Read more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061402241.html

“Perhaps more disturbing to the country music industry is the news that 42 percent of those ardent fans who do not have home Internet access have no desire to remedy the situation.”

For those that know me,  you know I have worked in the digital marketing arms of both Live Nation (Ultrastar Entertainment/MusicToday) and Ticketmaster (echomusic, then echo, then… helloecho?).  In fact, leaving echo to begin working at live nation caused a bit of a stir, as technically I was headed to straight to the competition.

Having seen the landscape from both sides of the fence, I can tell you these two don’t play nice.  From the first day of the Ticketmaster/echo merger not one kind word was spoken about MusicToday or Live Nation. In my seven months working for Live Nation, not one kind word was spoken about Ticketmaster.  In fact, more times than not, it was how much more ROBUST the Live Nation (see MusicToday) ticketing engine would be when launched.  As seen earlier this week, Phish fans aren’t impressed with the new engine.  These two giants have been trying to one-up and out do one another for as long as they’ve been frienemies.  Hoping to one day break free from ones the reliance on the other, and finally just a month ago, there was complete and total separation.

So now we reach a crossroad.  Maybe these rivals depend on each other more than they ever thought.  Live Nation masters in promoting their tours, they own some of the largest venues in the world, and can basically make an international tour happen… but their ticketing engine is apparently bullocks.   Ticketmaster sells tickets (and adds a lovely surcharge to the fans delight), and they’re good at it… but what venues are they going to sell tickets in if they miss out on all the sheds and major tours?

So great, merge, stop trying to destroy one another… but does a Live Nation / Ticketmaster merger give fans any option?

The beauty of the Live Nation ticketing platform was to go head to head with Ticketmaster and beat them where they are most weak the public perception on those *bleepin* service charges….. So what happens next?  A merger?  One option for the fan, a near monopoly on tickets, touring, venues, and promotion?  Not to mention the resurgence of those damn “360 deals”, and dozens of “reunion tours” (and next to no new tours featuring new artists).

How does this scenario benefit the fan? A merger of these two companies completely rules out the idea of competition

Looks like we should get used to seeing the Rolling Stones on stage, with this model they’ll be playing sold out venues well into their 90′s.  But don’t expect any new music sensations, a Live Nation Ticketmaster would only cater to the megatours, with a mega margin already built in for the taking.

A label’s catalog is its most valuable asset.  Once a song or album is commercially released to the public, it becomes part of a label’s history of music assets.  From that point forward, its the label’s job to do everything in its power to expose, promote and sell that product.

So why do none of the majors promote catalog or history on their websites?  Why is there never a whisper of past successes or the legacy of their artists?  Exposing new artists is only PART of the game folks – you’re intentionally leaving money on the table by not recognizing your catalog.

Check out a few examples: Warner Brothers Records and Universal Music are bad enough – no different than any generic music streaming portal.

But Sony Music, my God….what happened?

They don’t even promote their CURRENT music!  Sony’s site is like a basic business card site I could create in under an hour for fifty bucks (I’m pretty sure they spent far more than that on it). Sony’s site says to me “We don’t care if you buy our product or not, we aren’t even going to try, you may as well not even bother.”  They should post a single photo of Droopy Dog with that speech bubble over his head.

Sony controls some of the best catalog in the history of recorded music!  Elvis, Alabama, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, and Aerosmith just to name a few.  Where are they?!?  Where are the artist bios, music charts, photos, videos, album buy links, iTunes buy links?  Looking deeper and tracking down their affiliate labels, the story is no better: Sony Nashville‘s website is pathetic and RCA Records is a joke.

at least Motown gets it…

Their site splits into a current and classic section – the classic side doing just what I’m suggesting.  They list all the old artists, list album cover art with buy links and sell ringtones and other new media around their catalog.

Think about all the music that was financed by labels that gets shelved and never heard because the first single didn’t hit.  Majors could start featuring and selling that music on their site too!  Using Long Tail economics, they’re going to sell at least ONE copy of everything and it would cost them nothing to do it.  Why don’t they?

Ultimately its a tragic waste.  A waste of opportunity and a waste of a company’s potential, especially in this case.

And for those non-music folks out there, this same idea can still apply.  A company’s history is good content that not only gives your brand more depth but gives folks a reason to visit.  All of that content, properly positioned, can be searchable and used to increase traffic.

