Category: music

DEBATE OVER FREE MUSIC PART 2

Mixed in with the year end spin on numbers, NIN is back as the poster child for free music. Lots of interesting stories about how the free NIN album was top of Amazon sales charts.

Digital Music news says “perhaps a more fine-tuned example of how free often leads to paid in the modern music business”.

Its so easy to go to this oversimplification on one example as the “new model” for the music biz. I wish it were as easy as free leading to paid! The NIN “free” model is not scaleable for most and lets not forget – they are Nine Inch Nails and the new record was GOOD! NIN’s music at one point was the most revolutionary sound to appear in years. That’s the model! Innovative music and great songs lead to “paid”.

See Digital Music news Story Here
Read my post on Free, and some great links to the debate over free music

MUSIC SALES UP AND DOWN

File under 60% of all stats are correct 50% of the time.

Report: Overall U.S. Music Sales Up in ’08; Albums Down 8.5%

Americans bought more music in 2008 than ever before

2008 CD & Ringtone Sales Fall, Digital Growth Slows

The Numbers are in – Revenue Down

Some of the headlines look misleading, but then again, no one loves the music biz! Obvioulsy people are covering different things here – it seems those covering the “growth” are covering transactions, and those covering the drop are talking revenue.

Here is a good reference point to start the year and disucss new areas of growth:
Some raw data (from coolfer)
Album sales: down 15% to 430 million units
CD sales: down 20% to 362 units
Digital album sales: up 32% to 62.8 units
Track sales: up 27% to 1.07 billion units
LP sales: up 92% to 1.9 million units

Digital gains not making up for cd losses. LP growth small but exciting and an area that is bigger than indicated in units because of revenue.
In 2009 I’ll be working on some very cool things with a new d2c vinyl site. Check out becausesoundmatters.com to see the products WBR creates, and stay tuned for a complete re-launch of the site early this year.

METACRITIC “BEST OF” LISTS

As I’m cleaning up and getting ready to go back to work, I’m using Metacritics year end top lists and listening to 2008 one more time!
Metacritic seems to have it all in one place, their own reviews, and many top year end lists from other mags and sites!

METACRITIC.COM

Their year end best of lists also go all the back to 2001 which is fun to explore

A few other year end lists that make it easy:

Imeem 08 playlist (log in required – but worth creating an account once)

top 20 albums of ’08 at Bands Under The Radar
Kami has great taste and after hours on Metacritic, I still found a few new things on her list that were amazing!

SOCIAL NETWORK ADVERTISING CHALLENGES

One of my Favorite “New” Marketing blogs “Big Picture Advertising” featured a great quote from Barry Diller.

Challenge for 2009

“You really want to get a headache? Try to understand Internet advertising. Social networking advertising is being discounted because there is so much inventory [of available ad spots], and because methods have not yet been found to make it very effective. Will that get figured out? I absolutely believe it will. What form will it take? Absolutely unknown.”

Social media is great for music discovery, community, and a natural buzz amplifier. But BUYING social media advertising has not moved the mark in any accountable way for me – from driving sales to increasign traffic, I havent found anything that is cost effective. It seems being a great band, getting radio airplay, community engagemnt, and touring drive more results through social media than advertising. I’ve bought facebook, myspace, widgets, and more in many differnent ways, and never get the return. Warner Bros Reocrds also gets add inventory in several social network sites as part of our liscensing deals, so I get to play around alot. Maybe Big Picture Advertising will figure out some magic!

THE 8-BIT SCENE AND GETTING OUT OF YOUR PERSONAL BUBBLE

When I need new ideas for a campaign, I go into worlds I am not used to. The 8-bit music scene is worth checking out. I’m not a big fan of the music myself, but there are some very cool and creative things happening there. I particularly liked Peter Kirn’s post at Create Digital Music about how the 8-bit scene is growing and remaining relevant. Good advice – check out his post here!,

THE DEBATE OVER FREE MUSIC

Several posts on some of my favorite digital music blogs talking about free music on the internet and what you can really accomplish by just giving it away. (links below).

Working at a major label, I have to balance the business side that wants to monetize everything, with the pressure of free music on the net and the need to market new music. There are no absolutes, and one advantage I have is that I work on a lot of projects and get to test things big and small.

Start with your goals
It’s too competitive to think just “giving away music” will advance your career and too many bands start and end with just wanting to give it away for free. Think harder.

Free may be a starting point if you’re a new act, but established artists have very different goals. Is a free download or stream designed to grow the fan base or reward your fans who may have already purchased from you?

First Goal: Establish a relationship with fans
Make the long term plan for you and your fans. If you are offering downloads, or streams, Make sure you have a community plan in place to capture the momentum new music can create. Collecting basic info fans can be a fair trade off for giving something away. If your an established artist, look beyond just giving your music away- there may be other ways to keep your community active. Give fans a place and incentive to extend the experience of your music and share their feelings with others. Are you strengthening the bond between existing fans? Adding new ones? Find the mix that makes sense and keep in mind there are bands serving thousands, and hundreds of thousands of streams on myspace, with very few fans. It take alot of dedication and great music to keep fans engaged.

