July 10th, 2008
I’m getting sick of TechCrunch traveling down the same old road again and again without one new idea.This time around, they once again use the sensational ”the death of the label” headline. It seems that Last.fm’s opening their royalty option to indies and artists is some sort benchmark that “the middlemen” are no more.
“What Last.fm is doing here is creating an alternative to the official royalty-collecting organization for musicians (i.e., SoundExchange). Last year, the royalty rates for music streamed over the Internet were raised, making it more difficult for ad-supported music startups to stay in business. Last.fm got bought by CBS, so it’s not in danger of going under. And for any song owned by a label or artist who participates in SoundExchange, Last.fm continues to pay the going Internet radio royalty rate. But it is beginning to bypass Sound Exchange by giving new, unsigned artists an alternative. “
My smarmy headline aside, I don’t really agree with this and will explain exactly why I feel this way.
To not get caught up in some irritating argument over semantics in the comments, let’s define what a label is for the purposes of this post- the core business. A label is an incubator. It filters and creates content (A&R), makes an investment in creating and promoting that talent (human resources and marketing dollars), and ultimately strives to make a profit. Much like VC’s- labels speculate on the ability of talent to generate revenue that will support both parties. So, Live Nation is as much of a label as Epic, Epitaph, Suburban Home or any other traditional label. Large management firms who invest in recordings and perform marketing functions are similarly acting as “labels”, even if they take that moniker or not.
Let’s also dispense with the illusion that any artist can build a lasting career without some sort of business infrastructure. Very few artists can be Ani Difranco and do an amazing job in both music and entrepreneurship. Radiohead, NIN, and others are cool but don’t count in this argument because they had major marketing dollars and resources for years before they went out on their own. If some unknown built the fanciest website and shot the best video in the world- who the hell is going to see it unless you there’s some meaningful publicity on it? With all the wannabes out there … it’s a fucking WAR for attention out there, and victory (creating artist ubiquity that leads to selling a product) costs buku bucks. Bucks for all the jobs that need to get done, and bucks to grease the wheels of progress.
Let’s start with a product manager does. In the places I’ve worked, product managers are the drivers of the album after the record is done and ready to packaged, marketed, and delivered to physical and digital outlets. On most matters, they are the link between label and artist, and then internally responsible to establish and maintain quality control and time lines on everything from album art to viral videos, publicity campaigns, to the programs at traditional and digital retail. Oh, and all of this within an established budget
How about publicity? Why are some publicists great? Hint: not because of their ability to write hyperbolic press releases. It’s the relationships, retard. Publicists (and radio people, and sales people) pay YEARS of dues and slugging it out to earn the trust as taste makers for the gatekeepers at magazines, blogs, and late night television shows. Steve Martin from Nasty Little Man started his company doing press for Bad Religion and Helmet out of his apartment after getting paid $5 a year working at indie labels. Now he gets the Foo Fighters on Letterman. I guarantee he ain’t making $5 a year anymore. Who pays for that?
Let’s not forget about the super-sexy jobs of administration. Making sure bills are paid, aggregating content, processing meta data, formatting videos for viral distribution. The list of thankless and invisible tasks are endless. Let’s not forget the super super fun job of invoicing and collecting on all of those half-pennies Last.Fm and the other vendors are paying. Is last.fm going to collect royalties from other third parties and dispense them as well? This ill informed argument simply continues to prove that all of these half-baked theories from people who have never lived it like they spit it are just wind.
I’d like to know what 20-something armed only with their used strat, bartending money, and trendy Florence Henderson haircut could possibly do all of that- and then perform and write songs to the best of their ability? Unlikely at best. Their job is to write songs, rock out, fuck their fans, and be that guy or gal that people just can’t take their eyes off. You think they really want to toil their nights away doing all of this maintenance and splitting hairs if Artist Data Systems is the right syndication system for their tour dates? Coffee’s here, wake up.
Here is my plea to all the bloggers out there in tech world: stop the shenanigans, talk to and interview people who are actually in the business and trying to make a difference (we are) and talk about how your beloved start ups could HELP make the middle better, and stop crying wolf about how it’s over. It’s time to put down the rhetoric and start to propose viable solutions to the problems facing people that make content and people that want to exploit it for profit (labels and last.fm alike.)
Ahhh. I feel better now.
Written by Bill Wilson | 10 Comments
July 6th, 2008
Although I’m not keeping my label going with new releases anymore, I still sell back catalog and manage a few MySpace pages. I was checking through my emails, filtering out the spam comments and saw this email from Tom regarding a beta program for artists:
” We are happy to announce that artists can now buy ad space on MySpace. We call the program Find Your Fans. Find Your Fans On MySpace is a quicker, easier and smarter way to promote yourself, your band or your brand on MySpace. Find Your Fans is a user-friendly tool for you to use to advertise your band, brand or yourself on MySpace. You can target specific types of MySpace users you want to reach. Simply create your ad, tell us who should see it, how long you want to run it and how much you’re willing to spend. That’s it!
