Whatever your views of the iniquities of the record industry (and mine are pretty strong it must be said), the fact is that business to all intents and purposes is ancient history. In the 10 years since the peak of the record business in 1999, it has been steadily dying and now it is dead. Not dying, dead.
This however should be a cause for celebration for anyone who cares about music as an art form and as a business, because it means that the whole process of making and discovering music is back in the hands of the people that matter - the artists and their audience. Clearly the few remaining people in major labels would disagree, but frankly I cannot get too upset about them - they who spent much of the last decade spending millions and millions of pounds on terrible records that never saw the light of day (Jo Lean and The Jing Jang Jong anyone?).
So why is it such a cause for celebration?
First, it is much easier to make "records", but this can be both a blessing and a curse. The upside is that people who have talent are able to express it far more easily, and with far fewer distractions, and thus more great music gets made. The downside is that all of those people from the "unmade bed" school of inspiration who think all music is art no matter how lacking in talent the perpetrators may be, or how awful the noise is, clog up the digital pipes with a lot of that sort of nonsense.
Secondly it is far far easier to make money as a musician. Now I realise that this may sound counter-intuitive, but that fact is that there are more and more simple ways for music creators to connect with music consumers on a commercial basis, and the process is truly democratic. If what you create is any good, people will want to listen to it, and you will find an audience. If you have an audience de-facto you have a business. For an example of what I mean take a look at www.topspinmedia.com
Thirdly as the traditional music institutions crumble, so the artist is able to retain and "collapse" his own copyright. Now this is where it starts to get really interesting commercially. Best way to explain this is to give an example:
I work with a new band called The Union who have a small but committed and growing audience. The band made it's first single available to anyone who wanted it as a free download. At the same time via their website (using Topspin) they offered a digital EP featuring the single plus a live track and an acoustic track for £1.99. Crucially they also offered the digital EP with a T Shirt as a bundle for £14.99 and over 30% of the transactions took the t shirt option, giving us more than £6 per transaction. Within days we had generated £1,000s of pounds of income for the price of printing a few T Shirts. This may not be as sexy as lear jets and fancy hotels (which was always a nonsense anyway), but you do not need to go much further along than that before the artist is making a living doing what they love. Also, as I said earlier, the democratic nature of the web means that the more people like what you do, the more money you will make.
In short what we are seeing is the emergence of a musical middle class.
It is true that it is now immeasurably harder to achieve global commercial success, but that is not such a bad thing in my book, as hopefully now all the idiots who become artists dreaming of the rockstar lifestyle will bugger off and become hedge fund managers instead.
It is of course utter nonsense to say that bands will stop making "records" or that their audiences will not want to listen to them. You only have to pop into your nearest Apple Store to see what utter tosh that is. What has changed forever is the entire physics of the commercial relationship between the artists and their audiences. This is excellent news for both the producers and the consumers, and the end of the road for all of the middle men and rights owners, and frankly - good riddance.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Friday, 6 November 2009
Amazing soda shop
I thought this video was amazing. I could not help but be struck by the parallels between the soda business and the record business.
People like this guy are heros. I urge you to take a few minutes out of your day to celebrate a guy who is fighting to make the world a slightly more interesting place.
Next time I am in LA I am going to pay him a visit. Be sure you do the same.
You will find him at 5702 York Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 90042
People like this guy are heros. I urge you to take a few minutes out of your day to celebrate a guy who is fighting to make the world a slightly more interesting place.
Next time I am in LA I am going to pay him a visit. Be sure you do the same.
You will find him at 5702 York Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 90042
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Sound advice
I'd never heard of Michael Masnick or Techdirt until recently, but Mike's presentation to Narm earlier this year is as good and compelling a case for the new direct to fan models in our industry as I have seen so far.
If you are in a band and are serious about having a career this is essential viewing.
If you are in a band and are serious about having a career this is essential viewing.
NARM 2009 State Of The Industry: Michael Masnick from NARM on Vimeo.
Sunday, 26 July 2009
The Cult Of Mediocrity
A few months back I attended a live show. The headliner were White Lies, the then major label cut-and-paste indie band de jour, and had sold out the mid sized venue with ease.
As I watched in a mood of indulgent and slightly bored bemusement, a number of things struck me: - Firstly the band were ok. Not great, not inspiring, not life affirming.. just ok. They were just about musically competent and they had one or two decent tunes, but to be truthful, the whole thing was a little dull. The second thing that hit me was the crowd. It was quite extraordinary. They behaved like robots who had been told that this was something they should like, but to a man they seemed more interested in looking around at the other members of the audience to see which other scenesters were present and what they were wearing.
