andrewsgoodrichJul-26-2009 5:35pm
Music Business Weekly Wrap-up
There’s a lot of information flying around out there, and I’ve picked some highlights from this week in music business news and artist advice that I think you might find interesting and helpful:
Artists House Music:
- Last call for votes on the poll - have you ever purchased music through an online widget? http://twtpoll.com/y0520w
- Business Formation Issues for Indie Musicians - Part I (Sole Proprietorships) http://is.gd/1Knzp
- Recommended Reading: Good to Great http://ow.ly/hPmU
Music Business News:
- Band Metrics Releases Artists Mapping Platform http://ow.ly/ibdn
- Bandize has opened to the public: http://bandize.com
- GigPay Launches Contracts Tool - An Easier Way To Get It In Writing http://ow.ly/i6uO
- News Corp Sees MySpace As Place For Videogames http://ow.ly/i6kc
- EMI Announces Senior Digital Executive Appointments http://ow.ly/i0xv
- INgrooves Partners With Topspin For Custom Direct To Fan Marketing Solutions http://ow.ly/hNZx
- Spotify Signs IODA Deal For 2 Million Tracks http://ow.ly/hPmA
- Rock Band Opens Platform To Indie Music http://ow.ly/hGSl
- Spotify Planning Late Summer U.S. Launch http://ow.ly/hGVw
Advice/Thought/Opinion:
- A2IM President Rich Bengloff On Polyphonic & The Artist As A Label http://ow.ly/i61q
- To Co-Write or Not to Co-Write? http://ow.ly/i69Q
- Lefsetz on the iPod life cycle: http://ow.ly/i1yK
- The Unique Selling Point http://ow.ly/i1yd
- Processing “stuff” - order fulfillment: http://ow.ly/hUvY
- Ian Rogers Responds to Topspin’s Skeptics http://ow.ly/hGJZ
- Metrics And Your Music Business http://ow.ly/hGGv from the Cynical Musician
You can now subscribe to the Artists House blog via e-mail, if that turns you on: http://is.gd/1EsG3
Artists House Founder John Snyder
Here’s a little insight into our community - in this video, we turned the camera around for once and focused on interviewing one of our own. John Snyder is the founder of Artists House, and here he gives a candid and informative interview about the art of producing, how to work effectively with big egos and inexperienced musicians, how to prepare yourself for a life in music, and much more. John has a wealth of experiences to draw from in order to help today’s musicians navigate their careers, and he’s devoted much of his life to doing so.
Music Business Weekly Wrap-Up
There’s a lot of information flying around out there, and I’ve picked some highlights from this week in music business news and artist advice that I think you might find interesting and helpful:
Artists House Music:
- I recommend every single person that I’m following for good conversation about the music business: http://twitter.com/artistshouse/following
- How Outsiders Drive Innovation http://ow.ly/hx2g
- Are Music Industry Stats Relevant to You? http://ow.ly/hr9E and…
- More on Music Industry Stats and Relevance http://ow.ly/hrjG
- How a Music Supervisor Finds Songs for a Film http://ow.ly/hqp6
- Artists House Music: Why Are We Doing This In The First Place? http://ow.ly/hkt0
- I think at this point if you’re still using MySpace to share your music, you look like you don’t know what you’re doing. More on this later…
News:
- Reader donations save ‘Paste’ magazine http://ow.ly/hwX6
- Rykodisc Shuffled Under ILG, Staff Cut http://ow.ly/hq3P
- EMI Considers Bond Issue To Re-Finance Debt http://ow.ly/hwsB
- TopSpin: New Site, New Music http://ow.ly/hq31
- Facebook Hits 250 Million Users http://ow.ly/hq4I
Thought/Opinion/Advice:
- Henry Rollins on advertising and ‘selling out’: http://ow.ly/hDne
- 15 Essential Web Tools For The Musician http://ow.ly/hwUz Which ones do you use?
