By Ariston Anderson

The music industry in general has been slow in playing catch up to the tools of new media. While record labels and publishers are still fighting to maintain ownership of their properties, there’s a whole new world of new media elite who are working to find tools to empower musicians and to build a bridge between the new media and the old media.

// Whether it’s putting music online for free, working to build an online community, or simply starting a dialogue, the folks seeking out answers are quickly replacing the stagnant ways of old media.

I decided to check out the New Music Seminar in New York City this week to find out just how musicians are becoming empowered.

The mastermind behind the conference, Tom Silverman, founder of Tommy Boy Entertainment, started the New Music Seminar in 1980, to discuss the future of the business then.
He founded the conference to reach out to a industry that was historically resistant to change. It served as a forum for young entrepreneurs to launch their businesses and make connections, and it became a model for new conferences like South by Southwest.

Since 2000, music revenues have been steadily decreasing. By next year, for the first time ever, digital revenues are expected to exceed physical sales. By 2013, the breakdown will be 80% digital and 20% physical.

“Change will not come if we wait for a record company,” said Silverman. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” The conference aims to teach artists how to make more money and less mistakes. Whether you want to be an artist, promoter, manager, or entrepreneur, here are the new rules to make it in the business:

• The future is DIY. Learn how to use affordable tools, but remember it’s not all about the tools. It’s about your craft. Software won’t solve all of your problems.
• The best marketing is informed by art, not art that you try and inform. You can’t create a viral video; that all depends on the audience. But you can create awareness.
• If you’re an artist, don’t borrow money. You can only maintain creative control by maintaining financial control. The opposite applies if you’re on the entrepreneurial side. Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, maxed out a dozen credit cards and owed money to everyone he knew before getting his project off the ground. The best advice he ever received was from his wife: “Don’t be self-conscious about being an entrepreneur.”
• There are a ton of places online to sell your music: Amazon, MySpace, iTunes, and TuneCore for starters. But don’t underestimate the power of giving away your music for free. Lil Wayne gave his music away for over a year before releasing his album. He worked first to build a connection with his fanbase before asking for any money.
• Fans are the new record label. The business now all depends on the relationship between an artist and their fans, most importantly the uber fans, the ones who buy all the merchandise, go to all the shows, and spread the word about their favorite bands.
• The key to staying in touch with your fans is through e-mail, the most important data you’ll ever collect. Have a sign-up sheet at every show. Have your audience text their e-mails to a road manager’s cell at the end of every show and promise to personally stay in touch. Then you’ll have both e-mails and area codes. Build an online community by blasting out webcasts, photoshoots, interviews, and even live streaming concerts.
• Engage with fans in a meaningful way, nothing forced or fake. We the Kings launched a weekly webisode series, The Kings Carriage, that has collected over 300 million views. They sold 100,000 albums even before the music was on iTunes.
• It’s dangerous for an artist to spend time on things that aren’t artistic. Build a management team to take care of the tools, marketing, and technology. If you’re just starting out, enlist a college music lover to build your brand.
• Sign any deal as long as it’s short-term if it’s going to get you noticed. Otherwise you’re not going to be on the radar.
• Start local, start tribal. The best band success stories come out of a music scene. The Internet has allowed for tribes to become bigger and bigger. Connect with similar bands doing similar music and go on tour with them. Build your own scene and work to break through together.

This article was re-published from WalletPop @ http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/07/25/so-you-wanna-be-a-rockstar-here-are-the-new-rules/

By Mika Schiller

The degree to which the music industry has ignored the future is criminal. It’s hurt a lot of people. It’s confused a lot of Indie Music types. Including maybe you. Think about American Idol. Here’s a hugely popular show that propagates the dusty old notion that music is still about “getting signed.”

That notion is a virus that will corrupt your mind if you engage it strongly enough. And I have no doubt that far too many of you still have this virus planted somewhere in the dark shadows of your mind. Maybe you’ve already accepted that the music industry  changed over the last 8 years. Maybe you already understand that the labels are screwed.

Or maybe you keep reminding yourself, “Indie or Die!” You accept with zeal that what the labels used to do for you, you must now do yourself…the marketing, the promoting, the mixing…it’s all in your hands now. But, but…at the back of your mind, there’s still a hushed little voice that says, “maybe I’ll get signed.” Or “maybe the labels will figure it all out.”

I must admit though, over the last 40 years, the music industry has done a masterful job of branding itself as the Gate Keeper. The demi-God. The Adonis. And that branding has still got many people by the balls. But it’s beginning to loosen its grip and break down. Breathe easy now.

Walk with me into the future. There you’ll learn that everything you’ve ever hated about the music industry has fallen apart. From radio, to lack of talent, to fake glamour, to Beyonce’s L’Oreal face. It’s finally about the music now.

To be the future, you have to think the future. There are many lessons that you, the all-powerful Indie music artist can learn and apply from the collapse of the music industry. Here’s a few, which I think are the most important. Burn them into your memory:

ATTENTION IS YOUR GREATEST ASSET

There’s too many musicians making to much music that people don’t have time to hear. There’s too many people producing ideas and things that people don’t want to consume. There’s too much email. Too much information. There’s too much clutter in people’s lives and not enough time.