It was truly bizarre.
After about 30 minutes I had had enough and I left, musing that if that was the best that our major labels had to offer, then no wonder they were in such deep trouble.
Fast forward to early July and I attended another show by a band who have not been industry darlings for the best part of a decade and a half - if ever. Thunder (for it was they) have decided to call time on a distinguished career after 20 years of being largely ignored by the vast majority of the mainstream press, radio and TV, and this was their farewell headline show at a totally sold out Hammy Odeon.
The contrast could not have been more marked.
The audience was not so much cheering as worshipping, with a dedication and fervour that was genuinely moving, even to a cynic like yours truly. The band were astoundingly good live (as in fairness they have been for their entire career) and at the end everyone in the audience was handed a petition put together by some of the bands more dedicated fans begging them not to quit. As I left, a journalist came up to me and in all seriousness said "You know, I think this is one of those bands we have all taken for granted, and that none of us will really appreciate until they are gone"... to which my response was a barely civil "you think?".
I went home wondering how on earth we consistently get it so wrong.
The reason our record industry is in the toilet has nothing to do with illegal downloading, the internet, CD pricing or indeed any of the other spurious excuses the labels love to trot out. It is because the people who have run it - the labels AND the media - have made consistently bad judgements about what music to support and invest in as well as catastrophically lazy assumptions about what their consumers would like to hear.
I for one will not shed a single tear when the business of music returns to the hands of the fans and the bands, where it belongs.
As I watched in a mood of indulgent and slightly bored bemusement, a number of things struck me: - Firstly the band were ok. Not great, not inspiring, not life affirming.. just ok. They were just about musically competent and they had one or two decent tunes, but to be truthful, the whole thing was a little dull. The second thing that hit me was the crowd. It was quite extraordinary. They behaved like robots who had been told that this was something they should like, but to a man they seemed more interested in looking around at the other members of the audience to see which other scenesters were present and what they were wearing.
It was truly bizarre.
After about 30 minutes I had had enough and I left, musing that if that was the best that our major labels had to offer, then no wonder they were in such deep trouble.
Fast forward to early July and I attended another show by a band who have not been industry darlings for the best part of a decade and a half - if ever. Thunder (for it was they) have decided to call time on a distinguished career after 20 years of being largely ignored by the vast majority of the mainstream press, radio and TV, and this was their farewell headline show at a totally sold out Hammy Odeon.
The contrast could not have been more marked.
The audience was not so much cheering as worshipping, with a dedication and fervour that was genuinely moving, even to a cynic like yours truly. The band were astoundingly good live (as in fairness they have been for their entire career) and at the end everyone in the audience was handed a petition put together by some of the bands more dedicated fans begging them not to quit. As I left, a journalist came up to me and in all seriousness said "You know, I think this is one of those bands we have all taken for granted, and that none of us will really appreciate until they are gone"... to which my response was a barely civil "you think?".
I went home wondering how on earth we consistently get it so wrong.
The reason our record industry is in the toilet has nothing to do with illegal downloading, the internet, CD pricing or indeed any of the other spurious excuses the labels love to trot out. It is because the people who have run it - the labels AND the media - have made consistently bad judgements about what music to support and invest in as well as catastrophically lazy assumptions about what their consumers would like to hear.
I for one will not shed a single tear when the business of music returns to the hands of the fans and the bands, where it belongs.
Friday, 24 July 2009
The best joke ever
I have to admit this made me giggle..
A scientific experiment was carried out a few years ago to test the hypothesis that dogs adopt the behavioural characteristics of their owners over time. The three dogs used for the experiment belonged to an architect, a mathematician and an A&R man. The dogs were each given a plateful of dog biscuits, shut in a room and observed.
The architect's dog used its biscuits to build a fully accurate scale model of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, complete with flying buttresses and fabulous rococo gargoyles.
The mathematician's dog made skilful use of its biscuits to demonstrate at least three basic flaws in Einstein's General and Special Theories of Relativity.
The A&R man's dog ground up its biscuits, snorted them, f*cked the other two dogs and went home early.
A scientific experiment was carried out a few years ago to test the hypothesis that dogs adopt the behavioural characteristics of their owners over time. The three dogs used for the experiment belonged to an architect, a mathematician and an A&R man. The dogs were each given a plateful of dog biscuits, shut in a room and observed.
