April 25th, 2007
As you read in the press, you may have noticed quite a bit of ink dedicated to the majors considering other forms of revenue. Universal are in talks with a management company; labels are starting to see revenue from video games like Guitar Hero; and there seems to be just as much money coming in from ring tones as there is from the sale of actual music.
Indies are not alone in considering new ways to operate while not depending completely on music sales. I give you two recent examples with Vagrant Records and Rise Records.
Vagrant recently launched Vagrant Ringside: The Official Vagrant Records Fan Club this week. For $24.95 per year, you get the choice of a Vagrant Records’ Band T-shirt; Membership Card; Access to Private Message Boards, Blogs, and Chats; Exclusive Content; Pre-sale Ticketing Opportunities; Meet and Great Opportunities; Vagrant Merch; and if you join now, you get a limited edition Senses Fail lithograph by Brian Ewing. This is definitely an interesting launch by Vagrant Records because if done correctly, Vagrant will have a direct connection with the fans of their bands which could lead to great ways to promote future releases and acts. I would imagine that this will take quite an infrastructure to set up and keep updated, but could become a huge asset for the indie powerhouse. I am curious if the bands on Vagrant see a portion of the membership fees. Either way, this is a perfect example of what marketing guru, Seth Godin, calls Permission Marketing which gives the marketer a strongest connection to their fans. I will be curious to see if this takes off. What superfan would not be excited at the chance to have meet and greats with their favorite bands as well as access to exclusive content?
Rise Records’ head, Craig Ericson, recently sent out an email explaining that Rise is now managing 3 producers/studios (the entire email is available if you click the link to read more). The Producers/Studios boast working with acts such as Converge, Fear Before the March of Flames, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Devil Wears Prada, Kaddisfly, Between the Buried and Me, and many more. It is a smart cross-marketing move that allows two related businesses to help each other. Rise Records are making quite the name for themselves releasing a number of acts that have absolutely blown up (Drop Dead Gorgeous and Devil Wears Prada are just 2 recent examples), but it is smart that Craig isn’t resting on his laurels. Any aspiring band who are fans of Rise Records would jump at the opportunity to record at the same studio that helped produce their favorite albums; it gives the studio more business; and I am sure that Craig either sees discounted/credited studio time or a percentage of the revenue that comes in. Why didn’t I think of this? I will definitely be talking to a studio that I am close with to see about arranging a similar deal.
If these two examples show anything, it is that we, as indie labels, must continually reinvent our business models so that we are not totally dependent on music sales alone. I definitely consider people to be more excited about music now than they have ever been and maybe the way for labels to succeed is by tapping into other revenue sources. I have been thinking that now might be the time to throw my hat into the Management business. I have a lot of contacts and it might be time to shift my business into one that doesn’t rely on products that people can easily get for free. Good work Vagrant and Rise Records!
(more…)
Written by Virgil Dickerson | 2 Comments
April 2nd, 2007
Apple has just announced that they’ve struck a deal with EMI to release their records DRM free on the iTunes store. Single songs will be a little more pricey ($1.29), but full albums will remain the same price and the files will be encoded at a higher bitrate. I find this really interesting as it goes right in line with what Steve Jobs wrote about a little while back about his anti-DRM stance. I think this is good news for both Apple and EMI, but it would be much better if they set up a process to offer all labels such an option as I’m sure many indie labels would prefer this.
Written by Sean Klassen | 4 Comments
February 9th, 2007
Hey everyone, I’ve been gone for a little while, getting up to speed at a new job. Now, onto the fun stuff….
Today at The Big Takeover, John Davidson discusses why it’s impossible for labels to lower prices on CD’s. His main argument is that slimming down the margins on CD’s don’t allow enough profit for labels to sustain their business. However, this is really an exercise in futility. I can imagine that years ago, horse-cart manufacturers were trying to find a way to outposition the automobile. CD’s are the walking dead. Arguing over price point for tangible media doesn’t really focus on the real argument.
What is really important is what the consumers think! Clearly the market-at-large thinks music should be as close to zero as possible, and with physical CD’s it’s impossible. Also, taking advantage of aggregating niche content (i.e. The Long Tail) may work for Amazon, but not the producers who have hard costs associated with minimum manufacturing runs. So.. instead of retooling the same old shit, it’s time to move to a new model.
As a guy who’s in the indie game, I must say that I’ve left the CD world behind almost entirely as a label and a music buyer. For new releases, I’m only going to be doing collectible vinyl on select titles, and going mostly digital and experimenting with a few new methods of delivery. Competing for the scraps of Music 1.0 isn’t attractive to me.
Labels ultimately provide two real functions- capital and expertise. If they wish to continue to be viable middlemen, they must lower overhead, offer more services (booking?) and take pieces of all aspects of an artist career. Ultimately management/ label hybrid which functions like a venture capital firm - a “talent incubation model.”
What does this mean for the artist? Sadly, it means that unless they have the ability to fund and market themselves, the record company that puts up the dough is most likely going to own a huge piece of their business.
Written by Bill Wilson | 9 Comments
February 6th, 2007
I just finished reading a letter by Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, concerning DRM use for iTunes. In it he goes through three options for the future of online music: Stay on the current path, have all companies use the same DRM methods, or have contracts with record labels that allow DRM free online sales. He pushes for this quite heavily (and logically I might add). It’s refreshing to hear, especially in light of all the flac Apple has recieved concerning selling music that only works on iPods. He says Apple would love to sell all it’s music DRM free, and urges people to let the four big major labels know how they feel.
