The record industry, worth approximately $31 billion globally in 2006, is a large slice of the much broader and more than three times larger ‘music industry‘, worth more than $130 billion. With record sales dipping and alternative revenue streams coming into significant play, a broader view of the music business, namely the live, gaming and film/television licensing, and publishing sectors, is warranted for budding professionals. In spite of the bad rep, the record industry remains to be one of the most creatively oriented sectors in media with 20% of its revenues invested in the acquisition and development of new talent. This is a staggering figure for R&D investment in intellectual property. Although this investment is still being recouped from record sales, revenue goldmines are being discovered in other media sectors which are increasingly more prominent than the traditional retail sources. Recorded music has become a key influencer in the mobile industry and a pivotal consumer offering in $100 billion worth of broadband subscriptions in 2006. The live performance sector is growing rapidly and its promising, future effect on music merchandising and sponsorship remains to be seen.
While the record industry appears to be an exclusive club, every artist recording and, in one form or another, publishing music is, in fact, a part of it. As music converges with other media, so does the record industry with other industries. As such, as more and more artists produce and publish great new music, more opportunities arise for monetizing their copyright without the dependency on actual record sales.
Trent Reznor has done it again. Few musicians have Trent’s gift for realizing trends in the music industry and preemptively meeting their fans needs, rather than simply reacting to changes in the market.
With a note attached that says, “Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years — this one’s on me”, Reznor’s latest album, The Slip, is now available for free download everywhere.
In addition to being offered for free, the album has been released under the Creative Commons “attribution noncommercial share-alike” license, and a post on the NIN site says, “We encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc.”
The album is available in better-than-CD sounding 24-bit, 96-kHz WAV files, MP3, or lossless (FLAC or Apple), and comes with a printable PDF with album artwork, track listing, etc.
Get your free copy of The Slip now at http://theslip.nin.com
All you need is an email address.
It seems like eons ago that Madonna seeded file-sharing sites with MP3s of her voice scolding fans about the evils of music downloading. Well if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. In Early October, 2007, Madonna walked away from her 25 year relationship with Warner Music and signed a new 10-year contract worth $120 million with Live Nation, an LA-based concert promotion firm. In a released statement Madonna explained, “the paradigm in the music business has shifted and as an artist and a business woman, I have to move with that shift.”
So what does a concert promotion firm have that Warner Music doesn’t? Live Nation offers a complete marketing package for the Madonna label and recognizes, like Madonna now does, that music is the least of what she sells. The deal covers every aspect of the Madonna music brand including touring, merchandising, fan club, DVDs, website, music related TV and film, licensing and sponsorship agreements, and of course, record albums.
This mega-deal with the US’s largest concert promoter is the first step in which Live Nation aims to set itself up as a new breed of record company by appealing to mega-stars and offering them one-stop shopping benefits to market and sell their image, which, for an established artist, constitutes so much more than just their music. It combines two industry powerhouses into one efficient revenue stream that can more effectively promote the Madonna label and dramatically increase revenue for both parties.
TuneCore, a digital music distribution company with a front door, fixed fee revenue model, may have conceived of the very solution independent artists have been seeking to get their digital tracks on major, online music outlets. Unsigned artists often rely on CD Baby for digital music distribution as they specifically cater to individual, burgeoning artists. More established artists and labels turn their catalogues over to the major digital distributors including The Orchard, IODA, IRIS and INgrooves. Without exception, digital distributors have been servicing their clients’ catalogue for a percentage of the proceeds paid to them from the retailers (i.e. iTune, Napster, Rhapsody) and pay the artist or label the remainder in monthly or quarterly intervals. 20% to 30% from the top, depending on who you are and the size of your catalogue is a standard distributor cut.
TuneCore, in contrast, charges its artist and label clientele upfront: 99 cents per song and 99 cents per store for each album and an annual $9.98 charge per album, instead of dipping into any backend percentage of proceeds due to the artist or label from downloads. It’s a simple and rather refreshing plan – certainly affordable – and, in my mind, challenges the services that the other distributors are offering. More importantly, it promises individual artists with a low profile and small or fledgling labels to access all the necessary portals for MP3 retail.
Al Foster, one of the most exciting drummers in the world of Jazz arrived in Israel this week for a series of performances with a virtuosic crew consisting of Eli Degibri (Sax), Aron Goldberg (Piano) and Doug Wise (Bass). At 63, but seemingly at the peak of his youth, Foster has over a decade with Miles Davis under his belt and a resume of recordings and performances so vast that you shall probably discover his trademark if you own a couple of Jazz greats in your repertoire.
Credits aside, Foster brings to the stage such flare and sensitivity that even the impartial to Jazz immediately fixate on him before attempting to wrap their heads around the effortless wizardry of his motley three. Yes, it’s his gig but his leadership is subtle and spontaneous. What you hear from this quartet is a musical relationship founded on the mutual joy of hearing one another play.
Last night’s performance was, as expected, fabulous. Although many of us came to see Al Foster cook, the spotlight shuffled from one musician to another as each took his turn improvising over the forms of classics such as “So What” (Miles Davis), “Cantaloupe Man” (Herbie Hancock) and “Blue and Green” (Bill Evans). In terms of a Jazz exhibition, it is fair to say that what we witnessed was nothing short of genius.
Toward the end of the show, I asked a fellow Englishman which he would prefer, to be able play like ‘that’, or play professional football. “Close call”, he replied.
