Artist Soul, Business Mind

MySpace Music Marketing w/ The New Band Page Layout

Posted by Pinky on Oct 14, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments

MySpace may have earned its reputation as the slow-moving, non-listening, Fox News-affiliated former network of choice, but when it comes to music discovery and search engine magnetism, facebook still doesn’t hold a candle to them… at least for now. In today’s class we walked through the front end of the site and then built a band profile with the new MySpace Music band profile tools.

Class is in session!

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10202087

… and because this was the last class session before the Fall break, we spent a little time watching YouTube videos and discussing the epic experiment that was “I’m Still Here,” Joaquin Phoenix’s faux documentary. It’s a little rough so I split it off as its own segment. If you’re so inclined, that video is available here:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10201753

Using Twitter to Build A Fan Following

Posted by Pinky on Oct 12, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments

I’m not sure why Ustream.tv didn’t want to stream the webcam but did fine with the screen cast and audio, but hopefully there’s enough from today’s class to get some use out of.

We covered the basic’s of Twitter today, including lists, hash tags, retweets, @replies, and most importantly, the ins–and-outs of building a following with tools like Tweet Adder.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10163706

Investing In The Music Business Part VII

Posted by Pinky on Oct 12, 2010 in Blog | 9 comments

Earlier this year I began a series on “investing in the music business,” which was based on the lessons I have learned over the last 12 years as a music industry professional, entrepreneur and investor. My question was:

Why can’t we apply a venture capital-style model to the music industry, give artists a way to own their own creative works, consider live performance the new distribution model and standardize music licensing to encourage technological and creative innovation?

In my last interview with Larry Pareigis, we learned the answer. We can’t do any of those things because it costs $500,000 PER SINGLE to promote a song to radio, not including the expense of recording, touring, eating and clothing ourselves in the process. In other words, if you don’t have $2,000,000 minimum, you’re not even in the game, and if you do, as Larry puts it, “you’re entering into a business that has a 98% failure rate, why do you think you’re a part of that 2%?”

This can’t really be right, can it? If it were really this expensive, how could there be any record labels at all?

Labels have historically made it work in 3 ways:

They have an in-house radio promotion staff so their per-song cost is lower than independent promotion would be (though not by very much).
They play the odds. Most of what they sign fails, but the artists that succeed pay so well it makes up for their losses.
As the gatekeepers to a $38.6 billion dollar industry, there was plenty of money to go around.

Forester Research is predicting that the industry could shrink to $9 billion by 2013, and any time an entire industry shrinks to a quarter of its original size in just a few years, blood gets spilled.

So what’s the solution?

For starters, if you’re an aspiring artist and you’re in it for the money, you’re in the wrong line of work.

Next, if you don’t want to play live, you’re in the wrong line of work.

Third, if you don’t want to tour, you’re in the wrong line of work.

Fourth, if you expect someone else to handle all the “business” so you can just be an “artist,” you’re in the wrong line of work.

But if you believe in miracles, make music for the pure joy of doing so, get out and play every single weekend and write songs that truly stand out, you might just make it in the music business. And by “make it” I mean “pay a normal sum for a normal house in a normal neighborhood.” Until you’re 35. And then you’d better get a job.

The irony is that I teach a course in the digital marketing of superstardom and have made a living on the exception to the rule for most of my career. In fact, I’m being interviewed by NPR today about Taylor Swift’s digital strategy. (They want to know if her online efforts have brought more fans into the country music fold.) I also work with about 10 technology startups in various capacities – some that even focus on music technology and innovation. But if you ask me if a venture capitalist can take the place of the modern music label, I’m sad to say that I really don’t think so unless they approach it from a philanthropic perspective. Meaning, if a wealthy investor wants to “risk” $2m – $5m for a good cause, an artist will be able to write, record and perform music and have a true shot at mainstream success. (It can and has happened.) But even with that kind of firepower, their songs will just be songs played on radio stations with lots of high quality music competing all day and all night, every day and every night. You can’t buy a hit song, but you probably won’t have a hit song without a serious investment. And of course, one hit does not guarantee another.

So these are the problems we face. For now, there is still enough money being made at the top that a handful of folks are still making millions of dollars a year in profit. But for those that are just starting out, stay focussed on the purpose of your art and the joy of live performance, and forget about the mansion in the Hills. Your chances of finding joy and fulfillment along this path are far greater than your chances of retiring at age 30. And there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.

Another New MySpace Logo

Posted by Pinky on Oct 9, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments

Take a good look at that thing to your left. It is, apparently, a logo. I guess.

As mentioned numerous times on this blog, MySpace has been going through a slow-motion identity implosion since the beginning of 2010. Their first horrific move was to admit defeat (and all core purpose of their network), and remove the tagline “A place for friends” from their logo. Then they changed it to “Discover and be discovered,” which might even have had some relevance if their new logo didn’t imply the exact opposite. In fact, it literally reinforces it’s own nothingness.

Now I know that I’m just being cynical, and that obviously we’re supposed to make MySpace whatever we want it to be, but what keeps me scratching my head is that we had already done that. Remember? It was a place for friends. And friends do, see and share stuff together. Now it’s just… “whatever.” Even the font they used is forgettable and empty.

Oh, MySpace, you may be the reason for lots of traffic to this site and many-a-bad-band-blog, but why must you make it so easy to hate you?

Facebook Music Marketing

Posted by Pinky on Oct 7, 2010 in Blog | 1 comment

Today we got down and dirty with Root Music’s “BandPage,” an incredible facebook application that allows any artist or facebook page administrator to add music, tour dates, Twitter feeds, sharing features and more. We also poked a little fun at the Gap for their ill-fated logo redesign. (They’ve since pulled back and are rethinking their strategy.)

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10056100

(Special thanks to the band Guster for giving us a fabulous example of what every artist should be striving to achieve with and for their facebook communities.)

Sadly, we also took a trip down memory lane at iLike and their formerly best-in-class utilities. Tune in next week for a deep dive in into Twitter, MySpace Music and more. See ya then!