SONG CONTEST BLOG

Trent Reznor, a music pioneer on more than one level, has paved the way for a new music business attitude through forward-thinking marketing concepts to communicate with fans directly and provide them with a reason to consume his music and come to his shows.  In 2007, Reznor under the famed band alias, Nine Inch Nails, prior to the release of the album, “Year Zero”, launched an online reality-themed scavenger hunt, intended to engage fans and deliver a unique user experience.  In conjunction with this gaming initiative, Reznor dropped USB keys loaded with NIN music at his concert venue’s toilets for fans to pick-up and enjoy for free – and share.  At the time, it was not clear whether the music was leaked by fans or by Reznor himself which spurred the RIAA to put up takedown notices, fueling the campaign even further.  To make the album’s physical CD release distinctive, Reznor printed CDs that changed colour – a gimmick CD copies would not benefit from – to encourage fans to buy the originals to supplement whatever free digital content they may or may not have already had access to.  After this episode, Reznor left his label and went on his own, beginning with the independent release of “Ghosts I – IV”.  In this case, the 36-track album was offered to fans in a variety of attractive models, all under a Creative Commons license: first 9 tracks for free, $5 for all tracks plus a 40-page pdf booklet; $10 for 2 CD set plus a 16 page booklet; $75 Deluxe Edition Package (i.e. box set); $300 Ultra Deluxe Limited Edition Package, capped at 2500 units all signed by Reznor himself, which sold out in 30 hours.  Collectively, Reznor grossed $1.6 million in the first week from this independent initiative.  The album later became a number one seller on Amazon in spite of its attribution license which made the digital sharing of it legal.  Reznor’s following album, “The Slip”, was offered entirely for free two months later along with sample tracks from NIN’s opening acts.  All you needed to do is punch in your email address.  Again, Reznor provided a unique fan experience, along with a visual depiction of the volume of downloads by location on Google Maps and a full tour venue listing and ticketing options.  The tour was a huge success.

Epic Records, part of Sony’s Columbia/Epic Label Group, has appointed singer/songwriter, Amanda Ghost, as its new President, replacing Chris Walk who left the label after his contract ran out last year.  With 25 million record sales in the last three years under her belt, Ghost is one of the leading commercial songwriters in today’s music market, responsible for major cuts including “Beautiful Liar” (Beyonce/Shakira), “You Are So Beautiful” (James Blunt) and “Tattoo” (Jordin Sparks), to name a few.

Ghost’s appointment, somewhat unconventional for the label behemoth, comes as surprising news.  Perhaps it’s part of a new game plan to denote a new positioning in the record industry; putting the ‘creatives’ at the very top of the ladder.

Rob Stringer, Chairman of Columbia/Epic Label Group, statement:

“I am delighted that Amanda has chosen to bring her creative vision and flair to the Epic label. In the changing environment of the music business, record labels undoubtedly need to be complete partners with the artistic community and Amanda will be the perfect executive to meet that challenge.”

Motley Crue’s guitarist, Mick Mars, has struck a deal with the celebrity services division of Paid Inc., a new media company with a strong focus on online relationship and ecommerce solutions for celebrities, to build a brand new website at www.MickMars.tv  and host a range artist-to-fan relationship features to maximize Mars’ online presence.  In addition to offering Mar’s musical portfolio, the site will introduce  new and exclusive guitar clinics, educational resources, and personal performance tips and video demonstrations.  There will also be a strong focus on authentic Motley memorabilia and a new line of merchandise, all under the Paid Inc. celebrity brand management umbrella.

Although a turbulent time to be in business, let alone the music business, I’m delighted to learn that National Geographic has taken the initiative to launch a music label, Nat Geo Music, to produce and distribute music from around the globe.  As part of National Geographic’s mutli-media expansion, the label will be based in New York City and aims to release six to eight albums by year’s end.