What Can You Sell?
Fans are willing to pay. It’s the blend between quality and art that must be respected. I’ve successfully seen bands drive revenue, and keep fans happy by debuting new music in itunes for 99 cents.

Genre of music
Understand your scene and what is expected by fans of that genre. Culturally, fans of different genres have different expectations when it comes to sampling music.

What is the body of work?
is it a concept or collection of singles? Stream the album vs a download? Depending on your art, protect the best way for fans to sample and purchase.

What else are you trying to sell, tickets Merch? Your plans should tie this all together.

Timing
are there other things for you happening in the marketplace?

Where to stream?
There are many sites for major labels and some indies where its free to consumer, but you can get paid – imeem, myspace, lala, are a few emerging partners that allow artists to stream, and monetize.

Majors vs. Unsigned
Don’t assume this debate is about the majors vs indies or the unsigned acts. Colleagues at several major music services tell me that independent musicians are often much more concerned and protective about their music than signed artists and major label policies.

Its clear the early days of digital music are fading into a new reality – from bands, to new digital music services that are struggling to monetize, there is more to it than free. Some great links for further reading:

Experimenting With Free by David Harrell

Hypebot: free music only has value if…

More thoughts on the ‘Music as Free’ Debate
Posted by Mark Mulligan

Why Music Can’t ‘Just Be Free’

Mark Mulligan under ‘Music as Free’: Solutions

digital audio insider

JOE SATRIANI VS COLDPLAY LAWSUIT

Good time to admit I am a huge Joe Satriani Fan! Did Coldplay rip off a Joe Satriani song. It would be a moral victory for me!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jI-M_yr36FvwE1Mv7SDJiLqaJ0GA

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE NEW SITE

They blog, they twitter, and its not lame.

www.mychemicalromance.com

Very cool to see the band use tools to talk to fans and each other! Strangely, their transparency leads to increasing the persona and mysteriousness of the band in a cool way, especially when they are having conversations with each other on their own site!

It’s also a great example of how bands work with WBR. There’s an amazing guy named Jeff who works in new media, and has been working with the band from day one. He believed in this band before many others did, and has stuck with them all the way, building trust, and keeping everyone at Warner Bros honest to the bands vision. He recently worked with the band to build them this new site, and the result is something special, artistic and fun!

Take a read, and tell me your thoughts.
Follow the band here:
www.twitter.com/gerardway
www.twitter.com/raytoro
www.twitter.com/bobbryar
www.twitter.com/michaeljamesway

NEW MUSIC PLAYLIST, upbeat and moody, Imeem vs LALA!

New playlist heading into the Thanksgiving holiday. Its upbeat and moody, with nice ups and downs all mixed into a nice flow. Make the most of it, listen twice, and try the new widgets from Imeem and LALA.

I like LALA’s site, and their interface has some nice improvements over Imeem. The first thing you have is their web credits business model. You can stream anything once for free, then you have to use credts to add to your streaming library. The site gives you 50 credits when you sign up, so I made this playlist for free. Their library had everything I was looking for, good interface, easy search and playlisting tools. The LALA music player is at the top of the page, and keeps your music going on the top of the site so you can navigate, and not lose the music while your surfing around making your playlist. On Imeem If you don’t “pop up” the player you lose the song your listening if when leave the page, which is annoying and tends to happen a lot. As for the widget, my users will only be able to listen to this playlist once, and then you’ll get :30 clips. Thats a real drawback!

THANKSGIVING – Dark but catchy

The new Imeem player has a slightly updated look and feel, and they seem to be runnnig text adds now on some playlists. guess I’d rather have that then only one listen (although I fear to make these models work, well need both plus audio adds!). The widget has somewhat better player controls (loop and shuffle).

The Imeem playlist tool, once my favorite, seems to be falling behind. No images in the playlist search, and no ability to filter our some of the junk. For example the version of Cracker’s “LOW” on this playlist is different that the album version I love but I couldnt tell that when I was putting it together. Imeem and myspace use images, and better descriptions to help you when your adding content.
But the fact that this version was in there is cool. Imeem does retain the user and community elements much more than LALA. There is much more content on Imeem, and you get some rare gems from user uploads. The Imeem playlist has an extra Copeland song I found only on Imeem. I also like the download and ringtone links on the player – make it easy for me to continue to explore the music in other channels.

How does the music sound so far? The quality seems better in LALA. Agree?

Will i continue to use LALA if I have to pay 10 cents a song to hear it over and over? My users will only be able to listen to this playlist once, and then you’ll get :30 clips. Thats a real drawback, and while I support trying to monetize this and get everyone paid, it feels too restrictive and its a surprise when it happens the first time.
I am sticking with IMEEM for now, but I am seeing the LALA widget appear on more and more blogs, so my unofficial surfing tells me that the LALA player is gaining traction.