On the heels of a splashy McCartney release, Starbucks is now broadening its music strategy considerably. The coffee giant is putting the final touches on an unsigned band competition in the New England area, according to information shared exclusively with Digital Music News on Friday afternoon. The concept, known as the Starbucks Music Makers Competition, will loosely follow the structure of American Idol, and could one day rival it, according to one partner. Music Makers will solicit music through an online destination powered by Boston-based Sonicbids, and the program will be promoted both online and off. The push includes an in-store awareness campaign, one that will encourage aspiring bands to upload their materials online. Sonicbids is a company that enables bands to easily upload digital assets for consideration by competitions and festivals.
With over ten thousand shops in twenty nine countries, the precision Starbucks brand is shaking its beans to the beat of the nicest guy in music: Sir Paul McCartney. With projected exposure to the tune of six million coffee drinkers, the former Beatle is part of an unprecedented move that is, arguably, proportional in scale and scope to MTV Europe’s introduction with “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits in 1987.
Many brands with a global, consumer reach – perhaps most notably, Levis – have launched fledgling artists to the top of the charts. However, Starbuck’s distinctly music-centric ethos and trademark flavor for the arts make this deal particularly powerful on all fronts.
I have always associated the coffee chain with obscure World music and lounge Jazz but don’t mind stirring my latte to more mainstream sounds. I can only imagine that anything Starbuck’s chooses to place in heavy rotation will surely become popular, mainstream or not. So why Paul?
With the assumption that Starbuck’s music label, Hear Music, wanted to launch with a bang (exit Afro-Cuban congas and improv sax), surely other major acts were on the menu as worthy contenders? I wonder who Hear Music went after first. Are Peter Gabriel or Carlos Santana, for instance, not a better fit for their renowned infusion of non-Western cultural musical motifs and bi-lingual lyrics in their music?
A deal like this is a God-send to any artist, especially with the knowledge that his or her record is the only item on the playlist. I hope that Hear Music will swiftly follow up with something more unique to the palette than Paul McCartney and somehow preserve the eclectic environments we identify with Starbucks’ coffee bars. But I’m not holding my breath as this signing alone has taken the best part of a year to secure.
Could it be that Starbuck’s is tirelessly looping the same record over and over to discourage its customers from hanging around too long? Now there’s a thought.. and who would ever blame Paul? He’s just such a nice guy.
So, has anyone heard the record? I don’t really do Starbucks.
Geffen Records has opened its doors for online submissions for the soundtrack of the upcoming film, Bratz. The major motion picture, a co-venture between MGA Entrertainment, Avi Arad Productions and Crystal Sky Pictures, is expected to hit the box office across the US on August 10th via Lionsgate. The music supervisors are accepting and reviewing submissions until May 15th.
SonyBMG UK introduced a blogging initiative in an effort to dispose of unsolicited physical material being sent to their labels. In partnership with social network destination,Vox.com, the second largest music company in the world is set to jump on the massive blogging trend and encourage fledgling artists to submit their material digitally in a free and open networking environment.
Chairman of Sony BMG UK, Ged Doherty, assures the musical public that online interaction between artists and A&R will be the order of the day and will diminish the likelihood of great acts being missed as a result of postal administration.
For those of you who know how hard it is to get your foot in the door of any label, let alone a major, this could be wonderful way to learn about label staff and get them to hear you. Due to the nature of this system, staff will be able to decipher between the good and the bad through public feedback and in an inter-personal environment. I can only imagine that every artist will want to be a part of this and the limited A&R staff will have their work cut out for them.
Is there an ulterior motive here? Well, perhaps this opportunity of being heard by the industry leaders is more of a hook to market existing acts on the label as opposed to discovering new ones. As the blog network ( www.rcademos.co.uk , www.colombiademos.co.uk and www.gedblog.vox.com ) is open to all, and the subscribing artists are unsigned, Ged and his team may not necessarily be the ones signing and, in turn, profiting from their discoveries. Either that, or they will need to act very quickly – not a trait generally associated with large corporations.
For any online music platform, getting a major label on board is big beans. Most musicians have websites, MySpace profiles, EPKs etc. in the hope that an A&R person will notice. Many online destinations promise to bridge the gap between artists and labels. Now, the initiative is coming from the labels themselves and exclusively to Vox – wow!
If the other major labels do not sensationalise their own online profiles and A&R prospects, and Ged and his staff discover and develop a star through this, we may find ourselves with the most popular music blog of the decade.. but I doubt it. There is a certain lack of charisma about the whole thing. See for yourself:
In a recent move to expand our operations in the US, we have hired a music attorney based in New York to liaise with label executives and music supervisors on behalf of up to five artists scheduled for a “shopping deal” this year. This initiative is the first exclusive signing of artists to the We Are Listening group and in effect of our efforts to discover new talent through [b][link=http://www.wearelistening.org/singer.php]The Singer/Songwriter Awards[/link][/b] and [b][link=http://www.wearelistening.org/about_nmva.php]New Music Video Awards[/link][/b]. Unlike traditional management, publishing and recording agreements, this “shopping deal” is a short term contract for the specific purpose of referring developing artists to established labels, music attorneys, artist managers and content licensors. Although this service is limited to a handful of artists, it is one of several due to roll out this year for artists participating in our events. We shall keep you posted with more.
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