It’s becoming harder and harder to get people’s attention. But if you can get someone to pay attention to what you have to say or what you have to offer for even just 5 minutes, and you manage to do this over and over, then you’ve acquired a valuable asset. You’ve acquired their undivided attention. And with that attention comes the opportunity to build trust.

If you can do that with 10,000 people, then you have 10,000 fans. The old way, the major label way, was to find fans for the music. The new way is to make great music for your fans; your tribe. You don’t need all that many of them either. You just need a few who trust you and love you. That’s attention. And that’s your most valuable asset in music 2.0.

MUSIC CAN BE COPIED, COMMUNITY CAN’T

The RIAA once maintained that copying a CD to your computer amounts to making an illegal copy. What’s next? Remembering a song is copyright infringement? The RIAA is a gang. They’re an old school gang, and they’re 20 years behind the curve. The RIAA is made up of a bunch of crusty record execs living on an analog acid dream. They think that music can still be protected. The way a mother protects her child.

You on the other hand should give less than a shit about protecting your music because you can’t. Don’t waste your time trying. Plastic and vinyl are becoming obsolete, so there’s no value derived from scarcity anymore. You can’t make your music scarce because the Internet won’t let you. And things that aren’t scarce naturally have less value.

But the things that do have value are you and the community and interactivity you create. Your shows and your fan community are the things that have value today because they are scarce and hard to produce. Albums aren’t. Remember, you don’t need a huge following to create value. Just a following that adores you.

DIGITAL IS THE FUTURE

Most of the kids born in the last 10 years will never buy a CD or subscribe to a magazine. They live in a digital world. They are the consumers of the future. Forget CDs and albums.

In the future, to engage these consumers, you too will have to embrace digital. Think mp3s. And remember, your music should never be thought of as a stand-alone product. It’s now a service. A song is relatively easy to produce and easy to replicate. It holds little value. It should exist to create community and interactivity.

FORGET ABOUT “MAKING IT”. THINK MARKETING

Success in the digital music era will go to the best marketers. Don’t get me wrong, good music is still extremely important and will always be. But if you don’t have proper marketing, you might as well live in a black hole where nothing is seen, heard or felt.

The days of showing up to the record label and outsourcing your marketing are over. Done. Thank almighty God.

Marketing is the one thing you can’t neglect. Social network sites matter a great deal, but are of limited use if you can’t combine them with  certain traditional online marketing channels. Remember, you actually need to talk to your people through controlled messages. Think websites and good copy. Solid marketing will always be your ticket to success.

This article was re-published from MADE @ http://madepublishing.com/wp/2009/10/music_trends/

*Alcohol: Wines That Rock is releasing rock and roll-related varietals such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon Cabernet and the Rolling Stones Forty Licks Merlot. Hopefully, the wine was bottled in these bands’ respective hay days. Am i rite? Also, it will taste terrible. [the daily swarm]

*Money: This incredible chart from Mint is too complex by half, but it shows who is paying taxes in the U.S. [harper's]

*Music: Here is a tumblr that is dedicated to “Music to have sex to.” I’ll be honest: I was expecting more Kings of Leon. A LOT more. WHAT? [lafix]

*Art: If these record cover collages don’t turn you on, you aren’t listening to enough Kings of Leon. Huh? Someone please help. [coudal]

*Visualizations: I’ve frequently linked to infographics made by GOOD magazine. Here’s a Flickr set of all of them. [coudal]

*Politics: According to Hunch, when it comes to Girl Scout cookies, liberals like samoas and conservatives like shortbread. I like thin mints. If by “like,” you mean devour sleeves of joylessly. [harper's]

*Web: Can government really tap into the power of technology via Expert Labs? And, more importantly, is this company hiring? WHAT?

*Twitter: Read these four things.

*Today’s links: Failure.

*Look: Chris Ware in the New Yorker. There are iPhones.

*Alert: Some Taco Bells serve cupcakes. I would like mine filled with hot sauce. Please. (That’s not a euphemism.) [harper's]

*Green: Check out this vinyl that’s been bent, pounded, shaped and reused.

*The future: Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, says that in 5 years, the web will be dominated by Chinese-language content. Get this: I don’t even speak Chinese. Also, ICANN has approved non-Latin characters for domain names.

*Food: Anthony Bourdain is doing some animated web-only short video bullshit that isn’t even about food. Also, it looks like there could be zombies. Or their close brethren.

*Beer: I cannot agree with this list of the 25 best beers in America, but I can drink them. With vigor.

*Gaming: Watch this dude play Guitar Hero without a guitar. You will note that I sometimes also play Guitar Hero without a guitar, but that my score is always zero. Always. [waxy]

*Local: Guides to eating in Minneapolis from Zagat and Treehugger. [ht]

*Fall: It’s decorative gourd season. [spin city]

*Today’s links: F.

PRS for Music and PPL must merge and they must do so now. They cannot any longer hope to hold out against the conflicting forces that beset them. They must be allowed to combine the intellectual property rights that they offer into a single comprehensible and efficiently licensable bundle and they must do this in the UK however much short term pain it will incur – and then spread the model to Europe and the rest of the world.  PRS has already announced cost cutting measures and regrettable redundancies, but the fact is that these are small measures compared to the fundamental reform that is required.

