Ten Bucks

When I was a teenager, the stores in our town stayed open late on Thursday nights between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 1978 I worked at one of the local hardware stores and I was on duty one of those Thursdays. I had earlier that day cashed my paycheck. Around seven or so, business was slow and I asked the manager if I could take 15 minutes and walk up to The Gramophone Shop. I went in and bought a record I had had my eyes on for a number of weeks: Dire Straits' first album. It cost, by my recollection, $8.98 plus tax.

Was that album worth ten bucks? It's a stupid question. That album was part of the soundtrack of my late high school years. It was probably worth $100 to me.

Now it seems that people who spend ten bucks on music are stupid. Free mp3's are everywhere, legitimately or otherwise. Subscription services and internet radio stations offer everything at the touch of a browser button. There's a sea of music out there, just waiting for a listen.

But paying ten bucks for an album caused you to make a decision. (Not that those decisions always worked out. For example: the Knack's second album.) You had to hear enough songs to get a good assurance that the album was decent, or take a risk that the one great song you heard was a pattern for the rest of the album. (Also not foolproof; see Sniff 'n' the Tears.)

Carrie Brownstein's recent post on NPR Monitor Mix brought this to mind. Carrie lamented the decline of the record label, in this case the decision by Touch & Go Records to stop distributing the work of smaller labels. Wrote Carrie:

We are careening toward a paucity of experience and a paucity of means with which to evaluate music. I mean, can we really engage with art on a Web site and in a vacuum, without ever bothering to contextualize it or make it coherent with our lives or form a community around the work? If we never move beyond the ephemeral and facile nature of music Web sites -- and let's not lie to ourselves, that's where it ends for a lot of us these days -- then that makes us worse than blind consumers; it makes us dabblers. We have become musical tourists. And tourism is the laziest form of experience, because it is spoonfed and sold to us. Tourism cannot and should not replace the physical energy, the critical thinking and the tiresome but ultimately edifying road of adventure, and thus also of life.

To me, the process of getting recommendations, listening to a friend's record, hearing something great on the radio (or a podcast), then making the decision to plunk down real money is, in Carrie's words, an adventure--and one of the great pleasures in enjoying music. If everything's at your fingertips, undifferentiated, you can sample, skip and flit around. You're, as Carrie said, a tourist.

And to me that's a bad thing. Free music isn't only bad for musicians, it seems. It's also bad for the audience.

A music affinity group emerges on Twitter

One of the most fun things about messing around with Twitter is to see interesting things emerge. It's such a general tool that it's a lot like those college greens that architects leave without pathways, allowing students to develop their own patterns over time.

I've recently started seeing the emergence of a music affinity group on Twitter (one of many, probably). It occurred to me this is happening yesterday, when I got a follow from @peteyorn, a musician that I like but didn't even know was on Twitter.

How he found me, I don't know (perhaps Mr. Tweet does). Maybe it's my connection with @francisten from West Indian Girl, or @kmueller62 of WXPN (or even @fotteson, a local bass player). Maybe it's that I write about music a fair amount (including live Tweeting the My Morning Jacket New Year's Eve concert or my musical crush on NOMO).

At any rate, I've gotten follows now from @madalynsklar, @talkmusicnow and @sxsw. You can see the pattern emerging. And I like it. I want to know what musicians and music fans are tweeting about. I'll learn about new music & perhaps see a bit of the faces behind the records. It'll be fun to see how this group evolves over time. (And if you're a musician or music lover, give us a follow at @jmcaddell and I'll follow back. You can join the conversation then.)

Just another way @twitter is changing how we interact and learn.

Still thinking about the music business

2008 was the year that I finally realized what was happening to the music business. Whether it was talking to Fran Ten about how his emerging band West Indian Girl was trying to succeed in spite of the business climate, or asking why it was necessary that e-content be free (the most-read post of the year--thanks David Pogue), or reading the comments to that post, many of which said, in effect, "Why the hell should we pay for music?"

I like music a lot, and I'd like to see people who make great music be able to make a living at it. I'm trying to think of a model that may work. Two articles caught my eye this weekend on that point.

