quickly. Good isn’t good enough. Your track has to be GREAT! Otherwise, people will click over to something else, their time is too valuable. Don’t ask for patience, deliver something so appealing that people will be drawn to it, and will tell everybody they know all about it.
And people are looking for great things. And one person can start a conflagration. One unpaid fan will tell everybody how great you are, if you truly are that amazing. They won’t want compensation, they won’t sign up for a street team, they’ll do it because their lives have been enriched.
That’s the game. How can you make the life of the listener better. Not how can you extract dollars from his wallet.
The major labels have been preaching their model, speaking of their woes to an ignorant mainstream media for a decade. All the while, the game was changing, off the radar. The tipping point has been reached. The major labels have lost so much of their power, they’re never going to regain it. It’s about a bond directly between the artist and fan. The fan pays you, not the label, not the bribe-able gatekeeper. Be nice to the fan. Make it easy for him to check you out. Deliver something that will get him through the night. And the day after.
I don’t remember how I first met Ritch Esra. I’m sure it was in e-mail, but I don’t remember the content of his missive. But I’m sure it was nice. Ritch is always nice, and enthusiastic and insightful. We’ve developed a friendship. We go out to dinner at least once a year with Michael Laskow of TAXI and Ritch forwards me exclusive information on a regular basis. Which is probably why I agreed…
Suddenly, I remember how I met Ritch, he invited me to be on his radio show, broadcast to students. You might not be able to get me to do this today, especially the part about driving to Burbank, but we develop special relationships with people who are there for us in the beginning. My list had a fraction of the number of subscribers it does today. If someone was tracking me down to give me an opportunity to spread my message, I was accepting the offer.
Last year I spoke at Ritch’s class at the Musicians Institute. Because of our history, because of the relationship. Which is why I listened to this Seth Godin interview. I might have skipped it if someone else had posted the link, I certainly wouldn’t have listened to the whole thing. If Seth Godin HIMSELF had told me to listen to the interview, I wouldn’t have. I don’t like promotion from the act itself. Even though I know Seth a bit. I’d say to him “Why are you working me?” Is that our relationship, where you use me to get ahead? My friends don’t market me, don’t hype me, don’t work me. Maybe if Seth had sent a friendly note, explaining why he thought I’d be interested in the interview, I’d check it out. But this is sensitive ground. Especially when someone already has traction. We’ll help the up and coming, if we know them personally. Bottom line, if you’re up and coming and I don’t know you, I owe you nothing. And if you’re working me, you’re violating our friendship, I won’t view you in the same way ever again.
Furthermore, I listened to entire clip because I figured I might run into Ritch and he’d ask me about it, or e-mail me and want to discuss it further. Let’s be clear here, Ritch was not asking me a favor, he made an assessment of who I was, what I was interested in, and sent me a targeted link. He doesn’t do this every day, rarely, in fact. So, based on our friendship, I listened.
Anyway, the first half of this lengthy interview with Seth was ground I was quite familiar with. Then, when speaking about Tribes in the latter half of the conversation, Seth spoke about permission marketing, the relationship with the fan.
How do you build that relationship? How do you get people interested?
By doing something great. Seth unleashed his book, “Unleashing the Ideavirus”, online, for free, a decade ago, and gained fans that way. He didn’t compile an e-mail list and spam people, he focused on the work. And then using the distribution platform of the Web, he allowed people to pull it, for free! To the point where people implored him to print a hard copy, that they could buy, they wanted to own it. Is your music so great that it will draw its own followers? If not, you’re going to have a hard time in the new universe. Listeners have unlimited choice, they don’t care that you’re broke, went to Berklee and have invested a ton in equipment. They’ve got no preexisting relationship. Your calling card must be your music. The number of friends you’ve got on MySpace, your stunting, they might garner passing interest, but a listener might wonder if you’re better at marketing than music. And so many of today’s wannabes are. They’re computer-savvy, they’ve grown up online. But they haven’t practiced their chops in their bedrooms alone, they haven’t spent endless hours in the garage. So, there’s nothing at the core.
And once you’ve got a fan, once they’ve found you, you’ve then got permission to contact them. But here’s why I’m writing this, Seth said your tribe is people who would be DISAPPOINTED if they didn’t hear from you!
Think about that. Kind of like a girl you met at a bar, at a friend’s house. You exchanged phone numbers, e-mail addresses. You sent her a note, a text and…SHE DIDN’T RESPOND?
You wouldn’t shrug your shoulders and not give it another thought. You’d wonder, WHAT HAPPENED? Did she lose her phone? Does she not have computer access? Did she get in a car accident? When you spam me, telling me about your project I’m not interested in, I don’t wonder if your mom has grounded you, if you’ve been in a car accident, I DON’T KNOW YOU AND I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU! Whereas if a week went by and I didn’t get an e-mail from Ritch Esra, I’d wonder… Did he go out of town? If two weeks went by and there was no e-mail from Ritch, I’d e-mail Laskow, I’d do a little research, DID SOMETHING HAPPEN?
Today’s acts dun you for notice, and then when they’ve made it, they remove themselves. Whereas a relationship must be nurtured, and CONTINUED! Once you’ve got the relationship, you must KEEP IT UP! To make an album every three years is ridiculous. You’ve got to release a track, a demo, a video, SOMETHING for your regular fans. They’re starving, you’ve got to feed them, to keep up the relationship. Believe me, the guy who doesn’t hear from that girl doesn’t think about her every minute of the day THREE YEARS LATER! He’s on to something else.
The old model was limited product pushed down people’s throats.
Today’s model is endless product available to those who want it.
That’s another thing Seth said. You can’t try to reach everybody, only your tribe, only those who are interested. They’ve got enough money to support you. That’s what the overpriced vinyl and books and CD packages are about. Feeding the fan frenzy, not the casual buyer. The true fan will pay ten bucks for the album at iTunes, he doesn’t need to buy “No Line On The Horizon” for $3.99 at Amazon. Those sales are almost meaningless. Not only do they cannibalize those of the fans willing to pay more, the casual buyer enticed at this price is not going to buy an exorbitantly-priced concert ticket. (The casual fan would be better off getting free access…)
Point being, are you growing fans or just another SoundScan statistic? There are not enough album sales for the SoundScan statistic to be truly meaningful. You’ve got to branch out, sell more to the tribe, your fans, who truly care. If you’ve got a fan club it shouldn’t be primarily about getting good seats to the show, but providing more of what fans truly want, communication, product and access.
Your tribe is enough to support you. As long as you have reasonable expectations. A klezmer musician may never reach 100 million people, but can sustain a career and a life, because of the passion of klezmer fans. He can’t complain that he doesn’t fly in a private jet, he must change his direction if he desires to do that. Then again, he might just have a fan who’s that rich and is willing to put his Cessna at the musician’s disposal.
It’s amazing what friends/fans will do. But they won’t do it for everybody.
Don’t collect e-mail addresses, collect FANS! Don’t spam people, don’t give people what they don’t want, it’s hard enough navigating this world of endless media. Instead, hope your music is good enough to infect fans who will spread the word for you. Not because they’re getting a reward, street teams are passe, but because they love your music and they want their friends’ lives enriched.
I know, I know, this is not how the major labels do it, this is not what they taught you in business school, you’re impatient. Well, welcome to the real world. People only need great. You’ve got to be great. And even if you are, you won’t be an overnight success. But people are looking for great, and when they find it, they tell everybody they know.
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