The music industry crisis is nearing the eye of  its perfect storm.  CD revenues of the majors continue to fall apace despite valiant efforts to breath new life into the old model (beautiful job on the Beatles re-releases is the fab retro example du jour).  The fundamental pillars of the industry,  its royalties collecting societies, are being pulled apart by a combination of the aggressive but confused European Commission, the self interested actions of its own members to grab rights business back for themselves, and by two Boards of Management who seem inexplicably slow to respond to the urgent calls of their valiant executive. As the recession bites and performance rates for music continue to be collected in inefficient and uncoordinated ways, then increasingly music played in public is starting simply to be dropped from public life.  It won’t even be a question of cost, it will simply happen because it is too damned difficult in this digital and recessionary world to deal with an unreconstructed music industry

There are lots of comments about how the competition laws and EU directives are preventing the majors from resolving the problems of the industry. There are also lots of attempts to bring in protective backward-looking legislation which seeks to protect the old model. But the old model is just that. None of the lobbying and activist efforts of the music industry will do anything to build a new model.

What is needed now is to create the new music industry – the big bang for music – akin to when the UK financial markets changed to dynamic electronic trading and at a stroke, overnight became a global powerhouse. What it takes to do that is to create one digital right for music that encompasses streaming and downloading, with the public performance and publishers’ “mechanical” royalty built-in, all licensable through one technologically efficient, digital agency where the onus is on opted-in content not opted out. It’s not the blanket license that some have called for, but this is an industry structure fit for purpose in the 21st Century that music’s customers – consumers and businesses could understand.

Lawyers and accountants have created the complexities, business people and true creative industry executives have to unravel it and reconstruct it. That’s a proposal worth asking for government help on. If this project is not started properly, not piecemeal and started now, then the market will continue to do what it is doing to the industry and it will unravel itself. How long will it be before EMI implodes under the massive pressure of a record company and a publishing company that still don’t talk to each other  (or share databases of IP) and a burden of debt so harsh that none of the leaders knows which way to lead?  Guy Hands has a reputation for the structural re-architecturing of industries he enters. He needs to start work fast on this one if he is going to have a chance of coming out of the mire positively.

The IP issues need to be addressed and they need to be tackled at the institutional, licensing level and at the artist level. Labels need to fundamentally reconstitute their relationship with their artists so that they become transparent and accountable and gain the cooperation of their partners. The treatment of the artists as assets to be exploited needs to end. Instead, partnerships where all revenues are shared equally on all revenues generated – whether cash or equity – need to be established fast

When things get as hard as they are right now. The old established players joke that they will be retired before the edifice crumbles completely and so somebody else can sort out the mess – meanwhile they have their targets and their bonuses to think of. That culture is over and the blood is already on the carpet. There won’t be much of a carpet to bleed on soon. Fundamental reform is needed and it’s needed now.

At this year’s Innovate09 event, Lord Mandelson called upon the UK to innovate its way out of recession. He encouraged the entrepreneurs and businesses to find new ways to do business. “Why waste a good recession?” He asked jovially. The 800,000 people employed in the creative industries and the 400,000 employed in creative tasks in other industries are looking at the music industry. They’re wondering whether the early experience this industry has had in dealing with the onslaught of digital media and the challenge of the internet can provide a model to help them as the rest of the sector suffers. They’re looking and are even joining in as the industry response is to lash out at consumers as “pirates” and to seek retrograde legislation to try to stop file-sharing. In Sweden – that’s already gone well underground and anonymity is the order of the day.  So in the UK, we’re leading and they’re following but to what destination?

Innovate out of recession, innovate on the internet – these are fine sentiments, but they are only part of the story. The music industry will need fundamental reform of its IP offerings, its creator relationships and its customer relationships – and it needs the leadership to make that happen.

1.2 million employees of creative industries need more encouragement than they can find today. If the industry were to demonstrate in a constructive way that it is making real efforts to change, not the cosmetic end-run of the Virgin-Media deal, but real radical and fundamental change, then there are plenty of those in government in the UK and Europe who would welcome it and seek to assist – whether  that’s the kind of assistance we would want is another matter – but let’s make a start now!

*Photography: Matt Siber’s Floating Logo series has me mesmerized. It’s that or the 2/3 of a bottle of white wine I just drank very quickly out of tiny jam jars. Or both. (I should add that due to an annoying lack of permalinks, you’ll need to click on “Projects,” then “Floating Logos.”) [eatmedaily]

*Hip-hop: NPR thinks that Jay-Z is fluent in the language of modern occultism. [murketing]

*Knowledge: I have a near single-minded obsession with polymathy. But it’s on its way out? (Basically, the article says that not only is polymathy waning, but our current polymaths are weak in comparison to those of the past. You may recall that Benjamin Franklin invented both lightning and the cold-air bath.)

*Money: Data by Web 2.0 financial site Mint – check out Fast Company’s infographic on trends in geographic frugality, as well as clothing, books and hobbies spending.