One is the WSJ article on New Year's Resolutions (never did I think I would mine that for TWO blog posts)--specifically Duncan Sheik's resolution ("To create a recording studio/rehearsal space close to New York City, where my coterie of musician friends and collaborators can work on their projects irrespective of financial considerations").

The other was Jon Pareles' lament in the New York Times on the influence of music licensing for commercials.

I'm working through some ideas that I'll write about next week. Please pass on any thoughts you have, especially if you don't feel you should pay for recorded music. Where does the musician's income come from in that case?

Friday randomness: 5 reasons why Johnny Marr is a genius

It's a week for lists and music, so the other night when I put on Neil Finn's "7 Worlds Collide" live album it inspired thoughts about why Johnny Marr is a genius.

On the Finn album Marr plays his own "Down on the Corner," and then Neil does his best Morrissey impersonation on The Smiths' "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out."

One of the fun things about bands breaking up is that you hear the creative folks individually, and you can tease out what each member contributed. Usually your impressions of the group overvalue the contributions of the lead singer. Once I heard Morrissey's first solo album (not a bad album, mind you), it became crystal-clear what Marr had contributed to the Smiths.

In general, Marr is the great counterexample to the "singer as major contributor" mindset. He never sings (until his turn on the Johnny Marr & the Healers album). But he is sideman extraordinaire. He is without a doubt the greatest rhythm guitar player ever, and a great composer. Listen to these five songs he contributed to and let me know if you agree:

1. The Smiths, "Girlfriend in a Coma"

2. Electronic, "Get the Message"

3. Bryan Ferry, "The Right Stuff"

4. Johnny Marr & the Healers, "Down on the Corner"

5. Modest Mouse, "Dashboard"

And for those who haven't had enough Johnny Marr by the end of this post, here is a transcript of a lecture he gave recently at the University of Salford. (It does deal with innovation, so this is not just a lazy Friday post!)

best of, music, randomness

Best Albums of the Year 2008

OK, OK, off topic, I know. But there was some great music out there, and with me working out of a home office most of the time, the iPod shuffle is an important part of my work environment. With no further ado, then, here are the best albums I heard this past year.

1. Nomo, "Ghost Rock." Bleepy analog synthesizers, plinky homemade instruments, killer brass section. Funky as all get out. This album sounded like nothing else I heard last year. It has remained in my car CD stack since summertime.


NOMO Live session from Svetlana legetic on Vimeo.

2. The Helio Sequence, "Keep Your Eyes Ahead." I never figured out why I rarely heard any of these songs on the radio. They rock. Plus, there's a great countrified tune and a swampy-sounding song thrown in for good measure.



3. The Gaslight Anthem, "The '59 Sound." Driving power-pop, great lyrics, allusions to Tom Petty, Miles Davis and (of course) Springsteen, this Jersey band will be around for a long time.

Old White Lincoln


4. The Cat Empire, "So Many Nights." Quieter than their prior effort, less of a party album, more serious. But still a great listen from top to bottom. This Australian band effortlessly combines genres and keeps the foot tapping.

No Longer There


5. Fleet Foxes, "Fleet Foxes." A hint of Crosby, Stills & Nash; a taste of The Beach Boys. On one track they out-My-Morning-Jacket MMJ themselves.


White Winter Hymnal from Grandchildren on Vimeo.

Honorable mentions: REM's "Accelerate" (the best thing they've done since "New Adventures in Hi-Fi"), My Morning Jacket's "Evil Urges" (wanted to like it better than the last two great ones, but simply didn't), "Secret Machines" (ditto), "Vampire Weekend" (a few really catchy pop songs, and some filler. Will look forward to their next one), "Grand Archives" (ditto).

Tags:
best of, music, 2008

More on "NOMO Concert"

If today's earlier post made you curious about the group NOMO, here is a cool live video of a few songs. Now you can see why I was bummed I had to leave the concert so soon!


NOMO Live session from Svetlana legetic on Vimeo.

You can learn even more about NOMO at their Myspace page here.

More Friday randomness

If you love music and occasionally like to peek behind the curtain to learn more about how a recording is made, then this post by Thomas Dolby is essential reading.