Ethan Diamond, the brain behind OddPost, the web mail service acquired by Yahoo! and, more recently, founder of Bandcamp, dispatched a newsletter today announcing the band portal’s new feature-set and recent upgrades.  The free publishing platform boasts nifty and relevant tools for artists and band promoters to optimize their online presence and provide an uber-cool experience for fans and new comers.  Armed with features such as domain redirection to a unique domain name within the site, fan email capturing on transactions, and IP licensing control (courtesy of Creative Commons) associated with the variety of ways to transmit music files, Bandcamp is set to become a popular choice for the brand conscious and online promotion savvy music community.  In addition to Bandcamp’s visual bells and whistles and you-control-your-music ethos, the company focuses on pertinent music file meta-tagging and artist profile-specific search engine optimization for its individual members.  Did I mention that it’s free?  Bandcamp is really quite simple, down to earth, and rather wonderful.

Successful digital music distribution is, first and foremost, gauged by how cheaply and swiftly you can get your music on iTunes and whether your distributor can offer any marketing support, usually reserved for major label clients or independent megastars.  Although the current leaders, namely The Orchard, IRIS and IODA, now cater to the long-tail musician community, independent artists (a huge market) are being catered to by new, easy-to-digest digital music distribution models that appear to surpass the existing competition.  CD Baby, for instance, the most renowned online CD retailer of independent artists, has leveraged its resources for its target demographic and, resultantly, enjoying exponential growth in the digital music distribution sector.  With no start-up costs and just a 9% commission, the indie retailer is an excellent choice for up and coming artists.  A relatively new entry in the space, TuneCore, is making a splash with an equally unbeatable offer: $0.99 per track, $0.99 per store per album, and $19.98 per album per year storage or, $9.99 flat per song, all-inclusive.  No commission.

Due to sinking CD sales, digital music distribution has become the primary means of placing new music in front of consumers in a variety of online mediums.  As the retail options for independent artists increase, so does the value proposition from the digital music distribution service providers.

A citizen of the United Kingdom, Don immigrated to the United States from Australia, where he jump-started his career by doing record promotion for several labels, including Chess and Capitol Records. During that time, he was involved in the promotion of The Beatles, and was singularly recognized with the only Golden Apple Award ever presented by them for “outstanding promotion in launching Apple Records in the United States”. At Capitol, Don was also Manager of International A&R/Promotion, where he signed Little River Band, and Director of Merchandising and Advertising. When Capitol created a second label, EMI America Records, in 1978, Don became its Vice President of A&R. His credits at EMI America include Michael Johnson, Kim Carnes, Sheena Easton, Kate Bush, Sir Cliff Richard, J. Geils Band, and Kenny Rogers. In 1982, Don moved back to Capitol where he signed and helped guide a number of hit-making acts, including Heart, Joe Cocker, Freddy Jackson, Melba Moore, Steve Vai, Megadeth, WASP, and George Clinton. He was personally involved with the recording careers of Tina Turner, Bob Seger, Anne Murray, The Motels, Duran Duran, Power Station, Thomas Dolby, Ashford & Simpson, Billy Squier, and assisted in the emergence of Crowded House, Poison, The Smithereens, and Great White. In 1987, Don resigned from Capitol to join CBS/Sony as Senior Vice President of A&R, Epic Records, where he personally signed and worked with such acts as Celine Dion (via Sony Canada), Bad English (finding their #1 hit “When I See You Smile”), Iron Maiden, Basia, as well as bringing his expertise to bear on the careers of Cheap Trick (finding their #1 single “The Flame”), Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Estefan, REO Speedwagon, The Jacksons, and Europe. Under his direction, the Epic A&R staff also signed successful acts, including Living Colour, Indigo Girls, Allman Brothers Band, Alice Cooper, Social Distortion, Firehouse, Suicidal Tendencies, Front 2423, Ottmar Liebert and Joe Satriani. In 1993, Don created Drive Entertainment, a company with emphasis on classic artist and niche market catalog exploitation, where he compiled and packaged over 140 albums. Five years later, Don chose to reenter the broader-based music market and, to date, operates his own independent consultancy and music supervision company. We Are Listening is delighted to have Don on board!