*Lawsuits: The North Face sues The South Butt. Submitted without comment. Except for this: BUTT!!!!!!! [consumerist]

*Innovation: What happens if you mix a couple of YouTube videos, a cross-fader and some gratuitous swearing? That was a rhetorical question. Or just an obvious one. [fimoculous]

*Video: Nabokov talks about Lolita on YouTube. Alert me when he can explain “Pale Fire” to my satisfaction. [3quarksdaily]

*Cartography: Mapping Main Street is a look at some of the 10,466 Main Streets in America. I live on Hoyt Avenue now, but my pornography name is Buck Hubbard. Tangential, but I’m sure you follow my train of thought. [coudal]

*Work: Heat-sensitive business cards have been invented. Just reading about this gives me hairy palms. Sweaty palms. Huh? If you need me, I’ll be in the confessional. Praying. [psfk]

*Local: OK, how does an obscure Minneapolis blogger get his ass invited to stuff like this?

*Life: The Long Now looks at some of the planet’s oldest living things. What does it mean that I wish The Long Now blog cranked out posts (they are very good) at a much faster rate?

*Ideas: I previously linked to a spellchecked version of “The Jabberwocky.” Here’s a grammar-checked take on the bible. As I said, techno-corporate lobotomization is a matter of great interest to me right now. I smell a long post coming. Smells like toner cartridge.

*Grade: Fail. That’s worse than an F by three letters.

It has been a tumultuous few weeks in the Compatible World – a raging debate about file-sharing has got a lot of people very emotional.  It’s mostly been in the music world, but all sorts of creators and creatives in different sectors have been watching with breath held trying to see which way this argument goes. There is nothing like a threat of regulation and legislation to sharpen a debate. There is nothing like a recession, loss of jobs and incomes, to make it emotional. After all, file-sharing is at least ten years old now, but this has only served to amplify the arguments.

On the one side, the libertarian argument – on the other, the conservative view – there’s been little middle ground. On the one hand those that argue there is much promotional value to be had in file-sharing – on the other, those that argue it is totally destructive and leads to an inevitable decline in sales.

With regard to new business models – everyone argues that we need them – even the labels agree. But the conservative argument is that as long as file-sharing persists it hampers the launching of new products and therefore file-sharing must be suppressed.  The libertarians argue that file-sharing cannot be suppressed and that the new models need to be encouraged as quickly as possible and that the labels are preventing them by not licensing more innovative models.  But, even as one label tries to innovate, another holds back – afraid of cannibalising with a new model the only digital revenues they already have (iTunes).

The new proposal from Lord Peter Mandelson for the UK to adopt a policy of broadband account suspension to be applied to the heaviest sharers, the now famous “egregious offenders” has sparked the new row.  The Featured Artists Coalition voiced strong opposition to this and fuelled a heated internal argument inside the music industry.  Lily Allen piped up in a strong voice – unexpectedly putting the conservative argument and saying “it’s not alright” to file-share. As a result the labels got very excited and did everything they could to “help” her and a huge amount of  abuse came down on her head from the online community.

But Lily did speak out in a significant way. Her intervention highlighted the conflicted feelings of many musicians and artists. On the one hand they recognise the incredible potential and value of the net – on the other hand they can’t feel entirely comfortable knowing that their ability to make a living from their own creativity is being reduced by the actions of millions of people who consume without valuing their work – because they can.

So on Thursday night last week we gathered together at Air Studios in Hampstead, north west London, a group of about eighty recording artists – some well known – some more obscure – to try to explore the issues and where artists stood. Members from all sorts of  bands like Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Blur, Travis, Keane, Marillion were there, Billy Bragg who is as impassioned and politically savvy as they come, David Arnold who writes the Bond music,  Mike Batt who is an artist and the vice-chairman of the BPI all sat there together – ready for a ding dong. In an upstairs room, with his ear to the wall, George Michael was getting reports of the proceedings. Annie Lennox had her digital representative relaying events by phone.  We sat in the round, in the studio’s cosy wood back-room with the old church stained-glass windows looking down on us, the paraphernalia of recording equipment shoved back to the walls  and a couple of microphones to give people something to hold on to when they talked.  About fifteen minutes or so after the discussion began, a timid and tearful Lily Allen came into the room, crouching behind the back row at first. She was encouraged forward and applauded for attending – and was quickly given a seat on the front row to take part in the debate which I had the dubious honour to be chairing. She was tearful, she was angry, she was foul-mouthed and she was eloquent. The whole debate didn’t entirely revolve around her, but she and Billy Bragg became the respective voices of the opposing positions.

The arguments swung back and forth. The conservative view is as strong among many artists as is the libertarian position. There was no particular rationale to which artists adopted which position and for an hour or so the debate simply swung back and forth. One guy from the Long Pigs, got very angry and walked out, saying something about how he  “couldn’t understand why you’re being so soft on them – they need to be told”.  Billy Bragg delivered an incredible, rowsing speech to huge applause about the need to be nurturing fans and the relationship that an artist has with them is the only one that counts.  As the clock reached towards nine pm, I tried to push the room towards a vote. I thought that perhaps while they wouldn’t get agreement on the key issue of suspending peoples’ accounts, maybe we could all agree on the long term educational, cultural change that was needed and that new models were now critically required, perhaps we could conclude by emphasising the positive stuff we do all share.

