Episode 007

What is it that permits some artists to crank out 5 or 6 successful albums, while other artists are relegated to the role of the one hit wonder? My theory is that artists who want to establish a career of longevity MUST create the music that stirs them, rather than trying to cash in on a trend or create music they might “execute” better.

You can’t chase trends because you’ll be one step behind. What do you do when the trend dies, and you have nothing left to copy?

There’s an intangible aspect to “legacy-type” artists that transcends their genre and music. THAT is what their fans lock onto. Not in a “star power” kind of way, but in a musical sense. There’s a unique thread to the way they compose, and no matter how genres shift through time, that thread will always be there, because it’s ingrained into who they are.

Make music that you love, THEN work hard and hope that you can find a fanbase for it.

I suppose the same theory could be applied outside of the music realm as well, into other art forms and even into the corporate world.

I threw a Wax Pick this episode too, The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love.
You can check it out here.

Leave your thoughts in the comments section, or shoot me an email: tim@waxandwires.com

Thanks!

wax&wires tv – Episode 007: Should You Make Music You Love, Or Music You’re Good At? is a post from: wax&wires

I was going to have a graph in here to help you visualize it, but instead, we can get interactive. Get a piece of paper and pen. Start in the top left corner and draw a line to the bottom right corner. Label the X-Axis “time”, and the Y-Axis “album sales” BOOM, visualized!

Interestingly enough, we saw a bit of slowing to the downturn this past quarter. Michael Jackson’s death and the re-release of The Beatles’ catalogue (selling 2.25M copies in 5 days) were a molasses to the decline of album sales, but figures are still abysmal. Even with the 6+ Million albums sold last quarter by the aforementioned artists alone, we’re down about 14% from album sales in 2008, which was down about the same from 2007.

It wasn’t as though we had shoddy artists putting out this year either. 2009 saw new albums from U2, Green Day, Dave Matthews Band, Eminem and countless other staple platinum sellers. It’s actually kind of interesting that the biggest selling music of 09 thus far was music recorded 20-40 years ago.

Of the 115,000 albums released, only 110 broke the quarter million mark; that’s less than 0.001%. And that’s only the halfway mark of going gold. Less than 6,000 albums even sold 1,000 copies.

What will help turn it around? I’m pretty sure MJ can’t die again… and The Beatles’ content (save coming to iTunes) can’t really be repackaged again. Apple’s iTunes LP might help drive a bit more energy behind album sales, but the adoption has been limited and slow at best.

Perhaps the answer isn’t in selling more albums, as I’ve alluded to before, but in using the music as a tool to sell other goods (live tickets, merchandise, licensing to commercial use, films, ring tones, etc.). Wasn’t it a few years ago that the number one selling song in the UK was a ring tone?

Album Sales Down Again – Solution: More Celebrity Deaths is a post from: wax&wires

Do you think the App will replace the Album in the near future? Has it already happened?

[via Eliot Van Buskirk @ wired]

The iTunes music store sells single songs at approximately the same price, with artist presented in more or less the same way.

Apple’s app store, however, is still somewhat like the wild west (at least as far as music goes), where the rules are being made up in real time. Artists and labels can sell music alongside other digital offerings through the app store at any price from zero to $999.99.

As we suggested last summer, this creates an opportunity for artists and labels to distribute a new type of product, especially because the app store concept is spreading to other mobile phone platforms.

On Monday, six of the 20 most recently submitted music apps to appear in the App Store featured a single artist: Jason Carver, Jessica Harp, Jimmy Cliff, John Butler Trio, Kadence, or The Cribs. Each showcases music videos, photos, news, photo-jumble games, concert listings, and/or community features that let fans share photos with each other. And all of them were made with iLike’s iPhone app toolkit — as was Ingrid Michaelson’s app, pictured to the right.

Since iLike launched the service in May, about 250 of the over 300,000 artists with access to iLike’s dashboard feature have launched customized iPhone apps through the system.

“We’re encouraged by the positive response our create-your-own-app platform has generated, and this is only the beginning,” said iLike CEO Ali Partovi. (The company also announced a new version of its Local Concerts app on Tuesday, with concert listings based on your music library, push notification for shows, maps to venues, and concert information sharing.)

These artist-specific apps, which labels also develop in-house, place a constantly-updating tattoo on fans’ phones. It’s like having a music subscription, but in the sense of a fan club, rather than in the sense of subscribing to music in general as one would with Rhapsody.

Many of iLike’s music apps are free and promotional. Other apps contain full songs, and cost money.

Dave Dederer, former singer and guitarist for the Presidents of the United States of America and current Melodeo business development vice president, released one of the first of these, which charged $3 for four albums plus exclusive material. His company sells another $3 app containing streaming versions of top 100 hip hop songs in the iTunes store (iTunes link).