Read the full letter from Steve Jobs.
Written by Sean Klassen | 3 Comments
December 10th, 2006
As this is my first post here at IndieHQ, I’d like to thank Virgil and the cats at Suburban Home for letting me partipate here. My primary focus over at NoRevolution was the “indie music vs. technology deathmatch”, and for my IHQ debut, I’m going to look at a brand new site called Streampad.
I’m a mac user, so I find it incredibly annoying that I cannot use my OSX formatted iPod on my PC at work. The idea of my personal music library, portable and on demand, is important to me. Sure there’s Rhapsody, but that’s a paid service and why should I pay again to listen to music I’ve already purchased? Enter StreamPad, another entry into the social music arena.
StreamPad uses a downloadable Java applet that scans your hard drive for music and creates a tunnel that streams the music from your drive at home to an offsite computer that’s logged in to your account. I just tried it, and it seems pretty good. The only problems I can see are :
- Opening up a home computer as a web server may compromise security.
- Streaming quality depends on the internet connection from your home.
- It plays .mp3 files, not any DRM formats.
A screencast/ demo of Streampad is available here. The Techcrunch blog has a great post about the site, including some dialog in the comments with the owner/ founder.
Written by Bill Wilson | 4 Comments
December 4th, 2006
It seems like more and more labels are going the digital route these days. And for good reasons. The cost is cheap and you can get the music out to people all over the world. While most people are doing this for new music, I thought I’d point out a label that does this by reissuing old/rare/out of print music. Check out Anthology Recordings. The design and execution of the site is great and they have a pretty eclectic selection of music. I recently picked up a rare Walter Schreiffels project called Moondog, which I’ve been wanting to check out for a while but have never seen it available before.
Written by Sean Klassen | No Comments
September 21st, 2006
So you are a big fan of mp3 blogs and you keep track of all of these blogs by frequenting their sites or subscribing through a blog reader. Keeping up with all of these sites can get a bit cumbersome, that is until now. I was reading through the my latest issue of Business 2.0 (yes, I know, I am a complete and total nerd), and in it was an article about the Hype Machine. From reading, The Hype Machine sounded a lot like Elbo.ws which is an mp3 blog aggregator that lists the latest posts from a variety of mp3 blogs. Now the difference with the Hype Machine is that you can listen to all of the songs featured on the site and even click the podcast button to add their feed to Itunes. Even more interesting is that you can do searches for favorite bands, certain blog sites, or whatever your heart desires and listen to the list that shows up. I am currently listening to their flash player which queues up all of the latest posted mp3s and while each track plays, you have the option of reading the blog post or buying the song/album from Itunes or Amazon. I highly recommend checking out the site.
At this point, many of the tracks lean to the indie rock / americana side of things, but this technology could really open a lot of doors. Imagine being able to aggregate all of your favorite label, band, and blog sites so the moment they post a new mp3, it is added to your playlist or your podcast subscription on Itunes. Or if there were a universal format of tagging mp3s by genre so that you could subscribe to your favorite type of music. I am totally geeking out to this site and can only imagine what technology will allow us to do in the near future.
When I did a search for Drag the River, it not only give me a list of Blogs that have played songs by the band, but it also listed a number of upcoming shows, and links to a handful of videos on Youtube. I am completely impressed by this site.
Written by Virgil Dickerson | 2 Comments
August 25th, 2006
One of the more interesting articles from the new Wired to check out is about Terry Mcbride of Nettwerk Music Group. I know Virgil also mentioned this, but I was intrigued by Terry’s idea proposed to one of his groups to give away all of their seperate pro-tools tracks (guitar, drums, vocals, etc.) from their upcoming album away for free on Myspace for amateur DJs and musicians to use to create new works of their own. I find this to be a pretty unusual idea. I’m not sure how this approach will do a lot for the band, but I am curious to see what the results will be.
Read the whole article on Wired
Written by Sean Klassen | 2 Comments
August 8th, 2006
Warner Music Group’s Independent Label Group has acquired a stake in Ferret Music, a growing label that now has on its roster In Flames, Every Time I Die and Boys Night Out. This is a solid investment for WMG that should help Ferret realize the growth and stability in heavy metal. (Press Release) [Coolfer]
This could become a new trend where majors acquire stakes in bigger indies. The lines between majors and indies are already blurred and this will only continue to blur the lines. I remember when music fans would have cried foul play if such deals occured in the mid 90’s. I think Carl at Ferret is a very reputable person and I wish him the best of luck and continued success, but I hope that his deal with the devil doesn’t end up burning him in the end.
Written by Virgil Dickerson | 1 Comment
June 26th, 2006
I just read an article on CNN.com about a band called the Residents. Apparently they’ve just released a double CD package available for $14.99 that contains artwork and two blank CDs. The idea is that it provides a unique code to download five “episodes” over a ten week period from a website. You can then burn these episodes on to the blank discs. I’m all for new media, but this seems like quite a stretch to me.
Read the original article.
What do you think?
Written by Sean Klassen | 2 Comments
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