But then something remarkable happened. As I pushed them to close, they wanted to argue on and the energy in the room suddenly lifted. Someone suggested that perhaps not suspension but bandwidth slowing could be a solution. Perhaps the ability to use email and basic web-serving could be preserved but the high bandwidth needed to make file-sharing worthwhile could be reduced. The room leapt on this compromise with a speed and a degree of excitement that we hadn’t seen all evening. No matter that it would cost the ISPs more to do this than to cut people off. No matter that people could still file-share just more slowly. No matter that squeezing might require as much of an invasion of privacy as suspension – a compromise position was in the air – and everyone leapt on it.

I called for a show of hands and about sixty percent of them went up, including Lily’s and Billy’s in favour of bandwidth squeezing. A significant minority voted against – mostly because they were libertarian, but a few who strongly insisted that hanging and flogging was too good for file sharers. There was a feeling of elation. Euphoria was in the air. Never mind the fine detail, much more importantly,  the artist community had become united. Talking face to face, not through the distorting lenses of the media but in privacy with no reporters and no photographers in the room – the artists found common cause and we all celebrated that.

And so the meeting ended with a feverish capturing of the sentiment in a brief statement that was put out to the waiting media.  And, as the hour neared midnight, the crowd drifted away with a sense that something important, even historic had just happened; something greater than reaching a consensus on a view about what to do about file-sharing to give to the government. Everyone had the feeling that the power of the artists’ community could be more powerful in this story going forward and that together they could work out solutions that might actually satisfy everyone – and that they were capable of practical deal making – more effectively than some of the other participants in the debate.  Argue? of course they did! Compromise? Hell yeah! Who said tearful, emotional, angry artists – couldn’t also occasionally surprise themselves and act more like adults than the corporate grown ups could?

I was asked to contribute a few words following Ed O’Brien from Radiohead’s announcement of a keynote interview at Midem next year. I contributed a brief update on the progress and perspective of the FAC.

The term ‘Music 2.0′ refers to a different model accepted by the music business. In a 1.0 world, Record Labels prevailed as the major distribution means for new albums, Radio Stations as the major promotion vehicle for new acts, and Live Concerts as the sole entertainment-based interaction between musical groups and fans. Today’s evolved model has shifted, and put Fans in the driver’s seat of much of the Distribution, Promotional Acceptance, and Interaction with new acts. How is it then, that so many new acts fail to accept this model?

It’s quite simple really: Most musicians are just learning about the necessity of integrating technology into their budgets, touring, and media. However, there is not enough time in a day to manage the demands of rehearsal, tour planning/management, fund-raising, promotional activity, online ‘fan/friend’ requests, etc. A Musician 2.0 is now demanded – one who fully creates her career trajectory and foundation on that of technology integration, rather than simply adding a few ‘tech’ pieces here and there (ex: MySpace page, and website).

What are your thoughts on how Musician 2.0’s can succeed in the future?

*Breaking: Mozart died of strep throat. I had a bad case of mono in the 9th grade. (Not really.) [harper's]

*Web 2.0: MySpace bought iLike. Neologistic. [swarm]

*Letters: Make the alphabet in tapes with Tapeography. But how many syllables are in that? Four? Five? Conventional wisdom would say four, but I think maybe seven. [psfk]

*Photography: The Dieter Rams pool. Jump the fuck in. [notcot]

*Online: Is it your brain circuitry that makes you like Twitter, or does no one know what the fuck they’re talking about? [murketing]

*TV: The Footnotes of Mad Men is a blog about the footnotes of the television show Mad Men. Great idea, ok execution. [kottke]

*Videogames: Profile of a gamer – fat, depressed and 35. Hello? Oh, I thought you were talking to me. [mefi]

*Age: Celine Dion is only one year older than Gwen Stefani. Also, why am I talking about this?

*Remember when that remote controlled flying penis attacked Garry Kasparov? Great times.

*Anecdotes: Mick Jagger goes shopping at a toy store. [harper's]

*Advice: How to Be So Choice – By Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend, Sloane. “Look badass in a jacket with fringe.” [boner party]

*Nerdly: Om Malik writes up a mega-post on the Evolution of Blogging.

*Advertising: Vanity Fair takes on “Mad Men.”

*Founding Fathers: Review Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule. You’ll note that he omitted “take a cold-air bath” from it. [daring fireball]

*RIP: Les Paul died. “His childhood piano teacher wrote to his mother, ‘Your boy, Lester, will never learn music.’”

*Woodstock: “Wet, crowded and overhyped.” [bv]

*Barebones: Like back in the day.

*Vinyl: The list of the ten top-selling albums of 2008 on vinyl is topped by Radiohead. Then the Beatles. Neutral Milk Hotel at number six. OK, I’ve said enough.

*Listening: Can you find out about national well-being by crunching the numbers on songs and blogs and the like? [murketing]

*Inventions: The steam-powered internet machine runs on steam. And dreams. [neural]

*Words: The New York Times‘ On Language column takes on “fail.” In the internet sense. (I don’t care for fail, though my feelings on the matter are more nuanced than a simple off/on switch. OH SNAP.)

*Hardware: Examine, if you will, these Nano cases that look like cassettes. I have a cassette tape player in my car. FYI. Also, a cracked bumper. [buzzfeed]

*Cities: Listen to the sounds of London – Waterloo Station, Beneath the Thames, Bank of England and more. [city of sound]

*Old: HuffPo (and CNN) calls my attention to this two-year-old video of Winston the Water Fountain, a dude who can consume, then spit out crazy amounts of water. This is exactly as interesting as it sounds.