If your only recollection of TMDR is "She Blinded Me With Science" or "Airhead" you'd do well to check out all his discs. He remains an excellent and creative musician. And it's wonderful that he lets us in on how he works.

Reading this reminds me that I need to buy the CD of Dolby's "The Flat Earth." It's one of those titles that I had on vinyl but never replaced when I went to CDs.

UPDATE: Just downloaded the MP3 of "The Flat Earth." Ain't e-commerce great?

Best CD of the half-year

My favorite album, by far, of 2008 is Nomo's Ghost Rock. A concoction of dance-funk, electronica and horns, it's strong from start to finish--from "Brainwave," where the lead instrument is a bleep-bleeping analog synthesizer and the other instruments provide weird backup, to "Nova," a plinky dance track. And in between, the title track and "All The Stars" are standouts.

Great rhythms, improvisation, funky beats that will make you move your body. They're all here. But don't look for vocals, because there aren't any.

The band, nine strong, is from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Their earlier albums, "Nomo" and "New Tones" are also excellent. I had a chance to see some of their live show when they were in Philadelphia last week, and they absolutely rocked.

The best way to check out some of their music and see tour dates is to go to their Myspace page.

Fran Ten mini-podcast: the impact of filesharing on musicians

The recent post on giving away digital creative works has gotten some attention, not least because of the link from the New York Times' David Pogue on his blog. One of the inspirations for the post was my talk with Fran Ten of the great LA band West Indian Girl--specifically when he spoke eloquently and from the heart about the issue of filesharing and its impact on music and musicians.

I've extracted that piece of the podcast into a mini-podcast (5min30 seconds long). You can download it here.

creativity, compensation, music, movies, books, content, strategy, podcast

Must we give away digital creative works?

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, spurred on by the recent Fran Ten podcast, this David Pogue post, and most recently a thoughtful post by Scott Goodson based on this column by economist Paul Krugman.

The upshot of Krugman's argument, referencing Esther Dyson's prediction from the early '90's, is that digital creative works will become free, and creative artists will have to make their money from "ancillary" projects, such as touring, personal appearances, licensing, etc.

If this turns out to be true (and the music industry is approaching this state right now), then it has a lot of negative ramifications for the future of creativity.

First off is the fairness question. Here is a simplified digital media value chain:

• Digital distributors (i.e., ISPs like Comcast) make money through subscriptions
• Directories and aggregators (like Google) make money through advertising
• Creators make... nothing?

While the structure of technology allows this to happen, it's hard to look at this picture and see it as fair. I agree that DRM sucks, but is the solution "pay what you want"--a virtual tip jar?

Furthermore, if creating a work of art cannot in itself make money, it will then be difficult to invest much in that creation. While that may allow bloggers to continue (though I wouldn't turn down a few bucks for my work if that were possible), it doesn't bode well for musicians or moviemakers, and, soon, book authors.

If I can make money in personal appearances but not by writing, I will have to limit my writing time in order to, you know, pay the mortgage.

If a band can make money touring but not through selling CDs, they will be unlikely to spend much time in the recording studio, or to spend money on studio effects or gear. Perhaps they will instead simply tape their concerts and compile albums from the live sessions.

If a moviemaker cannot make money from her films because they are freely available on the web, she will have difficulty using any approach other than Dogme 95 in order to reduce costs. And do we want to see Dogme 95-style movies all the time?

The irony is that time put into making money takes away from time to create. Therefore, the output from our best artists is less. Is that progress?

Perhaps this is offset somewhat by the "long tail" of creators enabled by new technology. But I would trade 1000 bad "Nude" remixes for one new album by an artist I really like.

(Photo: pro-copying logo from piratbyran.org)

Related Posts:
Shop Talk Podcast #9 - Fran Ten of West Indian Girl on today's music business
How will musicians get paid in the 21st century?

Tags:
creativity, compensation, music, movies, books, content, strategy

Shop Talk Podcast #9 - Francis Ten of West Indian Girl on Today's Music Business

For the latest edition of the podcast, we're talking the business of music. It's changed dramatically since the boom days of the late 1990's, when Napster hadn't yet been born and CD sales were at their peak. Now, music is easier to download free than to purchase.