Increaed traffic = more potential customers = more $

There is literally NO excuse for not doing this.

Our position is simple – all sides should do their best to solve the issue: Project Playlist should either pay royalties or find creative ways to find legal content around the web. It is possible although it is hard; once they do that – MySpace and Facebook should decease the blocking – as this blocking hurts their users eventually.
But – most importantly – content owners should be flexible in their negotiations with various web sites – as an example – Warner canceled their agreement with YouTube – why? In this time of financial crisis demanding more money is absurd, and, the users’ community uploaded all the popular music to Youtube hours after it being removed anyways, so nothing really changed – the offering in Jogli, as an example, was hardly effected at all. Trying to remove the sound is yet another futile effort as users will upload replacements.

He couldn’t be more right. Its not his place to solve the issue. He’s the aggregator of content. Yet the major labels keep trying to find a way to get paid for each “spin”.
The model has changed. The industry can’t be monetized by decade old methodology. Something has to give.

What do you think the solution is?  Is there a model that works?

This begs the question, how far will the music industry push to be compensated by digitally streaming content?… and more importantly, how long until all these users flee YouTube and move to Vimeo or any other free video hosting service?

So, the music industry is shutting down yet another vehicle of free promotion… One would think they had learned their lesson by now. The floodgates have opened and people will find a way to broadcast whatever content they choose.

Once I purchase the song, should I not have the right to manipulate it in whatever form I choose? If that manipulation includes using at the backing track to my family vacation, I somehow don’t see how I’m exploiting the artist, record company, or anyone else for that matter.

Just maybe I choose a song that no one I know has ever heard of, and they end up loving it and buying the album, or entire catalog… wouldn’t this be good for the industry as a whole?

Wouldn’t the better solution be to find ways to hook in to free marketing and utilize the technological vehicle than shut it down?

Discuss below…

A direct quote:

“Usually TV shows pay good money for the use of a song, but not MTV — they required labels to allow them to use the music for free in their TV shows when you submitted a music video to be considered for programming on their network. I still don’t know why they even bothered saying they would pay a dollar. It really pissed me off. I had fronted money and worked my heart out along with the band to promote, market, manufacture and release their album and along comes a multi-national billion dollar media corporation and demands to be able to use the music for a stinking dollar.”

That is the close minded thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. There are dozens of ways to monetize that kind of exposure. The song, video, recording, etc can’t be the lone vehicle that you’re hanging your hat on. There must be a combination…. a blend if you will…. of revenue streams, and sometimes one stream is sacrificed for exposure, and in turn (with the right strategy) you can break through and be profitable.

To lament the fact that the big corporate giant is monetizing your band (and as a side note, this is more the record labels grabbing for any dollar they can get their hand on… not necessarily the “band” upset at the exposure) to generate huge revenues is true, it’s the way of the world… it was in 1996, and it is in 2009. That will never change.  Big corporations have the leverage. Instead of bemoaning the machine, learn to work the buttons and levers and find ways to make the machine work for you.

How could YouTube give in to Warner Music’s demands, without paying this guy a few million dollars? YouTube (today) and MTV (in the 90s) are vehicles for exposure, if you’re able to generate compensation for this exposure, great, but it’s not the only way to take advantage of the exposure. If YOU don’t, I assure you others will.

Although ultimately the conclusion reached in the article is one I don’t wholeheartedly disagree with, although the “sponsorship” philosophy is not one I see working out for extremely popular viral videos that are uploaded by the individual. TuneCore isn’t going to be looking out for Judson Laipply, and if they open the Pandora’s box to that one… best of luck to them.

Just like the Napster fight earlier this decade. If you slow YouTube’s use of music videos, other services will be happy to carry the torch and fight the legal battle. Loosen up folks… there are ways to take advantage of the fact that you aren’t having to pay for the bandwidth for all of this!

I seem to remember a close minded view to the music delivery vehicle biting the industry in the past, and I’d prefer not to see it again. Digital Video is the new Digital Audio… what if we’re never able to wrangle the fact that content is free? How will you monetize your music then? …. by touring relentlessly?… by creating yourself as a brand?… as a lifestyle?… your music is not JUST a tune!