*Watch: Video clips of live sets at Lollapalooza. Well, if you time it right. How much of life is timing again? I knew the answer to that at the time I began writing this bullet. [shorties]

*Playlists: CitySounds.fm allows you to listen to the soundtracks of cities from around the world. Sadly, no Minneapolis. We peaked at Prince. Effers. [magnetbox]

*Twitter: When Twitter is down. [negatendo]

*Movies: John Hughes’ former teenage pen pal tells all.

*Surgery: Disney is performing vasectomies on elephants. Apropos of something. I just don’t know what. But I will. Someday. [harper's]

*Architecture: David Byrne is doing his Playing the Building music/architecture mashup thing again, this time with a building in London.

*Unemployment: Economists react to the latest unemployment numbers. But what if they have unemployed economists react to them? You see where I’m going with this? Right? No. Then go away forever.

*Reading: The Virginia Quarterly Review (which for a lit rag has a surprisingly good online presence) compares Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, “Inherent Vice,” with “The Big Lebowski.”

One of the smaller points in the Spotify fund-raising piece in the FT that flashed around the globe Tuesday was mention of a “strategic partner” in the wings. This was widely interpreted to mean a record company.  Some might have raised an eyebrow and wondered why a single record company would wish to take a piece of Spotify when it’s widely acknowledged that only when a service can offer all the content from all the labels can it be said to be in a position to offer a meaningful consumer offering (niche and genre-specific takes aside). These days however, Universal appears to be flying in the face of that truism by going alone in its recently announced services with both Virgin and Orange. Perhaps having such a high share of the UK market gives them that confidence. Music Week reported earlier this month Universal has currently 44.5% of the UK album market and 46.5% of the singles. As the FT argues, having a record label on board might allow the company to negotiate lower royalty rates. Artists signed to such a label might begin to query the value of such a deal to them however.

So might this “strategic partner” in the wings be Universal? Well earlier in the year, around the time of Spotify’s launch, rumours swirled around the industry about the cost and terms of Spotify’s licenses with the major record labels. Estimates from between £4m and £7m have been bandied about as the amount they had to pay in upfronts to the majors to achieve their slam-dunk comprehensive license pack. Hence perhaps the need to raise substantial sums again so early on. If that weren’t crippling enough, a new and sophisticated deal option was rumoured too. In the early naughties, taking some equity in start-up music companies as well as charging upfront royalty fees was common practice. I like to think I helped pioneer such deals during my time in Los Angeles with EMI.  It was therefore widely assumed that the majors had repeated this practice in the case of Spotify. But, it was  also alleged that the majors had created a ‘put option’ in their deals that would allow them to  cash in their shares in the event that the company’s valuation reached a certain threshold. Such an option would be attractive to both sides since it would motivate the labels to collaborate with Spotify to increase its valuation and help Spotify by incentivising the labels to help Spotify and not some of its competitors.

If the magic number was $200m then it might just be that this new round of investment is accompanied by a more significant re-jigging of the ownership of Spotify with several labels seeking to cash in and help their suffering bottom lines, while one or two others choose to enhance their holding position. One of the great advantages of cashing out in such a manner to the labels would be that no artists would need to be paid since the revenue came from the labels’ aggregated position not through individual performances.  Of course, until the day when Spotify goes public (something of a distant prospect in this market) we may never know. How any of this plays into Apple’s thinking about Spotify’s iPhone app is hard to fathom – if indeed Apple are aware of this dimension at all.

And from the perspective of a large record label, what real value would building up a single player like this bring in the long term? It is often argued that if one record company were to take some ownership in a big market-dominant player,  then the other competitor labels would never play ball and would support a competing player. But that was an argument made in the days when one major label didn’t control almost 50% of the market.  So this begs the larger question, as the architecture of the music industry continually evolves and reshapes, what path should a record company take in the digital arena and how does it achieve its mutation from a recording and marketing business to a digital relationship management company? How fast can one company alone, get ahead of the rest of the industry before the others catch up?  As the speed of change increases so, it would seem, does the opacity of the game. As Mr Grainge, Chairman of Universal Music, said to me recently with a twinkle in his eye: “Oh, I’m very, very opaque”.

Island Def Jam is taking the marriage of music and brand partnership to the next level – the result:
Mariah Carey’s “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel” to be released on Sept. 15, which will feature a 34-page mini magazine co-produced with Elle. The magazine will include the usual liner notes and lyrics, in addition to AD SPACE for:
Elizabeth Arden,

Angel Champagne,

Carmen Steffen’s, Le Métier de Beauté

the Bahamas Board of Tourism.

It is believed that if this go well, label Island Def Jam will do similar booklet deals for Rihanna, Bon Jovi, Kanye West and others.

According to reports, WalMart has committed to merchandise Carey’s new CD alongside her signature Arden fragrance just outside the music aisle, as well as, display them together in the beauty department.

I like the idea but I just hope that this doesn’t mean that she’ll have to incorporate jingles in her performances (as some have done in order to secure sponsorship) or that we’ll be bombarded by ads from partner companies on her website!!!

The excited reporting in the FT today of Spotify’s most recent fund-raising round raises the question of whether the upstart freemium subscription service might actually represent a challenge to the mighty iTunes.