In spite of these obstacles, the music world is more open to new voices than it's ever been. Making a living, though, has gotten harder.

Francis Ten is the bassist for West Indian Girl and also manages the group's business operations. West Indian Girl is based in Los Angeles and its latest album 4th and Wall was released in late 2007.

In a wide-ranging, fun (and funny) discussion, we talk about "revenue streams," MySpace, and why music is different from t-shirts.

And check out Fran's very personal and human response to the question of acquiring music free via filesharing rather than purchasing it. (Some similarly nuanced sentiments can be found in this post from consumer-electronics columnist and author David Pogue.)

The podcast is here (right-click to download).

(Intro and Outro music: "Up the Coast," from West Indian Girl's latest album 4th and Wall.)

Tags:
entrepreneurism, music, marketing, filesharing, podcast

From the Mistake Bank: Don't ever bring a harmonium to an acoustic radio gig

From The Mistake Bank.

This story is from Fran Ten, who is the bassist for West Indian Girl, an LA band with a very cool, neo-psychedelic sound. Fran runs the business operations for the band, and I interviewed him for a podcast. As is becoming a custom, I asked him for a mistake story. Completely off the cuff, he rattled off the story below, regarding discussions he and his bandmate, Rob James, had about a radio appearance. While he tells me that he has better mistakes than this, I thought it was an appropriate one to kick off a fun holiday weekend--plus it deals with a fear we all have--messing up in public. It made me smile, anyway.

There was one time, we had a radio gig, and Rob thought that someone should play a harmonium, you know, that Indian instrument? On his acoustic set. And it sounded like shit. Right? It sounded horrible.

I said, “You know, Rob, that was a mistake. We are never bringing a harmonium again to an acoustic radio show. You’re just going with your guitar, or this setup we know that works.”

But we tried it. At least we tried it. Business-wise, you have to keep making mistakes. Isn’t that how you grow?

Mistake Bank, experimentation, music, performance, narrative,
radio

The new media onslaught is making entrepreneurs out of creators

An article from the New York Times earlier this week ("Bridging The Gap, The Sequel") starkly illustrated that venture capitalists from Silicon Valley and creative types from Southern California are having difficulty cooperating to create financial and partnership models for new media.

One of the biggest obstacles, according to the articles, is the Southern Californians' focus on upfront cash rather than long-term equity.

How this situation came to be is easy to understand: when the means of production of creative property were expensive, there was a distinct separation between the "suits," who raised needed capital, and the "talent," who wrote, acted, sang, directed, etc. The suits financed productions and paid the talent, who worked job to job. It was in the talent's interest to get as much of their payment upfront as possible because (1) they didn't know when their next job would come through and (2) the suits could, and wanted to, maintain full ownership of the property.

Now production costs can be much smaller, for music, video, text, etc. Prices for distribution are coming down too as new outlets emerge for digital distribution. And media companies are looking to hedge their risk as the old moneymakers (CDs, DVDs) erode.

As a result, an entire new entrepreneurial class has emerged, between the suits and the talent, combining the ability to raise money, cut deals, etc., with songwriting, producing, or acting. Around this "middle class" is a new set of technology and business enablers that are providing key pieces of the production and distribution infrastructure for these creators. (This edition of the radio program "Fresh Air" discusses some of the new models and companies emerging in the music business. Companies like Indieflix provide distribution services for video/film producers.)

Here's an example of the new world order for music: the LinkedIn profile for Fran Ten of the LA band West Indian Girl:

oversee and run all the departments of the west indian girl business - management, marketing, new media, touring, merchandising, promotions, licensing, legal, accounting, art, etc etc.

music is a business and musicians that dont understand this are at a disadvantage.

this job is just as much a blue collar job as the one i had in high school working at a brake factory in grand rapids, mi. sometimes i think it's even dirtier.

Technology advances have made internet video and mobile entertainment accessible to consumers on a wide scale. The business models are lagging behind. The old way--suits and talent--isn't going to be able to work them out. The "middle class" will have to do it.