The app store broke the rules for selling music through iTunes, and the ramifications of that are beginning to be felt. Now that iLike has allowed app creation to scale across hundreds of thousands of bands, and other mobile platforms are emulating Apple’s modular app concept, the artist-specific app could — in addition to being the new MySpace page — become a formidable music format in its own right.

If that happens, the idea of buying a bundle of music won’t die with the album — it will survive with the app.

The Album Is Dead, Long Live the App is a post from: wax&wires

In this episode:
- Skunks
- Royalties, Pandora and the New Deal
- Spotify U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!
- EMI in the troubles
- The Bird And The Bee
- Promoting your band (get off the internet!)

If you missed the article on the new net royalties deal, you can find it here, as well as read the Pandora blog post I mentioned down in the followup section to that article, or go directly to it here.

You can find more info about Spotify’s US deal in this Forbes.com article, which I referenced on the show.

Since the taping, EMI has taken some steps to dig themselves out. They’re currently being advised to issue some high-yield bonds to repay the Citigroup loan. That worked for Warner a month or two back, so maybe that could help knock down the $4.2 Billion they need to pay off by 2015. Citi, as suspected, is quite reluctant to forgo the debt.

Here’s Bob Baker’s article on getting your music heard, as well as Trent Reznor’s blog post, both of which I touched on during the Wires section of this episode.

Here’s a link up to The Bird And The Bee’s album, Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future.

I would love your feedback (good or bad!), just shoot me an email: tim@waxandwires.com and be sure to check out the main site, waxandwires.com!

wax&wires tv – Episode 003 is a post from: wax&wires

I was glad to see that Jonny Greenwood at least cited the positives as to why they signed to a label. Given that by now the marketplace has changed and the labels have changed, thus the perspectives from many of these musicians have changed since the days they signed on the dotted line. To assume that the major labels are the devil incarnate, and have been from day one, is a misconception though. If it were as such, all of the successful musicians we know, that now campaign against the majors, would have to be cited as fools for having gotten on board with the bigs in the first place.

I’m not for or against the major label. I think whether or not a given artist would be better off independent is completely dependent upon how hard they are willing to work to get their product out there, how long they hope to stay on the scene, and how much of their artistic freedom they are willing to bend on.

With regards to the music industry and music distribution, I think a new means of music acquisition can only happen as fast as the consumers allow it to. So long as labels see force feeding bands to the radio working, they will continue to do it. Independent terrestrial radio is on its last legs, and I think terrestrial radio in general will be soon to follow. With the increasing availability of wi-fi, and the infinte access to custom tailored stations that comes with it, we’re only counting the days until AM, FM, and Sattelite are all brought down by net radio.

VIDEO: “Why Radio & Music Industry Sucks Nowadays” is a post from: wax&wires

Before The Music Dies – Watch The Full Documentary is a post from: wax&wires

Here’s how it breaks down:

• 614 songs included on discs and the in-game music store
• 269 artists represented
• 40 million paid songs sold
• 11 albums released to RockBand (AC/DC Live, The Cars, Motley Crue, Foo Fighters, Pixies, Judas Priest, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Megadeth, Rush, No Doubt, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and custom compilations from The Who, Nirvana, The Grateful Dead, Boston)

I’m not surprised at all to see the game succeeding so well, and would even argue that RockBand and Guitar Hero present very unique oportunities for artists to promote thier music in a market in which it’s increasingly tough to cut through the noise.

The entertainment industry is changing. Video games are no kiddie-time joke anymore. Gaming is a big boy industry opperating on the same plane as movies and music; and they deserve the same ammount of respect. One of the most notable differences is that the Video Game industry is on the rise, and music and movies seem to be on the decline with regards to revenue and entertainment marketshare.

Think of some of your favorite bands right now. How did you first hear about them? Yael Naim broke through after scoring her song in the MacBook Air commercial. I first heard Sigur Ros on the Vanilla Sky soundtrack. M.I.A. blew up after landing “Paper Planes” in Pineapple Express. You get the idea. Bands that can push songs on other mediums are able to gain exposure and success in new markets, translating that success into album sales.

Is there an outlet you could be tapping to promote your music? Don’t wait for somebody special to stumble upon your MySpace page; there are 5 billion other bands doing the same thing and that ship has long sailed. Get on Google, look up indie film festivals, independent game developers and conferences, etc. Email them offering your songs to be featured in their films and games. Who knows? One of them might just blow up, carrying your tracks with it.

RockBand Surpasses 40M Songs & $1B in Sales is a post from: wax&wires

During The Pirate Bay trial, the music industry placed the blame for the decline in their revenues squarely on the shoulders of file-sharers. Their logic is clearly flawed, but it could sway the verdict if no alternative explanation is presented. So, if piracy isn’t to blame, then what is *actually* killing the music industry?