The question is no doubt weighing heavily in the minds of the Apple executives who are to make a decision whether to accept the Spotify iPhone app into the hallowed portal of the iPhone App store.

Having raised the ire of the FTC earlier this week by rejecting Google’s talk app – which would enable voice over ip on the iPhone and threaten Apple Telco partners AT&T’s business model, they now have to ask themselves which is the greater risk – stopping Spotify and possibly incurring further Federal Trade wrath or letting in a possible competitor to the mighty lynchpin of their own content sales effort?

Of course, arguably the value of iTunes as a sales channel is much less than its role as the cement between the user and the i-devices that sell for lots of money, but recurrent revenue from content over time has got to be attractive  – particularly with the new high priced codename “cocktail” service sitting in the wings alongside  new devices which, if the rumour mill is to be believed include:  a souped up ipod touch with microphone and a new tablet netbook.

So are the aptly named Li Ka Shing Foundation, simply Kashing in (sorry!) on the success to date of Spotify, are Wellington partners to enjoy a Waterloo at Apple’s expense? Will the US of A adopt Spotify with open arms? The opportunities are exciting, the platform is subtly sophisticated with its simple interface and its powerful backend p2p infrastructure. And the move into neighbouring verticals of film, tv and even games are all so alluring to the beady eyed investor. But of course, Spotify still has to raise enough advertising revenue to interfere with its free service just enough to give people the incentive to upgrade to the paid subscription service – no easy shout in a recession where ad spending has been sliding over the cliff. So this is an exciting company – but now it’s not all down to execution – it’s also about how Apple chooses to respond to the invitation to joust.

Watch this space.

Bruce Warila - Music Think Tank

by Bruce Warila

Perhaps with some tweaking, here’s what current wisdom tells you:

1. Make music.
2. Give your music away; it’s your best advertisement.
3. Organize into a business entity.
4. Go on tour.
5. Build an audience.
6. Sell stuff and a bit of music when you can.
7. Go on tour again.
8. Sell even more stuff.
9. And when you stop touring, your revenue stream will slow to a crawl.

As new interactive digital products enter the marketplace (and they are), your digital future will look something like this:

1. Make music
2. Give your music away; it’s your best advertisement.
3. Sell high-margin interactive digital products to fans.
4. Go on tour if you want; it won’t be necessary to making a living.
5. The reoccurring revenue never has to stop.

Make money from home…
I’m reminding everyone of this now because some of you are making serious decisions based upon the current wisdom outlined above. New interactive digital products will enable you to generate reoccurring revenue from your bedroom, provided that fans learn about you through your songs. Timeline: 2012 and beyond.

Illegal sharing and your digital future…
Aside from the wildest interactive capabilities that you can imagine, the question that’s on everyone’s mind is: Will illegal sharing crush these products also? The answer is no. The products that will come into the marketplace will capture the personalized (and for example: weighted, scored and ranked over time) digital relationship that you have with each of your fans. Fans will not share these highly personalized products.

Preparing for this future…
Artists have been giving away everything from baby pictures, to blog posts, to bedroom videos to sell music. Flip it all around and contemplate a day where ‘everything’ is part of your interactive package, whilst your songs are simply your banner ads.  Hold things back today, to include in your digital tomorrow.

This article was re-published from the Music Think Tank @ http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/your-digital-music-industry-future.html

*Words: Being a linguistic examination of a Van Morrison rant filled with swear words. Related: Go fuck yourself. [mefi]

*Comics: Sally Forth meets Thomas Pynchon. I met Thomas Pynchon once. And have the aphasia to prove it. [harper's]

*Local: Was Purple Rain the high-water mark of Twin Cities music? I saw Prince play at the Mill City Music Festival once. Then I got extraordinarily drunk and danced on 1st Avenue. Remind me not to describe that in detail to anyone. Ever. [daily swarm]

*Music: I started a LinkedIn group called Professionals for Clarity, Levity and Brevity once. This Mashable article about music and social media would in no way qualify for inclusion in our holy bible. And I have high tolerance.

*Headlines: Love this headline re: Wired’s Chris Anderson – Chris Anderson Less Intellectually Curious Than George W. Bush [spincity]

*Furniture: Cassette lamps. Where’s the 8-track footstool? See what I did there? Hated myself. Intensely. [coudal]

*TV: I am currently watching a television program that’s telling me that Michael Jackson was addicted to eBay. But I can’t imagine him using a computer with any proficiency. He used IE, right?

[via @marieeveboucher]

Photo taken by rock star photographer Brook Pifer at the 2009 Florida Music Festival I attended in May. Click the photo to check out Brook's excellent portfolio on her website.

The digital age of the music business is in full effect. The remnants of music business 1.0 are rapidly being replaced by a new structure that empowers the artists, not the labels.

Music 2.0 is here.

To help you effectively navigate your way around this new music business I wrote a PDF special report titled “Artist Development and Promotion in the Digital Age” that you can download for free at the bottom of this post. Will the information contained in this report benefit you in your music career? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Below is an outline of the report followed by a brief excerpt. If the information looks interesting to you then by all means download it and share it with your musician/artist buddies. My goals are that you:

• Learn from this report (like I learned at the 2009 Florida Music Festival, which is where the info comes from)
• Put what you learn into effect in your career immediately
• Start seeing the results of your efforts.