(Photo: a still from "Fields of Mudan," the all-time best-selling DVD on Indieflix.)

mobile, media, alliances, technology, music, video, business models, New York Times

Influentials--or lots of bloggers--affect music sales

This week's release of a study concluding that more blog mentions increase music sales has caused me to think about the work of Duncan Watts, which has garnered a lot of notice based on this Fast Company article. (Shop Talk readers were alerted to Watts' work in February and May of 2007.)

The study mentioned above, by Vasant Dhar and Elaine Chang of NYU's Stern School of Business, found that the volume of blog posts was correlated with increased sales. In other words, controlling for other factors, a record mentioned in 250 blog posts would sell more than one mentioned in 25.

Which brings me back to Watts' thinking. He taunts Gladwell about the assertion that a small number of influentials can drive product adoption. From the "Fast Company" article:

He has analyzed email patterns and found that highly connected people are not, in fact, crucial social hubs. He has written computer models of rumor spreading and found that your average slob is just as likely as a well-connected person to start a huge new trend. And last year, Watts demonstrated that even the breakout success of a hot new pop band might be nearly random. Any attempt to engineer success through Influentials, he argues, is almost certainly doomed to failure.

Yet as I look at the NYU data, I can interpret it Watts' way or Gladwell's.

Either lots of people found the music and talked about it separately, and through lots of small interactions (what Watts would attribute to marketers' "big-seeding"), people discovered and bought the music.

Or a few Gladwellian "influencers" touted the music, causing other bloggers to discover the music and tout it as well, adding up to a large volume of blog posts, and thus sales.

Who's right?

blogging, marketing, music

What's wrong with what Marie Digby did?

No, she wasn't caught partying with Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan. She wasn't arrested or sent to rehab.

As described in a front-page article in today's Wall Street Journal (link - $$), musician Marie Digby made simple videos of herself singing cover songs, posted them on YouTube, got millions of views, and parlayed that into gigs on the Carson Daly show, local LA radio, and general buzz as a true YouTube discovery.

Oh, and she made an album with Hollywood Records (part of Disney) last year that is about to be released. The YouTube idea and the TV and radio appearances were done with the approval and assistance of marketing at Hollywood Records.

Oops.

Like any such situation, the coverup is far worse than the initial offense. So she was signed to a major label. So what? She made the videos herself, posted them herself. People found the videos themselves, played them, recommended them, etc. The YouTube buzz was legitimate.

So what didn't she do right? She didn't list her affiliation with a major label on her MySpace page. Not so bad, given that she hadn't yet released an album.

Worse was the way she tried to erase the Hollywood Records connection. Here's are examples from the Journal article:

When Los Angeles adult-contemporary station KYSR-FM, which calls itself "Star 98.7," interviewed Ms. Digby in July, she and the disc jockey discussed her surprising success. "We kind of found her on YouTube," the DJ, known as Valentine, said. Playing the lucky nobody, Ms. Digby said: "I'm usually the listener calling in, you know, just hoping that I'm going to be the one to get that last ticket to the Star Lounge with [pop star] John Mayer!"

and

Ms. Digby gave a backstage interview that was posted online by NBC. "I just did this YouTube video two months ago and never, ever imagined that it would actually get me on TV or radio or anything like that," she said. "I just did it in my living room and it blew up first on YouTube and then I guess it got to Star 98.7 and then Carson Daly found me so that's why I'm here."

Now it's not just Marie Digby. I'm certain the marketing folks at Hollywood, and her manager, were deeply involved in preparing her for the appearances, including rehearsing what she would say.

And the radio hosts and Carson Daly could easily have pointed out that Hollywood Records saw the same things in Marie that the viewers saw, and that she's recorded an album to be released soon. But instead they played along with the "YouTube discovery" story and in so doing share part of the blame.

As best I can figure, Hollywood Records either fell in love with the story, even if it wasn't completely true, or they were concerned that people finding out about their connection would be a buzz kill. In either case, they got in their own way.