- Collaborations and Sticky Situations http://ow.ly/hwuy
- RSS and the Greatly Exaggerated Rumors of the Album’s Death http://ow.ly/hrbP
- Traveling as a Musician http://ow.ly/hqbK
- What Happens When the Band Breaks Up? http://ow.ly/hgsn
- A Musicians Guide For Finding Managing and Reading Music Blogs (if you don’t use RSS, read this) http://ow.ly/hdMS
- Exercises for Mastering Notation http://ow.ly/h9YE
You might notice if you peek over to the top right-hand side of this page that I added a new feature. Since you guys offer us so much support, I wanted to find a way to put you guys back in the spotlight (without turning our twitter stream into a ‘thank you for the love’ stream). So, now whenever you @thank us on twitter, your message will (should) appear up here on the blog! Small steps forward.
MIDEM 2009 Conference Videos
Here are four interesting videos you should watch from the Midem 2009 conference. These videos are a good insight into what people who are in the game are talking about. Many of the speakers here are involved with more popular musicians, but you can see that even the big boys aren’t quite sure what is going on in the music industry. I point this out only to quell your anxiety that maybe the guys at the top know something that you don’t. The main thing they have is experience (even this may or may not be a good thing). You can gain a lot just by understanding what is happening at the various levels of the business and by learning HOW to talk about the music business.
Investing in music today :
Labels Artists Call Home:
Indies in the Digital Landscape:
Serving artists, serving fans: What is the best organisation?
If anything in particular strikes you as interesting, please share your thoughts in the comments below!
Are Music Industry Stats Relevant to You?
If you haven’t had a chance to download and browse Nielson’s 2009 presentation at NARM, you should check it out now. If you’ve been keeping your finger held to the pulse of the music business at all, none of this will surprise you. But it’s still good to keep yourself informed with the latest information available so that you can decide how to interpret it and how it might influence (or not) your decisions.
Some general trends:
- Listening to music (what they call making “music decisions”) is more ubiquitous because of 24/7 on-demand access.
- Digital music is estimated to be about 40% of total music purchases, compared to 8% in 2005.
- Physical sales at mass & electronic retailers (Best Buy, etc.) are down, sending a slight increase to value-oriented retailers such as superstores and evil companies like Wal-Mart.
- Vinyl sales momentum continues…
- Statistics tend to vary widely from genre to genre. Of course, this is a demographic matter. It shouldn’t be too hard to understand that classical and country will have slower digital growth than pop or indie rock.
It should go without saying, but keep in mind that industry stats give a macro view of what is happening, which, while informative on some level, may have absolutely nothing to do with what’s happening in your career. Of course, don’t live by these numbers (you’ll die by them too) - weigh them in conjunction with everything else, including your own observations about what is happening in your own specific genre, scene, or locale.
In my opinion, we are in a time where pop culture tends to skew statistics to the point of being irrelevant. For example, the huge increase in vinyl sales in the last couple years has more to do with aesthetic appeal (nostalgia) than it does anything else. Consider that in the top 10 selling vinyls for the year are Elliott Smith, Guns N Roses, Bob Dylan, and Neutral Milk Hotel. There’s something going on there, and it probably doesn’t have anything to do with you. In other words, please don’t press your new release in vinyl unless you have a really good reason to do so. All of this is simply to say you may be a better arbiter of what’s going on in the music business than anyone else can be right now. Stay informed, and then pay attention to what’s actually happening around you.
Why Are We Doing This In The First Place?
I just wanted to turn you on to a short video of an incredible musician, spokesperson, and humanitarian, Wynton Marsalis — based right here in New Orleans — defending the arts and arts education before a Congressional Committee back in March.
On March 31, 2009, Arts Advocacy Day, Americans for the Arts gathered a panel of acclaimed artists and experts to call on Congress for continuing and additional support and funding for the arts and arts education in America. This hearing, entitled “The Arts = Jobs,” focused on congressional support of strong public policies for the arts, appropriating increased public funding for the arts and supporting arts workers. Josh Groban and Wynton Marsalis were among the artists who testified before a Congressional Committee to champion the benefits of arts and arts education.
Here at Artists House, in addition to educating and keeping you informed on all things music business, we also strive to keep music sacred and remember why it is we are involved in this rather amazing music business. Suffice it to say that John, George, and I all believe in the irrefutable power of music to change the world, and the power of education to empower artists to do so. This is, bottom line, why we do what we do. Music is our heritage and will be our lasting legacy, and we feel a rather strong responsibility to protect and nurture that. We hope you trust us as guardians (of sorts), and we hope that you’ll approach the music business with the same loyalty and conviction that we try to every day.
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