We’ll display your ad all throughout the MySpace site to the users you’ve chosen, putting your message in front of millions of potential customers and driving traffic to your profile until your campaign’s reached its spending limit or the expiration date set by you, whichever comes first.
When are you charged? Only if someone clicks on your ad — not when your ad is displayed.”
For musicians, this cost-per-click is probably a better investment than Google Adwords, as MySpace is such a specific destination for music discovery. It also has the effect of stealing the thunder from all the spammers. I’m actually surprised they didn’t do it sooner, but I imagine that now that they are in bed with the majors on MySpace music there’s some kind revenue kicker back to the labels.
I also see this as a watershed moment for the perceived value of music to social networks- it’s not just a one way street as some would have you believe. If MySpace is developing an entire revenue source by selling the ads on artist pages, it means they are aware the music drives page views, recorded music and artists fan bases have a value, and the audience they bring contributes to their bottom line.
“For fans of …” has always been a crucial pillar of music marketing, and it really makes sense for artists and social networks to put a tollbooth on it, and re-compensate those artists for those smaller ones drafting behind their brand name. My only beef with this is that if there’s a product sold on an artist page on the basis of that artists popularity, unsigned and indie artists should also participate in revenue generated by their pages as incremental revenues are important to every strata of label/ artist, not just those who occupy the Billboard charts.
Written by Bill Wilson | 1 Comment
March 23rd, 2008
But I thought I’d post this comment here, relating to this post at Techcrunch where Michael Arrington comments:
“Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist. Websites that bring that music to listeners are doing artists a favor. In fact, they’re doing them a favor that they should (and will) be paid for. Young artists and songwriters in particular benefit from these services - Until a few years ago they had almost no way to break into the mainstream without getting a label to promote them. Now those walls are being torn down, and Bragg has the audacity to complain about it.”
My reply to this is that one word comes to mind when I hear all of the web2.0 types talk about the next generation of music and how artists and labels should not expect to be compensated for recorded music.
Carpetbagger.
Yes. The old fatcats at the top of the music biz totally f’d it up with Napster. That’s ancient news. But they also screwed it up with terrestrial radio and MTV- building huge conglomerates on “promotional” music. To be fair, the biz was making enough money selling discs for it not to matter.
But it does now. We’re wise to Bullsh!t2.0, where some small team of founders and initial investors make millions in funding from selling to Newscorp, Yahoo, Google or CBS. Don’t blame the artists and labels for adapting to the new playing field. Music helps these companies acquire customers who have a lifetime value. So they need to shut up and pay.
These guys are still just as greedy as they claim Doug Morris and Edgar Bronfman are, the just hide behind the popular mantra that music should be free. Free to the consumer? Sure. Free to those who make a windfall? No way.
I suggest anyone in a band or from a label read the post and leave a comment on it.
Written by Bill Wilson | 15 Comments
February 13th, 2008
Hey everyone. It has unfortunately been a really long time since we have posted anything on IndieHQ. I wish I could say that was going to change in the near future, but with all of our current schedules that is looking to be pretty doubtful. In lieu of this situation, I thought I’d give some quick updates on where we’re all at right now and how to keep up to date with what we’re all up to should you feel inclined…
I recently updated my personal blog and portfolio. I also posted a “Best of 2007″ mix for anyone to stream or download.
Virgil has been extrememly busy with Suburban Home and Vinyl Collective. Check out a new band he is releasing vinyl for called Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground. The record is excellent.
Bill recently launched a new site for Blackout! Check it out and make sure to watch the Sheer Terror documentary available to stream on the site.
Hope all are doing well.
Written by Sean Klassen | 2 Comments
December 12th, 2007
I have some bad news. I will be unable to post the Indie Sales Chart for the next few weeks. Truth is, I am busier now than I have ever been in my life and because of this, I just can’t seem to find the time to make the Indie Sales Chart happen. Both Vinyl Collective and Suburban Home are so busy right now, I can barely find time for anything else. I hope everyone has a great holiday and I really hope that I will be back on top of things in early 2008.