So, a plea: media companies (really, all marketers), learn from your mistakes. Stop trying to manipulate audiences! It doesn't work anymore! Use YouTube and all these new outlets to allow people to discover new artists, but for God's sake have enough confidence and integrity to stand up and reveal that you've also made that discovery.

Then show them where to buy the songs.

(And now to demonstrate that there's no such thing as bad publicity, here's Marie Digby's most popular video. It's pretty good.)



marketing viral marketing public relations media mistakes Wall Street Journal

Sometimes it's not the product, it's the package it's in

Consumer-packaged-goods companies have long relied on packaging as the last frontier of innovation for aging products. Think of the cupholder-sized containers of Cheetos you can buy now. Or the toothpaste tube that stands upright.

But for content, packaging has not been a priority. And with music, technological advance has made packaging progressively worse. From the LP to the CD, credits and lyrics shrunk to unreadability. With downloadable music, even that small amount of text and photos went by the wayside. Music was simply a bunch of bits. It's no wonder that recorded music doesn't have the magic it once had.

A group called FM3 has once again brought honor to music packaging. As profiled in the recent New York Times Magazine, FM3 has sold 50,000 units of a release that had sold only 1,000 copies on CD. How? By packaging it in a plastic device called a Buddha Machine.

The Buddha machine is a self-contained unit with a speaker and a volume dial. It looks like an old-style portable radio without the tuner, and is based on a device that FM3's Christiaan Virant saw emitting chants in a Buddhist temple.

The novelty of the device created a buzz that has lasted since 2006. Writes Rob Walker in the Times article:

The public radio show Studio 360 featured the device in 2006; FM3 toured Europe again with a performance built around the Buddha Machines; and bloggers keep finding it anew, attracting music fans, design fans, gadget fans and those who view it as something like a fashion item.

It may be a mystery exactly why the Buddha machine has been so successful. But by finding an innovative way to bring its music to the people, FM3 has shown that plain old content, packaged cleverly, can capture the public's fancy.

(Photo: a whimsical Buddha machine schematic from the FM3 website)
innovation marketing packaging music New York Times

Author Haruki Murakami explores the similarities between music and fiction

In today's New York Times Book Review, a brief essay by Japanese author Haruki Murakami sets down in his typical crisp language how his early career running a jazz club set the stage for his move into writing world-class fiction.

Murakami, who's been the subject of an earlier post in this space, finds analogues for rhythm, melody, harmony, improvisation and performance in the creation of novels and short stories. In short, he was able to transfer the songs he heard in his head into words on the page.

It's a fascinating essay for anyone who likes to write (or read) fiction.

(Those wanting a good introduction to Murakami's fiction should check out Norwegian Wood.)

creativity fiction storytelling narrative music jazz New York Times

Does the record industry fix prices? The Economist thinks not

Let's talk about price-fixing, shall we? The Economist reported in a recent issue that the European Commission was re-opening its investigation into the merger that created recorded-music titan SonyBMG.

Says the Economist, "At issue is whether the four majors together might now reach an unspoken understanding about prices."

It's clear that CD suggested retail prices--it's clearly illegal for manufacturers to coerce an actual retail price from a retailer--are highly standardized. The actual retail prices, however, differ substantially based on the outlet (the latest Rascal Flatts CD at Wal-Mart costs far less than it does at Joe Nardone's Gallery of Sound).

The Commission is not concerned about retail prices; instead they are looking at whether wholesale prices--the prices that retailers pay to the record companies for their stock--are coordinated.

Here's why such coordination is virtually impossible. The power in retailing has shifted dramatically from manufacturer to retailer in the last twenty years (the recent book "Private Label Strategy" does a good job of explaining this shift). No record company dictates to Wal-Mart how much they must pay for CDs. Ditto Amazon and Target. So such collusion, difficult as it is to coordinate between the four companies, would fall apart anyway once they tried to enforce it with their retail customers.

So we can all breathe a sigh of relief about that and go back to illegally downloading our music over peer-to-peer networks. (Just kidding!)

(Pictured: the new album from Son Volt, distributed by SonyBMG)

music, Economist, marketing, retail, pricing