The architect's dog used its biscuits to build a fully accurate scale model of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, complete with flying buttresses and fabulous rococo gargoyles.
The mathematician's dog made skilful use of its biscuits to demonstrate at least three basic flaws in Einstein's General and Special Theories of Relativity.
The A&R man's dog ground up its biscuits, snorted them, f*cked the other two dogs and went home early.
Monday, 29 June 2009
Broooooce...
Bruce Springsteen is one of those Marmite artists. People either love him or hate him.
I used to be in the latter category, but after seeing The East St band on the Born in the USA tour at Wembley Stadium in the early 80's I became a convert. The thing that I found so astonishing about the show was the fact that you could not see a single person - including all of the security staff, and even the police - who was not smiling and happy. It seemed to me to be a quite astonishing achievement. I also remember that the songs which had sounded a little pedestrian on record, came alive in concert in a way that I did not think would be possible. His ability to turn a stadium into a dancefloor and turn the audience into the show is a trick which any number of pale imitators have borrowed since.
That show prompted me to investigate his records a little more deeply, and I became drawn in by the seductive combination of the everyman appeal, the amazing skill of the band and the power of a lot of the songs.
Springsteen's remarkable ability to empathise with the man on the street comes across in the songs time and time again. When you bear in mind that this is a man who has not had to concern himself with the price of a pint of milk for over 3 decades, it seems even more astonishing.
A couple of examples to illustrate what I am talking about: -
"End of the day, factory whistle cries,
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes,
And you'd better believe boy, somebody's gonna get hurt tonight
It's the work, it's the working, it's the working life".
(Factory - Darkness on The Edge Of Town)
"10,000 tons of metal a day
And now you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name"
(Youngstown - Tom Joad)
You may wonder why I am blathering on about this, and I am getting to the point (albeit slowly).
Here's the thing. I went to see Bruce and his band in Hyde Park a couple of weeks back, and remarkably I left less than halfway through his set. "Not much of a fan then", you may well feel, but that was not it. The band were on great form. His voice was it's usual gravelly self, the songs were just as moving.... but sadly only seemingly to me.
Wherever I went I found myself surrounded by drunken redneck yahoos, who were clearly far more interested in drinking and talking utter bollocks with their equally drunken friends than they were in watching one of the truly great artists in popular music history.
In the end, I left because I could not hear above the cacophony of crassness, mediocrity and stupidity that surrounded me, and because I was ashamed to be a part of it.
Sorry Bruce. You deserved better.
I used to be in the latter category, but after seeing The East St band on the Born in the USA tour at Wembley Stadium in the early 80's I became a convert. The thing that I found so astonishing about the show was the fact that you could not see a single person - including all of the security staff, and even the police - who was not smiling and happy. It seemed to me to be a quite astonishing achievement. I also remember that the songs which had sounded a little pedestrian on record, came alive in concert in a way that I did not think would be possible. His ability to turn a stadium into a dancefloor and turn the audience into the show is a trick which any number of pale imitators have borrowed since.
That show prompted me to investigate his records a little more deeply, and I became drawn in by the seductive combination of the everyman appeal, the amazing skill of the band and the power of a lot of the songs.
Springsteen's remarkable ability to empathise with the man on the street comes across in the songs time and time again. When you bear in mind that this is a man who has not had to concern himself with the price of a pint of milk for over 3 decades, it seems even more astonishing.
A couple of examples to illustrate what I am talking about: -
"End of the day, factory whistle cries,
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes,
And you'd better believe boy, somebody's gonna get hurt tonight
It's the work, it's the working, it's the working life".
(Factory - Darkness on The Edge Of Town)
"10,000 tons of metal a day
And now you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name"
(Youngstown - Tom Joad)
You may wonder why I am blathering on about this, and I am getting to the point (albeit slowly).
Here's the thing. I went to see Bruce and his band in Hyde Park a couple of weeks back, and remarkably I left less than halfway through his set. "Not much of a fan then", you may well feel, but that was not it. The band were on great form. His voice was it's usual gravelly self, the songs were just as moving.... but sadly only seemingly to me.
Wherever I went I found myself surrounded by drunken redneck yahoos, who were clearly far more interested in drinking and talking utter bollocks with their equally drunken friends than they were in watching one of the truly great artists in popular music history.
In the end, I left because I could not hear above the cacophony of crassness, mediocrity and stupidity that surrounded me, and because I was ashamed to be a part of it.
Sorry Bruce. You deserved better.
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