Written by Virgil Dickerson | 6 Comments
November 28th, 2007
- SUCIDAL TENDENCIES SUICIDAL TENDENCIES
- SET YOUR GOALS MUTINY
- WHOLE WHEAT BREAD PUNK LIFE
- BLACK KEYS THE BIG COME UP
- RX BANDITS AND THE BATTLE BEGUN
- ALKALINE TRIO ALKALINE TRIO
- CHIODOS HEARTLESS CONTROL
- ALKALINE TRIO MAYBE I’LL CATCH FIRE
- ALKALINE TRIO GODDAMNIT
- VARIOUS ARTISTS SKA IS DEAD
Written by Virgil Dickerson | No Comments
November 28th, 2007
- BROOKS*GARTH ULTIMATE HITS
- EAGLES LONG ROAD OUT OF EDEN
- MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER CHRISTMAS SONG
- COOK*DANE ROUGH AROUND THE EDGES-LIVE
- VARIOUS STOCKINGS BY THE FIRE
- HAIRSPRAY SOUNDTRACK
- HAIRSPRAY (COLL ED) SOUNDTRACK
- PRESLEY*ELVIS HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
- MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS
- LITTLE BIG TOWN PLACE TO LAND
Read the rest of this entry »
Written by Virgil Dickerson | 6 Comments
November 25th, 2007
- BROOKS*GARTH ULTIMATE HITS
- EAGLES LONG ROAD OUT OF EDEN
- COOK*DANE ROUGH AROUND THE EDGESLIVE
- MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER CHRISTMAS SONG
- VARIOUS STOCKINGS BY THE FIRE
- BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY T.H.U.G.S
- LITTLE BIG TOWN PLACE TO LAND
- HAIRSPRAY SOUNDTRACK
- OSMOND*MARIE MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS
- GRAY*DAVID GREATEST HITS
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Written by Virgil Dickerson | 8 Comments
November 21st, 2007
I Celebrate Their Entire Catalog 14 song digital sampler [Click to download the entire sampler] AND SHARE THE LINK WITH YOUR FRIENDS AS IT CAN BE DOWNLOADED AN UNLIMITED NUMBER OF TIMES
The RIAA would have you believe that file-sharing and sites like Yousendit are label’s worst enemies. I do admit that for a small label like Suburban Home, it has made it more difficult for us to get fans to legally purchase our music, but in the end, I do think that file-sharing can help expose our music to new people. Today’s music fan has embraced all of the many ways to share and try out new music and there is no changing those habits. If we hope to be releasing new music years from now, it is only natural that we adapt to the many changes that are happening.
Just yesterday, we sent out the entire full album download of the Playing Favorites’ “I Remember When I Was Pretty” to every single person who pre-ordered the vinyl or the CD. Will people share it with others? No doubt they will. Will this help or hurt our sales of the album? Honestly, i don’t know. I do know that it is doubtful that I can sell any fewer copies and lately with Suburban Home, I view my relationship with the fans of our bands more like a friendship than a label / customer relationship. I trust my friends to download the album, enjoy it, and if they share it, hopefully they will tell those friends to consider buying the album if they do in fact like what they hear.
With that said, today, I am excited to share with you the latest Suburban Home Records’ sampler, “I Celebrate Their Entire Catalog“. The sampler features 14 tracks from current and upcoming albums and some of the things you will be stoked to see are 2 currently unreleased tracks from Drag the River’s upcoming album, a track from Scott Reynolds and the Steaming Beast, a demo from LaGrecia, a track from our latest signing, Jr. Juggernaut, and a live recording from Jon Snodgrass (the track listing is at the end of this post). The sampler was actually pressed as a CD which will accompany the first pressing of the Playing Favorites’ debut album, but we want the entire world to hear what we have been up to as I firmly believe we are putting out the best music of our 12 year history.
If you like what we do and what we are about, I encourage you to forward the YouSendIt link to anyone and everyone you know. Just copy and paste this url: http://download.yousendit.com/7399CB6878C37021. Post it in your blog, send it out in a Myspace bulletin, burn it onto CDs and give them to your friends, hell text it to your Grandma. We want everyone and anyone to download the sampler.
I am having a blast doing Suburban Home and love that I can try new things like this without having to deal with a bunch of suits. Suburban Home is independently owned and we are damn proud of that fact. You are not likely to see a major label do anything like this, because they have their heads firmly stuck up their collective asses.
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Written by Virgil Dickerson | 4 Comments
November 20th, 2007
I am really excited to share with you an interview Ronen Kaufman did with me for his podcast, Issue Oriented. You may have heard me sing his praises in the past as it is absolutely the best podcast going on in independent music. The fact that he thought enough of me to have him on his show is an absolute honor. In the interview we discuss Suburban Home, Vinyl Collective, IndieHQ, our Drunk Dial Hotline, and a little bit of this and that. You can download or stream the episode from IssueOriented.com or by subscribing through Itunes or a million other ways. Thanks Ronen, I truly appreciate it. Read the press release below.
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Written by Virgil Dickerson | 1 Comment
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