According to Per Sundin, CEO of Universal Music, the decline in music revenues in the past 8 years can be fully attributed to (read: blamed on) illegal file sharing. If this were actually true, many of us might even respect his decision to go after pirates as fiercely as the music industry is doing right now. However, the past 8 years have seen a lot more changes in the landscape of home entertainment than Per Sundin would like to admit, and some of those changes have had a massive impact on music profitability — much more so than any amount of piracy.

Read the full story.

I’ll add a caveat to his eighth point,

“the music industry itself has embraced the opportunities of digital media, at last letting consumers buy *single* tracks at a time rather than forcing entire albums full of ‘fillers’ on them. Looking at the RIAA’s own sales figures for the past 10 years, there is a *direct* correlation between the break-off in album sales and the introduction and increase in single track digital sales.”

I wrote back in the beginning of the year that 2009 would see certain artists abandon the album altogether in favor of only releasing single tracks that have potential of becoming hits. I still stand by my convictions there. As I stated before, however, I don’t think that will be a lasting trend. Our ADD culture will burn out on jumping from one thing to the next. Rather than inspiring a new music sales model, I think the singles-only (that sounds funny…) artist release will spark a return to the full album. Consumers will regain an appreciation for a well constructed album that is complete from beginning to end.

Anyway, Jens offers some very valid points, but not a lot of solutions. We can all try to speculate as to why the music industry is in the shape that it’s in. That’s fine and good to the extent that we don’t want to repeat past shortcomings, but let’s let the past be the past and try to find solutions to the problem rather than describing the problems further.

How To Kill The Music Industry is a post from: wax&wires

Steve Bowman (stevethedrummer.com)

Part 1 – The Majors

Part 2 – The Independents

Part 3 – Creating Your Own Label

These are great reads if you’re weighing any label options. I know they’re a bit long, but the information is invaluable. Obviously, Steve can only present a unique perspective based on his personal experience, but that’s certainly a lot more experience than many of us will ever have the fortune to gain.

I’d love to get your comments and pros/cons if you have any. Enjoy!

Steve Bowman On Record Labels is a post from: wax&wires

Warner was the first major media company to negotiate a contract with YouTube back in 2006. Warner, along with Universal Music Group and Sony Music, took stakes in YouTube back in that same year as part of contract negotiation deals, and profited when Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion shortly thereafter. Warner feels that their 2006 contract brought legitimacy to YouTube, strongly contributing to the Google acquisition.

YouTube currently pays WMG on a per-play basis. WMG has argued that numbers negotiated in 2006 are no longer applicable given the success of YouTube and Warner’s perceived role in that success, and is  thus seeking a higher revenue per play.

“We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide,” Warner claimed in the official statement released on Saturday.

With over 100 million video views per day and 13 hours of content uploaded every day, YouTube accrues huge bandwidth expenses of over $1m each and every day. Undoubtedly, YouTube sees their service as an assett to WMG and wants to keep more of the revenue for footing the tab on those huge bandwidth bills and operational expansion.

Now that WMG has begun pulling content, many expect Sony and UMG to follow suit in demanding higher rates per play at the threat of content removal. Should that come to fruition, it would undoubtedly hamper YouTube’s efforts towards being the one hub on the net for all things video. The bigger question from there is, who will the labels turn to to host their content?

Warner Orders YouTube to Pull Videos is a post from: wax&wires

I  had argued that lower priced music would be the best way to combat illegal file sharing; and this was a huge plus for the Amazon MP3 store, as you could pick up the latest and greatest albums for often times under $5. Why download illegally when you can do it the right way for so cheap, especially when all of these P2P clients could potentially expose your computer to malware and other software with bad intentions?

Well, apparently, the right way still isn’t the most convenient way. Remember when Radiohead released “In Rainbows”? For a certain amount of time, you could go to their website and download the album, paying what you wanted for it, even nothing! A study found that through October, when the album was offered, huge numbers of people still downloaded the album illegally, rather than going through Radiohead’s site to get the album in a legal fashion.

A lot of speculation was generated regarding how much the band would actually make through this method of album release versus a more traditional one. They pulled the plug on it after just three months, releasing the album in traditional formats leading you to surmise that cash flow from the online release was less than spectacular. The traditional album sales sky rocketed to to the top of the charts, and most attribute that success to the buzz generated around the online promotion. Radiohead then caught flack for being insincere with their intentions, using the new format as simply a hype generator rather than harboring legitimate hopes of an industry revolution. Trent Reznor’s was the loudest voice to question Radiohead’s motives. In the end, the band’s manager did say that they were unlikely to do it again, so take that for what it’s worth.

All that said, unless society undergoes a massive paradigm shift to where illegal music downloads are not the norm, the music industry must find a new model to make money.

here’s the article

Music Industry Should Embrace Illegal File Sharing is a post from: wax&wires