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the internet and the vast and exciting opportunity it has provided content creators, marketers and business people world-wide.  Strategic Blend is built off of these opportunities, so the following rant may seem a bit off-base.

I had the unique experience of “coming of age” during the great transition we’ve just experienced.  I was in middle school in the mid-90s when rock, pop and country music were all at their prime, radio stations actually served the public and music stores were a destination that you SOUGHT OUT when going to the mall.  I remember going on school bus trips and THE savvy kid would always whip out a huge binder of CDs and play “road trip DJ.”  I discovered a lot of music during this time, most of which I still greatly enjoy today.

Because of this, I have a nostalgic pang in my heart for the retail stores of old.  Living in South Dakota, a lot of our small towns had an On Cue or Sam Goody or similar outlet.  Many of our malls had 2 music stores in the same wing.  When you needed something (even cassette singles!) you could find it in these stores.  There was a certain intimacy you felt with the product when purchasing at an actual store.

THEN, on a cool Fall evening in 1999, I discovered Napster.  No longer did I have to make decisions about what I could afford to buy – I could have it ALL!  The next year in college, I was among the many who feasted on this massive buffet every day.  You could load up your Napster queue, go to class and return to a slew of new songs to enjoy.

After Napster shut down, I spent a lot of time in used CD stores, specifically the Great Escape in Nashville, TN.  They had a tremendous selection and I could still consume as much for a very minimal price.  Every weekend I would go down and get 20 CDs for 12-20 bucks.  It was fantastic, and it brought back that intimacy to the product I had been missing.

But then……..iTunes was available for the PC.  No longer did I HAVE to buy new or used CD’s just for one song, when I could get it instantly on iTunes.  Over the course of 2003, I all but abandoned going to an actual retail store and acquired all my music online.

While I was enjoying this new found accessibility, all of the old stores, the On Cues, the Musiclands, the Sam Goodies and Towers and Virgin stores all vanished.  Their spaces now sit empty or occupied by something else un-related to music or entertainment.  Even Borders has completely reduced it’s in-store  music footprint.

And something else unexpected happened….

Because I assembled a massive library of music, the time I spent with a particular song or album shrank.  Where as before I could only afford 2-3 CD’s a month and spent an entire month if not more with that music.  Now I get an album in a day and 2 days later am already on to something else.  I may like that album, but the previous intimacy I experiecned is gone.  I didn’t have to put any thought into whether or not I should buy it – I just got it, consumed it, and moved on to the next.  Like a Viking in the old days, conquering town after town, never really stoping to enjoy the scenery.

This actually makes me sad.  Sad because I have lost that “perception of the product” I used to have, and sad because these once ubiquitous retail outlets are totally gone.  I COMPLETELY understand the economics that drove them away, and I understand all businesses change in time.  However the music business of old, in all it’s facets, was kind of magical in a way.  It was a business that offered many real-world, tangible experiences.  Most of those experiences are gone now, replaced by all online, all digital.  The live show is about the only way left to physically interact with most of the “music experience,” and most live shows are too expensive to attend.

I think many in my generation took this for granted.  We grew up with it, then were easily seduced and energized by new technology…it got the better of us I think.  We didn’t really know what was going on, and now it’s too late.  Granted anyone under the age of 20 will likely not care – they only really know THIS side of the shift.

However there’s a bunch of us, age 25 and older who still long for some semblance of a retail experience again.  Best Buy, Walmart and Target do NOT count – that’s not the same thing.  Certainly there’s an entire demographic of former music fans who don’t participate online and never will, yet still want to be music fans.  How can they enjoy new and old artists when there isn’t that same “magic” that previously existed, luring them in.

We can’t go back in time, and we can’t change the raw power of economics and capitalism.  But these are certainly issues that won’t go away – issues from which any number of new opportunities can and should flow.

By utilizing internet radio algorithms, your music can be discovered by a multitude of potential new fans. Join as many social networks as you can find, use these networks as a net to capture attention back to your “homebase”. In most cases, a homebase is a low cost website should be set up to tell the greater story of your music. Engage your audience, there is more to your brand than JUST the music.

Once you’ve got the information out there, collect and cultivate as much data on your website traffic as possible. Gather email addresses and as much demographic and geographic information as possible. All of this is possible through a few easy plug-ins to your website.