Good luck to all of you

PDF contents…

How to Market Yourself Online and Break Through the Clutter

Don’t Just Promote, Engage Your Fan Base!

How To Treat People in the Music Industry

Creative Ways to Make Money With Your Music in the Digital Age

Craft Your Image Right and You Just Might Become a Superstar

“…Feed online content to your audience constantly to keep them engaged. This content could be
songs, mixtapes, videos, articles, or whatever else you can dream up and convert into a digital
file to upload on the Internet. Whatever your content is, addict your audience to it and keep
them coming back for more…”

Download the special report here:

Special_Report_Artist_Development_Promotion_Digital_Age

Reader Input:

Was this report helpful to you?

What other information would you like to see covered in a future report?

Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

by:

Dexter Bryant, Jr. (d.BRYJ)
DbryJ Music Media Group

Check out Mass Appeal’s TV Channel on Youtube!

*Polls: One of the most important questions of our time – Are beards metal? (I voted “not metal.” The results may shock the fuck out of you.)

*Feed readers: Two very good posts about the future of RSS feeders and idea recommendation. I obviously have a lot to say about these matters and not a lot of free time to say it. The interesting thing about my previous statements that I considered twitter a recommendation engine for ideas is that the people I follow don’t ever link to anything.

*The Future: You can’t throw a neon disc without hitting a blog talking about upcoming Tron-themed Daft Punk events. Or maybe that’s just among the blogs I read. Hmf.

*Green: Carrotmobbing is gimmicky. It’s also been one of my favorite ideas since I first saw it for the day job way back.

*Local: Recently deceased St. Paul musician Jeff Hanson’s autopsy showed that he died of a drug overdose. UGH. [tds]

*Local: The Telegraph on Bob Dylan and the Hibbing High School class of ‘59 reunion. [mnspeak]

*Discovery: I used to cover a lot more Web 2.0 music discovery recommendation engine shit on this blog. Then I got bored with it. Still, Ghostly (for the iPhone) looks pretty cool. Well. It has a ghost. [notcot]

*Prose: Sexist, maybe. Boner Party, though? Yes.

*Editorial: Vanity Fair marks up Sarah Palin’s resignation speech. To be fair, if an editor went through a transcript of me talking for 20 minutes, it would be an enormous red knot.

*Video: The Wikipedia Files, a five-part video interview of The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne by the Chicago Public Radio Blog. [coudal]

*Apology: Late to so much. The dude won’t sleep.

*Genres: If there really is a sub-genre of heavy metal music called bro-core, I want to be a part of it. Brohitos? Are you with me? I’m willing to play bass. If that’s allowed in bro-core.

*Music: The BBC does a piece on song recognition technology (like Shazam) and advancement in said field. You can say “said” even though you typed it. I looked that up.

*Money: The Wall Street Journal looks at the business side of Jack White. Pasty. [shorties]

*Music: Listen to an 8-bit tribute to Weezer. If you’re nerdy enough. (Please know that I only used the word “bullshit” above because it rhymed.) [waxy]

*Twitter: Trent Reznor deleted his account. Now how do we know what he ate for breakfast?

*Shirts: Kanye Vader is like Darth Vader, but with shuttered glasses. Hence the Kanye part. [spin city]

*Reading: Five twitter things to read.

*Festivals: Read NPR’s take on the Pitchfork Music Festival. Because public radio rules the rock and roll roost. (The previous statement contains an implicit commentary about modern society and the devolution of formerly rebellious forms of art.)

*Streaming: Spotify is on its way to the U.S. Slate reviews. I don’t normally care much for Slate.

*Phones: Textually points out this fat-burning concept phone. With obesity on the rise, how about a phone that derives energy straight from our expanding fat stores? You know what I mean? (Our guts.)

*Twitter: It has been stated that in the world of twitter, there are two camps: the favoriters and the retweeters. Here is a look into the enemy camp. [venturebeat]

*Illness: Melissa Auf der Maur kept a Swine Flu diary. [earfarm]

*Podcasts: I linked to this on Twitter, but I need to do it again. Listen to this podcast from The Memory Palace on Ben Franklin and his rumored death ray.

*Video: Howard Rheingold talking about 21st century literacies. I can’t spell. Or think. Or read.

*Ice cream: The Cloud Project proposes to seed neighborhoods with ice cream-flavored clouds. [wmmna]

*Obits: Walter Cronkite died. Esquire posted his “What I’ve Learned” interview. “I grew my mustache when I was nineteen in order to look older. I never shaved it off even though it overran its usefulness many, many years ago.”

*More on music and torture: Prisoners forced to listen to Dr. Dre and Eminem for 20 days straight. [harper's]

What a way to start the day!!  iTunes has featured Lisa Lisa and her new album “Life ‘N Love” on the R&B main page! Check it out by going onto iTunes and clicking on the “R&B” genre tab located on the left side of your iTunes. Lisa Lisa along with other R&B artists, on the main page album scroll. While you’re there purchase “Life ‘N Love”, Lisa Lisa’s 7th album, released 7.14.09!! Get “Life ‘N Love” on iTunes and hear an the EXCUSIVE track “Can’t Wait”, produced by Clinton Sparks. “Can’t Wait” is available only on iTunes!!