Happy Thanksgiving. Share your thoughts on these widgets, and new playlist

NEW URBAN MUSIC PLAYLIST – ARTISTS TO WATCH IN 2009

Its great to hear new urban/hip-hop music that is inspiring and innovative. I gave up on looking for new Urban music because everything sounded the same for the last few years. I made this playlist from the new issue of xxl magazine, covering their “freshman 10” list of new Artists. As I was reading the article, I headed over to Imeem and made a playlist with each Artist in the article. Almost every Artist from the article was in there and xxl’s picks were right on! Traditional media can still be a better filter, even if their medium is becoming old.

XL Mag – Exclusive mix – The Freshman 10 Playlist

With Imeem and Myspace having robust legal libraries of streaming on demand music, why would any article or review about new music not be turned into an instant playlist using these services and linked to from article? Tap into the pre-approved streaming music where in theory everyone gets paid.

On my Imeem page, I have weekly playlists I pull from sources like billboard, big champagne, and more.

OASIS WIDGET – LISTEN TO NEW MUSIC AND GET A FREE OASIS SHIRT!

If we could just get people to LISTEN to the new Oasis album, they would love it! Great albums, and not enough outlets to get the the word out. The idea was simple – incentive fans to hear the new music, and reward them in an authentic way, that would also spread the word and re-brand the band.

So check out the Oasis Widget, listen to six songs, and you can get a free classic Oasis t-shirt! Strength of idea is really the music, not the free shirt – I believe in this as a very strong body of work.

We also have their merchandise rights (online and tour!), so it creates buzz for merch, and builds databse of new customers.

Ultimatley, it was supposed to be a random givaway so the promotion would last longer. Due to tech issues, the widget was incorrectly set up to go to the first 3000 fans, which we of course went viral instantly, and crashed our store! So we’re fine tuning the idea. Would love any thoughts on this idea, and how to make it better. Send me your thoughts and I will send you an Oasis shirt – but you should still listen to the tracks – its worth it!
jbloggmusic@gmail.com

OASIS “DIG OUT YOUR SOUL”

Rachael Yamagata Live at Borders with new N96

My first time trying out the new N96 at a Rachael Yamagata instore at Borders! The n96 is similar to the N95, (upgraded to 16 gigs and a 5 mp camera) but with much better form factor and a lighter weight design. Zoom also seems better and clearer at close range, however you can still hear the annoying click when you use the zoom….
n96
Not my best footage – lights seem to trick camera into a hazy picture, but her band creates a nice mood with the Intro, then a Beautiful song “Sunday” from her new album Elephants



Verizon Wireless College Tour 2008

Went to Baltimore last Weekend to see LIGHTS, on the Verizon Wireless College Tour 2008.
Headliners were Boys Like Girls, and Cute is What We Aim For. My first time seeing LIGHTS live, and I was impressed. The songs show how good they are live, she looks amazing, and she has a live energy that enhances the music. LIGHTS connected with the crowd right away.

Here is some footge I filmed with my phone and posted to my You Tube Channel.

Here is what She filmed with a Nokia N95, and then edited on her laptop. The music is also by LIGHTS!



Myspace Music vs Imeem Pt 2

The Myspace site is still buggy, and from the commerce side, buy links still dont show up for most artists. Slow on the big fixes!

From a promotional standpoint, they do seem to be getting lots of traffic – many of the bands I work on are having higher than normal play counts (if its workign and tracking them properly!)

Jason Reeves (Warner Bros) got hundreds of thousands of new plays in a few days, during a feature on Tom’s Playlist. The Featured playlists area is a good way to discover new music.

In response to Myspace music, Imeem changed their site and focused on the basics. Home page is now blog style, and I like the cleaner design. Their Browse, and Chart’s of top songs and playlists is also improved. Their basic playlist tools, and music service is unchanged.

Here are recent articles on the Myspace Music Launch, and Imeem’s site.

Indies upset with Myspace Music Launch:

Hypebot
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2008/09/the-competition.html

Rollingstone.com – MySpace Music Takes on iTunes
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23356455/myspace_music_takes_on_itunes
The only thing they used from my interviews was “not groundbreaking” but I guess thats echoing what i’ve said here….

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/02/myspace.music.unfair.on.indies

MYSPACE vs IMEEM – nice analaysis on this blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/aniyer/archive/2008/10/03/myspace-music-v-imeem.aspx?

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3775361/Doubts+Loom+Over+MySpace+Music+Strategy.htm

Data – What You Need to Know about Myspace Music Strategy

E-marketer
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006599

MySpace Music Points Way To Free Music Economy
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/10/myspace-music-p.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/01/bmoasis101.xml

Forbes.com video
http://blogs.forbes.com/digitaldownload/2008/09/whats-up-with-m.html

Throwing Sheep
http://www.throwingsheep.com/blog/?p=12