Now you’ve got a wheel with many spokes (the social networks, and the story of yourself being told out on the internet) and you’ve got a hub (a website that stays current, and gives users a reason to return). With this mechanism, you now have the ability to decipher if you’re “winning”… are you doing better than you were a month ago… a week… an hour. Have you gained momentum?

If this is all clear as mud…. Stay tuned, we’ll give you the tools to start your journey.

The author, who appears to be anonymous with no noticeable credit given anywhere on the site, first gives us this little gem:

“If AC/DC’s Black Ice performs, it could have serious long-term consequences for the pre-eminent position of iTunes as a music retailer.”

This is a stretch of the imagination. iTunes has pushed 5 billion tracks since 2003, without the help of many top selling artists or must have albums. The impact of AC/DC’s new album on the service will be negligible.

The article continues:

“Because iTunes steadfastly refuses to “lock” any album..”

False. iTunes has consistently made deals with movie studios and other entities to lock soundtracks. These deals seem to fluctuate with certain albums locking then unlocking, but you can see a current example for yourself by examining the album: Deadwood – Music from the HBO Original Series or the Moulin Rouge Soundtrack. If the author had bothered to do minimal research they would have discovered the same. However, this isn’t the most glaring error. The author then goes on to state:

“Though the Beatles’ back catalogue is still not available on iTunes, this will be the first time in the music store’s short history that it will be deprived of a major current release.”

WRONG! The Eagles Long Road Out Of Eden, one of last year’s most anticipated and biggest selling albums, was sold as a Walmart exclusive and denied iTunes placement. There have been further examples from this year including Kid Rock’s Rock’n'Roll Jesus.

The article meanders on with another one of these

“The release of Black Ice will be a major blow for iTunes’ claim to be the world’s biggest music retailer..”

Which we’ve already covered, but then we learn

“a more significant threat to the company takes place when the mobile phone company Nokia begin to sell their new “Comes With Music” phone in UK stores.”

Instead of rehashing why this is an ignorant, pandering comment, I’ll leave it to the good folks at ArsTechnica who walked through Nokia’s service in a recent column.

So there you have it – another ridiculous article from the Telegraph lacking any true substance and packed with hyperbole and blatantly wrong information.. The lesson here? We could all stand to be a lot pickier about what we read each day, and a lot more critical. The time of hype and spin is over for the music industry – anyone who wants to succeed needs to cut through to the meat of the issues and make good, intelligent decisions based on the data.

Links
The Telegraph Article
Nokia’s Comes With Music won’t worry Apple… yet

From ticketing and touring to production and distribution the “powers that be” in the recorded music industry are teetering on implosion.

Music sales continue to drastically decline, and ~40% of internet traffic is P2P. The most profitable artists market to small niches, have low overhead, and cater to the direct needs of their followers. This is the antithesis of the methodology of major music industry players. They do it their way, get a huge marketing engine behind them, and hope to ram it down your throat with shelf space, promotions, and advertising. Are they really thinking exclusives or better placement in “big box” retail spaces is going to solve the problem?

…The graph says you haven’t moved the dial…. Not this year, and certainly not in the last 5…

Of course, the Titanic can’t turn on a dime and getting the major labels on the same page is about as easy as turning back the hands of time.

As “propped up dinosaurs” and mega country bundles continue to rule the shed’s at $100 a ticket, the industry must prepare for the future… The current average age for concert-goers is approaching 50. I mean, how many times can we keep rolling these folks out and charging exorbitant prices. What’s the saturation point? What happens when they retire? Who are we cultivating as new major touring artists of the future? Who is the BREAKOUT artist of 2008?

Could it be that major labels and concert promoters are one big catastrophe away from a financial tailspin from which they can’t pull out? Multimillion dollar rights deals aren’t yet bonafide, and a few more years of hits to the bottom line of these mammoth companies can’t please investors… these companies aren’t Google of the early 00′s, shareholders need to see returns and a BLACK number at the bottom of financial statements.

I’ll end my rant, perhaps it’s my penchant to fight against authority, or my disdain for the huge organizations, red tape, and aristocracy, but I can’t help but see an opportunity for smaller organizations.

Find the cracks in the mold and exploit them, maximize your piece of the pie by looking where others aren’t.