If you Google – myspace music marketing – you will find a medley of useless tips on how to add more friends, write enticing messages, customize your page, and do more of what approximately 3 million active musicians on myspace are already doing, most of whom are still not getting any more attention than they did when they first joined.  Don’t get me wrong, I love myspace and I believe that myspace music marketing is absolutely essential.  Actually, I hate myspace but I do believe it’s essential and, now, a music industry standard.

Forget about robots for your myspace music marketing strategy.  And don’t worry, labels are no longer counting the number of friends and plays on your profile (it’s hard to believe they ever did!) so you need not spend all day and night adding friends aimlessly.  Start thinking about a targeted myspace music marketing approach whereby you only contact ‘friends’ you truly believe will take an interest in you and your music.  After all, online social networking answers to the same principles as day to day networking: you may work the room, but you don’t go into business with everyone you meet.

If you’re eager to raise your profile, dig deeper.  Rather than thinking about your number of friends, think about the ratio of friends vs. plays.  For example, If you have 1000 friends and 1000 plays, that should raise a big red flag: your friends accepted your invitation, listened to your music once (on average), and never came back.  For a truly effective myspace music marketing approach, keep your outreach to a minimum and focus on the folks that listen to your brand of music, attend live shows by artists with mutual musical qualities, and are likely to show up to your next gig.  If you don’t play outside of Nevada, why badger someone in Minnesota every other day?  Keep your myspace music marketing initiatives user-specific, short, and to the point.  Spend less time marketing to everyone and more time marketing to a small group of truly potential fans.  Before you know it, your myspace music marketing campaigns will be powered by your fanbase, a more potent and authoritative music marketing force than just you.

Typically, an artist manager receives 15% – 20% of the artist’s Gross income or 50% of the Net income.  I personally like the 50/50 model.  15% may not sound like a lot but keep in mind that the artist is responsible for expenses and if the artist is a four member band, you can guess who gets the biggest piece of the pie.  The artist manager is often the primary reason why the artist sees any money in the first place.  As such, a good artist manager deserves to be rewarded for his efforts, expertise, contacts and, above all, risk.  Besides, 15% – 20% of the gross is often the same as splitting everything down the middle.  In addition, the artist manager may negotiate a commission based on new deals he closed during the course of his relationship with the artist.  This is to protect his investment long after the contract has terminated and he and the artist have gone their separate ways.

A no-commission management deal, whereby the artist pays an artist manager or management firm a salary or ‘retainer’, is a relatively new contract model in the music industry.  The artist has the power to hire, fire and negotiate with his management.  The artist manager has a certain degree of ‘job security’ but can not reap the rewards of a huge commercial success.  No points.  No success fees.  Simple.  And the artist is in control.  This is similar to the way PR companies operate and charge for their services.

At the negotiation table, the terms of the deal, regardless of the type of payment model, should be in light of the degree of financial risk the artist manager is expected to undertake by the artist in the event that the artist can not pay upfront.  Considering that financial institutions define the terms of a loan by assessing the degree of financial risk, it is reasonable to expect an artist manager to be compensated based on similar projections.

Next Big Sound, a site developed by four students at Northwestern University and described as a cross between MySpace and American Idol by The New York Times, has come to fruition last August as yet another platform for independent artists and fans to come together in a digital environment of discovery and competition.  Better described as another player in the realm of Sellaband and OurStage, The Next Big Sound looks great and promises adventure in role-play A&R for music fans and, with any luck, an opportunity for independent artists to raise their profile.

The site boasts 2000 “moguls” that have “signed” 9000 acts to date.  The business model surrounding the idea is not yet clear but, if it takes off, I imagine that there will be plenty of opportunities for the company, participating artists and, of course, moguls (music fans) to monetize a piece of the proverbial action.